Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders

5
The Council of the Spiders
Lupton was almost as surprised as the Doctor. One moment,
capture seemed certain. He had been in the motorboat,
desperately gripping the wheel. He could see the Doctor
jumping towards him from the hovercraft. Then everything
went blank and he once more stood in the familiar corridor of
the monastery, stone flagstones beneath his feet.
Lupton reeled, holding a hand out to the wall to support
himself. He looked round to get his bearings. He was just by the
back stairs, close to the cellar. He blinked incredulously. It was
real. It was true. He had escaped! A sudden thought struck him.
He reached in his jacket pocket and took out the crystal. The
blue jewel sparkled in a shaft of sunlight from a nearby window.
Lupton smiled to himself, replaced the jewel in his pocket, and
hurried towards his room.
The door to the old cupboard under the stairs opened a
crack, and Tommy peeped out. He rubbed a massive hand over
his forehead. His face wrinkled with the effort of thought. It
wasn’t so much Lupton’s popping up from nowhere that
bothered him. Most things in life were a mystery to Tommy, and
nearly everyone seemed to have powers he couldn’t master –
things like reading and writing. No, it was the blue jewel. He
had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. He had to have
it... Moving silently, for all his size, Tommy followed Lupton
down the corridor.
As Lupton was about to enter his room, Cho-Je passed him
with a smile and a nod. Lupton forced himself to smile back, and
hurriedly opened the door. Safely inside, he took the crystal
from his pocket and put it on the dressing-table. It sparkled in