
"It is my great pleasure to announce that the TARDIS has materialized," Dr. Smith said authoritatively.500Please respect copyright.PENANAEWLmpJ31yX
"Where are we now?" asked Penny, Dr. Smith's fifteen-year-old niece.500Please respect copyright.PENANAkqvhJxBwl5
Dr. Smith moved around the central control deck of his marvelous, though, at times, quirky, time/space ship to the digital time/place orientation printout and pressed the correct button. Alas, nothing happened.500Please respect copyright.PENANAGbQeBoDrjv
"Well?" Penny arched her eyebrows. 500Please respect copyright.PENANAjD7gCU6Pc0
"West, hand me a screwdriver," Dr. Smith said testily.500Please respect copyright.PENANAQibsK9bITf
Don took one from the toolkit, and gave it to Dr. Smith, remarking that with any luck they were on Earth during the 1990s in an aerospace factory where the TARDIS could be thoroughly overhauled. Dr. Smith was not amused and he began furiously unscrewing the front panel of the printout.500Please respect copyright.PENANA5cPQ0A2RNZ
"We could always stick our heads outside the door and look," Ann MacGregor suggested.500Please respect copyright.PENANAGvWtxu94Qa
"And be devoured by a dinosaur, or dictated to by a Dalek, perhaps?" Don added.500Please respect copyright.PENANAu2TTdWmd0i
"Let's check the atmosphere," Penny said.500Please respect copyright.PENANA4Jgde73GqY
"Good idea." Don turned to Dr. Smith. "May I?"500Please respect copyright.PENANALhOwqQDn9M
The only reply was a grunt which Don took to mean "yes," so he switched on the atmospheric sensor. A display screen gave a breakdown of the gases outside. Don studied it for a moment and then said that it appeared that they were on Earth, but the air was stale.500Please respect copyright.PENANACWo8NpaBvg
"Stale?" Penny echoed.500Please respect copyright.PENANAqpQah5mypv
"That means breathable but musty."500Please respect copyright.PENANAYJKavNOA8a
"Then we can take a peek," said Ann. "Are you coming with me?" she asked Penny.500Please respect copyright.PENANAk8zFxKoVmI
When Penny asked her uncle if she could go, he waved one hand rather vaguely at her and told Don to help him to remove the panel. When it was off, the Doctor began poking at the electronics with his screwdriver, making the 28-year-old scientist wince with despair.500Please respect copyright.PENANA0n3rLt8FhA
Cautiously, Penny and Ann opened the door and peered out. Apart from the light inside the TARDIS, they were in total darkness.500Please respect copyright.PENANACSD8UYFZGo
"Where do you think we are?" Penny whispered.500Please respect copyright.PENANAerciVwp4Ek
Ann shook her head, but as the light from the TARDIS diffused and their eyes got used to the gloom, they stepped outside and looked around.500Please respect copyright.PENANAplIH1TDsFx
They were (apparently) in a large tomb, and in the middle was a raised stone slab on which lay a superbly cloaked skeleton with a magnificent gold mask covering the skull. On the floor around the slab were earthen bowls and jugs, as well as ornaments, statuettes, bracelets, ear-rings, and brooches, all of them made of jade. 500Please respect copyright.PENANAjh1UishBjl
But it was the cloak, geometrically woven with silver and golden threads, and the superb mask that fascinated Barbara.500Please respect copyright.PENANAhkW1xRtUER
"Look at that, Penny," she murmured.500Please respect copyright.PENANAHTNSI0LwW5
"I am," Penny shuddered with a sense of foreboding, anticipating the evil to come.500Please respect copyright.PENANApN0mnbqXrx
"It's an Aztec mask of Quetazcoatl, the Sun God, who was driven into exile by Huitzilipochtli, the God of Darkness," Ann looked down at the skeleton again. "He must have been a High Priest." Beside one skeletal hand was an oblong rod of carved jade with six beaded threads of silver, each about six inches long, attached to one end. Ann picked it up and smiled. "Do you know what this was?"500Please respect copyright.PENANA6LVw2Yepvo
"No."500Please respect copyright.PENANAPTSitVpSL9
"His personal fly-swatter."500Please respect copyright.PENANARCcT0USx0h
Penny giggled. Since the Aztecs were Mexicans, the TARDIS must definitely be on Earth. "But what year is it?" she asked.500Please respect copyright.PENANAwZHyOYOgg0
"I can tell you when he died." Ann pointed to the objects strewn on the floor. "About 1430. These things all come from the Aztecs' early period." She picked up a gold bracelet shaped like a coiled snake that lay on the slab above the mask and turned it over in her hands. This indicates that after he died he was revered as a god."500Please respect copyright.PENANAGnYNg5NEsM
"You really do know your subject," Penny exclaimed. Ann smiled and admitted that when she was in college she had been particularly interested in the Aztec Indians and their civilization.500Please respect copyright.PENANASnFcSheP5y
"What little I know about them doesn't make me feel very well disposed towards them," Penny replied with a grimace. "They used to cut out people's hearts while they were still alive, didn't they?"500Please respect copyright.PENANAvyrDaHnb0H
Ann picked up the razor-sharp knife hewn from stone which lay at the skeleton's feet. "They did it with this," she said. "It's called an obsidian knife. But there was another side to their nature----a highly civilized one."500Please respect copyright.PENANA1BosKbj4cr
"The Spanish didn't think so when they came here."500Please respect copyright.PENANApwhi8nMh0D
"Hernando Cortez and his conquistadores saw only wealth for themselves and barbarous acts of savagery by the Aztecs," Ann replied. "That was the tragedy of the race: their civilization was totally destroyed, the good as well as the bad." Ann put down the knife and picked up the bracelet again.500Please respect copyright.PENANA5PQPRFxMFt
"The Spanish landed in the early 1500s, didn't they?" Penny asked.500Please respect copyright.PENANAlc5ccKGl5N
"1519, to be exact." Still holding the bracelet Ann pointed to the wall behind the head of the slab. A colored fresco depicted an eagle clutching a coiled snake in its claws, surrounded by warriors in loin-cloths, cloaks, plumed headdresses and sandals, who held shields, spears and short-swords slung from their hips. From their mouths cam bubble filled with hieroglyphs. Ann studied the fresco and, almost without realizing it, slipped the bracelet onto her wrist.500Please respect copyright.PENANATFkYZnkaBV
"They're just like cartoon strips," Penny remarked. "But they're all the same. What does it mean?"500Please respect copyright.PENANAEiZxlalimB
"That the warriors will protect the High Priest's spirit until he rejoins his people."500Please respect copyright.PENANAZwT51x3zpq
"Did the Aztecs believe in reincarnation, then?" Penny sounded surprised.500Please respect copyright.PENANA8cGnI5FvOQ
"Oh, definitely." Ann moved closer to the wall. "This painting has hardly faded at all." 500Please respect copyright.PENANA0hKwxTZzZ2
She touched the mural, then quickly withdrew her hand.500Please respect copyright.PENANAGRmT2AdLQW
"What's wrong?" Penny asked.500Please respect copyright.PENANAvBxQnR88MK
"It may be my hyperactive imagination at work," Ann replied, "but I think the wall moved when I touched it."500Please respect copyright.PENANAixPadfhAkB
"Let's both push it and see."500Please respect copyright.PENANAEdSFDjT8gT
They put their hands to the wall and started to push. The wall swung slowly outwards and upwards. Light trickled into the tomb and then flooded in as the wall rose higher and higher. Both of them blinked as their eyes adjusted to its intensity.500Please respect copyright.PENANAVKUgG7RbqZ
"This tomb is part of a temple," Ann whispered.500Please respect copyright.PENANALXeqq1L2Ph
"Hadn't we better go back to the TARDIS?" Penny asked nervously.500Please respect copyright.PENANAueeiWQBZvh
"No, it's all right," Ann replied, "there's nobody here."500Please respect copyright.PENANAP01dj4p6Tk
"I think I'd better fetch uncle and Don anyway," Penny said and ran back into the tomb.500Please respect copyright.PENANAlri6j4IvWS
Ann left the tomb, walked to the middle of the temple and looked around. The temple itself was not large---about fifty square feet. Three sides were painted in white and blood red, decorated with sculpted skulls and coiled snakes, and hung with elaborately woven brocade curtains. The fourth side opened onto a terrace, in the middle of which stood the sacrificial altar. Ann shivered involuntarily as she approached the terrace to see what lay beyond it.500Please respect copyright.PENANAP5X6tFqNxo
"Woman!"500Please respect copyright.PENANALQxoAKlNCv
The man's voice was firm and Ann spun around to face him. He was in his mid-fifties, just like Dr. Smith, with a craggy face and long, gray hair. He wore a loincloth, a cloak similar to the one that enveloped the skeleton in the tomb, sandals and a head-dress of multi-colored plumed feathers. In one hand he carried a posy of flowers. "How came you here?" he asked.500Please respect copyright.PENANAnrFqb6fLMI
Ann looked towards the entrance to the tomb in the back wall of the temple, but it had swung closed.500Please respect copyright.PENANApba3BSat9t
"This temple is sacred to the memory of the High Priestess Nenetl," the man said. "You trespass, and you shall be punished for it. Warriors, guardians of Nenetl's tomb," he called out. Four young Aztecs, who Ann thought bore an uncanny resemblance to those on the mural, emerged from behind one of the curtains. "Take her!" They advanced towards Ann who backed away to the closed entrance. It was only when she reached it with her arms outspread that the man saw the coiled-snake bracelet on her wrist.500Please respect copyright.PENANAAwZFn1oYka
"Wait, warriors!" he cried out with an expression of incredulity on his face. "Wait!"500Please respect copyright.PENANABjBWErE36N
Dr. Smith and Don had just finished replacing the front panel when Penny burst into the TARDIS and told them excitedly where they were. The Doctor pressed the digital time-orientation button and the number 1507 lit up.500Please respect copyright.PENANA8VYfkNLLbF
"Cortez isn't due for another twelve years," Dr. Smith observed. "But the Aztecs have some rather gruesome habits, and the sooner we collect Ann and move on, the better." The three of them went out into the tomb.500Please respect copyright.PENANAzINF3zFYZo
"The wall's closed," Penny exclaimed.500Please respect copyright.PENANAiMpJA7daPq
"Which wall?" Don asked.500Please respect copyright.PENANATRXVcrIbW5
"The one with the mural," Penny replied.500Please respect copyright.PENANA1BhXZQVPrh
"I can't see anything," Dr. Smith complained, and went back into the TARDIS to fetch his pencil-flashlight. When he came out again he switched it on, but the beam of light was too narrow.500Please respect copyright.PENANAOtyYCy6bPJ
"I still can't see anything," he grumbled.500Please respect copyright.PENANAGlepfbXizC
"Give me your hand, Uncle Zachary," Penny said and led him past the raised slab.500Please respect copyright.PENANANFM4O9Ozxi
"What's that?" Dr. Smith asked.500Please respect copyright.PENANAdIHULpDIqj
"According to Ann, he was a High Priest now revered as a god," Penny replied.500Please respect copyright.PENANA0an9PDGvw6
Dr. Smith snorted.500Please respect copyright.PENANA7z3PhjYors
"We push it up," Penny explained when they reached the wall, and a few seconds later they were standing in the temple.500Please respect copyright.PENANAnZUD4YRV0d
"Ann's not here," Don said.500Please respect copyright.PENANADwfRRBy3bW
"But----she was here when I came to fetch you," replied Penny defensively.500Please respect copyright.PENANA0uRwSxgRBM
Don called out Ann's name. "There's no sign of her now," he said, "unless she's out on that terrace." He walked to the sacrificial altar and glanced down either side of the terrace. "She's not here." Then he looked down. "Good Lord, Doctor, come and see this," he exclaimed.500Please respect copyright.PENANAGO1cBO3E49
Both Dr. Smith and Penny went to Don's side. As they passed the altar the Doctor muttered that they had better find Ann soon as he didn't fancy being carved up on it by some Aztec High Priest of Sacrifice, concluding his statement with his inevitable "Oh, the pain, the pain."500Please respect copyright.PENANAQW5NAXcLif
"Just look at the city," said Don. The temple was on the top of a pyramid and the city lay two hundred and fifty feet below them, patterned like a chessboard, with broad avenues between the squares of houses. There were gardens, irrigation aqueducts, and several markets.500Please respect copyright.PENANAdnsLtLIlFb
"The Aztecs knew how to build as well as kill," Dr. Smith observed dryly. "We must find Ann and leave." He looked back into the temple and saw the wall sliding back into place. "The wall, West! Quick! The wall!" he cried, and Don raced across the temple in a vain attempt to reach the wall before it shut them out. Dr. Smith and Penny hurried after him.500Please respect copyright.PENANAn4gDeXZNya
"I was too late. There was nothing to grab onto." Don felt ashamed at his failure.500Please respect copyright.PENANAoLocFUxIh4
Penny looked perplexed. "But it must open somehow, Don."500Please respect copyright.PENANAgypBoBabTC
"It does, my dear," Dr. Smith said with a shrug, "you push it from the other side. Tombs like this were designed to stop grave-robbers, not help them."500Please respect copyright.PENANA6pRfVC7ImZ
"But how shall we return to the TARDIS?"500Please respect copyright.PENANAtbmMruN4vn
"That, Penny, is a very good question."500Please respect copyright.PENANAOVlwKQdSoj
Don cleared his throat. "Dr. Smith, we've got company," he murmured.500Please respect copyright.PENANAFEX7x8NzR2
The man whom Ann had met and the four Aztec warriors were standing by one of the brocade curtains. The man raised in salute a hand which held a posy of flowers.500Please respect copyright.PENANAqddxKO4oSY
"I, Tetzal, High Priest of Knowledge, most humbly greet the servants of Nenetl," he said, while the four warriors bowed reverently.500Please respect copyright.PENANA2sYP55owwL
Dr. Smith glanced at Don. "The servants of what?" he asked.500Please respect copyright.PENANAzWPZIrv4Al
Don shook his head and looked at the High Priest. "Where is Ann?"500Please respect copyright.PENANAuPl0KC9FOM
"Of whom do you speak?"500Please respect copyright.PENANAc3iwLzi6Sr
"The young woman who was here a few minutes ago."500Please respect copyright.PENANAh5XYkbxjrp
The High Priest smiled at them. "In due course, you will meet Nenetl again. But first, grant us our courtesies. Be assured that we harbor no evil towards you in our hearts. Indeed, we honor you."500Please respect copyright.PENANAFKaj88mSuH
Dr. Smith looked at Tetzal for a moment. "Er, what did you say your name was?" He sounded suspicious.500Please respect copyright.PENANAR5g1wzwtZu
"Tetzal."500Please respect copyright.PENANAfS63yYmJz0
"And you're the High Priest of Knowledge?"500Please respect copyright.PENANAVBD91Q82Wh
"I serve as such."500Please respect copyright.PENANAqHfgjdy1wx
"Do you know where we came from?" Dr. Smith persisted.500Please respect copyright.PENANATYCATfDfae
"Nenetl's tomb."500Please respect copyright.PENANAHHXLNBwrWi
"How does one enter it from the temple?"500Please respect copyright.PENANAIiTnKsH3Jo
"One cannot. It is sealed." Tetzal gestured toward the four warriors. "Go now with these attendants and soon you shall see the coiled serpent of Nenetl again."500Please respect copyright.PENANAdEcZEUWW6m
Dr. Smith scratched his head. "I don't know what he's talking about," he said as they crossed the temple to where a warrior held aside one of the curtains.500Please respect copyright.PENANA756CTj7pEA
"Ann, I think," Penny hissed. "I'll explain when we're alone."500Please respect copyright.PENANAVxP0FG3mCd
Just before they reached the drawn curtain, the deformed figure of a powerfully built man limped into the temple from the entrance. He was younger than Tetzal and far less elaborately dressed. He wore a priest's loose-fitting robe which at first glance seemed to be caked in mud, but a second look told Penny it was dried blood. The plumes on his head-dress were splattered with it and his long hair was matted. He had a hard, thin, almost lipless mouth. But it was his eyes that commanded the attention----they were jet black, piercing, and totally fanatical. He stared at Dr. Smith, at Penny and at Don, then bowed curtly to them and limped to the back of the temple where Tetzal stood.500Please respect copyright.PENANAbMGCrUvB7I
"You know who he is, West," Dr. Smith said as they were escorted from the temple.500Please respect copyright.PENANAeg5SSRuKq6
"The local butcher, by the look of him," Don replied.500Please respect copyright.PENANAMRuuH4gi26
"Exactly."500Please respect copyright.PENANA4Uy6wx8aW8
Tetzal waited until they had gone before he spoke.500Please respect copyright.PENANACcDvcyfQXN
"You have seen her, Ollin?" he asked.500Please respect copyright.PENANAz8XUSOWsZL
"A vision is with us, Tetzal," Ollin replied and, turning away, he limped back to the sacrificial altar. He looked up at the sky. "When does it rain?"500Please respect copyright.PENANAIPkxKebxLY
Tetzal came halfway along the length of the temple and looked with disgust at Ollin's back. "This day when the sun's fire first touches the horizon to the west," he replied.500Please respect copyright.PENANA7eYAVXSWfD
"At that moment we shall present her to the people. A vision shall stand before them, and I, in supplication to Tlaloc, the Rain God," Ollin stretched out his left hand over the altar, "I shall offer human blood. And the rain will come. No more talk of Tlaloc being angered by us and bringing drought to the land. There will be ra n," he exulted, "and all power shall be ours again." Facing the altar, Ollin raised both hands and shook his clenched fists to the heavens.500Please respect copyright.PENANAkWsT1U2Rzd
"I tell you, O' High Priest of Sacrifice, there will be rain," Tetzal spoke gently and hesitated before continuing, "...with or without human blood."500Please respect copyright.PENANA6elIVcnOFs
Ollin spun around, his eyes ablaze. "Does the High Priest of Knowledge serve only Quetzalcoatl, the banished God, and not Huitzilopochtli who has made us strong?"500Please respect copyright.PENANAEOsPrLmL4T
"I serve the same god as you," Tetzal's voice was even.500Please respect copyright.PENANAGeIbXkUL64
"Then, above all else, honor him. He demands blood," Ollin shouted, "and blood he shall have!"500Please respect copyright.PENANAQyMf2EA73q
Dr. Smith, Penny and Don were in an antechamber below the temple. The walls were covered with colorful tapestries; the stone floor was carpeted; there were three couches to recline on, and a legless table laden with food and wine. Penny and Don sat down while the Doctor paced up and down.500Please respect copyright.PENANApcbN3YHZkb
"So you think Ann may have been wearing the bracelet when she went into the temple, is that it, Penny?" Dr. Smith didn't stop to look at her.500Please respect copyright.PENANAzvPZgv9OpC
"I know Ann picked it up and I have a feeling she may have put it on," Penny replied half-apologetically, "but I can't be sure, Uncle Zachary, it was dark in the tomb."500Please respect copyright.PENANAoERwuXfJyw
"If she were wearing the bracelet and came out of the tomb then that fellow Quetzal...."500Please respect copyright.PENANAgBtbFq0zuh
"Tetzal," Don corrected him, and was ignored.500Please respect copyright.PENANAMhsAI3QFOf
"....must associate Ann in some way with that skeleton, Yentl."500Please respect copyright.PENANAp9hhlu7B5R
"Nenetl."It was Penny's turn to put him ri ght.500Please respect copyright.PENANAbsmBHsbWsS
"Oh, the pain," Dr. Smith muttered.500Please respect copyright.PENANAZIPIW3itUF
"Well, they've treated us all right so far," Penny said brightly.500Please respect copyright.PENANA6R3COYZzAj
Dr. Smith stopped in his tracks and glared at her. "The Aztecs always showed the utmost courtesy to their intended victims," he observed icily and continued pacing the room.500Please respect copyright.PENANAqIwqh04ndK
500Please respect copyright.PENANAzh6JXVrJBK