Outside the throne room, the Doctor paused and turned back to let Jo join him at the head of the group.  He  smiled politely at Izlyr who was standing close behind him, and started to speak - but the sentence never came.  A fine drift of stone dust had fallen onto his cloak and, brushing it off, the Doctor looked upwards.  Almost in the same movement, with a speed of reflex that would have done credit to a wild animal, he hurled himself at the group behind him, bringing them down all of a heap.  They had not even reached the floor when the great stone image smashed into the ground beside them with a terrifying impact.

Peladon jumped to his feet and moved forward in alarm.  Before he could reach the door, Hepesh had checked him, his face full of foreboding.

'No, majesty - there is danger!  Wait!'

'But what has happened?' cried the young king, full of apprehension.  'If any of the delegates have been harmed...'  The rest of the sentence went unspoken, but the meaning was known to both the king and to Hepesh.  The aliens had weapons not yet seen in action on Peladon.  Their vengeance would surely be a terrible one.

'It is your majesty's safety that matters,' said Hepesh.  But his eyes were not on the king.  He was deliberately screening the return of Grun.  Like a shadow, the King's Champion glided to his royal master's side.  The king looked back at him, unaware that he had ever been away.  But, thought Hepesh grimly, how well had he succeeded?

The Doctor, helping Jo to her feet, turned to find Izlyr standing over him, hand extended

'You saved our lives, Doctor.'  His harsh, hissing voice sounded genuinely grateful, but the Doctor could read nothing from his mask-like face.

'Sorry I didn't have time to explain,' joked the Doctor, and moved across to the shattered statue, its terrifying face upwards to the smoky ceiling.  The guards nearby made no move to help.  They crouched, heads bowed, moaning with fear.

'This is outrageous,' wailed Alpha Centauri, tentacles thrashing about wildly.  'Terrible!  We could have been killed.'  The hexapod's colour was palpitating green and blue.

Arcturus was, as expected, unemotional.  He trundled close to the fallen statue.

'The gravitational forces involved were in excess of humanoid resistance,' he computed flatly.  'Serious damage would have resulted on impact.'

'Your objective reaction is admirable,' observed the Doctor drily, 'but you might've been killed too, Arcturus.'

'My sensor readings are not concerned with emotional response,' commented the mechanical voice, '- only deduction.'

'Even deductive processes can be annihilated,' said Izlyr, with icy reasoning.

'Alright, Jo?' asked the Doctor, seeing his young companion's drawn face grow even paler.

'Just a bit wobbly at the knees, that's all,' replied Jo bravely.  She suddenly found herself pushed aside by Hepesh, who stood staring down at the shattered stone image.

'Aggedor has been merciful,' he spoke bleakly, silently registering the fact that, thanks to this new Earthling delegate, not one of the aliens had been harmed.  He didn't allow his disappointment to show, however, as he raised his eyes to the Doctor's.  'We must give thanks that you have all been spared...'

'First Torbis dies,' observed Izlyr coldly.  'Nov this.'

'Yes,' agreed the Doctor, 'but why didn't the Aggedor manifestation actually appear?  Strange, that.'