Pyramids of Mars
Pyramids of Mars is a story from the science fiction television series Doctor Who. Template:Spoiler
Marcus Scarman, Professor of Archaeology at All Souls College, Oxford, is excavating a blind pyramid in Saqarra, Eqypt. The door to the mastaba (burial chamber) is inscribed with the Eye of Horus. Scarman's Egptian assistants panic and flee at the sight of the glowing heiroglyph, leaving the Professor to enter the chamber alone. As he holds a light up to see the undisturbed tomb, he is blasted by a green ray that eminates from a seated and cowled figure.
The Doctor and Sarah-Jane Smith are travelling in free space in the TARDIS. At the moment the tomb is disturbed, the TARDIS is forced out of its flight path and an apparition of an alien face appears in the console room, witnessed by Sarah-Jane. The Doctor speculates that astral projection could potentially have this effect on the TARDIS; "..but... on that scale is unimaginable." The Doctor follows the engery source back to its point of origin and lands the TARDIS in the Scarman family home, a large estate in the Home Counties of England.
The Doctor and Sarah-Jane explore the house and find what appear to be Egyptian artefacts in the storeroom in which the TARDIS materialised. Discovered by the butler, they are told that the house has been taken over by a myterious Egyptian gentleman by the name of Ibrahim Namin. The butler politely asks them to leave. As he turns to inspect the room after the Doctor and Sarah-Jane's departure via the window, a sarcophagus lid is seen to be moving...
In another part of the house, Namin is being confronted by Doctor Warlock, an old friend of Professor Scarman. Their heated debate is interrupted by a scream. Warlock and Namin find that the scream came from the butler, who has been crushed to death in the storeroom. Namin shoots Warlock in order to prevent him from going for help. The Doctor, who has witnessed the argument and heard the scream, prevents the shot from being immediately fatal by using his scarf to pull the gun in Namin's hand. The three make their escape in to the grounds of the estate. Instead of following, Namin removes the lid of another sarcophagus to reveal a Mummy. Holding up his ring, he commands the Mummy to activate and orders it to persue the time travellers.
The Doctor, Sarah-Jane and Doctor Warlock hide in the woods until the persuing Mummies are called off the hunt by Namin, who is summoned to the central room of the house by a blast of organ music. The three fugitives make their way to a hunting lodge in the grounds that is used by Laurence Scarman, Professor Scarman's brother, as a home. Laurence is an amateur scientist and the Doctor uses a Marconiscope to detect an alien signal coming from Mars. After confirming that the year is 1911, the Doctor decodes the signal as "Beware Sutekh". Sutekh is revealed to be from a race called the Osirians from a planet called Phaester-Osiris. Sutekh was a powerful paranoid meglomanic who came to believe that all life was his enemy. He was persued across the galaxy by his brother Horus and was finally defeated on Earth by the combined might of 740 Osirians. The battle passed in to Eqpytian theology and was depicted in the tomb of Tutmoses III.
Namin and the Mummies greet the arrival of Sutekh's assistant, who travels to the house via a time tunnel, the portal of which is disguised as an upright sarcophagus. Killing Namin, the assistant transforms from a veiled black-dressed figure in to Marcus Scarman, although he appears to be an animated corpse. Scarman is then ordered by Sutekh, immobile in his pyramid, to secure the perimeter of the estate and to construct an Osirian war missile.