Doctor Who: The Doomsday Weapon (2 page)

On the following Monday Jo reported for work and met the Doctor. He didn't seem at all impressed with her, and after a few minutes' talk about the weather he said he had important business elsewhere and hurried away. She didn't see him again for two days, during which period she wandered around the Headquarters to get to know it and the people who worked there.

On the Wednesday she found the Doctor again in what seemed to be a laboratory; for some reason an old-fashioned London police box stood in one corner. The Doctor was tinkering with some electrical gadget at a work bench. 'What are you doing?' said Jo. The Doctor looked up, and for the first time she saw that he had a very nice smile. 'I'd better explain,' he said; 'that's a Time and Space machine' - he indicated the old police box - 'but it doesn't work at the moment. I'm trying to repair it.' Jo suddenly realised she had been given a job with a madman. 'Time and Space machine?' she laughed, not believing. The Doctor's smile faded quickly , 'I'll let you know if I need your assistance at any time. Good morning.' With that he turned back to the work bench. Jo still had nothing to do.

That was a week ago now. During the week she had mooned around the Headquarters, bored out of her mind. Now, today, she intended to have a showdown. Even being a filing clerk in the Embassy in Bangkok could be more interesting than reading magazines at UNIT Headquarters to kill time. As she entered the main building she passed Sergeant Benton, who gave her a friendly 'Good morning', but she was too angry to reply. She went straight down to the Doctor's laboratory. He was there, as always, tinkering with bits of wire on the work bench.

'I must speak to you,' she said. 'I'm supposed to work for you, but you don't give we anything to do!'

'Just a moment, my dear.' The Doctor seemed to apply himself to some task requiring great concentration. Jo looked and saw he was soldering two bits of wire together - nothing more complicated.

'Look,' she said, 'what
is
that thing you're working on?'

'It's a new dematerialisation circuit,' he said. He had by now successfully joined together the two bits of wire. 'There! That bit's done.' He straightened up and looked pleased with himself.

'Dematerialisation?' queried Jo. 'Of what?'

'The TARDIS,' said the Doctor, as if Jo ought to understand.

Jo was completely puzzled. 'What sort of Doctor are you?' she asked.

'What sort would you like me to be?' the Doctor

Before Jo could make a retort, the Brigadier had entered 'Oh, 'morning, Miss Grant,' he said, acknowledging her existence for the first time in a week; then he turned to the Doctor. 'I've just got the latest field reports about the Master. There's no trace of him.'

'As I expected,' said the Doctor. 'His TARDIS is working now, remember. He could be anywhere in Space and Time.'

'That's as may be,' said the Brigadier. 'But I'm going to keep on looking.'

'You're wasting your time,' said the Doctor.

Jo looked from one of the men to the other as they talked, with as much understanding as a cat watching a ball bounced between two table-tennis players. She had never heard of 'the Master', nor did she know what 'TARDIS' meant. Then she realised that the work bench 'phone was ringing, and since the other two were deep in this mysterious conversation she picked it up to answer - the first act of work since she had joined UNIT.

'Hello?'

A man's voice asked for the Brigadier. Jo gave the 'phone to Lethbridge-Stewart, and he had a quickfire conversation with the caller. Then he cradled the 'phone, and turned back to the Doctor. He seemed very pleased.

'One of our agents thinks he's traced the Master,' said the Brigadier. 'I hope to be back here within the hour with good news. Excuse me.'

The Brigadier hurried out. The Doctor watched after him, shaking his head sadly.

'Can't you tell me
anything
that's going on?' asked Jo. 'Who is the Master, and what's a TARDIS?'

'Didn't the Brigadier explain it all to you?' said the Doctor.

'No,' said Jo. 'No one's explained anything.'

'Oh dear,' the Doctor said. 'Well, the Master is a fellow we've had quite a bit of trouble with. As for TARDIS, that means Time And Relative Dimensions in Space.' The Doctor ended there with a smile, as though he had explained everything.

'Time and Relative Dimensions...' said Jo. 'You mean
that
thing?' She pointed to the old police box.

'That
thing
,' said the Doctor, obviously a little hurt, 'is probably the most advanced technological device you will ever encounter in your entire life.'

Jo went over and inspected the police box. 'It looks just like an old police box to me.'

'I see,' said the Doctor, clearly not very pleased with Jo's attitude. 'Since I'm about to go inside I'll let you see for yourself.' The Doctor picked up the electrical gadget he had been working on, crossed to the police box and produced a key. He unlocked the little narrow. door, and threw it open. 'After you.'

Jo looked inside, expecting to see a poky little space perhaps with a police telephone and a first-aid box. Inside she found herself looking into a huge, futuristic-looking control room.

She turned back to the Doctor , 'It's a trick. An optical illusion.'

'Why not step inside and see?' said the Doctor.

Cautiously, Jo entered the TARDIS. It was at least twenty times bigger inside than outside. She stood just inside, unable to speak. The Doctor, however, followed her in and immediately went to a central console in the middle of the vast, highly polished floor. Without a word he set about inserting his bit of electrical gadgetry into a cavity in the console.

At last Jo got her voice back. 'How can it be bigger inside than out?'

'The TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental,' said the Doctor, busy with his work. Whatever he was doing, he seemed satisfied with his own work. He straightened up. 'As of this moment,' he said, 'I think my exile on Earth may be over.'

'Your exile on Earth?' Jo was seriously worried about this strange man's sanity. 'If you don't mind,' she said, 'I think I'll be getting along.' She turned on her heel to leave, only to find that the huge metallic doors were just closing in front of her. She swung back to the Doctor. 'Kindly open these doors immediately, Doctor! The joke's over.'

Now the Doctor looked at the doors. A smile spread across his face. 'I don't think I'll be able to,' he said. 'We're taking off!'

Jo crossed to the big doors, now firmly closed. 'Open these doors, Doctor!'

The Doctor suddenly seemed to realise that Jo was really terrified and that he should do something. He went to the central console, pulled a small lever, then looked to the doors. 'I'm very sorry,' he said, 'but things seem to be out of my control. You'd better hold on to something tight'

Even before he had completed the sentence, the floor of the control room started to vibrate violently, then to heave from side to side like a ship at sea. At the same time, Jo's ears were pierced by a terrifying sound, something like, yet not quite like, the trumpeting of a thousand mad elephants. Jo reeled across the floor, grabbed at a metal support pillar and clung on for dear life. Her arms locked round the support pillar, she felt violently sick, her mind filled with noise and the heaving of the floor beneath her. Then black clouds filled her mind, and she was just aware of slowly sinking to the floor, her arms still locked round the pillar.

'I'm sorry, but I don't remember your name.'

Jo heard the Doctor's voice coming to her as though from a far distance. Slowly she opened her eyes. She was on the floor of the TARDIS, her arms still locked firmly and the base of the pillar. The Doctor was kneeling over her.

'Jo Grant,' she said, automatically. 'Call me Jo.'

'Let me help you up, Jo,' said the Doctor. He put his hands under her arms to lift her. For a moment Jo let him, than, with returning strength, she got herself up.

'Open those doors, please.' Jo tried to sound very cold, like one of the teachers she had known and hated at school. 'The joke's over, Doctor.'

'First,' the Doctor said, crossing back to the central console, 'we must check if its safe.'

'It's perfectly safe to open those doors,' said Jo, keeping well away from him. 'I intend to go straight to the Brigadier and offer my resignation.' Within a week, she had decided, she would be on a plane to Bangkok , or wherever jobs were going for Embassy filing clerks.

But the Doctor was taking no notice of her. Instead, he was gazing in wonder at a monitor screen set in the wall of the control room. 'Look,' he said. 'Just look at that.'

Jo looked. The monitor screen showed a barren landscape, a treeless stretch of rock and occasional shrubs. 'It looks like somewhere in North Wales ,' she said, trying to humour him. 'Now please open the doors'

'But don't you realise,' he said, 'thats what's outside. I must cheek the temperature and the atmosphere before we open those doors.' The Doctor busied himself reading dials set in the control console. 'Good,' he said at last. 'Very similar to Earth.'

'No little green men with two heads?' queried Jo, sarcastically, still keeping her distance from the Doctor.

The Doctor looked again at the monitor screen. 'Not so far as I can see. Actually, two-headed species in the Cosmos are very rare. There are the Deagles, a sort of two-headed birdlike creature, on one of the planets in the Asphasian Belt, but I've only read about those. I haven't been there yet...'

Jo cut in, 'Just open the doors, please!' She stood with her back pressed against the doors, to keep as far as possible from this raving lunatic called the Doctor.

'Certainly,' he said 'I hope we're going to find it interesting.'

The Doctor operated the small lever. Jo could just hear the doors opening behind her. She remained facing the Doctor, not daring to take her eyes off him in case he went suddenly mad and tried to attack her. Only when she was sure that the doors were fully open, allowing her to make a quick run for it up to the Brigadier's office, did she turn. And then she saw the barren landscape that lay outside. Her heart pounded. She couldn't utter a sound.

'Well?' said the Doctor, coming up behind her. 'Shall we investigate?'

Without waiting for an answer, the Doctor strode outside. A keen wind ruffled his hair. lie stood them, breathing deeply, clearly very happy. Then he looked back at Jo. 'Shall we take a walk?'

Jo stepped outside. As she did to, she turned back to look at the TARDIS. It was the same police box she had seen in the Doctor's laboratory. 'Where are we?'

'No idea,' said the Doctor. 'Anywhere, and any time, in the Cosmos. I suggest that we take a quick look round; then I'll try to get you back to Earth.'

'We're not on Earth?'

'I rather doubt it.' The Doctor stood surveying the landscape of rock and occasional shrub. Then he spotted something on the horizon. 'No,' he said, 'definitely not Earth. Look over there.'

Jo looked to the horizon, and saw two bright white discs in the sky. 'What are they?'

'Moons,' he said. 'Planet Earth has only one. This planet has those two, possibly more. So we're certainly not on Earth.' He stopped short, his keen eyes looking at something on the ground a few yards away. 'It's inhabited!' He hurried across to the point he had noticed. 'On the ground here,' he called back to Jo, 'tracks made by some kind of machine.' He inspected the tracks, then stood up straight and looked all around. 'Let's go up there,' he called. 'We'll get a better view. Come on!'

The Doctor strode off towards a small hill. Jo had had enough of all this. She turned to go back inside the TARDIS. The door was closed. She tried it, but it was locked. 'Doctor,' she called, 'come and open this door at once!' But the Doctor was already out of earshot, half way up the slaggy little hill. In sudden anger Jo raced after him, stumbling over the rocks. 'Doctor,' she called as she ran, 'I think this is all some big trick. You hypnotised me, and now you're making me think I'm on another planet!' At last she was up beside him. 'Do you hear me! I want to go home!'

But the Doctor was gazing in wonder into the distance. 'Look over there, Jo.' He pointed to a valley now visible from the hilltop. In the valley was a dome-shaped object as big as a very large house, and next to it what might be a spaceship. The dome and the spaceship were about two miles away from where they stood. 'We could easily walk over there,' the Doctor said with almost childlike enthusiasm. 'It wouldn't take more than an hour.'

Jo said, 'I want to go back to your TARDIS.'

'But Jo, there may be some different life form over there, something neither of us has ever seen before in our lives, and will never see again.' There was pleading in the Doctor's voice.

'Have you really done this sort of thing before?' asked Jo. She was beginning to feel less scared of the Doctor, even a little sorry for him.

'What?' he said, as though his interest had suddenly darted off in another direction. He had picked up a small piece of rock and was examining it with great curiosity.

'This space travelling,' said Jo. 'Have you done this tx fore?'

'For years I roamed the Universe,' he said. 'Then the Time Lords cought me, exiled me to Earth, and immobilised my TARDIS. You see, I don't really want to work for UNIT. I want to be free.' He paused, looking up from the piece of rock in his hand. 'We could get to that valley in an hour or so, have a look round, and then go back to TARDIS and get back to Earth. What do you say?'

Jo gave in. 'All right. But I still don't believe any of this is really happening. I expect to wake up any moment and find - '

'
Stand where you are!
'

The gruff male voice shouted from behind them. Both the Doctor and Jo remained absolutely still.

'One move,' said the voice, 'and I'll shoot!'

Jo heard the man's booted feet on the rocks as he circled round them. She didn't even dare to move her head to look at him. The man circled them at a distance to bring himself facing them. He was a rough-looking man wearing heavy boots, blue denims, and an old battered hat. He held a futuristic-looking shotgun, which he kept trained on the Doctor and Jo.