Doctor Whom or ET Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Parodication (10 page)

After some effort I was able to pull myself upright. I could see stars. This was because the Dr, oblivious to my pratfalling, had pulled up a viewscreen schematic of the area of space through which we were travelling.

‘Our next mission,’ he was saying. ‘Hell. We must avert a terrible dynastic squabble. Apparently a single stick-back-plastic apostrophe, inserted onto an official sign in exactly the right place, should do it.’

‘What about this Stavros fellow?’ Linn was saying. ‘I don’t like the sound of this Time Gentleman Violator.’

‘Ow,’ I said, rubbing my forehead. ‘Ow, ow,
ouch
.’

‘It’s a nasty piece of work,’ the Dr agreed. ‘It’s designed to destroy a Time Gentleman’s braintide.’

‘Braintide?’ Linn asked.

‘The sum total of his brainwaves.’

‘Ah!’ said Linn, in an
I see!
tone of voice.

‘Ah!’ I said in a
my-skull-really-hurts-I-mean-I-don’t-want-to-alarm-anybody-but-I-just-may-actually-have-
dislocated
-my-knee
tone of voice.

‘If Stavros, or one of his Garleks, aimed that weapon at my brain’—the Dr patted his own chest—‘it would be curtains for me. Those little velvet curtains about a foot tall that are drawn across the slot at the crematorium through which the coffin disappears. Those sorts of curtains.’

‘I thought you said your brain,’ I said, cross on account of my hurty head. ‘Why were you tapping your chest?’

‘That’s where my brain is located,’ the Dr said.

‘So where is your heart?’

‘Are.’

‘Up
where
?’

‘No - are - where
are
your heart
s
. I have two.’ He tapped his head. ‘One on the
left
and one on the
right
side of my head. It’s always seemed to me an arrangement infinitely to be preferred. Or, perhaps not infinitely, but. You know what I mean.’

Finally, after what seemed like a very long-drawn-out journey, the TARDY rematerialised. ‘We’ve arrived!’ announced the Dr, somewhat superfluously. ‘Here we are.’

‘And this is the location of our mission?’ Linn asked.

‘Oh yes.’

‘So where are we, exactly?’

‘According to my screen here,’ said the Dr, ‘we’re on a planet called, um.’

‘Um?’ I said.

‘The Planet Um is in the Hesitant System,’ Linn explained, in a superior voice, ‘orbiting the Star Sch.’

‘No, not um,’ said the Dr. ‘That was me pausing, trying to read the iddly-bittly typeface on this . . . Hell. That’s what it’s called.’

‘Hell,’ I said. ‘That doesn’t bode well.’

‘Well,’ said the Dr, airily. ‘I wouldn’t read too much into that. It might be that Hell means something very
pleasant
and
inoffensive
in the local language. Something like, I don’t know, Chicken Korma. Or Eiderdown. Or something.’

‘Never mind all this chatter,’ said Linn, impatiently. ‘Let’s sort out this mission. It’s placing an apostrophe on an official sign, I think you said. Let’s go
do
it! Let’s
place
that apostrophe!’

The Dr was peering carefully at the screen. His brow had furrowed. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Hmm. Yes . . . well,
that
could prove a little tricky. Nope, we can’t leave the TARDY. I’m afraid.’

‘Why can’t we leave the TARDY ?’ Linn asked.

‘Well let me see if I can explain,’ said the Dr, running a very unspringy and indeed bone-based hand through his springy, boneless hair. ‘On Earth, where you come from . . .’ He paused.

‘I know I come from Earth,’ I said.

‘Yes, yes. Don’t interrupt me. I get distracted. Earth - on Earth, where
you
, Prose, originated - on Earth there is a substance known to scientists as
oxygen
. It’s in the air.’

‘This,’ said Linn, speaking for the both of us, ‘we know.’

‘Well,
this
world, this planet Hell, has - well, to put it in technical scientific language, it has
no
oxygen in the air.’

‘I see.’

‘You don’t sound surprised?’

‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘I mean, I’m assuming it’s pretty rare that you land on a world with precisely human-breathable air. As I understand it, the oxygen levels even on Earth have fluctuated quite considerably over the last forty thousand years. In the rest of the cosmos - well I’d guess that a million forms of life have evolved breathing everything from argon to zeon. Assuming zeon is a gas. Or am I thinking of neon? Anyway, anyway, the
point
is, I’d assume that perhaps one in a trillion planets have atmospheres breathable by creatures such as us.’

‘Well,’ said the Dr, ‘Hmm. It’s. Actually it’s quite complicated. ’

‘Is it? How?’

The Dr tapped at the monitor and brought up a visual representation of the world outside the TARDY. The scene displayed was of rolling hills covered in green grass, a pale blue sky, a bright yellow sun. It looked inviting. I mean, apart from the fact that the hills were rolling. I don’t, incidentally, use
rolling
as a merely metaphoric or conventionalised description of the hills. These hills were literally rolling. Some hidden geologic force was slowly rotating them like colossal, green horizontal kebabs. They were grassy all over, though; and there were cows and even little rabbits visible upon them, who didn’t seem too bothered by being dipped under the earth for long minutes. When they popped up again, they were still happily munching the grass. I assumed that their feet, or hooves, were adapted so as to be able to cling to the turf whilst it was upended. But I was unable to check my theory, because the Dr refused to open the door.

‘I can’t open the door,’ he said, again.

‘It looks very pleasant outside,’ I pointed out.

‘You two, you’re not, you aren’t
paying attention
to what I say,’ he complained. ‘There’s no
oxygen
. Right? Step through that door and you’ll choke.’

‘Well alright,’ said Linn, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. ‘I’m assuming you have breathing apparatus? For all the occasions when you visit planets that don’t happen to have the precise and delicate combination of gases we’re accustomed to on Earth? Isn’t that standard Time Gentlemen gear?’

At this the Dr looked shifty. He shifted his eyes from side to side, and shifted his weight from foot to foot. He shifted his scarf, flicking it from over his left shoulder to over his right. I think you take the point that he was shifty.

‘We don’t usually have much call for breathing apparatus, ’ he said.

‘Not much
call
for it? Are you
serious
?’ asked Linn, incredulous.

My credulity was also in. ‘It can’t be the case,’ I objected, ‘that you
always just happen
to visit planets with breathable atmospheres?’

‘Pretty much,’ he said. Then he mumbled something, and looked away.

‘And there’s nothing—’ Linn pressed, ‘nothing in this entire TARDY, that would help us? Not so much as a gas-mask? Not even a
snorkel
?’

The Dr shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t meeting our eyes.

‘I simply can’t believe,’ Linn continued, ‘that there is not, in this entire spaceship, a
single piece
of breathing gear.’

‘I’ll go and have a look,’ muttered the Dr, looking unhappy. ‘There might be something in one of the . . . you know. In one of the. Other rooms.’ With this he slipped through a door and hurried away into the inner labyrinth of the TARDY.

‘
Don’t
just go for a little lie-down,’ Linn called after him. ‘You go find us some breathing equipment, you hear? You
hear
, Doctor?’

There was no answer.

‘Doctor?’ she called again. ‘Have you gone off to have a little lie-down somewhere?
Don’t
you have a little lie-down! You fetch us some equipment, so we can go exploring on this world and sort out the apostrophe business on this planet! Do you
hear
?’

Nothing.

‘Doctor?’ screeched Linn. ‘We’re doing this for your benefit you know! Neither of
us
wants to go gallivanting about this strange planet. We’re trying to help
you
!’ She waited, with her ear to the door. ‘You
have
gone to have a little lie down, haven’t you!’ she called.

‘I think he may, actually,’ I offered, ‘indeed have gone for a little lie down.’

‘Curse him,’ said Linn without vehemence. ‘Do you think we should try and winkle him out of whichever room he’s run off to?’

‘There are hundreds of rooms back there,’ I pointed out. ‘He could be in any of them. We’d be searching through them for hours and hours. Best let him have his lie down. He’ll come back through when he wakes up. It might even recharge his batteries.’

‘It’s a—most—provoking—thing . . .’ Linn said, shaking her head.

‘He certainly seems to like his little naps,’ I agreed.

 
Linn was despondent for a few moments, and then she rallied herself. ‘Hey! We don’t need
him
. D’you know what I think? There’s bound to be all the equipment we need right here, in the control centre. I mean, this is where you’d leave it, don’t you think? If you needed it?’

‘I suppose so,’ I agreed.

Linn went over to the central control panel and opened a little door in its side. ‘Aha! First place I look!’ she exclaimed, delighted. She reached in and pulled out a helmet. It looked a little like a deep-sea-diver’s helmet: a metal globe a little larger than an average adult human head, with a small glass screen in the front. ‘I knew it!’ she declared, sounding very pleased with herself. ‘I knew there’d be something!’

‘Will it fit?’ I asked.

‘It’s
exactly
the right size. I wonder if it comes with, you know, oxygen tanks and such?’

‘According,’ I observed, reading from the side of the helmet, ‘to this little plaque on the side it’s all integrated into the device. Self contained air supply, water and even food.
Nutrition Pap Brand three-five-one-one
, apparently.
Your Time Gentleman Breathing and Life Support Equipment is Guaranteed for One Thousand Years
. Sounds just the ticket.’

‘Doesn’t it just?’ she agreed. She reached back inside the cupboard and pulled out an identical-looking helmet. ‘Here you go - one for you too.’

‘You don’t think,’ I said, hesitantly, ‘that the thousand-year guarantee has
expired
, or anything?’

‘Nonsense,’ she returned. ‘They look positively
brand
new.’

I peered at the helmet in my hands. It was certainly a gleaming item, undusty and unscuffed. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘Right,’ said Linn, in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘This is what I suggest. We put these on. We pop outside, have a look around, and hopefully work out what needs to be done to straighten the timeline here - find that sign, insert the apostrophe. It’ll be good practice for me, and we can sort it all out before the Doctor even wakes up from his afternoon nap.’

‘If you’re sure that’s a good idea—’

‘Of course I am! Can you imagine his face when we come back?
Look Doctor, we sorted it all out whilst you were napping
! Ha-ha!’

‘Well,’ I said, uncertainly. ‘OK.’ I lifted up my helmet ready to put it on. Linn did the same.

Then something peculiar happened. In the split-second before I dropped the helmet over my cranium, Linn disappeared.

One minute she was there, and the next she had vanished. Completely vanished ! I opened my mouth to shout in surprise, but my fingers at that precise moment let go of the helmet to drop it onto my shoulders. I barely had time to cry out.

Then everything went black.

The next thing I knew was an enormous crash and an earthquake-like shudder that knocked me from my feet. I’d like you to imagine - if you’ll indulge me - a large warehouse built of reinforced steel girders and iron cladding, with a huge metal domed roof; and that this warehouse had then, somehow, been elevated six feet above the ground, suspended there, and then
dropped
onto a concrete or stone ground. That was the nature of the ear-splitting clatter that greeted me. It almost burst my ears. The reverberations from the collision echoed and re-echoed.

I picked myself up and looked about me. I had somehow been transported into a huge enclosed space, some kind of circular barn or hangar, lit by a dim window very high up in an enormous curving wall. The floor stretched thousands of yards away from me in every direction. A huge duct, wide enough for me to climb inside had I been so minded, dangled from the wall before me. I stared at this huge structure. It ended in a bizarre truck-sized sculpture in black rubber. It looked as though it might fit inside a giant’s mouth as his gum-shield.

I turned slowly to examine my new surroundings. The roof was curved and groined like a giant version of the inside of the Dome of Saint Paul’s. It towered so enormously over me that thin and wispy clouds were visible floating in at the zenith.