Doctor Who_ Mawdryn Undead Part 4

The short-circuiting of the energy in the canister had caused a small explosion.

Turlough felt the pain ease, the grip on his mind relax.

He stared in embarra.s.sment at the huge rock he was holding, then let it fall to the ground.

The Doctor looked up and grinned. 'Sorry about that.'

Tegan could not for the life of her understand why Nyssa had taken such a liking to that pale and s.h.i.+fty young man. The Doctor, obviously, didn't trust Turlough out of his sight, or he wouldn't have taken him to Earth in the capsule.

Nyssa couldn't agree; but their argument was cut short as the TARDIS column grunted and jerked, then began a rea.s.suringly regular rise and fall.

'Here we go!'

They were on their way to join the Doctor on Earth - out of the warp ellipse and away from that depressing red s.h.i.+p.

At least the explosion in the canister had cut out the beam that inhibited the TARDIS.

The Doctor stood up and looked hopefully about the obelisk. Nothing yet. He couldn't have made a mistake with the co-ordinates - or could he?

Was the noise they could both suddenly hear the wind in the trees? There was a pale blue shadow to one side of the obelisk; indubitably the outline of a police box. The groaning protest that accompanied the materialisation was music to the Doctor's ears as he stepped forward to welcome Tegan and Nyssa.

But his hand went towards a door that was not there.

Hardly had the time-machine materialised than all trace of it faded away again.

The Doctor prowled round the empty s.p.a.ce in total disbelief.

'Could it have been affected by tangential deviation?'

asked Turlough in a very matter-of-fact voice.

The Doctor might have replied that this was an impossibly knowledgeable question for an English schoolboy. In fact, he merely informed his companion that there was no question of deviation with a dead reckoning alignment in the co-ordinates.

Turlough nodded sagely. Without the demon within him being alerted, the Doctor now knew that all was not what it seemed with his new a.s.sistant.

But the Doctor had no idea what on earth had happened to his time-machine. 'The TARDIS should be here here!' he shouted petulantly.

As soon as the column had stopped, Nyssa opened the scanner screen. They had a perfect view of the obelisk surrounded by a ring of trees.

'Where's the Doctor?'

Nyssa stared hard at the screen, then checked the controls.

'Nyssa, are you sure this is the right place?'

'It should be...'

'Something's wrong, isn't it?'

'I don't know.'

Both girls looked again at the screen. The hillside around the huge monument was deserted.

'I'm sure the Doctor's only wandered off,' said Nyssa sounding very unsure indeed.

The Doctor stood beside the obelisk looking very sorry for himself.

'Have you any idea where the TARDIS is?' asked Turlough.

'Not the remotest.'

'Will your friends be safe?'

'I hope so,' replied the Doctor anxiously, and walked over to the woods to look for the police box there.

Left on his own, Turlough reflected bitterly that barely ten minutes before, he had been far from Earth, aboard a sophisticated s.h.i.+p, with access to a time-machine. Now he was back on his most unfavourite planet; no s.h.i.+p, no TARDIS. He felt cheated.

At least the cube was still in his pocket. He took it out nervously. It lay in the palm of his hand, a piece of inanimate gla.s.s. Turlough felt angry. He did not like being manipulated. 'Well, what do I do now?' he muttered. 'Say something!' he shouted at the inert crystal.

'Turlough!'

Turlough nearly jumped out of his skin as a familiar voice boomed across the hillside. He spun round. The Brigadier was striding towards the obelisk. The Brigadier was evidently not best pleased.

'So there you are, Turlough.'

'Sir?'

Ibbotson came lolloping up behind the Brigadier like an overfed puppy-dog. 'Turlough, what happened? The sphere.. ?'

'Do be quiet, boy!' snapped the Brigadier. He fixed Turlough with a gaze that had withered many a neglectful adjutant. 'You're supposed to be in the sick bay.'

'I was with the Doctor,' said Turlough, without a word of a lie.

'Doctor?' said the Brigadier, testily. 'Doctor Runciman?'

'This Doctor,' replied Turlough, looking over the Brigadier's shoulder to where the Doctor was approaching from the woods.

The Brigadier turned to face the newcomer. The Doctor stopped in his tracks. A grin slowly spread from ear to ear.

'Brigadier!' he exclaimed in amazement.

The Brigadier looked quizically at the Doctor, who held out his hand.

'Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart,' the Doctor continued, hardly able to believe his good fortune, meeting up with such an old friend.

The Brigadier had no wish to shake hands with the improbable young man in the ridiculous frock-coat. 'Who are you?' he said coldly.

The Doctor looked quite hurt.

Noting this, the old soldier, who was nothing if not a gentleman, smiled politely. 'I'm sorry, Doctor, but if we have met before, it's entirely slipped my memory.'

The Doctor's hand went to his face which was once again wreathed in smiles. 'Of course!' he cried. 'I'd forgotten. Brigadier, I'm into my fourth regeneration.'

The Brigadier's heart sank. They'd tangled with some fanatic one of those born-again Johnnies by the sound of it. 'Excuse me,' he murmured, as politely as he could manage. 'I've got to get these boys back to school.'

But the Doctor would not let his old colleague from UNIT go so easily. 'What would you say if I told you I was looking for my TARDIS?'

'What on earth's a TARDIS?'

'The police box, Brigadier!' How could the old boy be so obtuse!

'Doctor, I haven't the remotest idea what you're talking about.' Lethbridge-Stewart indicated that the interview was at an end.

The Doctor grabbed him by the arm. 'Brigadier, even if you've forgotten about the TARDIS, surely you remember UNIT?'

'What!' hissed the Brigadier.

'You do?' the Doctor was delighted to have elicited a positive response at last.

'What's UNIT?' piped up Ibbotson.

'The Brigadier and I used to work together,' the Doctor volunteered blithely. Its an organisation that...' He got no further.

Interposing himself between the Doctor and the two boys, the Brigadier leaned forward and blasted the Doctor's eardrum with a stentorian whisper. 'Doctor, if you know anything about that organisation that organisation you will almost certainly have signed the Official Secrets Act!' you will almost certainly have signed the Official Secrets Act!'

'Ah, of course.' The Doctor smiled. This, at least, was more like the old Lethbridge-Stewart.

'Right everybody!' barked the Brigadier. 'We're going back down.'

Ibbotson, delighted to be with his friend again, fell in with Turlough, eager to ply him with questions as soon as the Brigadier was out of earshot.

Turlough looked nervously over his shoulder. Whatever happened, he mustn't lose the Doctor.

He need not have worried. The Brigadier was equally anxious for the Doctor's company; this young fellow could be a serious security risk. 'If you really are from UNIT,' he spoke quietly but firmly to the Doctor, 'we'd better have a little talk in my quarters.'

Nyssa and Tegan s.h.i.+vered beside the deserted obelisk. A rain squall obscured the valley below them. 'Typical English summer,' thought Tegan.

'Doctor,' shouted Nyssa for the umpteenth time.

'There's no one here.'

The rain in the valley suddenly cleared, revealing the path down the hillside. That too was deserted. A shaft of sunlight pierced the clouds, spotlighting a large mansion, far below, at the base of a rainbow.

But no sign of the Doctor.

'Maybe the capsule's malfunctioned.'

Though Nyssa had more confidence in the transmat process than her fellow companion, even she was getting thoroughly nervous when a silver ball appeared between the two trees in front of them.

The Doctor must have been sheltering from the storm inside the capsule and had operated the camouflage circuit.

A door in the side of the sphere opened and the girls rushed forward to welcome him.

They peered inside the capsule. The s.p.a.cious interior was engineered with the same dimensionally transcendental principles as the TARDIS.

'Doctor!' called Nyssa.

There was no answer from the Doctor or Turlough.

A sour-sweet smell hung in the air, reviving for Tegan a distressing childhood memory - slaughtered cattle on her Uncle's farm; it was the odour of putrification. 'Doctor!'

she cried out in alarm.

Something moved, in the shadow of the in-board control console. The two girls stepped forward.

'Doctor!' gasped Tegan.

They stared at the floor unable to speak. The object of their concern lay at their feet - a creature that was neither visibly man nor beast; a lump of trans.m.u.ted flesh that flexed and groaned.

As they looked closer, Tegan and Nyssa could recognise vestigial limbs, and the outline of a mangled trunk that wept pus through charred clothing. Then, as the deformed boy twisted itself towards them, they gazed upon a face that, though ravaged beyond all recognition, had once been that of a man.

If this was the Doctor, he had paid a terrible price for his journey in the transmat capsule.

A ghastly rattle came from his throat. He was trying to speak. 'Where... where am I?'

For a moment the girls were too upset to answer. At last Nyssa found the strength to reply. 'You're on Earth, Doctor. You came in the transmat capsule.'

'Earth?'

'Don't you remember? You followed us through in the TARDIS.'

'TARDIS? TARDIS?' The injured man cried like a soul in purgatory that has glimpsed salvation.

'The TARDIS is outside. We can help you.'

He tried to raise himself up. A palsied hand reached up to the two girls. 'TARDIS!' he cried again, and sank back exhausted.