Doctor Who_ Claws Of Axos Part 1

DOCTOR WHO.

AND THE CLAWS OF AXOS.

by Terrance d.i.c.ks.

1.

Invader from s.p.a.ce

It moved through the silent blackness of deep s.p.a.ce like a giant jellyfish through the depths of the sea. Its shape was constantly changing, pulsating with energy and life, and a myriad of colours flickered over its glistening surface. Unerringly it sped towards its chosen target, the planet known as Earth. Soon the instruments of the humans would detect its approach. It knew this, and was undisturbed.

Detection was the first stage in its plan...

The tracking station dozed peacefully in the early morning silence. The huge radar aerials revolved in their constant searching, silhouetted against the blue of the sky. In an instrument-packed room, deep inside the building, the results of that search showed up as a blip of light, tracing its curving course across a radar display screen. A man was studying the blip, muttering to himself as he checked the instruments all round him. 'About one million miles...

ma.s.s variable...' He looked again at the dials, shaking his head.

' Variable? Variable? What's the book say, Harry?' What's the book say, Harry?'

Beside him, his a.s.sistant was immersed in a pile of star charts and periodicity tables. 'Nothing here.'

'You sure? There's got to be!'

Harry was bored, irritable, and in no mood for mysteries at the end of a long and tiring s.h.i.+ft. 'Look, there's nothing here. No comets, nothing! '

Pleased, his superior leaned back in his swivel chair. 'Then it looks as if we've discovered a new one! Run another course check.'

While Harry busied himself with the instruments, the senior technician watched the steady progress of the blip. Ransome's Comet, he was thinking happily. Though probably the Director would pinch all the credit, even if he was was still home in bed. Suddenly Ransome sat up. The blip on the screen had changed direction. 'You get that?' still home in bed. Suddenly Ransome sat up. The blip on the screen had changed direction. 'You get that?'

Harry nodded. 'Picked it up on the instruments. That thing's just altered course.'

'But it can't can't have...' have...'

With gloomy satisfaction Harry studied a computer print-out.

'You can say goodbye to your comet, mate. Whatever that thing is, it's now on a collision course for Earth! '

Harry reached for a phone, but Ransome put out a hand to stop him. 'What are you doing?'

'Just in case you've forgotten, there's a whole batch of people we're supposed to tell about "Unidentified Flying Objects".' Harry pointed to a list of names and telephone numbers on a nearby notice board. 'The Director, the Ministry of Security... and something called UNIT-the United Nations Intelligence Task-force.'

Ransome looked at the radar screen a moment longer, saying goodbye to his dream of scientific immortality. Then he sighed and picked up the telephone. 'Get me the Director, please. Red Alert. Yes I know he's still home in bed. Wake him up. Tell him there's an Unidentified Flying Object heading straight for Earth!'

In the military and scientific complex that formed UNIT Headquarters, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's day was getting off to a very bad start. The cause of his present troubles was not alien monsters but Earth-bound bureaucrats. Whitehall's latest brainchild was the newly-created Ministry of Security, an organisation designed to gather all Britain's various intelligence organisations under one central umbrella. The Brigadier had refused to be gathered, taking the position that UNIT was not a national but an international organisation, and as such answerable only to UNIT H.Q. in Geneva.

The war of letters, memos and reports had continued for some time now, with the Brigadier more than holding his own. But now the Whitehall enemy had wearied of the paper bombardment and sent in their shock troops-in the stocky and unattractive shape of Horatio Chinn.

Like many small men in high positions, Chinn liked to think of himself as Napoleonic. He saw himself as a hard-driving human dynamo, cutting through the restraints of red tape. He was a vain and rather stupid man, but he was also ruthlessly ambitious and tirelessly energetic. Chinn eventually overcame most of his opponents by wearing them down.

He had even worn down the Minister in charge of his own Department, who couldn't stand the man but couldn't think how to get rid of him. Wily old politician that he was, the Minister had been struck by a sudden brainwave. He had two main problems at the moment-Chinn and the Brigadier. Why not turn them loose on each other? Whichever proved the winner, the Minister would have one less problem to worry about.

The result of this brilliant strategy had been Chinn's appointment as a one-man Committee of Enquiry. It was now Chinn's second day with UNIT, and while the Minister back in Whitehall basked in unaccustomed peace, the Brigadier was already brooding on emergency court-martials and summary executions. If only there was a war on, he thought wistfully, he could lock the fellow up, or even shoot him. Deciding that Chinn was definitely one of the horrors of peace, the Brigadier looked with disfavour at his unwanted guest. Chinn stood by an open filing cabinet, leafing through the files of UNIT personnel. He looked the picture of the perfect bureaucrat. Expensive pin-stripe suit, pink face, grey hair, heavy black horn-rimmed spectacles. Bowler hat, umbrella and briefcase were at the ready on a nearby chair.

Chinn put Josephine Grant's file back into the cabinet, making a mental note that the girl was clearly too young and too inexperienced for security work. A nice little black mark to go into his report on the Brigadier. He lifted out another file, read the name on the cover and opened it. Then he looked up at the Brigadier, his face outraged. 'Is this some kind of joke?'

The blindfold over his eyes, the last cigarette, thought the Brigadier dreamily. Or maybe a last memo would be better for a civil servant... Aware that Chinn was speaking, the Brigadier dismissed his imaginary firing-squad. 'I'm sorry, Mr Chinn. You were saying?'

'I asked if this was some kind of joke. On the front of this file there are just two words "The Doctor". And inside...' Chinn flapped the file angrily. 'Nothing!'

A little guiltily, the Brigadier recollected that he'd intended to create a full set of doc.u.ments for the Doctor when he'd joined UNIT at the time of the first Auton Invasion. Hence the file. But with one crisis following another the matter had been over-looked. Although the Doctor was now known to a select circle as UNIT's Scientific Adviser, he still had no official existence-at least, not on paper.

The Brigadier smiled blandly, playing for time. 'Very astute of you to notice, Mr Chinn. The Doctor's file, is, as you say, empty-for security reasons.'

Chinn felt a glow of satisfaction. At last he had found an issue on which he could join battle. More-over, it was a case where the Brigadier was clearly in the wrong. 'May I remind you, Brigadier,' he began pompously, 'that I am conducting an official enquiry on behalf of the Minister for Security?'

'And may I remind you, Mr Chinn, that UNIT does not come under the Minister's authority?'

Stalemate. Chinn tried again. 'Surely as a matter of elementary organisation, all all security personnel must be properly screened...' security personnel must be properly screened...'

The Brigadier smiled. 'And scrupulously filed. Quite so. But the Doctor is a special case.'

'I insist on seeing a proper file for this Doctor-whoever he is!'

'I'm sorry, Mr Chinn. The Doctor is my personal responsibility.'

Chinn slammed the filing cabinet drawer with a bang. 'You seem to think UNIT is your own private army, Brigadier. Not so!

Emphatically not so. You are funded, in part, by the British Government. As their representative, I demand your full co-operation.'

Chinn had found these sudden calculated outbursts of rage an effective means of getting his own way. Unfortunately the Brigadier seemed quite unintimidated. Positively uninterested, in fact. Chinn changed his approach. 'Surely, Brigadier, you can see that better liaison with the Government is in your interests, as well as ours?

Now, who is this Doctor? Where does he come from? Is he a British subject?'

Thoughtfully the Brigadier stroked his clipped moustache.

How did you explain to someone as mentally limited as Chinn that the subject of his enquiry was not only not British, he wasn't even human? That he had formerly been in the habit of travelling through s.p.a.ce and Time in an old blue police box called the TARDIS? That after a complete transformation in his appearance, he was now exiled to Earth by his mysterious superiors, the Time Lords?

The answer was, thought the Brigadier, you did no such thing.

Not unless you wanted to be carted off in a strait-jacket.

The door was flung open and a tall white-haired man strode into the room. He was wearing what appeared to be some form of fancy dress. Chinn got a confused impression of velvet jacket, ruffled s.h.i.+rt, even some kind of cloak... The deeply lined face was curiously youthful, the bright blue eyes blazed with energy and intelligence.

The newcomer slipped the cloak from his shoulders and tossed it carelessly onto a chair. 'Morning, Brigadier,' he said cheerily.

Leaning casually against the filing cabinet, he looked benignly down at Chinn. 'And who might you be?'

The Brigadier rose from behind his desk. 'This is Mr Chinn from the Ministry,' he said smoothly. 'Mr Chinn-allow me to introduce the Doctor!'

Hurriedly a.s.sembling papers in her cubby-hole of an office, Jo Grant realised that, not for the first time, she was going to be late for the Brigadier's morning conference. She threw open the door, rushed out and bounced straight off a man who was trying to come in. Jo and the papers went flying in different directions. Calmly the stranger picked up first Jo and then the papers. He handed them back and waited patiently while Jo dusted herself down. He was somewhere in his early thirties, not tall but with an air of compact strength about him. He had closely trimmed brown hair and a pleasantly ugly face. He wore a dark-grey lightweight suit, and clutched a slim square briefcase. When he spoke his voice had a soft American drawl. 'You all right now, young lady? I'm looking for a fellow called Joe Grant.'

'I'm fine, thanks. What can I do for you?'

The American smiled down at her. She was a pretty little kid, fair-haired, blue-eyed, trendily dressed. She looked far too young to be working in Intelligence. Clearly she hadn't understood his question. 'I'm looking for Joe Grant,' he repeated.

Jo smiled. 'You're looking at at her,' she corrected. 'Jo, short for Josephine.' her,' she corrected. 'Jo, short for Josephine.'

The American made a rapid mental readjustment.

If the British wanted to employ kids in their Intelligence set-up it was no affair of his. 'Well, O.K. In that case, we're both looking for the Brigadier, right?'

'Right! And you're the new liaison officer from Was.h.i.+ngton.

They told me you were coming.'

The American held out his hand. 'I'm Bill Filer. Pleased to meet you.'

Jo returned the handshake. 'Follow me. I'll take you to our leader! '

As they walked along the corridor she said, 'I gather Was.h.i.+ngton was worried about our not catching the Master?'

Filer said tactfully, 'Well, something like that.'

'And you're going to deal with him single-handed?'

'You're thinking of Errol Flynn! '

'Who?'

Filer grinned. 'I must be getting old!'

As they approached the door to the Brigadier's office they heard the sound of raised voices...

Chinn's attempts to cross-question the Doctor had met with little success. Disliking both his tone and manner the Doctor had recommended Chinn to mind his own business, and thereafter ignored him, burying himself in a pile of scientific papers. Now thoroughly enraged, Chinn was haranguing the Brigadier. 'Since no records exist for this man, he has no official existence. I demand that you suspend him from his duties.'

The Doctor looked up. 'Oh yes? How can you suspend someone who doesn't exist in the first place?'

Unable to think of a logical answer, Chinn ignored him.

'Brigadier, you must see the scandal this could cause? This is a top-security organisation, yet one of your own advisers is nothing less than...' He spluttered into silence, having no real idea of what what the Doctor might really be... the Doctor might really be...

The Doctor finished his sentence for him. 'An alien? Oh yes, I'm an alien, more alien than you could possibly imagine.' Suddenly the Doctor became very angry. Throwing down his papers he jumped to his feet, towering menacingly over Chinn. 'Suspend me if you like, Mr Chinn. Do you think I'd mind leaving this organisation? I'd happily leave the entire planet-if only to get away from people like you with your petty localised obsessions...'

Terrified, Chinn struggled to regain his self-possession. 'I have a duty to my country...'

'To your country?' thundered the Doctor. 'What about your duty to the world? To the galaxy, if it comes to that...'

As the Doctor and Chinn went on shouting at each other, the door opened and Jo Grant popped her head inside the room.

'Sorry to interrupt, but Mr Filer's arrived from Was.h.i.+ngton.

Has the conference started yet?'

The Brigadier bellowed, 'Does it sound like it, Miss Grant?

Bring Mr Filer in by all means, the more the merrier.'

Rather nervously, Bill Filer edged into the room, wondering how he'd ever got the impression that the British were calm and reserved.

His arrival cooled everyone down, and hurried introductions were performed. In the awkward silence that followed Jo said, 'I thought we were here to discuss the Master?'

Chinn was immediately alert. 'Master? Who's the Master?'

The Brigadier sighed. Explaining the Master was almost as difficult as explaining the Doctor. A renegade member of the Doctor's own Time Lord race, the Master had followed the Doctor to Earth on a mission of vengeance, helping the invading Nestenes on their second attempt to conquer Earth. After the invasion had been defeated the Master had vanished. Some time later he had reappeared in the guise of a prominent criminologist, making a second attempt to destroy the Doctor and conquer the Earth. When this too was defeated, the Master had vanished yet again. But by now his name, if little else about him, was on the files of several world intelligence agencies. The Americans, alarmed by vague rumours of some super-criminal on the loose, had sent Bill Filer on a fact-finding mission.

The Brigadier hadn't really been looking forward to Filer's arrival.

There was little enough to tell about the Master, and what there was the Americans probably wouldn't believe.

Filer was unlocking his briefcase. 'I have a file of several top criminals and enemy intelligence operatives in America,' he announced solemnly. 'Our people thought maybe one of them could be this Master guy.'

The Doctor, his anger apparently forgotten, was gazing abstractedly out of the window at the woods and lawns that surrounded UNIT H.Q. He spoke without turning round. 'There's absolutely no point in discussing the Master. He's probably left Earth by now.'

Filer gave the Doctor's back a baffled look, then turned to the Brigadier. 'If we could just check, sir?'

The Brigadier nodded. 'By all means, Mr Filer.' He glanced at the silent figure by the window. 'After all, Doctor, we can't be certain he's, er, moved on. We've got to go on looking.'

Chinn was jumping up and down with impatience. Everyone seemed to be ignoring him. 'Will someone kindly tell me-who is the Master?'

Filer hesitated. 'I'm afraid that's cla.s.sified,' he said politely. 'If you don't know already, then you obviously don't have clearance.'

'I a.s.sure you, young man, I have been guaranteed full access.'