Doctor Who_ Mawdryn Undead Part 5

Tegan and Nyssa knelt beside him. They could hardly hear his desperate whisper.

'Take me... take me...'

'Doctor?'

'Take me into... the TARDIS!'

It was an excruciating journey. Though only a few yards separated the police box from the transmat capsule, it was nearly an hour before the injured man, supported by Tegan and Nyssa, was brought into the control room.

As he pa.s.sed through the doors, he panted like a creature long starved of air that has just been fed pure oxygen, then sunk to the floor, worn out by the pain of the transfer.

'It's too risky to move him again. Go and find some blankets. We must keep him warm,' cried Tegan.

As Nyssa ran into the corridor, Tegan leaned over the body. 'It's all right, Doctor. You're safe inside the TARDIS.' She felt for his hand to comfort him.

'Something must have happened to the transmat capsule,' said Nyssa, returning with some blankets and an a.s.sortment of the Doctor's clothes.

'I told you those things were dangerous,' complained Tegan bitterly as she tried to make the patient comfortable.

'That boy!' cried Nyssa suddenly.

'Turlough!'

In their concern for the Doctor they had both forgotten that he had not gone into the capsule alone.

As Tegan rushed off to search the sphere again, Nyssa knelt beside the injured man who began to regain consciousness.

'Stability not achieved... transmat projection destructive... stability not achieved.' He rambled on deliriously, then cried out like a child in a bad dream. 'No end! No end!' He swooned again.

Nyssa watched over the body until Tegan returned.

'No sign of Turlough.'

Nyssa was very quiet. She realised the boy had none of the resilience of a Time Lord. She looked gravely at her fellow companion. 'He could have been atomised.'

As they walked through the school grounds the Doctor tried to find out from the Brigadier what had happened since they last met that had caused his old friend to treat him like a complete stranger.

'Is this an undercover operation, Brigadier? I mean I hardly expected to find you at a boys' school.'

The Brigadier grunted politely, but no information was forthcoming.

They came to a halt beside a large clapboard shed at the rear of the old stables, which the Doctor a.s.sumed to be the scout hut until the Brigadier indicated they should go inside.

'Oh dear,' thought the Doctor. 'Accommodation, Brigadier, for the use of.' That his old friend should have come to this! 'Your quarters?' he asked, in a voice that suggested they had arrived at Buckingham Palace.

His irony was not lost on the Brigadier. 'Perfectly serviceable,' he grumbled, and led the way in.

The Brigadier's hut was hardly the cosy billet the Doctor would have expected of the old soldier. Even before he saw the disarray, he could smell the damp walls, unaired clothes and abandoned washing-up. It was the usual self-imposed squalor of a bachelor brought up to believe that domesticity can only be provided by a servile member of the opposite s.e.x; but very untypical of Lethbridge-Stewart.

The Brigadier had let himself go. He had always been such a stickler for neatness, discipline and apple-pie order; yet the present owner of the hut was untidy, disorganised and a stranger to the vacuum-cleaner.

As the Brigadier busied himself making a cup of tea in the tiny kitchenette, the Doctor picked up a photograph from the cluttered desk. It was his former colleague in full dress uniform. How different the spruce, military figure of a mere eight years ago from the ageing eccentric spooning Typhoo into a cracked teapot.

The Brigadier turned from the gas ring. 'So what's all this about UNIT?'

'Brigadier, I need your help. I've lost the TARDIS.'

'I don't know what the TARDIS is. I've already told you.'

'And you don't remember me?'

'Certainly not. But whoever you are, I can't let you wander round blabbing about cla.s.sified operations.'

'There's more at stake than a breach of security.' The Doctor abandoned the tone of good-humoured banter. He spoke urgently to his old friend. 'I've lost my TARDIS and you've lost your memory. I'd be surprised if the two events weren't connected.'

The Brigadier glared defiantly. 'Doctor, I am in full possession of all my faculties.' A raw nerve had been touched. 'If I were suffering from amnesia I'd be the first to know about it!' he snapped.

The Doctor said no more until the Brigadier had brought through the tray of tea things and they were sitting together on the sagging horsehair sofa. 'By the way,'

he asked casually. 'How's Sergeant Benton these days?'

If the Brigadier wondered how his guest knew about UNIT personnel he didn't say so. 'Left the army in '79,' he replied, equally matter-of-fact. 'Sells second-hand cars somewhere.'

'And Harry Sullivan?'

'Seconded to NATO. Last heard of doing something very hush-hush at Porton Down.'

The tea brewed silently.

'Ever see anything of Jo Grant?' said the Doctor in a vague sort of way.

'What?'

'Jo Grant. My a.s.sistant!' The Doctor lobbed the rider like a grenade.

'Jo Grant...' muttered the Brigadier, disturbed and confused.

'Sarah Jane?' The Doctor pressed on. 'Liz Shaw you'll remember, of course.'

The Brigadier turned pale. He cradled his head in his hands.

'Are you all right?'

The Brigadier looked up. 'Someone just walked over my grave.'

'Perhaps it was a Cyberman?' The Doctor looked the Brigadier straight in the eye. 'Or a Yeti... Colonel Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart?' Lethbridge-Stewart?'

The Brigadier's eyes glazed over. The Doctor's hypnotic questioning had transported him a million miles from Brendon School. He was a young man again. He felt the adrenalin flow...

Danger! Darkness and terrible danger... Abominable snowmen in the Underground. Saved from the Yeti by the most snowmen in the Underground. Saved from the Yeti by the most peculiar man with a flute... Who was this 'Doctor?' peculiar man with a flute... Who was this 'Doctor?'

Promoted Brigadier. Seconded UNIT... Enemy in the sewers silver things, bionic monsters. Cybermen! Saved again by the Doctor... Doctor...

Not the Doctor, this ageing dandy with the crimped curls and frilly shirt. Can there be two of them? Regeneration? Impossible! frilly shirt. Can there be two of them? Regeneration? Impossible!

But only one Doctor could destroy the Autons...

Exterminate! Exterminate! What are they, Doctor? Daleks?

No match for UNIT's scientific advisor...

Here we go again, Doctor. Is it really you? The clown? The licensed fool? Jelly babies? Thank you, but no. Where's that licensed fool? Jelly babies? Thank you, but no. Where's that police box gone to now? police box gone to now?

Don't worry, Doctor, we'll deal with that robot. Strike command coming over in four minutes flat. command coming over in four minutes flat.

Alien planet? Don't believe a word of it. That's Cromer out there! Where are you, Doctor? Doctor... there! Where are you, Doctor? Doctor...

The Brigadier opened his eyes. The young man from the obelisk was offering him a cup of tea. Quite a decent fellow really.

'One lump or two?' asked the young man.

'Bless my soul, Doctor,' said the Brigadier, smiling at the latest face. 'You've done it again!'

The girls felt so useless, waiting beside the inert body on the floor of the TARDIS control room.

Tegan could bear it no longer. 'I'm going for help!'

'Where?'

'There's a house in the valley. I'll use their phone.'

'If only we had the zero room.'

'As we haven't, a hospital is the next best thing.' Tegan was already half-way through the doors.

'Take this.' Nyssa felt under the console and withdrew the Doctor's homing device.

'Thanks.' Tegan grabbed the tiny ball. 'I'll be as quick as I can.'

Nyssa walked with her fellow companion to the entrance of the TARDIS and watched her run down the steep path towards the house in the valley below.

No one remained in the control room to observe that the breathing of the injured creature on the floor had become stronger and more regular. No one saw the body stir, a bloodshot eye open and gaze covetously at the TARDIS console.

4.

The Alien in the TARDIS The Headmaster of Brendon School was of the firm belief that excess of leisure could only lead to an unhealthy interest in music or the reading of books for pleasure. Or worse.

Any respite from the cla.s.sroom, therefore, was likely to consist of a lecture on the Bren gun from Sergeant-Major Mobbs, a cross-country run, or a muddy session of licensed hooliganism on the rugger field. June 7th, 1977, however, was a genuine holiday.

Clifford-Smith, Shand and Greenland Minor were on their way to the barbecue on Top Field, when what they saw as they rounded the corner by the tennis courts stopped them in their tracks. To a boy at Brendon, a woman was either one's mother or one's sister. (Both, if possible, to be avoided.) Consequently, the trio stared at the young lady approaching from the lake as if she was some ichthyosaurus that had just crawled out of the water.

Tegan was so out of breath from her dash down the hill that none of the boys could make head nor tail of her story, so it was decided that Clifford-Smith should escort her to the Brigadier.

The Brigadier was terribly upset. What must the Doctor have thought of him? He was also alarmed that such a significant episode of his past should have been blacked out. Perhaps it was connected with the other trouble? He would have to have a word with old Runicman.

Meanwhile, he tried hard to conceal his anxiety from his one-time colleague. 'The Doctor and the TARDIS. How could I ever forget!'

'Exactly.'

'What?'

'The mental block. There must be some reason, some trauma...'

'The Brigadier felt his hackles rising. The Doctor was starting to sound like one of those confounded shrinks.

'Some shocking experience. Maybe an induced effect?'

The Brigadier's lip curled. 'I don't scare quickly, Doctor. Nor do I succ.u.mb easily to brainwashing techniques.'

The Doctor ignored the unaccustomed bitterness in the Brigadier's voice. 'If there was a way of tracing back how far the inhibition goes, you could get some treatment...'

Had the Doctor dropped a match in the petrol tank of the old Humber there would not have been a more violent explosion.

'Treatment!' roared the Brigadier. 'Treatment!' He spat the hated word out in disgust. 'There's nothing wrong with me, Doctor!'