Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion
Page 1
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also in the Series
Title Page
The Changing Face of Doctor Who
The Dinosaurs
1. London Alert!
2. ‘Shoot to kill!’
3. The Time Eddy
4. The Timescoop
5. Monster in Chains
6. The Space Ship
7. The Reminder Room
8. Escape!
9. Operation Golden Age
10. The Final Count Down
Copyright
About the Book
The Doctor and Sarah arrive in London to find it deserted. The city has been evacuated as prehistoric monsters appear in the streets. While the Doctor works to discover who or what is bringing the dinosaurs to London, Sarah finds herself trapped on a spaceship that left Earth months ago travelling to a new world…
Against the odds, the Doctor manages to trace the source of the dinosaurs. But will he and the Brigadier be in time to unmask the villains before Operation Golden Age changes the history of planet Earth and wipes out the whole of human civilisation?
This novel is based on a Doctor Who story which was originally broadcast from 12 January–16 February 1974.
Featuring the Third Doctor as played by Jon Pertwee with his companion Sarah Jane Smith and UNIT.
About the Author
Malcolm Hulke
Born in 1924, Malcolm Hulke was a prolific and respected television writer from the 1950s until the 1970s, and wrote the definitive script-writing guide of the period: Writing for Television. His writing credits included the early science fiction Pathfinders series, as well as The Avengers.
Malcolm Hulke was approached to write for Doctor Who when the series very first started, but his idea for ‘The Hidden Planet’ was not pursued. In 1967 he wrote The Faceless Ones (with David Ellis) for the Second Doctor. By 1969, Hulke’s friend and occasional writing partner Terrance Dicks was Script Editor for Doctor Who and needed a ten-part story to replace other scripts and write out Patrick Troughton’s Doctor. Together, they wrote The War Games, which for the first time explained the Doctor’s origins and introduced his people, the Time Lords.
Hulke continued to write for Doctor Who, providing a story for each of the Third Doctor’s series. His scripts were notable for including adversaries that were not villainous simply for the sake of it, but had a valid point of view and grievance.
Malcolm Hulke died in 1979, soon after completing his novelisation of The War Games, which was published a few months after his death.
Also available from BBC Books
DOCTOR WHO AND THE DALEKS
David Whitaker
DOCTOR WHO AND THE CRUSADERS
David Whitaker
DOCTOR WHO AND THE CYBERMEN
Gerry Davis
DOCTOR WHO AND THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMEN
Terrance Dicks
DOCTOR WHO AND THE AUTON INVASION
Terrance Dicks
DOCTOR WHO AND THE CAVE MONSTERS
Malcolm Hulke
DOCTOR WHO AND THE TENTH PLANET
Gerry Davis
DOCTOR WHO AND THE ICE WARRIORS
Brian Hayles
DOCTOR WHO – THE THREE DOCTORS
Terrance Dicks
DOCTOR WHO AND THE ARK IN SPACE
Ian Marter
DOCTOR WHO AND THE LOCH NESS MONSTER
Terrance Dicks
DOCTOR WHO AND THE ZARBI
Bill Strutton
DOCTOR WHO AND THE WEB OF FEAR
Terrance Dicks
DOCTOR WHO AND THE DINOSAUR INVASION
Malcolm Hulke
DOCTOR WHO AND THE GENESIS OF THE DALEKS
Terrance Dicks
DOCTOR WHO – THE VISITATION
Eric Saward
DOCTOR WHO – VENGEANCE ON VAROS
Philip Martin
DOCTOR WHO – BATTLEFIELD
Marc Platt
The Changing Face of Doctor Who
The Third Doctor
This Doctor Who novel features the third incarnation of the Doctor, whose appearance was altered by his own people, the Time Lords, when they exiled him to Earth. This was his punishment for daring to steal a TARDIS, leave his homeworld and interfere in the affairs of other life forms. The Time Lords sentenced the Doctor to exile on twentieth-century Earth. The secrets of the TARDIS were taken from him and his appearance was changed.
While on Earth the Doctor renewed his friendship and formed an alliance with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, head of the British branch of UNIT. Working as UNIT’s Scientific Adviser, the Doctor helped the organisation to deal with all manner of threats to humanity in return for facilities to try to repair the TARDIS.
UNIT
UNIT in the United Kingdom is under the command of the ever-practical and down-to-earth Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. He first met the Second Doctor, and fought with him against the Yeti and the Cybermen. UNIT is a military organisation, with its headquarters in Geneva but with personnel seconded from the armed forces of each host nation. The remit of UNIT is rather vague, but according to the Brigadier, it deals with ‘the odd, the unexplained. Anything on Earth, or even beyond …’
From mad scientists to alien invasions, from revived prehistoric civilisations to dinosaurs rampaging through London, UNIT has its work cut out.
Sarah Jane Smith
Sarah Jane Smith is an investigative journalist. She first met the Third Doctor while working ‘under cover’, and was soon caught up in his adventures – whisked off back to the Middle Ages in the TARDIS to battle a stranded Sontaran.
It is Sarah’s intelligence, determination, loyalty and conviction that the Doctor comes to value and admire. In his fourth incarnation, he describes her not only as his friend – a rare admission for the Doctor – but as his best friend. When they are forced to part company as the Doctor is summoned back to Gallifrey both are saddened by Sarah’s departure.
But as we now know, this was not the last time they would meet. Intelligent and determined, Sarah never misses the opportunity for a good story and is not afraid to take risks. Of all the Doctor’s companions, Sarah Jane Smith is the one whose exploits and adventures after she left the Doctor have continued to fascinate, enthral, and excite us all.
The Dinosaurs
Three hundred and fifty million years ago, reptiles became the first animals to breed on land. Reptilian land life developed into many forms, the first true dinosaurs, not more than six inches long, appearing during the Triassicfn1 period. By one hundred and fifty million years ago, some reptiles had developed into giants. One, the Diplodocus, measured eighty-four feet from head to tip of tail, and must have weighed thirty-five tons. During the Age of the Reptiles, many varieties of dinosaurs—all enormous in size—spread and multiplied over the Earth’s surface.
Then, over a very short period in geological terms, the dinosaurs died out. Their remains have been found in every continent. Was it a sudden change in the Earth’s temperature that killed them off? Was it disease? Or did the newer and more nimble life forms, the mammals, attack and kill them? Perhaps no one will ever know.
Certainly no one ever expected them to come back.
fn1 Triassic—after the three-fold mountain system in Germany. The first mammals, and also flies and termites, appeared at that time.
1
London Alert!
Shughie McPherson woke up that morning with a pounding headache. For a full half hour he lay on his untidy bed and stared at a crack in the ceiling. He was thinking about the muddle which was his life. In his thirty-seven years he had had
more jobs than he could remember. He was married once, but that hadn’t lasted long. One day his wife had said to him, ‘Shughie, you’re a layabout!’ Then she’d packed a suitcase and gone back home to her mother. He had never tried to find her.
That was years ago. His mind turned to more recent events. About a week ago some of his Glasgow friends had said, ‘Shughie, we’re going to London for the Cup Final. Why not come along?’
‘I’ve nae money,’ he explained. ‘You’ll ha’ to do without me this time.’
‘We’re going in wee Jamie’s van,’ they replied. ‘It’ll cost you nothing.’
Eight of them got into the van, two in front and six sitting on crates of beer in the back. By the time they reached London nine hours later, Shughie had forgotten where they were going or why. He was drunk.
He remembered waking up in this house the next morning. Donald Ewing, a ship’s riveter from Clydeside, was shaking his shoulders.
‘Shughie, rouse yoursel! We’re awa’ back to Glasgee!’
Shughie’s sleepy brain tried to make sense of the situation. ‘But we’re in London, and we’re going to see the Cup.’
‘Not now we’re not,’ said Donald. He was already fully dressed. ‘Everyone’s got to leave London. It’s an emergency.’
Jamie, the owner of the van, came to the door of the little bedroom and yelled, ‘Will you no come and get in the van, Donald? I’m leaving in five seconds!’
Donald protested. ‘There’s wee Shughie here, still in bed.’
Jamie looked down at Shughie. ‘If you don’t get yoursel into my van double quick, you can stay here and die! Come on, Donald, let’s be off.’
The two men tumbled out of the room. Shughie thought they’d both gone mad. He turned over and went back to sleep.
When he woke up later the house was completely silent. Pangs of hunger drove him out of bed. Standing on the landing, he called out: ‘Donald? Jamie? Ian?’
No answer. He went down the stairs into the hall and called again. Still no answer. He stumbled into a back room, and through there into the kitchen. Here he found a cupboard well stocked with tinned food. He ripped open a tin of corned beef and gorged the contents. Finding some matches, he turned one of the knobs on the cooker to make himself a cup of tea. Nothing happened. He tried another knob. No gas. Nothing strange in that. Many times in his life the Gas Board had disconnected his gas supply because he hadn’t paid the bills. He went to the sink for a glass of water. The tap spat out a few drops, and no more. Well, maybe that bill hadn’t been paid either. He returned to the back room where he’d noticed a television set: it didn’t work. He tried the lights: no electricity. Daylight was beginning to fail. He searched the cupboards for candles: there was a bundle next to the dead electricity meter. He lit one, stuck it to a saucer, and left it in the back room; then lit another and carried it to see by as he investigated the rest of the house. No one had told him whose house it was, but in one room he found children’s toys, so presumed a family lived there. In a front room there was a double bed. All the drawers in the room were open. Clothes were strewn about on the floor as though people had packed hurriedly, leaving behind what they didn’t want to carry.
In the front bedroom, partly hidden at the back of the wardrobe, Shughie found the six bottles of whisky that were to be his only companions for the next four days.
After half an hour staring at the crack in the ceiling and thinking about his life, Shughie McPherson got up. Now, after four days, he had become accustomed to living in this house on his own. He kept hoping that his friends would come back, and had completely forgotten why or how they went away.
He stretched and yawned, pulled on his trousers and shirt and went down the stairs to open another tin of food. Then he remembered that last night he’d eaten the last tin of corned beef and drunk the last drop of whisky. Standing in the hallway, he scratched his throbbing head, and decided the time had come for action.
He went to the house next door and knocked. The front door was unlocked. It swung open when he pushed it.
‘Hello?’ he called out.
No answer.
He stepped into the hall. ‘Anyone at home?’
Still no answer.
‘I’m from the house next door. There’s no food or water or anything…’ He listened. Silence.
He tried the next house. The door was locked. He pressed the bell push, but it didn’t ring. ‘Probably didn’t pay their electricity bill either,’ he said to himself, and moved on again. No answer this time, either. Shughie began to wish he was back in Glasgow, in the friendly district where he had always lived.
A sudden panic gripped him. Where were all the people who lived in these strange houses? Were they all dead?
He started running and shouting. Street after street was deserted, front doors of houses gaping open. And then turning a corner, he sighed with relief: a familiar sight. A friendly milk float was standing in the middle of the road.
Shughie ran forward. ‘Hey! Milkman! Where are you?’
He stopped dead. The milkman was lying on the road on the other side of the float. He was a young man with very fair hair. He lay on his back, mouth open, eyes staring in death.
Cautiously, very afraid, Shughie crept forward to look at the dead young milkman. The fair hair at the back of the young man’s head was a tangle of congealed blood and gravel from the surface of the road.
Shughie fell to his knees, clasped his hands together, and started to say the Lord’s Prayer. ‘Our Father who art in Heaven, hallow’d be thy name…’
His words were drowned by a sudden roar from the monster behind him. Shughie turned and looked up. A massive claw hit him in the face. In his last moment of life, Shughie McPherson resolved to give up drinking whisky.
The TARDIS, looking as always like an old-fashioned London police telephone box, materialised in a pleasant suburban park. The Doctor and his young journalist companion, Sarah Jane Smith, stepped out into bright sunlight.
Sarah looked about and sniffed a little dubiously. ‘It seems all right.’ She was hoping they hadn’t landed in the poisonous atmosphere of some distant planet.
‘Of course it’s all right! I promised that I’d get you back home safely,’ replied the Doctor indignantly.
Sarah looked at some abandoned cricket stumps on the grass near by. ‘We set off from the research centre, not here.’
‘Don’t expect miracles,’ snapped the Doctor. ‘The co-ordinates were a bit off beam. But we can’t be far away from UNIT Headquarters.’
‘So where can we be?’
‘Somewhere in London,’ said the Doctor.
‘And what about the date?’ Sarah persisted. ‘Are we in the future or the past?’
‘Time is relative.’ The Doctor locked the TARDIS, and pocketed the key. ‘My guess is that we have returned to Earth at much the time we left. Now let’s find a public telephone and inform the Brigadier that we’re back.’
The Doctor strode away towards some distant metal railings at the edge of the park. Sarah was about to follow, but paused when she heard a sound coming from the opposite direction. She turned and saw a clump of trees half a mile away. One of the trees came crashing to the ground. She caught up with the Doctor.
‘What made that happen?’
He shrugged. ‘Some disease that trees get, I imagine. Now come on.’
Five minutes later they reached the road that ran along the edge of the park.
Sarah said, ‘There’s no traffic.’
‘Can’t you imagine life without smelly motor cars?’ The Doctor started to cross the road, Sarah following.
He was hurrying towards a public telephone kiosk. ‘It just seemed strange,’ she said.
‘Nothing seems strange,’ said the Doctor, opening the door of the telephone kiosk, ‘when you’ve seen the places I have been to…’ He stopped short. The telephone had been ripped from the wall, the coin box smashed open.
Sarah said, ‘It’s been vandalised.’
‘I wish people wouldn’t use that term,’ said the Doctor. ‘The Vandals were quite decent chaps.’
‘I suppose you’ve met them?’ Sarah asked, tongue-in-cheek.
‘As a matter of fact, yes. We’ll have to find a taxi.’ The Doctor turned from the telephone kiosk and regarded the deserted road.
‘How,’ asked Sarah, ‘do we find a taxi when there is no traffic?’
‘Perhaps it’s a Sunday,’ said the Doctor. ‘Great Britain always closes on Sundays. We’ll have to walk.’
Twenty minutes later they reached a suburban shopping centre. Sarah pointed across the street excitedly.
‘Look,’ she said, keeping up with the Doctor, ‘Woolworths!’
‘What is so special about Woolworths?’
‘Nothing,’ said Sarah, ‘but it’s nice to see. It means we’re back home.’
The Doctor paused. ‘Really, Sarah! I take you in the TARDIS to Outer Space, to another Time in the history of the Universe, and what really excites you?—Woolworths!’
His words were drowned by the roar of a car speeding along the high street. It was the first sign of life they’d seen since their return to Earth. Sarah stepped out into the road, waving her arms, smiling.
‘Hey! Stop!’
The car kept going. Moving fast, the Doctor grabbed Sarah back to safety.
‘He almost hit me!’ she gasped.
‘Perhaps he doesn’t like hitch-hikers.’
They watched the car race down the street. At an intersection with dead traffic lights the driver swung the car to the crown of the road, then turned left with a screech of brakes.
‘Have you noticed there aren’t even any parked cars?’ Sarah said.
‘I agree,’ said the Doctor. ‘It is a bit odd. Let’s keep walking. There must be someone somewhere.’
They continued towards the traffic lights. Sarah stopped and pointed. ‘Look! That car! It’s stopped.’
The car was standing outside a jeweller’s shop. Without a word, the Doctor and Sarah ran towards it. The car’s engine was running, but there was no driver.
‘The driver must have gone inside,’ Sarah said, entering the open shop door.