The Ark in Space

by Marter, Ian

  As soon as it entered the control chamber, the alien intruder eagerly scanned the mass of inert instruments which covered the walls, like exhibits in an abandoned museum. From the domed ceiling there descended a shining metallic sphere. For an instant the creature was reflected in its mirror-like surface; information was flashed to a central computer bank, analysed, and a command relayed back to the sphere. It glowed brilliantly for a second. The startled intruder stared defiantly upwards, and at the same instant a fierce burst of energy sent it clattering against a control console, its tentacles contracting in agony.

  For a few seconds all was still. Then the creature moved. Again the sphere glowed, and with a sharp crack hurled it back across the chamber in a blazing electrical discharge. The creature cowered, uttering hoarse screams as a stream of brutal shock-waves pulsed from the sphere, blistering its body with burns. Staring at the clusters of delicate instruments, its huge eyes useless in the fierce light, the creature began to flail at the wall panels as if searching desperately for something. All at once, a section of the panelling slid open. Fighting the searing bursts of radiation from the sphere, the creature dragged itself through the opening into a second, similar chamber. Out of range of the sphere, but now blinded and almost paralysed, the intruder fumbled among the control consoles lining the chamber until it somehow located the section it sought.

  With frantic, crippled movements it ripped open the instrument panel and pulled out a thick bundle of multi-coloured cables. Then, arching its segmented tail up over its head, it gripped the cables in its huge claw and severed them cleanly with a single slice. At that moment, all through the electronic nerve centres of the Satellite, certain vital systems were closed down.

  With an unearthly sigh of satisfaction the creature turned away, and in complete darkness now, crawled back through the first chamber and out into the labyrinth of tunnels and chambers. Its mission was almost completed; one final task remained. Slowly and painfully, but with deadly purpose, it made its way towards the sleeping humans. The brittle, splintering sound of its movements died away as panel after panel glided shut behind it. The sphere hung inert in the darkness.

  When at last the atomic clock signalled the beginning of the great Awakening, no current flowed. The circuits remained dead, the systems did not activate. The Satellite continued its eternal orbit, the Solar Energy Reservoirs absorbing and storing energy from the sun – though no longer for any purpose.

  Then there came a second invasion…

  1

  The Second Invasion

  ‘CLUMSY, HAM-FISTED IDIOT,’ cried the Doctor, striding out of the TARDIS into pitch darkness.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Doctor. I was only trying to… trying to open the door…’ stammered Harry Sullivan, just catching the door as it swung back in his face.

  ‘Come out of there at once, and don’t touch anything else,’ called the Doctor, pausing for a moment in the light streaming through the door of the TARDIS and staring about him.

  The Doctor was a tall, broad man with a riot of curly brown hair bubbling out from beneath a stylish felt hat. His generous face was animated with intense curiosity as his enormous eyes peered into the semi-darkness. His hands were thrust deep into the bulging pockets of a voluminous red velvet jacket, and the trailing ends of a long multi-coloured woollen scarf flapped around his legs as he moved cautiously away from the TARDIS.

  Surgeon Lieutenant Harry Sullivan RN stood uncertainly in the doorway, fiddling nervously with his cravat. He was an athletic young man in his late twenties, with a straight back and a square jaw. He wore a rowing club blazer and sharply pressed slacks. ‘Oh I say,’ he exclaimed, ‘we’ve gone.’

  ‘Who’s gone, Harry?’ asked a bright, laughing voice behind him.

  He turned to face the mischievous smile of Sarah Jane Smith, who was watching his confusion with evident delight. Sarah was a slim, level-headed journalist, about the same age as Harry, her trim figure clad in a trendy denim trouser-suit, her short dark hair tucked into a saucy woollen hat.

  ‘Well, I mean this isn’t… we aren’t where we were when we…’ began Harry, venturing a step or two into the gloom. A few minutes earlier, when he had entered the old, battered blue Police Telephone Box, at the Doctor’s invitation to have a quick look round, it had been standing in a corner of the Laboratory at UNIT Headquarters, in broad daylight. ‘I think I’ve gone mad,’ he muttered at last.

  Sarah Jane touched his arm sympathetically. ‘I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘That’s exactly how I felt after my first trip. You’ll find it takes quite a bit of getting used to.’

  The door of the TARDIS swung slowly shut behind them. In the pitch darkness they could hear the Doctor moving stealthily about.

  ‘Where are we, Doctor?’ called Sarah casually. A powerful torch beam snapped on and swept round.

  ‘Do you know, Sarah, I have no idea,’ replied the Doctor after a pause. Sarah knew precisely what that little pause meant. She felt her way cautiously over to the Doctor’s side. The roving torchlight revealed a large spherical chamber, its walls entirely covered in instruments, with several flat control consoles, like circular tables, grouped around it.

  ‘Just a little trip to the Caucasus, or perhaps once round the Moon’ – Sarah imitated the Doctor in one of his off-hand moods – ‘just to prove to Harry that the old Police Box really could travel in…’

  ‘I didn’t expect him to start fiddling with the Helmic Orientators, Sarah,’ interrupted the Doctor sharply. He broke off as the chamber was dimly illuminated again. Harry had opened the door of the TARDIS and was staring into it open-mouthed.

  ‘It’s bigger than a Cathedral… on the inside…’ he gasped in amazement. The Doctor strode over and locked the door. Still in a state of shock, Harry mumbled away in the darkness, ‘You know you could make a fortune out of this thing, Doctor…’ But the Doctor was already pacing about the chamber, sweeping the torch beam over the curved reflecting walls and closely examining the dense clusters of instruments.

  Grotesque shadows flapped around them. Sarah shivered. It was bitterly cold, and the air suddenly seemed terribly thin. It was quite an effort to breathe. Something loomed up against her. She jumped. It was Harry.

  ‘Sorry, Miss Smith,’ he mumbled, loosening his cravat, ‘but I’m a bit disorientated…’

  ‘Not much oxygen,’ remarked the Doctor from the shadows. ‘Still,’ he added cheerfully, ‘nothing to worry about.’

  Sarah turned to Harry. ‘So suffocation is nothing to worry about,’ she whispered sarcastically.

  ‘Oh, we can survive for quite a time yet,’ boomed the Doctor, suddenly right beside them. He was concentrating on spinning a yoyo effortlessly up and down its string in the torchlight.

  Harry decided it was time to speak up. ‘Well, I’ve got quite a few patients to see at four o’clock,’ he tried to affect a casual air, ‘so if you don’t mind, Doctor, I’d like to be getting…’

  ‘A simple gravity reading, Harry,’ grinned the Doctor, putting away the yoyo. ‘It would appear that we are inside some kind of artificial satellite. Now isn’t that fascinating.’

  ‘Doctor, it’s dark, it’s cold and it’s getting very airless,’ Sarah protested loudly. But the Doctor had left them again, and was busily examining a section of wall panelling away on the far side of the chamber. He seemed quite oblivious of their discomfort.

  Suddenly they were bathed in a harsh, unwelcoming white light.

  ‘There we are,’ cried the Doctor, turning away from the control panel and surveying the scene with childlike delight, taking in every detail of their surroundings. He seized the ends of his long scarf and spun them like propellers. ‘Fascinating,’ he murmured, ‘fascinating.’ In his resonant voice, excitement, understanding and wonder were mingled as he crept respectfully round the chamber. For a moment, his companions’ discomfort gave way to amazement.

  ‘What’s it all for?’ gasped Harry. He shielded his eyes from the glare and peered a
t the coded switches, dials, lights and buttons covering the circular wall. Despite his anxiety to return to UNIT Headquarters where he was Chief Medical Officer, he yielded to an unfortunate curiosity that had already got him into trouble in the TARDIS. He tinkered with one or two micro-switches on a nearby console.

  At the same moment, an invisible panel in the wall slid open directly in front of Sarah.

  ‘Doctor,’ she cried, ‘look at this.’ But the Doctor was deeply engrossed in examining the bright metallic sphere which was suspended from the centre of the domed ceiling.

  ‘Of terrestrial design certainly,’ he muttered, ‘but I can’t quite place the period.’

  ‘Well, none of it seems to be working now,’ gasped Harry, leaning weakly against the control console in an effort to ease the increasing pain in his chest.

  Sarah looked round at her two heedless companions. She knew that once the Doctor became involved in something, it was quite impossible to distract him. Besides, she had a habit of striking out on her own in search of a good front-page story. She shrugged at their indifference, and suddenly oblivious of how difficult it was becoming to breathe, stepped lightly through the opening in front of her.

  She found herself in a similar, slightly smaller chamber, which was dominated by a low, couch-like construction supported on a single slender pillar in the centre of the floor. She recognised the streamlined cabinets and tape-reels of computer memory banks set into the walls. The upper part of the circular wall was patterned with blank video screens and systems display panels. Sarah leaned against the couch, her head spinning and her heart pounding. Her eyes tried to focus on a section of instrument panelling that had been ripped open, spilling out a cluster of cable ends. She suddenly found herself fighting for breath. The voices of the Doctor and Harry in the other chamber gradually receded into the distance…

  ‘… and judging by that modified version of the Bennet Oscillator,’ the Doctor was saying, ‘I would estimate that all this was put together in the Thirtieth Century.’

  ‘Oh no,’ gasped Harry. ‘The Thirtieth what?’

  ‘You don’t agree?’ Sarah heard the Doctor inquire indignantly. Harry muttered something incoherently. Then the Doctor’s voice boomed confidently, ‘Oh yes, the late Twenty-ninth or early Thirtieth I feel sure. For example, Harry, just look at this…’

  Sarah suddenly heard the panel glide shut behind her. She whirled round. There was no trace of it; she was confronted with a wall of blank instruments. Sarah stumbled over, her heart thumping like a steam engine, and searched for the edges of the panel.

  ‘There must be a manual control,’ she panted. She gulped for air, scarcely able to fill her lungs. In sudden panic, she pounded and kicked the panelling. ‘Doctor… please… I can’t breathe… there’s no air in here.’ She felt herself gripped, as if in a huge vice. Her ears were ringing and her limbs were numbed. Desperately she clawed at the wall. ‘Doctor… Harry… please help me… pl…’ Sarah sank to the cold floor.

  Harry was leaning against a corner of the TARDIS; despite the cold he was beginning to sweat with the effort of breathing. ‘Look, Doctor… I’m a straightforward sort of chap,’ he gasped, ‘are you telling me that we’re now in the middle of the Thirtieth Century?’

  The Doctor seemed totally unaffected by the coldness and the lack of oxygen. ‘Gracious me, no, Harry,’ he replied. ‘Well beyond that.’

  ‘But… where… Where are we?’ pleaded Harry, not sure whether he was dreaming or going insane. The Doctor was kneeling down and listening intently to the floor through an ancient brass ear trumpet.

  ‘Difficult to say,’ he murmured, sitting back on his heels and taking a large bag of jelly-babies from his pocket. ‘All this is obviously quite old,’ the Doctor popped a sweet into his mouth, ‘several thousand years at least.’ He chewed away thoughtfully.

  Suddenly he leaped to his feet. ‘Where’s Sarah?’ he demanded, advancing on Harry who stared back at him, dumbfounded.

  ‘Perhaps she went back into the TARDIS,’ said Harry.

  ‘Impossible,’ snapped the Doctor. ‘I have the key.’ He strode about the chamber, peering closely at the walls through a huge magnifying glass. ‘I have told her time and time again about wandering off by herself,’ he said grimly.

  ‘Well… there… there must be a door… somewhere,’ panted Harry, his head whirling.

  The Doctor stopped in his tracks and fixed him with a piercing stare.

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  Harry glanced longingly at the TARDIS; strange and incomprehensible though it was, it suddenly seemed very familiar and safe.

  ‘You haven’t touched anything again, have you, Harry?’ the Doctor demanded accusingly.

  Harry quailed. He was feeling decidedly unwell in the airless conditions. ‘No I… well, yes I… I think I did just press something…’

  ‘Show me,’ commanded the Doctor.

  ‘… but absolutely nothing happened,’ protested Harry. He could barely stand upright now.

  ‘Show me exactly what you did, Harry,’ coaxed the Doctor gently.

  Harry tottered over to the control console and stared down at the maze of instruments. Switches, dials and buttons danced about before his eyes in the unrelenting white glare. He struggled to remember. The Doctor’s voice seemed to reach him from the other end of a long long corridor full of slamming doors:

  ‘Just try to remember, Harry.’ Harry’s hand wavered uncertainly; in desperation he pressed a switch.

  Immediately, the panel slid open. Sarah lay just inside the smaller chamber in a crumpled heap. At once Harry recognised the bluish pallor around her lips. ‘She’s cyanosed,’ he whispered. ‘There’s even less air in there. We must get her out.’

  As they bent down to lift Sarah, the panel glided shut automatically, trapping them all together. The Doctor searched feverishly for the panel control circuitry. Harry, now almost completely overcome, sank down against the wall and feebly tried to prop Sarah into a sitting position.

  ‘All my… m… my fault… sorry…’ panted Harry.

  The Doctor had discovered the damaged panelling and the cluster of cable ends. He set to work with magnifier and sonic screwdriver. ‘No, no, Harry, I got us into this,’ he muttered, deftly sorting through the broken connections.

  His movements grew rapidly heavier and clumsier as the lack of oxygen finally began to take effect. ‘This… this is quite extraordinary, Harry,’ he panted. ‘Gyroscopic Field Governor Circuit… Temperature Stabiliser… Ah… Oxygen Valves Servo Backup Circuits…’ Several times the Doctor dropped the sonic screwdriver and the magnifying glass. Once or twice he glanced anxiously at Sarah and Harry. They were both unconscious. Sweat ran into his eyes. His two hearts laboured. His hands felt like rubber. He forced his mind to concentrate on the delicate operation of sonic-soldering the tiny, complex connections. He kept thinking of the faithful TARDIS waiting on the other side of the vacuum panel, ready to take them all to safety – or to anywhere…

  At last, after what seemed an eternity, valves opened with a precise clicking. There was a gentle hiss of oxygen all round the chamber. Soon Harry’s eyes opened. He struggled into a sitting position.

  ‘Only just in time, Harry,’ whispered the Doctor hoarsely from across the chamber. ‘Are you feeling better?’

  ‘Convalescent,’ replied Harry, managing a grin. ‘All I need now is a couple of weeks in Blackpool.’

  They laid the unconscious Sarah gently on the couch construction, and Harry tried to revive her while the Doctor set about repairing the remaining circuits.

  ‘There’s a mystery here, Harry,’ he muttered, ‘Something quite extraordinary; these cables have been bitten through.’

  ‘Bitten,’ echoed Harry, all but letting Sarah tumble to the floor.

  ‘Yes,’ the Doctor continued quietly, ‘and whatever was responsible clearly possessed a reasoning intelligence.’

  ‘And very large teeth,’ added Harry wryly. Sarah’s eyelids flickere
d and then opened. ‘Sarah’s coming round,’ he said, smiling with relief.

  At that moment the panel leading to the other chamber slid smoothly aside. The Doctor strode triumphantly through. ‘Splendid,’ he said. ‘All systems go, wouldn’t you say?’

  Harry checked Sarah’s wavering pulse. ‘Now take it easy, old girl,’ he said gently, as she caught at his sleeve in a momentary spasm of fear. ‘You’ll be right as ninepence in a few…’ The words froze on his lips as, from the other chamber, there came a deafening crack. Harry ran across to the panel opening. The Doctor was nowhere to be seen. Something bright caught his eye. Glancing upwards he saw his own distorted reflection in the polished sphere suspended from the ceiling. Before he could step forward he was seized by one ankle and dragged to the floor. As he fell, something struck his other foot with the force of a cannonball, tearing off his shoe. He lay quite still, half under one of the control consoles. The acrid smell of burnt rubber filled the chamber. For a moment he dared not open his eyes; one foot was completely numbed, and the other was still held in an iron grip. He tried to twist himself round and sit upright. His head was at once thrust roughly back to the floor.

  ‘Keep down, Harry,’ hissed the Doctor in his ear.

  Sarah lay limp on the couch. She felt as if she had floated to the surface from the bottom of a deep pool. There, in the fresh air, had been Harry’s welcoming smile, but all at once he had disappeared again and she was alone. She heard the fierce cracking sounds and Harry’s scream of terror. She struggled to get up, but found herself forced down on to the couch by invisible hands. Everything about her began to wobble and tiny electric shocks rippled suddenly through her entire body. She tried to call out, but no sound would come. Very slowly, and very gently, she was being pulled apart…

  Outside, in the Main Control Chamber, Harry and the Doctor crouched silently in the confined space beneath the instrument console.