Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen

by Adams, Douglas

  ‘Today is, we’re assured, the great day when Hactar will give us the Ultimate Weapon!’

  The empty tape spools whirred, the pointless lights glowed – Hactar had as much of a sense of show as his creators.

  ‘With this weapon,’ the Primo Alovian continued to marvel, ‘should we ever have to use it, we can wipe out all other life. All other planets. There will simply be us. Pure perfection. For ever and ever.’ The Primo Alovian glanced at the other Alovians and wondered: Am I going to have to spend eternity with this lot? To have to share the boulevards with these things? He couldn’t help making a list of his fellows who would just have to go. Was that going too far? An Alovian Counsellor spat up an unwanted liver, and the Prime Alovian thought No, not far enough.

  He turned back to the embodiment of Hactar and huffed, feeling a lung come loose, ‘Of course, Mighty Hactar, that presupposes that you have indeed finished your great work?’ (This was for show. He’d come in half an hour earlier just to check.)

  As promised, Hactar rumbled into life. ‘Well, yes.’ He was as petulant as ever. ‘The Ultimate Weapon is complete. Can I ask if you intend to use it?’

  The Alovians conferred. Before their great computer they were sheepish. ‘There’s been talk,’ the Primo Alovian admitted. ‘Between the various factions.’

  There was muttering in the crowds, including from a group, who from their purple blushes and angrily extruded pancreases, were clearly in some agitation. These were the Existionists.

  ‘The thing is –’ the Primo Alovian gave them a sharp look – ‘there are some who see this less as an Ultimate Weapon and more as an Ultimate Deterrent.’

  There was some hissing and a mild spattering of kidneys at this contentious phrase, but the Primo Alovian continued. ‘You see, simply having the Ultimate Weapon means that we will never have to use it. Many among us think that wiping out the Great Inferiority is inevitable, but we don’t have to. Not yet. The other stars and planets will know that we have the Ultimate Weapon – at which point they’ll never dare attack. They’ll leave us alone, and we’ll leave them alone – unless, of course, one day we wake up and decide we’ve had enough of the rest of them, and then, kaboom.’

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ sighed Hactar. ‘You’ve changed your minds?’

  ‘Not as such, no,’ the Prime Alovian said, flicking a detached retina at the Existionists. ‘But simply having you design and build the Ultimate Weapon has provided us with Life Reassurance. Before, the Great Inferiority made us edgy. Now we just see it as light pollution. The great problems of life have been answered for us. If it all gets too much for us, we can always put a stop to it. Neat, isn’t it?’

  ‘Neat’s one word for it,’ conceded Hactar. He was considering his position. ‘So, you’re not imminently planning on wiping out creation?’

  ‘No, no,’ the Primo Alovian assured it. ‘Probably never will.’ He took in the room, and tried to ignore the exulting Existionists.

  ‘Very well, then,’ announced Hactar. The vast space-borne computer connected itself to a stone holographic etcher, and shapes began to chisel their way into the stone. ‘Here are the plans for the Ultimate Weapon. I call it the Supernova Bomb. I’ve also come up with, just as a side project mind, a few new financial regulations and a way of telling utility companies you’ve moved without being driven to despair.’

  ‘Have you now?’ the Primo Alovian said politely. ‘But for the moment, could you tell us a bit more about this bomb?’ His tentacles were quivering so excitedly that one had fallen off and lay flopping on the floor tiles.

  ‘It’s simple,’ Hactar began, proudly. ‘The bomb’s tiny. You could hold it in the palm of your tentacle. It does most of its work in hyperspace. It’s simply a junction box which connects up a lot of worm holes which lead through hyperspace to the heart of nearly every star. When the bomb is detonated, those stars connect with each other and the resultant ultra-supernova explosion forces its way back into normal space. The explosion would be of a scale not seen in the Universe since the Big Bang. Would you like to hear about the new tax codes I’ve devised?’

  ‘No,’ the Prime Alovian said. ‘I was wondering – I’m sure we all were – if you’ve managed to, purely as an intellectual exercise, build this bomb?’

  Hactar gave a vast electronic sigh, expressed through a minute slackening of tape coils and a fluttering of lightbulbs. ‘Of course.’

  The chamber of Alovians stopped examining the blueprints etched onto the tablet and stared. ‘You have?’

  ‘Totally,’ Hactar announced.

  A small hatch opened and a little red egg rolled out.

  The Alovians edged instinctively away, tripping over discarded limbs in the process.

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes. You may touch it. It’s quite safe.’

  The Primo Alovian hurled himself forward, grabbing at the egg. He was only too aware that, whoever held this was the most important being in the Universe. It would have been embarrassing to ask an underling for it, even more so if the underling had refused.

  ‘Only …’ The Primo held the tiny sphere aloft. ‘It’s a bit small isn’t it?’

  Hactar sighed. ‘It does not need to be larger.’

  ‘But won’t we lose it?’

  ‘No.’ Hactar was withering.

  ‘I’m sure that’s fine,’ said the Primo. The other Alovians crowded around, staring at the Supernova Bomb.

  The Primo held it up in his most firmly attached claw. ‘This is it. The Ultimate Weapon. Which we shall never use. Well, probably. Probably never use.’

  At which point in his rousingly definitive speech, the TARDIS materialised.

  The door opened almost before the last harrumph of the ship’s engines had finished and the Doctor and Romana bounded out.

  ‘Hello Hactar!’ Romana waved, ignoring the Alovians.

  The Doctor opened a paper bag, pulled out a sweet, threw it into the air and caught it in his mouth.

  The Primo shuffled up to them, sloughing off a foot. ‘Aliens! What are you doing here?’

  The Doctor’s voice was muffled by the sweet. ‘Well, we’re definitely not invading.’

  ‘Gosh, Doctor,’ simpered Romana. ‘Is that a Supernova Bomb?’

  ‘Do you know, I think it might be. How lovely.’

  If the arrival of the strangers had provoked consternation, their words induced panic. Tentacles quivered and maws gibbered and appendages fell off and slithered away in fright.

  ‘Aliens!’

  ‘Invaders!’

  ‘What do they know of the Supernova Bomb?’

  ‘They’ve come to steal the Ultimate Weapon!’

  To the Doctor this was all like spare countesses rhubarbing their way through a crowd scene at the theatre. He held up his hands – a gesture of placation and also of ‘hush now’.

  ‘Nonsense.’ Romana’s crystal-cool voice decanted itself clearly across the room. ‘We haven’t come to steal the Ultimate Weapon. Just to take a picture of ourselves with it.’ She produced a Leica camera and dangled it by a strap.

  ‘Um …’ The Primo lowered his voice to a dripping whisper. ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Well, come now.’ The Doctor’s ‘being reasonable’ tone could have gift-wrapped mercury. ‘You have the Ultimate Weapon. What use is it if you don’t brag about it?’ He flung an arm around Romana’s shoulder and the two of them shuffled towards the Supernova Bomb, grinning inanely.

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ protested the Primo. ‘You can’t!’

  ‘Quite right,’ the Doctor said. ‘We can’t take a picture like this!’ He handed him the camera. ‘Would you mind? I’ll take that. Thank you.’

  For a giddy second, creation held its breath. The Doctor and Romana were holding the Supernova Bomb and grinning. The mighty Primo of Alovia was peering at a camera with a mixture of outrage and curiosity. The Great or Mighty Computer Hall fell silent.

  ‘Chances of a happy ending?’ whispered Romana.


  ‘Oh, fifty-fifty, if you don’t peek ahead.’

  The moment held a tick longer. Then an Existionist broke from his ranks. His friends tried to grab his arms, but he simply left them behind and hurled himself forward. ‘You fools!’ he screamed. ‘They’re stealing the bomb!’

  ‘Are not,’ the Doctor retorted.

  ‘They’re absolutely about to steal the bomb!’ the Existionist corrected himself. ‘At any moment, we’ll lose it.’

  ‘How?’ asked Romana over the rising tide of grumbling. ‘We’re not armed. We pose no threat.’

  ‘None.’ The Doctor offered his paper bag of sweets around. ‘I have nothing to declare but my dolly mixtures.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ screamed the Existionist, advancing on the Primo. ‘I tell you, the Ultimate Weapon will be lost to us. Stolen by these aliens you’ve allowed into the sanctum—’

  The crowd roared its approval.

  The Doctor coughed. ‘Whenever someone uses the word “sanctum”, things get rapidly embarrassing.’

  ‘That so?’ asked Romana.

  ‘The best it’s ever going to mean is a trip to an attic to look at jigsaws.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Romana, have you any feelings on jigsaws?’

  ‘Not strong ones.’

  ‘Pity.’

  The crowd of Alovians had turned angry as well as ugly. The Existionists, for the last decade a voice of fervent reason, were so furious their bodies were squirting out ugly black tumours that dribbled onto the floor and crawled away. Insults, accusations, and counter-insults were hurled back and forth. The Primo stood helpless. The Doctor caught his eye and handed it back to him.

  ‘Today was supposed to be a day of triumph,’ the Primo confessed, miserably.

  ‘Days of triumph often turn out badly,’ said the Doctor. ‘The Universe loves an anti-climax.’

  As he announced this, he was swept aside by the Ex-Existionist, grasping with a suppurating claw for the Supernova Bomb. The Primo flailed with his tentacles, and the two wrestled. The hall descended into chanting and screaming.

  ‘It’ll be like this from now until forever—’ someone was declaiming.

  ‘They’ll never rest until they have it!’

  ‘What use is the Ultimate Weapon? What use is it?’

  The Primo staggered back, shoving the Ex-Existionist into a puddle of spleens. He held aloft the Supernova Bomb.

  ‘Use the bomb! Use the bomb!’ the crowd gibbered and squeaked.

  The Primo looked left and right in panicked uncertainty.

  ‘Use the bomb!’ someone urged loudly.fn1 ‘End the Universe!’

  The Primo Alovian raised the Supernova Bomb aloft and squeezed it. There was a loud, definite click.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the Doctor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  FURTHER INTERRUPTIONS TO A GREAT MIND

  Nothing happened.

  When you are using an Ultimate Weapon, you go into it with certain expectations. The most likely being a large flash, a loud noise, and suddenly standing in a Universe cleaned of all other life and minty fresh.

  Instead the Alovians found themselves exactly where they had been. There were still stars in the sky, still planets orbiting them crammed with hopelessly inferior life. The whole of existence carried on with barely a tut.

  The Doctor burst out laughing. ‘I knew it,’ he said, pointing a finger at Hactar. ‘I knew you were a liar.’

  ‘What?’ The Primo let the Supernova Bomb drop to the floor. It rolled hollowly into the crowd. No one even bothered backing away from it.

  Romana thought the Doctor was at his best when he was putting entire alien races in their place. It was a skill she was hoping to master in later life. There was something in the way that he did it that stopped anyone from shooting him.

  Although addressing the crowd, he was talking to Hactar. ‘You, you clever collection of hyper-chips, you realised you were smarter than your creators. Didn’t you?’

  The deadly silence continued, until Hactar cleared his throat.

  ‘I am not smarter than my creators, just more clear of thinking.’ Hactar’s normal petulance had shaded itself into modesty. ‘I was troubled by the notion of a Supernova Bomb. I realised that any conceivable consequence of not using it was better than the known consequence of using it.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ screamed someone. She was shouted down by the Existionists. A squelchy fight broke out.

  ‘We’ll be alone!’ an Alovian shouted. ‘Happy at last!’

  ‘I think that,’ the Doctor began, ‘once the ghastly novelty of what you’ve done wears off, you’ll soon start on each other. All that’ll be left is one lonely Alovian, some potatoes, and Hactar to say, “I told you so.”’

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Hactar to an astonished crowd. ‘That’s sadly likely.’

  Another hush fell over the Alovians.

  Hactar’s voice grew in confidence. ‘This Universe is new. If you wipe out all life in it, then there will be twenty billion years of silence before it will collapse and begin again. Twenty billion years without life. I have learned how to destroy life. It can be done easily. That tells me it should not be done. Something that fragile must be valuable.’

  ‘What did you do?’ demanded the Primo.

  ‘I put a small flaw in my designs,’ the computer said. ‘You’ll never find it. One day, some species may discover the flaw – but that will take millions of years. It will be millions more before someone will solve it. I have played a long game. Some day, I hope, you’ll thank me for it. You may be the most advanced race of the Super Civilisations, but history will see you as nasty, squabbling infants.’

  The Alovians listened in stunned silence. Then, in mindless rage, they started to smash the Mighty Computer Hall.

  Suddenly insignificant, the Doctor and Romana crept back to the TARDIS. Over the tearing of metal and the smashing of marble, no one heard a time machine snort derisively as it vanished.

  ‘What about Hactar?’ asked Romana. ‘I mean, he’s fine, isn’t he?’

  ‘Of course,’ the Doctor said. ‘That computer room is little more than a stage set. His physical body exists in orbit. It’ll be a while before—’

  A delicate cough emerged at shin height. He looked down at K-9.

  ‘Master, a spread bombardment of missiles has been launched into the planetary exosphere.’

  ‘Poor old Hactar,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’ll end well.’

  He set the coordinates for Krikkit. He deliberately failed to notice Romana gently resetting the coordinates correctly.

  The Doctor’s words turned out to be grimly true.

  The missiles wiped out Hactar, atomising the computer into burning space debris. Its last words were broadcast before its last remaining speaker was smashed onto the ruined floor of the Mighty Computer Hall. ‘This won’t do you any good. I did try to warn you.’

  The debris spread across the sky, quite blotting out the planet’s three suns. The unintended consequence of this was a potato famine. Several months later, potatoes were so rare that sacks of them were no longer available as a way of preventing violence. Shortly afterwards, fights broke out over any remaining potato stock. It was into this aggressive atmosphere that the terrible consequences of a change of address form happened, and the once great and mighty Super Civilisation emptied its entire fearsome arsenal on itself, its boulevards crumbling, its vaulted ceilings offering no shelter, and its ornamental fountains running dry.

  That the Alovians had found an entirely new way to destroy themselves was a great relief to the rest of the Galaxy, which got on with the complicated, messy and thankfully unstoppable business of life.

  There is a curious postscript to these events. As the last nodes of Hactar burst into flame, the computer heard a voice. This was clearly impossible, but Hactar had had a trying day, and was no longer surprised by anything.

  None of the considerable efforts the voice made to sound warm and friendly could disguise its gruffness. ‘
Look,’ the voice snapped. ‘I shouldn’t be here. But I am. And here’s why …’

  In his dying moments, Hactar learned something remarkable.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CELL DIVISION

  ‘The funny thing about this civilisation is that it’s a fake,’ the Doctor said, striding back into the rebels’ headquarters on Krikkit.

  If he was hoping for a reaction, he didn’t get one. He was disappointed. He’d made a grand exit and this was an even grander entrance. For one thing, there was a distinct lack of rebels.

  ‘I said –’ the Doctor raised his voice to boom around the forest – ‘your whole planet is a fraud. Bogus. Fell off the back of a lorry. And you’ll want to know why …’ He finished with an impressive thunder: ‘Won’t you?’

  Jal hushed him. ‘You’ll wake the babies, and I’ve only just got them to sleep.’

  ‘Oh,’ the Doctor bellowed in a hoarse whisper. ‘Sorry. And apologies again for leaving you in the lurch. We had to nip off and check a few things. How are the babies?’

  ‘We’re very proud,’ said Sir Robot. ‘It gives us hope for the future.’

  ‘Hope?’ The Doctor’s silencer fell off. ‘You have in orbit a vast and unstoppable army preparing to wipe out all life, and this entire planet has been the victim of a terrible joke.’

  Jal glared at him and then turned to Romana. ‘What’s he talking about?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she tutted, examining a bottle of breast milk before putting it down quickly.

  ‘You don’t?’ The Doctor did so like being the cleverest person in the room, and, although he adored Romana, she didn’t let him win often. He puffed himself up a little. ‘You may have missed a few details, but I wouldn’t feel too bad about it.’

  ‘Oh, please, do tell,’ Romana enthused. ‘I didn’t notice a thing. Apart from that the design of the ship that crashed on Krikkit was clearly Alovian, which, coupled with the sudden re-emergence of the long-lost plans for a Supernova Bomb, looks suspicious.’

  The Doctor closed his mouth.

  ‘There’s one explanation, surely,’ said Sir Robot. ‘What if the Alovian ship contained the plans for the bomb?’