Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen

by Adams, Douglas

  It was reasonable that the Krikkitmen would attack the planets that had contained the parts of the Wicket Gate. She’d been hoping to dispatch the War TARDISes to protect the next targets. But instead she was doing it single-handed.

  Romana looked around the cricket ground for someone in authority.

  The air was still full of smoke, and there was screaming and yelling. Well, either this sort of thing was always happening, or she’d arrived in the immediate aftermath of her previous visit, a surprisingly compressed timescale which meant that the Earth was about to be invaded twice in the same day.fn1

  A self-important man came running up to her and started yelling at her to get off the grass.

  Romana looked down at her feet and then across at the ground, where people lay around injured, dying, or distressed. And then she looked at the burning grass. Finally, she looked back at the man who was so angry even his blazer seemed furious.

  ‘You would like me to get off the grass?’ she asked slowly.

  ‘Absolutely, madam.’ The man’s whole face twisted into a scowl. ‘That is not any grass, that is the grass.’

  ‘Is it the pitch?’ Romana reached for the right term.

  ‘The pitch!’ the man roared in fury. ‘This is sacred turf and no matter what happens here, every blade of it must be preserved.’

  An ambulance roared over it, swerved, and some people jumped out with stretchers.

  The angry man was staring at the long, dirty black mark left in the turf. His lip was quivering, slightly out of time with the rest of his face.

  Romana looked him seriously in the eye. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘You’ve had a difficult day and should have a rest over there.’

  The man lay down and slept.

  Romana regarded the chaos and the screaming surrounding her. This was why the Time Lords had rules about not interfering. It was easy to get distracted saving ordinary people rather than concentrating on the bigger picture. Vowing to offer emergency medical aid to no more than five people, Romana set off to find someone in charge of the planet.

  Looking back on the next hour, Romana reflected that sometimes she was still the naïve centenarian she’d been when she’d first met the Doctor. This time it wasn’t her fault. The Universe arranged itself in such a way that the Doctor managed to meet whoever was running a planet almost as soon as he left the TARDIS. Admittedly, quite often he’d be found standing over the ruler’s smoking body just as a lot of guards ran in, and it would get a little distracting, but the point was that the Doctor had a knack of finding who was in charge.

  It turned out that wandering around a cricket ground asking people, ‘Are you in charge of this planet as it’s about to be wiped out by killer robots?’ was not a good way to get a sympathetic audience. It was, in fact, the best way to get yourself strapped to a gurney by a medic who told you to shut up while she got on with saving lives.

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to do,’ protested Romana. Eventually the paramedic ran off, so Romana released the straps and looked around the ambulance. She assumed it was somehow connected to a positronic infoframe – after all, this was the twentieth century, not the dark ages.

  She sat herself in the front seat behind the ‘steering wheel’ (the Doctor had taught her a few technical terms, and also that, no matter how tempting, you should never engage the handbrake when pursuing the Master down a bypass) and tried to familiarise herself with the operating system. There was a sort of dangling microphone thing that crackled. She pulled it towards her and spoke carefully into it.

  ‘Computer, take me to the ruler of the planet Earth.’

  The microphone crackled. And then said uncertainly, ‘Pat, is that you?’

  Having worked out the complicated business with some buttons, Romana repeated her request. The voice at the other end became quite firm in its hope that Romana would stop playing around on an emergency channel. Romana told the voice that it was an emergency and she had come to save the planet from aliens. The voice stopped answering her after that.

  Romana slumped back in the chair and looked around the ambulance, drumming her fingers on the leatherette seating. She could command the on-board operating system to drive her to the Palace of the Ruler of the Earth, but that might take time, and others might need the ambulance for tending to the sick. That said, it did have a nice-looking siren on top. During her travels with the Doctor, Romana had become partial to a siren.

  ‘What I really need,’ she announced, ‘is a name and an address. That’s all.’

  This was when she noticed the computer. It was to the left of the steering wheel and had a few helpful buttons and a dial. She pressed it and waited for it to load up and ask her what she wanted.

  Instead the device told her that its name was Wogan and that it would be back with her in a minute after the news and weather. It then promised a long-delayed punchline to a lovely joke about marmalade.

  Romana frowned at the device. Clearly, not a computer. She was about to turn it off, when a slightly different voice came out of it, one which said, ‘The Prime Minister, speaking from 10 Downing Street …’

  Romana leaned back in her chair and smiled. A name and an address. That was all.

  ‘Good afternoon, I was wondering if I could borrow your weapons.’

  The Prime Minister stared at the woman sat in her chair. Then, for reasons which made no sense to her, she found herself saying, ‘Could you tell me why there’s a cricket pavilion in my office?’

  The glamorous young woman shrugged. ‘It’s how I travel,’ she said. There was a flicker in her eye, as though she was aware how ridiculous that seemed, whilst adamantly refusing to apologise. The Prime Minister sized her up.

  ‘You are, I take it, an alien?’

  ‘Yes. My name is Romana and you’re marvellously direct,’ the young woman beamed at her.

  The Prime Minister was working things out. This young woman was clearly formidably strange. She noticed that the door had closed and her security detail was elsewhere. No matter. She could sort that out. What she really wanted to know was – was –

  ‘The reason I’m here is that this planet is about to be wiped out by a space fleet. There’s a slim chance I can help you if you let me borrow your defences for a bit.’ The young woman held up a hand. ‘No, don’t lock me up. It’s been a long day and I really don’t want to spend my last moments saying, “I told you so” as my prison cell is obliterated. Tiresome. Now –’ she smiled sweetly – ‘just checking, but you are in charge of this world, are you not?’

  Whatever her private opinions on the matter, the Prime Minister favoured Romana with the following. ‘I simply control these British islands.’

  ‘You only control Britain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But that’s a tiny land mass.’

  The Prime Minister frowned.

  Romana shared the frown. ‘This is more complicated than I was expecting. Honestly, we spend so much time here I had assumed England was important. Clearly not.’ Romana seemed to make a mental note to have a word with someone. ‘Are you by any chance on friendly terms with someone who matters?’

  The Prime Minister, who had just got back from a trying conference in Belgium, really didn’t have an answer for that.

  Romana adopted another tack. ‘Does anyone actually rule the planet Earth?’

  The Prime Minister’s eyes wandered longingly to a decanter. ‘My dear Romana,’ she said, leaning back against the desk and easing her shoes off (they had begun to pinch nastily in Bruges), ‘Earth does not have a single ruler, per se—’

  ‘No one in a cloak?’ Romana put in hopefully.

  The Prime Minister had a brief, pleasant image of Bela Lugosi and smiled slightly. ‘No, my dear. You really need to speak to the United Nations.’

  Romana brightened. ‘They sound smashing.’ She put a hat on her head. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Well,’ the Prime Minister mused, ‘I’m fairly certain that a special session can be tabl
ed within 72 hours. There might not be China—’

  ‘I don’t care about crockery!’ thundered Romana. ‘This planet doesn’t have 72 minutes, let alone 72 hours. The battle fleet’s screaming through Mutter’s Spiral right now.’

  ‘The battle fleet?’ the Prime Minister said carefully. ‘You’ve not mentioned their name.’

  ‘No,’ Romana said firmly. ‘Their name’s silly, and we’d spend the next few minutes arguing about that and meanwhile they’d just be getting closer and closer to you and right now I just need to reach these United Nations and get them to activate your planetary-wide defence array.’

  The Prime Minister surprised her by bursting out laughing and then laying a sympathetic arm on her sleeve. ‘Romana,’ she said, trotting over to the decanter and handing Romana a crystal goblet full of something that tasted like tar. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have a defence array. We’ve never really needed one.’

  ‘Pshaw!’ scoffed Romana magnificently. ‘You can’t just rely on the Doctor popping up whenever you need him …’ She faltered, and gaped. ‘That’s exactly what you do do. Good heavens.’

  Ah, the Prime Minster thought to herself. This was making more sense. She’d once been sat opposite the Doctor at a cheese and wine evening at Auderly House. The Doctor had been an outlandish white-haired figure who’d spent the entire evening insulting civil servants (which she’d found fun). A curious man – was this really the mysterious alien who saved the Earth? – she’d found that even harder to believe when he’d driven off in a yellow car quite clearly stolen from a clown.

  Romana had also been thinking jolly hard. ‘Have you any … nuclear weapons?’ She pronounced the last phrase with the heavy quaintness you’d use when asking an antiques dealer for a butter churn.

  ‘Of course, Great Britain has nuclear weapons,’ the Prime Minister announced proudly.

  ‘Well done you,’ said Romana, with what the Prime Minister completely missed was heavy irony. ‘I’ll need to get my hands on at least a dozen.’

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘They’re all deployed in submarines. In the deep sea.’

  Romana blinked. ‘Are you planning on declaring a war on cod?’

  ‘There’s always America,’ announced the Prime Minister. ‘They have the Star Wars defence programme.’

  Romana perked up.

  ‘It’s a range of armed nuclear satellites in orbit around the Earth,’ said the Prime Minister.

  Romana did a nimble little jig. ‘That’s just what I meant by a defence array. Can you put me in touch with whoever’s in charge – if I give them the coordinates of the approaching fleet they can shoot them down in a trifle.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘Those weapons are not aimed at the skies. They are aimed at the planet.’

  Romana gave the Prime Minister what her mother would have termed an ‘old-fashioned look’. And then she delivered a talking-to that single-handedly caused a cabinet reshuffle.

  ‘Do you have any idea, Prime Minister, how many inhabited worlds there are out there? Many have given birth to wonderful, friendly civilisations that shine like spun sugar. But many others harbour creatures so deadly, merciless, and hungry, and they’re all coming your way. That’s not a matter of conjecture. You humans, you have the audacity to ignore it. You point your most advanced weapons at yourself? That’s taking narcissism to extremes.’

  The Prime Minister was about to counter with a bromide of her own, but she got as far as ‘Look here—’ before Romana held up her hand.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said brightly. She tapped the wall of the cricket pavilion.

  ‘I’d better get on with saving the planet. Coming?’

  The Prime Minister shook her head regretfully. ‘Much as I’d love to, my dear, I’ve got a press conference about income tax in a couple of hours.’

  ‘Very soon tax may cease to exist,’ said Romana, opening the door invitingly.

  The Prime Minister picked up her glass and followed. She paused, turned back and fetched the decanter. ‘I think,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘that I shall be needing this.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  DANGER INTO ESCAPE

  ‘Why would anyone want to make a cricket pavilion that was bigger on the inside than the outside?’ asked the Prime Minister.

  ‘Style,’ answered Romana. She did not care to explain how Earth’s hideous act of cultural misappropriation had translated the warfaring design ethic of the planet Krikkit into hopeless whimsy.

  The Prime Minister sat down on a bench. She looked around herself and her eyes were shrewd. ‘This vessel contains a lot of benches. Each bench could hold between ten and a dozen—’

  ‘Eleven, yes.’ Romana was busying herself with the control panel and hoping that the various controls didn’t look too much like clothes hooks and drawing pins on a corkboard.

  ‘This is a way of transporting troops,’ the Prime Minister announced, folding her hands. ‘Admirable.’ She considered. ‘What are we doing?’

  The pavilion was shaking slightly.

  ‘I’m trying to work that out,’ said Romana.

  Somewhere in the deepest, darkest, coldest and definitely wettest part of the Atlantic Ocean was a submarine. The submarine excelled at not being found.

  The submarine was waiting for the phone to ring. But it never did. Because if it rang, it would mean the end of the world.

  The phone rang.

  The captain’s face was impassive as he took the call. It could only mean that Britain had fallen and it was the submarine’s job to retaliate.

  The voice at the other end was the Prime Minister. She sounded curiously upbeat. ‘Captain, we were wondering if we could ask you a small favour?’

  The Krikkit fleet had made rapid headway through Mutter’s Spiral and was now streaking through the solar system. In its wake flitted eleven shadows, all of them interested to see what happened next.

  On their whistle-stop vengeance tour, the Krikkitmen now had the planet Earth in their sights. First would come the death rays. Then the troops would scour the planet for survivors. So would perish everywhere that had held one of the sacred objects. Once these planets were out of the way, then everything else could be destroyed.

  The Krikkit fleet focused itself on the Earth and prepared for the bombardment. Which is when the planet did something unexpected.

  It exploded.

  ‘Now, it looks worse than it is,’ said Romana.

  The Prime Minister was staring out of a window at the vast fireball that had, seconds ago, been her home planet.

  She was also holding on to a bench for dear life as the pavilion shook itself apart. She was trying to work out what to say, but, for once in her life, her mouth just kept opening and closing.

  Eventually she managed, ‘The Earth – what’s happened to the Earth?’

  ‘Oh, it’s fine,’ said Romana, glancing at the fireball. Her fingers were working the various control nodules in a blur of pins. ‘Well, mostly fine. I’ve detonated the entire nuclear arsenal.’

  The Prime Minister stood up, made a furious grab for her and then sat down again. ‘What have you done—’

  ‘Firstly,’ Romana adopted her stern tone, ‘the weapons are simply doing exactly what they’re supposed to. Why else did you build them? Secondly, I’m containing the blast and using it for something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You really wouldn’t understand.’ Romana was wondering how the Doctor put up with every decision being constantly questioned. It was a little trying. ‘You’re not a quantum physicist.’

  ‘No, but I am a chemist.’ The Prime Minister’s tone was so steely that Romana flinched. ‘You may patronise everyone else you come across but—’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Romana shot her an apology. The pavilion’s flight evened out. ‘Then you’ll be aware that most chemical reactions occur when the bonds between molecules break down—’

  The Prime Minister lo
oked again at the fireball. ‘And a nuclear reaction is the uncontrollable sundering of substances at an atomic level.’

  ‘Normally you have three states of matter – solid, liquid and gas. But during a nuclear explosion there’s a fourth – Don’t Know. Quantum physics gets interested at this point – there’s a vast amount of uncertainty released. Believe it or not, this craft works along similar lines, so I’m currently harvesting that vast amount of quantum hesitation and putting it to good use.’

  The Prime Minister strode towards the control panel. She gestured to the fireball. ‘You’ve not destroyed my planet?’

  ‘Certainly not. It’s an impressive smokescreen while I harness the explosive force. Of course, if I fail to control it, then, yes, the planet Earth will go up like a nylon nightie.’

  ‘What are you planning to do with it?’

  Romana pulled a cable out of the control panel. It looked, for all the world, like a handy piece of string. She coupled it to something else and then stepped back, dubiously. ‘I’m wrapping the Earth in a … let’s call it a force field. The tricky thing is that it won’t last long.’

  The Prime Minister leant forward, her sharp eyes sparkling. ‘My dear, may I make a suggestion?’

  The Krikkit Fleet barely let the explosion slow them down. It would not be the first planet which had destroyed itself rather than face their onslaught. That said, there would always be survivors to be picked off. The fleet accelerated preparing to sail through the curtain of flame.

  The fleet carried on accelerating.

  Only.

  An odd thing.

  Was happening.

  The fleet was definitely.

  Accelerating.

  Only.

  It was.

  Also.

  Not going anywhere.

  The fleet accelerated.

  The fleet didn’t go anywhere.

  The fleet accelerated.

  The fleet didn’t go anywhere.

  The fleet …

  Look, you get the picture, don’t you?

  ‘It worked!’ Romana clapped giddily, grabbed the Prime Minister’s glass and emptied it with a laugh and a cough. ‘Always moving, never arriving! That was a brilliant idea.’