I nodded in agreement. I just had to accept the situation he’d contrived. For all I knew he had pounds of mercury all over the Tardis but there were too many places he could hide it and far too many other things he could interfere with and use as excuses to make a journey down to the city.
I fancy the Doctor could read the way my mind was working, searching for a way out and not finding one, because he came up to me and tapped my chest with his fore finger.
‘Only one Captain of the ship, eh?’ Then he turned away briskly and added, ‘At first light then.’
I decided to profit from this early evidence of the Doctor’s ability to get his own way and mark it down for future reference. Barbara and I followed Susan on a tour of the Ship. There were two lavish bedrooms and four smaller ones and two beautiful bathrooms. I spent half an hour in one of the bathrooms playing with a machine that shaved you and trimmed your hair. It was a bit weird at first, feeling a small machine the size of a half-crown and about as thick as a marshmallow buzzing away independently all over my chin. Later the Doctor showed me how to attach the shaver to another piece of equipment, a metal skull-cap with two metal supports on either side of it which clamped themselves on the shoulders. The skull-cap then fitted entirely over the head but was raised about four inches above the hair. The Doctor then ‘took a reading’ as he called it of my hair style and length and made some adjustments to the programme of the little round shaver and attached it to the inside of the skull-cap. It was distinctly uncomfortable to have that little machine gliding gently over my hair but I got used to it and five minutes later when I took the contraption off my shoulders I had as good a barbering as I would have received at Simpson’s in Piccadilly.
The Doctor then showed me how to operate the oil and water shower, a machine that was an eight-sided pillar which enclosed me and directed a thousand jets of water and what the Doctor called muscle oil at me. I felt as if I were being pummelled furiously by tiny fists. The Doctor’s explanation of this invention was that the sharp jets of hot water opened up the pores of the skin and allowed the oil to penetrate the surface; then they were washed out by a second jet of water and the process continued. Eventually, nerves and muscles begin to respond to the ‘pummelling’ treatment and flex and relax as each jet hits the skin, getting more concentrated exercise than in one full day’s movement and being toned up and massaged at the same time.
I slept exceedingly well that first night in the Tardis and when I woke up in the small bedroom that had been assigned to me, I found that my clothes were neatly spread out on a low table. My suit had been cleaned and pressed and the other clothes newly laundered. I found my companions up and dressed and drinking glasses of what looked like tomato juice and tasted of melon. Susan told me it was a concentrate of what she called the winter berries of Mars. The Doctor was very business-like, packing up a few items for our journey, mostly little boxes of food and two cartons of what he described as concentrated water.
I’d done some pretty serious thinking before I dropped off to sleep after the oil and water shower the night before. Secretly, I knew that I was beginning to enjoy what was happening to me. It was a fantastic wrench, to be literally heaved out of one’s normal way of life and have nothing much in the way of compensation but doubt and uncertainty, yet already a part of me welcomed it. I’d enjoyed teaching but I knew it wasn’t right. The job I’d failed to get at Donneby’s was only one instance of a line of similar tries and failures to find the answer, not just to my future but to my own personality. That was all over and now I could work out the restless itch that had made me scratch my way through a dozen jobs. I could fill myself with excitement and adventure with the Doctor and then, when the day came for it to end and he returned me back again to Earth (and I was quite sure that he would, one day!), I’d be happy to settle down to some ordinary work with no regrets.
But Barbara? I had no way of knowing if she felt the same way and no reason to suppose that she did either. Suppose the wrench was too great for her to accept? She had a strong personality, I didn’t doubt that for a minute, and had certainly shown she wasn’t lacking in courage. I looked at her as she finished off her breakfast drink, composed but pale, very silent and withdrawn, and wondered exactly what effect the happenings were having on her. I crossed over to her.
‘All right?’
‘Yes, but I didn’t sleep too well I’m afraid.’
‘Not quite the bed you’re used to?’
She smiled briefly.
‘I’m not heading for a fit of hysterics or a nervous breakdown.’ She knew what was in my mind, all right.
‘A sort of headache,’ she went on. She finished off the drink. ‘Susan had a touch of it too, so it couldn’t have been the unexpected food. Or the change of scene,’ she ended dryly.
I saw Susan turn the door switch and the now familiar lights blazed out strongly and died down again as the great doors began to swing open. The Doctor beckoned us to follow him and I took Barbara’s arm.
‘If you don’t feel up to it, say so. I’ll bring you back.’
‘Oh, I’ll be all right. Besides, Susan and I have had some medicine the Doctor gave us. I really feel better now.’
I saw Susan and the Doctor step out of the Ship and Barbara and I followed slowly.
‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘that we don’t even know what the Doctor’s name is?’
‘He doesn’t respond to personal questions very well.’
‘Maybe not, but I have two I’m determined to ask him when I get him in the right mood – What does he do and who is he?’
There was a short silence. I said, ‘Perhaps that’s what we ought to call him – “Doctor Who?”.’
‘All I want to know is where he and Susan come from,’ said Barbara.
Susan suddenly appeared at the doors.
‘There’s something out here!’
CHAPTER FOUR
The Power of the Daleks
We went out after her quickly and found the Doctor staring down at a bright metal object that glittered in the morning sunlight. It certainly hadn’t been there the night before.
‘What do you make of this, Chesterton?’
It was a small metal box affair about the size and shape of a library book. I picked up the firmest looking stick I could find and although I could feel it crumbling in my hand it lasted long enough for me to tap and poke at the box.
‘You’re wise to take precautions,’ said the Doctor. ‘It does look rather like a booby trap, doesn’t it?’
I decided to risk it and picked up the box. The lid came off easily enough, although I was still very apprehensive and slid it off as slowly as I could. The Doctor took the box from me and we all stared at the contents. It was full of little glass phials.
‘They look like capsules of medicine,’ said Barbara. The Doctor nodded his head, replaced the lid and handed the box to Susan.
‘I agree. Put them in the Ship, Susan, and I’ll examine them after we get back from the city.’
Susan ran into the Ship and the Doctor heaved his little haversack containing the food rations around his shoulders a little more firmly.
‘Whoever did that tapping we heard last night dropped that box,’ he murmured. ‘It suggests some sort of civilization. An advanced society, able to work metal, make glass and construct things out of those materials. The evidence doesn’t suggest hostility,’ and he noted my nod of agreement with his theorizing. ‘But, nevertheless, we’ll keep a sharp eye open.’
Then Susan came out and locked the doors of the Ship and we started out for the city.
It took us about an hour to get through the forest, climb over the ridge of boulders and cross the sandy desert to the outskirts, and in all that time none of us saw a bird or an insect or any living thing at all. The city made up for the labours of the journey, for we were all thoroughly tired out from ploughing through the ashy sand that sometimes reached well over our ankles and made walking a slow and cumbersome business. Always we h
ad those magnificent buildings in our eyes and they grew larger and larger until at last we reached the first one. I call them buildings for want of a better description but really the whole design was as if someone had commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to build a city and then someone else had come along and pushed thousands and thousands of tons of ashy soil all around it, leaving only the roofs and other protuberances, and then laid a metal floor over the soil and pressed downwards. The first proper rest we had was when we were able to step out of the ash and start walking on the metal flooring.
The constructions, for I started to call them this rather than buildings, pierced their way out of the metal and had neither doors nor windows. I estimated that the total area of the city must have covered two square miles at least and not one of the constructions seemed to be duplicated. There were some that were merely rods sticking upwards for about thirty feet, others that were square boxlike affairs and several round ones as big as gasometers, all made of the same dull metal and showing no joins or screw holes whatsoever.
The Doctor seemed to know where he was going and forged ahead of us, darting his head from side to side and muttering an occasional ‘Ah!’ or an ‘Oh!’ as if each fresh sight explained its most secret use to him. At one time he stopped and motioned us all to silence. We stopped chattering about what such a place could be for and who could live in it.
‘Something moved on top of one of those round buildings over there,’ he said sharply. ‘I saw it out of the corner of my eye.’
We stood there watching for several minutes, but nothing happened and eventually the Doctor led us forward again, driving deeper into the heart of the city.
Suddenly, as we all walked round one of the squarer shapes, we saw a flat building with a short ramp leading to what was undoubtedly a doorway. The Doctor rubbed his hands with glee and actually gave a little dance.
‘It has a pattern, this place, Chesterton,’ he chortled. ‘I guessed it from the first and I was right. That building with the door is the heart of the place and now we’ll see the inside and discover what’s going on.’
‘It’s mercury we’re after, remember, Doctor.’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he replied irritably, ‘but now we are here we might as well explore a little.’
Barbara put her arm out and leaned on me for a moment and I became aware that there was perspiration on her brow and her face was not looking as healthy as it might. I helped her over to the doorway and sat her down in the shade of the building and turned to the Doctor grimly.
‘You can see she isn’t up to this, Doctor. Let’s find the mercury and get her back to the Ship.’
‘I’m all right,’ said Barbara stubbornly, but Susan and I glanced at the Doctor. To give him his due, he was immediately and genuinely concerned.
‘Then you rest here my dear,’ he said gently, ‘and we’ll take a little look inside.’ Barbara shook her head and got up.
‘We’ll find it better if we split up,’ she said. ‘I’m perfectly all right I promise you. Let’s each look for some instrument or other and meet back here in fifteen minutes.’
I didn’t want to agree but I knew Barbara would go on arguing until she got her own way. There was a resolution about her, a determination that didn’t want to admit any weakness and none of us wanted to make an invalid out of her by wasting time. The Doctor agreed to her plan on behalf of the rest of us eventually and we went through the door.
We found ourselves in a fair-sized hall or chamber which had several doors on it. Actually they were less doorways and more like arches with a steel plate closing them off. At the side of each lintel was a small flat bulb and it was Susan who discovered that if you passed your hand over the bulb the steel plate slid away and revealed the corridor beyond. We each chose a door and checked our watches. I noticed with a mental smile that the Doctor had a typical gold hunter on a thick chain. He could have walked into any Edwardian drawing-room and not been out of place.
The door I chose didn’t seem to lead anywhere at all; it was just a short corridor with one corner that ended in a blank metal wall. I retraced my steps back to the entrance chamber again and found Susan, who had the same sort of story to tell. Almost at the same moment the Doctor appeared and told us he’d had some success, so we followed him and he showed us a little room he’d discovered that was filled with recording instruments rather similar to the oscillation meters used to map sound frequencies. There were thirty of them, ten to each wall and the needles of each one differed slightly in its journey as it wavered over the slim strip of metal that revolved underneath it.
We went from one to another, examining each in silence and puzzling over them. There weren’t any numbers or letters anywhere in evidence and without a clue to the reason for the machines I began to examine them for any signs of the mercury the Doctor needed.
Suddenly I heard a gasp behind me and whirling round I saw the Doctor stagger into the centre of the room. Susan ran to him and clutched his arm.
‘What is it, Grandfather? What’s wrong?’
‘I can read the messages on these machines,’ he said, hoarsely, and on his face was a look of absolute horror. ‘You must forgive me, Chesterton; all of you must! What have I done with my stupid subterfuge?’
‘What are you talking about?’ I demanded, suddenly anxious at his genuine concern.
‘We must go back to the Ship immediately. No wonder that young woman didn’t feel well.’ He glanced down at Susan and I saw tears in his eyes. ‘Neither did you, my child.’
He stared across the room at me, his eyes distended and his hands working away at his collar as if it were strangling him.
‘Don’t you understand, Chesterton,’ he gasped. ‘Air pollution! That’s the purpose of these machines. Somehow or other they are capable of testing a sample of air for thirty miles around the city.’
For the first time, I noticed a sheen of sweat on the Doctor’s forehead. I remembered how Barbara had looked.
Susan said, ‘But we’ve been able to breathe all right, Grandfather. What’s the matter with the air?’
‘I don’t know that. I only know that the oxygen content of the air is being shared with some other substance. Miss Wright has been feeling unwell. So have you.’ He looked at me searchingly but I shook my head.
He leaned against one of the machines wearily.
‘I have felt something. An unaccustomed tiredness. No, no, Susan,’ he went on as his granddaughter put a hand on his arm anxiously, ‘it’s the other one I’m worried about. We must find her and get back to the Tardis. Go out and look for her.’
Susan slipped out of the room. The Doctor waited until the door slid into place behind her and then raised his eyes to mine.
‘You knew I deliberately interfered with the fluid link, Chesterton, didn’t you? So that I could get my own way and explore this city?’
My silence served as a sufficient answer. I was too worried about the rapid way he was weakening. He levered himself away from the machine slowly and accepted the support of my hand.
‘Get us back to the Ship, Chesterton. And thank you for not… giving me away to Susan.’
He began to have difficulties with his words and started shaking his head from side to side as if trying to keep awake. It was rather like watching a slow motion film of a boxer who had just left himself open to a straight right to the point of the jaw. I put an arm around him, waved my hand over the bulb and negotiated him through the doorway.
‘Susan!’ I shouted, but there was no sign of her and I half walked, half carried him up the metal corridor and out into the entrance chamber. I still couldn’t see Susan anywhere and thought the best thing to do would be to get outside that building and, if necessary, leave the Doctor and collect the others together.
Suddenly I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye and at the same moment Susan came slowly backwards through the front entrance. I became aware of a low humming in the air, very similar to the noise that telephone wires make in t
he country at night. Susan stopped and looked round her wildly and then stared at me, her eyes distended in a dreadful sort of horror. She looked past me and I knew that there was something behind me somewhere. I was just about to turn and look when the Doctor collapsed in my arms. I laid him down on the floor in a sitting position and looked at Susan, a question forming on my lips.
The answer came through the front entrance slowly. A nightmare answer that had the blood draining away from my face and the skin stretching around my eyes. It was a round metal thing about five feet in height, like an upturned beaker with a domed top. It had dull metal flanges all round it and three different kinds of rods sticking out in front. It glided over the metal flooring and Susan retreated before it until she stood close to me. Now I knew what it was I’d been conscious of, and what Susan had seen behind me, because I became aware that we were surrounded by more of them, all gliding out of the doors of the entrance chamber and pointing their rods at us.
Except from one door, one door that was tantalizingly open and unguarded. All I could think of was that the Doctor was seriously ill and needed help.
One of the machines came quite near to us and then stopped about four feet away. I started to examine the three rods it had, battling to control the fast way I was breathing and every impulse I had to panic and run. The three rods were each entirely different. The first, and shortest, was attached to the top, the domed part, and seemed to be a sort of eye. I could see the iris contracting and expanding as it ranged over us. The other two were in the position of arms, being roughly in the centre of the ‘body’, at each side of it. The left-hand one was a stubby barrel affair, little more than a stick with a hole running through it. The other, the longest of the three, was a black rod with a suction pad at the end of it. I also noticed that there were two bulbs on either side of the base of the ‘eye-stick’, and at first I thought that these were two more eyes until they suddenly started to light up as the machine spoke.
Doctor Who and the Daleks Page 6
