Doctor Who_ The Edge of Destruction Part 3

Trapped

'Chesterton, what on Earth are you doing there?'

Ian breathed a sigh of relief, which rapidly turned to embarra.s.sed anger as he recognised the Doctor's voice. Nevertheless he controlled his temper.

'I... I got lost,' he said lamely.

The Doctor tut-tutted. 'You should have kept up with me,' he reprimanded; but did Ian detect a glint of malicious amus.e.m.e.nt in the old man's eyes?

'I did do!' he protested. 'But I stopped for a moment and the next minute you were gone!'

'If you must go wandering off on your own what do you expect?' chastised the Doctor. 'Although goodness knows how you found your way down here.' He imperiously beckoned Ian forward. 'Now, do come along-we haven't got all day you know!'

Ian eyed the Doctor suspiciously; disconcerted by the old man's lack of concern about his plight, but recognising that he had no alternative, he followed him down a winding spiral staircase which he surmised most lead to the very deepest part of the TARDIS.

If he had thought to look he would have noticed that all the doors he had pa.s.sed which had been locked now miraculously opened by themselves...

The in-out in-out breathing which permeated the TARDIS and the pulsating lights which Ian had noticed in the anteroom had their origin in the s.h.i.+p's power rooms. This was a series of fifteen interconnected rooms containing all the machinery and power sources which operated the TARDIS.

Here, explained the Doctor, were the regulators and engines which powered every function of the TARDIS: its lighting and heat, its life supports, its navigation and memory banks, and, most importantly of all, the drive mechanisms which powered it on its journeys throughout s.p.a.ce and time.

Ian noted with wry amus.e.m.e.nt that, although all these machines were undoubtedly centuries ahead of his own understanding, they still retained, with their elaborate bra.s.s fittings and antiquated pistons and levers, all the magical Edwardian splendour of a Heath Robinson mechanism, as though the Doctor had imprinted his own fascination with the Edwardian era onto his machine.

Ian glanced around the room. Apart from the pulsing lights, the area was in darkness. The machines were dusty, and even the normally sterile atmosphere of the TARDIS here was dull and muggy, as though the rooms had never been used or visited in a long long time. Littering the floor were large leatherbound technical manuals, their bindings worn with age.

Every single movable part of every single machine was motionless and silent, but when Ian and the Doctor examined them more closely they found that they were still warm, as though they had been in operation but a few minutes ago.

The Doctor crossed over to the door which, he said mysteriously, led into the 'power stacks' of the TARDIS. He frowned as he turned and twisted the handle.

'What's the matter, Doctor?' Ian asked.

'The door seems to be locked,' said the Doctor. 'Now that's most unusual... I wanted to check the power gauges...'

'Tell me, Doctor,' said Ian as the old man came back over and bent down to examine a video screen on one of the banks of computers which lined the room,'what is that infernal noise all around us?'

'Noise?' queried the Doctor.

'That sort of breathing,' explained Ian.

The Doctor snorted superiorly. 'Oh that,' he said. 'Why, it's the life support systems, of course... Whatever did you think it was?'

Ian ignored the question and continued: 'And the main controls of the life support system are housed down here?'

'Of course,' said the Doctor, and then realised what Ian was trying to say.

He indicated a large intricately constructed mechanism on the wall which Ian laughingly thought resembled a large pair of bellows.

'And yet the life support mechanism itself, the system which provides as with all our oxygen, Earth-type gravity and heat, and protects us from the time vortex, is not functioning.

'Just like everything else down here,' added Ian. 'Doctor, what exactly is going on? By rights we should have been dead long ago. But even though not one major machine in the TARDIS is functioning, we're still alive!'

The Doctor directed Ian's attention to the video screen he was examining which, like several minor and unimportant instruments on board the s.h.i.+p, was still operating normally.

'And this indicates that all the power necessary for the smooth running of my s.h.i.+p is being generated and channelled correctly,' he said,'and yet not one iota of it is being used to power the mechanisms of my s.h.i.+p.'

'As if all the power is being drawn off somewhere before it reaches the machines,' reasoned Ian. 'But if that's the case, why is the life support system still operating and keeping us alive?'

'How am I supposed to know, Chesterton!' snapped the Doctor. 'I'm not a miracle worker!'

Ian muttered a half-hearted apology, only vaguely aware that he had touched a raw nerve in the Doctor. The Doctor liked to pretend that he was the absolute master of his s.h.i.+p; the truth was that he understood very little about its mechanisms and the way it operated.

'So what do we do now, Doctor?' asked Ian, in an attempt to change the subject and a.s.suage the old man's wounded pride.

The Doctor paused for a moment and looked thoughtfully at Ian. Then he pointed to an open door at the far end of the room. 'In there you will find the internal scanner, Chesterton. It is designed to give a general visual overview of all the TARDIS's power rooms. If my machines cannot tell me what is affecting the s.h.i.+p's power perhaps the eye can. The machine is very simple to operate. I suggest you go in there and report your findings to me.'

Ian nodded. He crossed over to open the door and entered the room, watched closely by the Doctor. The room was small, about the size of a dentist's waiting room, and featureless apart from the usual TARDIS wall roundels. In the corner, as the Doctor had said, was a video screen and control panels, housed in an ornate mahogany cabinet, rather like an old-fas.h.i.+oned television set. Following the Doctor's instructions, Ian bent down and switched on the machine.

The screen buzzed into life and began to show a succession of pictures of all of the TARDIS's fifteen different power rooms. Each was in darkness and silent. their machines no longer operating.

Ian studied the pictures one more time and then called out to the Doctor. 'They're exactly like everywhere else, Doctor,' he said. 'Dark and silent-'

He stopped and turned around anxiously when the Doctor did not reply. The door behind him was closed. Panicking, he stood up and tried to open it; it was locked firmly shut.

He banged on the door and called out the Doctor's name but there was no response from the old man. Beads of perspiration appeared on Ian's forehead; ever since a child Ian had had a fear of being trapped in a confined s.p.a.ce, and now the four walls of the room seemed to crowd threateningly upon him.

His heart missed a beat as he realised that the air inside the room was rapidly becoming stale and stuffy. He called out the Doctor's name once more, using up valuable oxygen, and rattled at the door handle. But the door refused to budge. Frantically he looked around for anything with which he could lever the door open, but apart from the internal scanner the room was hare. There did not seem to be any visible locking mechanism on the door, or an electronic circuit which he could trip. He pressed against the door with all his weight, but it refused to give. His futile beating on the door became weaker as the life-giving oxygen in the room remorselessly ran out. His heart and lungs pounded painfully in his chest as he struggled to gasp whatever air he could. Through fogged eyes he looked at the room which began to spin sickeningly around him. Close to unconsciousness, he fell despairingly to his knees.

Click!

Ian raised his head and gulped in gratefully the rush of air which flooded into the room as the door creaked slowly open. Raising himself with difficulty onto his feet, he staggered through the now open door and into the power rooms beyond.

To Ian's surprise the Doctor had not opened the door. Instead he was standing some way off, absorbed in examining a piece of equipment. He started when he saw Ian coming out of the room.

'Doctor,' groaned Ian, 'didn't you hear me?'

'Hear you? What on earth are you talking about, Chesterton?'

'That room back there... I was trapped... air running out...'

The Doctor turned his eyes almost nervously away from the young schoolteacher and continued to examine the piece of equipment. Finally he put it down on a small work bench. 'Well, you're safe now,' he said. 'And since nothing seems to be working down here I see little point in staying around. Shall we join the others?'

Ian regarded the Doctor suspiciously. The old man was behaving very strangely, almost guiltily. Ian knew so little about the Doctor, but one thing he did know was that the old man had a completely alien set of codes and morals to those of him and Barbara.

Could it be possible that he had actually deliberately locked Ian in that room, with the express intention of getting him out of the way-permanently? Though he had known the Doctor for such a short measure of time Ian wouldn't have put it past him.

But if the Doctor had locked him in the room, then how had the door become unlocked? Had the Doctor had a sudden change of heart?

'Well, Chesterton?' asked the Doctor irritably. 'I said, shall we join Susan and Miss Wright?'

Ian nodded. 'Fine, Doctor,' he said. 'But this time I think you had better lead the way.'

The Doctor eyed Ian viciously, and then led the way out of the power rooms and into the corridors outside. All the doors which had before been securely closed were now open again.

As the Doctor and Ian left the power rooms, all the machines which had been silent and motionless during their visit, suddenly chattered into life again...

'Your companion, Miss Wright,' began the Doctor, as he and Ian walked up the corridor.

'Barbara,' corrected Ian.

'Yes, quite,' continued the Doctor. 'Your companion, Miss Wright, suggested that the problem might lie not in the TARDIS itself but in some sort of outside ent.i.ty-'

'Which you said was ridiculous,' Ian reminded him pointedly.

The Doctor caught the implied criticism in Ian's voice but chose to ignore it. 'And which I still maintain is impossible. But it is still feasible that we are in the grip of some powerful force which exists outside the s.h.i.+p.'

'So? What do you suggest we do?'

'Simplicity itself, Chesterton! We see what's outside the s.h.i.+p!'

5

'Like a Person Possessed'

When Barbara had returned to Susan's room her former pupil seemed to be sleeping peacefully. A good sleep was exactly what the girl needed, reflected Barbara. Susan had always seemed more sensitive than her other pupils; recent events had obviously shaken her up quite a lot. Her attempted attack on Ian was merely a symptom of her inner turmoil and frustration.

Barbara sat at her bedside, checking her pulse from time to time and ensuring that everything was all right with her charge. On a table the oil lamp which Ian had lit still cast eerie shadows on the wall.

The rhythmic in-out in-out sound of the s.h.i.+p's life support system which seemed to have replaced the normally ubiquitous humming of the TARDIS's machinery, was vaguely soporific and Barbara found herself beginning to nod off to sleep.

A sudden noise awoke her with a start.

Barbara was alert in an instant, her nerves tingling. By her side Susan had sat bolt upright in bed, her hands still hidden underneath the covers. Barbara smiled with more than a little relief, chiding herself for her nervousness.

'How are you feeling now?' she asked.

Susan looked at her strangely. Perhaps she was still slightly concussed, thought Barbara.

'I'm fine,' the schoolgirl said slowly. 'Why shouldn't I be?'

'Susan, you do remember who I am, don't you?' Barbara asked. Susan's voice sounded oddly clipped; for an awful moment it reminded Barbara of the staccato emotionless tones of the Dalek creatures they had encountered on the planet Skaro. She was suddenly very worried.

'Of course I remember who you are,' the girl continued in the same flat monotone. 'You're Barbara.' Barbara's brow furrowed with concern as she registered Susan's unfamiliar use of her first name. Up till now Susan had always referred to her, in her presence at least, as Miss Wright, retaining some of the teacher-pupil respect which had been encouraged at Coal Hill. Her sudden use of the name Barbara unnerved the schoolteacher.

Shrugging off her vague suspicions, Barbara felt Susan's forehead. Her temperature was still uncommonly high. She crossed over to the dressing table where, by the oil lamp, Ian had placed a bowl of water. She dipped her large handkerchief into it, squeezed it of any excess moisture and then returned to Susan. 'Put this on your forehead, Susan,' she said. 'It'll keep you cool.'

'Why?' asked the girl. 'There's nothing wrong with me. There's no need to cosset me like I was Tiny Tim or something.'

'Who?' Barbara asked sharply.

'Tiny Tim,' repeated Susan. 'He was the young cripple in Charles d.i.c.kens' Christmas Carol Christmas Carol.'

'I didn't think you knew any d.i.c.kens,' Barbara said slowly. She suddenly remembered something Mr Foster the English teacher had once said to her that girl Foreman, brilliant in some respects-she can recite quite huge hunks of Shakespeare as if she really knew him. But she's never even read a word of d.i.c.kens!

Susan flushed and Barbara imagined that she had somehow upset the girl.

'I-I must have heard Grandfather talking about him sometime... He's very well read, you know...'

Barbara looked at Susan suspiciously. The abrupt changes of mood, the violence, this piece of knowledge... was this really Susan she was talking to, or... She shuddered at the thought of the alternative.

Like a person possessed , Ian had said. Barbara tried to humour her. 'Of course there's nothing wrong with you, Susan,' she said. 'You just need a rest, that's all.' , Ian had said. Barbara tried to humour her. 'Of course there's nothing wrong with you, Susan,' she said. 'You just need a rest, that's all.'

Susan seemed to acquiesce and sank back down onto her pillows. Suddenly she sat back up again, and clutched Barbara's arm. 'Where's Grandfather?' Her voice had suddenly changed: no longer was it emotionless and cold; there was no mistaking the concern in it.

Barbara loosed herself from Susan's grip, and replied. 'He's checking the controls with Ian-Mr Chesterton.'

Susan's face seemed to relax and then she said, 'Why did you ask me if I knew who you were?'

'It's just that before you seemed to...' Barbara felt embarra.s.sed, unsure of how to answer the girl's question. How do you tell someone that you suspect they're losing their grip on reality?

Susan continued to stare at her in an odd way. Underneath the covers Barbara was aware of Susan's hands fumbling with something.

Barbara held out her hand. 'Susan, why don't you give me the scissors?' she said with gentle firmness.

Susan drew her hand out from under the pillow and pointed the instrument threateningly at Barbara.

'Susan, give them to me!' Barbara commanded in her best schoolmarm voice, the voice which used to strike terror into the hearts of cla.s.s 1C.

The girl seemed to hesitate but still pointed the scissors at Barbara. Her hand was trembling. In this nervous state Barbara realised she could be capable of anything. The schoolteacher tried a different tack. 'Susan, what is all this about?' she asked softly and reasonably.

'You said there had been a power failure,' she began.

Barbara corrected her. 'No, I didn't. I said that's what Ian thinks.'