Doctor Who: Paradise Towers
Much in need of a holiday, Mel and the Doctor head for
Paradise Towers: a luxury man-made planet with sparkling
fountains, sunny streets, exotic flowers and a shimmering
blue swimming pool.
But when the TARDIS materialises in a dark, rubbish-filled,
rat-infested alley it seems that this particular Paradise has
turned into Hell!
Pursued by rogue cleaning machines, authoritarian
caretakers and old ladies with strange eating habits, the
Doctor and Mel track down the source of the chaos to one
mysterious character—the designer of Paradise Towers, the
Great Architect himself...
DOCTOR WHO
Based on the BBC television series by Stephen Wyatt by arrangement with BBC Books, a division of BBC Enterprises Ltd
Number 134 in the
The Doctor Who Library
A TARGET BOOK
published by
The Paperback Division of
W. H. Allen & Co. Plc
A Target Book
Published in 1988
by the Paperback Division of
W.H. Allen & Co. Plc
44 Hill Street, London W1X 8LB
Novelisation copyright © Stephen Wyatt, 1989
Original script copyright © Stephen Wyatt, 1987
‘Doctor Who’ series copyright © British Broadcasting Corporation, 1987, 1989
The BBC produce of
Paradise Towers
was John Nathan-Turner The director was Nick Mallet
The role of the Doctor was played by Sylvester McCoy Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading
ISBN 0 426 20330 5
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
1 The Last of the Yellow Kangs
The Last of the Yellow Kangs
It was Mel who first of all wanted to visit Paradise Towers. She felt after some very arduous adventures recently she was entitled to relax by a swimming pool – a beautiful indoor pool with heated water and marble floors and luxurious chairs by its side.
She talked so longingly about it that the Doctor deeply regretted having had to jettison the pool from the TARDIS because it had started to leak. And, one day, flicking through the images in an old travel video-brochure she found lying around the TARDIS, she came across pictures of Paradise Towers.
The building itself was impressive enough. A huge tower block forming a separate man-made planet with soaring white towers that gleamed in the sun and brightly coloured streets and squares, where fountains played and exotic flowers bloomed.
Apartments to live in which were spacious and spotless, stuffed full of remarkable devices to make the business of daily life easier. Well-planned offices from which those in charge of this artificially created paradise could ensure its smooth running.
Mel thought that living there must be like being perpetually on holiday. And that was before she had even seen the pool. When she finally saw its shimmering blue water and the lovely rich tones of its surroundings, it quite took her breath away.
‘Look, Doctor, look,’ she exclaimed excitedly. ‘There it is, right at the very top of that wonderful tall building. I can’t wait to have a dip in that.’
The Doctor had had other plans but he realised that it would be useless to argue, not to mention rather selfish. And so the TARDIS was soon hurtling through time and space towards Paradise Towers.
Mel could hardly take her eyes off the pictures of the pool nonetheless. It seemed so long since she’d been able to relax in warm, soothing water. The Doctor, to be honest, became a little irritated with her enthusiasm.
‘I think that’s enough of that, Mel,’ he announced.
‘Why?’ Mel enquired. ‘It looks great.’
The Doctor pursed his lips. ‘Well, if you want to stay here watching a guide book when you could actually be enjoying the real thing, that’s up to you.’
Mel turned to him excitedly. ‘You mean we’re nearly there?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘You may want to lie by the pool and do nothing all day. I intend to explore. Paradise Towers is supposed to be a remarkable architectural achievement, I believe. It won all sorts of awards back in the twenty-first century.’ He moved towards the TARDIS’s control panel. ‘Well, are you ready?’
‘Ready?’ Mel replied, eyes shining. ‘I can’t wait.’
As he prepared for landing, the Doctor gave an inward sigh.
When he thought of all the really exciting planets they could be visiting, he did feel a little cheated that they had to go somewhere as bland and perfect as Paradise Towers. That was the trouble with the young, he mused, they had no real spirit of adventure. So he imagined a peaceful, uneventful few days stretching ahead of the two of them. He could not, of course, have been more wrong.
The last of the Yellow Kangs ran down Potassium Street as fast as her feet could carry her. She knew the street well with its distinctive blue walls, grimy and covered in Kang wallscrawl, its ornate blue street lamps all damaged or smashed completely, the ones remaining flickering eerily, its pavements covered in all manner of refuse: animal, vegetable and mineral. She had been down the street many times in happier days when the other Yellow Kangs had not yet been made unalive and they had beaten the Blue Kangs and the Red Kangs again and again in the never-ending game. Now she was alone. One by one the other Yellow Kangs had gone from her, often without warning, always without explanation. Perhaps it was the fault of the Red Kangs. Or the Blue Kangs. She wasn’t sure but somehow she doubted it. There was something else far worse than other Kangs, she suspected, and often at night, when she slept alone in the ominously empty Yellow Kang Brainquarters, she would wake up, sweating and terrified, believing it would come for her too.
On and on she ran. In the distance she could hear a familiar chant, echoing down the deserted street. ‘Yellow Kangs are cowardly cutlets,’ it went. ‘Yellow Kangs are cowardly cutlets...’
Over and over again. Maybe the Red Kangs had lost track of her. She hoped so. It would be useless to try and explain to any of them what had happened to the other Yellow Kangs or to beg for an end to the game for a while. They would go on playing it to the end of time. The Blue Kangs too. And she would have to keep on trying to escape from them, whatever else frightened or puzzled her. Not that there was time for thought now. She must keep on running down Potassium Street until she had lost her pursuers and could creep into Yellow Kang Brainquarters without detection.
‘Yellow Kangs are cowardly cutlets... Yellow Kangs are cowardly cutlets...’ Was it her imagination or were the Red Kangs catching up with her? She thought she had double-backed successfully leaving them futilely running down Nitrate Street in the wrong direction. But their voices certainly sounded nearer. She must hurry.
And then suddenly she stumbled over something and fell.
For a moment she was too startled to move and then, when she tried to get up, she realised that the lonely anxieties of the last few weeks, the sleepless nights and the unfinished meals had taken their toll. She could not go on even if she wanted to. She must stay and let the Red Kangs come if they must. Let them win the game if they wanted. It didn’t seem to matter any more.
She no longer had the energy to play. All she could do was crawl wearily towards the nearest doorway and take refuge within it, drawing breath exhaustedly.
She listened carefully. A Kang needed acute hearing to cope with life in the Towers and she owed her survival in part to that.
Red Kang voices came from a nearby crossroads. They were close but not as close as she had feared.
‘Yellow Kangs are cowardly cutlets...’
The voices were still mocking and defiant but she sensed that the Red Kangs were losing hope of finding her this time.
They had followed her trail so far but no longer knew which way to go. To her relief, the chanting became more ragged and then died away completely. She strained to hear what they would say next.
‘Leave her for another day. Cowardly cutlet!’ came one voice.
‘Leave her for the Cleaners,’ came another and the comment was followed by raucous laughter. It was a saying all the Kangs used, a threat, but not a serious one, to scare the more timid and childish girls. It meant nothing, the Yellow Kang thought. Except that the Red Kangs were abandoning the game and returning to their Brainquarters. She was safe for another day.
She listened eagerly as their voices and footsteps receded away into the distance down Sodium Street towards Sunrise Square. Perhaps she was listening too eagerly. Otherwise she might have been alerted sooner to another sound, low at first, growing in volume as it came nearer. A soft mechanical whirring, regular but somehow menacing.
By the time she had heard the sound it was too late. She could only look up at the approaching shape first in disbelief then in horror as it came closer and closer. Even if she could have found a last ounce of energy to run it would have been useless. She could only watch, mesmerised. The noise, barely detectable at first, now deafened her. She knew there was no hope. And yet she started to scream. And scream. Until the screaming was cut short and the last of the Yellow Kangs was unalive.
A crude scrawl had been drawn by another Kang on the wall just near where she fell. A scrawl which might have given her warning of what was to happen to her. It showed a girl dressed in yellow threatened by two large, white mechanical claws.
‘Well, here we are,’ the Doctor announced. Mel waited expectantly as the door of the TARDIS opened. The TARDIS
will have materialised in one of those sumptuous looking squares, she thought. Fountain of Happiness perhaps or the Grotto of Delight. Then it would be up to the top floor for a dip in the pool. The TARDIS door opened noisily. That was the first indication something was wrong. But there was worse to come.
Mel stared out of the open door in horror. She could not really believe her eyes. The TARDIS had materialised amid a heap of junk. The noise was its door scraping along a mass of cans and discarded scrap metal. That was that explained. But was what she was looking at really part of Paradise Towers?
Perhaps they’d come to the wrong place. The Doctor had been known to make mistakes in the past.
The Doctor, however, was already through the door and Mel hurried to follow him. As they advanced out of the TARDIS, their feet were scrunching on all manner of rubbish lying on the outside floor. The Doctor was immediately all curiosity. He upended a battered cardboard box and a couple of large rats scuttered away. ‘Intelligent little creatures,’ he murmured appreciatively.
Mel, however, was too busy taking in the awfulness of their surroundings. And though she would have liked there to have been a mistake, she knew there hadn’t been one. Because she could just about recognise this was one of the squares in Paradise Towers so lovingly described in the video-brochure. Fountain of Happiness Square, she suspected. But changed immeasurably for the worst. The floor was covered in rubbish. The walls looked as if they had not been cleaned for decades. And indeed the only splash of brightness in the whole drab, dirty square was the highly coloured graffiti that had been daubed over them by some childish hand. The large glass windows that let daylight in were smashed in numerous places and the splinters of glass had joined the rest of the debris on the ground. Saddest of all, perhaps, was the Fountain of Happiness itself. The water had clearly dried up ages ago and the beautiful bowl into which the water used to pour was now rust-stained, cracked and filled with litter. It was difficult to imagine a more desolate and depressing environment and Mel’s immediate reaction was to get straight back into the TARDIS.
