Doctor Who: Sontaran Experiment
Landing on Earth, now a barren, desolate
planet, Sarah, Harry and the Doctor are
unaware of the large, watching robot. The
robot is the work of Styre, a Sontaran
warrior, who uses all humans landing here
for his experimental programmes.
What has happende to the other space
explorers who have come here? Why is
the Sontaran scout so interested in Earth
and in brutally torturing humans,
including Sarah Jane? Will the Doctor be
able to prevent an invasion and certain
disaster, and save both Earth and his
companions?
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Children/Fiction ISBN 0 426 20049 7
DOCTOR WHO
AND THE
SONTARAN EXPERIMENT
Based on the BBC television serial
The Sontaran Experiment
by Bob Baker and Dave Martin by arrangement with the British Broadcasting Corporation
A TARGET BOOK
published by
The Paperback Division of
W. H. Allen & Co. Ltd
A Target Book
Published in 1978
by the Paperback Division of W. H. Allen & Co. Ltd.
A Howard & Wyndham Company
44 Hill Street, London W1X 8LB
Copyright © 1978 by Ian Marter
Original script copyright © 1975 by Bob Baker and Dave Martin
‘Doctor Who’ series copyright © 1975, 1978 by the British Broadcasting Corporation
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading
ISBN 0426 20049 7
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
A huge red sun hung in the sulphurous yellow sky, its angry light filtering through thin clouds of whitish mist which swirled over the deserted, wasted landscape. Its dulled rays were reflected with a sinister glow in the scarred surfaces of nine spheres—each about a metre in diameter—which formed a perfect circle roughly twelve metres across.
The circle was set in an area of almost geometrical furrows and deep ruts, with blackened rocks showing through the scanty covering of dry, stringy, reed-like vegetation. The metallic skins of the nine globes were corroded and peeling, but here and there flickered a distorted image of the barren surroundings: rolling moorlands bristling with reddish ferns that rustled ceaselessly with an eerie, brittle sound; enormous rocky outcrops twisted into weird, nightmare shapes casting their monstrous shadows whenever the sun broke through the curling wraiths of vapour; and in the distance, massive cliffs hundreds of metres high with squarish, almost manmade outlines. The dry air stirred with warm and chilly breezes blowing together. Otherwise all was still.
Suddenly something loomed in the centre of the circle of spheres. For a moment a bulky shape with a pale yellow light flashing above it wobbled uncertainly in the drifting mist. Then it abruptly vanished, leaving a dark, box-shaped hole. Seconds later it reappeared, accompanied by a raucous groaning sound which gradually died away like distant thunder. This time the pulsing light shone brilliantly and the ghostly object grew more distinct. It hovered, swaying precariously, then dropped heavily into the crackling reeds, coming to rest at a steep angle. The light was extinguished and silence fell.
Then excited human voices came from inside the shabby, blue-painted structure and several shadows moved across the frosted glass windows ranged along the top of each of its four sides. Painted above each row of windows were the words:
POLICE Public BOX
Call
The chipped and weathered panelling of the ‘box’ creaked loudly as it swayed alarmingly to and fro, and it all but toppled over when a door suddenly flew open in the uppermost side. A very tall man appeared, balanced for a moment on the threshold, then took a deep breath and jumped lightly to the ground. He was dressed in a voluminous rust-coloured velvet jacket and oatmeal tweed trousers, and he wore an enormously long multicoloured scarf tied with a giant knot under his chin. A battered felt hat with a wide brim was crammed haphazardly on top of his mass of brown curly hair. He surveyed the scene with a single sweep of his huge, eager blue eyes. Then, gathering up the trailing ends of the scarf, he strode across to the nearest silver sphere.
‘What an extraordinary coincidence,’ he boomed, kneeling down to examine the blistered metal. ‘I wonder if it works.’ Tugging an old-fashioned ear-trumpet from a bulging pocket, he clapped the battered horn against the globe and slowly moved it about while listening intently into the earpiece. He rapped on the sphere a few times with his knuckles and listened again. After a few seconds he sprang up, darted to the neighbouring globe and repeated his examination.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he cried, springing up again and rushing across to examine a globe on the opposite side of the circle. Meanwhile a burly young man in duffle-coat and wellingtons had clambered out of the Police Box and was reaching up into the tilted doorway to help a trim young lady, clad in bright yellow waterproofs and sou’wester, to jump down.
All at once, with a noise like a sudden gust of wind, the Police Box vanished and the astounded young man found himself supporting his companion in mid-air. He stared open-mouthed at the black hole before his astonished eyes.
‘Doctor... What’s happened to the TARDIS?’ the girl cried.
‘Quiet, Sarah,’ commanded the kneeling figure: he had prised open a panel in the underside of the globe and was groping about inside it with a frown of concentration.
‘But it... it’s gone! ‘ Sarah cried, waving her arm about in front of her. It’s just disappeared...’
The Doctor glanced up irritably. Then he sprang to his feet. ‘Harry—you’ve been meddling again,’ he said angrily.
‘But I haven’t touched a thing,’ Harry protested, promptly disappearing so that Sarah was left suspended above the ground for an instant before falling spreadeagled into the reeds. A few seconds later he reappeared. ‘Have I, Sarah?’ he blinked and instantly vanished again. Sarah scrambled to her feet and looked in all directions for the invisible Harry.
‘It’s quite true, Doctor,’ she grudgingly agreed. ‘Just for once it’s not Harry’s fault...’ and she was almost knocked sideways as Harry reappeared for the second time. ‘Look, I do wish you would make up your mind, Harry,’ she snapped, clinging to Harry’s arm for support. He stared at her in a daze and mumbled his apologies.
‘Quick, come out of the circle,’ the Doctor shouted, waving his arms urgently. ‘If this little lot should happen to get into phase at once you’ll be gone forever,’ and with that he dived back under the globe and resumed his investigation. ‘You all right, old thing?’ Harry asked, gallantly helping Sarah across the uneven area enclosed by the strange glinting spheres. Sarah shook herself free from Harry’s grasp.
‘In the first place I am not a
thing
,’ she muttered through clenched teeth, stumbling over what looked like a mass of giant, petrified tree roots, ‘and in the second place I am perfectly capable of fending for myself, thank you.’
‘Excellent. I see you’ve decided to stay after all,’ grinned the Doctor, glancing up as they joined him. He adjusted the settings on the handle of his sonic screwdriver—a complex instrument shaped like a pocket torch—and then reached up inside the sphere.
‘I am afraid we’ve lost the TARDIS for the present,’ he murmured, apparently fiddling with some kind of mechanism, ‘but this is the most extraordinary piece of luck.’
Sarah looked at the ring of globes doubtfully. ‘What is it for?’ she asked. ‘Losing the TARDIS doesn’t seem very lucky to me.’ She thrust her hands into the pockets of her luminous anorak and stared gloomily at Harry.
The Doctor emerged from the opening in the sphere and sat back on his heels. He tapped the side of the globe and made it vibrate like a gong. Harry jumped.
‘This is an old Tri-Phasic Triple Field design,’ the Doctor cried with enthusiasm, ‘but it appears to be virtually intact, and I think that, with a little effort, I can almost certainly get it to work.’
‘Yes, Doctor, but what is it
for
?’ Sarah repeated.
‘It’s an early prototype matter transmitter, of course,’
the Doctor said. ‘As soon as I get these nine little beasts into phase, we should be able to retrieve the TARDIS and then pop back up to the Terra Nova and tell Vira that all is well.’
Sarah backed away a few paces with a wary glance around the circle, her recent experiences with such devices still vivid in her mind.
Harry stared incredulously at the Doctor. ‘You mean Vira’s people are going to use these overgrown ball-bearings to reach Earth?’ he cried.
‘Precisely, Harry,’ grinned the Doctor, and he darted along to the next globe and got to work with ear trumpet, sonic screwdriver and magnifying glass.
‘Well, they’ll have quite a job to build themselves a new world here,’ Sarah muttered, shivering slightly in a sudden swirl of mist and glancing up apprehensively at the great red sun. Harry stared at the inhospitable, scorched terrain stretching emptily around them.
‘Where... where exactly are we anyway?’ he asked.
‘I set the Orientators for Piccadilly Circus,’ came the Doctor’s muffled reply, ‘but since this little machine seems to have kidnapped us...’
‘... We could be just about anywhere,’ Sarah chimed in with a sigh. There was a pause while the Doctor, grunting with exertion and muttering away to himself, continued with his delicate adjustments.
‘Oh, come on, Harry,’ Sarah suddenly said with an impulsive toss of her head, ‘let’s go and find Nelson’s Column,’ and she set off through the crackling reeds.
Harry hesitated for a moment or two and then followed.
‘Might as well have a little recce,’ he agreed.
‘I think you’ll find that Trafalgar Square is more in that direction,’ came a muffled call. They turned: the Doctor’s head and shoulders were hidden inside the globe he was repairing, but one long arm was sticking out like a signpost and pointing in the opposite direction to the way they were heading.
