Doctor Who: The Edge of Destruction (7 page)

‘Where’s that?’ asked Barbara.

‘The planet Quinnius in the fourth galaxy,’ replied the Doctor.

‘Yes, it’s where Grandfather and I nearly lost the TARDIS four of five journeys ago,’ offered Susan. ‘But that’s not what’s outside either...’

‘Can you explain it, Doctor?’ asked Ian.

The Doctor crossed the floor of the control room and settled himself in his Louis XIV chair. ‘Did I ever tell you that my Ship has a memory bank, hmm?’ he asked.

‘It records all our journeys,’ added Susan helpfully.

‘No, you didn’t, Doctor,’ said Ian.

‘Are you absolutely sure, Chesterton? I thought I did...’

Before Ian had time to reply Barbara pointed to the scanner. Yet another picture had formed.

This one was of an unfamiliar planet set in the vast darkness of space. As though the scanner was zooming out, the image was quickly replaced by a picture of the same planet, this time much smaller and surrounded by other planets.

This in turn vanished and a picture of a spiral galaxy of countless thousands of stars appeared in its place. Then the screen was filled with a blinding flash of light, before it went blank altogether, plunging the control room once more into shadow.

During this sequence the exit doors had remained firmly closed.

Then after a pause the image of the
Malvern Hills
reappeared and the sequence began again. The Doctor turned off the scanner.

‘Well, what was all that about?’ asked Ian, not really expecting an answer from anyone.

The Doctor trained two steely eyes on the figure of the schoolmaster. ‘Don’t you know?’ he asked accusingly. ‘I thought you might be able to tell me.’

Ian shook his head. ‘Why me?’

The Doctor allowed himself a self-congratulatory chuckle. ‘You won’t confuse me, you know, no matter how hard you try.’

Ian was beginning to get annoyed. ‘Just what exactly are you getting at, Doctor?’ he demanded to know. The Doctor snorted contemptuously and turned away from Ian. He put a protective arm around his granddaughter.

Barbara crossed over to the Doctor and Susan. ‘Look, why don’t we try and open the doors and see for ourselves?’ she said.

The Doctor dismissed her suggestion. ‘What is inside my Ship, madam, is more important at the moment!’

‘
Inside?
’

‘But you’ve only just told us that the only people inside are ourselves,’ protested Ian. ‘You said that nothing could get inside the Ship.’

Precisely!’ said the Doctor. ‘Nothing can penetrate my Ship, and all the controls are functioning perfectly. Ergo the fault must lie with one of us!’

‘Just what are you trying to say, Doctor?’ asked Ian warily.

The Doctor pointed a long accusing finger at the two schoolteachers. ‘You two are the cause of this disaster! You sabotaged my Ship!’

Barbara tensed and held Ian’s arm. ‘No, Doctor, you know that’s not true...’ she said.

‘You knocked me and Susan unconscious!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ cried Barbara, rising to the defensive. ‘We were all knocked out!’

‘Grandfather, she is right,’ said Susan slowly. ‘When I came to, Mr Chesterton was still unconscious.’

The Doctor dismissed Susan’s comment curtly. ‘A charade! They attacked us!’

‘Absolute nonsense!’ protested Ian.

‘And while we were lying helpless on the floor you tampered with the controls!’

‘You looked at everything yourself and you couldn’t find anything wrong with them!’ Ian reminded him. exasperated at the old man’s sheer obstinacy. ‘You and I checked every single piece of equipment on board the Ship.’

The Doctor seemed taken aback fora moment but he refused to listen to Ian’s reasoning. ‘No, sir,
we
did not check everything. I programmed the Fault Locator—
you
checked everything!’

Barbara tried to reason with the Doctor. ‘But why would we interfere with the controls? What possible reason could we have?’

The answer was obvious to the Doctor. ‘Blackmail! You intend to try and force me to return you to
England
!’

‘Oh, don’t be so stupid!’ said Barbara.

‘I am convinced of it,’ said the Doctor. ‘You both forced your way on board my Ship, intruded upon the lives of my granddaughter and myself; but you were never prepared to accept the consequences of your actions. So now you intend to hold Susan and me prisoner until we agree to take you back to the twentieth-century.’

Barbara was usually slow to anger but this time the Doctor had gone much too far. She shrugged Ian off as he tried to restrain her and she marched up to the Doctor.

‘How
dare
you!’ she exploded furiously. ‘Do you realise, you stupid old man, that you’d have died in the
Cave
of
Skulls
if Ian and I hadn’t helped you to escape!’
The Doctor pooh-poohed the notion; he had no wish to be reminded of any debt he might hold to these two humans. But Barbara had not finished.

‘And what about all we went through on Skaro against the Daleks? Not just for us but for you and Susan too—and all because you tricked us into going down to the
Dalek
City
in the first place!

‘
Accuse
us! You ought to go down on your hands and knees and thank us!’ She shook her head in despair. ‘But oh no, gratitude is the last thing you’ll ever have. You think you’re so superior, so much greater than everyone else, but when are you ever going to realise that other people are worth just as much as you? We might not be as intelligent as you, we might not have experienced as much but we have feelings. Do you know what they are? It’s a concern for your fellow creatures, a belief that no matter what our differences may be we’re all in this mess together and we’d better help each other out. We’re not just some laboratory animals for you to study, or inferior creatures for you to make use of... But oh no, humility is the last thing you’ll ever have—or any sort of common sense!’

The Doctor seemed visibly shaken by Barbara’s fierce tirade and for once seemed at a loss for words. Barbara stormed off for the living quarters and Ian followed her. As she passed the Doctor’s ormolu clock she stopped. A terrified scream burst from her lips and she turned her face away.

The framework of the Doctor’s ormolu clock had remained unchanged and as beautifully ornate as over. But the face itself on which the hours and minutes were displayed was now distorted, almost unreadable, a mass of molten metal, which strangely radiated no heat. Even the Doctor caught his breath in shock as he wondered at the enormity of whatever power could have caused this.

Fearing what they might find, Ian, Barbara and Susan looked down at their wristwatches in grim expectation.

The faces of these too had melted away; it was as though time had stopped for them.

Susan gave an involuntary shudder. ‘We’re somewhere where time doesn’t exist,’ she said, ‘where nothing exists except us..

‘Oh, don’t be stupid, Susan!’

Hysterically Barbara tore the watch off her own wrist and flung it across the control room, where the glass shattered into a hundred tiny pieces. Sobbing, she threw herself down into a chair. Susan went instantly to her side to comfort her.

‘You can’t blame us for this, Doctor,’ said Ian evenly and then turned around. The Doctor had disappeared. ‘Where is he now for heaven’s sake?’ he asked irritably.

As if on cue the Doctor entered the room from the passageway which led to the living quarters. He had a beaming smile on his face and in his hands he carried a tray upon which were four plastic cups.

‘I’ve decided we’re all somewhat overwrought,’ he said genially as he handed out the cups. ‘We all need more time to think instead of throwing insults at each other.’

Ian looked at the old man, amazed at his sudden apparent
volte-face
. ‘I wish I could understand you, Doctor,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘One minute you’re abusing us and the next you’re acting like the perfect butler.’

‘We must all calm down and look at the situation logically, my dear boy,’ the Doctor said pleasantly. He shot Ian a crafty look which the schoolteacher did not seem to notice.

Ian eyed the liquid in his cup uncertainly and sniffed it: its smell reminded him of apricots and honey. ‘What is this?’ he asked warily.

‘Merely a little nightcap,’ answered the Doctor cheerily. ‘Something to help us relax and sleep. In the morning things may look a lot clearer.’

‘That is, if it is night now,’ pointed out Ian and gestured over to the melted clockface. ‘We’ve no longer any way of telling.’

Over in the corner Barbara had calmed down a little, encouraged by Susan. She stood up determinedly and drained her cup. ‘Well, whatever time it is, I’m going to bed,’ she said, secretly hoping that in sleep she might find some release from the nightmare into which they had all been thrown.

She walked over to the door. Before she left Ian drew her aside. ‘Keep your door locked - just in case,’ he whispered.

Barbara was about to ask him what he was talking about when he nodded over to the Doctor. On their way from Susan’s room back to the control chamber Ian had told her what had happened in the power rooms. He had no way of telling whether the Doctor had indeed tried to kill him. But after that experience Ian wasn’t prepared to trust the old man as far as he could throw him.

Over at the other end of the control room the Doctor glared at them suspiciously, and strained to overhear their conversation. Barbara glared back at him and then, saying goodnight to Ian and Susan, she made her way to the sleeping quarters.

Susan approached the Doctor. ‘Make it up with her, Grandfather—please,’ she said softly.

The Doctor looked down at his granddaughter and snorted indignantly. There was no way he was going to make amends with Barbara; to do so would be to admit some weakness and culpability on his part—and that the Doctor would never allow himself to do. Indeed, it would be tantamount to admitting he was wrong—and the Doctor stubbornly believed that he was never wrong about anything.

Susan shrugged her shoulders in defeat and followed Barbara out of the room.

When the girls had gone, Ian turned back to the Doctor, who was now relaxing in a chair. He seemed purposely to ignore Ian’s continued presence in the room.

‘Doctor, some very strange things are happening here,’ Ian began. ‘I feel we are in a very dangerous situation.’

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, do you now?’ he asked haughtily.

‘Yes, I do,’ replied Ian, his tone hardening slightly in automatic response to the Doctor’s supercilious manner. ‘I think it’s time to forget whatever personal quarrels we may have with each other.’

‘Really?’

For the sake of us all, stop being so damn superior and acting like a spoilt brat!
thought Ian. ‘I think you should go and apologise to Barbara,’ he said sternly.

‘Oh, should I, young man?’ the Doctor said. ‘Chesterton, the tone you take with me seems to suggest that you consider me as one of your pupils at that preposterous school of yours—’

‘That’s not fair,’ Ian interrupted him.

The Doctor stood up and drew himself up to his full height.

‘Young man, I’m afraid we have no time for codes and manners,’ he declared loftily, treating Ian exactly as many of his former colleagues would treat a dim-witted pupil. ‘I don’t underestimate the dangers—if they do indeed exist. But I must have time to think! I have found that rash action is worse than no action at all.’

‘I don’t see anything rash in apologising to Barbara,’ said Ian, and sipped at his drink.

The Doctor merely laughed off-handedly.

‘Frankly, Doctor, I find it very difficult to understand you or even to keep pace with you at times,’ Ian admitted.

The Doctor’s eyes sparkled with conceit. ‘You mean to keep one jump ahead of me, Chesterton, and that you will never do. You need my knowledge and my ability to apply that knowledge; and then you need my experience to gain the fullest results.’

‘Results?’ said lan, realising how little he knew the old man and remembering the incident in the power rooms. ‘Results for good—or for evil?’

‘One man’s law is another man’s crime,’ replied the Doctor enigmatically. ‘Sleep on it, Chesterton, sleep on it.’

Ian looked curiously at the old man and then drained his cup. He was already feeling very sleepy. Perhaps the Doctor was right after all: perhaps in the morning things would indeed seem clearer. But he would still lock his door—just in case.

The Doctor watched him go and allowed himself a self-satisfied smirk. He chuckled; he really was immensely superior to everyone else on board the Ship, he thought.

On the floor by his side his cup of beverage was left untouched. He was the only one who had not drunk it...

‘Who’s there?’ asked Barbara nervously as she heard a faint tapping at her door.

‘It’s only me—Susan,’ was the reply. ‘Can I come in?’ Barbara sighed with relief, thankful for any company, and got up out of bed to unlock the door. Susan was standing there in her nightgown.

Susan looked down, trying hard to avoid Barbara’s eyes. ‘I just came to say I’m sorry for what Grandfather said to you...’

Barbara smiled weakly. ‘It’s all right, Susan,’ she lied. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘I know... but you must try and understand him. He’s an old man; he’s very set in his ways... Whatever you might think of him right now he is a good man—and a very kind one too, so kind and generous you wouldn’t believe. He’s looked after me so well...’

‘He has a strange way of showing his kindness, Susan,’ said Barbara. There was no resentment in the statement; Barbara was merely pointing out a fact.

‘Maybe so,’ agreed Susan. ‘But you don’t know the terrible sort of life he’s had. He’s never had any reason to trust strangers before when even old friends have turned against him in the past; it’s so difficult for him to start now... But you and Ian are both good people; please, try and forgive him.’

‘Strangers?
Is that still all we are to you, Susan—after all we’ve gone through?’ asked Barbara.