Sarah glanced at the Brigadier. He shrugged and smiled an encouragement to her to continue.
‘I’ve been investigating the whole question of Time travel,’ she said, hoping to gain his undivided attention.
‘Have you?’ He continued to turn the black knob to and fro. ‘You know, I think this could do with a spot of oil. You wouldn’t have any handy, would you, Brigadier?’
‘I don’t usually carry it on me.’
‘Oh well, I suppose we can manage.’ The Doctor seemed to forget the troublesome black knob. He started tapping one of the dials to see if the finger inside would flicker. ‘You were talking about Time travel, Sarah.’
‘I thought you hadn’t listened.’ Then she continued quickly: ‘One or two people have dabbled.’
‘Fascinating,’ said the Doctor. ‘The main difficulty is the Blinovitch Limitation Effect. Do you know about Blinovitch? A great bear of a man from Russia. At least he was until he dabbled. He put Time into reverse for himself. The last I heard of him he was reaching babyhood. Rather a waste, I think. He was a brilliant man—when he was a man.’
Sarah persisted. ‘I think someone may have overcome that limitation.’
The Doctor turned. ‘On this planet?’
‘It’s the only planet I’ve been able to check.’
‘Yes, of course. How foolish of me.’ The Doctor rubbed his nose thoughtfully. ‘I remember there was a Chinese scientist called Chun Sen… But he hasn’t been born yet. And then there was a South American, but his name escapes me.’
‘There’s a man called Whitaker,’ Sarah cut in. ‘He claimed to have developed a workable theory on Time travel.’
The Brigadier snapped his fingers. ‘I remember! He applied for a big Government grant. It was refused.’
‘Why?’ asked the Doctor. ‘Has the Government no interest in science?’
Sarah supplied the answer. ‘It was Whitaker himself who put them off. He was always quarrelling with other scientists—so no one thought his theory would work.’
‘What a petty-minded lot!’ exclaimed the Doctor.
‘If I remember rightly,’ added the Brigadier, ‘the Government took advice on the theory. But all their scientific advisers said this fellow Whitaker was a crank.’
‘That is what people always say about anyone with a new idea,’ complained the Doctor.
‘Quite so,’ agreed the Brigadier. He turned to Sarah. ‘Anyway, what about him?’
‘He disappeared,’ she said flatly.
The Doctor now scratched his nose. This was becoming interesting. ‘Are you sure of that?’
‘About six months ago. Professor Whitaker completely vanished. I’ve checked with everybody—the newspapers, the police, his friends. He hasn’t been heard of for six whole months.’
The Brigadier cleared his throat. ‘Not that I doubt your word for a minute, Miss Smith, but since all the newspapers, and the police and everyone else has fled London, how did you make your enquiries?’
She smiled disarmingly. ‘I spent rather a long time using the telephone in your office. STD is still working.’
‘Sarah, do you seriously think this man Whitaker could be behind it all?’ The Doctor looked thoughtful.
‘It’s something I once read on how the police work,’ she explained. ‘If there’s a murder or a robbery, they always look for any odd thing that happened at around that time. The man, for example, who always drives himself to work but on the day of the murder travelled by bus. Now here we’ve got someone playing around with Time, and six months ago the one man who claimed he could control Time vanished. And it’s a fact that never before in his life did he go off without telling everyone of his whereabouts—you know, holidays, attending international conferences, and so on.’
The Brigadier was clearly impressed. ‘This is a most extraordinary coincidence, don’t you agree, Doctor?’
Before the Doctor could answer, Sarah concluded her argument. ‘You see, Doctor, he must have been bitterly disappointed when the Government refused to help him develop his theories. So what if he found other people who would put up the money and provide all the facilities he’d need?’
The Doctor was pensive for some moments. Then he began to speak rapidly. ‘I’d like to see this chap’s working papers, Brigadier. Is that possible?’
‘I suppose they must be somewhere, perhaps at his home, or filed by the Government when he made his application for help.’
‘Another thing,’ said the Doctor, ‘ask your UNIT chaps to transport the TARDIS to your temporary Headquarters. There are special instruments inside that I shall need.’
‘The order was given some hours ago. The TARDIS should be there by now.’
‘Good. Perhaps you could drive me over there.’
‘What about your little pet in the hangar?’ asked Sarah.
The Doctor looked through the internal window at the enormous bulk of the green, leathery tyrannosaurus rex. ‘He’ll be all right for a while.’ He turned to the Brigadier. ‘You’ll post a guard?’
The Brigadier nodded. ‘General Finch has lent me a special squad.’
‘But what if it dematerialises while you’re back at UNIT Headquarters?’ Sarah asked.
‘My instruments will still obtain the necessary readings. Are you going to come with us?’
‘Yes,’ replied Sarah eagerly. ‘I must get my camera.’
‘Whatever for?’ asked the Brigadier.
‘I’m a journalist, remember. When all this is over, I want to write about it and have photographs to offer to newspapers. It’ll be the scoop of a lifetime.’
The Brigadier looked stern. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Smith, but this whole affair is under a strict security blackout. You can take your photographs once the crisis is over.’
‘But, Brigadier,’ she cried out, ‘when the crisis is over there won’t be anything to photograph!’
‘I’m sorry, Miss Smith,’ the Brigadier repeated firmly, ‘but those are my orders. Are you ready, Doctor?’
The Doctor and the Brigadier hurried out. Sarah, pouting a little, took one last look at the monster, then turned and followed.
Had Sarah remained behind one second more she might have seen the reptile’s right eyelid blink. It was only a momentary flicker, as the reptile’s minute brain was starting to regain consciousness. As often happens with humans when they recover from a faint, the tyrannosaurus rex had a very severe headache. It breathed deeply, then fell into a peaceful sleep.
Captain Yates quietly entered the office. For the past half hour he had been concealed in one of the corridors leading out of the hangar, waiting for the office to become vacant. He looked at the Doctor’s directional detector, contemplating how best to render it useless.
The TARDIS was standing in a corner of the headmaster’s office. Sarah, who had been making some preliminary notes about the appearances of the dinosaurs, looked up as the Brigadier entered with General Finch and Sir Charles Grover.
‘Where’s the Doctor, Miss Smith?’
She nodded towards the open door of the TARDIS. ‘In there.’
The Brigadier called into the police box. ‘Doctor, could you spare us a moment?’ Then he introduced Sarah to the Cabinet Minister.
The Doctor’s head popped out of the TARDIS. ‘What is it now? I’m busy.’
‘The Minister has some information for you about this fellow Whitaker,’ explained the Brigadier.
The Doctor smiled. ‘Then you have my full attention.’
‘It’s rather negative information,’ said Sir Charles. ‘I was chairman of the committee that considered Whitaker’s application for a Government grant. I actually saw his working papers. Not that I understood them, of course, but my scientific advisers assured me they were utter nonsense. All I can say is that the man is, or was, a harmless crank. He couldn’t possibly be responsible for this dinosaur business.’
Sarah spoke up, unable to contain herself. ‘That’s not what I’ve heard, Sir Charles! I’ve spoken to h
is colleagues who were at Oxford with him, to the science correspondent of The Times, and to the editors of a number of scientific journals. They all say he was brilliant!’
Sir Charles turned to her with a kindly smile. ‘His work on the measurement of the internal weights of atoms was brilliant, Miss Smith, and so was his contribution to the analysis of magnetic infractions. But his ideas about Time travel were completely worthless.’ He turned back to the Doctor. ‘I understand you have set up an experiment that may give us a clue to the appearance of the dinosaurs? I’d be interested to hear more about it.’
‘I shall need the map of London to explain what I have in mind. Brigadier, may we all go to your office?’
The Brigadier opened the door and ushered out the Doctor and Sir Charles. ‘General Finch, sir? Will you accompany us?’
‘I have to get back to my own Headquarters,’ said the General. He gazed at the police box in silence until the Brigadier and the others had left. Then he spoke to Sarah. ‘You say this chap Whitaker disappeared, Miss Smith?’
‘So far as I know. He vanished six months ago. Just upped and left home.’
‘A lot of people do disappear. They leave home, change their names, try to make new lives for themselves.’
‘Not famous scientists.’
The General laughed gruffly. ‘A famous Member of Parliament once tried to do it. We never know what pressures people are really undergoing.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Sarah, ‘that this is an enormous coincidence.’
‘What do you intend to do?’
‘Keep looking for him,’ she replied with determination. ‘I’ll make those pompous idiots believe me. Even the Brigadier’s of no help. We’ve got that monster chained down, and he wouldn’t let me take photographs of it—wouldn’t even give me a pass to go back to the hangar.’
‘That seems most unfriendly of him,’ said the General, showing a softer side of his character. He took out a little notebook, wrote a few lines, and handed a slip of paper to her. ‘Take this to my Headquarters, see my Adjutant. He’ll give you a pass.’
Sarah was thrilled. ‘Thanks! Where is your HQ?’
‘Show the note to my driver. He’ll take you there.’
Sarah was so pleased that she felt like giving the General a kiss, but on second thoughts restrained herself. ‘Thank you, General. Thank you very much indeed.’ She rushed to the door, then paused. ‘What about you? Won’t you need your car?’
‘I have things to attend to here. Have a good trip.’
‘I will!’ Sarah rushed out of the office, clutching the tiny slip of paper.
Alone, the General looked at the Doctor’s workbench. After a few moments’ search among the tools, he found the hacksaw that he was shortly going to need.
Sarah was studying the inert tyrannosaurus rex from the safety of the hangar office. She raised her miniature camera to take the first shot then remembered that the flash-light would probably reflect against the glass window. She went through the door that led directly into the hangar.
Until now everything had happened so quickly she had scarcely had time to react to the situation. As she slowly circled the monster, she experienced a strange feeling of wonder and awe. She was examining a real living dinosaur, something that humans had never seen before because they had not developed until millions of years after the last of the giant dinosaurs had died. This animal lived—in a sense was still living—in a time when the world looked very different from today. Flowers did not exist in that world because insects had not yet evolved to carry pollen. To make life possible for so many varieties of cold-blooded reptiles, the atmosphere must have been warm and humid. The earliest mammals were just beginning to evolve, life forms that carried their babies within themselves instead of laying eggs.
She raised the camera to take the first photograph. The flash apparatus flared for a split second, and in that split second the first photograph of a living dinosaur was recorded for all time. She took a series of photographs of the monster’s bulk, then moved up to the enormous head. It was as she pressed the flash button for the fourth time that the tyrannosaurus’s right eye blinked again.
The tyrannosaurus was suddenly, abruptly aware of blinding light. Programmed into its minuscule mind was intense fear of lightning storms. Being taller than most other animals, taller than much of the primeval foliage (there were very few trees then), the tyrannosaurus rex was a frequent victim of lightning strikes. And thunder-and-lightning were almost daily weather conditions in the warm balmy atmosphere of pre-history. Time and again the tyrannosaurus rex had seen its own kind killed outright when the daggers of electricity sliced down from the clouds.
With an ear-splitting roar, the monster raised its head, only to find its movements restricted by giant chains. Sarah raced back into the little hangar office, slamming the door. She went straight to the door that led to the corridor outside—and found it locked. She banged furiously on the door.
‘Let me out! Who’s locked this door?’
The tyrannosaurus rex tried moving its legs and its tail. All parts of itself were held down. Instinctively it struggled to become free. With a new strength born of fear and anger, it stretched out its legs until suddenly the chains snapped.
Sarah heard the crash of the giant chains as they slid from the monster’s legs to the concrete floor. Unable to stop herself, she turned and watched in terror as the dinosaur now raised its neck, snapping the chains that held down the upper part of its body.
Temporarily exhausted by its efforts, the tyrannosaurus rex remained lying on the floor. Then it became aware of a noisy midget only a few yards away. Through the window it could see the midget with its mouth open, screaming. Most of the monster’s prey was like this just before being eaten—mouth open in fear, making a loud noise. The thought triggered the sensation of hunger in the reptile’s brain. It hadn’t eaten since morning when it caught two very small dinosaurs. It moved its head forward to take a better look at its next meal.
Sarah beat her fists on the door to the corridor. ‘Help! Will someone open this door!’
There was no response. She felt sick with fear.
The tyrannosaurus rex moved its great snout forward to take its prey, and found its nose pressed against something that it couldn’t see. This was bewildering. There was the prey, clearly visible, but some plate of invisible substance stood between them. It wriggled its great bulk round and started to bash at the little wooden office with its tail.
The first blow from the tail smashed the window. The second blow smashed in the entire window frame and fractured the wall. The third blow brought down part of the roof. A rafter hit Sarah’s head, throwing her to the ground. The fourth blow was about to strike as the door to the corridor opened and the Doctor reached in, pulling Sarah to safety.
She was aware of being carried into the open air. She clung to the Doctor, weeping.
‘It’s all right, my dear,’ he said soothingly, ‘you’re safe now.’
Hearing a terrific crash of falling masonry, they looked up. The head of the giant tyrannosaurus rex was sticking up through the vast roof of the aircraft hangar.
‘We must get away,’ shouted the Doctor. ‘If it does give chase, I don’t imagine it can outrun the speed of a jeep.’
Sarah was bundled into the passenger seat. She turned back to look, fascinated and horrified, at the giant reptile.
‘Doctor! It’s vanishing!’
As they watched the tyrannosaurus rex dematerialised and was gone.
Sergeant Benton and two UNIT soldiers carefully laid the directional detector apparatus on the Doctor’s work bench. The Doctor was busy inspecting the bump on Sarah’s head which had been made by the falling rafter.
‘The skin isn’t broken,’ he told her, ‘but it will probably be a bit swollen for a day or two.’ He turned to the Brigadier. ‘The creature was still in the force field when it vanished, so perhaps the directional detector will tell us something.’
Se
rgeant Benton carried in a couple of heavy sacks. ‘I think, Doctor, that what’s in here might tell you something.’ He pulled from a bag a length of heavy chain. ‘Some of these links have been half sawn through.’
The Doctor took the chain from Benton. ‘By Jove, you’re right!’ He turned quickly to inspect the directional detector. ‘And this has been sabotaged. Not a single reading.’
For a moment there was complete silence. The Brigadier dismissed the two UNIT privates, and turned to the Doctor. ‘So we have someone inside our organisation working against us.’
‘Obviously.’ The Doctor rubbed his chin, thinking. ‘I shall now have to try a completely different approach.’
‘Are you going to catch another monster?’ asked Sarah weakly.
‘No,’ replied the Doctor, much to the relief of the Brigadier and Sergeant Benton. ‘We know these Time transferences must require enormous amounts of energy. I’m going to build a device that will detect that energy at its source.’
‘Why didn’t you think of that in the first place?’ asked the Brigadier, a little piqued. ‘Moving thirty tons of inert reptile from a cul-de-sac to that aircraft hangar was not my idea of fun!’
‘Perhaps,’ said the Doctor disarmingly, ‘because even I cannot think of everything at once.’
‘Exactly how much energy would be needed to make those things appear, Doctor?’ asked Sarah.
‘Oh, you’d need something like a small nuclear generator.’
‘Then why don’t we look for one?’
The Brigadier smiled self-importantly. ‘You may sometimes think we military chaps are stupid, Miss Smith, but that was one of the first things that occurred to me. I have made a thorough check and I can assure you there are no nuclear generators which have not been accounted for in the Central London area.’
Sarah gave the Brigadier a savage look.
‘I’m afraid the Brigadier’s right,’ said the Doctor. ‘There can’t be any nuclear generators around that nobody knows about. Why don’t you try and get some rest? You had a nasty fright in that hangar.’
Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion Page 7