But Whitaker was sulking. ‘I know when I’m not welcome. If it’s such a problem to provide me with the equipment that’s vital for Operation Golden Age, you only have to say.’
Twice when Butler was entering electronic shops in the Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street to take these things for Whitaker, he had had to hide like a thief from Army patrols. He hated these trips outside because of their danger; even more, he hated being cooped up with this peculiar professor day and night under the ground. ‘I am very sorry for what I just said, Professor. Will you be kind enough to accept my sincere and most abject apologies?’
Professor Whitaker regarded him for half a minute. Then the flicker of a smile. ‘You really are sorry?’
‘Yes,’ said Butler, wishing he could drive his fist into Whitaker’s pale face and break all his teeth, ‘I really am terribly sorry. Obviously you must have all the equipment that you need for the great experiment which only you can carry out.’
‘All right,’ said Whitaker, coming back to the suitcase, ‘let’s have a proper look at what you’ve got for me.’
Butler lifted out a piece of electronic equipment. ‘You said you wanted one of these.’
Whitaker clapped his hands with delight. ‘A thermal dynometer! How terribly clever of you to get one——’
He stopped short. Something had caught his eye. The lift indicator was flashing. ‘It seems we are going to have company,’ he said.
Butler rushed to one of the TV monitors and pressed a button. On to the screen flashed a picture of the corridor by the lifts. One of the lift doors opened and the Doctor stepped out.
‘Who on earth is that?’ said Professor Whitaker.
Butler’s face looked grim. ‘The Doctor, UNIT’s scientific adviser. I’ll kill him.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Whitaker protested. He looked keenly at the Doctor, who was now peering up and down the corridor wondering which way to go. ‘He’s terribly handsome.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Oh, play games with him,’ said Whitaker. ‘You know what to do. Just send him away.’
Whitaker returned to the suitcase. Butler knew it might only annoy Whitaker again if he didn’t carry out the order, and his strict instructions were to keep the Professor happy at all costs. He crossed to the panel of controls that activated the control centre’s radiation-proof internal doors.
The Doctor glanced up and down the corridor. He caught sight of a large notice on the wall with daggers pointing in different directions. It read:
CABINET ROOM
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY ROOM
SECRETARIAT
ROYAL SUITE
KENNELS
SLEEPING QUARTERS
VICTUALS
SICK BAY
COMMUNICATIONS ROOM
NUCLEAR REACTOR
The Doctor hurried off in the direction indicated for the Nuclear Reactor. He found himself in a labyrinth of corridors. At each intersection signs indicated the way to different Government departments. He realised that this place was to have been the British seat of government had atomic war broken out. He turned into yet another corridor; at the far end was a door bearing the words NUCLEAR REACTORS—KEEP OUT. He raced towards the door. A heavy metal shutter slammed down in front of him, completely blocking his way. On it were the words RADIATION SHUTTER. Now he knew that his presence had been detected. He turned round and raced back up the corridor and turned a corner. Another shutter fell from its slot in the ceiling, barring his way. He made off in another direction. More shutters came down before him. He noticed that at some points, where shutter slits were clearly visible in the ceiling, the shutters did not come down. So they were playing a game with him, guiding him, by closing up some corridors, in the direction that they wanted him to go.
Finally he found himself back at the corridor outside the lift. The lift door stood open invitingly. At either end of the corridor shutters came down. He got into the lift among the mops and pales and brooms, and turned the clothes hook to point upwards. The door closed and the lift started to ascend. He hadn’t found everything he wanted, but he had seen enough. As the lift neared the Underground Station, it crossed his mind that they could have killed him but had let him escape alive. He wondered why.
Butler turned to Professor Whitaker. ‘I’ve guided him back to the lift. He’ll go and tell everyone what he’s seen.’ He felt he was not getting the Professor’s full attention. Whitaker was concentrating on something he was doing at the Timescoop. ‘I said he’s escaping,’ said Butler. ‘Remember, you didn’t want me to kill him. Do you realise what will happen now?’
Professor Whitaker replied, ‘I’ve changed my mind. Come and look.’
Butler crossed to the Timescoop. Above the main console of controls was a small television monitor screen. On the screen a large pterodactyl in a sandy barren landscape was sitting on a rock.
‘Just think,’ said Whitaker. ‘That ghastly looking creature is actually sitting on that rock at this very moment.’
‘But millions of years ago.’
‘Don’t be so argumentative. All right, it was sitting exactly like that, and I’ve tuned in to it.’
‘Most impressive,’ replied Butler distractedly. He was wondering how he could make his escape before the Brigadier and goodness-knew-who-else descended to arrest them all. ‘But the Doctor is still escaping. We are in a very serious situation, Professor Whitaker.’
‘You don’t think I’ve summoned up that awful looking pterodactyl just for fun, do you? Now watch.’ He adjusted two master controls. The pterodactyl became transparent, then vanished.
‘Where have you sent it?’
Professor Whitaker giggled. ‘Guess!’
The lift came to a stop. The Doctor pushed open the louvred door, switched on his torch, and stepped on to the platform of the Underground Station. He strode purposefully off down the corridor, his head buzzing with his discoveries, towards the steps that led up to street level. He stopped. What was that noise? Swinging up the torch he caught a swooping pterodactyl in the beam. He flung himself to one side as it flapped by, the tip of one leathery wing grazing his cheek. The Doctor trained the torch on the flying reptile as it wheeled round to attack again. He dived full-length on the platform—but the bird anticipated its prey’s move by back-flapping in full flight, and landed by the Doctor’s head, huge jaws open to tear at the flesh of the Doctor’s face! The Doctor swung the torch round and shone it full into the monster’s eyes. Screeching loudly, the pterodactyl flew up to the roof of the station. The Doctor scrambled to his feet and raced down the station, the flapping wings pursuing him. At the opening to the stairs the pterodactyl found its wing span too great to go through. The Doctor escaped up the stairs. Being now in total darkness, the pterodactyl settled down to wait for sunrise.
7
The Reminder Room
Sarah looked through the glass door that led to the flight deck. The one seat which faced the console of instruments was empty. From time to time, the levers on the console moved of their own accord.
‘Why is there no pilot?’
‘It’s not necessary,’ replied Mark, who was showing Sarah around the space ship. ‘The controls are all on automatic pilot, locked to the controls of the leading ship.’
‘Extraordinary.’ She extended her hand to open the glass door.
Mark showed alarm. ‘You mustn’t go in there!’
Sarah quickly withdrew her hand. ‘Why not?’
‘None of us can go in there. The controls are very delicate. When we arrive, the ship will land automatically.’ He smiled. ‘And our Golden Age will begin.’
Sarah screwed up her face, and pretended that she couldn’t remember what he meant. ‘My memory still isn’t very good, Mark. How will we live?’
‘We shall found a settlement. We have seed, tools, and enough provisions to keep us going for a year. We’ll be like the Pilgrim Fathers who went to America.’
‘What abou
t the present inhabitants of the planet? I don’t think the Red Indians liked the Pilgrim Fathers very much. Maybe these people won’t like us.’
‘We shall treat them kindly and decently,’ Mark insisted. ‘We’ll guide them, and make sure they don’t make the same mistakes that were made on Earth.’
‘What mistakes?’
‘Surely you know. Factories and mines that destroy the landscape. Explosives of all kinds that kill and maim. Cars and aeroplanes that pollute the atmosphere.’
Ruth and Adam appeared from the direction of the main living quarters. ‘Finding it interesting?’ Adam asked Sarah.
‘Very. Mark’s just reminding me about all the awful things humans have done to ruin Earth.’ She turned back to the young athlete. ‘But what about medicine and education? Surely they were good things.’
Ruth laughed. ‘Compared with its evils, the benefits of technological civilisation are very few.’
Adam took up the argument. ‘Supermarkets, colour television, plastic cups. But what are they all worth?’
‘They make life comfortable for a lot of people.’
Adam, ignoring Sarah’s reply, continued: ‘We shall take the good, but leave the evil behind.’
‘And who decides which is which?’
‘It’s all so obvious.’ Adam’s eyes began to look like those of a prophet who was in personal communication with God.
‘But don’t you think that people have a right to choose the kind of life they want?’ Sarah blurted out.
Ruth looked at her a little sternly. ‘People on Earth were allowed to choose—and see what kind of a world they made! Moral degradation, permissiveness, cheating, lying, cruelty!’
Ruth’s one-sided attitude angered Sarah. ‘There is also a lot of love and kindness and honesty! Didn’t you ever notice those things on Earth?’
Ruth’s mouth set into hard lines. ‘You mustn’t say such things!’
Mark grinned. ‘I’m sure Sarah meant nothing——’
‘Oh yes I did!’ interrupted Sarah. ‘And I’ll say whatever I like. I’ve met people like you lot before. Everything you believe in must be absolutely right! If anyone dares to disagree with you, you don’t even listen!’
Adam turned to Ruth. He spoke as though Sarah wasn’t even present. ‘I was assured by the organisers that everyone had been carefully selected and screened.’
‘You see! You even talk to each other as if I didn’t exist!’
‘We have to consider the good of the majority,’ Adam snapped. ‘I don’t think you’re going to be very happy with us. If you are not of a like mind, why did you choose to join us?’
‘I didn’t! I was brought here against my wishes.’
‘Impossible. Quite impossible. The re-awakening must have affected your mind.’
‘I quite agree,’ added Ruth. ‘She’ll have to go to the Reminder Room.’
Sarah backed away. ‘What’s that?’
Adam gripped her arm firmly. ‘You are in desperate need of re-education.’
‘Don’t worry, child,’ said Ruth, taking Sarah’s other arm. ‘Very soon you will have returned to our point of view—about everything.’
The Brigadier’s jeep stopped outside Westminster Underground Station, followed by the two other UNIT jeeps.
‘Two men stand guard by the vehicles,’ called the Brigadier. ‘The rest of us will follow you, Doctor.’
The UNIT soldiers opened the gates. The Doctor ran down the steps into the underground station, the boots of UNIT soldiers clattering behind him.
‘What I can’t understand,’ shouted the Brigadier, running to keep up with the Doctor, ‘is why they let you escape.’
‘They tried to kill me by materialising a pterodactyl. I’m fortunate to be alive.’
They had reached the platform now. The Doctor raced towards the cubicle which had contained the mops and pails, and wrenched open the door. ‘This is the lift. And this is how you work it…’
His voice trailed off. The hooks had disappeared.
‘Something wrong?’ asked the Brigadier.
‘There’s an airvent on the platform,’ said the Doctor, stepping backwards out of the cubicle. ‘Let’s check that.’
The Doctor pulled out his large silk handkerchief and hung it from finger and thumb in front of the airvent. There was no movement of air at all.
‘It looks,’ said the Brigadier, ‘as though the birds have flown.’ He thought of a feeble joke. ‘Along with their pterodactyls.’
The Doctor straightened up, pocketing his handkerchief. ‘Don’t you believe me about this place?’
‘Of course I do,’ answered the Brigadier. ‘Have you ever known me not to believe you, Doctor? But it looks as though there is now no proof. And no way into that control centre you told me about!’
Sir Charles Grover listened attentively to his visitor’s report about the underground control centre. When the Doctor had finished, Grover smiled. ‘You must have been talking to Miss Smith, Doctor.’
The Doctor was puzzled by the reply. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She came here with a most marvellous theory that such a place had once been built right under Central London.’
‘She came to see you?’ queried the Brigadier.
‘She thought I might know about it,’ replied Grover honestly. ‘We checked the files together. Why look, I still have the file on my desk!’ Grover picked up a manilla folder and opened it. ‘See for yourself, Doctor. This explains the entire plan for an underground seat of government in the event of atomic war.’ He handed the file to the Doctor. ‘You will also see a memorandum stating that the idea was later abandoned and the place never constructed.’ Grover had typed the memo himself fifteen minutes before the arrival of the Doctor and the Brigadier.
The Doctor glanced briefly at the contents of the folder. ‘You will forgive me, Minister, but I prefer to believe the evidence of my own eyes. Where did Miss Smith go after she visited you?’
‘Back to UNIT.’
‘Are you sure of that, sir?’ asked the Brigadier. ‘We haven’t seen her for some time.’
Grover pretended to rack his brains. ‘She turned up here in a UNIT car. I sent that straight back because I didn’t want to keep your driver waiting. Then, after we’d had our little chat, I sent her back to you in my own ministerial car.’
The Brigadier looked puzzled. ‘She didn’t arrive. Perhaps she asked your driver to take her somewhere else?’
‘I could check that for you.’ Grover lifted his internal phone and spoke into it. ‘Will you send in my chauffeur, please?’ He put down the phone, and turned back to the Doctor and the Brigadier. ‘A cup of tea, gentlemen? With no catering staff in London, I have this little gadget over here for brewing up. Would you care for some?’
‘It’s very kind,’ said the Doctor. ‘But not just now, thank you.’ He paused. ‘Sir Charles, I have definitely been into an underground place that was humming with life, and it can’t be very far from here.’
Grover smiled at the Doctor, as one might to a madman. ‘I’m sure you believe you’ve been in such a place, Doctor. But since you now admit that you can’t find your way in again…’
A tap on the door. A uniformed chauffeur entered and stood to attention. Grover turned to the man.
‘Where did you take the young lady who was visiting me?’
The man in chauffeur’s uniform answered, ‘Back to UNIT Headquarters, sir.’
‘You’re quite sure of that?’
‘Yes, sir. I saw her go inside.’
‘Right, that will be all, thank you.’
As the chauffeur turned to go, the Doctor noticed a livid scar that ran down the man’s left cheek.
The Reminder Room made Sarah think of the little cell where she had been hypnotised by the flashing lights. Small and windowless, it, too, contained a single chair, but this one was bolted to the middle of the floor. The chair faced a screen that filled the whole of one wall. After she had been locked in the roo
m for a few minutes a film started to play on the screen, obviously specially made to ‘remind’ any doubting members that they had been right to join the group. All the shots were of bad things on Earth: mounds of wrecked cars, factory chimneys belching black smoke, oil on beaches, dead fish in polluted rivers, traffic jams, jet planes roaring over crowded cities. A commentator’s voice boomed from loudspeakers set in the four corners of the little room.
‘Ever since the Industrial Revolution, Man has polluted his planet, until now his only home. Not only has Man ruined his own environment, he has made life impossible for other living creatures. Seventy-five species of animals were made extinct in the first seventy-five years of this century. Others are threatened. The Giant Lemurs of Madagascar may soon suffer the same fate as the King Kangaroos of Australia——’
The film and the commentary stopped abruptly. The door opened and Mark came in. He was carrying a tray containing a glass of water and a piece of brown bread.
‘I’ve brought you something to eat.’
Sarah looked at the bread and water. ‘No chance of my getting overweight.’
‘The bread is pure. This diet will help cleanse your body of toxic things; and that will help to clear your mind.’
‘Very thoughtful of you. In olden times witches were burnt to death to save their souls.’
‘We’re not like that,’ Mark smiled, not taking Sarah seriously. ‘We only want to help you.’
‘That’s what they always said to the witches.’ She started to eat the bread; it was awful. ‘Why won’t you believe that I was kidnapped and put on this ship?’
‘Because that’s impossible. Now watch the film. It will remind you of the truth.’
Before Sarah could stop him, he left, locking the door behind him. Immediately the film came back on the screen. It showed a traffic policeman in Tokyo.
‘… after two hours controlling traffic, this policeman must be given one full hour of oxygen treatment. So much for the pleasure of motoring…’
The film continued. Sarah munched her piece of bread.
Sir Charles Grover was presiding over the planning meeting in the Cabinet Room of the underground control centre. Portraits of Disraeli, Gladstone, Churchill, and President Kennedy hung from the oak panelled walls of the windowless room. Seated round a huge table covered in expensive red leather were Professor Whitaker, General Finch and Captain Michael Yates.
Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion Page 9