‘Here.’ The Brigadier searched in his bag of equipment again, and produced a very fine nylon rope ladder. ‘I’ll go down there with you.’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Less chance of being spotted if I’m alone. You go and summon up some reinforcements. See you soon, I hope.’ He hurried away into the cloud of black smoke which still billowed from the centre of the explosion, while the Brigadier went up the stairs to get to his jeep and radio in for troops to be sent if any were still in the London area.
The Brigadier’s voice came over Sergeant Benton’s earphones. ‘Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart to UNIT Headquarters. We need troops urgently at Westminster Underground Station.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Benton replied into the microphone. ‘I can contact one mobile patrol. It’s all that’s left in London.’
‘Good man. Send them here as fast as possible. Over and out.’
General Finch stood by Benton, his service revolver pointed at the sergeant’s neck. ‘You will forget that request for troops, sergeant.’
‘But sir, if the Brigadier’s in danger…’
‘The Brigadier is clearly aiding and assisting an escaped detainee. He will be court martialled, and so will you if you act on his instructions.’
The sergeant hung his head, signifying compliance with his superior officer’s orders. ‘Very good, sir. Just as you say, sir.’
The General smiled and lowered his gun. ‘I’m glad you see it my way, sergeant—’
Benton suddenly leapt to his feet. As his clenched fist swung into the General’s jaw bone, he said, ‘Very sorry to have to do this, sir.’
The General saw the fist too late. It crashed into his jaw bone, stunning him instantly. He fell heavily to the floor, his revolver spinning away from his hand.
Sergeant Benton grabbed his sub-machine gun and helmet and hurried out of the classroom.
Professor Whitaker looked up from the controls of the Timescoop. ‘Everything’s ready.’
Grover looked worried. ‘General Finch should be here.’
‘I hope you don’t propose to wait. The timing is crucial.’
‘He must be in the area,’ said Butler. ‘As long as he’s inside the protective field, he’ll be scooped up with us.’
‘That’s true,’ agreed Grover, and turned to Whitaker. ‘All right, Professor Whitaker. Let us now return to the Golden Age.’
Whitaker put his hand on the lever that would activate the Timescoop and roll back Time. ‘Just think of it, a moment from now I shall have achieved what everyone believed to be impossible.’
‘Indeed so,’ said Grover, glancing at his watch. ‘Would you like to get on with it?’
‘You just don’t want me to have my moment of glory, do you?’ Whitaker pouted. ‘All right, I’ll pull the lever.’
‘Stop! We shall have no part of this!’
The trio standing by the Timescoop swung round to see Adam entering the control room. He was followed by Ruth, Mark, Sarah, and a group of people dressed in blue denim tunics. Grover was the first to recover from the shock. He shouted at Whitaker. ‘Go ahead! Do it now!’
The bank manager and Mark pushed past Grover and pulled Whitaker away from the controls.
‘You’ve cheated us,’ Ruth accused. ‘We know all about you.’
Grover looked at the people who were now menacing him. ‘My dear friends, I haven’t cheated anyone. Let me pull that lever and you will have the Golden Age that I promised you.’
‘You’re going to destroy all the civilisations of Humankind,’ said Adam. ‘All the great literature of the ages, every work of art—everything will vanish. Leaving Earth for another planet was one thing, but this is evil.’
‘Civilisation has already destroyed Humanity,’ Grover replied. ‘It’s time to make a fresh start. If we take the Earth back in time, we can guide Humanity along a better path. Just think of it—we can give it a second chance!’
The bank manager moved away from the Timescoop. ‘That’s true, you know. Do we really want to keep the world as it is?’
Grover was grateful for an ally. ‘Now is our chance to build the world anew. Are we to let that opportunity slip through our fingers?’
‘He’s right,’ said Ruth. ‘And why should we lose our chance of personal happiness? This is what we all planned. I say that we complete the plan!’
‘No,’ protested Mark, ‘it’s criminal!’ He turned to face Ruth. ‘The only reason you want to go ahead now is because you can’t stand being made a fool of! You must never be wrong!’ He turned to the remainder of the group. ‘If we allow that lever to be pulled we shall become as evil and self-seeking as the things we hate in this present world!’
‘Quite right,’ said the Doctor as he entered from the corridor that led to the lift shaft. His clothes were dusty after his climb down the rope ladder. ‘None of you will be fit to enter your so-called Golden Age if this is the means you intend to use to get there.’
‘Congratulations, Doctor,’ said Grover. ‘You are in time to be present at the most important moment in the world’s history.’
‘On the contrary,’ said the Doctor. ‘I am in time to prevent a crime.’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘And fortunately I am not alone.’
The Brigadier, Sergeant Benton, and half a dozen UNIT soldiers entered from the corridor, all as dusty as the Doctor from their climb down the lift shaft.
‘No one is to move,’ ordered the Brigadier. He pointed across the control room at Professor Whitaker. ‘Kindly stand away from those controls.’
Grover turned quickly to Whitaker. ‘Go ahead. Now!’
Whitaker pushed Mark aside, and leapt for the lever that would activate Operation Golden Age. His hands grasped it firmly, and he pulled downwards with all his might.
Slowly the Brigadier, Benton, and the UNIT soldiers began to walk backwards into the corridor. Adam, Ruth, Mark, Sarah, and the group from the space ship went through all their most recent actions in slow-motion reverse, and then started to move backwards out of the control room.
Being a Time Lord, the reversal of Time did not completely affect the Doctor. As though swimming through a sea of oil, the Doctor forced himself forward towards the lever of the Timescoop. As his hand reached out to touch it, he saw that Professor Whitaker and Grover—who stood nearest to the Timescoop—were already dematerialising. The Time eddy swirled all around the Doctor, its great force seeking to drive him back into the corridor from which he had come, but he struggled forward. His fingers reached the lever, touched it, curled round it. Exerting himself to the utmost, he pushed the lever slowly back into position.
Instantly Time moved forward again. The group from the space ship trooped back into the control room, followed by the Brigadier and Sergeant Benton and the UNIT soldiers.
‘No one is to move,’ commanded the Brigadier. He looked across to where Professor Whitaker had been standing. ‘Kindly stand away from those controls…’ His voice trailed off. He turned to the Doctor. ‘Where’s Whitaker?’
‘I imagine he and Sir Charles Grover have returned to their Golden Age,’ replied the Doctor. ‘Perhaps they will be happier there.’
The Doctor started up the jeep which he had borrowed from the Brigadier, and drove Sarah away from Westminster Underground Station. Slowly, thoughtfully, he turned it into a deserted Whitehall. It was not until they neared Trafalgar Square that either of them spoke.
‘If Sir Charles Grover and Professor Whitaker really travelled back in Time,’ said Sarah, ‘it means they were in our past. But that’s impossible.’
‘Is it? Why?’
‘Well, we’d have heard of them.’
‘Surely that depends at what point in the past they arrived.’ The Doctor turned the jeep into Charing Cross Road. A flock of pigeons, unaccustomed to traffic for the past fortnight, flew up from the road as the vehicle approached.
‘It would have changed our history,’ continued Sarah.
‘Not if they were already there.’
She ran her hands thro
ugh her hair. The bump was going down. ‘I find it very confusing.’
‘Only because you think of Time as one continuous process. But what if Time goes backwards and forward, or round in big circles?’
‘If people from the future turned up in the past,’ she said, emphatically, ‘we’d know about it!’
‘Perhaps we do.’ The Doctor drove the jeep slowly round Cambridge Circus. ‘You know, there’s a book you might try reading sometime.’
‘What’s that?’
The Doctor stopped the jeep and looked up and down Charing Cross Road, London’s centre of bookshops. ‘Well, let’s see what we can find.’ He drove on a little further and stopped the jeep outside Foyle’s. The front doors had been battered in by the swish of a monster’s tail. ‘We might find it in here.’
He strode into the deserted bookshop. Sarah followed him, calling, ‘We could be shot as looters!’
‘We’re not going to take anything,’ said the Doctor, ‘just browse a little. Ah!’ He saw a sign reading RELIGIOUS DEPARTMENT and went towards it. By the time Sarah caught up, the Doctor was looking into a copy of The Holy Bible.
‘Read that,’ he said, pointing to a page. ‘It’s Ezekiel, Chapter 1 verse 5–6.’
Sarah read: ‘Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.’
She looked up at the Doctor. ‘Who were these creatures?’
The Doctor shrugged. ‘Perhaps they were from another planet, or from the future of this planet.’ He replaced the book on its shelf.
They got back into the jeep and turned north towards UNIT’s temporary Headquarters. ‘There are so many mysteries,’ said the Doctor as they headed up the Tottenham Court Road. ‘Remember what I told you about the Marie Celeste? The whole Universe is full of mysteries. The important thing is to keep an open mind.’
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BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing,
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Novelisation copyright © Malcolm Hulke 1976
Original script © Malcolm Hulke 1974
The Changing Face of Doctor Who and About the Author © Justin Richards 2015
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BBC, DOCTOR WHO and TARDIS (word marks, logos and devices) are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence.
First published by BBC Books in 2016
First published in 1976 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co. Ltd.
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ISBN 9781785940378
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Cover illustration: Chris Achilleos
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Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion Page 13