Doctor Who - [083] - [Target Novel 09] -The Android Invasion

by Terrance Dicks

  THE BRAIN DRAIN

  Sara recovered consciousness to a sort of swaying motion. She opened her eyes and saw corridor walls going past. She was being carried somewhere on a stretcher. But why?

  She was lifted from the stretcher and placed on a table. An operating table, thought Sarah wildly. She'd been hurt in an accident and now they were going to operate. She was in a small circular room that was packed with complicated equipment. Lights flashed before her eyes, and there was a low background of electronic hums and beeps.

  A face appeared, hovering above her. It was Harry. Good old Harry Sullivan. Naturally, he'd be there if she'd been hurt.

  "Harry?" she whispered weakly. Sudden panic swept over her and she started to struggle. But she couldn't move—there were clamps holding her to the table.

  Harry moved away and a moment later another face appeared. It seemed strangely distorted, and Sarah blinked furiously, forcing herself to concentrate. As her vision cleared, she gave a gasp of pure horror. The face hovering over her was broad and flat with leathery greenish skin. The hideous vision loomed larger—then Sarah slipped into unconsciousness.

  The voice of Harry Sullivan said impassively. "She is ready, Styggron."

  "Good. Commence the analysis of the brain."

  DOCTOR WHO

  AND THE ANDROID INVASION

  by Terrance Dicks

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  NEW YORK

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  DOCTOR WHO AND THE ANDROID INVASION (#9)

  Text of book copyright © 1975 by Terrance Dicks

  "Doctor Who" series copyright © 1977 by the British Broadcasting Corporation Introduction copyright © 1980 by Harlan Ellison

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Pinnacle Books edition, published by special arrangement with W. H. Allen & Co. Ltd. First published in Great Britain.

  First printing, January 1980

  Second printing, May 1981

  ISBN: 0-523-41619-9

  Cover illustration by David Mann

  Printed in the United States of America

  PINNACLE BOOKS, INC.

  1430 Broadway

  New York, New York 10018

  Contents

  Strange Arrival

  Village of Terror

  The Watcher

  Hunted

  Captured

  The Test

  The Countdown

  Blast Off

  Hero's Return

  Takeover

  Death of a Doctor

  DR. WHO AND THE ANDROID INVASION

  Strange Arrival

  A soldier was marching through the forest. He wore the uniform of a corporal in the British Army. His buttons gleamed in the sunlight, his boots shone a glossy black, his trousers were sharply creased and his beret was set at the regulation angle. The rifle on his shoulder was clean, bright, and slightly oiled.

  He crossed the forest clearing in a dead straight line, the handsome young face set in an expressionless mask, eyes staring blankly ahead. But a heavy, dragging limp in his left leg marred the military precision of his pace, that and a spasmodic clenching and unclenching of his left hand.

  Although he avoided the trees, lesser obstacles didn't seem to register. A patch of brambles barred his path and he smashed through them like a tank. A thorn ripped a Jagged tear down the right side of his face but the soldier didn't seem to notice. He moved on through the forest with his odd, limping march, like a clockwork toy that someone had wound up and sent marching blindly forwards. A clockwork toy that wasn't quite working properly. He reached a dense clump of bushes on the far side of the clearing and came to a sudden jerky halt, standing motionless at attention, as still as one of the trees.

  Minutes later, a strange sound disturbed the peace of the forest, a kind of wheezing, groaning noise. An old blue police callbox materialized out of nowhere, standing four-square and solid in the little clearing. The door opened and a very tall man stepped out. He had wide staring eyes and a tangle of curly hair and he wore an assortment of loose-fitting tweedy, vaguely Bohemian garments topped off with a battered broad-brimmed soft hat and an incredibly long scarf.

  A slender dark-haired girl followed him out of the police callbox. She wore casual, late twentieth-century clothes, with a brightly-colored scarf at her throat. She looked searchingly at the forest around her and drew a deep, satisfied breath. "There you are, Doctor, I told you we'd reached Earth. Just sniff. That's real air, that is."

  "Possibly, Sarah. Possibly."

  Sarah looked uneasily at him. She had been the Doctor's companion through two lives and a number of fantastic adventures, journeying through Time and Space in his TARDIS. By now she was looking forward to returning home—and she didn't even want to consider the possibility that something had gone wrong with the TARDIS's ever-erratic steering mechanism. "What do you mean—possibly?"

  "The coordinates were set for Earth, but the linear calculator's been a little unreliable recently. It may just possibly have----"

  "Gone up the-creek again?" Sarah shook her head. "No, this is Earth all right!" She took another deep breath. "I love that fresh smell you get just after rain."

  The Doctor sniffed. "Yes, it does have that characteristic smell of wet earth... which is rather strange, when you look at the ground."

  "What about it?"

  The Doctor stooped and picked up a handful of soil. It was dry and crumbly, trickling away between his fingers. "It's bone dry. There hasn't been any rain here for weeks," He fished a small compass-like device from one of his pockets and studied the dial. The needle oscillated wildly for a moment, then swung firmly to the top of its scale. "Now what could be causing that?"

  "Causing what?"

  "There's some enormous energy source, not very far away." The Doctor moved over to a tree and began studying it suspiciously.

  Sarah followed him. "You don't really think there's been some mistake, do you? I mean we are on Earth?"

  "Well, unless someone's started exporting acorns. English oaks don't grow anywhere else in the galaxy, as far as I know."

  Sarah felt reassured. "Come on, Doctor, let's try and find out where we are."

  As they moved away, they passed the clump of bushes which was hiding the soldier. He was still standing there, perfectly motionless, eyes staring fixedly ahead, and they went by without seeing him. Soon after they'd gone, he resumed his jerky march, as if someone had wound him up and set him going again.

  The Doctor and Sarah moved on through the silent forest, Sarah staring uneasily around her. Although things looked normal, somehow they didn't feel normal. Just as they reached another clearing, Sarah stopped, putting a hand on the Doctor's arm. "Wait a minute."

  "What is it?"

  "I heard something moving—over there."

  Four figures came out of the trees. They wore white, high-necked overalls, and strange-looking helmets with dark visors that hid their faces. They looked vaguely like racing drivers or mechanics, thought Sarah. But what were four racing drivers doing in the middle of a wood?

  "Oh, good!" said the Doctor cheerfully. "Now we can find out where we are."

  "No, wait, I don't like the look of them..."

  But the Doctor had already stepped out into the clearing. "Hullo, there! I wonder if you could tell us exactly where we are?"

  The four white-clad mechanics stopped. Then, moving as one man, they raised their r
ight arms in front of them, fingers pointed accusingly at the Doctor.

  The Doctor stared hard at those pointing fingers and realized they ended in open tubes—like gun-muzzles. He flung himself down just as the fingers spat fire.

  Scrambling to his feet, the Doctor ran back into the shelter of the trees. "Not a very friendly welcome home! We'd better get away from here:"

  They ran through the trees, shots whizzing close to their heads.

  The four mechanics lowered their arms and turned to face each other. They stood motionless, for a moment in silent conference. Then they split up. Two of them turned and went back the way they had come. The two others began following the Doctor and Sarah through the woods.

  Sarah ran blindly on, the Doctor close behind her. The woods thinned out, and she saw that a tall thin hedge bordered the edge of the forest, barring their way. Sarah turned and got a glimpse of white overalls moving through the trees behind them. Frantically, she forced her way through the hedge, bursting through to the other side—then the ground disappeared from beneath her feet.

  The Doctor shot through the hedge behind her and threw himself forward, grabbing Sarah's wrist as she disappeared from sight. He dropped face down, bracing himself to take the shock of her weight.

  Sarah found herself dangling in empty space, supported only by the Doctor's grip. She looked down and saw the rocky ground horribly far below her. Slowly the Doctor began hauling her back to safety.

  Sarah scrambled back over the cliff edge, and sat gasping for breath. They were on the edge of a deep quarry which ran parallel with the edge of the woods. Apparently disused, it formed a deep, narrow valley, the sides overgrown with bushes and scrubby grass, Sarah looked at the Doctor. "Thanks. I should have looked before 1 leaped!"

  The Doctor grinned. "My pleasure. After all, I couldn't leave you hanging around, could I?"

  Sarah groaned, thinking .that nothing seemed to quell the Doctor's taste for terrible jokes. She got shakily to her feet. The Doctor indicated a steep path winding its way down to the quarry floor. "Let's try that way, shall we? Not so quick as your method, but a lot safer."

  He was about to lead the way when he saw movement in the bushes some way away. At first he thought the mechanics had caught up with them, and prepared to run. But the figure that emerged -wore not white, but khaki—the uniform of a corporal in the British Army. It came forward in a jerky, limping march, making straight for the sheer drop at the quarry's edge.

  "Hey, look out!" yelled the Doctor. "Stop! Stay where you are!"

  The soldier didn't seem to hear him. Face blank, eyes staring, he marched steadily forward.

  "Stop!" yelled Sarah. "Look out, you'll fall." They began running along the edge of the quarry. But the distance between them and the soldier was greater than that between the soldier and the quarry edge, and they had no chance of reaching him in time. He marched jerkily over the edge and hurtled down to the ground.

  Sarah stared down at the spread-eagled body, so far below that it looked like a broken doll. "Why didn't he stop, Doctor? He must have heard us."

  The Doctor was already heading for the path. "It's probably too late but we'd better get down to him. Come on."

  They scrambled down the path and across the rocky ground to the crumpled body. It was sprawled face down, huddled like an old sack. To Sarah's relief there didn't seem to be any blood.

  The Doctor shook his head. "The fall must have killed him instantly." He began looking through the pockets in the army uniform.

  Sarah still couldn't believe what she'd just seen. "He went over that cliff as if he was sleep walking." She shuddered at the memory. "Found anything?"

  The Doctor held out a handful of coins. "Take a look at these."

  "What about them?"

  "They're all mint-fresh. No scratches, no tarnish. There's something else too." He looked expectantly at her.

  Sarah examined the coins one by one. "They look all right to me. No, wait a minute. They've all got the same date!"

  "Exactly, And what are the odds against someone getting a whole pocketful of small change all of the same date?"

  "I just don't understand it..."

  The Doctor plunged his hands into his pockets and began pacing about the quarry, rather like a bloodhound questing for a lost scent. "Neither do I-yet. But..."

  "But what?"

  "What indeed," said the Doctor absently. His attention had been caught by an oddly-shaped rock on the far side of the quarry and he went to examine it.

  Sarah followed him. The rock, if it was a rock, was about eight feet long, and it seemed to have split into two identically shaped hollow halves, rather like a giant pea pod. Put together they would have made a long, hollow object, shaped, thought Sarah uneasily, rather like a lumpy coffin. The outer surface was made of charred, pitted rock, rather like a meteorite, The Doctor ran his hand along the hollow interior. It was lined with some dark, soft mossy material that felt rather like foam rubber.

  Sarah watched him impatiently. "Come on, Doctor, time we were moving on."

  "Wait a moment, this is fascinating..."

  "It's just an old canister. People are always dumping rubbish in disused quarries."

  "Thing is, I've seen something like this before. My memory's getting terrible these days."

  "It certainly is. You seem to have forgotten we were being shot at just a few minutes ago."

  As if to reinforce Sarah's words a bullet spanged off a nearby rock.

  The Doctor looked up. Two white-clad figures had appeared on the rim of the quarry. "We seem to have annoyed them again, don't we? Come on!"

  They ran along the quarry and out of a broken gate at the far end. Bullets buzzed angrily around them like giant bees, but Bone seemed to be coming very close. Perhaps their attackers had only got short-range fingers, thought Sarah hysterically.

  The gate led into a muddy country lane between high hedges, and the lane in turn joined onto a country road. They rounded a bend and there before them lay an extremely pretty country village. They slowed their pace, and soon the road widened and became the village's main street. They saw a traditional village green complete with war memorial, thatched cottages, old-fashioned shops, and an appropriately rustic-looking village inn. It all looked like the cover photograph on a "Holidays in Britain" travel brochure. The fact that there wasn't a soul in sight added to the growing feeling of unreality.

  "Well, well," said the Doctor cheerfully. "Civilization at last!" He surveyed the picturesque scene. "Something familiar about all this... I think I've been through here before."

  Sarah fell into step beside him, gazing curiously about her. As they walked through the village she too felt a growing sense of familiarity. "Devesham!" she said suddenly.

  "You know this village?"

  "I came here on a story a couple of years ago."

  "Is it always this quiet?"

  Sarah looked round. They were in the center of the village by now, but there wasn't a single human being to be seen. "No, it isn't. It's usually a bustling little place."

  "Hello!" yelled the Doctor suddenly. "Anyone about?" Silence. His voice echoed across the empty village green, but no one answered.

  The village of Devesham lay peacefully in the morning sunlight—completely deserted.

  Village of Terror

  "Let's try the village inn.," said the Doctor hopefully. "Bound to be someone in there."

  He led the way to die inn, pushed open the door, and stopped, looking round in astonishment.

  They were in a typical English country pub. A long mahogany bar-counter ran across . the rear of the room. There were gleaming beer-pumps, and an array of bottles on shelves behind the bar. There were oak booths against the walls, and a scattering of chairs and tables. A mixed assortment of drinks stood on the tables, half-finished pints of ale, glasses of lager, the occasional glass of whiskey or gin. There was sawdust on the floor, horse-brasses gleaming on the walls, a dartboard, all the ingredients of a picturesque cou
ntry pub. Everything but people. Like the village outside, the place was deserted.

  The Doctor marched up to the bar. "Landlord?" There was no reply.

  "Anybody here?" shouted Sarah. Silence.

  The Doctor looked round the empty bar. "What's this pub called?"

  "The Fleur de Lys."

  "They ought to re-name it 'The Marie Celeste'!"

  "It's crazy. A village full of people can't just disappear."

  The Doctor went round behind the bar and opened the old-fashioned till. "Here we are again..."

  "What?"

  He flung a handful of coins on the bar, "Freshly-minted money. Brand-new coins—and all the same year. Sarah... yon said you came down here on a story. What story?"

  "Something about a missing astronaut. It was at that new Space Research Center. It's just outside the village."

  The Doctor nodded. "Yes, I know the place—I actually went there once with the Brigadier." He rubbed his chin. "You know, that could explain a lot. If we landed in a prohibited area those people who shot at us could have been some kind of guards."

  "With built-in finger guns? Trespassers are prosecuted in England, Doctor—not shot. And they weren't dressed like guards,"

  The Doctor shrugged. "Protective clothing, against some kind of radioactivity. I detected an energy-source, remember... the soldier who walked over the cliff could have been affected by it."

  "Radiation sickness?"

  "Something of the kind, yes."

  "And this village?"

  "Evacuated."

  Sarah waved towards the unfinished drinks on the tables all around them. "It must have been done in a pretty big hurry."

  "There may have been some kind of emergency. A sudden radiation leakage..."

  "That's great! And we've been walking around in the middle of it like a couple of great idiots!" She nodded towards the coins on the bar. "And what about all this new money?"

  "Anti-contamination procedure, perhaps. Money changes hands. They might have thought it necessary to bring in completely clean currency."