by Gerry Davis
‘The relief doctor from Earth should be along soon, on the next space shuttle. Take him down.’ Hobson nodded to two of his men. They picked up the unconscious man and carried him carefully from the room.
‘Franz.’ Hobson turned to a short, fair-haired German working on the inside of one of the computers. ‘Leave that for now, will you, and take over from Geoffrey.’
The man, who could only have been in his very early twenties, nervously started packing up the tools he had left lying all over the deck. Hobson called again, more sharply this time. ‘Right away, please. That can wait!’
Franz came over and sat gingerly at the control console. Hobson loomed over him. ‘Come on, lad. It won’t bite you. You won’t catch anything from the controls.’ He leaned over the young man and punched up some figures on the computer screen. ‘Those correction figures will bring the Gravitron back on course. Follow them and report when the cursors are back where they should be.’
As Franz began to correct the large sweeping indicators, now well out of alignment on the big screen, Hobson turned back to Benoit. ‘There must be some source to this infection, whatever it is. We’d better get the lads together, Jules, and tell them what’s happening before…’ He edged away from Franz. ‘… there’s a mass panic. Get them on the blower, will you?’
Benoit nodded, ‘Oui, chief.’ He picked up a small hand mike from the console and switched on the public address system that would broadcast his voice all over the moon base.
‘Jules here. We have a bit of a flap on.’ His French accent seemed at odds with his fluent and colloquial English. ‘The chief wants a word with all of you – up here in Weather Control Room. Right now – as quick as you can. This means everyone on the base.’
He put down the microphone and looked up in amazement as the door opened and one of the scientists’ crew, No. 6, an Englishman called Sam, came in followed by the Doctor, Ben and Polly – all out of their space suits and in their usual clothes, which they had worn underneath.
The Doctor was clad in a too-long down-at-heels black frock coat that had seen much better days, baggy striped trousers and a large, very floppy red cravat. Polly was wearing a skimpy tee-shirt and her usual mini-skirt. Ben still had on his sailor’s singlet and bell-bottomed navy trousers. They were all clothes that hadn’t been seen on Earth for some sixty years or more.
Benoit touched Hobson on the arm and pointed. The burly Director swung round, and did a double take.
‘What in Heaven’s name…! Where did you lot spring from? And where did you get those clothes?’
Behind him the other men, their fears forgotten for the moment, were grinning broadly. The Doctor and his companions began to feel uneasy. Hobson came up to them. ‘Don’t tell me that shuttle rocket I sent for has arrived already?’
Benoit shook his head. ‘No, chief. I know it hasn’t.’
Sam stepped forward. ‘There’s another one with them, chief. Bob’s taken him down to the Medical Unit.’
‘How is he?’ Polly broke in. Sam looked at her. ‘He’s all right. Just knocked himself out by the look of him.’
‘Oh, thank goodness. Will you take me to him?’ Polly turned to go but Hobson stopped her.
‘No you don’t. We’ve enough trouble in this base as it is without you wandering around.’ He turned to Sam. ‘Have they been through the sterile room?’
Sam nodded. ‘Yes, chief.’ The Doctor, who had been taking in the room and its activity with great interest, now thought it was time to step forward. ‘We don’t want to give you any trouble. Just let us collect our young friend and we’ll be off.’
Hobson looked at him suspiciously. ‘Not until we’ve established who you are.’
‘That,’ said the Doctor, ‘will be difficult!’
Polly broke in impatiently. ‘I’m sorry – but while you’re arguing, Jamie is lying injured. Will you please let me see him?’
Benoit stepped forward gallantly. ‘Of course, Mademoiselle. I will take you there.’
Polly looked at Hobson, who grudgingly nodded. ‘All right, you can go, young lady.’ Then, as the Doctor and Ben started to follow her out… ‘But not you two. You stay here.’
‘You two could do with an extra bacteria check,’ Hobson continued.
‘Bacteria check?’ The Doctor exclaimed indignantly.
‘Aye, that’s what I said. You’re a walking mass of germs by the look of you.’
The Doctor was struck dumb. Ben had to turn away to hide his smile. Behind them the various moon base scientists began to file in. A great variety of nationalities was represented: British, French, Italian, German and Dutch.
‘I’ll have you know the TARDIS is as sterile as…’ the Doctor began, then stopped. He had said too much. Hobson was on to it at once. ‘The TARDIS?’
‘Our space-craft,’ Ben said.
The scientists were all assembled now, filling up the curved semi-circular room. No. 5, a Dutchman called Peter, spoke. ‘All here, chief. Any time you’re ready.’ Behind him Benoit entered and took his place beside Hobson.
The Director reluctantly turned back to the Doctor. ‘We’ll find out about this mysterious space-craft that hasn’t shown up on our screens later. Meanwhile, now you’re here, you’d better meet my team and hear what I’ve got to say. You know what this place is, I suppose?’ His tone sounded a little sarcastic.
The Doctor studied the weather map again and then looked through the glass doors to the Gravitron room.
‘A weather station of some kind, I imagine. And in there,’ he pointed to the Gravitron, ‘the thing you use to control the weather.’ He turned to Ben. ‘That’s the culprit!’
‘Eh?’ Ben looked puzzled.
‘That gave us the rough landing – some kind of anti-gravity device.’ There was a ripple of laughter and scattered derisive applause from the assembled scientists.
‘Some kind of anti-gravity device!’ Hobson snorted. He looked closely at the Doctor. ‘You are from Earth, aren’t you?’
‘Er, yes… of course,’ the Doctor said hastily.
‘Yeah.’ Ben nodded. ‘London town.’
‘Well, I don’t know where you’ve hidden yourselves for the last fifteen years. Every school kid has heard of the Gravitron in there.’
‘Gravitron! Ah yes, of course!’ The Doctor consulted his battered diary again. ‘The year must be about 2050 then.’
This remark brought a real outburst of applause and laughter from the scientists.
‘Your name wouldn’t be Rip Van Winkle, would it?’ Hobson raised his eyebrows. ‘It happens to be 2070… just for the record.’
The Doctor turned triumphantly round to Ben. ‘There – only 20 years out!’
The scientists laughed again. This was a welcome break after the almost unbearable tension of the last few hours. Hobson had had enough. He drew a hand across his brow and called the men sharply to order. ‘Before we all forget what century we’re in, I’ll tell you why I’ve called you here.’
‘First,’ the Doctor broke in, ‘you might introduce us. I’m a doctor.’
Hobson, who had been on the point of telling him to shut up, looked interested. ‘A doctor! Well, perhaps yours is a timely visit. We need your help.’
‘Help?’ The Doctor looked unhappy. ‘Medical help?’
Hobson nodded. ‘Perhaps you’d better meet us all first. We’re all scientists here. At least two jobs each to do. Jules here is my assistant. He takes over as director and chief scientist if anything happens to me. He’s a physicist, like me and Joe Benson there.’
A youthful looking man with No. 9 on his tunic smiled at them. Hobson nodded towards the man sitting at the radio transmitter at the end of the console. ‘Nils, our mad Dane, is an astronomer and mathematician, as is Pierre. Ralph, Helmut and Pedro are geologists when they’re not acting as cooks, engineers, look-outs, or general handymen.’
The Doctor and Ben had been going round shaking hands with each man in turn. Now the Doctor turned his attentio
n to the weather control screen. ‘And you control the Earth’s weather from this console?’
‘Cor, must be complicated!’ Ben exclaimed.
‘Not really.’ It was Benoit who replied. ‘The Gravitron controls the tides. The tides control the weather. We plot it all on this map. Simple, eh?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Ben said dryly. ‘Nuffing to it! Wish we’d had this set-up back in the 1970s, Doc,’ he added under his breath.
Violent buzzing and flashing lights again cut across the activity inside the Weather Control Room. The men turned round to see one of the Gravitron operators waving urgently before collapsing across the controls.
‘Pierre,’ Hobson’s voice rang out. ‘Take over from him.’
The man called Pierre, a short, round Parisian, grabbed an acoustic helmet from the rack and opened the Gravitron doors, followed closely by Ralph and Peter. Ben watched, open-mouthed, as the two men lifted the unconscious operator from his chair. As soon as he was clear, Pierre slid in, immediately resuming control.
The Doctor noticed that Benoit, Hobson and the rest were more interested in the effect upon the world screen.
‘Cursor five, over Pacific, starting to slide.’ Benoit spoke urgently.
‘What’s it mean, Doctor?’ Ben looked back at the screen. ‘A change of weather of some kind?’
The Doctor looked at Hobson. ‘We’ll soon hear from Earth what it means,’ said Hobson grimly. Almost on cue the radio transmitter began to splutter. Nils put on his earphones. ‘Here it comes!’
The radio transmitter loudspeaker suddenly blared into life, together with a red alert light above the console. A loud, clear, penetrating female voice echoed around the room. ‘International Space Headquarters Earth calling Weather Control Moon. Come in, please. Come in, please.’
‘Moonport standing by. Moonport standing by,’ Nils replied.
The two men Ralph and Peter were carrying the sick operator towards the door. As they passed the Doctor, the man’s head lolled over and the Doctor saw the black swollen lines on the side of his face. The Doctor stiffened and became aware of Ben pulling at his arm. ‘Doctor!’ He looked at the sailor, his face set and preoccupied. ‘Yes?’
‘Ever seen anything like that before, Doctor?’ Ben’s voice shook a little. The Doctor brought out his diary but seemed at a loss where to start looking. ‘I think so… I’m not sure.’
‘Hobson here.’ The Director had picked up the desk microphone and was speaking into the R/T link to Earth.
The female voice cut in again, ‘We would like to know what is happening up there.’ The English had a slight foreign inflection. A little too correct. ‘The hurricane you were guiding is forty-five degrees off course. It is now threatening Hawaii.’
‘One of our men was taken ill at the controls,’ Hobson replied.
‘Only for a few seconds,’ Ben muttered to the Doctor. The Doctor nodded, and motioned to him to keep quiet and silent.
‘We are fully operational now,’ Hobson continued. The cool R/T voice did not acknowledge his message but cut in with: ‘Mr Rinberg would like to know the exact cause of the illness.’
The name of Rinberg seemed to irritate the red-faced Hobson. His face darkened a further shade and his voice rose.
‘So would we. We’ve got three men down with this mystery virus in the past few hours – including Dr Evans. If Mr Rinberg has any advice, we’d appreciate it.’
There was a pause, then the R/T voice spoke primly, ‘Stand by for further instructions.’
Hobson’s accent seemed to get broader and more Northern. He put his hand over the mike and turned to the men. ‘Hang about for a couple of minutes, lads. Happen we’d all better hear what the great Mr Rinberg has to offer.’
Nils, meanwhile, was leaning closely over his R/T set. For a moment Benoit thought he was ill and leaned forward anxiously, but Nils was closely watching one of his meters. As he and Benoit looked, the needle flickered up and down.
‘Chief,’ Nils’ voice was controlled but urgent. Hobson turned to him. ‘Yes?’
‘There it is again,’ said Nils. ‘I’ll play it back to you.’ He pressed the starter button on the vertically mounted tape deck built into his R/T console. The end of Hobson’s conversation with Earth was replayed, ending with the R/T voice… ‘Stand by for further instructions.’ Hobson shifted his feet impatiently. ‘Well?’
‘You must have heard the background noise on that re-run,’ Nils said. ‘We’re being monitored again.’
‘Monitored?’ Hobson replied. The others began to cluster around the set.
‘Someone, not too far away from the base, is listening to every word we say.’
There was a stunned silence while everyone took in the implications of this new threat. The R/T voice with its cutting edge broke in again, causing Ben to jump.
‘Moonport?’
‘We’re still standing by,’ said Hobson.
‘Your instructions,’ continued the impersonal R/T voice, ‘are to send blood samples back to Earth for investigation.’
Hobson’s voice sounded strained: ‘How? The next shuttle rocket’s not due for a month.’
There was a pause, then the voice continued smoothly. ‘Then they must be put on that rocket. In the meantime, the entire moon base is to be put in quarantine.’
‘Quarantine?’ Hobson’s big voice exploded. ‘But what if these men are too sick to carry on? I shall need replacements.’
Again the pause, then the voice continued: ‘If you radio information about this virus, we shall do our best to identify it and suggest treatment.’
‘I demand to speak to Mr Rinberg… now!’ Hobson was angry.
‘Mr Rinberg is busy. I am sorry. Over and out.’ There was a click and the voice cut out.
Nils’ voice broke the silence. ‘I’m sure that whole conversation was monitored by someone or something.’
Hobson pushed past him angrily. ‘Never mind that now. That Rinberg feller just won’t talk to you! How can we track down a mystery disease with the blessed doctor down with it himself? Radio instructions, hah!’ He slammed his large fist down upon the console in frustration. The men stood awkwardly waiting for their angry chief to calm down and give them the orders they had been waiting for. The Doctor nudged Ben. ‘We’d better see how Jamie is.’ The Doctor turned to Hobson, ‘Er…’
‘Yes!’ Hobson’s voice bellowed at him.
‘Perhaps I can help down there.’
‘You!’ Hobson stared at him for a moment, then turned away. ‘Yes, yes, anything you can do.’ He called to one of his men. ‘Bob, show them down to the Medical Unit, will you.’ Then, before the man could move, he raised his voice and spoke to all the assembled men:
‘One moment. Every one of you had better hear this. We don’t know what this infection is or how it got into this base, but I want you to take extra precautions while this emergency is on. We may be short-handed for quite a while. This means extra duties for everyone. I’ll try and share them out as fairly as possible, but I’ll need your full co-operation.’ He turned round to look at the Doctor and Ben. ‘That goes for everyone on this base. No one leaves for the time being. As you heard, we’re all under strict quarantine. That’s all.’ He nodded and the men started to disperse.
Outside in the corridor, Ben turned to the Doctor. ‘That means even if Jamie feels O.K. we can’t leave here.’
The Doctor nodded gravely. ‘No chance, I’m afraid. Not unless we can locate the source of this virus for them.’
‘Oh!’ This was a new thought for Ben. ‘You reckon we…’ But the Doctor was already half-way down the corridor, striding ahead with his long legs. Ben had to jog to keep up with him.
4
Attack in the Medical Unit
The Medical Unit of the moon base consisted of a bare metal enclosure containing five or six beds. The beds were light, cantilever triangulated constructions which projected from the wall. The ‘bedclothes’ were a single, light quilted square. Each ‘bed’ ha
d beside it an electronic unit to which the patient was attached by a thin leash of cables. The cables terminated in a small circular unit, strapped to the centre of the chest. Polly had just finished strapping the unit to Jamie’s chest when the Doctor and Ben entered.
Polly turned to the Doctor. ‘Is that how it goes, Doctor?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘Yes, that looks right. Then the unit there…’ He pointed to the electronic box beside the bed. ‘… automatically records his pulse, temperature and breathing.’
‘A sort of electronic doctor,’ said Polly. The Doctor smiled and nodded. He patted the top of the unit. ‘This unit has everything except striped trousers and a Gladstone bag!’
‘And it even gives him medicine automatically, too,’ commented Ben.
The Doctor nodded. ‘Almost everything.’ But Polly, who was cradling Jamie’s head, turned round. Her face looked anxious. ‘How do you think he is, Doctor?’
The Doctor was looking at the small electronic read-out sheet at the end of Jamie’s bed. ‘He’s not too bad. He’s a bit concussed and feverish, but he’ll be all right with some rest.’
Suddenly a voice came out from Jamie. A strange high-pitched strangulated voice, quite unlike the Scot’s usual baritone. ‘The Piper. The McCrimmon Piper. Dinna let him get me.’
The other three time travellers stood in silence for a moment. Then the Doctor spoke, turning to Polly. ‘Piper? What does he mean, Piper?’
Polly shook her head sadly. ‘It’s some legend of his clan. He’s a McCrimmon himself and as far as I can make it out, this Piper appears to a McCrimmon just before he dies.’
‘Oh, come off it!’ said Ben. ‘Nobody believes that sort of guff these days.’
‘But Jamie doesn’t come from these days, remember? He comes from a past time in which people believed this sort of thing.’
The Doctor, as usual, had been pursuing his own vein of thought and didn’t seem quite aware of their conversation. ‘Has Jamie seen this phantom Piper yet?’