Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen

by Adams, Douglas

  ‘Are you sure?’ The Doctor wasn’t convinced.

  ‘I’m certain they’ll be very good, if I may say so.’ The Krikkitman appealed to the Doctor’s vanity, a move which rarely failed. ‘And I’ve got a stew on the go for afterwards.’

  ‘Wouldn’t want to miss stew,’ the Doctor chuckled. ‘Oh well, if I must.’ He faced the group with the bashfulness of an amateur pianist who always brings along a satchel stuffed full of Mozart just in case. ‘Well, perhaps I’ve got a little something.’ He cleared his throat.

  ‘Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking,’ the Doctor boomed with easy familiarity, ‘I find myself before you, urging you to rise up against your oppressors and save the Universe.’

  Romana recognised the speech. It was guaranteed to be inspiring whilst also deliberately vague. The plan, which was definitely not being made up on the spur of the moment would centre on attacking a base / a dome / a castle and probably splitting the rebels up into two or three teams. One team would go with the Doctor to do the general confronting and gloating at the villain’s expense. The other team would go with Romana and / or K-9 and get to pull off an exciting victory just in case the Doctor’s Plan A of bombast and whimsy didn’t quite work out.

  Romana let the Doctor’s words float over her. She got the picture. The Krikkitmen were out there, beyond the cloud, preparing to conquer the Universe. Somewhere on this planet, their creators were at work on an Ultimate Weapon. ‘Now, Romana’s experienced in dealing with Ultimate Weapons.’ (Oh great.) ‘But before she can act, it would help her to know what its name is. So – what’s this Ultimate Weapon called?’

  Jal frowned. ‘The Supernova Bomb.’

  The Doctor burst out laughing.

  ‘That could have gone better,’ said Romana.

  ‘Shut up,’ said the Doctor, his hat jammed over his eyes.

  ‘The Mistress is correct.’ K-9’s lack of tact showed itself proudly.

  They were sat at the edge of a clearing. The Rebels were currently giving them a wide berth.

  ‘You should apologise, you know.’ Romana was tiptoeing across a meringue of tact. ‘People don’t like having their Ultimate Weapons insulted. Even if they’d gladly disable it, it’s a matter of pride.’

  ‘But really,’ the Doctor said. ‘The name sounds silly. If it works, the concept is audaciously awful. But I suspect it’s merely a label for an exceedingly big bomb.’

  ‘Go back to them, explain it’s an error of the TARDIS’s translation circuits, then tell them that K-9 and I will dismantle it.’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘We’ll do our best, won’t we K-9?’

  ‘Affirmative, Mistress.’

  ‘After all, we can’t let someone succeed with a device that sounds like a cheap cocktail.’

  The Doctor smiled. ‘Oh, it does, doesn’t it? That’s why it’s been nagging at the back of my head. Romana, if the Ultimate Weapon turns out to be blue with a little paper umbrella then I’m buying you the lunch that goes with it.’ He bounded to his feet, face a mask of contrition. He was clearly all ready to make the magnanimous apology and win the entire rebel army back over to his side. He took three strides and then ground to a halt.

  ‘Romana,’ he hissed. ‘You know what? I’ve just remembered. I have heard of the Supernova Bomb before, and it definitely isn’t a drink.’

  It is always dangerous to go inside the Doctor’s mind. Several psychologists and mind probes have had a go. The Doctor himself once spent a frantic afternoon inside his own head looking for a prawn. The psychologists gave up and went for a lie-down in a darkened room; the mind probes blunted themselves and asked to retrain as food processors; and the prawn’s plan to invade the Universe ended shortly after it locked itself deliciously in an oven.

  The only person therefore able to describe the inside of the Doctor’s head was also the least reliable. If you’d asked the Doctor, he’d have told you it was like having a head full of clever candyfloss. He’d then have tried to mend your food processor, which would have been sidling nervously away from him.

  At exactly that moment, the Doctor’s mind looked like a series of toy soldiers arranged on a chessboard. One of the soldiers (its missing leg replaced with a matchstick) was waving a banner. It said, ‘SUPERNOVA BOMB???’ Another soldier (pushing a pram) was muttering about ‘Suspended Scientific Advancement’. A small group of soldiers playing football with a marble were discussing the relative differences between sentient robots and artificial intelligences. A soldier, trying to knit thread with his rifle, was worrying that it had missed something in all those hints on Gallifrey. Another soldier was triumphantly surfing on his green plastic base, yelling about how odd it was that a grand plan could simultaneously take five years and also several million. Another soldier agreed, and was ringing a vague bell – an actual vague bell, its stopper wrapped in cotton wool.

  Careering wildly across the board was a wind-up rubber duck, quacking over and over again that it was the end of the Universe.

  Outside his head, the Doctor looked Romana seriously in the eye. ‘I’m starting to suspect that there’s something outside the pattern of events that we’re entirely missing.’

  ‘I’m missing it too?’ Romana queried.

  ‘Even you,’ the Doctor intoned. ‘Something else is going on here and I can’t formulate what it is, let alone what it isn’t. Hey ho.’ He strode back over to the rebels. Booming at the top of his lungs, his voice wrapped itself around everyone’s shoulders. ‘Forgive me. You were right and I was wrong. Something bad is happening. Something bigger even than your Ultimate Weapon. And we’ve got to find out what it is pretty quickly, because out there the Krikkitmen are preparing to launch an attack on the Galaxy.’

  He pointed at the rebels, seemingly vaguely, seemingly singling each and every one of them out. ‘I may not have a plan, I don’t believe in budgets, and I have trouble taking myself seriously, but I’m the Doctor and, if you don’t join me, then it’s curtains for creation. You with me? You are! And what about you? Good.’ The Doctor strode off and the rebels followed him, cheering.

  Romana knelt down to K-9. ‘How does he do it?’ she asked.

  ‘Unknown, Mistress,’ the dog said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  PARLIAMENT OF FOOLS

  The Parliament of the Elders of Krikkit was the kind of building you’d expect it to be. Grand grey pavilions led to a central building which thought highly of itself. The building’s smugness expressed itself in more concrete columns than were strictly necessary. The Parliament clearly hoped that people would describe it as an edifice, or, at the least, as formidable.

  The Doctor and Romana were wearing cloaks, in the hope that this would stop people from pointing and hissing in their direction. The Rebels were flitting dramatically from shadow to shadow in the colonnades.

  ‘I think this may be their first guerrilla raid,’ Romana whispered to the Doctor, who nodded. ‘Still,’ she continued, ‘I don’t think we’re in much danger. K-9 says there are no life signs in the building.’

  ‘Of course not.’ The Doctor pretended not to be pleased. ‘It’s after hours. The Krikkitas are notorious about their timekeeping.’

  ‘But that doesn’t seem quite right.’ Romana pulled at the hood on her cloak and wondered if it would look nice trimmed with gold braid. ‘After all, if they have got a Supernova Bomb in there …’

  ‘Paff.’ The Doctor shrugged. ‘As far as they know, their rebellion is mostly academic theory and disgruntled veterans. That lot would have trouble organising a farmer’s market. They don’t know we’re here.’

  ‘What about the several thousand people who chased us through the city?’

  ‘Hmm,’ the Doctor conceded. ‘Perhaps we should expect trouble.’

  They neared the front of the Parliament. The rebels creeping stealthily in phalanxes to the door, the Doctor and Romana crunching over the gravel.

  ‘What worries me is the Krikkitmen,’ Romana said. ‘I mean, s
houldn’t we be doing something about them? I could borrow the TARDIS and …’

  The Doctor held up a hand. ‘The last time my TARDIS was borrowed it was by me, and look how that played out. I dread to think what the overdue fines are. No, we’re going to sort out the planet of Krikkit first. The Krikkitmen can only be told to stop by their own creators; no one else will do. And besides, if they have built a Supernova Bomb, then the invasion of the Krikkitmen is simply the prawn cocktail before a truly dreadful main course.’

  They walked on a bit. The grand granite doors of the Parliament of the Elders of Krikkit had been lovingly carved with scenes from the devastating conflict. Krikkitmen sliced their way through various alien races. Suns exploded. Battle fleets disintegrated.

  ‘They do harp on about past glories.’ The Doctor tried the door. It was locked. He produced his sonic screwdriver.

  ‘There’s another reason why you want me here,’ Romana said.

  ‘Oh, is there?’ The Doctor started whistling.

  ‘You might not trust me. What if the Krikkitmen are still controlling my mind?’

  The Doctor stopped whistling abruptly. ‘It would make it easier to find out what they were up to.’

  ‘You’re worried about me, aren’t you?’ Romana grinned.

  The Doctor poked the sonic screwdriver into the lock. It buzzed furiously.

  ‘That’s touching,’ Romana said. ‘I’m grateful.’

  ‘Are you? That’s nice.’ The Doctor rattled the door. It still didn’t open. ‘I’m just worried about five million homicidal robots under your command.’

  ‘You should be.’ Romana gestured for the Doctor to step back from the lock. ‘K-9,’ she commanded, ‘kill that door.’

  The Doctor ventured down the corridor, worried for the Universe. What if Romana was right? What if Romana was wrong? Neither outcome seemed favourable.

  K-9 nudged up against his leg. The dog was whirring along in stealth mode, which was like playing Grandmother’s Footsteps with a lawnmower.

  ‘Master?’ the dog asked.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Query: What is the purpose of this incursion?’

  ‘We’re looking for, in no particular order, an ultimate weapon, the plans to the ultimate weapon, and a clue as to how to defeat the Krikkitmen. Can you download a map?’

  K-9’s ears wiggled. The dog was remarkable. He could hack into a data stream somewhere so remote it couldn’t even get a radio signal, such as the Moons of Stabras Beta, or Somerset. ‘Downloading building plans.’ The dog sounded pleased with itself. ‘Cross-referencing with architectural theories and basic geological soundings. Information: There are three hidden levels underneath the plans. They are logically accessed by an otherwise obsolete lift shaft at the north east of the building.’

  ‘Splendid.’ The Doctor beckoned Romana, Jal and Sir Robot over. ‘I’ve found a secret section.’ He ignored his pet’s aggrieved cough. ‘We’re going down there. Can some of your rebels organise a distraction?’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘Well, I’m clumsy and I’m bound to set off alarms,’ the Doctor confessed. ‘But if someone else is setting off some alarms then that’d be nice. Tell me, have you rebels ever set fire to anything?’ The rebels looked uncertainly at each other. ‘You should definitely try it. Don’t go for the museums or art galleries – looks gauche and you’ll regret it later. Find somewhere in this building devoted to paperwork and give it a torching.’

  ‘What about …?’

  ‘Oh, we’ll be fine. We’ll be far underground. The other thing about secret bunkers is they always have an emergency escape. Just go crazy.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Absolutely. Evil dictatorships don’t have a heart, but they always have neat filing. They hate if it gets messed up.’ He tapped his robot dog on the head. ‘K-9, you like setting fire to things—’

  ‘Negative.’

  ‘Don’t be modest. Off you go.’

  The Doctor headed underground with Romana in tow.

  Jal’s rebels were proving listless. Stirred up by the Doctor’s passion and enthusiasm, they’d happily stormed the Parliament building, but now their efforts to create a distraction were flagging. They were hanging around in clumps asking if they were needed right now. After all, not much seemed to be going on.

  Which was when they came under attack.

  ‘I’ll let you take care of this one.’

  The Doctor and Romana were deep beneath the Parliament building. The grim concrete corridors had become even more grim. The exception were the walls, on which hung paintings from before the war. They’d presumably been moved here as they were no longer in keeping with the image which Krikkit wished to project about itself. Happy people gambolled in cornfields, or danced jigs, or applauded athletes. It was poignant. The Doctor and Romana stood at a security bulkhead. Romana squinted at it. It was the same expression she’d used to appraise a still wet Picasso while the Doctor and the artist played checkers out on a terrace.

  Locks baffled Romana. All across time and space people would keep locking things up. In time vaults, quantum cells, Schrödinger safes and so on. From the prehistoric beetle rolling stones across her amber to the distant star queen with her vast treasury of daughters, people believed the only way precious things were safe was behind a lock and a key.fn1

  Romana tapped her way almost idly across the keys of the algorithmic entry coder.

  The Doctor hopped from one foot to another. ‘I don’t want to hurry you,’ he said, ‘but I’m fairly sure I can hear gunfire.’

  ‘You can always hear gunfire,’ Romana replied, inputting another sequence.

  ‘And feet. Evil robotic feet. Running this way. I guess this means the Krikkitmen have landed.’

  ‘Tish.’ Romana had another go. ‘What I like about locks like this is that they’ve an almost infinite number of combinations and they give you an almost infinite number of goes. I call that playing fair.’

  ‘Yes.’ The Doctor nodded. ‘I do so hate it when you have three cracks and then they drop a phial of gas on your shoes. Ruins the leather.’

  This time, Romana approached the combination with tangential algebra. ‘Those running feet?’

  ‘Those running robotic feet.’

  ‘Yes.’ Another go. Another fail. ‘I was wondering …’

  ‘So was I …’

  ‘It’s not without the bounds of probability that the Krikkitmen know we’re down here.’

  ‘And some of them have come after us.’

  Romana leaned into the keypad. She was sure she’d heard a tiny noise inside the mechanism. ‘That’s going to make life tougher for the rebels. Also even worse for us.’

  The Doctor glanced over his shoulder. He looked nervous. ‘That was my point,’ he said. ‘If you could hurry up.’ The running robotic feet were getting quite loud now.

  Romana tried the entry coder again. ‘Much as I appreciate a purely intellectual challenge,’ she remarked, ‘there’s nothing like a deadline.’ She punched a final digit, and stood back.

  The door did not open.

  ‘That would have been impressive if it had worked,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ conceded the Doctor sadly. ‘Yes, it would.’

  A phalanx of Krikkitmen thundered into view. They raised their bats and blasts ricocheted off the walls around them.

  ‘Hmm,’ Romana considered, her fingers flying across the keys. ‘Your hypothesis about the Krikkitmen was right. Well done.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The Doctor gestured to the keypad. ‘Would you mind opening that door? Quickly?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Romana said, trying out one final combination.

  A blast shattered the lock.

  ‘Oh,’ said Romana.

  ‘Take what you’re given,’ the Doctor yelled, yanking the bulkhead open and dragging her with him.

  They stood panting inside the vault. There was another entry coder on this side of the b
ulkhead, and Romana hastily scrambled it. The vault door behind thudded with impacts.

  ‘Seven point three minutes until they blast their way in,’ she said, ‘eight point nine minutes until they unscramble the code. Unless they have access to the underlying dataset in which case four point one.’

  The Doctor nodded. ‘So basically a couple of minutes to find the plans for the Supernova Bomb, locate a ventilation shaft and escape.’

  ‘More or less,’ Romana shrugged. She turned her attention to the filing cabinets towering above them. ‘You go left and I’ll go right?’

  ‘I’ve another idea.’ The Doctor gave up counting the cabinets. ‘You go right and I’ll go left.’

  ‘You’re wasting time.’

  ‘I know, and isn’t it fun?’

  ‘I’ll try under P for Plans, Secret,’ he called. ‘You look under B for Bombs, Supernova.’

  Romana’s voice echoed back. ‘It doesn’t seem to be filed alphabetically. Also there’s no index.’

  The thumping on the door increased. With an angry, robotic precision. The door was already buckling under the blast impacts.

  ‘Well then.’ The Doctor glanced at the entire history of warmongery on the planet Krikkit. ‘Either we take pot luck or you nip outside and ask those robots for a clue.’

  Ten minutes later, the Doctor and Romana were crawling through a service duct. The shaft was filling with thick black smoke.

  ‘On the one hand,’ the Doctor said through his scarf, ‘we’ve had a pretty lucky escape. On the other hand, I wish those robots had thought things through a bit more.’

  Romana’s hands were blistering on the hot metal. ‘Coming from you, that is a bit rich.’

  The Krikkitmen had, eventually, blown through the door. This had several consequences. The force of the blast knocked over some filing cabinets, fortuitously revealing a promising hatchway leading to a service duct.fn2

  Unfortunately, when the Krikkitmen blew their way into the filing room, not only did they knock over the filing cabinet, the blast also set fire to much of the room. Luckily, Romana and the Doctor used the explosion as a handy diversion – allowing the Doctor to unscrew the duct hatchway, and Romana to pocket the (mildly singed) plans for the Supernova Bomb.