‘Stop her! Don’t go through the doors,’ the old man shouted desperately.
I heard another voice calling. ‘Grandfather,’ it said. The girl stopped at the open doors.
‘Susan! Susan, are you in there?’ She turned and looked back at me and I held the old man quiet for a moment. ‘He must have put her in here.’ She went through the doors.
The old man sobbed with anger and tore himself away from me, and then as we both scrambled to our feet the scream echoed out from the telephone box and stopped us both. He was the first to move but I gave him a sharp push and he staggered away and fell again on one knee. I raced over to the box and ran through the doors.
The light closed around me and I screwed my eyes up in agony and threw my hands up to my face. Almost at once, I tripped over something and fell headlong forward, hitting my head with a sickening crash on the floor. Weary and half dazed, remaining conscious only because of the memory of that pitiful scream, I tried to lift myself up on my knees and gradually opened my eyes, hoping the blinding light might have lessened. What I saw gave me a clarity greater than a bucket of freezing water tipped all over me.
The terrible glare had diminished down to the ordinary electric power of a well-lit room, although I could see no evidence of any bulbs or fittings anywhere. The first real shock was the immense size of the room around me. This is a police telephone box, I kept repeating to myself. Just a small box big enough to hold two or at the most three standing people. I relaxed on my haunches and stared around and above me. I was in a room about twenty feet in height and with the breadth and width of a middle-sized restaurant. I calculated there would be room for at least fifty tables. In the centre was a six-sided control panel, each of the six working tops covered with different-coloured handles and switches, dials and buttons. In the centre of this panel was a round column of glass from which came a pulsating glow. The walls were broken by serried ranks of raised circles, this pattern itself being interrupted by banks of machines containing bulbs that flickered on and off. In one corner I spotted a row of at least twenty tape-recording spools spinning round furiously, while beneath them a similar number of barometric needles zig-zagged uneven courses across moving drums of paper. To make this nightmare even more unbelievable, dotted about the room were what looked to me like excellent copies of antique furniture. Here was a magnificent Chippendale, there a Sheraton chair. A most elegant Ormulu clock stood on a carved stand and beside it was another stand of marble upon which was a bust of Napoleon.
I hit my head, I told myself. I’ve fallen in the telephone box and I’m imagining it all. I tried closing my eyes and opening them again but it didn’t make any difference except that I became aware of the figure of a young girl staring at me. Her eyes were very dark and she looked frightened. I noticed that her clothes were normal enough, dark ski trousers and boots and a cherry-red sweater, although she was wearing a most extraordinary scarf tied closely around her forehead. It had thick red and yellow stripes on it and made her look like a pirate. I tried to smile, although the pain was back in my head where I’d hit it on the floor.
‘Now I know this is a dream,’ I said weakly. I heard a buzzing sound behind me.
‘Close the doors, Susan.’ It was the old man’s voice. I saw the young girl move to the control panel obediently and turn one of the switches. The buzzing increased and I swung myself round on the floor. The double doors closed behind the old man. In front of him I saw the body of the girl I had met in the fog. She was lying full length on the floor and one of her shoes had come off. The old man examined her briefly. The young girl who had answered to the name of Susan walked past me and knelt beside the body.
‘Is Barbara all right?’
The old man shrugged.
‘Fainted. Her pulse is steady. We must do something about that injury to her shoulder.’
‘And who’s that one?’ That one was me. They both regarded me thoughtfully and then the girl went on, ‘He wasn’t with us in the car.’
‘Your teacher met him on the road after the accident,’ replied the old man. ‘I’m extremely cross about this, Susan. You should never have let Miss Wright bring you out here.’
‘I couldn’t help it, Grandfather. She insisted.’
‘Then you should have stayed the night at her flat. I’m sure she would have offered you a couch and a blanket and you know I wouldn’t have worried about you.’
The girl said, ‘But I would have worried about you.’
The old man walked over and stood in front of me.
‘Well, now we have someone else to worry about.’
I felt consciousness slipping away from me. The bang on the head must have been worse than I thought. A black cloud was beginning to roll over my brain. My eyelids were as heavy as lead and my head started to fall. The old man bent down on one knee, put a hand under my chin and held my face. All the power was draining away from my arms and legs and I couldn’t have lifted a finger to stop him, even if he’d started to hit me.
‘He’s going under. There’s a bump the size of a golf ball on his head.’
The black cloud was blanketing down now and I had a terrible sensation of falling slowly into a bottomless well. I heard the old man speaking as if from a long way away.
‘The point is, can I let you go now? I don’t think I can. I’ll just have to take you both with me.’
Then I blacked out completely.
CHAPTER TWO
Prisoners in Space
I was standing in a cylinder of metal and it was so hot I could feel the sweat dripping off my forehead and running down my face. It was absolutely black but somewhere above me a circular metal door was being opened. I saw a tiny pin-point of light and the vague shape of a person climbing down towards me. Somehow or other I knew the person was nervous.
‘Don’t drop the light,’ I shouted, ‘whatever you do, don’t let go of it!’
I saw the light slip out of the person’s hand and it plunged towards me. It got larger and larger until it filled the whole of the cylinder above me. It was a blinding light that hurt the back of my eyes and I knew it was going to smash into my skull.
I woke up and the light was the soft light of a room. The sweat became little drops of water escaping from a cloth that was pressed against my forehead. The girl called Susan was sitting on the bed beside me, smiling with relief.
‘I knew you’d be all right. Barbara was very worried about you.’
Barbara. The girl in the fog. The old man. Memory flooded back and at the same time I felt a throbbing pain on the left side of my forehead. The girl squeezed out the cloth and laid it across my forehead.
‘My name’s Susan. We might as well get to know each other since we’re to be together.’
‘Are you my guard?’
‘You’re free to come and go as you please – inside Tardis,’ she replied seriously.
‘Thanks very much. What’s Tardis?’
Susan waved her hand above vaguely. ‘This is. I made up the name from the initials.’ She changed the cloth over my head, waiting for me to ask her what initials, but I didn’t. She told me anyway. I knew she was going to.
‘“Time And Relative Dimensions In Space”.’
She began to take off the cap of a small, orange-coloured tube. She squeezed a little of the contents, a thick brown paste, on to her index finger and rubbed it on the sore place on my head.
‘This stings a little but it’ll get rid of the bump in half an hour.’
It stung more than a little and I could feel my eyes watering, but at least the throbbing stopped. I was determined to be as nonchalant as I could until I was absolutely sure I was awake. I looked around me. The room was small but the walls were identical to the other one I’d seen when I’d run through the doors, with raised circles on the walls and no evidence of lighting although it was as clear as day. The bed I was on had a soft, foam rubber mattress and was shaped rather like a deck-chair, except that it was bent and raised under my knees. I l
ooked at the girl again and found she was watching me.
‘Grandfather will explain everything to you,’ she said. ‘I’d better tell him you’re awake.’
She got up and moved to the doorway and the glass door slid open into the wall as she approached. I put my hands together and gripped them as hard as I could because it had been a police telephone box I’d run into and I didn’t like what was happening. She turned and looked back at me.
‘I hope you didn’t get that job you were after with Donneby’s.’ I just stared at her for a moment or so and then shook my head. She looked genuinely relieved as if I’d cleared her conscience about something and went out. I took the cloth from my head and used it to dab the tears in my eyes. The ointment had begun to stop stinging now, but I was suddenly aware of a tiredness in all my muscles. I also realized that I wasn’t wearing my overcoat or the jacket of my suit and somebody had taken my shoes off, I tried to get off the bed but my body didn’t want to move. I sank back, thinking I’d have another try in a few seconds.
The old man came into the room, followed by Susan and the girl she’d called Barbara, who looked very pale but completely under control. She came straight over to me and sat on the bed and took one of my hands.
‘How are you now?’
‘A bit weak. What’s happening here?’
Her eyes looked away, as if she had something to be guilty about. I saw Susan open two of the circles in the wall and take out three stools. The old man sat on one and Susan the other, but Barbara stayed where she was.
‘The Doctor will tell you everything,’ she said.
I turned my eyes and met his. Without his cape or fur hat, he still clung to the costume of another age. A tapered black jacket, the edges bound with black silk and the trousers Edwardian, narrow and patterned in black and white check. He was even wearing spats and a cravat with a plain pearl tie-pin. His long silver hair and the pince-nez hanging around his neck by a piece of thin satin tape completed the picture. He had every right to wear eccentric clothes if he liked, I thought, but it simply didn’t fit with the ultra modern surroundings.
He fitted the glasses firmly on his nose and pulled out a wallet and some other papers from his pocket. I was determined not to speak until he did, even though he had taken them from my jacket without asking. I wasn’t confident enough of my muscles yet.
‘Ian Chesterton.’ He darted a look at me over the top of his glasses and then started sorting through the papers and letters. ‘You’re a schoolmaster with a degree in science. You don’t like being a teacher much, I gather. Well, I suppose that shows ambition although a certain lack of early purpose.’ He sniffed as if he didn’t approve of the way I was running my life. I couldn’t feel any fury or anger, yet I wasn’t indifferent either.
Suddenly he smiled at me. There are some men of sixty who smile and merely appear to be genial elderly men, and there are others who become younger. If I was right in my guess of his age, the smile made him shed about twenty years. I was surprised how much better I felt when he was friendly and realized that it quietened the awful anxiety and the suspicions about my sanity. You can’t experience too many things outside normal explanation without thinking you’re either dreaming or insane.
‘Chesterton, you have certain qualities I admire,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Perhaps my hasty decision will prove to be a blessing. For one thing, you do not ask a lot of stupid, ridiculous questions. You’re content to wait until you hear the facts. It is also extremely fortunate that you’re a student of science because it suggests a rational mind. Have you any idea where you are?’
‘No idea at all, and I’d rather you didn’t praise me about my lack of curiosity yet. I have rather a lot of questions.’ He waved his hand airily.
‘Well, that’s natural enough young man. I must take you slowly, though, step by step.’ He crossed his legs and tapped his glasses on his chin for a moment. ‘Let me put to you a hypothetical situation. Let us say you are a spy in a foreign country. You have a secret hiding-place where you keep all sorts of things that are dangerous for even the most ordinary people to know about. One day your hiding-place is discovered, quite by accident, by an unsuspecting member of the public. What do you do?’
I felt Barbara’s hand tighten on mine for a second.
‘Be patient,’ she said quietly.
‘Oh, it’s all right. This is all leading somewhere, I can see that.’ I turned back to the Doctor, as she had called him. ‘I’d have to give up the hiding-place.’
‘Because you’d be afraid of publicity.’
I agreed.
‘Of course, if your hiding-place was an aeronautical machine…’
‘Aeroplane, Grandfather,’ interrupted Susan, and he looked at her sharply, getting the silent apology he demanded. The old man turned his attention back to me again.
‘Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Your hiding-place is an – aeroplane. It is discovered. Now what do you do?’
‘Destroy it?’
‘And lose your escape route? Surely not. Wouldn’t you fly it away?’
I agreed patiently that I would, if it were possible.
‘Good. We make progress. Now these people – innocent members of the public who have stumbled across your hiding-place?’
I knew the answer to that one because the analogy was childishly simple, even if the reasons behind it were not. ‘I might have to take them with me,’ I said slowly. The Doctor rubbed his hands together.
‘Excellent, Chesterton! These innocent passers-by might spread the news abroad of your presence, mightn’t they? Yes, you might have to decide to take them with you, however inconvenient it might be to you.’
Barbara said: ‘Or to them.’
After the silence, I said, ‘So the sum total of all that is to tell me that you have some sort of flying machine or aeroplane and you’ve taken us with you.’
He nodded vigorously. ‘You’ve grasped the essentials, Chesterton. Of course, my granddaughter and I are not spies, as you may well imagine.’
‘Of course not.’ I thought I might as well let this go on as long as possible, until I felt stronger.
‘However, we do have the strongest possible reason for not wishing anyone in your world to know of our existence.’
‘In my world?’
He looked at Susan briefly. Now we get to the biggest lie of all, I thought. Here it comes.
‘My granddaughter and I are from another world. You and your companion are at present inside my Ship, the Tardis, which is able to cross the barriers of the fourth and fifth dimensions: Time and Space.’
I didn’t say a word. Barbara’s hand held on to mine as if she were petrified of the old man and I didn’t blame her. It wasn’t funny to be so close to a raving lunatic. After the pause, he went on:
‘The young lady next to you, who I can introduce to you as Miss Barbara Wright, was engaged by me as a special tutor for Susan. I wanted Susan to become as well versed as possible with the culture and manners of England in the twentieth century. Furthermore, Susan professed a curious preference for the liberties extended to young people of this day and age.’
The Doctor stood up slowly and looked down at me, fingering his glasses thoughtfully.
‘We’re wanderers, Chesterton, Susan and I. Cut off from our own planet and separated from it by a million, million years of your time.’
He really believes all this, I told myself. There was a genuine sadness in his eyes as he looked away from me.
‘There’ll come a day when we return.’
Susan got up from her stool and put her arms around him. They mean all this, I told myself. They aren’t acting it, they’re really serious.
‘One day we will, Grandfather.’ He patted her head affectionately then stepped away and looked at Barbara and me.
‘You blundered into my Ship and I had to decide what to do quickly.’
‘I did everything I could to persuade him to let you both go,’ said Susan, and I felt the girl beside me catch h
er breath slightly. Don’t tell me she believes what they’re saying, I thought. The Doctor was speaking again.
‘But I decided against it. I have operated the Tardis and we have left Earth. There is just one more thing I would say at this time.’
I raised my eyebrows deliberately.
‘Oh, only one?’
The Doctor stared at me for a moment.
‘Even on your planet you have a rule, I believe, that says there can only be one Captain to a ship. As Susan has told you, I have no doubt, you are at liberty to come and go as you please within the Tardis, but you must follow my orders without question at all times.’
My body was still weak but I felt like testing it so I swung my legs off the bed and stood up, with Barbara beside me. Maybe I looked rocky because I felt her hand under my arm. I was glad of it because I found my legs were about as reliable as rubber bands.
I said, ‘Now I’ll tell you what I think. It was that blinding light that fooled me when I ran through the doors. I suppose there was some sort of trap-door there and we both fell through it. This is some cellar or underground cave that you’ve discovered and you’ve dressed it up with all sorts of gadgets to fit your story.’
I had to sit down again; it wasn’t any good fooling myself. What surprised me more than anything was that the girl beside me was shaking her head slowly at me. You’re wrong, her eyes were saying. I supported myself on the bed as best I could and ignored her.
‘I want you to ring for a taxi to take us both home. I can’t drive like this.’ A sudden thought occurred to me and I looked at the old man in alarm. ‘You have warned the police about all that wreckage on the road, haven’t you?’
‘Chesterton, you must believe me. Forget about your planet. We’re already in the next Universe but one.’
He turned on his heel and walked out. Susan started to follow him and then looked back as she reached the doorway.
‘It’s all true, Mr Chesterton. Every word of it.’
Doctor Who and the Daleks Page 3