by John Peel
‘Yes, quite,’ the Doctor broke in, trying to hide his cracking voice. He had not expected to see the child again, but he had no intention of making a fool of himself by clutching at her. ‘Is he alive?’
‘He got a bad knock on the head,’ Vicki answered. ‘I made him as comfortable as I could, then came to get help.’
Barbara sighed. ‘It might have been better if you had stayed.’
‘No, it wouldn’t!’ Vicki said, excitedly. Now that her visions of being eaten were over, she could start thinking positively again. ‘On my way here, I found the way back to the TARDIS!’
‘Well, now,’ the Doctor said, his eyes sparkling again— with tears ?, Barbara wondered—‘That puts an entirely different complexion on things. Can you find your way back, do you think?’
With the assurance of youth, Vicki nodded, eagerly. ‘Oh yes, I’m sure of it. There was a big iron door, just beyond the entrance over there.’
Barbara allowed herself to hope. Ian alive—and the TARDIS found! ‘Maybe we’ve still got a chance!’
At that moment, Rynian and Malsan entered the room again. Their discomfort was written upon their features, but they were resolved. ‘It is time,’ Malsan said, sadly. ‘I am to take you to the main air-lock.’ He reached out to touch Barbara, but she slapped his arm down.
Suddenly, the wall erupted above them. Bricks, stone and mortar showered down on them all. Behind it, a tentacle lashed out, seeking prey. With a scream, both Aridians dashed backwards.
‘Sound the alarm!’ Malsan howled. ‘Mire beast attack in section five! Abandon... abandon...!
As the tentacle groped about, the mire beast began to haul itself forwards. Other blocked-off sections showed signs of there being mire beasts behind them. Hidden from the mire beast because they were below it, the Doctor, Barbara and Vicki pressed against the wall, watching the tentacle probe about. With a chuckle, the Doctor gestured towards the door. The panicking Aridians had left an escape route clear!
‘Just as I planned!’ the Doctor murmured to himself, smugly. He tapped his two companions, and gestured for them to precede him. They dashed for the door, as he covered their escape, brandishing his cane fiercely at the mire beast’s tentacle. Luckily for him, the creature was too intent on forcing its way through the opening to attack him. With a final defiant gesture, he ran after his friends.
Following the collapsed tunnel, Ian was actually retracing Vicki’s route. Like her, he stumbled after the light. He rose from the tunnel exit, and then prostrated himself swiftly.
The Dalek by the TARDIS glanced in his direction, but decided that there was nothing there but falling stones. It resumed its patrol about the time machine.
Back in hiding again, Ian paused for thought. A Dalek! Here! He hated to think what that meant, but his first course of action was obvious—he had to get it away from the TARDIS, preferably permanently. Struck by an idea, he started hunting around for fragments of the dark native wood he had spotted as he had stumbled through the tunnels...
Not far away, Vicki led the Doctor and Barbara back down the route she had been carried by the Aridian. As quietly as they could, they ran for the haven that the TARDIS promised.
The Dalek on guard at the TARDIS spun to face another as it approached. The newcomer halted. ‘The prisoners have escaped from the Aridians,’ it reported.
‘Are we to proceed with the destruction of the underground city?’ the guard asked.
‘No. Our leader has given them one hour to recapture the humans. If they fail, we shall act.’
‘I understand,’ the guard acknowledged.
‘It is likely that the humans will attempt to return to their time machine. Remain alert.’
‘I obey.’
The second Dalek glided away, to join the patrols searching for the Doctor and his companions. The guard Dalek began patrolling once again, alert for any sign of trouble.
Ian was working well on his collection of wood. He had almost enough for what he planned when he heard footsteps in the tunnel. Swiftly, he selected the stoutest piece of timber, and waited, silently. To his intense relief, he saw Vicki leading the Doctor and Barbara. He stepped out of hiding, grinning.
Despite Vicki’s urgings for silence, Barbara ran forward and grabbed Ian tightly. Ian didn’t protest the embrace for a good ten seconds. Then, quietly, he pushed her away.
‘What is it, Chesterton?’ the Doctor hissed.
‘The TARDIS is about twenty yards over the rim, but there’s a Dalek on guard.’
Caught in the euphoria of seeing Ian again, Barbara hardly worried about a mere Dalek. ‘Then we’ll just have to get past him.’
Grinning, Ian showed them his collection of sticks. ‘I think I’ve got a way,’ he whispered. ‘Barbara, you and Vicki go on up. Be very quiet, and move towards the sand dune to the left.’
The women nodded, and began to move. Ian grabbed Barbara’s arm. ‘Oh, leave me your cardigan.’
As she slipped it off, Barbara said, ‘I’m not going to have any left, the way you use these up!’ It seemed as though all of Ian’s escape plans tended to use her cardigans. There was that time on Cetus Alpha...
‘It’s not for me,’ Ian protested. ‘It’s for the Dalek.’
‘I hope it suits him,’ Vicki said, then stifled a fit of giggles. Barbara grabbed her arm, and hauled her up, out of the pit. Ian turned to the Doctor.
‘Now it’s your turn—let’s have your coat.’
‘What is this?’ the Doctor hissed. ‘A plan to defeat the Daleks or to start a jumble sale?’
‘You’ll see in a minute. Stop complaining, and help me with these strips of wood...’ Ian started to dig them into the sand and rubble by the tunnel entrance. Catching on, the Doctor began helping. After a moment, they had a rough framework set up. Ian spread his blazer and Barbara’s cardigan over the frame. The Doctor shucked his coat, and added that. Then they started spreading sand over the rough trap. After a moment, Ian grinned. They both moved back, so that their framework was between them and the Dalek.
‘Right,’ Ian whispered. ‘You go that way, and I’ll go this. Find cover, and then we’ll take turns...’
Ian crawled off about five yards, then hauled himself to his feet. Below him, the Dalek on patrol whirled about, catching sight of the motion. ‘Dalek!’ Ian yelled, and then dropped back out of sight. ‘Oh, dear,’ he added, in a loud voice.
The Dalek fired, but its target had vanished. Annoyed, it began to move after Ian. At that moment, the Doctor popped up, said, ‘Whoops!’ loudly, and then dived for cover. The Dalek’s next blast barely missed him. Furious at having missed two targets, the Dalek moved forwards—on to the trap. With a crash, the whole construction gave away, and the Dalek plunged into the tunnel.
Laughing, the Doctor shook Ian’s hand. ‘Well worth the loss of a coat,’ he grinned.
Their triumph was short-lived. Vicki clutched his arm, pointing into the sands. ‘More Daleks!’
One of the patrols had been alerted by the destruction of the sentry, and was moving towards the TARDIS. The travellers cut short further congratulations, and ran to the TARDIS. There was an uncomfortable second as the Doctor struggled with the lock. and then they all shot inside the TARDIS. As the doors slammed shut, the Daleks arrived. They began firing at the TARDIS, but with its customary groaning and wheezing, the time machine faded out of normal space.
The Patrol Leader ordered the firing halted. It regarded the traces in the sand, and then said: ‘Return to our time machine! We are to follow our enemies wherever they may flee! We shall not be deterred! They are to be found and exterminated!’
Chapter 6
Flight through Eternity
Within the TARDIS, the mood was considerably different. As they watched the rise and fall of the time rotor in the central console, the travellers laughed and clapped each other on the back, glad to be alive. Vicki, the most boisterous as usual, was hopping up and down. ‘We did it! We did it!’ she howled.
; ‘Well, of course,’ the Doctor said. ‘I never doubted for a moment that we would.’
‘Oh, come on, Doctor,’ Barbara remarked, though not severely. ‘You were hardly bubbling over with confidence when the Aridians held us prisoner.’
‘Ah, a—momentary qualm, young woman, a momentary qualm. Nothing more.’
‘I’ll admit I had a few qualms myself,’ Ian added. ‘Those mire beasts were as nasty as anything we’ve ever come across.’ He picked up the lurid book he had put down several hours earlier. ‘ This is going right back into the library, believe you me. I think I’ll pick something a little cheerier next time!’
Barbara put an arm around him and hugged him, happy just to have him back from the dead. ‘Well, I’m glad those monsters decided to attack the city. If they hadn’t... Well, I’d rather not think about it.’
Vicki grabbed Barbara’s arms, and swung her round, giggling. The euphoria of their escape had quite gone to her head. ‘The main thing is we’ve got away from the Daleks! That’s all that really matters.’
Rubbing his hands together in satisfaction, the Doctor beamed at her. ‘Yes, I don’t think we’ll be seeing them again.’
Unfortunately, the Doctor had never listened to Plato (assuming that there was precious little that some Greek peasant philosopher could teach a man of his accomplishments). The pot-bellied philosopher had squinted at the Doctor, and warned him of hubris —the overwhelming pride that makes the gods strike mortals down. Perhaps one day, the Doctor would pay heed to that bit of good advice. No sooner had he spoken than the console began emitting a regular, musical tone, and a small instrument lit up in time with the pulses.
Alarmed, the Doctor began fiddling with the controls, trying to lose that sound and rhythmic light. Nothing that he did had any effect at all. His features fell, and his perpetual frown deepened. All traces of his bonhomie had vanished like the seas of Aridius. ‘The time-path indicator,’ he muttered to himself. ‘It’s been in the ship ever since I took it, but it’s never registered anything before.’
His companions had sobered up, too, realizing that something was wrong. Barbara voiced what they all wondered. ‘What does it show?’
‘It surveys the time path through which we are travelling,’ the Doctor said, rapidly, drumming his fingers on the panel in frustration. ‘Both the past and the future. The fact it is registering can only mean one thing...’
‘Well?’ Ian asked. ‘Go on.’
Turning to face them, the Doctor announced gravely: ‘There’s another time machine travelling on the same route that we are taking.’
‘The Daleks!’ Vicki whispered.
‘Yes. I’m afraid our celebration was a little premature.’
Ian looked at the flashing light grimly. ‘At least we know what we’re up against. The Daleks are chasing us through time and space...’ They all fell silent, as the implications of this began to dawn on them.
Wherever they went now, the Daleks were certain to be just a step behind them...
The inside of the Dalek time machine was both similar to and different from the TARDIS. It, too, was dimensionally transcendental—much larger inside than it looked from the outside. It was smaller than the TARDIS, though, containing two main levels. The instrumentation was all on the ground level, close to the main doorway. Two small laboratories led off from the main control room. Between them, there was an elevator to the upper deck. This housed the taranium power core from which the ship’s systems fed. Three Daleks were on permanent duty here, monitoring the highly unstable power levels. Taranium was both the rarest and most unstable element in the Universe. One gram of it could power the time ship for centuries—and it had taken the Daleks two decades to assemble such a large amount of taranium.
By the control panels, the Squad Leader monitored the flight of their ship, and also of the TARDIS, whose path they had locked onto. At the tracking panels, a second Dalek kept them stable on the pathway.
‘Compute time lag,’ the Leader demanded.
‘One five Earth minutes. Reducing.’
Satisfied, the Leader spun to another Dalek behind it. ‘We are close. Order the executioners to prepare to disembark. Time to landing—seven minutes.’
‘I obey!’
The leader faced the panel again, watching the twin lights moving towards their destination—and the inevitable destruction of their prey!
The inhabitants of the TARDIS were considerably less pleased with the state of affairs. No matter how they tried, none of them could drag their eyes from the flashing light for more than a few seconds. Then, they would look at the Doctor, struggling to override the TARDIS’s flight path somehow.
‘Useless!’ he cried in fury, slamming his hand on the panel. ‘Useless!’ There had to be a way to do it, but he simply didn’t know it, or had forgotten it long, long ago. If only he hadn’t lost those notes!
‘No luck,’ Barbara sighed, seeing his raging.
‘Well,’ Ian said, practically, ‘if we can’t lose them, I suppose we’ll have to stop and fight.’
The idea was far from appealing. Vicki looked hopefully at the Doctor. ‘We are in front—we could just keep moving.’
‘But for how long, Vicki?’ Barbara asked, gloomily. ‘We can’t run forever.’
‘And even if we did give them the slip,’ Ian added, ‘they found us once—presumably they could do it again.’
‘Let’s ask the Doctor,’ Vicki suggested. ‘He should know by now one way or the other.’
As they approached him, the Doctor glanced up and shook his head. ‘It’s no good, I’m afraid. I can’t shake them off.’
‘Then what happens when we land?’ Ian demanded. ‘Do we just wait for the Daleks to catch us up?’
The Doctor waved a hand, dismissing the notion. ‘It takes our computers about twelve minutes to reorient and gather their power. It is vital that we hold on to that twelve-minute lead until I can find some way of eluding them.’
The idea of running forever didn’t appeal to Ian. ‘Yes, but—’
The Doctor had had enough. ‘Chesterton!’ he snapped. ‘Leave this to me, will you? Leave this to me!’
Vicki clutched his arm. ‘Look, Doctor—the time rotor is slowing down.’
‘Mmm?’ Cooling off again, the Doctor patted her hand fondly. ‘Oh, yes; then in a few minutes, we’ll be landing.’
Barbara stared at the rotor, as though willing it to carry on. ‘But where, Doctor— where ?’
Assuming he had a best friend, this hypothetical friend would have been hard pressed to say anything even vaguely complimentary about Morton C. Dill, native of the state of Alabama . At school, he had been unaffectionately nicknamed ‘Dill the Pill’, a reference to his being rather hard to take. Since his school days—or, as some critics called them, ‘school daze’—Dill had not improved. On the contrary, his tendency to spout whatever came off the top of his mind (there being no deeper level to his thinking) was worse than ever. He rarely worried about having any content in his speech. He constantly intruded on others, generally in loud and obnoxious ways. Convinced that he was the life and soul of every party, he would make his way into any gathering and try to take over as quickly as possible.
The general response to his actions was usually a distinct drop in the air temperature, a general move in any direction away from him, and from time to time a proffered fist or a call for the nearest police officer. None of this did much to dampen Dill’s enthusiasm; he simply moved on and tried to ingratiate himself into some other gathering, firmly convinced that the original group merely lacked taste. The original group was extremely relieved to merely lack Dill.
It came as a matter of much surprise to anyone unfortunate enough to be acquainted with him that in the summer of 1967, Dill was promptly locked up in a home for the bewildered, where he resides to this day—attempting to drive professionals in the sphere of mental health crazy with his constant, long, rambling discourses. Many of these deal with the event that led to his being
incarcerated in the ‘joint’ (as he insisted on calling the Newman Rehabilitation Clinic)...
It had been one of those rare, glorious days in New York City . Fresh in this city—having worn out his welcome in several others—Dill caught sight of the Empire State Building , then the tallest building in the world. Duly paying for a ticket, Dill crammed into the elevator to the observation deck. It was a fast ride, but by the time the car reached the 102nd floor and the doors opened, the rest of the tourists hurried away from him.
The view for once actually kept Dill occupied awhile. As he gazed over the edge of the building, he stared in wonder at the Manhattan streets laid out below him. To the east, Long Island faded into the distance. To the west lay the New Jersey territories, and the Palisades Amusement Park . To the north, the city lay in all of its grandeur. Most notable was the large rectangular of green, Central Park . From his altitude of 1,250 feet, it all seemed so small.
He took the elevator back down to the open-air observation deck on 86th floor, where the pay-binoculars were located, and he could get a better view of the city. Armed with his array of cameras, he knew he’d impress the folks back home with his adventures in the Big Apple. He had very little idea just how unusual those adventures would turn out to be.
He wandered about to the southern side of the building, and the rest of the tourists headed for the other three sides, leaving him alone for a while. He stared out at the Statue of Liberty and the Upper and Lower Bays , then looked about, suddenly realizing that he wanted to talk, and he was alone.
Actually, not quite alone. There was a large, odd-looking blue box that he was certain hadn’t been there a moment or two before. Scratching his head, he examined the thing. ‘I coulda swore that weren’t here just now,’ he muttered. ‘Well, I guess that’s New York for you.’
He was staring at the door handle, working up the courage to open the box, when it opened itself, and an attractive young lady emerged. It was hard to say who was the most surprised, but Barbara was the first to get her wits back. She looked at Dill —dressed in fake cowboy style to ‘make a statement’ (which most people claimed was ‘I have no taste’) —and smiled.