Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World (14 page)

BOOK: Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World

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‘It’s himself. The Doctor’s back,’ he cried, thumping the side of the TARDIS to waken Victoria before setting off down the beach, eyeing the strange machine a little apprehensively.

The familiar figure clambered out of the cockpit, ducked under the slowing rotor blades and began walking unsteadily up the beach towards him.

‘Och, we thought ye were never coming, Doctor!’ Jamie shouted, waving happily. As the figure drew nearer, he saw that the Doctor’s clothes were torn and covered in dust, and that every few metres he stumbled groggily. ‘You’re in a fine mess,’ Jamie exclaimed. ‘Whatever happened to you?

I told you he’d be back before dark,’ Jamie cried, following the Doctor into the TARDIS.

Victoria rubbed the sleep from her eyes and then sat bolt upright in the armchair, staring at the Doctor in dismay. ‘I
knew
we should never have left you,’ she said.

The Doctor ignored her and went straight over to the control column in the centre of the chamber. He gazed around him as if he could hardly believe how roomy it was.

He leaned over the controls, glassy-eyed and slightly trembling.

Jamie went over to him. ‘Are you all right, Doctor?’ he asked anxiously. ‘You look terrible.’

The Doctor seemed to be breathing with great difficulty. He raised both hands and gestured helplessly at the mass of instruments, levers, switches, gauges and indicator lights littering the circular structure which resembled something out of an amusement arcade.

‘You want to make a start, Doctor?’ Victoria suggested, with a puzzled glance at Jamie.

The Doctor nodded vigorously. He gestured to Jamie and then back to the controls, as if inviting the young Highlander to take command. Jamie retreated round the console in confusion.

Victoria joined Jamie on the opposite side of the console. ‘But, Doctor, you said we were never to touch anything... any of the machinery,’ she murmured.

‘That’s quite right, Victoria,’ said a familiar voice.

The figure opposite them spun round to face the newcomer silhouetted against the sunset in the open doorway. Jamie and Victoria looked up in astonishment.

The Doctor was standing there, not quite so ragged and dusty, contemplating Salamander with a grim smile.

‘So. We meet at last. I had a feeling this would happen eventually,’ the Doctor said drily, advancing a few paces.

Salamander was backed up hard against the console, gripping the edge of the panelling with white-knuckled hands. ‘Buenas tardes,’ he replied after a moment’s silence.

‘You have impersonated me so brilliantly, Doctor, that I just had to return the compliment.’

The Doctor stepped a little closer to Salamander. ‘I regret that I must ask you to leave now,’ he said quietly.

‘We have to be on our way.’ Salamander did not move. ‘Oh, and I took the liberty of pouring a couple of shoes full of seawater into your fuel tank out there,’ the Doctor added with a cheeky grin. ‘But don’t worry. Bruce won’t take long to find you.’

With a strange hissing murmur Salamander began to speak. ‘Such a needless waste, Doctor. Two men of such genius as we two. What glorious things we could achieve together, you and I. What a future we could give to the world.’

Jamie had noticed Salamander’s hands moving stealthily towards the controls behind him as he spoke.

Suddenly he sprang forward, pinning Salamander’s arms to his sides. Salamander rolled abruptly sideways, taking Jamie with him as he spread-eagled himself over the console.

‘Hold on! ‘ the Doctor yelled, grabbing Victoria’s arm with one hand and the edge of the console with the other as the TARDIS began to shudder and an unearthly grinding noise began to fill the blood-red air around them.

Lights flickered madly all round the console and the door banged wildly to and fro as the police box began to roll and spin dizzily. Jamie let go of Salamander and threw himself towards the massive armchair, grabbing a leg and clinging on for dear life.

Like some crazy merry-go-round, the TARDIS

oscillated faster and faster. A maelstrom of blackness and roaring and of hurricane winds swirled them helplessly around. The Doctor was shouting instructions at the top of his voice, but nobody could hear what he was trying to say.

The air itself seemed to be vibrating like a plucked string and it became impossible to breathe properly as everybody’s lungs rapidly inflated and deflated in time with the pulsations of everything around them. Victoria felt as though she were engulfed in some unspeakable nightmare. When she twisted her head round to look at the figure whose hand she was desperately clutching, she seemed to see only the monstrous Salamander, his teeth bared and his eyes burning with crazed delight. And when she looked the other way across at the maddened creature grappling frenziedly with the console, she seemed to see the Doctor, deliberately throwing the TARDIS out of control and steering them all into an endless limbo where Time and Space were inextricably entwined, trapping them for ever.

Suddenly the console began to buck and rear up like an unbroken horse. Salamander lost his grip on the controls and was flung high into the air. For a moment he hung over them all like an enormous bird of prey, then his body seemed to be pulled in all directions at once as if it were made of rubber. It was swept up in an invisible vortex which drew it relentlessly towards the gaping doorway.

Above the din there was a sudden prolonged hissing noise, and Salamander was sucked out into the empty roaring blackness where he instantly disintegrated in the middle of nowhere...

Victoria felt the Doctor’s grip tighten around her wrist as he dragged himself painfully closer to the shuddering controls. Jamie too had managed to grab hold of a stanchion supporting the console. He let go of the massive armchair and it immediately started careering crazily around the TARDIS with a life of its own.

The Doctor was no longer shouting. With his forehead pressed against the console he seemed to be murmuring gentle, reassuring words to his beloved apparatus, trying to calm it enough to give him time to reach the vital stabilisers and thus regain control. His two young friends were suddenly filled with hope. Salamander really did seem to have disappeared for ever, and they knew they could trust the Doctor. He had never let them down. Now they willed him to succeed as his outstretched hand finally closed round the stabiliser lever and gradually but firmly adjusted the setting.

After what seemed an eternity, the TARDIS at last began to respond, and all at once Jamie and Victoria found themselves laughing and cheering with relief. Glancing at the Doctor, they saw that familiar look of intense and insatiable curiosity come over his face as the uproar subsided and the police box gradually stopped shaking so violently.

They knew that they were about to materialise yet again in some unknown corner of the Universe. Although they did not yet know where it would be, they were certain that it would not be a dull place. And in the end, that was all that really mattered...

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