Doctor Who: Time Flight

PETER GRIMWADE

Based on the BBC television serial by Peter Grimwade by arrangement with the British Broadcasting Corporation 1

Flight to Infinity

At 57,000 feet the air over the Atlantic was cold and clear. From the flight deck of Concorde Golf Victor Foxtrot, Captain Urquhart could see the curvature of the earth in a dark purple haze beyond the visor. For the passengers in the cabin, only the illuminated Machmeter gave any indication that they were hurtling towards London at over 1,300 miles an hour, twice the speed of sound.

Although British Airways flight 192 had left New York a mere two and half hours before, the journey was nearly over, as Captain Urquhart explained over the tannoy. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we'll be reaching our deceleration point in a few minutes and beginning our descent into London Heathrow'.

'Speedbird Concorde 192, you are clear to descend to flight level three seven zero.' The voice of air traffic control came through to the crew, giving them permission to leave their supersonic cruising altitude and join the queue of inbound subsonic aircraft waiting to land at Heathrow.

The First Officer, sitting on the right of the Captain, leant across to make an adjustment to the auto-throttle. Behind the First Officer, on the right of the narrow cockpit, the Flight Engineer scanned the myriad dials and gauges on the systems pane! in front of him. For all three of them it was one of the most critical periods of the flight. Every ounce of their skill was needed to slow the aircraft until it was just subsonic at the moment of crossing the coast.

Captain Urquhart turned to his copilot with a smile of satisfaction.

'Mach 1.6. Sixty miles to subsonic point. We're spot on!'

Far away on the ground the progress of flight 192 was being followed on the radar screens in air traffic control. The voice of Captain Urquhart was heard over the radio. 'Speedbird Concorde 192. Level at three seven zero.'

The Controller gave further instructions. 'Speedbird Concorde 192, you are clear to continue descent to two eight zero.'

There was no reply from the incoming aircraft.

'Speedbird Concorde 192, will you acknowledge, please.'

A confused crescendo of atmospherics began to whistle in the Controller's headphones. For a moment he thought he could detect the Captain's voice beyond the interference. He transmitted again.

'Speedbird Concorde 192, will you acknowledge, please!'

But now there was only silence.

Suddenly the illuminated call sign on the radar which marked Concorde's progress started to flicker. Something was happening to the plane. The shimmering image on the tube grew fainter and fainter.

Then it faded altogether from the screen. The Controller couldn't believe it. The aircraft had simply disappeared. He picked up a red telephone.

'Emergency. We've lost Concorde Golf Victor Foxtrot.'

Meanwhile, a vehicle of quite another kind was nearing London. But the TARDIS was not travelling in any air corridor known to Heathrow's flight controllers. Not that anyone on board really cared where they were going. They were far too upset. Adric had died in a desperate attempt to save the freighter hi-jacked by the Cybermen from crashing to the Earth. Tegan and Nyssa still could not come to terms with the loss of their companion.

'We can change what happened! We can materialise before Adric was killed!' Tegan pleaded with the Doctor.

'There are rules that cannot be broken, even with the TARDIS. Don't ever ask me to do anything like that again!' There was anger in the Doctor's voice. In their own grief Tegan and Nyssa had not realised how distressed he was at the death of his stowaway friend from Alzarius.

The Doctor spoke again, but more gently this time. 'You must accept that Adric is dead. His life wasn't wasted. He died, like his brother, trying to save others.'

As the Doctor recalled his adventure with the Marshmen in E-Space, Tegan and Nyssa came to understand how little they knew about the boy who had sacrificed his life, like his brother, Varsh, to save his friends.

Tegan was calmer now as she blinked back the tears. 'We used to fight, but I'll miss him.'

'So will I,' added Nyssa quietly.

The Doctor moved across to check the coordinates, and, sounding a great deal more cheerful than he felt, announced: 'A special treat. To cheer us all up!'

The two girls felt they owed it to the Doctor to put on a brave face.

'1851. Earth. London.' Nyssa read out the intended time and destination. 'What's so special about that?'

'Hyde Park? The Crystal Palace?'

These clues meant nothing to someone from Traken, but Tegan realised at once that the Doctor was taking them to the Great Exhibition.

'Opening day?' suggested the Doctor. 'Pass the time of day with the foreign Royals?'

'Queen Victoria will not be amused,' thought Tegan to herself. 'Not if the Doctor's visit runs true to form.'

But the Doctor was already planning an afternoon's cricket at Lords. 'A few overs from Wisden and Pilch. I wonder if the Lion will be bowling...'

'Let's get there first,' warned Tegan, who knew that when it came to reliability, the TARDIS was a poor second to any wonderful contraption they might find on display in the Crystal Palace.

'Nothing will go wrong this time,' promised the Doctor.

The words were still in his mouth when the control room began to shake and shudder.

'Nyssa, have you touched the dimensional stabilisers?' the Doctor shouted, darting to the controls.

'Of course not. All systems functioning normally.'

The vibration was clearly getting worse.

'Of course it could always be the relative drift compensator... No.'

'Some sort of turbulence?' said Tegan with memories of a bad trip in her father's Cesna back home.

'Feedback from the zonal comparator,' the Doctor speculated, making frantic adjustments that did nothing to stop the TARDIS oscillating like a giant tuning fork.

'Another ship on the same space-time axis?'

'Another ship?'

It was a chance in a million. But Nyssa could just be right. In fact it could be the only explanation. The Doctor was already taking evasive action though neither Tegan nor Nyssa seemed to appreciate the danger.

'We're in the wash of another time-vehicle,' he shouted, trying to impress on them the seriousness of the problem. 'If we don't materialise it will destroy the TARDIS!'

At Heathrow, the sudden appearance on the radar of an unidentified object, on the flight path of the vanished Concorde, caused considerable excitement. The air traffic controller broadcast a general warning. 'Unidentified aircraft on approach to two eight left, will you acknowledge?'

To the controller's dismay there was an ominous silence.

The controller would have been more alarmed, a few moments later, had he been standing near the end of the airport's runway two eight left, when an out-of-date metropolitan police box appeared from nowhere and hovered a few hundred feet above the ground.

Inside the TARDIS all was calm again. The Doctor opened the scanner so they could admire the view of Hyde Park.

There was a sad irony in the fact that, while the Doctor's attempts to return Tegan to her place of work had always come to grief, now, as they turned to the screen, what they saw was no bird's-eye view of the Crystal Palace but a pilot's view of Heathrow.

'That's not Hyde Park. It's London Airport!' cried Tegan in alarm. 'I never thought I'd say it, but let's get out of here. We could be in the path of an incoming aircraft.'

Quite undismayed, the Doctor was already tinkering underneath the console. 'Coordinate override. Sort of anti-collision device,' he explained with that air of confidence Tegan and Nyssa had learned to distrust.

And if anyone was watching by the approach lights at the end of the runway, they wouldn't have been able to trust their own eyesight. As suddenly as it had appeared, the strange blue box was gone.

It had been a difficult day in Terminal One. A sudden fall of snow delayed several flights and more than the usual number of tired and irritated passengers were milling around the concourse.

A Terminal duty officer first saw the police box in the departure lounge.

He had no idea how it could have got there, but he was quite sure it had no authorisation.

The duty officer wasn't the only one who knew the TARDIS had no business in the terminal building. Tegan was, for once, very conscious of being a stewardess, and didn't at all like the idea of explaining how she came to be, even partly, responsible for a police box at Heathrow.

Thank goodness the Doctor had reset the coordinates. But she had reckoned without his sporting interests.

'Won't be a moment.'

'Doctor!'

Before they could stop him the Doctor was through the doors and off towards the airport bookstall.

Fearing the worst, Tegan and Nyssa peered from the TARDIS. The Doctor was coming back, totally engrossed in a copy of The Times.

'I don't know what English cricket is coming to.'

'Oh, Doctor!' chorused the girls in dismay, but from no concern for the Test eleven. The Doctor was being followed by a posse of Terminal officers and policemen.

'Are you responsible for this box, sir?' Andrews, the duty officer, was icily polite.

'I try to be,' bluffed the Doctor.

'Try to be is about it,' thought Tegan. And she hoped desperately than no-one would notice her uniform.

'Would you be so good as to open it, sir.'

'Is that a good idea?'

'I must insist, sir. Security.'

'Yes, of course. Security.'

'You have the key, sir?' Andrews was now a little more icy and a little less polite, and not to be put off by the Doctor's bluster.

'UNIT!' The Doctor produced the word like a rabbit from a hat. And indeed the effect was almost as magical.

'UNIT, sir?' Andrews was surprised the Doctor knew about the existence of the special security organisation. Tegan and Nyssa, who were unfamiliar with the Doctor's previous adventures on Earth and had certainly never heard of UNIT, took it for granted he was making it up. Though they had to admit, it was, even for the Doctor, an impressive performance.

'You'll do much better to check with department C19. Sir John Sudbury is the man you want.'

Suddenly the Doctor sounded a much more important person than the pompous man in the brown uniform. Tegan began to wonder if the Doctor really did have some connection with this UNIT set-up.

So did Andrews. 'And who exactly are you, sir?' he said, trying not to be so cold and rather more courteous. It would do his career no good at all to upset a genuine UNIT agent.

'Just tell him it's the Doctor,' said the Doctor, as mysteriously as if he were James Bond himself, 'And do give my regards to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Unless, of course he's a General by now.'

Andrews turned away to radio his office.

The Doctor, feeling rather pleased with himself, grinned at Tegan and Nyssa. 'What did I tell you? We'll be away from here in a couple of shakes!'

Sir John Sudbury had other plans for the Doctor. The loss of a Concorde would be nothing short of a national disaster. That the Doctor should have turned up at this critical moment was the most amazing piece of good luck. If there was one person who could solve the mystery of the vanishing aircraft it was the owner of the police box in Terminal One.

Douglas Sheard, the Airport Controller, was less enthusiastic. For a moment he thought that the head of UNIT had taken leave of his senses.

'A Doctor with a police box? Really, Sir John...' He spluttered into the telephone. With thirty million pounds of aircraft missing, not to mention the passengers and crew, he had more important things to do than worry about an unauthorised police box. But crisis or no, it would be very embarrassing to get on the wrong side of a man in Sir John's position. 'Of course, Sir John,' he oiled, 'I appreciate the political ramifications.' Just as well to humour the old boy and get on with the investigation in his own way. 'Surely, Sir John,' he continued, 'that's all the more reason for