Doctor Who: Time Flight (2 page)

not wasting time with this Doctor.'

Sheard was surprised at the vigour of Sir John Sudbury's reply - after which there was nothing more to be said. 'Yes, I beg your pardon. If you insist.' He concluded as gracefully as he could manage, only to find Andrews from landside security waving a telex at him.

'The party with the police box in Terminal One have full security clearance from C19,' Andrews said, clearly amazed and peeved that the extraordinary young man should be given such a warm welcome by the top brass of UNIT.

'I've been talking to Sir John Sudbury. We are obliged to brief this Doctor on the disappearance of Victor Foxtrot,' Sheard explained, in a voice that no longer disguised his opinion of UNIT'S interference.

'Good afternoon, gentlemen.' The Doctor breezed in with Nyssa and Tegan.

Sheard did not warm to the Doctor's appearance. Doctor, indeed! And as for his associates! A girl little older than his own daughter and a young woman in Air Australia uniform. Things had come to a pretty pass when he was obliged to discuss a major crisis with junior cabin staff. He shook the Doctor's hand, and turned his attention as politely as he could to Tegan. 'You're a stewardess.'

'Yes, that's right.' Had she not been so nervous, Tegan would have risen to a less gracious reply. But try explaining the Doctor and the TARDIS

and Nyssa to the likes of the Airport Controller! And, if word got round, Air Australia might start asking some very awkward questions about why she had failed to report for duty. She pictured herself explaining Aunt Vanessa

and Logopolis and saving the universe from galloping entropy to that aggressive young personnel officer from Brisbane, and decided it was far better to stay with the Doctor, and get out of Heathrow fast. But the Doctor could never resist sticking his oar in, and here they were on the trail of a missing Concorde. Concorde? What on earth did the Doctor know about Concorde! She smiled at Sheard and hoped he would forget about her.

'I hear you're having problems?' The Doctor wanted all the details of the missing airliner.

Sheard introduced him to Clive Horton who had been on duty on air traffic control when the flight from New York was lost. The young man explained how, shortly after it had started the deceleration descent procedure, all trace of the supersonic airliner, known by its registration number as Golf Victor Foxtrot, faded from the radar screen. The experts in Sheard's office were unanimous that the event Horton had witnessed on the screen defied rational explanation. Flight 192 had not crashed. It had dissolved into space.

'Just like the TARDIS,' thought Tegan to herself. 'If only they knew!'

Listening to Clive Horton's report, the Doctor had spotted a rather interesting co-incidence. He turned to his companions. 'The turbulence in the TARDIS!'

'That forced us to materialise.'

'Cross-tracing on the time-space axis.' Nyssa was already thinking on the same lines as the Doctor.

'Exactly!'

The clever men from British Airways strained their ears, but it was so much double-Dutch to them.

'Do you know where the missing aircraft is?' By now Sheard was desperate enough to listen to any theory that might throw light on the mystery.

The Doctor's answer, however, did little to reassure him.

'I suspect that it's not a question of where, but when!'

'Against my better judgement, I am obliged to do as you suggest, Doctor. But really! Why do you want us to send up another Concorde?'

Sheard was under orders to follow the Doctor's instructions to the letter, but felt obliged to make a token protest at the man's fantastic notions.

The Doctor explained his plan yet again. 'We must follow the same route, same height, same speed. And, with my equipment on board, I can identify what I believe to be an exponential time contour.'

This was the second time the Doctor had advanced the idea of a time slip. On the first occasion Sheard pretended he hadn't heard. Now, out of self-respect, he felt obliged to challenge such unscientific nonsense.

'You really believe that Victor Foxtrot flew into ... a time warp?'

Not even Douglas Sheard's withering scepticism diminished the Doctor's self-confidence. 'Exactly. And you can't have a navigational hazard like that hanging about the galaxy.'

Sheard counted slowly to ten. The man was obviously a lunatic. All the same, if it ever got out that the Airport Controller had co-operated in this madcap scheme, he would be the laughing stock of the whole airline industry. He was saved from further speculation by a phone call from the control tower. Glad at least to see the back of the Doctor and his companions, Sheard passed on the information. 'Golf Alpha Charlie is ready for boarding.'

The operations office was buzzing with rumours of the missing Concorde when Captain Stapley and his copilot, Andrew Bilton, were ordered to prepare Golf Alpha Charlie for takeoff.

As they crossed the tarmac to the waiting aircraft, Captain Stapley explained the briefing. 'This scientist wants to take up some special equipment to monitor the approach used by Victor Foxtrot when she went through the deceleration phase.'

'Morning, Skipper. All ready for loading.' Flight Engineer Roger Scobie called cheerfully from the cabin door as they reached the aircraft steps.

There was something more sardonic than usual about the way Roger was grinning.

'Is the gear on its way?' asked the Captain.

'Coming over now.' Roger pointed to the maintenance hanger.

Pilot and copilot both turned to look. A fork-lift truck was making its way towards the plane. Lying on its side on the loading platform was the Doctor's TARDIS.

The Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa followed the TARDIS in an airport car.

In her travels with the Doctor, Tegan had seen many remarkable things, but as she stepped out of the car onto the hard-packed snow and looked up at Concorde she caught her breath. The aeroplane dazzled in the sunshine, brighter than the frost. She saw why it was so often compared to a bird - a wild creature of the upper air, with graceful swept-back wings, but, for all its power, a thing tamed to the use of man. With its lowered visor and long, elegant legs, it looked a touchingly submissive beast, patiently waiting for its master to arrive, and command it to soar to the borders of space.

The Doctor led the way up the steps. As they entered the cabin they were met by Captain Stapley, who introduced the two young men on the flight deck behind him.

'Would you all go back and get strapped in for takeoff,' he asked them, and returned to his place in the cockpit to complete the pre-flight checks.

Nothing was said by Stapley, Bilton or Scobie as they taxied out to the holding point, apart from the routine calls and checks. But the same thought was uppermost in their minds. This was the wierdest bunch of punters they had ever flown - to say nothing of the police box in the cargo hold.

'Golf Alpha Charlie. Right turn there. After the Trident departs. Line up and hold, two eight left.'

'Golf Alpha Charlie. Roger.'

'Speedbird Golf Alpha Charlie. Cleared for takeoff. Surface wind is two nine zero, twenty knots.'

'Speedbird Golf Alpha Charlie. Cleared for takeoff.'

'Okay. Ready to go then? Three, two, one, now!'

'Airspeed building.'

'One hundred knots.'

'Power checked.'

'V one.'

'Rotate.'

Every eye on the airport turned to the runway as the great bird reared up and lifted itself into the air.

'You seriously believe Victor Foxtrot went into some sort of time slip?'

The Doctor had joined the crew on the flight deck and was sitting in the jump seat behind Captain Stapley, who was finding the idea of the time contour as difficult to swallow as had Douglas Sheard.

'It's the logical explanation.'

'Sounds a pretty rum idea to me.'

'Hang on a moment, Doctor.' Roger Scobie turned from the engineer's panel with a mischievous gleam in his eye. 'If we follow Victor Foxtrot's course and end up somewhere over the rainbow - well, we're on a oneway ticket, just like Captain Urquhart's lot!' Roger had no doubt they would be back on chocks at Heathrow within the hour and had posed the problem out of sheer devilment.

'You're forgetting the TARDIS,' replied the Doctor gravely.

'The TARDIS?' said Captain Stapley. 'You mean that police box?'

'That's right,' said the Doctor, and left the flight deck feeling just a little wounded by their mocking smiles.

The TARDIS, which had caused such mirth at the Doctor's expense, was meanwhile lying on its side in the narrow baggage hold of the aircraft.

Together with Nyssa and Tegan, the Doctor lowered himself from a trap door in the main cabin to the confines of the cargo compartment.

'That's odd,' he muttered scornfully, 'this plane's smaller on the inside than it is on the outside.' He was still a little aggrieved by the crew's lack of confidence in the police box onto which he was now clambering.

It was not the Doctor's habit to enter the control room through the ceiling, but with the TARDIS stowed sideways on, the doors were now uppermost. The Doctor lowered himself towards the console and fumbled for the switch that would bring the auto-gravity system into circuit. Suddenly the whole room rotated through ninety degrees, bringing the floor back where it belonged. Tegan and Nyssa came running in.

'So useful when you want to maintain a dignified attitude.' The Doctor grinned, delighted to show of the TARDIS's versatility.

The Doctor got to his feet and activated a panel of instruments on the side of the console. It was crucial to monitor exactly what happened in the next few minutes, when Concorde began her descent deceleration procedure.

Concorde Golf Alpha Charlie was also being monitored in air traffic control, where Douglas Sheard had joined Clive Horton to keep a very close eye on the Doctor's test flight.

'Alpha Charlie is now at 58,000 feet, one hundred and fifty miles off the Cornish coast. Scheduled to turn on its approach any minute now,' Clive explained.

'Speedbird Concorde Golf Alpha Charlie.' Captain Stapley came in clear and confident over the radio. 'Now at six north, thirty west. Request permission to return to London.'

'Golf Alpha Charlie. Clear to turn to port. Route via Sierra November, fifteen west to London.' 'Roger. Golf Alpha Charlie. Turning to port.'

Clive turned to the Airport Controller. 'They're now on the same configuration as Golf Victor Foxtrot.' Sheard nodded. Everything was normal. The whole operation was a waste of time and money and had got them nowhere. The first thing the Airport Controller noticed to indicate that it was not quite as straightforward as that was the look of alarm on Clive Horton's face. Then he too heard the whistling interference on the radio. 'It's happening again!'

'Speedbird Concorde Golf Alpha Charlie ...' For a moment they could make out the voice of Captain Stapley through the ringing atmospherics.

Then it was submerged in the same unearthly noise that Clive had heard the day before. 'Golf Alpha Charlie. Do you read?' Clive Horton called over the air in vain. Sheard's eyes were riveted on the radar screen. The blip that showed the progress of Alpha Charlie was starting to flicker. They were losing the aircraft's transponder signal. Horrified, the two men watched as the cluster of glowing numerals grew fainter and fainter, then vanished altogether.

'Doctor, we're time-travelling!' Nyssa had been watching the dials on the TARDIS console with the Doctor.

'But the column isn't moving,' protested Tegan.

The Doctor nodded. It was all happening as he had expected. 'Concorde has just flown into the time contour!'

The Captain and his crew on the flight deck had no idea of the dismay at Heathrow, or the excitement in the TARDIS, as the Doctor's theories began to be proved right. All their navigational instruments indicated they were making a normal approach to London Airport. The only sign of any unusual activity was the radiation meter.

Captain Stapley watched the needle flickering in the alert section. 'Must be a solar flare.' One or two other Concorde pilots had noted this phenomenon, though it had never been serious enough to abandon the cruise climb.

'I doubt it,' interrupted the Doctor, reappearing on the flight deck. 'It's reacting to centuries of galactic radiation through which we're passing.'

But Stapley no longer took the Doctor seriously. He turned his attention to air traffic control. 'Speedbird Concorde Golf Alpha Charlie.

Permission to descend to three seven zero.'

To his surprise, London was silent. He called again. 'Golf Alpha Charlie.

Do you read?'

'I'm afraid your radio is useless, Captain. By my calculation we're the spatial equivalent of four hundred billion miles from air traffic control.'

Captain Stapley flashed the Doctor a look that was almost hostile. Loss of radio contact was a serious problem and the Doctor was no help at all, going on about this time-warp nonsense. But, for all his rationalisation, he felt a surge of dread, as if he were close to something alien and unknown. He prayed for a simple explanation.