Doctor Who_ Logopolis Part 2

When at last the measurements were done they went over to the console to enter them into the memory management system. The Doctor seemed very pleased with the day's work, although Adric still wasn't sure why they had to go to Logopolis.

'Didn't I explain that?' The Doctor seemed surprised. 'To overlay these dimensions on the TARDIS. The dimensional interference patterns will shake the thing loose.'

Adric nodded slowly. 'And that's block transfer computation?'

'Part of it. It's a way of modelling s.p.a.ce/time events through pure calculation. It's not easy to explain in a word...'

It took a lot of words. Adric gathered that over the centuries the Logopolitans had developed a completely new kind of mathematics that a.n.a.lysed the structure of the physical world - or rather the very nature of structure itself. But as the Doctor continued his explanation, with many diversions into astronomical history, wave theory, and even, at one point, the life cycle of the procyon lotor, it gradually dawned on the young Alzarian that the Doctor wasn't very sure of his ground theoretically.

Block transfer computation! To Adric the idea of a mathematics that could, among other things, bring physical objects into being through pure calculation was immensely exciting. It was infuriating that a man who knew so much about completely useless things should be so woolly about such an important subject.

The Doctor had begun his explanation while he was in the middle of resetting the co-ordinates. But in the course of talking to Adric and waving his arms about to ill.u.s.trate points in his argument he had lost his place, and now he had to go back and start all over again. He would have finished the job with no trouble this time, if Adric hadn't asked, with a measure of deliberate irony, 'If it's all as easy as that, I don't see why we need to go to Logopolis at all. We can do it ourselves, here.'

This brought the Doctor to a thoughtful halt. 'It's not that simple, of course . . . I went into it all when they first offered to do the chameleon conversion for me . . . it's highly specialised...'

'A bit beyond our intellectual capability?' the boy asked innocently.

'Wel , I wouldn't say that. It's not just a matter of understanding distributed cl.u.s.ter algebra. The actual working out's very tedious, lots of fiddly computations. Much better to leave it to the Logopolitans. They can do it standing on their heads.'

Adric was genuinely surprised. 'Not with a computer?'

Doctor had encountered these idiomatic difficulties with Adric before. When you've been brought up in a different universe there are bound to be small cultural barriers, even with the best will in the world.

'Standing on their heads . . . it's an expression.' The Doctor explained what it meant, and then went on: 'But now you come to mention it, they don't use computers. It's all done by word of mouth.'

'Is that another expression?'

The Doctor shook his head and muttered something. He was concentrating on the console, determined to get it right this time.

'They speak it?' Adric exclaimed.

The Doctor shrugged. 'Mutter. Intone.'

'Intone the computations? Why?'

'I wondered that too.' A mouthful of large white teeth beamed down disarmingly. 'Never quite had the nerve to ask them.' Then as he turned back to pull the dematerialisation lever the Doctor's eye was caught by one of the small indicator panels that were dotted about the console.

There were so many k.n.o.bs, levers, read-out displays and switches that Adric had, quite early on in his relations.h.i.+p with the Doctor, abandoned all hope of mastering the technology of flying the TARDIS, although he had managed to do it once, quite by accident. But the doctor knew exactly what he was doing, and silly, woolly or just plain baffling as he could be at other times, when working at the console he took life very seriously.

So Adric knew straight away from the Doctor's expression that something was wrong.

The Doctor tapped the indicator panel. 'You've got a lively enquiring mind, Adric. Explain this.'

The panel was labelled Weak Force Flux Field Indicator Weak Force Flux Field Indicator, and the needle was jammed over to the right-hand side in an area marked in red as Beyond Limits Beyond Limits.

'It couldn't be an instrumentation fault, could it?' Adric suggested. The boy felt obliged to say something intelligent.

'Very easily, knowing the state of the TARDI S.' The Doctor hit the panel again, this time with a certain amount of vindictiveness. On looking again he pumped his cheeks, making the breath whistle between his teeth. 'No, I don't think so. What we've got here is a gravity bubble. And fairly local, too.'

'Is that dangerous?'

'We'd better not dematerialise till we've investigated.' He threw Adric a less convincing replica of the rea.s.suring grin. 'I'm probably overlooking the obvious again. Back in two shakes.'

The Doctor jerked back a lever on the console and strode across to the double doors that swung open in response. Viewer screens and time technology were all very well, but nothing was better than seeing for yourself.

The blue external doors opened a fraction. The Doctor peeped out and looked round.

It was good to be back on Earth again. It was just the right size from the point of view of gravitational pull, and the atmosphere was rich in oxygen, which tended to give the foliage a green colour that was relaxing on the eyes. He stepped out and took a deep breath, forgetting for a moment that the TARDIS was parked beside the noise and the fumes of the pa.s.sing traffic.

Sunspot activity - he squinted up at the sky - seemed to be about normal for the time of century, but in any case the Doctor discounted natural causes: the field was too localised. There was no obvious high technology in the vicinity as far as he could see, and the landscape around him showed none of the secondary effects he would have expected, given the strength of the field. There would surely at least be a high wind.

He remembered the turmoil of darkness that had blown across Traken at the time of the Keeper's pa.s.sing, and how the Master had sought to step into his place. That last battle had certainly drained the Doctor's strength, but at least Traken had been restored to the harmony that had made it famous. Tremas the Councillor and his daughter Nyssa were happy again.

What if the Master had somehow escaped from Traken?

The Doctor pushed the thought out of his mind, and was about to duck back into the TARDIS again when his eye fastened on something on the far side of the road.

A pale figure was watching, its outline humanoid in so far as it was definable. The Doctor stared, and the figure seemed to stare back. The Doctor reached out for support, and leaned against the TARDIS door, almost white-faced, his two hearts beating a little faster.

Something quite extraordinary was happening. He had sensed it, and now - here it was!

3.

Inside the TARDIS the gravity bubble, or whatever it was, had produced a pearly cloud over the viewer screen. Adric wasn't particularly disappointed to have lost sight of the young woman who had given him such strange feelings, because the feelings had gone now, and he knew that the temporary giddiness must have been due to being so high up in the console room.

In any case, there was something much more interesting to think about. In the Doctor's temporary absence, Adric's curiosity had drawn him towards the police box.

The small hatch with the telephone in it wasn't the way in; it was only a sort of cupboard set in the main doors. And they were locked, just like the TARDIS. Adric took a metal coathanger from the hatstand and straightened out the hook so that he could work it into the lock to turn the tumblers.

'Don't touch that!'

Adric jumped at the sound of the Doctor's voice. 'Sorry, Doctor. I just thought it might have something to do with the gravity bubble.'

The Doctor was grim-faced. 'I'm afraid you might be right. And that's a very good reason to leave it alone.'

Adric stepped back from the police box. Then a small, extraordinary thing happened.

One of the blue doors creaked slightly. As they watched it swung open as if of its own accord.

The Doctor approached the police box cautiously, reached out for the second door handle, and began to turn it as if it were made of icing sugar and might break off at any moment.

It was obvious straight away from the size of the interior that this was no ordinary police box. With tremendous care the Doctor stepped through the double doors.

Perhaps it was the yellowish tinge to the light that made the room the Doctor entered so inhospitable: somehow sterile and dangerous territory. The air was cold, too, and as the Doctor looked about him the vapour from his breath hung in the atmosphere like puffs of smoke. Apart from this the Doctor felt at home, because it was home - or something very like it.

'The TARDIS console room!'

The Doctor heard the boy's exclamation without turning round. 'Get back to the TARDIS,' he hissed.

'But this is the TARDIS, Doctor!'

'A TARDIS, perhaps.'

'It looks just like yours . . .'

'Don't argue with me! Back to the console room and stay there.'

The Doctor spoke with such force that Adric hastily bundled back into his head al the questions that were urging to be asked. He was about to move to the door when the Doctor reached out and grabbed him quite savagely by the shoulder.

'Wait! Don't move. You may be safer with me.' The Doctor wasn't looking at Adric; his eyes were narrowed, fixed on some point on the other side of the console where the yellow light seemed particularly thick.

The boy fol owed his gaze. The object was familiar enough, but for some reason the sight of it almost stopped his heart. Standing by the console of the room that was identical in every detail to the Doctor's console room, was a police box. Its small telephone door was open, and from it the receiver dangled on the cord.

'It's hopeless, Aunt Vanessa! Just hopeless!'

Tegan disconnected the foot-pump and threw it back into the boot. No amount of legwork would blow up a tyre with a hole in it. 'Honestly, Aunt Vanessa, how long have you been driving around with a dud spare tyre?' She looked at her watch, and the remains of her confident self-sufficiency evaporated into thin air.

Aunt Vanessa remained cool. 'Don't worry, there's still plenty of time to get the garage.'

She was peering across to the other side of the road; the point where it flattened away into the distance was marked by little fluttering flags enshrining what looked like a set of petrol pumps.

Tegan stood the wheel on end. Her hands were smudged with grease and mud, but so far she had avoided getting any dirt on her uniform. She thought of the clean, air-conditioned interior of her 747; there was still time to catch the flight, if she made some quick, level-headed decisions. 'OK, Aunt Vanessa, I admit defeat. I won't be a jiff.'

'Mind how you cross the road,' Aunt Vanessa cal ed out after her, as Tegan set out for the garage, awkwardly rolling the tyre in front of her.

That's a point, thought Tegan. How do I cross the road with this thing? But she had only gone a few yards when she came across the obvious solution to all their troubles. She read the notice. Police Telephone Free for Use of Public. Advice and a.s.sistance Police Telephone Free for Use of Public. Advice and a.s.sistance Obtainable Immediately. Officers and Cars Respond to Urgent Calls. Obtainable Immediately. Officers and Cars Respond to Urgent Calls.

For some reason it said Pull to Open Pull to Open, which must have been a mistake. Because when she pushed against them the double doors opened inward. 'That's funny,' said Tegan to herself, peering into the interior. 'That's very peculiar indeed . . . '

And leaning the tyre against the outer wall, where she noticed somebody had been foolish enough to park an unlocked bicycle . . . Tegan stepped inside.

The Doctor hung up the receiver and gently closed the small door. Adric s.h.i.+vered, and not just because of the cold. 'But if this is another TARDIS...!'

'It may be, it may not be,' the Doctor interrupted. 'Too early to tell.

Other things can produce this sort of dimensional anomaly.' Cautiously the Doctor pushed against the doors, but they seemed locked tight.

Adric remembered that he was still holding the coathanger. At first the Doctor refused to let the boy approach the door himself and took the coathanger from him. But whatever else the Doctor was good at he certainly wasn't a natural lock-picker, and eventually he had to stand aside for his young companion. 'But please be very careful,' he warned.

As Adric delicately explored the lock with the end of the wire the Doctor stayed close beside him.

If Tegan had arrived in the real TARDIS console room a fraction earlier she would have seen the light on the roof of the police box spring into life, dancing blue reflections across the circular indentations that decorated the TARDIS walls. At the same moment the police box itself began to drain of colour and form; whirring and chuffing . . . it dematerialised like an idea forgotten.

As it was, she entered through the double doors a split second too late, but the sight still made her catch her breath. 'It's some kind of . . . flying saucer!'

She moved slowly towards the glitter of instrumentation in the middle of the room, frightened and yet drawn to the technology. It reminded her of the c.o.c.kpit of the Cessna, as if the instrument panel of that small plane had been magically multiplied in the reflections of a kaleidoscope.

She cast her eye around the walls, and noticed an old-fas.h.i.+oned hatstand - the last piece of furniture you would expect to see - complete with a few hats and a very long scarf that trailed down to the floor.

At that moment the double doors of the TARDIS swung together and closed with a thud that resonated round the room. She ran to them, scrabbling at the unyielding surface for handles, anything to get them open. She was trapped!

The yellow light thickened for each set of doors they went through, and each time the air was colder. The rooms were all the same in every other respect - it was what the Doctor cal ed a 'simulacrum'. They always found the police box in the same place, a few feet to the right of the console as they entered through the doors. And each time the phone was dangling from its cord.

Adric had suggested going back, but the Doctor had known it would be impossible.

Adric didn't understand at first, and insisted on trying to leave the way they had come in.

But the entrance was a heavy yellow nothingness when you approached it from the other direction; matter seemed just to cease.

The Doctor's face was grim as he watched his young companion bring the coathanger to bear once again on the police box door. To Adric it always seemed to be the same lock. How many locks and doors? He had opened so many now that he had completely lost count.

'It couldn't be an infinite regression, could it?' Adric asked through chattering teeth. The room they were entering was lit by even darker amber light than the last.

The Doctor approached the police box and, as he had done so often before, picked up the receiver and hung up, closing the small door. 'There's a chance it may stop suddenly. Behind one of these doors there may be something completely different.

Then we'll know it's over.'

'And if we don't find something completely different?'

The Doctor shrugged, but gave no other answer.

'We'll be stuck here forever, won't we, Doctor? You can't get out of an infinite regression.' There was a note of panic in the boy's voice. 'That's true, isn't it?'

'True, but boring,' said the Doctor. And with a wink to dispel any hint of tedium, he gestured to Adric to open the next police-box door.

Tegan explored her prison. She was torn between immense curiosity about what was clearly some sort of flying machine, and a fear of the strange craft that was so unlike anything she had ever seen.

She surveyed the array of switches, b.u.t.tons and levers on the console. There must be intelligent life at the end of this lot, surely? One of the b.u.t.tons looked rather like an intercom switch. She pressed it and spoke into the small grill beside it. 'h.e.l.lo, anybody receiving me?'

There was no answer. Collecting her courage, she tried some more b.u.t.tons on the console. 'h.e.l.lo? Come in, anybody . . . My name is Tegan Jovanka, and I'd like to talk to the pilot.'

She stopped and listened. There was something. The sound came from behind a door she hadn't noticed before. She crossed over to it and pushed it open. Through it she glimpsed a corridor that appeared to lead deeper into the craft.

She paused at the door and listened again. The deep note came in pulses, resonant like a bell. It sounded distant, but at the same time seemed to be very much an urgent presence in the room. 'h.e.l.lo?' Tegan cal ed into the corridor. 'Is that the crew through there?'

There was no reply but the continued mournful chime. Tegan took a deep breath and walked through to explore the corridor. The punctured wheel, the airport and Aunt Vanessa were three minor problems that had slipped her mind completely.

But Tegan was very much on Aunt Vanessa's mind. The elderly lady had been sitting wrapped up in the car for what seemed an age of waiting, and at last, being careful where she put her feet on the muddy verge, she had decided for the sake of her circulation to stretch her legs in the direction of the garage.

The abandoned tyre leaning against the police box aroused her suspicions immediately.

Something had happened to Tegan, and what was needed was a telephone.