Doctor Who_ The Time Monster Part 9

The bellowing died away. 'Who was it?' whispered Hippias. 'You said that no other person shares the mystery.'

'The Guardian is a person no longer,' said Dalios sadly. 'A thing, a creature too horrible to imagine, half-man, half-beast. Come.'

Stuart Hyde's wing room was a sprawling untidy sort of place. A row of home-made shelves divided the living from the kitchen area and there were clothes, books and records everywhere.

Stuart, who now seemed fully recovered from his sudden rejuvenation, opened the door and gestured everyone inside. 'Make yourself comfortable - if you can!'

The Brigadier was still in a state of some indignation. 'All right. Doctor, what next?

Having picked us up by the scruff of the neck and bundled us in here, what do you propose to do with us?'

'Nothing at all,' said the Doctor cheerfully. 'There's nothing to be done at the moment except wait.'

Jo giggled. 'I seem to have heard that before.'

'Speaking personally,' the Doctor went on calmly, 'I'd love a nice cup of tea. How about it, Stuart?'

'I'll put the kettle on,' said Stuart amiably. 'Get the mugs out, will you, Ruth? How about a sandwich anyone? Only marmalade, I'm afraid.'

'I'd love one,' said Benton unwisely.

'This isn't a picnic,' exploded the Brigadier. 'One moment you're talking about the entire Universe blowing up and the next you're going on about tea. 'What's happening, Doctor?'

'A great deal, Brigadier. For instance, you were caught in a hiatus in time. Being without becoming, an ontological absurdity.'

'I don't understand a word you're saying!'

'It's true,' said Jo. 'I saw it. You and Benton and Doctor Ingram were stuck.'

'Nothing of the sort, Miss Grant.'

'Oh, you wouldn't be aware of it,' said the Doctor. 'Your time had slowed to a standstill too.'

'And all this is because of that TOMt.i.t gadget?' asked Benton.

'So it would seem. After all it did make a crack in time, didn't it?'

Jo blinked. 'A what?'

The Brigadier said wearily. 'Oh, a "gap between the now and the now", as Sergeant Benton would no doubt put it.'

Benton looked embarra.s.sed.

The Doctor patted him on the back. 'Exactly, very well put. So we're bound to experience all sorts of freak side-effects.'

'You mean, even leaving Kronos and the crystal right out of it?' said Ruth, coming out of the kitchen section. 'Marmalade sandwich?'

'Correct.' The Doctor began wandering round the room, collecting odds and ends.

She looked puzzled. 'But why weren't we affected ourselves, when we were working on the thing? We We didn't get slowed down.' didn't get slowed down.'

'If you stand right under a fountain you don't necessarily get wet, do you?'

'I see,' said Ruth. She didn't, of course, but it seemed to be all the answer she was going to get.

'Well, I'm dashed if I do,' said the Brigadier. He noticed the Doctor's strange activity.

'Doctor, what are you doing?'

'Me?' said the Doctor blandly. 'Collecting!'

The Master completed the last of a long series of adjustments to the TOMt.i.t apparatus, switched on and stepped back.

In the inner lab the crystal began pulsing with light once more. With each pulsation the intensity of light seemed to fade a little.

The Master rubbed his hands. 'Right! Now we shall soon be ready to move.'

'But, Master,' said Krasis nervously. 'The Mighty One. He may return.'

The Master laughed. 'Fortunate Atlantis to be blessed with such a courageous High Priest. Never fear, Kronos will only return if I desire it.'

'But the crystal.., what are you doing?'

'I am draining the time energy from the crystal. Otherwise we could scarcely take it with us.'

'We? Where are we going?'

The Master looked surprised. 'Where? ' Atlantis, of course?

The Doctor was still gathering up his collection of odds and ends. By now he had acc.u.mulate a wire coat hanger, a set of keys, some kitchen weights and the top part of a broken coffee maker. As he continued his prowling round the room the Doctor muttered, 'He must be stopped!'

'Fair enough,' said the Brigadier hopefully. 'Why don't we get on with it?'

'Because without the TARDIS we can't even begin to find out what he's up to.' The Doctor peered round the room. 'I need a bottle.'

'How about this?' Stuart held up a milk bottle.

'No, no, one with a narrow neck. A wine bottle would do.'

'Moroccan Burgundy, for instance?' Stuart fished a bottle from underneath the bed.

'Yes, that'll do nicely. And the cork?'

Stuart scratched his head. 'You've got me there.'

Ruth came out of the kitchen. 'Will this do, Stu?'

Stuart grinned. 'Remarkable efficiency, the cork's still on the corkscrew. There you are, Doc.'

'Well done!'

The Doctor sat down at Stuart's battered table and began sorting through his strange a.s.sortment of objects.

The Brigadier was losing patience. 'Doctor, I must insist - what are you up to?'

'Delaying tactics, Brigadier! A small fly in the Master's methaphorical ointment.' With that the Doctor set to work.

As far as the Brigadier could make out some sort of a tower...

The glow of the crystal became fainter and fainter still, until at last it died away.

Krasis gave the Master a look of awe. 'The fire is dying. You are indeed the Master.'

Working in absorbed silence, the Doctor was happily fitting his strange a.s.sortment of oddments into a sort of ramshackle structure.

Jo and the others watched in fascination as he the sliced the cork neatly in half, jammed one half back in the neck of the bottle, fixed a needle into the half-cork and fixed the other half of the cork on the other end of the needle thus creating a sort of pivot or axis. He took two forks and fixed them by the spikes into the upper cork so they projected like arms, one on each side.

Stuart leaned over to Ruth and whispered, 'Another nutcase!'

She nodded and whispered. 'Fruit-cake standard!'

Jo overheard them. 'You just wait and see,' she said loyally. But even Jo was beginning to wonder exactly what the Doctor was up to this time, The crystal was completely inert now, and the Master switched off the apparatus.

'There, it is finished. You must help me to carry the crystal, Krasis.'

Krasis shrank back. 'No, no... I dare not.'

'There is nothing to fear,' said the Master impatiently, 'You will do as I tell you.'

Krasis gave him a look of sheer terror. 'Do not compel me, I beseech you.'

Somehow, heaven knows how, the Doctor succeeded in balancing the top of the coffee maker on top of the cork. With the two forks projecting like out-stretched arms, the whole thing resembled a kind of mobile, or one of those balancing toys which can be bought in novelty shops.

'But what is it meant to be?' asked the Brigadier irritably.

The Doctor laughed. 'You're a Philistine, Brigadier. It isn't meant to be anything it just is is.' The rickety structure started toppling and the Doctor corrected its balance. 'I hope.'

'You mean it's just a ridiculous piece of modern art?' asked Ruth.

The Doctor looked hurt. 'No, no, my dear, it's a Time Flow a.n.a.logue.'

Stuart gave her a reproachful glance. 'Of course it is, Ruth. You ought to have seen that at a glance!'

The Doctor went on making adjustments to the nonsensical tower. 'The relations.h.i.+ps between the different molecular bonds form a crystalline structure of ratios.'

The Brigadier sighed. 'Does that make any sort of sense, Doctor Ingram?'

'None whatsoever!'

'I thought as much,' the Brigadier said determinedly. 'Doctor, please stop this silly game at once!'

The Doctor was infuriatingly calm. 'Patience, Brigadier, patience!' He tapped one projecting forks and the whole contraption began revolving like some lunatic roundabout. It wobbled alarmingly, but by some miracle it didn't collapse. However, the Doctor clearly wasn't satisfied. 'Oh dear!'

'What's up?' asked Jo.

'It doesn't work!'

'You astound me,' said the Brigadier acidly.

'Bad luck, Doctor!' Stuart handed the Doctor a mug. 'Here, have a cuppa and drown your sorrows!'

'A cup of tea!' said the Doctor joyfully. 'Of Tea leaves!' Swigging down the tea in one long swallow, he began balancing the empty mug on the top of his tower.

The Master was still trying to calm Krasis's fears. 'I give you my solemn pledge, Krasis, the crystal is still totally inactive.'

Krasis stared fearfully at the inert crystal. 'It looks,dead . . .'

'Of course it is, I promise you...'

Cautiously Krasis stretched out his hand towards the crystal.

'Right,' said the Doctor. 'Here we go!'

He tapped the projecting fork again. The whole contraption began to revolve. It spun faster, faster, faster, until suddenly it was glowing with a weird unearthly light. . .

The crystal was glowing too and Krasis s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand with a yell of fear. 'The crystal is afire. The Great One comes again!'

'The meddling fool!' snarled the Master, and rushed to the control console.

Doctor's strange contraption was spinning faster i and faster, glowing ever more brightly.

Jo stared at it as if hypnotised. 'But what does it do, Doctor? I mean, how does it affect the Master's plans?'

'It's just like jamming a radio signal, Jo. We used to make them at school to spoil each other's time experiments.'

Ruth stared at the strange contraption which continued to glow and revolve in defiance of all the laws of physics. 'I don't believe it. I just don't believe it.'

The Master adjusted controls in rapid succession, slammed home the power switch.

. . . and the Doctor's contraption exploded with a bang and a shower of sparks.

The Doctor stared philosophically at the smoking ruins. 'Ah well! It was fun while it lasted!'

A UNIT convoy was speeding through country lanes towards the Newton Inst.i.tute. In the lead was a UNIT land rover, behind it a canvas-hooded army lorry filled with troops, and behind that an open truck, in the back of which was a blue police box.

The Master was carrying the crystal, still mounted in a section of TOMt.i.t equipment, towards the laboratory door. It was a considerable task and since Krasis was now too terrified to touch the crystal, he had to perform it alone.