Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion (6 page)

Doctor Henderson staggered through the hospital foyer, ignoring the astonished receptionist and reeled out onto the steps. He called hoarsely, ‘There they are. Stop them! Stop them!'

At this precise moment, Captain Munro drove up in a UNIT jeep. He saw Henderson collapsing on the front steps, the Doctor disappearing through the main gates in a wheel-chair, and two very odd looking men clambering into a van driven by a third. The van went off in pursuit of the Doctor.

Immediately Munro swung the jeep round in a tight circle and set off after the van. Driving one-handed he lugged out his service revolver and tried a few shots at the
tyres, but with no luck. Tossing the revolver on the seat, he concentrated on his driving.

The Doctor meanwhile was whizzing at tremendous speed down the short, steep hill that led to the hospital. He was very much aware of the pursuing van gaining on him rapidly. It was almost upon him when he spotted a gap in the hedge that bordered the hill. A tiny, narrow track led deep into Oxley Woods. The wheel-chair lurched onto its two side wheels and almost overbalanced as the Doctor flung it into a right-angled turn that sent him rocketing down the path.

The kidnappers' van skidded to a halt at the head of the narrow track. The two huge, silent men jumped out, obviously intending to follow the Doctor on foot.

Then behind them they heard the sound of the UNIT jeep coming after them. As if in obedience to some unspoken command, the men jumped in the van, which accelerated off down the road.

Munro skidded his jeep to a halt at the head of the track. Grabbing his revolver, he shot again at the tyres. Again he missed, and the van disappeared out of sight round the corner of the road. For a moment Munro paused, wondering if he should give chase. He glanced down the little track. A few hundred yards down it he could see the wheel-chair. It lay on its side, one wheel still spinning. In front of the chair there seemed to be a huddled form. Munro decided that recovering the victim was more important than catching the kidnappers, and set off running down the track.

But when he got to the chair he realised that what he had taken for the Doctor's body was no more than a pile of blankets. Munro paused, listening. Faintly he could hear movement going away from him deeper into the woods.

‘Hey, come back,' he called. ‘It's all right, you're safe now.'

The Doctor was running at full speed through the tangled woods, ignoring the branches that lashed at his face and body. Totally confused by the sudden flurry of events, there was only one thought in his mind. Like a hunted animal making instinctively for its lair, he wanted desperately to reach the safety of the TARDIS.

In one hand he clutched the reassuring shape of the little key that he'd hidden in his shoe. With the other he scrabbled ineffectively at the plaster over his mouth. He paused for a second to try to get it off. Then behind him he heard shouting and the distant sounds of pursuit. The Doctor decided that running was more important than talking and resumed his flight. He had no way of telling that his pursuer was Munro, who wanted only to help him.

On the other side of the woods, Corporal Forbes and his patrol were running too. Forbes had heard the distant sounds of shooting from the hospital and had instinctively led his men in the direction of the trouble. In different parts of the woods, other patrols were converging on the Doctor.

The young sentry left guarding the TARDIS could hear the noises too. He'd been on duty in this gloomy, sinister forest since early dawn. He was cold, tired, hungry and ready to panic. The crack of the shots from Munro's revolver had already alarmed him. Now from all round seemed to come shouts and the sound of men crashing through the woods. He spun round nervously from side to side, trying to cover every direction at once.

Suddenly he caught a glimpse through the trees of a ghostly white figure bearing down upon him. He brought
his rifle to his shoulder.

‘Halt,' he called in a cracked voice. ‘Halt or I fire!'

Hemmed in by the sound of the UNIT patrols moving in all round him, the Doctor suddenly caught a glimpse of the square blue shape of the TARDIS through the trees. Summoning up the last of his strength, the Doctor flung himself towards it in a last desperate sprint. As he burst from the bushes surrounding the clearing, he saw to his horror the soldier with his rifle aimed straight at him. The Doctor tried to shout but the tape was still over his mouth. There was the crack of the rifle shot, a searing pain in his head and then blackness. The Doctor spun round and crumpled to the ground.

Seconds later Forbes and his patrol reached the clearing.

‘I had to shoot, Corp,' babbled the sentry. ‘He attacked me. Came straight at me!' Forbes looked at the still figure of the Doctor.

‘Attacked you, did he? An unarmed man, in a hospital nightshirt?'

‘I challenged him, Corporal, honestly. He didn't answer.'

Forbes knelt and examined the Doctor, turning him gently over onto his back. ‘He couldn't answer. Somebody's taped his mouth up.' He looked at the Doctor's white face. A smear of blood was startlingly red on the forehead. Forbes felt for a pulse in the neck. He could feel nothing.

Munro ran up to the clearing, saw the group of soldiers gathered round the motionless Doctor.

‘What's happened, Corporal? Is the man all right?'

Forbes looked up. ‘No sir. I think he's dead.'

Captain Munro paced nervously up and down in the hospital entrance hall, rehearsing what he would say in his coming interview with the Brigadier. He sighed. However you put it, it sounded just as bad. He heard the sound of a car drawing up outside and went out onto the hospital steps.

The Brigadier got out of his staff car, cold anger in every line of his stiff figure. Munro threw up a brisk salute. The Brigadier touched his cap brim with his swagger stick in a brief acknowledgement and said, ‘Well?'

Munro sighed. It was going to be even worse than he had feared. ‘There was some kind of a raid, sir. They knocked out Doctor Henderson and our sentry, and tried to get the patient away.'

‘Who did?'

‘We're not sure, sir,' said Munro.

‘Tried and succeeded, it seems,' said the Brigadier sourly.

‘Well, not entirely, sir. I turned up just as they were getting him out of the building. The patient got away in the confusion, they chased him, and I chased them.'

‘And lost them.'

‘Well – yes sir. You see, the man ran into the woods. He seemed to be making for the police box where we found
him. I thought it was more important to get him back.'

‘Instead of which the poor chap was shot down by one of our sentries?'

‘It was a very confused situation, sir,' said Munro defensively.

‘It was a complete and utter botch-up!' snapped the Brigadier. ‘How's the poor chap now?'

‘Well, that's just it, sir. No one seems to know.'

The Brigadier said, ‘I'd better see him.'

‘There is one piece of good news, sir,' said Munro hopefully, as they walked along the corridor. ‘Our chaps have turned up one of these meteorite things. Or, rather, the bits of one. It's on its way here now.'

‘I'm delighted to hear that the Army managed to achieve something, besides the shooting of a harmless civilian,' said the Brigadier as they entered the hospital room.

Doctor Henderson, still a little shaky himself, was leaning over his patient, once more stretched out on the hospital bed. The Doctor lay completely motionless. Henderson and the nurse were applying some instrument to his head.

Henderson looked up and nodded as the Brigadier entered, and said: ‘Extraordinary. Quite extraordinary. Look at these readings.'

The Brigadier looked and was none the wiser. He said: ‘How is he?'

‘This registers the activity of the brain,' explained Henderson. ‘Normally this line fluctuates considerably even when a person is unconscious.'

The Brigadier looked at the chart. ‘Not a lot going on, eh?' he said, feeling that some comment was expected.

Henderson was impatient. ‘There's nothing whatever going on, as you put it.'

‘But he isn't dead?'

‘No. But you might say he was just barely ticking over.'

‘Something to do with that bullet wound,' suggested Munro.

Henderson shook his head. ‘That only left a slight graze across the scalp. Couldn't account for this condition.'

The Brigadier was becoming impatient with all this medical mumbo-jumbo. ‘Then what does?' he asked.

Henderson rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘It's only a guess, but I reckon this coma is self-induced.'

‘You mean the chap's put himself out?' asked the Brigadier. ‘Why would he do that?'

‘Again, I'm only guessing,' said Henderson. ‘But it could be part of some kind of healing process. A chance for his body to recover from all the stresses it's been suffering.'

The Brigadier moved closer to the bed and studied the sleeping form. Everything about him sounds like the Doctor, he thought. The police box, the strange physical make-up. And he knew me. He really did know me. He knew about the Cyberman and the Yeti. But there's no resemblance. No resemblance at all. The face, the height, the build, the colour of the hair – all utterly and completely different. And yet… The Brigadier could remember so many incredible things about the man he had known as the Doctor. Was a change of appearance any more unbelievable than all the rest?

He turned away from his bed. ‘You'll keep me informed of his condition. I'd like to know as soon as he can talk.'

‘Yes, of course,' said Henderson. ‘Oh, by the way, we found this clutched in his hand.'

Henderson handed the Brigadier a little key. ‘We had to prise his fingers open. He was really hanging on to it.'

‘Yes,' said the Brigadier thoughtfully, ‘he would do.
Thank you, Doctor Henderson.' Followed by Munro, he turned and left the room.

Outside the hospital, a couple of soldiers were standing guard beside a wooden ammunition box.

‘That'll be the meteorite fragments, sir,' said Munro. The Brigadier peered inside the box, as a soldier held open the lid. The box was about half-full of chunks of some dull green substance, rather like heat-fused glass.

‘All we could find, sir,' said Munro. ‘It must have broken up when it hit the ground.'

The Brigadier sniffed. ‘Doesn't seem much result for all this effort. Keep searching. See if you can find me a whole one. Oh, and put the box in the boot of my car. Miss Shaw can take a look at it.'

The soldier took the box away and the Brigadier turned back to Munro. ‘The police box is already on its way to H.Q. I want a guard on the hospital at all times.'

‘Yes, sir,' said Munro. ‘We won't lose him again, I promise you.'

The Brigadier looked back at the hospital. ‘What puzzles me is, why did those people want to kidnap him?'

‘Maybe he was one of them,' suggested Munro. ‘They could have been trying to rescue him.'

‘Anyone get a good look at them?'

‘Better than that, sir,' said Munro proudly. ‘We've got a picture of their leader. He produced a glossy photograph and handed it to the Brigadier.

The Brigadier studied the picture, obviously one of those taken on his first visit to the hospital. The photograph showed the Brigadier talking to the crowd of journalists.

‘That's him, there, sir,' said Munro. Over the Brigadier's shoulder in the picture there could be seen a man standing,
watching. A well-dressed man with handsome, regular features and staring eyes.

‘Several people recognised him, sir,' said Munro. ‘He was here posing as a pressman.'

‘What about the other two?'

‘Couldn't really get much of a description,' admitted Munro, ‘only that they were very big. And there was something strange, blank-looking about their faces. Probably wearing stocking masks.'

The Brigadier opened the door of his car. ‘Three things, Munro. Keep searching for the meteorites; guard that man in the hospital; and keep investigating the kidnap attempt. Call me at H.Q., the minute there's news.' The Brigadier closed the car door and the driver accelerated away. Munro gazed after the departing car. Is that all, Brigadier, he thought to himself. And what do I do in my spare time?

As Harry Ransome drove down the familiar road towards the plastics factory, his mind was in a turmoil. His thoughts kept circling round the letter, the incredible, unbelievable letter that had been waiting for him on his return from his business trip to America.

I'm not just going to accept it, he thought. They owe me an explanation, and I'm going to get it. He drove through the gates and parked in his usual slot in the company car-park. Picking up the bulging brief-case from the seat beside him, he got out of the car and stood still for a moment, bracing himself. A smartly-dressed, dapper little man in his early thirties, he usually radiated the warmth and charm of the top-class salesman. But Ransome's face was grim and determined as he strode into the factory.

The girl behind the reception desk was new to him.
She had a strange, expressionless, doll-like prettiness. She looked up incuriously as he entered.

‘My name's Ransome. We haven't met, but I expect you've heard of me. I work here – or I used to. Head of Sales and Design. Been with the firm for years.'

Still she didn't speak. Ransome took a deep breath. ‘Just popping in to see Mr Hibbert. Don't worry, he won't mind. We're old friends. It's all right, I know the way.'

Ransome strode determinedly past her and through the door to the factory floor. Then he stopped in amazement. Everything was different. The jolly white-coated girls who worked on the production lines, the old-fashioned machinery turning out dolls' heads and limbs and bodies – it was all gone. The place was completely deserted. Ultra-modern equipment had been moved in, equipment that hummed and whined, carrying out its tasks alone and unaided.