Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World (2 page)

Crouching low, Jamie dragged Victoria up a steep slope where the vegetation was less thickly tangled. Straight ahead of them the huge figure of Rod suddenly loomed up and took aim at the Doctor’s retreating back. Jamie charged like a young bull and butted Rod in the stomach, catching the top-heavy muscleman off balance and sending him crashing against an exposed rock, which he hit with the side of his head. Rod lay quite still.

‘Bull’s-eye, Jamie!’ Victoria cheered. Clutching his throbbing head, Jamie staggered over and urged her forward.

The Doctor had seen Tibor and Tony closing in on them along the beach, their rifles glinting in the sun. Jamie and Victoria almost fell on top of him as they scrambled down into a hollow where he was waiting for them, concealed in some huge leaves.

At that moment a hail of bullets tore through the foliage around them as Tony and Tibor fired at random into the bushes.

There followed a menacing silence while the two men from the hovercraft slowly circled round the area where their quarry were hidden. Suddenly Tony stopped dead and listened intently. A steady throbbing sound was coming rapidly closer. ‘What the hell’s that?’ he snarled.

Tony screwed up his eyes against the glare. They watched as the helicopter made a wide turn high above the hovercraft and then banked over the inland edge of the dunes and hung in the air. ‘It’s Astrid!’ Tony yelled furiously. ‘Come on, let’s finish the job quick.’

Slapping fresh magazines into their guns, they ploughed into the tangled thickets, determined to find their man and kill him.

The Doctor stood up cautiously and the helicopter turned and glided down until it was almost on top of them.

‘What is it, Doctor?’ Jamie shouted, his hands clasped tightly over his ears.

At that moment the cockpit door opened and Astrid leaned out. ‘Come on, run for it,’ she screamed at the three figures huddled below.

The Doctor stared up at the strange young woman for a few seconds. Then he grabbed his companions and started to drag them towards the helicopter. The Doctor pushed Jamie into the cockpit after Victoria and then clambered up and squeezed himself into the tiny space beside them.

With a surge of power the helicopter rose swiftly at a steep angle. A hail of bullets ricocheted off the fuselage as Astrid swung the machine violently to and fro in an attempt to confuse their attackers.

‘A very timely and welcome rescue, dear lady,’ the Doctor shouted across to Astrid. He put a comforting hand on Victoria’s shoulder. ‘Well, at least we’re safe now,’ he yelled with a grin.

But the grin soon vanished as he frowned at the instrument panel in front of them. ‘You’re losing fuel very quickly, my dear,’ he shouted across to Astrid.

She glanced down. ‘They must have got the tank,’ she yelled back, making a turn and flying directly away from the sea.

The Doctor twisted round and squinted through the rear of the cockpit. Liquid was streaming out of several holes in the fuel tank behind them. ‘We could explode at any moment...’ he breathed.

Less than a minute later Astrid let the helicopter drop like a stone, then slowed the dizzying descent at the last moment to land on a concrete pad next to a long low bungalow set in a grove of luxuriant trees and shrubs a few hundred metres from the sea. As she led the way quickly into the cool ultramodern building, she suddenly swayed and would have stumbled if the Doctor had not caught her.

‘Wait, my dear... you’re hurt,’ he said anxiously.

She tried to pull her arm away. ‘It’s just a scratch,’ she said. ‘We’re lucky to be alive.’

Despite her insistance that she was all right, the Doctor made her sit down in the spacious living room and sent his two friends to find a medical kit.

Astrid stared closely at the Doctor as he perched on the arm of her chair and carefully rolled back the ripped sleeve, trying to ignore the young woman’s searching gaze.

‘Just who on earth
are
you?’ she asked eventually, leaning back and studying him as if he were some extraordinary exhibit in a museum.

The Doctor looked surprised. ‘I thought perhaps you knew. You risked your life to save us.’

Jamie followed Victoria back into the room. ‘Don’t you worry yourself, lassie. The Doctor will fix you up just fine,’

he told Astrid with a smile, as Victoria handed the Doctor a small first-aid pack they had found.

Astrid watched the Doctor examine the label on a tiny aerosol spray. ‘You are a doctor?’ she said doubtfully.

The Doctor looked a little taken aback. ‘I am The Doctor,’ he replied emphatically, ‘but I fear medicine is not my speciality.’

‘You’re being evasive,’ she protested angrily. She winced as the stranger began to bind her arm with polygauze bandage.

The Doctor looked up innocently. ‘And what about you?’ he inquired. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Astrid Ferrier.’

The Doctor bowed slightly and introduced Victoria and Jamie. Then he rolled the sleeve down over the rather crooked lumpy dressing. ‘There, that should do it,’ he grinned.

Astrid shook her head slowly. ‘It’s not possible,’ she murmured, still gazing at the Doctor. ‘No wonder they’re so determined to kill you.’

The Doctor frowned. ‘Oh yes, I had almost forgotten our friends in the hovercraft. Why are they so anxious to kill us?’

‘Kill
you
,’ Astrid corrected him sharply. ‘They hate you.’

‘But I am the nicest and most inoffensive creature in the entire universe.’ The Doctor glanced up reproachfully/at Victoria and Jamie. ‘Really this planet of yours is the most hostile and irrational place I have ever known,’ he complained.

Astrid put her hand on his arm. ‘I meant that they hate who they
think
you are. They will stop at nothing to destroy you.’

Victoria looked shocked. ‘Well, can’t you make them see their mistake?’ she chimed in. ‘Surely
you
don’t hate the Doctor?’

Astrid smiled for the first time since they had met her.

‘Quite the contrary. To me the Doctor is the most precious person ever to drop from the skies.’

The Doctor beamed with modest pleasure. ‘I fear you do less than justice to your considerable skill as a pilot, Miss Ferrier,’ he joked.

Astrid’s smile vanished as unexpectedly as it had appeared. ‘I rescued you because I want you to help me,’

she said. ‘You are almost the exact double of a man who will stop at nothing to achieve total mastery over the entire world. He must be stopped at all costs.’

There was an awkward silence.

‘Who?’ Jamie exclaimed.

‘Salamander,’ Astrid said. The word seemed to hang in the air like a threat. Astrid walked over and stood face to face with the Doctor. ‘I have no idea who you are or where you come from, but it is quite possible that you can save the world,’ she said earnestly. ‘Please will you help us?

There is very little time.’

There was a long silence while the Doctor ruffled his hair, examined his fingernails, whistled a few bars of a catchy tune under his breath, raised his eyebrows and clicked his teeth. Then he looked at Astrid and a strange expression came into his eyes.

As soon as she saw that look, Victoria clutched at his arm. ‘Doctor, you’re not going to accept... are you?’ she pleaded hopelessly.

The next moment all hell seemed to break loose. The fading whine of a hovercraft’s turbines suddenly penetrated the bungalow on the gusting wind and an instant later there was a ferocious battering on the door.

Astrid moved with the speed and agility of a cat. ‘Quick, the terrace,’ she whispered. But even as she reached the glass patio doors Tibor appeared, rifle at the ready, on the paved terrace at the back of the bungalow. She ran back and slipped behind the arch dividing the long L-shaped room. The Doctor had already pulled Jamie and Victoria down behind a large couch.

Tibor shot the locks out of the patio door and slid it open. Warily he entered the room. As he reached the arch, Astrid grabbed his arm with her good hand and threw him expertly over her shoulder. Jamie broke cover and seized the rifle as Tibor hit the floor. Then, with Victoria and the Doctor close on his heels, he dashed after Astrid. As they rushed out onto the terrace, the main door was punched off its hinges and Rod lumbered in, firing wildly at the staggering figure silhouetted in the middle of the room.

Tibor was thrown back against the thick glass of the terrace window by the force of the spraying high-velocity bullets.

As Tibor slumped to the floor, Tony ran in through the front doorway. ‘What the hell have you done, you muscle-bound ape?’ he yelled at Rod who was staring down at Tibor’s body and muttering excuses with tears in his eyes.

‘No time now,’ Tony shouted, making for the terrace.

‘Come on, he’s getting away.’

The four fugitives reached the trees at the edge of the grove surrounding the bungalow and froze in the undergrowth. They waited, glancing anxiously at one another, scarcely daring to breathe. Then they heard the whine of the helicopter engine starting and a few seconds later it roared up over the bungalow and hovered overhead. A savage storm of gunfire erupted in the sky and bullets strafed the grove from end to end.

Suddenly there was a massive explosion and a vivid orange flash lit up the trees. The blazing wreckage of the helicopter spiralled out of the sky and smashed into the garden below the terrace, followed by a rain of twisted, flaring, metal fragments. A huge pall of thick rubbery smoke belched into the air and hung there like a gigantic black finger pointing to disaster.

2

An hour later the Doctor, his two friends and Astrid were standing in Giles Kent’s office and Giles Kent was studying the Doctor with undisguised astonishment.

‘Incredible! It’s quite incredible!’ he exclaimed at last.

The Doctor cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘I am not a laboratory specimen, Mr Kent,’ he protested gently.

Kent apologised profusely and invited the Doctor to sit down. ‘But you must surely be aware of the uncanny resemblance yourself,’ he said. ‘Salamander is a world figure.’

The Doctor rubbed his nose and smiled secretively. ‘My companions and I have been... well, a little out of touch with things lately,’ he explained.

Astrid moved impatiently over to the desk. ‘Show him the videowire, Giles,’ she said. ‘We’re wasting valuable time.’

Kent took a small cassette from a drawer and inserted it into the video apparatus on his desk. He turned the screen round to face the Doctor and switched on. ‘This recording shows Salamander addressing the 13th United Zones Conference on World Resources in Geneva last year,’ he explained, as Astrid dimmed the lights.

The Doctor leaned forward and peered intently at the screen. A small figure was seen mounting a dais in the centre of a vast, domed auditorium crowded with row upon row of delegates, all applauding enthusiastically. The picture snapped into close-up. The Doctor’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened in amazement. Both Jamie and Victoria gasped at what they saw.

On the screen the Doctor appeared to be acknowledging the delegates’ applause and arranging his notes. His hair had been trimmed and slicked back with oil so that it shone, and so that his ears were fully visible. His eyebrows had grown bushier. His eyes were perhaps deeper set and his nose rather longer. His mouth was fuller and his lips slightly curled. His dazzling white shirt was clasped at the throat with an ornamental clip and his dark jacket was familiar except for its short, upright collar. Jamie and Victoria kept glancing from the screen to the Doctor and back again, scarcely able to believe their eyes. The resemblance was fantastic.

Salamander began his speech in a thick South American accent. ‘Mr President, I am delighted to report excellent progress with the Conservation Project at Kanowa in the Australasian Zone. I can announce today that the Mark 3

Suncatcher is successfully in orbit and although we cannot yet guarantee beautiful summers for everyone, we can promise to concentrate even more sunlight into deprived zones. I can tell you that at this very moment in the great Siberian plains the wheat is ripening in the sun...’

At this point the audience broke into spontaneous applause and the screen showed a big close-up of Salamander’s face flushed with success as he boasted of his project’s achievements. The endless statistics poured out, regularly interrupted by bursts of applause from the delegates. Eventually Kent switched off the video machine and Astrid turned up the lights.

The Doctor continued to stare at the blank screen. ‘This Salamander of yours seems to be quite a public benefactor, Kent,’ he exclaimed, eventually breaking the long silence.

‘Rather handsome too, don’t you think?’

‘Some poor fools regard him as a saviour, Doctor,’ Giles snorted.

The Doctor leaned forward. ‘Saviour? From what?’ he asked sharply.

‘Starvation,’ Astrid replied. ‘Too many people, too little food...’

‘Until Salamander developed the Suncatcher,’ Kent went on. ‘Using the Suncatcher, Salamander manipulates the climate to grow several crops in the same season and he’s even transformed waste areas into fertile farmland.’

Jamie had kept quiet for some time. ‘This Salamander’s a magician,’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘I can’t see why anybody wants to kill him if he’s saving the world.’

‘Salamander is evil. He’s power-mad. He plans to take control of the entire World Zones Organisation,’ Giles said vehemently.

‘Do you have any proof, Kent? Any evidence?’ asked the Doctor.

‘I was once Deputy Security Commissioner for Europe and North Africa in the WZO. When Salamander discovered I had evidence against him, he had me discredited and I was dismissed.’

‘So you could quite simply be out to destroy Salamander to get your revenge,’ the Doctor murmured, rubbing his chin. ‘No wonder your bully boys were so keen to finish me off this afternoon.’

‘They acted against my authority, Doctor. I should have apologised.’ Kent sat down and switched on the machine again. A series of still photographs flashed up on the screen. Kent gave a brief commentary on each one as it appeared.