trapped!

PART THREE OF THE MIN TERR TRILOGY

ad the Brigadier's attention not been elsewhere at the time, he might never had walked into the trap. Not that we can blame him, for it was certainly a very clever trap. Not only that, but he was still a little exhausted having just returned from a UNIT conference in Ottawa.

While sitting in his office, sipping coffee and wearily going through the contents of the 'in-tray', he received a call on the orange telephone. Internal calls were orange and this one came from the laboratory; the Doctor's voice was at the end of the line.

'Lethbridge-Stewart? Come straight along to the lab, old chap. Got something to show you. Splendid new device I've just done inventing - ought to give us a warning each time the Master's TARDIS arrives on this little planet of yours!'

Now, this was just too good to be true. So, off he trotted to the lab whereupon he was greeted by the Doctor who then declared that his new gizmo was inside his TARDIS.

'Follow me, old chap,' said the Doctor, leading the way into the unique Police Box.

Unfortunately, the Brigadier did not realise until it was too late that it was not in fact the Doctor's TARDIS that he was walking into! Oh yes - it looked like a Police Box all right, but a shiny new one with white window-frames and a St. John's Ambulance symbol on the door; Dr. Who's TARDIS hadn't looked like that for quite some time now.

Meanwhile, the real TARDIS - belonging to the real Doctor - had just materialised in the depths of a rather cindery world in the outer solar-system. Why do we find Dr. Who here? Well, we must go back a few hours or so to the late evening of the previous day - Sunday - where we find Sgt. Benton on security duty: eating corned-beef sandwiches and watching TV in the Brigadier's quarters...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

nd now no BBC3,' said the announcer as a spinning model of the planet Earth filled the screen, 'we take our monthly gaze at the heavens as Patrick Heath shows us "The Sky About Us" '.

Next door in the lab, the Doctor was pushing up "z's" in the depths of the TARDIS, the doors of which were wide open for it was a hot night and the TARDIS air-conditioning was on the blink. Benton sat back at the sound of the Doctor's snoring was deadened by the grave theme music of the astronomy TV show. The Doctor was in the middle - or, to be exact, one third of the way into - a dream that he was in Florida with some friends of his who just happened to be manatees when he was at once awoken by the foreboding 'Bong!' of the cloister-bell. What could it be this time?

This Patrick Heath was no mug, thought Benton. Apparently, he could play the glockenspiel too! No mean feat. All of a sudden, the door was thrown open - there stood the Doc in night-shirt and tasselled night-cap like Marley's ghost! He was staring blankly at the TV his eyes wide as though they were on the point of vacating their sockets and scarpering on fear. Inside the Doctor's head, the ominous cloister-bell was bonging away.

'You okay, Doc?' said Benton. He received no reply, and uneasily followed the direction of the Doctor's gaze to the TV set.

'Tonight, viewers,' Heath was explaining, 'we are going to have a chat with the American cosmologist Carl Burke who has some interesting news to pass on from Voyager X - a new planet at the edge of the solar-system!!!'

The ringing suddenly stopped.

'Why, yes - of course!' mumbled the Doctor. 'Of course...I should have known.' He blinked, cleared his throat, and returned to the TARDIS to resume his kip.