 onic
screwdriver, please,' requested the white haired form of the third
Doctor as he buried his head within a large metal canister, one hand
tinkering around with the controls inside, the other stretched out to
receive the instrument.
'Here,' said Jo,
handing the device over, wearily. He took it without looking round, and
continued to work away quite happily. 'It might help,' said Jo,
scathingly, 'If I knew what you were trying to do in there.'
'Oh, I doubt
it,' replied the Doctor, off-handed. 'It's not exactly easy for a human
mind to take in the concepts of temporal engineering.'
'I take it
you're trying to get the TARDIS to work again,' commented Jo, as she
walked over to her companions craft, stood in its usual position in the
corner of the lab.
To her surprise,
the Doctor suddenly stepped away from the canister and turned to face
her, beaming. 'Right. Again, Jo!', he announced happily. He closed the
box and picked up two wires which protruded from a hole in the back,
then set off towards his grounded machine, indicating that his companion
should follow, She did, and found herself in the TARDIS' impossibly
large control room.
The Doctor was
already at the far side of the central console, where he had removed one
of its panels and was proceeding to fiddle about inside. The two wires
from the Doctor's canister trailed across the floor to where he was
working, and Jo was careful to avoid stepping on them as she moved round
the console to see what her companion was up to. As she had expected,
she didn't understand any of it, but even as she sighed in despair, the
Doctor jumped to his feet and began to activate a variety of switches on
the console.
'What are you doing?' she cried in alarm.
'We're taking a little trip,' came the calm reply.
'A trip?' cried Jo, wondering fearfully what the far side of the Universe was like.
'Oh, just across
the lab, don't worry,' the Doctor assured her. 'I just want to see if
my new box of tricks is any good.' He completed his programming with a
flourish and stepped back from the console with an expression of
satisfaction that changed instantly to horror as suddenly, a large
portion of the console blew up in his face.
Jo giggled as
the Doctor stared incredulously at the steaming controls. 'Perhaps you
should have expected that by now?' she teased. The Doctor shot her a
withering glance and pulling the two connecting wires from the console,
he strode briskly out of the TARDIS.
'Another
failure,' he growled, ripping the two wires viciously from the back of
his metal canister, and flinging them angrily to one side.
'Isn't it worth another try?' Jo asked, feeling rather sorry for him. |
The Doctor
shrugged. 'Perhaps,' he replied. 'Not yet thou. I think I've had enough
for one--' He was cut short as suddenly, a strange, yet familiar noise
echoed through the lab - a wheezing, groaning sound which the Doctor and
Jo both recognised as that which accompanied the dematerialisation of
the TARDIS. As one, they turned to the craft - but the noise was not
coming from that.
'It's the box!'
cried Jo, as realisation dawned upon her. It was still in its position
on the lab bench, but now it had begun to glow - dimly at first, then
brighter and brighter, until they could no-longer bear to look at it
directly. It was this scene that greeted Brigadier Alistair Gordon
Lethbridge-Stewart, as he rushed into the room and demanded to know what
was going on. The raucous groaning sound had reached fever pitch now,
drowning out his yell, drowning out everything in an ear-splitting
cacophony...
And then suddenly, there was silence.
The canister was
glowing no longer, and showed no signs of its earlier activity - and
the lab's three occupants were just staring at it, deafened by the
sudden silence.
'What on Earth is going on here?' the Brigadier demanded to know, breaking the silence in a quiet but agitated voice.
The Doctor was
already moving slowly towards the canister, one hand up to indicate that
neither of them should follow him. 'If you'll just bear with me for a
moment, Brigadier,' he muttered, 'that's just what we're about to find
out.'
He flipped open the lid.
Jo screamed, the
Brigadier jumped and the Doctor stepped back in surprise as a stream of
glowing crystals swept suddenly out of the box, and hovered in mid-air
before them, pulsing irregularly.
'What are they?' Jo hissed, awe-struck, but the Doctor merely shrugged, eyes staring intently at this strange phenomenon.
Slowly, very
slowly, the particles were fading, dissolving into the air itself, until
they were gone, leaving no sign that they had ever been there - apart
from the three humanoids who stood in the UNIT laboratory, bewildered by
what they had just seen, and simply staring at where they had once
been.
The Doctor was
the first to move. walking slowly towards the still open box and lifting
it easily in one hand. 'Empty!' he announced.
'Empty?' Jo echoed. 'But what about your machine thing?'
'I'm not
entirely sure,' her companion replied slowly, weighing the metal
canister thoughtfully in his hand, 'but I intend to find out.'
~~~ |
