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The Doctor pulled a lever and the great doors of the TARDIS swung open. Their weight and security reminded me of those of an aeroplane. As we stepped through, they closed behind us, and we were in darkness. Crossing the TARDIS threshold we were walking outside of time and space, it felt like meeting a ghost, and it was probably my own, for how could I exist here?
Then, almost immediately, we stood before the dark blue windowed doors of the police box which was the Doctor's disguise for his machine. There were knots in my stomach. And then, with one silent push from the Doctor's gloved hand, these doors too, swung open...
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 y child,' said Dr. Who. 'Behold, Mars!'
I cannot describe to you my first steps on the planet Mars. Before I cold take it all in, I was tumbling, and bouncing into the alien soil. It was then that my uncle cautioned me as the gravity of Mars being less than half that of Earth. My uncle's voice was highly audible, for there was a speaker (and I presume, a microphone) somewhere inside each helmet. I could also hear very clearly my own breathing, and this made me feel a little claustrophobic.
I believe, looking back, that I was first struck by Mars visually. The sky was very bright, and almost completely milky-white; I say 'almost' for there were patches of green and blue, particularly towards the west (my uncle carried a compass). I assumed (for I could not see the sun), that the sky was nearly all clouded over and that these distant discolouration's were not breaks, but other clouds.
The surface was fascinating. It was like being in a desert of blood-red sand. All around our little TARDIS were gentle dunes, small hills, and rocks of all sizes. The soil was the very colour and texture of the powder you often find where a wall or house of red-brick has been demolished. Set against this red and white, the TARDIS seemed a much deeper blue than when it stood in our damp and cobbled garden in Rye on the morning of our departure.
My uncle told me of the many life-forms that lived here, doing nothing for my confidence. I could certainly believe in the "Ice Warriors" when I learned that even thou it was 'summer', the temperature was some thirty-five degrees centigrade below freezing. I knew that there were colder regions of human habitation on Earth, but when my uncle told me also of the very low air-pressure I could not believe how Earth scientists could excuse the mess they had made of our own planet by proposing a future home for mankind on this cold, desert world.
The Doctor told me also of pyramids built here by super-aliens who had recorded in Egyptian mythology, and I fancied I could see such an edifice on the horizon from atop a sand dune. However, with a special spy-glass attached to the outside of his helmet, the Doctor declared that it was, in fact, a very large volcano many hundreds of miles away.
Using this device, and looking north, I could just see some magnificent white mountains.
'Martian snow,' said my uncle. 'Very little in the way of real water I'm afraid. Come along!'
There is little else to tell you about the Martian landscape; only that climbing over dunes, and having to avoid jagged rocks whenever you stumbled and were sent flying through the low-gravity became very boring. I was very thankful for my space-suit, though I should not like to have to live inside one. I think Dr. Who was trying to unearth a possibly latent spirit of adventure in me, but he was not succeeding.
The sky darkened as night came, but with cloud cover there was neither a startling sunset, nor impressively different view of the solar system and stars.
I had been keeping an eye on that dark blue/green patch in the western sky. It had been getting larger - and nearer - and with the passing daylight, much darker. I was frightened. The Doctor now used a torch, for the clouded sky afforded no light, and we decided to return to the TARDIS.
Even inside the suit, I could sense that the Martian air was moving more quickly, ad then forcibly, around me. The dry sandy soil was sprinkled against my helmet by a wind, and it was clear from my uncle's grip on my arm that a severe storm was right behind us in the west - and getting nearer.
The Doctor was waking more quickly, then running, and always holding my arm. The light from his torch swung erratically before us, giving short glimpses of what lay here, then there, in the yards ahead. Now stones were flying around us, and upon us, and once I fell and banged a knee against a sharp rock. For one frightening second I convinced myself that my space-suit was punctured. The Doctor dragged me on as we bounded into the darkness; the torch smashed - and what use is a compass when you cannot see it? We were lost on Mars.
 
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the reluctant companion page2
