Doctor Who: The Doomsday Weapon (13 page)

'I understand you two groups of people are in dispute,' said the Adjudicator. 'By the powers vested in me by the Earth Government, I shall endeavour to reach a just decision. I shall first hear from the plaintiffs, who are the colonists.' Suddenly he smiled. 'May I suggest that for all our sakes, brevity should be the key-note? Now then, Mr. John Ashe.'

Ashe was not brief. He described every detail of the events which had led up to this tribunal. Dent was pleased to see that the Adjudicator was clearly bored with Ashe's digressions and general wordiness. Finally, much to everyone's relief, Ashe sat down.

The Adjudicator said, 'Is there any proof of these terrible accusations?'

Winton jumped up , ' We found it in their spaceship - the metal claw they used to kill the Leesons, and a projector - '

The Adjudicator cut in, 'Can you produce this evidence now?'

'They've destroyed it,' said Winton.

The Adjudicator pulled on his little beard. 'Then it's very difficult for me to believe that these things ever existed.' Before the colonists could protest, however, the Adjudicator turned to Dent. 'I will now hear the case for IMC, Captain Dent'

Dent stood up. 'Believing this planet to be assigned for mining,' he said, trying to be as brief as possible in order to please the Adjudicator, 'we landed on it. When we found unlawful colonists, we sought your help. Meanwhile, the colonists attacked as, and for a short time held as prisoner in our own ship. Thus they have put themselves outside the law. I submit that these people be ordered to leave this planet immediately.' He sat down.

The Adjudicator beamed with pleasure. Clearly Dent's presentation of his case had gone down welL 'Is that
all
you have to say, Captain Dent?'

'Yes, sir,' said Dent. 'Except that this planet is rich minerals which could make homes for millions of people on Earth.'

Ashe jumped up. 'That is an irrelevant argument! The only question at issue is our legal position, not who needs-what minerals!'

'Really?' said the Adjudicator. 'Do the needs of people on Earth mean nothing to you, Mr. Ashe?'

Ashe was flustered. 'Yes, I mean, no - well, what I mean is, sir, it's not what we're discussing.'

'Thank you,' said the Adjudicator, 'I do like to be told what I am allowed to discuss! Now kindly sit downy Mr. Ashe.'

Ashe sat down, his face red with embarrassment.

'I have heard the statements from both sides,' said the Adjudicator. 'On my way here I contacted Earth and had a check made on planetary records. Undoubtedly, an error has occurred. A faulty computer on Earth has assigned this planet both for colonists
and
for mining. So it is left entirely to me to decide. However, this is a weighty decision, one that I shall need to consider. This tribunal stands temporarily adjourned.' He stood up. 'It customary to remain seated until I depart. I shall return now to my spaceship, and shall re-convene this tribunal in due course.'

But Ashe was on his feet. 'Sir, I implore you! The lives of all my friends depend on your decision! Can't you tell us right away?'

'Kindly he seated,' snapped the Adjudicator. Then he strode out of the dome.

Everybody got up now, and in the general jumble of colonists and IMC men, Dent found himself facing Ashe. Ashe looked bewildered, on the verge of tears. As though forgetting that Dent was his enemy, Ashe said, 'I think that Adjudicator's got some strange streak of cruelty in him, to keep us on tenterhooks like this.'

Dent did not reply because he never spoke to colonists unless it was necessary. But he agreed with what Ashe had said. There was something very strange about this Adjudicator.

It was not difficult for the Doctor to follow the tracks made by the six-toed Primitives and their prisoner, Jo. The tracks led fairly directly from the ruin where he had left John Ashe, and the outcrop of rocky hills on the other side of the section of flat desert. The foot tracks eventually converged with the drag marks of the TARDIS, the combination of the two brought the Doctor to what appeared to be a solid rock face. He concluded that there must be some kind of door in this rock face, and started to look for it.

Gtom the distance he heard the pounding of running feet. He turned to see a group of Primitives racing toward, him across the desert, spears raised. There was nowhere to hide, and these strange half-men could out-run even the Doctor. He waited, with his back to the cliff face Then the Primitives were all around him.

'I have come here to take back the girl,' he said. 'You may not understand my words, but I know you can read my mind. I am willing to buy the girl back with exciting and interesting bits of machinery. Then also a tall blue box which happens to belong to me...' But he was interrupted by one of the Primitives suddenly going up to the rock face and nodding his head towards it. To the Doctor's astonishment, a concealed door in the rock opened. 'How very kind of you,' said the Doctor as he was thrust inside, then partly dragged, partly pushed, down a long corridor with rock walls. Some distance along the corridor there was an opening in one of the walls. As the Doctor went by he glanced through the opening and for a moment caught a glimpse of a vista of strange machinery, silent and unattended. The Doctor wanted to stop, but the Primitives pushed him forward. Presently the corridor ended with a T-junction. The Primitives turned to the right, dragging and pushing the Doctor with them. From this point on, the Doctor found himself being taken through a maze of turns and forks, and he desperately tried to commit the route to memory. Finally, they arrived at a door set in the rock, a door with a heavy metal bolt. One of the Primitives pulled aside the bolt, and the Doctor was thrust into a room cut in the rock. Jo was standing there.

'Doctor!' She rushed forward and flung her arms around him.

'Now just a minute, Jo,' he said, 'I want to try to talk, or at least think, to these fellows.' The Doctor turned but the door had already been slammed shut. 'I can't say much for their hospitality,' he muttered.

'They've probably gone to get the other one,' Jo said. 'What other one?' asked the Doctor.

There's a sort of creature,' she said, 'that seems to be in charge of them.'

'Humanoid?' asked the Doctor.

'No.' she said, 'not really. At least, it's got a horrible face, like an animal.'

'It might have a horrible face to you,' said the Doctor, 'but to itself it might be rather good-looking.'

'You haven't seen it,' she said. 'Anyway, how do we get out of here?'

'No worry about that,' said the Doctor. 'I'm here to buy you back. Just a simple business transaction. Ashe says it's happened before.' He started to look round the room. At one end there was a machine, rather like a clock with all its parts showing. The Doctor examined it, and realised that, whatever its purpose, it hadn't actually worked for centuries. 'This room, and this machinery,' he said, 'must have been part of a highly-advanced civilisation, once.'

Jo said, 'Then what's happened to it?'

'Somehow it must have gone into decline,' conjectured the Doctor. 'Those people we call the Primitives may be the descendants of a tremendously advanced race.'

'I've been looking at this over here,' Jo said, leading the Doctor to the other side of the room. 'Look.' Jo pointed to a series of pictures that ran along all of one wall, and the Doctor inspected them with mounting interest. The pictures were very old and badly faded, but it was possible to see that each depicted something about the life of human-type people in a well-ordered community. 'Look at this first one,' said the Doctor with excitement, 'men dragging a heavy piece of stone. Yet here,' he said, pointing to the next picture, 'are men dragging a wheeled vehicle with a heavy weight on it.'

'They'd invented the wheel,' said Jo.

'And here,' said the Doctor, moving along the series of pictures, 'is more complicated machinery - the water-pump, the steam engine, and now machines that can fly in the air.'

'That's progress,' said Jo. 'Do you notice one thing? - three different types of people.'

'Yes, I'd noticed that,' said the Doctor. 'The three seem to start here,' he said, pointing to a picture that seemed to indicate the discovery of electronic science. 'In the beginning all men were equal, but now we have lots of people drawn like match-stick men, and they're probable workers lightly dressed or with no clothes at all; then these figures in robes..

'The creature with the horrible face had a long robe,' Jo cut in.

'They may be some kind of priest,' said the Doctor. 'And now one or two very tiny figures.'

'Like babies,' said Jo.

'Or dolls,' said the Doctor. 'Ashe told me how a Primitive became very excited when Mary Ashe happened to produce a doll.'

'What's happening here?' said Jo, pointing to a picture a long way along the series. It showed buildings in ruins, and the match-stick figures lying on top of one another in a heap.

'Some terrible catastrophe,' said the Doctor. 'Notice how the artist's style is cruder here, more primitive. Look at this one.' It was the last picture in the frieze. Priest-like figures were pushing a doll figure through a door, beyond which were flames.'

'A sacrifice,' said Jo.

The Doctor nodded. 'To some machine which had a furnace.' He heard the bolt in the door outside being drawn back, and turned round. The door opened slowly. A creature with a human body and a hairy otter-like face entered. It was dressed in long robes. Immediately behind it came six Primitives, all with spears. Jo moved over to the Doctor and clung to his arm. 'How do you do?' said the Doctor. 'I'm here to take back this young. lady. In return I shall give you interesting bits of machinery...'

The otter-like face peered round the room, blindly. Then it gestured to the Primitives. Four of the Primitives dropped their spears and came forward to grab the Doctor and Jo.

'I come here in peace,' said the Doctor. 'I mean you no harm!'

Already his arms were pinioned behind his hack by a hugely powerful Primitive. The robed creature gestured again, and Jo and the Doctor were hustled out of the room and down what seemed endless corridors cut in the rock. They arrived at enormous double-doors guarded by more Primitives. These were opened and Jo and the Doctor were pushed into a large room. This was different from any other part of the underground city. Instead of rough-rock walls, the sides were made of smooth, silvery-coloured metal. In the centre was a large round object like a drum made of the same silvery metal. On its top were press-button controls.

It's very kind of you to show us all this,' said the Doctor, as though he had entered the room voluntarily. 'What's that?' Since his arms were still firmly held behind his back, he could only indicate the drum object by nodding his head. Neither the Primitives nor the robed creature took any notice of the Doctor's remarks. They pushed him to the far end of the room where a large hatch was let into the wall. The robed creature looked' at the hatch with its near-sightless eyes, then gestured again. The Primitive who had been on guard outside sprang forward and opened the hatch. Intense heat filled the room. Inside the hatch was a white-hot electronic furnace.

'They're going to sacrifice us!' Jo screamed.

As the Doctor struggled wildly to free himself, four Primitives dragged Jo towards the hatch. Her screams filled the room, echoing from the metal walls, as they picked her up bodily to throw her into the furnace. Then, suddenly, a small doll-like creature seemed to swim up from the flames, its tiny white hand raised. The Primitives dropped Jo and backed away in terror. The robed creature looked about blindly, not knowing what had happened. The Doctor found his arms released, and the Primitives who had held him began backing away from the creature that had materialised from the furnace.

'I am the Guardian,' said the little doll figure that seemed to float is the flames. 'Why have you entered this place?'

'I was brought here,' answered Jo.

'And I came to take her back,' said the Doctor. 'May I ask what it is that you guard?'

The Guardian ignored the Doctor's question. 'All intruders in this city must die. That is the law.'

'The race who built this city.' said the Doctor urgently, 'were intelligent and civilised. Their laws would not condemn the innocent.'

'The law must be obeyed,' said the Guardian.

'Surely all true laws must be based on justice?' the Doctor argued. 'We are strangers to this planet. All we ask is to be allowed to go.'

The Guardian seemed to consider this point. Then it spoke again, 'You are of superior intelligence, so you may go free.'

Jo hugged the Doctor. 'Thanks,' she said to the Guardian.

'But you,' the Guardian said to Jo, 'are of no value. I shall give you to the servants for a sacrifice. It amuses them.'

'I refuse to leave without her,' said the Doctor. 'I am responsible for her safety.'

'And I,' said the Guardian, 'am responsible safety of that which I guard.'

'Does the amusement of your servants warrant the death of an intelligent being?' said the Doctor.

Again the Guardian seemed to weigh up the Doctor's words before answering. 'I was sacrificed, and I still live.'

'Not all are like you,' said the Doctor, 'so that is no argument.'

'I appreciate logic,' said the Guardian. 'Is this creature you protect of some value?'

'She is life,' said the Doctor. 'That which is living is always of value. It cannot be replaced.'

'Therefore,' said the Guardian, who seemed to be enjoying this debate, 'do you not eat?'

'I regret, sir,' said the Doctor, 'I do not understand your question.'

'If you eat flesh then the life of that flesh ceases to exist,' said the Guardian.

Jo clung to the Doctor's arm. 'Tell him we'll be vegetarians from now on.'

'I understand your remark,' said the Guardian. 'But if one eats vegetation, that too dies. What is your answer to that?'

Jo whispered desperately to the Doctor. 'Doctor, just plead for my life! I have a right to live!'

'It's no good,' whispered the Doctor. 'The Guardian only understands logic. Leave this to me.' He turned back to the little doll creature that floated in the white hot flames. 'I concede your point, Guardian. All nature kills to eat, but that is for the purpose of continuing life in another form. To throw this girl into those flames would be to extinguish life totally.'