Doctor Who: The Doomsday Weapon (3 page)

'Inspecting rock samples, eh?' said the man.

'What?' The Doctor looked at the piece of rock in his hand. 'Oh, yes. Could you point that gun the other way?'

'Bit of prospecting, eh?' said the man, more as a statement than a question.

'Is there anything to prospect for?' asked the Doctor.

The man gestured with his gun. 'Start moving.'

'That's most kind of you,' the Doctor said. 'You see we have our means of transport not far from here. Come along, Jo.' He grabbed Jo's hand, and turned in the direction of the TARDIS.

'Not that way!' said the man. 'Straight ahead. I'm taking you in as prisoners.'

'We haven't done anything wrong,' Jo said 'We don't even want to be here.'

'Move,' said the man, 'or I shoot.'

'I think we must do what he wants,' the Doctor said. 'This way, Jo.'

Jo clung to the Doctor's hand as they moved forward. The man followed behind, his gun on their backs all the time. Despite the Doctor's efforts, he refused to be drawn into conversation. He only spoke to tell them to bear a bit more to the left or the right. First they went downhill, away from the TARDIS, then up another very small hill. When they reached the crest of this hill they saw before them a small dome surrounded by crude fencing. This clearly was their destination, and the Doctor strode towards it with Jo still clinging to his hand. As Jo got closer she could see that the dome was made of moulded metal sheets, and that the structure had a door and windows. It looked very futuristic, yet the fence running round the 'garden' consisted of crudely hacked tree branches, as one might have seen on Earth in the Middle Ages,

'Go in,' said the man.

The Doctor and Jo entered the dome. It was very simply furnished - just an old bed, a rough kitchen table, some hardback chairs. A woman dressed in a long skirt and blue denim shirt was cooking something, using a portable infra-red oven. Her simple clothes were faded and had been patched many times.

'Good afternoon,' said the Doctor.

The woman spun round in astonishment.

The man followed them inside, still keeping his gun trained on them. 'I found them spying in Sector 27,' he told the woman, who was obviously his wife. 'Cover them.'

Without a word the woman took a shotgun from the wall, and aimed it at Jo and the Doctor. Now the man put down his gun. 'Hands above your heads,' he said 'I want your weapons.'

'We have no weapons,' the Doctor said. 'And why do you have guns? Who are you afraid of?'

But the man didn't answer. He crossed to the Doctor, and felt his pockets for concealed arms. Satisfied that he had none. he turned his attention to Jo.

'You're not touching
me
,' said Jo.

'Maybe not,' said the man. He fumed to his wife. 'Keep an eye on them. I'll radio-telephone Ashe, and tell him that I'm bringing them in.' He went to a corner of the one main room, sat himself before a radio-telephone, put on earphones and quietly had a conversation with whomever he was calling.

'I asked,' said the Doctor, 'why you have guns?'

'The Primitives,' said the woman. 'We heard a band of them roaming about in this area.'

'Are they the original inhabitants of this planet?' the Doctor asked.

She said, 'Didn't they tell you?'

'Didn't who tell me?' asked the Doctor.

'The combine that you're working for,' she said. 'We're not working for anybody,' said the Doctor.

'Then who sent you?' she said.

'No one,' said the Doctor. 'We came here of our own accord. We're from the planet Earth.'

'This is
our
planet,' said the woman. 'We don't need any more settlers.'

'Settlers?' said the Doctor. 'We're not settlers. We are explorers.'

The man returned from the radio-telephone and heard what the Doctor said, 'So you admit it! You're explorers, prospecting for one of the mining cornbines!' He turned to his wife. 'Ashe says for me to take them to the main dome right away.' He picked up his gun, trained it on the Doctor. 'Right! Move! And you, too, Miss!'

Jo said, 'I do wish you'd let us explain.'

'You can do your explaining at the main dome,' the man replied. 'On your way, now! And if either of you try to run for it, I'll kill you both.' He turned to his wife , 'You come too, and bring your gun.'

Nothing was said during the second part of their journey, except for an occasional 'Move to the right' or 'Move to the left' from the man behind them with the gun. All the ground they covered was rocky and bare, although once Jo saw a pretty little flower with alternate red and blue petals - something she could never see on Earth. But she thought it best not to stop to inspect the flower; the man with the gun might have fired instantly. After four or five little hills they came into sight again of the big dome with its spaceship. Being closer now to the spaceship she could see that it was rather battered in appearance, and some lettering on its side had been partly burned off so that she could not make out any of the words.

'In there?' the Doctor asked, not turning his head but indicating the main entrance to the dome.

'In there,' said the voice behind them.

Jo and the Doctor went into the main dome, the man and woman following them. The man said, 'Stop where you are.'

They halted, and Jo looked round the inside of the main dome. They were in a large room that formed only part of the interior of the dome; corridors led off to other parts. Different from the exterior of the dome, with its futuristic sheets of gleaming moulded metal, the inside was more like a barn. There were plastic crates stored in one corner, and bits of agricultural machinery stacked in another. The floor was untidy with bits of mud and straw brought in on the boots of the people who came in and out of the building which was, in effect, the meeting-place of some community. And now, as they entered and stopped, a meeting was in progress. A big, white-haired man, clearly the leader, was listening to a man and woman who seemed very upset and worried. Standing about, listening, were other men and women. They all wore clothes similar to those of the man standing now behind Jo and the Doctor with his gun - simple farm workers' denims and heavy boots, with all the women and girls in long skirts.

'Now you listen to me, Ashe,' said the worried-looking man, 'I saw those creatures. Both me and my wife saw them, with our own eyes!'

The big man with white hair, called Ashe, tried to look calm. 'I surveyed this planet myself before the colony was set up. There was no trace of hostile animal life.'

Now the worried-looking woman spoke up. 'We heard this roaring in the middle of the night. When we looked out, there it was.'

One of the younger men present asked a question. 'What did it look like?'

'It was enormous; the woman said. 'Some kind of giant lizard.'

Ashe asked calmly, 'Did it do any damage?'

'Well, no,' the worried-looking man replied, 'I took a few shots at it and frightened it away.'

'You've been having nightmares!' the younger man retorted. 'Too much rich food!'

All the people grinned, but it wasn't a happy grin. Jo realised that the young man had made some joke that they all understood. Then she noticed how thin they all were, and how threadbare were their clothes. These people were all poor, just clinging on to an existence on this strange planet. The leader, Ashe, now noticed the Doctor and Jo and the man and woman who had brought them here.

'All right, Leeson,' said Ashe, 'what's your problem? More monsters?'

'I found these two in Sector 27,' said Leeson, still keeping his gun trained on Jo and the Doctor. 'They
say
they are explorers.'

'I'll deal with them in a moment,' said Ashe. He turned back to the worried-looking man and woman who had been talking about monsters. 'Why don't you two go and have something to cat, and a rest? You must be tired after walking all the way here.'

'We've got to find the creature and kill it,' the man said. He turned to the younger man, the one who had made the joke. 'Winton, you're in charge of the guards. It's your job to go and kill this thing, not to make jokes. It's bad enough trying to scratch a living on this planet without being pestered by giant lizards in the middle of the night!'

An older woman stepped forward to the couple who had seen the monster. 'You could both do with something to eat. Come along with me.'

'All right,' said the man, 'for my wife's sake. But we've got to
do
something. The crops won't grow, and the Primitives aren't all that friendly. If we've also got to fight off monsters, my vote is that we all go back to where we came from!'

The man's wife tugged at his sleeve, and reluctantly he went with her down one of the corridors. Ashe turned to the young man, Winton 'How many men can you raise?'

'Here at the main dome,' Winton said, 'maybe half-a-dozen. The rest are on outpost guard.'

'Half-a-dozen will have to do,' said Ashe. 'Put a guard on the Martins' dome, just in case.'

'Right,' said Winton, and hurried away.

Ashe came over to the Doctor and Jo and the man called Leeson. 'Where do you two come from?'

'Earth,' said the Doctor. 'You seen to have problems here.'

'I caught them examining rock samples,' said Leeson. 'They're mineralogists. It was bound to happen. I said from the start they'd never leave us in peace.

Jo was confused with what Leeson was saying. Who wouldn't leave them in peace? - and what was
bound
to happen? But she thought it best to say nothing. If life had been boring working for UNIT, it certainly wasn't dull now.

'Look,' the Doctor was saying, 'I'm not a professional mineralogist. But suppose I were? Why all the hostility?'

'Because,' said Ashe, 'we don't want our planet gutted.'

'This is
our
world,' said Mrs. Leeson, speaking up for almost the first time, her gun still trained on Jo and the Doctor. 'You've no right to be here!'

Now Jo couldn't contain herself any longer, 'Would someone please explain what all this is about?'

'Yes, indeed,' said the Doctor. 'Surely you could explain to us what we're being accused of doing?'

'This planet,' said Ashe, 'has been classified as suitable for colonisation. That means farming, so far as we're concerned. But if the big mining companies move in they'll tum it into a galactic slag heap in no time.'

'Don't you have any rights?' asked the Doctor.

'The big mining companies don't bother about people's rights,' said Leeson, full of bitterness. 'They move in, rip the minerals out of a planet, and move on somewhere else. It happened to the planet we got our seed from!'

'We're not sure of that,' said Ashe. 'We only know that their radio stopped working.'

'Yes?' said Leeson. 'And what about their final message?'

'Do excuse me,' said the Doctor, 'but I don't understand what you're talking about'

Ashe turned to the Doctor to explain. 'With no land farming on Earth, we had to get seed from somewhere to start farming here. So on the way we stopped at another colonised planet, and traded for seed. Once we got here we kept up radio contact with those colonists for a while. They were very useful, giving us advice. Then after some months they radio'd through and a voice said, “The miners are here - ” and cut out. We never heard from them again.'

'Because they were probably all killed!' said Leeson hotly. He turned back to the Doctor. 'If it happens here and we even have time to complain to Earth Government, there'll be no decision from Earth till the miners have finished their job. There won't be anything left to have rights about!'

'That's terrible,' said the Doctor. 'But I do assure you, I and my young companion aren't working for anybody. Our spaceship developed a fault and we had to land somewhere I'm very sorry that we've intruded.'

Ashe asked, 'Can you show use your identification?'

'Identification?' said the Doctor, taken off guard by this question. 'Oh, that's back in my spaceship. If we could go back there - '

But Ashe cut in, 'I think it better if you two stay the night. It'll be dark outside by now. We'll visit your ship in the morning.'

Jo had no wish to stay in this grim-looking barn for the night. 'We don't want to put you to any trouble,' she said. 'We're quite willing to go now, and find our own way.'

'As you heard,' said Ashe, 'two of or colonists believe they saw some hostile creatures abroad last night. We must all be very careful.'

'We'll come to no harm,' said Jo. 'We can look after ourselves. Can't we, Doctor?'

She looked up to the Doctor, hoping for agreement. Instead he was looking straight ahead at Ashe. 'We shall be glacl to stay,' he said.

Jo tugged at his sleeve, 'But Doctor...'

He turned and gave her a look that clearly meant, '
Shut up and leave this to me!
'

Ashe turned to one of the younger women who was watching, a girl so like him in her looks that clearly she was his daughter. 'Mary, why don't you take our guests to the dining-hall? And arrange some sleeping quarters for them.'

The girl called Mary nodded, and smiled at Jo. 'We have a little food,' she said. 'You're welcome to share it. Come.' She held out her hand for Jo to take it.

Jo looked from the Doctor to Ashe and to the Leeson, all of whom were now looking at her. 'All right,' she said at last, 'we'll stay just this one night. Coming to supper, Doctor?'

'Shortly,' said the Doctor. 'There are things I wish to discuss here.'

Jo realised there was no point in arguing. She took hold of Mary's hand and allowed herself to be taken down one of the corridors. It was dimly lit, but the lights were electric. 'Where do you get your electrical power?' she asked the girl.

'The spaceship,' said Mary. 'The main dome is linked to its generators. This is our dining-hall.'

Jo was led into a room with a single long table, on either side of which were long benches. Like the few items of furniture in the Leesons' little dome, the table and benches were poorly made with rough surfaces. Jo sat to the table, while Mary went to ladle thick soup from a big black cauldron that stood on a small electric ring. Mary brought the soup to Jo and gave her a roughly-made wooden spoon.