Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Authors
Also in the Series
Title Page
The Changing Face of Doctor Who
1. Secret Mission
2. Prisoners of War
3. The Secret Weapon
4. Rocket of Doom
5. Escape to Danger
6. Betrayal
7. Countdown to Destruction
8. Captives of Davros
9. Rebellion!
10. Decision for the Doctor
11. Triumph of the Daleks
12. A Kind of Victory
Copyright
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Epub ISBN: 9781473530348
Version 1.0
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BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing,
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
BBC Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
Novelisation copyright © Terrance Dicks 1976
Original script © Terry Nation 1975
The Changing Face of Doctor Who and About the Authors © Justin Richards 2015
Daleks created by Terry Nation
Terrance Dicks has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
BBC, DOCTOR WHO, TARDIS and DALEK (word marks, logos and devices) are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence.
First published by BBC Books in 2016
First published in 1976 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co. Ltd.
www.eburypublishing.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781785940385
Editorial Director: Albert DePetrillo
Editorial Manager: Grace Paul
Series Consultant: Justin Richards
Cover design: Lee Binding © Woodlands Books Ltd, 2016
Cover illustration: Chris Achilleos
Production: Alex Goddard
The Fourth Doctor
This Doctor Who novel features the fourth incarnation of the Doctor. In this incarnation, the Doctor seemed more alien than ever. He was a constant surprise to his enemies and to his companions.
Instantly recognisable in his floppy hat and long scarf, the Doctor became less authoritarian and aristocratic than his predecessor. This Doctor was a rebel as well as a hero. He was Renaissance Man made real – a Jack of all trades and master of all of them. And, for all his alien mutability and Olympian detachment, the Fourth Doctor could be the most ‘human’ of Doctors.
But, as with the Second Doctor, there was an air of superficiality to much of his banter and play-acting. It is in the quieter moments, the deeper moments that we glimpse the darker and more ‘genuine’ Doctor. A Doctor who is conscious always that he is essentially homeless, and that he ‘walks in eternity’ …
Sarah Jane Smith
Sarah Jane Smith is an investigative journalist. She first met the Third Doctor while working ‘under cover’, and was soon caught up in his adventures – whisked off back to the Middle Ages in the TARDIS to battle a stranded Sontaran.
It is Sarah’s intelligence, determination, loyalty and conviction that the Doctor comes to value and admire. In his fourth incarnation, he describes her not only as his friend – a rare admission for the Doctor – but as his best friend. When they are forced to part company as the Doctor is summoned back to Gallifrey both are saddened by Sarah’s departure.
But as we now know, this was not the last time they would meet. Intelligent and determined, Sarah never misses the opportunity for a good story and is not afraid to take risks. Of all the Doctor’s companions, Sarah Jane Smith is the one whose exploits and adventures after she left the Doctor have continued to fascinate, enthral, and excite us all.
Harry Sullivan
Seconded from the Royal Navy to become UNIT’s Medical Officer, Surgeon Lieutenant Harry Sullivan is called in to care for the Doctor after he regenerates into his fourth incarnation. The task is made more difficult as Harry does not appear to be aware of the Doctor’s alien physiognomy and is startled to discover he has two heartbeats.
But in the process of keeping a professional eye on the newly regenerated Doctor, Harry soon comes to appreciate his scientific genius, and the Doctor comes to see Harry as a friend. He even invites Harry to join himself and Sarah for a trip in the TARDIS. For Harry, it’s a bizarre but life-changing experience.
But despite his bravado and enthusiasm, Harry can also be inept and naïve. At heart, despite his aspirations, Harry is not really an adventurer. He hints that given the chance he would like to retire to become a General Practitioner somewhere quiet in the country. Certainly, at his first opportunity Harry decides to stay behind on Earth and let the Doctor and Sarah travel on in the TARDIS without him …
It was a battlefield.
The ground was churned, scarred, ravaged. Nothing grew there, nothing lived. The twisted, rusting wrecks of innumerable war-machines littered the landscape. There were strands of ragged, tangled wire, collapsed dugouts, caved-in trenches. The perpetual twilight was made darker by fog. Thick, dank and evil, it swirled close to the muddy ground, hiding some of the horrors from view.
Something stirred in the mud. A goggled, helmeted head peered over a ridge, surveyed the shattered landscape. A hand beckoned, and more shapes rose and shambled forwards. There were about a dozen of them, battle-weary men in ragged uniforms, their weapons a strange mixture of old and new, their faces hidden by gas-masks. A star-shell burst over their heads, bathing them for a moment in its sickly green light before it sputtered into darkness. The thump of artillery came from somewhere in the distance, with the hysterical chatter of automatic weapons. But the firing was some distance away. Too tired even to react, the patrol shambled on its way.
A man materialised out of the fog and stood looking in bewilderment after the soldiers. He was a very tall man, dressed in comfortable old tweed trousers and a loosely-hanging jacket. An amazingly long scarf was wound round his neck, a battered, broad-rimmed hat was jammed on to a tangle of curly brown hair. Hands deep in his pockets, he pivoted slowly on his heels, turning in a complete circle to survey the desolate landscape.
He shook his head, the bright blue eyes clouded with puzzlement. This was all wrong, he thought. It was all terribly wrong. The transmat beam should have taken him back to the space station. Instead he was here, in this terrible place. How could it possibly have happened?
‘Greetings, Doctor.’
The Doctor spun round at the sound of the voice behind him. A tall, distinguished figure in flowing robes stood looking at him quizzically. A Time Lord! The Doctor knew all about Time Lords—he was one himself. He had left his own people untold years ago to roam through Space and Time in his ‘borrowed’ TARDIS. He’d rebelled against the Time Lords, been captured and exiled by them, and had at last made his peace with them. He had served them often, sometimes willingly, sometimes not. These days their hold on him was tenuous. But it was still a hold, a limitation of his freedom, and the Doctor never failed to resent it.
He glared at the elegant figure before him. ‘So! I’ve been hijacked!’ he said indignantly. ‘Don’t you realise how dangerous it is to interfere with a transmat beam?’
‘Oh come, Doctor! Not with our techniques. We transcended such simple mechanical devices when the Universe was young.’ The languid voice held all the effortless superiority that the Doctor always found so infuriating.
He controlled himself with a mighty effort. ‘Whatever I may have done, whatever crimes I committed in your eyes, I have made ample restitution. I have done you great services, and I was given my freedom as a reward. I will not tolerate this continual interference in my lives!’
The Time Lord looked thoughtfully at him and began to stroll across the battlefield, with the air of someone taking a turn on the lawn at a garden party. The dull rumble of gunfire came from somewhere in the distance. ‘Continual interference, Doctor? We pride ourselves we seldom intervene in the affairs of others.’
‘Except mine,’ the Doctor said bitterly. He hurried after the Time Lord.
‘Ah, but you are an exception, Doctor—a special case. You enjoy the freedom we allow you. Occasionally, not continually, we ask you to do something for us.’
The Doctor came to a halt, his arms folded. ‘I won’t do it,’ he said obstinately. ‘Whatever you want—I won’t do it!’
The Time Lord spoke one word. ‘Daleks.’
The Doctor spun round. ‘Daleks? Well, what about them?’
The Time Lord paused, as if collecting his arguments, then said, ‘Our latest temporal projections foresee a time-stream in which the Daleks will have destroyed all other life-forms. They could become the dominant creatures in the Universe.’
‘That has always been their aim,’ agreed the Doctor grimly. ‘Go on.’
‘We’d like you to return to Skaro at a point in time just before the Daleks evolved.’
Immediately the Doctor guessed the Time Lord’s plan. ‘And prevent their creation?’
‘That, or alter their genetic development, so they evolve into less aggressive creatures. At the very least, you might discover some weakness which could serve as a weapon against them.’
The Doctor tried to look as if he was thinking it over. But it was no more than a pretence. He couldn’t resist the idea of a chance to defeat his oldest enemies once and for all. ‘Oh all right. All right. I suppose I’ll have to help you—just one more time. Return me to the TARDIS.’
‘No need for that, Doctor. This is Skaro.’ The Time Lord gestured at the desolate scene around them. ‘Skaro—after a thousand years of war between Kaleds and Thals. We thought it would save time if we assumed your agreement.’ He tossed something to the Doctor, who caught it instinctively. He found himself holding a heavy, ornately-designed bangle in a metal that looked something like copper. It wasn’t copper, of course, any more than the object was the simple ornament it appeared to be. ‘A Time Ring, Doctor. It will return you to the TARDIS when your mission is finished. Don’t lose it, will you? It’s your life-line. Good luck.’ The Time Lord vanished as suddenly and silently as he had appeared.
‘Just a minute,’ yelled the Doctor. ‘What about my two human companions?’
As if in answer a voice called from the fog. ‘Doctor? Where are you?’
‘Sarah?’ The Doctor began running towards the sound. Almost immediately he lost his balance and skidded down a long muddy slope. Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan were waiting for him at the edge of a big shell crater.
Sarah was a slim, pretty girl in fashionable clothes. On Earth she was a journalist, though that life seemed very far away now. Harry was a square-jawed, blue-eyed, curly-haired young man. He had the rather dated good looks of the hero of an old-fashioned adventure story. Harry was a Naval man, a doctor. He was attached to UNIT, the Security Organisation to which the Doctor was Scientific Adviser. Harry had made the mistake of doubting the power of the TARDIS. This amazing device, in appearance an old-fashioned police box, was in fact the machine in which the Doctor travelled through Time and Space. Harry had rashly accepted the Doctor’s challenge to ‘come for a little trip’. Now, after a number of terrifying adventures, he often wondered if he would ever see Earth again.
The Doctor’s two companions looked at him indignantly. ‘I say, that was a pretty rough landing,’ protested Harry.
Sarah had known the Doctor for longer than Harry; her travels had accustomed her to rough landings and unexpected destinations.
‘All right, Doctor, where are we? This isn’t the beacon.’ They were supposed to be returning by transmat beam to the space station, where the TARDIS was waiting to carry them home.
The Doctor looked at her apologetically. ‘I’m afraid there’s been a slight change of plan …’
There was a sudden whistling sound. The Doctor wrapped his arms around his two friends and threw himself into the crater, dragging them with him. They raised their heads to protest—then lowered them hurriedly as heavy-artillery shells roared overhead. One thudded into the rim of the crater, showering them with mud.
The barrage went on for an appallingly long time, but at last it died away. The Doctor lifted his head and looked cautiously out of the crater. ‘Not what you’d call a very friendly welcome.’
He turned at a muffled scream from Sarah. She pointed shakily. They were not alone in the crater. A raggedly-uniformed soldier crouched on the other side, his rifle aimed straight at them. Nobody moved. Then the Doctor walked cautiously towards the soldier. The man didn’t react. The Doctor touched him on the shoulder and the soldier pitched forward, landing face-down in the mud.
The Doctor knelt beside him. ‘It’s all right, Sarah, the poor fellow’s dead.’ The Doctor examined the body, noticing the strangely shaped gas-mask, the holstered hand-blaster, the ancient projectile rifle. He pointed out the last two items to Harry. ‘You see? These two weapons are separated by centuries of technology.’
Sarah joined them. She pointed to a small dial sewn into the ragged combat-jacket. ‘What’s this thing, Doctor?’
‘A radiation detector.’
‘Worn with a gas-mask straight out of the First World War?’ asked Harry incredulously.
Sarah examined the uniform more closely. ‘That combat-jacket’s some synthetic fibre—and the rest of the uniform seems to be made of animal skins!’
The Doctor nodded. ‘It’s like finding the remains of a stone-age man with a transistor radio.’
Harry chuckled. ‘Playing rock music, eh?’ Even in the most macabre circumstances, Harry could not resist a joke. He looked at the others, hurt at their lack of reaction. ‘Rock music—cave-man—get it?’
Sarah threw him an impatient look and said, ‘What does it all mean, Doctor?’
‘A thousand-year war,’ the Doctor said sadly. ‘A once highly-developed civilisation on the point of total collapse. Come along, you two.’
He jumped out of the crater. Sarah scrambled after him. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Forward, of course.’
The Doctor set off at a great pace, Sarah and Harry following. They were picking their way through a very nasty clump of barbed wire when the Doctor stopped. His keen eyes had seen a sinister shape, half-buried in the mud.
‘What is it?’ asked Sarah.
Apologetically the Doctor said, ‘I’m afraid we seem to be in the middle of a mine-field. Keep close behind, and follow in my footsteps.’
‘You sound just like good King Wenceslas.’
The nightmare journey continued. Fog swirled around them, gunfire rumbled in the distance, and their feet squelched through clammy, clinging mud. In between studying the ground beneath his feet, the Doctor swept occasional glances about the desolate landscape.
‘What is it, Doctor? Have you seen something?’ asked Harry.
‘I’m not sure. I keep getting the feeling we’re being watched.’
‘Me too,’ said Sarah. ‘Ever since we set off …’
‘Rubbish,’ said Harry vigorously. ‘There’s nothing out there except mud and fog.’
‘Then let’s hope it’s just my over-active imagination.’ Still looking around him, the Doctor took another step forward. Suddenly he stopped. Beneath the mud, his foot was jammed against something round and metallic. Silently the Doctor pointed downwards. Harry and Sarah looked.
All three held their breath. Slowly the Doctor started to withdraw his foot, then stopped at once as he felt the movement of the mine. He spoke in a quiet, conversational voice. ‘Harry, this mine seems to be resting on something solid. If I move my foot it will tilt—and that could be enough to detonate it.’
Harry edged cautiously forward and dropped to his knees beside the half-buried mine. He began clearing mud and gravel away from the mine’s surface. The Doctor stood motionless, like someone caught in a game of ‘Statues’.
‘Seems to be a rock underneath,’ said Harry slowly.
Sarah spoke in a whisper, as though the very sound of her voice might be enough to explode the mine. ‘Can’t you wedge it, Harry? Jam something underneath to make it firm?’
Without looking up, Harry said, ‘That’s what I’m trying to do, old girl.’ He groped round the surrounding area and picked up a suitably-sized lump of rock. Very slowly he slipped it between the mine and the rock on which it rested, holding the mine steady with his free hand. ‘All right, Doctor, give it a try. Sarah, you back away—and keep to our footsteps.’ Sarah obeyed—it was no time to argue.
‘You get back as well, Harry,’ said the Doctor.
Still crouching at the Doctor’s feet, Harry shook his head. ‘No. You’ll have a better chance if I hold the mine steady while you move.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Harry.’
‘Don’t waste time arguing, Doctor. Just move that foot—gently.’
The Doctor moved it. Nothing happened. He watched as Harry Sullivan took first one hand and then the other from the mine. It didn’t shift. The Doctor let out a long sigh of relief. ‘Thank you, Harry.’
‘My pleasure, Doctor,’ said Harry Sullivan, a little shakily.
(As they moved clear of the minefield, a huge twisted figure in a shapeless fur hood slipped after them through the fog. The Doctor’s and Sarah’s instincts had been right. Something was following them across the battlefield …)
The Doctor trudged to the top of a long steep rise. He stopped and pointed. ‘Look!’
Harry and Sarah joined him. There in the distance they saw—what? A giant, semi-transparent dome, fog swirling around its base, odd shapes just discernible beneath it.
‘A protective dome,’ said the Doctor softly. ‘Large enough to cover an entire city.’
Harry gazed at it in wonder. ‘If these people can build something like that, why are they fighting a war with barbed-wire and land-mines?’
‘Why indeed,’ replied the Doctor.
Sarah looked at him curiously. ‘Doctor, isn’t it time we had a few explanations?’
The Doctor sighed. ‘Yes, of course it is. I must begin with an apology …’ Briefly the Doctor told them how the Time Lords had intervened to prevent their safe return to the TARDIS, and of the vital mission that had been imposed on him. ‘I’m only sorry you two were caught up in their high-handed action.’
He seemed so genuinely distressed that Sarah said, ‘That’s all right, Doctor. Not your fault is it, Harry?’
‘Of course not. If these Daleks are as bad as you say, it’ll be a pleasure to help scuttle ’em.’
The Doctor grinned, spirits restored by Harry’s cheerful confidence.
‘So where do we begin?’ asked Sarah, sounding a good deal braver than she actually felt.
The Doctor pointed towards the dome. ‘There!’ he said. And they started moving towards the distant city.
But getting