Doctor Who: The Rescue
From his one previous visit the Doctor remembers the inhabitants of the planet Dido as a gentle, peace-loving people.
But when he returns, things have changed dramatically. It seems that the Didoi have brutally massacred the crew of the crashed spaceliner Astra. Even now they are threatening the lives of the sole survivors, Bennett and the orphan girl Vicki.
Why have the Didoi apparently turned against their peaceful natures? Can Bennett and Vicki survive until the rescue ship from Earth arrives?
And who is the mysterious Koquillion?
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Science Fiction/TV Tie-in
EDITOR’S NOTE
Shortly after completing work on
The Rescue
Ian Marter died. It was a great loss to his publishers and to the world of
Doctor Who
as a whole. Ian loved his work on
Who
both as an actor and a writer of many of the novelisations of the TV shows. He especially enjoyed and appreciated the interest fans showed in his work. And in his absence, it’s to all his fans that I’d like to dedicate this, his last book.
NR
DOCTOR WHO
THE RESCUE
Based on the BBC television series by David Whitaker by arrangement with BBC Books, a division of BBC
Enterprises Ltd
Number 124 in the
Target Doctor Who Library
A TARGET BOOK
published by
The Paperback Division of
W. H. Allen & Co. PLC
A Target Book
Published in 1987
by the Paperback Division of
W. H. Allen & Co. PLC
44 Hill Street, London W1X 8LB
First published in Great Britain by
W. H. Allen & Co. PLC 1987
Novelisation copyright © Ian Marter, 1987
Original script copyright © David Whitaker, 1965
‘Doctor Who’ series copyright © British Broadcasting Corporation 1965, 1987
The BBC producer of
The Rescue
were Verity Lambert and Mervyn Pinfield, the director was Christopher Barry Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Anchor Brendon Ltd, Tiptree, Essex
ISBN 0 426 20309 7
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The huge curved navigation console hummed and its multicoloured displays flashed their tireless sequences of vectors and coordinates, endlessly mottling with garish lights the pale faces which hung disembodied in the semi-darkness of the smooth metal.
Someone sniggered. An elbow clad in glossy white plastic shot out and gouged invisible ribs. ‘Hear that, Oliphant? Sixty-nine!’
Young Trainee Navigator Oliphant turned his head, wincing in the sudden flare of the axion radar scanner. ‘All right, so we have sixty-nine hours to Dido orbit.’
There was a pause.
‘Sixty-nine,’ growled an American voice out of the pulsing gloom.
Oliphant turned back to the reddish ghostly cube of his three-dimensional crossword puzzle shimmering at the focus of its portable hologram plate, and frowned in frustration. ‘Too many letters,’ he snapped defensively, touching a sequence of keys.
There was a laugh from around the curve of the console behind him. Plastic-suited figures nodded and grinned at one another.
Oliphant stared defiantly at the new letters appearing in the appropriate little boxes of the laser grid. ‘I’ve got it.
The answer’s
stranded
. It fits every angle.’
‘Does it, Oliphant? You lucky boy,’ drawled the rich bass American voice.
An older man with a shock of grey hair stood up and leaned over Oliphant’s shoulder to study the puzzle.
‘
Stranded
... It is oddly appropriate,’ he said quietly.
‘How long have they been on that god-forsaken planet anyhow?’ demanded a gruff voice from the shadows.
The tall grey-haired man zipped up the top of his gleaming white tunic. ‘Approximately three months, I think,’ he said.
‘Exactly thirteen terrestrial weeks, Commander Smith,’
Oliphant informed him smartly.
‘Thank you, Einstein!’ scoffed the gruff voice.
The distinguished older man held up his hand for attention. ‘We are about to enter the zone of turbulence reported by
Astra Nine
before the accident,’ he reminded them. ‘I want extra vigilance in here from now until orbit is established.’
He turned to the big sprawling American seated at the pilot position in the centre of the crescent-shaped console.
‘Mr Weinberger, keep a close watch on the systems please.
We do not want to find ourselves being thrown out of curvature at the last minute, like those poor devils in
Astra
Nine
.’
The sandy-haired American nodded and gave a lazy half-salute. ‘Sure thing, Commander. You can leave it to me,’ he drawled, chewing energetically and grinning red and blue and yellow in the lights of the guidance display as it flashed up a new sequence of vectors in front of him.
Smith glanced briefly around the navigation module and then strode to the wall and passed his hand across a sensor pad. A panel slid noiselessly aside. ‘Wake me at once if there is any problem,’ he ordered. He left the module and the panel slid shut behind him.
Weinberger swung his padded seat around and punched unnecessarily at several keys on the navigation computer.
‘Hell, this has got to be the most boring assignment I’ve landed yet,’ he muttered, staring morosely at the maze of graphics that instantly appeared. He unzipped a pocket on his tunic and took out a fresh sachet of gum. ‘Seems one hell of a way to come just to salvage a couple of emigrants—even if one of them
is
a dame!’
Suddenly Trainee Oliphant leaned forward and frowned at a mass of numbers in one corner of a display.
‘Something is wrong here, Mr Weinberger,’ he exclaimed, his scarcely broken voice cracking hoarsely.
‘You stick to your goddam puzzles,’ snapped the pilot with a contemptuous sneer, chewing the fresh wadge of gum with exaggerated contortions of his thick lips as he punched more keys.
‘There
is
something here, Chief...’ warned the gruff voice in the shadows at one end of the console.
Weinberger swung his chair and squinted through his tinted glasses. His craggy face immediately folded in concern. ‘Must be a fluctuation surge,’ he said with a nervous laugh. ‘We’ve had them before on this trip.’
Oliphant shook his head. ‘This is
not
spurious, Mr Weinberger.’ He pointed to the ominously changing numbers on the screen. ‘We have an intense monopole field somewhere nearby. It is increasing every second.’
‘Check it!’ Weinberger rapped, clearly rattled.
Oliphant touched a rapid sequence of keys on the navigation panel. The display flashed
CHECK RUN
and the, numbers disappeared for a moment. When they reappeared they were even more alarming.
‘The kid’s right,’ said the gruff voice as the other personnel peered over Oliphant’s head. ‘We have a powerful magnetic monopole field and it is closing in around us fast.’
Oliphant swallowed and his prominent Adam’s apple jumped in a spasm of nerves. ‘Perhaps this is what happened to
Astra Nine
,’ he croaked, his scared face bluish in the light from the screens.
Next moment the displays went berserk in brilliant multicoloured flashes of random graphics and number sequences all over the complex curved console. Then they all blanked out.
No one spoke for a moment. The gaping personnel felt their mouths dry as sand-paper. Their hair prickled and stood on end and their skins felt brittle and crackly as they stared at the dead instruments.
Suddenly Oliphant sprang out of his seat as a livid blue spark spat between his fingers and the computer keyboard.
‘Good God! What was that?’ Weinberger gasped, jumping up and moving away from the console.
The module flooded with an intense blue light and a hollow bellowing and scraping noise resounded throughout.
‘And what is
that
?’ Oliphant screamed, pointing wildly into the space above the silent console.
The incredulous crew stared at the blurred and hazy oblong shape which was gradually forming in the shimmering air. They covered their ears as the noise rose to an unbearable intensity. After a few seconds, the blinding glare forced them to shut their eyes and turn away, their unprotected hands and faces burning in the dry electric atmosphere.
Suddenly it was silent. The glare vanished. The air felt cold and clammy. Slowly the crew opened their eyes and turned towards the console. The mysterious blue shape had gone and the systems were once again flickering and humming to themselves.
Oliphant gingerly wiped his glistening face and shivered. ‘It... It was.... It was like...’ he stammered, pressing himself against the cold wall. Inside his plastic tunic he was soaked in perspiration.
‘I saw something like it once...’ Weinberger croaked, blinking and shaking his head at the empty space above the console. Pulling himself together, he moved to his seat and checked the instruments.
‘All systems checking out normal,’ he reported in an artificially calm voice. ‘No indications of magnetic anomaly. Routine cross-check.’
Gradually the others resumed their seats, still numb with shock.
‘We establish Dido orbit in sixty-eight point nine hours,’ Weinberger announced, chewing hard.
Once the systems had all been cross-checked, the personnel relaxed a little but hardly spoke. They kept their attention on the quietly functioning instruments, intently watching for any indication of hidden effects from the terrifying upheaval they had just experienced.
After a long time, Trainee Oliphant happened to glance across at his hologram puzzle. He laughed nervously.
‘Whatever it was, it scrambled all the letters...’ he said.
The sudden twists of wind seemed to erupt out of nowhere, drawing up the hot sand in fierce corkscrews of stinging grains which funnelled high into the air before abruptly collapsing in gentle sprinkles as the wind dropped as mysteriously as it had risen.
The air was hot and bone dry. The tawny murk of the sky held no clouds, its monotonous haze broken only by the dull ochre patch where the reddish eye of the planet’s nearer sun managed to pierce the dusty atmosphere. And the air was charged with electricity, as if a raging thunderstorm could break out at any moment.