Doctor Who_ Blue Box - Kate Orman [0]
KATE ORMAN
DOCTOR WHO : BLUE BOX
Commisioning Editor: Ben Dunn
Editor & Creative Consultant:
Justin Richards
Project Editor: Sarah Lavelle
Published by BBC WorldwideLtd
Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane
London W12 OTT
First published 2003
Copyright © Kate Orman 2003
The moral right of the author has been asserted Original series broadcast on the BBC
Format copyright © BBC 1963
Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC
ISBN 0 563 53859 7
Cover imaging by Black Sheep, copyright © BBC 2003
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Mackays of Chatham
Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton CONTENTS
REM
10 Chapter
One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
20 Chapter
One
Chapter Two
30 Chapter
One
40 Chapter
One
Chapter Two
50 Chapter
One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
60 Chapter
One
Chapter Two
65 Chapter
One
Chapter Two
70 Chapter
One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
80
90
100
110 Chapter
One
Chapter Two
120
Acknowledgements
About the Author
In memory of Jack Warren Orman (‘Papa’) 1916-2001
Journalist Chick Peters has written for Infodump, Computers Now! , Phreakphest and Newstime. This is his first book. The narrative that follows is based on interviews, reconstructions and Chick's own witnessing of events.
REM
Once upon a time there was a young princess who lived by the seashore. One day she and some of the court’s ladies were gathering flowers in a field, when they were approached by a huge bull. It was pure white, from its glittering horns to its tail.
At first the young women were badly frightened, but the bull moved so slowly and gently, meandering harmlessly through the many-coloured flowers, that they soon lost their fear.
The princess was charmed by the bull. She held out flowers to him, and he slowly chewed and swallowed them, to everyone’s amusement. She made a garland of flowers and laid it over his neck while her friends giggled. He let all of the young women pat his head and stroke his shoulders, but the princess was his favourite.
Finally the bull lay down in the grass amongst the flowers.
Laughing, the princess clambered onto his broad back, sitting there as though he was a horse.
In an instant, the bull had leapt up, the princess holding onto him in surprise, trying not to tumble to the ground. The bull began to run, heavy hooves pounding the grass, and then the damp sand as it rushed onto the beach. The princess’s friends ran after it, calling out in alarm, but they couldn’t catch up with the bolting animal.
The princess cried out as the bull plunged into the ocean, his skin the colour of the foaming surf that surged around him.
She was terrified he would drag her beneath the waves. But instead the bull swam in powerful strokes, further and further from the shore, deeper and deeper into the ocean. Soon the shore behind was just a shape, then a line, and then it was lost to her.
All she could do was cling to the neck of the bull, and pray that one day it might take her home again.
10
One
I want to describe the Bainbridge Hospital for you. But they don’t let journalists in. In fact, they don’t let anybody in. Just the patients, their carers, and sometimes the men in black suits. CIA? Probably, with the headquarters at Langley so close.
All I can describe is what you can see from the outside.
Take a trip south from DC, then south-east along I-64; one of those antique Virginia farmhouses in the distance is actually the hospital. Whichever way you approach, you’re always separated from the tidy white building by a field of waving crops.
In late 1982, I drove around for a couple of hours trying to find a road that would lead to the building itself. I never found one, not even one barricaded and marked KEEP OUT. In my passenger seat, Sally tried to stay patient as we meandered back and forth, the white building always tantalisingly visible in the distance. At last she said, ‘If even a reporter can’t find the way in, how do the CIA get there?’
I pulled over into the gravel and shut off the engine.