Doctor Who_ Curse of Peladon - Brian Hayles [4]
she said, glaring at the Doctor’s rear view as he dived under the control console and started groping amongst the mechanism there.
‘Aha!’ he cried, reappearing and waving a small piece of electronic equipment at Jo. ‘Its the Interstitial Beam Synthesizer on the blink again!’ He saw Jo’s face, and hurriedly stuffed the gadget into his pocket, sheepishly. ‘... But I’ll fix that later...’
Something about the Doctors face troubled Jo, and a tiny flicker of apprehension brought a frown to her eyes.
‘We are back at Base...’ she asked the Doctor, ‘aren’t we?’
‘Of course we are,’ the reply came back with a beaming smile, ‘and it was a perfect landing.’
The words were barely out of his mouth when the TARDIS
gave a sudden shudder, and then an abrupt lurch. Jo was sent helplessly spinning against the control console, and from there bounced into the Doctor, who also had been thrown off balance.
They steadied each other, but it was far from easy. The TARDIS
was now at an angle well out of true.
‘You did say... perfect,’ Jo gulped, trying not to look alarmed.
‘Oh, everybody makes mistakes, Jo.’ quipped the Doctor.
But his face was grave.
The TARDIS shivered, and shifted again. The frown on the Doctors face grew deeper, and Jo clung to his arm even more tightly. Something was wrong!
‘Doctor...’ she piped quaveringly, ‘are you sure we’re back at UNIT H.Q.?’
Holding on to Jo with one arm, the Doctor reached out with his other hand and operated the control switch that would open the doors to the world outside.
‘There’s only one way to find out, Jo,’ he said grimly, completing the operating circuit and moving towards the doors.
‘You stay here. I’m taking a look outside...’
But this was more easily said than done. As the doors opened, the devil-wind outside ripped and roared its way into the TARDIS, making it vibrate with its fury. It was all the Doctor and Jo could do to stay on their feet.
Opening the doors had been easy. Getting to them and outside was altogether more difficult. But as the Doctor slowly fought against the swirling wind that now drove into the TARDIS, his movement towards the door seemed to steady the tilting balance of the craft. Until he stepped outside, that is.
Then his weight—the prime balancing factor against the desperate tilt of the floor—was removed, and the TARDIS
leaned even more alarmingly. Jo, her evening cloak fluttering and flapping about her, could only cling to the control panel helplessly.
‘Doctor!’ she cried plaintively, ‘...where are we...?’
Outside, the Doctor was applying all his weight to the lower edge of the TARDIS’s doorframe, desperately trying to hold the balance against the shuddering windblast. He took a deep breath, sized up the situation and decided he didn’t like it in the least. The ledge on which the TARDIS was resting may well have been a mountain track once—now it was little more than a narrow shelf of crumbling rock. It needed very little more to send the blue box toppling down to the chasm below. There wasn’t a moment to lose.
The Doctor spoke calmly, but with a deliberate authority that Jo knew better than to question. ‘We’ve got ourselves halfway up a mountain, Jo...’ he called back into the TARDIS, forced to pitch his voice above the shriek of the wind. ‘The TARDIS is balanced on the edge of a rock shelf. Just don’t sneeze, that’s all...’
Jo could just see the Doctor’s face, and she answered bravely to his reassuring smile. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘When I tell you to move, move—but gently. Understand?’
She nodded, and hoped the Doctor couldn’t see that she was shivering. She concentrated on what he was saying, and her fear receded a little as she acted out his commands.
‘Down on your hands and knees, then... That’s it. Now—
move towards me... slowly.’
For a moment as she crouched, Jo could no longer see the Doctor and her heart leaped into her mouth. But she found that her new position took her out of the