Doctor Who_ Prime Time - Mike Tucker [26]
Light suddenly streamed across the moon’s surface as the door opened and the spacesuited figure of the Doctor stepped out on to the dust.
He jumped up and down once or twice, testing the gravity.
It had been a long time since he had resorted to wearing the TARDIS spacesuits.
Craning his neck back, the Doctor peered through the transparent bubble of his helmet at the transmitter tower stretching up into the heavens. Clumsy in the heavy gloves, he reached into a pouch and pulled out the incongruous shape of his pocket watch. He snapped it open and peered at the readings.
‘Yes.’
He nodded. His predictions had been right. The transmitter was far more powerful than was needed for simple television transmissions. Pushing the watch back into its pouch, the Doctor began to bounce across the surface towards the base of the tower. A long-disused shuttle pad was almost obscured by the thick grey dust, and there were hundreds of footprints, evidence of the engineers who had erected the tower.
The Doctor reached for the narrow ladder that snaked up the transmitter’s side and began to climb. The low gravity made it easy and before long he was perched on one of the outrigger arms, dismantling one of the transmitters arrays.
The lid of the control panel slid open and the Doctor peered into the tangle of components. Frowning, he reached in with a gauntleted hand, pushing wires aside.
Nestling amongst the familiar circuits was a gnarled alien device, strange symbols flickering across its slick surface. The Doctor frowned, straining inside the confines of his helmet as he tried to get a closer look. A force field shimmered around the device. Whoever had put it there didn’t want it interfered with.
A sudden shiver went down his spine, a prickle at the back of his neck. He turned slowly, steel-grey eyes scouring the blackness of space. There. A single point of light amongst the billions of others, moving slowly across the tendrils of coloured gas trailing from the nebulae.
The Doctor watched as it suddenly shimmered and blurred across the sky. Something nagged at the back of his memory, something familiar about this area of space.
A sudden movement on the edge of his vision made him turn. A camera, perched on a strut of the transmitter. The Doctor smiled at the lens.
‘Nice to know somebody’s watching.’ Suddenly aware of how isolated he was, he replaced the cover on the control panel. He had seen enough now to convince him that Channel 400 was more than just a television station, and that the aerials were more than just transmitters. It was time he got back to Blinni-Gaar. With one last look at the stars he began the long climb down to the TARDIS.
Watching from the oily shadows of their ship, the hooded figures hissed in satisfaction as they watched the Doctor scramble down the ladder.
‘The Time Lord is even more suspicious now. He cannot wait to get into the studio complex and start his investigation.’
‘It was dangerous to let him get so close to the transmitter device.’
‘It was necessary. To stop him would have been dangerous. Besides, the force field is adequate protection. It would take time to disable it, and the Doctor is getting impatient. The discovery of our technology has just made him more determined.’
On the screen the tiny figure of the Doctor crossed to the TARDIS and stepped inside. Seconds later the police box faded into transparancy and vanished.
The holosphere flickered and died.
‘The Doctor will not wait much longer. Tell Lukos to prepare his transmission.’
Chapter Seven
Ace lay back in the hot soapy water of her first real bath in what seemed like years. Amazingly even the bathroom had a TV screen, set into the foot of the bath. It had already been switched off when Ace had got in. Gatti must have sorted that out for her. Every muscle in her body screamed, but she felt more vibrant than she had in a long time. The climbs Gatti had put her through over the last two days were good ones, and