Doctor Who_ Prime Time - Mike Tucker [4]
He pressed another control and a faint oscillating whistle filled the console room.
Ace shook her head. ‘So you’ve got lousy reception, Professor. Get your aerial fixed, or get rid of your digital box.’
The Doctor wasn’t listening to her. He was hunched over the console, his eyes closed, listening to the whistle.
Ace sighed.
‘I’m going to get changed, Professor.’
Slinging the towel over her shoulder Ace ambled out of the console room, following the corridor to her room. She smiled. The Doctor was perfectly at home with bizarre alien artefacts, but always seemed totally bemused by television.
Not that they ever got much chance to watch it. Come to think of it, Ace had never seen anything even resembling a TV set in the TARDIS. Not that you needed one, the TARDIS was equipped with an old-fashioned twenties-style cinema and the Doctor always took great delight is being the projectionist.
They had watched Jurassic Park the other night, the Doctor pointing out all the errors in the dinosaurs. Ace still hadn’t persuaded him to take her back to prehistoric Earth. Perhaps it was about time she had another go.
Ace pushed open the door to her room and chucked her towel on to the untidy pile of clothes in the corner. She was growing out of most of them. Perhaps before they started traipsing around the Late Jurassic she should get him to take her to Oxford Street and do some shopping. She grinned. That would really piss him off. A time machine with the ability to go anywhere in time and space and she wanted to go shopping in Oxford Street.
The background hum of the TARDIS suddenly shifted in pitch, and a deep grinding, groaning roar began to build. They were landing!
The cornfields of Blinni-Gaar stretched on as if for ever, acre upon acre of yellow across the valley floor. The distant edges of the fields were lost in the shimmering blur of the heat haze, the distant mountains seemingly floating on a gently shifting sea of gold.
Agricultural processors lumbered across the landscape, huge and red, their drones echoing across the valley. The sound ‘of their engines was suddenly joined by something else, something grating and harsh. Birds rose from their hiding places, screeching in alarm as the corn began to sway as if caught in a sudden breeze. Its stalks suddenly flattened into a perfect circle and with a last asthmatic gasp the TARDIS
appeared at their centre.
The door creaked open and Ace bundled out into the Sunlight. She stared around in irritation. ‘Professor! You’re miles from the city.’ She squinted at the spires and tower blocks nestling at the far end of the valley. The Doctor emerged, tilting his hat forward to shield his eyes. ‘Hmm. A little further than I intended, I admit.’ He pulled the TARDIS
doors closed and swung his umbrella on to his shoulder.
‘Come on, Ace. A bracing walk will do us both good.’
He set off through the field, the corn rippling in his wake.
With a deep sigh Ace set off after him.
The Channel 400 computer received the coded signal at 17.45
Blinni-Gaar time. Signal recognition software kicked in and the sound file was passed through to archive matching.
Fourteen nanoseconds later a buried subroutine suddenly came to life, crosschecking the mainframe’s findings.
Exactly 3.2 seconds after the computer had received the initial signal, the phone on Vogol Lukos’s desk rang.
‘Yes, Auntie, what is it?’
Lukos was brusque. He had paperwork that was threatening to dominate his afternoon and wasn’t in the mood to be interrupted by a pedantic computer.
+SORRY TO DISTURB YOU, MR LUKOS, BUT THE
CLASSIFIED PROGRAMME SCENARIO IS NOW IN
EFFECT+
Lukos nearly dropped his drink.
‘What! Are you sure?’
+AUDIO RECOGNITION PROTOCOLS INDICATE
THAT MATERIALISATION HAS OCCURRED. SOUND
FILES AND WAVE COMPARISON DATA ARE
AVAILABLE+
‘Relay to my office!’
Lukos leant back in his chair, eyes closed as the sound of the TARDIS’s materialisation echoed around him.
He smiled.
‘Contact the board of governors, Auntie. Tell them that I want them here at once.’
+YES, MR LUKOS+
Lukos sat back, fingers