Doctor Who_ Space War - Malcolm Hulke [21]
The Doctor looked up into the Ambassador’s nostrils with astonishment. ‘My dear chap, what a complicated mind you have. The ones trying to create war are the Ogrons—or at least the people behind them.’
Neither the Ambassador nor the First Secretary seemed to take the slightest notice of this last remark. The Ambassador continued, ‘Tell me the details of the General’s plot, so that I can expose him to your President. ‘There is still a chance of peace. We have mind-probing machines just as efficient as those used by Earthmen. Either you speak now or we shall force you.’
‘Can’t you believe that you’re on the wrong track?’ asked the Doctor. ‘There is a plot but the Earth people aren’t behind it, any more than you are.’
The Ambassador stepped back. ‘Take him away.’ Two guards moved forward to grab the Doctor.
The Doctor smiled disarmingly. ‘There’s really no need to lay your claws on me, gentlemen. I’ll go with you quietly.’ Pretending to be about to rise from the chair, the Doctor suddenly thrust forward with his feet on the floor, pushed the chair over backwards, performed a somersault, sprang to his feet and darted for the french windows. One of the guards raised his blaster gun, its adjustment set to kill.
‘No.’ commanded the Ambassador. ‘Don’t shoot.’
The Doctor sprinted across a formal lawn, surprising an elderly Draconian gardener busy watering the flowers. Embassy guards gave chase, but the Doctor had a good start. He made for the concrete wall at the end of the lawn, scaled a tree, and dropped over the wall into the road outside the Embassy grounds. The road, lined with blank walls, ran as far as his eyes could see in a dead straight line. A small tubular hover-car, all black except for a chromium bumper, came hurtling down the road at high speed. The Doctor stepped forward and waved his hands to attract the driver’s attention. As the vehicle approached he saw it had no driver. Only then did he realise it was making straight for him. He flattened himself against the wall. It pulled up directly in front of him, a mounted television eye on its roof turning to ‘look’ at him.
A metallic voice spoke. ‘Get in.’ A door in the side of the vehicle slid open.
‘What if I refuse?’ said the Doctor.
‘You cannot refuse,’ said the voice. ‘You have nowhere to run to. Get in or be destroyed.’ A slender tube on a stalk rose up from the roof of the vehicle, turned and pointed itself at the Doctor. ‘You are an escaped prisoner. Escaped prisoners may be killed. It is an order.’
Defeated, the Doctor got into the hover-car. Instantly the door slid shut. He was a prisoner again.
Security guards flung open the door of the cell and pushed the Doctor inside.
‘No more attempts to escape,’ one of them growled. ‘But I was kidnapped,’ protested the Doctor. The door was slammed in his face.
Jo sat up from the bunk where she’d been trying to sleep. ‘Doctor! What happened?’
Briefly he told her. ‘The Draconians believe we’re working for General Williams.’
‘Oh no,’ she groaned. Then she alerted. ‘Do you hear that sound?’ She put her fingers to her temples as the strange sound increased.
‘Is it the sound you heard on the spaceship?’
Jo nodded. Already it was affecting her mind. She fought to keep her thinking clear. ‘Where’s it coming from?’
Before the Doctor could answer they heard the firing of blaster guns in the corridor outside. Alarm bells clanged and the Security guards shouted, ‘Draconians! We’re being attacked! It’s war!’
The two prisoners listened helplessly, trying to understand what was happening. All at once the crackle of energy from blaster guns ceased. Someone outside was operating the mechanism that locked the cell door. It opened. Two enormous Ogrons stood in the doorway. They were pointing their guns at the Doctor and Jo.
6 Prison on the Moon
‘This is a military situation,’ General Williams was saying. ‘We should attack now!’
The President switched off her wall television screen. The news service had been showing pictures