Doctor Who_ The Doomsday Weapon - Malcolm Hulke [20]
'Not that I expected you to run away,' Caldwell said, with a suggestion of renewed friendship, of trying to make up for an understanding that he wasn't sure had ever existed, 'but.. well, what are you staring at the ground for?'
'I left something here,' the Doctor said, 'some very valuable equipment.'
'Yes?' Caldwell looked around the area. 'How big was it? What did it look like?'
'It was like a police...' But the Doctor thought better of it; Caldwell would never understand. 'It's a tall blue box,' - something caught his eye a little way off - 'and I've got a very good idea who's taken it!'
What caught his eye were drag marks in the dust - that and a few wisps of bright yellow hair on the ground. The Doctor hurried over to the marks, then looked up in the direction they were going. He could see now the trail of the dragged TARDIS stretching away in a dead straight line towards some hills a couple of miles across a flat plain.
'The Primitives,' he said to himself. 'Why should they want the TARDIS?'
'What's that?' said Caldwell , not understanding.
'I'm afraid I'll have to leave you,' said the Doctor, 'and find this missing equipment of mine.'
Caldwell , whose outward good spirits seemed to have returned, grabbed the Doctor's arm. He gave his most boyish grin. 'But we're going to miss you.' With his free hand, Caldwell operated the robot's remote-control. 'Charlie's not going to like it.'
The robot responded by carefully dismounting from the buggy. It lumbered across towards the Doctor, its metal hands groping in the air ahead of it.
'My grip's nice and friendly,' said Caldwell . 'But Charlie, sometimes he doesn't know his own strength.' By now the robot had come up to the Doctor. Caldwell pressed another button, and a metal hand encircled the Doctor's other arm.
'Couldn't you spare the time to have morning coffee with us,' said Caldwell , 'if only to make Charlie happy?'
'Kindly tell this metal moron to take its hand off me,' said the Doctor.
'Metal moron?' said Caldwell . 'Charlie isn't going to like that kind of talk.'
Caldwell brought his thumb down hard onto another button on his hand-held control unit. The Doctor nerved himself to feel the robot's grip tighten and crush the bone of his arm. Instead, from what served as the robot's mouth the Doctor heard a crude recording of what he had just said.
' Kindly tell this metal moron to take its hand off me, ' came from the mouth of the robot. This was followed by guffaws of metallic laughter, from somewhere within the robot's head.
Caldwell grinned at the Doctor's seeming surprise. 'You see - me and Charlie are just a couple of jokers.' He pressed another button, and the robot's hand came away from the Doctor's arm. 'Shall we get back in the buggy now,' he said, 'and all be friends?'
'All right,' said the Doctor. 'Since you insist,'
8 The Men from IMC
Captain Dent sat in his captain's chair in the control room of the Interplanetary Mining Corporation spaceship, his eyes on the monitor screen. As a television eye in the body of the spaceship slowly moved round the ship's circumference, it projected onto the monitor screen a panning picture of the planet's rocky, slightly undulating surface. Despite years of service with IMC, it still gave Dent a thrill to sit inside the comfort and protection of a ship and be able to see everything that was outside.
As he sat there, his hands moved from one to another of the controls. He knew each lever and knob by touch, and exactly how much power he could exert with each of them, energy measured not only in thrust of the spaceship's motors but also in the destructive force of the weapons every IMC ship carried. Sitting like that, in his special captain's chair, with his hands gently touching and stroking the controls, he was always reminded of the power of the Interplanetary Mining Corporation and his place within that organisation. When he was a child his father had told him, 'You've got to