Doctor Who_ The Doomsday Weapon - Malcolm Hulke [5]
3 The Planet
'I'm sorry, but I don't remember your name.'
Jo heard the Doctor's voice coming to her as though from a far distance. Slowly she opened her eyes. She was on the floor of the TARDIS, her arms still locked firmly and the base of the pillar. The Doctor was kneeling over her.
'Jo Grant,' she said, automatically. 'Call me Jo.'
'Let me help you up, Jo,' said the Doctor. He put his hands under her arms to lift her. For a moment Jo let him, than, with returning strength, she got herself up.
'Open those doors, please.' Jo tried to sound very cold, like one of the teachers she had known and hated at school. 'The joke's over, Doctor.'
'First,' the Doctor said, crossing back to the central console, 'we must check if its safe.'
'It's perfectly safe to open those doors,' said Jo, keeping well away from him. 'I intend to go straight to the Brigadier and offer my resignation.' Within a week, she had decided, she would be on a plane to Bangkok , or wherever jobs were going for Embassy filing clerks.
But the Doctor was taking no notice of her. Instead, he was gazing in wonder at a monitor screen set in the wall of the control room. 'Look,' he said. 'Just look at that.'
Jo looked. The monitor screen showed a barren landscape, a treeless stretch of rock and occasional shrubs. 'It looks like somewhere in North Wales ,' she said, trying to humour him. 'Now please open the doors'
'But don't you realise,' he said, 'thats what's outside. I must cheek the temperature and the atmosphere before we open those doors.' The Doctor busied himself reading dials set in the control console. 'Good,' he said at last. 'Very similar to Earth.'
'No little green men with two heads?' queried Jo, sarcastically, still keeping her distance from the Doctor.
The Doctor looked again at the monitor screen. 'Not so far as I can see. Actually, two-headed species in the Cosmos are very rare. There are the Deagles, a sort of two-headed birdlike creature, on one of the planets in the Asphasian Belt, but I've only read about those. I haven't been there yet...'
Jo cut in, 'Just open the doors, please!' She stood with her back pressed against the doors, to keep as far as possible from this raving lunatic called the Doctor.
'Certainly,' he said 'I hope we're going to find it interesting.'
The Doctor operated the small lever. Jo could just hear the doors opening behind her. She remained facing the Doctor, not daring to take her eyes off him in case he went suddenly mad and tried to attack her. Only when she was sure that the doors were fully open, allowing her to make a quick run for it up to the Brigadier's office, did she turn. And then she saw the barren landscape that lay outside. Her heart pounded. She couldn't utter a sound.
'Well?' said the Doctor, coming up behind her. 'Shall we investigate?'
Without waiting for an answer, the Doctor strode outside. A keen wind ruffled his hair. lie stood them, breathing deeply, clearly very happy. Then he looked back at Jo. 'Shall we take a walk?'
Jo stepped outside. As she did to, she turned back to look at the TARDIS. It was the same police box she had seen in the Doctor's laboratory. 'Where are we?'
'No idea,' said the Doctor. 'Anywhere, and any time, in the Cosmos. I suggest that we take a quick look round; then I'll try to get you back to Earth.'
'We're not on Earth?'
'I rather doubt it.' The Doctor stood surveying the landscape of rock and occasional shrub. Then he spotted something on the horizon. 'No,' he said, 'definitely not Earth. Look over there.'
Jo looked to the horizon, and saw two bright white discs in the sky. 'What are they?'
'Moons,' he said. 'Planet Earth has only one. This planet has those two, possibly more. So we're certainly not on Earth.' He stopped