Doctor Who_ The Forgotten Army - Brian Minchin [21]
Whatever else is real about this, the fur definitely isn't. Looks like some kind of nano-fibre-optic technology, something that certainly wasn't around in the mammoth's time.'
'Unless all the mammoths were alien robots.’ Amy suggested.
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The Doctor grinned. 'I'll take you there some day, you can find out for yourself.' As he spoke, he was fiddling with his sonic screwdriver, and a beam of light shone into the mammoth's ear, which began to twitch bizarrely.
'Ha! I've got it! But I think this is about to get very embarrassing indeed.'
The Doctor leapt down into the enclosure with the mammoth, and opened the gate from the inside to let Amy in.
He kept talking as he shut it carefully behind her. 'Very, very embarrassing. I expect they'll be blushing when they have to explain themselves.'
'Tell me what you mean.' Amy gave him a friendly punch on the arm. Although not so friendly it didn't hurt him a bit.
'Hey, spaceman, you're not making sense!'
Rubbing his shoulder, the Doctor went on. 'Sorry, sorry, am I talking out of sequence again? So many things in my head sometimes they just come out in the wrong order. I'm not mad, just got a very busy mind. But just as real fur can't be activated with sonic technology, a real mammoth doesn't have oil in its ear joints. In fact, it doesn't have "ear joints" at all. And you certainly can't make it do this...'
Just as he'd made the oil in the Zoo's gate hinges explode, the Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at the place where the mammoth's ear met its head. A strange high-pitched whirring filled the air. As the machinery inside the mammoth started to vibrate,
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the mammoth's fur shook, rippling all over its body like a cat under a hairdryer. The whirring changed to a keening screech that increased in intensity the longer the Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at the beast.
Then, with a loud thunk, a little hatch sprung open on the side of the mammoth, just below its ear. Inside the white fur, and below the skin, was hidden an intricate machine of shining metal and whirring levers. A delicate spiral of cogs and levers connected each muscle. From a distance it looked like the inside of an expensive watch, or the innermost workings of a town clock. The mechanism was sparkling clean, glinting in the moon light. Where the ear met the head, there was a masterpiece of engineering. Amy could see wires, pistons and sensors, and things she'd never seen in her Technology class in school. The Doctor whistled, as if he couldn't help but admire the boldness of a plan that involved someone disguising alien technology as a mammoth.
With another blast of the sonic screwdriver, the cogs started to rattle, then stopped entirely. A few levers twitched, then there was a loud bang, and they settled down. The Doctor waited and watched.
I think that's shut it down...' He looked delighted. 'This is so much better than just burgers! It was a disguise all along!
How brilliant! Just brilliantly stupid! Imagine the poor creatures that made this. They came to Earth, went to the trouble
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of disguising their spaceship, but, they got it wrong! It's the twenty-first century, and they built a spy robot pretending to be a mammoth!'
'Says the Time Lord disguised as a geography teacher.'
'Shut up, I look cool - you should pay more attention, Leadworth girl.' The Doctor went up to the shiny hatch.
'Still, the Shadow Proclamation could be tied up for years debating this. Sending a robot spy craft down, pretending to be an extinct animal, no doubt looking for something or other. I guess it was meant to scope out the planet for a suitable invasion... I'm just amazed they got the colour wrong.'
'Do you ever stop talking?' Underneath everything. Am y thought she could hear a stomp-stomp-stomp. She was worried by what she'd heard, but couldn't quite trust her ears.
'I don't think it's deactivated...'
Amy felt a tingle run down her spine. She listened again, and