Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [38]
But in no time at all – or was it an hour or more? – the noise came to an abrupt and noisy end. The Doctor was bending over the dials, checking them, and seemed to be in no hurry to leave.
Jeremy wondered what happened next. ‘Are we there?’
he asked.
‘Oxygen eighteen per cent. Mm? It would appear so,’ the Doctor answered, looking up. ‘On the other side of that door, according to Mr Freeth, we shall find a paradise, a paradise called Parakon. Of course, it rather depends on your definition of paradise. Ready, Brigadier?’
‘Ready, Doctor.’
‘Then here goes.’
Jeremy could feel his heart thumping as he followed the others outside. But what awaited them was a sad disappointment.
As they walked away from the TARDIS, it was difficult to see very much at all for the thick oily mist that swirled about. There was half a collapsed wall nearby and a glutinous mud beneath their feet. A dull rumbling was interrupted by the sound of a distant explosion. Almost immediately the unmistakable swoosh of an approaching missile or shell filled their ears.
‘Get down!’ cried the Brigadier.
Jeremy flung himself to the ground. A noise so loud that it became the whole of the world flung bricks and mud over his head. Dimly he heard the Doctor’s voice.
‘Everybody all right?’
Tentatively pushing himself into a sitting position –
ugh, he’d got a mouthful of the disgusting mud – Jeremy checked. Nothing seemed to hurt.
As his hearing recovered, Jeremy could pick out other warlike noises from the general rumble of faraway guns.
There was a machine-gun somewhere in the neighbourhood, and more explosions, though none so near as the first.
‘Over here!’ called the Brigadier; and in a crouching scramble through the rubble and the mud, Jeremy joined him in the inadequate shelter of the ruined wall, now half its former size.
As he reached the wall, his foot turned on a lump of brick and he stumbled forward on to his hands, on to a softness and a wetness that – oh God! He’d landed on a body! Lying face down in the mud, the dead man had been torn apart by an earlier explosion. Jeremy recoiled in shock and fell at the feet of the Brigadier.
‘Hold on, lad,’ the Brigadier said, picking him up.
‘Better get back to the TARDIS, Doctor!’ he shouted. But the Doctor, walking forward apparently oblivious of any danger, peering through the murk in the direction of the sounds of fighting, seemed not hear him.
‘Keep your heads down! You want to get killed?’ A rasping voice preceded the appearance of a mud-covered figure, heaving himself along on his elbows the better to keep a gun which looked like a short thick rifle off the ground.
‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ His leathery face was the colour of the mud beneath him, and his totally bald pate was streaked with blood. As he raised his gun and aimed it at the Doctor, another scattered broadside of shells landed close ahead.
‘Is this Parakon?’ said the Doctor. He had to shout to he heard over the renewed attack.
‘What?’
The Doctor moved over and squatted by the man. ‘This planet? What is its name?’
He lowered his gun. ‘Just landed, have you?’ he said.
‘No this isn’t Parakon, may it be cast into the Everlasting Pit of Serpents! This is Blestinu.’
Blestinu? So the TARDIS had brought them to the wrong place?
A line of explosions detonated behind them, the last one splattering them with mud. ‘They’ve got us bracketed, Doctor,’ shouted the Brigadier. ‘We’d better get out of here!’
‘If you’ve got somewhere to go, then go!’ the soldier said in his croaking voice, and heaving himself to his feet, he ran slantways into the fog, gun at the ready, with the lumbering gait of exhaustion.
The Brigadier didn’t wait any longer. Disdaining to crouch, he ran to the TARDIS (which Jeremy could only just see – just to think if they’d lost it in the fog!) with Jeremy