Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [41]
‘Aaah!’ he said. ‘The brave ones are always so much more rewarding. When at last they break, the extremity of their fear resonates like the shriek of a thousand out-oftune violins. Oh, how can I bear to wait?’
Chapter Fourteen
On board the TARDIS, it seemed at first that nobody could think of any way of following Sarah. Certainly Jeremy had no opinion to offer. He just had to trust that the Doctor would eventually come up with some notion of how to get out of the hole he’d dug for himself and the others.
‘The only course that seems to offer any hope is to go back to Earth,’ the Doctor said at last.
‘I can’t see any alternative,’ said the Brigadier. ‘But how does that offer any hope? It’s more like giving up.’
‘We could start again, with the psycho-telemeter focused on some artifact from Parakon that Freeth has taken to Earth – if we can identify one. He and his friends seem to have gone native. We don’t want the TARDIS to end up in Fortnum and Mason’s.’
‘And if we do go home,’ said Jeremy, ‘I could grab another pair of shoes.’
‘What did you say?’ said the Brigadier, his concentration broken.
‘Well, I can’t go wandering round the jolly old Universe like diddle diddle dumpling, now can I?’
‘What are you talking about?’ said the Brigadier, quite exasperated.
‘My son John,’ said Jeremy, equally exasperated. ‘You know, the nursery rhyme.’
The Doctor’s face was alight. ‘Eureka!’ it announced to the world. ‘Of course!’ he said, diving for the controls.
‘Stuck in the mud outside the door! Thank you, Jeremy.
That’s the answer!’
‘My shoe?’
As the Doctor ran through the opening door, an almighty bang blew smoke and smatters of mud into the TARDIS. ‘Good grief!’ said the Brigadier. ‘Come back!
You can’t go out there!’
But before he could follow, they heard the Doctor cry out, ‘Got it!’ and moments later he dived back through the door clutching Jeremy’s shoe.
‘Oh super!’ said Jeremy, as the Doctor tossed it to him and closed the door.
‘And what’s more to the point..’ said the Doctor, rubbing the mud off an object in his hand.
‘What is it?’ said the Brigadier. ‘What have you got there ?’
The Doctor took the object over to his bench and began to wash it clean. ‘From the way that soldier was cursing it, I’d say that Parakon is involved up to its eyes in this war.
And knowing how our friend Freeth operates – ’
‘They supplied the arms!’ cried the Brigadier.
‘More than likely. So, a lump of shrapnel in the focus of the psycho-telemeter...’ The Doctor held up a piece of jagged metal, carried it over to the control column and carefully placed it on the little platform in the centre of the telemeter circuit. He activated the TARDIS. ‘And with a bit of luck...’
Clever stuff, thought Jeremy, lacing up his shoe as the trumpeting started again.
The President’s Palace of the Parakon Head of State – who was, after all, the titular leader of an entire planet – was considerably less palatial than might have been expected. A large house, certainly, but nevertheless a straightforward dwelling of simple balanced lines, sitting in an open green park surrounded by high walls, it seemed to offer a smiling welcome to the Doctor and his companions.
Their arrival on the planet had created something of a problem. The appearance of a strangely shaped blue box in the centre of a manufacturing complex which would have made the Ruhr valley of Nazi Germany look like Toytown stimulated a full-scale security alert. However, the emergence of the ‘Mission from the United Nations of the Planet Earth’ from inside their curious spaceship reduced the problem to one of protocol.
In the absence of the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman of the Corporation, it was apparently decided to follow the usual procedure for dealing with representatives of other worlds.
Of course, it was clear that they were heavily if discreetly under the guard of their courteous escort in the distinctive purple uniforms of the Corporation Security Service. Even after they had left the purple flycar which had landed in the palace grounds