Doctor Who_ The Sea-Devils - Malcolm Hulke [21]
The Doctor turned on a switch that he had introduced into the circuits. From six tiny loudspeakers they heard one of the familiar voices of BBC Radio 1:‘—and here’s a question for all serious motorists. If your car breaks down between Trafalgar Square and Aldwych, are you Stranded? Oh well, can’t win ’em all, so let’s move on to another golden oldie by the Beatles—’ The Doctor turned off the switch, rested his chin on his hands and studied the mass of wires. ‘Somehow I must have forgotten to reverse the circuits,’ he muttered.
‘Maybe some food will help you to think better,’ suggested Jo. ‘It’ll be ready soon.’ She got on with cooking the beans while the Doctor set to work again with his wires, diodes and transistors.
After a few moments had passed Jo said, ‘Last night... that thing that attacked us... you said it was related to something that came out of caves in Derbyshire?’
‘That’s right,’ said the Doctor, as though that closed the matter.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘can you explain what you meant?’
‘It’s a rather sad story,’ the Doctor began. ‘You see, millions of years ago reptiles were the masters of this planet.’*
‘I know all about the dinosaurs,’ said Jo.
‘Everybody knows about the dinosaurs,’ said the Doctor, rather resenting the interruption. ‘What people don’t know is that the reptiles also developed a highly intelligent form of humanoid, homo reptilia. These creatures believed that Earth was going to be badly affected by the arrival of a rogue planet from outer space, so they prepared deep underground shelters for themselves. The little planet didn’t cause any great harm at all—in fact, it got caught within Earth’s gravity and went into orbit around it.’
‘The Moon!’ exclaimed Jo.
‘Exactly,’ said the Doctor. ‘These reptile men and women had put themselves into deep hibernation, so that they wouldn’t use up any food or oxygen while they were in their shelters. Their plan was that special triggers on the surface would re-activate them all once the little planet had gone on its way. But because it went into orbit instead, and became the Moon, the triggering mechanisms never worked.’
Jo asked, ‘How many of these shelters did they build?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said the Doctor. ‘Possibly thousands, all over the world. When the reptile men started to be re-activated up in Derbyshire, you can imagine how they felt about homo sapiens being the masters now.’
‘I don’t know that I can,’ said Jo.
The Doctor paused in his work to make his point. ‘Jo, if you went to sleep for, say, twenty years in your home, and then woke up to find it had been taken over by rats and mice, how would you feel about that?’
‘I’d want to clear them out,’ Jo said. ‘I see what you mean now. These reptiles think of humans as vermin?’
‘Naturally,’ said the Doctor. ‘To them, Earth is their planet, and always has been. As far as they’re concerned, Man is an ape who’s risen above himself.’
‘If they’d been hibernating for millions of years,’ Jo asked, ‘what woke them up?’
‘In Derbyshire it was the presence of a cyclotrone using enormous amounts of electrical power,’ said the Doctor. ‘Here, for this is clearly what we’re witnessing again, I don’t know... probably something to do with the drilling being carried out by this oil-rig.’ He sat back and regarded his make-do radio transmitter. ‘I think that should work now. What’s our call sign?’
Jo left her stove to look around the smashed-up transmitter. ‘It’s written on the wall here,’ she said, ‘ZXT 413.’
The Doctor switched on, then picked up one of the pocket transistors and spoke into its loudspeaker: ‘May Day... May Day... This is ZXT 413. We are stranded on the oil-rig. Please send immediate assistance. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Over.’ The Doctor turned on the pocket radio that he had left intact as a receiver, although he had altered its wavebands down to ultra-short-wave.
‘What’s May Day got to do with it?’ Jo asked.
‘French for “aid me”,’ replied the Doctor. ‘Look,’ and he scribbled it down on a piece of paper so that Jo would understand. M’aidez.