Doctor Who_ War Games - Malcolm Hulke [45]
‘Wouldn’t it be safer if we sent as many men as possible?’ Jamie asked.
‘No, Jamie.’ A note of urgency had crept into the Doctor’s voice. ‘Just do as I say. I shall send you transport immediately.’
The screen went blank.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Villar. ‘It could be a trap. Maybe somebody hold a gun on him.’
‘He wouldn’t lie to us,’ said Jamie.
The barn reverberated to the sound of a sidrat materialising. Some of the resistance leaders unaccustomed to the sound looked alarmed.
‘There is nothing to worry about,’ Carstairs said loudly.
‘But everyone take cover in case there are guards to deal with.’
Within moments everyone had ducked out of sight. The sidrat appeared in exactly the same spot as before. Its door opened.
‘Keep your heads down,’ Carstairs ordered from behind a bale of hay. ‘Let me check.’ He walked forward, gun in hand, and looked into the sidrat. ‘It seems to be empty.’
‘Of course it is,’ said Jamie. ‘The Doctor wouldn’t send one with those stun-gun men.’
The resistance leaders emerged from their hiding places.
Some went up to the sidrat to touch it, still not believing what they had seen.
‘One of us should stay behind,’ said Sergeant Russell, ‘to be in charge of those men out in the forest.’ He turned to Boris Ivanovich. ‘How about you?’
‘I prefer always to attack,’ said the 1812 Russian. ‘I shall slice the enemy with my sabre.’
‘Mine is the biggest group,’ said Arturo Villar. ‘I stay here in charge.’
‘Why?’ said Sergeant Russell. ‘Are you scared of going into that thing?’
Villar pulled himself up to his full height. ‘Arturo Villar is scared of nothing!’
‘Then in you go.’
Villar looked from one to another of the people around him. He was trapped by his own pride.
‘I shall lead the way,’ he announced. Concealing his fears of the extraordinary contraption, he marched into the sidrat. All the other resistance leaders, except the Russian, followed. The door closed and the sidrat quickly dematerialised.
Boris Ivanovich stood scratching his chin. To him the appearance and disappearance of the sidrat was not science, for he knew nothing of science. It was magic, and that he could understand better. The magician was obviously the Doctor, whose talking image had appeared so mysteriously in the mirror on the wall at the back of the stall.
How did the Doctor know they were all assembled in the barn? Boris Ivanovich wondered. But of course, a magician must know everything.
The Doctor stood alone waiting for the sidrat to materialise. As the door opened Lieutenant Carstairs was the first to step out.
‘Doctor,’ he said with genuine pleasure. ‘How good to see you again.’
The Doctor was stern-faced. ‘Where are the resistance leaders?’
‘All here. They’ve been wandering around the halls and corridors inside this thing, amazed by its size. Here they are.’
Jamie, Zoe, Sergeant Russell, Arturo Villar and the other resistance leaders came out from the sidrat.
‘It is fantastic,’ said Villar, looking around the metal walls of the sidrat materialisation area. ‘Who do I shoot?’
‘No one yet,’ replied the Doctor. ‘Everyone follow me.
We must occupy the war room. The whole base will then be in our hands.’
He led the group down a corridor. At an intersection silver-uniformed guards appeared, stun-guns aimed at the group. With thoughts of a quick retreat, Carstairs looked back. Behind the group guards filled the corridor. The Doctor continued to walk forward and the guards made way for him. Soon he was behind them and had been joined by the War Chief and the Security Chief.
‘Do not try to resist,’ he called to those who had followed him from the sidrat. ‘You are completely surrounded.’
‘Doctor,’ Zoe cried out, ‘what’s happened?’
‘He has betrayed us,’ said Carstairs bitterly.
The War Chief patted the Doctor’s shoulder. ‘Thank you, Doctor. You have brought us a neat little package to dispose of.’
10
Fall of the War Chief
The War Chief addressed the security guards at either end of the corridor.