Doctor Who_ War Games - Malcolm Hulke [55]
‘No,’ boomed the voice. ‘You will now stand your trial.
Let us hear the accusations.’
The accusing Time Lord spoke. ‘The charges are two.
Appropriation of a TARDIS without permission, and interference into other people’s affairs. The latter is the most grave since non-interference is our most important law.’
‘Well,’ asked the voice. ‘Do you admit these actions?’
‘It isn’t a very good TARDIS,’ said the Doctor. ‘It doesn’t change shape and it won’t go where I want it to go—’
‘That is the lesser charge,’ said the other Time Lord present. ‘What of non-interference?’
‘I wanted to help people, to combat evil. Look how I’ve risked my life fighting the Daleks. They want to exterminate everyone. Then there are the Cybermen, a nasty lot. Do you know about the Krotons, and the Yeti?
Not forgetting the Quarks and the Ice Warriors. It’s true I’ve interfered, but always on the side of good against evil.’
‘Then you admit the charge?’ thundered the accusing Time Lord.
‘Of course I do. But your way of observing and doing nothing, it makes life so... so...’
‘Yes?’ boomed the voice.
The Doctor looked upwards. ‘It’s so downright dull!’
‘We have heard your defence,’ said the voice. ‘You will be held in custody while we consider our judgment.’
A Time Lord came forward to lead the Doctor away.
‘What about my two friends?’ he asked the court.
‘Whatever the outcome for you,’ said the voice, ‘they will be well treated. You know that we are always just.’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, hanging his head. ‘I know only too well.’
The cell was small and windowless. Its doorway had no door; instead a force field made escape seemingly impossible. The Doctor was pacing up and down when a Time Lord came down the passageway with Jamie and Zoe.
‘I’ve brought your friends to say goodbye.’
Jamie offered his hand to the Doctor, only to find that it banged against the force field across the doorway.
‘Can’t we go inside to say goodbye?’ asked Zoe. ‘We shall probably never see him again.’
The Time Lord looked at the tears welling up in Zoe’s eyes. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But I shall have to confine you in there with him.’
He crossed to the opposite wall. His hands flickered over a small panel of intricate symbols. ‘Go in,’ he said.
Jamie and Zoe entered the cell. Immediately they were inside, the Time Lord’s fingers flickered again over the symbols. ‘I shall leave you to talk in private,’ he said, and slowly went back down the passageway.
‘I think your Time Lords are awful,’ said Jamie.
‘They’re so strait-laced.’
‘Don’t be too harsh on them,’ said the Doctor. ‘They’re good people really.’ He sighed. ‘It’s because they’re so good that I left them!’
‘I think it’s time you left them again,’ said Zoe.
‘Easier said than done, my dear.’
‘I don’t know...’ She was wriggling her toe against the bottom of the force field. ‘Jamie’s hand banged into it higher up, but my toe can go right through at the bottom.’
‘That’s the molecular distortion effect at ground level,’
the Doctor explained. ‘But it’s very slight.’
‘If I lay flat on my back, could you two push me through? I’m very thin.’
‘Maybe we could,’ said Jamie. ‘That’d leave the Doctor and me stuck in here.’
‘Except,’ said Zoe, ‘I memorised what that Time Lord did to that little panel of symbols over there. Want to try?’
‘You’re a genius,’ said the Doctor. ‘Quick—get down.’
Zoe lay flat, hands stretched above her head like a diver.
She held her body rigid while Jamie and the Doctor pushed.
‘There,’ she said, springing to her feet on the other side.
‘Let’s see if I can remember exactly what that Time Lord did...’ Her fingers played across the little panel.
In his eagerness for escape Jamie was leaning against the force field when its power was cut. He fell forward, and was saved by the Doctor.
‘All we have to do now,’ said the Doctor, ‘is try to find where they keep all those TARDISes.’ They started to run.
The TARDIS still looked like an old-fashioned London police box.
‘I can’t believe we’ve made it,’ said Jamie, pausing to catch his breath.
‘Since it isn’t yours anyway,’ Zoe