"Tell us what we must do," said Zoe.
"We won"t let you down," added Jamie. "Give us our orders."
"Very well, then... Allow me to read you a short excerpt from the story I am working on... "
He settled his gla.s.ses more firmly on his nose, and began to read aloud.
Still the storybook characters crowded around the Doctor, as he paced the flat roof, trying to cudgel his brains to produce a plan of campaign.
They all wanted to help him not understanding his predicament in the very least, but feeling concerned and sympathetic at his obvious misery. Gulliver said: "I understand, sir, that you are in an unhappy situation."
Rapunzel shyly pressed the Doctor"s hand: "I wish there was something I could do... Isn"t there anything anything?"
The Doctor forced a smile: "I wish there were."
Suddenly the Edwardian children exclaimed in surprise, calling out excitedly: "Look! What is it?" "I don"t know... I never saw it before... Where has it come from?"
The Doctor followed the direction of their pointing fingers and he too gave an exclamation of amazement.
"The TARDIS by all that"s wonderful!"
There it stood, comfortably settled in a corner between two ancient towers: the dear old dark blue police box waiting and welcoming.
"I don"t understand... Safe and sound as if nothing had happened... " Incredulously, the Doctor made his way towards it: still suspicious still more than a little wary. It all seemed too good to be true... And then, as if to make everything perfect, the door opened and Jamie and Zoe walked out.
They raced up to the Doctor and hugged him: no longer sleepwalking, they seemed to be their old selves again, talking and laughing at the same time.
"Doctor it"s so good to see you are you ready to leave?" Jamie asked.
"The time has come," Zoe added, smilingly.
"The time?" The Doctor repeated, not understanding.
"The time to leave," she explained patiently. "We mustn"t stay here any longer."
"Yes, but how did you find the TARDIS?" the Doctor wanted to know.
Jamie shrugged the question off impatiently: "We"ll explain all that later let"s not hang about come on!"
"Jamie"s right we can talk afterwards," Zoe agreed. "The most important thing is to get away... After, you, Doctor."
They stood back politely to let him enter the TARDIS first. As he went in through the door, he was saying: "It"s amazing just as I was beginning to think we"d never get free I was afraid it was all over... "
"Oh, no," said Zoe sweetly, shutting the door quickly as soon as the Doctor was inside. "It"s not all over, Doctor...
Not yet."
And then she looked at Jamie and giggled.
They heard a cry of horror and betrayal from inside the false TARDIS and then the Doctor"s voice was drowned in an electronic hum that built up to an ear-splitting climax. The front wall of the TARDIS fell down with a clatter, disintegrating as it collapsed into cardboard, canvas and gimcrack like the scenery in a pantomime.
Behind it, the Doctor was a prisoner, trapped within a gla.s.s box like a specimen in a museum: with steel clamps round his wrists and ankles, and a steel collar encircling his throat...
The storybook children ran up for a closer look at this strange phenomenon: from inside his prison the Doctor saw their faces pressing close to the gla.s.s, to get a better look their noses and cheeks flattened and distorted into hideous shapes, like the masks of gargoyles... He closed his eyes, to shut out the awful spectacle.
The electronic hum continued to build, and become an unbearable roaring and the gla.s.s box, with the Doctor inside it, slowly faded from sight leaving nothing but an empty s.p.a.ce.
Well-satisfied with his work, the Master put down his pen and made a brief announcement into the microphone before him: "The children have obeyed perfectly. Their mission is completed."
He pressed another b.u.t.ton, then turned sideways in his swivel-chair, knowing what he was about to see.
A s.p.a.ce in the wall of computers and other busy electronic mechanism started to glow with an eerie blue light. The light throbbed in regular pulses, and shapes began to emerge within the s.p.a.ce: slowly they joined together and created an outline a silhouette which acquired features and took on recognisable ident.i.ty... The blue light convulsed and gathered itself into a sheet of gla.s.s and there, a helpless prisoner within the gla.s.s wall, was the Doctor... At the heart of the computer.
"Splendid... " beamed the Master. "Now, perhaps, we can get down to business."
10.
The Doctor Has the Last Word The Doctor moistened his lips: unable to move hand or foot, he was almost at the point of despair and yet he had to persevere... He had to try and understand...
"Why are you doing this to me?" he asked, hoa.r.s.ely.
"What is the purpose of it all?"
The Master sighed, and sounded genuinely regretful as he replied: "You refused to take over my position here, at the controls so we are forced to incorporate you into the computer itself. From now on, your brain-power will provide the creative force that is required to carry out our masterplan."
"And what exactly is that master plan? May I be allowed to know?"
"Since there is no way that you can prevent it happening I see no harm in confiding in you." The Master smiled, a shade wistfully. "It is a luxury for me, to have someone I can talk to... Yes, I will tell you, Doctor our aim is to bring the whole of the planet Earth, and its people, under our command."
"To destroy them?"
"No, no, not at all... We have no wish to destroy them merely to adjust their minds to suit our purposes... You have seen for yourself how we dealt with Jamie and Zoe they are not destroyed, but have been translated into another dimension, where they can be put to good use."
"As your fictional puppets... " The Doctor shuddered.
"And this is your intention to subjugate the entire race of Earthmen in the same way?"
"Quite so. In due course, they will all become fictionalised happy creatures, without pain or problems " "Sausages!" the Doctor interrupted bitterly. "Mankind will be just like a string of sausages all the same!"
"Mankind is only too keen to achieve that state of perfection," the Master pointed out. "Look how eagerly they all try to follow the same fads and fashions "keeping up with the Joneses", they call it."
The Master gazed mistily into the future, enthusiastically outlining the scheme.
"Earthmen and Earthwomen are so fond of fiction: they love to be told stories in books, and plays, and magazines, in the cinema or on television... Thanks to the wonderful supply of never-ending fantasy that we shall be able to provide, fiction will become everyday reality... Gradually, they will lose all contact with the world around them then they will begin to vanish from the earth, and reappear here."
"Leaving the Earth undamaged and uninhabited, for you and your "higher powers" to take over, I suppose?"
"Precisely... I knew you would appreciate the plan so vast in its implications, and yet so simple in its inception."
"So simple that it all depends upon my co-operation?"
"It no longer requires co-operation on your part. You have no choice, my dear Doctor: you are now part of the Master Brain."
The Doctor could see that two new terminals had been linked to the giant, floating brain within the control computer and he realised that these led directly to his own prison cell.
"So... Your computer feeds off my thoughts?"
"That is correct."
"Then whatever I think the Master Brain will create?
In other words, in the final a.n.a.lysis, I am in sole charge?"
"No, no!" The Master looked quite shocked. "You mustn"t say such things you are under our control!"
"Are you so sure?" The Doctor saw a gleam of hope.
"Might it not be the other way around? You were unable to control my mind before remember? I doubt whether you can do so now."
The Master rapped angrily on the desk before him and commanded: "You will submit to a higher power!"
" Never Never!" The Doctor concentrated his thoughts, and prepared for a life-or-death struggle. His body might be in fetters, but his mind was still free and independent. "You have given me equal power now it"s a battle of wits between us!"
The giant brain began to change colour again throbbing from pink to a lurid orange, as it poured more and more mind power into the circuit.
"Stop this!" The Master cried desperately. "Stop it at once!" But the Doctor wasn"t listening to him: he knew what he had to do.
"Jamie, Zoe, can you hear me?" he called, from the depths of his gla.s.s box. "You must think for yourselves!
Don"t be afraid you can can open the book and find freedom... You open the book and find freedom... You can can get out. Go on: try hard!" get out. Go on: try hard!"
The Master slumped back into his swivel-chair, moaning: "This is against everything we have worked for...
" As his eyes closed, his face changed and became cruelly inhuman: in the clipped, metallic voice, he rapped out orders: "Warning, warning... Emergency action immediately!"
At the same time, the Doctor continued to send out thought-messages to his young friends: "Don"t be concerned with fiction reality is all that matters now you"ve got to hang on to real life... You"ve got to get out!"
The metallic commands boomed through every loudspeaker in the Citadel: "Calling White Robots... All guards to report to Control Centre instantly... The Master Brain must be protected!"
From his cramped position within the wall of the computer, the Doctor could just see one of the television monitors beside the Master"s desk and with a sudden leap of excitement he recognised the scene that was being shown on the tiny screen... Jamie and Zoe using all their strength to push apart the heavy covers of the book that had imprisoned them.
"Keep going!" he called to them, encouragingly. "You can do it push harder you"ve got to break out! That"s the way that"s splendid!"
The printed pages opened up slowly, and Zoe and Jamie fought their way out of fiction back to real life.
Simultaneously, a strange little scene was taking place up on the roof, where the storybook characters cl.u.s.tered around the two youngsters, who were slowly changing from cardboard creations back into flesh and blood.
"What is it?" asked the Edwardian schoolboy. "What"s happening to you? Is it a game?"
Gulliver looked at them with a kind of half-remembered recognition, and said sadly: "We are no longer in the same service."
Rapunzel tried to touch Jamie and found that she could not.
"How horrid. You are going away from us," she said.
The giant brain was now changing colour again from orange to an evil, sulphurous yellow and the Master rocked from side to side in an agony of frustration, seeing his plans beginning to disintegrate.
"Soldiers to the roof immediately!" he barked.
"Destroy the aliens!"
"No!" The Doctor shouted. "Jamie Zoe run for it!"
They tried to escape but the toy soldiers were coming at them from all sides.
"Back, Zoe!" said Jamie tensely.
Zoe appealed to the characters who surrounded them: "You were our friends can"t you help us?"
"Alas, we obey our creator," said Gulliver. "That is all that can be expected of any character... Unless the Master bids us otherwise."
The toy soldiers advanced steadily, keeping step as they closed in on their young prisoners. There was no escape.
The Master curled his lips in a sneer of triumph. "Now, Doctor you will obey."
"Never," said the Doctor. "I am here to create fiction, you say? So be it I will create... "
And he began to improvise, dictating rapidly: "In this moment of crisis, when all seemed lost, the Karkus suddenly appeared coming to their rescue."
It was getting quite crowded on the rooftop, by now, but when the Karkus materialised out of nowhere in a blinding flash of light, they all stepped back instinctively to make room for him.
With a swirl of his cloak, he made a deep obeisance, saying: "I... am... at... your... command."
The Doctor continued the narrative as swiftly as possible: "He raised his anti-molecular ray distintegrator and destroyed the soldiers... "