Jamie nodded. "You"re right... And the really strange part about it is all the time, I get this funny feeling that we"re being watched."
Zoe swallowed. "I wondered if I was imagining it... I feel it too."
They looked about, fearfully but could see nothing except the everlasting glare of white. But now they could hear something a far-off, high-pitched vibration, like the faint hum of machinery the mosquito whine of an electric generator.
"What is it?" Zoe asked.
"I don"t know." Jamie strained his eyes, but he could still see nothing in this endless white landscape.
The White Robots blended into the background so perfectly that neither he nor Zoe even noticed them as they began to advance towards them from the vast white distances. They had triangular heads with a single evil slit where the eyes should have been, and pointed, rat-like muzzles: and as they moved forward, they emitted that strange electronic whine but they were almost completely camouflaged. White upon white, they blended into the background so perfectly that Jamie and Zoe could not see them at all.
Suddenly Zoe gave a little sob, and pointed up at the sky.
"What is it? What"s the matter?" Jamie asked.
"It"s it"s just I thought I saw a face up there, smiling down at me."
"A face? What sort of face? Do you mean an enemy?"
"Oh, no... There she is again... "
"She? Who?"
Zoe bit her lip fiercely, determined not to cry. She took a deep breath, and then replied, as steadily as she could: "My mother. I can see my mother smiling beckoning me... But I know it"s just another trick she isn"t really there... " Zoe shook her head, trying to pretend it didn"t matter. "It"s all right she"s gone now."
Jamie squeezed her arm sympathetically. "What a dirty trick to play... Well, that proves it, doesn"t it?"
"Proves what?"
"That it"s all part of a trap."
"I suppose so. I just wish I knew why anyone would bother to play silly games like that. She she looked so real it was quite hard to realise it wasn"t there at all... " Her voice broke, and she found it hard to fight back tears. "I just wish I knew what it was all about... Making us see the things we most want to see... "
She turned to Jamie and began to ask: "Do you suppose they"re holding out some sort of reward to us? To make us do what they "
But Jamie didn"t even hear her. He was standing quite still, and his lips were parted in a half-smile, as he gazed straight ahead.
He could see a stone-walled cottage with a low roof, huddled under the shelter of a heather-covered hillside. It was just beginning to get dark, and the lamps were lit; the little windows gleamed with a friendly glow. Only a few steps away, the gate hung open invitingly and beyond it, the path led straight to the front door.
As he watched, spellbound, the door itself swung open, and he could see a cosy flicker of firelight on a whitewashed wall. Supper would be waiting on the table, he knew he could almost hear the crackle of a log burning on the hearth - "Jamie what is it?" Zoe persisted.
"My wee house... My ain folk waiting supper for me "
"It"s not real real, Jamie you know that."
But he was like someone in a trance, and she.could not get through to him.
"I tell you, it is is real they"re all there, ready and waiting real they"re all there, ready and waiting can ye no see them? I must go to them... "
He took a few uncertain steps forward, and Zoe acted swiftly.
"No, Jamie, no!" She drew back her hand and gave him a stinging slap across the face. Instantly, he came to his senses, nursing his jawbone.
"Ouch! What did you go and do that for?" He looked straight ahead again but there was nothing there. The spell had been broken, and the tempiing image had disappeared.
"Thank you," he said softly. "You were right.. It almost had me fooled that time."
"Come on let"s keep going," said Zoe. "We know now that whatever we see or hear, it"ll only be another of their horrible tricks... "
Jamie stopped dead in his tracks. "I"m not so sure of that," he said huskily. "Look there there!"
The White Robots were a lot closer now, advancing in a tightly-packed formation only a few yards away: and their electronic humming was louder than ever.
"It"s another illusion " Zoe gasped.
"I don"t think so... They look real enough to me... And none too friendly, I"d say." Jamie suddenly leapt into action. "Don"t hang about, Zoe let"s make a run for it!"
They turned and raced in the opposite direction but found themselves face to face with another line of White Robots, cutting off their retreat.
They tried twisting and turning, but each way they went, more and more of the hostile automata crowded in on them, until they were totally surrounded.
The two companions stood hand in hand, as the Robot troops moved in closer still. And then they saw the most terrifying sight of all.
In the middle of the line, there were two figures who were not Robots. They looked like human beings a boy and a girl although they were dressed from top to toe in white. The girl had short white hair, and a shining white jump suit: the boy wore a white plaid shirt, and a white kilt with a white sporran...
Zoe and Jamie saw themselves like bleached reflections in a mirror waving, and smiling mouthing silent words of welcome and beckoning them to come and join them.
That was when Zoe screamed with terror.
This time Zoe"s scream penetrated the Doctor"s tortured brain, and he stiffened instantly alert.
He shut his eyes, trying to concentrate, and a crazy image floated into his head: his two young companions, all in white silently mouthing and beckoning. He shivered: this was another mirage it had to be.
"Zoe! Jamie!" he shouted, with all the strength he could muster. "Don"t listen to them don"t go with them... And then something very unexpected happened.
Another voice broke in on the Doctor"s thoughts he could not tell where it came from it seemed to be somewhere inside his head. The voice was not sinister or bullying: it was soft and kindly sweetly reasonable. You had to trust a voice like that.
" Follow them, my dear Doctor Follow them, my dear Doctor," the Voice advised him gently. " Follow and save them before it is too late... Why Follow and save them before it is too late... Why don"t you? don"t you? " "
The Doctor opened his eyes but there was no-one to be seen. He was still alone in the TARDIS, to all intents and purposes.
" Go now, Go now, " purred the Voice. " " purred the Voice. " At once before it"s too late... At once before it"s too late...
They need you. " "
"Who are you?" the Doctor said aloud. "What do you want with us?"
" I"m trying to help you for your own good... You must follow I"m trying to help you for your own good... You must follow them, them, " the Voice insisted. " the Voice insisted.
"No! I won"t do it... I won"t give in to you... I don"t trust you!"
" Ahh... But you will... You will... You will... Ahh... But you will... You will... You will... " "
Slowly the Voice faded, until it was only a thread of echo, hanging on the air like a wisp of smoke and then it had gone.
Out in the limbo where time and s.p.a.ce no longer existed, the White Robots were ma.s.sing as if to attack. Zoe and Jamie stood shoulder to shoulder, determined that if this was their last moment, they would at least go down fighting: Slowly and inexorably, the Robots moved closer, a step at a tirne and Jamie suddenly realised that each one held a circular object a compound lens, with reflecting, concentric circles. As he watched, the lens began to shine, emitting a dazzling ray of magnesium brilliance, so fierce that he could not look at it. He screwed up his eyes against the glare...
That was why he didn"t realise for a moment what was happening.
At the centre of the enemy line, the white replicas that looked so horribly like themselves had begun to glide towards them, growing larger and larger. They did not seem to walk but rather to zoom in as an image on a television screen zooms in for a close-up.
Worse still, Jamie realised that he and Zoe were being propelled towards them in the same uncanny way their feet did not move it was as if a powerful magnetic force were drawing them together.
Zoe screamed again: "No! We can"t we"ll be swallowed up they"re going to draw us in "
But it was too late. Despite her cries of protest, the real Zoe was being sucked into the false white Zoe and the real Jamie was rapidly approaching his unreal counterpart.
He braced himself for the shock of impact, but there was none.
The two couples met and mingled, sliding into each other without any jolt, as smoothly as a swimmer entering a calm, unbroken sheet of water. It was as if they had gone through a looking gla.s.s, and become one with their own reflections.
And then the screaming stopped.
Now there was only one Zoe, and one Jamie dressed in white, nodding and smiling; as inhuman as the Robots that surrounded them.
The Doctor saw it happening, in his mind"s eye, and recoiled.
Was this a form of death a particularly sinister death-inlife? He could not let such a monstrous thing happen without a struggle.
"I won"t permit it!" he said, rising from his armchair. "I can"t let it happen to them... Not to them."
Then the Voice spoke again, and the Doctor could hear that it was smiling: " Quite so, my dear Doctor... I knew you"d Quite so, my dear Doctor... I knew you"d see it my way, sooner or later. Now, all you have to do is get out see it my way, sooner or later. Now, all you have to do is get out and save them... Follow them go on the doors are still wide and save them... Follow them go on the doors are still wide open! open! " "
It was true. The Doctor only had to take a few steps, acid he would be outside the TARDIS out in that white void, with Zoe and Jamie fighting to win them back from the evil limbo where they were trapped for ever.
" Go now... Go now... " whispered the Voice. " " whispered the Voice. " It"s your last chance... It"s your last chance...
Go and save them you can"t abandon your friends go at once... once... " "
The Voice was wickedly persuasive, and the Doctor had no choice. He squared his shoulders, and set out well aware that he might never see the TARDIS again, and that he too might be lost for all eternity.
The chill of the emptiness struck him as soon as he had pa.s.sed through the open portals... Endless white no sun, no warmth, no life... All quite still silent and dead.
He looked back over his shoulder. There was the TARDIS at least but even that had undergone a total transformation; for the dark-blue police box was now totally white.
He pressed ahead and then he saw them; Jamie and Zoe, hand in hand their eyes wide and unblinking, like mannequins in a shop window... White mannequins, in white costumes and behind them, lined up in serried ranks, was the army of White Robots.
The Doctor had never seen creatures like this before, but he summed them up in one dismissive glance. As automata went, they seemed to be of a fairly low standard in terms of scientific advancement their movements were limited, and their intelligence functioned only on a very basic level.
"So far, so good," he told himself. "They shouldn"t pose much of a threat."
He raised a hand in friendly greeting to the zombie-like characters who were once his travelling companions.
"Zoe, Jamie I"ve found you at last," he said.
But they did not respond, or even attempt to speak: perhaps they could not do so. They simply stared ahead, gla.s.sy-eyed, without any sign of reaction.
The Doctor thought fast. There was only one possible way to get through to them.
"Listen to me very carefully," he said. "This is vitally important to all of us a matter of life or death."
He chose his words with care, as he continued: "Concentrate very hard on what I am saying... Listen to my words, and ignore everything else... Think of me think of the TARDIS we are the only real things here. Everything else is an illusion none of it is real."
As he watched, a strange thing happened.
Zoe and Jamie seemed to flicker like the shadowy frames of an old silent film they wavered and flashed from white to dark, their images alternating between the dead whiteness of the zombie characters, and a stroboscopic glimpse of the real Zoe and Jamie, dressed in their own familiar clothes. He blinked, and did his best to focus on the split-second flashes of reality as they pa.s.sed before his eyes.
"Come with me back to the TARDIS... Nothing else matters all the rest is a stupid conjuring trick, designed to confuse you... That is why you must concentrate on what is real and true... Come to me now!"
Slowly, as if they were sleepwalking, the young couple began to move forward, in obedience to his command.
"Walk straight to the TARDIS it"s only a few steps away..."
But as they advanced, the line of Robots began to follow, and seemed likely to overtake them. The Doctor saw a shadow of fear on Zoe"s face, and he said instantly: "Don"t stop don"t look behind you, whatever you do... The door of the TARDIS is open... You"ll be safe there... Keep going!"
Now the white replicas were only sporadic and fleeting Zoe and Jamie were much more visible, and their images were getting stronger and more steady all the time.
The Doctor held his arms out, encouragingly: "You"re almost there I know you can make it come to me... "
To his dismay, he saw one of the Robots lifting the circular lens and pointing it in his direction: was he too about to be translated into a lifeless waxwork? The light flared towards him in a steady, penetrating beam, and he threw up a hand instinctively, shielding his eyes. If that powerful ray should reach him, heaven only knew what horror he might see within the ribbed mirror...
"Quickly, Zoe! Jamie! Go in before it"s too late!" he shouted and turned his back on the advancing enemy troops, grabbing the hands of his companions, and then flinging them bodily in through the open doorway.
The moment he turned away, the magnesium ray and the Robot operating it disappeared: the entire array of Robot troops vanished into thin air and total silence. The Doctor knew, without having to look back, that they were safe.
"Well!" he gasped, falling on the exit lever, and pulling it with all his might. "Out of sight, out of mind to coin a phrase..."
The main doors slid together without a sound. They were safe inside the TARDIS again... Or were they?
Jamie scratched his head, totally confused.