016 - Doctor Who and the Daleks

VIP免费

2024-12-06 0 0 2.06MB 90 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

Doctor Who and the Daleks

David Whitaker

This is DOCTOR WHO’s first exciting adventure–with the DALEKS! Ian Chesterton and

Barbara Wright travel with the mysterious DOCTOR WHO and his grand-daughter, Susan,

to the planet of Skaro in the space-time machine, Tardis. There they strive to save the

peace-loving Thals from the evil intentions of the hideous DALEKS.

Can they succeed? And what is more important, will they ever again see their native

Earth?

CONTENTS

1 Meeting on the Common

2 Prisoners in Space

3 The Dead Planet

4 The Power of the Daleks

5 Escape into Danger

6 The Will to Survive

7 The Lake of Mutations

8 The Last Despairing Try

9 The End of the Power

10 A New Life

1 A Meeting on the Common

I stopped the car at last and let the fog close in around me. I knew I was

somewhere on Barnes Common and I had a suspicious idea it was the most deserted part

as well. A warm fire and the supper my landlady would have waiting for me seemed as far

away as New Zealand. I wondered how long it would take me to walk home to Paddington

and the possible answer didn't do anything to cheer me up. A fitting end to an impossible

day, I thought savagely.

For a start, before breakfast, I'd torn my best sports jacket on a loose screw on the

door of my room. It didn't help that I'd been putting off tightening it for weeks so I had

nobody to blame but myself. Then later, after I'd driven all the way to Reigate for a job I

was after as Assistant Research scientist at Donneby's, the big rocket component firm, I

found that a nephew of one of the directors had got the post and I'd made the journey for

nothing. Now the fog and the prospects of a long, weary walk. I looked at my watch,

delaying the decision as long as possible. Nearly nine o'clock.

Just as the second hand completed its minute, I heard the sound of running

footsteps. Probably somebody as lost as I was, I told myself, welcome for a delay from the

final decision to begin walking. Suddenly, into the pallid glow of my headlights, a girl

appeared. She stopped and I saw her hands moving slightly, and I could see her mouth

opening to speak. I tore open the door and ran to her, catching her before she fell to the

road. She hadn't completely fainted and I could just make out the name she was

saying—Susan—as I lifted her up and put her in the front seat, then her head rolled back

on the seat-rest and she passed out altogether. She was in her early twenties, I guessed,

and she had one of those deceptive sort of faces; attractive, yet with strong character. Her

clothes were covered in mud and her stockings hung in ribbons about her Iegs. There was

a big rip in the jacket of her suit on her shoulder and I could see the blood spreading over

the material. I opened the bonnet and dipped my handkerchief in the radiator. This put an

end to any idea of walking, I told myself. The cut on her shoulder didn't look too good and

might even need some stitches in it. I went back to her, wringing out the handkerchief,

wondering why she didn't have a handbag. Had somebody attacked her and stolen it? The

obvious solution didn't occur to me.

She began to move her head a little as I bathed her forehead. Her lips quivered

slightly.

'Susan... Susan...'

All I could think about was how strange it was that she should want to tell me her

name and I suppose I was so preoccupied with this line of thought that it was almost

startling when she opened her eyes and looked at me. There was a pause of a second or

two and then I laid the handkerchief against her forehead.

'Rest quietly for a minute. You'll be all right.'

'Susan...'

'Yes, I know. You started to tell me your name before—' She shook her head and I

rescued the handkerchief and started to refold it.

'No, Susan is on the road,' she said, 'she was in the car with me.'

'I'll go and have a look in a moment.'

'No, now. Please!'

I heard the urgency in her voice. I nodded.

'All right. Is it straight ahead?'

'I'll come with you. I must. She's hurt.'

'What happened?' The answer came to me almost as soon as I asked. 'Car crash?'

'Yes. Thank heavens you pulled up. You'd have driven right into it.' She started to

get out of the car.

'You've hurt your shoulder, you know.'

'It's all right.' I helped her out, pretending I hadn't noticed the agony on her face as

she moved her injured shoulder.

'You'd better show me. But say if you don't feel up to it.' We began to walk along

the road and we had taken only a few steps before the fog swallowed up the headlights of

my car and the fog pressed in around us.

I said, 'How badly hurt is she?'

'I don't know. There was a lot of blood on her face. It was a big lorry. An army one, I

think.' We groped our way forward, inching our way, but still I nearly tripped over the

shattered wing of the lorry that had been wrenched away from the main bodywork. I guided

the girl around it and broken glass began to crunch under our feet. It was a strange, eerie

sound in the silence of the night. The outline of the lorry appeared and we circled round it

cautiously. It was lying on one side and sprawled half in and half out of one of the driving

cabin windows was the upper half of an army corporal. I climbed up as far as I could on the

twisted metal and it looked as if the man had been hurled sideways at the moment of

impact, the glass of the window shattering but holding him from being thrown out into the

roadway. I stared at him for a second or two and then stepped back on to the road.

'Is he all right? Hurt badly, or what?'

I looked at her, wondering what state she was in to hear what I had to say. The

pause seemed to be sufficient for she turned her head and peered through the eddying

mist at the body.

'He's dead.'

'I'm afraid so.'

The fog was beginning to line the back of my throat and, for the first time, I became

aware of the strong smell of petrol. One of the lorry's headlights still glared out into the

night and I thought the less chance the petrol had the better. I felt a sudden anxiety that

there would be a short circuit and the whole wreckage would explode in our faces. I

climbed up again.

'I'll have to turn the lights off but don't move for a moment. We'll never find each

other again.'

It was an unpleasant business. I had to engineer the dead body back into the cabin

before I could wrench open the door and then scramble over to reach the light switch. The

smell of petrol was stronger than ever inside the cabin and it was becoming more and

more difficult to breathe, but I managed to reach the switch at last and my world plunged

into impenetrable blackness.

Fear had always been a thing that I'd read about, a condition of the mind that was a

total mystery to me because I'd never experienced it. I suppose every person has the odd

moment of fright now and again, like the second between tripping and hitting the ground;

but I had never felt fear so deeply before. It flooded through me, damping down my mind

from logic or reasoned action and making the cold sweat stand out on my forehead.

Someone, somewhere, struck a match. I heard it quite clearly, the long scrape of

the sulphur head against the short strip of sandpaper, the brittle flare of ignition. I banged

my head as I scrabbled to get out and away from the lorry and the petrol all around me

and, hearing a ripping of cloth as my coat caught in a piece of protruding metal. I felt the

girl's hand on my arm steadying me as I raced to get down.

'Did you hear it?' I said breathlessly. She stared at me. 'Somebody's here. Striking

matches! The petrol...' I swallowed and tried to get control of myself.

'You must have imagined it,' she said quietly.

'No, I didn't. I heard it quite clearly. On the other side of the lorry.'

We stood there shouting for a while, straining to hear some reply or movement.

There was nothing but the cold, deadly silence.

She said, 'Perhaps it's Susan.'

She started to lead me away from the wreckage and up the road and I had a feeling

I'd disappointed her in some way. I apologized for frightening her and she turned and

looked at me steadily.

'I should be the one to apologize for involving you in all this.' As we groped our way

forward, I thought about what she'd said and it seemed to me that there was something

else in her words other than a reference to the crash.

'I couldn't very well sit in my car when you were fainting all over the bonnet, could

I?' 'I didn't mean that.'

I didn't go on asking questions but I knew I'd been right. There was something else

behind the accident itself. It was the appearance of her car through the wreaths of mist that

put an end to conversation. Its nose was buried into a tree and the familiar sound of broken

glass began to crunch under our shoes as we picked our way around it.

'Can you possibly get the boot open? There's a torch in there.'

I turned the handle and wrestled with the bent metal for a few moments. Eventually

it gave and I was able to force it upwards. I felt around and found the torch, hoping it was in

working order. The light flashed on and I heard the girl give a little exclamation of relief. I

picked it out carefully, not bothering to close the lid of the boot. Her car was a complete

write-off anyway.

'You'd better show me where she is.'

'I managed to get her out of the car to the side of the road.' She led me round and

then stopped so sharply that I almost cannoned into her.

'Susan,' she said quietly, and then louder, 'Susan!'

I flashed the torch about. Apart from the ever-present broken glass, there wasn't a

sign of anyone.

'Perhaps it was her. The match-striker, I mean.'

She shook her head. 'She had a terrible cut on her forehead. Quite a lot of blood. It

was on her face and her pullover. I'm sure she was unconscious.'

'But no stranger's going to just come along and move her,' I argued. 'Move her

where, anyway? We're in the middle of Barnes Common.'

'She told me she lives here. Very near here.' If she felt me looking at her curiously

she gave no sign. 'I was just pulling up when the lorry skidded across the road and hit us.'

'But how could she live here? The nearest house must be over a mile. It must be.'

'I know. We—argued about it. She hadn't wanted me to drive her home at all but I

simply wouldn't let her travel alone in this weather. I insisted.'

'And she told you to drive her to Barnes Common?' The girl nodded. I thought for a

moment.

'When I told you about hearing the match striking you said then you thought it might

be Susan. Now you tell me that she was definitely unconscious and couldn't have moved.'

'Oh, I don't know,' and I heard the weariness in her voice. 'It couldn't have been the

Doctor. I know this part of the Common. There isn't a house near here.'

'What doctor?'

'Her grandfather's a doctor.'

I leaned against her car.

'I wish you wouldn't let things out a bit at a time,' I said as carefully as I could and

suppressing the irritation I felt. I knew she must be somewhere near breaking point.

'If her grandfather's a doctor, then he must have moved her. It was probably he

who struck the match too. The thing is, what we're to do next. There's no doubt that he'll

come back here as soon as he's settled Susan in bed and start looking for you.'

She said, 'There's every doubt in the world.'

After the silence while I digested what she'd said, I must have moved my hand in

exasperation. The light from the torch picked up the shine of something other than glass

about five yards away. I crossed and picked up a small brass ornament with a broken

piece of black tape threaded through the hole at one end. I showed it to the girl.

'It was Susan's. She wore it round her neck.' Her voice was flat and emotionless

and I suddenly began to feel angry.

'It's no good standing about here talking!' She looked at me sharply and I suppose I

had spoken rather loudly. I shrugged.

'You can't blame me for losing my temper. You keep on hinting at things, as if this

weren't just a terrible road accident but something more. A girl who lives in the middle of a

Common; too unconscious to move and disappears as soon as your back's turned. This

doctor, the grandfather. Why all the mystery?'

'I can't tell you much because I don't know very much.'

'But this is just a road accident, isn't it? What else is there, for heaven's sake!'

'There's her disappearance to worry about.'

In the silence, I offered her a cigarette. She refused and I lit one for myself. In the

glow of my lighter flame I saw the tears on her cheeks. The only logical thing I could think

of was that she was suffering from shock but even as I toyed with that idea I realized it

didn't seem to fit. There was nothing nervous or hysterical about her at all, no signs of

extreme panic. One or two curious things had happened and she had made a couple of

strange comments. I decided the exchange of cigarette smoke for fog didn't help and

flicked the cigarette away. It gleamed briefly for a moment and disappeared, and as I

turned to start asking the girl some questions my whole body suddenly froze into a

complete stillness.

The footsteps I heard were cautious ones. I could almost imagine the owner picking

his way carefully and not just because of the poor visibility either. This sort of walking was

deliberately quiet. I felt the girl's fingers touch and then hold my arm. We both pressed

ourselves back against the wreckage of the car and waited. I switched the torch off.

The dim outline of a man became clearer. He was wearing a cloak and under his

fur hat I could see his silver hair, surprisingly very long on the back of his neck and

touching the collar of his cloak. His head was bent down, peering at the ground and in his

hand he held a lighted match. He stopped suddenly, so near to us that I could have taken

three steps and stood next to him. I saw him bend down on one knee and pick up

something from the pavement. It was my cigarette.

All my concentration was directed towards the match he was holding. The strength

of its light never altered and the quality of it was far whiter than any match I'd ever seen

before. The other thing that puzzled me was that it didn't seem to be burning any lower.

Slowly he turned his head and the girl's hand gripped even harder on my arm. He

saw me first and then he looked at the girl beside me.

'What are you doing here?'

It was such an extraordinary question in the circumstances that I nearly burst out

laughing. He got up and stepped over to us, holding the match higher in his hand. I felt it

was up tome to say something.

'A girl's been hurt. We were looking for her.' He nodded slowly.

'A tragic business. The soldier in the lorry has been killed. You've been hurt, too,

young lady, by the look of you. You should be in bed.'

'Not until I've found Susan,' she said quietly, and the old man gave her a sharp,

almost startled look.

I couldn't stop myself any longer.

'What is that match thing? It never seems to burn down.'

'Just a little invention of mine,' he said easily and turned his attention to my

companion. 'What did you say happened to the girl?'

'She was hurt. I told you. I left her here on the pavement and went to get help.

When we came back she'd gone.'

'Made her own way home, perhaps?'

'That isn't very likely, is it?' I said. He waved a hand in the air, a gesture of

bewilderment.

'The young are so thoughtless.' I saw his eyes glinting with malicious amusement.

'Perhaps one of her family found her and took her home.'

I didn't understand why he should be amused and, what was worse, his whole

attitude was adding another layer of mystery to the business.

'Perhaps you'd like to help us look for her,' I said coldly. 'Better still, take us to your

house. We ought to ring for the police. All this wreckage on the road can cause another

accident.'

'I wouldn't worry about the girl. I'm sure she's in safe hands. As for a telephone, I'm

afraid my little nest doesn't possess such a thing.'

I tried to muster up all my patience. 'Then perhaps you could offer a hot drink and a

chair for this lady. She's been hurt too, as you said yourself.'

He looked at her and clicked his tongue in sympathy. It was the most insincere

sound I've ever heard in my life.

'The trouble is, I've lost my key. That's what I was looking for.' He shot a look at me

of such intense directness that I blinked. 'You haven't seen it, have you? Picked it up,

perhaps? It's brass. There may even be a piece of black tape attached to it.'

I pulled it out of my pocket. 'Yes, I picked this up.' His hand stretched out for it but I

closed my hand around it and looked at the girl.

'But you said it belonged to Susan.' She nodded. I turned my attention back to the

old man again. 'Apparently, she wore it around her neck. Now I'll tell you what I think.

You've found the girl, haven't you? And now for some reason or other you want this. Never

mind about anybody else being hurt or injured or anything.'

'Are you trying to give me a lecture on human behaviour, young man?' he said

sharply. 'I won't tolerate anything of that kind. You possess something that belongs to

somebody else. Please give it to me.'

'Yes, it does belong to someone else. And that someone doesn't happen to be you.

Have you taken that young girl somewhere?'

I spoke the last three words into the fog for the old man turned quickly and was

swallowed up. I could hear his running footsteps. I glanced at the girl and saw the

indecision in her eyes, but I wasn't in the mood to leave it all to speculation. I took her hand

firmly and she came with me without protest as we ran up the road after him. After a few

seconds I couldn't hear his footsteps any more and slowed down. I flashed the torch about

me and made out the square shape of what seemed to be a hut set back from the road on

the Common itself. I walked towards it and then both the girl and I stopped and stared at a

police telephone box.

'Now we're all right,' I muttered. The trouble was, I couldn't get the door open. I

banged my fist against the double doors in frustration.

'But these things ought to open,' I said angrily. 'What are they here for but to help

people in trouble.'

She said, 'What's it doing on the Common?'

I turned the light of the torch full on her face.

'I don't care about disappearing girls, strange old men or where the police choose

to put their telephone boxes.' I took a deep breath, struggling to control myself, and

managed to speak more reasonably. 'All I want is to finish with this business and get

home.' 'Yes, I'm sorry.'

I shut up for a minute, ashamed of losing my temper with her. It wasn't her fault

after all. In the pause, I heard a twig crack and I wheeled round, shining the torch in an arc.

The old man stepped forward.

'I see you've found the police box, young man,' he said cheerfully.

I stared at him for a few seconds, collecting my thoughts.

'And if I could open it, I'd have a squad car round here and let them get some

sense out of you.'

'Now, now, you mustn't lose control of yourself, you know. Locked, is it? How

extraordinary.'

His whole attitude was so friendly that I doubted my own memory of our first

meeting. He stepped over and looked at the girl beside me carefully.

'This appalling weather isn't helping you at all. And there's blood on your jacket.

Most distressing. You have a car, of course?'

I nodded, completely speechless at his change of manner. He rubbed his chin

reflectively.

'What I suggest is this. You take the young lady back to your car. Try and make her

comfortable. Then come back here with a crowbar or a jemmy or something and we'll try

and force open this door. Isn't that the wisest thing to do?'

'All right,' I said reluctantly and turned to the girl. 'If you agree?' She nodded. The

old man rubbed his hands together and beamed at us.

'Capital! Order and method, young man, there's nothing like it. Off you go now and

don't be long with that jemmy, will you?'

I turned to go, helping the girl as she nearly stumbled over the uneven ground. I

couldn't get rid of my suspicions of him and the more I thought about it, this sudden

geniality made it worse. I stopped and felt the girl's eyes on me. She must have seen

something in my face, a growing conviction that we were being fooled. She turned and

looked back. I heard her catch her breath and I turned as well.

The old man was holding up his lighted match, which still hadn't burned any lower

down the stem, and his other hand held a little sliver of metal which glittered. He put the

metal into the lock and the door started to swing open. At the same moment he turned and

looked at us. It was a look of malevolent cunning and triumph suddenly mixed with concern

that he had been caught out. I ran back towards him and caught him by the shoulder. The

doors continued to open slowly and a fierce, glowing radiance began to emanate from

behind them. I leapt at the old man and we fell heavily to the ground. I could hear him

snarling at me to let him go and not meddle in his affairs, but the words didn't make too

much impression on me because all I could think about was that whatever it might look like

from the outside, I knew perfectly well that this was no ordinary police box on Barnes

Common. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the girl go past me towards the opening doors.

'Stop her! Don't go through the doors,' the old man shouted desperately.

I heard another voice calling. 'Grandfather,' it said. The girl stopped at the open

doors. 'Susan! Susan, are you in there?' She turned and looked back at me and I held the

old man quiet for a moment. 'He must have put her in here.' She went through the doors.

The old man sobbed with anger and tore himself away from me, and then as we

both scrambled to our feet the scream echoed out from the telephone box and stopped us

both. He was the first to move but I gave him a sharp push and he staggered away and fell

again on one knee. I raced over to the box and ran through the doors.

The light closed around me and I screwed my eyes up in agony and threw my

hands up to my face. Almost at once, I tripped over something and fell headlong forward,

hitting my head with a sickening crash on the floor. Weary and half dazed, remaining

conscious only because of the memory of that pitiful scream, I tried to lift myself up on my

knees and gradually opened my eyes, hoping the blinding light might have lessened. What

I saw gave me a clarity greater than a bucket of freezing water tipped all over me.

The terrible glare had diminished down to the ordinary electric power of a well-lit

room, although I could see no evidence of any bulbs or fittings anywhere. The first real

shock was the immense size of the room around inc. This is a police telephone box, I kept

repeating to myself. Just a small box big enough to hold two or at the most three standing

people. I relaxed on my haunches and stared around and above me. I was in a room about

twenty feet in height and with the breadth and width of a middle-sized restaurant. I

calculated there would be room for at least fifty tables. In the centre was a six-sided control

panel, each of the six working tops covered with different-coloured handles and switches,

dials and buttons. In the centre of this panel was a round column of glass from which came

a pulsating glow. The walls were broken by serried ranks of raised circles, this pattern itself

being interrupted by banks of machines containing bulbs that flickered on and off. In one

corner I spotted a row of at least twenty tape-recording spools spinning round furiously,

while beneath them a similar number of barometric needles zig-zagged uneven courses

across moving drums of paper. To make this nightmare even more unbelievable, dotted

about the room were what looked to me like excellent copies of antique furniture. Here was

a magnificent Chippendale, there a Sheraton chair. A most elegant Ormulu clock stood on

a carved stand and beside it was another stand of marble upon which was a bust of

Napoleon.

I hit my head, I told myself. I've fallen in the telephone box and I'm imagining it all. I

tried closing my eyes and opening them again but it didn't make any difference except that

I became aware of the figure of a young girl staring at me. Her eyes were very dark and

she looked frightened. I noticed that her clothes were normal enough, dark ski trousers and

boots and a cherry-red sweater, although she was wearing a most extraordinary scarf tied

closely around her forehead. It had thick red and yellow stripes on it and made her look like

a pirate. I tried to smile, although the pain was back in my head where I'd hit it on the floor.

'Now I know this is a dream,' I said weakly. I heard a buzzing sound behind me.

'Close the doors, Susan.' It was the old man's voice. I saw the young girl move to

the control panel obediently and turn one of the switches. The buzzing increased and I

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

DoctorWhoandtheDaleksDavidWhitakerThisisDOCTORWHO’sfirstexcitingadventure–withtheDALEKS!IanChestertonandBarbaraWrighttravelwiththemysteriousDOCTORWHOandhisgrand-daughter,Susan,totheplanetofSkarointhespace-timemachine,Tardis.Theretheystrivetosavethepeace-lovingThalsfromtheevilintentionsofthehideousDA...

展开>> 收起<<

016 - Doctor Who and the Daleks.pdf

共90页,预览10页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

016 - Doctor Who and the Daleks

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: