Doctor Who: The Doomsday Weapon

The young Time Lord sat at the side of the old Keeper of the Time Lords' Files at the control console. The old Keeper of the Files played his spindly fingers across the console's warmth-buttons, by touching the right combination of buttons he could project onto the screen before them any of the Time Lords' most secret files and records.

'These are the working-papers for the very first TARDIS,' the old Keeper said. He touched some warmth-buttons and the picture of a small square box showed on the screen. 'I often like to look at that, and to remember back into time.'

'Time has no meaning for us,' said the young Time Lord. 'It is neither forwards nor backwards.'

'For us as a species, no,' said the old Keeper. 'But for us as individuals there is a beginning, and, I regret, an end.' He spoke with feeling. He was now well over 2,000 years old. Soon this young Time Lord, a mere 573 years of age, would become the new Keeper of the Files.

The young Time Lord quickly changed the subject. 'The first TARDIS was very small,' he said.

'On the outside, yes,' said the old Keeper. 'Inside it could carry up to three persons, four with a squeeze. Later we built much bigger ones. There have been two stolen, you know.'

The young Time Lord didn't know. 'By our enemies?' he asked.

'No. By Time Lords. They both became bored with this place. It was too peaceful for them, not enough happening.' The old Keeper smiled to himself, as though remembering with some glee all the fuss when
two
TARDISes were stolen. 'One of them nowadays calls himself “the Doctor”. The other says he is “the Master”. The TARDIS stolen by the Doctor has a serious defect. Two defects, to be correct.'

'Then how was he able to get away with it?'

'Oh, it flew all right,' said the old Keeper. 'It could fly through Time and Space, through Matter and anti-Matter. But he can't direct it.'

'So he's lost in Time and Space?' asked the young Time Lord.

'Hardly.' The old Keeper was silent for a moment, and seemed almost about to drop off to sleep. The young Time Lord had become used to this and waited patiently. Suddenly the old Keeper's failing energies returned. 'Still, even if he cannot control it, others sometimes can.'

'I don't understand,' said the young Time Lord, 'what others? Who?'

'Who? No, Who can't control it... not always.' The old Keeper dropped his voice, and there was a faint smile on his 2,000-years-old lips. 'But others sometimes can.'

Obviously the question was not going to be answered. The young Time Lord hoped that eventually, perhaps in another thousand years, he would learn everything about the files and their secrets. For the time being though he had to be content with what the old Keeper cared to tell him.

'The other defect,' said the old Keeper, 'was that that particular TARDIS had lost its chameleon-like quality. It was in for repairs, you see - that's how the Doctor got his hands on it.'

'I don't understand about the chameleon quality,' said the young Time Lord, wishing he had taken over the job of the Files a few hundred years ago when the present Keeper was more lucid and awake and better able to explain things.

'It's a term we borrowed from a small, low-grade species of life on the planet Earth,' said the old Keeper, as though addressing a classroom. 'If a chameleon stands on the branch of a tree, it turns brown like the bark; but if it stands on a leaf, it turns green.'

'You mean TARDISes can change colour?'

'When they are working properly,' said the old Keeper, 'they change colour, shape, everything. From the beginning it was decided that a TARDIS must always look like something at home in its immediate background. You've never travelled, have you?'

'No, not yet.' The young Time Lord was a little ashamed to admit it.

'Pity. It broadens the mind.' The old Keeper seemed to drop off to sleep again for a moment, then he suddenly woke up with a start. 'I had to travel once. There were tens of thousands of humans from the planet Earth, stranded on another planet where they thought they were refighting all the wars of Earth's terrible history. The Doctor' - he interrupted himself - 'l told you about him, didn't I?'

'Yes,' said the young Time Lord, now used to the old Keeper forgetting what he had already said. 'You mentioned the Doctor and the Master.'

'No, it wasn't the Master,' said the old Keeper in his confused way. 'The Master never does anything good for anyone. He's thoroughly evil. Now what was I saying?'

The Young Time Lord reminded him. 'Humans on a planet refighting the wars of Earth's history.'

'Oh, yes. Well, the Doctor had done the best he could to stop it all. But in the end we had to step in and get all those poor soldiers back to Earth, and to all the right times in Earth's history.'

'And is that when you travelled?'

'That's right,' said the old Keeper, his eyes bright now with the memory of his one and only trip away from the planet of the Time Lords. 'I and many others. When it landed, my TARDIS turned into a machine-gun post.'

'What's that?'

The old Keeper glanced at the young Time Lord. 'Oh, dear, you
have
a lot to learn.' He seemed to forget the question, and went on, 'Anyway, TARDISes are supposed to change colour and shape, but the one stolen by the Doctor stays all the time looking like a London police box.' Before the young Time Lord could speak, the old Keeper added quickly 'And don't ask me what that is because I have no idea, not what they are for. Where were we?'

The young Time Lord indicated the small box on the screen. 'The working-papers for the original TARDIS.'

'Then that's enough of that,' said the old Keeper, taking his finger from the 'hold' button. Instantly, the picture on the screen vanished. 'It's time we had a break now, don't you think? I don't want to overwork you.'

'We've only just started this session of tuition,' said the young Time Lord. 'But if you're tired...'

The old Keeper sat up straight. 'Not at all!' He thrust a slender white hand into a pocket of his robe, fumbled about and brought out a scrap of paper. On it were mathematical symbols. 'I made some notes here of things you ought to know about. Let me see...' The young Time Lord watched as the old Keeper screwed up his watery eyes to read the symbols. 'Ah, yes,' said the old Keeper, 'the Doomsday Weapon. You must know about the Doomsday Weapon.' He put the scrap of paper back into his pocket, then spread both hands across the warmth-buttons.

The young Time Lord asked, 'I take it we have this weapon in safe keeping?'

'No,' said the old Keeper. 'It's not necessary. It is hidden on a distant and remote planet, a hiding-place known only to us.' He poised his fingers over a new combination of warmth-buttons.

'Why is it called Doomsday?'

'Because,' said the old Keeper, 'that is its name. Anybody controlling that terrible weapon could bring instant doom to large sections of the Universe. It radiates anti-Matter at a million times the speed of light.' He nodded his head at a button in the top left-hand corner of theconsole. 'Could you put your finger over that button, please. It's a safety measure, so that no one person with only two hands can activate the combination to produce the file on the Doomsday Weapon.'

The young Time Lord poised an index finger over the button.

'Now lower your finger,' said the old Keeper, 'as I lower mine.'

The old Keeper lowered his fingers onto a pattern of buttons, and the young Time Lord brought his index finger down gently onto the one remote button. Then they looked up at the screen. Printing appeared and it read: 'TOP SECRET. EXACT WHEREABOUTS OF THE DOOMSDAY WEAPON, AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE.'

'That's just the title-page of the file,' said the old Keeper. 'Move your finger to the next button on the right'

The young Time Lord moved his index finger along to the adjacent button. Instantly, the printing disappeared and the screen went blank.

'All right,' said the old Keeper. 'Now touch the button.'

The young Time Lord touched the button. One line of bold handwriting appeared on the screen from the first inside page of the secret file. It said: '
Thank you for letting me know where to find the Doomsday Weapon. - The Master.
'

The three most superior Time Lords, known simply as the First, Second, and Third Time Lords, sat round a small oval table in their meeting-room. On the table before them was the report from the Keeper pf the Files, which included the Master's message.

'At least the Master has a sense of humour,' said the Third Time Lord.

'He is also exceedingly dangerous and vicious,' said the Second Time Lord. 'If he finds the Doomsday Weapon he can control the entire Universe through terror.'

The First Time Lord turned to a microphone set by his chair. 'Status report on the Master,' he said. Within a moment a voice answered from a loudspeaker in the ceiling above them.

'Last monitored on planet Earth,' said the voice. 'Late twentieth century Earth Time.'

'Earth?' said the Second Time Lord. 'Isn't that where we exiled the Doctor?'

'Yes,' said the First Time Lord, 'because he interfered too much in the destinies of other species.' He turned to the microphone again. 'Status report on the Doctor.'

The voice from the ceiling answered: 'Exiled to planet Earth by the High Tribunal, late twentieth century Earth Time.'

'I think,' said the First Time Lord, 'we might use the Doctor to deal with this problem.'

'Never,' said the Third Time Lord. 'He will not help us. He resents his exile too much.'

'That's true,' said the Second Time Lord. 'We also immobilised his TARDIS, taking away his freedom to move in Space and Time.'

'Then,' said the First Time Lord, 'we have no alternative but to restore his freedom.'

'Never!' exclaimed the Second Time Lord. 'If we seek his help he will hold it over us for ever more, and if we restore his freedom we shall have no control over him!'

The First Time Lord listened patiently to the outburst. Then he spoke quietly. 'We shall only let him
think
he is free again. We shall let his TARDIS fly, but only where we want it to fly.'

'What about afterwards?' asked the Third Time Lord.

'If the Doctor is unsuccessful; said the First Time Lord, 'and is killed by the Master, or by those who protect the Doomsday Weapon, there will be no afterwards. Only time will tell.' He smiled at his own joke, and the other two Time Lords respectfully smiled with him.

Jo Grant squeezed her white mini between the Brigadier's big black staff-car and a military half-track vehicle in the UNIT car-park, got out and walked purposefully towards the main administration block. Overnight she had come to a big decision, either the Doctor must give her some work to do, or she was going to hand in her resignation.

It was really her uncle's fault. While still at school she decided what she most wanted to do, to become a spy. One half-term she took herself to London and sought out her uncle who worked as a Senior Civil Servant for the Government. 'I want to be a spy,' she said. He laughed, and sent out one of his many secretaries to buy her an ice-cream. 'There really
are
spies,' she insisted earnestly, 'and I want to be one.' She never knew whether her uncle took her completely seriously, or just wanted to please her, but the day she left school a letter arrived inviting her an interview at the Security Training Establishment, somewhere in Surrey. She was accepted, and spent a year learning how to code and decode, how to speak two foreign languages, and how to read economic reports on wheat and oil production. At the end of the year she was given top marks, and told that her training was over. She was then offered a job as a filing clerk in the British Embassy in Bangkok .

Furious, Jo went to see her uncle again. 'I don't call
that
being a spy,' she complained. Her uncle tried to explain, most 'spying' in the world was carried on by clerks working in embassies; in fact most embassies, British and foreign, existed in order to send home reports on the economy of the country in which they were situated. It was dull, routine work. 'You should have explained that a year ago,' she said. 'I want an exciting job, and I don't mind if it's dangerous.' Her uncle thought for a moment, then said, 'How would you like to work for the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce?' She asked, 'What does it do?' 'Ah,' said the uncle, 'that's rather secret! But I'll have a word with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. He's the man for you to see.'

A week later she was seated before the handsome Brigadier in his office at UNIT Headquarters. From the start of the interview, she realised he didn't really want her on his staff. He was very polite, but it was clear he was only taking her on because her uncle had asked him. 'We have a chap here,' he said, 'called “the Doctor”. He needs an assistant. That could be you.' She said, 'I don't know anything about medicine.' The Brigadier looked puzzled, then laughingly exclaimed, 'Oh, not
that
kind of Doctor. He's a scientist. You can start on Monday if you like.' With that the interview ended.