Part 1 (2/2)

Adric and the Doctor were walking quickly back through the maze of corridors to the TARDIS console room. It still puzzled Adric how the Doctor managed to find his way around the vast craft without a map.

'Earth's the planet with all the oceans, isn't it?' Adric asked as the Doctor paused at a junction of three identical pa.s.sages.

'That's the chap.'

'It sounds wet.'

The Doctor set off again with long shambling steps that made it hard for Adric to keep up. 'Wet it is,' he said. 'At least, where we're going.'

The Doctor had explained once already about the blue boxes, but it hadn't made much sense to Adric. A lot of what the Doctor said was like that. According to the Doctor the blue boxes looked more or less like the TARDIS, but weren't. They had no s.p.a.cious accommodation, no viewer screens, and they didn't time-travel . . . Adric didn't see why the Earth people bothered having them.

The corridor had petered out into a narrow pa.s.sage. The Doctor stopped in front of a door. 'They're a sort of elementary communications device. Telephone boxes, from the Greek. 'Tele' meaning 'a long way', and 'phone' meaning 'sound', and 'box' meaning . . .

' The Doctor opened the door. It was a small cupboard. 'Meaning we're lost . . .'

They weren't really, but the Doctor had to ask Adric not to ask any more questions while he concentrated on finding the way. It was quite some time before they were back in the console room, and the Doctor was able to resume a calm explanation of his idea about going to Earth.

'I see,' said Adric. 'We're going to visit one of these boxes that are like the TARDIS.' It sounded to him like another of the Doctor's typically batty schemes.

'You're getting your topsy mixed up with your turvy,' the Doctor corrected. 'The TARDIS is very like it it! The blue box is what the mathematical model of the TARDIS exterior is based on.'

The Doctor was at the console, busily setting the co-ordinates for Earth. Even after several adventures with the Doctor there was so much Adric didn't understand about the Time Lord and his technology - but he wanted to, very much.

'Block transfer computation,' the Doctor explained when he had finished at the console.

A frown creased the smooth young face at his shoulder. 'I've never heard of that.'

Adric's precocious seriousness amused the Doctor. 'No reason why you should.

Logopolis is a quiet little place - keeps itself to itself.'

'Logopolis? But I thought we were going to Earth.'

'No, Logopolis is the other place. We take the measurements there afterward.'

Adric was by now thoroughly confused. 'We're going to measure Logopolis?'

'We measure the police box on Earth and then take the measurements to Logopolis...'

said the Doctor patiently. Catching sight of the boy's blank expression he had the tact to add: 'I'm afraid I'm not explaining this very well. It's all to do with the problem of the chameleon circuit...'

Adric opened his mouth, on the point of voicing another question. But at that moment the console room echoed to the sound of what might have been a big clock bell, deep-toned and stately. It seemed to be coming from a very long way away, and yet at the same time was somehow sinisterly present in the room.

The Doctor stopped dead, as if rooted to the spot. The expression on the Time Lord's face sent a s.h.i.+ver up the boy's spine, and he froze too, and listened.

It was the first but not the last time Adric was to hear the cloister bell.

The traffic became heavier as they approached London, but Aunt Vanessa's little car was going splendidly. Tegan enjoyed the rush of wind in her hair and the feel of the engine under her control. She'd been a natural driver ever since the age of ten, when her father had first lifted her onto the springy steel saddle of the tractor on their sheep farm in Australia.

Driving was great. But flying - that was really travelling. Tegan took her eyes off the road for a moment to glance up at the big blue canopy of the sky that seemed to go up and up without limit above them. Cars were all right, they got you moving, but they did keep you stuck on the one level, reminding you that you were just a little human being like everybody else with your feet in your shoes and your shoes on the ground.

'Tegan! Look out!' Aunt Vanessa's voice broke abruptly into her meditations.

The lorry was the size of a brontosaurus compared with Aunt Vanessa's little mouse of a sports car, and it was cutting in, straight across them, closing in from the middle lane.

Tegan slammed on the brakes and wrenched the wheel over. The lorry pa.s.sed in front of them with only inches to spare and travelled on towards London lumberingly unaware of the terror it had caused. With a screech of rubber the sports car thumped into the curb and came to a halt.

'Oh, rabbits!' Tegan exclaimed, jumping out. Through the windscreen she saw Aunt Vanessa's face peeping out from its nest of white fur in dazed indignation. 'I'm sorry, Aunt, honestly. I'm usually a pretty good driver.'

There wasn't any damage done to the body-work, but when Tegan saw the front nearside tyre her heart sank. 'Aunt Vanessa, it's a blow out.'

The elderly bundle of fur extracted itself from the pa.s.senger seat to have a look. 'So it is. Dear me.' She was taking it quite sportingly, considering, Tegan thought. 'Well,' said Aunt Vanessa, 'what do we do now?'

Unknown to them that question was already decided. Perhaps Fate is always lying in wait a few yards up the road; in this case for Tegan and her Aunt Vanessa it was already in view. If they hadn't both been hypnotised by the immediate but relatively trivial flat-tyre disaster that loomed so large in their minds, they could have spotted it from where they stood.

It took the unusual shape of a blue police box. An abandoned bicycle was leaning against it, the small door that housed the telephone was open, and from it dangled the receiver on the end of its cord.

Adric listened. Apart from the wheezing of the time column as it heaved up and down in the middle of the console, all was quiet. Adric found himself oddly disappointed. 'The cloister bell's stopped.'

The Doctor nodded gravely.

'What does it mean, Doctor?'

'Nothing very much when it's not sounding.' The Doctor was trying to make a joke of it, but Adric could see that the Time Lord regarded the cloister bell as far from funny.

'But something must have made it ring?'

The Doctor bristled at the question. 'Not necessarily. It could well be our old friend entropy crumbling away at the systems circuitry. We'd better check the main logic junction.'

With a quick glance at the console to make sure the flight to Earth was on track, the Doctor swept out of the console room. Adric followed.

'Is that something to do with the chameleon circuit you were telling me about?' Adric asked.

The Doctor said that it wasn't, and went on to explain that while he didn't mind being pestered with questions in the normal course of events - didn't mind at all, in fact found the boy's ceaseless interrogation of anything and everything rather stimulating - there were times (and this was one of them) when whys were unwise and silence was golden . . .

They travel ed down the corridors without saying another word, and the Doctor wrapped his own dark thoughts around himself, with faint sighs and mumbles escaping his lips from time to time.

Eventually they came to a large oval arch set into the wal of the corridor. It framed a kind of panel made of a translucent material that Adric discovered to be oddly heavy as he helped the Doctor lift it down. Behind the panel was what looked like a ma.s.s of fine grey hair, except that if you looked closely you could see that each hair had a tiny light that moved up and down its length. The effect was dazzling; the thing seemed to be alive.

The Doctor poked the hair with his finger, and the lights flickered in response.

'Nothing wrong with the main logic junction, then.' He signalled to Adric to help him put the panel back. 'Well, if the intermittent fault wasn't inside the TARDIS it must be outside the TARDIS. Someone must be trying to get in touch with us. Long way away, poor reception.'

They began walking back the way they had come. The Doctor turned to Adric, as if seeking a second opinion. 'Don't you think?'

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