Doctor Who BBCN17 - Sick Building by Doctor Who Read Free Book Online

get to his TARDIS and bring it safely here. Great! Nothing to it! Just the kind of stuff the Doctor liked to get up to!
    He hurried over to the pillar box which housed the force shield’s controls. Sonic at the ready. He could work out how it operated. Easy as.
    Ah. Then it struck him. The pillar box was on the other side of the shield. He smacked his palm to his forehead. Stupid Doctor. But there must be another one! There had to be, didn’t there?
    35

    He leapt into the shrubbery at the edge of the lawn and started thrashing through the thick undergrowth. There had to be a set of controls here somewhere! There just had to be! Otherwise. . . no one could get out, could they? And Solin had managed to get out into the wilderness, hadn’t he? So there had to be. . .
    And he found it. Hidden behind the overgrown branches and thick grass. Another pillar box. It was as if it wasn’t meant to be found.
    As if no one living in the Dreamhome had any business venturing out into the wicked woods.
    Well see about that, thought the Doctor grimly. He flung open the control panel, set his sonic to full power, and started messing about with the intricate innards of the box. A shower of sparks shot out and he laughed jubilantly. The crackling of the force shield increased in pitch. The Doctor jabbed at the wires a few extra times for good measure, and stood back slightly, nodding with satisfaction as a door-shaped aperture started to appear in the gauzy shields before him.
    This was it. It was opening up for him.
    ‘Doctor! Stop!’
    His head whipped round. ‘Whaaaat?’ And he cursed with frustration.
    ‘Doctor!
    This is forbidden!
    You may do anything you like in
    Dreamhome. . . but tampering with the force shield is expressly forbidden! Stop and desist!’
    The Doctor pulled a sullen face. ‘Are you sure, Stirpeek?’
    The bulky robot was hurtling across the lawn towards the Doctor, putting on a surprising turn of speed. He was accompanied by several other, very determined and outraged-looking Servo-furnishings. Their eyes were glowing an indignant red. All of them were shouting now; telling him to stop. Behind them, lights were popping on all over the Dreamhome, as alarms went off, and family members woke, alerted by the noise.
    How embarrassing, thought the Doctor. And then: ‘Oowwww!’ he cried out, as a hot laser bolt sizzled through the air. It knocked him back from the controls and made him drop his sonic in the grass. ‘Hey, hang on. . . ’ he shouted. That REALLY STUNG!’
    36

    Stirpeek and the others ringed him around and, all of sudden, they were menacing rather than comic. Stirpeek glided right up to the Doctor, who was forced to stare back at the ticking wheels and cogs of the robot’s brain. ‘Professor Tiermann has instructed us to punish anyone,’ Stirpeek told him politely, ‘who breaks the fundamental rules of Dreamhome. And what is more, we are fully authorised to kill.’
    37

    HewasledindisgracebytheServo-furnishingsbacktotheTiermann homestead. By now the whole Dreamhome was ablaze with light, and the whole family would be up, waiting for him.
    The Doctor hung his head as Stirpeek and the others led him along.
    Several of them had spiky metal appendages hooked into his clothes.
    When he tried to surprise them by bolting, whirling and trying to run, all he succeeded in doing was tearing one of the pockets of his coat, which made him even crosser.
    ‘I think you’ll find that it’s possibly rather better not to resist, Doctor,’ Stirpeek pointed out helpfully.
    Back in the drawing room, the Doctor was confronted by the whole Tiermann family, plus Martha. All were in dressing gowns and wore a range of expressions from outright fury to dismay and disappointment. Martha gave him a quizzical look and all he could do was shrug at her.
    At the moment all the Doctor could think about was the TARDIS.
    Now Tiermann would see to it that it would be impossible to get out there to retrieve it. I’ve really