X-NEWS: spcvxb.spc.edu junk: 544702 Xref: spcuna junk:544702 Path: spcuna!rutgers!noao!asuvax!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uknet!gdt!ch0mpc From: ch0mpc@midge.bath.ac.uk (M P Clifton) Newsgroups: alt.drwho.creative Subject: The Five Doctors Cabaret Extravaganza part 2 Message-ID: Date: 19 Jan 94 18:03:42 GMT Organization: School of Chemistry, University of Bath, UK Lines: 330 ******************************************************************************* ** The All-Singing, All-Dancing Five Doctors Pro-Am Cabaret Extravaganza ** ** part two ** ** (c) Matt Clifton 1994 ** ******************************************************************************* The building was one of those huge, sprawling Victorian mansions that looked like it would have felt perfectly at home surrounded by young Oxbridge graduates in flannel trousers and striped cardies, saying things like, 'That Miss Marple is a wonder, Mother, wherever did you find her? Instead, the reality was substantially less romantic. Two overalled workmen stood by the brick facade, frantically scrubbing at a large green mark that covered a great deal of the wall. A well-built, uniformed man passed by and frowned at the workers. "Managed to get that Krynoid stain off yet?", he asked them, and then ran into the building, cackling. One of the workers - his name was Smitt - turned to the camera, holding a labelled bottle of some liquid up to the watching viewers. "Do those genetically-grown alien life-forms leave stubborn, greasy stains and stale odours - even at high temperatures? Try new Spazzon...and smell the difference." The two men sniffed the wall and miming birdflight, flapped off into the bushes. No, I don't know why. Inside, the officer joined another in a warm, cosy office. Which is a pretty nifty place for an officer to be, semantically speaking...neither of them were actually Jewish, but still. Nifty all the same. Colonel Crichton, for he it was, poured his guest another large whisky and regained his seat in the smaller of the two armchairs. He had tried sitting in the other for a while, but it hadn't really worked ; the Brigadier had complained, for a start, mostly because he'd been sitting in it at the time. It had taken a couple of army helicopters to airlift the retired Brigadier's moustache into the building ; they had had to take out the ceiling first, and even then it had only just managed to scrape through. "Ah...", he relaxed in the chair, sipping what little remained of his whisky after the vast majority had been swiftly absorbed by the tash. "Can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to this reunion, old chap." "You mean the Thousand and Three Club reunion?" The Thousand and Three club was an in-house society comprising only members of UNIT who had successfully destroyed that number of aliens. Extra points were earned if a) the entire extraterrestrial species was wiped out, or b) the aliens were completely peaceful and fun-loving who only wanted to come to Earth for macrame lessons. The older man smiled, and the far distant tips of his moustache dislodged flakes of plaster. "Oh no. I mean the reunion of as many old companions and foes as the BBC budget could run to for this 20th anniversary Doctor Who story." There was a pause, during which the Colonel stared with interest at the scene going on behind the cameras. "I say Alistair," he remarked at length. "If that short, bearded man in the Hawaiian tee-shirt keeps ripping up contracts at that rate, before very long he'll be directing a monologue." ********************************************************************* Outside, Bodkin and Smitt had almost cleansed the stone cladding of the slimy green covering, and were sitting with their backs against it, slurping tea and munching sandwiches. "What's that funny thing up there?" asked Bodkin, pointing. Smitt looked up. "Oh, that's only one of them flying black triangles. I expect it'll be wanting the Doctor for its master the Lord President Borusa of Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborus, who intends to gain immortality. Nothing to worry about." Bodkin smiled slowly, and nodded. He nodded again, and stood, gesturing all the while with his hands in a desperate attempt to pacify the other man. "Yes, OK..right...yup..er, why don't you stay here, and I'll go and get some of my friends...perhaps they can be your friends too?" Saying this, he turned and fled, making 'Woo, woo' sounds while tapping his index finger against his temple. Funny, he hadn't thought his friend had been working that hard. As he headed for the sick bay to report his finding to a doctor, he detected an unusual noise that appeared to be coming from the shrubbery. It was an ululating, elephantine sound that peaked, and then stopped altogether. As he watched, a strange, lumpy sort of fellow in a camel-hair coat emerged from the bushes, and ambled toward him. Then he realised it was a camel. Running after him was a shortish fellow with a unkempt crop of black hair and a face wrinkled like a prune. "Don't just stand there man...give me a hand with this thing!" the man appeared to say...and as a cohort of blue hippos started to tap dance over the horizon and sing selected tracks from West End stage shows, Bodkin thought it might be a good time to faint. ****************************************************************** "There was one chap we tried to get hold of", continued Colonel Crichton, refilling his glass. The Brigadier held his own out with a hopeful expression, but without avail. "Hmm? Who?" Crichton sat with a grunt. "Bob Monkhouse. Wonderful after-dinner speeches, or so I'm told. Unfortunately, in every other social respect, he's an utter wanker. So we didn't invite him.' Lethbridge-Stewart chuckled amiably. This had an almost devastating effect on the walls of the room, two of which fell down completely under the demolitive action of his moustache. A plaster-bleached hand emerged from the subsequent pile of rubble, and Smitt pulled himself out of it, shook himself down, and glaring at the two officers, exited rapidly. "Oh dear", frowned the Colonel. "It'll take a while to get that straightened out." "Sort of thing my old Scientific Adviser would have dealt with" replied the Brigadier, remembering those hilarious, madcap, offbeat, days of wacky, zany alien invasions, tongue-in-cheek UNIT firefights, and hard-hitting drama from the pen of the award-winning Lynda La Plante...not. Just then, a sombreroed camel wandered into the office, ambled about a bit, rummaged through some documents, belched into the wastepaper basket and trotted out through the patio doors. Such was the closed nature of the military mind, however, that neither of the men took any notice. When the short, fur-coated man entered the room, however, the Colonel recognised a clear threat to security and shot him with a Luger. Fortunately, Crichton being the worst shot since Howard the Pinball Spastic (not blind, deaf or dumb, but completely, utterly shite at pinball and everything else requiring the use of opposable thumbs), he missed by a furlong, hitting instead the horse currently leading in the Derby and giving an unintentional boost to the dog-food, glue and car seat cover industries. "Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart!", exclaimed the newcomer, and shook his friend's hand with such ferocity that it threatened to come off. "Who is this?", repeated Crichton insistently. "This is the Doctor. Well, one of 'em, anyway. No, it's alright", he continued, "you can put the phone down. You see - ha,ha - this may look like a human being but he is in fact -" There was a knock at the door. "Come", instructed Crichton. (Note that if this were a Star Trek : The Next Generation parody we could make some amusing joke about standing too near the replicator when saying that, but we shan't.) The door opened to Bodkin, the labourer, who wrung his hands nervously and looked forlorn at the commanding officer. "I was heading for the medical section, sir, only -" The Brigadier didn't seem to register the entrance. "...an alien Time Lord from outer space who possesses unique properties of extreme longevity and bodily regeneration and he's defeated Daleks and Cybermen, oh, and those bloody Martian johnnies..." The Colonel turned to Bodkin. "Something you wanted, man?" Bodkin gaped, open-mouthed, at the men. "Uh - no, actually...it can wait." He literally ran out of the room and slammed the door after him. A high-pitched, drawn out scream emanated from the outer office, followed by a gunshot. "Ug", pointed out Crichton succinctly. He was out of his depth. "Yes, well, perhaps we ought to pop out for a stroll", said the Doctor genially. Tugging his aged friend out of the patio doors by the end of his mighty 'tash, the two old soldiers made their way down the path - for once, without the aid of surgical supports. "What brings you here, my friend?", whispered the Brigadier laryngitically, donning his Lee Van Cleef fedora and chewing on an unlit cigarillo. He flicked a gold, tune-playing fobwatch from a waistcoat pocket and observed the Doctor through suspicious, narrowed eyes. "Well, me old Briggy, just thought I'd pop in and find out what a mess you're going to make of today's speech." Gleefully he produced from the folds of his coat a copy of the Times bearing tomorrow's date and waved it under the other's nose.The headline ran, 'Military Figure Blunders in Army Reunion.' Lethbridge-Stewart shook his jowls at the publication. "Blunder?" He scanned down the page. "What's this it says here about a small, fur-coated man running away giggling?" The paper was snatched away. "Never mind. More to the point, the TARDIS sensors detected another of those irritating little Death Zone transport devices, wandering around here somewhere." "What- one of those little..." "Little black trigonal devices, yeah, that's it. Bloody things." "What, like that one." "Yeah, just like that one." There was a pause. The Doctor blinked. "What one?" The Brigadier pointed. "That one." "Runnnnn!!!!!!!", screamed the Time Lord, yanking the Brigadier down the path towards the waiting TARDIS. "No, I've got a better idea. Let's run for a while and then stop. That'll fool the flying black triangle." These were the Brigadier's last coherent words before his gargantuan mass of lip hair, which had been dragging behind him on the ground, snagged on a bush. Giving a cry, he was pulled back into the undergrowth, and viciously set upon by a travelling horde of performing badgers, whose home it was, along with several of the younger members of the clan, that he had just squashed. Luckily the black triangle finished him off before they did. When it had finished, it did the Doctor in too. Licking its lips, it belched and then spotted the badgers. ********************************************************************* "WELL?" "Yes, yes, yes, just let me finish this level." "OPTIMUM TARGET TIME IS IMMINENT" "Mmm, yeah, hang on a sec, look, nearly done." "MAY I MAKE -" "See! See! I got the flying penguin that time!" "MAY I MAKE THE SUGGESTION THAT THE ACQUISITION OF ALL THE EMBODIMENTS OF THE BEING KNOWN AS 'THE DOCTOR' TO FURTHER YOUR QUEST FOR IMMORTALITY HOLDS PRIORITY OVER YOUR COMPLETION OF THE FIFTH LEVEL OF 'CAPTAIN NINJA AND THE HELL-ZNARKS'" Cursing, Borusa left the computer terminal and wheeled his seat over to the main console area. He studied figures on the screen while the computer voice clicked its synthesised teeth impatiently. "Mmm", muttered the Lord President. "Seems to me that we could do with a couple more transport devices on Earth. South London and Somerset areas. Execute." "AS INSTRUCTED" With a groan, Borusa raised himself up and walked over to the Gameboard. It was a tabletop representation of the Death Zone ; a circular affair with the central tower piercing up into the sky and several figurines dotted liberally about the landscape. Of these, most notable were those of the first and second Doctors and Susan. Least notable was that of the Brigadier, chiefly because the original piece had been stamped on and Borusa had had to improvise with a Subbuteo piece glued to a rats tail. He snorted, returning to his seat and operating a sequence of keys. "Now for the TARDIS", he whispered. "WHAT?" "I said...now for the TARDIS", repeated the President in a louder voice. "VERY WELL" The computer carried out the instructions it had been given, but deep in its electronic core it thought: Why doesn't he talk properly? ********************************************************************** Extract from 'Time Lords and How to Live with Them: A Compilation Guide by Lord Justice Flares! of Snoddingham-Farkly' ; Chapter Three: What to Do if One of his Other Selves Has Been Sucked into the Vortex by a Power-Crazed Council Member, Say, the President.' "...with the marrow. Pre-regenerative flashbacks are common ; these can be particularly embarrassing if the attack occurs at a social gathering and the sufferer used to be Danny Baker. The subject may hold the erroneous belief that he is being persecuted; he may turn violent, which is why it is not advised to wind him up with prank phone calls from 'Rassilon'. The wisest course of action is an immediate period of rest in a Zero Environment, or, if none is available, an enforced viewing of selected titles from the third series of Blakes Seven. If such action is not taken, the condition may worsen, and possibly develop into an illness known as the Oppressed Negro Syndrome..." - "I ain't dun nothin', man, I'm-a-jus' goin' down the I of O-Rion, man, don't hit me agin', man..." Turlough took Tegan's arm and led her aside. "What's wrong with him?" "I don't know", replied the girl, "but I think we should get him into the TARDIS before he starts on the chaingang songs." The Doctor seated himself on a rock, and the others flanked him, ready to cosh him over the head and run away with his money if his condition deteriorated. "I am being diminished", he began in a barely audible whisper. "A man is the sum of his memories, you know, a Time Lord even more so." Turlough frowned. "What does that mean?" "I can't remember", replied the Doctor. So saying, his right leg vanished. He stared, rather surprised, at the space where it had been and felt around with his hand, in vain, for any remnant of the limb. Oh well - no more laughing at Nabil Shaban jokes for him. Turlough glanced down at the Time Lord. "Where's the key?", he asked. "I...can't quite recall." "Right. We'll drag him to the TARDIS. You take his left arm. I'll take his right.", instructed Turlough. Tegan moved to comply, then: "Er...what left arm?" This proved a problem that seemed insuperable until Turlough made the suggestion that they balance the Doctor, spit-like, between them with his remaining limbs wrapped around their necks. "Hurry", groaned Tegan. "He may worsen at any moment." "Yes", the boy replied. "This has already cost him an arm and a leg." They only realised how ill the Doctor was by the fact that he laughed. END OF PART TWO -- ***************************************************************************** * Doctor: The fluid link's run out of mercury, see? * * Ian: No it _hasn't_. The Daleks (original script) * *******Random Grouch**************************ch0mpc@midge.bath.ac.uk********