Doctor Who and an Unearthly Child

'All right, that is what we'll do,' said Ian defiantly. 'Come on, Barbara, you can watch from the car, while I go and find a policeman.'

They were about to move away when the door to the police box was opened from the inside.

Susan's voice called, 'What are you doing out there, grandfather?'

The old man sprang towards the police box with tigerish speed.

'Close the door!' he shouted. He grabbed the door, obviously intending to slam it again, but Ian was too quick for him, and grabbed his arm, trying to pull him away. Despite his age, the old man was amazingly strong, and he almost succeeded in throwing Ian off. Barbara came and joined in, and somehow, struggling wildly, Ian and Barbara stumbled into the police box - and straight into sheer impossibility.

3

The TARDIS

Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton stood gazing around them in disbelief, their brains refusing to take in the evidence of their eyes and ears.

They should have been inside an enclosed cupboard-sized space - but they were not. Instead, they stood inside a large, brightly lit control room. It was dominated by a many-sided central structure which seemed to consist of a number of instrument banks arranged round a transparent central column packed with complex machinery.

Strangest of all were the incongruous objects dotted about here and there. They included a number of old-fashioned chairs and the statue of some kind of bird on top of a tall column. Beside it stood Susan, looking at them in utter amazement.

Ian blinked incredulously, his mind filled with a wrenching sense of unreality. He heard the old man say calmly, 'Close the door, Susan.'

Susan touched a control on the central console, and the door closed with an eerie electronic hum.

The old man took off his cloak and hat, and tossed them onto a chair. The clothes beneath were even more eccentric (check trousers with old-fashioned boots, and a kind of frock-coat worn with a cravat and a high-wing collar). The general effect was that of a family solicitor from some nineteenth-century novel. Like the statue and the padded chairs, the old man looked strangely out of place in this ultra-technological setting.

But he was obviously quite at home here. Rubbing his bony hands together, he looked disapprovingly at the two intruders. 'I believe these people are known to you, Susan?'

'They're two of my school teachers.' Susan seemed almost as astonished as Barbara and Ian. 'What are you doing here?'

'Presumably they followed you,' said the Doctor acidly. 'That ridiculous school! I knew something like this would happen if we stayed in one place too long.'

'But why should they follow me?'

'Ask them,' said the old man. He turned away to study a row of instruments on the central console.

Barbara looked around the astounding room, and then back at Susan. 'Is this place really your home, Susan?'

'Yes... well, at least, it's the only home I have now.'

The old man looked up. 'And what's wrong with it?'

Ian rubbed his eyes and blinked - but nothing changed. 'But it was just a police box.'

The old man smiled. 'To you, perhaps,' he said condescendingly.

Barbara said, 'And this is your grandfather?'

'Yes.'

Barbara turned to the old man. 'So you must be Doctor Foreman?'

The old man smiled. 'Not really. The name was on the notice-board, and I borrowed it. It might be best if you were to address me simply as Doctor.'

'Very well, then - Doctor. Why didn't you tell us who you were?'

'I don't discuss my private life with strangers,' said the Doctor haughtily.

Ian was still struggling to understand the central mystery. 'But it was just a police box! I walked all round it. Barbara, you saw me.

How come it's bigger on the inside than on the outside?'

'You don't deserve any explanations,' said the Doctor pettishly.

'You pushed your way in here, uninvited and unwelcome...'

'Now, just a minute,' said Ian doggedly. 'I know this is absurd.

It was just a police box, I walked all round it. I just don't understand...'

The Doctor was fiddling with one of the controls. 'Look at this, Susan,' he said querulously. 'It's stopped again. I've tried to repair it, but...' He broke off, shooting a malicious glance at Ian. 'No, of course, you don't understand. How could you?'

'But I want to understand,' shouted Ian.

The Doctor waved him away. 'Yes, yes... By the way, Susan, I managed to find a replacement for that portofilio. It was quite a job, but I think it'll serve...'

Ian pounded his fists against the walls of the room. 'It's an illusion, it must be.'

The Doctor sighed. 'What is he talking about now?'

'Ian, what are you doing?' whispered Barbara.

'I don't know,' said Ian helplessly.

The Doctor smiled maliciously at Ian's confusion. 'You don't understand, so you find excuses for yourself. Illusion, indeed! See here, young man. You say you can't fit a large space inside a small one? So you couldn't fit an enormous building into a little room?'

'No,' said Ian. 'No, you couldn't.'

'But you've invented television by now, haven't you?' said the Doctor.

'Yes.'

'So - by showing an enormous building on your television screen, you can do something you said was humanly impossible, can't you?'

'Well, yes, in a sense,' said Ian doubtfully. 'But all the same...'

The old man cackled triumphantly. 'Not quite clear, is it? I can see by your face that you're not certain, you don't understand. I knew you wouldn't. Never mind!' The Doctor seemed positively delighted by Ian's lack of comprehension. He fiddled with the control console, muttering to himself. 'Now, which switch was it? This one - no, this one.' He looked up at Ian and Barbara. 'The point is not so much whether you understand what has already happened to you, it's what's going to happen to you. You could tell everyone about the ship - and we can't have that.

'Ship?' asked Ian, more confused than ever.

'Yes, ship,' said the Doctor sharply. 'This thing doesn't roll along on wheels, you know.'

'You mean it moves?' asked Barbara.

Susan nodded proudly. 'The TARDIS can go anywhere in Time and Space.'

'TARDIS? I don't understand you, Susan.'

'Well, I made the name up, actually. TARDIS, from the initials. Time and Relative Dimension in Space. Don't you understand? The dimensions inside are different from those outside.'

Ian drew a deep breath. 'Just let me get this straight. A thing that looks like a police box standing in a junk yard... and it can travel in Time and Space?'

'Yes,' said Susan.

'Quite so,' confirmed the Doctor briskly.

'But that's ridiculous!'

Susan looked in anguish at the old man. 'Why won't they believe us?'

'Well, how can we?' said Barbara patiently. 'It's so obviously impossible.'

Susan stamped her foot in frustration, and the Doctor chuckled.

'Now, don't get exasperated, Susan. Remember the Red Indian when he saw his first steam train - his savage mind probably thought it was an illusion too!'

'You're treating us like savages,' said Ian bitterly. 'Savages or children!'

The Doctor gave his infuriatingly superior smile. 'Am I? The children of my civilisation would be insulted!'