Kinda by Terrance Dicks

Author:Terrance Dicks [Dicks, Terrance]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780426195290
Publisher: Target Books
Published: 1983-02-14T23:00:00+00:00

7

The Vision

The box opened.

A jack-in-the-box sprang out.

Its head, a miniature version of a Kinda devil mask, wobbled to and fro grinning at them.

Sanders was roaring with laughter, and the others were laughing too, though largely from relief.

Doctor Todd took the doll from out of the box. ‘Oh, is that all?’ she said delightedly.

The Doctor smiled. ‘Well, at least we’ve established one thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The Kinda have a sense of humour.’

Hindle’s frantic voice blared from the speaker. ‘What’s so funny? What’s happening?’

‘Absolutely nothing,’ said the Doctor cheerfully. He paused for a moment. ‘Wait!’

A sound was coming from the open box.

A single pure, high note that changed to strange, eerie wailing music, oddly reminiscent of the sound made by the wind-chimes.

All the electric power in the Dome faltered and died.

The lights went out, leaving the laboratory lit only by the shaft of sunshine that streamed through the window. The door to the cage clicked open.

The spy-camera cut out.

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Doctor Todd softly. ‘This is impossible.’ Her voice trailed away, and she sat staring into the distance.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was staring raptly into the darkness of the empty box.

He saw the jungle, mile upon mile of waving green vegetation.

He saw a group of Kinda gathering fruits.

He saw a woman carrying a baby at her breast. There was a white-haired old woman, incredibly old, beckoning from the mouth of a cave.

There was a young girl with her. She too was beckoning.

Both of them, the old woman and the young girl, standing in the cave mouth, calling him… He had to go to them. The music faded and the Doctor awoke. He looked round and saw that his companions were awakening too.

Sanders was overwhelmed, his face buried in his hands.

Doctor Todd looked rapt, transfigured.

‘I think it’s safe to assume we all three had roughly the same experience,’ said the Doctor. He looked at Doctor Todd. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Fine. Just fine.’

‘Not – different, in any way?’

‘No. What happened?’

‘Somehow the box linked us up with the Kinda… We were seeing the world through their eyes.’

She looked at Sanders who was sobbing quietly. ‘It certainly affected him.’

The Doctor nodded. With a personality as rigid as Sanders’, any kind of mystic experience was bound to have a shattering effect. And to undergo it twice… Somehow the layers of Sanders’ personality had been peeled away, leaving a defenceless child. ‘Shock. He’ll be all right.’ The Doctor jumped to his feet. ‘Come on.’

‘Where?’

‘You were quite right, Doctor Todd, this is not a planet of primitives. The answers we need are out there, in the jungle.’ He nodded towards the open door. ‘Come on. Leave the box here.’

They hurried away, out of the laboratory and down the corridor that led to the airlock.

The door to the main room was closed and from behind it came the sound of banging, and Hindle’s frantic voice.

‘Turn the light on! Turn the light on, please…’

The Doctor realised that since the main room had been illuminated only by artificial light, it must now be in pitch darkness – a terrifying experience for poor Hindle.

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