Free Doctor Who: Space War by Malcolm Hulke

appeared. Using all his energy, the Doctor tried to overcome the pain. Then, suddenly, the mind probe machine blew a fuse. Smoke billowed out from it. The technician switched off immediately.
    ‘General Williams,’ said the terrified technician, ‘I think he’s destroyed the machine.’
    Williams stepped back and regarded Doctor. ‘Then we shall destroy him.’
    Jo stood before the President’s desk. ‘But I keep telling you the truth. You just won’t believe me.’
    The President smiled. ‘Sit down, my dear.’
    Jo sat.
    ‘Naturally you wish to be loyal to your friend,’ continued the President, her voice kind. ‘But your first loyalty is to Earth. Don’t you want to help prevent a terrible war?’
    ‘Of course we do. But someone else is trying to start it, not the Draconians.’
    The President maintained her smile. ‘How I wish I could believe you. But we have so many eye-witnesses to Draconian attacks. They’ve made two attempts now to rescue you from custody.’
    ‘The first time was Draconians,’ Jo admitted. ‘But the second time it was Ogrons.’
    The President shook her head regretfully. ‘I am trying to help you, but you insist on these lies! The telephone flashed and she answered. ‘Yes?’
    A girl’s voice said, ‘General Williams to see you, Madam President.’
    ‘Send him in, please.’ She turned back to Jo. ‘I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.’
    ‘I very much want to help myself,’ said Jo. ‘But you wouldn’t believe my answers even if I gave them to you.’
    General Williams entered through the round door. ‘Madam President, the man’s made a full confession. He’s admitted they’re both in the pay of the Draconian Secret Service.’
    Jo was incensed. ‘That isn’t true! What have you done to him to make him say that?’ She turned to the President. ‘I want to see him.’
    The President nodded to the guards by the door. ‘Take her to the other prisoner. We shall talk again later.’ She waited until Jo had gone. ‘Well?’
    General Williams sat down, defeated. ‘He admitted nothing. I thought if I said that the girl might confess.’
    He took a deep breath. ‘We must use the mind probe on her.’
    ‘No General. She’s no more than a child. Perhaps there are other ways of getting the truth from her.’
    ‘What other ways? Madam, if you won’t let me use the mind probe
    She raised her hand for silence. ‘We could try kindness. It’s that man’s influence that’s making her stick to her story. I want to talk to him, to try to make him see reason, for the girl’s sake.’
    The Doctor stood before the President’s desk, flanked by armed palace guards.
    ‘This is your final chance,’ said the President, ‘to tell the truth.’
    ‘I have told you everything truthfully, Madam President,’ the Doctor replied. He turned to General Williams. ‘Sorry about your mind probe machine, old man.’
    The General coughed and looked away.
    The President continued. ‘If it’s a question of money, I will double any offer the Draconians made to you, and guarantee you and your companion freedom and a new identity on one of the colony planets.’
    The General couldn’t contain himself. ‘Really, Madam President, this man’s a traitor! We should make no trade with him.’
    She politely ignored the outburst. ‘Well, what do you say?’
    ‘I can only repeat that I am not a Draconian agent, that so far as I know the Draconians do not intend to start a war, that the people who boarded the cargo ship were—’
    She raised her hand. ‘That’s enough. We’ve heard it all before. Under the powers invested in me by the Special Security Act I am sending you to the Luna Penal Colony, the prison on the Moon.’
    ‘Without a trial? With no chance to state my case? I thought Earth was a democracy.’
    ‘The public trial of a Draconian agent,’ said the President, ‘will only increase the existing demand for war with Draconia. If at some later time you decide to