Doctor Wallace
This fic was originally posted on the Alt.DrWho.Creative newsgroup.
For more of my offbeat fanfiction, check out my homepage The End of the Phoenix.

Doctor Wallace
Another Silly Lunchbreak Fiction
*****

"That's it!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Cheese! We'll go somewhere where there's cheese!"

Gromit rolled his eyes, but watched resolutely as the Doctor began to contemplate. Suddenly, an idea hit them both; the Doctor began to pull levers and tap out commands on the TARDIS control console. "Everyone knows the fourth moon of Aardman is made of cheese..." he said, excitedly. "The perfect place for a holiday!"

The central column began to rise up and down, and the familiar groaning noise rose in volume all around them. Gromit merely tapped his paws nervously on the console room's wallpapered panelling, and wondered what sort of a mess the Doctor was going to get him into this time...

*****

"It's like no cheese I've ever tasted." the Doctor pronounced, after having a cracker-and-mooncheese bite.

Gromit, meanwhile, was still sniffing the slices in front of him uncertainly.

The Doctor stood, and looked off into the distance. The surface looked a little different over there, he reasoned; maybe he could find a vein of Wenslydale.

"Come on, lad!" the Doctor said, pulling on his companion's leash, "Let's try over there, shall we?"

They had not gone far before they encountered a sign of civilization, or perhaps a sign of an old civilization that no longer existed.

It was a robotic... thing... standing in the middle of nowhere. A vending machine of some sort, the Doctor decided; after all, one of the bulbous protrusions on it's exterior had a coin slot and a dial marked in pence increments (a sure sign of ancient intelligence, he noted, now that virtually every vending machine in the cosmos had long since gone over to the euro).

He fished around his pockets, pulled out a 10p piece, and slid the coin into the slot.

Nothing happened.

He tried moving the things he was certain were levers, but nothing happened. He tried pulling on a handle, but still nothing happened. He tried kicking it, but yet still nothing happened.

"Must be broken." he grumbled to himself as he departed, annoyed at having been ripped off to the tune of 10p. Distantly, he wondered where he could lodge a complaint to get his refund.

They were well on their way when the mechanical thing suddenly sprang to life. Confused and disoriented, it looked about. It found the TARDIS on the distant horizon, and after starting to move towards it quickly stumbled across the remains of the Doctor's picnic.

It was not pleased at the mess he'd left behind.

It turned its eyestalk about, looking for the miscreant and his companion, and having located them in the distance, slid off in pursuit.

It began to shout warnings at them as it neared.

"DO NOT MOVE! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE, OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

*****

Dedicated to my two-year old daughter Megan (who, while I was watching a tape of "The Daemons", pointed to Jon Pertwee and asked "Where's Gromit?").

-- DBK
10 February 1999