The Mind Extractors (short story)

The Mind Extractors was a short story published in Doctor Who Annual 1971. It featured the Third Doctor, Liz Shaw and the Brigadier.

Summary
It is a cold, clear December night. As the number 59 bus lumbers up past the allotments near the mental hospital, the driver is surprised to see a passenger that he knows did not get on the bus. Before he can react to this discovery, the stranger puts a white tube to his mouth and emits a cloud of smoke that engulfs everybody aboard the bus. Later, PC Voskins is reflecting on the shooting star that he saw earlier and wondering if all shooting stars have bright orange tails. As he crosses the allotments he finds a dead fox and is aware of the smell of burning. He mentions this when he radios in his midnight report. The sergeant says that he will send out someone to collect the fox but when they arrive they find Voskins stumbling about, his memory gone.

Liz Shaw takes a taxi out to the allotments. As they drive through the dark streets they are flagged down by a strange looking man. The driver winds down the windows and Liz sees that the man has a face that looks to be moulded of liquid flesh. He blows clouds of smoke into the car. When the taxi is discovered by a police patrol, neither Liz nor the driver has any memory of who they are. The police also discover the 59 bus where the same tale is true of driver and passengers.

Back at the police station the police doctor surmises that something landed at the allotments and killed the fox. He thinks that the scorch marks may be extra-terrestrial. The sergeant is sceptical but both of them are aware that another Doctor was at the bus stop saying that the investigation should be handled by UNIT.

By dawn the victims of memory loss have been taken to the local mental hospital. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is annoyed that none of his men can trace the Doctor but is relieved to see that the patients are showing no ill-effects other than amnesia. He is immediately cheered when he hears that Voskins' last report mentioned an old yellow car beside the hospital wall. He rushes out to find the Doctor.

The Doctor is in a garrulous mood and chewing on a turnip. He says that his presence there was coincidental: his car broke down and he called Liz out to help him. He then goes on to say that the events of that night might be linked to a recent Soviet space mission that returned to Earth with, apparently, an extra cosmonaut on board. The four regulation crew were rushed into isolation immediately and the Doctor speculates that pseudo-humans have been trying to steal the minds of people for the purposes of an alien race. He adds that he spent much of the night repelling the efforts of just such a pseudo-man.

Liz remains blank when the Doctor speaks to her as if she remembers nothing of her life before the incident in the taxi. The Doctor takes her out of the hospital to see if he can jog her memory and they end up by a pile of builder's sand where the taxi came to rest. None of this means anything to her and the Doctor is about to give up when he spots something. What seemed to be a pile of clothes is the shrivelled form of the pseudo-man he fought off the previous night.

He takes Liz and the remains to his laboratory to investigate. After a day working on the thing he steps out for a break. When he returns to the laboratory he is astonished to find the pseudo-man fully revived. It speaks to him with a voice that the Doctor assumes is emanating from a distant space ship or planet. It says that it was attracted to the Doctor's mind the previous night and now it is intent on claiming it. The Doctor realises that his car breaking down at that spot was no coincidence. The creature, now revealed as an Extractor, begins to emit smoke. Realising that his mind is about to be wiped, the Doctor stumbles from the room. Half an hour later he arrives back at the hospital. He tells the Brigadier that the Extractor is trapped in the laboratory and will be dead by morning. He adds that the other victims were not wiped for their knowledge and will recover soon.

Characters

 * Third Doctor
 * Liz Shaw
 * The Brigadier
 * The Extractor

Continuity
to be added