The Claw (short story)

The Claw was a short story published in Doctor Who Annual 1973. It featured the Third Doctor, Jo Grant and the Brigadier.

Summary
The Doctor and Jo, along with Captain Yates, are in a car driven by Corporal Tibbins, travelling through Scottish countryside. Suddenly a patch of mist forms into the shape of a claw which grabs at the car. In avoiding it they leave the road and plough into a field. The only evidence of the attack is a long groove in the car's roof. Continuing on their journey, the Doctor wonders if the claw is related to the disappearance of two men from a remote island where the Defence Department is testing a new weapon under the charge of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

They are about to board a launch to reach the island when an elderly local man, MacFee, asks for a lift to retrieve his lobster pots near the island. This perplexes Yates because the man and his pots are in a restricted area. He sends MacFee off in a temper.

On the island the Brigadier informs the Doctor that another man has vanished, during a sea mist. Jo asks the Doctor if the disappearance is linked to the claw and he nods, wondering if it was a genuine sea mist or an emanation. They arrive at the building where the island's atomic power packs are stored only for a scientist to tell them that one of the packs has been drained. Instead of following Yates in to investigate the Doctor says he is going to take a stroll along the beach.

Jo and the Doctor see MacFee in a boat picking up a lobster pot. He rows ashore and places crystals in the pot. The Doctor accosts him and suggests the crystals contain the power he has just drained from the pack. MacFee suddenly transforms into a cloud of mist and the shape of a claw which grabs the Doctor.

He finds himself inside a spaceship in the company of a lobster. The Doctor can't help but suggest improvements to the gravity field selector before the lobster silences him. The Doctor surmises that they are inside the lobster pot and that the MacFee/lobster is a creature of unstable molecular structure. It explains it lost power in flight and landed on Earth, stealing power and liquidating the men who tried to stop it. The creature knows of the Doctor and confesses the idea of disguising its ship as a lobster pot was inspired by the TARDIS.

As the creature prepares for take-off the Doctor takes one of Jo's hairpins from his pocket and short-circuits a device. He leaps out of the hatch as the ship explodes. Jo finds him lying on the beach beside the smouldering remains of a lobster pot.

Characters

 * Third Doctor
 * Jo Grant
 * Mike Yates
 * Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart
 * MacFee

Continuity
to be added