Doctor Who_ The Dying Days Part 2

'I took the registration number of the Range Rover. P876 - '

' - XFL,' the Doctor completed, beaming. 'Almost certainly a forged plate, but worth looking up.'

'What's going on here, Doctor?'

'I don't know.'

'I mean really.'

'I mean really,' he objected.

She straightened up. 'You real y mean that, don't you?'

The Doctor smiled helplessly. 'Yes Bernice,' he laughed, 'I real y mean that I really mean it. Obviously it's got something to do with whatever's in that test tube. Caldwell said it was "soil". The policeman I talked to seemed a great deal more interested in the test tubes than in the injured man. Caldwell also said "Christian escaped".'

'It seems a lot of trouble to transport soil around,' Bernice muttered. 'If only I'd pocketed one of those test tubes when I had a chance we might have some clue.'

The Doctor smiled. 'Well, as a matter of fact...' He held up the test tube he had palmed earlier. 'We'll a.n.a.lyse it in the TARDIS labs. After you've had your breakfast and finished your shower, of course.'

Elsewhere, a telephone rang. It was picked up after two rings.

'Alexander Christian has escaped,' a gruff voice said, 'The helicopter crashed.'

There was a moment's pause.

'The specimens?'

'Recovered from the crash-site.'

'Understood.' The handset was replaced.

Chapter Two

Foreign Soil

Alexander Christian stood perfectly still on the patio, catching his breath. He'd half-run, half-crawled the hundred or so yards to the house, the nearest man-made structure.

It was a big place built in the last century, but now in some state of disrepair. The gardens were overgrown.

Christian had seen the owners, a couple in their thirties, hurrying over to the crash-site. He'd ducked down in the long gra.s.s and they'd run straight past him. The police Range Rover had missed him completely, driving up a dirt track fifty yards away to the south. His first five minutes of freedom had proved a success.

Judging by the furniture, the man's clothes and the "police box" sitting by the kitchen door, the owners of the house were Victorian enthusiasts. This eccentricity seemed to extend to not owning a telephone: he couldn't see a cable leading into the house. They didn't mind electricity, though: a portable television sat on the garden table. A young woman was dancing around in front of a couple of puppets. In the bottom right-hand corner was a digital clock reading 8:23. Christian watched the spectacle, fascinated, for a couple of seconds. How long had they been broadcasting television at this unG.o.dly hour?

The owners had been in the middle of breakfast. There was a tray next to the telly loaded up with a plate, a b.u.t.ter dish and a coffee pot. Christian lifted up the tray and plucked out the newspaper underneath. The Mirror. He scanned the header for the date: May 7th 1997. Price: 30p. Page-three girls had made it to the front, he noted. It was only a matter of time. More interesting was that the picture was in colour and that the newsprint didn't come off in his hands. Man hadn't reached Venus in the last twenty years, but clearly some things had improved.

There were more sirens: fire engines, ambulances, perhaps more policemen. He needed to get away from here. It would only be a few minutes before tracker dogs were brought in and there would be roadblocks in a ten-mile area within half an hour.

Christian tried to prioritise: he needed civvies, antiseptic for the cut on his head and to make a single phone cal .

He glanced up at the police box. Even if there was a telephone behind that hatch, calling the nearest police station was not the wisest move. He'd need to find a pay phone, and he'd need some change for it. The paper cost five times what it used to, so the phone probably did too.

Clothes, antiseptic and some 10p pieces. All three items should be in the house.

If the couple who lived here had children they'd be heading to school by now. There might be other people living or staying here, but there was no evidence of them. Christian knew he'd need to be careful. He had a couple of advantages, the main one being the element of surprise: the owners didn't know they had an intruder. He should be able to keep hidden, even if they came back. If not, he'd be able to overpower them.

Clothes and change: Bedroom. Antiseptic: Bathroom.

Christian kept hold of the newspaper and stepped through a dilapidated wooden door into the kitchen. One hi-tech item sat incongruously amongst the pre-war range and an old tin bread-bin. It looked like a TV set, but a nameplate said it was a microwave oven. Everything else looked like it had been sitting there undisturbed since the fifties. The kitchen lino was faded, and curling up at one end of the room. Christian began searching the drawers and cupboards. He briefly considered taking a bread-knife, for self-defence, but decided not to. He'd not taken a gun from the helicopter, either. He a.s.sembled the most basic of survival kits: a box of sugar cubes, a candle and a handful of the matches from by the cooker, a couple of black bin bags and one of the bars of chocolate from the refrigerator. After a quick search, he couldn't find any salt or tea bags.

He heard the wicket gate swing shut. They were back. Christian stuffed everything he'd col ected into a plastic carrier bag and moved deeper into the house. There was nothing in the hall except doors to other rooms and a staircase. The bathroom and bedrooms would be upstairs, so he had no choice but to climb. Every step squeaked as he made his way up. Outside Christian could hear their voices: she was a Home Counties gal, her husband's accent was harder to place.

'I'll wait for you here,' the man said.

'Won't be long. Oh, Doctor, it looks like we've run out of bin bags.' She was inside the house as Christian reached the top of the first flight of stairs. He was halfway up the second flight when she began climbing up after him.

Christian reached the landing. A big water tank sat in one corner, but it wasn't big enough to hide behind. There were three doors and another, shorter, flight of stairs up. One door was open: to the bathroom. The other two were closed. Why was she coming upstairs? Chances are it was to have a wash or to use the loo, so she'd be heading for the bathroom, but the woman could just as well be looking for a book, her make-up or an item of jewellery, so she'd end up in her bedroom.

Christian chose one of the bedrooms, hoping she'd pick the other. He closed the door behind him. The curtains were drawn back, the sheets were freshly laundered and neatly folded: this was not the room the owners slept in.

14.It was someone's room, though, a teenager's judging by the model aeroplanes hanging over the window. There was a gla.s.s ashtray on the windowsil - it contained a handful of change and a couple of small keys.

The woman reached the landing. Christian ducked behind the bed, but as he had expected, she carried on up the short flight of stairs. Christian started to breathe again, and checked the wardrobe. There were about a dozen items in there, mostly T-s.h.i.+rts, but thankful y they were in adult sizes, in fact they would fit a chap even bigger than he was. One of the T-s.h.i.+rts bore a slogan that made Christian laugh: 'My Friend Went to San Francisco and All He Got Me Was This Lousy T-s.h.i.+rt'. Another one read 'It's p.r.o.nounced "Cwej"'. Christian pulled out the smart grey suit and cotton s.h.i.+rt that hung at the other end of the rail.

The ceiling above him creaked as the woman moved about upstairs.

Christian ran his finger very slowly down the seam of his coveralls. The Velcro parted silently, but it seemed to take an age.

The woman was coming back downstairs as Christian stepped out of his prison uniform. He crouched behind the bed, pul ing the suit trousers down to him, but she walked past the door. He waited a couple of seconds, but the woman didn't go back downstairs. Instead he heard pipes rattling, and a shower splutter then burst into life.

Christian pulled the trousers on, and half-b.u.t.toned up his s.h.i.+rt. He took the provisions he had taken from the kitchen and distributed them around the pockets of the jacket. He slipped the jacket on and tested that the weight of the items was evenly spread-out and that nothing rattled when he moved.

He moved back over to the windowsil . Out across the rol ing country, the straight line of the A2 was visible, sunlight glinting off the windscreens of a string of cars. There was also a good view of the woodland from here: the crash-site had been surrounded by emergency vehicles. Shouts and engine noises drifted across the fields from time to time. Their efforts seemed concentrated towards the crash itself, no-one was looking for him yet. It was only a matter of time. He plucked fifty pence in change from the ashtray. The coins were odd, and at first he thought they were foreign. The five and ten pennies were smaller, there was a twenty pence piece that was a peculiar shape.

Christian tiptoed over to the door. The shower was still running, he could hear the woman moving around underneath it. He pulled down the bedroom door handle, guiding it open with his other hand. Then he edged forward.

The bathroom door was wide open.

Christian could have frozen, but he didn't, he carried on past the doorway and down onto the first of the stairs. He tensed, prepared to grab the woman when she came to investigate. Only when he was ready for that did he allow himself to piece together what had happened. He'd glimpsed her: the first woman he'd seen for nineteen years, in the shower stal , water dripping from her back and down the side of her breast. She'd been half-facing away from the door, bent over to rinse off her hair. She hadn't seen him.

Christian wanted to talk to her, he wanted to explain things, to tell her the truth. He wanted to see her again. He hesitated.

The shower shut off. Christian lurched down the stairs, forgetting at first the noise the boards made when they had weight on them. He reached the bottom without a plan. He had a minute to collect his thoughts: the woman was going to have to dry herself and get dressed before she came down. He couldn't get out through the kitchen door, the husband was out there. He opened up one of the other doors and discovered that it led down a short corridor into a hal way. Christian followed it, finding the front door just as the woman was coming downstairs.

'A coup? I find that very difficult to believe, Home Secretary.'

'That's what this information suggests to me, H. There are elements within society that are planning the overthrow of the British government.

'Call me Veronica,' the Director General of MI5 replied sweetly.

'Ha ha,' the Home Secretary chuckled. The man was an idiot.

Home Secretaries tended to be idiots, Veronica Halliwel reflected, or they wouldn't have accepted the job. There were three top cabinet posts below the Prime Minister himself, and nominally they were of equal rank. The Foreign Secretary flew around the world for free enjoying five star hotels and banquets at least three times a week. The Foreign Office staff and the network of Emba.s.sy staff did most of the actual work, and it was difficult to be unpopular at home or with your party unless you accidentally started a war, which happened, but not that often.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer had ultimate control of the economy. He set the levels of interest rates and taxation, and he also had the final say on public expenditure. That meant that he could tell his Cabinet col eagues exactly how much money they had to spend that year. It also meant that he'd retire to a dozen directors.h.i.+ps of top London banks and financial inst.i.tutions. He would be unpopular during a recession, popular during a boom.

15.He'd general y win the respect of the party, who'd see him as 'firm but fair' and an ex-Chancel or usual y stood more chance of becoming Prime Minister than anyone else.

The third senior man, the Home Secretary, was in charge of all matters domestic. And that was the problem. The Home Secretary was the man who had to deal with every child murderer, escaped prisoner, dangerous dog, inner-city riot, drug dealer, illegal immigrant, terrorist, car accident, rapist and cracked pavement in Britain. None of the nice things. It was very difficult to do the job well, the best to hope for was to have a quiet time. There was no foreign travel, both wings of your party would gang up on you when something went wrong and the public blamed you personally every time they ran out of toilet paper. So anyone who wanted to be Home Secretary was an idiot.

The new head of the Home Office fitted the job description better than few before him. His file back at Five was a testament to mediocrity. David Anthony Staines had sc.r.a.ped his second at Oxford. He'd not been popular, although he had met his future wife there. She'd been a party activist, and he'd gone along to the meetings and fallen in with the in-crowd. He'd been secretary of the college party (there hadn't been a rival for the position). Then it was usual path: he stood as a candidate in unwinnable seats for a couple of years while he did his legal training and grew up a bit. He got his own practice the year before his safe seat, Eastchester West. At Westminster, Staines had quickly fallen in with Lord Greyhaven, and for some reason the old fool liked him. So he'd progressed up the party ranks. He'd managed not to acquire any Swiss bank accounts or mistresses, at least none that Halliwell could find, and so he'd got a reputation for "honesty". Now he held a senior cabinet post.

Staines held open the report at the last page, and pointed out each phrase as he came to it. 'Subversive groups operating in London. Security leaks in the press. Terrorism. An increase in gun-related crime. The riots last week.'

'Sir, there is nothing to suggest that these events are linked. There have been terrorist and subversive cells operating in London for over thirty years.'

'That's hardly a rea.s.surance, is it Ms Halliwell? What are MI5 doing?'

'We've kept a lid on it,' she said firmly. 'We know who they are, we know where they are. The moment they do anything illegal we pick them up.'

'Last year there was that book published that blew the gaffe on UNIT, I Killed Kennedy. Why didn't you stop that, then?'

'Policy has always been to let people write what they want about aliens and UFOs. There are so many cranks out there, so many children's stories, that no-one believes any of it anymore. We leant on the publishers and they changed the cover, altered some of the dates and promised not to print anything like it again.' Who Killed Kennedy had got close to compromising UNIT, but as one of the co-authors claimed he'd killed Kennedy himself by travel ing back in time it would have been counterproductive for the government to try to ban it. The last Home Secretary had understood that without Hal iwell having to explain it to him in words of one syllable. MI5 had made sure the book had been marked 'science fiction' and flagged it on their list of subversive literature. The name of everyone who had taken it out of a library or ordered it from a bookshop with a computerised ordering system had been filed away for future reference. Five had also kept track of the authors: James Stevens had gone to ground, but David Bishop was still in London.

Staines' head was agitating from side to side. 'It's not good enough. I want the publishers raided, to see what other top secret information they have, and I want the editors questioned by your people to see what they know. Shut them down, by midnight tonight. You will do that?'

'I will do it under the strongest protest and if I have written authorisation.'

Staines handed her two sides of Home Office notepaper, stapled together. Halliwell rolled her eyes. He had obviously made up his mind about what needed doing.

She gave him one last chance. 'Sir, ten years ago, the government made idiots,' a knowing emphasis on that word, 'of themselves over the Zircon project. Perhaps you don't remember, but I was actual y in Glasgow, helping to remove three vanloads of papers and film from the BBC offices. We went through the same farce again with State Secret last year. If you want to give these crackpots publicity, then go ahead.'

'Thank you, I will. Your att.i.tude has been noted, Director General. I am also going to advise Cabinet that we will need to increase security around the country. More police, tighter checks at airports, that sort of thing.'

'Sir, you can't unilateral y declare a state of emergency.'

'Ms Halliwell, there is no question of a state of emergency, I just want our people to be a little more alert. You agree that I am acting within my powers?'

The telephone rang, and Staines picked it up.

'Home Secretary,' he declared, redundantly.

An expression of concern crossed his idiot face. 'Yes, yes. Right.' He replaced the handset.

'Alexander Christian has escaped,' he announced grimly.

16.Benny and the Doctor stood at the top of the staircase that led down from the entrance to the main deck of the redecorated console room.

'Well,' the Doctor said breathlessly, 'What do you think?'

'It's very ... big,' Benny observed. 'Big and ... dark. It's very big and dark. It's very you, real y, I mean it.' She was tempted to ask the Doctor for a pair of binoculars, or one of those telescopes you get on the sea front. She didn't mind the TARDIS being bigger on the inside than the outside, but there were limits.

The Doctor was stepping down, indicating the interesting features with a broad sweep of his arm. 'I used the second control room for so long I got used to all that white, I have to admit, but this always was the original. It's just taken a little while for the alterations to be completed.'

He picked up a tricorn hat which sat on a bust of William Shakespeare. 'It's simply ages since I wore this,' he laughed, trying it on again. It didn't quite fit, which clearly amused him.

'So the rest of the TARDIS ... ?'

'Don't worry, your room's exactly as it always was. I'm not sure where it is now, I admit, but rest a.s.sured I've not touched a thing in it.'

Benny smiled wanly.

'In here,' the Doctor called from the far wal , opening and striding through the sort of door that castles had. Oh, yes, she thought, 'the sort of door castles had', a textbook description for an archaeologist. She engaged her brain.

At intervals along the wall of the control room, there were doorways surmounted by drop head arches. The doors bore lovingly hand-crafted iron scroll-work, but no visible handles, latches or locks. The control room as a whole was in the Decorated Gothic style, taking the form of a roughly hexagonal lierne vault.

The cl.u.s.tered shafts, niches and b.u.t.tresses were typical of the style, but there was evidence of alien influence.

Illumination was provided mainly by candlelight. At irregular intervals the same swirling, circular design appeared inlaid into the marble floor or the iron and carved into corbels and bosses. Benny recognised it from her visit to Gallifrey, but couldn't remember what it was.

Benny ducked through the door, following the Doctor into the TARDIS laboratory. She couldn't recall ever visiting the room before, and certainly would remember it if she had, she thought: a cold, dark chamber stacked to its high-vaulted ceiling with cardboard boxes and scientific instruments. Four great wooden workbenches were arranged haphazardly towards the centre of the room. On one of these an elaborate construction of test-tubes, Bunsen burners, retorts, tubes and gla.s.s jars but if they had once contained colourful, bubbling fluids they had long evaporated away. Every piece of equipment seemed to come from another age, and she found herself trying to place every arcane item. She half-expected the Elephant Man to come lumbering out.

The Doctor led her along the maze of particle accelerators, oscilloscopes and lasers to the microscope section. He ignored at least two electron microscopes, a holographic magnifier and a dimensional revisualiser in favour of an antique bra.s.s microscope that he had clearly kept clean for years by lovingly polis.h.i.+ng it. Either that or the day before yesterday he'd popped back a century or so and bought a new one.

The Doctor took the test tube from his pocket. 'A cork stopper,' he said.

'Is that important?'

He shrugged. 'It might be. The stopper is tight. This tube hasn't been unsealed for ages.'

He flicked the tube open and sniffed the contents. 'No discernible odour.'

He tapped the soil out onto a gla.s.s dish. It was red, with a texture somewhere between sand and clay.

'It looks like cocoa powder,' she observed.

'Well it isn't,' he snapped. Benny swallowed, surprised by the strength of feeling behind the Doctor's reply. She kept her mouth closed as the Doctor placed some more of the dust on a slide and put it underneath the lens. He poured a little more into another piece of equipment at the side of the desk and flicked a switch on its side. The box chugged into life, lights flas.h.i.+ng on its surface.