Doctor Who_ The Dying Days Part 30

'Prime Minister, this is - '

Greyhaven swept past him, slotting a computer disc into a terminal and tapping a few keys.

Xznaal grabbed him and threw him against the back wall.

Greyhaven struggled to concentrate. They had got here first, but he had managed to reach the terminal. Was his program running? Staines was staring at the bank of monitors. 'The Orbiter is still holding its position.'

105.

Greyhaven stood. The Martian towered over him. 'I know of your planss. Xztaynz told me.' Xznaal raised his huge right claw and fired the gun on his wrist. The computer terminal pulsed and shattered.

'Staines isn't bright enough.'

'Oh but I am,' the Home Secretary said, stepping forwards. 'You were planning to send a signal to the Mars...o...b..ter. You opened the airlocks before by remote control. You were planning to drop a bomb or something.'

Greyhaven looked over at him, and when he spoke there was a tone of respect in his voice. 'The Mars 97 is powered by two atomic reactors. If the computers receive the right signal they can be set to misphase, and send each other critical. From this room, by sending a simple command sequence, it is possible to pilot the Orbiter to any point on the Martian surface and then detonate it. The explosion would be the equivalent of a one hundred megaton bomb. You can probably guess which part of Mars I targeted.'

'The Argyre,' Xznaal grunted. The territory of his own clan. He checked the instruments once again. 'The Orbiter has not moved. You have failed.'

The Martian pointed at Greyhaven's legs and fired his sonic disruptor. Every bone below the knee joints shattered.

The Prime Minister buckled, unable to do anything but scream for the first couple of seconds.

Staines was smiling. 'You thought I was stupid, didn't you Teddy? You underestimated me, you see.'

Xznaal ignored him. 'Why?' he asked.

'Because you killed Eve,' Staines explained, trying to get back into the conversation. 'That blonde slip of a thing.

Really, Teddy, I told you that she'd be trouble.'

'Staines, you real y are an idiot,' Greyhaven said through clenched teeth. 'The fact that my so-called ally tried to murder an entire village full of innocent people, including a woman I was fond of didn't help, but I've always known that this... thing would try to betray me. He thinks that we're animals. What were you going to use those prisoners at Gatwick for? Medical experiments? Target practice? Food?'

The Home Secretary bent over him, smiling. 'The Martians need a workforce. You said so yourself.' Greyhaven could feel himself blacking out, but forced himself to remain conscious. 'Their population has seen rapid decline over recent centuries. Those criminals would have been put to useful work on Mars.'

Greyhaven's body was screaming at him, telling him that his only hope for survival was to lapse into unconsciousness. Greyhaven knew better than that: he wasn't going to survive. He only needed a minute more.

'Do you remember the words to "Rule Brittania"?'

Staines laughed. 'Of course. I even prefer it to "Martian Albion".'

'"Britons never shall be slaves."'

'Xznaal and myself are partners, Teddy. We knew that you'd try to double-cross us. The Martians are helping to solve prison overcrowding - those men are the lifers, the habitual criminals, the least desirable of the undesirable.'

'The sc.u.m of the Earth,' Xznaal hissed in agreement.

Staines was smiling his idiot grin. 'The Martians are our natural rulers, Teddy. They are superior beings. Do you know how long Martians live? There are some alive now that were born when Shakespeare was writing.'

Xznaal stepped forward.

'And you think that the Martians will let you have any power?' Greyhaven rasped. 'They see our state-of-the-art science - our computers, lasers and nuclear reactors - and they sneer at them. To Xznaal, the pinnacles of human art are finger paintings. Our greatest philosophers speak plat.i.tudes not fit for the playground.'

The Martian raised his arm.

'It's going to kill the human race like a farmer sprays his crops, and with the same compa.s.sion for the insects. I knew that al along. I also knew that the Martians were weak - most of them are impotent, those that aren't are diseased or disordered. Look at that thing. Ask him why he needs constant blood transfusions. Ask him whether that ma.s.sive brain of his can function without stimulants.'

'Marss iss dying, itss people are dying.' Xznaal admitted. 'But we have thiss world, we will adapt it to our needss.

Vrgnur has prepared plans for the first colonies. Within a century, this planet wil be Aress-formed - its temperature lowered, its atmosphere thinned. We wil ssurvive. You think that your puny human intel ect iss a match for mine?'

Greyhaven laughed.

'Iss he deliriouss?'

'No, I'm not,' Greyhaven snapped. He tried to stand up, but couldn't. He settled for straightening his tie. 'King Genius, you have overlooked one small detail.'

'Indeed?' Xznaal hissed scornfully.

'Yes,' Greyhaven said, only needing to block out the pain just long enough to finish one more sentence. 'The fact it takes five minutes to send a radio message from Earth to Mars.'

Staines and Xznaal spun to face the monitors.

Greyhaven winced as he tried to grin. 'My signal should be arriving... now.' The room was becoming dark, it was closing in on him.

The Orbiter's telemetry began to alter, the alt.i.tude was dropping. The retros were firing. The nuclear reactors began redlining.

The computer interpreted the data, plotting the course of the Orbiter as it skipped down through the thin Martian atmosphere. It was past the equator, streaking over the Vallis Marineris and the Noctis Labyrinth, crossing the Mare Erythraeum several times faster than the speed of sound.

If the Martians lived underground, Greyhaven reflected, they probably couldn't hear the Orbiter slicing its way down. The atmosphere there was so thin that sound wouldn't carry too well. But the perpetual Martian twilight would be gone. The Martians were scared of fire, and now their sky was ablaze.

The Orbiter detonated, right above the Argyre. The signal ended abruptly.

106.

Greyhaven was still laughing when Xznaal broke his neck.

From the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield A little over ten minutes after I had sent my message, a Martian Lord appeared in the hologlobe. Unlike Xznaal, he wore his armour streamlined, complete with cloak. Moving in his own gravity, and breathing Martian air, he was graceful as a dancer.

'Bernicesummerfield,' it said, 'I am Balgrar of the clan Thaumasia. Your news is grave. We Martians value honour above all. Xznaal has shamed our race, and let me a.s.sure you that he does not represent our people. He is the leader of but one clan, the Argyre, and their attack on your world was not sanctioned by the Grand Marshall. Know then that all on Mars stand with you against the Argyre and that a punitive expedition of war-barges is even now on its way to - '

The picture disappeared, vanis.h.i.+ng in an explosion of static that almost made me jump from my seat.

'What the f- '

Martian hieroglyphs were flas.h.i.+ng up across the screen. It told me that there wasn't a problem with the hardware at this end and that it was trying to re-establish a link with the Martian communications network. I bit my lip.

The screen flashed up an answer: there had been a ma.s.sive electromagnetic pulse and all communications would be impossible until the equipment was reset or replaced. I stared at the hologlobe, and al I could think was that the static swirling around the three dimensions of the hologlobe looked like maggots in a bucket.

There had been a nuclear explosion on the surface of Mars. Either the Argyre were firing them, or the rival clans had launched them in retaliation. Either way, millions of Martians were dying as I sat there. When Xznaal discovered that his home world was at war, that there would be nothing to go back to...

I had one option left. I was back across the room in seconds, my finger stabbing towards the detonator. I didn't even think. It didn't occur to me that this might be the action that released the Red Death, that the bomb might only crack the cylinder casing rather than obliterate the gas completely.

The merest moment's consideration and I might have realised that pressing the b.u.t.ton would destroy mankind.

I truly thought I had nothing to lose. But as one claw caught my wrist, another encircled my neck and I was yanked into the air and away from the bomb, I realised that I was wrong. It could get worse. And at that moment, as I felt Vrgnur's cold breath on the back of my neck, I knew that it was over. Whatever we tried to do, however bravely we fought, wherever we hid, the human race was going to be hunted down and driven to extinction by creatures such as this: a species cleverer than we were, stronger than us. More relentless, more powerful. This was the end.

End of extract 107.

Chapter Fourteen.

Look! - Up In The Sky!

The Brigadier's limousine arrived in Trafalgar Square shortly before one o'clock. Behind the UNIT convoy was a column of people a mile long.

The Square had already been filling up. The crowd were safely behind the barriers that had been set up the week before and had never been taken down. As Lethbridge-Stewart drove past, they cheered and waved. It was all very reminiscent of a royal visit. Some people were even waving little plastic Union Flags, others were clutching helium balloons. Most of them were cl.u.s.tered around the Column, sitting alongside the lions like so many millions of tourists and revellers down the years.

A small UNIT squad had arrived twenty minutes before, and had set up a mobile HQ, recovered from the underground garage of the UNIT office. The Brigadier found himself smiling, and then it dawned on him why: the large grey van was parked alongside the TARDIS. Professor Summerfield had told him that it would be there. That wasn't the same as seeing it. After al this was over, he would have the TARDIS taken somewhere safe. He would have Adisham searched for the Doctor's body. An immortal race had no need of funeral customs, but Lethbridge-Stewart would see that his friend was given a proper burial.

'That's odd.' Bambera had seen the police box, too, and she knew what it was, but it didn't hold the same memories for her. She was busy scanning the crowd, a.s.sessing the level of danger, looking for the enemy. Al the things he ought to have been doing. 'The crowd are already facing this way, sir,' she informed him.

Lethbridge-Stewart told the driver to park the car alongside the mobile HQ. 'Really?'

He did quick recce. Bambera was right. There must have been a couple of thousand people there, and the vast majority were looking not at the vast Martian s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p to the East, or towards Westminster to the South. They were staring at the entrance to the s.p.a.ce Museum.

A young Corporal was opening up his door and saluting him. Lethbridge-Stewart went through the formalities, then, 'What's going on?'

'There's a Martian in there, sir. Went in about twenty minutes ago with the Home Secretary, just before we arrived.'

Lethbridge-Stewart did what everyone else was doing, he stared at the door. So far, only a handful of Martians had left the s.h.i.+p, the two that had been killed at the Doctor's house, the scientist and Xznaal himself.

'It's the leader, isn't it?' he asked. The Corporal nodded.

'How do you know?' Bambera asked the Corporal.

'There were a few people already here, ma'am. Not just that, the Home Office chauffeur and aide came over to our side the moment we arrived. They are both still a bit shocked by it all.'

Lethbridge-Stewart nodded towards the mobile HQ. 'Those two are both in Trap One, I take it?'

'Sir,' the Corporal confirmed.

'Is the Square secure?' All around them, the rest of the UNIT vehicles had arrived, much to the delight of the crowd. The soldiers, al of them so young, were jumping down, taking out all the carefully stowed equipment. Their tanks were lining up outside Charing Cross Road station.

'Yes, ma'am. The Provisionals have al pulled back to defend Downing Street and the Tower, we've done a quick sweep of the buildings. There's a column of Government tanks along the Embankment and Thames Street. We have them under close observation from Trap Two, at Tower Hill. We can see over the wal s onto Tower Green from there.'

'Snipers?'

'None of theirs any more. We have men at both positions, sir, with strict orders not to fire unless ordered to.'

Lethbridge-Stewart allowed himself to relax a little. 'Good man,' he concluded.

Bambera pointed over the tops of the buildings to the Martian s.h.i.+p. 'The plan was that the enemy s.h.i.+p would move when the refinery went up,' she reminded him. That had been a little under five minutes ago.

'We also thought that it would prevent our build-up if it was still here, but they've just ignored us,' he responded.

'The Professor was right: the Martians will only intervene if they are personal y threatened. If we fire on a Martian, that s.p.a.cecraft wil fire on us. They'll wipe us out.'

'Perhaps they are just biding their time. They could start wiping us out at any moment.'

The Brigadier conceded the point, 'You're right. Now, I don't know my Martian military history, but I know that on this planet many a battle has been lost because the superior force got complacent. They don't realise just how hard we can hit them. We also know that they won't be using the gas.'

Bambera nodded. 'We've had word from Strike Command: the Harriers are ready, and can be here in four minutes. There are anti-aircraft batteries at Spitalfields and St James Park.'

'Trap Two has a couple of artillery pieces,' the Corporal added.

Lethbridge-Stewart was fitting a radio earpiece. 'We stay in position. We do nothing to provoke the Martians. We sit this one out if we have to.'

Theo Ogilvy had done his best, and he told Xznaal as much. Without the Orbiter, the nearest telescope to Mars was the Hubble, circling the Earth. For the next three hours, its...o...b..t kept it on the wrong side of the planet to face the alien's home world.

108.

All his professional life, Ogilvy had taken careful measurements, a.n.a.lysed blips in line graphs and spectroscope readings. He'd studied sketch charts with all the majesty and grandeur of a dot-the-dots puzzle, gasped in awe at blurred photographs of white pinp.r.i.c.ks against a black background. Astronomy was an odd science, one that saw men in tweed suits growing old staring up into the infinite, timeless night sky in the hope of fathoming how the universe was put together. Every night, he and tens of thousands of people like him would observe tiny coloured specks of light, sometimes forgetting that every single one of those specks was large enough to swallow Earth and Mars without even noticing. There were sunspots wider than the diameter of the Earth on each and every pinp.r.i.c.k in the sky.

He was a thirty-eight year old bachelor, and the first time he'd even flown in a plane was a trip to NASA three years ago, when he'd been appointed Mission Controller of Mars 97. He'd lived in Watford al his adult life. Now, an alien was forcing him, at gunpoint, to show it photographs of Mars. An eight-foot green reptile. But how could a cold-blooded creature survive in the sub-zero temperatures of Mars? How could anything even remotely resembling a human breathe nitrogen? Why would a creature from a low-gravity world evolve into such a powerful, muscular form? Ogilvy pushed al those questions to the back of his mind and concentrated on the task in hand. But despite being in the global nerve centre for Martian studies, the clearest image of the planet that he could manage to find was from tracking station 63 in Madrid. It showed a new feature in the atmosphere, a vast brown/red cloud.

'M-ma.s.sive displacement of material,' Ogilvy stammered, not daring to look at Xznaal. 'Mil ions of tonnes of rock and sand. Like the aftermath of a volcanic eruption. After Krakatoa, thousands of square miles were covered in ash, and the whole world had spectacular sunsets for years afterwards.'

He glanced over at Xznaal, who was almost hunched. The Martian's head was low, the crown it had been wearing had fallen off, and the only sign that it was still alive was the regular, asthmatic breathing.

'Ssunssetss?' it coughed.

Xznaal was pulling itself straight. It resembled a JCB or a similar piece of machinery - so much power, in such a hard body. Xznaal's claws snapped open and shut, a gesture of powerlessness that Ogilvy found disturbingly human.

'I... ' Ogilvy couldn't think of a single thing to say and turned to David Staines for support, but the Home Secretary had vanished. Lord Greyhaven's broken body was stil there. Ogilvy tried to form a smile, even a weak one, but couldn't. He tried to say some consoling words, but none came out.

Xznaal was staring into the monitor again. Then it turned, and lumbered from the room. Ogilvy swallowed, waiting until the Martian was out of sight, then he began running for the fire exit.