Doctor Who_ The Dying Days Part 9

The Doctor smiled benignly at Sal, the shop a.s.sistant at the boutique. The radio news was being piped out of the shop's PA system, but the young woman wasn't paying attention to it as the detailed descriptions of the two murder suspects were read out, right down to Bernice's ballgown.

'Are you going to be much longer?' the Doctor asked his companion.

'I'm done now,' the voice came from behind the changing room curtain. It swished back to reveal Bernice in a pair of jeans and a bright orange polo-neck s.h.i.+rt.

'Not terrifically original, but stick to what you know, that's what I say. I'll wear these now, but I'll need a bag for my old stuff,' she informed the a.s.sistant, handing over the bar tags.

'OK. How will you be paying?'

'Doctor ... '

The Doctor rummaged in his pockets and produced the money.

Bernice was hovering over the jewel ery rack. 'Hey, it's ages since I wore these.' She tossed a big pair of gold hoop earrings onto the counter. 'These, too, please.'

The Doctor took out the last of his money.

Bernice put the earrings on as they walked out of the shop. The Doctor took the bag with the ballgown in it. 'Are you sure we can't get back to the TARDIS?' she asked.

The Doctor shook his head. 'It's right outside the National s.p.a.ce Museum. We'd never get across the Square without being spotted. We'll have to find a computer elsewhere.'

She took the bag back from him. 'Getting access to one can't be that difficult, even in 1997.'

The Doctor drummed his fingers over his mouth. 'No, no, not at all. The trouble is that we don't know how long we'l need to study the data. We need somewhere like a library or a university.'

'How about an Internet Cafe?' Bernice suggested, from halfway across the street. She was heading to a shop with a bright neon sign flas.h.i.+ng on and off.

'A what?' the Doctor asked, following her across.

He stepped into what would have been an ordinary cafe, except for the personal computer sitting on each table.

The place was about half-full. Its proprietor, an overweight little man, stood behind a gleaming counter, his attention occupied by the big wall-mounted television. The Doctor followed his gaze, fascinated by what he saw on the screen. A man in odd clothes and a woman in a tailored suit were standing in an American street. He was trying to convince her that he was a time traveller and that in the next twenty-four hours the world would come to an end. She thought he was mad.

'What is that?' the Doctor asked, a little worried. The time travel er seemed sincere enough.

'Twelve Monkeys,' the cafe owner said. 'Cool film. It's just come out on sel -through. How can I help?'

'We'd like a couple of cups of tea and access to a computer terminal.'

'Sure.' He pa.s.sed over the price list. 'Have you surfed the net before?'

'Not like this, no.' The Doctor admitted, searching his pockets. 'I've only got ten pence,' he announced.

The cafe owner shrugged. 'Looks like you won't be losing your net virginity this afternoon, then.' He turned his attention back to the movie.

'We don't have money?' Bernice asked, aghast.

'We spent it al on your clothes.'

38.'You should have said.'

The proprietor glared at them. 'If you can't pay, could you at least keep quiet? This is a good bit.'

'If you'll excuse us one moment,' the Doctor said, smiling. He took his companion to one side. 'Couldn't you ...

persuade him?'

'How?' Bernice scowled.

'Well, you're not a little girl anymore...'

'I beg your pardon?' she snapped, before remembering the urgency of the situation. She bit her lip. 'OK.'

Bernice leant forward, and flashed her eyes at the proprietor, who dragged himself away from his movie. 'I don't have any money, but I think I have something you might find of interest.' She lent forward and whispered into his ear, before pulling back. 'Do you want that?' Bernice asked softly.

'If you'l do that for me,' the fat little man said in all seriousness, 'then you can have as much connect time as you want, and free cappuccinos.'

'I'm on the surface, chaps'. Two other astronauts followed him out, and they spent some time bouncing around, getting used to the idea that they were on an alien planet. 'Keep that camera pointing that way, Bob. There's a beautiful violet sky,'

Eve yawned. After the tenth time, even men on Mars lost their novelty value. 'Top the report with it.'

'Yeah, you're right,' Alan conceded, stabbing the pause b.u.t.ton. 'Then establis.h.i.+ng shots of the museum. Your commentary over that leading to the interview with the Mission Controller ... '

'Theo Ogilvy.'

'Ogilvy, that's it. Cut out his waffle, concentrate on the technical stuff, then finish with Greyhaven.'

'No, no,' Eve objected, 'Finish on me updating the progress - we want it to be current. I'll phone the office at the s.p.a.ce Centre and get the latest news just before we do the uplink.'

Alan rewound the tape. 'Any word on where we're going next?'

'Kyle wanted me to investigate the Loch Ness Monster.'

'I hope you told him to - '

'I did, Alan, don't worry. I'm not get lumbered with al that "Real-life X Files" c.r.a.p. I convinced him that we should do a feature on Lord Greyhaven.'

Alan looked up, a smirk on his face. 'Did you indeed?'

'The guy's a national hero here, and he's pretty big back in the States, too. Remember him on Nightline? He lives in a stately home, but he's a brilliant scientist and a billionaire businessman. Good pictures, topical. People need heroes nowadays.'

'Wow, yeah, he's sort of a cross between Batman and Alfred the butler. And luckily he gave you the number for that flas.h.i.+ng red phone of his.'

'That too,' she laughed, 'and don't even think of bringing the Bat-Pole into the conversation right now. We'll get this done, then check the file on Greyhaven, see what we can find.'

'Sure. Whatever.' Alan turned back to the screen.

'Bernice, I don't think that man has ever been so happy in his life.' The Doctor said as he typed in the guest log-in.

'He's got Jason to thank for the last half hour.' Benny slotted the first disk into the drive.

'Really?' The program manager came up. The Doctor double-clicked on the right icon.

'Oh yes, I did all sorts of things with Jason that I'd never have dreamt of doing before. Going to an all-night Star Trek movie festival was one of them. I'm amazed that I could remember so much about the plots of the ninth and tenth films. We might not have any money, but that's the sort of information money can't buy. I've not just altered the web of time or anything, have I?'

'I wouldn't have thought so,' the Doctor murmured. 'And two-thirds of the way through the tenth film ... '

Benny nodded. 'Yes. It's very poignant. They knew it was his last one, you see. They could get away with al sorts of stuff.'

39.Pictures and text scrol ed across the screen. Benny could tell straight away that it was a map of Mars. The information was gradually becoming more detailed. Final y the Mission Badge flashed up onto the screen, along with a caption: SEALED ORDERS. MISSION DIRECTIVES. APPROVED 2/1/97.

A huge smile spread across the Doctor's face. 'These are satellite photos taken by Mariner and the Hubble Telescope of the Martian surface. This shows the landing zone and the parameters of the geological survey.' The picture zoomed in on the Mare Sirenum. 'Timothy Todd knew that there was going to be trouble. So he must have already known about the archway.'

They scanned the screen for a minute or so, eventual y agreeing where the arch would be located. There was no sign of it on the pictures.

'How well do you know that area, Bernice?'

Benny shrugged. 'It was ten years ago, and I was underground a lot of the time.'

'What about the War?'

Ninety years from now, Earth and Mars would fight the Thousand Day War. Bernice had been born in the twenty-sixth century, and by then the War was ancient history. It was still infamous for its particular brand of brutality: millions of human troops over-ran Mars, driving the natives to the brink of extinction with weapons that had long been banned on Earth. 'Fighting was mostly concentrated around Olympus Mons - where Jackson City is now.

There weren't any active nests under the Mare Sirenum, and it was on the wrong side of the Vallis Marineris, so it escaped nuclear attack. That's one of the reasons our expedition went there.'

The Doctor pointed at the monitor. 'So the terrain is much the same in the twentieth and twenty-sixth centuries.

The Lander is there. They've just gone underground. So where did they end up? Are they close to where your expedition went?'

Benny nodded. 'They are right in the heart of the Fields of the Dead. Virtually every cavern there has a tomb in it.'

'I thought the Martian Lords were cremated on funeral pyres.'

'Funeral customs change. At one point Marshals were entombed in insulated pyramids. It was a status symbol: water is rare on Mars. The Marshals were frozen inside coffin-sized blocks of ice, then sealed into the crystal spires.'

'So water is a sign of material wealth on Mars. Like the Pharaohs surrounding their mummies with gold?'

'Exactly the same, and the ritual has the same origin.'

'Yes.' The Doctor's eyes were shut as he tried to a.s.semble al the information. Final y, they snapped open and the Doctor swiftly slipped the second disk into the drive.

'Timothy knew there was going to be trouble, but there aren't any clues on that first disk. So he left us two disks.'

The Mission Badge flashed up, along with the caption: SEALED ORDERS. MISSION DIRECTIVES. APPROVED 12/12/96.

'The same information?' Benny asked.

'This was completed three weeks before,' the Doctor muttered. His eyes narrowed. 'More than that: look, originally the Lander was going to go to the Sinus Sabaeus.'

Benny leant over, struggling to remember her Martian geography. 'That's thousands of kilometres away from the Mare Sirenum. I don't know much about it, they aren't of any archaeological interest, in my time it's one big retirement vil age. The nearest I ever went was the casinoplex at Deucalionis.'

The Doctor rubbed his chin. 'So the landing site was changed, just before the launch, and the astronauts were ordered away from an unpopulated area right into the heart of one jam-packed with subterranean Martian buildings.'

'Wait a minute,' Benny objected, 'We didn't know about the Fields of Death until we got there in 2565, so there's no way anyone in 1997 could know about them.'

The Doctor looked at her. 'You'd think that, wouldn't you? It's something of a coincidence, though.'

'Are you saying that the astronauts knew they would find the tombs?'

The Doctor frowned. 'No. Commander Michaels was genuinely surprised. But someone at s.p.a.ce Centre knew what was going on. Someone who uncovered evidence of Martian civilisation on the Mare Sirenum twenty years ago. They have kept that information secret for a generation. Whoever it is is prepared to kill to keep it a secret.

They killed the man who gave us these disks, and al he seems to know is that the landing site was changed. We have to tell the authorities.'

Benny took a deep breath. 'No-one's going to listen to us while we're murder suspects. I get the feeling that if we end up in a police cel we won't get to cal our lawyers for a very long time.'

40.The Doctor leapt from his seat, flinging his chair back. 'We can cal UNIT!' he shouted.

Benny was on her feet, her finger over her mouth. 'UNIT the top secret organisation?' she whispered.

The Doctor looked crestfal en. 'Yes. They'll have the facilities to a.n.a.lyse the soil samples, too. I think we're getting going to the bottom of this.'

There was a pay phone tucked away in the corner of the cafe. They stepped up to it. The Doctor fished out his 10p piece and lifted the handset. He paused. 'There's one problem: I don't know their number.'

Benny rolled her eyes.

'Well, I can't just cal directory enquiries, can I?' the Doctor retorted, as if it was her fault. 'No-one's meant to know that they exist.'

'There must be someone you can call.'

The Doctor stared wildly for a moment, then clicked his fingers. 'Of course, yes. Why didn't I think of him earlier?

Hold out your hands.'

Benny did as he asked. The Doctor was rummaging through his pockets and producing his usual a.s.sortment of junk: a cricket ball, an elephant feather, a bag of kola nuts, a big bal of string, a piece of the True Cross, even a dog whistle. He handed everything but the string to Benny. Final y he found what he was searching for: a piece of vellum. On the front was a letter written in the Doctor's handwriting. A couple of strings of numbers and characters were scrawled in felt-tip on the back.

The Doctor dialled the first of the numbers.

Before the first ring, Benny thought of something and quickly cut the connection.

'Bernice!' the Doctor cried.

'We can't phone him,' Benny insisted. 'He used to be a senior military man, with access to the deepest, darkest secrets of the twentieth century. h.e.l.l, there are things that he saw that stil haven't been decla.s.sified in my time.'