Part 8 (2/2)

'Better. And Dr. . . Jones? Is he around somewhere too? Do I need to send my people to flush him out?'

Rose shook her head. 'No, he's not here. But he knows where I am. If I'm not back soon he'll come and. . . '

'What?' Morton smiled. 'Come and pay your bail? Come and explain to the police what you were doing, trying to gain access to my affairs under an a.s.sumed name. Come and listen to you explaining why you were caught breaking and entering. Come and offer compensation for the criminal damage that you have no doubt caused gaining entry to my property.' He tutted condescendingly. 'No, no, no. I'm afraid that, if I want, you can be in an awful lot of trouble, young lady.'

'And what are you going to do about them?' Rose nodded at the Cynrog that lurked in the open doorway. 'How you gonna explain to the police that you've got alien nurses looking after your patients?'

Morton gave Peyne a look of surprise. 'She is well informed. How refres.h.i.+ng. Perhaps the police aren't such a good idea after all.'

'Oh, I dunno,' said Rose. 'Bring 'em on. I'm sure they'd be interested in hearing about you covering up that death on the beach.'

Morton stiffened in his chair and his tone changed. 'It seems that you have been digging rather deeper into my affairs than I had realised. Perhaps we do need to tighten up our operation a little. Peyne, whatever it is she found get rid of it. Then make sure that she was alone. Get your men to make a thorough sweep of the grounds. And tell them to put their masks back on. We don't want any prying eyes seeing too much, do we?'

Peyne gestured to her unmasked colleagues and they snapped to attention, pulling the surgical masks with their human faces back into place and hurrying away down the corridor.

Rose nodded after them. 'Couldn't afford proper masks for that lot, then? Had to resort to cheap fancy-dress nurses' outfits for everyone except matron here?'

'Quite so.' Morton wheeled himself over to her. 'Full lip synch in 84 the masks is very expensive to achieve and I'm afraid the Cynrog are sticklers for working to an exact budget. Miss Peyne here is the only one who needs direct interaction with the populace. The others are merely disguised for the benefit of nosy, interfering busybodies.'

'So what are you up to, Morton? What deal have you done with the Cynrog? Running a nursing home for them?'

'You know nothing.' Morton's voice was low and measured.

'Those things are killing people, Morton!' Rose was getting angry now, frustrated by the calmness of the man in front of her. 'Does she tell you about her little night-time trips to clean up the mess that's left when your monsters have finished eating? Does she? People are going to be missed. You can't just keep on with what you're doing without someone noticing!'

Morton wheeled himself slowly over to the desk. He opened a drawer and pulled out a plastic bag. Inside Rose could see a wallet, some credit cards and a set of car keys. Morton unsealed the bag and pulled out a driver's licence. He studied it sadly for a moment. Then held it up for Rose to see.

'Carl Jenkins. Twenty-eight years old. No parents, and a sister who is currently serving time at Her Majesty's Pleasure for aggravated a.s.sault.' He gave Rose a sad smile. 'Do you really think that anyone is going to miss him? His death was unfortunate, but the simple truth is that the world will never notice his pa.s.sing. He is simply irrelevant.'

He tossed the driving licence on to the fire, watching the plastic curl and smoulder.

'The work we are doing here cannot be interrupted. If death is the price that has to be paid, then so be it. Sacrifices must be made.' He sealed the bag again and handed it to Peyne. 'Dispose of that in the incinerator. No traces.'

Rose felt a cold fury towards this man who regarded life so casually.

'Whatever it is you're doing the Doctor will stop you. Harm those kids and I'll stop you.'

'You know nothing!' Morton repeated, this time slamming the palms of his hands down on the arms of his wheelchair, his calm demeanour gone. 'You have no idea of what I have had to endure! Of what I 85 have gone through to get to this point! I am not the child-murdering monster that you take me for. You can't even begin to understand!'

He stopped, his face dangerously red, and slowly tried to control his harsh breathing. 'Peyne, I want to know who she is and where she comes from.'

Peyne smiled unpleasantly. 'Certainly, Nathaniel.'

'And I want to know quickly. Use the machine.'

The smile faded. 'But we have just started the night's operations. If we interrupt the sequence. . . '

'An hour's delay will not matter!' snapped Morton. 'The night is still young. I need to know if there is any danger of delay to our plans. I need to know who she is and who this mysterious Doctor of hers is. Or would you prefer to explain to your Grand Synod that you had advance intelligence and failed to act on it?'

Peyne said nothing, but her eyes were full of hate.

'Then do as I say!'

Peyne glowered at him before turning and pulling an old-fas.h.i.+oned bell pull in the corner of the room. Morton took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow.

'Now, Miss Tyler, we shall really get to the bottom of things.'

Two of the masked warders appeared in the doorway.

'Prepare a bed for our guest.'

86.

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The Doctor lay flat on his back, peering into the guts of the alien machine, his sonic screwdriver acting as a torch. The pale green glow cast by the machinery crackled around him, sending sparks of energy across the fibres of his jacket like St Elmo's fire. The Doctor glanced down at his glittering jacket warily. There was an enormous amount of power being generated by this machine, a lot of it that he still didn't understand. The readings he had taken indicated that it was safe, at least for a short time, but he didn't want to be exposed to it any longer than was absolutely necessary. Bronwyn was perched on the stairs just outside the doorway of the lamp room. She'd refused to stay at the base of the lighthouse, and the Doctor couldn't really say that he blamed her the noise of the monsters' claws sc.r.a.ping along the steel plating was enough to give anyone nightmares but he was concerned about exposing her to the unquantifiable radiation of the lamp room.

There was another reason too. The machine was operating on a psychic level in some way. The Doctor could feel a persistent tickling at the back of his mind. Its effect on the children of the village was now obvious; its effect on him was merely an irritation his own 87 mental discipline was more than enough to keep the intrusion of the machine at bay but Bronwyn was another story. Her mental state was in a very delicate balance already and the Doctor couldn't say what effect the machine might have on her.

'a.s.suming it hasn't had an effect on you already,' the Doctor muttered.

'What was that?' Bronwyn frowned at him. 'You'll have to speak up.'

'Nothing. I'm still trying to formulate some kind of plan, that's all.'

'Well, we can't stay in the lighthouse for ever.'

'We're hardly likely to make it back to the sh.o.r.e in one piece either!'

The Doctor could imagine what aquatic horrors lurked in the waters around Black Island.

'What are we going to do, then?' Bronwyn asked, wincing as the lighthouse reverberated with another attack from the creatures outside.

'I think our best bet at the moment is to try and get to the cave and its mysterious s.p.a.cecraft. There's a possibility that I can open the main hatch and we can shelter in there. I doubt that even these creations of nightmare could break into a duralinium hull.'

Bronwyn snorted. 'How are you going to get into an alien s.p.a.cecraft?'

'I'm quite good with locks.' The Doctor gave her an apologetic smile.

'Look, Bronwyn, I'm trying to concentrate. Please?'

He stretched his neck with a view to squeezing himself further underneath the machine. He was determined to get a closer look at the mechanisms. It wasn't easy, though. The machine was huge and heavy, bolted to the floor of the lamp room with ma.s.sive, blind-headed nuts. The base was only thirty centimetres or so off the floor and pipes wound through every available s.p.a.ce. The Doctor peered through the tangle.

'Aha!'

Six ugly metal lumps studded a curving section of the machine's underside.

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