Part 23 (1/2)

I struggled to keep my voice calm. 'Look. We don't have time and you know it. You know what the stakes are. If you can't make this decision get me someone who can. Get me the guy in the recording for heaven's sake!'

The woman frowned. Licked her lips. 'He's dead. The infection has reached us. The base is on condition-one alert. We're quarantined?' She coughed. I realized she had been coughing intermittently all through the exchange, but I had been too preoccupied to notice. I also realized the movement behind her was not the orderly bustle of a well-run ops room, but the near panic of a bunch of people trying to keep it together as long as possible before the inevitable end.

'Look, I realize your problem, but -'

'No, you don't. People are down. Comm channels are going down. Christ, the antennas are melting right off the frames. Now, I'm in charge here. I have ultimate authority; ultimate responsibility. If I disarm those bombs now I may not be able to rearm them again. If you are a terrorist I will have been responsible for destroying the world!'

''For the last time, I'm not a terrorist! They're dead! Antennas don't ”melt off their frames”, and I'm not a b.l.o.o.d.y terrorist!'

She seemed about to reply, then was distracted by an excited shouting from behind her.

'The ID's checked out. She's on the level -'

'You mean the ID's on the level. She could still be a -'

'We're registering ground shocks! We're losing the antennas - I felt like reaching out and grabbing the woman by the throat and shaking it.

Only the fact that I knew I'd be wasting my time stopped me. You can't throttle a laser beam. 'Listen to me! I need a decision! Now!'

The woman turned and issued orders, then turned back. 'We've authenticated your ID. I don't know how much time we have. We're preparing an info blip. Set your channel to - Static.

'The bombs, you idiot, have you disarmed the bombs?'

Nothing. The transmission was over, the channel dead. Knowing my luck lately, so were we.

I stomped angrily over to the plastic screens - no mean feat in one-sixth gravity - and pulled them open. Where was Jason? I needed someone to shout at. He'd gone. Chris was there though, loping towards me. I waited.

One piece of good news. That was all I needed. Just one. Please.

No chance.

Chris bounced to a stop and said, 'Tammuz got away. He killed one of the soldiers, took his gun and his force field. Sorry, Benny. I'll keep looking.

We'll get him eventually?'

I shook my head. 'No. Let the soldiers do that. I've got something more important for you to do.'

'What's that?'

'Do you have your laptop with you? And that hacker software the Doctor gave you?'

'It's in the TARDIS. Why?'

I ushered him back into the control area, showed him the picture of the two missiles en route to the Moon with their . nuclear payloads. 'Chris, meet the Flopsey Twins. Benjy Bunny and Billy Bunny. Say h.e.l.lo to Mister Myxomatosis. Chris. I want you to access the control systems and kill these wretched things before they kill us, OK?'

Chris shrugged agreeably. 'Whatever you say, Roz. I'll need to get out on to the surface to establish a direct line of sight but that won't be a problem.

I'll get my laptop and the Doctor's umbrella.'

It took me a moment to realize what Chris had said: 'Roz?'

Chris shook his head. 'Did I call you ”Roz”? That was silly. Sorry, Benny.'

'Disarm those bombs and you can call me Cleopatra Queen of the Nile. I'll even cuddle a snake if you ask nicely.' Chris grinned, ran off in long strides to fetch his laptop.

Left to my own devices I decided a short breather was in order. I sat down in one of the NASA chairs and put my feet up on the table which held the various alien artefacts. They were a mixed bunch. There were pieces of stone, some obviously acid-etched, mingled with chunks of etched crystal that might have been bits of circuitry or machinery. I looked at these and thought of blasting charges, intrusive archaeology. Why couldn't people be more patient? They'd obviously blown something up when they'd first got here. By accident? I had to a.s.sume so. I sighed.

Gla.s.s boxes held things that might have been tiny, crystalline sea sponges.

The sponges floated in a brown liquid. The boxes were labelled with acid warning signs. I looked closer at the specimens. As a kid I'd kept a chemical garden. Metallic salts and crystals sown in a fish tank full of watergla.s.s. But these formations were not like those. They had. been very beautiful but still, unmoving, rigid. These forms moved. As if they were breathing.

I sat up straight. The formations were alive.

Alien life? In an installation six billion years old? Had they been cloned?

Grown by the NASA people?- Were they intended to be here? Were they part of the operating system? Could we use them to fix what had happened to Earth?

A sound behind me made me jump. A scuffling sound and a throaty bleating noise. I turned. The sheep. It was the d.a.m.n sheep. It pushed its way into the control area and moved towards me, bouncing comically in the unfamiliar gravity, one leg stiffened by the addition of a force-field emitter. It was making unhappy-sheep noises. I wondered if it knew it was on an alien world. The first sheep in s.p.a.ce. I giggled. Then I suddenly thought of Bill Raelsen, Terry Sehna, Ellie n.o.ble. They would be here somewhere; their bodies would. If what Liz had told me before she died was right. I resolved to go and find them when I had time. Try to give them some kind of decent burial.

The sheep pushed back out through the screens and wandered off.

I looked back at the alien life forms in the specimen boxes. What if they hadn't been grown? Where had they come from? Another chamber?

Another part of the base? I unsealed one box, reached inside. The sulphuric acid sloshed around my force-field-protected hand, harmless as was.h.i.+ng-up water. I touched the spongelike formation. I don't know what I expected. A revelation maybe. Communication. Something.

There was nothing. Just the faint, grainy texture of the crystalline surface.

I withdrew my hand, let the excess acid rain back into the box. I was about to seal the box when someone touched me. I jumped, dropped the box.

Acid splashed over the table, dripped on to the floor, where it puddled harmlessly? The sponge fell to the ground and rolled away. I expected it to shatter. It didn't.

Jason picked it up and held it out to me. 'Sorry.' I reached out to take it from him. He wasn't moving His face was blank, frighteningly so. I remembered a time in South Africa when he had pulled a knife on a villager who was asking us for medical help. He thought the woman was a first-stage Ebola victim. When he found out he was wrong he put the knife away and apologized. Not that that would have helped if he had been three seconds quicker. It was a little reminder of his darker side that I could have done without.

'Jason, put the sponge back in the box.'

Jason blinked. 'I ... er ... sure. Here. Here, give me the box, then, and I'll . .

.' He tailed off.

'Jason? What is it?'

His voice was as disbelieving as his expression. 'It's this thing.' He waved the sponge. 'It's alive. It recognizes me?'

I laughed. 'Don't be stupid. Put it back in the box and we'll - I stopped then.

Another voice was speaking? The Ark.