Part 14 (2/2)

'Er, excuse me do I get a say in this?' the man asked.

'Well?'

'UNIT.'.

'UNIT?' Eleanor asked.

Peterson waved for her to be quiet. 'What do you know about UNIT? Even if you are with MI5 '

'I'm only helping out for MI5. I am the scientific advisor to UNIT.' He scuffled in his jacket pockets. 'Got a pa.s.s here somewhere. I think.' He pulled a tattered paper bag from his pocket. 'Here, hold this,' he said as he dumped it into Westwood's grasp. He then proceeded to pile Westwood's cupped hands with all manner of trinkets and bric-a-brac. After a long while he produced a tatty cardboard pa.s.s complete with 128 bent photograph and handed it to Peterson. Then he recovered his other belongings from Westwood's unsteady grasp and returned them to various pockets.

Peterson examined the pa.s.s dubiously. 'Doctor,' he said at last. 'It just says Doctor Doctor.'

The man's eyes bulged like bull's-eyes. 'Well that's because I'm just called Doctor Doctor.'

'In any case,' Peterson went on, 'this pa.s.s, even if it's genuine, is twenty years old.'

The Doctor s.n.a.t.c.hed it back and stuffed it into another pocket. 'Twenty years less than one swing of Time's pendulum.'

'And how many swings are there in one hour, Doctor?

Because that's how long you have to pack up your gear and get off the premises.' Peterson chuckled, evidently pleased with his riposte. Then he marched from the room with what dignity he could muster.

Westwood shook his head slightly and gestured for the Doctor to stay put. Then he followed Peterson and Eleanor into the corridor outside.

'If you'd like to continue along that way,' Westwood said, 'I'll just make sure he gets out of the room.'

Peterson snorted his approval and led the way down the corridor.

Westwood ducked back inside the room. 'Sorry about that, Doctor, er Doctor.'

'That's quite all right, Mr Westwood it is Westwood, isn't it?' the Doctor said.

'Yes. Yes, that's right. I'm afraid I'll have to throw you out.'

The Doctor leaned forward. 'I have to finish what I'm doing,'

he whispered. 'It's vitally important.'

'I was afraid it might be. Got a map?'

The Doctor produced his floor plan. Westwood took it and drew a circle round a small room on the top floor on the east side of the house.

'There's a network connection in there. It's about all there is, though. You'll have to take everything else you need from here. Sorry about that. But please try to keep out of Peterson's 129 hair, for all our sakes. I'll get someone to bring you a trolley for your gear.'

'Thank you, Mr Westwood.' The Doctor grinned and pocketed the map.

'That's all right. Happy to help you chaps. I don't know civil servants.'

'Aren't you a civil servant?' the Doctor called after him as he left.

'Only as much as you are, Doctor,' he called back.

The Doctor grimaced. Not a happy thought,' he said.

Westwood smiled. Then he was gone, shutting the door behind him.

The room Westwood had suggested was certainly well isolated from the rest of the building. There would be little chance of Peterson, or anyone else, finding the Doctor in the poky attic room in which he was setting up his equipment. He had almost pa.s.sed by the small door, imagining it to be a boot cupboard. But then he reflected on the size of some of the boot cupboards in the TARDIS and looked in anyway. What he had found had probably been one of the servants' rooms. The most junior maid, by the look of it.

There was a network connection cable snaking across the floor, and a desk and chair. Other than that the room was empty. There was a set of power sockets inconveniently placed relative to the network cable. The only light was a single naked bulb hanging from the sloping ceiling. The only window was a small skylight close to the bulb, which meant the light reflected oddly round the magnolia-painted walls of the small room. Through the skylight the Doctor had a good view of a part of the sky, and a lot of the roof as it continued to slope upwards.

The Doctor hummed There's no Place like Home There's no Place like Home as he finished connecting up the computer to its screen and the network. He pushed the trolley into a corner of the room and switched on the power at the socket. Then he rubbed his hands together and turned on the system unit and screen. as he finished connecting up the computer to its screen and the network. He pushed the trolley into a corner of the room and switched on the power at the socket. Then he rubbed his hands together and turned on the system unit and screen.

Within a few minutes the Doctor was completely back into his work. He traced his finger across the screen, trying to find 130 patterns in the numbers. He excluded certain sequences and showed others in different colours. After a while he sat back and stared at the resulting pattern.

He was sure he had seen something similar before. But the context was wrong that was what was throwing him. He had already recognized the same configurations and sequences as he had found the previous night when he plugged in the chips from Sutcliffe's watch and the two malfunctioning computers he and Harry had investigated. Those same patterns had been repeated within the larger program. But they were const.i.tuent parts, elements of the whole rather than the thing itself.

He continued to stare at the screen, scrolling the bit patterns past his eyes until they started to blur. The colours left a winding trail as the numbers snaked past.

The Doctor sat upright, watching intently as the colours spiralled past in a double helix. A double helix ...

'Oh no,' said the Doctor out loud swinging the chair round so he faced into the corner of the room where the ceiling was the lowest and the trolley stood idly waiting for work. 'Oh no surely not.' And he swung back to the screen, his fingers blurring over the keys as he typed.

Gibson was coming round. Harry sat by the hospital bed and watched his colleague as he slowly moved his head from side to side. His eyes were still closed, but Harry could see movement flickering beneath the lids.

'Come along, old man,' Harry muttered encouragingly.

Gibson was more than ten years his junior, he reflected. Funny how he was suddenly aware of how young everyone else was.

Gibson's face was lacerated by the gla.s.s, but now that the blood had been wiped away and the bleeding had stopped it looked much better than Harry had feared. Gibson's hands were bandaged, but the tips of the fingers were left free, scorched and sore but manipulable.

Gibson's eyes flicked open and his eyebrows tightened as he fought to focus. Harry smiled in what he hoped was a rea.s.suring manner, and Gibson sat up suddenly. Harry stopped smiling.

131.

'I say are you all right?' He knew at once it was a stupid question. But Gibson seemed not to realize.

'Sir what are, that is ' He broke off, aware of his bandaged hands. 'My G.o.d. The explosion the phone.'

'The phone?' He was probably delirious, poor fellow. The shock, of course. Harry could remember once in Portsmouth 'Has it started?' Gibson broke into his reminiscence. 'Sarah warned me I was about to call you when when this happened.' He held his hands up in front of his scarred face.

'Has what started, Robert? What did Sarah tell you? What are they up to?'

Gibson took a moment to gather his thoughts. 'Something big. Important. This morning, but she didn't know what. Only that they told her to be ready at seven-thirty. Didn't know what for.'

'This morning?' Harry's brain went into top gear as he thought through potential targets and operations. 'Hubway,' he said at last. 'It's got to be.'

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