Part 22 (1/2)

' This is Noo Wooooorrlld, This is Noo Wooooorrlld, ' sang the jingle again. Anthony listened as his own recorded voice began to babble inanely. ' sang the jingle again. Anthony listened as his own recorded voice began to babble inanely.

'New World Radio, the ones who share.' Music fed into the transmission channel.

He let the emergency insert play and cut back into Line One. 'Danny. You b.l.o.o.d.y idiot, what's happening? I knew you'd get caught. Where are you? You've got to get help before...'

The un.o.btainable tone cut in on the line.

'Danny? Danny!'

Anthony slammed a fist on his console. He pulled off his cans. The tone on Line One was breaking up, becoming a series of high-pitched staccato blips.

Danny's paper was bubbling up with a sort of frothy web.

The stuff had spread like a malignant growth onto the console.

Anthony pulled back and moved towards the door. It was jammed. He pulled and tugged at the handle before he realized that the fire lock had been operated automatically by the computer.

The endless run of blips was getting louder and louder.

Behind him, the frothing web hissed and spluttered with a voracious glee.

The stream of blips knifed into Danny's ear. He yelled and flung away the mobile phone. It struck a rock and cut off.

Danny dropped to his knees and retched. As he caught at his breath, he heard the tramp behind him shouting and complaining.

'What you after? b.l.o.o.d.y Chillys! I'm going to get the law.'

'Think they'd believe you?' Danny snapped without looking up.

They had got well away from the campus, out onto an abandoned allotment that bordered the ca.n.a.l. The tramp, who was well-known round the university a sort ofjoke or mascot had helped carry him after they had escaped the garage, but Danny had to make the phone call, if only to warn someone.

There were things he had discovered at New World. Things he'd unearthed, but didn't understand. And now the things, whatever they were, were coming for him.

'Sir, I never hurt no one. Not me, sir. Not old Harrods.' The old guy, filthy-dirty and crazy as he was, seemed to be genuinely concerned. He was scrabbling down to reach the phone.

'Don't!' shouted Danny and the tramp cringed.

Then a wicked grin cracked over his sun-baked face. 'Sir, flew right down, you did. Glided right down out of that place.'

He spread his arms like a kid being a jet-plane and whistled himself down. 'Don't need jets no more, sir!' He cackled and capered a little dance. Then just as suddenly his eyes were full of fear. He glanced back at the distant ziggurats of the university. 'And then he comes after us, like an old spidery man.'

'He's coming for all of us,' declared Danny and grabbed Harrods by the coat. 'That money you nicked from me's no good to anyone. Period. Not unless you help me.'

Harrods' eyes narrowed. 'You got more?'

Danny shot him a look of withering contempt and he started to whimper. 'Sir, I got principles. I'm very particular.'

But he kept his hand on the money in his pocket.

'You've seen what's coming,' said Danny and they both stared again at the distant buildings.

'Yes, sir.' Harrods twisted his head and looked up at the young man with a sense of wonder. Danny was squinting into the depths of the upper air.

'That's only half of what I can see,' he said. 'There's someone we have to find fast.'

18.

By Appointment t took the Brigadier three-quarters of an hour pus.h.i.+ng Ithrough oncoming crowds to reach Great Portland Street.

He cut up through Covent Garden the old market streets where he had once led a squad against the invading Yeti. The robots had had no apparent strategy. They were like s.h.a.ggy tanks, formidable and virtually unstoppable killers. The trendy piazza with its fas.h.i.+onable shops seemed a world away from the battlefield where he had lost so many men.

It was going to be a day for memories. He reached Great Portland Street at last and headed into the august portals of the Alexander Hotel. He could remember when the building had been a gentlemen's club. The Victorian Gothic facade remained, but the inside had been gutted and renewed. The once agreeably fusty reception area was now all mirrors and chrome. Pleasantly vacuous music was being piped in from somewhere. The smiling girl at the reception desk with her 'Hi. Welcome to the Alexander Hotel,' was as innocuous as a strawberry milkshake.

'Lethbridge-Stewart to see Cavendish,' he announced.

He noticed that the receptionist, who was wearing headphones, was seated at a computer which actually seemed to be working. She indicated the double doors across the foyer beyond a melee of j.a.panese tourists. 'If you go through to the lounge, Brigadier, you'll find Captain Cavendish waiting for you.'

From the expansive windows of her office, Victoria watched the university helicopter sink down behind the outbuildings.

Christopher's absence had not gone unnoticed, but she half hoped that he was actually returning with the Chancellor.

Her thoughts had been flying far away, searching for the Brigadier, but his location eluded her. Desperation drove her now. She was not sure she could physically face the Chancellor's rage at her failure to find the Locus. Perhaps she was looking too hard. All she saw was spreading chaos, further signs that modern society was teetering on the brink of collapse. No wonder the Chancellor had chosen this moment to return.

She saw Christopher crossing the quadrant alone. While she waited, she gazed from the windows at the extensive grounds of the university she had inaugurated. Everyone else reckoned it an amazing achievement, but it was far from complete and that final resolution rested on her shoulders. Sometimes her thoughts got confused. Things happened that she did not always understand.

There were people she wanted to talk to, to ask if she had got it right. Where were they all? The Harrises and Roxana Cywynski and poor dear Charles and the Doctor. Surely the Doctor would know what was right or horribly wrong.

'Now Victoria, you know that this is a decision you have to make for yourself,' he would say gently. How she wished he was here to say that now.

She was aware that Christopher had silently entered the office. She could sense his presence moving in behind her like a serpent. He coveted her position, she knew that, but she could not progress without him. A wave of self-pity and nostalgia for things lost began to well in her heart.