Part 8 (2/2)

Bernice groaned, pulling her dress back into a more decorous shape. Her hat had disappeared at some point and she was covered in bruises and grazes.

The Doctor produced a handkerchief and dusted her down. 'Are you all right?'

She rubbed her head, nodding. 'That'll teach me to come up with escape plans when I've spent the morning drinking champagne.'

The Doctor helped her upright. 'We were lucky there was a mattress.'

'No we weren't,' Bernice said enigmatical y.

A huge smile crossed the Doctor's face. 'The murderer ... the real murderer escaped this way. He would have pa.s.sed us on the stairs otherwise. When did you work that out?'

'Somewhere between the third and second storey.'

He helped her clamber up and over the side of the skip. The Doctor managed to get out under his own steam.

Bernice was uninjured, and had no difficulty running. They walked straight past three empty police cars.

'We need to find a computer to read these disks,' Bernice said.

'Yes, in good time,' the Doctor replied. 'First of all, you need to change out of that dress.'

Bernice raised an eyebrow. 'Why?'

The Doctor clutched the lapels of his frock coat. 'My dear Bernice, you're far too conspicuous in that outfit.'

36.

Chapter Five

The World At One

'This is the World at One, I'm James Naughtie. The headlines: ”I'm on the surface chaps”. The Mars 97 mission has reached the Red Planet. Much more on that in a moment. On a related but far less happy note, it has just been announced that the last Mars astronaut, Colonel Alexander Christian has escaped his high security prison and is on the loose in Kent. Police say that he is believed to be in the Canterbury area, and warn members of the public not to approach him, as he is armed and dangerous. Twenty years ago, ”Lex” Christian savagely murdered his crew on the return journey from Mars with an axe. Police are ruling out the possibility that he was responsible for the death of s.p.a.ce Centre technician Timothy Todd, 23, who was found stabbed to death at his flat in South West London. They want to question a couple in their thirties who were in the area at the time.'

'What is the world coming to?' Alexander Christian sighed, stoking his pipe. They were sitting in the s.p.a.cious lounge of Lethbridge-Stewart's house in Pyecombe. The Brig's wife was in the kitchen making a pot of tea and a spot of lunch. They'd been listening to the Test Series, but Lethbridge-Stewart wanted to check the news.

'They can't have any trace of you, Lex,' the Brigadier told him. 'That means that we can concentrate on the matter in hand. Now, what you encountered sounds very much like an Ice Warrior to me.'

Christian s.h.i.+fted in his sofa. The idea that Alistair had left the Scots Guards to fight aliens took a little getting used to. He'd heard of UNIT, of course, back when he was in the s.p.a.ce Service, but had always a.s.sumed it was a peacekeeping force or something of the sort. 'What's an Ice Warrior, then?'

'That's what Miss Grant called them.'

'Josephine Grant?'

'That's right. She was on my staff for a couple of years. Her uncle worked for the UN.'

'Good heavens, it's a small world. I knew her when she was doing her A-Levels. I think she blames me for failing General Science.'

Doris Lethbridge-Stewart came in with a tray piled high with sandwiches. 'Talking about the good old days again, Alistair?' She was younger than her husband, but just as self-a.s.sured.

'You have a lovely pad here,' Christian told them, 'I didn't think that a Brigadier's pension would run to this.'

'That's a sore point,' Doris said sweetly. 'If they'd promoted him to General when he retired like they usual y would have done, it would be over ten grand more.'

'Spoken like a true economist,' Alistair chuckled. 'You see, Lex, my secret is out: I'm a kept man. Doris here inherited the place from an aunt, and her salary more than looks after the both of us.'

'I'm not working today because of the Mars Day holiday,' she explained. 'I'l probably put a couple of hours in with the laptop this afternoon, though.'

Christian smiled, pretending he understood what she was talking about.

'Whyever weren't you promoted?' Christian asked.

'Politics,' the Brigadier replied curtly. 'Now, let's get back to these Ice Warriors, shal we?'

Christian looked over to Doris. 'Is she ... ?'

'Am I security cleared?' Doris interjected, 'No, but I don't need to be. Once you've heard one story about how UNIT didn't know what was going on until the Doctor turned up and saved the day you've heard them all.'

The Brig harrumphed. 'Actual y, Doris, we did manage by ourselves more times than not. The Doctor wasn't around when the Bandrils tried to destroy the ozone layer, was he?'

'No dear.' Clearly this was another sore nerve.

'We managed to beat the Drahvins without him, didn't we?'

'Yes dear, so you've said.'

'Well, then, there you go.'

'I'll just be in the study,' she said sweetly, kissing him on the temple. She took her mug and disappeared upstairs.

'Who is this Doctor, then?' Christian asked.

'He was my Scientific Advisor back in the seventies,' the Brigadier explained. 'He had ... particular expertise in the field of alien life forms. Miss Grant was his a.s.sistant for a short while.'

37.Christian had worked it out. 'So, she found out about the Martians while she was working with this boffin.'

'Yes that's right. Now, UNIT never encountered these chaps, but the Doctor and Miss Grant did on their travels. I always used to debrief her when she returned. Something to do with the planet Paladin, as I recall. It sticks in the memory because I remember Miss Grant tel ing me that at first the Doctor thought that these Ice Warriors were up to no good, but in the end it turned out they were on the side of the angels. It was usually the other way round.'

Christian shook his head. 'I've seen the fiends, Alistair. They are savage creatures, warlike. We infiltrated one of their cities - everything there is run like a barracks. As far as I could gather, these Martians were fighting a rival group. You should see their weapons and what they can do with them.'

The Brigadier took a swig of tea. 'It makes you wonder what the Martians would make of it if they landed in Bosnia.

Or Belfast, for that matter.'

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