Part 12 (1/2)

The Corporal control ing the display pressed a control on the desk and the loudspeakers began burbling with standard comms traffic between the Lander and Orbiter. The voices of the astronauts would pipe up every so often. Everything sounded perfectly normal.

'This is a live feed. They haven't even mentioned the archway, so it didn't lead anywhere interesting. End of story.

Right?'

'Wrong,' the Doctor declared. Now he was sitting draped over a chair, his feet on the desk. 'When did the astronauts enter the tomb?' he asked the room.

'About ten fifteen,' Bambera supplied.

The Doctor peered at the clock - it was twenty past six.

47.He leapt to his feet. 'We have a little under forty hours before the invasion.'

'Invasion?!' Lethbridge-Stewart was not the only person to express his surprise at the Doctor's p.r.o.nouncement.

He knelt down by Summerfield, grabbing her shoulders, staring straight into her eyes. 'You know your Martian culture, Bernice. What's the punishment for tomb robbery?'

'Disturbing the tomb of a Marshal is just about the worst sacrilege under Martian ecclesiastical law,' she said.

Lethbridge-Stewart found himself picturing little green men in dog collars.

The Doctor was nodding his head. 'It's the human equivalent of bursting into Westminster Abbey and digging the place up with a bul dozer.'

'I suppose,' she conceded, aware that everyone in the room was staring at her. Lethbridge-Stewart smiled encouragement at her. The spark of recognition pa.s.sed between them - here the Doctor goes again here the Doctor goes again.

'So what's the penalty?' the Brigadier prompted her gently.

'Anyone caught in there would face summary execution.' Summerfield realised what she was saying. 'Those astronauts are dead.'

Something pulsed at the very back of Lethbridge-Stewart's brain, primal sorrow for the astronauts, their families, the whole human race.

'Yes,' the Doctor was insisting, 'But it's worse than that. The Martians don't just punish the criminals, do they?'

Summerfield blanched. 'The robbers' entire clan would also face retribution: ma.s.sive reparations, the loss of territory and industrial facilities.'

The Doctor addressed the room like a prosecuting counsel. 'Those astronauts have stirred up a hornet's nest.

Without knowing it, they have just condemned the entire human race to death. Wars.h.i.+ps wil already be on their way.'

One of the Captains laughed, the same that had spoken before. He was a young lad, with blond hair. 'And you've got evidence for that, I suppose?' He'd probably only just been seconded to UNIT, he still had that swaggering scepticism that all the new recruits had for the first couple of months.

'He has, Captain Ford,' Bambera nodded. 'Eye witness evidence. I saw them entering a cave myself. s.p.a.ce Centre denied that ever happened, they threw me out when I tried to watch the video link. In the absence of any other explanation, and in the light of his experience, I am prepared to entertain the Doctor's a.s.sertion that the astronauts found a Martian tomb.'

'What about the radio transmissions?'

'Faked.'

Everyone turned to face Alexander Christian.

The Brigadier leant forward to explain. 'We have had the ability to fake s.p.a.ce-to-surface transmissions since my day. A military satellite, designation Haw-Haw, was put up by the Black Star rocket in 1971. It was capable of jamming extraterrestrial signals and broadcasting messages that looked like they came from deep s.p.a.ce.'

'Who controls this satellite?'

'It always used to be the s.p.a.ce Security boys.' Alexander Christian informed the room. Bambera nodded, jotting down a note.

The young UNIT Captain straightened. 'With respect, sir, can we prove these transmissions are faked?'

Bambera scowled. 'We can try. It should be straightforward enough to match voice patterns and so on. See to it when we've finished here, Captain Ford.'

The Doctor was holding his hand up, like a schoolboy in a cla.s.sroom. 'Brigadier,' he interrupted, 'there must be a genuine signal, too. Try retuning to find the real telemetry from the Orbiter - it shouldn't be too difficult to find.'

Bambera nodded.

Captain Ford was objecting again. 'Ma'am, even if the transmissions are fakes, it doesn't prove we're dealing with aliens. There aren't any records of Martians in the UNIT archive.'

'We've never faced them before,' Lethbridge-Stewart informed him.

'The Doctor and I certainly have,' Summerfield interrupted. It was the first time she had spoken unless she had been answering a question put to her, and she was aware of the sceptical looks around the room, unsure whether to continue.

The Doctor had his feet on the desk, his hands were folded behind his head. 'Bernice is from the twenty-sixth century,' he explained, delighting in the astonished expressions this revelation earned him. 'By then, the human race has colonised Mars and displaced the native Martian population. Bernice is an expert on Martian civilisation and culture. With the greatest respect, time is pressing.'

A couple of people at the table looked bemused by the revelations, but they'd seen enough in their time with UNIT to at least keep an open mind. They took their lead from Bambera, who was taking al the information in her stride.

'Doctor, I'll need some sort of proof of Martian involvement before I can even think of asking to deploy UNIT forces. And I need some evidence - anything - that points to a wider conspiracy. I'm afraid the MoD wil not believe the words of an escaped psycho. No offence, Colonel Christian.'

'None taken, Brig,' Alexander said lightly.

The Doctor was staring at the television screens, and knowing him, Lethbridge-Stewart imagined that he was taking in every piece of information, trying to find a clue in there. 'At the moment,' the Doctor blurted, 'because of the manned mission, almost every telescope in the country is pointing at Mars. Get them to check their records - at some point today there will have been a disturbance on the Martian surface. Check the photographs, and you'l see it bears an uncanny resemblance to an ICBM launch or a Moon rocket.'

'Do it, Corporal,' Bambera ordered. The prim Corporal could do that from her box of tricks, too, it seemed.

48.Bambera stiffened. 'OK, here's the score: if the Doctor is wrong, and there aren't any Martians, no-one wil ever know. s.p.a.ce Centre has everything pretty well covered up, and there's no problem. But, if there are Martians, UNIT need to know about it. From this point, we'l a.s.sume for the sake of argument that the Martians are out there and that they are mad with us. So, Doctor, Professor Summerfield, what are these Martians going to do?'

'Can't we tell them it was an accident?' Ford objected. 'We didn't even know that there were any Martians, let alone what their laws are.'

Bambera fixed the Doctor with a stare. 'I take it that ignorance of the law is no defence?'

'No,' the Doctor intoned gravely.

'What's al this about forty hours?' the Brigadier asked. 'It takes four months to travel to Mars, yes?'

The Doctor shook his head sadly. 'Martian science is far in advance of that of the human race.' Lethbridge-Stewart expected the Doctor to say something of the sort.

His old friend stood up, abruptly, and began pacing the room again. He ended up at the head of the table. All eyes were on him. 'From launch on Mars to arrival here, it wil take just under forty eight hours.'

The Doctor flashed a smile, and stabbed down at the corporal's keyboard. All the pictures on the video wall snapped off. 'That was very distracting. Now, by my calculations, the Martians will be in Earth orbit by Thursday lunch time. They will declare their intentions, presumably via radio. If they are not given what they ask for, they will take it by force.'