Part 14 (2/2)

Benny c.o.c.ked her head. Over the burbling of the crowd, the wailing of the sirens and the ever-present noise of the traffic in the distance, she could hear helicopter rotor blades.

'Good, good.' The Doctor whirled around, scanning the rooftops.

Bernice looked up. The Martian s.h.i.+p blocked out a quarter of the sky, its stern almost, but not quite, disappearing over the horizon. ' This This is good?' is good?'

'Well, the Martians have been here half an hour and they haven't wiped us out yet - that's got to be a promising sign.'

'The big s.h.i.+p-mounted Martian sonic cannons take thirty-five minutes to power up.'

The Doctor looked up at the s.h.i.+p and then back down to her. 'Really?'

She nodded, biting her lip. They were right up against the crash barriers now. The chains securing them together were rattling.

The Doctor bent down to examine the phenomenon. 'Magnetic repulsion. Fascinating - a side effect of the magnetic flux that keep that s.h.i.+p afloat, no doubt.' He held the nearest padlock still and unfastened it with the sonic screwdriver and ushered Benny through the new gap. Al this was achieved without drawing any attention from either members of the crowd or the nearest policemen.

Before she had time to worry about that, they were heading across the Square. Like the crowd, the policemen and soldiers were al looking up at the s.h.i.+p. Here, they were directly underneath it, watching the winking lights at various points along the hull.

One group of policemen was standing right in front of the TARDIS door. Even if the Doctor had wanted to get inside he couldn't. It wasn't on the agenda, anyway, in fact the Doctor seemed unaware of the presence of his time machine.

'That's Eve, isn't it?' he asked. Benny followed his line of vision.

Lord Greyhaven's Aston Martin drew up just outside the Scotland Yard mobile command centre. A police officer opened the door for him, a young Army lieutenant for his pa.s.senger.

Staines was there already, waiting for him.

'What is it, Teddy?' he asked, glancing upwards.

Greyhaven raised a finger to his lips. 'Have you met Miss Evelin Waugh?'

She was young and blonde, and wearing a clinging silk dress. He remembered her from before at the s.p.a.ce Museum. Most of the men there would remember her. 'You're a lot prettier than your namesake,' the Home Secretary giggled.

'Gee, thanks,' she replied. She had an American accent.

'Miss Waugh is a journalist,' Greyhaven said, the merest hint of a warning in his tone of voice.

'Oh, the place is crawling with those,' the Home Secretary joked. 'There's a Yankee cameramen over there.' He gestured vaguely towards the outside broadcast vans that were ma.s.sing by the National Portrait Gallery.

The woman looked up at Lord Greyhaven. 'Brilliant: that's Alan, my cameraman. Edward, I've got work to do: I'l see you later,' she told Greyhaven quietly, brus.h.i.+ng against him as she hurried away.

'I say, Teddy, have you and she... ?'

Lord Greyhaven was staring up at the vast bel y of the s.p.a.cecraft. 'Is that real y the most pressing question on your mind, Staines?'

'I asked you what that was before, and you didn't tell me.'

Greyhaven glanced up, nonchalantly. 'That is a Martian s.p.a.cecraft.'

'However do you know?'

Lord Greyhaven looked at him witheringly.

56.Staines rounded on him. 'This wasn't the plan, Teddy. The Martians were just meant to send back the plans for the equipment in the Mars 97. They weren't meant to kill the astronauts in the Orbiter, they certainly weren't meant to come here in person.'

'Why wait four months? And why settle for blueprints? I agreed that it would be easier all round if they brought samples of their technology themselves. They can provide moral support for our little venture. Don't you want to meet our friends from Mars? Besides,' he chuckled, 'they didn't kill the crew of the Orbiter, that was a terrible accident.'

It took the Home Secretary a few moments to decipher Greyhaven's sarcastic tone. ' You You opened the airlocks?' opened the airlocks?'

Staines asked, with a mixture of anger and incredulity. 'From here, by remote control?'

He remembered Greyhaven leaning over an instrument panel at Mission Control, to shake a man's hand. Had he brushed against one of the controls then?

Lord Greyhaven chuckled. 'My dear chap, what sort of a fellow do you take me for?'

Staines straightened. 'But why?'

'They would have died soon anyway. This was the most humane way.' Staines imagined the astronauts in s.p.a.ce, trying to breathe frozen nothing, millions of miles from the nearest human beings. 'But I read that people explode in s.p.a.ce. The vacuum.'

'Nonsense,' Greyhaven said dismissively. 'Staines, it needed to be done. We need the Orbiter there. Think of it as our insurance policy. Better still, don't think about it at al .'

Greyhaven checked his watch and looked up.

There was a bellowing noise from the Martian craft, which squealed around Trafalgar Square, bouncing of the buildings, making everyone jump. There was absolute silence, absolute stil ness. After a couple of moments, nothing else had happened and the relief from the crowd was audible. A couple of groups began laughing.

Then the message started. It echoed down from the s.h.i.+p, from a public address system, and on a number of radio frequencies: 'WARRIORS UNDER THE BANNER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM HAVE VIOLATED THE TOMB OF OUR.

GREAT MARSHALL KYRUUL OF THE ARGYRE CLAN, UNDER THE SACRED SANDS OF THE MARE.

SIRENUM. THESE CRIMINALS ATTEMPTED TO STEAL THE TREASURES WITHIN. THEIR SHAMEFUL ACT.

IS ONE FOR WHICH THE WHOLE CLAN MUST BE PUNISHED. IN ACCORDANCE WITH OUR LAW, ALL.

TERRITORIES, MINERAL RIGHTS AND THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CLANS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

ARE NOW FORFEIT. THE UNITED KINGDOM IS NOW UNDER THE RULE OF THE HEAD OF THE ARGYRE.

CLAN, THE LORD XZNAAL, AND ALL ITS CITIZENS ARE SUBJECT TO MARTIAN FEUDAL LAW. YOU HAVE.

ONE HOUR TO AGREE TO THESE TERMS. AT THAT TIME, YOUR LEADER SHALL COME HERE IN PERSON.

AND SUBMIT TO OUR REGENCY.'.

There was silence.

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