Part 30 (2/2)

Martian hieroglyphs were flas.h.i.+ng up across the screen. It told me that there wasn't a problem with the hardware at this end and that it was trying to re-establish a link with the Martian communications network. I bit my lip.

The screen flashed up an answer: there had been a ma.s.sive electromagnetic pulse and all communications would be impossible until the equipment was reset or replaced. I stared at the hologlobe, and al I could think was that the static swirling around the three dimensions of the hologlobe looked like maggots in a bucket.

There had been a nuclear explosion on the surface of Mars. Either the Argyre were firing them, or the rival clans had launched them in retaliation. Either way, millions of Martians were dying as I sat there. When Xznaal discovered that his home world was at war, that there would be nothing to go back to...

I had one option left. I was back across the room in seconds, my finger stabbing towards the detonator. I didn't even think. It didn't occur to me that this might be the action that released the Red Death, that the bomb might only crack the cylinder casing rather than obliterate the gas completely.

The merest moment's consideration and I might have realised that pressing the b.u.t.ton would destroy mankind.

I truly thought I had nothing to lose. But as one claw caught my wrist, another encircled my neck and I was yanked into the air and away from the bomb, I realised that I was wrong. It could get worse. And at that moment, as I felt Vrgnur's cold breath on the back of my neck, I knew that it was over. Whatever we tried to do, however bravely we fought, wherever we hid, the human race was going to be hunted down and driven to extinction by creatures such as this: a species cleverer than we were, stronger than us. More relentless, more powerful. This was the end.

End of extract 107.

Chapter Fourteen.

Look! - Up In The Sky!

The Brigadier's limousine arrived in Trafalgar Square shortly before one o'clock. Behind the UNIT convoy was a column of people a mile long.

The Square had already been filling up. The crowd were safely behind the barriers that had been set up the week before and had never been taken down. As Lethbridge-Stewart drove past, they cheered and waved. It was all very reminiscent of a royal visit. Some people were even waving little plastic Union Flags, others were clutching helium balloons. Most of them were cl.u.s.tered around the Column, sitting alongside the lions like so many millions of tourists and revellers down the years.

A small UNIT squad had arrived twenty minutes before, and had set up a mobile HQ, recovered from the underground garage of the UNIT office. The Brigadier found himself smiling, and then it dawned on him why: the large grey van was parked alongside the TARDIS. Professor Summerfield had told him that it would be there. That wasn't the same as seeing it. After al this was over, he would have the TARDIS taken somewhere safe. He would have Adisham searched for the Doctor's body. An immortal race had no need of funeral customs, but Lethbridge-Stewart would see that his friend was given a proper burial.

'That's odd.' Bambera had seen the police box, too, and she knew what it was, but it didn't hold the same memories for her. She was busy scanning the crowd, a.s.sessing the level of danger, looking for the enemy. Al the things he ought to have been doing. 'The crowd are already facing this way, sir,' she informed him.

Lethbridge-Stewart told the driver to park the car alongside the mobile HQ. 'Really?'

He did quick recce. Bambera was right. There must have been a couple of thousand people there, and the vast majority were looking not at the vast Martian s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p to the East, or towards Westminster to the South. They were staring at the entrance to the s.p.a.ce Museum.

A young Corporal was opening up his door and saluting him. Lethbridge-Stewart went through the formalities, then, 'What's going on?'

'There's a Martian in there, sir. Went in about twenty minutes ago with the Home Secretary, just before we arrived.'

Lethbridge-Stewart did what everyone else was doing, he stared at the door. So far, only a handful of Martians had left the s.h.i.+p, the two that had been killed at the Doctor's house, the scientist and Xznaal himself.

'It's the leader, isn't it?' he asked. The Corporal nodded.

'How do you know?' Bambera asked the Corporal.

'There were a few people already here, ma'am. Not just that, the Home Office chauffeur and aide came over to our side the moment we arrived. They are both still a bit shocked by it all.'

Lethbridge-Stewart nodded towards the mobile HQ. 'Those two are both in Trap One, I take it?'

'Sir,' the Corporal confirmed.

'Is the Square secure?' All around them, the rest of the UNIT vehicles had arrived, much to the delight of the crowd. The soldiers, al of them so young, were jumping down, taking out all the carefully stowed equipment. Their tanks were lining up outside Charing Cross Road station.

'Yes, ma'am. The Provisionals have al pulled back to defend Downing Street and the Tower, we've done a quick sweep of the buildings. There's a column of Government tanks along the Embankment and Thames Street. We have them under close observation from Trap Two, at Tower Hill. We can see over the wal s onto Tower Green from there.'

'Snipers?'

'None of theirs any more. We have men at both positions, sir, with strict orders not to fire unless ordered to.'

Lethbridge-Stewart allowed himself to relax a little. 'Good man,' he concluded.

Bambera pointed over the tops of the buildings to the Martian s.h.i.+p. 'The plan was that the enemy s.h.i.+p would move when the refinery went up,' she reminded him. That had been a little under five minutes ago.

'We also thought that it would prevent our build-up if it was still here, but they've just ignored us,' he responded.

'The Professor was right: the Martians will only intervene if they are personal y threatened. If we fire on a Martian, that s.p.a.cecraft wil fire on us. They'll wipe us out.'

'Perhaps they are just biding their time. They could start wiping us out at any moment.'

The Brigadier conceded the point, 'You're right. Now, I don't know my Martian military history, but I know that on this planet many a battle has been lost because the superior force got complacent. They don't realise just how hard we can hit them. We also know that they won't be using the gas.'

Bambera nodded. 'We've had word from Strike Command: the Harriers are ready, and can be here in four minutes. There are anti-aircraft batteries at Spitalfields and St James Park.'

'Trap Two has a couple of artillery pieces,' the Corporal added.

Lethbridge-Stewart was fitting a radio earpiece. 'We stay in position. We do nothing to provoke the Martians. We sit this one out if we have to.'

Theo Ogilvy had done his best, and he told Xznaal as much. Without the Orbiter, the nearest telescope to Mars was the Hubble, circling the Earth. For the next three hours, its...o...b..t kept it on the wrong side of the planet to face the alien's home world.

108.

All his professional life, Ogilvy had taken careful measurements, a.n.a.lysed blips in line graphs and spectroscope readings. He'd studied sketch charts with all the majesty and grandeur of a dot-the-dots puzzle, gasped in awe at blurred photographs of white pinp.r.i.c.ks against a black background. Astronomy was an odd science, one that saw men in tweed suits growing old staring up into the infinite, timeless night sky in the hope of fathoming how the universe was put together. Every night, he and tens of thousands of people like him would observe tiny coloured specks of light, sometimes forgetting that every single one of those specks was large enough to swallow Earth and Mars without even noticing. There were sunspots wider than the diameter of the Earth on each and every pinp.r.i.c.k in the sky.

He was a thirty-eight year old bachelor, and the first time he'd even flown in a plane was a trip to NASA three years ago, when he'd been appointed Mission Controller of Mars 97. He'd lived in Watford al his adult life. Now, an alien was forcing him, at gunpoint, to show it photographs of Mars. An eight-foot green reptile. But how could a cold-blooded creature survive in the sub-zero temperatures of Mars? How could anything even remotely resembling a human breathe nitrogen? Why would a creature from a low-gravity world evolve into such a powerful, muscular form? Ogilvy pushed al those questions to the back of his mind and concentrated on the task in hand. But despite being in the global nerve centre for Martian studies, the clearest image of the planet that he could manage to find was from tracking station 63 in Madrid. It showed a new feature in the atmosphere, a vast brown/red cloud.

'M-ma.s.sive displacement of material,' Ogilvy stammered, not daring to look at Xznaal. 'Mil ions of tonnes of rock and sand. Like the aftermath of a volcanic eruption. After Krakatoa, thousands of square miles were covered in ash, and the whole world had spectacular sunsets for years afterwards.'

He glanced over at Xznaal, who was almost hunched. The Martian's head was low, the crown it had been wearing had fallen off, and the only sign that it was still alive was the regular, asthmatic breathing.

'Ssunssetss?' it coughed.

Xznaal was pulling itself straight. It resembled a JCB or a similar piece of machinery - so much power, in such a hard body. Xznaal's claws snapped open and shut, a gesture of powerlessness that Ogilvy found disturbingly human.

'I... ' Ogilvy couldn't think of a single thing to say and turned to David Staines for support, but the Home Secretary had vanished. Lord Greyhaven's broken body was stil there. Ogilvy tried to form a smile, even a weak one, but couldn't. He tried to say some consoling words, but none came out.

Xznaal was staring into the monitor again. Then it turned, and lumbered from the room. Ogilvy swallowed, waiting until the Martian was out of sight, then he began running for the fire exit.

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