Part 3 (1/2)

'It doesn't look very interesting.'

He righted the hatstand, shrugged himself into his long, dark-brown coat and looped his trailing scarf around his neck. 'Never judge a book by its cover, Romana. Besides, we've got to go out. Just so we can say we've been.' He operated the door lever and the double doors swung open with a low hum. 'Come on, K9, if you're up to it. Best roller forward.' The dog trundled after him.

Romana straightened her jacket and cape and followed.

The TARDIS's battered police box sh.e.l.l sat slightly askew on top of a small hillock. Romana emerged and s.h.i.+vered in the chill wind blowing low across the dunes. Her shoes sank a few centimetres into the muddy silt. She wrapped her cape around herself and turned slowly about, taking in the scene. Surely there had never been such a tedious looking place. Nothing but undulating grey sand and rock for what could be hundreds of miles, and a sky made grim by raw, indistinguishable winter clouds the colour of metal plate. Far away on the side facing away from the TARDIS was a range of small mountains. Even these were completely grey. Aside from the crunching footfalls of herself and the Doctor, and the whirring motor of K9, the only sound was the wind's lonely moan.

The Doctor wetted his finger and held it up. 'I think it's going to rain.'

Romana knelt down and let the wet sand fall through her fingers. 'Alluvial deposits. No signs of habitation or animal life.'

The Doctor pounded down the hillock, K9 trailing at his heels. 'There's always something to be found if you're prepared to look.' He put a hand to his brow and peered ahead.

'Even here?'

'Even here. By this time intelligent life is scattered far and wide, right across the universe. Or so they say. We're bound to b.u.mp into somebody.'

Romana s.h.i.+vered again. 'I hope you're wrong again.'

'No, there's sure to be some activity in the general region -' He broke off 'What do you mean, again?'

Romana ignored him and knelt down to address K9,who was sniffing at a lump of rock. 'What do you make of it, K9?'

'Igneous strata suggests ancient volcanic activity,' he replied.

'Not the rock. The whole place.'

K9 whirred and ticked. 'Estimate moderately sized planetoid with thin atmospheric belt and no mineral deposits of value. Inference: unexploited, uninhabited.'

The Doctor strode ahead. 'You can infer all you like. It doesn't mean you're right.'

Romana stood. 'Come on, we'd better follow him.'

K9 waited a second, his sensors still clicking. 'Oddity, Mistress. There is a residual heat trace from this planetoid's core.'

'Shouldn't there be?'

'Not of this magnitude, Mistress. The temperature is slightly higher than reference tables would suggest.' He set off after the Doctor. 'Inference: natural anomaly.'

'There you are,' the Doctor said as she hurried to join him. 'What did I tell you? Something.'

Romana recognized the signs of his trying to save face. 'Only if you're interested in cores,' she said with tart emphasis.

Hans Viddeas walked slightly faster than normal down one of the command post's long, low-ceilinged corridors. His gleaming b.u.t.tons sparkled in the light of the make-s.h.i.+ft lamps that were strung along the walls on a length of plastic coil, and the steady trip-trap of his boot heels on the metal flooring made him feel rather important and efficient, fresh and prepared for anything, even though his alarm had roused him only five minutes before.

Five minutes to wash, shave and dress in his freshly laundered and immaculately starched uniform.

G.o.d, how he adored his uniform. Please, G.o.d, let him never be promoted, lest he have to trade its Spartan simplicity - which showed off his broad shoulders and long legs to their fullest advantage - for Dolne's fussy epaulettes and ceremonial tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. Long ago he had made up his mind that clothes were the best thing about this war. As a boy he'd watched his father set off to the front in the very same garb and longed for the day of his pa.s.sing out. All through his training he'd had to fight hard to conceal his enthusiasm for the amazing garments. And now, after four years' active service on Barclow, the feel of the wonderful dun fabric pressing against his skin still gave him a fantastic thrill.

The reason behind the just discernible increase in his walking speed he was keeping concealed, even from himself. Dolne was his superior - it was Dolne's responsibility. Let Dolne sort it out.

He turned a corner sharply (he was particularly proud of his sharp turns, honed to excellence on the parade ground) and entered the Strat Room. It was the largest room in the command post. On the far side was a long row of desks and work stations at which sat the duty staff a.s.signed to tasks that varied from communications to satellite tracking to weapons maintenance.

The hushed ambience was counterpointed by a perpetual underscore of whistles, clicks, computer noise and the crackle of radio communications escaping from headphones and earplugs as patrols called for their instructions. A dozen screens offered a dozen different views of the front, some relayed from ordinary video equipment, others which showed segmented radar images or infrared scans of certain enemy outposts. All of this information was collated on a ma.s.sive circular table in the centre of the room. It was a map of Barclow's fifty-mile-square temperate zone, from the circle of mountains at one end to the airless marshlands at the other, uplit, and overlaid by a ma.s.sive, cobweb-like grid that allowed for instant identification of any area cell by cell. Red lines picked out the swell of the region's contours, and cast a pinkish glow into the face of anybody standing over the map, contrasting with the orange glow of the ceiling lamps. Viddeas liked to stand over it, as it made him feel important. He cast his eyes approvingly over it as he walked in, although he kept them away from the flas.h.i.+ng blue cell 63T. Then he said loudly, 'Good morning, team.'

The duty staff looked up briefly from their tasks and there was a general muttered, 'Good morning, Captain Viddeas.'

Viddeas looked around the room. 'Where's Bleisch? Not still down the pipe?'

'Afraid so, sir,' someone said. 'He called in to say he hadn't found the fault and was looking in another section.'

Viddeas swore under his breath. Bleisch, the post's environment officer, had descended the previous morning into the aged heating system, his mission to correct the malfunction in the air-conditioning that was turning from a minor irritant to a burning worry. Already he could feel twin patches of wetness forming under his arms, and a thick miasma of unaired summer rooms hovered over them all. Viddeas had hoped to have this fixed by Dolne's return. It added another worry, as if he needed it.

He nodded to Cadinot, the young clerk in charge of systems coordination. It was his task to oversee the running of their tactics and report any hitches.

'Any sign of the Admiral's pod yet?'

'The shuttle pa.s.sed over on its low sweep ten minutes ago, sir. We should have radar confirmation of the drop any moment.'

'Good man, Cadinot. Stay alert.' He was about to head for his own desk in an alcove off the Strat Room when something on Cadinot's worktop caught his eye. He felt an irrational annoyance. The little little things, always the little things. He pointed to the mound of papers. 'What's that?' things, always the little things. He pointed to the mound of papers. 'What's that?'

Cadinot raised his head guiltily. 'It's filing, sir.'

Viddeas raised the bottom-most file and peered at the date. 'From a week and a half ago. Do it straight away.'

'Er, sir, the Admiral's shuttle will need-'

Viddeas raised a stiff hand. 'Straight away, Private. I will deal with the Admiral's clearance.' He could not resist a further glare at the filing. 'We must keep the paperwork up to date and keep surfaces free.'

Cadinot nodded. 'I'm sorry, sir.'