The Brigadier coughed. "Quite so. Place is almost too security-conscious. Makes it all the more puzzling."
"Makes what what all the more puzzling? Come on, Brigadier, how can I help you unless you tell me what"s going on?" all the more puzzling? Come on, Brigadier, how can I help you unless you tell me what"s going on?"
"Things vanishing," said the Brigadier mysteriously.
"What sort of things?"
"So far they"ve lost nearly a dozen leading scientists and several million pounds" worth of top-secret electronic equipment."
"What sort of research goes on here?"
"s.p.a.ce hardware mostly. New alloys, guidance systems, methods of propulsion..."
The Doctor rubbed his chin. "I see... All right. What action have you taken so far?"
"I had a bright idea," said the Brigadier modestly. "You see, the scientists and their labs were scattered all over the area. Pretty hard to keep an eye on. I"ve centralised everything in this one place, confined the whole lot of "em to barracks. Until we find out what"s going on, they"ll all live on the job. All the eggs in one basket, so to speak."
"As long as no one steals the basket," said the Doctor sardonically. "Does it occur to you, Brigadier, that by putting all your scientists and their equipment in one building you may actually be making things easier for your mysterious enemy?"
"Maybe so, Doctor. But if he attacks, he"s got to attack here here. And you"ll be waiting for him. I"ve fixed up a cover story, you"ll be a.s.signed to one of the research teams."
The Doctor stood gazing into s.p.a.ce, and the Brigadier held his breath. Suddenly the Doctor smiled. "All right, Brigadier, I"ll be your guinea pig. I"ll need full details of the missing scientists. What their specialities were, when and where they disappeared... And a list of the missing equipment. I shall need some equipment of my own too- including the TARDIS."
The Brigadier gave him a suspicious look. Since the Time Lords had now lifted their sentence of exile, the Doctor remained on Earth by choice rather than necessity.
But he disappeared in the TARDIS more and more frequently these days, and the Brigadier couldn"t help fearing that one day his old friend would vanish for ever.
"What do you need the TARDIS for?"
"Because if your troubles are due to some kind of alien interference, I"ll need the TARDIS to track it to its source.
By now your missing scientists may be a very long way away..."
The huge storage cellar beneath Irongron"s castle had undergone some extraordinary changes. The far end of the long room was filled by the gleaming sphere that was Linx"s scout ship. Dragged from the forest by teams of sweating horses, it had been hauled into the castle and down into the cellars, on an extraordinary arrangement of rollers and pulleys devised by Linx. Irongron had driven his men mercilessly until at last the scout ship was installed to Linx"s satisfaction.
The rest of the cellar had been transformed into a kind of workshop. Wooden tables along the stone walls were packed with an amazing jumble of equipment-the dis-a.s.sembled damaged engines of the ship and the tools and equipment Linx needed to repair it. The ship"s computer had been installed against one wall. Cable: ran from the ship to the computer, and to the power tools being used by the men working at the different tables. They were a strange, motley-looking group of men, dressed in a variety of twentieth-century clothing. Some wore white laboratory coats, others were in their pyjamas. All were dirty, ragged, thin, clearly on the point of exhaustion. Nevertheless, all worked with obsessive concentration.
Linx stood at the computer console. He adjusted a control, and the scientists increased the pace of their work.
Linx nodded in satisfaction. The minds of the men he had kidnapped from the twentieth-century were linked to the computer by relay beam. They had become, in fact, little more than extensions of Linx himself, their hands and brains totally devoted to his purpose.
There was still much to be done. Although the main generators were still working, the drive unit of his ship had been badly damaged. Parts could be repaired, other parts would have to be completely remade, forged afresh from unsatisfactory materials by relatively unskilled hands. It would be a long and difficult task, but Linx had no doubt that he would succeed-eventually.
Unfortunately the human slaves lacked stamina. Their feeble bodies tended to collapse under the unceasing toil.
He needed more slaves, he decided, and more equipment too. It was time to plan another raid on the future.
There came a tremendous banging on the cellar door.
3.
Sarah"s Bluff Linx"s slave-workers ignored the insistent noise-they didn"t even hear it. Their minds were totally closed to anything but the never-ending tasks imposed upon them.
Linx went to the cellar door. It was closed and locked but he made no attempt to open it. "Linx!" bellowed a hoa.r.s.e voice from the other side. "My lord Linx, will you open the door?"
"None may enter here," said the Sontaran. "Such was my agreement with your Captain."
From the other side of the door Bloodaxe shouted, "It is my Captain who sends me. He would have you help him test the new weapon you have given him."
"Tell him I am occupied. Now, leave me to my work."
There came a final thump on the door and Bloodaxe moved away.
"Insolent primitives," muttered Linx. "Did I not need their aid..."
He glanced across at a side table where a couple of scientists were a.s.sembling the lock mechanism of a crude percussion rifle. They were the only ones engaged in such work, and it would have been immediately clear to any observer that most of Linx"s resources were being reserved for the repair of his s.p.a.ce ship, and only a small proportion given to making the promised weapons for Irongron. Linx had good reason for keeping Irongron and his men away.
Bloodaxe found his Captain wedging an apple into one of the torch brackets. Satisfied, Irongron stepped back. "Well?
Where is our star warrior?"
"He will not come, Captain. He says he is busy."
"Insolent barbarian," growled Irongron. "Did I not need his aid... Still, no matter. See, Bloodaxe, the first of our new weapons." He pointed to the clumsy-looking rifle on the table. In appearance it was rather like an early musket (still not invented on Earth) though it was breech-loading rather than muzzle loading. It fired a heavy bullet, enclosed in a ma.s.sive cartridge, and it was powerful enough to punch through armour at close range. A leather bag of cartridges lay beside it.
In Irongron"s age, weapons like this were still unknown.
In time to come they would end the supremacy of the man in armour, and the great cannon would bring down the walls of the proudest castle. Irongron was a fighting man by instinct, and he could see the potential of the weapon in his hands. A small force armed with weapons like these could put an army to flight.
Irongron picked up the rifle and went to the far end of the hall. He raised the clumsy weapon and fired. There was a thunderous explosion and a cloud of black smoke. A chip of stone flew from the wall-about a foot away from the torch-holder.
Bloodaxe jumped back in alarm. "By heavens, Captain, it claps the ears."
"I shall master the aim soon enough," said Irongron impatiently. He ejected the used cartridge, went to the table for another. Bloodaxe looked on fearfully. "Is it magic, Captain?"
Irongron inserted a fresh cartridge. "It is a mighty weapon, Bloodaxe. Sharper than a spear, faster than an arrow. Linx has served me well."
Bloodaxe crossed himself. "Do not trust him, Captain.
We meddle with the powers of darkness. They may yet bring death and destruction to us all."
Irongron was back at his firing position. "The death and destruction will be for our enemies." There was another deafening explosion and this time the apple leaped from its place on the wall. Irongron picked it up. There was a round hole clear through the centre. "See, I have cut out the core!"
The Doctor looked on as half-a-dozen sweating soldiers wrestled the TARDIS into position just outside his cubicle door. "All right, that"ll do." The corporal in charge of the squad saluted and led his men away.
The Doctor was about to go in when a spry white-haired old fellow in a white coat wandered up to him. He peered at the TARDIS through enormously thick spectacles, and said briskly, "Rubeish."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Rubeish. Professor Joseph Rubeish." He held out his hand.
"Oh, I see. How do you do?"
They shook hands and the old man said. "Disgraceful, of course. Utterly disgraceful."
"What is?"
"Shutting us up here like this. Like a lot of kids kept in after school. It"s all that Brigadier"s fault. Military idiot!"
The Doctor smiled. "I sometimes feel the same way myself. Still, he means well, you know."
"Haven"t seen my wife and family for three days," said Rubeish confidentially.
"I"m sorry..."
The old man gave a malicious grin. "Just shows, there"s always a silver lining! And your name?"
The Doctor produced his usual alias. "Smith. Doctor John Smith."
Rubeish sniffed. "Seem to be a lot of "em about today."
"I"m sorry?"
Rubeish nodded to a cubicle on the other side of the room. Through the open door they could see an attractive dark-haired girl unpacking a small suitcase, "That young lady over there is also called Smith." He waved to the girl, who looked up and smiled back. Rather a nice smile, thought the Doctor.
Rubeish called, "Miss Smith! Come and meet your namesake." The girl came over to them, and the old man performed the introductions with an old-world flourish.
"Miss Lavinia Smith, Doctor John Smith." The Doctor and the girl shook hands. Rubeish went off on another of his sudden tangents. "Doctor, I am intrigued. What"s that thing for?" He pointed to the TARDIS.
The Doctor sighed. Rubeish seemed a pleasant enough old boy but it was clear that he was as curious as he was garrulous-and the Doctor had work to do. "It contains my equipment, Professor."
"How original." Rubeish went over to the TARDIS and began studying it, his nose a few inches from the side.
The Doctor looked thoughtfully down at the girl.
"You"ll be the well-known virologist, Miss Smith?"
She gave him a nervous smile. "That"s right. Who told you?"
"I recently read your paper on the teleological response of the virus. A most impressive piece of work."
"Thank you." The girl seemed anxious to get away.
Smoothly the Doctor went on. "Particularly since it came out about twenty years ago. You must have written it when you were about five years old."
"Ah... yes, that is rather difficult to explain, isn"t it?"
"I"m sure you"ll try."
The girl took a deep breath. "Lavinia Smith is my aunt.
She"s in America on a lecture tour. She got an invitation to come here and I took her place."
"Why?"
"There have been all kinds of rumours about mysterious goings-on here. I thought I might get art inside story. I"m a free-lance journalist-my name"s Sarah Jane Smith."
The Doctor frowned down at her. "You realise this is a rather dangerous place to be at the moment?"
"I can"t help that, I"m here now. Anyway there are all those soldiers to look after us. Are you going to give me away, Doctor?"
"No, I don"t think so."
"Why not? I might be a spy."
"A real spy would have come up with a more convincing story. Anyway you can make yourself useful. We need someone around to make the tea."
The Doctor couldn"t have made a more unfortunate joke. Sarah had been making her own way in a man"s world for some years now, and she strongly resented any suggestion that her s.e.x doomed her to an inferior role. "If you think I"m going to spend my time here dancing attendance on you..." she flared.
The Doctor wasn"t listening. He had just noticed that Rubeish had abandoned his study of the TARDIS, taken a bit of chalk from his pocket, and was busily chalking a long and complicated equation on the side of the police box. The Doctor hurried over. "My dear Professor, kindly desist at once! This is neither a blackboard nor a public convenience."
Rubeish blinked up at him. "I do beg your pardon. This equation has been worrying me, you see, and I was just trying to prove... Oh dear, oh dear, what was was I trying to prove?" I trying to prove?"
The Doctor produced his key and unlocked the TARDIS door. Sarah looked at him in surprise. "What are you going to do in there?"
"Make myself a cup of tea," said the Doctor with dignity.