Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [34]
There are tags on the objects, little grey plastic tags, tied to the corners of the tarp. We watch the cameraman’s hand reach for one. He turns it over between his fingers, reads the tiny digital numbers. Obviously, this isn’t what he’s looking for, because he moves on.
‘My God,’ hissed Brigadier Renault.
Tchike froze the footage. Renault was goggling at the cinevid as if he’d just seen the face of Jesus Christ inside a pomegranate. Still, Renault did have a tendency to overreact. The Brigadier was Canadian, with the kind of attractive-yet-boring features that’d look good in a Hollywood action movie. Evidently, Renault had noticed this himself, because he tried to make every word he uttered sound interesting and dramatic. The man was an experienced field agent, though, and he’d spent a good few years working for UNISYC in North America, so he’d seemed like a good choice to attend the Conclave.
‘That’s the Toy Store,’ Renault went on, still looking for Oscar nominations. ‘It’s the same as the footage the Hourly Telepress smuggled out in ’54.’
As usual, Dr Martinique looked dubious. ‘I always thought the Telepress story was a joke.’
Professor Cogan raised his hand. Typical English, thought Tchike. He looked like he wanted to leave the room. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t... what’s the Toy Store?’
‘It’s where the Americans keep all their little alien keepsakes,’ explained Martinique. ‘They used to have a hangar in New Mexico, but they moved it to Los Angeles after the States fell apart.’
Renault was nodding. ‘So Kortez made it into the Toy Store. I’m impressed.’
If only, thought Tchike. ‘What you’re seeing isn’t the Toy Store proper, Brigadier. The Toy Store is impenetrable. Protected by commandeered alien technology. If it weren’t, we’d have taken it by now. This hangar is a clearing house. Even with inside help, we can’t get any further in than this. Neither could the Telepress.’
‘Then we’ve got someone working inside the American organisation?’
There was a murmer around the table. Back in the days of the UN, Tchike remembered, UNIT had entered negotiations with North America to try to get a look at its alien relics. Of course, when UNIT had been superseded by UNISYC and the United States had ceased to be United, the talks had broken down. There was no diplomatic link between the powerblocs now, just nonstop subterfuge. And, to be honest, Tchike preferred it that way.
UNIT had been soft. UNIT had been weak. That was why the organisation had fallen, and that was why the militant wing of the UN’s “Security Yard” had risen to take its place.
Tchike tried not to consider the fact that UNISYC was going the same way as its predecessor. He started the footage again, leaving Renault’s question unanswered, and fast-wound through the boring bits.
The cameraman reaches out again, touching another one of the tags. The number matches the one he’s been given by his contact – we’re reading between the lines here, naturally – so he sticks his head up over the top of the tarpaulin, to make sure none of the helicopter technicians are watching. They aren’t.
Slowly, carefully, he lifts the fabric. Underneath, something is glowing.
It’s a box. A casket. The same size as the average coffin, from what we can see of it. It seems to be made out of metal, though the footage isn’t clear enough to show us the surface in detail. The box is throbbing, pulsing, and the light’s causing interference lines across the cinevid. This, we know, is the object that fell out of the sky near the Phoenix Sandbowl.
The camera jerks, swings around. We see smudges of white, smudges of grey. People. Moving. Technicians are pointing, figures are flooding out of darkened doorways on the other side of the hangar.
The cameraman turns and runs.
Tchike