Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [59]
‘Aircraft?’ Butcher staggered to his feet. ‘Nonsense.’ He weaved around like a man who was drunk, or who had spent months at sea and was having trouble adjusting to dry land. ‘This is no aircraft.’
‘Not of the sort you’re accustomed to, true,’ said the Doctor. ‘But perhaps you’ve heard of Foo Fighters?’
‘What if I have?’ Butcher made a visible effort to pull himself together. He stood still, trying to bring his weaving under control, and stared fixedly at the Doctor. Ace suspected that he was doing this because he didn’t dare look around and acknowledge the reality of his surroundings.
She tried to catch Butcher’s eye and give him a reassuring smile; she had begun to feel sorry for the poor bloke, who was obviously well out of his depth. But Butcher refused to look her way, and Ace got fed up with trying.
Instead she turned to the Doctor and said, ‘I thought the Foo Fighters were a band? Sort of a Nirvana spin-off.’
‘Quite possibly, quite possibly. But before that they were the earliest precur-sors of the flying-saucer craze, first spotted by American aircraft during this war. In August 1944, for example, over the Indian Ocean, by the crew of a US bomber, and in December of that year over Hagenau in Alsace-Lorraine, Germany, by the crew of a fighter.’
‘How did you know about that?’ demanded Butcher. ‘That’s classified information.’
There now,’ said the Doctor delightedly, ‘that’s more like it, Major. Just cling to that sense of bureaucratic outrage and institutionalised paranoia. It will make what is about to happen so much easier for you to process.’
‘Why,’ said Ace. ‘What’s about to happen?’
‘We’re going to meet the pilot of the ship,’ said the Doctor.
At first Butcher refused to follow them. Ace and the Doctor started down the pearly curve of the corridor that led from the arrival chamber away into the depths of the ship. Butcher just sat down on the floor and wouldn’t budge.
‘What are you doing?’ said Ace.
‘I know my rights as a prisoner of war under the Geneva Convention.’
‘You are not a prisoner and the Geneva Convention isn’t really relevant. As far as we are concerned, the war has ceased,’ explained the Doctor patiently.
‘That’s treason,’ said Butcher.
‘Oh please, Major. All I am saying is that we are on neutral territory, as if we were standing on Swiss soil.’
‘We’re not standing on soil and this isn’t Switzerland.’
104
‘Don’t be so literal-minded Bulldog Bozo,’ said Ace.
The Doctor took her gently by the elbow. ‘Now, Ace. If the Major really doesn’t feel up to exploring the rest of this craft just yet then I suggest we honour his wishes.’
‘All right, we’ll leave the little baby in here to hide.’
‘Now, Ace.’ The Doctor led her out of the arrival chamber. The corridor spiralled through the nacreous mass of the ship, clouds of moving colours pulsing and changing in the transparent walls around them. The corridor was egg-shaped in section, broad at the bottom and tapered at the top. Ace reached out to touch the wall and it felt warm and sleek, but not smooth. She could feel a detailed roughness to the texture of it, almost like patting the sleek hide of some lithe marine creature, a seal perhaps.
They eventually arrived, after a long spiralling course, in a chamber sunk deep in the glowing pearly depths of the ship.
This chamber was lit by a strangely elegant-looking chandelier, a glowing light fixture that looked to Ace like some kind of curious alien jellyfish. The chandelier had long glowing tubes that radiated out across the flat ceiling, illuminating the dish-shaped chamber. The walls of the room curved down to a flat floor with a dimpled hemisphere in it. This concave hemisphere differed from the rest of the vessel in that it was more sharply transparent and no colours danced through it. ‘That’s the cockpit, is it?’ said Ace.
‘Very perceptive,’ murmured the Doctor. ‘Well done.’
‘Well obviously we were headed for the control room, so this must be it, eh?’
‘It must be,’ said the Doctor. He was looking up at the chandelier. The light from it was so bright he had to squint.