Doctor Who_ Attack of the Cybermen - Eric Saward [23]
He knew what Peri suggested was true, but was annoyed at her choice of time and place for such an experiment.
‘Concentrate!’ she demanded. ‘Concentrate hard!’
Fury stormed into the Doctor’s mind as her insistent voice bored into his brain. Such was his unreasoned frenzy that he momentarily blacked out. When he finally regained control of his senses, he could see, in his mind’s eye, the image of a man.
‘Wait a moment,’ he said, turning to Russell. ‘Is Lytton tall, fit, tough –’ The Doctor paused for a moment before burbling; ‘The sort of man who might shoot his mother just to keep his trigger-finger supple.’
‘Well...’ the policeman flustered. ‘A somewhat colourful description – but it could be him.’
Peri was delighted. ‘It worked!’ she exclaimed. ‘You now know who Lytton is?’
The Doctor nodded. The foggy confusion shrouding areas of his memory had gone. Suddenly everything was clear - and he was not happy.
‘I know him,’ he remonstrated with himself, ‘because I was responsible for his being standed on Earth. No wonder I had a memory block. Anyone would after committing such folly.’
‘Who is he?’ she asked.
‘Commander Gustave Lytton, late of the Dalek Task Force. He is an evil mercenary who will do anything for money – especially if it involves killing.’ He angrily punched the palm of his hand. ‘I should have known the moment we met those phony uniformed policemen.’
Russell, now completely bewildered, gave an exaggerated cough, more to draw attention to himself than to clear his throat. ‘What are you two talking about?’ he said.
The Doctor turned to him. ‘Like me, Lytton is from another planet. He was stranded here, along with his two bodyguards a couple of years ago...’ He paused, an obvious question having occurred to him. ‘You did know he was an alien?’
Abashed, Russell shook his head.
‘Why ever not?’
In utter frustration the policeman threw his hands into the air. ‘Because visitors from other planets do not exist!’
‘They do,’ said Peri. ‘I know it’s difficult to accept, but there are tens of thousands of inhabited planets in the Universe.’
‘Maybe.’ He was becoming defensive. ‘But they have yet to travel here.’
Irritated by such stubbornness, the Doctor started to pace up and down. ‘If you won’t accept what you’re being told,’ he said, ‘at least tell me why you were investigating Lytton.’
Although the question was simple, Russell found it difficult to know where to begin. ‘Well...’ he said, awkwardly, ‘Lytton was a thief. He’d stolen top-secret electronic equipment.’
The Doctor ceased pacing and jabbed an index finger into Russell’s chest. ‘And I can show you where that equipment is,’ he said. ‘What’s more, it produced the signal that brought us here.’
Russell’s mind was in a whirl and didn’t know what to believe. It wasn’t that the Doctor had produced any hard evidence to support his outrageous statements, but there was a simple, spontaneous honesty about him that made it difficult for the policeman to be entirely dismissive. What was more, he couldn’t forget the silver men he had seen, and that the one destroyed by Charlie Griffiths had bled green blood. ‘All right...’ he said. ‘Where is the equipment?’
‘In the office of the garage where I found the suit.’
It made sense, thought Russell. He’d heard an electrical hum from the room himself. ‘Let’s take a look.’
‘Before we do, answer me one question: why haven’t you arrested Lytton?’
Russell rubbed his sore leg and remembered how disturbed his departmental Chief Superintendent had been
– a man not noted for a low panic threshold – when unable to acquire any background information on Lytton.
‘We weren’t ready,’ the policeman said. ‘We needed further information... answers to certain questions.’
‘Like where he had come from? Why you couldn’t trace his birth certificate, or any other expected documentation?’
Russell was stunned. ‘Well?’ insisted the Doctor.
He shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘ Was it as though Lytton had