Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [43]
Charlotte saw DI Worthington cross the room and drop to his knees in front of her mum, trying vainly to comfort her. She saw the tall man she‟d bumped into on the doorstep yesterday enter the lounge, to be immediately confronted by Worthington‟s colleague, who peeled himself from the wall and held up his hands as if to physically repel the man back into the corridor.
„I‟m Captain Mike Yates from UNIT,‟ she heard the man say, raising his voice above Mum‟s hysterical wailing. „I‟m afraid I couldn‟t help overhearing what your colleague said, and I think it might have some bearing-‟
Charlotte lowered her head, squeezed her eyes tight shut and pressed her hands over her ears. She didn‟t care what the men were talking about; she didn‟t care about anything.
Chris was dead, and there was an unwanted baby growing inside her, and Mum and Dad hated each other, and her whole world was falling apart. At that moment, she realised, she envied her brother more than she grieved for him. She wished with all of her heart that she could be dead too.
The Brigadier slammed the phone down in frustration. Surely those idiots in Whitehall ought to realise by now that he asked them for aid and co-operation only when absolutely necessary? He‟d saved them from getting a considerable amount of egg on their faces over that Global Chemicals business, and how did they repay him? By continuing to put barriers in his way.
He hadn‟t even managed to get through to the Prime Minister this time; no doubt the fellow was too embarrassed to speak to him following his misjudgement over the Llanfairfach incident. He had left it to one of his minions to inform the Brigadier that quarantining the town would be tantamount to martial law and therefore out of the question.
Martial law! Did the fellow have no inkling of how UNIT
operated, of how many times the planet had been saved from invasion or annihilation by the Brigadier‟s small but highly trained force? Given UNITs track record they ought to be allowed carte blanche to take whatever steps they deemed appropriate in any situation.
But no. Still the Brigadier had to put up with government fat cats droning on about „public interest‟ and „civil responsibility‟, knowing all the while that the only responsibility they felt was to themselves and to the retention of their parliamentary seats. Actually they were less like cats and more like turtles, retreating into their shells, unwilling to stick their necks out, refusing to acknowledge that if they continued to decline to untie the Brigadier‟s hands every time he asked for a little leeway, then sooner or later their gutless reaction might well lead to some hostile alien force or devastating home-grown threat reducing them and their precious parliament to so much turtle soup.
The Brigadier opened his clenched fists in an effort to release his rage, but it didn‟t work. He tried to focus on the positive aspects of the discussion he had just had, which were pitifully few, but better than nothing. The oily-voiced cretin had promised him that the government would „look into‟ the alleged connection between seafood and illness and that they would encourage - though not order - the local authorities to put up signs warning people that there was a danger of pollution along the coastline and that bathing was inadvisable.
Unless something happened that required a military response - and no one wanted that because it would mean that things were getting quickly out of hand - the Brigadier was therefore stuck in the familiar situation of twiddling his thumbs and waiting for the Doctor to come up with something. He thought about the fish he and his men had eaten last night and hoped that this new fellow was up to the job. If not, then before very long they might all be in a great deal of trouble.
„Nothing,‟ said the Doctor dejectedly, his eyes scanning the results scrolling down the screen in front of him. „Nothing at all.‟
„You can‟t find an antidote?‟ said Turlough, hovering at the Doctor‟s shoulder.