Doctor Who_ Dinosaur Invasion - Malcolm Hulke [31]
Sarah was convinced these people were mad. She decided to humour them. ‘Just the four of us have to do all that?’
Mark laughed. ‘You really are forgetting things. There are over two hundred of us on this ship. Look.’ He crossed to a monitor screen set in the wall and pressed a button. The screen lit up showing the interior of another compartment in the space ship. Tiers of bunks lined the walls, each carrying a sleeping person. ‘We have six slumber chambers,’ he said. ‘They’ll all be recovering soon, just as you did.’
‘And this is only one of the ships in the fleet,’ said Adam, beaming. ‘It’s a whole armada of people who wish to take intelligence and right-thinking to New Earth.’
Sarah asked, ‘Why are all those people asleep?’
‘To save food and oxygen,’ Ruth explained. ‘It’s a three month journey, remember. And now almost over.’
‘You mean to say I’ve been here three months?’ said Sarah. ‘I can’t believe it.’
Bewildered, Sarah ran her fingers through her hair. Her forefinger touched the bump on her head. It was still very tender. At that moment she knew she could only have been on the space ship for a few hours.
Ruth said, ‘Is something wrong?’
Sarah smiled. ‘No, of course not. It’s all very exciting. And now I’m just starting to get my memory back.’
The Doctor roared down Whitehall on a big Army motorcycle which had been lent to him by the Brigadier. A motorcycle, he explained to the Brigadier, was the quickest way to get round London, and he had to cover a large area in the shortest possible time. Strapped to the handlebars was the energy detecting device he had built, a compact black box with a simple on-off control, and a dial that registered the presence of high voltage electricity. He had already covered two sections of London, duly marked off on the map in his pocket. A few minutes ago, as he turned into Trafalgar Square, the needle on the detector’s dial flickered for the first time. As he drove round Trafalgar Square at high speed, he found the needle flickered most actively when he was close to the opening to Whitehall.
He arrived in Parliament Square, deserted except for a few pigeons. The needle registered to the number 4 on the detector dial. Slowly the Doctor drove round the empty square. Going towards Victoria Street, the reading dropped to 3; completing the circuit of the square and heading back towards Westminster Bridge, the needle jumped to 5. He stopped the motorcycle outside Westminster Underground Station, unfastened the detector from the handlebars, and carried it to the metal gates that barred the entrance to the station. The needle moved to 5.02. The Doctor found his set of skeleton keys in his capacious pockets and opened the gates. He went down the dirty, unswept steps of the station.
Inside, the station was in complete darkness. The Doctor fished out his torch and continued down the steps to one of the platforms. The dial now read 5.08. Cautiously the Doctor moved along the railway platform. He stopped to listen. There was a faint humming sound. Swinging his torch round to the wall, the Doctor saw a metal airvent grille. He went over, bent down and listened. He could just hear the distant hum of a machine, probably an air ventilation plant. He plucked out his large silk handkerchief, and held it in front of the vent between finger and thumb. The handkerchief was sucked towards the vent by a slight air flow. How very, very odd! The airvents in London underground stations pump air in to the stations; this one was sucking air away from the station. So someone, somewhere must be needing a constant supply of air.
Footsteps. Someone was coming down the stairs to the platform. The Doctor slid full-length under one of the bench-type seats that jutted from the wall, and extinguished