Doctor Who_ Dinosaur Invasion - Malcolm Hulke [35]
Adam turned to Ruth. He spoke as though Sarah wasn’t even present. ‘I was assured by the organisers that everyone had been carefully selected and screened.’
‘You see! You even talk to each other as if I didn’t exist!’
‘We have to consider the good of the majority,’ Adam snapped. ‘I don’t think you’re going to be very happy with us. If you are not of a like mind, why did you choose to join us?’
‘I didn’t! I was brought here against my wishes.’
‘Impossible. Quite impossible. The re-awakening must have affected your mind.’
‘I quite agree,’ added Ruth. ‘She’ll have to go to the Reminder Room.’
Sarah backed away. ‘What’s that?’
Adam gripped her arm firmly. ‘You are in desperate need of re-education.’
‘Don’t worry, child,’ said Ruth, taking Sarah’s other arm. ‘Very soon you will have returned to our point of view—about everything.’
The Brigadier’s jeep stopped outside Westminster Underground Station, followed by the two other UNIT jeeps.
‘Two men stand guard by the vehicles,’ called the Brigadier. ‘The rest of us will follow you, Doctor.’
The UNIT soldiers opened the gates. The Doctor ran down the steps into the underground station, the boots of UNIT soldiers clattering behind him.
‘What I can’t understand,’ shouted the Brigadier, running to keep up with the Doctor, ‘is why they let you escape.’
‘They tried to kill me by materialising a pterodactyl. I’m fortunate to be alive.’
They had reached the platform now. The Doctor raced towards the cubicle which had contained the mops and pails, and wrenched open the door. ‘This is the lift. And this is how you work it...’
His voice trailed off. The hooks had disappeared. ‘Something wrong?’ asked the Brigadier.
‘There’s an airvent on the platform,’ said the Doctor, stepping backwards out of the cubicle. ‘Let’s check that.’
The Doctor pulled out his large silk handkerchief and hung it from finger and thumb in front of the airvent. There was no movement of air at all.
‘It looks,’ said the Brigadier, ‘as though the birds have flown.’ He thought of a feeble joke. ‘Along with their pterodactyls.’
The Doctor straightened up, pocketing his handkerchief. ‘Don’t you believe me about this place?’
‘Of course I do,’ answered the Brigadier. ‘Have you ever known me not to believe you, Doctor? But it looks as though there is now no proof. And no way into that control centre you told me about!’
Sir Charles Grover listened attentively to his visitor’s report about the underground control centre. When the Doctor had finished, Grover smiled. ‘You must have been talking to Miss Smith, Doctor.’
The Doctor was puzzled by the reply. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She came here with a most marvellous theory that such a place had once been built right under Central London.’
‘She came to see you ?’ queried the Brigadier.
‘She thought I might know about it,’ replied Grover honestly. ‘We checked the files together. Why look. I still have the file on my desk!’ Grover picked up a manilla folder and opened it. ‘See for yourself, Doctor. This explains the entire plan for an underground seat of government in the event of atomic war.’ He handed the file to the Doctor. ‘You will also see a memorandum stating that the idea was later abandoned and the place never constructed.’ Grover had typed the memo himself fifteen minutes before the arrival of the Doctor and the Brigadier.
The Doctor glanced briefly at the contents of the folder. ‘You will forgive me, Minister, but I prefer to believe the evidence of my own eyes. Where did Miss Smith go after she visited you?’
‘Back to UNIT.’
‘Are you sure of that, sir?’ asked the Brigadier. ‘We haven’t seen her for some time.’
Grover pretended to rack his brains. ‘She turned up here in a UNIT car. I sent that straight back because I didn’t want to keep your driver waiting. Then, after we’d had our little chat, I sent her back to you in my own ministerial car.’
The Brigadier looked puzzled. ‘She didn’t arrive. Perhaps she asked your driver to take her somewhere else?’
‘I could check that for you.’ Grover