Doctor Who_ Last of the Gaderene - Mark Gatiss [81]
He straightened up and moved swiftly towards the truck full of UNIT troops.
‘Right, attention all of you,’ he barked. ‘The enemy has us at a disadvantage. They assume we won’t attack because what we’re facing here are innocent human victims. I say again, they assume we won’t attack.’
Yates was surprised. ‘Sir?’
‘Desperate times call for desperate measures, Captain,’
said the Brigadier. He pulled himself up into the cabin of the nearest truck.
The Doctor held up the crystalline key and turned it around and around in the light.
‘What exactly does that thing do, Doctor?’ asked Jo.
‘I thought I’d explained.’
Jo grunted. ‘Hardly.’ The sound of gunfire and smashing bottles filtered in as the Doctor adopted the tone of a teacher explaining a very hard sum to a very dense child.
‘It’s a matter transference encoder. Probably one of many.
They need it to travel to earth from wherever they’re based.’
Jo frowned. ‘If they’ve got some already, why would they be after this one?’
The Doctor weighed the key in his hand. ‘Very good question.’
‘So we’re presuming they don’t have space ships or anything? Like the Daleks?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘It seems likely. They must have to travel an unimaginable distance. Perhaps even...’
His voice trailed off and he stared into space.
‘Doctor?’
‘I was just thinking. Remember what Mrs Toovey said about the lightning. Summer lightning. That could have been these creatures arriving.’
He tapped the jade key against his chin thoughtfully.
‘Arriving in... embryonic form. They could pass safely through space without all the requisite encoders being in place... but they would need them all. Eventually.’
‘What for?’ said Jo.
The Doctor’s expression was grave. ‘For the adults to come through.’
Jo looked down and then quickly around. ‘Where –
where’s Noah?’
In the hangar, Bliss was anxiously watching the line of VIPs she had gathered. They were lying flat on sleek black surgical tables, blanketed and grinning.
She checked on Cochrane, Secretary of Defence, feeling his pulse and frowning.
‘The breakthrough must be soon,’ she muttered to herself.
Bliss rubbed a hand over her face. A shape beneath the skin shifted.
‘These human shells are weak.’ She turned her fat face up towards the ceiling. Her great dark eyes blinked slowly as though she were gazing through space.
Then she laid a hand on Cochrane’s forehead. He was tossing and turning restlessly, as though agitated.
‘Not long now, my friends,’ whispered Bliss, looking down at the row of people. ‘And then you will have new homes. Warm homes.’
Sergeant Benton stood by the window of the boxroom on the upper floor of Whistler’s cottage. He hoped against hope that his men’s ongoing battle with the Culverton villagers had given the Brigadier a chance to attack the aerodrome, but there had been no word from his superior for almost half an hour.
Peering through the window he saw the disorientated villagers beginning to stir.
The Doctor had warned him that the nitrous oxide gas would provide only temporary anaesthesia, but they seemed to be making a remarkably speedy recovery. Benton was about to order Private Dodds downstairs to tell the Doctor when he noticed something strange.
Ted Bishop had recovered and was standing stock-still only yards from Whistler’s cottage. His brother was next to him in a similar pose.
Benton swallowed anxiously. He pointed his rifle directly at Ted Bishop’s face.
‘What’re they doing?’ asked Dodds, lowering his gun a fraction.
Benton shook his head. ‘I’ve really no idea. Maybe the Doctor can –’
He stopped dead as a figure emerged from the shadows outside.
‘Oh no,’ said Benton quietly.
The Master positioned himself between the Bishop brothers and put his hands behind his back.
‘Doctor!’ he called. ‘Doctor, if you’re in there, I’d like a word.’
Benton trained his rifle on the Master. ‘Now you know not to try anything silly,’ he shouted from the window.
The Master looked up and smiled.
The door of the cottage opened and the Doctor came out, shrugging on his smoking jacket. He caught sight of the suave,