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Of course, she had only a vague idea what was normal for the Doctor anyway. She knew that he had twin hearts, a lower-than human body temperature, and a physiology with massive built-in redundancy. But only the faintest exhalation could be detected from the Doctor's mouth. And that was surely bad news in anyone's book.

She suddenly remembered her parents, on the day that she announced she was going to Cambridge to read medicine rather than physics. They'd been outwardly supportive, but deep down she'd known they didn't approve, that they were concerned that she was letting her romanticism get in the way of her rationality. She'd qualified -

BM BCh, with a one-year BSc in physics just for good measure - but of course they'd been right. Four months as a house officer in some benighted inner-city A&E department had been enough for her. Thank God she'd made an impression on the Physics Department at St Leonard's. She was working towards her PhD within four weeks of shoving her white coat in a bin and walking out of the hospital.

But there were times - and this was one of them - when her years studying medicine were something of a comfort, although, as she tried to find the Doctor's pulse again, she wasn't sure that having qualified as a vet wouldn't have been more useful.

She felt rather than saw someone walk up behind her.

She turned. It was Shuskin. If impatience was an Olympic sport, then without any doubt here was the USSR's next gold medal winner. 'Is he better yet?' she asked.

'No.' said Liz, trying not to get cross. 'You can see that, surely?'

'We cannot wait any longer. As soon as we establish radio contact with base I will be requesting a full-scale nuclear strike' 'But_ but that could be catastrophic'

'Don't worry, we will make sure the Americans are fully aware of the situation'

'That's not what I mean, and you know it'

Shuskin seemed unperturbed. Now that we have definite proof of these creatures' aggression I do not have any other options.'

'But what makes you think that a nuclear strike will work when your other displays of military muscle have failed?'

'We only need one hit for the target to be obliterated.'

replied Shuskin. 'And we will launch as many missiles as it takes.'

CHAPTER 13

Mike Yates loathed post-mortems. On a scale of most-hated things, they came right behind sandals, free-form jazz, and girls he was chatting up saying the two most dreaded words in the English language. 'my boyfriend'.

For that reason he elected to stay outside the pathology lab while Dr French dissected the corpse. Yates had tried to contact New York HQ to inform them of Davis's untimely death and request that his next of kin be informed, but thunderstorms had brought down phone lines on the east coast the previous night. He still hadn't been able to contact the Brigadier, despite having left several messages at the hotel. For the moment, Yates was on his own.

After an inordinately long period during which he engaged in pointless small talk with Claire, the medical secretary, Mike was beginning to feel fidgety and nervous. It was ridiculous.' he was acting commander of UNIT, and yet he felt like a small boy waiting outside the headmaster's study after having been caught smoking behind the bike shed. A feeling that Mike Yates knew very well.

'You can go in if you want. I'm sure he'll have finished by now,' said Claire brightly.

Mike shook his head. It was hard to be all butch and manly when making excuses, but he knew it would be even harder if he was on his hands and knees vomiting at the smell of embalming fluid. 'I'm allergic to some of the chemicals they use,' he said. 'I'll just hang around here.

Anyway, you were saying...'

To Yates's immense relief the double doors of the laboratory swung open and Dr French emerged with an enigmatic expression on his face. 'Captain Yates,' he said,

'How goes the hunt for our demon bomber?'

Mike growled something under his breath.

'So, I take it you want to know what killed this man, then?' French asked.

'No, actually, I was thinking of selling