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'Viscount Rose is probably rich enough to charter his own plane.' said the Doctor sadly. 'We might well not see him again.' He turned, looking out over the English Channel.

'Have the divers found the propulsion unit?'

Shuskin turned towards the water's edge. 'Let us see.'

As the Doctor and the two soldiers stood and watched a number of divers broke the surface. One of them swam over, pulling off his mask, while the rest struggled with plastic bags full of metallic objects.

The leading diver saluted as he approached Shuskin. 'It's gone, sir. No creatures, no space rocket. We've picked up what they left!

The Doctor immediately took the bags from the other men, and emptied their contents out on the ground. There were various thick cables, what appeared to be junction boxes, a number of empty cylinders, and all sorts of brass-coloured components. 'They did a very thorough job if this is all that you found.' said the Doctor. 'They've stripped the entire propulsion unit in a matter of minutes, probably moved everything further out into the Channel.'

He pulled a jeweller's eyepiece from the pocket of his smoking jacket, and stared intently at a number of circuit boards. It's all primitive enough,' he said. 'But. ..' His voice trailed away. 'Oh dear.'

'What's the matter?' asked Yates.

The Doctor examined another alien module before continuing. 'These components didn't survive the journey from Triton.' He dropped the eyepiece into his pocket. 'They look like the remains of a bomb primer.'

'What sort of bomb?' asked Yates.

'I don't think I'd surprise you by saying nuclear, would I?'

said the Doctor gravely. 'Which explains the radiation levels.'

The Doctor paused, scratching his chin. If these fragments are a reliable guide, I'd say that the nuclear device or devices brought to the Earth by the Waro actually lack much of the necessary fissile material.’ He closed his eyes for a moment, muttering. Yates glanced across at Shuskin, but she seemed unperturbed by the Doctor's behaviour.

'Cobalt-60,' said the Doctor at last, opening his eyes.

'There's no cobalt on Triton, but the Waro knew that there would be some on Earth. Rose must have told them all they needed to know.'

'What does Rose hope to achieve?' asked Yates.

'I'm not sure,' said the Doctor. don't think he's realised quite how dangerous the Waro are. But the important thing for the moment is cobalt-60. We can't let the Waro get their hands on any, or they'll render the Earth uninhabitable!

Sometime later, Yates sat back in Bessie's passenger seat and reflected on the Brigadier's dealings with authority. He had often listened to the Brigadier's arguments with the

'bureaucratic buffoons' of Westminster, but never before had Yates been forced to grapple with the tortuous logic that represented common sense in the corridors of power. Over the last few hours he and Shuskin had endured telephone conversations with a seemingly endless procession of jobsworths, pedants, and self-interested civil servants.' forty-five minutes had elapsed before anyone had admitted that the United Kingdom even possessed a significant amount of cobalt-60. At length, Yates had been told that, while most of the Earth's reserves of cobalt-60 were in military establishments in the US, Britain did have a 'reasonable quantity' of the material. It was kept, with minimal security as far as Yates could ascertain, in a nuclear power station on the Northumberland coast. He and Shuskin then spent many fruitless minutes trying to persuade the authorities to move the fissile material to a top secret MoD base some miles away. There had been objections to bringing the cobalt out on to the roads, but eventually the civil and military commanders had agreed to the UNIT proposal. Once the cobalt was safely stored in the MoD facility it would, it was hoped, be safe from Waro attack.

The ensuing convoy of vehicles - with Bessie at the centre, like a surreal yellow bull's-eye - reminded Yates of footage he'd seen of Soviet May Day parades. He'd rarely seen