Doctor Who_ The Devil Goblins From Neptune - Keith Topping [99]
'Not on your life, boy,' replied Control. He turned, and led the Brigadier deeper into the complex. Lethbridge-Stewart became aware of the dark-suited men following close behind.
Control came to a halt in a corridor of cells. 'Sorry, buddy,' he said sarcastically, 'but you know how it is. We're going to have to lock you away for a while now.'
The Brigadier nodded grimly. 'You're going to kill me, aren't you?'
'Eventually,' said Control, leaving Lethbridge-Stewart in the sealed room.
* * *
Rose and Trainor climbed out of the car in what seemed to be the '1 middle of nowhere. The professor watched sadly as the car turned back to Las Vegas, but Viscount Rose was already heading off across the desert, following a map.
'I'm told a man dies of heat exhaustion out here every four weeks,' said Trainor, shielding his eyes from the blazing sun.
'Then he should start selling tickets,' said Rose. 'That's quite a trick.'
Trainor hurried to keep up. The rucksack seemed inordinately heavy, but he knew that Rose would never agree to carry it. 'You don't seem to be taking this very seriously,' he observed.
'Oh, I am,' said the viscount with a brief smile. 'And we'll be there soon enough. Now, do shut up, there's a good fellow.'
Breaking out of his cell was possibly the easiest thing that the Brigadier had ever done. The moulded plastic door had clearly never been intended to house anyone with the strength of Lethbridge-Stewart and, after five or six hefty kicks with his army-regulation boots, the entire window unit collapsed outward. The Brigadier dived through the hole, and straight into the midriff of the guard standing outside the door.
His rifle clattered down the corridor.
They rolled around for a moment on the concrete floor, grappling for a stranglehold on each other. Eventually the Brigadier got a grip of the man's shoulders, and powered his forehead downwards on to the bridge of the guard's nose.
The man fell away, moaning.
The entire scrap was more Stretford End than Sandhurst, but the pragmatism of the Lethbridge-Stewarts was well known. The Brigadier scanned the empty corridor, briefly considering what he would have done as commanding officer if an important prisoner had escaped from a room with only a single guard stationed outside. Shouted a lot, probably.
For the first time in many hours, the Brigadier found himself in a position where no one was holding a gun on him, or pushing him around, or making veiled threats. It felt marvellous. He sprinted to the end of the corridor and then back along the route he had taken with Control.
Remarkably most of the corridors seemed deserted. The legacy of having kept intruders out for so long was that no one thought About a threat that appeared from within.
The Brigadier approached the section of the central complex in which he had been shown the Nedenah. The cavernous room was now in semi-darkness, and deserted but for a single bored-looking USAF cadet who sat on a low bench in front of the observation cells, completely engrossed in the dog-eared Harold Robbins novel in his hands. The Brigadier crept up behind the man, then delivered a heavy chop on the back of his neck. He fell to the floor noiselessly.
The Brigadier made a mental note that, should be ever get home again, he would have to oversee UNIT's internal security procedures personally.
He looked up, and saw the Nedenah watching him closely from their glass-fronted cubicles. It was impossible to read anything into the bland expressions, but the green eyes seemed a fraction wider than usual.
'Good day,' said the Brigadier, briefly aware of how ridiculous he probably sounded. 'My name is Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, I am a brigadier with the United Nations Intelligence Task Force, a multinational, quasi-autonomous military collective whose aim is to protect Earth...' He paused.
He was uncertain whether his words were being understood by the aliens, although Control had indicated that the Nedenah could communicate with humans. 'The people of Earth are in grave danger,' he continued,