• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

'They weren't real policemen,' the Doctor informed her, helping her down.

She hesitated for a moment before jumping down. 'What? I mean how do you know?'

'Didn't you notice?' he pressed her.

There was a pause. 'Let's just say for sake of argument that I didn't.'

The Doctor sighed. 'If they were real Constabulary of Kent policemen they would have shown us their ID. They certainly wouldn't be smoking at the scene of an accident. And if they were responding to an emergency call, they would have sent uniformed officers.'

'I took the registration number of the Range Rover. P876 - '

' - XFL,' the Doctor completed, beaming. 'Almost certainly a forged plate, but worth looking up.'

'What's going on here, Doctor?'

'I don't know.'

'I mean really.'

'I mean really,' he objected.

She straightened up. 'You real y mean that, don't you?'

The Doctor smiled helplessly. 'Yes Bernice,' he laughed, 'I real y mean that I really mean it. Obviously it's got something to do with whatever's in that test tube. Caldwell said it was "soil". The policeman I talked to seemed a great deal more interested in the test tubes than in the injured man. Caldwell also said "Christian escaped".'

'It seems a lot of trouble to transport soil around,' Bernice muttered. 'If only I'd pocketed one of those test tubes when I had a chance we might have some clue.'

The Doctor smiled. 'Well, as a matter of fact...' He held up the test tube he had palmed earlier. 'We'll analyse it in the TARDIS labs. After you've had your breakfast and finished your shower, of course.'

***

Elsewhere, a telephone rang. It was picked up after two rings.

'Alexander Christian has escaped,' a gruff voice said, 'The helicopter crashed.'

There was a moment's pause.

'The specimens?'

'Recovered from the crash-site.'

'Understood.' The handset was replaced.

13

C

hapter Two

Foreign Soil

Alexander Christian stood perfectly still on the patio, catching his breath. He'd half-run, half-crawled the hundred or so yards to the house, the nearest man-made structure.

It was a big place built in the last century, but now in some state of disrepair. The gardens were overgrown.

Christian had seen the owners, a couple in their thirties, hurrying over to the crash-site. He'd ducked down in the long grass and they'd run straight past him. The police Range Rover had missed him completely, driving up a dirt track fifty yards away to the south. His first five minutes of freedom had proved a success.

Judging by the furniture, the man's clothes and the "police box" sitting by the kitchen door, the owners of the house were Victorian enthusiasts. This eccentricity seemed to extend to not owning a telephone: he couldn't see a cable leading into the house. They didn't mind electricity, though: a portable television sat on the garden table. A young woman was dancing around in front of a couple of puppets. In the bottom right-hand corner was a digital clock reading 8:23. Christian watched the spectacle, fascinated, for a couple of seconds. How long had they been broadcasting television at this ungodly hour?

The owners had been in the middle of breakfast. There was a tray next to the telly loaded up with a plate, a butter dish and a coffee pot. Christian lifted up the tray and plucked out the newspaper underneath. The Mirror. He scanned the header for the date: May 7th 1997. Price: 30p. Page-three girls had made it to the front, he noted. It was only a matter of time. More interesting was that the picture was in colour and that the newsprint didn't come off in his hands. Man hadn't reached Venus in the last twenty years, but clearly some things had improved.

There were more sirens: fire engines, ambulances, perhaps more policemen. He needed to get away from here. It would only be a few minutes before tracker dogs were brought in and there would be roadblocks in a ten-mile area within half an hour.

Christian tried to prioritise: he needed civvies, antiseptic for the cut on his head and to make a single phone cal .

He