Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [15]
Staines handed her two sides of Home Office notepaper, stapled together. Halliwell rolled her eyes. He had obviously made up his mind about what needed doing.
She gave him one last chance. 'Sir, ten years ago, the government made idiots,' a knowing emphasis on that word, 'of themselves over the Zircon project. Perhaps you don't remember, but I was actual y in Glasgow, helping to remove three vanloads of papers and film from the BBC offices. We went through the same farce again with State Secret last year. If you want to give these crackpots publicity, then go ahead.'
'Thank you, I will. Your attitude has been noted, Director General. I am also going to advise Cabinet that we will need to increase security around the country. More police, tighter checks at airports, that sort of thing.'
'Sir, you can't unilateral y declare a state of emergency.'
'Ms Halliwell, there is no question of a state of emergency, I just want our people to be a little more alert. You agree that I am acting within my powers?'
The telephone rang, and Staines picked it up.
'Home Secretary,' he declared, redundantly.
An expression of concern crossed his idiot face. 'Yes, yes. Right.' He replaced the handset.
'Alexander Christian has escaped,' he announced grimly.
16
Benny and the Doctor stood at the top of the staircase that led down from the entrance to the main deck of the redecorated console room.
'Well,' the Doctor said breathlessly, 'What do you think?'
'It's very ... big,' Benny observed. 'Big and ... dark. It's very big and dark. It's very you, real y, I mean it.' She was tempted to ask the Doctor for a pair of binoculars, or one of those telescopes you get on the sea front. She didn't mind the TARDIS being bigger on the inside than the outside, but there were limits.
The Doctor was stepping down, indicating the interesting features with a broad sweep of his arm. 'I used the second control room for so long I got used to all that white, I have to admit, but this always was the original. It's just taken a little while for the alterations to be completed.'
He picked up a tricorn hat which sat on a bust of William Shakespeare. 'It's simply ages since I wore this,' he laughed, trying it on again. It didn't quite fit, which clearly amused him.
'So the rest of the TARDIS ... ?'
'Don't worry, your room's exactly as it always was. I'm not sure where it is now, I admit, but rest assured I've not touched a thing in it.'
Benny smiled wanly.
‘In here,’ the Doctor called from the far wal , opening and striding through the sort of door that castles had. Oh, yes, she thought, 'the sort of door castles had', a textbook description for an archaeologist. She engaged her brain.
At intervals along the wall of the control room, there were doorways surmounted by drop head arches. The doors bore lovingly hand-crafted iron scroll-work, but no visible handles, latches or locks. The control room as a whole was in the Decorated Gothic style, taking the form of a roughly hexagonal lierne vault.
The clustered shafts, niches and buttresses were typical of the style, but there was evidence of alien influence.
Illumination was provided mainly by candlelight. At irregular intervals the same swirling, circular design appeared inlaid into the marble floor or the iron and carved into corbels and bosses. Benny recognised it from her visit to Gallifrey, but couldn't remember what it was.
Benny ducked through the door, following the Doctor into the TARDIS laboratory. She couldn't recall ever visiting the room before, and certainly would remember it if she had, she thought: a cold, dark chamber stacked to its high-vaulted ceiling with cardboard boxes and scientific instruments. Four great wooden workbenches were arranged haphazardly towards the centre of the room. On one of these an elaborate construction of test-tubes, Bunsen burners, retorts, tubes and glass jars but if they had once contained colourful, bubbling fluids they had long evaporated away. Every piece of equipment seemed to come from another age, and she found herself trying to place every arcane