Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [46]
'You recognise me?' the Doctor asked as they set off for the car.
'Of course. You were wearing that face in Hong Kong, remember?'
The Doctor boggled. 'I was?'
'You must remember Hong Kong back in '88, when we discovered the secret of the Embodiment of Gris.'
'I didn't even know that there was an Embodiment of Gris,' Bernice muttered.
The Doctor looked blankly at his old friend. 'I think that must have happened in my future.'
The Brigadier chortled. A couple of decades ago, the Doctor would have needed to explain such a temporal paradox in more detail. Nowadays, Alistair was almost relaxed discussing them. After all he'd been through, he knew as much as anyone how convoluted time travel could become.
45
The Brigadier reached over to shake Bernice's hand. 'Good afternoon, Miss Summerfield. Now - I've aged twenty years since the last time we met, but you haven't.'
She smiled weakly.
'Bernice has got married since then, Alistair - you and Doris came to the wedding.'
'Really? That was in my future, I take it, Mrs - ?'
'I'm still a Summerfield.' Bernice was a little uncomfortable discussing her marriage. It was going through a bad patch at the moment, the Doctor remembered. 'And yes, it was in the future: 2010.'
The Brigadier looked a little surprised. 'I'm still around in thirteen years time, then?'
'Not only that,' Bernice assured him, 'you've never looked better.'
The Brigadier grimaced. 'That's what people have started saying to me now. I imagine it means that I'm on the way out. God knows what I'l be like a couple of decades from now.'
'Old soldiers never die, Alistair,' the Doctor said softly.
'Neither do Time Lords, Doctor, eh? Now, you two, about these Ice Warriors...'
The Doctor and Bernice both stopped and stared at him.
The Brigadier looked like the cat that got the cream. 'That is what you were about to tell me, I take it?'
They had reached the car and the Doctor recognised the Brigadier's companion. 'You're full of surprises today, Alistair.'
'You're Alexander Christian,' Bernice announced, betraying some considerable discomfort. 'I've just been reading about you.'
'Nothing bad, I hope?' he asked lightly. The Doctor found himself grinning and shaking his hand.
'It seems that Mr Christian has been misjudged.' The Brigadier clambered in to the back seat. 'You drive, Doctor.'
'I was framed,’ Christian explained. ‘I found out things on Mars that I shouldn't have done. I'll tell everyone when we get to UNIT.'
The Brigadier had got comfortable, and was clearing a space for Bernice. 'We're only five minutes away from UNIT's London Office here. After your email message, I phoned Bambera. They're expecting us.'
'Well,' the Doctor said breezily, 'we mustn't keep Winifred waiting.' He located the ignition podule and started the engine.
***
The two men dressed as workmen reached the roof of the National Space Museum.
Pigeons scattered as they walked towards the edge of the roof.
'Dish Seven,' the gruff voiced one announced.
His col eague nodded, taking a pair of clippers from the pocket of his overalls.
'I don't understand why we still need to do this.'
'Neither do I. That isn't going to stop me.'
They located the dish, identifying it by the little panel screwed to the back. Together, they unplugged the coaxial cable at the back.
The gruff voiced man opened up his canvas kit bag and removed a brass cylinder the size of a Thermos flask. It was surprisingly light, with a socket at either end and a neat row of switches along its side. He adjusted the settings, then plugged it into the dish. His colleague connected the other end to the cable.
They eased the device into place, tucking it out of sight.
***
A bright yel ow vintage car turned into an anonymous-looking car park underneath an imposing Whitehall office block.
In a third-floor window opposite,