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Benny was tal enough to see over most heads, and by the time they had reached the crowd-control barriers she had built up a picture of what was happening. The police were clearing groups of people from around the Column itself. They'd also cleared the Strand, and a steady line of emergency vehicles was streaming up the long road.

Benny wondered idly what the Martians made of the convoy of large vehicles swarming beneath them with flashing lights and wailing sirens. The TARDIS was still sitting in the middle of the Square where they'd left it. Its technology was way beyond that of the Martians, so there was little chance they could detect its true nature.

The Doctor was pointing past it. 'Over there, Bernice. The army.'

A couple of army vehicles were also there: large trucks, personnel carriers, nothing like a tank or even an armoured car.

'Excel ent,' he enthused. 'They're thinking. They are trying not to antagonise the aliens. The helicopters are keeping their distance, too.'

Benny cocked her head. Over the burbling of the crowd, the wailing of the sirens and the ever-present noise of the traffic in the distance, she could hear helicopter rotor blades.

'Good, good.' The Doctor whirled around, scanning the rooftops.

Bernice looked up. The Martian ship blocked out a quarter of the sky, its stern almost, but not quite, disappearing over the horizon. ' This is good?'

'Well, the Martians have been here half an hour and they haven't wiped us out yet - that's got to be a promising sign.'

'The big ship-mounted Martian sonic cannons take thirty-five minutes to power up.'

The Doctor looked up at the ship and then back down to her. 'Really?'

She nodded, biting her lip. They were right up against the crash barriers now. The chains securing them together were rattling.

The Doctor bent down to examine the phenomenon. 'Magnetic repulsion. Fascinating - a side effect of the magnetic flux that keep that ship afloat, no doubt.' He held the nearest padlock still and unfastened it with the sonic screwdriver and ushered Benny through the new gap. Al this was achieved without drawing any attention from either members of the crowd or the nearest policemen.

Before she had time to worry about that, they were heading across the Square. Like the crowd, the policemen and soldiers were al looking up at the ship. Here, they were directly underneath it, watching the winking lights at various points along the hull.

One group of policemen was standing right in front of the TARDIS door. Even if the Doctor had wanted to get inside he couldn't. It wasn't on the agenda, anyway, in fact the Doctor seemed unaware of the presence of his time machine.

'That's Eve, isn't it?' he asked. Benny followed his line of vision.

***

Lord Greyhaven's Aston Martin drew up just outside the Scotland Yard mobile command centre. A police officer opened the door for him, a young Army lieutenant for his passenger.

Staines was there already, waiting for him.

'What is it, Teddy?' he asked, glancing upwards.

Greyhaven raised a finger to his lips. 'Have you met Miss Evelin Waugh?'

She was young and blonde, and wearing a clinging silk dress. He remembered her from before at the Space Museum. Most of the men there would remember her. 'You're a lot prettier than your namesake,' the Home Secretary giggled.

'Gee, thanks,' she replied. She had an American accent.

'Miss Waugh is a journalist,' Greyhaven said, the merest hint of a warning in his tone of voice.

'Oh, the place is crawling with those,' the Home Secretary joked. 'There's a Yankee cameramen over there.' He gestured vaguely towards the outside broadcast vans that were massing by the National Portrait Gallery.

The woman looked up at Lord Greyhaven. 'Brilliant: that's Alan, my cameraman. Edward, I've got work to do: I'l see you later,' she told Greyhaven quietly, brushing against him as she hurried away.

'I say, Teddy, have you and she... ?'

Lord Greyhaven was staring up at the vast bel y of the spacecraft. 'Is that real