Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [67]
The Doctor stepped forwards. 'Good evening, my Lord,' he glanced back at Greyhaven. 'My apologies. Good evening, my Lords. I am the Doctor, and this is my friend Bernice Summerfield. I believe that you need my help.'
'Inssolent commoner,' Xznaal hissed, straightening his claw. Nestling in the patch of green hair at his wrist was a stubby metal tube. It flowed out of the joint, like a protruding bone rather than something that had been grafted on.
It was a weapon, of course, a sonic disruptor.
The Doctor stared right down the barrel. 'You, sir, may be a Lord of Mars, but I am a Lord of Time. You wil show the respect due to me.'
'A Gallifreyan?' Xznaal whispered. He lowered his arm, and bowed his head.
The Doctor's lip curled until he was almost sneering. 'That's right. As I was saying, you need my help. Tell me everything you know.'
***
The Doctor stood there, listening to them as first Xznaal, then Greyhaven recounted their versions of events. The Home Secretary, Staines, was hanging on every word as well. It didn't need an expert in body language to tel that he was terrified. Benny watched the Doctor closely. Before he had changed, he rarely referred to his home planet, and had never used it to pull rank on anyone. On the other hand, it was the perfect way to gain the respect of a Martian noblebeing.
Xznaal and Greyhaven had been in contact for over twenty years. Throughout that time, Greyhaven had kept mankind away from Mars, and Xznaal had sent him the odd snippet of technical information.
'Lord Gerayhavunn hass kept hiss sside of the bargain,' Xznaal concluded, inhaling loudly. Greyhaven had been happy to relate his part in the scheme, the Martian had been more reticent. 'Now we sshall keep ourss. With our ssupport,' he wheezed, 'he sshall rule thiss country ass he sseess fit, and,' another hiss,'together we sshall ussher in an age of interplanetary co-operation.'
'All it needs is this Martian ship,' Greyhaven proclaimed, flinging his arms wide. 'We've got supporters on the ground, we've got troops and equipment, but with just one Martian war rocket, we can suppress any opposition.
But we don't need guns, we don't need bombs. Just think: a thousand new factories, pouring out technology that's a century ahead of anything on the market at the moment. It's the start of a new Industrial Revolution, with Britain at the forefront! Jobs, prosperity, security, international prestige and power. Not just international: Interplanetary!
Interstellar! Intergalactic! Together, humanity and the Martians will travel to the stars hand in hand.'
'Oh yes, Lord Greyhaven,' the Doctor shouted, although he was almost face-to-face with him. 'I can see what's in it for you. You think you'l go down in history as the man who put the Great back into Great Britain and the sofa back into the United States of America. The suns will never set on the British Empire.' He turned to Xznaal. 'But you won't be going hand-in-hand anywhere. Martians don't have hands. What exactly do the Martians get from this deal?'
Benny could imagine Xznaal's eyes narrowing behind his visor. 'Marss iss in itss dying dayss. Over a million yearss of civilissation, of technological progressss, iss coming to an end.'
'Your mineral wealth is exhausted,' Benny said. She'd seen the worked-out mines, the metal stripped from old buildings to complete new ones. At one point, the Martian civilisation had spread from the poles almost to the equator. Something had caused massive retrenchment even before the Thousand Day War. Most archaeologists agreed that there must have been an ecological disaster.
Xznaal faced her. 'Ssummerfield, my entire planet iss exhaussted.' He paused to draw breath. 'For centuriess there hass been no new metal, no new ssource of energy. 'Another pause. 'Al Martian life iss dying from the ssmallesst plant to the largesst