Doctor Who_ The Green Death - Malcolm Hulke [10]
His intercom buzzed and the voice of his secretary, Stella, spoke through the built-in loudspeaker. ‘I’ve located Mr Hinks, sir. He’s on his way to your office.’
‘Thank you,’ Dr Stevens said to the intercom.
He went back to studying the mountains. Maybe, he thought, he should try a little climbing again one day. Unfortunately he would not be able to take his new friend with him. But the exercise might do him good, and he loved the sense of history that emanated from those mountains.
Dr Stevens had enjoyed studying history when he was a boy at school. Sometimes he wished he was still there. But now he was a man and had the responsibilities of a man.
He turned from the window. His headache was starting to trouble him again. He wished Hinks would hurry and come to take orders, because he had to get rid of this headache.
There was a tap on the door and Hinks entered. ‘You wanted me, sir?’ Hinks was over six feet tall, and very broad-shouldered. He had a face like an ex-boxer who had lost too many fights.
The headache was very bad now. ‘I want you to... ‘ Dr Stevens knew he was swaying slightly with the pain. ‘I want you to...’
‘Are you all right, sir?’ Although Hinks asked the question politely there was ice in his voice. There always was.
‘The mine,’ said Dr Stevens, ‘nobody must go down the mine.’
‘I’ll see to it,’ said Hinks, grinning. The prospect of any kind of violence always made Hinks grin. ‘Sure you’re all right, sir?’
‘Perfectly all right,’ Dr Stevens lied. ‘Just see no one goes down the mine. That’ll be all.’
‘Right you are, sir.’ Hinks turned and went. Dr Stevens hated to imagine what Hinks might do to stop people going down the mine.
Alone, Dr Stevens staggered over to the door and locked it. Then he crossed back to his desk, unlocked a little cupboard built into the side of the desk. His hands were now shaking, and his head felt like splitting open. He reached into the cupboard and brought out a very special pair of earphones. Fumbling, he put them on, plugged the lead into a special socket in his desk intercom, and slumped back into his chair. The voice of his friend Boss at once started to talk to him through the earphones, reassuring Dr Stevens that what he was doing was right. Almost immediately the headache went away.
Jo was pleased with the way Nancy, or Mum, had welcomed her, but she was still angry with Professor Clifford Jones. Over lunch she met a number of the Wholeweal Community, mainly young people who had come to Llanfairfach because they were fed up with the pressures and materialism and pollution of the big cities. Conversation during the meal was light hearted, and they seemed pleased to have this newcomer, Jo, in their midst. But as soon as the meal was over they all went back to their various occupations. The Nut Hatch was a hive of activity, where these young people spent their time evolving alternative methods of production and living. Jo helped Nancy wash up the dishes. Then she had nothing to do. Everyone was far too busy to involve her, or even talk to her. Burning with curiosity about the man who died and went green, she decided to go and look at the mine.
The closed mine looked sadly derelict. Grass and weeds grew over the little narrow gauge railway lines once used for pushing wheeled tubs of coal. Immediately over the shaft was a high metal construction with wheels at the top. This was part of the lift mechanism. When a coal mine is in full life, the wheels at the top of these metal constructions are turning all the time, either taking miners down to work, or bringing up the coal they have hewn from the bowels of the earth—but here everything was ghostly still.
As Jo wandered about among mounds of coal dust, the unused wheeled tubs, and the outhouses and sheds around the main shaft, a man came out of the pit office and shouted at her.
‘Hey!’ he called. ‘What are you doing?’
Jo went over to him. Like many Welshmen