Doctor Who_ The Green Death - Malcolm Hulke [44]
The glowing blue light attracted Elgin’s eyes and he stared into it. After a few moments he reeled back, steadying himself against the desk. ‘Where am I?’
‘With me in the Director’s office, and you’re all right now,’ said Yates. ‘What’s going to happen?’
‘Take-over by the Boss,’ Elgin gasped. ‘Warn the Doctor. At four o’clock this afternoon the computer is going to—’
Suddenly the air was filled with electronic shrieks. Elgin clapped his hands to his ears and fell to the carpet. Yates knelt to look at him. Elgin was dead. Yates looked up, and now spotted the tiny television eye which had watched his conversation with Elgin.
The door opened and Dr Stevens entered with two guards. ‘Well, well, Mr Yates,’ he said. ‘It seems I just can’t depend on you. What a pity.’
11 The Chrysalis
Sergeant Benton drove the jeep at top speed through the village. He flashed past the Methodist Chapel, changed down gear to go round the corner of the Working Men’s Institute, speeded up as he tore by the main drive leading to Panorama Chemicals, braked hard to avoid the old wall with the big white-washed letters reading ‘ENGLISH GO HOME’, sounded his horn as he overtook the milk float with the smashed-in front, flashed his headlights at Perry the Policeman who waved frantically to stop him, and finally screeched to a halt outside the Nut Hatch. With delicate care he lifted the old coal sack that lay on the floor of the jeep and carried it into the house.
‘Doctor!’ he bellowed in the hallway.
The long haired ex-colonel in the kaftan and beads looked out from the living room. ‘They’re in the professor’s laboratory,’ he said. ‘And do you mind making less noise? I’m composing a poem for peace.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ Benton leaped to attention.
‘Just call me Jeremy,’ said the ex-colonel, and went back into the living room.
Benton marched to the laboratory where he found the Doctor peering into a microscope. The Brigadier sat perched on a high stool eating a sandwich that Nancy had just brought in.
‘I’d swear these are beef,’ said the Brigadier.
‘They’re not,’ Nancy laughed. ‘They’re exactly the same fungus you ate last night, but cooked differently.’
‘Permission to speak, sir,’ said Benton, standing in the doorway.
The Brigadier slipped off the high stool and quickly put his sandwich out of sight. ‘What is it, Sergeant?’
‘I’ve found a maggot for the Doctor, sir.’ He held up the old coal sack. ‘It was on the edge of the danger area.’
‘Is it dead?’ The Brigadier knew that neither bullets, pesticide, or even napalm had killed any maggots.
‘Not exactly, sir,’ said Benton. ‘May I put it down here?’ He carried the sack to the work bench and very carefully emptied the maggot from the bag. As the others watched he turned it over, prodding it with a pencil, to reveal that it was a hollow shell slit open on one side.
‘A chrysalis,’ said the Doctor. ‘So they’re beginning to change.’
The Brigadier stared at the shell. ‘Change into what?’
‘Like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly,’ the Doctor said. ‘My guess is whatever’s come out of that shell now has wings. Within a matter of hours they could be all over the country spreading the green death.’
For some seconds no one spoke. The thought of what might happen now was too awful. Then Nancy broke the silence. ‘Had anything to eat, Sergeant?’
‘What? Oh, no. Not since breakfast,’ he replied, his mind still fixed on what the Doctor had just said.
‘I’ll get you a sandwich,’ said Nancy, and went out.
‘What I don’t understand,’ said the Brigadier, ‘is why they’ve all stayed on the slag heap.’
‘Instinct,’ suggested the Doctor. ‘To stay close to the breeding ground until they’re ready to fly away.’
From down the corridor they heard Nancy scream. Sergeant Benton was the first to get to her. She was standing at an open door that led into the larder. The window of the larder was smashed in, a shower of glass on the floor. Laying on a shelf under the window was a maggot. It was quite dead. The Sergeant went forward cautiously, prodded the maggot with his pencil. The