Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [1]
Inside their cocoon, they watched the storm.
Watched it with a detached curiosity through black, lifeless alien eyes from the shelter of their miniature world. They respected the way in which the elements had spoken to them, but they had no fear.
Of the elements.
Or of anything else.
What they did have was time to stalk this wasted landscape that was to be their new home.
Time to change, secure and conquer a world.
1
Prologue
Toy Soldier
28 September 2050: Westcliffe Retirement Home, Sussex Despite the warm autumn breeze coming through the open French windows and fluttering the lace curtains, the place was dusty and thick with decay. As I moved around the room, introducing myself and explaining why I had come all the way from London, a pair of eyes followed me.
Old eyes.
I picked up the telegram from the mahogany table next to his stiff wicker chair. The paper was shiny and slick. My fingers slid along it like a skater gliding across the ice.
‘From the king?’ I asked, already knowing the answer. I had done my research on this fellow. After all, it isn’t every day you meet a living legend.
He shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, constantly adjusting the tartan blanket that covered his legs. He looked frail. All skin and bone like the discarded husk of a caterpillar after it has metamorphosed.
‘Yes,’ he said with a croaking voice that had once been booming and vibrant.
His eyes were misty, bloodshot and distant, wrinkled lids blinking over them.
And yet those cold steel-blue eyes still shone with a fierce intelligence. This man was no military fool, no matter what anyone said to the contrary.
His was an utterly remarkable story, even in this age when such tales have become commonplace. A journey to another dimension. A Celtic bride in Avalon. And then twenty years later, he came back to the world that he had left behind. One day, he told anyone willing to listen, (perhaps quite soon) he intended to return to his happy ending in another half of the sky. But for now he was old and ravaged by that most cruel of mistresses, time.
‘You’re a hundred and twenty-one?’ I asked. Despite his frailty he looked not a day over seventy-five.
‘I might be,’ he replied sharply, as though I had asked a question concerning national security. The old soldier picked up his glass of diluted orange cordial and took a sip. The scowl on his face told me that the drink tasted bland and insipid. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said with a genuine bewilderment. ‘Mind’s not what it 3
was, do you see? I become embarrassed when I forget . . . I no longer feel that God is watching over me. Why did you say you were here?’
I replied with possibly offensive slowness. ‘It’s about UNIT.’
‘It’s always about UNIT.’
Brigadier General Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart KCB, VC, DC, and a whole alphabet of other letters after his name, was laughing at me. ‘Will the stupid questions never cease?’ he asked, clasping his wizened hands together.
‘I should tell you that I have refused at least a dozen offers from biographers.’
I stood up. ‘I’ll leave if you . . . ’
‘Sit down,’ he snapped. ‘You didn’t come all this way to take in the sea air.
What do you want?’
‘I’m doing a piece for the Guardian . . . ’ I began.
I noticed the prickly look of disdain he gave me in return. ‘ Leftist rag,’ I heard him mutter and I suppressed a smile of admiration. There aren’t many one-nation Tories left in the world. I told him so and the corner of his grey moustache twitched with what I could see was a returning smile.
‘You’re not keen on my politics then?’ I asked.
‘That entirely depends on how they were formed,’ he replied. ‘Everybody’s got to believe in something. What do you believe in?’
‘Belief is fundamental, surely?’
Now he was curious. ‘What’s your name?’
I told him. ‘I may be a bleeding-heart liberal subversive,’ I said ironically,
‘but I’m also a true patriot, sir. I love my country.’ This seemed to pacify him and I continued. ‘As you may know some of the UNIT files have