Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [2]
Clearly he hadn’t known this. ‘You’ve had access to the files?’ murmured Lethbridge-Stewart. There was something about the way the question was phrased that told me he had placed them in cold storage in the first place.
I persisted. ‘I’ve read them, yes. The invasion of the Cybermen. The Autons.
The General Carrington affair. The Stahlman project. Quite a time of it you had?’
‘They came in the old manner, and we saw them off in the old manner,’ he replied quoting Wellington. ‘That’s the trouble with your average alien. They always underestimated humanity. Thought we were a soft touch. They still do.’
‘Still?’ I asked, fishing for clues.
‘Figure of speech,’ he replied, bluntly. ‘We make the standards, and we make the rules. Do you understand?’
I did. ‘I’d like to ask you about one particular case,’ I continued, pushing the record button on my palmtop hard drive. ‘It’s something that crops up in 4
ministerial minutes, but the NATO files seem to have been mislaid. Who, or what, were “the Waro”?’
He shook his head. ‘It was so long ago . . . ’
‘I understand. You don’t remember them?’
‘I remember all right.’ Again there was a faraway look in his eyes. Eighty years distant. Painful memories seemed to briefly touch his features. ‘The Devil Goblins from Neptune . . . I rode in a spaceship.’ He cackled and for a second I thought that he was enjoying another joke at my expense. Then I saw that cold look in his eyes again and I knew for certain that he was not.
‘Tell me about them.’
‘They were ferocious creatures. Genetically engineered as the perfect killing machine. There were millions of them. They came in a vast wave, set up a false bridgehead in the Soviet Union and sent us all scurrying around like chickens with our heads cut off. And there were quislings too. Traitors who were prepared to sell out their world to those filthy vermin. Have you got to the Geneva trials yet?’
‘No,’ I said, reading from my notes. ‘I believe they will be available to us next year.’
He smiled, genially. ‘A lot of questions will be answered then. And there’ll be answers that you won’t hear for another few years by which time, thank God, I’ll be gone and you won’t be able to ask me any more of your damn-fool questions.’ There seemed to be an appreciation of death in his voice, as though it were an old acquaintance with whom he had performed a slow waltz on many occasions. ‘As for the Waro . . . ’ He pointed with a bony finger through the open windows towards the clear blue sky. ‘They’re out there, somewhere. In space. Waiting. The Doctor always said they’d be back one day.’
‘The Doctor,’ I said quickly, turning to one of the main purposes of my visit.
‘I wanted to ask you about him. Everybody knows about Doctor Smith, of course. He’s almost as much of a legend as you are. But there’s so little documentation. A lot of the eyewitness reports are confusing – he seems to gain or lose a foot in height almost at will. Completely change his appearance.
There is speculation that “the Doctor” was actually a code name for a group of scientists working for UNIT who –’
‘Poppycock!’ the old soldier snapped. ‘You and your theories. You know nothing.’
‘Then tell me.’
I glanced up at an approaching nurse who was alarmed by the raised voice.
‘I only want to understand the truth. InterCom, for instance. So much has been written about the Doctor’s involvement, but . . . ’
5
‘Help comes when you need it most,’ he said mysteriously. The old man fell silent for a moment. Then in a hoarse whisper he continued. ‘The Doctor believes in good and fights evil. Though often caught up in violent situations, he is a man of peace. He is never cruel or cowardly. To put it simply, the Doctor is a hero. That, at least, hasn’t changed. And it never will.’
The nurse told me that I should leave. I offered Lethbridge-Stewart my hand.
‘Thank you sir,’ I said. ‘It has been a unique honour.’
But he wasn’t listening. He was looking out of the windows