Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [64]
‘Whatever,’ said Control, turning his attention to the Doctor. ‘And this must be your latest Time Lord?’
‘I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,’ said the Doctor charmingly. ‘I’m the Doctor.’
‘Which one are you?’
‘Fifth.’
‘Oh, the vulnerable one,’ replied Control contemptuously. ‘Well, you’d better sit down before you have an accident. I couldn’t have that on my conscience, could I?’
The atmosphere in the room was thick with tension. The Doctor and the Brigadier both sat down, gently, as though terrified that the plush leather armchairs were about to eat them alive.
Fortunately, this didn’t happen.
‘So,’ said Control, with a gesture of welcome, ‘what brings Europe’s top boys in the let’s be nice to aliens party to my home-boy turf?’
123
‘Rumours of our appeasing aliens seem to have been greatly exaggerated,’
began Lethbridge-Stewart. ‘You, of all people, should know that after we put a stop to your fantasy in Nevada.’
‘Is that what you think you did?’ asked Control, hugely amused by this suggestion. ‘Well, that’s one opinion,’ he continued, parroting the Brigadier.
‘Not one I share.’
‘This is a waste of time,’ said the Brigadier, turning to his friend.
‘Possibly,’ replied the Doctor. He looked at Control carefully. ‘On the other hand we’ve come a long way. It seems a pity to turn round now.’
‘Indeed,’ replied Control. ‘If you do that, you might not live to regret it.’
‘Is that a threat?’ asked Lethbridge-Stewart, half-standing and reaching for his Browning pistol. Until he remembered that they’d taken his weapon from him at reception.
‘No,’ said Control emotionlessly. ‘It’s a prediction based on intelligence. My intelligence. Now sit down you old fool, before you have a heart attack.’
‘Interesting,’ noted the Doctor. ‘Nevertheless, this charade is an insult to our intelligence, as I’m sure you’ll agree.’
And so the square dance continued. The Doctor and Control batting non sequiturs back and forth like tennis players with Lethbridge-Stewart stuck on the sidelines watching the action. The meeting remained tense and the CIA man seemed less than keen to divulge anything of great consequence but, as the Doctor answered each and every cutting insult with a considered, often equally biting, reply, the Brigadier could sense that Control was beginning to thaw. That the Doctor was actually getting through the tough little spy’s defences to whatever it was that made him tick.
When Control made some fatuous comment about having all the time in the world, the Doctor had the opening in the conversation that he had been looking for.
‘Time,’ he said. ‘That’s a really difficult concept for a human to grasp.’
‘Do you think so?’ asked Control. ‘I’ve always been very comfortable with the theory.’
‘Which probably tells me more about you than it does about humanity,’
noted the Doctor. ‘Time is subjective.’
‘Subjectivity is objective.’
‘Gosh, that was witty Wilde,’ said the Doctor with a wry grin. ‘What do you know about the Sons of Nostradamus?’
‘That would be telling!’
The Brigadier sighed deeply, but the Doctor shot him a quick look that told both Lethbridge-Stewart and Control that progress was being made, and that the Doctor knew it was.
124
‘I know you possess only limited information about both the terrorists and Sanger’s organisation,’ said the Doctor. ‘In fact, we probably know as much as you do. Just not, necessarily, the same bits!’
‘I think that’s a fair assumption,’ conceded Control. It was the first straight answer that he had given.
‘So,’ said the Doctor. ‘You tell us what you know, and we tell you what we know . . . ’
‘And then we both know what each other knows?’
‘That’s the general idea,’ noted the Doctor.
Control thought about this for a moment. ‘Fascinating concept,’ he said after a long pause. ‘Not sure I entirely understand what’s in it for me . . . ’
‘For God’s sake man,’ said the Brigadier angrily, ‘we’re talking about a possible alien invasion of Earth. What’s in it for you is to help stop it happening.’
‘Don’t be so melodramatic,’ said Control. ‘It’s always