Doctor Who_ Trading Futures - Lance Parkin [42]
‘And the other EZ countries don’t know about it?’
‘Less than a hundred people in the world know about it, and most of them work for the Service. They’re the cream of the crop.’
‘Cosgrove being the creme de la creme.’
‘Exactly. He’s been at the heart of the British Secret Service since before the moon landings. He survived the Martians, the Euro Wars, the fall of Learman. He’s normally utterly invisible. He stays in London. The fact that he’s involved at all was enough to have the President authorise me to look into it.’
The lift doors opened.
‘This is the floor,’ the Doctor said. ‘Come on – we don’t have long.’
‘What are we looking for?’
'It doesn’t matter what I’m looking for. You’re looking for anyone who’s trying to kill us.’
Malady drew her gun. ‘Bring them on.’
* * *
The Doctor followed the Onihr leader on to the command gallery, wittering all the way. All around them, Onihr officers moved into place, with practised ease. The leader admired their discipline, their sense of purpose.
‘You can’t invade the Earth,’ the Doctor was saying, through clouds of leaf smoke. ‘They’ll resist. They’re tenacious creatures, humans.’
‘We have analysed their defensive capabilities.’
‘Five minutes ago, you said you knew nothing about them.’
‘Five minutes ago, we didn’t. Now we know everything.’ Olfactograms of various human weapon systems appeared in the air.
‘What’s that smell?’
‘That, Doctor, is the state of the art of human weaponry. And here is what our war computers calculate will happen when we launch our attack.’
The drift of the waft was unmistakable.
‘You see, Doctor! Our technology is thousands of years in advance of that of the humans. We will prevail! The prediction is that the war will last seven minutes, Doctor.’
The Doctor had stopped in his tracks.
‘The human race have nuclear weapons.’
‘We will not allow them to blow themselves up,’ he assured the Doctor.
‘That isn’t what I meant – they could launch them at you.’
The Onihr leader spent several minutes laughing at that.
* * *
Anji lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering what she’d got herself into.
Where were Fitz and the Doctor? Fitz could still be in California, but wouldn’t have a clue how to find her, or even get in contact. Anji wasn’t even sure the Doctor had told him they’d be leaving the TARDIS at Heathrow. She didn’t have any way of getting in touch with the Doctor, so why would Fitz? They really ought to carry mobiles, or communicators like they had on Star Trek. Then again, they should carry all sorts of stuff – a first‐aid kit, matches, a torch. Just basic stuff. The Doctor had all sorts of junk in his pockets, but never anything useful. She didn’t want them to get a uniform, or even fully kitted out, or anything – it would just be nice to have some proper training.
She decided to check what she had in her pockets and bag.
Tissues. That wasn’t exactly an inspiring start. The keys to her and Dave’s flat. Loose change, mostly from the late eighteenth century, but some twentieth‐century American coins, too. Suncream. A theatre ticket. Her mobile. Her Psion organiser. A page from the Financial Times.
A featureless black box the size of an audio cassette that she had difficulty placing at first.
It was the Doctor’s time detector – he’d handed it to her back at the beach. She ran her finger along the edge, and it came to life, faint lights flickering across its surface.
She could use it to find the time machine. It was somewhere on the yacht, after all.
First, she made sure she knew what she was doing – the Doctor had just run it along – there. It bleeped a little at her, because she was a time traveller. It didn’t bleep at the fold‐down bedside table or the lamp because they weren’t. It couldn’t be simpler.
She held it out at arm’s length, so it wasn’t just registering her all the time, and set off towards the door. After a moment, she returned for her bag – somewhere to