Downtime - Marc Platt [70]
She snapped awake and saw Christopher at the other side of her desk, staring intently across at her, exuding all that smugness for which she so despised him.
Bewildered, she said urgently, ‘There’s still time. I must find the Locus.’
Christopher smiled. On the desk top, the small pyramid of opaque glass had begun to pulse with rhythmic light. A voice erupted out of the air. His voice.
‘ Victoria, I am here. ’
The old man who was Travers stood where the stick had brought him. His unseeing eyes stared from behind grimy spectacles with cracked lenses. He was gaunt and stiffly erect, barely containing a fearful coiled energy like some fearsome bible-brandishing preacherman. His threadbare clothes were filthy and torn. His tangled white hair and beard had not grown in a decade. His face was a mask dragged like scrim over bony features frozen by one driving thought.
He stood waiting in the centre of the university reception, his hand resting on his immaculately vertical white stick. A dozen Chillys, drawn by the thoughts they heard from their headphones, gathered round him in wonder and fear.
One girl slid a scarf from her neck and wrapped it with reverence around his shoulders.
The old man shuddered at her touch. The mouth twitched and the throat growled out its question. The question.
‘Where is the Locus?’
The Brigadier hunched up and stared at the pavement, trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible. He had stood for fifteen minutes in a telephone queue of people trapped by the transport system breakdown. Ringing home, ringing the office.
Damnation. Why didn’t they hurry? He was a sitting target standing here.
When he finally reached the phone, the line was appalling.
He was surprised to reach Sarah Jane Smith so quickly.
‘Hello?’ he barked. ‘Miss Smith?’
At first, he thought he was through to some sort of answerphone. A robotic voice said, ‘Your telephone call has been received and your voice print recognized. The mistress is being summoned. Please remain on the line, I am boosting the reception differential.’
The quality of the line improved radically and the Brigadier heard Miss Smith saying, ‘Who is it, K9?’
The other voice replied, ‘Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, mistress.’
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ he heard her exclaim.
‘From a public callbox situated at the junction of Great Titchfield Street and Foley...’
‘Yes. All right. Thank you, K9!’ Her voice was suddenly close in on the line. ‘Brigadier?’
‘Miss Smith. I need your help.’
‘Oh, I’m so relieved to hear you.’
‘Please, just listen.’ He glanced along the street and saw a youth in a green uniform about fifty yards away. ‘I want you to contact UNIT for me.’
‘But I’ve already tried that, and well, I thought there was something very wrong. I spoke to someone called Cavendish.’
‘Cavendish!’ The Brigadier hunched up further as the young man in green ran past the phonebox. He was followed by a tramp who seemed to be having trouble keeping up.
‘Yes. Captain Cavendish. Do you know him?’ she asked.
‘He sounded like a right little charmer.’
‘Miss Smith, just ring the regular UNIT number. Ask for Brigadier Charles Crichton and quote them the following codes: NN and QQ.’
‘NN and QQ. Right, got you.’
‘Tell Crichton what you told me. It’s a risk, but we must reach someone we can trust.’
‘But Cavendish said...’
With a click, the line went dead. It was replaced by a series of high pitched bleeps. The Brigadier’s thoughts swam. He slammed the receiver down hard. Leaning heavily against the side of the booth, he tried to extract his phonecard from the machine. It seemed to be jammed. As he watched, there was a crunching sound and the card was slowly extruded, its shape mangled and bitten.
He pocketed the object and left the phonebox, forced to concentrate on every step, making his way north.
A pack of five Chillys were moving up Regent Street, heading towards Portland Place. Danny and Harrods ducked behind an abandoned bus until they had passed. The traffic lights at the junction with Mortimer Street