Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion (14 page)

‘Couldn't be better, sir. Thank you again,' said the Brigadier.

‘Right,' said Scobie, ‘I'll be in touch with you about liaison. Good night, Brigadier.'

Scobie put down the 'phone and sighed. Extraordinary business. Still that's what the Brigadier and his chaps were for, to deal with things like this. Scobie had a flash of regret for the days when soldiering was simpler. A nice straightforward cavalry charge, now! Nothing to beat it. He was just about to pick up the 'phone and call his H.Q.,
when the doorbell rang.

General Scobie heaved an exasperated sigh. He'd been looking forward to a quiet evening with his collection of regimental memoirs. Who the devil could this be?

Scobie went to the door of the little mews flat and opened it. At the sight of the figure facing him, he fell back in horrified disbelief. Another General Scobie stood there looking at him impassively. As his other self bore down on him, he took a faltering step backward. The other General Scobie stepped after him. Channing appeared behind the second Scobie. ‘Good evening, General,' he said. ‘As I promised, I have brought your replica to see you.'

Channing and the second Scobie stepped into the flat, pushing the General before them. The door closed. There was a muffled, gurgling scream, and then silence.

Full of his plans for the coming attack, the Brigadier burst into the laboratory.

‘Well, I've fixed it all up,' he began cheerfully. ‘We're moving in—'

‘Ssh!' said Liz, waving him into silence.

Rather hurt, the Brigadier subsided. He stood watching as Liz and the Doctor surrounded the meteorite, or whatever the thing was, with a variety of complicated looking apparatus.

‘All right, my dear, is the oscillator connected?' said the Doctor.

Liz was fitting two complex pieces of circuitry together.

‘Hang on… yes, okay now.'

‘Right. Switch on. I'll watch the graph.'

Liz flicked a switch and then turned a control knob. The apparatus began to give out a low hum.

The Brigadier looked at Liz and the Doctor as they bent over their instruments. He sighed, recognising that he hadn't a hope of understanding what they were up to. No doubt they'd tell him when it suited them. And
he
was supposed to be the one in command! Not for the first time the Brigadier considered applying for a transfer back to normal regimental duties. Life had been so simple then.
Parades, inspections, manoeuvres, more parades… He'd been offered the UNIT job not long after that Yeti business in the Underground. Presumably because he was the only senior British officer with experience in dealing with alien life forms. At the time it had seemed like a rather cushy number, carrying as it did the welcome promotion from Colonel to Brigadier. If only he'd known! First that nasty affair with the Cybermen, and now this. The trouble with the scientific approach, thought the Brigadier, was that it left you at the mercy of your scientists.

Then he brightened. For all their scientific mumbo-jumbo it was direct military action that was going to solve the problem. The Brigadier's eyes sparkled with anticipation at the thought of tomorrow's attack on the plastics factory.

Encouraged by this thought, he cleared his throat loudly and said: ‘Perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me what you're actually trying to do, Doctor?'

The Doctor looked up. He gestured towards the green globe on its stand. The thing was now beginning to pulse angrily. ‘Well, it appears that in there we have what one might loosely call a brain…' The Doctor took a quick look at the quivering needle that was drawing spidery lines on a recording graph. Fifty megacycles.'

Liz repeated: ‘Fifty megacycles.' She turned the control knob a little further. ‘Anything?' she asked.

The Doctor shook his head. ‘No. Up another fifty, Liz.' As Liz adjusted her controls again, the Doctor resumed his explanation.

‘You see, Brigadier, we know it's emitting a signal of some kind. So if we can establish the frequency on which it operates we may be able to counteract its – oh dear!'

While the Doctor had been speaking, the hum of the
apparatus had been rising steadily higher. There was a puff of smoke, and a shower of sparks shot from the apparatus. Hurriedly Liz switched off and stood back.

‘I rather think we overloaded the circuit,' she said ruefully. She began to inspect the apparatus. ‘Yes, look! The thermionic valve's blown.' Liz began to disconnect part of the apparatus.

‘Now that really
is
interesting,' said the Doctor in a rather pleased tone. ‘It means that there must be an extremely high resistance on the…'

The Brigadier interrupted hastily: ‘Doctor, you say that thing is some kind of a brain?'

‘Well, part of a brain. Or call it an intelligent entity. That's probably nearer the mark.'

‘And it's signalling somewhere? Where to?'

The Doctor gave him that patient look again. ‘To the rest of itself. Surely that's obvious?'

Liz looked up from her work on the apparatus. ‘So the other globes that came down – they're all part of one entity? Some kind of collective intelligence?'

The Doctor nodded. The Brigadier peered at the globe with a kind of revulsion. He couldn't help feeling that it was peering back at him. ‘Can it see us, or hear us?' he asked, instinctively dropping his voice to a whisper.

The Doctor chuckled. ‘My dear chap, it isn't sentient.'

‘Our measurements show that there's no physical substance inside it,' said Liz.

‘Probably gaseous ions held in a hetero-polar bond. Or something like that,' said the Doctor, as if that made everything perfectly clear.

The Brigadier persisted. ‘But it is alien – and dangerous?'

The Doctor looked at the globe thoughtfully. ‘Well, it's an intelligent life form, and it isn't here by accident. I'm afraid we must assume that its intentions are hostile.'

‘But if it has no physical form, how can it harm us?'

The Doctor said impatiently: ‘Once here, it can presumably create for itself a physical form, or even a number of them. Otherwise there would have been no point in its coming.'

Liz said: ‘A form like the thing at the cottage?'

‘That's right. There may be other forms of it, too. Creatures we haven't even seen yet.'

Liz shuddered. ‘I'm not sure that I want to.'

The wall 'phone buzzed and the Brigadier picked it up. He said: ‘Yes? Ah, General Scobie… good, put him on.' He listened for a moment and then the familiar voice of Scobie came on the line.

‘Lethbridge-Stewart? About this raid on the plastics factory. Not on, I'm afraid. They're doing important Government work, and they mustn't be interfered with.'

The Brigadier could hardly believe his ears. ‘But, sir, our investigations all point to the fact that this factory is the centre…'

Scobie's voice cut in coldly: ‘I'm sorry, Brigadier, but this is a direct order. Keep away from that factory, or you'll find yourself in very serious trouble. By the way, I'm recalling my men. They're urgently needed elsewhere.' There was a click and the 'phone went dead.

The Brigadier turned to the others, his face grim. ‘That was General Scobie. He's cancelled the raid on the factory.' The Doctor and Liz were busily re-assembling their apparatus. The Doctor looked up.

‘Well, you'll just have to go ahead without him, won't
you?'

‘Go ahead? How can I, without any troops?'

‘What about all those men you had searching the woods,' asked Liz.

‘They were regular army chaps. On loan from General Scobie. Now he's withdrawn them all.'

The Brigadier began to pace the laboratory. ‘Well, I'll just have to go over his head. Get on to the Home Secretary. Make him revoke the order. If that doesn't work, I can get on to UNIT H.Q., in Geneva, and ask them to put pressure on the Government.'

The Doctor's face was grave. ‘All that's going to take time – and I've suddenly got a nasty feeling that time's running out on us.'

‘How do you think the plastics factory people managed to get Scobie to change his mind?' asked Liz. ‘Have they got influence in high places?'

‘No idea,' said the Brigadier disgustedly. ‘Unless they managed to appeal to his vanity with that replica business.'

The Doctor looked up keenly. ‘Replica? What replica? Why didn't you tell me?'

‘Didn't give me much chance, did you?' said the Brigadier aggrievedly. ‘Only just heard about it myself.'

He told them about Scobie's earlier visit to the factory. About the special exhibition of VIPs that was being held at a famous London waxworks.

The Doctor's face lit up. ‘A waxworks. My goodness, a waxworks. Yes, of course!' He glanced at the clock. ‘Come on, Liz, we might just get there before they close.' Almost dragging Liz after him, the Doctor rushed from the laboratory.

‘Hey, wait! Just a moment,' the Brigadier called after
them. Then he shrugged his shoulders. Let them go to the waxworks. Let them go to the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace and the London Zoo while they were at it! And much good might it do them. As usual all the real work was left to him. Like children, these scientists!

The Brigadier gave the glowing green sphere a final disgusted glare. Malignantly, it flashed back at him. Then he left the laboratory and went down the corridor to his office. Throwing himself into his chair, he snatched up the 'phone.

‘Operator, this is Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Get me the Home Secretary on the security line. I want to fix up an immediate appointment.'

Liz Shaw hung on to her seat as the Doctor raced the UNIT jeep through the London traffic. He'd only been dissuaded from taking Mr Beavis's Rolls by her reminder that it was probably on the stolen cars list. But he was getting quite a turn of speed out of the jeep.

‘Nippy little things, these,' yelled the Doctor happily, as they took a corner on two wheels, outraging a passing traffic-warden.

‘Doctor, please,' yelled Liz. ‘What's the rush? And did you ever pass a driving-test?'

The Doctor was indignant. ‘Of course I did! I'm a qualified rocket pilot on the Mars to Venus route. And as for the rush – if we can get to the waxworks before closing time, it'll save us the bother of breaking in!'

The Doctor whizzed the jeep through a narrowing gap between two heavy lorries. Liz shuddered and decided not to distract him with any more questions.

In a few minutes they arrived outside the waxworks.

With a fine disregard for regulations the Doctor parked the jeep on a double yellow line, and hared up the steps, Liz following behind. There was still ten minutes to go till closing time. Liz went to the ticket-box.

‘Hardly worth going in now, is it?' said the old attendant at the main entrance, as Liz showed him the tickets.

The Doctor beamed at him. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, old chap, we just wanted a very quick look at one particular exhibit – the special VIP room.'

The attendant seemed surprised. ‘Don't get many asking for that, sir,' he said. ‘Here, you come with me, I'll show you where it is.' Liz and the Doctor followed him along the corridors. Most of the visitors were going the other way, making for the exits. The old man took them to a small room, set apart from the main displays. There was the usual raised platform with a silk rope railing it off. On the platform stood a number of still figures. Most were of ordinary looking men and women in business clothes, though one or two were in uniform. Liz looked at the Doctor in puzzlement. Was this all they had come to see? But the Doctor was looking round with keen interest. Apart from themselves the room was completely empty.

‘They don't seem very popular, do they?' he said cheerfully, turning to the old attendant.

‘Well, between you and me sir, this lot aren't,' said the old man. ‘It's choice of subject if you ask me. I mean, look at 'em.' He waved round the room. ‘Top Civil Servants, one or two MPs, high-ranking blokes in the Army, Navy and Air Force, even the Police. All very important ladies and gentlemen, I'm sure. But – well, not a lot of glamour about them, you see. And the public must have glamour.' The little old man nodded his bald head emphatically.

‘They do seem rather a dull lot,' agreed Liz.

‘Mind you,' said the attendant loyally, ‘this new modelling process is marvellous, no doubt about it. I mean, see for yourself. Looks real, even feels real. Every detail perfect. Now if only they'd done a few pop stars, or a decent murderer or two.'

‘That wouldn't have been nearly so much use to them,' said the Doctor, almost to himself. Ignoring the attendant's startled look, he said: ‘I gather these waxworks aren't made here – in fact, they're not really waxworks at all.'

‘That's right, sir. Some factory down in the country do them. Completely new process. Some new kind of plastic.'