Still, talk of India did give him an idea.
‘Sorry you never got to use your new invention,’ he said, while he let his idea run around his head a little.
Doctor Travers smiled pleasantly. ‘A shame indeed, although you achieved a good result without it, so we should all be glad for that. But I would like to have tested it.’
‘At least you got to use your… What did Dougie call it? A web destructor?’
‘Yes, will have to come up with a better name for it at some point. Still, probably would never have even got to the Manor without it. Not that we were much use.’
‘You saved us a long walk back.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Doctor Travers said, and raised her glass in toast.
‘I assume you’re going back to the vault tomorrow?’
‘Yes, seems like the army wants to keep me busy. The military isn’t one to rest on its laurels when it finds new defensive weapons at its disposal.’ She shrugged. ‘They’ve set me up a nice pension, so I think I should be quite happy. And busy.’ She sipped her champagne. ‘And you, Colonel? What have your superiors got lined up for you?’
Lethbridge-Stewart wondered the same thing.
The next day saw him back at Army Strategic Command near Fugglestone. He sat in front of Hamilton’s desk, once again a decanter of whisky sat on the desk between them.
‘I’ve read all the reports, and I’m afraid to say as far as High Command is concerned, nothing has changed.’
Lethbridge-Stewart wanted to be surprised, but he wasn’t. ‘Phase three of the same event?’
‘About the size of it, Colonel.’ Hamilton sat back in his chair and sipped the whisky. ‘However, having read your report, I am curious about the passage in which you say that there will be other attacks on sovereign soil in the future. How did you come by such intelligence?’
Lethbridge-Stewart raised an eyebrow at the unintended inference. ‘I’m afraid I have nothing concrete, sir, just information given to me by the Intelligence before I shot it.’
‘You shot Staff Sergeant Arnold.’
‘No. Arnold died in the Underground. I saw no indication that he was the staff, just a reanimated corpse.’
For a moment the air seemed tense, then Hamilton smiled. ‘Very well, then. I will keep pushing, but I need something concrete, Colonel. Some evidence I can take to the generals. The UN is out of the question at this time, but if we can prove that the United Kingdom is under a real and present threat, then perhaps we can do something about it.’
Lethbridge-Stewart knew it was the best he could expect for the moment. ‘Very well, General.’ He stood and they shook hands. ‘I believe I know the place to start. If I may take some leave, I’ll come back with evidence.’
‘Leave? Well, I’m not entirely sure that’s possible, Colonel. I believe the 2nd Battalion want you back in Libya.’
‘I’m sure they can survive without me for a while. Or,’ Lethbridge-Stewart added, as the idea came to him, ‘you could transfer me to F Company? Station me at Wellington Barracks, at least officially.’
‘You intend to act unofficially?’ Hamilton did his best to hide his smile, being well used to Lethbridge-Stewart’s cunning.
‘Not exactly. But where I need to go I will have no authority.’
‘I see. And where is that?’
‘Where all this began,’ Lethbridge-Stewart said. ‘The Himalayas.’
Continued in Horror of Det-Sen by Lance Parkin.
COMING SOON FROM CANDY JAR BOOKS
HORROR OF DET-SEN
By Lance Parkin
Tis coming war, the war that may already have started, this war of the worlds, would not be won using the old methods, or by being hidebound.
‘How do you fight the gods?’ Lethbridge-Stewart muttered.
‘You find a way to trick them,’ Travers replied.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You asked me a question. “How do you fight the gods?” I think what you meant to ask was, “how do you win a fight with the gods?” Anyone can pick a fight with a god and lose. That, presumably, is the most common outcome, although the stories rarely show that. I suppose a human audience only wants to hear the good news.’
‘Professor, what in heaven’s name are you talking about?’
‘Well, obviously I’m interested in folklore. Why else would I go looking for Abominable Snowmen? The moment you start looking at the old myths and legends, the same patterns emerge. Practically identical stories, in a lot of cases.’
Lethbridge-Stewart cast his mind back to the schoolroom. ‘Like Zeus and Jupiter being the same chap, deep down? The Greeks and the Romans believing in the same god, just calling him a different name.’
‘Exactly.’ Travers beamed. ‘That’s simplifying it a little, but only a little. The point is that in many of those old stories, the human being wins at least as often as the god.’
‘How?’
‘Well, that’s the thing. We trick them. Find a loophole in the rules. The gods always have rules, they’re just not always obvious ones. Not always written down.’
‘If you look at Medusa, you turn to stone, but it’s safe to see her reflection.’
‘Exactly. Whoever thought of that one? How do you test it? More to the point, are there twenty men before Perseus who died fighting her with one eye closed, or wearing sunglasses?’
‘I wonder if these are all stories about encounters with our chap?’ Lethbridge-Stewart wondered.
Travers shook his head. ‘I doubt it. I suppose some of them might be. They don’t all come from the sky in legends. Sometimes it’s some sculpture coming to life, or demons from the depths of the Earth, sometimes it’s some primal force of nature itself.’
Lethbridge-Stewart was thinking. ‘It could all be the same kind of thing. The legends of the Yeti turned out to be true, and the result of little green men.’
‘Extraterrestrials.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Extra. Terrestrial. Terrestrial, “from Earth”. Extra, “beyond”.’
‘Extraterrestrial.’ Lethbridge-Stewart rolled the word around his mouth.
‘I do think,’ Travers began, ‘and I think this is true for a lot of legends, a lot of folklore, a great deal of religious experience all around the world, that very rarely it happens that a human being will have an encounter… a dream, a vision, or what we’d call a real meeting with something so extraordinary, so outside the normal experience that the human mind has difficulty processing it. The universe is very large, and we are very small. We have these little monkey brains that evolved to help us build tools to trap small animals and find fresh water, and now we’ve used those brains to see atoms, to split them. To build telescopes that show that the galaxy is a vast ocean of radio waves with a few specks of dust floating in it, but there are still times when we see something we need to mull over, process, things that sit uneasy with us. And we call it the supernatural, we cloak it in myth and ritual.’
‘Or,’ said Lethbridge-Stewart, ‘we go on a quest.’
Travers smiled. ‘So we do. Of course, in the stories, very few men and women ever actually go on the quest. Only the hero does, everyone else stays at home, convinces themselves that whatever problem they have will pass. The hero has one attribute that those other people don’t.’
‘Bravery?’
‘No. Plenty of people are brave.’
‘Stubbornness.’
‘Oh, yes, but again, plenty of people are stubborn.’
‘Insight? No… hang on, the whole point is they don’t know.’
‘I’ll tell you, Lethbridge-Stewart. The quality that all heroes have in common, as they leave their ordinary world, meet a friendly wizard, pass into the wilderness, acquire magical transportation, glimpse the goddess, pass the first tests, assemble their allies, find their weapons… they're all very slightly mad.’
COMING SOON FROM CANDY JAR BOOKS
THE SCHIZOID EARTH
By David A McIntee
The window beside his ear splintered with a startling crack as something dented the Land Rover’s door and was left screeching behind. Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart winced instinctively as the oncoming traffic flashed past the side of his head, so close that it almost felt as if it had gone through him, and that the pain would soon catch up.
In the driver’s mirror, the olive-green jeep that he had sideswiped was weaving back and forth, trying to get into a good position for the man standing at the machine gun mounted on its roll-bar.
The cracks of the shots were almost lost to the rush of wind past the Land Rover, but the bullets punched through its steel skin as easily as through any tin can. Metallic clangs punched the air behind him, and the passenger seat spat chunks of leather and foam. Spider webs exploded like lightning across the rear window, and something stung Lethbridge-Stewart’s ear with white heat. He stomped on the accelerator.
The crumpled door swayed open and clanked closed, making the Land Rover handle a little drunkenly. Lethbridge-Stewart pulled it shut with his left hand, but the catch didn’t engage, and it fell open again, almost pulling him out.
The jeep was nearly level with him on the left side, the gunner standing in the back re-cocking the machine gun as he swung the muzzle round to aim down at Lethbridge-Stewart. Lethbridge-Stewart stamped on the brake, downshifting violently.
He jolted forward, and saw the jeep shoot past, tearing the loose door off with a judder and a bang, and sending it tumbling across the macadam. A sharp wind stung his cheek. In front, the gunner swung around in his mount, trying not to stand in the driver’s lap. Lethbridge-Stewart’s hand came off the gear stick and rooted around in the glove compartment for the pistol there. His fingers wrapped around the cold metal, and he thumbed off the safety catch. Weaving slightly with the wheel in his left, he rested his hand on the glass-strewn dash, and began to fire steady shots through the jagged windscreen frame, aiming for the gunner.
Sparks flew from back of the jeep, and from the steel back of its driver’s seat, but then the gunner fell from his twisted position, blood bubbling from his thigh. He flailed around in the back of the jeep, and the driver was forced to hit the brakes. Lethbridge-Stewart wrenched the wheel, veering aside just in time to avoid running straight into the back of the jeep. He risked a glance into the mirror, but wasn’t stupid enough to turn his head, and saw two more jeeps in hot pursuit, sweeping around the one that had stopped.
The pistol was empty, and Lethbridge-Stewart couldn’t reload it while driving, so he dropped it into the foot well and accelerated past the jeep. He jinked the wheel to the left, his tyres almost dropping into the roadside ditch. A saloon car and a small sedan in quick succession had to straddle the centre dividing line as they hurtled past, but they at least kept the jeeps on their side of the road.
Ahead, a stone bridge crossed a narrow river, and a stout signpost promised that the Suffolk village of Deepdene was on the other side. The road was already shrinking into a single lane, and Lethbridge-Stewart stamped on the accelerator, making sure to get onto the bridge before the jeeps. He didn’t want to risk one of them blocking him in on it.
The Land Rover shot across the bridge and darted around an oncoming sedan. Lethbridge-Stewart hoped the driver wouldn’t hit a jeep head-on, but knew that they’d at least have to slow down to let him off the bridge. Either way, the sedan should buy him some much-needed time. The quaint brick houses and front gardens of Deepdene were approaching rapidly, and Lethbridge-Stewart began evaluating options for getting off the road he was on.
COMING SOON FROM CANDY JAR BOOKS
MUTUALLY ASSURED DOMINATION
By Nick Walters
Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart stood at the window of his office in Wellington Barracks, looking at the passing parade of traffic and tourists. It all looked so reassuringly normal.
But of course appearances weren’t everything.
‘Police were forced to intervene when protestors stormed the Embassy gardens,’ came the cultured voice of the BBC news announcer from the radio on his desk behind him. ‘At the end of the altercations, over two hundred protestors were taken into custody.’ The voice went on, describing the chaos that had erupted earlier that summer day in Little America.
First the riots in Paris, now this. The younger generation. Could hardly blame them, but still worrying. So many factors seemed to be ranged against the prospect of a lasting peace. The war in Vietnam, and the reaction against it. Violence begetting violence.
Lethbridge-Stewart turned away from the window and switched off the radio news which was now into the weather forecast.
He sat down at his desk and opened his folder of notes. After a few minutes glancing through them he sighed and pushed the folder away. Knew it all off by heart. Just wished the time between now and the meeting with Hamilton would pass quickly and uneventfully. He reached for his coffee and took a sip. He frowned. Stone cold. How long had he been standing at that window? He reached out to buzz for Bishop to prepare a fresh pot when the external telephone rang. His heart skipped a beat. Could be Hamilton. He picked up the receiver. ‘Lethbridge-Stewart?’
‘Thank God you’re there,’ gasped a strangely familiar voice. ‘You’ve got to help me!’
Lethbridge-Stewart sat up straighter in his chair. ‘Who is this?’
‘Harold Chorley!’ said the voice with more than a trace of angry petulance. ‘And you’ve got to help me – I’ve been arrested!’
Harold Chorley. Lethbridge-Stewart leaned back and gazed into the middle distance. Name was familiar. Oh yes – journalist fellow. Last encountered during the Yeti business in the Underground. Slimy sort of chap. ‘What have you done?’
‘I haven’t done anything! I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Occupational hazard. Grosvenor Square. I was trying to get out when some flatfoot coshed me with his truncheon and I woke up here!’
‘Where is “here”?’
‘West End Central Police Station.’
Lethbridge-Stewart knew the place. It was bang in the middle of Savile Row – conveniently, just around the corner from Little America.
‘Look, are you going to come and get me out or not?’
Lethbridge-Stewart bridled at the man’s rudeness, but put it down to stress. Sounded like the chap had been for a rough ride. ‘Well…’ He considered. Wasn’t far, ten minutes in the jeep. But did he really want to get bogged down with police matters mere hours before his important meeting?
‘There’s something else, something I want to talk to you about. I think I’m on to – something.’
‘Something?’ said Lethbridge-Stewart. ‘Meaning what, exactly?’
‘Meaning something in – your line, your area of expertise,’ said Chorley, stumbling over the words. ‘Look, I’d rather not discuss it in here!’
Damn the man. Lethbridge-Stewart was about to put the receiver down when something stopped him. If Chorley really was onto something ‘in his line’ then surely it was worth following up? Wasn’t it exactly the sort of thing he was going to discuss with the general that very afternoon? If it was something – then it was something. If it was nothing, well, then he’d have killed some time before the meeting, taken his mind off things for a while. And a newshound like Chorley was the sort of chap whose talents would be very handy in the sort of team Lethbridge-Stewart was thinking of putting together.
‘Very well, Mr Chorley, keep your hair on. I’ll be over within the hour.’
THANK YOU
This book has proven to be a rather interesting project, for one sole reason; I’ve got something to prove here.
When the series and the first four titles were announced, quite a few people queried me launching the series. And, considering the solid and well-established authors that follow me, it’s a valid point. It was something that the publisher and I discussed during the early days of the project. Although I have written much fiction since 2004, published professionally, Shaun had only ever read my
non-fiction – and worked with me on Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants. He knew I could write, he knew I had a track record, but was my name big enough to launch the series? Of the latter I would argue no. But it came down to a simple fact; as range editor and the one developing the series, as well as the one in the most contact with Hannah Haisman, it was a simple case of familiarity that dictated it should be me opening the series. And so I have.
But still it meant I had something to prove. Not only to the publisher, but to you – the fans. As well as an author and the range editor, I’m a fan, and Lethbridge-Stewart has been a part of my life for many long years, ever since 1988 when I first watched Spearhead from Space on VHS. I’m as invested in him as a character as the next fan is, and so it’s important to me that we honour him and his legacy in these books. But not only him; characters like Anne Travers and Professor Travers, too, not to mention Harold Chorley and Driver Evans. All well-rounded and much-loved characters. And then there is the Great Intelligence… It has been especially important for me to go back to Haisman’s original inspiration for the Great Intelligence, something that, arguably, the recent episodes of Doctor Who veered away from. And Hannah feels the same. So we’ve used this book to fix what we saw as discrepancies and bring it back to the original concept. The higher consciousness of Buddhist lore. We hope you like it.
As ever, no book is written in a vacuum, and that is especially true of The Forgotten Son. So, thanks go to…
Hannah Haisman – for her faith in me and in Candy Jar Books, for entrusting us with her grandfather’s legacy. Lance Parkin, David A McIntee, Nick Walters, Jonathan Cooper and John Peel. For their creativity, passion and enthusiasm. Will Rees, Hayley Cox, Shaun Russell and Jonathan Cooper (again!) – for editorial excellence! Simon Williams – for the amazing cover art. Terrance Dicks – for the fantastic foreword. Gareth Starling – for his usual irreverent comments, and great insight into the world of Doctor Who. Daniel Ball – my very own military advisor. John Guilor – for assistance with Doctor Omega. Damien & Owen Moran – for twinspiration! Christian Cawley – for the great support he has shown this project. Sam Hunt – for his help, and by extension The Who Shop. Chris McKeon – for help with publicity and Type 40 shenanigans. Jim Mortimore – for spit-balling ideas. My Family – too numerous to mention, but thanks to all in the family who have supported me over the years, and indulged my oft-obsession with Doctor Who. It’s paid off finally!
The Forgotten Son Page 24
