‘He looks older when he’s busy,’ Walinski said. ‘There’s no question he knows his stuff. I mean, he can’t be bluffing can he?’
‘His equations are brilliant and correct,’ Candace said. ‘His theory seems sound. He certainly understands the principles involved. He’s…’ She struggled to think of a less emotive word, but couldn’t. ‘He’s a genius,’ she admitted. ‘But even he says there’s no guarantee this will work.’
‘So what’s supposed to happen?’ Jennings asked.
The Doctor came running up to them in time to hear the question. ‘The whole theory’s bonkers,’ he said. ‘So probably nothing. But if I can resonate the plates at the same frequency as the receptors on the moon, that might establish an affinity between the two locations so they overlap again.’
‘You can fix it?’ Walinski said.
‘In about three months with unlimited funding and resources, like the people who set it up – of course I can. No problem. But today? Well, sort of, maybe, a bit. Most likely it won’t work at all. Or if it does, it won’t be stable.’
‘So, forgive me, but what’s the point?’ asked Jennings.
‘There’s always a chance it will work. You’ve got to try,’ Candace told him.
‘Absolutely,’ the Doctor agreed. He pulled a roll of paper from his pocket – Candace could see it was a sheaf of pages torn from a notebook and covered with handwritten scribbles. ‘It might not be safe for any of us to go through, but I’ve written some thoughts on how the systems can be repaired at the moonbase end. Assuming they want to repair them. But the advantage of paper is that it won’t suffocate if it’s left out on the moon.’ He stuffed the notes back in his pocket. ‘Now I have a question,’ he said to Jennings.
‘Yeah?’
‘Aren’t you hot in that suit?’
It was even hotter inside the spacesuit. The Doctor found the close-fitting white cotton balaclava even more claustrophobic and stifling.
‘I’d rather be in my own spacesuit; it’s not so cumbersome,’ he complained.
‘I don’t know where you got it,’ Candace told him, ‘but you’ve lost the helmet, and ours don’t fit. I’m looking forward to reverse-engineering the thing.’
‘Don’t you dare. Not so much as a stitch of it.’
‘But—’ she started to protest.
The Doctor put his hand up. ‘Ah!’ he warned. ‘End of.’
With everyone cleared well out of the way, the Doctor stood at the end of the path formed between the rows of reflective metal plates. He operated the control on the side of his helmet that lowered the gold-tinted visor, blocking out the glare.
He held up his sonic screwdriver in a bulky, gloved hand. ‘Well, here we go,’ he murmured.
The tip of the screwdriver glowed into life. There was a hum of power from the generators attached to the plates. He adjusted the screwdriver setting slightly to alter the frequency. The air in front of the Doctor was shimmering with the heat. But maybe also with something else.
Between the lines of plates, the sky darkened. The sand was drained of colour – grey and barren. A wind blew past the Doctor as air rushed into the area where there had been a vacuum, filling the path between the receptors on the moon.
‘Oh yes,’ the Doctor announced. But his glee was tempered when he saw the figure swimming into existence in front of him.
Colonel Devenish’s ravaged face stared back at the Doctor from where he lay on the surface of the moon. His gloved hand stretched out, as if pleading for help – help that had never come.
It was like walking into a storm, as if the air was rushing out again. The Doctor leaned into it, struggling forwards.
‘What’s happening?’ Candace Hecker’s voice asked inside his helmet. ‘Is it working?’
‘Yes and no,’ the Doctor gasped as he stumbled onwards. ‘The displacement won’t hold for long. If I’m inside the area when it fails, I’ll be ripped apart. The local geography’s trying to reassert itself.’
‘Just leave your papers and get out.’
The Doctor had his sheaf of papers in his free hand. He pressed them down on the dusty ground close to Devenish’s body. He could feel the papers fighting to escape and blow away. He needed to weigh them down, but even then they might be ripped apart when the displacement bubble burst.
Devenish’s space helmet was close by – achingly close to the dead man’s hand. The Doctor rolled it on top of the papers. The helmet trembled in the gale, but stayed put. Then the Doctor took Devenish’s outstretched hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘I never meant to leave you here to die, and I’m not leaving you to get ripped apart now.’ The wind was with him as he dragged the man’s body back into the Texan desert.
Close by, lay another space helmet – red and gleaming. The Doctor stretched out a leg awkwardly, and kicked the helmet ahead of him. It rolled like tumbleweed across the cold lunar surface and out into the shimmering heat of the desert.
The Doctor followed after it, dragging Colonel Devenish’s body. As soon as he was clear of the line of metal plates, he sank to his knees.
Behind him, the plates exploded, one after another, all along the lines. Between them, a trail of stumbling footmarks and the path of a dragged body started abruptly, then led out of the pathway to where the Doctor was struggling out of his spacesuit.
‘So close,’ Candace said, running over to him. ‘We almost did it. If only the link had stabilised.’
‘History is full of “if only”s,’ the Doctor told her sadly. ‘That was our last chance. Our last way back to the moon.’ He pulled off a glove and hurled it to the ground.
General Walinski was standing beside Candace Hecker. The two of them exchanged looks.
‘No,’ Walinski said to her. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘What?’ the Doctor asked. ‘Tell me.’
‘You said we’d lost our last chance to get back to the moon,’ Candace said. Walinski sighed and looked down at the sandy desert floor as she went on: ‘There might just be another way.’
The soldier’s attention was fixed on Amy. He swung his legs over the side of the table in a single fluid movement and stood up.
‘Nearest the door, so you must be the guard,’ Amy said.
The soldier didn’t reply. He looked to be about the same age as Amy, with close-cropped fair hair. He walked calmly and purposefully towards her.
Amy backed away, keeping several tables between them. The soldier changed course, moving between tables, but always blocking Amy’s route to the door.
‘Tell you what, I’ll just be going. I can let myself out.’
The soldier didn’t seem to have heard. He was focused intently on Amy. As he got closer, his hands reached out – like a zombie in a cheap movie. Except that film zombies usually lumbered and lurched slowly after their victims. This guy was walking briskly and with determination.
Amy ran down a line of tables, cutting back into the next row. The soldier matched her, running parallel along the other side of the tables, and cutting through so he was in the next aisle.
What if she stopped, and waited to see which way he went? Would the soldier just switch off, like the other one had done?
She tried it. They faced each other over the prone body of a young woman in army fatigues.
‘You just going to stand there all day?’ Amy asked.
As if in answer, the soldier leaned forward, both hands on the edge of the table. Then in a single movement, he vaulted across the table and the body lying on it, landing right beside Amy.
She gave a shriek of surprise, instantly embarrassed by it, and ran.
The soldier was no longer between her and the door. But he was right next to her. His hand grabbed Amy’s hair, jerking her back as she moved.
‘Get off!’ she yelled.
But the soldier held on, dragging Amy back towards him.
In desperation she kicked backwards at him, hoping to slam her foot into his shin. Instead it caught the low
pedestal beside the bed. The impact jarred right up through her leg, making her eyes water as much as the pain from having her hair pulled.
The pedestal rocked as she kicked it. The equipment slid across the top, and crashed to the floor. Wires stretched and tangled. A connection broke loose. An alarm sounded – an insistent low buzzer.
And, suddenly, Amy was free. The soldier let go of her hair. She was so surprised she didn’t move. The soldier quickly but carefully lifted the equipment back onto the pedestal and reconnected the loose wire. The buzzer stopped. The soldier turned back towards Amy. His hands shot out again, but this time she managed to duck out of reach. She turned and ran – the soldier close behind her. His booted footsteps echoing in her ears as he closed on her.
The door was so far away. Amy dodged round tables, raced along the aisles between them. But the soldier was right behind her. She felt his hand brush against her shoulder as he grabbed for her. Knew that before she reached the door, he would catch up with her. And when he did…
Gasping for breath, she ran faster. Past the table where the soldier chasing her had been sleeping. Just one row of tables between Amy and the door now.
Then her foot caught on the trailing wires that the soldier had pulled from his own temple and discarded. She slipped, stumbled, almost regained her balance. Fell.
The back of Amy’s head crashed into the floor. The ceiling above her shimmered and blurred. She stared up into the empty grey eyes of the solder as his hands reached down and closed round her neck.
Chapter
13
Amy didn’t give the soldier a chance to tighten his grip. She rolled out of the way, breaking his grip. As she rolled, she kicked out at the nearest pedestal, sending equipment flying. As soon as she was on her feet, she ran – not for the door, but from bed to bed, ripping electrodes off the sleepers’ temples and pushing over the monitoring equipment.
The soldier set about picking up the monitors and reattaching the connections. He was meticulous and efficient. This was obviously a higher priority than chasing intruders.
‘So it’s your job to keep them safe,’ Amy said. ‘But safe for what?’
She watched the soldier reconnect another sleeper. The monitor blipped back into life. Temperature readings and blood pressure numbers rose to what Amy assumed was normal. She backed slowly away, not taking her eyes off the soldier as he worked. Would he decide she was a priority if he saw her escaping?
The door had slid shut behind her when she came in. She had to turn to see the numbers on the pad. It took her only a few seconds to key in the code, but she expected the soldier to be standing right there with her when she looked back.
He was still resetting the equipment on the other side of the room. She’d done it. She was safe.
Behind Amy, the door slid silently open.
She turned to leave. Just as a hand came down on her shoulder, gripping her tight.
‘What are you doing here?’
They shared the back of a jeep back to Base Hibiscus – the Doctor, Candace, General Walinski and Agent Jennings. The Doctor was nursing his spacesuit helmet. Neither Walinski nor Candace Hecker had elaborated on their suggestion he could still get back to the moon. Was there an emergency back-up system? Something so dangerous they didn’t dare use it?
‘We still have no proof,’ Walinski said above the sound of the engine, ‘that your theory about alien invaders has any validity. It’s a bit wild, to say the least.’
‘The best theories are,’ the Doctor told him. ‘But whether I’m right or not, we need to re-establish a link with your base.’
‘It’s a question of urgency,’ Hecker said. ‘The technicians on Diana will be working on it. Jackson’s brilliant. If anyone can fix this, he can.’
‘So, what if anyone can’t fix this?’ Jennings shrugged. ‘Just playing devil’s advocate. But maybe no one can sort it, not even Jackson. And maybe – just maybe – the Doctor here is right. It doesn’t have to be aliens, but if someone is sabotaging the systems at the moonbase end, it won’t matter how brilliant Jackson is.’
‘Who do you think might be behind the damage?’ the Doctor asked. He sensed Jennings wasn’t convinced it was extraterrestrials.
‘Hell, we’ve locked up a lot of dangerous and unpleasant people there, Doc. Any one of them could have friends willing to die to get them free, or even just to make a point.’
‘He’s a dwarf,’ the Doctor said. ‘Do I look like a dwarf?’
Jennings frowned. ‘The saboteur? You mean he had to fit into some small space to access the systems?’
‘No, no, no. Doc is a dwarf. I’m not.’ The Doctor stood up in the jeep, swaying as it moved, to make the point. There was an especially violent jolt as they crested a sand dune, and he sat down again. ‘Sleepy, Sneezy, Dozy, Mick and Titch.’ He stopped, biting his lower lip as he thought about this. ‘No, hang on, that’s not right, is it. Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful – doesn’t end in “ee” but I’m sure that’s right, after all he’s another mood, isn’t he?’
‘And Doc,’ Candace put in. ‘That’s right.’
‘Doc’s not a mood,’ the Doctor said. ‘Which always worried me, but he is definitely diminutive. And I’m not. So don’t call me Doc, OK – Agent Jenn?’
Jennings laughed. ‘Sure thing, Doctor. Though if you meet anyone as pretty as Snow White, you let me know where to find her, OK?’
‘She’s on the moon,’ the Doctor said. ‘And I’m going to get her back.’
Graham Haines was already waiting for them when they arrived back at Base Hibiscus. He was all but bouncing up and down with excitement.
‘The scans the Doctor set running before you left – they’ve finished. It’s incredible,’ he told Candace.
‘What’s incredible?’ Walinski demanded, jumping down from the jeep to join them.
‘What he’s done to the Herschel telescope for one thing, and all by remote control.’ Haines shook his head in admiration. ‘The man’s a genius.’
‘Course he is,’ the Doctor said, striding swiftly past them. ‘So let’s see what Herschel has to show us, shall we?’
Walinski, Jennings, Candace Hecker and Haines all crammed into the General’s office along with the Doctor. Haines had routed the scan results through to the Walinski’s computer screen.
‘Not bad for a dwarf,’ Agent Jennings murmured quietly.
‘Excuse me?’ Haines was looking confused.
‘It just looks like a load of bright colours against a dark background,’ Walinski said. ‘Someone care to tell me what it actually means?’
‘It means the Doctor’s right,’ Candace said.
‘It means trouble,’ the Doctor added.
‘These orange sections, like the stripes in a rainbow,’ Candace explained, ‘they’re bursts of energy. This is calibrated like an MRI scanner. Magnetic Resonance, like you get in the brain.’
‘It detects brain waves,’ Haines said. ‘In simple terms,’ he added, catching a glare from Candace.
‘And where are these brain waves?’
‘We can’t tell where they’re coming from,’ the Doctor said. ‘But the point of arrival here…’ He pointed to the end of the rainbow stripe. ‘That’s your Base Diana. Specifically, it’s Professor Jackson’s Process Chamber.’
There was silence for a while as they all stared at the rainbow pattern on the screen.
‘Is this happening all the time?’ Agent Jennings asked.
‘No, it comes in bursts,’ Haines said. ‘But, get this – the bursts coincide with the logged schedule for use of the process equipment. It drains the power, so they have to log it,’ he explained.
‘Jackson fires up his machine,’ the Doctor said, ‘and alien brain waves zoom in at exactly the same moment. Time and again. It’s not a coincidence.’
‘And it’s getting worse,’ Candace told them. ‘While Haines was putting through the data feed, I took a look at the back end of this rainbow of ours. Zoomed t
he Herschel as far out as it will go. This is real time, people.’
She worked at Walinski’s keyboard for a few moments. The image on the screen was replaced by a strobing pattern of red light across the darkness.
‘That is constant,’ Jennings said. ‘Right?’
‘Right,’ Candace agreed. ‘Not controlled bursts any more, but a constant stream. The good news is it hasn’t hit Diana yet – this is all upstream. But it’s on its way, whatever it is.’
‘Reinforcements,’ the Doctor said. ‘Downloading, remember? So far they’ve been sending bursts of mental activity. Like one alien brain at a time. Think of it like copying files to a CD, one after another.’
‘And this?’ Walinski tapped the screen.
‘This is a constant download. This is a heap more data all coming at once. They just increased their bandwidth so they can send more than one brain at a time.’
‘How many are we talking about?’ Jennings wondered.
The Doctor shrugged. ‘One each for everyone on Base Diana to begin with.’
‘To begin with?’ Haines whistled. ‘What then?’
‘Then one each for everyone on Earth.’ The Doctor looked round at the grim faces of the others. ‘They’ve accelerated their plans, stepped up a gear. Perhaps this was always their intention. Or maybe something’s frightened them into thinking they have to move more quickly. That’s why they cut the link. That’s why this…’ He pointed at the screen. ‘… is on its way. Once they have their reinforcements they’ll reconnect the link and come through to Earth in force. We’re running out of time.’
‘But why? What could have frightened them so much they’ve changed their plans?’ Walinski asked.
The Doctor grinned suddenly. ‘Me. They know I can stop them. But I can’t do it from here. I have to get back to the moon, and I think you know a way I can get there.’
Haines saw the look between Walinski and Candace Hecker. ‘You cannot be serious,’ he said. ‘Tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.’
‘Doctor,’ Walinski said, ‘we need to show you something.’
The soldier had almost finished reconnecting all the sleepers to the equipment. Amy and Captain Reeve stood in the open doorway. Reeve watched in astonishment.
Doctor Who: Apollo 23 Page 9
