Doctor Who_ Father Time Part 10

He kissed her on the forehead. 'What can possibly go wrong? Now, we need to get back to Mr Gibson and make contact with our employer.' He reached for his belt. 'I've left my communicator behind,' he said. 'You'd better make that call.'

Debbie answered the door and was astonished to see the Doctor standing there.

She looked around nervously.

'What are you doing tonight?' the Doctor asked, so abruptly that Debbie lost her breath.

'Barry's out at the pub with some friends. A darts tournament or something.'

'But what are you you doing? Are you going?' doing? Are you going?'

'He wouldn't want me there.'

'Good, good, then you're free. Come on.'

Debbie found herself agreeing, then hesitated. 'Where are we going?'

The Doctor smiled. 'That would be telling. Wrap up warm, though.'

'Right. I'll... just get changed.' She hurried upstairs, and it was only when she was on the landing that she realised she'd left the Doctor standing on the doorstep.

Debbie checked her hair in the mirror, changed her sweater and, after a moment's thought, sprayed a little perfume on. That done, she dashed back downstairs, almost tripping over herself. She locked up, and joined the Doctor as he walked down her drive. He was grinning, and swept out a hand to indicate his car.

'Our carriage awaits,' he told her.

He opened the pa.s.senger door for her.

Inside, the car was a bit scruffy. The Doctor had to move a pile of books on to the back seat to make room for his pa.s.senger.

He pulled out the choke, tried the ignition, then tried it again.

'What sort of car is this again?' she asked.

'A Trabant. I picked it up in East Germany.'

'You were in East Germany?'

'Yes.' The engine turned over, but didn't fire.

'When?'

The Doctor rubbed his lip with his finger. 'A while ago, now.'

She remembered the photograph in her book, and looked back over at him. He didn't look a day older. But it had been almost thirty years.

'What do you think about Close Encounters Close Encounters?' the Doctor said.

Debbie blinked. 'Pardon?'

'The film. It's just that I'm planning to re-enact it tonight.'

'I... think it's romantic.'

The Doctor looked a little taken aback. 'You do?'

'Yes.' Debbie closed her eyes. 'Strangers waiting for a train. A married woman, who knows nothing about a man. All that steam and clinking crockery.'

'Close Encounters is the one where the big UFO comes down and they play that music at it to communicate. You know...' And he hummed five notes. is the one where the big UFO comes down and they play that music at it to communicate. You know...' And he hummed five notes.

Debbie blushed. Barry had taken her to see it, and he'd come out deeply unimpressed.

'We're going UFO spotting?' she asked.

'We're going to make contact with aliens,' the Doctor corrected her.

'Aliens?'

'Yes.' He saw her sceptical expression. 'It's not that difficult. I did it by accident this morning.'

Debbie looked over at him. 'You did?'

'Yes. Two of them, in the High Street.'

A few days ago, she'd have thought anyone who talked about aliens and UFOs was mad. A few days ago, she had had thought that, she'd doubted Arnold's story. thought that, she'd doubted Arnold's story.

Now it all seemed perfectly normal.

The Doctor turned on his car radio. There was a steady bleeping, like an electronic heartbeat. 'I've modified this so that it only receives high-energy pulses. That's how the aliens communicate with each other.'

'How?' Debbie asked. 'I mean, how do you know that?'

He held up a small silver box which was covered in little black k.n.o.bbles, and which was plugged into the car's radio. 'I borrowed this from a chap called Rum. The technology is straightforward enough.'

'That's an alien CB radio?'

The Doctor handed it to her and tried to start the car again. 'That's right. And we can use it to follow them.'

'Wow.' It was light, and looked ugly.

The engine, spluttered a little, but only a tiny amount.

'Almost there,' the Doctor a.s.sured her.

Debbie remembered something about the film. 'Doesn't Richard Dreyfuss have trouble starting his car in that one because there are UFOs around?'

'That's right.' The Doctor beamed. 'Sure sign we're on the right trail. Er... can we take your car?'

'Here we are,' the Doctor announced. The bleeping from the device he'd plugged into Barry's car radio was insistent now. The Doctor turned it off and disconnected it.

Debbie could just about see the Hunters' black Volkswagen parked in a lay-by. She parked the Cortina alongside it.

Over a dry-stone wall was a dark wood. The bare trees stood out against the snow.

'Do you know the area?' the Doctor asked as he got out.

Debbie locked the driver's door and shook her head. 'I think that's Cooper's Wood. A lot of couples come here. I've never been.'

'Well, it's definitely the right place.' He pointed at the Beetle. The Doctor was already strolling off down the footpath.

Debbie caught up with him, doing up her coat b.u.t.tons and tying her coat belt. 'Is this wise?'

'I think so.'

'Arnold was scared. I bet he'd tell you not to come here.'

The Doctor stopped in his tracks. 'Arnold Knight is dead,' he told her. 'Murdered last night in hospital.'

Debbie suddenly felt terribly sick, terribly out of her depth.

'The Hunters do you think they're involved?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'There's a connection, I'm sure. Everything here is connected.'

Debbie s.h.i.+vered. Even the first time she'd met them the Hunters had scared her and they'd been hanging around the playground a few nights later. The Hunters had been following her around.

'I don't understand what we're meant to be doing here. Shouldn't we call the police?'

'They wouldn't listen. Wait!'

Debbie froze in place.

'Down!' the Doctor hissed.

As they took position behind a bush, Debbie caught sight of the strange man and woman. Mr Hunter was leaning against a tree. His wife, or sister, or whatever she was, had knelt down, and was playing with what looked like a camper stove. She seemed to be trying to encourage it to work by talking to it.

Debbie knew she should be getting cold, but she was excited, and the adrenaline seemed to be keeping her warm. This was an adventure for her she was sure the man and the woman were up to no good. They looked like criminals, she decided there was just something s.h.i.+fty about them.

The woman said something to the man. The Doctor looked over to Debbie hopefully, but she shrugged: they were too far away to hear anything.

Mr Hunter was clearly restless, and it was getting infectious the woman began pacing about. She pulled something from her belt and checked it: Debbie recognised it as a communicator, just like the one the Doctor had.

There was a flash of light. It took Debbie a moment to realise that it was the man, taking a photograph of the woman. It was a Polaroid, and the little square picture emerged. The man looked confused by the fact that the picture hadn't quite developed yet.

'They could pa.s.s for human, don't you think?' the Doctor asked softly.

Debbie looked at the two people standing in the clearing, then back at the Doctor. 'No,' the Doctor said, answering the question she hadn't asked. 'I don't think they are.'

'They're the aliens,' she whispered.

'Yes.'

Debbie was almost disappointed they didn't look like the monsters in her pupils' drawings. Where was their robot? Why couldn't they be lizard people, or have blue skin or tails, or something? They drove around in a Volkswagen Volkswagen, for G.o.d's sake. But she realised she didn't doubt what the Doctor was saying.

'We have to make contact,' the Doctor said, the words hanging in the air.

Debbie realised she must have looked horrified at the thought, because before she'd had the chance to say anything, the Doctor continued: 'No, no, don't worry. It has to be on our terms. And we have something they want.'

'We do?' Debbie asked puzzled.

'Yes. They're very, very unlikely to kill us.'

Debbie imagined that the Doctor thought he was being rea.s.suring, but she didn't feel rea.s.sured.

There was another flash. The man playing with his camera, Debbie thought, but she was wrong.

The man and the woman were now both looking up at the sky.

The Doctor and Debbie stared up, trying to see what they were looking at.

And the clouds parted, billowing back like a theatre curtain, to reveal a metal disc, fifty feet in diameter. There were no lights on it, no markings, no breaks in the perfect steel surface. It was almost invisible, and silent.

It drifted down towards them.

The Doctor was mumbling something under his breath. 'It's not spinning, or firing rocket blasts, there aren't any visible energy fields. Something exotic, something far beyond the state of the art of the human race at this time.'

Down in the clearing, the man and the woman watched the disc descend the same way Debbie would have watched a train coming into a station. They had been expecting this, obviously. Debbie wondered if the device Mrs Hunter had been using had summoned it somehow.

The Doctor nodded over at the odd couple. 'They don't look happy.'

'They seem a little tense,' Debbie managed to agree.

The saucer stopped around ten feet above the ground and just sat in the air for a moment. Then the underside opened, and a ramp slid smoothly open.

'There's someone else there,' Debbie told the Doctor. She could see a small figure silhouetted in the light at the top of the ramp. Smaller than either of the couple, almost squat alongside them.

The man and the woman straightened themselves up, as if they were standing to attention. Although they were nervous, they looked at home... in context in context... standing at the bottom of the ramp of a UFO.

There was a second figure at the top of the ramp. Taller and broader than the first. Together the two men they were men, there was no doubt about it began striding down the ramp.

The two alien men stopped in front of the Hunters.

They were both in what looked like military uniform. The shorter of the two men was powerfully built, and wore black combat gear, like a futuristic version of SAS gear. He was old, or in late middle age at least. He was almost bald, but what hair he had was white, and closely cropped.

'Where is Mr Gibson?' he barked.