Doctor Who_ Return Of The Living Dad Part 21

Isaac was going over their routes once again, making sure the aliens were carefully hidden under blankets and bundles. The volunteers had done this a few times now. But this time there were lines of worry on foreheads. One couple had even packed up and gone home once they'd learnt the situation.

'This is awful,' said Joel. 'I hate waiting like this. If only we had a clue. Just any kind of lead at all.'

Tony sat bolt upright. 'Where's Graeme?'

Albinex looked behind the counter. 'I don't see him.'

'I'm getting a message,' said Tony. He tilted his head in an almost human gesture, as though listening to a faint voice.

Albinex sat down opposite the disguised Tzun. 'What is it?' he said. 'What's the message?'

'He's... he's in a bag. At a house. He got inside someone's bag.' Tony's hologram eyes widened. 'It's that woman who came to visit the Doctor this afternoon.'

'The one who was in the bookshop?'

Tony nodded. 'The house is far away. It's full of soldiers.

It's - that's Chris! That's the Doctor's companion!' 'Rock and roll!' said Joel. 'Smarter than the average spatula!' Albinex said, 'Can he guide us there?' Tony nodded. 'I can follow his telepathic transmission.' 'I'll get the Admiral,' said Albinex.

'Hang on,' said Joel. 'My car's a write-off, and we can't all fit into yours.'

They looked at one another.

'There's only one thing for it,' said Joel.

The Doctor drove on the way back, his mouth drawn into a tight line. Roz cradled the ghost-detector in her lap. There hadn't been a peep out of it.

'We'll find him,' she said. 'We'll find all of them.'

He glanced at her, sideways. 'I was counting on you to be the pessimist I could disagree with.'

Roz didn't smile. 'The truth is, wherever they are, they're probably causing as much trouble as they can manage. Chris can take care of himself. And from everything I've heard about Jason, so can he.'

'If we just had one proper lead,' said the Doctor. 'To tell you the truth, I feel... I feel unrehea.r.s.ed. I didn't know about any of this. There wasn't time to prepare.'

'It's not the first time we've walked into a new and dangerous situation without a map,' said Roz. 'And it won't be the last.'

'I don't want to lose one of you because I didn't see it coming,' said the Doctor, with difficulty. Roz decided she didn't like the implications of that, and didn't say anything.

The Doctor slowed as they were coming up to the petrol station just outside Little Caldwell. Isaac, Joel, Albinex and Tony were gathered at the entrance to the garage. The Time Lord pulled up to one of the petrol pumps. 'What are they up to?' said Roz, craning her neck to see.

There was a roar from inside the garage, the sound of an engine that hadn't been used for a long time. Isaac and Tony stood back.

Out of the garage rolled a van. Its many-coloured paint was faded, and one of its windows had been smashed, a big piece of cobwebbed plastic taped in place over the frame.

Joel rolled down the driver's side window and said, 'It needs gas. And we'd better bring the toolkit along.'

Albinex came out of the garage, clutching a big metal box as the Doctor and Roz walked up. 'Got it.'

'What's up?' said Roz, as Joel rolled the van down to the petrol pumps.

Isaac glanced at the Doctor. 'Graeme stowed away in Ms Woodworth's bag,' he said. 'She took him to some sort of military base, fifty or sixty miles from here. Chris is being held there.'

'Ellen?' said the Doctor.

'Graeme?' said Roz.

'The spatula,' said the Doctor. 'He's an Auton, isn't he?'

'Just a shred of Auton matter,' said Isaac. 'He was left behind after the last invasion. He and Tony have a sort of rapport. We can follow Graeme's signal to the base.'

'Outwitted by a spatula,' said Roz.

'What about Myn Jareshth?' said the Doctor.

'I've got one of our volunteer hosts to take him on until tonight,' said Isaac. 'We've evacuated all of our guests. It's entirely possible we won't be able to come back here.'

'What's the plan?' said the Doctor, clasping his hands behind his back.

Joel said, 'Simple. Schlep over to the base, bust in, and rescue Chris and anyone else who needs rescuing.'

The Doctor smiled at Isaac. 'Will you be wanting any help?'

'All hands on deck,' said the Admiral.

Benny stood outside the Pyramid, hands in the pockets of her denim jacket. The sun was just going down.

It was possible they wouldn't be able to come back here.

Ever. Her father had asked her to lock up the shop, and bring a big cardboard box downstairs that contained their important records.

Little Caldwell stood sad and quiet in the sunset, evacuated.

Suddenly, a psychedelically painted van drove up the main street.

Benny grinned madly at the Doctor, who was leaning out of the driver's window, waving at her. 'What's this?' she said.

'A relic of the seventies!' said Joel, slamming open the side door. 'I always wanted to see this thing come out of mothb.a.l.l.s!'

Benny hefted the cardboard box and jumped in. 'So we're going incognito, are we?'

The Doctor drove the van along the M4 about twice as fast as a human being could safely manage. Roz sat in the pa.s.senger seat, gaping out of the window, as they pa.s.sed yet another police car too quickly for them to read the van's plates.

And she'd thought Chris's driving was a nightmare.

Roz half turned in her seat. In the back, Isaac's crew were sitting cross-legged on the floor, quietly preparing themselves.

'Hologram projector,' said Isaac. Albinex, Joel, Jacqui and Ms Randrianasolo all made the same gesture, tapping themselves on the shoulder to check their projector was in place. 'Handscan.' Attached to their belts. 'Communicator.' In jacket or jean pockets.

Benny was sitting at the back of the van. She glanced at Roz over the top of the ritual preparations. 'Gla.s.ses.' Joel and Isaac both had a pair, looking like ordinary sungla.s.ses, but with heads-up displays and X-ray and IR scanners built in. 'We probably won't need these, but keep them handy.'

Only Tony wasn't taking part in the equipment check, sitting very still. He had switched off his hologram generator to conserve power. His big, slanted black eyes were blank with concentration as he 'listened' for messages from Graeme.

Roz hefted the bag they'd brought from Greenham Common. Jacqui and Ms Randrianasolo had borrowed three pairs of bolt-cutters, strong enough to snip through the fence that surrounded the USAF base.

There were no guns. They were going in without weapons of any kind.

They were going to get their b.u.t.ts kicked.

The group had finished their check. Isaac was following their progress in a big, skinny book of roadmaps, talking to Albinex. Ms R and Jacqui were joking about something. Ms Randrianasolo reached up and tapped her hologram generator, and suddenly wasn't there. Jacqui laughed and thumped her on the invisible arm.

On the other hand, thought Roz, this bunch of amateurs knew what they were doing. The van hadn't even broken down once.

It was very dark by the time Tony announced they were nearing the base. The Doctor had slowed down as they negotiated the smaller roads. Benny had changed places with Roz, peering out of the window with a frown on her face.

'I've been here before,' she said.

The Doctor didn't take his eyes off the road. 'Yes,' he said softly.

In the back, Jacqui was dozing, leaning on Roz. Joel was fidgeting with his seatbelt. Her father's eyes were closed, as though he was trying to sense their surroundings, build up a diagram of danger and opportunity, a tactical map inside his head.

The Doctor pulled over to the side of the road and switched off the engine. The sudden silence rang in Benny's ears. Jacqui came awake, blinking.

'It's about half a mile down the road,' said Tony. He switched his hologram back on, changing from Casper the Friendly Ghost back into the bearded cook from the Pyramid.

'Two teams,' said Isaac. 'Doctor, take Roz and Jacqui to the main gate. Joel, Albinex, Tony, Ms Randrianasolo, Benny and I will cut the fence and search for Graeme. Once we're in, we'll split up into pairs.'

'What's our cover?' said Ms R.

'Peace protesters,' said Isaac. 'Don't fight, just make a lot of fuss. We'll need all the distractions we can get.'

The Doctor had been rummaging in his pockets. He brought out a couple of pa.s.ses in plastic wallets. 'These are reasonably up to date...' he muttered, examining them. 'If nothing else, we can take up some of their time arguing the point.'

Benny looked at him. 'You're sure about this.'

'Oh yes,' said the Doctor.

'Let's do it,' said Isaac.

Woodworth was running an eye down the clipboard, looking for anything interesting. She glanced at the man in the dentist's chair. He had started to cry, and the tears were running up his temples.

Jacobus was waiting impatiently for her approval, fiddling with the b.u.t.tons of his lab coat. He always wore that spotless white thing, for some reason. If you really had to do quarantine work, Woodworth knew, you had to wear a lot more than a white coat. Thankfully, the path work was all negative. Very negative.

'He's a little too healthy,' said Jacobus, trying to peer over the top of the clipboard. 'Don't you think?'

'Maybe he was born without an appendix,' she commented, without looking up. 'It happens.'

'It's not only the appendix. It's a lot of little things.'

Jacobus tried to reach over the top of the clipboard. 'He's never had chickenpox, for instance. We can't find any scar tissue on him that's more than a few years old. His only health problem at the moment is the concussion your clumsy troopers managed to give him.'

Woodworth looked down at the man again. He was blinking in the violent light of the dentist's chair, eyes cloudy with tears and confusion. He pulled at the straps holding him down, fitfully, and the dentist swore as his probe poked into the gum.

'Is he human?' Woodworth asked.

'There are some genetic questions I want cleared up before I decide that,' said Jacobus. 'And then there's his teeth and nails .

Woodworth put down the clipboard, crouching beside the man, and snapped on a latex glove. She took one of his hands. The skin was cold and clammy. The nails were - like a woman's nails, she thought. No, thick like a man's, but sharp. Shaped wrong.

The dentist caught her eye. 'I want these,' he said, tapping a probe against the man's teeth. 'If you're not planning on keeping him.'

Woodworth consulted her clipboard again. 'They were sharpened?'

The dentist shook his head. 'They grew that way,' he said.

He plucked cotton wool from the man's mouth. 'Can I please have a drink of water?' said the 'patient' woozily.