Doctor Who_ Loving The Alien Part 4

The man was pale unnaturally so. His head was bandaged, only his lower jaw visible. Needles dotted his arm and his breathing was shallow and regular, keeping time with the ventilator beside him.

The Doctor gave her a disapproving look. 'I did tell you to wait outside...'

'h.e.l.lo?'

Ace s.n.a.t.c.hed at the Doctor's arm. The man in the bed was moving, feebly trying to lift his head from the pillow. The Doctor hurried over to his side.

'It's all right. Nothing to worry about.

'Is that you, Mr Smith?'

Ace looked quizzically at the Doctor who shrugged back.

'Mr Dumont-Smith?' The man reached out with a pale arm, heaving tubes across the bedcovers. Ace felt sick.

'I can't read you...'

'All perfectly normal.' The Doctor pushed the man's hand back down onto the covers and patted his hand. 'Just try to rest...'

The man slumped back, shaking his head. 'Can't tell if you're Dumont-Smith or not. Something's blown. Can't read you... Can't read anyone.'

The Doctor pursed his lips, his eyes narrowing. Ace knew that look.

He was worried.

Abruptly the Doctor unclipped the chart from the end of the man's bed and wandered back out into the corridor. Ace followed him.

'What's he on about?' she whispered.

'I'm not sure, Ace, I'm not sure.'

He started flicking through the papers. 'Our mysterious patient is in the Royal Navy. Fleet Air Arm... or was. A pilot. An astronaut, no less.

Captain David O'Brien.

'And he's been in some kind of accident.'

'Presumably Certainly the injuries listed here would indicate a crash of some kind.' He paused. 'Odd...'

'What?' Ace tried to peer over his shoulder.

'Several pages relating to his treatment are missing... And what's 25 this?' He scowled. 'Why do doctors have such poor handwriting?

British... s.p.a.ce Agency.'

'So? You said he's an astronaut.'

The Doctor fixed her with a piercing stare. 'If there had been a British s.p.a.ce Agency in 1959, I would know about it.'

'Maybe they forgot to tell you.'

The Doctor was about to reply when the double doors at the end of the corridor were suddenly opened by a nurse pus.h.i.+ng a stainless steel trolley. She looked up in surprise. Ace tensed, ready to run, but the Doctor caught her arm and squeezed, ever so gently.

'Ah, there you are, nurse.'

Tucking the chart behind his back he trotted down the corridor towards her.

'Just in time. The patient was starting to get a little agitated.' He lifted the cloth draped over the trolley and sniffed. 'Ah... soup. Just what the doctor ordered.'

The nurse looked frightened. Her gaze flicking between the Doctor and Ace.

'Excuse me, sir, but...'

'Who are we?' The Doctor beamed at her. 'Smith. Dumont-Smith. This is my secretary. I understand that the patient has been asking for me?'

'Well, yes sir, but...'

'Splendid. Well, I'm quite happy that Captain O'Brien is in expert hands. No need to trouble you any further.'

The Doctor pulled his hat from his pocket, crammed it onto his head, then doffed it politely and thrust the medical chart into the bemused nurse's hand. 'You'll be needing this. Come along, Miss Gale.'

With barely a backward glance, the Doctor marched purposefully down the corridor and through the double doors. The nurse stared after him open-mouthed.

Aware that she didn't exactly look the part of a secretary, Ace tried to stride confidently after him, nodding crisply at the nurse as she pa.s.sed. In the stairwell the Doctor was poised like a greyhound, As soon as Ace was through the door, he grabbed her hand.

'Come on!'

The two of them hared down the stairs, the Doctor taking them two at a time, hopping on one leg as he skidded round the corners.

Breathless the two of them burst into the bas.e.m.e.nt. Ace c.o.c.ked a thumb at the boiler room. 'TARDIS?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Safe enough where it is at the moment.

Fire exit.'

He scampered across the corridor and pushed open the heavy fire 26 doors. They emerged into a yard piled with crates and metal bins. A high wall surrounded the yard, the gates chained and padlocked.

'Lock pick?' asked Ace.

'No time,' said the Doctor. 'Bunk up.'

He ran over to the wall and crouched down, hands cupped ready for Ace's foot. She climbed the wall with ease. It had been designed to keep people out, not in. The top was treacherous, though shards of gla.s.s and broken bottles set into concrete. Quickly she shrugged off her jacket and bundled it up on top of the jagged gla.s.s. Kneeling on it she reached down and hauled the Doctor up alongside her.

'Watch yourself, Professor.'

Suddenly an alarm bell started to ring, strident in the still of the morning.

The Doctor grimaced. 'I don't think our cunning cover story worked.'

Ace grinned. 'Do surprise me.'

'Well, come on, before they realise which way we got out.'

The Doctor dropped lightly into the street. Bundling up her jacket Ace followed him and the two of them vanished into London's early morning bustle.

For about the tenth time that morning Edward Drakefell picked up the crumpled copy of the London Inquisitor London Inquisitor and looked at his image, staring out at him. He'd made the front page again. 'DRAKEFELL and looked at his image, staring out at him. He'd made the front page again. 'DRAKEFELL DENIES COVER-UP OVER s.p.a.cE PLANE DISASTER.' He pulled a small silver pillbox from his jacket pocket and shook several white tablets out into the palm of his hand. Filling a tumbler with water, he gulped them down and leant forward, head in his hands.

From the other side of the room Sarah Eyles watched her employer with concern. That was the second time she'd seen him reach for the pills this morning. She was worried about him. She had been his personal a.s.sistant for six months, but although his manner was brusque, although he was inclined to snap at people when under pressure and seldom observed the pleasantries that most people might expect, she had come to like Edward Drakefell, even to admire him.

But in the three weeks since the Waverider disaster he had seemed almost to shrink. His brusqueness had turned to nervousness, he had become indecisive. She wasn't used to seeing him so... vulnerable.

Her mind made up that it was time to say something to him, to find out if there was anything that she could do to help, Sarah took a deep breath. As she did so, a tall, gangly lab a.s.sistant dropped a large manila envelope onto the desk in front of her.

'More paperwork for you, Blue.'

27.Sarah let the air out of her lungs with a deep sigh. 'Thank you, Malcolm, and please don't call me that.'

Malcolm grinned, 'Whatever you say, Blue, whatever you say.'

Sarah stuck her tongue out at his receding back. She'd been called Blue ever since she'd joined and she hated it. Still, with a name like hers she could hardly have expected anything else. Miss Eyles, personal a.s.sistant to the Director of the British Rocket Group. It was almost too good to be true. They'd nicknamed her after the rocket, the Blue Streak Blue Streak, and she was grateful that they had decided on Blue and not Streak.

She picked up a paper knife and sliced open the envelope. More requests from army personnel. More instructions from General Crawhammer as to the 'official line' that they were taking. Several of the papers needed authorisation by the director.

Plucking a pen from her desk drawer, she pushed her chair back and crossed the control room to where Drakefell was sitting.

'Excuse me, sir.'

Drakefell looked up, bleary eyed.

'Ah, Sarah...'

'More papers I'm afraid, sir.'

Drakefell took them and leafed through half-heartedly. Sarah did her best to sound cheerful and upbeat.

'Most of them I can deal with, but the top two need your signature.'

She offered him the pen.

The frightened ghost of a smile appeared at the corner of Drakefell's mouth.

Taking the pen, he signed with the untidy scratch that marked all his paperwork and pa.s.sed the bundle back to her.

'Why don't you go home and get some sleep, Dr Drakefell? You look exhausted.'

'Are the press still at the gates, Sarah?'

'Uh... I'm afraid so.'

'Is that b.l.o.o.d.y woman there?'

'Miss Hawks? I think so.'

Drakefell looked grey.

'I'm a prisoner in my own compound, Sarah.'

Rita had left Winnerton Flats with the scoop of a lifetime an exclusive, on-the-spot quote from Abe Crawhammer and with the beginnings of a dilemma, which back at the office had grown with every word she typed.

The BBC were characteristically playing down the crash. There were tributes to the late Captain Thomas Kneale, talk of a detailed 28 examination of the wreckage, an a.s.sumption of technical failure. But her colleagues were openly speculating about Soviet involvement, and bombarding her with questions. She'd been coy with them at first, but now they were starting to get on her nerves.

The stakes were so high. She didn't want to add to the hysteria by quoting a senior American general proclaiming war with the Russians.

And then perhaps mercifully the decision had been taken out of her hands. The door to her cubbyhole had burst open and George Pryke, the Inquisitor Inquisitor's editor, had rumbled in.

'Come on then, Rita, he'd bellowed. His Yorks.h.i.+re ba.s.s rattled the gla.s.s. 'Don't keep us in suspense any longer.'

His philosophy was simple you can't shrink from a good story, especially if it's true.

Before she could stop him he'd whipped the paper from her typewriter and was scanning it closely. He puffed out his ruddy cheeks.

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l... This is dynamite, Rita!'

He was right. That was the trouble.

And so she had got her headline, and not a little fame. She had been quoted on radio and television. It had made her uneasy at first. That was until the calls had started.

She was sitting in her office, writing up a piece about giant ants being seen in Nine Elms, when her phone had rung.

'Miss Rita Hawks?' the voice had enquired.

'That's me.'

'I have some information about Winnerton Flats. Edward Drakefell is covering something up. The rocket wasn't destroyed, and the pilot wasn't killed.'

'Who is this?'

'A concerned member of the public.'

Then there had been a click, then nothing.

Her journalistic instincts had won out. She'd been trying unsuccessfully to contact Bill Collins ever since. He must be mad as h.e.l.l with her. She'd staked out Winnerton Flats, collared Drakefell, fed George Pryke with prime copy, and become something of a celebrity.

Thanks to her, the rest of the papers and even the BBC were camped outside the walls of the estate, now topped with coils of barbed wire.

More than once she had been seen on the news, her head bobbing in and out of shot, generally excoriating Drakefell at his reluctant press conferences.

It was Drakefell's manner that most convinced her that the anonymous tip-off was true. He was obviously hiding something. That, and the fact that the calls had continued.