BBC Cult - Printer Friendly Version

The Dying Days - Chapter Three

Page 1

Return To Mars

Mrs Fukuyama and her husband had arrived in London the afternoon before, but until now their only contact with the city had been the view of the suburban streets from the window of the coach that had whisked them from the airport to their eight-storey hotel in Kensington. The view from their window was of a flat expanse of converted mews and modern hotels, broken only by a large building called Earls Court. The hotel room was clean and air-conditioned, but could have been anywhere in the world from Boston to Beirut.

After breakfast, they had ventured out of the hotel to explore the City. The Tube station was just around the corner. They'd bought their tickets and descended into the world beneath the city.

They had emerged at Big Ben, walked around it, taken their photos and walked a little way up the banks of the Thames. The city was busy, the roads full of traffic, but few of the shops were open yet. It had been a short walk from there to Trafalgar Square, or so it had appeared on the map. In actuality it had taken half an hour to get there, punctuated by a couple of stops at tea shops that had struggled open. It was a public holiday, apparently, something to do with the Mars Landing.

Now they were here, her husband's attention had been caught by a blue box sitting at the foot of Nelson's Column. He was running his fingers along it.

'It's humming,' he concluded.

Page 2

The door opened and a young man bounded out, almost crashing into them. His clothes suggested he was a tour guide, or a street entertainer. The woman who trailed after him reinforced this impression: although it was not yet nine-thirty in the morning, she wore a strapless peach sequin dress, elbow-length lace gloves and pill-box hat. The two couples stared at each other for a second before her husband plucked up his courage and asked the strange man what the box was.

The reply came in perfect Japanese, 'This is a police box. They were more common before the advent of the walkie-talkie, but they're beginning to reappear now. You can call a policeman from here if you need help.'

'It is very striking. Would you mind taking a photograph of us in front of it?'

'I'll do it.' The Englishwoman took the camera, examined it for a moment and then pointed it towards the trio, who had posed themselves in front of the door. 'Say "cheese",' she ordered them, again in perfect Japanese.

There was a flash and the woman stepped back over.

'Thank you,' Mr Fukuyama said, checking his list, 'Now, how do my wife and myself get to the Tower of London?'

The strange man thought about the question. 'You could try committing treason,' he suggested gently.

The other three laughed, leaving him a little bewildered.

'Circle and District Line, the nearest stop is Tower Hill,' the woman supplied.

The two tourists thanked them and set off to the nearest tube station.

'It is a very good job that my daughter is too young to know who you are.'

He kept his distance, standing at the other end of the churchyard. Despite the familiar voice, underneath that overcoat he'd grown fat. His hair had thinned, and that moustache of his was grey. Despite that, he'd managed to arrive without Christian seeing him. Crows were cawing in the next field.

'It's a very good job that she's old enough by now to have her own phone. Good morning, Alistair.'

Page 3

Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart moved a little closer, became a little warier. 'Good morning, Lex,' he replied finally, when they were ten feet apart.

'You didn't call the police?'

The Brigadier straightened. 'When you telephoned I gave you my word that I wouldn't. Not until I came to hear what you have to say. You used to be one of my men. I owe a fellow Guardsman that much.' His hands were deep in his coat pockets.

'Are you carrying a gun?'

'Wouldn't you be?'

Christian laughed, holding his hands away from his body. 'I'm not,' he answered.

Lethbridge-Stewart couldn't see the humour of the situation. 'Why did you call me?'

Alexander Christian bit his lip. 'Because you are the only person in the world that I can trust. Something's going to happen, Alistair. On Mars and here in Britain. Something you have to help me stop.'

At the main entrance of the National Space Museum, the doors were being opened. The VIPs invited to attend at Mission Control itself were going through an adjacent door, where their invitations were being carefully checked. They'd pass through a couple of other security points before going below ground level to their social gathering.

Without invitations, the Doctor and Benny weren't going to be able to get in. At least not through the front door. So, they joined a coach party and were herded through the public entrance, past the lobby and into the first of the public galleries. The hall was filled with display cases full of bulky space suits. The tour guide hadn't noticed them join the edge of the group, she was too busy fielding questions about how astronauts went to the toilet and whether the boy astronauts ever had sex with the girl astronauts. Benny found it reassuring that amidst state-of-the-art technology and on the brink of interplanetary conquest, the human race still had its priorities right.

Page 4

The Doctor and Benny mingled with the group, careful to remember their objective. Casually, the Doctor glanced at a map of the building hanging from one wall. Disguising it as a yawn, he managed to indicate to his companion where they needed to head next. As soon as possible, they extricated themselves and stepped through into the Main Hall.

An actual Mars Probe hung suspended in mid-air twenty feet above their heads. The hall was vast, but gleaming and white, packed with artefacts from the international space programmes of the nineteen-seventies. They walked past the scale models, the photographs and the display case featuring the 'Astronaut's Survival Kit'. Benny paused at the full-sized mock-up of the inside of an old space capsule. It was cramped, of course, but the thing that struck her was how old-fashioned it was: the displays were mechanical, not LED or even digital, the controls were clunky switches, the computer that took up half the room wouldn't have been powerful enough to run the average washing machine even now, a couple of decades later. It was an object that belonged to the era of the eight-track cartridge, nylon slacks and the Ford Capri. This wasn't the retro-futurism of the TARDIS, with its incomprehensible forces hiding behind a Jules Verne veneer: this was the real thing.

The sound of the sonic screwdriver interrupted her train of thought.

The Doctor was bent over a display case, prising off the glass cover. The alarms hadn't gone off, but neither of them were exactly inconspicuous in their outfits. Benny strode across the room, and saw the Doctor scraping up some red dust into an empty test tube.

'Martian soil,' he announced by way of explanation.

'Yes, I know.'

The Doctor closed the case, sealing it up again. The test tube had already disappeared into the depths of his frock coat. 'Caldwell was concerned about the soil, remember?'

'Yes.'

'Look at this case, though. There's pounds of the stuff, on public display.'

'It's still in limited supply. It would cost hundreds of millions of pounds to get any more.'

Page 5

'Bernice, ordinary Martian soil can't be of much scientific interest nowadays - once you've found out the exact composition, what else is there to know? That man was critically injured, but that soil was one of the only two things on his mind at that moment. No, I suspect that when we compare this soil with the sample we acquired this morning we'll find a big clue to this mystery.'

'Fine,' Benny conceded. She hesitated. 'Didn't Caldwell also say something about someone escaping?'

The Doctor grabbed Benny's arm and led her to a display board. Ranged in front of her were photographs of all the Mars crews, every one of them happy, smiling clean-cut folk in neat uniforms or shiny spacesuits. The Doctor pointed to the very last picture. Three people, two men and a woman.

'Alexander Christian,' the Doctor declared. As Benny read, her jaw slowly began dropping.

'Some of you may need reminding about Alexander Christian,' Halliwell began. 'Those of you old enough will remember him very well indeed, but you won't know the whole truth. The full facts were never released by the government for reasons that will become apparent.'

She had been driven down the M2 at high speed, with full police motorcycle escort. When the traffic parted and you didn't have to stick to the speed limit it was amazing how fast you could get around the country. She'd got from Whitehall to Canterbury in three quarters of an hour. Now she stood in front of a couple of dozen senior Kent policemen, the people who would be co-ordinating the manhunt on the ground.

She paused and put the first slide up on the screen. Alexander Christian at twenty-nine, resplendent in his Space Defence Division uniform. He had a movie-star face, not a bland Aryan look, but an odd and angular with eyebrows that looked like a symbol in shorthand. A memorable face.

'This is how "Lex" Christian looked just before Mars Probe 13 was launched.' She pressed the control and the picture changed. Now Christian had been joined by two others: a plump, white-haired man in his forties and a beautiful redhead in her mid-twenties. All three were smiling, Christian was in the middle with his arms around both of them.

Page 6

'The crew of Mars Probe 13. Alexander Christian, Albert Fitzwilliam and Madeline Goodfellow. Christian shared quarters with Fitzwilliam, he was the sometime lover of Goodfellow. They had been friends for nearly five years. This is what he did to them.'

The inside of a space capsule, in full colour. Blood smeared over the chrome and plastic, two bodies in the centre of the picture, their chests split open exposing glistening organs, their eyes missing. Behind them a bank of monitors had been smashed, the computer panels had been smashed apart.

'As he left Mars, thirty-two weeks into the Mars 13 mission he was commanding, Alexander Christian, hero of the British space programme, took a fire axe and did that to his best friends. For eight months, he sat among the blood and filth and smashed equipment. Every day, at nine o'clock GMT precisely, he would send messages to mission control. These were little more than rants, littered with swear words and Biblical allusions.

'The messages were never released, of course, but one of the American networks managed to intercept one. This is what they broadcast of it.' She pressed the tape recorder button.

'Had to die. Had to -bleep- die. World -bleep-. -bleep-.' She pressed the 'stop' button.

'Well, you get the gist. At no point did he offer explanations, at no point did he talk to the psychologists or negotiators on the ground. After eight months, his capsule automatically splashed down in the North Atlantic. The HMS Sheffield was waiting for him, and he was arrested by armed sailors. At a court martial held in camera, Alexander Christian was committed to a top security mental institution, with the unanimous recommendation being that he should never be released. The thirteen Mars missions cost the British taxpayer nearly five billion pounds. That was a lot of money back in those days - over a year's worth of North Sea Oil revenue. Alexander Christian had been a national hero, now he was an insane killer, and the whole affair was very embarrassing for a lot of people. So, it was hushed up, the evidence was destroyed, the tabloids were told to go easy on Christian, and everyone but everyone involved was sworn to silence. The victims had no living relatives: Fitzwilliam's aunt died while he was en route to Mars. There were no pictures of Christian allowed when he returned to Earth. Starved of any new information or photographs, the story died. Mars 13 was the last mission to Mars for twenty years. Until today, in fact.'

Page 7

'Excuse me, Director, but what drove him mad?'

Veronica Halliwell shrugged. 'Claustrophobia, a fear of the unknown. He was trapped in that steel box for the best part of a year, with only those two as company. The day before, he'd radioed in as normal.'

Halliwell paused, sipped from her water and put up another slide, showing a map of Kent. The crash-site was ringed in red.

'An hour and a half ago, Alexander Christian escaped. As you know, over the years the Mars astronauts have been unlucky - they've had more than their fair share of car crashes, boating accidents and nervous breakdowns. Alexander Christian was always the most experienced Mars astronaut - he'd been there twice before Mars Probe 13. They wanted him at Space Centre in Devesham to provide his expertise in the event of problems with the mission. En route from Fortress Island, his helicopter crashed in Kent, just south of Canterbury. Everyone with him died, not all of them in the crash. He is now on the loose, he is possibly armed, and he is most definitely dangerous. We're bringing in army helicopters, and there's an SAS squad on its way. Your men are not to approach Christian when they find him.'

'Is that the only photo of him?' the Chief Constable asked. Halliwell pressed the projector control again.

'There are no more recent photographs of him, but prison staff have helped us come up with this computer-enhanced picture of what he looks like now. They say that he's resourceful, daring and intelligent. He has attempted to escape his prisons a dozen times, using a different method each time, and came damn close to getting out.'

Page 8

'Are we telling the public?'

'Not yet. I was with the Home Secretary when we heard about the escape. He doesn't want to cause a panic, but he's agreed that if we haven't found him by noon-thirty then warnings will be posted on the lunchtime news.'

'Do we know what his objectives might be?'

'A link with the Mars landing seems the most likely. We've posted extra guards at Devesham and at the National Space Museum.'

'An axe-murderer? An escaped axe-murdering ex-astronaut?'

'Yes. Trying saying that three times when you're drunk.'

'I think I might just take you up on that.' The caption underneath the photograph was a model of understatement, but it managed to convey the information that Alexander Christian had killed his shipmates.

The Doctor plucked his pocket watch from his waistcoat. It was the same watch that he had worn before he changed, and he used the same technique to flick it open with one hand. 'Ten thirty. Time to join the party.'

The great and the good had been drifting past them for the last ten minutes or so. They were getting a condensed version of the guided tour as they headed to the stairways at the back of the Main Hall. The Doctor's plan was that they would join a group of VIPs and follow them down to Mission Control.

Benny tried to keep her mind off Alexander Christian by standing at the edge of the Hall and identifying as many of the guests as she could as they walked past. The first one she had got had been Steven Hawking. He'd been deep in conversation with Richard Dawkins and his wife, and had been helped down the stairs by a couple of hefty security guards. Jarvis Cocker and Chris Evans followed, chatting about something. The next woman Benny recognised was either Mystic Meg or Lady Di (Benny always got them mixed up). She had no problem identifying Lady Creighton-Ward - she didn't live far from the house in Allen Road and Benny had often seen her being driven around the Kent countryside. All were wearing their poshest outfits, and despite her earlier anxieties that she'd be under - or over- dressed, Benny felt that her own ensemble had been well-judged.

Page 9

The Doctor took her arm, and Benny found herself following Gillian Anderson through a low archway down a short stairway and into the party. No-one checked for an invite, but a man on the door gave them the once-over. Benny smiled at him with her best 'I'm meant to be here' look.

There were about two hundred people in the room, more if you included the waiters milling around the little social groups that had begun to form. The reception was being held in an observation gallery that overhung Mission Control. Beneath them, two dozen scientists were at their posts, eyes fixed on the giant screen that dominated the back wall. Up here there was row upon row of red chairs arranged to watch the show. A big digital clock above the observation bay window was counting down to the landing. It was currently hovering just over the ten minutes mark. There was a podium at one side of the bay window, complete with a TV monitor and autocue.

A buffet had been laid out down one wall and the rich and the famous were picking away at it. In one corner Richard Branson and Alan Yentob were arguing about something, in another Geoffrey Hoyt was sharing a drink with Dame Emma Knight. Beneath the gentle rumble of conversation music was playing: Holst. Around the edge of the room film crews had set up, and journalists from around the world were pulling celebrities from the edge of the crowd to share a few words of wisdom with their viewers.

A waiter hurried by, and Benny plucked a champagne glass from his tray with an expertise born of years snatching free drinks.

She sniffed it and sipped it. 'Nice,' she concluded.

'A 1982 Ayala. A good year.' The Doctor hadn't taken any for himself, and had apparently identified the vintage just by looking at the glass or catching a whiff of it on her breath.

'I've just seen someone I recognise,' he declared, disappearing into the crowd.

Page 10

'Great, leave me here with my champagne,' Benny moaned. 'Second thoughts, Doctor, you do that.' She took another sip and gazed around the room. She was rather disappointed that none of the big celebrities were here. Her intensive study of The Mirror over the last week meant that she knew exactly which pop stars and models ought to be at such a bash, but virtually everyone here was a politician or a scientist.

'I'm sorry to hear about the problems with your marriage,' a voice piped up nearby. Benny looked down. A little old woman in a red coat and hat was standing in front of her, clutching a handbag in front of her.

Benny swallowed a little more champagne. 'Heavens, word gets around, doesn't it?'

The old woman blinked at her through big round glasses. 'If it's any consolation, it sounds like it was all his fault. And I loved Sense and Sensibility.' She disappeared back into the gathering, waving at someone with a TV camera.

'Er yes ... me too!' Benny called after her.

The Doctor bobbed through the crowds. He bumped straight into a man in a dark suit, stopping them both in their tracks. The man he had obstructed was in his late sixties, with thin white hair and an aquiline face.

'I know you ... ' the Doctor began.

'I should certainly hope so,' the man said, smiling a politician's smile. A couple of the people around him laughed nervously. They were all senior members of the government.

'Teddy Greyhaven. You were the Minister of Science in the nineteen-seventies. You oversaw massive government investment in science and technology.'

'I like to think that I kept the white hot heat of the technological revolution stoked up for a couple of years,' he said with mock-modesty. 'I'm Lord Greyhaven, now, though. I have very little influence nowadays.'

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. 'No, no. You wouldn't have.' He continued on his way, nearly colliding with the Home Secretary as he strode up to Greyhaven and his group.

Benny allowed the waiter to refill her glass. The Doctor had still not reappeared.

Page 11

There was a tap on her shoulder and she turned.

'Hello stranger.' Eve Waugh was gorgeous in a halter-top dress that showed off her figure while keeping every inch of it swathed in powder-blue silk. The two women circled each other, looking each other up and down.

'I like your dress,' they said in unison, before laughing. Behind Eve, her cameraman was in his tuxedo, checking lighting levels.

'I can't interview you now,' Eve complained. 'That dress is strapless.'

'Is this some policy of the American networks that I should know about? Am I too rude for them?'

'In a way: when Alan does his standard head and shoulders shot, you'll look naked from the hat down.' Eve drew a line over her own chest with a finger by way of demonstration.

Benny glanced down at herself, a little self-consciously.

'Do you know anyone here?' Eve asked.

'I recognise just about everybody,' Benny said, looking back up, 'but I don't know any of them personally.'

'Do you know who that is? The black woman in the United Nations dress uniform?'

Benny peered across the room to the slight figure keeping close to the fire exit.

'Yes I do, as a matter of fact. That's whatsername ... Bambera.' Brigadier Winifred Bambera. Benny racked her brains, trying to remember when they had met - it had been outside Buckingham Palace, a couple of years in the future. 'She works for UNIT.'

At the mention of the name, Benny could have sworn that a couple of people around the room looked up.

'Really?' Waugh said seriously, 'Now, that particular organisation is one of my special hobbies. How much do you know about them?'

'Enough to know that we shouldn't discuss them too loudly in here. And enough to know that Bambera's here on business.'

'If she wasn't on business, she wouldn't be hiding that automatic pistol in her waistband. Maybe we'll carry on this conversation later? My hotel room?'

Page 12

The Doctor materialised out of the crowd. 'I saw Ralph Cornish. He's over there, look, with his boyfriend.' A tall chap with peppery hair and a matching crisp suit was chatting to a young man.

'And who's Ralph Cornish?'

'He was the head of the British Space Programme at the time of the first Mars Missions,' Eve Waugh supplied.

'He didn't recognise me from back then,' the Doctor said sadly.

'We he wouldn't,' Benny reminded him gently. Eve was watching them carefully, presumably wondering what the Doctor had been doing at Space Centre in his mid-teens.

The countdown had reached ten minutes.

'If I could have your attention,' a young man was calling, 'the Mars Lander has finished its preparations and is nearly ready. If you could all take your seats.'

'See you later,' Eve called, hurrying away.

The pitch of the conversation became more excited, and the guests began shuffling into their designated places. Benny hoped that there were more chairs than guests. She squeezed her way past the Spice Girls to take an empty chair. Somehow the Doctor was already in the next seat, sharing a joke with Jeremy Paxman.

'The Mars Orbiter,' a bearded scientist at the podium began explaining, 'has been orbiting Mars for the last two days. In that time, instruments have been mapping the surface and taking measurements of the thin Martian atmosphere. The crew have also deployed a couple of unmanned vehicles, released weather balloons and launched a couple of satellites that will stay in orbit long after this mission has come home. All that information is being collected and collated at the Space Centre at Devesham. Meanwhile, they have also been preparing the Mars Lander.'

The video screen flickered into life, showing a CGI representation of the Mars craft. As the scientist continued to explain, Benny quickly established that the new Mars Probe was the same sort of arrangement as the old Apollo missions: a command module would stay in orbit while a four-man Lander would detach itself and drop down to the surface. The Mars 97 was about the size of the old Apollo rocket, but nothing was jettisoned: instead of liquid fuel, the three hundred metre length of the spacecraft was given over to the atomic engine. The eight-man crew huddled together in the compartment in the nosecone of the vessel during the four-month journey to Mars - the new atomic motors meant that the vessel was twice as fast as the old Mars Probes.

Page 13

'They'll stay on the Martian surface for a month,' the scientist continued. 'The aim of the mission is to conduct a full geological survey of the Mare Sirenum.'

'Been there, done that,' Benny said softly to the Doctor. She expected him to beam back, but instead he scowled, and made a show of straining to hear the lecture.

'We have the aim of having a full, working colony on Mars in the next ten years. The Mars 97 Mission will conduct a full feasibility study into this. If the Mars colony is not possible, then all is not lost: IIF are planning to build a nuclear-waste storage facility on the Moon in the next two years, the first manned flight to Jupiter is planned for two years after that. To tell us all how this has been possible, we have an honoured guest here this morning: Mr David Staines, the Home Secretary.'

A thin, bespectacled man made his way forward. The applause rippled around him and the world's television cameras followed his progress. The autocue was waiting at the podium.

'Today, after over twenty years, the human race returns to Mars. This would be a cause for celebration regardless of which nation had got there. But it isn't, I am sure, jingoism to suggest that we are all particularly glad that it is the United Kingdom that got there first.' - applause - 'Twenty years ago, the British space programme was a clear demonstration that our country still had the know-how to be a world-beater. I was a young man when Grosvenor and Guest planted the Union Flag at the foot of mighty Olympus Mons. My heart still swells to think of it: British astronauts staring up at the mightiest feature of the solar system, a mountain almost three times the size of Everest. And remember just who it was that reached the summit of that particular Himalaya before anyone else!'

Page 14

'Yes,' the Doctor whispered across to Benny above the applause, 'it was Sherpa Tensing. I should know, it was me that pulled him up. It was a good half-minute before Edmund joined us.'

Staines had continued. 'Like those early flights, the Mars 97 Mission has been a showcase for cutting-edge British technology, proof if it were needed that British is still best. An example to the world of what can be achieved when the worlds of big business and science co-operate with the government and the military. Unlike those first missions, Mars 97 hasn't cost the British taxpayer a single penny, thanks to Lottery grants and private funding. That and the support of many of Britain's leading manufacturers: it is fair to say that without the revolutionary atomic motors built in Reigate by Donneby's the Mars rocket wouldn't have ever got ... off the ground - ' - laughter - 'Without the computers built by ACL and software designed by I2, without the alloys developed at Vickers and Rolls-Royce or the communications equipment custom-made by BT or a thousand smaller contributions from a thousand smaller companies this would never have been possible. The Mars 97 programme is a testament to British enterprise. But none of it would have been possible without a guiding intelligence. A man of vision. Ladies and gentlemen, as the Mars 97 prepares for its historic landing, please remember that we are all here today because of my friend and mentor, Lord Edward Greyhaven. Thank you.'

They were applauding the Home Secretary as he returned to his seat, but the warmest reception was for the old man sitting in the next seat. The Doctor was studying him keenly. After some coaxing, Greyhaven stood, and waved to the audience. The applause got a little louder.

High, high above Mars the final checks had just been completed.

Page 15

Captain Richard Michaels looked back at the four men who had the worst job in the Space Service. Mars 97 had an eight-man crew, but only half of them would set foot on the Red Planet. The other four would stay up here, two hundred miles up. They were vital to the mission, they'd be relaying instructions, acting as back-up, monitoring the information from the unmanned probes. They'd never be able to tell their grandchildren that they'd walked on Mars as part of this mission. The crew had drawn lots a year ago to see who'd have which duty. Since then, the unlucky four had been resigned to this moment, when their colleagues would leave them to walk on an alien world. It hadn't made it any more palatable, and there had been the odd tense moment on the four month trip out. Singh, Campbell, McGowan and Lewis would be staying. He, Andi McCray, Bob Haigh and Claudia would be going down to the surface.

That had been the plan right up until this morning, when Claudia had fallen ill. She'd eaten something that disagreed with her - quite an achievement in such a regulated environment. She'd been confined to quarters since then, with only Singh allowed to see her. Everything about the mission was carefully balanced: one crew member ill for a day wasn't too bad, but if she had a bug that another crewman caught then they might have to abort the mission.

Five hours to go, and Michaels had been forced to decide which of the other four was coming down.

Singh had been the calmest. He'd always been the most rational of the crew - agreeing to cut his hair and shave his beard to be an astronaut, despite his religious beliefs. He'd accepted the result of the ballot without reservation, and was able to put the whole thing into perspective - he was still an astronaut, after all. But it couldn't be him - as the only one with full medical training he was needed up here to monitor Claudia. Campbell had been the worst: three months ago he'd been a serious cause for concern - his 'jokes' on the subject of the landing party had continued long after he'd been asked to stop, and he'd undermined morale.

But he was the one, his record more than made that clear. He'd confirmed the choice with London, and told the crew two hours ago, when everyone was too busy to get angry or disappointed.

The face of Richard Michaels filled the huge video screen. The crowd at the National Space Museum cheered.

Page 17

He was playing to the television audience, which clearly made him a bit nervous. 'Hello there, this is Mars 97. The pictures you are seeing now are coming from a long way away. Mars is nearly sixty million miles away from Earth. Or, to put it another way, back on Earth Washington and Moscow are about seven thousand miles apart but my crew and I are eight thousand six hundred times as far away from you. That means that even at the speed of light, our radio signals take nearly five minutes to reach you. These pictures are five minutes old and by now, God willing, we're walking around on Mars. Hope that doesn't take the shine off the live coverage!'

A round of applause and a little laughter, with all eyes fixed on the screen.

'OK, London Control. All systems ready. Lander is go. Andy, could you do the honours?'

A spacesuited figure, Benny couldn't work out whether it was a man or a woman, pulled a control and a rumble sounded along the ship.

The picture cut to an exterior view. A camera mounted about halfway along the length of the Command Module. Now, the Lander was emerging slowly from its compartment, edging out like a butterfly from a chrysalis. It looked vaguely insect-like, with stubby landing gear, delicate solar panels and communications arrays. Beneath the craft, Benny recognised the southern hemisphere of Mars. She'd made the same trip, although by her native twenty-sixth century shuttlecraft were fitted with antigravs and the journey was as routine as InterCity train travel in the nineteen-nineties. That was only because of pioneers like these people, of course.

An engine on the underside of the Lander flared and it shot away.

'London, Lander is good. Entering radio blackou-.'

Behind them, a dozen reporters explained to their audience that this was perfectly normal as the craft entered an atmosphere.

After a couple of tense moments, a message crackled through the loudspeaker: 'London. This is Mars Lander. We're down and safe.'

Page 18

Everyone in the room was on their feet, cheering. Benny found to her surprise that so was she. After a couple of seconds, a picture of a barren landscape flashed up onto the screen. The rusty soil and pink sky were familiar to Benny, everyone else, the Doctor included, was fixed to the screen. The camera was mounted to the landing gear, metal struts were visible in the foreground, and the ladder that the astronauts would climb down was also in plain view. After a minute or so it was clear that no-one was going to be coming down that ladder for a while.

'What's the delay?' she asked the Doctor.

'The astronauts have to get used to the gravity, they check the conditions outside. They triple-check the airlock and the spacesuits and they radio to London for the go-ahead.'

'That sounds a pretty lengthy procedure.'

'About quarter of an hour, perhaps less.'

Benny craned her neck. At the back of the room, the journalists were interviewing scientists and politicians. This event was going out live. She felt for the reporters forced to find something to say to fill the gap, the only picture from another world being a static image that could have been Arizona if it wasn't for the pink sky. Benny recognised the twilight from her expedition: even at noon on the Mare Sirenum the brightest it got was a late-evening grey.

The guests were gradually realising that there was going to be a delay, and were breaking off to replenish their drinks or chat to their friends. The man the Home Secretary had mentioned in his speech, Lord Greyhaven, wasn't there, although the rest of his circle were.

Benny turned to the Doctor to see what he planned to do for the next ten minutes. A young man, Ralph Cornish's friend, was leaning over him, whispering something, passing something to him. Then he had gone.

Benny bent across. 'What's up?'

'That young man just passed me a note,' the Doctor explained. He unfolded it. ' "Chesterton Road, 12.00. Green Door. Bring violets." ' he read, bemused.

There was movement on the ladder.

'That was quick,' the Doctor said cheerfully.

Page 19

A bulky spacesuit hopped down the ladder. He wasn't as nimble as he would have been on the Moon, the gravity was about twice as strong, but he moved in wide, arcing leaps.

There wasn't a carefully-prepared sound-bite, or indeed any ceremony. Just a simple 'I'm on the surface, chaps'. Two other astronauts followed him out, and they spent some time bouncing around, getting used to the idea that they were on an alien planet. 'Keep that camera pointing that way, Bob. There's a beautiful violet sky,' Michaels said finally.

Whatever else was said was drowned out by the cheers from Mission Control and the party guests in the observation gallery. The cameramen were relaxing now, turning off their equipment. They'd got the interviews they'd wanted before the landing and while the astronauts were getting ready for their Marswalk. The guests were leaving their seats, stretching. They were being ushered out by the waiters, who really weren't tolerating any dawdlers. Benny looked around for Eve, who was by the door, trying to collar Lord Greyhaven for an interview.

'Is that it?' the Doctor said, still firmly in his seat.

'That's the end of the live coverage, yes, sir,' a waiter told him as he collected up the empty glasses. 'The museum restaurant, The Observatory, is still open - a lot of the guests will be eating lunch there. It's fully licensed.'

Bernice giggled. 'How about it, Doctor, fancy a trip to the Mars Bar? I think that they want us to leave.' The last few journalists and their teams were being ushered away, a curtain was being drawn over the observation window overlooking Mission Control.

'Something odd's going on ... ' the Doctor muttered.

Winifred Bambera was standing by the door, keeping an eye on the guests as they filed out.

'Isn't that - ?' the Doctor began, but he was cut off from a burst of static from the loudspeaker. Down in Mission Control, a couple of technicians scuttled back to their posts.

Page 20

'London Control, this is Michaels. Condition violet should now be in place, you've had your ten minutes. Cut the live feed. I can't wait any longer.'

Bambera was scowling at one of the waiters who was moving to pull out the lead from the loudspeaker. The Doctor leapt over a row of seats, ran to the front of the room and yanked the curtain that had been blocking their view of Mission Control.

Captain Michaels' helmet filled the giant screen that dominated the room down there. 'We've found an archway,' the loudspeaker crackled, 'Repeat, an archway, in the sand.'

The picture panned around away from the commander and settled on a circular shape cut into the side of a low rock formation. It was indeed a high archway, leading into a cave. It was too dark to see anything more than a few feet inside, but the archway was clearly not a natural feature - there was definitely a keystone there, and what looked like carved symbols.

'Please advise, London Control.'

NEXT WEEK: Into the caves...