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The Dying Days - Chapter Two

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Foreign Soil

Alexander Christian stood perfectly still on the patio, catching his breath. He'd half-run, half-crawled the hundred or so yards to the house, the nearest man-made structure.

It was a big place built in the last century, but now in some state of disrepair. The gardens were overgrown. Christian had seen the owners, a couple in their thirties, hurrying over to the crash-site. He'd ducked down in the long grass and they'd run straight past him. The police Range Rover had missed him completely, driving up a dirt track fifty yards away to the south. His first five minutes of freedom had proved a success.

Judging by the furniture, the man's clothes and the "police box" sitting by the kitchen door, the owners of the house were Victorian enthusiasts. This eccentricity seemed to extend to not owning a telephone: he couldn't see a cable leading into the house. They didn't mind electricity, though: a portable television sat on the garden table. A young woman was dancing around in front of a couple of puppets. In the bottom right-hand corner was a digital clock reading 8:23. Christian watched the spectacle, fascinated, for a couple of seconds. How long had they been broadcasting television at this ungodly hour?

The owners had been in the middle of breakfast. There was a tray next to the telly loaded up with a plate, a butter dish and a coffee pot. Christian lifted up the tray and plucked out the newspaper underneath. The Mirror. He scanned the header for the date: May 7th 1997. Price: 30p. Page-three girls had made it to the front, he noted. It was only a matter of time. More interesting was that the picture was in colour and that the newsprint didn't come off in his hands. Man hadn't reached Venus in the last twenty years, but clearly some things had improved.

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There were more sirens: fire engines, ambulances, perhaps more policemen. He needed to get away from here. It would only be a few minutes before tracker dogs were brought in and there would be roadblocks in a ten-mile area within half an hour.

Christian tried to prioritise: he needed civvies, antiseptic for the cut on his head and to make a single phone call. He glanced up at the police box. Even if there was a telephone behind that hatch, calling the nearest police station was not the wisest move. He'd need to find a pay phone, and he'd need some change for it. The paper cost five times what it used to, so the phone probably did too.

Clothes, antiseptic and some 10p pieces. All three items should be in the house.

If the couple who lived here had children they'd be heading to school by now. There might be other people living or staying here, but there was no evidence of them. Christian knew he'd need to be careful. He had a couple of advantages, the main one being the element of surprise: the owners didn't know they had an intruder. He should be able to keep hidden, even if they came back. If not, he'd be able to overpower them.

Clothes and change: Bedroom. Antiseptic: Bathroom.

Christian kept hold of the newspaper and stepped through a dilapidated wooden door into the kitchen. One hi-tech item sat incongruously amongst the pre-war range and an old tin bread-bin. It looked like a TV set, but a nameplate said it was a microwave oven. Everything else looked like it had been sitting there undisturbed since the fifties. The kitchen lino was faded, and curling up at one end of the room. Christian began searching the drawers and cupboards. He briefly considered taking a bread-knife, for self-defence, but decided not to. He'd not taken a gun from the helicopter, either. He assembled the most basic of survival kits: a box of sugar cubes, a candle and a handful of the matches from by the cooker, a couple of black bin bags and one of the bars of chocolate from the refrigerator. After a quick search, he couldn't find any salt or tea bags.

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He heard the wicket gate swing shut. They were back. Christian stuffed everything he'd collected into a plastic carrier bag and moved deeper into the house. There was nothing in the hall except doors to other rooms and a staircase. The bathroom and bedrooms would be upstairs, so he had no choice but to climb. Every step squeaked as he made his way up. Outside Christian could hear their voices: she was a Home Counties gal, her husband's accent was harder to place.

'I'll wait for you here,' the man said.

'Won't be long. Oh, Doctor, it looks like we've run out of bin bags.' She was inside the house as Christian reached the top of the first flight of stairs. He was halfway up the second flight when she began climbing up after him.

Christian reached the landing. A big water tank sat in one corner, but it wasn't big enough to hide behind. There were three doors and another, shorter, flight of stairs up. One door was open: to the bathroom. The other two were closed. Why was she coming upstairs? Chances are it was to have a wash or to use the loo, so she'd be heading for the bathroom, but the woman could just as well be looking for a book, her make-up or an item of jewellery, so she'd end up in her bedroom.

Christian chose one of the bedrooms, hoping she'd pick the other. He closed the door behind him. The curtains were drawn back, the sheets were freshly laundered and neatly folded: this was not the room the owners slept in. It was someone's room, though, a teenager's judging by the model aeroplanes hanging over the window. There was a glass ashtray on the windowsill - it contained a handful of change and a couple of small keys.

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The woman reached the landing. Christian ducked behind the bed, but as he had expected, she carried on up the short flight of stairs. Christian started to breathe again, and checked the wardrobe. There were about a dozen items in there, mostly T-shirts, but thankfully they were in adult sizes, in fact they would fit a chap even bigger than he was. One of the T-shirts bore a slogan that made Christian laugh: 'My Friend Went to San Francisco and All He Got Me Was This Lousy T-shirt'. Another one read 'It's Pronounced "Cwej"'. Christian pulled out the smart grey suit and cotton shirt that hung at the other end of the rail.

The ceiling above him creaked as the woman moved about upstairs.

Christian ran his finger very slowly down the seam of his coveralls. The Velcro parted silently, but it seemed to take an age.

The woman was coming back downstairs as Christian stepped out of his prison uniform. He crouched behind the bed, pulling the suit trousers down to him, but she walked past the door. He waited a couple of seconds, but the woman didn't go back downstairs. Instead he heard pipes rattling, and a shower splutter then burst into life.

Christian pulled the trousers on, and half-buttoned up his shirt. He took the provisions he had taken from the kitchen and distributed them around the pockets of the jacket. He slipped the jacket on and tested that the weight of the items was evenly spread-out and that nothing rattled when he moved.

He moved back over to the windowsill. Out across the rolling country, the straight line of the A2 was visible, sunlight glinting off the windscreens of a string of cars. There was also a good view of the woodland from here: the crash-site had been surrounded by emergency vehicles. Shouts and engine noises drifted across the fields from time to time. Their efforts seemed concentrated towards the crash itself, no-one was looking for him yet. It was only a matter of time. He plucked fifty pence in change from the ashtray. The coins were odd, and at first he thought they were foreign. The five and ten pennies were smaller, there was a twenty pence piece that was a peculiar shape.

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Christian tiptoed over to the door. The shower was still running, he could hear the woman moving around underneath it. He pulled down the bedroom door handle, guiding it open with his other hand. Then he edged forward.

The bathroom door was wide open.

Christian could have frozen, but he didn't, he carried on past the doorway and down onto the first of the stairs. He tensed, prepared to grab the woman when she came to investigate. Only when he was ready for that did he allow himself to piece together what had happened. He'd glimpsed her: the first woman he'd seen for nineteen years, in the shower stall, water dripping from her back and down the side of her breast. She'd been half-facing away from the door, bent over to rinse off her hair. She hadn't seen him.

Christian wanted to talk to her, he wanted to explain things, to tell her the truth. He wanted to see her again. He hesitated.

The shower shut off. Christian lurched down the stairs, forgetting at first the noise the boards made when they had weight on them. He reached the bottom without a plan. He had a minute to collect his thoughts: the woman was going to have to dry herself and get dressed before she came down. He couldn't get out through the kitchen door, the husband was out there. He opened up one of the other doors and discovered that it led down a short corridor into a hallway. Christian followed it, finding the front door just as the woman was coming downstairs.

'A coup? I find that very difficult to believe, Home Secretary.'

'That's what this information suggests to me, H. There are elements within society that are planning the overthrow of the British government.

'Call me Veronica,' the Director General of MI5 replied sweetly.

'Ha ha,' the Home Secretary chuckled. The man was an idiot.

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Home Secretaries tended to be idiots, Veronica Halliwell reflected, or they wouldn't have accepted the job. There were three top cabinet posts below the Prime Minister himself, and nominally they were of equal rank. The Foreign Secretary flew around the world for free enjoying five star hotels and banquets at least three times a week. The Foreign Office staff and the network of Embassy staff did most of the actual work, and it was difficult to be unpopular at home or with your party unless you accidentally started a war, which happened, but not that often. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had ultimate control of the economy. He set the levels of interest rates and taxation, and he also had the final say on public expenditure. That meant that he could tell his Cabinet colleagues exactly how much money they had to spend that year. It also meant that he'd retire to a dozen directorships of top London banks and financial institutions. He would be unpopular during a recession, popular during a boom. He'd generally win the respect of the party, who'd see him as 'firm but fair' and an ex-Chancellor usually stood more chance of becoming Prime Minister than anyone else.

The third senior man, the Home Secretary, was in charge of all matters domestic. And that was the problem. The Home Secretary was the man who had to deal with every child murderer, escaped prisoner, dangerous dog, inner-city riot, drug dealer, illegal immigrant, terrorist, car accident, rapist and cracked pavement in Britain. None of the nice things. It was very difficult to do the job well, the best to hope for was to have a quiet time. There was no foreign travel, both wings of your party would gang up on you when something went wrong and the public blamed you personally every time they ran out of toilet paper. So anyone who wanted to be Home Secretary was an idiot.

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The new head of the Home Office fitted the job description better than few before him. His file back at Five was a testament to mediocrity. David Anthony Staines had scraped his second at Oxford. He'd not been popular, although he had met his future wife there. She'd been a party activist, and he'd gone along to the meetings and fallen in with the in-crowd. He'd been secretary of the college party (there hadn't been a rival for the position). Then it was usual path: he stood as a candidate in unwinnable seats for a couple of years while he did his legal training and grew up a bit. He got his own practice the year before his safe seat, Eastchester West. At Westminster, Staines had quickly fallen in with Lord Greyhaven, and for some reason the old fool liked him. So he'd progressed up the party ranks. He'd managed not to acquire any Swiss bank accounts or mistresses, at least none that Halliwell could find, and so he'd got a reputation for "honesty". Now he held a senior cabinet post.

Staines held open the report at the last page, and pointed out each phrase as he came to it. 'Subversive groups operating in London. Security leaks in the press. Terrorism. An increase in gun-related crime. The riots last week.'

'Sir, there is nothing to suggest that these events are linked. There have been terrorist and subversive cells operating in London for over thirty years.'

'That's hardly a reassurance, is it Ms Halliwell? What are MI5 doing?'

'We've kept a lid on it,' she said firmly. 'We know who they are, we know where they are. The moment they do anything illegal we pick them up.'

'Last year there was that book published that blew the gaffe on UNIT, I Killed Kennedy. Why didn't you stop that, then?'

'Policy has always been to let people write what they want about aliens and UFOs. There are so many cranks out there, so many children's stories, that no-one believes any of it anymore. We leant on the publishers and they changed the cover, altered some of the dates and promised not to print anything like it again.' Who Killed Kennedy had got close to compromising UNIT, but as one of the co-authors claimed he'd killed Kennedy himself by travelling back in time it would have been counter-productive for the government to try to ban it. The last Home Secretary had understood that without Halliwell having to explain it to him in words of one syllable. MI5 had made sure the book had been marked 'science fiction' and flagged it on their list of subversive literature. The name of everyone who had taken it out of a library or ordered it from a bookshop with a computerised ordering system had been filed away for future reference. Five had also kept track of the authors: James Stevens had gone to ground, but David Bishop was still in London.

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Staines' head was agitating from side to side. 'It's not good enough. I want the publishers raided, to see what other top secret information they have, and I want the editors questioned by your people to see what they know. Shut them down, by midnight tonight. You will do that?'

'I will do it under the strongest protest and if I have written authorisation.'

Staines handed her two sides of Home Office notepaper, stapled together. Halliwell rolled her eyes. He had obviously made up his mind about what needed doing.

She gave him one last chance. 'Sir, ten years ago, the government made idiots,' a knowing emphasis on that word, 'of themselves over the Zircon project. Perhaps you don't remember, but I was actually in Glasgow, helping to remove three vanloads of papers and film from the BBC offices. We went through the same farce again with State Secret last year. If you want to give these crackpots publicity, then go ahead.'

'Thank you, I will. Your attitude has been noted, Director General. I am also going to advise Cabinet that we will need to increase security around the country. More police, tighter checks at airports, that sort of thing.'

'Sir, you can't unilaterally declare a state of emergency.'

'Ms Halliwell, there is no question of a state of emergency, I just want our people to be a little more alert. You agree that I am acting within my powers?'

The telephone rang, and Staines picked it up.

'Home Secretary,' he declared, redundantly.

An expression of concern crossed his idiot face. 'Yes, yes. Right.' He replaced the handset.

'Alexander Christian has escaped,' he announced grimly.

Benny and the Doctor stood at the top of the staircase that led down from the entrance to the main deck of the redecorated console room.

'Well,' the Doctor said breathlessly, 'What do you think?'

'It's very ... big,' Benny observed. 'Big and ... dark. It's very big and dark. It's very you, really, I mean it.' She was tempted to ask the Doctor for a pair of binoculars, or one of those telescopes you get on the sea front. She didn't mind the TARDIS being bigger on the inside than the outside, but there were limits.

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The Doctor was stepping down, indicating the interesting features with a broad sweep of his arm. 'I used the second control room for so long I got used to all that white, I have to admit, but this always was the original. It's just taken a little while for the alterations to be completed.'

He picked up a tricorn hat which sat on a bust of William Shakespeare. 'It's simply ages since I wore this,' he laughed, trying it on again. It didn't quite fit, which clearly amused him.

'So the rest of the TARDIS ... ?'

'Don't worry, your room's exactly as it always was. I'm not sure where it is now, I admit, but rest assured I've not touched a thing in it.'

Benny smiled wanly.

\x91In here,\x92 the Doctor called from the far wall, opening and striding through the sort of door that castles had. Oh, yes, she thought, 'the sort of door castles had', a textbook description for an archaeologist. She engaged her brain. At intervals along the wall of the control room, there were doorways surmounted by drop head arches. The doors bore lovingly hand-crafted iron scroll-work, but no visible handles, latches or locks. The control room as a whole was in the Decorated Gothic style, taking the form of a roughly hexagonal lierne vault. The clustered shafts, niches and buttresses were typical of the style, but there was evidence of alien influence. Illumination was provided mainly by candlelight. At irregular intervals the same swirling, circular design appeared inlaid into the marble floor or the iron and carved into corbels and bosses. Benny recognised it from her visit to Gallifrey, but couldn't remember what it was.

Benny ducked through the door, following the Doctor into the TARDIS laboratory. She couldn't recall ever visiting the room before, and certainly would remember it if she had, she thought: a cold, dark chamber stacked to its high-vaulted ceiling with cardboard boxes and scientific instruments. Four great wooden workbenches were arranged haphazardly towards the centre of the room. On one of these an elaborate construction of test-tubes, Bunsen burners, retorts, tubes and glass jars but if they had once contained colourful, bubbling fluids they had long evaporated away. Every piece of equipment seemed to come from another age, and she found herself trying to place every arcane item. She half-expected the Elephant Man to come lumbering out.

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The Doctor led her along the maze of particle accelerators, oscilloscopes and lasers to the microscope section. He ignored at least two electron microscopes, a holographic magnifier and a dimensional revisualiser in favour of an antique brass microscope that he had clearly kept clean for years by lovingly polishing it. Either that or the day before yesterday he'd popped back a century or so and bought a new one.

The Doctor took the test tube from his pocket. 'A cork stopper,' he said.

'Is that important?'

He shrugged. 'It might be. The stopper is tight. This tube hasn't been unsealed for ages.'

He flicked the tube open and sniffed the contents. 'No discernible odour.'

He tapped the soil out onto a glass dish. It was red, with a texture somewhere between sand and clay.

\x91It looks like cocoa powder,\x92 she observed.

\x91Well it isn\x92t,\x92 he snapped. Benny swallowed, surprised by the strength of feeling behind the Doctor\x92s reply. She kept her mouth closed as the Doctor placed some more of the dust on a slide and put it underneath the lens. He poured a little more into another piece of equipment at the side of the desk and flicked a switch on its side. The box chugged into life, lights flashing on its surface.

Benny leant over. The dust looked familiar from somewhere.

The Doctor peered through the eyepiece of the microscope. 'It's not from Earth, that's for sure. Let's see: Fe2O3.3H20. Limonite. Hydrogenated iron oxide.'

Why was it making her feel nostalgic?

Tickertape spewed from the box at the side of the desk. Without taking his eyes away from the microscope, the Doctor tore the tape off. Then he straightened up to read what it said.

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'Found only one place in the solar system - '

' - Mars,' the Doctor and Benny declared in unison.

'Well done,' the Doctor said, a little awestruck. 'I worked it out by spectrographic analysis with access to one of the finest mineralogical databases in the universe. How did you know?'

'As you'd know if you'd read my first book,' Benny announced authoritatively, 'I made my reputation as part of an expedition excavating the tombs of the Mare Sirenum,'

'Those tombs are carved from spotless blue crystal,' the Doctor objected in a wounded tone of voice.

'There was soil like that in the egg chambers.' - Benny realised she was blushing - 'I was twenty-four and there was a lad called Tim in the same group. We spent a fair amount of the time rolling around together up there. That soil gets everywhere, trust me.'

'The odd thing is that it has been chemically treated. The main question is, how did it get here?' The Doctor peered down at the sample, as though he was expecting it to confess the answer.

'That's no big mystery,' Benny said, 'Humanity has got to Mars by now.' Her knowledge of history was a little sparse in places, but the late twentieth century (or more precisely 1963 - 1989: The Kennedy Assassination to the Fall of the Berlin Wall) was one of her specialities. Within a couple of years of the Americans landing on the Moon, the British had put a man on Mars. It was all part of the superpower space race, with Britain still trying to play with the big boys. Like all races, it was over quickly and didn't really amount to much. The United Kingdom felt good about itself for a couple of years and put itself even further into debt. There were no significant technological or scientific consequences, and all anyone had to show for it in the end was about five hundred kilos of red rock and rusty soil. Most people in the nineties probably wouldn't remember the names of any of the Mars Astronauts. There were a couple of disasters towards the end, Benny recalled. Something to do with astronauts going mad. Hardly surprising when they spent a total of sixteen months in a tin box the size of a Transit van.

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The Doctor drummed his fingers on the bench top. 'Yes, now you mention it they were mounting Mars missions when I was exiled here. I remember helping them out that one time.'

'There was a report on the television news this morning about a new landing on Mars.'

The Doctor grabbed her by the shoulders and stared straight at her. 'It's all coming together. It looks like we need to catch up with current affairs. Come on, Bernice, let's get back to the control room!' He leapt up and bounded for the door.

Benny glanced down at the little soil sample. 'Now look what a fine mess you've got me into,' she scolded it.

The policeman in the village had seen him, looked straight at him. Christian had been forced to smile back at him. What else could he have done? Broken his neck in the middle of the street? The constable hadn't shown a glimmer of recognition. Later, though, when he saw the new 'Wanted' posters up at his station, he'd remember.

Freedom. After twenty years, Alexander Christian could hardly remember what it was like to walk down a street, to see the young girls in their colourful summer outfits and the birds landing in the trees. Children with ice cream, mothers with prams. Fashions had changed, of course, that's what fashions did. Other little things were different: the cars were more streamlined, with odd rounded fronts and there were radio telescopes on the side of some houses - no doubt the latest hobby, like he used to build crystal sets when he was a kid.

Christian had reached the little supermart on the corner of the main street. A sign on the door read 'Open Today As Usual'. He straightened out his jacket, trying to look respectable, then he walked in. The bell above the door jangled as he closed it behind him. An old woman was behind the counter, stroking a large white cat.

'Hello,' he said - a word he'd not used for a long time - 'Could you tell me where the nearest phone box is?' He scratched the cat's nose.

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'There's a pay phone just there, behind you,' she replied cheerfully. The cat looked set to follow him over, until the woman caught hold of it. 'Stay here, Stevie.'

Christian thanked her and moved over to it. He checked the number for directory enquiries and then dialled it. Or rather he tapped out the number - the phone had buttons rather than a dial.

After a couple of rings, a young man's voice asked which name he wanted. Christian told him and there was a pause, punctuated by the clacking of a keyboard. The whole system must be computerised by now.

'I'm sorry, sir, I can't find that name.'

'It's double-barrelled. With a hyphen.'

'And you don't know the area?'

'No. There can't be many with that surname.'

'I'll just try again.'

A four-second pause, more clacking. The line was crystal clear.

'I've found it, sir, but it's ex-directory.'

'Ex-directory?'

'A lot of teachers are ex-directory, sir.'

Teachers? Well, it had been twenty years. 'Can't you give it to me? It's an emergency.'

'I'm sorry, we can't.'

'Can you give me the address?'

'We don't give out addresses. Security. You could be an escaped nutter or anything.'

Christian decided not to argue the point.

'Could you at least tell me the county?'

'No, I'm sorry.'

'OK.' He hesitated for a moment, racking his brains. 'Katherine, with a "K", the same surname.'

A different voice, a recorded one, rattled out a number, then repeated it. Christian didn't have a pen, he committed the number to memory. He cut the connection, got a dialling tone, then tapped in the phone number: 0122 69046.

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The Doctor was striding back towards the console, which in the new scheme of things stood on a hardwood plinth in the centre of the vast control room. Immense iron girders sprouted from the floor and arched overhead, forming a canopy.

Wolsey detached himself from a chaise-longue and jumped over for attention. The Doctor strolled past him, his attention fixed straight ahead. Benny bent down and scratched the tabby cat under the chin. He was almost embarrassingly grateful.

'Has he been neglecting you?' Benny asked seriously.

'Miaow,' replied Wolsey. The little cat was happy enough. Why wouldn't he be with all this antique furniture lying around from him to claw and leave hair all over? Benny noticed the question-mark umbrella gathering dust on top of a filing cabinet, and a shiver ran down her spine. Benny joined the Doctor, Wolsey trotting ahead of her, leading the way.

The Time Lord bounced around the console. After a second's consideration he chose one of the panels and began to flick switches and twist dials. As Benny stepped up to join him a holographic frame materialised at head height between them, filled with static.

'With this, the TARDIS can tune in to every television channel broadcasting on Earth at this moment.' The Doctor had his head down, trying to stabilise the picture.

'What, even the mucky ones?' Benny said, leaning forward. Image after image started to flash up on the screen, too fast to decipher all but a handful: the Pyramids; Dale Winton with Japanese subtitles; riots on the Falls Road; Greedo firing first; a smiling Xhosa woman; James Bond diving after a plane in freefall; tanks in the desert; Batman knocking out the Riddler with a 'KA?OW!'.

'I've established the search parameters.'

The picture quickly settled on one of the American 24-hour news channels. An attractive young blonde was standing in the morning sunshine introducing a pair of men somewhere between three and four times her age. Her voice and manner weren't quite as annoying as some of her contemporaries, and suggested that there was a lot more to her than hair lacquer and lip-gloss.

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' -ermass and Patrick Moore, two of the leading British space experts from that pioneering era. Professor, if I could start with you: you must be very proud?'

He was in his eighties, the tweed suit he wore wasn't much younger.

'Must I? We could have done all this twenty years ago. Forty years ago. We chose not to: space is a Pandora's Box and we shouldn't open it until we've sorted out our problems down here. Think of all the setbacks, all those hundreds of millions of dollars, roubles and pounds which exploded on launch pads, crashed into the sea or never come back from that void. Remember the dozens of people that died. Then you decide whether all this is worth it just to plant a flag in some radioactive rust. Space isn't the final frontier, you know. Earth is a tiny planet, surrounded by an infinite night, and out there are unimagined horrors.'

He was waving his finger upwards by this point. The interviewer had been shrewd enough to give the Professor enough rope to hang himself with: by the end of his speech he was ranting and almost out of breath. He'd reduced himself to an indignant old fool, live in front of tens of millions of viewers. Benny glanced over at the Doctor, who was rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

'Mr Moore, do you agree? After twenty years away from space, why pour so much money into it now?'

Benny recognised the seasoned television performer, but even if she hadn't she would have admired the professionalism of a man who had been asked foolish questions by young journalists many, many times over the years. When he spoke, he paused between sentences, allowed everything he said to sink in.

'The Professor's views are well known. I disagree with the idea that mankind has ever been away from space. Your American viewers won't know me. I present an astronomy programme for the BBC that celebrated its fortieth anniversary last month. Back when The Sky at Night started, manned space flight was still only the dream of people like Bernard, here. Since then, the moonshots, and the Mars missions have been and gone and things have seemed pretty quiet. But in reality, so much has happened in the last twenty years. Just think: you are only able to broadcast this programme across the Atlantic thanks to the communications satellites that ring the Earth. They may be less dramatic than the old manned mission, but the space shuttle and the Zeus and Ariane programmes have made local space travel a matter of routine.'

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'But we've not been travelling to other planets anymore?'

'The Hubble Telescope and Voyager probes have allowed us to explore our little corner of the universe. Only last year we got the first sight of the surface of Pluto. Space research has concentrated on improving our life on Earth. Satellites monitor the environment. They help the rescue services. Military satellites can tell us when a country is building weapons that they shouldn't be. Those things are a great deal more use to us than putting a man on the Moon.'

'So the question seems to be why are the British going back to Mars? Are they hoping to find little green men?' she laughed.

They were nearing the end of the report, Benny realised, and the reporter wanted to end on a lighter note.

'They are five million years too late for that, if they are,' the Professor snorted.

'The findings of the Mariner probes of the nineteen-sixties didn't rule out the possibility that Mars might support human life, but I'm afraid that ten years later the British astronauts and the American Viking unmanned probes proved beyond all doubt that Mars was a barren, radioactive world, at least now. There may have been primitive life, many billions of years ago, but I remain sceptical. Mars is the world most similar to ours in the solar system, but the only water is frozen solid as a rock in the polar regions. I\x92m afraid that any human being walking on the surface of Mars without a spacesuit would be blasted by radiation, frozen to death by the temperature and then he would suffocated by the lack of atmosphere.'

'Well on that note, it's back to the studio. Thank you gentlemen. This is Eve Waugh, coming live from outside the Mars 97 Mission Control at the British National Space Museum, London, England.'

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The picture cut back to a middle-aged man in the Washington studio.

'Thank you, Eve. We'll bring you coverage from London all day, including live coverage of the landing itself starting at 5am Eastern Standard Time.'

The Doctor tapped a control and the sound cut off.

'What do you think?'

'I liked his monocle and her hairdo, they're both good at their jobs. The Professor needs to switch to decaff, though. I've walked on the surface of Mars without a spacesuit, and I'm fine.'

The Doctor beamed. 'Most of Mars has been terraformed by your time, as well you know.' He screwed up his face, trying to dislodge a memory. 'The National Space Museum is in Trafalgar Square.' He paused. 'That's only a two minute trip by TARDIS.'

He set about the instruments again, rotating some big blocks on the navigation panel, pulling across a couple of switches and releasing the handbrake. The column that protruded from the centre of the console and carried on up as far as Benny could see began to hum, the mechanisms within it rising and falling with a familiar piston movement.

The Doctor moved in a way that was both manic and calm - suggesting that after centuries operating the TARDIS he still wasn't entirely sure he knew which buttons he should be pressing. It was odd to see someone else at the controls. Odder still to think that this man was the Doctor. He was in his element here, the tails of his frock coat flapping in time with the strands of his hair as he moved around.

Wolsey had found her again, and was brushing around her legs, keeping her between himself and the Doctor.

There was the familiar chime, deep below the console. At least that hadn't changed. This part of the procedure, at least, the Doctor could accomplish with a practised ease. He straightened up, staring into the central column for a second or two, then flicked the last few controls and applied the handbrake.

It was quite a trek to the door, now, though. Benny followed the Doctor to the exit. The doors swung open as they approached.

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The pigeons scattered as they stepped out. Once again the TARDIS had managed to land in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world without anyone noticing. The Doctor locked the door behind him as Big Ben chimed nine o'clock.

Bernice was walking on ahead, looking at the National Space Museum with an historian's eye. Perhaps she had heard about the controversy a quarter of a century ago when it had been built. The concrete and chrome building was striking, one of the most recognisable modern buildings in Britain, but that hadn't silenced the public outcry when it had been built on the edge of such an historic square. It stood out even now, when a whole generation had grown up with it there. A huge red banner flapped above the door declaring 'MARS 1997'. Below street level was Mission Control itself. Of course the Mars 97 rocket hadn't blasted off from central London - the launch itself had taken place in Oxfordshire, but it had all been co-ordinated from here. The roof bristled with satellite dishes, aerials and antennae, but all of them were part of the architecture, just as a medieval cathedrals managed to blend guttering and structural necessity with decoration and aesthetics.

The Doctor left Bernice behind, crossing the busy road and jumping up the steps, two at a time. When he tried the door, it wouldn't open.

'It's closed until ten-thirty,' an American voice informed him.

The Doctor turned to see a young woman winding up her microphone cable. She and her cameraman were packing up their equipment. Her two interviewees had disappeared.

'Eve Waugh. I've just seen your interview - well done, I know the Professor and he's a bit crotchety nowadays.'

She was shorter than she looked on television, but also a bit more willing to smile. 'Thanks, but I've faced worse.'

'Of course: your work during the Mexican War. I saw that, too: you saved a lot of lives, exposed a lot of evil men.'

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She frowned. 'You have me confused with someone else. Wait a minute, how did you see my interview? It was only broadcast in the States.'

Bernice had finished her quick survey and had crossed over to join them. 'Hello, Doctor. I see you've made a new friend.' She held out her hand. 'Professor Bernice Summerfield.'

'Eve Waugh. Yeah, I know: my folks were big fans of his, particularly Brideshead.' She looked Bernice up and down. 'So you're a Professor? And you are Doctor ... who?'

'Quite,' the Doctor nodded sagely.

'This museum doesn't open for another hour and a half,' Bernice interrupted. She was looking at the little card in the door.

'You academics should read your invitations,' Eve suggested. 'I'm going to be there, but I've got plenty to do before that - change into my gown for one thing. So, see you at ten-thirty,' she flashed them both a smile. 'Ready Alan?'

Her bearded cameraman nodded, but didn't say anything. Together they descended the steps.

Bernice waited until they were out of earshot. 'Nice woman. Right - so it looks like we've got to go back to the TARDIS and hop forward an hour and a half.'

'Time doesn't work like that. Now we're here we'll have to find something to do for ninety minutes. And we're not going to sit around in the TARDIS when we could be exploring this city.'

'Now why did I know you were going to say that? OK, but let me pop back, find my room and get changed into a party dress. If we're going to a posh do, there's no way I'm going to let anyone out-frock me.'