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The Dying Days - Chapter Fifteen

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Going Down in History

Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield

I tried to bring my breathing back under control. The Doctor was a hologram, twenty feet high, his hands behind his back. Xznaal had turned to face this vast apparition, which peered down at the Martian Warlord like a parent disciplining a naughty child.

And there was someone pulling me away from the block. Alexander Christian. He put a finger to his lip. Only my hands had been tied, and once I was upright I could hurry away under my own steam. I followed Christian towards the cover between two buildings. According to one of the signs we passed, we were heading to 'The Jewel House'.

Behind us, the Doctor's voice was rumbling again, filling the air.

'I am in your warship. Come and face me if you dare.'

The Martian Lord was straining to look up at the ship.

Eve Waugh and Alan were waiting for us. I hesitated. A mass murderer and the two people that had betrayed the Doctor to the Martians. But why trap me like this, when the merest moment before Xznaal had been able to deliver the killing blow? Besides, Christian would never work for the Martians. These people were on my side, and there was a wall between us and Xznaal. I gazed out over Tower Green, saw the Doctor's grinning face filling the sky.

Eve had a small pair of wirecutters, and she was snipping through the bindings on my wrist, one strand at a time. Lex Christian was reloading his pistols, with the help of Alan.

'It's not a trick is it?' I asked the American journalist.

'No,' Eve laughed. 'That's him. He got aboard this morning when they were loading up supplies.'

I could picture the Doctor ducked behind a stack of crates, smuggling himself onto the magnetic lift platform. Sneaking around the Martian ship, avoiding patrols, opening up inspection hatches.

'But ... how?'

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'When the Martians attacked your house, we only just made it out alive.' I decided that under the circumstances it would be churlish to point out that Eve had been the one who had tipped off the Martians in the first place. The last of the bindings fell away.

Another sonic blast detonated. Masonry and glass crashed. It had hit a building, then, rather than the crowd.

'We headed back down to Adisham, but there was this terrible cloud.'

I nodded, rubbing the circulation back into my hands.

Eve continued. 'We could tell straight away that the cloud was being controlled somehow. Alan was filming it, and it was seeking out people, killing them stone dead. Then we saw the Doctor.'

They'd got to the part of the story that I didn't know about.

'He was breaking into a shop with the sonic screwdriver. It turned out later that he was trying to save a cat who had got trapped. The cloud caught sight of him, and it was like a shark scenting blood. It kind of drew itself together and poured into the shop after him. We followed, and we found that the Doctor was standing there, with the gas swirling around him like a hurricane. He looked so calm, so collected, and then the cloud leapt at him, smothering him, pouring into his mouth and nose. It was horrible.'

Her voice was matter-of-fact, and there was no indication that she had been horrified, or had felt anything at all. This was a woman whose job it was to report horrible things on a daily basis.

'As the last of the gas entered his body, the Doctor collapsed. Alan knows first aid, and he tried to help him, but there was no pulse and he was already cold to the touch. The Doctor had shut down everything that kept him alive: respiration, heartbeat, brain activity, lindal gland, reflex response. Apparently Time Lords can do that.'

'It was the bit after that I wasn't too sure about,' I informed her. 'The happy ending aspect.'

Another sonic blast hit the Thames, sending up a jet of steam. It was almost certainly the first shot that hadn't killed people. As the ship continued its ascent, we were getting more notice of the attacks - there was perhaps a two second delay between the sound of the blast coming and it hitting the ground.

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'The Doctor had worked out that the cloud had been programmed to seek and kill him. When the gas detected no life signs, the program was complete, the gas had no other purpose and it deactivated.'

'Yes,' I said slowly, pointing over at the hologram, 'but this overlooks one small detail... '

Eve brightened. 'Well it was lucky for him that we were there. Alan kept trying, and managed to resuscitate him.'

'Only because of that Time Lord constitution of his,' Alan called over. 'No human could have survived being dead that long. As it was it took him a couple of days to fully recover. We had to smuggle him out of Adisham in the back of Eve's car.'

'Gosh,' I said. 'How's the cat?'

'It made it,' Eve assured me. 'We got back to London and met up with Lex there.'

I frowned. 'So, with the greatest respect, what has the Doctor been doing for the last week?' All this time, people had been dying, the country had been in a state of civil war and the Doctor hadn't even shown his face.

'Working to end the invasion,' Eve replied indignantly. 'He spent the first few days trying to find an antidote for the Martian gas. There isn't one. We went to Gatwick, freed hundreds of prisoners. We have no idea what the Martians were planning for them.'

I shuddered, remembering the tests conducted at the refinery in Reading.

'Xznaal's moving,' Alan called over.

End of extract

'T minus three minutes,' one of the lieutenants called from behind them. The Brigadier barely heard him. He was at the bottom of the stairs now, and he could see the crowd massed outside. It was a riot out there: windows had been smashed, cars overturned and set alight.

Another bolt of energy slammed home. The building shook, but the impact itself had been further away than the last, on the other side of the Tower. Hopefully the crowd was thinner over there. Ambulances were wailing their way across London, now.

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There was something rising into the air from inside the Tower.

'It's Xznaal,' he called out. 'Snipers - '

The Brigadier didn't finish the sentence. The sky pulsed.

'Take cov-'

The blast of energy slammed into the building behind him. Every pane of glass in the block shattered, the supporting walls burst open. The Brigadier grabbed Bambera and tugged her down, then pulled his hands over his head. They were thrown forwards, masonry and glass crashing around them.

Lethbridge-Stewart's earpiece crackled. 'T minus two minutes.' He could hear the words, so he was alive.

He pulled himself up, coughing and laughing. 'That was a close one. Is everyone OK?'

As the brick dust began to settle, he could make out Bambera on her hands and knees, shaking debris from her hair. Standing behind her were half a dozen soldiers, with machine guns.

They weren't his men. They were Provisional Government troops.

The hatchway dilated closed, and Xznaal stepped from the lift platform into the main hold. He had spent a week in the Tower, with its crude human attempts to replicate the temperature and humidity of Mars. The genuine Martian atmosphere tasted odd: too dry, not rich enough. It was dark here, dull Martian lighting simulating the conditions of his native world, and also the paucity of its energy reserves. All around were silos and cylinders full of raw materials brought from refineries and mines the length and breadth of this land. With the wealth of the Earth he could have rebuilt the Argyre. The diseases that racked the bodies and minds of his people would have been cured, there would have been food and fuel for all. He pictured Mars how it might have been: dry fountains running with water again, the zoos and parks teeming with life.

The ceiling above him clattered. The hold of the Martian ship was vast, large enough to contain the plunder from an entire military campaign. The pressurised vessel took up the entire roofspace. The Red Death was inside, impatient to start its work, possessed of an overwhelming urge to be released. Xznaal listened to the glorious sound, imagining the moment when he would pull the lever that freed the gas, the action that would destroy all human life. First he would destroy the Doctor.

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He realised that the warship's cannons had been silent since he had stepped aboard.

'Gunnery officer, why have you stopped firing?' he barked into the air.

Something darted outside the chamber, behind the glass door. It was impossible to see it clearly. The door retracted.

Standing framed in the doorway, bathed in red light, was the Doctor. He resembled a human male, with a long, shaggy mane of fur. According to all the legends, the Time Lords were able to select their physical frame. Why did the Doctor wear such a body, when he could choose the most magnificent armour, or a form that glittered or shone like gemstones?

'Well, it might be something to do with this.' The Doctor tossed over a crystalline ball. Xznaal caught it, seeing that there was a delicate mechanism at the globe's core. It took the Martian a few seconds to identify the device as the main processor of the gunnery computer. The Gallifreyan's face was twisted so that his teeth were bared. Vrgnur was behind him. But Xznaal's scientist was not the Doctor's captor, rather his stance resembled that of a bodyguard.

The Martian Lord drew in a deep breath. 'Vrgnur, what is the meaning of this treachery?'

In his paw, the Doctor was holding a small holocamera, the device he had used to project his image. He put that device in the pouch of his robe as he began walking the length of the room over to Xznaal. Inside its storage vessel, the Red Death began scattering around, excited by the new arrival. Xznaal could hear it scratching and clawing at the walls of its prison.

The Doctor glanced up the storage tank lining the ceiling before brandishing a small codex. 'I've made some calculations.' He opened up the cover and began leafing through the pages of handwritten notes. 'I even got your scientist here to check my working.'

'And what are your conclusions?' Xznaal growled.

Vrgnur stepped forwards. 'Lord Xznaal, the Doctor is a scientist of great skill. His calculations confirm the results of the tests that I conducted on soil and water samples from Adisham. They show that the Red Death hunts all Terran DNA, not just that of the humans.'

Xznaal grunted his satisfaction.

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'If we were to release enough of the Red Death to wipe out the human race, it would eradicate the entire Terran biosphere,' Vrgnur concluded.

'The weapon is more effective than first we thought. Excellent. Shall we test your hypothesis?' He reached for the release control.

The Doctor whirled to face the Martian Lord, his arms flailing. 'Once it has finished feeding, Earth will be a barren rock, without even the smallest bacteria in the soil or microbe in the air. The Death will have consumed even itself.'

'I care little for life on Earth.' Xznaal hissed, baring fangs glistening with saliva.

'You've lost control of the Earth, so you destroy it?' the Doctor shouted. 'That's the behaviour of the playground, not the parade ground. You're not a warrior, Xznaal, you're a spoilt child.'

The Martian's claw snatched the release control.

The man in front of Lethbridge-Stewart was surely too young to have been a real general, despite the uniform. There were six soldiers with him, eager young types.

'I am General Maybury-Hill, commanding officer of the government security forces,' he announced. 'I offer you the unconditional surrender of myself and all my men.'

The general handed over his machine gun. The Brigadier rubbed his moustache. 'Accepted,' he said finally.

'I will, of course, take full responsibility for my actions and those under my command. We will place ourselves under - '

Lethbridge-Stewart held up his hand. 'With the greatest respect, General, you will do no such thing. What you and your men will do is open the gates of the Byward and Middle Tower and you will do it in the next thirty seconds. Step to it!'

Maybury-Hill saluted and hurried away to find a walkie-talkie.

Bambera watched him go. 'Technically, sir, he does outrank you.'

The Brigadier pulled the bolt on the machine gun he had been handed. 'Technically, Winifred, I'm retired.'

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'No,' Vrgnur called, lifting his arm to block Xznaal's.

The Martian Lord was stronger than his scientist. Xznaal brushed him aside. Vrgnur responded by raising his claw and firing at his Lord.

The Doctor shoved into Vrgnur, barely budging the Martian, but throwing off his aim. The energy bolt struck the floor, blowing open a large hole. Bare electrical wire was exposed, and began sparking.

'This isn't the way,' he shouted, turning to Xznaal, ready to talk to him. The Martian Lord's claw was raised, aiming his sonic disruptor squarely at them. The Doctor threw himself down to the deck as Xznaal fired. A glob of sonic energy streaked over him, slammed into the wall, shattering a chrome pipe. A stream of liquid gushed out, catching Vrgnur on the shoulder. Instinctively, the scientist turned, and the fluid was all over his face and torso. With horror, the Doctor realised that the cylinder was full of liquid nitrogen.

Vrgnur's carapace was creaking. A crack had appeared. His legs and arms were untouched by the liquid, but they gave way. With each movement, a new gash was being rent in the Ice Warrior's armour. The Martian howled a scream, a terrible, almost electronic, sound. His final act was to raise his own claw, to aim it at his Lord.

'No, Vrgnur!' the Doctor called, but it was too late.

The sonic energy ran up the frozen chitin of the Martian's arm, and the spiky armour burst open one segment after the other. The Doctor watched with horrified fascination. The molecular structure of the armour had become brittle, almost crystalline as a result of the freezing process. Vrgnur lurched, his Martian constitution keeping him alive even as the liquid nitrogen and sonic reaction reached his vital organs. He was gasping for breath, but each mouthful of air burst open the solidifying mazelike structures of his lungs.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes, trying to think of just one way that he could help the scientist. But there was nothing he could do. Vrgnur crashed over like a fallen tree. For a moment his remaining arm twitched, the claw clasping and unclasping. Around him, the liquid nitrogen was evaporating into patches of white mist.

Xznaal and the Doctor stood over the corpse, watching each other warily.

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Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield

The Brigadier hurried across Tower Green towards me. He had a machine gun slung over his soldier, and a squad of UNIT men behind him.

'Xznaal's going to release the gas once the warship is ten kilometres up. The Doctor's on-board.' I explained.

'Yes I know.'

'T minus one minute,' Bambera said. 'If you're going to abort the air-strike, you'll have to do it now.'

The Brigadier peered up at the ship. 'It's stopped firing.'

I brightened. 'The Doctor must be in control up there. Call off the attack.'

Lethbridge-Stewart nodded slowly. 'I think you're right.' He unclipped his radio. 'Greyhound to Eagle. Hold your fire. Await further orders.'

End of extract

The Doctor was looking up at the vast metal tank again, clearly in awe. The vast tank above him clattered.

'Lord Xznaal,' the intercom barked, 'we have reached the optimum altitude for dispersion.'

Xznaal maintained his position at the release controls, but he didn't pull the lever, not yet. Instead he stabbed at the control that opened the inspection hatches. The metal panels rolled back, revealing the Red Death. It boiled and bubbled like a giant kettle or a witch's cauldron. Eyes and fangs were forming in there, barbed limbs and spines the size of telegraph poles. It hissed and popped and wheezed. It growled and snarled and grunted. Limbs and appendages sprouted and withered as it tried and failed to find a break in the vessel that kept it contained.

The Doctor was standing alongside him.

'It is a thing of beauty,' Xznaal shouted over the din. 'Does it scare you?'

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The Doctor turned to the Martian, and without saying a word he stretched out his paw and held it up against the glass. For the first time, the Red Death withdrew, frightened of what it had discovered.

'I've gazed into the abyss already, Xznaal, and the abyss gazed into me. It fled from what it saw. Monsters who fight with me should take care.'

Xznaal lurched at him, allowing the Doctor plenty of time to pull back. Xznaal swiped again, an inch from the Doctor's face this time. The Martian wheezed with pleasure, his jaws opening wide.

'You have lost, Time Lord. This precious Earth will die, all the human animals will die.'

'No,' The Doctor replied simply.

In a lesser lifeform it would be stupidity, but here it was the legendary Time Lord arrogance. Before the Doctor died, he would have to be taught humility. Xznaal opened his claws and began to advance. The Doctor stood his ground as the Martian loomed over him, his tiny form framed by the writhing mass of the Red Death above him. Xznaal found it apt that a creature as brave as the Doctor would meet his fate at the claws of one as noble as himself.

He reached out, placing a pincer delicately around either side of the Doctor's neck. The Doctor lifted his head slightly to accommodate the vast claw. And then Xznaal yanked the Time Lord ten feet into the air, slamming his head against the plate glass of the inspection hatch. The cloud shied away at first, but was soon beginning to gain in confidence. Tentatively, a tendril of red vapour inched towards the glass.

'Will you stop me?' Xznaal roared disdainfully.

The Doctor's squashy human face was pressed tight to the glass. He struggled to draw breath. 'No. I'm just a distraction. Something to keep you occupied.'

The intercom began barking. 'My Lord, a flock of human aerocraft are approaching. They are heavily armed and on a direct intercept course.'

A hologlobe materialised in front of Xznaal. He released his grip on the Doctor to study the display. There were three attack groups, all approaching from the west.

'Without its sonic cannons, this warship is a sitting duck, Xznaal,' the Doctor said, rubbing his throat.

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The radio crackled. 'This is Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, commanding officer of the British forces to the Martian vessel. I have just received the unconditional surrender of the Provisional Government. Your occupation of our territory is over. I give you three minutes to withdraw your forces from British airspace or to signal your surrender. Lethbridge-Stewart out.'

Xznaal peered deep into the hologlobe. 'These Earth soldiers are weak,' he said, giving a great gurgling laugh. 'They have the chance to destroy me, yet they give me time enough to wipe them out. The Red Death will cleanse the Earth of human filth. It will feast on them, their women and their primate offspring. This vast green world will be scoured clean, its oceans and skies will be emptied. Humanity will die.'

He turned to face the Doctor, and found himself staring into the lens of a holocamera.

'You should never underestimate the power of public opinion,' the Doctor smiled, lowering the camera. 'Congratulations, King Xznaal, I think you've just made your abdication speech.'

The giant hologram faded from the skies. All around, there was silence. The crowd were holding their breath.

'Commit,' said Lethbridge-Stewart.

There was a deep rumbling explosion, far away. Then another, much nearer. Within seconds it had become a sustained assault, salvo after salvo hitting home. The warship might not have forcefields, but the armour-plating was several metres thick in places. Unless the RAF were very lucky, the first wave of the attack would weaken the superstructure of the warship rather than hit anything more vulnerable, like a power cable or the magnetic engines.

Here in the hold they were sheltered from the worst of the bombardment, but the lighting was flickering and the whole ship was lurching from one side to another. The intercom was crackling. However much of a pounding the warship took, Xznaal's men wouldn't move it without an express order from their Lord.

Xznaal had disappeared into the shadows. The Doctor peered into the gloom. He was sure that the Martian Lord wouldn't leave the Dispersion Chamber. Above him, the Red Death was straining inside its tank. The Doctor bounded over to the release controls, slipping the sonic screwdriver from his pocket.

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'It's finished, Xznaal,' he shouted over the noise of another explosion. An adjustment to the sonic screwdriver made it into a welding tool. A couple of quick bursts from that, and the lever was jammed so tightly that not even Martian strength would be able to move it.

The ship had stopped rocking. The first wave of the attack must be over, and there would be a brief respite for the warship as the Harriers arced around at not-quite-supersonic speeds ready to attack again.

Suddenly Xznaal was in front of him, emerging from a column of choking black smoke and filling his field of vision. 'If I die, you will die,' he bellowed.

'If you die, the Earth will live,' the Doctor said, standing his ground. 'I've died many times before, Xznaal, and death doesn't scare me.'

It was getting hotter. There was fire behind the glass door that led into the rest of the ship. Hot gases would be swirling around the ship, melting plastics and the softer metals like cast iron. The light from the flames was pouring into the Dispersion Chamber, and soon the flames themselves would be in here.

Above him, the Red Death continued to rage.

Xznaal brought a claw up, sweeping the Doctor from his path and charging towards the release controls. The Martian tugged at the lever, but it didn't move. He tried again, and it came away in his claw.

The Doctor took a step back. 'You are beaten.'

Xznaal turned, still defiant. 'I can still make my mark on history, Doctor,' he roared. 'As the man who killed you.'

The Martian was holding a burning torch, a piece of wreckage from a damaged section of floor. The firelight danced over the landscape of the Martian's face, throwing its rifts and valleys into sharp contrast. A sweep from the torch and the Doctor stumbled, struggling to retain his balance. He was pinned against the wall now.

Xznaal tossed the torch aside, reached over him and yanked off one of the stainless steel gas cylinders bolted to the bulkhead. Xznaal swung it down without effort, angling it at the Doctor.

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'You saw what the liquid nitrogen did to Vrgnur,' Xznaal rasped. 'Imagine the effect it would have on soft Gallifreyan flesh.'

The Doctor had no time to do anything but wince as Xznaal tugged at the valve. A jet of colourless gas spurted out, streaming over his cheek. The Doctor opened his eye and turned back to Xznaal.

'Nothing's going right for you today, is it?'

Xznaal hurled the canister at him with an exasperated grunt. The Doctor had already dived out of the way. He bent down to examine the cylinder as it rolled over to him, shutting off the valve to prevent any more gas from escaping. Xznaal loomed over him, hissing.

The Doctor held up the cylinder so that Xznaal could see it. 'Helium,' he called up at the monolith. 'An inert gas. Harmless, especially to a Time Lord with a respiratory bypass system. And now I have the satisfaction of knowing that when you utter your last words, they'll be squeaky ones.'

'Your last words will be lost to the winds, Time Lord,' Xznaal cheeped. He pointed one claw at the floor, resting the other on a vast red lever.

The Doctor looked down and realised that his feet were planted on the edge of the iris hatch.

Xznaal grabbed the lever and pulled.

The hatch dilated open and the wind whipped up from the gaping hole behind the Doctor lifting the tails of his frock coat. The Doctor steadied his feet, balancing right on the lip of the opening. He glanced back over his shoulder. Debris was pouring through the hole and out over London.

'That's a terrific view,' the Doctor observed, turning back.

Xznaal grabbed the Doctor's throat, yanking him off his feet and swinging him over the hole. The Doctor's legs pedalled in thin air, and he tried to keep control of his breathing.

The Doctor was still gripping the gas cylinder. He brought it down on the Ice Warrior's shoulder, and again. He only succeeded in denting the cylinder, which slipped from his grip.

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There was an explosion far behind them, a great reverberation that ran the full length of the ship. The warship lurched. Another explosion. Another. These weren't missile strikes: the magnetic engines were in chain reaction now.

'Goodbye,' the Doctor said softly.

Xznaal said nothing, he simply released his grip.

The Doctor's hands tried to shoot forwards, to grab onto the edge of the hatchway, but the gas cylinder was in the way. With all his weight tugging at it, the canister began rolling inexorably towards the edge. Wide-eyed, the Doctor tried to scrabble over it, a movement which ended abruptly as he found himself outside.

The underside of the Martian ship stretched above him, dark, spiky metal as far as even his eyes could see. The only break was the circular hatch he had just fallen through, which was diminishing with every second. The wind was whipping around him, drowning out the sound of the ship tearing itself apart.

Xznaal was leaning over, his claws clenched in triumph. He was rumbling with laughter. The fire came only moments later, lapping around the Martian, surging over his vast frame and obliterating him. He died satisfied that he had killed a Time Lord, that his people had been avenged.

Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield

The Provisional Government forces had been rounded up. Eve Waugh and Alan were filing a report in front of the White Tower. The Brigadier and I were up in the Lanthorn Tower, peering through binoculars at the Martian warship. Even at an altitude of ten kilometres it filled my viewfinder.

It shook again.

'What's going on up there?' I asked. The vapour trails of the RAF planes were visible, but not the planes themselves, they were too small.

'The air strikes are really hitting home,' the Brigadier said enthusiastically. 'That warship really is a marvel, though. It must be solid metal in places. How do you think the Doctor will escape?'

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I considered my answer for a couple of seconds. 'The magnetic platform won't be reliable - it depends on power from the warship. By now, he's probably destroyed the gas and he'll be making his way to the shuttle bay.'

'And that's in that compartment towards the front, isn't it? So, we watch out for movement along - '

The warship exploded.

'My God,' the Brigadier said softly. 'Not again.'

All around us, people were cheering. The shouts and whoops almost drowned out the rumbling, rolling sound of the explosion as it reached ground level.

'He ... he might have survived,' I said.

'He might have,' the Brigadier said gently. 'Professor Summerfield ... Benny. The important thing is that he beat the Martians. Thanks to him the entire human race has been saved.'

The Brigadier was trying to convince himself as much as persuade me. He was the one who had ordered the air strike, and he'd been the Doctor's friend a great deal longer than I had.

'Yes,' I said, just wanting to cling to something that was certain. 'At least it was quick.'

The Brigadier shifted on his feet. I only found out a few years ago why - he must have known that when a pilot or astronaut dies in a fire or an explosion it's not a quick clean death. A fighter pilot can expect to live a full five to ten seconds as his aircraft explodes around him. It's as bad, apparently, for those who have to listen to the black box voice recorders afterwards.

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I looked up, but the Martian ship had been atomised, the Harriers had returned to their base. The only thing up there was a cloud of black smoke, criss-crossed with white jet trails, and even that was begin to disperse.

Nothing had escaped. No Ice Warriors, no sonic cannons, no Red Death. Nothing.

End of extract

The Doctor assessed the situation. There was good news and bad news. Taking the negative first: the ground was nearly ten thousand metres away, straight down. On the plus side, it was getting closer. Through the wispy clouds London was a dark grey expanse, broken up by great square patches of green and the grey squiggle of the Thames. It was so quiet. The air rushing past him was so thin that it hadn't the strength to carry sound -

Only one way out. He turned to Grace.

'Not afraid of heights are you?'

'Yeah!'

'So am I!'

In an instant he brought his body under control: slowing his hearts rate, regulating the adrenaline flow. The cold, the shock, the thin air, the friction might have been enough to kill a human, but were mere technicalities to a Time Lord. He increased the rate of his mental activity, and attempted to dedicate it all to one question. But his life was flashing in front of him, random memories and emotions. That hadn't happened in Adisham. Was that a bad sign? It was a short life, especially compared with some of his other -

'How do we get down?'

He turned to Benny, a sad smile on his face. 'Ask me again in a week's time.'

He would fall at roughly thirty metres a second, allowing for wind resistance and updraft. He would soon reach terminal velocity. He had about five and a half minutes to solve the problem using only the materials at hand.

His usual assortment of junk: a cricket ball, an elephant feather, a bag of kola nuts, a big ball of string, a piece of the True Cross, even a dog whistle.

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Of course! The Flying Elephants of Saltaris III. Their wings were soaked in isocryte, the amazing anti-gravity material that -

He handed everything but the string to Benny.

The Doctor scowled.

That struck a chord in his memory.

'Curtain rings,' Bernice scowled.

'They might be important. Or they could come in useful.'

He flipped himself over onto his back, bending his knees slightly. The universe rotated until the Martian ship was directly above him. The fuselage was fragmenting, lit from within. The beams and vaults that gave the hull its strength were visible, like an X-ray. The skin of the hull was warping and melting under the intense heat. The fins atomised, streams of fuel streaking out across the afternoon sky. The Doctor hardly noticed.

They had stopped off at Mrs Darling's shop to buy some milk and bin bags.

Every Martian in the ship was dead, the Doctor realised. All their weapons and personal possessions had gone. The Martian Invasion was over, the Earth and every human, every living thing on it had been saved. He might die, but five billion humans, twenty five billion trees, ten trillion insects and twelve hundred pandas were going to live. It was a simple transaction: one life for many.

There wasn't time for this. He had to concentrate on -

Helium.

And the Doctor realised that with five minutes and eight seconds to go, the chords in his memory had suddenly become a symphony.

The Doctor let go of the cylinder of helium, which continued to fall at the same velocity as him. He took the string for his pocket and tied one end to his left wrist. He retrieved the packet of curtain rings, biting it open with his teeth, careful not to spill any. He did a little mental arithmetic and threaded forty eight of them along the string, discarding the rest.

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That took twenty two seconds. He'd fallen a little under a mile by now, less than a sixth of the total distance.

Now for the difficult part.

The Doctor tugged the roll of bin bags out of his pockets, unwound the first one, careful not to open it up. He drew the open side of the bag through the first curtain ring, creating a narrow aperture. The process had taken him a little under two seconds. He repeated it forty seven times, until all the bags were whipping up and down on the line like a row of bunting.

He'd been falling for two minutes. He was still well over five and a half kilometres above London. When he had started working, the clouds he had been falling through were the rounded cirrocumulus clouds - the ones that looked like fish skin from the ground. Now they were the larger altocumulus variety. The air was getting warmer and thicker as he hit the first hint of convection currents rising from the city.

The Doctor let go of the string and reached over for the helium canister. Calmly, he plucked it from the air and slotted the nozzle into the first big bag. A quick burst of the gas inflated it. Imperceptibly, the Doctor slowed down.

Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield

'Professor Summerfield,' a lad said gently. It wasn't one of the soldiers, it was the chap who ran the Internet Cafe.

'I won't be long. He ... he might have had a parachute or something.'

I kept my binoculars fixed upwards, but I could imagine his expression.

'The medics have arrived if you need one. The Brigadier's trying to rustle up some tea and coffee. My name's Doug, by the way. I'm sorry to hear about your friend.'

I looked away for the first time. Around me, Tower Green was full of ambulances and heavy army trucks. Outside, the crowd were being tended to by an army of paramedics and policemen. A great cluster of Provisional Government men were sitting in a circle, their weapons taken away from them. A couple of the UNIT men were taking their names and checking if they needed food or medicine. All around, people were cheering and celebrating - I could hear a riverboat honking cheerfully, and the bells of all the cathedrals and churches were ringing. The whole country would be like this - street parties, crowded pubs and city squares. Everyone cheering, everyone rejoicing.

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And I felt dead inside, because the one man who deserved to be here wasn't.

I turned my binoculars back to the sky.

Two hundred metres up was a mass of black. Not a parachute or a hot air balloon, but something between the two. It was drifting down. Underneath it all was a man wearing a flowing bottle-green velvet coat, baggy tan trousers and a grin. With his free hand he waved down at me.

The balloons had slowed the Doctor down, but he was still travelling too fast. I tried to shout a warning to him, but he was still too high to hear. The shouts alerted Lethbridge-Stewart and the others, though. Tower Green began to buzz with excitement. Everyone was pointing up, gasping, some were even laughing.

Alan had swung his camera up, and was tracking the Doctor down as he fell.

'Do you really think those bin bags can support his weight?' Doug was asking. 'I reckon a few techos on the Net might argue with that. I like his style, though.'

I turned back to the sky. Barely clearing the walls now, the Doctor was clambering up, over the balloons. It was tricky going, but he reached the top of the pile just as the apparatus reached the ground. Now they acted like a cushion or a safety mat.

The Doctor and his improvised parachute crashed into the ground mere feet from me, bouncing slightly. As he tumbled along, his limbs surfaced and disappeared back into the mass of black plastic. As he rolled to a halt, he had reached the top of the bags.

I ran over, closely followed by Doug, the Brigadier, Lex Christian and Eve. The Doctor was lying on the pile of balloons, perfectly still. His eyes were closed, his head was bent back.

He wasn't moving.

'Doctor!' Doug shouted.

'Doctor,' Eve called over to the paramedics.

'Doctor,' the Brigadier called, clearly concerned.

I bent over him. 'Doctor?'

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His pale blue eyes fluttered open and he pulled himself upright.

'Hello Bernice,' the Doctor beamed.

As he clambered off the crash-mat he had improvised, the bin bags began drifting away, up into the bright spring sky. He turned, watching them float over the walls of the Tower and off along the Thames - upstream, towards Tower Bridge. The Doctor plucked a cat hair from his lapel and grinned.

'I didn't think I'd see you again,' I told him. 'I thought you'd gone forever.'

'You of all people should have had a little more faith, Benny. I'm not ready to die yet,' the Doctor declared. 'In fact, I've never felt better.'

I opened my mouth but couldn't think of anything else to say. I hugged him, the Brigadier was slapping him on the back. All around us, the whole of London was cheering.

The Doctor was alive, the entire human race had been saved. All was well with the world.

End of extract