The Doctor was still lying there, on his back in the bed, completely unconscious and absolutely oblivious to the commotion happening in the rest of the flat. Jackie was frantic. This was ridiculous.
Despite the urgency of the situation, Rose went towards him and knelt on the bed. ‘Doctor, wake up!’
Surely. Surely he’d hear her. Surely, if he was really the Doctor… She leaned over, found his sonic screwdriver in his old jacket pocket and put it in his hand, as the tree went on tearing its way relentlessly through the door.
‘I’m going to get killed by a Christmas tree!’ shrieked Jackie in fear, now cowering on the floor. She and Mickey had leapt back as the door gave way, and then the wardrobe shattered, and the tree began to spin through the wrecked doorway and into the room.
Rose didn’t even look round. She bent down and whispered into the Doctor’s ear two words:
‘Help me.’
Without warning, the slim figure sat bolt upright and pointed the sonic at the tree—which promptly exploded.
The razor-sharp branches hit the wall like giant darts of fir, one two inches from Jackie’s head. She turned to look at it, uncomprehendingly. Now the music and the screaming had stopped, it was suddenly very quiet in the room.
‘Remote control!’said the Doctor loudly, immediately awake and alert, and with a fierce expression on his face. ‘But who’s controlling it?’
7
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
The Doctor leapt out of bed, pulled on a dressing gown and ran out of the flat. Rose, Mickey and Jackie followed, trying not to look at the devastation.
Rose soon found that she desperately needed the cold, crisp fresh air. Down below, by the bins and the old car up on blocks that hadn’t been moved in living memory, stood the sinister figures of the three remaining Santas from the shopping plaza. One was holding a perfectly ordinary-looking remote control, and the strange metal masks turned to look up at them.
‘That’s them!’ said Mickey. ‘What are they?’
‘Shush,’ said Rose. She didn’t want to draw attention to them; the way their absolutely normal look had invaded their Christmas; her Christmas. And she wanted—needed—to pay attention to somebody else. She needed to see what this new Doctor was doing.
His angular face was cold, his gaze fixed on the Santas below. He raised the sonic as if it was a deadly weapon, gesticulated in a threatening way and the Santas began to back away, uncertainly. Then he aimed it straight at them, down in the chilly empty courtyard. Immediately, they started to glow blue, then, with a whoosh, teleported away.
Rose stared at the empty car park and thought she should feel less dread. But she didn’t. Not at all. She looked at the Doctor and her heart sank. She had thought that that might be it; that he would be better. But in fact he was leaning against the wall; sweating, clearly unwell. She darted to his side.
‘They’ve just gone!’ Mickey was saying. ‘What kind of rubbish were they? I mean, no offence, but they’re not much cop if a sonic screwdriver’s going to scare them off.’
‘Pilot fish,’ said the strange new Time Lord, inexplicably.
‘What?’ said Rose.
‘They were just… pilot fish…’ The Doctor collapsed again, gasping in pain.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ said Rose.
‘You woke me up too soon. I’m still regenerating. I’m bursting with energy.’
He took a sharp deep breath in, then exhaled, and once more the strange golden mist emerged from his mouth; floating, beautiful, incandescent; becoming one with the starry sky. They all watched it go.
‘You see? That’s it. The pilot fish could smell it a million miles away. So they eliminate the defence—that’s you lot—and they carry me off. They could run their batteries off me for a couple of—’
He collapsed in agony.
‘Oh!’ said Jackie. ‘Oh no!’
‘My head,’ said the Doctor, anguished. ‘I’m having… I’m having a neural implosion. I need…’
They tried to help him inside as he staggered.
‘What do you need?’ said Jackie.
‘I need—’
‘Say it. Tell me, tell me, tell me.’
But he couldn’t get the words out. ‘I need—’
‘Painkillers?’ offered Jackie.
‘I need—’
‘Do you need aspirin?’
‘I need—’
‘Codeine? Paracetamol? Oh, I don’t know, Pepto-bismol?’
‘I need—’
‘Liquid paraffin? Vitamic C? Vitamin D? Vitamin E?’
‘I need—’
‘Is it food? Something simple. Bowl of soup. A nice bowl of soup? Soup and a sandwich? Soup and a little ham sandwich?’
With a tremendous effort of will, the Doctor straightened up his head. ‘I need you to shut up!’
Jackie blinked and looked at Rose. ‘He hasn’t changed that much, has he?’
It was odd, Rose thought. Jackie seemed to have accepted without question what she herself could not manage.
The Doctor tried to stand, fighting the pain. ‘We haven’t got much time. If there’s pilot fish, then’—he withdrew his hand from his pocket in surprise—‘why is there an apple in my dressing gown?’
‘Oh, that’s Howard. Sorry.’
‘He keeps apples in his dressing gown?’
‘He gets hungry!’
‘What, he gets hungry in his sleep?’
‘Sometimes!’
Before the Doctor could comment further, he cried out as another huge wave of pain crashed through him, and he sagged to the ground. Rose knelt down with him.
‘Brain collapsing. The pilot fish. The pilot fish mean that something, something…’ He opened his eyes and stared directly at Rose.
‘Something… something is coming,’ he croaked.
And then he passed out.
Rose put the Doctor back to bed. He was worse. She knew he was worse, although she tried not to think about it. She stared at his face for a long time, and mopped his brow with a clean handkerchief. The strangest of things; everything about him had changed. The nose, which had been a boxer’s nose, was now aquiline; the brow not so creased with worry. All that hair. He was as different a man as could be. And yet, oddly, when he had spoken to her mum like that, of all things, she’d seen a glimpse of the person she had known. And then that glimpse was gone.
You strange, strange thing, she thought to herself. She wanted to stay a while, in the dark and the quiet of the bedroom. She took the stethoscope out again, listened; listened again. One of the heartbeats had fallen still. And outside, the pilot fish were circling…
Mickey had managed to fetch his laptop from his flat. He popped his head round the door, saw her face, didn’t want to continue, but knew he had to.
‘I found it.’
Rose nodded and sighed, not wanting to leave. But she got up and followed him into their sitting room. Jackie had done a pretty good tidying job already, considering.
Mickey sat down, plugging his computer into the phone socket.
‘Jackie, I’m using the phone line. Is that all right?’
‘Yeah, keep a count of it,’ said Rose’s mum from the kitchen.
‘Pilot fish,’ said Mickey. ‘I’ve seen them on telly, hold on, I’ll show you…’
He set about the computer. Jackie came through with a cup of tea for Rose.
‘Ooh, it’s midnight,’ she cooed. ‘Christmas Day! Any change?’
‘He’s worse. Just one heart beating,’ said Rose quietly, accepting the tea.
They turned their attention to the television. The reporter was standing looking excited in the studio in front of a large picture of the Guinevere rocket.
‘Well, someone’s happy, anyway,’ said Jackie.
There had been panic in the lab when Guinevere had blacked out on screen. The technicians had completely lost the picture; hadn’t a clue what had happened. They’d checked and rechecked the feed, but ha
d found absolutely nothing in the panic. Duerte’s head was in his hands. Matthew felt a little tearful. If all their work was to come to nothing or if something incredible was happening and they couldn’t get the cameras up…
Luanne was hastily putting together a press release—and briefing Number 10 on reasons they could give if they had to postpone—when suddenly, out of nowhere, the systems were online again. Everybody breathed a sigh of relief. Guinevere was where she was meant to be. Her cameras were out, it seemed, but that was all right; when the time came, they could land her remotely and the world would see something then. They really would. The situation was far from ideal, and events had given them all a fright, but it would make a great anecdote in times to come. Or, at least, so Matthew fervently hoped. Duerte kicked back his seat, stuck his feet on the desk and tried to pretend he’d never been remotely freaked out the entire time. It was a Go.
And now Daniel Llewellyn was on television again. Back at the lab they could have left before the blackout; now it was all hands on deck. But Matthew wasn’t sure they’d want to go home anyway. It was such a momentous pinnacle of years of work; it felt right that they should all be together, no matter how many frustrated spouses were dealing with overexcited children back at home.
Matthew called his mum and dad, who were staying up late to watch it, full of pride. Even Duerte’s family in Portugal had managed to tune in.
Llewellyn was, to say the least, a little uneasy about appearing on television. His throat was dry and he looked very very nervous, but was clearly doing his best.
‘Scientists in charge of Britain’s mission to Mars have re-established contact with the Guinevere One space probe,’ said the cheerful reporter. ‘They’re expecting the first transmission from the planet’s surface in the next few minutes.’
The picture cut to Llewellyn. ‘Yes, that’s right, we are. We’re back on schedule. We’ve received the signal from Guinevere One. The Mars landing would seem to be…’
His voice grew slightly more hesitant.
‘… an unqualified success.’
‘But is it true that you completely lost contact earlier tonight?’
‘Yes, we had a bit of a scare,’ said Llewellyn, with a forced smile. ‘Guinevere seemed to fall off the scope but it, it was just a blip. Only disappeared for a few seconds… she’s fine now, absolutely fine. We’re getting the first pictures transmitted live any minute now. I’d better get back to it. Thanks.’
Jackie sniffed. ‘Pictures of Mars, they’re all the same. Just rocks and dust. Nothing compared to what we’ve seen.’
Mickey had managed to get the dial-up connection working, and pulled up the website page with a picture of the little fish.
‘Here we go. Pilot fish: scavengers, like the Doctor said. Not much of a threat. They’re tiny. But the point is, the little fish swim alongside the big fish.’
‘Do you mean like sharks?’ said Rose.
‘Great big sharks. So, what the Doctor means is, now we’ve had them, the pilot fish, any time now we’re gonna get…’ He clicked onto a picture of a huge, black-eyed, emotionless shark, teeth on display.
A chill struck Rose’s heart. ‘Something is coming.’ That was the last thing the Doctor had said.
‘And here’s the image, coming through live …’ The television announcer sounded excited.
‘How close is the shark, then?’
‘There’s no way of telling, but the pilot fish don’t swim far from their daddy.’
‘So it’s close?’
‘… direct from the surface of Mars …’
Jackie wasn’t listening to Rose and Mickey. She was transfixed by the TV. Great broken-up blocky pictures were coming through; the reception was terrible.
Rose and Mickey looked up.
‘Funny sort of rocks,’ said Jackie.
‘The first photographs,’ intoned the news reader, ‘from the surface of the planet …’
‘That’s not rocks,’ said Rose in horror, as the image resolved, resolved again, became clearer and clearer, finally showing itself to be—a face.
A frozen image of a face staring into camera, but like no face Rose had ever seen: bright red eyes and a bright red mouth; a goat-shaped skull, but made of jagged, broken bones; a fierce intelligence burning into the camera; long, hideous teeth, as sharp as those of the shark on Mickey’s laptop. The something, whatever it was, wore red robes.
Rose moved towards the screen, fingers outstretched. Jackie and Mickey both kept staring at it. The alien face seemed to be frozen; and then suddenly the image moved, the red eyes flashed and it roared, and bared its huge teeth, straight down the lens of the camera.
8
I Saw Three Ships
All of the television channels had switched to rolling news immediately.
‘The face of an alien life form was transmitted live tonight—on BBC One,’ said the man on the BBC. On AMNN, Trinity Wells was talking about how the human race had been shown absolute proof that alien life existed. There wasn’t a channel that was not broadcasting the astonishing discovery.
A long line of sleek black cars sped through the night, arriving in front of the Tower of London. Following the horrifying video, Daniel Llewellyn had been summonsed and he was very, very concerned. This wasn’t… Well.
This hadn’t been expected at all.
A scientist all his life, part of him couldn’t help but be incredibly excited by the discovery. Oh sure, there’d been rumours; whispers. But a real, undeniable alien! And he was right in the heart of the action!
He took a deep breath. Stay calm, Llewellyn, he told himself. Stay calm.
A secret service officer opened the door for him, and he was greeted by a tall, serious-looking army officer leading a troop of Red Berets.
‘This way, sir,’ said the man, who appeared to be in charge, and Daniel Llewellyn entered the great citadel; the edifice that had protected Britain for hundreds of years, and which was now the base for one of the most ambitious organisations the world had ever known: UNIT.
UNIT, the Unified Intelligence Task Force, was an internationally funded covert military operation set up after the Second World War both to oppose alien threats to humanity and to stop those threats from becoming public knowledge and causing mass panic. It functioned all over the world, and its UK base had recently been moved to one of the most secure citadels on Earth—the Tower of London. Or rather, nine storeys beneath the Tower of London.
If you have ever taken a London Underground train, had to change at Bank station, and wondered why it is such an infernal mess, be assured there’s a good reason. Much of the Tube had to be rerouted to accommodate the vast secret network of workshops and vaults fanning out from far below Tower Hill. If you are ever feeling brave, try opening one of the Monument tunnel doors and see how long it takes the deceptively sleepy-looking London Underground guard to wrestle you to the ground.
The Doctor had worked with UNIT often, and was a close friend of its now-retired head, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Major Blake, who had greeted Llewellyn, was the current ranking officer: a good man with a serious mind.
But the Doctor had hated the move to Tower Hill. It never failed to remind him of a night, long ago. A freezing, starlit London dark lit only by torches, when he had rowed, in silence, a young, beautiful, utterly terrified woman, her skin fair as milk, trembling in anguish, through Traitor’s Gate.
He’d had a plan to save her. It had failed, and she had never seen the sun rise beyond the Tower’s walls again, and he could never see the building without hearing the plashing of his oars in the dark water; the muted sobbing; the deathly rattle of the portcullis chains.
Daniel Llewellyn had never heard of UNIT. But he knew one thing: this was the most astonishing thing that had ever happened to him or, in his opinion, any Lampeter graduate.
And now, regardless of the grave task that lay ahead of him—he expected, even as his heart sank to his boots, that important scary people were going to want a
nswers from him that he simply didn’t have—he wanted more time, to take in every detail of his clandestine journey; to appreciate the mechanics behind the astonishing lift that silently whisked them down from an unnoticed corridor behind the gift shop. It plummeted at a rate of knots then slid open upon a vast room marked Basement Level 11. Daniel found himself plunged into a vast centre of activity, of important-looking people rushing about, and an atmosphere of very serious focus.
‘You’ve got better facilities than us!’ he said at last. ‘I spend all that time asking for funds for space exploration and you’ve built your own Mission Control! How long’s all this been here?’
Major Blake barely glanced at him.
‘I’m sorry, all information is on a need-to-know basis.’
‘Have you been monitoring us?’
‘Every step of the way.’
‘But… what for?’ asked Llewellyn.
‘Just in case,’ said Major Blake. ‘And, as it turns out, we had good reason. If you’d like to come through…’
Llewellyn followed him into the small room, still desperately looking around him.
He found himself in a dark office made entirely of glass panels, overlooking Mission Control. A number of monitors were running, all of them showing the alien roar on a loop.
Standing in the room was the Prime Minister.
Llewellyn felt like he’d fallen down a rabbit hole. Harriet Jones looked concerned, but fundamentally in control; her hair and suit were neat, her posture intense. She was smaller than she looked on television. There was another man in the room; young, with a headset attached to his ear.
‘Mr Llewellyn, ma’am.’
The PM, rather surprisingly, immediately took out her ID and showed it to him. ‘Harriet Jones. Prime Minister.’
Llewellyn was rather taken aback at that. ‘Oh. Well. Yes. I know who you are. I was just saying, quite a place you’ve got here. I wish you’d give my lot this much support.’
The Prime Minister fixed him with a glance. ‘Hardly the time to criticise me.’
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