He winced. ‘No, sorry… I suppose I’ve ruined your Christmas.’
‘Never off duty,’ said Harriet, and Llewellyn could well believe it; he was glad he’d voted for her. ‘Now, we’ve put out a cover story. Alex has been handling it.’
The young man with the headset in the corner stepped forward and indicated the monitor. ‘We’ve said it was a hoax. Some sort of mask or prosthetics. Students hijacking the signal, that kind of thing.’
‘Alex is my right-hand man,’ explained Harriet. ‘I’m not used to having a right-hand man. I quite like it, though.’
‘I quite like it myself,’ said Alex, smiling.
‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance it was a hoax?’ said Llewellyn.
‘That would be nice,’ said Harriet. ‘Then we could all go home. But there was an incident, this afternoon, in Central London, you might have heard about it?’
‘Yes, something to do with a brass band? And a freak storm?’
‘Another one of our stories,’ sniffed Harriet. ‘Maybe not the best, most of the staff’s on holiday.’
‘Then what was it?’
‘Some sort of… skirmish. I don’t suppose anyone’s offered you a coffee?’
‘Um, no.’
To Daniel’s astonishment, the Prime Minister of Great Britain started to make him a coffee from the filter machine in the corner.
‘Milk?’
‘Yes, thanks, just milk.’ Llewellyn didn’t take milk at all, but he was terribly flustered.
Harriet brought it over. ‘Alex, can I get you a cup?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ said Alex, rather more nonchalant. He was obviously used to such attention.
‘My grandfather,’ Harriet announced abruptly, handing Llewellyn the mug, ‘was a bit of a wild card. Spent quite a few years in Venezuela, tried to buy a gold mine, lost every penny.
‘But he would tell us all sorts of stories. Adventures. Tales of rebel factions, coming down from the mountains and raiding the townships. He always knew when a raid was being planned, because of the skirmishes.’
She took a step closer, her voice low. ‘In the days before an assault there would be, just, little incidents, small scale, thefts and looting. Opportunists, making the most of it, before the proper attack.
‘And it’s the same with aliens visiting this planet. We get small incidents at first, suggesting something bigger is approaching.’
Llewellyn stared at his coffee, trying not to overreact.
‘You seem to be talking about aliens as a matter of fact.’
Harriet Jones smiled rather wickedly in a way that made her look years younger.
‘There’s an Act of Parliament banning my autobiography.’
Major Blake cleared his throat, looking serious. ‘Prime Minister?’
‘I’m with you.’ Harriet left with him, and beckoned Llewellyn to follow.
Back in the basement, he looked around in wonder. A whole new world … why on Earth were they not working on the space programme together? The things they could do! He couldn’t wait to tell Matt and Duerte… if permitted, of course.
It struck him that Luanne probably knew all this already. It struck him slightly more slowly that the reason they’d thought Luanne never did anything was that she wasn’t actually working for them at all, and he winced a little at his naivety. But there wasn’t time to think about that now; they were headed into another space, filled with expensive computer equipment and staff deep in concentration. A young woman looked up as they approached.
Sally Jacobs, the young woman at the desk, had been surprised where she’d ended up. Of course the army didn’t give you much say. And London was better than, say, Afghanistan. Although she would have quite liked Belize. Even so, having to tell people her job was more or less looking after Beefeaters was a little demeaning.
Still. She got on pretty well with Luanne, her colleague at Guinevere One. It was going to be pretty difficult to explain how she was missing Christmas again, though. She thought Rob was probably coming to the end of his tether with her. Well, she’d deal with that in the New Year, because…
She was surprised to see the Prime Minister turn up without security in advance; and surprised to see how tall Daniel Llewellyn was. He looked much better than his file picture, she found herself thinking… Then She collected herself, and jumped up, trying to look as professional as possible. This was big, she thought to herself. This wasn’t Beefeaters.
Sally pasted on a small smile as she stood up for the Prime Minister and her team. Major Blake nodded towards her. He was the best boss she’d ever had, by miles.
‘Miss Jacobs can explain.’
Sally stepped forward, but before she could begin Harriet put out her hand.
‘We haven’t met. Harriet Jones, Prime Minister.’
That would have normally put Sally off her stride, but she’d been very well briefed as to how modest Harriet was.
‘Yes, I know who you are.’ Sally wished her mum could see her now. She took a deep breath and spoke slowly. It was hard to remember in UNIT sometimes that there were people out there—even people like Daniel Llewellyn, working in space exploration—who didn’t know what was out there; who hadn’t even imagined it. Speaking slowly usually helped. ‘So. It turns out, the transmission didn’t come from the surface of Mars.’
There was silence as they let this sink in.
‘Guinevere One was broadcasting from a point five thousand miles above the planet.’
‘In other words,’ added Major Blake, ‘that screaming alien has got a ship; and the probe is on board.’
Llewellyn blinked, astonished. ‘But, then they might not be from Mars itself. Maybe they’re not actual Martians.’
‘Of course they’re not,’ said Major Blake. ‘Martians look completely different. We think the ship was in flight and they just came across the probe.’
‘And they’re moving,’ added Sally, studying Llewellyn to see how he was taking this news for the first time. He was blinking rapidly; you could almost see his brain rearranging itself to this new reality. She remembered when she first found out. She’d been only 22. She had held it together for half an hour, then gone and burst into tears in the toilet. She made her voice as gentle and unthreatening as she could.
‘The ship’s still in flight now. We’ve got it on the Hubble Array.’
She pointed to the screen behind her. A dot could be seen on the radar. A moving dot. It was strange quite how ominous that tiny bleep could sound. Llewellyn gazed at it, hypnotised.
‘Moving in which direction?’ said Harriet quickly.
‘Towards us.’
‘How fast?’
‘Very fast.’
‘What was your name again?’
‘Sally.’
‘Thank you, Sally.’
Harriet looked very, very worried, as the blip continued to move across the radar screen.
9
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Rose could hear drunk lads singing in the distance as she crossed the concourse to the flat, carrying two plastic bags. A light blipped overhead and she looked up, terrified. But it was only an aeroplane, passing on its way.
Safely inside, Rose was glad to find that Jackie was still at the Doctor’s bedside. ‘Right then, let’s get him fixed. I went to the all-night chemist. Got every kind of medicine off the shelf.’
Rose emptied the bags: cough medicine, lotions and ointment.
‘We’ve got to try them all, dab a bit on him, see if he reacts—he said he needed something, maybe some sort of chemical. For all we know it’s one of these.’
‘I made a start,’ said Jackie proudly, holding up a bottle.
Rose squinted.
‘But that’s shampoo!’
‘Contains ZTP!’ said Jackie.
‘Rose!’ shouted Mickey from the other room. Rose got up reluctantly, gave her mum a stern look. ‘Just be sensible, OK?’
In the living room, Mickey was typing up a
storm on his laptop. The first time Rose had met Harriet Jones, in Downing Street when that Raxacoricofallapatorius business had kicked off, the Doctor had helped Mickey, a keen amateur hacker, by using his sonic screwdriver on the computer to speed it up and make everything a bit easier. Afterwards, he had completely forgotten to remove this ability. Mickey wasn’t complaining; he used it mostly to win eBay auctions but had never lost sight of its potential.
Which meant that, despite UNIT’s exceptional levels of international standard encryption security, thanks to Mickey’s Sony VAIO with 512mb of RAM, Mickey, Sally, Daniel Llewellyn, Major Thomas Blake and the Prime Minister of Great Britain were all watching exactly the same feed, staring at the same picture: the blip, travelling through space.
‘Rose! Take a look! I’ve got access to the military!’
‘The Doctor told you to wipe it!’ said Rose.
‘Yeah, yeah. But look, though, they’re tracking a spaceship. It’s big, it’s fast and it’s coming this way.’
‘Coming for what, though?’ said Rose, peering at the screen. ‘The Doctor?’
‘Dunno, but… it’s like with all that fish stuff. The big fish doesn’t even know the pilot fish exist. The big fish is just hungry. The big fish eats. So maybe it’s coming for all of us.’
‘How long till it gets here?’ said Rose, her insides chilled. The Doctor had to wake up. He had to.
‘It’s almost too fast to follow,’ said Mickey. ‘But not too long at this rate.’
There was a bleep, then some interference on the monitor.
‘Hold on.’ Mickey stared at the screen. ‘The ship—it’s transmitting.’
Harriet, Llewellyn and the team were staring at the big screen, in awe; the picture resolved, slowly through the pixels once again.
Harriet felt nervous, but slightly excited. This country was her responsibility now, and she was glad she wasn’t coming to a business like this fresh. Even so, she wished she knew where the Doctor was.
Llewellyn was utterly gripped; terrified and elated at the same time. One of the biggest disappointments in his life had come when he’d started studying physics and engineering, and realised the limitations on space travel made it very unlikely that his generation would ever encounter extraterrestrial intelligence. He’d hoped against hope that some day in his lifetime contact might be made, but he was not expecting it. So Llewellyn was not as apprehensive as the others; his awe was too overwhelming. He realised his mouth was hanging open, and that the girl, Sally, might have noticed it, so he shut it quickly and tried to convey a nonchalance he absolutely did not feel. About anything.
This time there were four aliens on the screen. Their bodies looked big, and bulky; a stranger outline than human, but swathed in red robes, and covered in what looked like pieces of bone. They had whips and swords around their waists like warriors, and the one at the front—the leader, presumably—was talking. Although it sounded more like snarling; like the growling of wolves.
‘GATZ TA KA TAAAAA!!!!’ screamed the voice. ‘KA SOO ME FADROC. KA SOO ME SYCORAX! KASH KACK PALHAA ME NO SO COVNA! BASSIC CODRAFEE PEL HUSTA! CODRAFEE MEL SO TOR!!!!’
‘Have you seen them before?’ Mickey was asking Rose back in the flat, but she shook her head in horror. ‘No!’
‘SO PEDRA CAY! SO PANDACK! SOO MASSAC REL BEECRO, COL CHACK CHII! SYCORA JAK! SYCORA TELPO! SYCORA FAA!!’
‘Translation software,’ ordered Major Blake at UNIT control, and Alex immediately moved towards the door.
‘Yes, sir.’
All of the aliens joined in with the figure on the screen, screaming furiously. ‘SYCORA JAK!! SYCORA TELPO! SYCORA FAAA!!!!’
Staring at the hacked UNIT feed, Rose couldn’t get her head around it.
‘I don’t understand what they’re saying,’ she said, in despair. ‘The TARDIS translates alien languages inside my head, all the time, wherever I am.’
‘So why isn’t it doing it now?’ asked Mickey.
‘I don’t know. Must be the Doctor. Like he’s part of the circuit, and he’s, he’s broken…’
Her face was desolate.
‘He’s not just sick… he’s gone.’
10
In the Bleak Midwinter
Major Blake and the Prime Minister found a corner in which to converse privately.
‘I’m getting demands from Washington, ma’am. The President’s insisting that he take control of the situation.’
Harriet Jones raised her eyebrows. ‘You can tell the President, and please use these exact words: He’s not my boss, and he’s certainly not turning this into a war.’
‘With respect, ma’am. For all your experience, you haven’t handled anything like this before.’
‘With respect, Major,’ said Harriet Jones. ‘Who has?’
She moved quickly towards Alex, who was busy with the translation software on his laptop; he was playing the alien message on a loop. It sounded even more threatening when repeated over and over.
‘What have we got?’
‘Nothing yet. Translating an alien language is like cracking a code: it’s going to take time.’
‘For all we know, that was a message of peace,’ said Major Blake. ‘How far off is this ship?’
‘About five hours,’ said Alex.
Harriet rubbed her forehead with her hands. Five hours. The countdown had already begun, it seemed. And they did not understand yet whether they were friend or foe. This was worse than her first Prime Minister’s Questions.
She thought about homes across the land; children overexcited—up already? Oh no, they were surely fast asleep, dreaming of sugar plums—it was the night before Christmas: but something was stirring.
And it was Harriet’s job to protect them; every one. And she didn’t have the faintest idea where to start, if Alex and the good people at UNIT—the cleverest they had; the cleverest anybody had—couldn’t crack the code.
She needed more tea. And oh my goodness, she had to call her mother; the poor love would be terrified.
Even now AMNN was reporting that NATO forces were on red alert.
Jackie was kneeling by the Doctor’s bed. ‘Come on sweetheart,’ she cooed. ‘What do you need?’
But the figure didn’t stir.
Mickey was listening to the transcript of the alien conversation, trying a few things, but getting absolutely nowhere. It was four o’clock in the morning. Christmas morning. Never mind Santa’s sleigh, here was a ship full of aliens on its way; did they come in heavenly peace, or to tear open the Earth like a present under the tree, and throw the wrapping away?
He thought about everyone he knew; Stevo’s kids from down the garage who couldn’t stop talking about the PlayStation they were going to get, whilst Stevo said of course they wouldn’t, they hadn’t behaved themselves, all the time smiling fondly, and Mickey knew he’d had it wrapped and hidden behind the tyres for three weeks.
On the television behind him, the newsreader said, seriously, ‘People are calling this… our longest night…’
What was the morning going to bring? He felt terrified and alone. He glanced around for Rose. She wasn’t there.
Rose had gone in to watch the Doctor who lay still as a carved knight on a tomb. Jackie had fallen asleep in the chair next to the bed, all the useless medicines scattered around her.
Rose looked at her watch: it was 5 a.m. now. And still no change.
Five miles north, Daniel Llewellyn sat on the stone steps of the embankment in front of the Tower of London, just at the base of the famous bridge. Dawn was breaking. It looked like being a perfect, blue-skied, winter’s day.
Daniel heard footsteps behind him; it was the UNIT staffer, Sally Jacobs. She smiled rather anxiously at him, and he made to stand up politely before she shooed him down again, then half-returned the grin.
‘Nothing yet?’
‘Nothing yet,’ she agreed, holding out a coffee.
‘I didn’t add any milk,’ she said.
‘Well. Well,
that’s kind,’ said Daniel, taking it as she moved to sit down on the step beside him. ‘So you’ve had us under surveillance?’
‘Yes, sorry. It does rather blight getting to know someone.’
He looked at her, and they smiled, nervously, at one another.
‘What do you think will happen?’ he said. ‘I mean, I’m guessing you’ve been through this kind of thing before.’
Sally blinked, not wanting to give away too much, nor to give false hope. Not that there was much about, since there was another fly in the ointment: UNIT control was trying to get in touch with their old ally, the Doctor (she had never met him, but she had heard an awful lot about him). So far, they didn’t appear to have had much luck.
Llewellyn noted her reticence immediately.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ve been telling people I’ve been working on washing machines for the last four years.’
She smiled at that and they shared a moment of understanding. He warmed his hands around the cup she’d brought him; she found she was twirling a lock of her hair round her fingertips. As soon as she realised she was doing it, she abruptly stopped. He noticed her stopping and blinked.
Sally jumped up. This was ridiculous. She moved towards the water, looking all around; shivering in the cold.
‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’ she said, just for something to say. The sun was slowly rising above London’s latest half-built skyscraper: a rocket-shaped structure that UNIT had ordered be nicknamed ‘the Gherkin’ in case people got any ideas of what they were planning to build inside it; above the gleaming spires of the Tower, bouncing off the sparkling Thames all the way down the bend of the river to Westminster.
All Llewellyn could see were the rays dancing off the gold of Sally’s hair. It was Christmas morning. It might, Llewellyn thought suddenly, be the last dawn he’d ever see. And yet, somehow, out here in the silence of an empty city, alone with a beautiful girl, he somehow wasn’t quite as scared as he might have been.
Rose was still standing in the doorframe, staring in. Mickey joined her. He felt washed out.
‘Hey.’
‘How are you getting on?’
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