The Doctor made a show of sniffing his fingers again. ‘That smell … I could barely place it, to begin with. But I think I recognise it now. It’s oil.’
‘Oil, Doctor?’ Jo asked innocently.
‘Very definitely. Crude oil, the kind that comes straight out of the sea. The only question is, how did it ever get in here?’
Dave Giles, luxury coach driver, flicked a cigarette butt through the open sidelight of his rakish red and white vehicle. He performed the action with a certain studied nonchalance, fancying himself as the sort of laconic character who featured in Spaghetti Westerns, the kind of man who seldom shaved, kept his hat drawn down low and never uttered a word of more than one syllable. That was the kind of bus driver Dave Giles was. A High Plains Drifter of the commercial vehicle world. A Pale Rider of day trips to Minehead and school outings to the West Midlands Safari Park. This illusion, fragile as it was, lasted exactly as long as it took Dave Giles to catch his reflection in the rear-view mirror. Not exactly Clint Eastwood. More Cliff Michelmore, if he was going to be honest.
But even this crushing realisation could not take the sparkle out of Dave Giles. He was having a good day. The bus was going well, they were making good time, and even the frequent interjections from Mrs Gambrel, stern organiser of the Women’s Institute daytrip to Scarborough, could not dampen his mood. She had stationed herself in the passenger seat immediately behind the driver’s position, the better to tilt forward at regular intervals, like one of those bobbing glass birds.
‘Are you sure this is the right way, Mr Giles?’ she asked for the nineteenth or twentieth time. ‘These roads do seem very narrow. If we’d stayed on the A road …’
‘Trust me, Mrs Gambrel. I know these roads inside out. We’ll be at le Chef Petit in two shakes of a donkey’s tail.’ And then I can buy another pack, a have a crafty fag or two, and your ladies can relieve their bulging bladders, Giles thought.
And he did know the way – sort of. He was fairly sure he’d taken these back roads on a school trip, a couple of years ago, and just as confident that he knew roughly where they’d come out. The key thing was that cement works in the distance. He recognised it from last time, a huddle of square grey and white buildings looming over the low countryside, like a collection of giant shoe boxes. It was the cement works, wasn’t it?
Not a power station, by any chance?
Actually, the more he looked at it, the more it began to look like a power station and less like a cement works. Dave Giles grimaced. Perhaps they should have stayed on the A roads after all.
‘Mr Giles, you’ve been promising us the fabled services for nearly an hour now. We are not trying to find Shangri-La, the lost kingdom of the Incas or the final resting place of King Arthur. We are merely searching for a roadside refreshment area with adequately hygienic toilet facilities. Some of my ladies are beginning to find it very difficult …’
But it was turning into his lucky day, obviously. Blocking the road ahead was a police panda car, turned side-on to obstruct both lanes of this narrow highway. Standing next to the car were five – five – police officers.
‘Oh dear,’ Dave Giles said, slowing the bus to a halt.
In fact, he couldn’t have been happier. He didn’t care why the police had closed the road, only that it saved him the bother of driving further and further into the unknown. A tree down, an accident, a crazed axe murderer around the next bend, it didn’t matter so long as it got Mrs Gambrel off his back. Better still, he’d be able to have a sly word with the police, find out where he’d taken a wrong turn. And then turn the bus around and get back on the right road with no one thinking it was his mistake.
‘Just a second, ladies,’ Giles said, putting the bus in neutral, engaging the brake and opening the power-operated door. ‘I’ll just have a word with the boys in blue, see what’s up.’ If he’d had a cowboy hat, that would have been the moment to jam it down and step out of the saloon, an Ennio Morricone tune playing in the background. He imagined wearing boots with those big cog-wheel spurs, rather than his current polished black slip-ons with ornamental gold buckles.
Leaving the bus chugging away, Giles walked over to the five policeman. It was strange the way they stood like that, all in a row in front of the car, like footballers awaiting a penalty shootout. One of them didn’t even look like a policeman. He looked more like a tramp, dressed in a policeman’s clothes which didn’t fit very well. Greasy grey hair came all the way down to his collar. Must be special branch.
‘Road’s blocked, is it, officers?’ Giles asked cheerily.
‘Where are you going?’ asked the only female policewoman in the line-up.
‘Scarborough, love.’
‘Your passengers?’ queried the oldest of the male policemen. ‘Have they reached maturity?’
Giles looked back at the bus. He could see the paisley-bloused Mrs Gambrel leaning over her seat to look through the front windscreen. ‘And then some.’
‘They are of able body and mind?’ asked the tramp. ‘They have no cognitive or motor impairments?’
‘Well, other than the odd dicky hip …’
‘They will suffice,’ said the woman. ‘They will all suffice. He will suffice.’
‘Open the boot,’ instructed the youngest of the male policemen. ‘Release our fellows.’
‘The thing is,’ Giles said, ‘I think I took a wrong turning anyway. I’m trying to get back onto the A road, the one with the services on …?’
‘We know of no services,’ said the tramp.
The woman and the oldest male policeman had the back of the panda car up now. They were looking into the boot. ‘Emerge,’ the woman said. ‘Emerge and take your hosts. The time has come!’
Giles felt himself drawn to the open boot of the panda car. Part of him wanted to run away, sensing the basic wrongness of this situation. Another part had to know.
The back of the car was full of silver crabs. Giles watched, rooted with shock and fear, as they began to spill out. They had too many legs and too many fine, whipping tentacles. There were glass things on their backs, and things inside the glass things. The crabs were pulling themselves over the lip of the boot, dropping down onto the ground. Ones and twos and threes and fours, fives and tens … dozens of them, an impossible silver tide brimming from the back of the car. They must have been packed as tight as sardines.
‘There are still too many of us,’ the woman said. Her voice was as flat and emotionless as a sleepwalker’s.
The first crab was on Giles. It was whisking up his leg. He screamed and tried to bat it off.
‘No!’
‘We are Sild,’ the woman said. ‘You will become Sild. Please stand by.’
‘This is a good start,’ said the tramp. ‘We will dispose of the police car here. We will take the bus. We will find more hosts soon.’
Giles screamed.
Giles stopped screaming.
And then Giles was Sild.
He turned around stiffly. Mrs Gambrel was still looking through the front window. She had seen something of what had happened, although it was doubtful that she understood. But that she had seen enough to be frightened, that was not in doubt. Giles – what had been Giles – watched as Mrs Gambrel frantically tried to find the control that closed the automatic door. How many times had she seen him work the door, without paying attention, Giles wondered?
Silly woman.
The tide of crabs surged toward the bus. Giles and his five new friends followed in their wake.
CHAPTER NINE
The Doctor watched the Master’s accommodation block sinking slowly back into the flooded pit, trailing the dark umbilicals of electrical, air and water-supply cables as it descended beneath the glowing waterline. Jo, anxious to be out of the enhanced radiation environment, had gone ahead of the Doctor. He did not much blame her for that, feeling no great inclination to linger himself.
But he needed time to marshal his thoughts, to think through the implications of their con
versation with the Master. Absently, he lifted his fingers to his nose again, as if doubting that initial impression. But no, there it was again. The subtlest of chemical messages, but one that led to an unavoidable conclusion. The Master, normally meticulous, had brought contamination back with him into the cell. Such an error could only have been made in haste, as if the Master had not had time to rid himself of all traces of the oil platform. The Doctor was certain now that this was where he had been, perhaps within the last twenty-four hours.
The Doctor’s mind spun through the possibilities. Why would the Master allow himself to be taken outside, and then brought back again? Many times the Master had proven himself ruthlessly adept at escape – even if the act of escaping necessitated the deaths of innocent bystanders. To the Master, such deaths were regrettable only in the sense that they marred the elegance of his plans.
He wouldn’t allow it, the Doctor thought. Not unless he had no choice. Not unless he was being coerced into something, and then brought back to the prison.
But again his experience of the Master gave him profound misgivings. It was true that the Master had, on occasion, imagined himself in control of forces that would eventually turn against him. But by the same token many other intelligent beings had deluded themselves into thinking they had some control or influence over the Master. Without exception, these unfortunates had learned that the Master was only going along with the pretence of coercion while it suited him. Usually that was the last thing they learned.
So who was stupid or arrogant enough to think they had a rein on the Master now?
Not UNIT, the Doctor was sure: the Brigadier had his failings, but underestimating the Master was not one of them. Someone else. Someone who knew about the Master, knew something of his capabilities, and might not be able to resist the temptation of using him …
But who knew about the Master, beyond the highest levels of government?
‘It’s time to go now,’ said one of the masked guards. ‘Your badge is at maximum dosage.’
For a moment the Doctor was on the verge of boasting that he had survived prolonged exposure to radiation levels ten times as high as this. But the guard meant well, and the encounter with the Master had put the Doctor in a troubled state of mind. He allowed himself to be escorted back out of the high-security area, to the small office where Childers was still waiting, studying camera views on his console.
‘Miss Grant is outside, Doctor. Had a nice little chinwag with the prisoner, did you?’
The Doctor waited until the guard had left them alone. ‘What have you allowed to happen?’
The insolence of this statement caused the other man to look up properly for the first time. ‘Begging your pardon?’
‘The Master … your prisoner … has been allowed in and out of Durlston Heath. That could only have happened with you turning a blind eye.’
Childers elevated his bulky frame from the chair. ‘Not sure what daft ideas the prisoner has been putting in your head, Doctor, but I’d thank you not to take that tone. Rest assured that I’ll be speaking to Lethbridge-Stewart about this.’
‘Speak to him all you want. I’m sure the Brigadier will be very interested to hear that the most dangerous man in the world is being allowed to come and go at his leisure. Are you quite out of your mind, Childers?’
‘Enough.’ Childers leaned over to a flexible microphone stalk on his console. ‘Security, please. Observation Room One.’
It took only a few seconds for the door to open, and for a guard to present himself.
‘The Doctor’s forgotten his way out,’ Childers said, his meat-coloured face turning a rosier shade than normal. ‘See that he reaches his companion, and that the two of them find their way to the exit checkpoint.’
‘I’ll do that, sir.’
Childers seemed about to leave it at that. But as the Doctor was ushered gently to the door, he added: ‘I don’t need any reminders about the prisoner, Doctor. I know full well what a threat he poses to national security.’
The Doctor nodded, making a mental leap. ‘Which is why you’d be willing to sanction some off-the-record interrogation? It’s useless, you know. Torture never works. There isn’t a mature civilisation in the galaxy which hasn’t learned that lesson.’
Childers’ complexion deepened beyond rose. The blood seemed on the point of bursting out of him.
‘See the Doctor out.’
When they emerged from the perimeter a UNIT Land Rover was parked by the side of the road a little way from the checkpoint. Sergeant Benton was waiting by the side of the vehicle. He gave a cheery wave to Jo and the Doctor.
The Doctor pulled Bessie up alongside the Land Rover.
‘What’s up?’
‘Escort back to headquarters, sir. Brig said he didn’t want you dilly-dallying on the way. It’s getting worse.’
‘The amnesia about the Master?’ the Doctor asked.
‘Him, yes. Now we know that we have to keep remembering … him … we’re making an extra effort. Talking about him all the time, putting notes everywhere, getting these posters printed …’ Jo noticed that Benton had donned a white armband. He caught her looking at it. ‘These as well. They help a bit. But we only have to stop concentrating for a second or two …’ Benton looked momentarily foggy. ‘What were we …’
‘The Master,’ the Doctor said gently.
‘I’m sorry, sir. I’m trying really hard. But it’s like trying to do long division while tying my shoelaces on backwards.’
‘Not your fault, old chap. Something is happening to your knowledge of the Master, something very fundamental, and you can only resist it so far. Whatever you do will only slow the fade, not stop it. Unfortunately, the rate of progression is very steep. I’m not sure how much time we have.’
‘Before what?’
‘Before none of us remember the Master.’
‘What would that actually mean?’ Benton asked. ‘I mean, if we don’t remember … him … would that really be so bad?’
‘I don’t know,’ the Doctor said, and Jo knew he was speaking the truth, and that worried her more than anything. She could deal with almost anything when the Doctor seemed on top of events. ‘The Master has done something, that’s clear. If he’s not lying, then he’s managed to squeeze a signal into time, a kind of mayday code, broadcasting his temporal whereabouts. And he thinks that that signal has been intercepted and decoded by another version of himself, in some other timeframe.’
‘Is that possible?’ Jo asked.
‘I rather fear it is. But the time-fade … if my instincts are right, that’s not something he anticipated. He seemed frightened. I’ve almost never seen the Master frightened. I’m not sure I like it.’
‘Because if something’s got him frightened … what does it mean for the rest of us?’
‘Exactly,’ the Doctor said.
Benton opened the door and made to get back into the Land Rover. There was a piece of paper sellotaped to the windshield. Presumably it was there to remind him why he was on this errand in the first place.
‘I think you need to see this,’ Tom Irwin said.
Edwina McCrimmon was on the outside walkway of Mike Oscar Six, trying to clear her thoughts. It was her usual remedy, a dose of bracing fresh air, the sea below, the smell of oil and the hum of heavy industrial machinery. Getting closer to what the business was all about, Big Cal had always said. Drilling into rock. Being at war with the weather and the waves, always and for ever.
It usually did the trick. Today it wasn’t working.
One of the company’s other platforms, Mike Oscar Three – a little over fifty miles closer to Norway – had dropped off radio and subsea data-link communications. Mike Oscar Seven was reporting some kind of ‘disturbance’, the messages presently too garbled to make much sense. Had an intruder got aboard? Had one or more of the regular oil workers had some kind of psychotic episode?
McCrimmon had called back to headquarters. It turned out they were monitoring
on-going ‘incidents’ across a number of platforms and support vessels, not all of them belonging to McCrimmon Industries. In view of the uncertainties, head office had instigated the standard emergency evacuation procedure. High-capacity helicopters were already starting to shuttle back and forth from the mainland, extracting non-essential personnel. McCrimmon had been told to curtail normal drilling operations until the extent of the difficulties could be assessed.
It might be nothing. McCrimmon had seen her share of storms in a teacup. Oil workers were a twitchy bunch at the best of times. But with the disappearance of Mike Oscar Four, and now Pete Lomax, she could not help but jump to the obvious conclusion. It was all connected, somehow, with the MERMAN experiment. She had a good mind to confront Lovelace, finally give him a piece of her mind. All she could do with was one piece of good news.
At Tom Irwin’s arrival she dared to allow her hopes to rise. ‘Please tell me you’ve found Pete?’
‘Not exactly,’ the big bearded man said. ‘Searched every square inch of this place – the bits we’re allowed to get into, anyway. There’s no trace of him.’
She looked down over the railing, watching the gulls orbit the legs of the rig, dashing in and out of view under her. She envied them their absolute indifference to gravity. To the gulls this metal imposter was just another landmass. It churned up the water around it, it offered sanctuary, warmth and scraps of kitchen swill. They had come to depend on it. In their tiny minds it was geologically old.
‘You’ll just have to keep looking.’
Irwin had made his way along the catwalk to stand next to her. Not too close – there was a good couple of metres between them – but near enough that neither had to raise their voice unduly.
‘Let’s be honest, Eddie. We know where Pete is.’
‘I don’t want to think about that.’
‘None of us do. But out here, it’s the easiest and quickest way out.’
McCrimmon had always had a fear of heights and drowning. ‘No matter how fed up I got, that’s not the way I’d choose.’
Doctor Who: Harvest of Time Page 9