by Barry Letts
Smashing idea, putting all the London brothers and sisters together in one room. He was sleeping just above one of his closest friends, Brother Paul - it was quite an adventure, having to climb a ladder to go to bed! All in all, much better than being in a five-star hotel. More fun.
Jeremy Fitzoliver snuggled down into the featherbed comfort of the thin kapok mattress on the utilitarian springs of his iron bedstead, and fell into a slumber of deep content.
CHAPTER SIX
First class in the air, just for PR, thought Sarah, but once we’re out of sight... How hypocritical can you get, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart?
They obviously couldn’t stay in the ashram; but when the Sikh taxi-driver (all the taxi-drivers seemed to be Sikhs) took them straight to the Taj Mahal hotel on the seafront, the Brigadier took one look and condemned it as being unnecessarily luxurious.
Huh! Thirty rupees a night per person, that’s what the hotel they’d ended up in cost UNIT. About a couple of quid!
At least it was clean. And, to be fair, it was just down the road from the ashram.
It was run by an expatriate Aussie by the name of Ron (with a flowing ponytail and a kaftan), which was just as well... In spite of their elite status, the food on the aircraft had been as plastic as ever, and Sarah was in no mood to experiment more than she had to with Indian food, which had never been a favourite.
She fancied a hamburger.
‘Sacred cows, duckie,’ said Ron. ‘No beef here. But I can do you a simply delectable buffburger.’
‘Buffburger?!’
‘Buffalo meat. We can get away with that. How do you like it done?’
He was right. It was delectable, she thought as she sat chumping away, listening to the Doctor and the Brigadier arguing the toss. They hardly seemed to notice that their omelettes were getting cold, they were so irritated with each other.
‘I shall contact the UNIT liaison officer in the morning, and we’ll make an official visit. This has to be done by the book.’
‘And frighten them off? What possible advantage is there in going in bull-headed? Once the china has been broken, I would defy even you to stick it back together again.’
‘It’s all very well for you, Doctor, but I have to answer for my actions. Your hare-brained schemes - that is, if you have one at all...’
‘Hare-brained! You don’t even know what I’m proposing.’
‘Tell me, then.’
The Doctor took a sip from his glass. Surprisingly good, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘Not unlike a small wine of Burgundy.’
‘Ha! I thought as much. You have no idea what to do, now have you?’
Sarah, sitting between them, found that her head was swivelling from side to side like that of a tennis fan at Wimbledon.
‘If, as we suspect, these people have something to hide...’
started the Doctor.
‘If! You yourself said that this creature must be an alien life form!’
‘If, as I say, they want to conceal what’s going on, they’ll have built themselves a defensive wall to hide behind. That’s what the cult must be. We need to find a crack in that wall.’
‘And in the meantime, people are being slaughtered.’
‘I doubt it. Has UNIT had any similar reports from the other countries where the cult has been established?’
‘Well, no.’
‘I think you’ll find that the Hampstead bodies were an aber-ration. Indeed, that may be the very thing which will betray them.’
And so on, and so on, back and forth. Sarah found her jet lagged eyes starting to close, and left them to it.
After all, it was the story she was after. And that was inside the ashram. She could get up early tomorrow and follow her original plan. She could become a devotee herself.
‘But I’ve come all the way from London!’
The large man in white, in the little lobby to the right of the main gate, shook his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, in a soft Germanic voice.
Austrian probably, thought Sarah automatically.
‘You should in London have joined, perhaps. It is now too late.’
‘Oh, but I did! I just haven’t had time to get some white things to wear, and...’
‘Then what is the password, please?’
There’d have to be a flipping password!
‘Well, I didn’t exactly join. Not in so many words. But I...’
She stopped as she saw him shaking his head. ‘Oh, please’.
I’ve dreamed of being a Skang... er... disciple... follower...
whatever. For yonks! That’s why I’ve come all this way!’ She could see that she was getting through to him.
‘I shall tell you what. Go into the shop, over there. Ask Sister Helga. She could say yes, I don’t know.’
‘Oh, thank you, thank you! You’ve no idea what it means to me...’ Steady girl, don’t go too far, she thought.
On the left side of the massive gate was a small hut with a shop window, which had obviously been full of books and coloured images, almost like icons, of Mother Hilda and of the Skang itself. But at this very moment, Sarah could see that somebody was taking everything out from the back, leaving the shelves denuded.
‘I heard what Brother Dieter has said,’ said the tall blonde woman in teacher’s robes.
Swedish, I’d guess, said the little categorising, journalist voice in Sarah’s head.
Even as Helga spoke, she went on with her job, packing everything neatly into cardboard boxes on the floor. ‘There are no vacancies. We have to limit our numbers. At the moment only. It will be different, maybe, in a few months...’
‘But I want to join now!’
‘It is not possible, my dear.’ She dived into the window again.
‘Well...’ Sarah was thinking fast. ‘At least let me buy a book... You know, with information about it all, and the rules and so on.’
And maybe the password?
Helga reappeared. ‘I have cashed up. I cannot take your monies. But... here, I give you Mother Hilda’s book. No, no, no - it’s a present. It has brought many to the Great Skang.’
She held out a thinnish hardback, with a portrait of Hilda on the dust jacket.
And with that Sarah had to be content.
The Doctor’s mind was not on the TARDIS’s relativity circuit.
Yes, he had to get it fixed; but that was only a matter of testing each connection and sub-system in turn. Probably it was nothing more than an electron entanglement that had snapped.
As he sat in the dusty, dry excuse for a garden at the back of the hotel, he was quite aware that his fiddling was a displacement activity. He had no plan, it was true, and he couldn’t think of one. Lethbridge-Stewart seemed determined to go through official channels, and unless that was handled with the utmost care, it could be the very thing that frightened them off. It was essential that they should get more information; more information about the cult, and by extension, the Skang itself...
He heard the door of the hotel sitting room slam. Was the Brigadier back so soon? Hm. He mustn’t appear too eager.
The Brigadier was too full of himself already.
So first he finished checking the calibration of the chronon scale; always a tedious job. Only then did he close the silver case, put it in his pocket, and make his way to the French windows.
She’d occasionally caught sight of one. She’d seen the word on menus. But she’d never tasted one.
It’s just about impossible to eat a mango like a well-brought-up young lady unless you’ve been shown how to by an expert - especially if you’ve been told that, for safety’s sake, all fruit in India should be peeled.
‘Oh my God!’ exclaimed Sarah, as the sloppy, slippery, squishy thing shot from her fingers, to be neatly fielded by the Doctor as he came in. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry!’ she continued, as he politely handed it back to her. ‘I missed breakfast, you see, so I... Thanks...’
The Doctor smiled distantly as he f
astidiously wiped his fingers on the immaculately laundered linen handkerchief he produced from his sleeve.
‘Is the Brig about?’ she went on. ‘I went out on a bit of a recce, and I’ve got some info.’
‘He’s gone to find his Indian colleague - the person you would no doubt describe as his “oppo”,’ replied the Doctor drily. ‘Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to bring him round to my way of thinking.’ His measured tones suddenly disappeared. ‘You’d think a military man, of all people, would realise that going off at half-cock is likely to lead to your shooting yourself in the foot!’
Neat, thought Sarah. A perfectly valid mixed metaphor. She looked at the orange pulp in her hand. There was no way of eating it that her mother would have approved of, it seemed.
Oh well, in for a penny...
Blimey! So that’s what a mango tasted like. Food of the gods, that’s what!
‘So what is this info?’ the Doctor asked. ‘I freely admit, even though I castigate Lethbridge-Stewart for his methods, I’ve yet to come up with an alternative.’
That was one of the things she liked about the Doctor.
Arrogant at times, yes, but always honest.
‘Well done,’ he said, when she’d told him her story, right up to Helga and the packing up of the books. ‘It’s possible that they are preparing to decamp even from Bombay. In which case, where are they going? And why?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Sarah, and there’s one other thing. Hang on...’ Wiping her fingers surreptitiously on the hem of her tee-shirt (it hardly mattered, the front being already soggy with mango juice), she delved into her shoulder bag and produced the book she’d been given – ‘The Way of the Skang’
by Mother Hilda. She pushed it across the table towards the Doctor. ‘There may be something in it that might help. I glanced through it, but I didn’t see anything...’
No password, anyway. Too much to hope for, perhaps.
‘Good grief!’ said the Doctor, as he picked up the book and gazed at the portrait on the jacket.
‘What?’
‘That’s Hilda Hutchens!’
‘Who she?’
‘Hilda Hutchens. Emeritus Professor Dame Hilda Hutchens. 1970 Nobel Prize for Philosophy. Wrote Quantum Qualia. ’
That should be a sparkling read to take on the beach.
‘Thank you, Sarah. Thank you very much. You may have provided me with the very thing I’ve been looking for. The chink in their armour!’
He looked up at her, beaming - and quickly averted his gaze. Nobody would want to dwell on the sight of Sarah Jane Smith avidly slurping on a nearly naked mango stone.
Alex Whitbread had, whenever possible, worked to make himself popular with his fellow teachers. He had been both admired and despised by those in the political know, during his time in government, for his behind-the-scenes twisting and turning, which - harnessed to the election of the previous leader of the party - had earned him his ministry.
But his populist (and handsome) public face had been badly marred by the sordidness of the scandal that had finished him.
Though he was respected in the Skang group as one who had made a fresh start, he’d found few so far to join him in his schemes to replace Hilda. In spite of knowing that the ultimate prize could be for a far bigger game than the present one, the majority clung to the built-in loyalty of the Skang community. It was as if they had guessed his plans, he’d thought after the fateful meeting with Hilda. The one thing he needed was time - time to charm, to cajole, to threaten...
There were a few, a disaffected six or seven, but he’d been unable to contact any one of them the day before. As the time for the meeting drew near, he could be seen in search of his missing supporters, almost running, casting hither and thither through the clusters of devotees blissfully and aimlessly wandering through the groves and lanes of the ashram. And then at last, standing by a group in the shadow of the great pipal tree...
‘Dafydd! Thank goodness! The very man...’
Brother Dafydd, a recruit from the ranks of the modern Druidic revival - and a former bard, renowned for his evoca-tions of the more romantic gods of nature - turned from his task of briefing his small cadre of helpers about the coming evacuation, and greeted Alex with some concern.
‘Brother Alex! Is it true?’
‘What have you heard?’
‘A moment...’
He turned back to dismiss his group of lieutenants and watched as they hastened away. Only then did he turn to Alex once more. ‘They say that...’
Alex raised a hand to stop him, and taking him by the arm, led him behind the massive trunk, out of sight and hearing; and still he lowered his voice. ‘What do they say?’
‘That she means to go the whole way.’
‘Exclusion?’
‘Worse. Excision.’
For a moment, Alex’s face betrayed him. The fear of total loss, the ultimate despair, that lurked behind his grandiose plans was all too plain to see.
‘What have you done to make her so angry?’ Dafydd went on.
Alex at once slipped back behind his political mask.
‘Nothing. It’s a ploy, a pack of lies to discredit me. She knows full well that if I had the chance to make them understand the full extent of her treachery, I wouldn’t be the one to suffer.’
Dafydd nodded as if this were too obvious to be said. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
Alex paused and shook his head. ‘She’ll have Schwenck on her side... and the two from down under. We stand our best chance with the Pakistani and the Balkan two. And Moskowicz is teetering on the edge, certainly.’ He took hold of Dafydd’s shoulders; his unblinking stare seized Dafydd’s eyes. ‘It’s up to us. We must find the others and spread the word. If we believe it, and believe it utterly, through to our very bones, we can make it come true. Hilda will be out.’
‘This could be our last chance!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart had, of course, sent a message from London to Major Chatterjee of the Indian Army, the UNIT liaison officer in Bombay, to let him know that he was coming; and he’d followed it up with a phone call as soon as he had settled in to the hotel. Though this had been somewhat protracted, as he was passed from extension to extension up the ladder of command, he had eventually been able to make an appointment.
He’d been a little taken aback to find that the UNIT office, which was situated in a large suburban mansion badly needing a lick of paint, was little more than a store-cupboard behind the lifts on the fourth floor, and that the entire staff consisted of the Major himself.
‘My dear chap,’ he said when he’d been told why the Brigadier and his two assistants had come, ‘of course I am understanding the urgency of the matter. I shall be very delighted to accompany you on your visit to this strange lady.’
‘Good,’ said the Brigadier. ‘Then I suggest that we waste no more time. The authority of your uniform should guarantee us access.’ The Brigadier, being officially on a private visit, was of course in mufti.
The young major stroked his Errol Flynn moustache and nodded his agreement.
He was evidently very proud of his uniform, thought the Brigadier. The knife-sharp creases in his shorts would have done credit to an officer in the Grenadier Guards.
But he showed no sign of urgency.
‘Are you free now?’ the Brigadier went on, getting up from the rickety bentwood chair that was provided for visitors.
Chatterjee raised his hands in apology. ‘My dear fellow, we cannot be importunate. These things take time, you know. I can clear it with the police in a phone call or two. Perhaps.
But the politicos... I am sure I can be getting an answer by the day after tomorrow. Or the next day, without a doubt.
Maybe.’
‘What!’
‘I have to send a memo, in triplicate, to the Secretary of the Under-Secretary in Delhi, who will consult with the Permanent Secretary, who will decide whether to involve the Ministe
r, you see. And then we must await for the answer to come back along the line. In triplicate.’
The Major grinned at the sight of the Brigadier’s appalled face. ‘We have a saying here, you know. The British invented bureaucracy - and the Indians perfected it.’
‘This is ridiculous!’ said Lethbridge-Stewart.
‘Not to worry, sir,’ said the Major. ‘After all, they aren’t sailing for a while yet.’
‘Sailing? What are you talking about?’
‘You didn’t know? They have a ship, a small cruise ship, or an extremely large yacht - I suppose you might be categorising it as either one - which used to belong to the billionaire Papadopoulos, you know? Before his imprisonment? To be honest, Bombay will be glad to see their backside. We have heard such tales, you know.’
Ah! More horror stories! Now they were getting somewhere.
‘Such as?’ the Brigadier asked.
The Major tutted. ‘Naked revels. Dancing by moonlight, etcetera, etcetera. And worse!’
No Skang stuff then.
‘But where are they sailing to?’ said the Major. ‘That we shall be learning when they are submitting their intentions to the appropriate authority. Until then, one can only be asking the question.’
‘Nobody knows,’ said Jeremy cheerfully to Sarah. At least, I suppose somebody must know, otherwise we’d never get there, would we? But they haven’t told us.’
Sarah was now dressed in a short tennis frock (as the shop assistant had called it), the only totally white garment she had been able to find in her hurried shopping trip. Its pristine freshness was marred by a long green smear, the unfortunate result of her clambering over the wall behind the pipal tree.