by Ian Marter
The Doctor jabbed his elbow in Jamie's ribs and they stood up. 'Thank you so much, Mr Vaughn,' he burbled.
'Telephone in a day or two. We should have some news then,' Vaughn proposed as they shook hands cordially at the door. 'And may I ask whom I have had the pleasure...?'
'Not Whom... Who...' the Doctor quipped slyly.
Packer took them down in the express lift and showed them out through a side entrance off a quiet cul de sac. 'Next time read the instructions at Reception,' he snarled.
'Och, so ye can read, can ye?' Jamie exclaimed in mock surprise. 'And what other tricks can ye do?'
The Doctor firmly steered his rash young friend into the narrow street as Packer slammed the steel emergency door behind them.
'Friendly sort of chap, Mr Vaughn,' Jamie remarked, flourishing the miniature radio.
'Not what he seems,' the Doctor snapped unhappily. 'The normal human blinks naturally about once every fifteen seconds. Vaughn averaged less than one a minute.'
'Aye, and he's got horns and a forked tail too.'
'No, I'm serious, Jamie,' the Doctor warned as they walked towards the main street. 'Vaughn didn't even ask me what was wrong with those circuits or what they do. Beneath all that charm there's something... something not quite human.'
The next moment a large Jaguar saloon raced down the side street behind them and skidded up onto the pavement, trapping them against the wall of the IE Building. While Tracey remained at the wheel gunning the engine, Benton and another man leaped out and manhandled them into the back before they could even protest. Then Tracey accelerated away with spinning wheels and smoking tyres. Jammed between the two bulky figures, the shocked and bewildered captives exchanged frightened glances.
Eventually the Doctor turned to Benton. 'And I suppose this is Mr Vaughn's courtesy car service?' he commented, with an acid smile.
As soon as his unexpected visitors had departed, Vaughn picked up the two silicon panels the Doctor had left on his desk and studied them carefully, a deep furrow forming between his eyebrows as he tried to unravel the curious structure of the circuitry. Eventually he looked up at the blank wall facing the panoramic window and a strange smile spread gradually across his lopsided features. He put down the panels and took an elaborate fountain pen from his breast pocket. Slowly he rose to his feet. He twisted the gold-plated cap of the pen and with a series of soft clicks and a subdued whirring sound the blank wall parted and slid aside.
Vaughn waited, gazing into the darkness beyond. Soon an oscillating hum began to rise and a fluorescent light started to pulsate in sequence with it. The air started to crackle with a dry electric charge as a fantastic structure appeared in the dark alcove. Standing about two metres high, it resembled a gigantic radio valve. Bristling electrodes sprouted from a revolving central crystal suspended within a delicate cage of sparking, fizzing filaments. Cathode tubes were arranged like a belt of glass ammunition around the base of the cage and the whole sparkling mechanism was supported in a lattice of shimmering wires and tubes. The planes of the crystal flickered with millions of tiny points of intense blue light and the apparatus possessed a sinister beauty as it hovered in the darkness.
Vaughn touched some buttons on his desk and the bank of nine circular screens flashed into life showing video replays of the Doctor and Jamie at their recent gate-crashing exploits. Immediately the machine in the alcove began to whirr and spark with increased excitement. Vaughn watched and waited, smiling expectantly.
Meanwhile, back at Professor Travers's house The was still striking exotic poses with strange hats and the feather boa while Isobel shot roll after roll of 35mm film. At long last Isobel announced a tea break and produced coffee and a mountain of sandwiches.
Zoe collapsed gratefully onto a large psychedelic beanbag. 'Never imagined keeping still could be so exhausting,' she laughed, biting into a doorstep of crusty bread and mashed sardine.
'It's been a real treat for me,' Isobel complimented her. 'I get sick of photographing myself, but I can't afford proper models yet.'
'But you're very good,' Zoe said with her mouth full, gesturing at the large portraits around the walls.
'Oh, I didn't take those,' Isobel admitted with a wry grin. 'I have to model to earn the loot to pay for all this junk. I hope you'll be around for a while, Zoe,' she added, offering her another sandwich.
Zoe shook her head sadly. 'I expect we'll be off again as soon as the Doctor gets the circuits repaired.'
'Yes. Why are they so important?' Isobel asked, puzzled.
Zoe did her best to explain about the TARDIS.
'Sounds just like one of Uncle's lash-ups,' Isobel giggled dismissively. 'Daft as a brush.'
Zoe suddenly looked very concerned.
'What's up? Don't you like sardines?' Isobel asked brightly.
Zoe nodded and attempted a smile. 'It's just that the Doctor and Jamie have been gone ages,' she murmured. 'I've got the feeling something's happened to them.'
Isobel shrugged. 'Uncle's probably pressganged them into helping with his latest brainwave.'
Zoe stood up decisively. 'Sorry,' she mumbled, 'it's just that whenever there's any trouble around those two always jump right into it.'
Isobel drained her coffee and sprang up. 'Okay, Zoe. If you're really worried let's go and look for them.'
Zoe smiled appreciatively at her new friend. But inside she suddenly felt cold and hollow.
Several times during the hair-raising high speed journey through the North-Eastern suburbs and out into the country the Doctor had tried to extract some snippet of information from the three silent kidnappers, but all Benton would say was 'All in good time, sir, all in good time.' Puzzled by this politeness, Jamie kept mouthing queries at the Doctor, but he simply grimaced back at him to keep quiet. Occasionally a burst of rock music would issue from Jamie's transistor and then the Doctor would nudge him viciously in the ribs to turn it off.
Eventually the Jaguar bounced off the highway and sped through several kilometres of woodland until it suddenly emerged onto a vast airfield. The airfield was almost deserted except for a group of rundown Nissen huts, a few jeeps and helicopters, and a massive Hercules Transport plane in camouflage paint, with service trucks clustered under its huge wings. The ramp at the rear of its fuselage was open and to the Doctor's and Jamie's astonishment the Jaguar hurtled straight towards it, shot up the gentle slope and slithered to a stop centimetres from the inside bulkhead. Even before they had time to clamber out of the car the ramp had started to close behind them like a gigantic mouth.
An armed soldier with special shoulder flashes opened an oval door in the bulkhead and Jamie and the Doctor were ushered through into a long, dimly lit Operations Room. Along each side, rows of uniformed personnel sat at radar screens, computer terminals and communications units, totally absorbed in their various duties. Down the middle of the room, several officers sat at small desks on either side of an enormous Situation Map mounted on a perspex frame running down the centre. All personnel wore khaki berets and on their battledress pullovers a circular white badge indentifying them as UNIT 2 Personnel.
At the far end of the Operations Room, a tall officer with Brigadier's insignia rose from his sizeable command desk and strode to greet them. 'Nice to see you again, Doctor!' he boomed, his strong square-jawed face and neatly clipped moustache suggesting calm and confident authority.
The Doctor's eyes lit up with delighted relief. 'Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart!' he cried, scuttling forward to shake hands warmly. 'What a lovely surprise.'
Lethbridge-Stewart smiled modestly. 'Well, Brigadier actually, Doctor. I've gone up in the world since we last met.'
Jamie thumped the Brigadier heartily on the shoulder. 'Aye, the Yeti!' he exclaimed in recognition.
The Brigadier nodded politely. 'McCrimmon isn't it? Yes, we met in the Underground. Must be four years ago now, all that Yeti business.'
'Och, it seems like a couple of weeks.'
'Jamie, time is relati
ve...' the Doctor reminded the lad.
'Are you still rushing around the Universe making nonsense of it in your machine... your TARDIS?' inquired the Brigadier heartily.
'Still travelling, Col... Brigadier,' smiled the Doctor modestly. 'But what's all this?' he demanded, spreading his arms. 'I'm beginning to feel like Jonah inside the whale.'
'Ought to explain,' Lethbridge-Stewart boomed breezily, motioning to his guests to sit down at his desk. He had a brief word with Benton and Tracey and they immediately departed. Then he ordered a Sergeant to bring some tea. 'Sorry about all the cloak and dagger routine,' he went on brightly, 'but sometimes my chaps are a bit melodramatic. Fact is that since all that Yeti caper I've been in charge of a new independent security force. Call ourselves UNIT or United Nations Intelligence Taskforce.'
'A world police force?' mused the Doctor.
The Brigadier laughed. 'Not quite, Doctor. We don't actually arrest people.'
'You arrested us right enough,' Jamie retorted indignantly.
'Not quite, McCrimmon. We've got International Electromatix under constant surveillance and we're keeping tabs on everyone going in and out. Your pictures were transmitted here and I recognised you.'
'Most efficient,' the Doctor congratulated him.
The Brigadier turned to him confidentially. 'Fact is, Doctor, you two were lucky. A lot of people have gone in there but they haven't come out again.'
The Doctor's eyes widened with fascination. He rubbed his nose attentively and sniffed suspiciously. 'Curiouser and curiouser,' he muttered.
Zoe and Isobel stood in the empty foyer of the International Electromatix Building frowning warily at the silent computer terminals.
'Golly, it's creepy,' Isobel murmured with a shiver. 'I suppose everyone's gone early as it's Friday and Monday's a Bank Holiday.'
Zoe sat down at a terminal that had suddenly lit up as she approached it.
'It's probably the same idiot machine that answers when you ring up,' Isobel warned her.
'International Electromatix. State your business.'
Zoe spoke loudly and clearly at the blank screen. 'Inquiry reference two persons seeking information regarding Professor Watkins.'
'One moment...' blurted the artificial voice.
The two girls waited impatiently while the tape spools spun behind the armoured screen.
'No information. Good day,' the robot eventually announced.
Zoe flushed with irritation. 'Now listen to me, you boneheaded fruit machine, I asked a simple question and I want a simple answer.'
The terminal repeated its terse message and fell silent. Isobel shrugged. 'You see, Zoe, it's hopeless.'
Zoe's jaw set with determination. 'It may be, but I'm not,' she declared and started tapping away at the keyboard in front of her.
Isobel looked scared and baffled. 'What are you up to, Zoe?'
'Just setting it a little conundrum in Algol.'
'What's Algol?' Isobel whispered, goggling at the complicated mass of symbols appearing on the screen above Zoe's flying fingers.
'A sort of language for talking to computers, only this is a pidgin version,' Zoe giggled.
Isobel noticed the tape spools whizzing back and forth with increasingly frantic speed as a cacophony of furious buzzing noises erupted from the terminal itself. 'It does seem to be getting a bit agitated,' she murmured.
'You bet it is,' Zoe chuckled, typing madly away. 'This problem happens to be insoluble! Delete square... Print out Y to the minus X variable one... Integrate on inversine...'
An unpleasant and sinister odour like melting plastic began to fill the foyer.
'Continuous integration... There...' Zoe concluded triumphantly, sitting back with folded arms to observe the outcome of her attack. 'That should give it quite a headache!'
Dozens of floors above them, Tobias Vaughn stood by the dark alcove listening to a harsh semi-human voice issuing from the glowing apparatus within.
'The images of the two humans have been analysed,' it informed him. 'They are known to he hostile. They must be destroyed.'
Startled, Vaughn glanced across at the figures of the Doctor and Jamie frozen on the video screens. 'Known to be hostile? But how can that be?' he whispered hoarsely.
'They are recognised from Planet Sigma Gamma 14.'
'Recognised from Planet...' Vaughn tailed into dumb astonishment.
The weird machine buzzed impatiently. 'They must be eliminated,' it screeched.
Vaughn pulled himself together and smiled cravenly at the eerily sparking structure. 'I shall deal with them,' he promised soothingly.
The machine seemed to glare at him for several seconds. 'Our plans approach completion,' it grated menacingly. 'Nothing must he permitted to obstruct them.'
'Nothing will,' Vaughn purred.
At that moment a buzzer sounded on the desk. Vaughn quickly twisted the top of the fountain pen in his elegant fingers and the wall quietly glided hack into place across the alcove. Mopping his glistening brow with a silk handkerchief, Vaughn sank into his chair and composed himself.
'Enter,' he called calmly.
The door slid open to admit a tall, seedy individual dressed in a stained white laboratory coat. His greasy black hair was flecked with dandruff and he constantly chewed the ends of a bedraggled moustache.
Vaughn gazed at him with profound distaste. 'What do you make of these, Gregory?' he snapped, pushing the Doctor's circuit panels across the desk at him.
Gregory turned them over and over with his thin grimy fingers, peering through thick horn-rimmed glasses. Eventually he shook his large head and shrugged.
Vaughn's good eye narrowed. 'From my Chief Researcher I expect a more intelligent response than that,' he said acidly.
'I'm sorry Mr Vaughn but I've never seen anything.like them before. Given time I'm sure I could...' he babbled wretchedly.
'Then take time, my dear fellow,' Vaughn interrupted kindly.
Gregory nodded, evidently relieved to be let off the hook.
'Take one hour,' Vaughn muttered threateningly with a contrastingly benign smile on his face.
Gregory stared back at his Director like a frightened prey. 'One hour. Yes, Mr Vaughn, thank you,' he croaked, turning and slinking out of the office.
As the door slid shut, a series of warning buzzers sounded and the stills of Jamie and the Doctor vanished from the screens. Vaughn glanced up in alarm to see Zoe and Isobel at the reception console. Smoke was belching from one of the terminals and snapping tapes were tangling themselves into a froth of brown spaghetti.
'... Take more than a soldering-iron to sort that out...' Zoe was saying.
'Great,' cried Isobel admiringly. 'Wish I had my camera with me.'
Vaughn's face relaxed into a half-smile of ironic amusement. He flicked a switch and leaned towards a slim microphone. 'Packer, saboteurs in Reception...' he reported with icy contempt. 'Or are you taking your Bank Holiday already?'
There was a mush of static and Packer's frantic voice squawked in reply. 'I'm on to them, sir... I'll bring them up to you.'
Vaughn reclined in his comfortable chair and shook with silent laughter as he watched the tell-tale screens.
Clutching steaming mugs of strong NAAFI tea, the Doctor and Jamie were studying a large selection of photographs on the Brigadier's desk.
'That one's Gordon McLeod, Lecturer in Physics at Cambridge,' the Brigadier noted, identifying one of the figures frozen in midstride on the steps of the International Electromatix Building. 'And this is Billy Routledge, chap I knew at Sandhurst. Landed himself a cushy little job at the Ministry of Defence.'
The Doctor peered at the blurred hurrying figure. 'All these people went into the IE Building and never came out again?' he exclaimed sceptically.
'No, Doctor. Most of them did emerge eventually,' Lethbridge-Stewart corrected him, 'but there was something jolly odd about them afterwards.'
'Odd?'
'Yes, Doctor. Take Billy for instance. He'd
been extremely helpful with our investigations into Vaughn's activities, but once he'd actually been inside the building he started being difficult... obstructive.'
Suddenly Jamie seized a photo from the pile. 'Look, Doctor, this is the man who gave us a lift in his van this morning.'
The Brigadier looked disconcerted. 'You know this man?'
The Doctor nodded.
'His report is twenty-four hours overdue,' muttered the Brigadier anxiously. 'Whereabouts were you?'
The Doctor shrugged. 'Somewhere out in the countryside.'
'Some of Packer's gorillas were on his tail,' added Jamie.
'Good man, 013. One of our agents,' confided the Brigadier. 'I expect he's onto something.'
The Doctor blew on his tea. 'Tell me more about this International Electromatix set-up, Brigadier.'
'They control most of the worldwide computer production, Doctor. They made their breakthrough a few years ago with something called Monolithic Circuit design and stole a march on the entire industry.'
Jamie flourished his transistor radio. 'Vaughn gave me this.'
'That's just a commercial sideline, McCrimmon. They've made a fortune out of teenyboppers.'
The Doctor coughed and nudged Jamie to restrain his temper. 'What's your interest in Vaughn and Company?' he asked the Brigadier.
'Well, they got so big I decided to run a routine check. It threw up some odd things.'
'Like the disappearance of Professor Watkins,' remarked the Doctor, sipping the treacly tea and grimacing with watering eyes. 'I don't suppose you have the authority to search Vaughn's premises?'
'I'm afraid not, Doctor. The man's got too many friends in high places. My hands are tied.'
The Doctor stared at the varnish-like deposit round the rim of his mug. Then he turned resolutely to Jamie. 'Well, my boy, if we want to find Professor Watkins we'll have to do it on our own,' he concluded.
Jamie nodded eagerly and gulped his sugary tea with relish.
Lethbridge-Stewart smiled apologetically. 'I am sorry, Doctor, but I can at least offer you a little back-up support.' He turned to his Sergeant. 'Walters, bring me a polyvox unit if there's one handy.'