Apollo 23 Read online

  'I don't know what's more worrying’ Walinski said at last.

  He pointed to the screen, showing the empty, grey desolation of the moonscape. 'The fact that a large blue box is standing exactly where it shouldn't

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  be on the moon within sight of Base Diana...'

  'Or the fact that it wasn't there a minute before’ Hecker finished for him.

  'Whatever it is’ Jennings said quietly, 'I advise you to get a recovery team out there right away.'

  Walinski turned to look at the man in the suit. 'That's what you advise, is it?'

  Jennings raised his eyebrows. 'Only a suggestion, General. Hey - I'm just an observer. You're in charge here, you know.'

  The way he said it left no one in any doubt who was really in charge.

  General Walinski turned to Haines. 'Get a recovery team out to that blue box. Right now.'

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  The look of surprise on the man's face made it worth it. Amy didn't like the spacesuit. It was tight in all the wrong places, the helmet was claustrophobic - like someone had stuck a goldfish bowl over her head. She could hear her own breathing, and the whole thing was just not quite her shade of red.

  It didn't help that the Doctor's voice was an enthusiastic blast in her ears and she didn't know how to turn the volume down. Either the suit volume, or the volume of the Doctor's excitement as he bounced happily across the barren lunar surface.

  But it was all worth it when she was standing beside the Doctor, at the edge of a crater, behind a man in a bulky white suit.

  The Doctor reached out and tapped the man on the shoulder. He turned slowly, clumsily, in little hopping movements. His eyes were already wide and anxious through the faceplate. When he saw the Doctor and

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  Amy standing there, the man took a step backwards and almost fell. His eyebrows shot upwards, as if to escape from his jaw as it dropped in the opposite direction.

  'Whoa - where did you come from?' an American voice gasped in Amy's ear.

  The Doctor gestured vaguely back over his shoulder.

  Amy grinned.

  'Is there another base?' The man shook his head ins ide his helmet, which didn't move. 'No, no way. We'd know.'

  'Just visiting,' the Doctor told him. Amy could see from his expression that the man could hear. The Doctor must have opened their radio link to include him. 'I gather you're having a problem with your quantum displacement.'

  'You're from Hibiscus?'

  'Well, we're from TARDIS actually. But we can sort that out inside.'

  'So what are you up to?' Amy asked, as much to prove she could speak as anything. 'Just getting some air?'

  'Recovery team.'

  He turned in cumbersome bouncing steps. Maybe this spacesuit wasn't so bad after all, Amy decided. It certainly seemed easier to move in it, and the whole thing was much less bulky.

  'Recovery’ the Doctor s aid. 'You been ill? Some sort of therapy?'

  'We recover stuff from outside, from here on the surface.

  Equipment, monitoring systems, solar

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  panels that need replacing. Sometimes just rocks for Jackson's people to examine'

  'And today?' Amy asked.

  The man paused in his bouncing, lolloping walk. He half turned, then seemed to decide it was too much effort and started bouncing off again.

  'Today’ he said, 'we were recovering the body.'

  They crested a shallow rise in the ground - the lip of another enormous crater, Amy realised. Ahead of them the ground sloped away again - towards a cluster of low, rectangular buildings connected by even lower, rectangular corridor sections. The whole thing looked like it had been made out of enormous egg boxes for some children's school project.

  Just a short way ahead of them were several more astronauts in identical bulky white suits. Two of them carried a stretcher. Amy couldn't make out the detail of what was on it - just a splash of bright red, incongruous against the grey of the moon's surface.

  'Who was she?' the Doctor asked. His eyesight must be better.

  'Don't know yet. Some poor woman and her dog. They walked right through the displacement field, and wound up here. Dead. Suffocated in moments.'

  'Like that poor guy in the park,' Amy said.

  "The field must have dissipated round him,' the Doctor said thoughtfully. 'That poor woman walked right into it. A walk in the park becomes a moonwalk.'

  'And we lost Marry Garrett.'

  'Guessing he was the guy who walked off the moon into the burger bar,' Amy said.

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  'Seems likely’ the Doctor agreed.

  They walked on in silence for several minutes. As they got closer, Amy could see that the moonbase in front of them was much larger than she had thought. The box-like modules rose high above them like office blocks.

  'It's so big’ she said.

  'Most of it will be storage’ the Doctor told her. 'Water, air, food, that sort of thing.'

  'Thank goodness’ the astronaut said. "They were talking a couple of years ago about just piping water and air in direct from Base Hibiscus and not storing anything locally.

  If they'd done that we'd be working out whether we die of thirst before oxygen starvation, now the quantum link's gone down.'

  'The thing that lets you walk from Earth to the moon’

  Amy said.

  'Or pipe water and air though’ the astronaut said.

  'Luckily the tanks have been kept full through the quantum link and the underground reservoir. We should be OK for three months. You'll have it fixed by then, right?'

  He sounded like he was joking. The Doctor didn't answer.

  'So where's the Earth?' Amy asked, changing the subject.

  'Shouldn't we be able to see it?'

  "This is the dark side of the moon’ the Doctor told her.

  'But it isn't dark.'

  'It's called the dark s ide. That's not because it's actually dark, well not unless it's night time. It's because it always faces away from Earth. Dark as in

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  unknown. Like the dark continent.'

  'Or dark chocolate?' Amy said.

  'Exactly... What?'

  'Kidding’ she told him.

  The astronaut led them to a doorway. It was thick metal with a locking wheel on the outside. A red light glowed above the wheel.

  Through a s mall window set in the door, Amy could see the other astronauts carrying the stretcher through a similar door, which they closed behind them. The glass was so thick that the image was distorted.

  A green light replaced the red one above the locking wheel, and the astronaut spun it, then pulled the heavy door open. As he turned to allow Amy and the Doctor inside, Amy saw his shoulder had a US flag emblazoned on it.

  Beneath that was printed REEVE.

  Insi de t he s eal ed ai rl ock, there was a his s as t he small room pressurised. As soon as they were through the inner door, the astronaut reached up and twisted his helmet, then lifted it from his head. Beneath it he was wearing a white balaclava, which he also tugged off, revealing short, black hair. His face was rugged, but handsome and his eyes were as grey as surface of the moon.

  The Doctor helped Amy remove her helmet before taking off his own. The astronaut's eyes widened as Amy's red hair cascaded out over her shoulders. She laughed. 'Don't you have girls in space?'

  The astronaut smiled. 'We got a few. I'm Reeve, by the way. Captain Jim Reeve.'

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  He put his helmet on a shelf next to a dozen other identical helmets. They were in a large locker room, with shelves and cupboards where the spacesuits and equipment were stored. The Doctor was already struggling out of his suit. He still wore his jacket -slightly crumpled -

  underneath.

  'Neat sui
ts’ Reeve commented. 'They must be quite new.'

  'Newer than you think’ the Doctor said, glancing at Amy.

  'No idents, I notice.' Reeve tapped the name badge on his shoulder. 'I'll need to see some ID before I break the news to Colonel Devenish that we've got company.'

  'I'd have thought he'd be glad of some help’ Amy said.

  'You'd think that, yeah.' From his tone, it was an expectation that was probably not going to be fulfilled.

  'Well, I'm Amy - Amy Pond. And this is the Doctor.'

  'And you're here to fix the quantum displacement?'

  'Absolutely’ the Doctor agreed.

  'Only, since it's failed big time - how exactly did you get here?'

  'Oh, we have our own portable system’ the Doctor said.

  'Keep it in a box.'

  'A box?'

  'The box is blue.'

  'Yeah, we got a signal about that. Going to bring it into the base. So that's something else that's got 40

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  smaller, then’ Reeve said. 'We keep our quantum displacement system in a whole module. Rooms of equipment. No idea what it does.'

  'Oh the theory's easy enough,' the Doctor assured him.

  'It's like quantum entanglement. Only different. Instead of tying atoms and molecules together so they exhibit the same behaviour, you tie whole different locations together so they become the same place.'

  'Oh yeah, easy,' Amy said.

  Reeve laughed. 'All I know is, I can walk from here along a predefined path and end up in the Texan desert outside Base Hibiscus, and the Hibiscus folks can walk through the desert to get to the moon. So long as it works, that's all I'm interested in.'

  'Except, it doesn't work,' the Doctor said. 'And now people are dead.'

  'Like that woman and her dog,' Amy added.

  'Yes,' the Doctor said. 'Which all suggests a sudden failure, then the system corrected itself - so that the man in the park ended up back in the park. And now you say it's bust again.'

  'Totally’ Reeve agreed.

  'I don't suppose you have a lead?' the Doctor asked.

  'None at all. Oh, Jackson and the scientists are working on it but...' Reeve's voice tailed off as he saw the Doctor's expression. It was a mixture of amusement and sympathy.

  'For the dog’ the Doctor said. 'I mean, was the dog on a lead?'

  Reeve blinked. 'I guess so. I don't know. Is it important?'

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  'No idea,' the Doctor admitted. 'But it would prove the woman and the dog are an item. As it were. Rather than random dog and accidental woman.'

  'Oh we got ID through from Base Hibiscus, if that's what you mean.'

  'So you know who she is?' Amy asked.

  'And the dog?' the Doctor checked.

  'Yeah. It's just you guys I'm not sure about’ Reeve told them. 'Have you got any ID before I go tell the Colonel that the cavalry's arrived?'

  'Think we might have strayed in too?' Amy asked.

  'It happens. Wildlife strays in occas ionally. Not a lot of it from the desert, and the dispersal link is only open at scheduled times. Had an eagle fly right through the gateway once. Dropped dead, of course. I admit, accidents like that don't normally wear spacesuits. But you turn up out of nowhere claiming to know all about a secret US project and, with all due respect, you guys don't sound very American.'

  The Doctor flipped open his wallet of psychic paper.

  'We've come to help. Here you go,' he said, waving it under Reeve's nose. 'Our Access All Areas pass from Base Hibiscus. Allows us to go anywhere, see anything, talk to anyone.'

  Captain Reeve nodded. 'It does that,' he agreed. 'Just one thing though - why is it printed back to front?'

  The Doctor frowned. I told you that would never work,'

  he said to Amy. 'He ruined it, didn't I say so? Signed his name on it. Ruined it.' He stuffed the wallet back inside his jacket pocket.

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  Amy ignored him. 'It's a security thing’ she told Reeve.

  'Makes it harder to forge. So, can we see Colonel Devenish now, please?'

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  Colonel Cliff Devenish was giving a briefing when Captain Reeve brought in the new arrivals. To say it was disruptive would be an understatement.

  'So, let me get this straight’ Devenish was saying to Professor Jackson. 'You have no idea what's gone wrong, or how to fix it. Or even if it can be fixed?'

  At that moment, the door of the briefing room opened and Reeve walked in. Behind him came a young man with what looked like an out-of-control comb-over, except he wasn't going bald, and a young woman with fiery red hair wearing a skirt far shorter than regulation length. 'Sir’ Reeve started to explain as the twenty people in the room gaped.

  'Oh hi, don't mind us’ the comb-over guy said. 'Just carry on. Pretend we're not here. We'll behave. We'll take our milk and sit at the back.'

  'Quiet as a mouse’ the redhead said. 'Two mice, in fact.'

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  The man stood looking round, apparently perplexed.

  'Spare seats?' he wondered. 'Two together for preference.

  We're a pair. I mean, there's two of us.'

  'Friends,' the woman said. 'Colleagues. Um, sorry - are we interrupting?'

  'We didn't mean to interrupt,' the man said. Somehow he was standing at the front of the briefing room next to Colonel Devenish. 'But can I just ask, any unusual activity through the quantum displacement recently? I mean, anything come through that shouldn't? Anything you've sent or received that was a first. Could be anything, a strange-looking moon rock, a hamburger, a flock of seagulls, a rickshaw, anything.'

  'You thinking something might have thrown off the quantum lock?' Jackson asked.

  'If it had the right resonance. Well, the wrong resonance actually. Quartz embedded in rock, hot onion in a hamburger, the atmospheric fluctuation caused by a multitude of birds' wings. And who knows what might be carried by a rickshaw. That would be at the other end, of course. Wouldn't get any atmospheric fluctuation up here, would you.' The man's mouth cracked open into a huge grin and he flicked his hair out of his eyes.

  'Doctor...' the woman said gently. She'd found a seat in the front row. There was another empty chair beside her.

  'Sorry, but I thought that was funny.'

  'No, I mean, you're hijacking the meeting,' she explained. She patted the chair beside her.

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  'Right. Sorry. Carry on - don't mind us.' The man went and sat down next to the woman. He stuck his legs out as far as they would go, and mimed zipping his mouth shut. He made some indistinct sounds, but didn't open his mouth. To the increasingly irritated Devenish, the muffled noises sounded like: 'In your own time.'

  'It's all right,' the woman said in a stage whisper, seeing Devenish's darkening expression. She pointed to the man, then to herself. 'The cavalry's arrived.'

  Amy wasn't really surprised that the meeting ended shortly after they arrived. She had no illusions about the effect the Doctor had on people, and she could well imagine how disconcerted Colonel Devenish was to find two strangers, each with a different British accent, gate-crashing his secret briefing about secret problems with secret equipment on his secret moonbase.

  The Colonel seemed slightly mollified by Reeve's explanations, such as they were. Reeve was obviously Colonel Devenish's right-hand man - although he was outranked by Major Carlisle.

  A handful of people stayed behind after the briefing meeting broke up. Reeve was one, and Major Andrea Carlisle was another. She was a severe-looking woman in her thirties, Amy guessed. Her blonde hair was cut above the collar, and her nose was thin and prominent, giving her a slightly haughty look. Her manner matched, and Amy could see why Devenish got on better with the more easy-going, slightly younger Captain Reeve.

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  'We should verif
y these people's authenticity with Base Hibiscus,' Major Carlisle said, her New York accent as clipped and sharp as her tone.

  'I've checked their papers,' Reeve said. 'They're on the level, so far as I can tell. Hell, how could they be here if they weren't?'

  'We've got a dead woman and stiff dog who shouldn't be here, but they are,' Carlisle pointed out.

  'That's a good point, actually’ the Doctor called from where he was still sitting in the front row of seats. "Though we did dress more formally, and sensibly, than the poor deceased.'

  'And he knows more about quantum displacement than I'll ever understand,' Reeve added.

  'Not hard’ Major Carlisle snapped.

  'Children’ the Doctor admonished.

  'Hey - you can talk’ Major Carlisle told him. 'You don't look old enough to hold a doctorate. What are you a doctor of, anyway? Wit and sarcasm?'

  The Doctor frowned as if trying desperately to remember. 'Er, no. I don't think so. I did get a degree in rhetoric and oratory from the University of Ursa Beta, but that was purely honorary. I asked if I had to make an acceptance speech, but they said there was no need. Seemed to defeat the object really, so I never mention it.. ' He leaped to his feet and stared at Major Carlisle. 'But it doesn't matter, does it? All that matters is whether you want your quantum displacement system fixed. If not, then we'll be going.'

  'And if we do?' Colonel Devenish prompted.

  'We'll be staying. But I'll need to know all about this Base Diana. What it's for, how long it's been here, 4 8

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  where the canteen is, everything.'

  'You don't know?' Major Carlisle said with an ill-concealed sneer.

  'Never needed to know, not till now,' Amy told her.

  'And everything round here is need-to-know, right?' the Doctor added. 'So now we do need to know.'

  'Professor Jackson?' Devenish said.

  Amy had not noticed the other man in the room. He was still sitting in the back row of s eats. Now he stood up. He was a thin, wiry man with close-cut grey hair and eyes to match.

  'Well, I'm not proud. I'll take help from wherever I can get it. Professor Charles Jackson,' he introduced himself, walking briskly to the front of the room. 'I'm in charge of the scientific side of things here, so maybe I'm the best person to give you a tour and explain the set-up. I'm also the only one here who has any idea how the quantum displacement system is supposed to work.' He paused. 'And my knowledge is patchy at best.'