Doctor Who BBCN08 - The Feast of the Drowned Page 4

She rose and nodded. ‘Rear Admiral, what can I do for –’

  ‘The intruder, Swann.’ Crayshaw’s voice was dry as dust. ‘What can you tell me about him?’

  ‘Very little. He said he was a doctor, but most likely he’s a journalist.

  He wanted to know about the Ascendant.’

  ‘Why did he come to you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Vida shrugged. ‘I suppose he could have seen my name in the visitors’ book. I was visited by my superior this afternoon.’

  34

  ‘Mr Dolan, yes.’ Crayshaw made no attempt to disguise his displea-sure. ‘I ran into him on his way out of the building, had a talk.’ He nodded to himself. ‘Mr Dolan pulled many high-ranking strings to get you an office here.’

  ‘Is there a problem, sir?’

  ‘I am attempting to maintain secrecy around a major incident at sea, Swann. I view your presence here, and the comings and goings of your colleagues, as a possible potential security breach.’

  Vida raised her eyebrows. ‘With respect, sir, as an officially recognised affiliate group with a vested interest, we have full security clearance and every right to be here. Our research and development team were conducting extremely important tests on the Ascendant when she went down. Naturally we are interested in retrieving data relating to those tests, and the chemicals involved.’ She decided to match him for honesty and plain speaking. ‘Frankly, I don’t understand your reluctance to let our own scientists confer with those based here. Surely by pooling our resources –’

  ‘We have the situation well in hand,’ said Crayshaw flatly. ‘And for what it’s worth, you’re wasting your time trawling that stretch of the German Ocean where the Ascendant sank –’

  ‘German Ocean?’ She stared at him blankly.

  He looked almost uncomfortable for once. ‘As once that body of water was known.’

  For a moment, Vida considered telling him what they had found out. But no. He wouldn’t share his own secrets, so why should she give him hers? ‘With respect, sir, I don’t believe you have personal jurisdiction over the North Sea. But may I ask why you have forbidden the wreck recovery team leaders to talk to me?’

  ‘They are forbidden to talk to anyone for the duration of this inquiry.’

  ‘And why am I barred even from boarding the tug moored outside this building? I mean, what possible value can there be in maintaining a veil of secrecy over that heap of –’

  ‘There is value in it, Swann. Believe me.’ He took an intimidating step closer. ‘When our business is concluded the findings will be 35

  made public – and I assure you we shall hold nothing back.’ His face twitched in an attempt at a smile. ‘Until then, I feel it best you conduct your affairs elsewhere.’

  ‘But you can’t –’

  ‘An unauthorised imposter made directly for your office.’

  ‘Yes, and I raised the alarm!’

  ‘I have already told your Mr Dolan that to avoid further embarrassment to all parties, you should work elsewhere, away from these premises.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘I fancy he saw things my way.’

  ‘Did he, now.’ Vida felt like clonking the old fool over the head with her desk lamp. What are you trying to hide? she wanted to yell in his wrinkly face.

  ‘I trust you will discuss the matter with him as soon as you are able,’

  he said, turning and crossing to the door.

  She saluted him – a two-fingered salute to his disappearing back, as the door swung shut behind him. ‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed, picking up the phone. ‘I’ll discuss it all right.’

  The Doctor had gone down as far as he could. The lift doors wouldn’t open at first – there was probably some sort of code required – but a little friendly persuasion with the sonic screwdriver did the trick.

  He emerged into a massive high-tech hangar. It was the size of a football pitch. The floor and walls were tiled in antiseptic white, gleaming in the floodlights that peppered the ceiling.

  The huge

  floorspace was divided up into sterile work zones by swathes of clear plastic or towering glass cubicles. In each was a hulking segment of ship, pored over by bustling figures in white hazard suits.

  ‘An underground lair!’ the Doctor muttered happily. ‘Ooh, the sneaky devils.’

  So this was why the Ascendant was towed all the way here. While they down played the incident up on the surface, down here the ship was subjected to the closest possible scrutiny in a secret military citadel. But why?

  36

  At least there were no alarms going off down here. They wouldn’t figure on him being able to make it this far. Not yet, anyway. He strode up to one of the great glass cubicles and studied the chunk of ship contained inside.

  ‘That’s weird,’ he muttered.

  ‘Who are you?’ A short, middle-aged man in a hazard suit had spotted him and was scurrying over. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Sir John Smith –’ the Doctor began. ‘Er, Sir John Smith’s son. Dr John Smith junior, Scientific Adviser, that’s me. Come to help.’

  ‘Well, my name’s Huntley and I’ve never heard of you.’ He pulled off his protective helmet to reveal a balding head and a fierce myopic stare. ‘You have a red pass, of course.’

  ‘Think I’d go anywhere without it? So, what’s going on here, then?

  I can see the advantages of dismantling the Ascendant for close study of the separate sections. For one thing, you’d never fit a battleship in that lift.’ The Doctor leaned in towards the scientist, assumed a confidential air. ‘But this ship hasn’t been dismantled, has it? It’s been carved up. Chopped into neat slices like a huge, ship-shaped sausage.

  So how have you done that, then, eh?’ He gestured to the section before them. ‘I’d love to know. In this bit alone you’ve bisected metal inches thick, electrical components, even bolts and rivets, and yet the edges are completely smooth – no trace of trauma in the surrounding matter. That sort of technology shouldn’t exist for another hundred years – so where did you find it?’

  Huntley stared at him. ‘Well, if you don’t know the answer to that, Dr Smith, you’re precious little use to us as an adviser.’

  ‘Oh? How come?’

  ‘This is how we found the Ascendant, lying on the sea bed,’ he said.

  ‘We didn’t cut the ship up into pieces. Something else did.’

  37

  ‘Hi,’ said Rose, forcing a big smile as Keisha opened the door. ‘Said I’d come back later. Are you OK?’

  Keisha just stared, her red puffy eyes narrowing to slits. ‘What’ve you brought him here for?’

  Mickey glared back. ‘Yeah, right, never mind the strange old lady, Rose, what am I doing here?’

  ‘Please let us in, Keish,’ said Rose, her arm still tight round Ann. ‘We need your help.’

  Keisha stepped back, let the door open wider. Rose and Mickey helped Anne inside, through the cluttered hallway into the gloomy living room. Though the curtains had been drawn, Rose noticed at once that the TV had been shifted from the corner along with a stack of dog-eared magazines and CDs. Taking pride of place now in the centre of the the cleared space was a congealing plate of beefburgers and beans, So much for Keisha’s tea.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Keisha watched them as they manhandled Anne on to the saggy couch. ‘Who’s she? Where’d you find her?’

  Rose paused for a moment. ‘Her son was on board the Ascendant, like Jay.’

  39

  ‘Have you seen him? Did he come to you?’ Keisha fell to her knees in front of the old woman, grabbed her roughly by the hand. ‘I said, did he come –’

  Mickey angrily pulled her hand away. ‘She’s not well. Leave her alone.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do –’

  ‘Or what? You’ll get your mates to try and rough me up again?’

  Mickey straightened up, looked at Rose. ‘I told you this was bad news.

  I’m out of her
e.’

  ‘You are not,’ Rose snapped. ‘Now listen to me, both of you. . . I know you’ve never got on. And Keish, Mickey told me –’

  ‘What? What did he tell you?’

  ‘About what you did to him.’

  ‘You and that lynch mob!’ Mickey jumped in. ‘Every time I walked out of that police station you had people waiting to put me in hospital!’

  ‘Yeah, all that.’ Rose held up her hands for peace. ‘That was wrong, Keish. I know you were just upset about me going and all that, but –’

  ‘Rose, you –’

  ‘But,’ she repeated, ‘that’s all done, it’s over. And right now there’s something freaky going on and I’ve got to get my head round it.’

  ‘Get you!’ said Mickey quietly.

  ‘I have, though. And I’m gonna need you both on my side. So no more fighting tonight, OK?’

  Mickey and Keisha looked at each other.

  Then Mickey looked away. ‘I really need some water. I’m parched.’

  She shrugged. ‘Kitchen’s through there. You’ll have to wash lip a glass.’

  He nodded and stalked off.

  ‘Thanks,’ Rose mouthed at Keisha, and crouched down in front of Anne. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Did she see her son, Rose?’ Keisha seemed more controlled now.

  ‘Did he come to her?’

  ‘Peter asked me for help,’ said Anne, staring at the plate in the cor-40

  ner of the room. ‘He was so sad. He needed my help. Needed me to come to him. . . ’

  Keisha nodded urgently. ‘Before the feast, yeah?’

  Anne looked at Keisha, slow compassion spreading over her lined face. ‘Yes, that’s right. I thought your friend was only humouring me, but. . . ’

  ‘Jay was my brother,’ said Keisha.

  ‘We both saw him,’ Rose said nervously.

  ‘He’ll come to you again, dear, when he’s found his strength.’ The tweedy old woman seemed so out of place amid the ramshackle tat of Keisha’s living room, yet so self-assured. ‘You won’t be able to tempt him here.’

  Rose glanced back at the cleared space and the cold plate of food.

  With a shiver she realised it was sat on the spot where the ghost had first appeared. ‘That lot’s for Jay?’

  ‘They were always his favourites,’ said Keisha, welling up. ‘I used to cook them for him when Mum went. If he’s worried about this feast thing, [thought maybe some food. . . ’

  Rose put her arms round her friend and held her tight. Mickey came out of the kitchen with a glass of water, crossed awkwardly to a chair and sat in it.

  As he did so, Rose realised that every chair had been turned towards that same spot where the telly had been. She could feel Keisha carefully shifting round in the embrace, desperate to face that way too, just in case.

  Anne smiled serenely, as if there was some creepy kinship between her and Keisha now. ‘When our loved ones come again,’ she said softly,

  ‘we will be ready.’

  The Doctor was acutely aware that Huntley was waiting to be impressed, and that the man’s patience was growing thinner than his hair. ‘So, the whole ship was found lying in pieces, right?’

  ‘Of course.’ Huntley frowned. ‘Haven’t you been briefed?

  ‘Who were you told to contact when you got here?’

  ‘Crayshaw mentioned your name to me.’

  41

  ‘He did?’ Huntley seemed pleased but baffled.

  ‘Bit odd, isn’t it – a rear admiral taking personal charge of a situation like this, leading the troops? Don’t you reckon?’

  ‘Crayshaw was appointed to handle it.’ He shrugged, as if that settled the matter. ‘You’re sure he didn’t direct you to talk to Hempshaw?

  He’s in charge of –’

  ‘Hempshaw? The very thought!’ The Doctor put a conspiratorial arm around Huntley. ‘Hempshaw in charge? Yeah, right. We all know that results are needed – and that the men “in charge” aren’t deliv-ering. That’s why I’m here.’ He nodded, encouragingly. ‘Bit of a shake-up, see?’

  ‘Er. . . ’

  ‘We need to look at the problem afresh. New ideas, that’s what we need. Fresh thinking. So! What sort of technology could do this?

  Hydrogen fused anti-cellularisation is my bet.’

  ‘Hydrogen what?’

  ‘You know. Goes to work on matter at an atomic level.’

  ‘Some sort of weapon?’

  ‘More of a state of mind. It can be used to damage and destroy, but primarily it reworks matter. Re-engineers it.’ The Doctor gestured to one of the hunks of ship. ‘Look at those lean edges! You could slice a banana on those. That’s not some heavy-handed attack. That’s craftsmanship, real craftsmanship.’

  Huntley looked bemused. ‘Craftsmanship?’

  ‘Well, craftsalienship, might be a better word. Or crafty-aliens’ ship even!’

  ‘You’re mad!’

  ‘What’s mad is to think that any humans in this time could develop hydrogen fused anti-cellularisation, let alone employ it success-fully hundreds of feet under the sea,’ the Doctor assured him. ‘When the ship was discovered in its various sections, was there any life on board?’

  ‘You must know that all the crew were lost!’

  The Doctor shook his head gravely. ‘I’m not talking about the crew.’

  42

  Then a klaxon burst into a deafening wail, echoing and re-echoing about the enormous, vaulted hangar. Red lights in the roof flashed on and off, spilling crimson shadows over the white space. The scientists started scurrying about like ants with a large stick poking out of their nest.

  ‘Watch out – intruders about.’ The Doctor raised his voice over the din. ‘So, anyway, these huge great chunks of ship – bit big to fit in the passenger lift or slide down the stairs. You must have some way of transporting cargo down from the river.’

  Huntley nodded distractedly, staring round the hangar as his colleagues left their various projects and began to congregate in the central space. ‘It’s a largely automated handling system. The underside of the tug locks on to a conveyance chamber concealed beneath the surface of the river. Hydraulic platforms take the cargo down an intake shaft into the main unloading bay, and from there. . . ’ He cleared his throat, lowered his voice, uncomfortable. ‘Erm. . . everyone’s staring at us.’

  ‘My fly’s not undone, is it? No. So why. . . oh, hang on. You don’t think that they think that I’m the intruder, do you?’ The Doctor grimaced. ‘Tch! Typical of the kind of antiquated thinking we’re dealing with here! No wonder Crayshaw sent me to see you, Huntley. . . ’

  Suddenly the lift doors slid open – to reveal half a dozen armed soldiers.

  ‘Fresh ideas, that’s what’s needed.’

  The Doctor shook Huntley

  warmly by the hand. ‘And I’m fresh out of them, so I’ll do what I normally do in situations like this. Run!’ He turned and legged it.

  ‘Unloading bay this way, is it?’

  The soldiers, with a depressing lack of originality but a great deal of nippiness, made straight for him. The Doctor ran towards a set of oversized metal doors at the far side of the chamber, labelled DECONTAMINATION. Made sense – the sort of stuff that was sent here for study, you needed to make sure it was clean before you got stuck in. He started sonicking the second he was in range – it triggered another alarm, but this one was small fry next to the pandemonium of 43

  the main klaxions. The doors slid slowly open to reveal a featureless while chamber with a set of identical doors directly opposite.

  ‘In for a penny, in for a pound,’ decided the Doctor. Another quick squizz with the screwdriver, yet another alarm in the mix, and the next doors opened in just the same way – only these ones gave on to a wide access corridor, damp and dirty and dingily lit, strafed with heavy-duty scuffs and gouge-marks.

  The Doctor ran through. The soldiers were nearly on top of him, raising their weapons to fire. A quick flick to a hig
her sonic setting and the screwdriver sent the heavy quarantine doors flying together as if suddenly magnetised. With a sonorous clunk, they slammed shut.

  ‘Ace-a-mundo,’ he cried, and then frowned. ‘A word I shall hopefully never use again.’

  Deftly scrambling the motor circuits to lock the doors in place, the Doctor puffed out a sigh of relief. But as he breathed in again, his nose twitched. There was a salty reek in the air, Together with something else he couldn’t place. As he moved further along the gloomy corridor, his sneakers splashed in shallow, mucky puddles. He stooped, dipped a finger in one and gingerly licked it clean. ‘Saltwater,’ he murmured.

  ‘Like the sea. But if this is the route down from the river. . . how come?’

  A loud pounding noise had started up behind him as the soldiers tested the strength of the metal doors. There was no turning back, that was for sure. The question was, could he get out the same way that the cargo got in?

  ‘One way to find out.’ With a grin, the Doctor rushed on into the darkness.

  Huntley edged uneasily into the scrum of his fellow scientists as Rear Admiral Crayshaw stalked from the lift and into the workshop. The alarms had shut off now, thank God, but his head was still pounding with the useless boom of the soldiers as they attacked the heavy decontamination chamber doors. Somehow, Crayshaw’s footsteps on the tiled flooring rang out still louder as he approached.

  ‘What’s the delay with getting those doors open?’ he demanded.

  44

  ‘Intruder jammed them somehow,’ called one of the marines.

  Crayshaw rounded on the scientists. ‘Who spoke with the intruder?’

  Huntley could feel the sweat oozing down his back. Working in these secret military establishments, you got used to the thunder and fury of the big bosses with their permanent migraines. He knew there was no way out of the firing line, and took a step forward. ‘I did, sir.’

  For a moment Crayshaw ignored him. ‘I need those doors open at once,’ he barked at the scientists. ‘Everyone who’s qualified, jump to it.’

  A handful of systems analysts scuttled away. Huntley watched them leave with envy.