Chapter Eight

Xznaal faced her. 'Ssummerfield, my entire planet iss exhaussted.' He paused to draw breath. 'For centuriess there hass been no new metal, no new ssource of energy. 'Another pause. 'All Martian life iss dying from the ssmallesst plant to the largesst beasst of burden. Our blood is thin, my people infertile. Within a century, our world will be dead.'

'So you want to plunder Earth?' the Doctor countered.

'There's no question of "plunder", Doctor,' Greyhaven snapped. 'We will open a trading relationship with the Martian people. Both planets will benefit.'

'In the lasst few centuriess, our major citiess have become depopulated. Our people are impotent and disseassed. Our fieldss are barren. Lord Geryahavunn hass been assssissting uss.'

'Staines,' Greyhaven prompted.

The Home Secretary pulled a test tube from his jacket pocket.

'Martian soil,' Benny said. It was one of the tubes from the crashed helicopter, or one very similar.

'Not quite,' Greyhaven said, taking it from his colleague. 'Martian soil is little more than rust. It's mildly radioactive and completely sterile. You have as much chance as growing crops on the hull of this spaceship as in Martian soil.'

He handed the test tube to the Martian Lord. 'But when Xznaal's men analyse the contents of this test tube, they will discover that our scientists have reintroduced biological agents that make the soil fertile. It is a simple chemical treatment process.'

Xznaal's held the tube in his vast pincers. 'Our sscientisstss theorissed that ssuch a processss would exisst, but without raw materialss, it remained just a theory.'

'One of my refineries is already producing the fertiliser. To human eyes it is a laughably cheap procedure, but it will save an entire planet. Soon, space freighters built by British Aerospace will be transporting the fertiliser, and raw materials like it to Mars. '