Chapter Eight

The crowd were beginning to disperse. Necks were getting cricked, it was getting late and the UFO was just hanging there doing nothing. The police had sealed off the area, so no-one else was getting in. There were still many hundreds of thousands of people in and around Trafalgar Square, but the crowd was appreciatively thinner than it had been. Those that remained where quiet again, expectant. Someone was proclaiming that Jesus was the one true saviour, another that the end of the world was nigh, another that he was selling soft drinks.

Everyone else stood or sat, listening to the radio, looking up at the spacecraft or down at the police and military presence. The Evening Standard had published a late edition, with ten pages of eye-witness reports and photographs. Virtually everyone in the crowd had bought a copy, hoping that it would explain what was going on.

It didn't, of course.

The Doctor was staring up, his eyes screwed up. He was holding the sonic screwdriver out in front of him.

'Now what are you doing?' Benny asked, tucking her newspaper underneath her arm. None of the policemen or soldiers had seen them yet, but surely it was only a matter of time.

'Knocking,' the Doctor said quietly.

A series of grunts and barks filled the reception chamber of the Martian ship, making Staines jump. Greyhaven's was a more measured response.

The voice swirled around them. It was the same 'holographic sound' technology that the Martians had used to communicate with Greyhaven for twenty years. Alexander Christian had brought trinkets back with him - a Martian walkie-talkie and a couple of electronic keys. These were based on a form of silicon unknown on Earth, but which could be crudely duplicated. Greyhaven had built the communicator in his office himself, and currently only that prototype existed.