Chapter Six
The Doctor had his feet on the desk, his hands were folded behind his head. 'Bernice is from the twenty-sixth century,' he explained, delighting in the astonished expressions this revelation earned him. 'By then, the human race has colonised Mars and displaced the native Martian population. Bernice is an expert on Martian civilisation and culture. With the greatest respect, time is pressing.'
A couple of people at the table looked bemused by the revelations, but they'd seen enough in their time with UNIT to at least keep an open mind. They took their lead from Bambera, who was taking all the information in her stride.
'Doctor, I'll need some sort of proof of Martian involvement before I can even think of asking to deploy UNIT forces. And I need some evidence - anything - that points to a wider conspiracy. I'm afraid the MoD will not believe the words of an escaped psycho. No offence, Colonel Christian.'
'None taken, Brig,' Alexander said lightly.
The Doctor was staring at the television screens, and knowing him, Lethbridge-Stewart imagined that he was taking in every piece of information, trying to find a clue in there. 'At the moment,' the Doctor blurted, 'because of the manned mission, almost every telescope in the country is pointing at Mars. Get them to check their records - at some point today there will have been a disturbance on the Martian surface. Check the photographs, and you'll see it bears an uncanny resemblance to an ICBM launch or a Moon rocket.'
'Do it, Corporal,' Bambera ordered. The prim Corporal could do that from her box of tricks, too, it seemed.
Bambera stiffened. 'OK, here's the score: if the Doctor is wrong, and there aren't any Martians, no-one will ever know. Space Centre has everything pretty well covered up, and there's no problem. But, if there are Martians, UNIT need to know about it. From this point, we'll assume for the sake of argument that the Martians are out there and that they are mad with us. So, Doctor, Professor Summerfield, what are these Martians going to do?'
