Chapter Six

A prim young corporal was sitting at the far end of the desk, tapping instructions into a keyboard that controlled the displays.

Alistair looked around at the three people he'd brought along. Bernice sat to his left, looking a little uncomfortable. The Doctor paced the room for a moment, before realising that he was also meant to be seated. Both seemed out of place in such a spotless, disciplined place. Alexander Christian sat at Lethbridge-Stewart's right side, much more at ease. The Captain to his right was more nervous.

Bambera stood in front of the multimedia display. 'OK. Here's how I see the situation. There was some flap at the Space Centre. The astronauts discovered a doorway made by extraterrestrials. Since then, there's been a clampdown at Mission Control. I've been trying to get them to return my calls for five hours now, and they won't. A couple of press contacts say they've had no luck, either.'

'If they've encountered evidence of alien life, they're doing the right thing to keep it secret,' one of the Captains noted.

Bambera nodded. 'I agree - and it wouldn't be the first time that the British government had covered up ETs and kept UNIT out of the loop. So I phoned NUIT HQ, Paris and got them to listen in on the Mars transmissions. Corporal - '

The Corporal controlling the display pressed a control on the desk and the loudspeakers began burbling with standard comms traffic between the Lander and Orbiter. The voices of the astronauts would pipe up every so often. Everything sounded perfectly normal.

'This is a live feed. They haven't even mentioned the archway, so it didn't lead anywhere interesting. End of story. Right?'

'Wrong,' the Doctor declared. Now he was sitting draped over a chair, his feet on the desk. 'When did the astronauts enter the tomb?' he asked the room.

'About ten fifteen,' Bambera supplied.

The Doctor peered at the clock - it was twenty past six.

He leapt to his feet. 'We have a little under forty hours before the invasion.'