Chapter Thirteen

Unaware of events elsewhere in the world, half a dozen trained UNIT men followed Ray through the refinery and I followed the soldiers. Ray knew which routes the guards patrolled. The place was swarming with them, apparently, but I didn't see a single one. The troops were hand-picked by Captain Ford and moved through the base swiftly and silently. No doubt if we had come across any of the patrols, the UNIT men would have dispatched them with the same efficiency - each carried an automatic pistol with silencer, and enough knives to fill a cutlery drawer. Our main weapons were the packs of thermite explosive we carried in special belt pouches. Even I had three packs - each was about the size of a paperback book but packed enough punch to bring down a house or blow open a tank. The UNIT boffins had told us that the high explosive generated enough heat to incinerate even the most deadly nerve agents. When I had challenged them, suggested that they might free the Martian gas rather than destroy it, they were proud to announce that mankind had devised much more virulent materials than the substance released over Adisham. The bombs would work, if enough of them were planted in the right locations.

Back in Windsor Forest, as soon as Lethbridge-Stewart had finished his briefing, Ray had drawn a map for the refinery assault team. He'd helped to build the plant four years ago, and he knew virtually every pipe and wire. To me, the refinery complex looked like an alien city, with pressurised skyscrapers and pipelines instead of pavements. In a way, of course, it was an alien city: the first Martian colony on Earth. The silos had been designed by Vrgnur for the sentient gas, and duplicated conditions on Mars. Behind the stainless steel, Vrgnur had been propagating something entirely inimical to man. At the time I knew little about the Red Death. Later, I would have time to search the ancient Martian texts and I would learn of an assassination weapon capable of passing through the narrowest gap in relentless pursuit of its target. In the scarce atmosphere of Mars it was subtle, invisible. But when it fed on the abundant elements of Earth's atmosphere, it became bloated and bloodthirsty.