Island of Death (6 page)

‘Mother! We can’t let this go!’

She sighed. ‘I’m afraid you’re right.’

They hadn’t heard him...

‘Meaning?’

‘What do you think she means?’ said Cabot. ‘You’ve blown it Whitbread. It’s about time you got what’s coming to you.’

‘Now, look here, Cabot...’

‘The whole question - and your crass behaviour with the journalist girl - will have to be brought to a full meeting.’

‘I’m afraid he’s right,’ said the little old lady.

‘I hardly think that will be necessary,’ replied Alex.

‘I do. And that’s my final word on the matter.’ The gentleness had quite gone.

‘But...’

‘You can come out now,’ she went on, raising her voice -

though it had quickly lost its steely tone. ‘Yes, you under the veranda. Let’s have a look at you.’

Jeremy, only too pleased to be able to move, scrambled out onto the lawn and did a stamping, stomping dance to dislodge the scorpion he was convinced was poised to stab him in the calf. A small beetle (about half an inch long) fell to the ground and scuttled away. Jeremy, still panting with fear, looked up, awaiting his fate.

‘Don’t look so scared,’ said Mother Hilda, with a little laugh.

‘We’re not going to eat you. Come and have a drink. You must be thirsty in this heat.’

He went up the steps and sat down where Mother Hilda

indicated. She clapped her hands, and an Indian bearer appeared.

‘Bring the young sahib a glass of fresh lime and soda -
the
special soda - with ice.’

‘At once, memsahib.’

Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief and settled back into the cushions. This was a lot better. Five-star stuff. She’d obviously spotted that he was a bit different.

Sarah discovered that one of the advantages of travelling with Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, the Commanding Officer of UNIT UK - and, indeed, being a temporary member of his staff - was that you found yourself in First Class.

Not that it made all that much difference. As it happened, they were the only passengers in the curtained-off area at the front of the plane. The seats were marginally more com
-

fortable, and they were offered a free drink as soon as the

seat-belts sign went off, but that was about all.

‘Better bring a bottle,’ said the Brigadier, after the smart air-hostess had brought him his second dram of Scotch in a miniature.

‘Sorry, sir,’ she replied, ‘it’s regulations. We have to monitor your drinking.’ And she disappeared.

For a moment the Brigadier was speechless; and the Doctor looked as if he was struggling not to burst into laughter. Not a good start, thought Sarah.

The flight was going to be a difficult one. The Brig
was not
in any sort of mood to chat, especially after a couple more

drams. And the Doctor, almost as soon as they were on their

way, had pulled something out of his pocket that looked like

one of those old-fashioned silver cigarette cases you saw in

black-and-white thirties films. This was fatter, though, and

had some push buttons and other knobs and dials on the
outside.

When he opened it, she saw that it was filled with parts so

minute that it was impossible to make out whether they were electronic components or mechanical cogs. And as he worked at it with what seemed to be a long metal tooth-pick, the parts moved and sparkled, and it emitted a tiny noise like a fairy music box.

He noticed that she was watching him. ‘Fair wear and tear,’

he said. But if I don’t get it working, the TARDIS will be about as much use as a car without a gear-box.’

The Brigadier gave a snort. It wasn’t a snort of laughter.

The Doctor looked across the aisle at him. ‘I didn’t quite catch that, Lethbridge-Stewart,’ he said icily. ‘Would you mind repeating it?’

Oh God! If they were going to behave like a couple of kids from the infants’ class, it was going to be a swinging journey.

‘Doctor,’ she said hastily, before the Brig could react,

‘forgive me, but you’ve been awfully cagey so far. Won’t you tell us what you think is going on?’

Her diversion worked.

‘Quite right,’ said the Brigadier. ‘Here we are setting off to go halfway across the world, and you haven’t yet deigned to explain exactly what particular breed of wild goose we’re chasing.’

‘Oh, very poetical,’ said the Doctor. ‘I should have thought it was obvious, even to the meanest intelligence.’

Oh dear! You could hear the irritation in both their voices.

‘Evidently not,’ snapped the Brigadier.

The Doctor grunted and turned to Sarah. ‘Did you do Biology at that school of yours?’

The Doctor never seemed to have much opinion of human education.

‘Some. Not a lot. It was part of General Science.’

‘Entomology?’

‘Bugs and things? Well, I suppose we touched on it. Yes, the bees and... and fertilisation and all that,’ said Sarah, pushing down the memory of a hilarious session on sex given reluctantly - and incomprehensibly - by the elderly Miss Prosser, popularly known as Old Prodnose.

‘Then I expect you’re familiar with the family of
Asilidae -
the robber flies.’

‘Er... not so you’d notice.’

The Brigadier, who had already finished his fourth Scotch, broke in. ‘Are you trying to tell us that... that thing is an insect?’

‘Not exactly...’ The Doctor paused as if to marshal his thoughts.

Must be like trying to explain trigonometry to a couple of toddlers in nursery school, thought Sarah.

‘All physiological details of the body, with very few exceptions, show their evolutionary function in their shape, or their position, or both. Sometimes the development of an organ is so fitted to its purpose that it seems to be teleological - but no doubt you’d agree with me, Lethbridge-Stewart, that such a way of looking at it is erroneous.’

‘Oh, absolutely. Couldn’t have put it better myself,’ said the Brigadier, reaching for the bell to summon the stewardess.

‘Teleological?’ asked Sarah.

‘The idea that evolution is mediated by a preordained future purpose.’

Sarah thought for a bit. ‘You mean... like... like evolution had no way of knowing that we were going to wear glasses, yet look where it put our ears?’

‘Sorry,’ she added. The look on the Brig’s face told her that

this was no time for joking. But the Doctor didn’t seem to

mind.

‘In a way, that’s just what I do mean. It was a very popular view before Charlie came up with the obvious answer.’

‘Charlie who?’ said the Brigadier, as the air-hostess arrived with several more miniature bottles and an air of resignation.

‘Charlie Darwin. Bit of a plodder old Charlie, but he got there in the end.’

The biggest name-dropper in the universe, the Doctor!

Sarah was still not used to somebody like him caring about such things. Or perhaps it was the other way round - he just didn’t care...?

‘So what’s that got to do with the price of turnips?’ she said.

‘The asilid has the habit of stabbing its prey - another insect; it might be one of your friends, Sarah, a bee perhaps -

stabbing it in the neck with its proboscis. Though perhaps it should more properly be called its hypopharynx...’

‘Oh, for Pete’s sake...’ said the Brigadier, whose glass was nearly empty again.

‘Quite right, quite right. What it’s called hardly matters to the poor old bee. You see, the asilid injects its saliva into the body of its prey; and the saliva has proteolytic enzymes in it which... all right, all right... It has what you might call digestive juices, which liquefy the bee’s innards. And then all the asilid has to do is suck out its dinner. Simple.’

The Brigadier had lost his air of irritation. He was leaning forward, listening intently. He said, ‘I see what you mean.

Those bodies...’

‘As soon as I saw Sarah’s snap, I realised the creature’s physiognomy could have only one function. And I’m sorry to say that I was right.’

While the Doctor was speaking, Sarah had pulled the Polaroid print out of her pocket. The Skang looked as if it were drinking from the bowl with its trunk thing, but...

‘You mean it’s not a statue - and it’s going around sucking out the...’ She could hardly finish the thought, let alone the sentence.

And where was the Skang now?

Jeremy tried to remember why he’d gone looking for Brother Alex, without success. It didn’t seem to matter, though. After all, he’d met Mother Hilda, and had a whizzo drink; and that nice fellow who’d brought him back to the dormitory (one of the guards, wasn’t he?) had been so kind; and then there were all those lovely people they’d met on the way, who’d smiled at him as if he was their bestest friend in all the world..

Smashing idea, putting all the London brothers and sisters together in one room. He was sleeping just above one of his closest friends, Brother Paul - it was quite an adventure, having to climb a ladder to go to bed! All in all, much better than being in a five-star hotel. More fun.

Jeremy Fitzoliver snuggled down into the featherbed comfort of the thin kapok mattress on the utilitarian springs of his iron bedstead, and fell into a slumber of deep content.

First class in the air, just for PR, thought Sarah, but once we’re out of sight... How hypocritical can you get, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart?

They obviously couldn’t stay in the ashram; but when the Sikh taxi-driver (all the taxi-drivers seemed to be Sikhs) took them straight to the Taj Mahal hotel on the seafront, the Brigadier took one look and condemned it as being unnecessarily luxurious.

Huh! Thirty rupees a night per person, that’s what the hotel they’d ended up in cost UNIT. About a couple of quid!

At least it was clean. And, to be fair, it was just down the road from the ashram.

It was run by an expatriate Aussie by the name of Ron (with a flowing ponytail and a kaftan), which was just as well... In spite of their elite status, the food on the aircraft had been as plastic as ever, and Sarah was in no mood to experiment more than she had to with Indian food, which had never been a favourite.

She fancied a hamburger.

‘Sacred cows, duckie,’ said Ron. ‘No beef here. But I can do you a simply delectable buffburger.’

‘Buffburger?!’

‘Buffalo meat. We can get away with that. How do you like it done?’

He was right. It was delectable, she thought as she sat chumping away, listening to the Doctor and the Brigadier arguing the toss. They hardly seemed to notice that their omelettes were getting cold, they were so irritated with each other.

‘I shall contact the UNIT liaison officer in the morning, and we’ll make an official visit. This has to be done by the book.’

‘And frighten them off? What possible advantage is there in going in bull-headed? Once the china has been broken, I would defy even you to stick it back together again.’

‘It’s all very well for you, Doctor, but I have to answer for my actions. Your hare-brained schemes - that is, if you have one at all...’

‘Hare-brained! You don’t even know what I’m proposing.’

‘Tell me, then.’

The Doctor took a sip from his glass. Surprisingly good, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘Not unlike a small wine of Burgundy.’

‘Ha! I thought as much. You have no idea what to do, now have you?’

Sarah, sitting between them, found that her head was swivelling from side to side like that of a tennis fan at Wimbledon.

‘If, as we suspect, these people have something to hide...’

started the Doctor.

‘If! You yourself said that this creature must be an alien life form!’

‘If, as I say, they want to conceal what’s going on, they’ll have built themselves a defensive wall to hide behind. That’s what the cult must be. We need to find a crack in that wall.’

‘And in the meantime, people are being slaughtered.’

‘I doubt it. Has UNIT had any similar reports from the other countries where the cult has been established?’

‘Well, no.’

‘I think you’ll find that the Hampstead bodies were an aber-ration. Indeed, that may be the very thing which will betray them.’

And so on, and so on, back and forth. Sarah found her jet lagged eyes starting to close, and left them to it.

After all, it was the story she was after. And that was inside the ashram. She could get up early tomorrow and follow her original plan. She could become a devotee herself.

‘But I’ve come all the way from London!’

The large man in white, in the little lobby to the right of the main gate, shook his head.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, in a soft Germanic voice.

Austrian probably, thought Sarah automatically.

‘You should in London have joined, perhaps. It is now too late.’

‘Oh, but I did! I just haven’t had time to get some white things to wear, and...’

‘Then what is the password, please?’

There’d have to be a flipping password!

‘Well, I didn’t exactly join. Not in so many words. But I...’

She stopped as she saw him shaking his head. ‘Oh,
please
’.

I’ve dreamed of being a Skang... er... disciple... follower...