Doctor Who: The Devil Goblins From Neptune (10 page)

'the sound quality is infinitely superior to a long-playing record. And the system's easier to work than a Dansette. Just listen to it ...'

The sound of the Alan Hawkshaw Orchestra rippled gently across the room from a pair of Quad speakers.

'Hmmm,' said Liz, putting down her glass and then settling into one of the armchairs. 'I remain to be convinced.'

'I thought quadraphonic sound was going to be the next big thing,' noted Gavin Hyde, one of Mark's housemates, a first-year philosophy student. He sat down on the floor next to Liz, cradling a brown-ale bottle in one hand and fingering his CND medallion as he tried, very obviously, to look anywhere but at Liz's shapely legs.

'Rubbish,' said Fay, another of the house's occupants.

agree with Mark,' she continued, with a look at Liz that said I hate you and I want you to die. 'What with the current vinyl shortage, LPs and those horrible little forty-five things are going to be dead in a couple of years. There's an oil crisis, you know. It's hard to make vinyl without oil!'

Liz, uneasy at suddenly being the centre of attention, stood up and crossed the room towards Mark's stereogram, a mahogany affair that was housed beneath a teetering bookshelf which overflowed with technical journals, copies of New Scientist, and a stack of dog-eared American super-hero comics. She passed two knots of party guests chattering happily and drinking extravagantly in the ambient splashes of light created by three lava lamps.

'Comics insult your intelligence.' she said picking up a copy of The Brave and the Bold. She knew that Mark would have followed her. She sensed his frustrated tension behind her.

'But comics are all I read,' he said, again in that high-pitched half-chuckle that told her that he was embarrassed and not a little drunk.

'I like the music,' she said, holding the cassette case of the Studio 2 Stereo collection currently filling the room with its shimmering mood music and sweeping orchestral passages.

'No you don't, you'd prefer some Stravinsky or Stockhausen. Something unlistenable.'

'I don't think your friend likes me very much,' Liz announced. 'She seems very uptight. I wouldn't have really thought she was your type at all.'

'Fay's not anybody's type.' said Mark. 'She's a radical feminist'

'So am I,' said Liz, with a cheeky grin that seemed to ruffle all sorts of feathers on Mark.

'I ought to put you over my knee.' he said between gritted teeth, looking away from her and back towards his friends, who were now talking among themselves.

'Not in front of the army, darling, they look after their own.

They'd probably shoot you!'

Mark's fingers dug into Liz's arm. 'Sometimes I think you enjoy winding me up.'

'No, honestly, I've got better things to do with my time.'

she said in her sweetest voice, pulling herself free. One or two heads were beginning to turn in their direction, though she saw that the Doctor was completely engrossed in conversation with Professor Trainor.

At that moment she and Mark were joined by two former colleagues who were also now working on the Neptune project. The conflict drained away.

'I think you should come back and join us,' said John Gallagher, one of Liz's oldest friends.

'At the party, or on the project?' she asked with a wicked grin.

'Both,' replied Gallagher. 'They're far too dull without you!'

Chris Hughes nodded in silent agreement. In all the time that she had known him, Liz had never known Chris use a word when a mute gesture would do.

'I'd love to.' she said, lightly touching John's arm. 'But... '

'I know, I know - Official Secrets Act. I suppose after the stuff you get up to with Dr Smith over there, rocket fuels must seem a bit namby-pamby?'

'You've met the Doctor?' she asked, as John began looking through Mark's cassette collection. She caught Mark out of the corner of her eye, slipping back towards his friends, looking alone and crushed.

'Yeah. Curious bloke,' said John. 'Told me I reminded him of somebody he knew years ago. I asked who and he said Joseph the Second of Austria-Hungary! Bit of an obscure joke, wouldn't you say?'

'That's the Doctor,' noted Liz.

'Hey, Mark,' called John to the other side of the room.

'Haven't you got any Rolling Stones, or the Who? Something with a bit of volume?'

'No,' said Mark, moving back towards Liz but avoiding looking at her. 'What you see is what you get'

'Ah,' said John, picking up a copy of A Saucer Full of Secrets. 'This'll do. The Floyd are mellow.'

Mark seemed to nod and shake his head at the same time. 'Whatever you like,' he said, and turned his attention to Liz. 'There's a good discussion going on over here,' he said, indicating where Fay, Gavin, and others were sitting. 'We're talking about nuclear disarmament and utopianism'

I bet you are, thought Liz with a wry grin. 'Sounds fascinating,' she said.

'Your input would be greatly valued,' said Mark, sounding not unlike a wounded puppy.

Oh God, David Mercer-on-Acid. Liz's eyes flickered towards the ceiling. After a brief hesitation, she smiled. 'I'd be delighted,' she said, and brushed past Mark, her eyes catching those of Mike Yates, who was chatting to a very pretty girl in a bright-yellow miniskirt who Liz didn't recall having been introduced to. Mike gave Liz a broad wink and she grinned back at him. Good old Mike.' even among these people, in these surroundings, he didn't find it difficult to be himself.

Welcome to the world of the middle-class intelligentsia, she thought. Look upon their works, ye mighty, and despair.

'I know what you mean,' said Mike, giving the girl a cheesy grin. 'I think hot pants are a very ugly fashion, too. I much prefer a girl in a dress.' Or out of one, come to that.

Her name, she said, was Valerie. She had a beautiful soft voice with a hint of Scandinavian or something in it. Mike Yates had always been a sucker for foreign girls, ever since he had been seduced by his French mistress at boarding school as a fourteen year-old. There was something exotic and exciting about them. A mysterious quality that appealed to Mike's love of danger, sports cars and handguns.

The girl was very pretty, with dark hair, bright-green eyes and a charming smile. She hadn't been introduced to Mike but had simply walked up to him and started talking. 'I hope you do not mind me being so forward.' she had said, ‘but I do not know many people here. You look as though you are in the same boat'

Mike admitted that he was, and they had struck up o conversation about food and drink and clothes. Mike found himself asking her about music, though his knowledge of current popular trends was limited to watching Top of the Pops once o month or so when his duties allowed.

'I love that new group, the ones who wear leaves and vines in their hair. They are really freaky. I saw them on television last week. The singer is lovely.'

'Don't think I know them,' said Mike, before quickly adding 'I'm sure they're far out' (He groaned inwardly. Had he really just said that?)

'And I love the Beatles,' she continued.

'Ah yes,' said Mike, on surer ground now. 'It was such a pity about Paul, but I really dig the German guy.' In truth, when the new Beatles line-up of John, George, Ringo, Billy and Klaus had been announced, he'd been as horrified as everyone else by the prospect of listening to "She loves you, ja, ja, ja".

She put a hand up to his cheek and stroked his skin gently,

swaying to the music. 'Michael,' she said, 'what do you do?'

'I'm...' Yates paused. (Plan B.' lie your head off.) 'I'm a racing driver,' he said, turning his head slightly away from her and putting an arm around her shoulders.

'Is that not dangerous?' asked the girl.

'I suppose so,' said Yates, desperately trying to keep a straight face. 'It's a dirty job, but I guess somebody's got to do it'

The song ended and Valerie whispered something, but Yates didn't quite catch it above the general hubbub of the party 'I'm sorry?' he said.

'I asked if you would like to go to bed with me.' she replied. For a split second Yates couldn't decide if he'd had too much to drink, or not enough. If you're sure,' he said.

The girl didn't reply, but took his hand and led him towards the door. They passed Mark Wilson and Liz, by now dancing together, holding each other closely and talking softly. Mike and Liz exchanged surprised glances and then Yates disappeared up the stairs.

'Good old Mike,' said Liz softly.

'Sorry?' Mark's head jerked backward, suddenly snapping out of dreaming reminiscence.

'He's a bit of a lad.' she added helpfully, watching the UNIT captain and the woman.

Mark inclined his head in their direction too. 'Oh, I see.

Well, I hope they pick someone else's bedroom. I was hoping to get a little sleep myself tonight.'

'Pity,' said Liz with a mischievous grin. Just for the moment, she felt happy and relaxed, able to enjoy the minutiae of life rather than struggling to capture the bigger picture. The détente that existed between her and Mark had lasted for five minutes, but she knew in the pit of her stomach that it probably couldn't go on much longer.

I'm sorry I dragged you into that rubbish discussion about the problems of youth,' said Mark. 'Sometimes Fay can be a real cow.'

'Maybe you should try being nice to her,' said Liz. 'That normally works.'

Mark stopped dancing. 'Liz, I -'

'Shhhh.' she cooed, taking his arms from around her neck. 'Don't spoil it, or say something you don't mean. Now, you'll have to excuse me for a minute. I'd better go and break up the Doctor and Professor Trainor, or else they'll still be talking at daybreak'

The Doctor had been introduced to Professor Trainor by Liz right at the start of the party, and, once she had flitted off somewhere else, conversation had swiftly turned to the Doctor's and Liz's work for UNIT Never one to let the Official Secrets Act get in the way of a good story, the Doctor had given Trainor an insider's view of the Cyber invasion, the Nestene attack, the Eocene crisis, and the aborted Inferno project, all of which Trainor knew little about.

'So, you have actually had direct contact with alien life forms?' asked the professor. 'I've heard Ian Chesterton talk about you often, but I always took some of his ideas with a pinch of salt'

'Chesterton's problem was his scepticism, funnily enough.' said the Doctor fondly about his old friend. 'I ran into him at Greg and Petra Sutton's wedding earlier in the year, but we didn't have much time to talk. Is he still working for NASA?'

'Yes.' said the professor. 'I met him and Barbara in London last month. I told him that I hoped to meet you soon, and he said I should ask you about Vortis.'

'He did, did he?' asked the Doctor with a stifled laugh. 'I always said he was a rapscallion. How's their little boy?' he asked, changing the subject with indecent haste.

'Very well.' The professor began to ask him about something else, but the Doctor's attention was distracted by the model of the Neptune probe that was on Mark Wilson's mantelpiece.

'A very impressive piece of work,' the Doctor noted.

'You should see the original,' said the professor. The Doctor appreciated Trainor's sense of humour. He always found himself drawn to intelligent people who had a spark of personality about them. Too often he'd encountered academics with lots of brain but little soul.

'I'm fascinated by the propulsion system,' noted the Doctor as he and the professor moved towards the model.

'Indeed. I worked for almost five years on the specifications, but to be fair much of what we achieved is down to Rachel Jensen. An unsung heroine on the project and, I don't mind telling you, a genius on the quiet.'

'I don't think I know her,' stated the Doctor.

'Really? She speaks highly of you,' replied Trainor.

'Anyway, once we'd created a system that could handle the fuel load, the actual design of the craft was easy. We used some of the Russian data collected by their German scientists, and the rocket specifications of the Americans and their German scientists...'

'And they gave it to our German scientists,' continued the Doctor with a resigned smile. 'I met Von Braun in Texas last year when I did a recruitment tour. Sordid little man, I thought. Brilliant mind, of course...'

'I know what you mean' Trainor nodded. 'Isn't that often the way with great thinkers? The scope for abuse of their knowledge is enormous. I still remember seeing the photographs of Dachau and thinking.' One day, I could be responsible for something like this.'

'It's a risk we all take, said the Doctor. 'Science is the domain of the naive and consequently prey to the tyranny of evil men.'

'Exactly,' replied the professor. 'And we have to be so careful these days. The media have created an artificial hysteria where space exploration is concerned. The public are uncertain if we should be restarting manned space flights for fear of what we'll find. They now expect every scientist to be governed only by the very worst motivations imaginable. I mean, after the Carrington debacle we've had to reassure them that we aren't all power-crazed megalomaniacs who want to rule the universe!'

At this point Liz joined them with a broad grin. 'Glad to see you two are getting along,' she said.

Trainor smiled, but took this break in conversation as an excuse to glance at his watch. 'Ah, I really should be going. It was so nice to see you again, my dear.' He stretched out his hand to the Doctor. 'A pleasure, Dr Smith.'

'No, the pleasure was all mine, my dear chap. I'm privileged to have made your acquaintance.'

'So, what do you think?' asked Liz after the professor had said his goodbyes and left.

'I see now where you get your independent turn of mind from,' said the Doctor jokingly. 'You had a remarkable teacher.'

Mike Yates and Valerie removed themselves to one of the bedrooms. Mike was somewhat confused by the evening's events, his carefully rehearsed moves and speeches having been rendered redundant by Valerie's pre-emptive strike.

They sat on the bed for a while, saying little, then kissed, hurriedly. Both seemed coy and unsure how to proceed. It was not a situation that Mike was used to at all, but each attempt to get the show on the road was met by curious disinterest. Valerie, having gone this far, seemed to be having second thoughts.