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Obviously the magazine was empty. She swore, hurled the useless
weapon at the aliens, ran out across the road, hoping to put the stream
of moving trucks between her and them. A truck swerved, almost hit
her. She heard a crunch as it ran over one of the police, a squeal of
brakes as it stopped.
Don't stop my friend for God's sake don't stop
But there was no time to turn, to warn the driver. She had reached
the verge on the other side of the road by now: ahead was a concrete
embankment, topped by a mesh fence that marked the boundary of
the airport compound. She glanced over her shoulder, saw people
struggling out of their cars and trucks, running, grey-uniformed
figures following them, making grasshopper-like leaps across the
traffic to pin their victims down.
She scrambled up the embankment, hooked her fingers into the
mesh fence at the top. Through the netting, she could see a big
Hercules transport plane, its engines running, slowly turning away
from the airport buildings.
Catriona stared at it for a moment, at the RAF roundels and the
blue logo just visible above the loading door.
RAF thank Christ its got to be the UNIT plane Jo's people are
on there I can tell them what's happening what happened to her and
it's my only chance of getting out of this country alive I've just got to
go for it
But the plane was taxiing away from her, towards the end of the
runway. She knew that she had no hope of catching up with it.
There was only one thing she could do.
She clambered over the fence, catching her shirt on a jagged wire.
She struggled free, jumped down and started running down the main
runway. The plane, perhaps a mile ahead of her, was turning slowly,
readying itself for take-off. Catriona wondered how much runway a
Hercules used. It depended on the load, she supposed. She carried on
running, her shoes clopping on the tarmac. Sweat was trickling down
her face.
The plane completed its turn, hung there, shimmering in the heat
haze.
She wondered if they could see her. Surely they must be able to.
She waved her arms, pushed her hands forward palms first in a
desperate parody of a 'stop' signal.
they've got to see me they've got to stop please they've just got to
She wondered what would happen if they didn't stop. If the wheels
missed her, would she be sucked up in the airflow, then dropped to
bash her brains out on the concrete?
No, she was probably too heavy for that.
But she realized that, if they didn't stop, she'd rather be killed here
and now by the plane. Rather that than be caught by the aliens. She
remembered Anton Deveraux's scratchy whisper: ' dancing the
code '. Remembered the contorted face, the ruptured skin.
I don't want to die that way, any way but that
The plane was moving, she realized. She could hear the roar of its
engines as they throttled up.
please they've got to stop please
The plane was visibly bigger now, rumbling towards her. She ran
faster, a head-down sprint of the kind she hadn't done since she was
in school, keeping her eyes on the white guide line in the middle of
the runway.
She wondered if she would feel the impact when the nose wheel hit
her.
When the pilot put the brakes on, the Brigadier was almost thrown
out of his straps. He glanced up at the Doctor.
'Looks like your change of policy didn't last very long.'
'Oh, I don't know, Brigadier. Perhaps the plane's got a flat tyre.'
But the Brigadier could tell that the man was worried. As the
aircraft pulled to halt, he got out of his straps and strode towards the
door. Jo followed him.
The door opened, letting a blaze of sunlight into the darkened
interior of the plane. The Brigadier got up and walked to the door.
Outside a woman was shouting up at them. Her blonde hair was
dirty, and her clothes were torn and bloodied.
'... aliens!' she shouted.
'What's she talking about, Doctor?' asked the Brigadier.
The Doctor looked round, an irritable expression on his face.
'Nothing, old chap. Just some mad woman.'
'Jo!' the woman was yelling. '... believe me! JO!'
Jo turned and pushed her way past the Brigadier back into the
plane. 'I don't know who she is,' she said, then hurried away.
The Brigadier frowned. He could see several policemen running
across the rough ground between the airport buildings and the
runway.
'I think we ought to investigate the situation,' he said. He looked
over his shoulder. 'Benton! Bring two of your men and '
'No!' said the Doctor. 'Wait a minute, Brigadier! That doesn't make
any sense. This woman has been infected by an alien virus. Her
continued existence threatens the lives of everyone on Earth. The
virus may make her act irrationally dangerously. We have to leave
at once.'
The Brigadier frowned. He wasn't sure that the Doctor was making
any sense. One moment the woman was 'just a mad woman'; the next
she was infected with a deadly virus. And surely it was UNIT's
business to deal with alien infections?
But then, the Doctor quite frequently didn't make any sense.
'The local police are aware of the situation,' the Doctor went on, as
if reading the Brigadier's concerns from his mind. 'It's fully under
control. I've given them plentiful supplies of an antiviral preparation.
We need to get to Headquarters as soon as possible to arrange for a
worldwide immunization programme.'
The woman on the tarmac had noticed the approaching policemen
now. She was glancing repeatedly over her shoulder, and almost
screaming at them. 'Please! You've got to help! They'll kill me!'
'We'd better get down there, sir.'
It was Benton, looking over his shoulder. Captain Yates stood
behind him, a frown on his face.
'No!' snapped the Doctor. 'If anyone goes down there without
access to the antiviral preparation they will die.' The policemen had
reached the tarmac.
'THEY'LL KILL ME!'
'Far from killing her, Brigadier, they'll save her life and ours, if
I'm not mistaken. Now, please, we must leave at once.'
The Brigadier hesitated a moment longer. The policemen grabbed
hold of the blonde woman, dragged her back across the tarmac. She
screamed once, then struggled silently as they carried her away.
'You see?' said the Doctor. 'She's not dead.'
'I still think we ought to check '
'Brigadier! They're immunized, you're not.'
The Brigadier looked at the policemen, now jogging back towards
the airport building with the woman bundled onto their shoulders. He
shook his head slowly, backed into the plane and let the Doctor shut
the door.
'You'd better be right about this, Doctor,' he said.
The Doctor turned to him and smiled.
'Trust me, old chap,' he said. 'I know exactly what I'm doing.'
Sixteen
'Look, Doctor, are you all right?' asked the Brigadier.
The Doctor made his usual response to questions of that kind: in
other words, he ignored it, and carried on with what he was doing. He
had got the large retort down from its stand the one the Brigadier
had always imagined was in the UNIT lab purely for decoration, or
possibly to give the cleaners something extra to dust. Now it was
filled with a reddish-brown fluid, in which bobbed a brown object
about the size of a ping-pong ball. The fluid was, in the true
alchemical tradition, boiling, though the Brigadier could see no
obvious source of heat. The lab smelled sweet, spicy, rather like that
perfume Jo had been wearing on the flight.
He glanced across at Jo. 'Is he all right, Miss Grant? You haven't
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