第 15 页

'The sights on the rifle you gave me were mis-aligned.'

The pale young man turned his face to him, his expression unreadable, his eyes invisible behind the thick lenses of the sunglasses he always wore. After a second he nodded his head a fraction of an inch. 'I'll have the armourer reprimanded for that.' He dug into his suit pocket and passed the blond man an envelope. 'I think it's time to get daring. Do the job outlined in here and then lie low for a few days. After that, I think we'll go get our policewoman back from Sir Marmaduke's grubby little mitts.'

With a sudden and jarringly fast movement he grabbed the bottle of Scotch, smashed it against the doorframe and jammed the jagged end into the door itself. 'And if you screw up once more, next time the bottle goes into you.'

After he had left, the blond man tried prising the bottle out of the wood, but it was stuck fast. As he grasped the broken neck, he felt unusual ridges in the glass. He looked closely. Gouged into the glass were five clear fingerprints. But to have the strength to do that... the pressure needed would require someone with the strength of about ten men. And there was no way that the pale young man was that strong, surely?

In a cage, kept away from too many smells, sights or sounds was a Dobermann pinscher. At least, once it had been a Dobermann pinscher. Now it was something more, something extra special.

One day a man it had trusted had come into its cage with a large syringe of a thick green ooze, which bubbled slightly. The man had injected the substance into the dog's neck, right into the jugular. It had hurt, and the dog had tried to snap at his former friend, but collapsed as it tried.

The transformation had taken about eight minutes. Waves of pain swept over it as it felt its body and mind twist and alter. Its senses were heightened - it could see things previously hidden from its limited spectrum of vision; it could hear the breathing of people a hundred yards further down the cavern; it could smell the particular scent of sweat on a man standing next to a woman he was attracted to.

And this sudden in-rush of new perception snapped its mind, sending it insane and insensible.

The man watched the transformation from a safe distance, and reported back to his masters that the Stahlman Hound was ready to be trained. To become the Stalker. And over three months, he trained it, using a mixture of drugs, conditioning and basic cruelty.

The Stalker was the first living thing to be deliberately infected with a modified sample of Stahlman's gas from the aborted drilling project nicknamed the Inferno. The man was justifiably proud of the aberration of nature he had designed and engineered. He considered himself almost god-like; he had created a new form of life in the name of science, research and the future.

Then one day he woke from a dream of being chased through dark tunnels, and realized that he had helped to create not a new species, but a new weapon - one with untested and terrifying implications. What if it escaped? What if it could infect other dogs through breeding, or biting? What if it could infect humans? Rabies would be the equivalent of a slight cold in comparison to the Stahlman Hound's fearsome mutations. He decided it was time to stop those experiments, and vowed to do what he could to make the workers in The Vault see the error of their ways. And if they would not, he would find another way of stopping their work.

Now, all that was left of the man and his good intentions was a pile of well-gnawed bones and a shattered skull, scraped clean of all meat and marrow, their surfaces scarred with deep gouges from canine incisors. Around them lay pieces of torn and tattered clothing. One, a sock, lay discarded in the corner of the cage. Inside was a neatly stitched label that read 'Grant Traynor'.

The creation had eaten the creator. And it was still hungry.

---

Marc Marshall stood beside the nice old man, the Doctor. Both of them were dressed again in their own clothes, which had been washed and dried. The reptile who had returned them explained that they had needed to wear the mesh vests to protect their bodies from the pressure caused by the depth. The explanation had taken a while and Marc had not understood any of it, but the Doctor had remarked on its cleverness. 'And very thoughtful, too.'

Now they stood in a cavern deep under the sea, facing a whole group of reptile people. Earth Reptiles, they seemed to call themselves. The Doctor had explained to him how they had ruled Earth at the time of the dinosaurs. How their cities had sprawled across the world. How they had cars and planes, ships and submarines, and had been working on space-craft. The Doctor also said that they had art and literature, sports and games. A complete civilization.

They were the same as humans, but much, much older. The Doctor told him that the entire race had gone into hibernation when their astronomers saw the moon approaching the planet. Thinking it would suck away the Earth's atmosphere as it rushed by, they built vast shelters underground and went to sleep, waiting for it to pass and return to deep space. Instead the moon went into orbit and the Earth Reptiles never awoke.

The Doctor also explained how thousands of their shelters had been destroyed over the millions of years that had passed, but hundreds more must still exist somewhere. He explained how he had met the Earth Reptiles before, and how they had fought and ultimately lost a battle because they were too similar to humans. At least, that was how the Doctor put it.

Now the two humans were being examined by these seemingly hostile Earth Reptiles in their shelter. And from a large screen mounted on one wall, three others stared down. They appeared slightly different, slightly older, than the ones in the room.

'I have to say, Sula, there are marked differences between your group here, and Okdel's group.' The Doctor was staring at Sula and Tahni, the two Reptiles who had been in the submersible. 'You are very different from the older Earth Reptiles. You have what seem to be fins rather than ears.'

'You are correct, Ape. And before you prod and poke us any further,' said Tahni, slapping his hand away, 'we are different. We are hybrids. We are -'

'Enough, Tahni. The Apes do not need to know anything.'

'Of course, Baal.'

Marc looked at the newcomer. If what he had gathered from the Doctor's comments was correct, this must be another hybrid Reptile, because he too had fins for ears.

The new hybrid, Baal, pointed at him, 'Sisters, you have done well. The Ape hatchling is exactly what I need for my experiments. Take it away.'

Marc was petrified, but the Doctor stood between him and Baal. 'What are you going to do with the boy?'

Baal shoved the Doctor aside with astonishing strength. 'It is no concern of yours, Ape.' He looked back at the screen. 'If the Triad has no objections, I will start breaking this one down. Interrogate the old Ape as much as you like; just ensure that it is killed afterwards.' He looked across at an older Reptile, who resembled the three on the screen. 'Is that all right with you, Chukk?'

The one called Chukk nodded slowly.

Baal grabbed Marc's arm tightly, hurting him. He was determined not to cry out. He would be brave. 'And Chukk, be sure to disinfect this area. I can feel the Ape's fleas crawling all over my skin already.'

As Marc was dragged away, he heard the Doctor calling out, 'Noble Triad, please guarantee the safety of the Ape hatchling. I implore you not to -' but his voice was muffled by the rocks.

'What are you going to do to me?' Marc asked Baal.

Sula, who had followed, laughed. 'Make use of you, Ape. You never know, you may be our only way of surviving.'

'I'd like to help. Really I would. Just tell me what to do,' Marc said.

Baal stopped in front of a rock wall. His third eye glowed green for a moment and the rocks seemed to melt away, revealing a cavernous laboratory inside. He pulled Marc in, and Sula followed. She used her third eye to replace or rebuild the solid wall, Marc couldn't work out which.

'How did you do that?' he asked.

Baal ignored the question. 'Stand there.' He pointed to a far wall, where something that looked like a large movie camera was mounted near the ceiling, pointing straight down. 'Under the encoder.'

Marc stood. Opposite him, Sula waved her hands over a console. 'Begin,' she said out loud.

Marc's body began to tingle as he was enveloped by a pale light, emanating from the camera-like object above him.

'It is working,' said Baal, from the right side of the room. 'Observe.' Marc looked. In Baal's hand a tiny figure seemed to shimmer into existence, about six inches high, mounted on a black disc.

Baal sneered at Marc. 'See, Ape. You do not possess such technology. This is a hologram, and it has reproduced every facet of your body. Your inferior mind cannot begin to grasp the concepts involved.'

Marc was positive he was not going to give in. He would not cry, or let Baal or Sula or anyone know how frightened he really was. He'd been frightened when Tahni had dragged him into the cottage, but that had been surprise more than anything else. He would try to resist whatever they were going to do. Somehow in his mind the memory of the cottage seemed like years ago, but it was only yesterday, surely?

'Tell me about the technology anyway,' he said.

Sula shrugged. 'It has spirit. For an Ape.'

Baal pointed at the hologram, and Marc saw a tiny copy of himself stare back. It glowed slightly, and flickered. 'Here it looks like you. But now -' and Baal tapped a stud on the base of the holo-thing and the copy of Marc vanished, to be replaced by a Marc-shaped image, composed of a series of lines and circles '- we have a wire-frame image of you.' The stud was pressed again and this time, the Marc-image was filled with glowing primary colours. 'Here, you are in infrared. We can see your inner body, and trace your genetic codes. Here we can see it all.' Marc was aware that Baal was not really talking to him, or to Sula. He was talking to himself.

'Here we can find the chromosomes that make you different from us. We will separate them, bind them with our own and create new ones.' Baal looked up from his console. 'We needed a young hatchling, on the brink of puberty, while its body chemistry is in such a marvellous state of flux. With you, we may be able to single out the exact piece of genetic material that can save us all.'

'When will you do this?' asked Marc, looking at Sula, as Baal turned back to his console, engrossed in data.

Sula looked at Baal and then back at Marc. 'Very soon, Ape. Very soon.'

'And will it hurt much?'

Baal looked up suddenly and laughed. 'Oh, probably. But you shouldn't worry about the pain. Whether it hurts you or not, it will most definitely kill you.' He turned back to Sula. 'We can proceed immediately. Let us start.'

Chapter Four

The Brigadier strode into the UNIT Operations Room, watching the chaotic scene before his eyes. Eight people were engaged in frenzied activity, each studiously avoiding eye-contact with their commanding officer, if they had even noticed his arrival.

Only the staff officer for the night, Sergeant Benton, managed a quick salute before grabbing and scanning a series of messages that had come through on the telex. Corporal Bell was on the red phone, linked directly to UNIT'S headquarters in Geneva. Private Parkinson was doing a round of teas and Corporal Hawke was sticking small red flags into a map of the Hastings area. Others gathered files, brought chairs and made themselves busy. It was chaos, but a structured chaos.

'Well?'

Everything went quiet and still as the Brigadier spoke. He moved to sit in a chair behind his desk as Bell stepped into the next room to continue her conversation with Geneva. Hawke broke the silence, pointing at her map.

'This, sir, is the cottage outside Smallmarshes where the Silurian activity is reported to have taken place, and where WPC Redworth was found.' She pointed to the next flag along, very close to the first. 'This is the Smallmarshes police station, the Doctor's last reported location.' She indicated a third flag. 'And this is Hastings General Hospital, sir. The policewoman apparently injured by the Silurian or Silurians was taken there, and later abducted during an armed assault. The kidnappers caused enough other distractions to cover the abduction for a few hours.'

'Any casualties?'

'A few concussions, a few cuts from broken glass and one fatality. A strange one, sir.'

'Don't stall, Corporal.'

Hawke shrugged. 'A woman in a nurse's uniform was shot dead in the hospital's reception. She was not on the hospital's staff, and her uniform wasn't recognized by any Hastings staff. Which is hardly surprising.'

The Brigadier raised an eyebrow. 'Why?'

Benton chipped in, holding up a photograph of the dead woman, allowing the Brigadier to see the neat hole in her forehead. 'She was wearing a Glasshouse uniform, sir.'

'And the gun,' the Brigadier continued, mostly for his own benefit, 'was a Compacta 25 calibre, judging by the entry-wound. Any rear damage?'

Benton shook his head. 'Apparently not, sir. The bullet entered her brain and lodged there.'

'As I said, Compacta 25 calibre; a toy unique to the Glasshouse. Was the weapon located?'

'On the reception desk, sir. It looks like she was shot with her own gun,' Hawke replied.

The Brigadier stood up and coughed. 'Let me get this straight. We have a possible sighting of a Silurian; a category A plus, UNIT-eyes-only threat. Instead of UNIT's commanding officer being informed, the report is intercepted by his scientific advisors and they act upon it. One goes to Smallmarshes and talks to the police, one of whom has seen the creature and has been hospitalized as a result. The other advisor disappears. Neither of them are contactable. Meanwhile, the policewoman in hospital is kidnapped and only one clue is left behind: a potential Glasshouse staff member murdered with her own gun.' The Brigadier glared at the group around him, as if daring someone to speak. 'And I wasn't briefed on any of this until an hour ago. Anything else?'

'Just two things, sir.' Benton picked up a sheaf of papers from beside the telex. 'The Smallmarshes police have reported that they were due to meet the Doctor at seven thirty this morning at the cottage where the Silurian was seen. He didn't turn up, and they want to know if he was really attached to UNIT Secondly, a teenage boy has been reported missing from the same town. His name is Marcus Marshall.'