Doctor Who_ Amorality Tale Part 14

'No, I insist,' Sarah said firmly, taking Mary by the arm and escorting her out of the kitchen. 'I could do with getting out myself,' she whispered conspiratorially to Mary. 'If I drink any more of Vera's tea I'll drown!'

The two women giggled as they stepped out on to Tabernacle Street. Sarah grabbed a coat and scarf as they left number 15. Once outside, she made her excuses. 'I'd best be off, I've got to visit a friend nearby. He's only a few minutes away, but it'll probably take me all morning in this weather.'

Mary waved a finger at Sarah, giving her a mock scolding. 'I hope you're not keeping a fella on the side. There'll be h.e.l.l to pay if Tommy finds out.'

Sarah smiled. 'I can deal with Tommy. You just look after your girls.'

A wave of worry pa.s.sed over Mary's face. 'I'll see you later.'

She disappeared across the street, swallowed up by the smog before reaching her own doorstep. Sarah wrapped the scarf around her face several times and set off for Whitecross Street.

At Bethnal Green Police Station, Chief Superintendent Carver was addressing officers drawn from across the East End. The policemen were all gathered in the canteen, where steaming enamel mugs of tea and hot b.u.t.tered toast were being served.

'Men, we have a difficult task ahead of us today. The smog will make that job even harder. You may get some resistance.

People round here can be a surly lot at the best of times, but that's no excuse for not treating them with courtesy and respect.

We are doing this for their own good.'

Hodge held up a hand nervously. 'I'm not sure I understand.

What is this special task?'

'Hasn't it been explained to you constable?' Carver asked. He looked to Sergeant Diggle despairingly.

'Sorry, sir. Several of the men only just arrived in time for the meeting. I didn't get a chance to brief them,' the desk sergeant explained.

'Hmm, well, that's understandable,' Carver admitted. He looked at the young constable. 'Hodge, isn't it?'

'Yes sir!' The policeman smiled, happy for the recognition.

He must have made a good impression for the chief superintendent to know his name.

'It's been decided to evacuate those parts of London worst hit by the smog. We've been getting reports of rapid rises in mortality rates across the capital since the smog settled in last evening. Unless we get people to safety, the effects could be catastrophic.'

Hodge still had a question. 'But I listened to the news on the wireless this morning. They said nothing about any evacuation.'

Sergeant Diggle answered that. 'Panic, lad the authorities want to avoid a panic. If the evacuation was announced, everyone would rush to get out of the city simultaneously. Can you imagine the effect of several million people all trying to get out of London at once?'

'Utter chaos,' Carver chimed in, nodding sagely. 'So we'll be taking people out street by street, house by house. They go to a holding centre first, before being evacuated from the city entirely. Our goal is to empty London before the smog reaches fatal levels.'

'Surely the army is better suited to evacuating people?'

Hodge asked.

'Perhaps,' Carver acknowledged, 'but we're already here and the local citizens know our faces. The smog has delayed attempts to call the army in for help.'

He paused to see if any more questions were forthcoming.

Satisfied at last, Hodge was tucking into a plateful of hot b.u.t.tered toast.

'Alright then,' Carver said with a smile. 'Everybody has their orders. Let's make this operation as quick and efficient as possible. The vans are waiting outside. Good luck!'

Tommy wearily opened the front door of 15 Tabernacle Street.

He had spent three hours out in the smog, visiting the homes of his missing men. Billy Valance had disappeared during the night Tommy suspected the cowardly lieutenant of doing a runner but Dave Butcher was also missing. Several of the Ramsey Mob's best henchmen had also disappeared. n.o.body could explain their absence or suggest where they might have gone.

Tommy tried the Red Room but it was empty and abandoned.

At least he had managed to find Norman Page, the last of his lieutenants. Norman had dug up a cache of weapons hidden away after the war and was arming all the men he could muster.

They would be standing ready to respond to a phone call from Tommy.

The gangster stepped inside and slammed the front door behind him. He coughed and spat repeatedly, trying to clear the acrid stench of smog from his lungs. He felt dirty, as if he was covered in soot and sweat. The cloud seemed to wrap itself around you, like some deadly embrace.

Tommy strode into the kitchen, his throat dry and wretched.

'Mum, tell me you've still got a cup of tea in the pot,' he pleaded.

Mrs Ramsey beamed happily. 'I've always got a cuppa ready for you, Thomas, you should know that by now.'

The mention of Tommy's given name brought a sn.i.g.g.e.r from the two brothers, who were still sat at the kitchen table.

The gangland boss glared at them, silencing any mirth in a moment. 'What are you two still doing here?'

'We're waiting for orders,' Charlie replied, avoiding Tommy's gaze.

'Well go and guard the front door. I'm expecting most of the major faces from the East End here by midday. I don't want any unpleasant surprises.'

The two brothers vacated the kitchen, leaving Tommy to put his feet up.

'Still bad outside, is it Thomas?'

'Mum, I never seen anything like it. Ain't normal!' He listened for the sound of other voices in the house. He could hear Jack upstairs on the phone and floorboards creaking heavily overhead indicated Brick was still in. Probably fretting about his pigeons, Tommy thought.

'Where's Sarah?'

'Oh, she went across the road with that Mary Mills nearly an hour ago. I'd of thought she'd be back by now,' Mrs Ramsey replied.

Tommy consulted his wrist watch. 'She better not miss the meeting.'

Sarah almost missed the TARDIS, so bad was the smog becoming. She only found it by groping her way around the corner from Old Street into Whitecross Street. Visibility was down to a few feet and still contracting. Eventually she b.u.mped into the tall blue box and thumped three times on its side.

'Doctor, it's me!' she hissed.

After a long, agonising wait, the door finally opened and she slipped inside. Sarah unwrapped herself from the combination of scarf and coat, dropping the soot-soaked clothes on to the floor.

'I swear that smog's getting worse all the time. It took me forever to get here, you know,' she said. As usual, the Doctor was absorbed in checking the many dials and displays on the central console. 'I said that smog's getting worse all the '

'Yes, I heard you the first time, Sarah,' the Doctor replied.

He looked up at her and smiled. 'Have you changed your make-up?' 'No, why do you ask?'

'Try that mirror.' The Doctor pointed at a small mirror perched precariously atop an open trunk piled high with wiring, metal and oddities. Sarah followed his advice and was shocked to see a horizontal band of black and grey soot across her face, where she had peered through a gap in the scarf to see her way forwards.

'I look ridiculous!' she cried out, pulling a handkerchief from a pocket and wiping the sticky soot from her features. 'Urgh!

This stuff is horrible!'

'Just imagine what it's doing to your lungs, and to the lungs of everybody else in London. Chest and bronchial infections will be up by a factor of ten. Anyone already suffering from asthma or other breathing difficulties will be dead if they can't escape the city soon.' The Doctor pointed to a display on the central console. 'Take a look at this.'

Sarah joined him by the display. It registered external air quality in the area immediately surrounding the TARDIS. The needle usually stayed in the large white s.p.a.ce to the left of the display. Now the needle was just in the amber section in the middle. As Sarah watched, it shifted another fraction to the right, moving ever closer to the final, red sector.

'I know I'm going to regret asking this, but what does the red part indicate?' Sarah inquired tentatively.

'That London's air quality would be fatal to any human being who breathed it for more than a few hours.' The Doctor's face was graver than Sarah had ever seen it before. 'The smog cloud is getting worse by the hour, becoming increasingly toxic.'

'How long before that needle goes into the red zone?'

'Two days at the most, perhaps less.'

'Perhaps?'

'Probably.'

Sarah had not given up hope yet. 'What if the weather changes? Then the smog cloud would slowly break up, wouldn't it?'

The Doctor rubbed a hand against the back of his neck, stretching his muscles. 'I've been monitoring the build-up since last night, Sarah this is not what I would describe as a natural phenomenon.'

'How would you describe it?' she asked fearfully.

'As a first strike weapon.'

'Like an atomic bomb.'

'Something like that.'

Sarah was aghast. 'Doctor, how can you be so calm about this? You're pa.s.sing a death sentence on thousands, even millions of people!'

His eyes looked into hers mournfully. 'You think I don't know that? I would give anything to have stopped this ever happening but it's already begun. Now we must do all we can to prevent a greater tragedy.'

She nodded, knowing what he said was true. But that didn't make the reality of it any easier to take. 'You said this wasn't a natural phenomenon.'

The Doctor nodded.

'So who or what is causing the smog? Does it have anything to do with the creature Tommy and his men fought outside the church yesterday?'

'You know about that?'

'Only what I've been told.' She caught some hesitancy in his voice. 'You were there! What happened?'

The Doctor related his version of events, explaining what little he knew about the Xhinn. But Sarah sensed he was still holding something back.

'What aren't you telling me?' she demanded.

'The Xhinn are a very methodical species. Before they colonise a planet, they send scouting missions in first to collect and a.n.a.lyse data about the world its resources, its dominant species and what threat they might pose. These missions can take years in Earth time.'

'So you think this Callum creature was probably just an advance scout, sent ahead of a full colonisation team?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'The Xhinn never travel alone.

According to legend, they use a triumvirate gestalt ent.i.ty to guide any mission.'

'Speak English Doctor!'

He searched for an appropriate metaphor. 'Have you ever seen clover?'

'Three leaves, one plant yes, so?'

'A triumvirate gestalt ent.i.ty is like that three Xhinn, working together as one mind for more efficient decision making.'

'Three heads are better than one, that sort of thing?' Sarah suggested.

'That sort of thing.'

'So, the triumvirate could be one Xhinn short of an ent.i.ty?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Doubtful. I suspect Callum was an external scout, sent out from the Xhinn vessel. He got ahead of himself and revealed his true ident.i.ty yesterday outside the church. This smog it's a cover-up.'

'For what?'

'I think Callum's revelation has forced the Xhinn to advance their plans by years, maybe even decades ahead of schedule. The smog is designed to lay waste to London, preventing word of their arrival being spread.'

Sarah was aghast. 'They're going to murder millions just to cover their tracks? But that's outrageous.'

'It's nothing to the Xhinn. They're playing for much higher stakes than the lives of every man, woman and child in London.