Doctor Who_ Time Zero Part 4

'And what else are the boffins saying?'

Ostrander held doctorates and degrees from several universities in the US and Europe, none of which he was allowed to mention. But that was fine, as his credentials were taken for granted the fact that he was here was guarantee of his ability. n.o.body needed to know what certificates he had, any more than anyone needed to know his real name.

'So, in about seven hours they'll be back to normal and so will the plane?'

Ostrander sighed. 'That is what I said.'

Control's watery eyes seemed to harden. 'And we will have learned nothing, have nothing left to learn from?'

The scientist coughed. 'Well, we do have the ancillary data. Flight plan, and so forth. We've worked out from the taped communications where the time distortion occurred.'

'I know. In Russian airs.p.a.ce when they flew low level to avoid the new radar installation at Kazinski. The middle of nowhere.'

'Oh. You know.'

'That is what I said.' Control leaned forward, intimidating and serious. 'Tell me something I don't know. Something useful.'

Ostrander swallowed. 'There is one thing. As they return to Time Zero, the crew and the plane itself, come to that they seem to be emitting a form of... radiation.'

Control clicked his tongue. 'Radiation meaning something that is emitted, I take it.'

'We do need to a.n.a.lyse the phenomenon further. But it would seem to be like Hawking Radiation that's what black holes emit.'

'Thank you,' Control said. His tone made it clear that he did know.

'Yes. Well. One of my team is calling it "Chronic Radiation" for want of a better term.'

'And what is it?'

'It seems to be the energy that's released from the process of catching up with Time Zero. Particles of time, chronons, dispersing as the timelines match up. The process of, well, whatever it was, sensitises the subjects and produces these particles which are then leeched out over, ah, time.'

Control leaned back in his seat. 'So you can prove empirically what we already know.'

Ostrander frowned. 'Put like that, I admit it doesn't sound very impressive.' His face relaxed slightly as a thought occurred to him. 'It's a distinctive form of radiation. Very distinctive, that's how we found it of course. Since s.p.a.ce/time is all bound up together it affects gravity waves, even warps s.p.a.ce, although you'd never detect that of course. But we could detect the other anomalies. Maybe build something that could sniff out these particles and identify active sources.'

'And if we detected a source, what would that tell us?'

'I suppose,' Ostrander said rubbing his chin thoughtfully, 'that it could detect anyone or anything that had travelled in time.' He gave a short sharp laugh. 'So not a lot of use, I suppose. Sorry.'

A pale, bloodless tongue edged out of Control's mouth as he licked his pale, bloodless lips. 'Build it,' he said.

43: In Siberia

The ink was frozen solid. So Fitz had to write in pencil. The process was further complicated by the fact he was huddled inside several blankets and wearing a thick coat. There was, he decided, cold and Cold. And he was Cold. In fact, he could not believe he had ever been anything like so cold in his entire life. The first few months of 1963 had been cold, but it had nothing on this.

Expedition leader Paul Anderton definitely had the right idea. Appendicitis had to be preferable.

It had started as an adventure rather than an endurance. Fitz had been caught up in the excitement, infected by George's enthusiasm. He had met the Tsar (well, nearly by standing on tiptoes at the back of the group he had been able to see the top of his head), and travelled on the Trans*Siberian Railway. Which would be good when it was finished.

But Fitz's interest had diminished as the cold set in and George's mood darkened.

George's problem was simple. The person now leading their expedition was Hanson Galloway. Galloway was a large Scotsman, his ruddy face surrounded by a curly ma.s.s of red hair that seemed to have a life of its own, even when encrusted with ice. Galloway and George Williamson had met before and George's contempt for the man was every bit as apparent as Galloway's dislike of George.

The other three members of the team had joined them at Vladivostok. Gerhardt Graul was a Russo*German linguist who acted as their translator. He was small and mouselike with a habit of jigging his head about as he spoke in fluent Russian.

Peter Caversham, by contrast, was tall and aristocratic. He termed himself 'an explorer' and seemed to have a never*ending repertoire of stories about places that were even colder, or bleaker, or quieter, or whatever. Wherever anyone else had been, Caversham had been there first, and however awful an experience any of them had endured, Caversham had suffered worse. It amused Fitz to try to decide which of his own experiences would provoke the most ludicrous response. 'I've been to Hope, where the ruler is a mechanical man and the sea is made of acid,' he thought. And he could hear Caversham's Sandhurst reply: 'Oh I was there in sixty*four. Helped the old chap oil his joints. Then we went for a brisk swim before breakfast. Livens up the taste*buds don't you know?'

Finally, there was St John Price. He was as reticent as Caversharn was garrulous. George had told Fitz that Price was an ex*boxer, but Fitz wasn't convinced by the 'ex' bit. Price was there to do the heavy work, the carrying and loading. But in truth there was so much to carry that Fitz doubted it saved much effort having him there. The huge man probably ate so much that he doubled the supplies they needed.

So Fitz's enthusiasm and excitement had waned as the cold increased. And now he was lying inside a small tent on rocky frozen ground in the coldest place on Earth. A candle afforded him precious little light and less heat. His toes had gone a colour that scared him, though to be fair he had not dared to take his boots off for three days and from the numbness there was a real chance they had actually dropped off anyway. Added to that, he had promised to himself, the rest of the team and, sort of, via Galloway, to the Tsar that he would keep a journal.

Which was fine. Except that with the ink in his pen frozen long ago, he was left with just a few stubs of pencil to make his shaky imprint on the stiffened pages. He had to hold the leather*bound notebook at arm's length. Any closer, and the mist of his breath froze over the paper and he found he was trying to write through a thin haze of ice.

Somewhere in the distance, echoing across the open coldness, came the sound of an animal. A howl or a roar, whipped up and scattered by the wind.

'What the h.e.l.l was that?' His voice was as cracked and thin as the ice on the page. He coughed and tried to sound more composed. 'Just so I can note it down.'

'Might be a wolf.' George's voice was softened by the tent walls between them. 'Or a tiger.'

Fitz closed his eyes. That morning he hadn't been able to open them until he had rubbed away the frost. Perhaps while he slept tonight his eyeb.a.l.l.s themselves would freeze over.

'You're joking,' he muttered.

George's quiet reply was serious. 'No,' he said. 'No, I'm not.'

'Well let's hope they don't care for frozen food.'

'Look on the bright side,' George whispered through the canvas. 'Perhaps they'll eat Galloway first.'

Fitz smiled in the gloom. He reached a shivering arm out of his blankets and pulled open the flap between their two tents. They were pitched together, angled so a single opening served both. George was opening his own tent flap at the same time, also smiling, also shivering. The candle in George's tent quivered with the slight draught.

'What is it between you and Galloway?' Fitz asked. And the air froze between them. 'Sorry,' he murmured. 'It's none of my business.'

'No,' George said. 'You have a right to know. Since we're all stuck out here together.'

'I thought you were looking forward to it.'

'I was. I am.'

'Except for Galloway.'

George sighed. He took a deep breath. 'Galloway has a good reputation,' he said slowly, quietly. Fitz waited. 'But that reputation,' George went on eventually, 'is not his own.'

'Go on.'

George was not focusing on Fitz as he spoke. His eyes were as misty as his breath. The light from the two candles threw ripples of yellow on to the canvas walls, as though the twin lights were interacting, conversing.

George's voice was as distant as his point of focus. 'After my father died, I wrote a book. It wasn't much of a book, short and to the rather obvious point. I couldn't have done it while he was alive.'

Fitz wanted to ask why, but he kept silent, let George continue.

'Written in Stone, it was called. 'He smiled briefly. 'I thought that was rather clever. It was nonetheless hailed as a valid contribution on the subject of fossilisation and the cooling of the planet. It sold well and provided a modest income for a while. I was working as a librarian at the University. At Cambridge. So doing the research was relatively easy the academic research anyway. I published a few more papers, nothing very startling. But my work brought me into contact with Edward Parton.' He seemed to focus on Fitz for the first time. 'You know Parton?'

Fitz shook his head.

'Professor of History at Cambridge. Parson was formulating various ideas about how sediment formed, and about how idea about how archaeological finds could be dated by the debris and geology within which they were discovered. He found me reading his papers in the library when I should have been hunting out some notes for him He was happy to talk about his work with me. I was flattered, of course. But he was like that he would share his insights, his ideas, with anyone he trusted. And he was a very trusting man.'

'So what happened?' Fitz could already guess.

'That trust was betrayed. Someone published Parton's theories as his own and built a reputation on them.' George turned away, his tone suggested the matter was closed.

'But didn't he protest? Plead his own case?' Fitz asked.

'He wasn't a very forceful man. He was ignored at first. Then it was put about that Parton's was actually trying to steal the thunder himself. I was in Italy at the time, looking at rock formations,' George added with a sigh.

'And I take it,' Fitz said quietly, 'that the person who we are talking about is one Hanson Galloway.'

George did not reply.

'So what happened to your friend Parton.

George lowered the flap of his tent. 'What happens to any academic who is perceived to be stealing other's ideas? He was forced to resign his seat.' The last of the light from George's candle disappeared beneath the closing flap of canvas. The shadows lengthened towards Fitz. His own candle flickered uneasily in the chill air. 'Then he killed himself.' And went out.

Darkness.

42: Results

She waited until they detected the first glimmer of Hawking Radiation before she made contact.

Yuri Culmanov brought her the news. He was the most excited Miriam had seen him. The usually pa.s.sive little man almost ran across the Great Hall to where she sitting alone eating a near*frozen sandwich.

'What is it?' she asked. 'An accident?' Haste always seemed to signify bad news.

But not this time. Yuri's round face was split into a wide smile. 'Success,' he said, his accent thick with excitement. 'Or at least, the first signs.'

She made him sit down got him a coffee, melting a lump of milk in it. 'Tell me.'

So he told her. The faintest reading, but a reading nonetheless. 'It means we are on the right track. For the first time we can see that the theory may become reality that it might actually work.' He took her hands in his over the table, speaking quickly to try to get the information out and share it. 'If we can just slow the light source a little more. If we can find a medium that will...' He broke off and grinned. 'You mentioned ice when you first came here a while ago.' He shrugged. 'A prism of some sort, that's what we need.'

He stood up suddenly, the chair toppling over behind him and clanging on the stone floor 'Soon,' he breathed. 'Very soon now, I think.'

'That's terrific news Yuri.' Almost despite herself, she found she was caught up in his excitement. 'Does Naryshkin know?'

'Of course, he was there.' Yuri was bouncing on his feet, eager to move, to do something. 'But Flanaghan doesn't know. I must find him.'

'Of course, he'll be over the moon.'

As he left, Yuri paused and turned back. 'I saw the ghost again today, after the experiment,' he said 'I think it is a good omen.'

Miriam smiled. She remembered how disconcerted she had been the first time she saw the apparition, the man in furs outside the Cold Room. 'I'm sure it is,' she told him. But already her mind was racing through the implications.

'Now is the time,' she was thinking to herself. 'I've waited long enough.'

Hi DadI found this on the web and thought it might interest you.Keep warm!Love, Miriam The system was simple enough. Addressing the e-mail to 'Dad' indicated that the message, the real message, was urgent. More urgent than an e-mail to her brother or a friend. The text she had typed furtively into her laptop, sitting on the floor with her back against the locked door of her room, was encrypted into the picture itself. It looked like a sunset over a tropical beach, but the distribution of different shades of blue in the 32*bit sky would be resolved back into the letters that made up her message.

'Keep warm!' meant she expected a reply.

Acknowledgement of receipt a simple 'Thanks!' from her 'Dad' arrived within five minutes.

The picture that she received an hour later was of penguins diving off an ice flow. 'Just so you feel at home,' the simple message told her.

She ran the bitmap through the decryption routine and read through the real reply.

Received and understood. Send updates as appropriate. a.n.a.lysis of progress suggests research may already have military applications. Your a.s.sessment that you can cope alone for now is noted, but Dad may decide to send some cousins to visit. Be ready to help them.

She read it again before deleting the file and reallocating the memory where it had been stored. She did not know what 'cousins' meant. But she could guess. And the guess frightened her.

In his room further along the same corridor, Vladimir Naryshkin was using a rather more direct form of communication to contact his European sponsor.

He spoke quietly and calmly into the satellite phone, explaining the recent success and how he saw the experiment developing.

'It is still too slow,' the deep voice at the other end of the phone told him. 'Much too slow.'

'My team has made incredible progress,' Naryshkin protested. 'We have stepped over boundary after boundary as we push science forwards.'

'I know, I know.' A sigh. 'But I am getting impatient. I'm sorry I know you are doing your best. Doing Wonderful work.'

'We are so nearly there,' Naryshkin a.s.sured him. 'Refining our current techniques and improving them, perhaps two years.'

'Two years?!' The voice exploded from the handset. 'I don't have...' Calmer now. 'What would you need to achieve success ahead of that? Money?'

Naryshkin sighed. 'I have told you before, sir. Money is not a problem. We have everything we need. Only a major breakthrough... If we discovered some substance that could slow the light entering the centrifuge.'