Four hours later, the UNIT staff car drove into an area of North Wales dominated by the edifice that was Mount Snowdon, part of the famous Snowdonia National Park. But as the car drove through the country lanes, Clyde noticed more and more red-rimmed road signs that reminded the unwary that these were Restricted Areas and Not Public Highways.
Eventually the car came to a stop by a huge tunnel built into the side of a mountain. A red and white barrier blocked their view and for a moment Clyde assumed they’d gone the wrong way. After all, there was no one to greet them. Or raise the barrier. Or anything.
Then he spotted two UNIT soldiers stand up – they had been lying flat on the ground, their clothing perfectly camouflaged so that no matter how hard anyone would have looked, the soldiers had been effectively invisible.
One of the soldiers was checking the driver’s ID, the other stared at him, Sarah Jane and Rani.
Remembering that Sarah Jane, despite her many years working alongside the Doctor with UNIT, was always nervous of their motives, he automatically sat on his hands, even though the blue crackling he’d seen earlier was long since gone.
The last time he’d seen that energy…well, he preferred not to think about that. And he certainly didn’t want UNIT knowing it had returned.
After a moment that seemed to last an hour, the soldiers waved the car though and the barrier was raised.
Clyde stared out of the back of the car – but the soldiers were gone, back to their hidden guard duty, and no matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t see where they were lying now.
After a minute in the darkness of the tunnel, the world around them burst into light and size – the car had arrived in a massive underground car park, alongside a variety of other vehicles, both military and civilian. And a couple Clyde thought looked more like space shuttles!
The door was opened and as the driver escorted Sarah Jane, Clyde and Rani exited the other door and found themselves facing Colonel Karim, all smiles and courtesy. But Clyde was uneasy. The smile didn’t reach her eyes – either she was putting an enormous effort into being civil to her visitors, or she was hiding something.
Then again, maybe he was being paranoid. The blue crackling energy on his hands had worried him and if he wasn’t careful, he’d be jumping at his own shadow next.
He looked around the car park as the driver opened the car’s boot and passed him his overnight bag.
‘Now this,’ he murmured to Rani, ‘this is what I call a base.’
‘Yeah,’ Rani said back. ‘If you like guns and stuff.’
And Clyde realised that apart from the three of them, everyone carried a gun of some sort. Even Karim had a revolver holstered at her side.
‘This way, please,’ the Colonel said, leading them to a huge metal door, like the ones Clyde had seen on films about submarines.
But instead of turning a wheel to open it, Karim tapped a code into a panel by the door and with a hiss, it swung inwards.
Clyde noted the number. 231163. Never knew when that might be handy, if he ever came back to a UNIT base and wanted to show he knew his way around.
As he stepped through the door, he was immediately surprised by how sterile and plain the corridor was. Indeed, it even smelled of ammonia or something, like Miss Jerome’s science lab at school.
It was in every possible way unfriendly.
And Colonel Karim seemed to realise this as she gave them a guided tour – well, at least she pointed out labs, offices, toilets. She didn’t actually open any doors and show them anything, or introduce them to any of the staff she mentioned.
‘We’ve allocated bedrooms to you all,’ she said. ‘The funeral’s tomorrow at nine hundred hours, so that gives you time enough to acclimatise.’
Clyde wasn’t sure what they needed to acclimatise to, bar the smell and the various featureless corridors they had walked down, guaranteed to ensure he had no idea of the way back to the car because everything looked the same.
They went through another keyboard-activated door and as it shut with a clang behind them, Karim explained this was the Funeral Wing and that they were under a curfew. But she said it with a smile. ‘The doors to the Funeral Wing will be sealed at twenty-one hundred hours tonight –’ she glanced at Clyde. ‘That’s 9pm.’
‘I know,’ Clyde replied. ‘I’m not stupid.’
Karim looked at him with an expression that either meant she didn’t believe him, or that she was disappointed to learn he knew such things. Either way, it annoyed him.
‘This is still a working military base,’ she continued. ‘So you’ll only have access to the specified areas.’
‘That’s nice,’ Sarah Jane said tartly. ‘Bring us all this way just to tell us we’re not trusted.’
There was a moment, just a look, between Sarah Jane and Karim, and Clyde reckoned the temperature in the corridor actually dropped a few degrees.
Rani must have felt it too, because she broke the tension by asking Karim who else was coming to the Doctor’s funeral.
‘It’s been a bit of rush,’ Karim said. ‘Sir Alistair’s stranded in Peru due to volcanic ash restricting long-haul flights that even we can’t overrule. And Miss Shaw can’t make it back from the Moonbase until Sunday.’
‘Whoa! You’ve got a Moonbase?’ Clyde just stared at her. That was so cool. ‘I wanna go to that!’
‘Maybe one day,’ Karim said. ‘When you’re a grown-up.’
As Karim turned away, Rani threw Clyde an “ooh, get her” look and Clyde grinned at her.
She turned a corner and they followed.
And stopped.
Ahead of them were ladders and boxes of tools and equipment. A couple of UNIT soldiers were attaching a sign to the wall that read FUNERAL CHAMBER in ornate lettering.
But what was amazing was the three small blue-skinned figures scurrying around, helping the soldiers: one on top of a ladder, one coming out of a large ventilation duct in the ceiling and another coming out of a similar vent at the foot of the wall where it met the floor.
‘You’ve got Graske!’ Rani gasped. ‘What are you doing with Graske?’
Clyde was alarmed too – they’d met the Graske a few times, most often alongside their old enemy the Trickster. They were a race of people who, although not necessarily evil, were fairly untrustworthy and really shouldn’t be in a place as supposedly secure and top-secret as a UNIT base.
Sarah Jane clearly agreed. ‘I knew it,’ she said to Karim. ‘I knew there was something going on.’
Karim seemed genuinely puzzled by their reaction. ‘I don’t understand the problem,’ she said.
‘Graske are trouble,’ Clyde said simply.
Karim seemed to understand. ‘Ah, I see. But these aren’t Graske,’ she said.
The one that had come out of the lower ventilation duct wandered over. These Graske-sized ducts were everywhere they’d passed, Clyde noticed.
‘Not Graske,’ the alien said in that same staccato voice the Graske always had. ‘We Groske. Blue face. Very different. Hate Graske. Graske make Groske stamp feet.’
And to demonstrate, the Groske stamped his foot dramatically.
Clyde could see that he did indeed have bluer skin, rather than the Graske’s brown leathery skin, but otherwise, they were identical. About three feet tall, with a tri-spiked head, razor-sharp teeth, piercing yellow eyes and that slight smell of sulphur that followed them around.
‘The Groske were stranded on Earth four years ago,’ Karim said. ‘We took them in and they offered to work in exchange for board and lodging. They are brilliant and invaluable. We wouldn’t have had the rocket ready if not for them.’
‘Rocket?’ queried Sarah Jane.
The Groske grabbed Sarah Jane’s hand and began leading her further into the corridor. ‘Come see rocket,’ he insisted. ‘We honour Doctor with our work.’
Clyde, Rani and Karim followed them through a side door along a metallic corridor, and into a vast open space, where they realised they were standing on a gantry in a silo that stretched as far below as it did above.
And in front of them was a massive rocket.
‘The X-15,’ Karim said proudly. ‘This will take the Doctor’s body into space, sealed inside a lead-lined coffin. And then…he will be set free. The casket will sail through the stars forever. In death, as in life.’
They paused to stare for a second, Clyde seeing in his mind’s eye the coffin floating out in deep space.
‘Very poetic,’ snapped Sarah Jane.
Again, Rani was the one to break the tension. ‘I think it’s beautiful. Just what he deserves.’
Sarah Jane shrugged. She was clearly still not buying any of this, still not accepting that the Doctor was dead.
Poor Sarah Jane, Clyde thought.
‘Where’s the TARDIS?’ she said to Karim.
And for the first time, Clyde thought he saw Karim flustered. Just for a second. As if not quite sure what to say. But she covered it quickly. ‘There was no sign of it. His body was found. Alone.’
Sarah gave her a look that said…Clyde wasn’t sure what it said. But Sarah Jane was not happy about any of this – and Clyde knew her well enough to know this was more than just restrained grief. She was smelling a rat.
And although he hated to admit it, Clyde wondered if she was going too far. If Haresh’s thing about denial was correct – that Sarah Jane just couldn’t accept her oldest friend was gone and was lashing out at everything and everyone to hide her inability to deal with all this.
‘Still,’ he said. ‘Not a bad way to go. A real, proper rocket.’
‘Boy smells,’ hissed the Groske beside him.
‘Oi,’ Clyde hissed back. ‘Thanks a bunch.’
Rani was the only one who noticed this exchange as Karim had led Sarah Jane out of the silo. ‘Leave it, Clyde,’ she smiled and went after the others.
Clyde was going to follow when the little Groske impatiently grabbed his leg. ‘Smell of time,’ it said urgently. ‘You see?’
Now it pointed at his hand.
And Clyde stared at the blue electricity arcing around his palm and wrist again in utter shock. ‘I don’t understand,’ he stammered.
‘So bright,’ was all the Groske said.
‘What d’you mean?’
And the Groske glanced at the rocket, then at the silo entrance, as if making sure they couldn’t be overheard. ‘He is coming,’ it said and darted out of the silo.
Clyde followed, but the Groske was already gone somewhere and all he could see were Karim and Sarah Jane further down the corridor and Rani waiting for him a bit closer.
‘Finished upsetting the Groske?’ she laughed, but Clyde didn’t reply. He was too busy wondering who exactly “was coming”.