*YELLOW POWDER DEPOSITS ON SKIN*

*FLAKING SKIN*

*DISSOLVING SKIN OR CLOTHING*

*VOMITING, CRYING OR BLEEDING CORROSIVE ACID*

WHAT TO DO IF YOU THINK YOU ARE INFECTED.

* FOR SKIN INFECTIONS USE HOUSEHOLD BLEACH DILUTED 1:5.

WITH WARM WATER. APPLY TO INFECTED AREA. DO NOT WASH.

OFF.

* FOR INTERNAL INFECTIONS USE HOUSEHOLD BLEACH DILUTED.

1:20 WITH WARM WATER. ADJUST SOLUTION STRENGTH FOR.

INDIVIDUAL NEEDS.

* IF INFECTION PERSISTS OR SPREADS INCREASE STRENGTH OF.

BLEACH SOLUTION.

IF YOU ARE UNSURE ABOUT POSSIBLE INFECTION USE ENCLOSED.

VOMIT KIT.

TO USE THE KIT:.

* INGEST BLEACH SOLUTION UNTIL VOMITING OCCURS?.

* TRAP SAMPLE OF VOMIT IN TEST TUBE PROVIDED.

* APPLY INDICATOR PAPER AND CHECK COLOR AGAINST COLOR.

CHART PROVIDED?.

!!IMPORTANT I!.

A RED COLORATION SIGNIFIES ACID CONTENT COMMENSURATE.

WITH INFECTION.

DO NOT a.s.sUME A BLUE COLORATION INSURES SAFETY?.

REMEMBER: INFECTION CAN OCCUR AT ANY TIME.

REPEAT THIS CHECK REGULARLY TO INSURE YOU ARE FREE OF.

INFECTION.

REMEMBER: ANYONE AND ANYTHING CAN BE A VECTOR.

FRIENDS, FAMILY, HOUSEHOLD PETS, FOOD, CUTLERY, HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE, FAMILY AND PUBLIC VEHICLES, STONE, WOOD, OTHER ORGANIC AND INORGANIC MATERIALS CAN CARRY.

THE INFECTION?.

!IPROTECT AND SURVIVE!!.

***URGENT*** *'*DEPT OF PUBLIC INFORMATION*" ***URGENT***

Chapter 9.

I suppose I'd been lying on the ground for a couple of hours when the Doctor showed up with Jason in tow. That was typical: I'd been working on staying quiet and concentrating on recovering from Liz's taser shock, hoping that as far as Tammuz was concerned it was out of sight and out of mind, when Jason turns up with a football crowd of villagers and half the Turkish army - and a bunch of animals for heaven's sake - who together made a bigger hullabaloo than Springsteen did even before he was elected President.

Of course that was when Tammuz noticed us and began 'spraying bullets everywhere as if they were going out of fashion.

The fact that the Ark itself chose that moment to wake up and try to kill us all was probably just bad luck. But it really felt like someone was out to get me.

By the time the Doctor showed up with an old cardboard box containing a few gramophone records and about a hundred personal force-field units on old wrist.w.a.tch straps, I as just about ready to quit. I'd been shot at, tasered, and now ga.s.sed. I just wanted to call it a day. I felt like I was coughing my lungs up. I didn't want to play the hero any more. I didn't want to second-guess people I thought I knew and then be wrong. I didn't even want to argue with Jason. What I wanted was a beach, some sun block, and a huge mint julep with an alcohol-to-fruit-juice ratio that looked like one of those STEEP HILL warning signs.

Instead I got a personal force-field emitter superglued to a Rolex expandable watch strap, a fifteen-second shiatsu pressure-point workout that had me yelling aloud as life bounced back into my tired, electrocuted old body, and a force-field pressure cuff to staunch my dear husband's newly bullet-punctured arm.

Jason himself was squealing. That was the only word I can use to describe it. And he was muttering something about not being able to rescue me.

About being sorry.

I shook my head tiredly. 'Why break the habit of a lifetime?' I had meant to make a joke, relieve the tension a bit. I really was glad to see him. But the words came out more sharply than I intended. Jason took them badly. He turned away. I tried to go after him but the Doctor chose that moment to hand me the cardboard box he'd been carrying. It was then that I saw there were medical supplies inside, resting on a bed of dusty gramophone records and saucy postcards, most of which seemed to date from before the Blitz.

By this time Chris had issued a set of force fields to the soldiers and had led them off after Tammuz. All except the one who was dead. I placed a force-field cuff on his wrist to prevent the sulphur dioxide combining, producing sulphuric acid in his body and rotting it away. As a gesture it wasn't much; it was all I could do.

I told Jason to take some force-field generators and check if Tammuz had left any NASA technicians alive in the main control area. He did as he was told, though there was a too-familiar sulky expression on his face.

I began to treat the injured villagers. I applied pressure cuffs to the three most serious injuries (none of which was life-threatening) and treated the remaining gas injuries (more serious) with organic alkaline. Treating the injuries didn't take very long. Rea.s.suring the people and calming them down was the hard work. Panic's a killer. Especially when you're isolated in an alien environment that is doing its best to kill you, and half of your friends are on the ground with sulphuric acid burns or bullet wounds.

I remember the Doctor turning up at one point, grabbing the gramophone records out of the box and rushing back off to the TARDIS humming the words to 'Tobacco Road' under his breath. 'I don't know about you, Benny, but I simply can't work without music,' he called back over his shoulder. It was then I noticed that the TARDIS was looking decidedly worse for wear, with crusty yellow patches forming slowly on its blue wooden sh.e.l.l. The doors opened and the Doctor vanished inside, mumbling, ' "Bring dynamite and a crane. Blow it up, start all over again".' The doors slammed shut.

Only then did I think to wonder how the Doctor was able to walk around in all this sulphur dioxide without a force field of his own.

That was when Jason came back, favouring his injured arm and supporting a half-suffocated technician with his good one. He had fitted a force field to the technician but had been too late to prevent terminal sulphur dioxide poisoning. The man clutched Jason and convulsed suddenly. He died as I watched.

'Jason. You can let him go now.' Jason blinked.

'Jason, let him go, love. There's nothing you can do.'

I moved forward and took my husband in my arms. 'I am pleased to see you, you know.'

Jason did not relax. 'Benny. There's something I think you ought to know.'

'What's that?'

'There's a communit back there. It's working. There's a message from the President on it.' Abruptly Jason began to laugh. 'Experimental rabbits!

Sure, right! Now we know what they really are!' His laughter stopped as abruptly as it began. 'They're not rabbits, they're nukes. NASA think we're terrorists, that we've taken over the Ark. They think we're responsible for what's happening on Earth. They're going to blow us up.'

I entered the area I'd previously seen only through slightly parted plastic screens, cautiously. Part of that was because I didn't quite know where Tammuz was yet and how many bullets were left in his gun; the rest was due to the haunting familiarity of the operations console, so much like the TARDIS. Slowly turning in the cylindrical holoprojection tank was a tiny, blue-green globe. Earth. It was covered for almost a third of its girth by yellow stains. Each new continent to come into view brought a glimpse of its own sites of infection.

While I was busy trying to absorb the scale of the infection, and the apocalyptic changes which must be going on there, Jason took my arm and dragged me over to a freestanding metal cabinet obviously placed there by the NASA staff. The unit comprised a holographic communicator and shelf system on which a number of artefacts, clearly of alien origin, had been placed. Some had been labelled with serial numbers and information sheets. They must be awaiting, shipment to Earth. Or to NASA's Tranquillity Base. Beside the communit was a semi-circular table holding a portable chemical a.n.a.lyser, a number of computers, graph pads and light-pencils. Boxes containing equipment and supplies were piled around the table. The NASA staff must have been using this area as a sort of field HQ while they investigated the rest of the base.

I was very pleased to see that Jason had fastened force field emitters to the wrists of the corpses piled up by the screens - the men and women Tammuz had shot before he'd opened this alien Pandora's Box and tipped the contents out all over the Earth.

Jason took my arm and dragged me over to the communit. There was a middle-aged face in the tank, moving slowly as it repeated the same recorded message over and over again.

'- terrorists who have taken control of Tranquillity Base. If there are any NASA personnel alive please allow them to come to the communicator.

This is an urgent request. You must shut down the Museum control systems immediately. Whatever your aims you cannot achieve them if the Earth is destroyed. You must see that. Think of your family and friends on Earth.

You may think you can control the systems. You cannot. Your family and friends will die along with every other living thing on the Earth if you do not heed this warning. If you have no regard for yourselves think of them. Here is a message from the President of the United States.'

The picture changed. I recognized the President immediately. That wasn't a surprise: I had half his alb.u.ms. He stood there in the tank, like an Action Man doll, his little gestures and expressions almost comical compared with the booming voice emitted from the communit. Someone really should have told him never to use a long shot on a home system like this; it was truly awful for dramatic representation.

The President said, 'I am calling from the White House. Although you have made no demands of the Peoples of the World we can only a.s.sume that you must have some. To wantonly eradicate an entire culture with all its history, art, scientific and social achievements can benefit no one. If this is your aim I beg you to reconsider. On behalf of the governments of the world I am willing to consider any form of negotiation. You have only to broadcast your, needs. We will hear them and respond?' He paused, glanced at someone off camera, then spoke again. 'Although Tranquillity, Base represents a milestone in xeno-archaeology and has been until now considered by major scientists as a key event in Mankind's emergence into the Universe, I am unwilling and unable to allow the use of this device as an instrument of terror. If no message is received from you within one hour of this broadcast, the two three-hundred-megaton warheads currently on orbital intersect with your coordinates will be armed. You will be able to stop the explosion at any time short of detonation - scheduled for fourteen hundred hours EST - by shutting down the Museum and beginning negotiations. Once again I appeal to the humanity I know lies buried within every one of you. I hope and pray this ultimate measure of self-preservation will be unnecessary. I am sure that you would rather be remembered not as those who tried to destroy humanity, but as those who contributed significantly toward its growth and future scientific wealth and social stability. I am positive that, together, we can work this out.'

A satellite picture of two very large missiles with NASA emblems moving remorselessly above a sickly Earth replaced the President, while the voice of the NASA bod said, 'This message is a recording. If there are any NASA personnel alive on Tranquillity Base, please contact Houston control urgently on Channel Three. I repeat: this is NASA Control, Houston, addressing the terrorists who have -'

I compared the time on my watch with the time code on the recording. s.h.i.t.

The message had been broadcasting for several hours? The bombs were already armed. I did another calculation. We had about three hours until they blew us to kingdom come?

Jason turned to me. I could see he was on the ragged edge of panic, had been for some time. He wanted me to tell him what to do. I sighed impatiently, muttered, 'Mister President, your songs are fabulous, but I'm afraid your policies suck big time.' I expected Jason to smile at that. Boy was I wrong. His face sort of screwed up. I thought he was going to cry.

Then I thought he was going to yell at me. In the end he just stood there, shoulders slumped, like a kid who's had his favourite toy taken away for being naughty.

For some reason I found this extremely annoying? Then again, just lately, everything he did was extremely annoying. In any case, I had no time for it.

'I'm going to check on the villagers. Open up Channel Three and call me when you've got someone from NASA or the White House on the line. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how important this is, so please don't screw it up.'

I turned away from him. I didn't want to see his face. I knew the expression that would come over it. He hated being told what to do. But he never seemed to show any d.a.m.n initiative. Or any sensible initiative, anyway.

Even a little common sense would show me there was hope. Oh G.o.d, I was just so angry. So d.a.m.n angry. Why the h.e.l.l had I married the cretin anyway?

I turned back at a shout from Jason. 'I've got NASA.'

'Brilliant. Now go and tell the Doctor what's going on. He'll need to know.'

Jason stood there for a moment, apparently unable to believe I had simply dismissed him like that. I had more important things to think about. Like saving all of us. Like saving the Earth, for that matter.

'And tell him to bring his UNIT pa.s.s here. And any other formal ID he has.

We've got to convince these idiots we're on the level.'

I turned back to the communit. This time the view through the tank was wider. I saw part of what was obviously the operations room framing a younger face than the one in the recording. The face was speaking to someone out of view: '- this for real? You told me there was a message coming in live from Tranquillity, are you -'

I said slowly, 'This is Bernice Summerfield. I am alive. I plan to stay that way. What can I tell you to get you to turn off those bombs?'

The woman in the tank continued fussing for a few seconds, then seemed to hear my words. Part of this. show was the one-second time delay radio waves took to reach Earth and return; part of it was an obvious attempt to exert authority. I kicked my heels impatiently. We didn't have time for this s.h.i.t. Finally the woman looked up and acknowledged I was there. 'Ms Summerfield, you don't appear on our personnel manifest. I must therefore conclude you are one of the terrorists. Is this in fact true?'

I sighed. Everything was so d.a.m.n black and white with these people. 'No.

Call me an innocent bystander. And it's Benny. I hate Ms.'

'Ms Summerfield, you're on the Moon. The nearest Greyhound station is two hundred and fifty thousand miles away. How can you be an "innocent bystander"?'

'Look, if it helps just think of me as Bruce Willis in Die Hard. I shouldn't be here but I am. The terrorists are dead but so are all your personnel. You have to talk me through the Base shutdown procedure. In the meantime please get these d.a.m.n nukes out of my face!'

'We can't do that without authorization from the White House.'

'Well get it then!'

'You don't understand. We can't. We've got ground quakes here. The land lines are down. Even the red phone. Agent Yellow is on the move!'

'And whose fault is that?' I felt my temper slip. 'Whoever pushed the d.a.m.n nuclear b.u.t.ton in the first place, that's who!' I sighed. 'Who in their right minds elects a rock-star president of a major world government, anyway?'

By the time she had framed a response I was already adding, 'Never mind.

Look. You have affiliations with UNIT, don't you? Well, I have a member of UNIT here with me. If you can authenticate his ID will you then please disarm the nukes and talk me through the shutdown procedure?'

Instead of answering what I felt was a perfectly straightforward question, the woman asked a number of her own. 'Where is this man? Who is he?

How did he get there? Can you show me this ID?'

I turned. Where the h.e.l.l was Jason? Where was the Doctor? 'Don't break the connection.' I ran for the screens. Jason was pushing through. 'Where's the Doctor?'

'Fixing the TARDIS. He can't come. He gave me these.' Jason showed me a pa.s.sport wallet full of papers.

I grabbed them and ran back to the communit, sorting them as I ran. The woman on the screen - I didn't even know what her name was - was in the middle of asking me where I had gone. Without waiting for her to finish, I held up the papers to the lens. 'Look. The man I'm with is UNIT' scientific adviser. He's called the Doctor. You know him as John Smith. If you don't believe me get on the phone to Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. He'll vouch for us.'

'We're trying. We're piggybacking a signal off EOSAT II, rerouting to the White House and Geneva. But it'll take a few minutes.'