24 - The Scales of Injustice

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Prologue

MEMORANDUM

To: Professor Andrew Montrose

Research and Development

Department of Sciences

Cambridge University

Cambridgeshire

October 14th

Dear Professor Montrose,

Regarding the existing agreement between your Department and

Department C19 of HM Government's Ministry of Defence, reference

number JS/77546/cf.

As you know, C19 has, over the past few years, continued to subsidize a

great number of individual projects and courses and co-sponsored a

number of staff at your facility.

As per the above agreement, C19 requests four attachments to begin

immediately at locations of our choosing. These simultaneous attachments

are scheduled to run between twelve and twenty-four months.

The researchers we require are:

Richard Atkinson

Doctor James D. Griffin

Doctor Elizabeth Shaw

Cathryn Wildeman

Please inform the above that their attachments will be beginning on

Monday 21st October. They will be collected by our representatives and

taken to their place of work.

Please inform the attachees that to comply with the Civil Defence

(Amended) Act (1964) they will be required to sign the Official Secrets Act

(1963) before leaving Cambridge.

You can assure the attachees that they are not being seconded to work on

any projects that they may find morally objectionable, including weapon-

development programmes, military hardware design, or any related

matters. Many thanks for your co-operation in this matter.

Yours faithfully,

Sir John Sudbury

Administrator

Department C19

Ministry of Defence

Sir Marmaduke Harrington-Smythe CBE

The Glasshouse

October 14th

Dear Sir Marmaduke,

Further to your requests stated in your letter of 23rd September, I write with

two important points.

Firstly, the future of the private nursing facility known as The Glasshouse.

We are pleased to confirm that we have extended your existing contract for

a further eighteen months, effective October 31st this year. Our payments

to you for this service have been increased by 2.3%, effective the same

date.

You will, I'm sure, join with me in acknowledging that there have been

teething problems; some while you were setting up this most essential

service to our Ministry; others as we co-ordinated the necessary

administration (specifically the use of the Official Secrets Act (1963)).

However, the Minister now joins other members of C19, myself included, in

feeling that we have reached a satisfactory standard of care and

convalescence for our servicemen with injuries unsuitable for traditional

hospital treatment, and with suitable respect for the total confidentiality

required by this Department.

The second point is the one raised in your letter of September 27th,

concerning the Glasshouse's requirement of better scientific staff to work

on the materials we provide. To this end, we are subsidizing your proposed

redevelopment of the basement area into a laboratory, provided that only

staff supplied by ourselves should be aware of its existence. In addition,

four new members of staff will be supplied to you, paid for by this

Department. The team will be headed by Doctor Peter Morley, with whom

you may already be familiar through his work with the Department of

Applied Sciences at Warwick University.

If you have any further questions, please contact me at your convenience.

Yours sincerely,

Sir John Sudbury

Administrator

Department C19

Ministry of Defence

MEMORANDUM

FROM: Commander, British Branch, UNIT

TO: All Staff

REF: 3/0038/ALS/mh

SUBJECT: Scientific Advisor, arrival thereof

DATE: 24th October

I am pleased to announce the forthcoming arrival of Elizabeth Shaw to

UNIT as our Scientific Advisor.

Doctor Shaw has been working with the highly regarded Montrose team at

Cambridge for the last few years, and will be joining us on Monday 31st

October. She will be answerable directly to myself and Captain Munro, and

will be setting up our new scientific department. She will also work closely

with Doctor Sweetman on medical matters.

I feel sure you will join me in welcoming Doctor Shaw to our organization,

and will give her all the help and support she needs during her period of

adjustment. We all look forward to her becoming a valuable member of the

team.

Brigadier A. Lethbridge-Stewart

Commander

British Branch, UNIT

Andrew Montrose

The Cupps House

Bridge Street

Cambridge

To: Richard Atkinson

Doctor James D. Griffin

Doctor Elizabeth Shaw

Cathryn Wildeman

October 25th

Dear Colleague,

I enclose a copy of the letter I received today from C19. You've all known

that this might happen, and it seems they finally want their pound of flesh.

All four of you will need a few days to sort out your lives and tie up your

current projects. I don't know where any of you will end up, either as a

group or not. Sorry. We're pretty much in C19's hands there. All I do know

is that Sir John Sudbury is trustworthy. If he says the work's non-military, I

accept that.

I'm sorry we probably won't work together again here at Cambridge. As you

know I'm due to retire from here in May next year and I expect you'll be

incommunicado for the next year or two. I'll keep a slice of cake for each of

you.

Make the most of this opportunity. It may look a little Orwellian, but it won't

be. Enjoy, my dears, enjoy!

Stay Hip and Cool.

Andrew

Episode One

'Jesus,' coughed Grant Traynor into the darkness. The J tunnel reeked of

chloroform, condensation and antiseptic, plus a blend of amyls nitrite and

nitrate, and urine. All combined together in a nauseous cocktail that

represented something so horrible that he couldn't believe he was involved

in it.

Why was he there? How could he have sunk so low that he had ever

accepted all this? Over the last ten years or so Traynor had not only

accepted but even taken part in events so abhorrent it had taken him until

now to do something about it. At the time, it had just been part of the job.

Now, he couldn't understand how he had ever participated in the

operations without vomiting, or screaming, or raising a finger in protest.

Well, that didn't matter, now that he'd finally realized what had to be done.

He had decided to blow it all wide open, blow it totally apart. 'Once I'm

finished,' he grunted, as he tripped over another lump in the tunnel floor,

'they'll never be able to show their faces in public again.'

The papers. All he needed to do was to reach a telephone and tell the

papers about the place. In three hours, he guessed, they would be there,

swarming all over the laboratories, offices and, best of all, the cavern.

The cavern. That was the place he really wanted to see shut down. That

was where all the horrors took place. Where some of the most evil acts

ever had been performed, allegedly in the name of science, research and

history.

'Yeah, right. Well, they'll be exposed soon. They'll - '

There was a noise in the dark. Where was it coming from? Behind him? In

front? He had to strain to listen the tiny amount of light in the tunnel was

barely enough to enable him to see where he was treading, let alone yards

ahead or behind. A snuffling sound, like an animal. Like a pig snorting out

truffles. It sounded like the...

'Jesus, no! Not down here!' Grant moved a bit faster.

'They know I've gone. They've sent the Stalker down here! After me!'

The snuffling noise was nearer, and this time he could hear the growl too. A

deep, slightly tortured growl that would send even the most ferocious

Rottweiler scurrying for safety. And Traynor had helped to make it sound

that way; he knew its limitations. Or rather, he knew that it didn't have any.

He must have got a good start on it. No matter how fast it could run, he

reasoned, he had to be way ahead. But it could see far better than Grant

Traynor could - and it could see in the dark. It could track via scents;

everything from the strongest garlic to the mildest sweat. He'd been

responsible for introducing that particular augmentation, and he knew how

effective it had been. Surely it had to know he was there. Surely -

But maybe not. Traynor stopped for a second and listened. Perhaps they

were bluffing, hoping that hearing it in the tunnel with him would scare him,

make him reconsider. To go back to them. Fat chance.

It was nearer now. That growl was getting louder. Much louder. Which

meant it was definitely closing the gap between them. But how far behind

was it, and did he have enough of a lead? He quickened his pace through

the darkness, ignoring the intermittent pain when his outstretched hands

cracked against the unseen stone walls.

'That's right, Traynor,' called a voice further back in the dark.

'We've sent the Stalker after you. Are you close by?'

Traynor stopped and pressed himself against the tunnel wall, as if the dark

would protect him from the Stalker. They were murderers, all of them. What

if someone else should come down here? Innocently? Mind you, Traynor

considered, then he would have a hostage. They would never let the

Stalker get an innocent.

Hell, Traynor was the innocent. He wasn't doing anything wrong. They

were the ones doing something wrong.

'Traynor, come back to us.'

Stuff it, you lisping creep. As if I'd trust you. Maybe, Traynor thought, he

should tell his pursuer what he thought of him and his bloody henchmen

back in the Vault. Maybe - what was he thinking of? That would only serve

to let the Stalker know where he was hiding.

It was definitely closer. But Traynor was positive that he couldn't be far from

the gateway. And the chemical stench had to be confusing the Stalker to

some extent. Surely...

'Traynor, please. This is so pointless. You knew when you signed on, when

you signed the OSA, that you couldn't just walk away. We need you back,

Traynor. Whatever your gripe, let's talk about it. You're too useful to us, to

our boss, to lose you like this.'

Traynor smiled and let his head loll back against the damp wall. He smiled

without humour. There was no way he was falling for that.

'Traynor?'

They were so close now. And that creep was down there, personally, with

the Stalker. You're brave, I'll give you that, Traynor thought. Psychotic,

twisted, malicious and evil. But brave.

But he wasn't going to let admiration stop him. He wouldn't let it hold him

back. He simply couldn't. Getting out, spilling everything to the papers, was

too important. It was too -

'Hello, Traynor.'

'Oh God.' Traynor could only see one thing in the dark - his own reflection

caught in his pursuer's dark sunglasses. The same sunglasses his pursuer

always wore whatever the weather, wherever he went, whoever he saw.

Traynor saw fear reflected back into his own eyes. The fear of a man

caught by his immediate boss and the Stalker.

'I'm sorry, Traynor. You had your chance, but you blew it.'

Traynor was momentarily aware of a snuffling noise near his left foot, and

then he was falling, and then the pain hit. He screamed, his mind filled with

nothing but agony, as the Stalker bit cleanly through his lower leg. He fell,

feeling himself hit the floor, his blood adding the scent of human suffering

to the overpowering smells in the tunnel. Somewhere in the darkness,

someone was chuckling. The last sensation to pass through Grant

Traynor's mind was one of bitter irony as the Stalker bit deep into his side,

tearing through flesh with genetically augmented fangs that he'd designed

for precisely that purpose.

Liz Shaw stared around the laboratory at UNIT headquarters, gazing

towards the jumble of test-tubes, burners and coiled wires. Then there were

the less recognizable scientific artefacts, probably from other worlds, or

alternate dimensions at the very least. Well, maybe. Whatever their origins

and purpose, they were strewn in untidy and illogical designs all over the

benches. Doing nothing except being there.

They annoyed her.

It was ten-thirty in the morning, her car had taken nearly thirty minutes to

start, and it was raining. No, frankly she was not in the highest of spirits.

'The sun has got his hat on. Hip-hip-hip hooray! The sun has got his hat on

and he's coming out to play!' The Doctor was singing - out of tune, off-key

and with little feeling for rhythm, tempo or accuracy but, Liz decided, it

would just about pass a dictionary-definition test as 'singing'. Maybe.

She had been stuck in this large but rather drab UNIT laboratory for eight

months now - staring at the same grey-brick walls, the same six benches

with the same scattered tubes, burners and Petri dishes for far too long. Liz

told herself often that before her 'employer', Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart,

had whisked her down here she had been enjoying her life at Cambridge,

researching new ways of breaking down non-biodegradable waste by

environmental methods. It had been a challenge, one that looked set to

keep her occupied for some years. Scientific advancement rarely moved

fast.

Instead, she had fought a variety of all-out wars against Nestenes, strange

ape-men, stranger reptile men, paranoid aliens and other assorted home-

grown and extra-terrestrial menaces. Her initial and understandable

cynicism about the raison d'être for UNIT had quickly given way to an

almost enthusiastic appreciation for the unusual, unexplained and

frequently unnatural phenomena that her new job had shown her. Her most

recent assignment had pitted her against an alien foe not only far away -

the tropics - but, via the Doctor's bizarre 'space-time visualizer', back and

forth in time as well. UNIT had provided her with novel experiences if

nothing else.

But as she twirled a pen between her fingers and left her subconscious

trying to make some sense of the complex chemical formula the Doctor had

scribbled on the blackboard during the night, three things were gnawing at

her mind. How much longer she could cope with UNIT's sometimes amoral

military solutions; how much longer she could cope with UNIT's cloak-and-

dagger-Official-Secrets-Act-walls-have-ears mentality; and how much

longer she could cope with UNIT's brilliant, sophisticated, charming,

eloquent but downright aggravating, chauvinistic and moody scientific

advisor.

Oh, the Doctor was without doubt the most inspiring and intellectual person

(she couldn't say 'man' because that implied human origins, and she knew

that to be wrong) she was ever likely to meet. He was also the most

insufferable. And he needed Liz as an assistant about as much as he

needed a bullet through the head.

Hmmm. Sometimes that analogy had a certain appeal...

'Are you in some sort of pain, Doctor?' asked the Brigadier, popping his

head round the door of the UNIT laboratory, an unaccustomed broad grin

on his face.

The singing stopped abruptly. Liz wanted to point out, as brusquely as she

dared, that her employer had just said exactly the wrong thing. She did not

get the chance. Instead, the Doctor stopped what he was doing with a sigh.

Liz was none too sure exactly what he was doing, but it looked complicated

and tedious, and she had decided ten minutes earlier not to enquire - the

Doctor could be very patronizing when he was irritable. And he was

frequently irritable.

'Did you say something, Brigadier, or were you just releasing some of that

pent-up hot air you keep in your breeches?'

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摘要：

PrologueMEMORANDUMTo:ProfessorAndrewMontroseResearchandDevelopmentDepartmentofSciencesCambridgeUniversityCambridgeshireOctober14thDearProfessorMontrose,RegardingtheexistingagreementbetweenyourDepartmentandDepartmentC19ofHMGovernment'sMinistryofDefence,referencenumberJS/77546/cf.Asyouknow,C19has,over...

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24 - The Scales of Injustice

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