The Story of Martha Read online

  ‘My thoughts exactly!’ the Doctor said, putting one hand on the professor’s shoulder and the other on Grant’s. ‘Every tracking station on Earth will have picked that up. Every nuclear missile you’ve got will be aimed right at it.’

  ‘What about the gas bombs?’ Martha asked. ‘Blowing up the ship won’t be enough to stop them.’

  ‘It won’t get that far – look.’ The grey creatures were moving away from the Earth, floating harmlessly into space. ‘The Cineraria know they’ve been spotted. They’ll already have detected Earth’s defences. Like I told you, they don’t do explosions. They do stealth. And I blew their cover. If just one nuke hits them, it’s goodnight. So they’ve admitted defeat.’

  Grant was still staring out of the window. ‘They’re going,’ he breathed.

  Martha looked. The Cineraria ship was sliding out of orbit.

  ‘What’s to say they won’t return?’ Morris had snapped out of his stupor.

  ‘They don’t know about me. As far as they’re concerned, it was the human race that beat them. That little mouse has roared. So, no, they won’t be back.’

  ‘We were wrong,’ Morris said, eyeing Martha and the Doctor. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Just doing my job,’ the Doctor said in a bad cowboy accent. Then he turned serious. ‘But if you want to thank me, save your planet the hard way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘No short cuts, no quick fixes. You don’t need anyone’s help. The Cineraria think you lot are clever but I know you are. You’re really quite amazing.’

  Martha smiled. She loved it when the Doctor got excited and now he was positively bouncing, hands flying all over the place.

  ‘I mean, you can be stupid and careless,’ he went on. ‘Look at what you did to the Earth. And yet – and yet – there was Newton and Einstein and Hawking and all the others, all those great minds. And all the beauty – oh, don’t get me started on that! The Sistine Chapel, the Eiffel Tower, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon—’

  ‘Doctor,’ Martha interrupted. Sometimes he needed reining in.

  ‘What? Oh, yeah, sorry. Anyway, my point is, you have the brains and the strength to solve your own problems. The Cineraria didn’t completely clear the atmosphere. But they bought you plenty of breathing space. So use it! Finish the job. You’re smart enough. And, besides, if you find that gas bag floating somewhere in the Atlantic you can nick their technology.’

  ‘Yes,’ Morris said, eyes widening as he considered the possibilities. ‘I don’t pretend we’ll understand it all but I am sure we can extrapolate…’

  He was still babbling on when the Doctor took Martha’s hand and led her quietly out through the doors. ‘Saved the world in less than an hour,’ the Doctor said as they headed for the lift. ‘I think that’s a record.’

  ‘Full of ourselves, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yeah, well, you can’t blame me. Sometimes I’m so clever I even surprise myself. And it takes a lot to surprise me, I can tell you.’

  ‘Well, you can use some of that genius of yours to take me to Earth.’

  The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, you did it. Surprised me. We’ve got the whole of time and space to explore and you want to go home?’

  ‘I don’t want to go home,’ Martha said. ‘I want you to show me the world ten years from now so I can see how it all works out.’

  ‘Then Earth ten years from now it is. But don’t you worry. They manage to sort themselves out, just like I said. Everything’s brilliant!’

  Martha laughed and slipped her arm through his.

  As long as the Doctor was around, everything really was brilliant.

  ‘Ican’t do it alone,’ Martha told the Surcourt group over supper. ‘I just can’t. I’ll do everything I can, but I need help. I need as many of you as possible to become Martha Jones.’

  ‘What?’ laughed Sylvie.

  Martha grinned and said, ‘I mean… do what I’m doing. Get out there and make contact with other groups. Share the stories I’ve shared with you these past few days. Tell them what’s going to happen and what they have to get ready for. Be me, I suppose. Multiply me, so I’m in as many places as possible, spreading the word, and get others to do the same. Be Martha Jones, and make more Marthas.’

  ‘I respect you, Martha, I really do,’ said Yves, ‘but are words going to be enough? Words and ideas? To beat the Master, we need to fight.’

  Several voices murmured in agreement.

  ‘There are all sorts of ways of fighting,’ said Martha.

  ‘I mean kill the Master,’ said Yves.

  ‘The Doctor—’

  ‘With respect,’ said Antoine, ‘this Doctor you speak of may be dead already.’

  ‘He isn’t,’ said Martha. ‘I’d know.’

  After supper, she helped Mathieu clean the dishes. ‘What about you?’ she asked him. ‘Do you fancy becoming a Martha Jones?’

  ‘Everyone I meet, I’ll tell them what you told me,’ he replied, ‘but I agree with Yves and the others. We should fight. They say the Underground is growing in strength, in the east, in Germany and Switzerland. I’ve been planning to head that way, to see if I can join them. Maybe I can get the Underground active there too.’

  ‘I’ve heard people speak about the Underground.’

  ‘There are lots of groups,’ Mathieu told her. ‘All independent, but if we could link them up…’

  ‘The UCF is strong,’ said Martha, ‘and the Toclafane…’

  ‘So what else do we do?’ asked Mathieu.

  ‘Believe?’ she suggested.

  Mathieu wrung out the dishcloth and drummed his fingers on the edge of the bowl. Tap-tap-tap-tap! Tap-tap-tap-tap!

  ‘These stories you’ve told us,’ he said, ‘of other worlds and alien creatures. Are they true?’

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

  ‘I think the sky opened two months ago and unearthly things rained down and changed the world. I think anything is possible now. So you’ve been to these places, to these other worlds and times?’

  She nodded.

  ‘The Doctor took you there? What is he really like?’

  ‘He’s extraordinary. He never gives up. He never stops fighting. But he always finds the cleverest way to fight. And, believe me, that’s never with bombs and guns.’

  ‘Does he know what the Toclafane are?’ Mathieu asked.

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Do you?’

  She shook her head.

  She helped him carry the bowl of dish water over to the grey water recycler and tip it in.

  ‘I can’t stay here much longer,’ she told him. ‘I need to move on.’

  ‘Security’s really tight in this zone,’ he replied. ‘Maybe another month.’

  ‘I can’t wait that long,’ she said.

  Mathieu shrugged and said, ‘So we’ll find a way, and I’ll come with you.’

  ‘There’s no need—’ Martha began.

  ‘I can take you to other groups between here and Charleville. They, in turn, can link us to others.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ she said.

  ‘I’m doing it for me,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time I went looking for the Underground.’

  ‘So how do we get out?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll think of a way,’ he replied.

  Griffin and his men were supervising house-to-house sweeps in the suburbs of Surcourt when the call from Brunol came through. Griffin flipped out his phone.

  ‘Speak.’

  ‘Are you looking at the Over Watch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I recommend you do, fast,’ Brunol said.

  Holding the phone to his ear, Griffin jogged past the rows of sobbing detainees held at gunpoint, and headed for his vehicle. Guard dogs stretched on their chains and barked at the frightened captives.

  ‘Shut them up,’ Griffin told Jenks.

  He got into the cab and pulled up Over Watch on the vehicle PC.

  ‘You seein
g it?’ asked Brunol over the phone.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Griffin.

  the message window read.

  ‘Is this confirmed?’ Griffin asked.

  ‘It came through a verified UCF device about twenty minutes ago,’ said Brunol. ‘I’ve back-checked. Source says Jones was seen at the camp around nine this morning. Three separate sightings, including one made by a camp guard.’

  ‘That was two hours ago,’ said Griffin. ‘How far is Tournai from here?’

  ‘It’s Belgium. Over the border, about an hour’s drive if you push it.’

  ‘Stand by,’ Griffin said. He leaned out of the cab. ‘With me! Now!’ he yelled. His men broke towards him on the double.

  Griffin started the engine.

  ‘Brunol?’

  ‘Still here.’

  ‘Clear all the roadblocks and checkpoints between here and Tournai. Warn them we’re coming through and we’re not stopping. Get the labour camp secured, the labour camp and its immediate location. Mobilise everything you’ve got.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Brunol?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Secure the camp, but nobody moves in until I’m there. Are we clear? Nobody makes a move for Martha Jones until I’m there.’

  ‘Understood.’

  Griffin snapped the phone shut. His men were aboard. He put the vehicle in gear and stood on the accelerator.

  ‘We gotta be somewhere in a hurry, chief?’ asked Bremner.

  ‘Tournai. Load up.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Griffin nodded.

  ‘We’ve got her.’

  ‘As easy as that?’ asked Martha, smirking.

  Yves nodded.

  ‘Just about,’ he said, typing another few words on the rugged PC’s keyboard.

  the screen read.

  There was a pause. The network pinged.

  the new message window read.

  The flash market operators had captured the UCF truck during the supply convoy hijack. All the convoy vehicles had been ditched at the warehouse, or dumped in reservoirs and quarries. It would take the UCF a good while to realise that they were missing an ATV that was still active.

  ‘I called in some favours,’ Mathieu said. ‘Consider this ride a thank you from the marketeers for your warning.’

  They loaded their backpacks into the ATV. Dressed in combat boots, army pants and a black leather jacket, Martha said a quick goodbye to the members of the Surcourt group. A wind was picking up, rustling the branches of the elms and poplars that shaded the ruined factory.

  ‘Get indoors, all of you,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t be out here.’

  ‘God bless you, Martha,’ said Sylvie.

  ‘Keep Mathieu safe!’ laughed Antoine.

  ‘Remember. Believe,’ Martha said, looking at them. She tapped a finger against her temple. ‘We’ll win this if we remember and believe.’

  Mathieu had already given a last wave to his friends and climbed into the cab. ‘Martha?’ he called.

  She opened the passenger door, and looked back at the group one last time.

  ‘Be Martha Jones for me,’ she told them, with a grin.

  She got in, and they drove away down the road.

  The Surcourt group had been good to her. Martha felt an emotional tug as they left them behind, as if she might shed a tear or two at leaving them, but she hadn’t allowed herself to cry so far, and she wasn’t about to start.

  Riding in a UCF vehicle had its advantages. Heading east, through Belsour and Travent-Ville, most checkpoints simply waved them through. The ones that were strict enough to stop them saw nothing amiss with Mathieu’s counterfeit pass and paperwork. None of them even noticed that there was a second person in the vehicle.

  The dashboard PC, opened in its rubberised casing, flashed them constant updates from Over Watch, enough to forewarn Mathieu on a couple of occasions and allow him to detour UCF mobilisations.

  By nightfall they had reached a small village on the Oise, and made contact with the survivor group there. The group helped them conceal the ATV, and then took them to their shelter and gave them beds and a meal.

  In return, Martha told a few more of her stories. Some were stories she’d never told before. Others were tales so well rehearsed that they told themselves.

  She answered questions and listened to hopes and fears. She told them what she knew, and asked for their help. She urged them to keep the word moving.

  She did what the Doctor had asked her to do.

  The next day, at first light, rain had set in.

  When they started up the ATV and woke the PC, Over Watch was buzzing with alerts. Their ruse had been discovered. Someone, somewhere – the thug with the scarred face, Martha imagined – was seriously raging. Blanket sweeps had been ordered, border closures, raids and searches.

  They drove through the rain towards Rumigny.

  ‘We’ll have to ditch this ride soon,’ Martha said.

  Mathieu nodded.

  ‘We could be carrying a tracker,’ Martha said, ‘or maybe they can trace our transmissions via the Archangel Net. Trace them right back to this PC.’

  ‘I know. I just want to get as far as Aisonagne, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  They dumped the ATV in a river long before Aisonagne. The rain was sheeting down and the UCF was closing its noose. Helicopter gunships swept the skies, and Martha saw two scudding shoals of Toclafane.

  They trekked on foot through rain-swept woods, avoiding the highways, and made it to a place called Veulette by mid-afternoon.

  The village was dead. What looked suspiciously like a mass grave lurked in the woodland behind the little school house.

  They pushed on, and reached Saint Marcel by nightfall. The rain persisted. A sympathetic farmer, living alone in a stone house on the side of a sloping hill, gave them a ride to Aisonagne in his pick-up. He kept to back roads and field tracks, rolling slowly with his headlights off. The main highways were bright with flood lamps and searchlights.

  The farmer dropped them off a mile away from Aisonagne, and showed them the path to take. They reached the town at ten o’clock, and were taken in by a small survivor group that was sheltering in the cellars of the town hall.

  There was time for soup and one story, one well-rehearsed story. Martha gave them the quick version of her speech, and hoped it would be enough.

  At two, under a moonless night that had only just stopped raining, the Aisonagne group led them through wet fields to the suburban town of Banville.

  A much larger group was hidden there, a survivor community nearly seventy strong. Exhausted, Martha did her thing again, cued and encouraged by Mathieu. She’d done it so many times, it was starting to sound stale to her. She hoped it didn’t sound stale to them. The congregation seemed to listen, earnestly.

  ‘The Underground? Any of you know anything about the Underground?’ Mathieu asked afterwards as they drank bitter coffee and snacked on dry biscuits.

  No one seemed to know anything.

  ‘I need to make contact with another group,’ Martha told the leader of the Banville enclave. ‘I need to keep moving. Can you help me?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘We’ll have to leave early,’ he said.

  Early meant four-thirty in the morning. Martha had barely slept. The Banville group led her and Mathieu out into the dark. The rain had begun again, and it was chilly and miserable. Weary and cold to her bones, Martha shivered.

  They followed a river through woodland, and passed a huge series of mineral quarries where cranes rose like gangling praying mantises around a half-finished, half-mile-high statue of the Master. It was as if he was looking down at her, his cheeky grin half-complete.

  After an hour, the Banville group made signs that they were about to
turn back.

  ‘Keep going,’ said the leader. ‘Follow the edge of the lake around until you reach the road. That will take you into Bassionaire.’

  ‘Is there a group there?’ asked Martha. ‘A group we can contact?’

  ‘I’ve sent word to them to expect you,’ the leader said.

  There were no goodbyes. The Banville group simply vanished into the drizzle and the night.

  They trudged on. The rain fell even harder. The track was mud.

  ‘It can’t be much further,’ Martha groaned.

  ‘Can’t it?’ Mathieu replied.

  Hard, savage lights suddenly banged on. They were blinded. Caught in the floodlights, Martha and Mathieu fumbled around. They heard voices shouting. They heard men moving towards them through the wet undergrowth. They heard weapons racking.

  ‘Down! Get down!’ someone shouted.

  They got down. Martha saw Mathieu reaching towards his pack. She knew he was carrying a sawn-off shotgun.

  ‘Don’t!’ she cried. ‘Please don’t!’

  Armed men were all around them, pushing them down, searching their pockets.

  It was all over. The UCF had got them.

  The chugging Chinook helicopter came pounding in out of the blistering midday heat. It was travelling low and fast, swooping south, dragging its hard, black shadow across the dusty crags and hills east of Izmir.

  The pilot said something over the intercom.

  ‘Say again?’ said Martha.

  ‘I said not long now, Miss Jones,’ the pilot crackled.

  She was strapped into a seat on the starboard side of the cabin, gazing out of the window in the hope of catching one last glimpse of the glittering Aegean. It was sweltering hot in the Chinook’s cabin, and there were strong fumes from the hastily maintained engine, but it sure as hell beat walking. It was the fastest she’d travelled in four months, and the first time she’d flown since Day Zero. The chopper, a Turkish Air Force bird purloined by the Bulgarian cells of the Underground, was fitted with a transponder that broadcast code-correct UCF transmissions. Even so, they didn’t want to stay in the air for too long.

  Martha fanned her face and tried to enjoy the experience. It made a change from moving on foot, from lurching trucks and run-down cars, from steamers and container ships, from horseback and dog-sled, from mopeds and the occasional bicycle. She’d even ridden a freight train for two hundred miles between labour camps in the Ukraine.