Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion by Terrance Dicks

Author:Terrance Dicks
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781446417072
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

8

The Auton Attacks

Sam Seeley shuffled his feet uneasily, twisting his old cloth cap between his fingers. His gaze wandered all round the tent, trying to avoid the sceptical eyes of the young officer behind the table.

Munro said sharply: ‘Come on now, Mr Seeley, you’re wasting my time. Have you got something to tell me, or haven’t you?’

‘I’m only trying to help, like,’ said Sam vaguely. ‘You see, I knows these woods, like, knows every rabbit-hole.’

‘Poacher, are you?’

‘Let’s just say I’m self-employed.’

‘I’m still trying to work out why you came to see me.’

Sam groaned inwardly. This conversation wasn’t going at all the way he’d imagined it. No one seemed at all interested in his subtle hints. All he was getting was a lot of uncomfortably direct questions.

He tried again. ‘See, if I knew a bit about what you was looking for…’ Munro’s voice was stern. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, Mr Seeley. But I can tell you this. The objects we’re searching for are extremely dangerous. One man has been killed already.’

Sam made a final try. ‘I reckon it’d be worth a fair bit of money – if anyone did happen to know where he could put his hand on one?’

Munro leaned forward. ‘It’d be worth quite a long spell in prison for someone withholding information, if someone did know where to find one, and didn’t inform us. Of course, if that someone came forward like a public-spirited citizen – well, there might possibly be some question of a small reward. Some kind of finder’s fee.’

Sam brightened immediately. Even a small reward was better than nothing. He pulled up one of the wooden chairs and sat down, leaning forward confidentially. ‘Well, it were like this, you see… I were checking me traps last night in Oxley Woods when all of a sudden…’

When Sam’s wife returned from her shopping the little cottage was silent and empty. She wasn’t particularly surprised. Her Sam was in the habit of appearing and disappearing as the fancy took him. She went out of the back door and called: ‘Sam, Sam, you out there!’ There was no answer. On impulse she went down the garden and opened the shed door. No Sam. She was about to shut the door and go back to the house, when she saw the tin trunk under Sam’s workbench. She remembered how oddly Sam had behaved before. On a sudden impulse, she pulled the trunk from beneath the bench and opened it.

This time it wasn’t empty. Something round was in the bottom, wrapped in a sheet of her kitchen foil. She smiled in satisfaction and set about unwrapping it. With the kitchen foil removed, she saw a dull green globe, made of something heavy and smooth. It was about the size of a football. She popped it back inside and began to drag the trunk back to the house. Once she had the trunk in the cottage’s tiny sitting-room, she opened it again. The globe began to glow softly. Then it started to pulse with light.

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