Doctor Who: The Water's of Mars by Phil Ford

Author:Phil Ford [Ford, Phil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785948213
Amazon: 1785948210
Publisher: Penguin Group UK
Published: 2023-07-24T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Ancient History

Adelaide led the Doctor to a vault back in the Central Dome that wouldn’t have been out of place at Fort Knox. Its door was heavier even than the airlock that was currently keeping the Flood at bay. If it, and its twin airlock at the biodome, were intended to preserve the base in the event of a depressurisation emergency, whatever they had in the vault had to be pretty special.

The Doctor had been given no clues during their journey to the vault. Adelaide had simply said that it was best he see for himself. Whatever it might be, it was a part of the Bowie Base One story that the Doctor had never heard. He felt excitement buzz through him like electricity as Adelaide entered a code and then hauled on the big wheel that opened the vault door.

The vault itself was not large. It had no reason to be, for what it guarded stood on a table in the middle, protected by a cylinder of glass. There was a single chair at the table and a computer terminal that he guessed was part of trying to unlock the artefact’s secrets.

‘It was found during the ice field excavation,’ she explained, standing aside in the vault doorway for the Doctor to go take a look at Bowie’s most prized discovery. ‘As you know, the base was built by construction drones. It was sheer luck that this was spotted by a controller on Earth. Otherwise, it would probably have been destroyed without us ever knowing of its existence.’

The Doctor felt his breath catch in his throat as he approached the protective cylinder and began to realise what it contained. ‘It wasn’t taken back to Earth?’ he said.

‘The construction drones weren’t designed to return to Earth. Mission Control decided it was best left here for us to examine when we reached Mars. Besides, they weren’t sure it would survive the G-forces of a flight to Earth.’

‘The Secret of Bowie Base One,’ the Doctor marvelled, leaning gently on the table.

It was a three-sided column. Not solid. Constructed of three paper-thin sheets of delicate metal that stood just under a metre tall within the protective cylinder. Its surface glittered with a sheen of colours that seemed to move and change as he used the revolving plinth on which it stood to inspect each side in turn. The column was covered in an elaborate small script that reminded him of Nordic runes, but without their order.

‘Who’s the translator?’ he asked.

‘Mia.’

The Doctor nodded, smiling. ‘I didn’t think she was really a geologist. Her hands are too soft.’

‘The Space Agency thought having a translation expert on the manifest would cause too many questions.’

‘Has she got very far?’

‘It’s a long process.’

The Doctor dug out his spectacles again. The writing didn’t run in straight lines, either vertical or horizontal, but in winding intricate spiralling patterns. He smiled. For such an uncompromising race, whose evolution had been so militaristic that its young were born into troops, not families, the Ice Warriors had one of the most beautifully decorative languages in the universe.

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