"They've got a right nerve, landing a ruddy giant space-egg in the middle of my farm!" Joe Powell took his hat off for the fifteenth time that morning, scrunching and unscrunching it in his big red hands. "Ah, my poor cows," he moaned. "They won't give milk for weeks now! I just know it."
Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart took a deep breath and silently noted the herd of barely-interested friesians, watching on from behind a nearby fence as they chewed their cud. Captain Yates should be dealing with all this, he thought to himself. The blighter had picked a hell of a time to catch the 'flu.
"Mr. Powell, as I have explained, Her Majesty's government will be more than happy to recompense you for any loss of income you may suffer as a result of this… trespass. Now would you please lower your voice? We are in the middle of a very important negotiation."
"Oh, negotiating now are we?" said Powell, muttering under his breath as he wandered away in search of a more receptive audience. It would probably end up being Miss Grant, poor girl, thought the Brigadier. She had one of those faces.
The Brigadier returned his attention to the source of Mr. Powell's distress. Thirty yards away, and surrounded at a slightly greater distance by UNIT soldiers, the recently arrived alien craft sat in the middle of the pasture with barely a broken blade of grass to mark its arrival. It looked for all the world as if it had always been there - and yet, it could not have been more out of place. A blue egg, two storeys high stood on end, with no visible jets, and a hatch that liquidly sealed and unsealed itself without leaving a mark on the surface. The whole thing was damned uncanny, the Brigadier thought. What was wrong with good old-fashioned rockets, that was what he wanted to know.
Two figures stood before the craft, in the midst of a discussion that fell maddeningly just below the range of his hearing. One was the Doctor, a man whose presence at UNIT the Brigadier resented about as often as he valued it. The other was the occupant of the craft, a silver-skinned woman clad in robes made of some kind of woven, coppery metal. And that was another thing, the Brigadier thought. Why did these alien creatures never dress sensibly?
The conversation appeared to wrap up, and the Doctor smiled warmly as he strode back towards Lethbridge-Stewart, scarlet-lined cape flapping behind him in the morning breeze. "Nothing to worry about, Brigadier," he called as he drew closer. "You can tell your men to rest their trigger fingers. Our visitor's intentions are perfectly peaceful. She simply requires a small amount of help from us and she'll be on her way."
The Brigadier was skeptical. "We're taking her at her word, are we Doctor?"
"On the contrary, Brigadier. Her reputation precedes her - at least, as far as I'm concerned, it does. She's an Intersector, and members of her race have visited my home world of Gallifrey many times in the past without incident."
"Hmm. And on those occasions, did they turn up completely unannounced as they have here?"
The Doctor looked slightly embarrassed. "Well, yes, actually," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "They're a metadimensional race, you see. Intersectors don't perceive time, space, or the barriers between universes as other beings do. For all their good intentions, that unique perspective does sometimes lead to breakdowns in etiquette."
The Brigadier sighed. "And you've already promised we'll help, I assume. Of all the days…"
"She won't be any trouble, Brigadier. I give you my word."
"It's not just the woman from space I'm worried about, Doctor, it's the man from London." The Brigadier's face was grim. "This afternoon, UNIT is being audited."