The Doctor and Hazelbrook walked side by side into the upper levels of the Sanctum. The Doctor didn't speak, his eyes narrow with thought, listening not just to everything Hazelbrook said, but the way he said it, working to sift the truth from the lies he was likely to be told.
"My father founded the Sanctum, back in 1968," Hazelbrook said. "You probably knew that, but you probably didn't know why."
They passed through a brightly lit computer room, two initiates standing at the upright control panels which stretched to the ceiling, a third typing at high speed at a terminal.
"I'm surprised, really, that no one ever made the connection with the meteorite. It was quite a story at the time, made the local papers and everything. A fiery ball scorching across the sky in the middle of the night. No one ever found where it landed, though."
A steel raised walkway led them through a humming rectangular chamber, banked on either side with row upon row of blinking lights and switches, a single initiate working her way along checking readouts. Hazelbrook looked sideways at the Doctor checking for a reaction but found none.
"Well, you've probably guessed, it landed here. In the trees behind the mansion, almost beneath where we're standing right now. My father and a group of servants ran up to see, worried about the trees catching fire more than anything else, but what they found was beyond anything they'd imagined. A silver and glass sphere, almost undamaged from the crash despite slamming into the earth at a thousand miles an hour, spitting electric sparks, its light dimming and reviving like a broken lamp.
"They'd barely time to get over that shock when something terrible started to happen. A glowing mist started to seep from the sphere. It reached out and wrapped itself around one of the men who'd accompanied my father, tormenting him with nightmare visions, sending him mad.
"My father could see that this sphere, whatever it was, was failing, and he guessed that whatever was inside was escaping and forming this mist. He had no idea what to do, of course, so he did the only thing he could think of which was to have a simple petrol generator brought up from the house and hooked up to what seemed to be the electrical circuits of the sphere.
"It seemed to work. The flickering stopped and no more mist emerged. The cloud which had attacked the man eventually flowed away down the hill and, as far as we know, dissipated. We never heard of it any more."
Hazelbrook hesitated at a heavy steel door, sealed airtight with a gleaming brand new combination lock. He gave the Doctor a wary look as though inviting him to provide a reason why he should be trusted. But the Doctor barely responded at all. His thin face was hard with athough, his dark blue eyes steady, his silence creating a vacuum which Hazelbrook was pressed to fill. He reached out a stiff hand and stabbed out the combination, conscious of the Doctor's gaze resting on his fingers as he did so, undoubtedly memorising the code.
"That wasn't the end of it of course. My father was... well, a bit of an old hippy. He didn't trust governments or the military, and he was afraid they would want to use the sphere, whatever it was, as a weapon. So he chose to hide it. He built a simple brick structure over the crater and a perimeter fence, and told everyone he'd started a sort of commune, which was easy to believe in those days. The hippy commune became a cult. The brick shelter became this concrete bunker, and when he died in 1979, I took on the responsibility which he had handed me."
They stepped out onto a high gantry which circled the inner curve of a vast concrete dome, looking down onto an ant's nest of bustling activity and glaring light fifty feet beneath where they stood. Great coils of heavy duty power cable twisted about the floor, winding their way around benches and desks loaded with computer equipment. A dozen initiates hunched over the screens, or clustered around the great glass sphere which dominated the centre of the room. It was translucent, like a giant pearl ten feet across, and bound with heavy silver girders which clutched it like an unbreakable fist. It was set into a pit so that it emerged only two or three feet above floor level and the cables converged upon it, hooking onto open panels in the girders so that it looked like a patient in intensive care. The Doctor leaned forward slowly, hands gripping the rail.
Hazelbrook paused, looking almost apologetic as his uncertainty of his own position grew.
"Of course... we don't really know what it is. We don't even know for sure that my father did the right thing."
"Mm."
For a moment it appeared that this would be the only response the Doctor would make, all his attention swallowed up by the glowing sphere in the pit below. But after a few more moments he glanced across at Hazelbrook, his face serious but clear.
"I think it's likely that your father saved the world."
"I take it your power requirements have increased," the Doctor remarked, leading the way down a narrow metal staircase which twisted around the cylindrical chamber to the floor where the sphere lay. They passed by a pair of great insulated cables secured to the wall with brackets.
"Yes, we've found that as the years have gone by it's taken more and more electricity to keep the device stable," said Hazelbrook, hurrying along at his heels. "If we don't maintain a constant supply then the light starts to phase on and off and one of those cloud creatures starts to coalesce. I've had to install an industrial-sized generator in the basement... you've seen it of course... and that's not the worst of our problems."
"Yes?" prompted the Doctor, glancing back at him without pausing his downward progress.
"It seems to be reaching a point where no matter how much electricity we pump in, it doesn't maintain the sphere's integrity. It flickers on and off now and then even when the power is flowing full strength. I'm sure you're aware that the silver clouds have been appearing miles away, attacking people. I'm frightened that it's failing, and if it does then there'll be no stopping them."
"Hence your recruiting drive," the Doctor remarked briskly, reaching the foot of the steps and walking out across the concrete floor, stepping over one of many bulky cables winding towards the sphere.
"Yes. I'm trying to find a more permanent solution. For that, I need money, and I need skilled technical people. The situation's got bad enough that I had to throw caution to the winds and risk making some powerful enemies to get the people I needed. Fortunately there is no shortage of young people who are willing to devote themselves to the project once they find out the truth behind it."
"Such as..."
The Doctor halted, and the trace of a smile brushed across his lips at the sight of Angela, her back to them, clipboard in hand, taking readings from a device clamped to the side of the sphere. Hazelbrook saw where he was looking and gave a slightly embarrassed nod.
"Yes. I know it must have seemed that I'd kidnapped or hypnotised her, but as Max assured me, once she was told what we were doing, and was shown proof, she didn't hesitate."
"Of course," the Doctor said his eyes still resting upon her. "A chance to use her skills for something vital. To save the world. Why would she hesitate?"
At that instant Angela, as though physically feeling the eyes watching her, turned around and saw the Doctor. Though her glasses were discarded and her hair hung carelessly down her back, her expression on sighting the Doctor had changed not at all.
"Oh, no." She glared at him for a moment, then looked appealingly at Hazelbrook. "What's he doing here?"
The Doctor lifted his chin primly and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"Oh, fine. I suppose you don't want to know what this thing is that you're working on, then."
She visibly grimaced, but also straightened, her curiosity rising like a force outside her conscious control.
"You... know what it is?" she asked grudgingly.
The Doctor gave her a twisted little smile and let the point hang silently in the air for a moment, then answered with an airy wave of his hand.
"Of course I do. It's a form of particle wave psionic construct, often known colloquially as a mind vulture. You don't need me to tell you what it does, it attacks the subconscious mind, lifting the victim's fears to the surface, making them incapable of action. What you do need to know is that the phantoms you've seen wafting around the countryside are nothing. They're just little wisps of vapour that have escaped through the cracks." He planted a hand on the surface of the sphere and gazed through at the swirling, glimmering fog visible through the opalescent barrier. "If this thing ever got free, it would spread across the surface of the world and nothing would be able to stop it. The human race would die screaming."