UNIT UK 17: Doppel GangingUp

by ComsatAngel

There can't be two identical John Walmsley's, can there? An inept spy leads to the Doctor's describing the biggest war in modern galactic history.

UNIT UK 17: Doppel-Ganging-Up

Lieutenant Nicholas Tarquin Munroe used to quote the frankly-unintelligible Rabbie Burns line "O wad some power the giftie gie us, to see oorselves as ithers see us," in a coded reference that meant "You are behaving like a prat if you did but know it". Some of us, however, are given the chance to see ourselves from outside as spectators. The Doctor was one of these – in his travels across space and time he'd made a complete nonsense of linear history, admitting to me on a couple of occasions that he'd encountered himself as earlier or later incarnations. The relevance of which is that I got the chance to meet myself face-to-face, pretty nearly, without having to cross the universe.

Firstly, I was on leave. A four-day pass of accumulated time off, which Marie and I had worked out in some detail.

Marie, formally Elaine Marie Valdupont, is my girlfriend. A French professor of inorganic chemistry, over in the UK to work on ceramic applique armour for defence applications at Cambridge. Age thirty, divorcee, round in all the right places which I have to emphasise to her is "voluptuous" not "fat". We didn't get on terribly well at our first encounter – actually nearly spitting poison. Later events brought us closer together.

Anyway, Marie and I were in La Boulangerie for our evening meal. Marie knew staff at the French Embassy, who are all fearful food snobs, and got a recommendation for a restaurant. I used the underground car park in UNIT's Kensington office and we got a taxi to the restaurant. Not very busy, which was good since I hadn't made a reservation.

'Order what you like and I will pay for tonight,' I rashly promised. Good move, John. This is not a chippy in the middle of Wigan!

Marie ordered something so horrid I can't mention it, whilst I went for whitebait. The little crunchy items were barely down my neck when one of the waiters came over and coughed discreetly in my ear.

'The Governor would like to see you,' he gravelled politely.

'What! The Governor of Wandsworth Prison wants to see me! Here and now!' I replied, loudly and crossly, jumping to the wrong conclusion.

'Not that "governor". The boss,' explained my large and taciturn friend, indicating a table at the rear of the restaurant. A small man with grey hair and moustache nodded at me.

'We've probably nicked someone's table,' I whispered to Marie, before walking to the restaurant's rear,

The small man, wearing an obviously very expensive suit, indicated a seat drawn up in front of his table.

'Sorry if we pinched another party's table, we'll move if need be.'

'Don't be silly, Mister Walmsley!' he replied, a nice trick since I hadn't introduced myself. 'If you'd booked I'd have you at a better table. William Smart.' He stretched out a hand, which I shook. 'Not heard of me? If I said Cathal Monaghan was my godson then I'd be giving you two pieces of information.'

Whoooops. Godson, godfather, gangster. I darted a glance back at Marie.

'Good Lord, son, don't worry about your girlfriend. Yourself neither. You and I share a common hatred of those who abuse women.'

He ate a couple of oysters before wiping his moustache, neatly and deftly. A touch of fire came into his eyes.

'Yes. Cathal was a wild one. I warned his dad, "Sort your son out before someone else does". It seems you did the sorting.'

All very matter-of-fact, said with not an ounce of dislike. How the hell had he got confidential information about Operation Chromium?

'Mind you, after kidnapping and raping and murdering those nurses, young Cathal would have woken up dead when I caught him. Same with his friends. Glass of water?'

I needed it; my throat had gone dry yet I needed to talk.

'My first instinct when you said who you were was to bang on about Cathal – but when you act as godfather to a child you've no idea how they'll turn out. Now I'm more worried about how you discovered who I am and what I've done.'

He munched his way through a forkful of asparagus.

'Pure chance, our meeting here tonight. But I know what you've done because I've spent time and effort finding out. Not too easy. UNIT are always a hard study.'

No kidding! Interference with UNIT is liable to bring down CID, MI5 and Special Branch all at once.

'Anyway, what I'm really curious about is Wandsworth Prison. I understand you were the first to go in there?'

I shuddered.

'Don't!'

Mister Smart looked at me over a wineglass.

'Bad, was it?'

'Like a descent into Hell.' I took a breath and carried on, getting it off my chest. 'I'm not particularly soft. I've done and seen some pretty dreadful things, but nothing on earth will beat that prison for sheer – sheer - '

He waved a hand dismissively.

'Sorry, sorry, forget I asked. I had a couple of friends in there. I know – knew – the Chief Warden. The Governor, too, fairly well. Pretty decent bloke.'

He sipped his wine and I sipped my water.

'And General Finch got away with it,' he said, his voice hard again. 'All safe on his little island out in The Swale.'

Well-informed he might be, but Mister Smart didn't know everything.

'Ah, no he didn't! Hector Finch is currently under a suspended death sentence.'

'Oh? Just a minute, that's not true! What do you mean?'

I couldn't refrain from smiling a nasty smile. What I was about to tell wasn't exactly secret, just not widely-known.

'He and two of his little imps dosed themselves up with the vaccine for Backfire – they thought. It turns out that the vaccine was faulty. Not only does it not protect you, it will eventually cause you to contract Backfire. Anyone who took the faulty vaccine can't be given the real vaccine, because that would instantly trigger the disease. So I'm told by the medical staff, I don't pretend to understand the ins and outs of biology.'

Mister Smart looked simultaneously surprised and gratified.

'Talk about the biter bit! Serves him bloody well right.'

'Couldn't happen to a more deserving person. He's permanently strait-jacketed, to stop him topping himself. No human contact, no movement outside his cell, food and water sent in through an air-lock.'

'What about his helpers on the outside? I know three went to jail, and two died, but not the details.'

I explained a little more: the two men on the outside had dosed themselves with the vaccine for ECT 4-13. One had contracted Backfire and fatally injured the other, not before being fatally injured himself. Mister Smart got a calculating look in his eye at that point, and I wondered how long the three surviving plotters would remain "surviving".

'Did you read that article in the Evening News about Butler?' asked Mister Smart, now moving on to a raspberry roulade.

Oh yes I had. Sarah Jane Smith had managed to get permission to interview Charley Butler, Whittaker's chief understudy in Operation Golden Age. He'd done a remarkable act in court, managing to persuade the jury that he was a poor, misguided, deceived technician. Damn lucky to get away with a twelve-year sentence. Sarah's article, subtly toned, revealed Butler's ill-concealed gloating at having pulled the collective wool over people's eyes.

'Such a shame he committed suicide,' continued Mister Smart. 'Mmm. This is really good. I recommend you try it if you come back. Well, goodbye for now.'

'So who was that man?' asked Marie when I got back to our table. My explanation may not have been very clear, with all the questions buzzing around my head. I showed her the business card.

"William Smart Associates: Gold Bullion Import and Export"

Mister Smart left through the back door, but his influence remained. When I took the bill to the cashier, she checked a note on the till, gave me a big smile and ripped the bill into pieces.

'On the house, courtesy of the management!' she smiled.

'It was free! Free?' said Marie in the taxi back to Kensington.

'Indeed, mon cherie. Entirely free.'

'Bon! Then since you don't pay for this one, you can pay for the next.'

Ah, yes, feminine logic.

I shall gloss over the next few days, when we travelled to Normandy to meet Marie's father. Mssr. Valdupont was a tall, aristocratic looking chap, who disliked me on many different levels. Firstly, I was British. Secondly, I was a British soldier. Thirdly, I didn't belong to a famous regiment. Fourthly, my French was poor. Fifthly, I was four years younger than Marie. Sixth, not only was I British, but I was a British provincial. I could go on, but you get the idea. Impressing the Professor would be difficult. Or impossible.

Anyway, I walked back into the HQ at Aylesbury on Monday evening and signed in the duty log, before noticing that things were not normal. The private who took the book back over the counter looked at my signature very closely, whilst his colleague behind him cradled a Sterling.

'Is it you, sir?' asked the private.

What on earth did he mean?

' "Is it me"? Of course it is! What a bloody silly question!'

He nodded to the man behind him.

'Oh – sir? Sorry about that. Cigarette?'

More stupidity.

'Private Roker, you and I served in London together. You know I don't smoke. What's going on?'

I'm allergic to tobacco; everybody at UNIT knew better than to try and cadge cigarettes from me.

'You're to report to the gym, sir, soonest. The Brig is there.'

The gym got used occasionally to conduct large meetings. We must be getting a briefing.

No we weren't. When I pushed the doors open the first person I met was Sergeant Benton, carrying a manpack flamethrower. He squinted at me suspiciously, before the Brig motioned me over to where he stood, in the middle of the gym, keeping a wary eye on a large uniformed officer sitting on a bench. A couple of squaddies carrying guns flanked Lethbridge-Stewart.

'What d'you think, John?' he asked, nodding towards the large man currently under the muzzles of two rifles and a flamethrower.

'It – good God!'

The large man was me, or an exact copy. I looked closer, and harder, and couldn't see any obvious difference between us.

'I know I'm me, sir. Who's this?'

'Not an Auton, is about all we can tell. Organic, not plastic.'

Copy-John scowled at the real me. Bloody hell, did I look that nasty when I did that?

'How did you catch it out?'

The Brig twirled one corner of his moustache.

'Sarn't Benton. This item offered him a cigarette before lighting one up itself. He sent it here before doubling back with the flamethrower.'

Copy-John spoke up in a passable imitation of my voice.

'All humans smoke! How was I to know!'

'You picked exactly the wrong person to copy,' said the Brig. 'Now, are you going to tell me who or what you are and why you're spying on UNIT?'

'I am not a spy, I am a scout,' huffed the Copy-John.

'Semantics!' snapped the Brig. 'Who, what and why!'

Sergeant Horrigan, leading the Doctor, came into the gym. The Doctor whistled when he saw both of me, then stood still and stroked his chin.

'I thought we'd better get expert advice, sir,' explained Horrigan to the Brig. The Doctor walked all around the copy, and me too, looking quite interested.

'Pseudomorphism,' he commented, then pointed at Copy-John. 'This one is a copy, to judge by all the guns pointed at it?' He then pointed at me. 'How do you know this isn't just a better-informed copy?'

Good point. It put me in hot water, but good point.

'He isn't a copy,' said Copy-John.

'Your testimonial does not help!' I snappishly replied. 'Okay, you don't know that I'm not a copy but I do. Surely a medical exam would prove that?'

The Doctor knew that in the first place, he just said it to see my reaction. He slapped me on the back in comradely fashion.

'The genuine article! Now, let's see who our visitor really is.' He whispered in Sergeant Horrigan's ear, and the sergeant left the gym, only to dart back inside and turn the lights out.

A gentle green glow played around the outline of Copy-John in the semi-gloom of the gym, before it realised and the glow vanished.

'Hey! How'd you know to do that!' it complained.

'Eureka!' crowed the Doctor. 'A Rutan.'

'Alright, alright. Correct. I am a member of the Rutan hive,' grumbled Copy-John.

The Rutans weren't included in our UNIT bestiary. However, anyone who came into contact with the Doctor knew them by implication – he continually worried over them and the Sontarans biffing the spit out of each other. The Sontarans, by reputation, seem to be an evolved species of toad, with bad table manners. Sarah sketched one on a napkin for me in the canteen one afternoon.

'Here to do what?' asked the Doctor. Silence from our nosey friend. 'Well then, I suppose we'll have to conduct a search for your spacecraft.' He turned to look at the Brig. 'I imagine you'd probably destroy it on sight?'

The Brig caught the wink and responded accordingly.

'Absolutely! Hideous alien technology – can't have that lying around.'

'Hey! That's my ride home!' complained Copy-John. This was slightly bizarre. You'd expect a shapeshifting alien to come out with "You puny humans cannot prevail against Rutan technology," not whine like a boy-racer getting his car repossessed.

'Why did you copy me?'

'You were on television. The General's bodyguard,' answered Copy-John sulkily. 'Alright, alright. If you're going to be like that.' He stood up, slowly, not wanting to get shot or roasted. 'Ahem. I am authorised to make you the offer of an alliance with the Rutan hive,' he declaimed in a near-Shakespearian tone.

The Brig's moustache twitched in annoyance. Copy-John hadn't answered the questions put to him. The Doctor had our visitor's measure, thinking three chess moves ahead.

'And what, exactly, would humanity get from such an alliance?' he asked, cradling his chin with one hand.

'The boundless benefits of mighty Rutan technology!' replied our prisoner, so promptly he must have rehearsed it.

'Could you be a bit more precise?' asked the Doctor. The prisoner blinked in surprise at the lack of fawning gratitude.

'Oh – ah – well, fantastically advanced computer technology,' it eventually replied.

'Which humanity will have developed itself within half a generation. What else?'

'What else! What else - er – deadly laser beam weapons.'

'Already off the drawing boards and due for deployment within the decade. Anything better?'

Copy-John frowned sternly.

'Better! What more do you want?'

'What about your faster-than-light starship drive?' asked the Doctor.

'Certainly not!' snapped Copy-John. 'Totally against the rules. And, er, also my ship doesn't have it. Short-range planet-hopper.'

'No, the only thing you have to offer humanity is the very technology which you won't part with. Personally, my guess is that the "alliance" would involve a huge levy on the population of Earth?'

'Naturally! You don't get something for nothing.'

Coming to a decision, the Doctor strode around behind Copy-John, prodding it with an interlocutory finger.

'I think, Brigadier, things are now going so badly for the Rutans that they are looking to recruit alien cannon-fodder for their interminable war against the Sontaran Empire.'

Copy-John suddenly looked guilty, which I as an onlooker realised is not a good look for me.

'We've had to make pre-planned strategic withdrawals in Mutter's Spiral recently,' it admitted. 'Elastic tactical realignments. Rational force redistributions.' Hmm. "Sulky" wasn't a very pleasant expression on my face, no question.

The Brigadier laughed scornfully at this, as did I. Phrases like that were only heard from the side that suffered –

'Defeat!' laughed the Doctor, pointing mockingly at our prisoner. 'Defeat, wrapped in a cloak of jargon.'

'Who, what and why,' repeated the Brigadier, pointing his swagger stick at the Copy-John.

We already knew what, the who wasn't particularly important but the why mattered a great deal.

'I'm here to obtain information on UNIT,' explained the Copy-John. 'It being wise to find out what your opponent's opponent is up to.'

The Doctor worked out the ramifications of this in about one second flat.

'Operation Spider!' he called. Well, I wasn't around for that. The so-called "Time-Warrior" affair, when –

'You detected Sontaran military operations here in the Sol system,' declared the Doctor. 'And came along to find out what they were doing.'

The "they" in Operation Spider had in reality been only one, a single Sontaran officer. He'd managed to crash-land in the Middle Ages, then send a time-corridor effect to the present-day to snatch scientists from our time. Given that, an observer might understand the worry created amongst the Rutans. A Sontaran threat extending over six hundred years merited investigation.

'That was the idea. The humans managed to destroy my mothership – can't imagine how, bloody primitives. So I've been stuck here for the best part of eighty years.'

That explained the Rutan's command of the English language.

'If that is the case, I can arrange for you to be transported to a Rutan colony world further in along Mutter's Spiral,' said the Doctor. Copy-John looked frankly amazed.

'You can't do that! These humans don't even have hyperspatial transmission coils yet. No faster than light technology at all.'

'I am not human,' replied the Doctor, calmly.

'Whoah!' exclaimed Copy-John. 'I thought you didn't sound local, like. What are you? Movellan? Morestran?'

'Gallifreyan.'

Copy-John sucked his teeth and took a deep breath when he heard that.

'Holy mother, no wonder the locals shrug off invasion attempts! A Time Lord, eh? Well well well. And your offer?'

'If I say I can do it, I can. What are you going to tell your superiors?'

'About Earth? Primitive, suspicious and hostile. Not worth the effort to conquer, even without Gallifreyan mentors. And – no Sontarans.'

'Good enough,' said the Doctor. 'To show your goodwill, would you mind assuming your normal shape?'

Copy-John began to glow green, a very bright green, and his outline vanished in the shimmering light display. The glow died down, revealing a huge green blob trailing tentacles across the bench. It eased itself onto the floor.

'Ahhh! You know, it must be fifty years since I last went original. Not sure I could manage it anymore,' it told us, in a strange modulated version of my voice. With that, it bobbed and weaved it's way across the gym floor, led by the Doctor with Sergeant Benton close behind.

'Remarkably decent port, this,' approved our resident Time Lord in the mess that evening. 'I quite approve, Brigadier.'

'Quite,' replied Lethbridge-Stewart, very drily. 'Purchased at the recommendation of Egon Ronay. Now, perhaps an explanation about your safe escort for the Rutan spy is in order?'

I had wondered that myself. Not, surely, misguided sympathy, the feeling of one exile for another?

'Well, I judged it better to have our alien away from Earth, not making mischief down here. The Sol system is far better off not having either Sontaran or Rutans present.'

'What if it goes blabbing to the Rutan high command?' asked Lieutenant Eden, the earnest new recruit. He got a knowing look from the Doctor, who seemed amused. 'That is, it could give away all sorts of secrets.'

'Hardly! To be honest, Lieutenant Eden, I doubt whether our friend will survive more than a few minutes once it gets back to mainstream Rutan culture.'

Nothing more would he say on the subject, and you can't draw out or threaten the Doctor if he doesn't want to talk.

'Do you know, thirty four years ago today, the United States suffered the attack at Pearl Harbour,' I threw into the conversation, to get the Doctor distracted. Give him the chance and he'll pontificate about historical fact as if he witnessed it at first hand. 'How's that for a date in history?'

'Significant,' he admitted. 'And you're not going to tempt me to make any indiscretions, John.'

I pointed at him.

'We shall see about that, Doctor. Surely we shall see!'

Nick's Big Fantastic Scheme to Influence the Promotions Panel depended partly upon getting the Doctor to make indiscretions. Guess who got the job of trying to wheedle information out of our friendly extra-terrestrial?

'A few days on the run in a Russian town under siege does not make the Doctor and I best friends, Nick,' I warned him.

'You got stuck in a lift together,' added my idiot comrade. 'Bonding exercise. Good for maintaining morale.'

'Nick, he banged on about how "Captain Scarlet" was somehow a transgression of the laws of time!'

'Gerry Anderson, futurologist, prophet without honour. Try the bribe approach if nothing else works.'

My eyes would fall out of their sockets if they rolled any more.

'Fine! Fine! I'll try my best.'

Normally the Doctor is to be found in his lab, carrying out strange experiments. Every so often he travels off to Haylings House on the Dorset coast, to access their scientific equipment, of which they have more than UNIT Aylesbury. This gave me a topic to use in order to wheedle information out of him. Firstly, I wanted to satisfy my own curiosity about hints he'd dropped in the mess.

Well, TARDIS stood off in one corner of the lab when I got there, so he hadn't gone traipsing through time and space. No sign of him, not even when I called out loudly, but young Sarah was off in a corner typing notes.

'Hello, John. Come in.'

'Very accommodating, considering this is the Doctor's private lair. Is he around?'

'Gone to get a sandwich or two from the canteen.'

'What mischief in printed form are you up to? Another expose of how UNIT operates, to be printed in the year 1999? Dashing young blades saving the world? Nick Munroe's secret arrangement with the catering sergeant?'

'Actually I was practicing my Latin. Latin? You remember you warned me about travelling in the TARDIS, or you might end up being able to speak Russian. In my case it was Medieval England and the aristocracy, so I got a peculiarly bastardised form of French that nobody living can understand, and Latin.'

I laughed at her.

'I think I got the better of the language exchange, then! Oh – actually that's pretty apt, I wanted to ask the Doctor about Sontarans - '

'And doubtless Rutans, too,' declaimed the Doctor, returning to his domain with a tray of sandwiches balanced on one hand, the other having thrown the lab doors open.

'In return I have information you might be interested in, Doctor. Harry Sullivan's put in a request for the lease or loan of an electron microscope. His stock stands high at the moment and we're likely to get it.'

The Time Lord bit a ham and cucumber sandwich to death, considering.

'Indeed. That would be a very useful tool to have, or to have access to. Very well, what did you want to ask about the Sontarans and Rutans?'

Bingo! was my reaction. If the Doc isn't interested he dismisses people with a sentence beginning "My dear chap …"

'Oh, nothing detailed that might affect history. Nosiness, really. Our Rutan scout isn't going to collect his pension according to you and I wondered why.'

What a tale he had to tell.

The Rutans were a collective, a hive-mind that exhibited progressively more complex intellectual behaviour the greater their number, and they multiplied when they ingested enough energy. Thanks to their shape-shifting ability, they came to dominance in their reach of this galaxy's arm. "Dominance" meant extermination of any species unfortunate enough to encounter them, usually preceded by infiltration and sabotage from within. Our lone scout, adrift from the central hive-mind for decades, had exhibited behaviour that was individualistic – meaning the poor sod was liable to be electrically-roasted when he met up with his friends, who did not approve of things like free-thought, self-expression or the use of the word "I".

The Sontarans were a clone culture, militaristic to the nth degree, ruthless and brutal. They prevailed through raw power, creating an expendable slave labour force from their conquered victims, brain-wiped into drooling obedience, who were worked until they died. Lovely chaps, the Sontarans. Once again their empire was built on the bones of weaker ones, expanding by a process of conquest.

These two expanding empires obliterated a range of civilisations in the star systems between them. Once this astronomical buffer-zone had gone, they clashed in what began as isolated deep-space skirmishes and ended up as no-holds barred total warfare. The star-sytems of the ex-buffer zone were devastated, their settler populations of Rutan and Sontaran exterminated.

'The total casualties suffered are a bit hazy, given the length of the conflict, but most observers agree between seventy five to eighty billion,' finished the Doctor, in a tutorial style.

Sarah hadn't heard these details before and looked as amazed as I felt.

'That's monstrous!' she said, with feeling.

'How long is the "length" of this conflict?' I asked, feeling uncomfortably certain that the answer would be alarming.

The Doctor scratched behind his ear.

'Once again, a little hard to determine. I put the start at approximately one hundred and fifty thousand years ago, but the Matrix on Gallifrey has informed speculation that it began over two hundred thousand years ago.'

Sarah and I exchanged glances.

'Why don't they just stop!' she asked, sincerely.

'Bravo!' replied the Doctor, equally sincerely. 'A response like that gives me hope for humanity, Sarah.'

'Perhaps I can answer part of that,' I said slowly. 'A war that lasts so long builds up and creates it's own kind of momentum. It becomes harder to stop it than to keep on waging it.'

'Correct, John. These two civilisations have now evolved into a form where everything, literally and absolutely everything, revolves around fighting their war.'

I shook my head.

'Yes, but after a hundred and fifty millenia, with no end in sight and the better part of eighty billion casualties you'd think common-sense would prevail.'

'A more detailed response than Sarah's, John, but the same in essence. I think you have potential.'

Flatterer. Once again cowardice prevented me from asking exactly what he meant by that.

'Couldn't your lot step in and stop things?' asked Sarah. She had an endearing habit of referring to the Time Lord culture and Gallifrey as "your lot".

The Doctor frowned, not at Sarah but at what she implied.

'Actually they choose not to, Sarah. By their reasoning, two violent, aggressive military dictatorships are busy destroying themselves. Were a truce to be declared then the Rutan and Sontaran military would attack other cultures far less able to defend themselves.'

He cast a mischievous eye at me.

'Are you familiar with Thyucidides, John?'

Boy was I! His "History of the Peloponnesian War" was required reading for officer cadets.

'You aren't going to come out with a story of how you met him?'

'Not today. What was the central theme? And the conclusion?'

Essentially that Sparta, unbeatable on land, and Athens, unbeatable at sea, fought each other to a standstill. Sparta won on points, but was so weakened that the real victors were the Macedonians, a third party who took advantage of the two major power's exhaustion.

'I have seen a future galaxy where the Rutan and Sontaran cultures are merely bucolic farmers, displaced by a third force who accede to power.'

He was careful not to name this third force. Sarah, canny journo, was faster on the uptake.

'Your hypothetical third force wouldn't happen to be upright hairless apes, would it?'

Once again that wicked twinkle could be seen in his eye.

'Why Sarah, I couldn't possibly comment on the accuracy of your statement!'

As Sarah pointed out to me later, he didn't say "no" and he used the word "accuracy". Okay, so it's not explicit; Homo Sapiens may not rise to prominence in the galaxy. Still it is food for thought.

However fascinating these speculations, my main purpose had been to get information pertinent to Nick and Eden's big idea.

'Oh, I did mention the electron microscope. Well, why don't you pass on to Harry what other equipment might be useful for UNIT to have?'

I shall pass over the details of Nick's finest hour on the battlefield, although I may mention it in future. No, what went through my mind as Christmas approached was: who would be around at Aylesbury in the New Year?

Anyone who got permission for leave over Christmas by default got stuck with duty at New Year, and vice versa. Nick, cleaving to the pagan idolatory of Celts, preferred being at his ancestral pile for Hogmanay, which you and I know as New Year. Marie would be away in France until mid-January. Ruth Kelly was spending Hanukah in Israel. In fact, I turned out to be one of only two officers at Aylesbury that New Year.

Which was a jolt. I'd had a great if slightly hazy Christmas back in Wigan, staying with my parents and meeting lots of folk in the town I'd not seen for ages. Coming back to a near-deserted Aylesbury, bleak and cold, was not nice. There were a dozen Other Ranks, myself and – Lieutenant Spofforth. The mess wasn't open, all food was served in the canteen and we did twelve-hour shifts. Spoff and I only crossed paths when clocking on or off in the canteen. Not a chatty fellow, Tim. He got the job done with minimum fuss but that was it. The squaddies didn't like him, the NCO's merely tolerated him and I wondered why the Brig put up with an officer so obviously not a team player. Actually a shortage of officers is why the Brig put up with him.

One surprise arrival on the second of January 1976 was the Doctor, who strode into the canteen in his frock coat and cape for all the world as if he were attending the opera. Spotting me at table with a pile of fried food, and Spoff getting up to leave, he changed tack and sat down opposite us.

'Happy New Year!' he enthused.

'happynewyear,' mumbled Tim. Nicknamed "Timiserable" by the troopers, with good reason.

'Ditto, Doctor. I imagined you'd be off in time and space today, marking the new year.'

'Don't be so parochial, John!' he said, in great good humour. 'It will be an interesting year for you, even if I can't tabulate the happiness of it. No, I've been to Brasil.'

'You don't look tanned.'

'Not for a holiday! No, I went to meet Jo Grant and her fiancee.'

Josephine Grant had been the Doctor's assistant prior to Sarah. Jo gave off the image of a dizzy blonde in a miniskirt, most of which was an act – if she passed the PCA test to get into UNIT, she had what it takes. Plus, from chit-chat with the Doctor, I knew she was a seasoned interstellar traveller who'd been to the ends of the galaxy. More than you can say for me. Now she was camped out in Rio De Janiero, literally, getting ready to proceed up the Amazon on a conservation and cataloguing mission with her fiancee, Professor Clifford Jones.

'Did you bring back any exotic fruits?' I asked, greedily munching my way through breakfast.

'Ah, the wise soldier, always thinking ahead to the next meal. Actually, I do have a basket of guava and papaya and passion fruit.'

'Nothing green and globby, thank you. Too much like our late guest.'

That made him chuckle. Well, if he was in a good mood –

'You're going to ask questions, now, aren't you? I can tell by your expression.'

Mopping up the last of my fried egg with the fried toast, I nodded in reply.

'What I wondered is how many other species have that "pseudomorphism" ability you mentioned. Shape-shifting. Seems a useful ability to have.'

'I say, my throat seems slightly dry-'

'Corporal Dene!' I bellowed to the serving hatch at the soldier on duty. 'Mug of sergeant-major's tea at the double!'

Within thirty seconds the Doctor was swigging his reinforced tea.

'Ahhh! Splendid! The best and most enduring thing to come out of the British Raj. And still used in some parts of the galaxy as currency. Or is that still to come?'

'Rutanesque shape-shifting?' I prompted.

'A complicated subject, John. Not merely a useful ability, for some species pseudomorphism is essential to their survival. Under evolutionary pressure, occasionally the prey species' that rely on shapeshifting to preserve themselves become predators, the top of their food chain. When that happens they are truly dangerous – the Rutans being the prime example. Nor is there merely one type of shapeshifting.'

News to me. I gave what I hoped was a winning smile.

'Indigestion? Oh, I see. Firstly there are the species that can manipulate light in order to appear what they are not, instead of physically changing form. If I were a Rull, for example, and were you to shake my hand, you'd actually find it to be a type of insect limb. Then there are pseudomorphs who can physically copy the external appearance of other entities – much like our Rutan acquaintance. If you tried to shake my hand and I were a Rutan, you would find it cold and slimy. That's why I slapped your back in the gym, just to be sure. The last type are fortunately rare, since they are able to utterly absorb their victims and replicate their appearance perfectly, complete with personality and memories. If I were one of the Carpenteria, you would never know - until I absorbed you.'

Wow, in big letters.

One question answered always begets another with me. Natural nosiness.

'How do we know there aren't umpteen thousand fake people on the face of the planet?'

The Doctor finished his tea and shook his head.

'You don't, John, you don't. Fiendish alien saboteurs could be at work in your government right now!'

It's a historical fact that Ted Heath was replaced by Margaret Thatcher in 1976 – yes, well, I leave you to draw your own conclusions!