The Spear of Destiny (2 page)

‘A what?’ asked Jo, but neither
the Doctor nor the Brigadier were listening.

‘You’ve informed the High
Council?’ asked Lethbridge-Stewart.

‘I already have their authority to
remove the object for analysis. Immediately.’

‘But why not just ask them for
it?’ said Jo. ‘The museum, I mean.’

‘We tried,’ said the Brigadier.
‘They refused. This chap, Moxon, the owner of the collection.
Total recluse. Billionaire. Not used to taking orders.’

‘But can’t you make him?’

‘Private collection. We have no
power to order him to do anything.’

‘But surely if you explain what
it’s all about …?’ Jo asked. She stopped. ‘What
is
it all about, anyway?
What’s a PTN?’

‘Physical Temporal Nexus,’ said
the Doctor. ‘Very dangerous things indeed. Their origin is
unknown, but they are certainly alien and certainly ancient.
There are believed to be only a few in existence, and the High
Council is – how shall we put it? – more than keen to keep them
out of circulation.’

‘I see,’ said Jo, ‘I think. We’d
better get on with it then.’

‘Well put,’ said the
Doctor.

They headed into the UNIT
building. ‘What’s the plan?’ asked Jo. ‘Do you have a nice black
burglar suit in your wardrobe, Doctor? One with frills?’

The Doctor paused briefly, started
to raise a wagging finger towards Jo, then thought better of it.
‘The museum stands between a bank and an embassy building,’ he
said. ‘Both of which will be well protected. However, with all
due respect to my friends here, this
is
1973.’ He smiled at the Brigadier and
then walked on. ‘The room in the museum is without CCTV, laser
sensors or other motion detectors. It would be child’s play to
walk in and out, with a minimum of broken glass, but there are
simpler ways of entering and exiting a building without being
noticed …’

They’d stopped by a certain
familiar police box. The Doctor patted the side of the TARDIS.
‘… if you have one of these.’

Jo laughed.

‘What is it?’ asked the
Brigadier.

‘I just realised,’ she said.
‘Banks. Safety-deposit vaults. Museums. Art galleries. You could
get very rich in a week with this.’

‘Some of us have nobler
aspirations,’ said the Doctor sternly.

‘Oh, me too, me too,’ said Jo,
grinning. ‘Really noble. The noblest. It was just an idea. So,
we materialise in the room on the second floor of the museum,
smash the case, grab the spear and dematerialise again,
yes?’

‘Not quite,’ said the Doctor. ‘If
I may make one small adjustment to your otherwise excellent
plan, Jo? I took the trouble of getting the UNIT boffins to
prepare this.’

He stepped inside the TARDIS and
reappeared a moment later with a spear that looked just like the
one they were going to steal – with one small difference.

‘It has no runes on it,’ said
Jo.

‘Quite so,’ said the Doctor. ‘We
made this from photographs in the exhibition catalogue, but the
runes were unclear – hence the need for our visit today. As soon
as we complete the work on the spearhead, we can be off. Later
tonight, I hope.’

‘And we replace the spear with
this copy!’ said Jo. ‘That’s brilliant. They won’t even know
they’ve been robbed!’

The Doctor smiled. ‘Well, as long
as we don’t break any glass, they won’t.’

‘Well, here we are!’ announced
the Doctor. ‘Second-floor exhibition room of the Moxon
Collection.
Voilà
!’

He threw the TARDIS door open
theatrically, smiling broadly at Jo, who frowned and gave a
little prod of her finger to the air, pointing outside.

The Doctor turned. ‘Blast!’ he
said loudly, then more quietly, ‘Couldn’t you land where you’re
supposed to, old girl? Just once?’

Jo peered out and surveyed the
view. ‘We appear to be on a roof. The roof of the museum
actually. Not bad.’

‘Well, really,’ said the
Doctor.

Outside was the night skyline of
London. They could see the lights of Piccadilly Circus and, a
little further on, Nelson’s Column striking up into the
darkness.

‘Fair enough!’ declared the
Doctor. ‘It is still only 1973, after all. We can slip inside
from up here just as easily.’ He fished in his pocket and pulled
out the sonic screwdriver. ‘There must be some kind of skylight
for access to the roof,’ he added.

Jo tugged his sleeve. ‘There.
Look.’

‘Excellent,’ said the Doctor. ‘Jo,
would you mind bringing our decoy?’

A short way away on the roof of
the building was a small door leading into the roof space. The
Doctor held the sonic screwdriver against the lock for no more
than a second, and the lock clicked open.

They made their way down a
cramped, darkened stairwell. At the bottom was another, larger
door. Once more, the screwdriver did its work, and they were
into the museum itself.

‘One floor down,’ said the Doctor
quietly. ‘Keep your ears open. Just in case.’

Jo nodded, clutched the fake spear
a little more tightly, and they started down the stairs, which
were wide and thick with plush carpet.

Near the bottom of the staircase,
the Doctor paused, then pointed to the door to the room they’d
visited that afternoon. He stood still on the bottom step,
tense, listening hard. Then he relaxed and smiled. ‘Well,’ he
said. ‘I think the coast is clear.’

He stepped down on to the landing
and the wail of an alarm broke upon them, deafening and
shrill.

Footsteps rang out across the
marble tiles of the ground floor and then, much closer, a voice
shouted at them. ‘Stay exactly where you are or I’ll
fire!’

They spun round to see a guard
levelling a pistol at them – not one of the dozy security guards
from their afternoon visit but one dressed in almost military
uniform, adopting a stance as if he meant to shoot at any
second.

‘What do you mean, you’ll fire?’
roared the Doctor. ‘Don’t be preposterous! This is a museum, not
a rifle range!’

He turned to Jo. ‘Come on. I think
we should leave.’

‘Do not move!’ bawled the guard.
There was the sound of more guards running up the stairs, and
the Doctor grabbed Jo’s hand.

‘I’ll shoot!’ shouted the
guard.

‘He won’t,’ said the Doctor with
great certainty, taking a step back up the stairs.

The wall behind their heads
exploded in a mess of plaster that seemed to reach them before
they were aware of the gunshot itself.

‘Run!’ cried the Doctor, and they
sped back up the stairs, heading for the roof. More gunshots
sounded and the wall above their heads erupted as they ran,
crouching, for the door to the small stairwell.

The pistol fire was suddenly
overwhelmed by the harsh metal sputter of a sub-machine gun.
‘Preposterous!’ cried the Doctor as they took the metal stairs
to the roof two at a time. There were more shouts and the sound
of boots ringing on the stairs clattered after them.

Shots pinged off the ceiling as
they ducked out of the tiny door and back into the cold night
air.

‘Into the TARDIS, Jo!’ shouted the
Doctor. ‘Quick!’

They burst inside and flung the
door shut. The Doctor pounced on the central console and locked
them safely inside. The distant sound of gunfire breaking on the
outside of the TARDIS came to them, like bees pinging off the
glass of a thick window.

‘Let’s not outstay our welcome,’
said the Doctor, busily setting co-ordinates.

‘I’d say we already have,’ said
Jo. She set the spear beside the door and rushed over to the
Doctor.

The sound of gunfire was replaced
by the familiar grinding sound of dematerialisation, and Jo felt
relief rush over her. She turned round and perched on the edge
of the console.

‘Yes, that was rather close,’ said
the Doctor. ‘Still, it proves one thing.’

‘Which is?’

‘That the spear is something
unusual. No one would go to such lengths to protect it if it was
just an old piece of wood and a lump of gold.’

‘Maybe Moxon is just very
protective of his collection.’

‘Sub-machine guns? That’s taking
museum curation a bit far, don’t you think?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Jo. ‘Anyway,
where are we going?’

The Doctor smiled. ‘A very good
question.’

‘With a very good answer, I
hope.’

‘We can’t steal the spear
now
, but we can
steal it in the past. We are therefore travelling back to its
only other confirmed location in space–time.’

‘Which is?’

‘Didn’t you read the notice by the
case?’

Jo shook her head. ‘Too busy
trying to understand Futhark.’

‘Well, do you still have the
leaflet from the museum?’

Jo fished in her back pocket and
pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. She found the short
description of the spear.

Ceremonial
spear. Found in Gamla Uppsala, Sweden. Believed to
have been used in festivals around the vernal
equinox, second century
AD
. Inscription upon the head
reads
GUNGNIR
. In
Norse mythology, Gungnir was the magical spear of
Odin.

‘You’re taking us to see the
Vikings?’ asked Jo incredulously.

‘I know! Wonderful, isn’t it?’
said the Doctor with a grin.

‘That’s not the word I’d use,’ Jo
said. ‘Hey, wait a minute, how do you know where to go?’

‘
Where
is easy,’ said the Doctor. ‘Just
look at your leaflet. Uppsala, central Sweden. Or Old Uppsala to
be exact. Centre of power of Swedish kings for over a thousand
years till the Christians turned up. That’s
where
.
When
is a little harder. We
know we should head for the spring equinox … Nice of the Vikings
to date things around astronomical phenomena. Makes life so much
easier.’

‘But in which year?’

‘Well, there I’m guessing a
little. In the British Museum there is a rune stone that bears
the only other known reference to Gungnir. It refers to a
ceremony in Old Uppsala and mentions the passing of a second sun
across the heavens. Scholars have always assumed that to be a
reference to Halley’s Comet, whose
only
known appearance in the second
century was in 141
AD
–
according to the old Julian calendar that was on the
twenty-second of March, the very next day after the equinox. So
that’s when, and where, we’re going.’

‘Oh,’ said Jo. ‘I see.’

‘Good.’

‘I have just one question.’

‘Fire away!’

‘Oh, Doctor, please. Not after
that business at the museum.’

The Doctor held up his hand.
‘Sorry. What’s your question?’

Jo swallowed. ‘So, listen. This
spear. The magical spear of Odin. I might have got this wrong,
but wasn’t Odin a god?’

‘That’s what they say.’

‘Well, doesn’t that worry you at
all?’

‘On the contrary. Rather fun, I’d
say.’

‘Fun?’ asked Jo, eyeing the spear
by the doorway nervously. ‘Do you really think the owner of
Gungnir was a god?’

The Doctor smiled again. ‘I
suppose,’ he said, ‘that we’re about to find out.’

With an almighty groaning the
central column of the TARDIS came to rest. They had
landed.

‘Of course, the Vikings are much
misunderstood.’

‘Is that right?’ asked Jo.

‘Come on, you must have done some
history at school.’

‘Doctor, we did the Romans. Every
year. Ask me about the Punic Wars and I’m your girl.’

‘Some other time maybe,’ said the
Doctor. ‘The point is that people often see the Vikings as
violent marauders and nothing else, when the truth of the matter
is that by and large they were farmers, fishermen.’

‘By and large …?’

‘They were great explorers, too.
They discovered North America five hundred years before Columbus
thought he had. They got as far as the Mediterranean, Russia.
You have to remember that most accounts of the Vikings are
written by the Christians who displaced them. Somewhat biased
accounts.’

‘You know this for a fact?’

The Doctor gave Jo a hurt look.
‘What I do know
for a fact
is
that they’re the only humans ever to name a day of the week
after bathtime. Washing once a week was pretty advanced stuff
two thousand years ago.’

Jo laughed.

‘Well,’ said the Doctor. ‘Shall we
look around?’

Jo nodded. ‘Let’s.’

The Doctor brought up the outside
view on the TARDIS’s scanner screen. They were treated to the
sight of a peaceful forest, with snow deep on the ground and
thick on the branches of the trees, although it appeared to be a
bright and sunny day otherwise.

‘Seems quiet enough,’ said the
Doctor.

He shut down the screen, opened
the door and they headed out.

‘Cold,’ said Jo.

‘Will you be warm enough?’ asked
the Doctor. ‘I could always fetch my Inverness cape for
you?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ said Jo hurriedly.
She shot a quick smile at the Doctor so as not to hurt his
feelings.

Their feet crunched noisily into
the snow, which was frozen hard.

‘Which way do we go?’ asked
Jo.

‘I’m not sure,’ said the Doctor.
‘Let’s circle around. It can’t be far. There should be a large
temple complex. And a village serving it.’

Jo stopped and looked back over
her shoulder. ‘Will the TARDIS be all right?’

‘She’s tougher than I am,’ said
the Doctor seriously. ‘And, anyway, I have a theory.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. You see, the whole nature,
shape and even the modern blue pigment of the TARDIS is so
deeply unfamiliar to the primitive mind that, although the optic
nerve registers its presence, the brain cannot decode what it is
seeing. The primitive visual cortex is unable to relay
information about it consciously to the viewer. In effect, even
though her chameleon circuit is still damaged, she’s as good as
invisible. She’ll be just fine.’