STEALING EDEN
Part Three
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STEALING EDEN Part Three |
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The phone in Spike's apartment jingled to life, and Spike grabbed it on the second ring.
"Spike, how is Lynda."
"Mad as hell, Sarah," Spike replied. "She made a fool of herself and Kerr suspended her."
"So I hear," Sarah replied. "I'm not in a position to talk much right now, but I'm sharing the train to London with Lt. Col. Paul Marriner of the Marriner Group."
"Marriner Group? And just how did you manage that?"
"Sophie and Laura's doing, not mine. They're working for him."
"What?"
"There's no time. Spike, has Lynda been in contact with anyone or anything unusual?"
"Besides Colin?"
"And you...." Sarah chuckled. "No, I'm thinking of something alien. Don't laugh, Spike, this is serious."
"I'm not laughing. Lynda seems to think she has. I'm not sure whether I believe her."
"Then be warned. Marriner's working for UNIT."
"UNIT," Spike asked?
"Gotta go, someone's coming." The phone went dead.
"Billy Homer on line three," Polly called out.
"Got it," Julie said. She picked up the phone. "You took your time. Anything good?"
"Julie, you wouldn't believe the half of it."
"Well, enlighten me."
"There are a lot of rumors about the Marriner Group, but it seems largely to be a shadow corporation made up of a lot of holding companies that own stock in a wide variety of industrial firms. Most of them are high technology companies, and primarily American ones, at that. Very few holdings on this side of the Atlantic, and nothing I've been able to find in the media business."
"Kerr said the guy they were dealing with was named Paul Marriner, and was negotiating his own deal without any lawyers. Quite unusual," Julie noted.
"Lots of things about him are. First, Paul Marriner is 25 years old. He's an officer in the US Army, though I can't find any record that he ever served any time. Just the granting of his rank. Whatever he does is classified. His primary base of operations was someplace called Fort Mitchell, outside the city of Cedar Rapids, Minnesota. Married in 1986 to Jennifer McKellar, the daughter of a local Marine Corps veteran."
Julie did some quick math in her head. "He would have been in school when he married. Pretty young these days. I assume his commission came afterwards?"
"Another mystery. Commission dated March 14, 1980. Must have been a real prodigy."
"Prodigy or not, I can't see the Army letting a kid join, let alone making him an officer. Must be a typo. Has to be."
"Ready for the final mystery?" Billy asked.
"Okay, shoot."
"Exactly. July 4,1989. Marriner and his wife were assassinated by terrorists while riding in an Independence Day parade. His wife died instantly, he lived for a few hours."
"Then the Marriner over here is a fake!"
"I had a newspaper in the States fax a photo here. I'm sending it to you. The two Marriners look nothing alike, except for being blonde, if the picture of him in the London Times is legit."
"Then what's the game? Why try to keep the name of a dead man alive with an obvious phony?"
"Obvious to us, but if Marriner hasn't done much business outside America, nobody would know. Whoever he was, he kept a low profile."
Sarah had quickly terminated her call as Marriner, Sophie, and Laura strolled back into Marriner's private car. They had gone forward to find out what had happened to the train, which had suddenly stopped moving. Marriner was clearly troubled by something. May as well find out what, she thought.
"Problems?" she asked him.
"Problems." He replied tersely. "There has been a minor derailment of the train. No one hurt seriously, I'm glad to say, but this will not help British Rail get back on schedule today."
"In a hurry to get somewhere?" she asked.
"Not particularly. When you're rich, time can be rather meaningless."
"Or relative, I suppose," Sarah blandly answered.
Marriner looked puzzled. "Now why would you say that?" He turned to Sophie and Laura, who shrugged. "Relativity is an important factor in the study of time, but I hardly think that gets taught much in physics classes these days."
"Never understood much of that stuff anyway," Sarah said simply. "But if we're going to be working together, I should know something about this."
"Fair point. Let's begin by answering a question that's puzzled you since you walked in, but were much too intimidated to ask. 'Why is this railroad car so roomy?' Would you like to know the answer to that?"
"Yeah, it does seem a little big to ride on the rails."
"Bigger on the inside than out."
"Something like that." Sarah said, "Except that things aren't that way."
"Nothing on Earth quite like it, you'd say," Marriner responded. Sarah nodded.
"Well, then, it must follow that this isn't from Earth."
"Venusian railroad car maybe?" Sarah skeptically asked.
"Gallifreyan, actually. One picks up things in the procurement business."
"Alien railroad stock? I can't believe I'm having this conversation."
"Nothing like a skeptic. There are always Sarah Jackson's in the world who never wish to believe anything on faith." Marriner plopped down on the sofa and invited Sarah to join him. She did.
"Now, look at Sophie and Laura," he continued. "They aren't nearly as smart as you are nor have a quarter of your talent. But they are willing to believe miracles can happen, so they accept a railroad car bigger inside than out and go about their business."
Laura piped up. "Who cares if its bigger inside than out anyway?"
"I do," Marriner said. "It would be rather crowded in here if it were not."
"I believed in a lot of things growing up. I thought my parents really cared about me and didn't see me as something to make them look good. I thought some guy out there would really love me as a person. I thought what I did as a writer would change the world. No, I don't believe in miracles, Colonel. I've been let down too many times."
"Faith without challenge is very shallow faith indeed, Sarah. You must learn to look at things more broadly." Marriner looked thoughtful for a moment. "And if I told you that you weren't sitting inside a railroad car bound for London at the moment, you would say 'That's ridiculous.' If I were to tell you this was an alien ship capable of traveling anywhere in time and space, you would believe me a complete lunatic and walk off the train to go back to university and become a nice functional non-entity. Why? Because you hadn't the courage to believe in big things and dream big dreams."
"So if I were to demand a demonstration that this is indeed an alien ship, would I still be without faith?"
"You'd be seeking an answer, and seeking is the first step to faith. Not everything you see and hear is true, and you have to be able sort out what's real from what isn't. That's discernment, and that will always be an asset to you."
"But I'm a reporter. I do this for a living."
"And you're skeptical of everything now. Mayhew taught you that. Raymond and Gary taught you that. Today, I'm going to teach you something new. This way please."
"How do you know about Raymond and Gary?" Sarah asked him.
"Intelligence reports," he said simply and nodded at Sophie and Laura.
Marriner got up from the sofa and walked through a door Sarah swore hadn't been there when she'd entered. He stuck his head back out and urged her to follow. "Time machine headquarters," he said from inside the room.
Sarah walked through the door and had every illusion she'd ever had about life shattered. Sophie and Laura, who were content to hang about in the background for much of Sarah's conversation with Marriner, just smiled at each other, remembering what their own introduction to a TARDIS was like. Five minutes later, with the train crew occupied in removing the passengers from the front cars of the train, no one noticed until later that the rear car had mysteriously disappeared.