Doctor Who_ Shakedown Part 31

'Send them another message,' snapped the Doctor. 'Tell them ' He broke off, shaking his head. 'No, don't tell them anything, they'll be safer if they leave it alone.'

'Can't send any more messages anyway,' said the security man. 'They'll be in hyperdrive by now. Can we remove the body?'

The Doctor nodded and a security team gathered up the body and took it away. The Doctor stood staring into nothingness.

Kurt studied his face for a moment. 'You know what happened, don't you?'

'There's only one possibility,' said the Doctor. 'Can I have some more light?'

Lisa took a heavy torch from a locker and handed it to him.

The Doctor shone the powerful beam into every corner of the power room. Suddenly he stopped. 'Aha! I thought so.' He shone the beam into a narrow s.p.a.ce under one of the power units, revealing a pool of gelatinous slime.

'What is it?' asked Lisa.

'You might call it afterbirth,' said the Doctor. 'Rutans reproduce by binary fission, just like the humble amoeba on Earth. Before it made its break for freedom, the Rutan reproduced itself.'

Lisa looked at him in amazement. 'At a time like that?

Why?'

'Insurance!' said the Doctor. 'Don't you see? All Rutans are in effect the same Rutan. Karne was handing on the mission. This new Karne will have all the same memories. It isn't over after all! We must set off for Sentarion at once.'

He looked hopefully at Lisa, as if he expected her to start up the power drive right away.

'What's all this "we" business, Doctor?' said Lisa. 'I've got a solar yacht race to think about.'

'You mustn't worry about that,' said the Doctor impatiently. 'It'll probably be postponed anyway. I'm having a little local difficulty with my own transport, you see. It's gone adrift.' He bowed to Lisa and said grandly, 'Captain Deranne, I wish to charter your yacht!'

18.

Revival The s.p.a.ce yacht Tiger Moth Tiger Moth, now under special charter, was en route for Sentarion.

It hadn't been that easy, of course. At first Lisa had turned down the Doctor's charter proposition flat. They'd adjourned to the station bar, where the argument had raged for hours.

'For one thing, the s.h.i.+p's not ready,' said Lisa. 'The power drive still needs work, and there's not an engineer to be had.'

'That's where you're wrong,' said the Doctor. 'I can offer you the services, entirely without charge, of one of the finest engineers in the cosmos.'

'Who?'

The Doctor tapped his own chest. 'Me!'

'You're qualified in s.p.a.ce engineering?'

'I'm qualified in practically everything.'

In the end it had taken all the Doctor's charm, a fortunately timed official message from the Solar Racing Authority announcing the postponement of the Tri-Systems Solar, and a personal appeal from Kurt to persuade Lisa to go.

It was Kurt who had finally won her over.

'Listen, Lisa,' he said quietly, 'I'm not even going to mention that I own the s.h.i.+p. You're Captain, and what you say goes. But I owe the Doctor, big. He saved my life when the Sontarans were going to execute me. Wasn't for him, I'd be in an unknown grave on a nowhere planet.'

'That still doesn't mean I have to hazard my s.h.i.+p, or our lives on '

Kurt interrupted her. 'The fact that I turned up on Alpha and joined your crew, that we ever met, is all down to the Doctor.'

Lisa looked hard at him for a moment. 'Then I suppose I owe him too.' She turned to the Doctor. 'All right, I'll go. But it'll cost you.'

'Name your terms,' said the Doctor grandly.

Lisa thought of her usual charter rate and then tripled it.

The Doctor looked surprised. 'But surely that's '

'Take it or leave it. That's my price, and it's non-negotiable.'

'Then I'll take it.'

'Oh, come on, Lisa,' protested Kurt. 'You're robbing him.

I'll pay the charter fee, Doctor.'

'My dear chap, I wouldn't think of it. Believe it or not, I do have perfectly adequate resources.'

Roz Forrester had been listening to the wrangle with quiet amus.e.m.e.nt. Not for the first time, she wondered exactly what the Doctor's resources were and where they came from. They were certainly adequate all right. Wherever he needed to go, Wherever he needed to send his unfortunate a.s.sistants, the necessary funds were available, immediately, and without fuss.

She leaned across to Lisa. 'Soak him for all you can get,'

she advised. 'If you work for the Doctor, you'll be lucky to come out with your life, let alone your s.h.i.+p.'

'Nonsense,' said the Doctor cheerfully. 'This is going to be a perfectly straightforward trip. We go to Sentarion, pick up Bernice, and see if she's turned anything up in her researches, which she probably won't have. We'll also see if there's any trace of our Rutan friend, which there probably won't be either. He'll have moved on by now. Then we come back here, Captain Deranne and Kurt prepare for their race, while we go back to Station Alpha. By then they'll have recovered my transport. Nothing to it. There shouldn't be any danger at all.'

'Where have I heard that before?' mused Roz.

The Doctor jumped up. 'Now everything's settled, I'll just go and tell the station authorities about our plans.'

He hurried away.

Chris smiled happily around the thoughtful little group. 'Oh well, that's all right then!'

'What is?' asked Roz.

'The Doctor says there won't be any danger.'

Roz looked wonderingly at the others.

'Do you know,' she said, 'I think he actually believes him!'

There were objections from the s.p.a.ce station authorities when the Doctor announced their departure and asked to be allowed to purchase the necessary supplies. It was felt that Tiger Moth Tiger Moth and its surviving crew should stay for the enquiry. and its surviving crew should stay for the enquiry.

'I couldn't possibly allow any of you to leave at the moment,' said Malic, the station manager. He was a plump, sleek-haired man who liked to see things done properly.

'Captain Deranne must face an enquiry into the deaths of her crew and indeed into the deaths of a large number of Sontaran nationals currently occupying the station morgue.

And I understand, Doctor, that you and your companions were very much concerned in the liberation of Station Alpha.' He studied his screen. 'I see you have a claim against Station Alpha for the loss of certain property described here simply as "a blue box". Antique was it?'

'Depends how you look at it. Some people call it an antique. Others would say it was ultra-modern.'

'And what was its value?'

'Priceless. Anyway, I'm not interested in compensation; I just want it returned. It has great sentimental value.'

'Well, we shall see,' said Malic. 'I'm sure my colleagues on Alpha will do their best to recover it. But you must understand that with all these matters still pending, I cannot possibly allow either you or Captain Deranne to depart.'

'Well, if you say so,' said the Doctor. 'I should like to say how much I admire your courage.'

'I don't follow, Doctor. Courage has nothing to do with it.

It's simply a matter of principle.'

'But it's extremely brave of you to stick to your principles so firmly especially in the face of such great danger to yourself and your station.'

Malic was looking agitated. 'What danger is that, Doctor?'

The Doctor leaned forward confidentially.

'You know what happened on Station Alpha the attack, the damage, the terrible loss of life?'

'Yes, of course I do. But I fail to see the relevance '

Sadly the Doctor shook his head. 'The Sontarans executed poor Ferris, the station manager, you know, simply for questioning one of their orders. He was a man of principle too very much like yourself, come to think of it. I'm sure you won't stand any nonsense from the Sontarans even if it costs you your life.'

Malic shuddered. 'What exactly are you trying to tell me, Doctor? Why should the Sontarans come here?'

'Well, the attack on Alpha happened because, for reasons of their own, the Sontarans were after Tiger Moth Tiger Moth. As we know, they didn't get it. But they probably know where it was heading.' The Doctor sighed. 'I'm afraid they're rather angry with me as well. I'm very grateful to you for insisting on giving me your protection. The Sontarans would probably regard any a.s.sociation with me as a crime carrying the death penalty in itself.'

'I see,' said Malic thoughtfully. He paused for a moment.

'These supplies, Doctor exactly what do you need?'

'Couldn't do enough to speed our departure,' the Doctor told Lisa later, when they were finally under way. They were in the control room, where the Doctor was checking the results of his emergency repairs on the instrument consoles.

He was sitting in Robar's place, next to Lisa. Somewhat to her surprise, she found she didn't resent it in the least.

'Do you really think the Sontarans will come after us?'

'I'm afraid it's a possibility. They seem obsessed with capturing your Rutan pa.s.senger and they don't know the Rutan's dead. They'll be waiting for reports from the commander of their a.s.sault team and of course, he's dead as well. So when they don't hear anything from him '

'His name was Steg,' said Lisa. 'Commander Steg.'

She remembered the red glare of triumph in the Sontaran's eyes as he fell dying by the airlock. She remembered his last defiant whisper. 'I win, Rutan. I win!'

And she remembered the way he'd saved her life.

'Steg?' said the Doctor. 'Really? Kurt and I met him once, you know.'

'You met Steg? What happened?'

'We didn't really hit it off,' said the Doctor regretfully. 'As a matter of fact, he condemned us both to death.'

He gave her a brief account of their adventure.

'He didn't seem to recognize Kurt when they took over the s.h.i.+p.'

'I think they find humans pretty well indistinguishable.'

Lisa nodded. 'That's what he told me when we first met.'

She imitated the Sontaran's guttural voice. "Forgive me, Captain. All primitives look rather alike to me." '

'Besides,' said the Doctor, 'Kurt wasn't looking his prosperous self in those days. Clean clothes and no stubble make a big difference.'