Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC.

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"What now?" Romana asked, "We cant wait much longer,"

"We could try somewhere else. What do you fancy, a fire? An explosion?" The Doctor suggested, in a tone that Romana wasn't sure was really appropriate.

"Wouldn't that be 'Meddling in time', starting a fire in space, just to attract the attention of a ship?" She said.

"Master, my sensors detect a ship in the vicinity." K9 said, over the rumble and crash of lumps of rock bashing the TARDIS.

They watched the screen, as the White Ship appeared in front of them, it's mechanical mouth opening, the TARDIS was pulled inside the ship. A man, with long ginger hair, in loose, navy overalls, a cigarette hanging out his mouth, approached the TARDIS, holding a clip board, making a note of it's exterior appearance.

"Do we go out?" Romana looked towards the Doctor, who was still watching the screen intently.

"Wait, I want to see what he's going to do."

"He'll bash on the door," Romana said, as the man came closer. He raised a fist to the door, as the Doctor opened it, catching his fist to prevent him thumping his beloved TARDIS.

"Hello," The Doctor said, brightly.

"Is anyone on board hurt?" the man asked, trying to look past the Doctor into the TARDIS.

"No. We were wondering-"

"We? How many are you?" The man cut him off. Romana and K9 came out, pulling the door closed behind her.

"I'm the Doctor, that's Romana and K9," The Doctor quickly introduced them as the man noted something down on his keyboard.

"Now, we were wondering, what is this ship doing, er, Kit?" The Doctor asked him, seeing the man's name badge.

"This way," the man invited them to follow him, they moved out of a large area that contained nothing but the Time Lord's TARDIS, through a metal door, down a corridor, and into another room, this time filled with computers and machines.

"Excuse me, but do you realise what you're doing is incredibly irresponsible, and dangerous," the Doctor tried to provoke a response from the unresponsive man, "and stupid."

"Can you assume authority over us, Doctor?" The man asked, dryly.

"I should think so,"

"In that case, then, you can talk to the man at the top," he said, pleased to be able to pass them on, like a boring duty. "Wait here,"

A large screen faced the door, that showed the scans they'd taken of the time travellers. 'Time Lord, Time Lord, Robot," the scans were labelled.

"That's us," the Doctor nudged Romana, pointing at the screen. Suddenly his attention was caught by another screen, above the large one, showing images of the room they'd landed in. It showed a large truck tugging a trailer out of the room, carrying –

"Oi!" the Doctor yelped, "Where are you taking my TARDIS?"

"Doctor, the bay must be emptied. Your ship is perfectly safe," the man said, sounding tired, "I will take you soon," he finished, adding their names under the scanned images. There was a crackling sound, and the man took a radio from his belt.

"Yep?" he answered.

"Another one coming, Kit," A voice said, from the other end.

"Right. I've got the three from the police boxy thing. Vault 16. They want to speak to you, want to know about the ship."

"I'll be down." The voice said, and the crackling stopped as the communication was cut.

Kit backed out of the room, telling them to wait and someone would be down.

On the screen, the Doctor and Romana watched as the ship's huge mouth opened and engulfed another ship.

"Must be a huge scale operation," Romana noted.

"My sensors can detect over 50 different species of life form on this ship, master." K9 said.

"This is bad news." The Doctor said, gravely.

"Oh? Why?"

The Doctor and Romana spun around, seeing the newcomer in the doorway.

"Are you in charge here?" the Doctor asked.

"Yeah, I guess so," the man shrugged. The Doctor eyed him. He was smiling, pleasantly. Not a megalomaniac, or a murderer, or invader. "This is my home, er, ship." He said, realising calling a ship his home would probably confuse them. "We try to save as many lives as possible."

"So you're the one responsible for-"

"Saving about a hundred species from complete obliteration?" the man interrupted, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender, "Yeah, you got me."

"How are you doing it?" Romana asked.

"Our Ship, she's clever." He said, fondly, patting the doorway. "She powers holes through the universe," he began.

"And rescues people?" Romana asked.

"Yeah," he said, "It's Milo, by the way," he introduced himself, "Well, if we can save lives, why don't we?"

"Because it's interfering with timelines?" Romana suggested.

"But you think it's worth it, don't you, babe?" He said, quietly.

He wasn't the sort of alien they normally met with on their trips. Romana recognised the 'ban the bomb' signs, and the figure on the mans t-shirt, Jimi Hendrix, guitar god of the 1960s. He didn't look like the sort of foe the time travellers usually encountered, he was barefoot for a start, and had a relaxed manner about him. The ship smelt of musty old tobacco, and marijuana. But surely even someone stoned out of his mind can recognise what they're doing isn't really all that good?

Romana didn't say anything, though of course, secretly she did think it was worth it. Interfering with time was dangerous, especially if you didn't know what you were doing, as this man clearly didn't.

"Milo, perhaps you don't yet realise, but species that should be dead being alive isn't necessarily a good thing." The Doctor began.

"How can you know that, man?" the man said, coolly.

"The Fayrath, you picked them up about 5 hours ago. The Rainol you picked up just now, that ship there," he pointed at the screen, "they're enemies. Always have been. Now, at the moment, what's left of the Fayrath are peace loving people, but the Rainol have sworn to wipe out any trace of them. Now, over time, surely the Fayrath are going to start to fight back. Then it's a war. War, from saving someone? Is that worth it? Bloody casualties, victims of atrocities, other peoples getting dragged into it, spiralling out of control, bitterness, resentment, until finally the Fayrath are wishing they had died in deep space from poor technology." The Doctor said, heatedly.

"How d'you know about them? It's confidential who's on this ship." Milo asked, a little agitatedly.

"We've been following you,"

"Was it you, trying to break the transduction barriers?" Milo asked, loosing some of his cool exterior.

"Yes, we were trying to materialise our ship."

"And you couldn't, so you decided to trick us into picking you up?" He said, frowning as he worked it out. "What d'you want with our ship?" he asked.

"I want you to stop messing about with time."

"Why should we, what else do you do, tricking us into picking you up, following us through time?" Milo asked, quietly.

"I know what I'm doing. I only do what I have to, I don't cause paradoxes, and if I do, I put them right. Now, my TARDIS is picking up distress calls from planets not so far away from here, no doubt because your interference is catching up with people, and any more and there'll be severe trouble for them, all the people you 'saved', and yourselves."

"Then the ship'll detect they're in trouble, and step in, wont she?" Milo said, calmly.

"Didn't you start this to save lives, to do good?" Romana asked.

"Yeah,"

"What good are you doing, ploughing through the universe, saving race after race until every being in the universe is on this ship?" Romana reasoned.

She knew the Doctor was right, that this ship, while morally commendable, was causing more problems, ultimately more deaths, than it was solving.

"What d'you want us to do, Romana? Put them all back? Kill them all?" Milo said.

"First you've got to stop the ship moving to it's next point."

"Impossible," Milo said, looking at the floor.

"Why?"

"I'm not in charge,"

"You said it was your ship," Romana reminded him.

"Well.. no one owns this ship. I .. I said she was clever."

The Doctor realised what he meant, remembering coming across something similar in his previous incarnation: The City of the Exxilons. The Living City.

"You gave your ship a brain?" He said, horrified.

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