Rose stood at the TARDIS console, flicking switches and pressing buttons and praying that she didn't do something unfortunate, like blow up Belgium. She pressed one last button and then swung the screen around so that she could read the results of the scan, the captions for which the TARDIS had obligingly displayed in English for her.
"I thought the TARDIS didn't translate Gallifreyan," she'd said the first time she'd seen English on the display, during one of their post-Canary Wharf TARDIS-flying lessons.
The Doctor had shifted a bit nervously. "She doesn't. She's displaying it in English for you. I'm seeing English, too," he clarified when Rose's brow furrowed a little in confusion. "If it were displayed in Gallifreyan and being translated for you, I'd still see Gallifreyan. But I know English, and it's being displayed in English, so that's what I see."
He'd stepped closer to her and lightly stroked her cheek. "She doesn't do that for just anyone."
Rose had smiled broadly. "I'm just that good, then."
"You are that." He'd pressed a kiss to her forehead and the lesson had continued.
Now, however, the Doctor had said he didn't think it would be necessary for her to make an attempt at a solo flight up to the hospital to rescue him. So she concentrated instead on making sure she'd done the correct scan. She read the results and grimaced. She'd run the right scan, but there were hundreds of instances of the same kind of non-human bio signature.
"Okay," she muttered. "That many aliens have got to be something the Doctor would have already noticed." She bit her lip, thought about calling him with that news. She decided that wouldn't be particularly helpful. "I guess I'll have to run another scan within this data. Now, how to do that…"
She stepped around the console and looked for the right buttons and levers, and wondered how the Doctor was faring.
"Look down there," the Doctor said, nudging Martha as they crouched behind a low wall overlooking the main lobby of the hospital. "You've got a little shop. I like a little shop."
"Never mind that," Martha said, exasperated. "What are the Judoon? They look like rhinos, for God's sake."
"They're like police," the Doctor replied, watching as the Judoon, who did indeed resemble rhinos, scanned each person and marked their hands with the letter x. "Well, police-for-hire," he corrected himself. He thought of the Shadow Proclamation and their slight propensity for bullying and cordially requiring action or a lack thereof. "More like interplanetary thugs," he muttered mutinously.
"And they brought us to the moon?"
"Neutral territory," he replied offhandedly, sounding more like a professor than a doctor. "According to galactic law, they've got no jurisdiction on Earth, you're not advanced enough. So they isolated us." He gestured a bit as he spoke, drawing invisible illustrations in the air. "That rain, the big flash of light, that was an H2O scoop. It was them, bringing us here."
Martha laughed despite herself. "You're barmy. Galactic law? Where'd you get that from?"
The Doctor ignored her and moved a few feet down the wall, trying to get a better view.
"If they're police," Martha continued, "are we under arrest? Are we trespassing on the moon or something?"
The Doctor grinned at her now. "No, but it's a good theory! Good thinking, Martha Jones! Wish it were that easy," he added with a shake of his head. "If they're making a catalogue… " – he pointed to the back of his hand to show what he meant – "that means they're after something that isn't human." He sighed. "Which is very bad news for me."
"Why?" Martha asked incredulously. The Doctor just stared at her and waited for the penny to drop. "No," Martha said after a moment. "No, you are kidding me. You are kidding me." She paused, waiting for him to laugh and let her in on the joke. When he didn't she simply stared. "Don't be ridiculous," she finally managed. He just continued to gaze at her steadily. "Stop looking at me like that!" she exclaimed, feeling slightly ridiculous.
"Come on then," he said after a last look at the Judoon platoon below them. "We'll have to see if we can find what they're really after before they find me." Keeping low while still in sight of the balcony, the Doctor and Martha crept towards the bank of elevators down the hall. Once he was sure they were out of sight, the Doctor rose to his full height and began jogging.
"Best to avoid the elevators," he said to Martha when she slowed as they approached. "Might be on the fritz, and anyway it wouldn't do to have the doors open and be facing a Judoon. Where's the nearest stairwell?"
"Round the corner to the left," Martha said, pointing. "How are we supposed to figure out what they're looking for?"
The Doctor reached the door to the stairwell and wrenched it open. The stairs were dotted with people in varying states of distress, some glassy-eyed with shock, others weeping uncontrollably. The Doctor grimaced and stepped around them, heading up. "The scans Rose is doing back on Earth will help," he said. "Hopefully, anyway. And we'll do a little research of our own. The nurses stations, they have computers with access to patient databases, right?"
Martha stepped around a middle-aged woman clutching a rosary and murmuring swift prayers. "Yeah, I think so. How will that help?"
They'd reached the fifth floor door, which was open. The hallway appeared to be free of Judoon, so the Doctor slipped through the doorway and headed towards the nurse's station nearby without answering Martha, who had been waylaid by one of the people in the doorway. He reached the computer terminal in moments, pulled out his sonic screwdriver, and began working.
A minute later, Martha hurried up to the Doctor's side. "They've reached the third floor," she said, a bit breathlessly. "What's that thing?" she asked, noticing the sonic screwdriver for the first time.
"Sonic screwdriver," the Doctor responded without looking up.
"Well if you're not gonna answer me properly," Martha began in exasperation.
The Doctor looked up at her, affronted. "It really is! It's a screwdriver! And it's sonic!" He held it up closer to her face. "Look!"
"What else have you got," Martha asked derisively, "a laser spanner?"
"I did," the Doctor said seriously, "but it was stolen by Emily Pankhurst, that cheeky woman…" He cut himself and banged on the side of the computer monitor in frustration. "What's wrong with this computer?" He frowned at it and scratched the back of his head. "The Judoon must have locked it down. Judoon platoon, on the moon," he murmured, enjoying the way the words rolled around his tongue. He looked at Martha, slightly pleadingly. "'Cos, we weren't looking for trouble, Rose and I…" He grinned a little. "We usually aren't, of course. But this time we really were just stopping by – for milk, of all things, and she'll never believe I admitted that…"
Martha smiled, because it seemed the only appropriate thing to do in the face of the Doctor's disjointed rambling.
"But, honestly, we weren't looking trouble," he continued, "and then I noticed the plasma coils around the hospital." He glanced at Martha, explaining. "Like, that lightning? That's a plasma coil. I thought it was something inside, that's why I got myself checked in, to investigate. Sent Rose back to the TARDIS to get my bio-damper – and wouldn't it be dead useful right now – and then it turned out the plasma coils were the Judoon, above, not inside."
"But," Martha interrupted, "what are they looking for?"
"Something that looks human, but isn't," the Doctor said curtly.
"Like you, apparently."
"But not me," the Doctor insisted, "because they were here before I was. There's something else here." He stared at the computer screen as if willing it to start working.
Martha tilted her head in consideration. "Does it matter what it is?" she asked. "If they're looking for something, can't you just let them find it?"
The Doctor shook his head gravely. "If they find who or what they're looking for, then it's likely that they'll find the hospital guilty of harboring a fugitive."
"What happens then?" Martha asked, sounding very much as if she didn't actually want to hear the answer.
"They'll sentence the entire place to execution."
"What, everyone?"
The Doctor nodded and turned back to the computer. He was about to start sonicing it again, when Martha's mobile, tucked in his jacket pocket, buzzed against his chest. Rose was calling him back.
