"I should have known. Oh, I should have known..."
The Doctor pressed a hand to his forehead for a moment, as if in great pain, and then turned the full force of his attention on Prentice, who bore up under it with surprising stoicism.
Victoria, sitting huddled in a moulded plastic chair on the far side of the infirmary, watched the two of them warily. The Doctor was bristling with emotion – almost trembling from it, in fact – whereas the captain, in complete contrast, appeared to have shut down. Only the merest whitening of his complexion betrayed any hint of inner turmoil.
"Why do you have a Cyberman aboard your ship?" the Doctor demanded, his voice hoarse with anger.
Prentice's brows dropped, just a little. "I hardly think that's any business of yours," he replied, stonily. Victoria couldn't help but wince; it was extremely unwise, she knew, to take such a haughty tone with the Doctor. Much greater men had tried it before and come to grief. She saw the Doctor stiffen perceptibly, draw himself up and then adopt a sardonic little smile that entirely failed to reach his eyes.
"It is if you still want my help, Captain," he said, clipping each and every word. "I can assure you I've no intention of assisting you in returning to Earth with that creature." He fixed Prentice with a rapier stare. "Great heavens, man, don't tell me you don't know how dangerous they are?"
"After decades of war?" Prentice retorted, scornfully. "Of course I do. We all do. I've lived my entire life in their shadow. I've watched them plunder whole worlds and convert millions. Women, children, nobody was spared.
"But now it's over. The last Cyberman in the galaxy has been captured. By me!" He took a step closer and prodded a finger into the Doctor's chest. "And I'm dragging it back to Earth in chains, do you hear me? Even if it's the last thing I ever do. Even if I die trying!"
Jamie, who had been standing close by and was well aware of the rapidly building tension in the space between the two combatants, now moved in and laid a cautionary hand on the Doctor's arm. He felt at once that the man was shaking with fury, and Jamie tightened his grasp a little, meaningfully. The last thing they needed now was to be dealing with locked horns.
"Doctor," he said, sotto voce. "We havnae time for this."
There was an uncertain moment in which the air itself seemed to seize up, and then Prentice averted his unblinking gaze and lowered his hand, signalling if not surrender then at least a temporary ceasefire. Jamie slowly eased his grip, but remained at the Doctor's side in case of further hostilities.
"For what purpose?" asked the Doctor, with almost predatory calmness.
"What?" The captain seemed to snap out of a brief fugue and refocused his gaze once more upon the Doctor.
"Why take it to Earth?"
"Because that's what justice demands, Doctor," said Prentice, raising his chin defiantly. "After everything we've suffered, everything we've lost, anyone would agree we're entitled to extract our revenge."
"Oh yes, revenge," said the Doctor, bitterly. "How very...human." He drew a deep breath and let it out again, shaking his head. Then he turned his head a little to find Argus, who stood at her captain's shoulder, her mouth set in a thin and troubled line.
"And what do you think about all this?" he asked her.
"I obey my orders," she said, a shade too quickly, but Jamie noticed that she'd nonetheless taken the time to cast a quick, nervous sidelong glance at Prentice before speaking.
"That doesn't stop you from thinking, though, does it?" the Doctor persisted.
"No, but I..." she said, and then subsided.
He finished the sentence for her. "But you have your doubts," he said.
"I won't have you instigating mutiny on my ship!" barked Prentice, stepping in front of his second in command and cutting off the conversation.
"Mutiny?" the Doctor blustered.
The captain ignored his outrage entirely. "You will confine yourself to the task of restoring power to this ship," he said, coldly. "Since our chief engineer is in critical condition, you'll consult instead with the ship's pilot. Your associates will remain under the supervision of Lieutenant Argus unless they're able to assist you in some fashion. And the hold and its contents are out of bounds to all three of you. Do we understand one another?"
Jamie once again prepared himself to restrain the Doctor if necessary, but it seemed that it wasn't, or at least, not for the time being. Prentice gave them both a faintly snide look and then walked out of the infirmary without further comment.
"What dae we do now?" said Jamie, helplessly.
"You heard the Captain's orders," the Doctor told him, looking him right in the eye. Jamie was about to protest, when he caught the tiniest flicker in the man's wide-eyed gaze and interpreted it swiftly and accurately. Not in front of Argus, the look said. Jamie nodded sagely.
"Aye, I did," he said. "Well, can I help ye wi' the mechanics?"
"Yes, I think you'd probably better come with me," the Doctor told him, with another communicative gleam in his eye. He then turned over his shoulder. "What about you, Victoria?"
"I'd rather stay here," she said, quietly, and cast a glance at the narrow folding bunk by the wall, where McEnery was now plugged into an oxygen line and IV and seemed to be stable, if not improved. The Doctor's face softened, and he nodded understandingly.
"Very well," he said. "Jamie and I will be on the bridge if you need us. We won't be far away."
As the two men made to leave the room, Victoria was gripped by a sudden unfathomable worry and hurried over to them. She stood close in front of the Doctor, clasped her hands together in front of her and then looked up at him earnestly.
"Is everything going to be all right?" she said, very softly.
"Of course it is," he replied.
"But you'd say that even if it wasn't true," she insisted, speaking plainly.
"Well, perhaps I would," he admitted, his eyes creasing kindly as he smiled down at her. "But I promise you I'm going to try my very best to make it true. Will that do?"
Victoria already knew that she placed more faith in a promise from the Doctor than a guarantee from anyone else. So she simply nodded, and hugged herself briefly as he and Jamie left to return to the bridge.
Once they'd gone, Victoria moved over to the unconscious man and busied herself at his bedside, adjusting the sheet and pillow a little, wanting to feel as if she were doing something useful, or indeed anything. She'd almost forgotten about Argus's continuing presence until the woman shifted awkwardly, hiking her rifle a little higher onto her shoulder. Victoria spared her a polite glance but then returned her attention to her patient.
"I'm sorry I have to do this," said Argus, at last.
"I'm sorry you have to do it, too," Victoria replied, still not looking up as she examined the IV line and the valve on the oxygen cylinder. They meant little to her, but all at once she was determined to maintain an illusion of informed confidence. Partly from a sudden attack of personal pride, but also because – she reasoned – it could do no harm to their situation if Captain Prentice and his crew assumed that she was just as capable as the Doctor.
"That Doctor of yours is a remarkable man."
"More than you know," said Victoria, breaking into a tiny smile as she spoke, which she just as quickly smothered once more. It wouldn't be a good idea to get into a detailed discussion concerning the Doctor. Argus was probably just trying to make casual conversation, but there was always a chance that she was mining for information.
"How did you meet him, may I ask?"
"He was a friend of the family. When my father died and left me all alone, the Doctor took care of me," she said. Victoria tried not to think of this as a lie, since she'd been strictly brought up to regard lying as a sin; and indeed, it wasn't technically a lie, she reassured herself, but rather a bare-bones version of the truth, with the Daleks and Skaro and time travel omitted for convenience.
"I'm sorry about that," said Argus, and she sounded perfectly sincere in her condolences. But then she smiled, suddenly and unexpectedly. "And what about your boyfriend?"
Victoria was puzzled by the turn of phrase for two seconds before its meaning dawned, and when it did, she almost giggled.
"Jamie's not my boyfriend," she said, sure that she was blushing horribly.
"My apologies," said Argus. Her voice sounded rough now, and she coughed once, then twice, and then a third time.
Victoria turned her head and looked closely at the other woman for the first time, and now saw that she was very white in the face, barring two spots of colour high on her cheeks that in any case looked more like bruises than a healthy flush. What was worse, there was a faint smear of fresh blood on her lip that she was even now trying to conceal. Victoria reacted at once, and drew up the chair she'd vacated.
"Sit down," she said, her voice brooking no contradiction. "You're obviously not fit to be on your feet."
Argus still looked hesitant for a second, but then Victoria pointed at the chair with a scowl of disapproval, and the woman took a seat with a sigh of relief.
"It's not as bad as it looks," she said, once she'd caught her breath again. "Really, it's not."
"But it is going to get worse," Victoria replied, severely. "You might end up the same as poor Mr McEnery if you don't get some rest."
"What's resting got to do with it?" Now Argus had turned around in her seat and was looking at her very oddly. "If we can't pull this ship out of orbit in the next twelve hours or so, we'll all end up like that. Me, you, your friends. Every living thing on board this ship. Don't you know?"
Victoria stared at her.
With the engines dead, the hold was now utterly silent.
And in this silence, moving so stealthily that it was still no more than a suggestion of a whisper, something slipped through a narrow gap between two boxes and into an open space, where it seemed to hesitate, swinging from one side to the other as if seeking guidance, a homing beacon of some sort, perhaps.
After a few seconds' pause it moved off again, this time with clear purpose, until it found itself skulking in the muted green wash of light from the luminous panels around the impenetrable holding cell. Once there, it halted again, briefly, while it received a set of telepathic instructions from the creature chained up inside.
Then, in one fluid, almost snakelike movement, the Cybermat sprang up onto the first of the three locks and began to tear it apart.