8. What hope is there for Slint?
"What does that scan show?" Ommera asks unexpectedly.
"It shows how many lifeforms are alive on the planet," the Doctor says sleepily. He cradles his head in his hands.
"What if that isn't Slint?" Ommera says.
"What are you driving at?" the Doctor asks, looking up despondently.
"Could we go back and intercept Slint as it is delivered here, presumably by the Wisp under the control of Sontar, and switch it with an unpopulated planet?"
The Doctor groans. "The Sontarans would notice, punish the Wisp even more and just move the planet yet again."
"They might, but we needn't replace Slint near its own star. There may be a comparable star where it could be placed?"
The Doctor is grappling with this rather dodgy arrangement. There are plenty of unpopulated planets that might be a substitute without hurting anyone. "Let's sleep on it," he says. "I must rest now, or I'll make some massively stupid blunder and you'll say why did you do that?"
They make their way to their rest room. Ommera is excited. Maybe she can save Slint.
The Doctor never rests for long. He is first up and about. Does he actually sleep? He says not, although Ommera might contradict him on that score - he contemplates the inside of his eyelids while his breathing is punctuated audibly.
By the time Ommera joins him in the Control room he has identified thousands of similar unpopulated planets, a few of which have broadly similar land mass shapes which might have been mistaken in the dark for Slint, after all, they have only seen that frozen planet in the dark, and Meran had said that it looked different, although he had put that down to being frozen.
The Doctor has identified one massive problem. The planet moving kit that they need to move Slint is on Slint. And that will mean visiting the frozen Slint and therefore identifying the planet fully. He puts this problem to Ommera.
Immediately Ommera comes back with a solution. "I've been awake all night working it all out and that isn't a problem," she says.
The Doctor looks at her in surprise. "Oh, how's that?"
"First of all, I'm so glad you've found a substitute planet," she says. "It looks just like Slint, a few distinctive islands missing, but it's very similar. I lived… there! Oh, it isn't there." She jests, but the planet the Doctor has found could easily look just like Slint in the dark.
"Let's go back to where Slint was when it was in its correct position," Ommera says. "Then remove the planet moving kit from the storage warehouse."
The Doctor whistles. "The brains of her! Yes, we can swap any number of planets then."
"Where will Slint go?" Ommera asks. This is a much more pressing question than finding a replacement planet that looked like Slint. "The Sontarans mustn't find it until they've forgotten about Slint, and whyever they wanted to move Slint in the first place."
"I think it must have been because Meran said…"
Ommera interrupts. "No, don't bring Meran into it. He may have said he was from Slint, but that doesn't mean they can link Slint with the Bicx, however much they hate the Bicx."
They don't know about the piece of paper blowing in the wind on Bimini, the Bicx Mining HQ planet, in chapter 1. They are just left guessing.
When?
Ommera has two possible plans. "We can swap Slint for the similar planet any time before the Wisp move it, or we can wait until just after it is moved but before it gets very cold."
The Doctor looks at her. "No, there's only one plan. We were on Slint just before it was moved, so we can't move it earlier. And we retrieved our planet moving kit from only just before that. No, the Wisp must move Slint, then we wait while they remove their planet moving kit. Who would have though it was so complicated moving planets!"
Where.
"Thank you for finding such a benign star that's fairly like Slint's star," Ommera says. "What about all of the trading interstellar space freighters already on their way to Slint? Can we move them, too?"
"Planet moving is very complicated!" the Doctor says gloomily.
So many things to arrange! What about the Sontarans? Won't they be enraged?