Yours Is No Disgrace

Chapter Five

It's up to you and I,
We hold the key; we hold the answer

He lay on his back. He could feel the rough earth underneath him, smell the tang of the air, and hear the raucous calls of wild birds somewhere in the distance. All his physical senses told him this world was real...but he knew it wasn't.
The stark landscape was dark and unnerving, the sky above him dull and overcast, hiding the sun from view. The dense jungle he lay in, from its towering trees to the tangle of undergrowth and the sluggish rivers were all a mish-mash of images drawn from a dozen worlds, making it look nothing other than uniquely alien. Not to mention off-putting. But that was probably the intent.
The Doctor stood up carefully, surveying his surroundings...then he heard a harsh, distorted voice boom from all around him.
"You were a fool to enter my domain, Doctor!" The strangely familiar voice rasped.
The Doctor's eyes narrowed as he saw a shadow flicker across the edge of his vision. Then he heard the distinct crack of a dry twig breaking beneath a booted foot.
He knew one thing for certain now - he was being hunted.
A bullet whizzed past him, grazing his leg.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, the Doctor turned and fled.

Nothing here made any sense...a series of random, disconnected images drawn from nightmares. He had already faced an oncoming train and a poisoned water supply, as well as being strafed by an old military airplane, and so far all he had gained was an injured leg and right arm...as well as numerous other scrapes and bruises. This was definitely not working out as planned...the Master was much, much deeper entrenched here than he had imagined.
The Doctor sat alone, under the thick canopy of alien flora, his ears constantly alert for danger as he attempted to bandage his wounds, muttering to himself as he worked.
This world wasn't real...it was no more than a psychic projection. An illusion. He closed his eyes, attempting to deny the reality that his physical senses told him was real...trying to impose his own will on the mental landscape.
For a second it seemed to be working... his wounds closed...and instead of the trees and sky, he could see the complex bio-electric circuits of the Panatropic matrix...
Then something blocked him violently, arrowing the force of his mental probe back at him. The Doctor flinched as he felt the sting, realising that he would just have to confront the shadowy figure he had seen drifting quietly through this landscape.
With his wounds dressed as well as he could hope for here, he moved to stand...and felt something brush against his boot. Bending down, he picked up a small bottle containing a viscous green substance. The Doctor took a cautious sniff of the contents, realising it was the same poison that had been used on the water earlier. He smiled as he thought of a use for it.
"Maybe I can get my shadowy friend to lead me to fresh water after all..."

From his perch in a crooked tree-branch, the Doctor waited and watched, hoping his opportunity would come soon. The crude blowpipe he had fashioned from a nearby bamboo lay in his hands, the poisoned thorn that was its ammunition waiting in the hollowed-out tube. A tiny crunch of breaking vegetation alerted the Doctor's sharp ears to his approaching enemy. He raised the improvised weapon to his lips, his movements slow and noiseless as he waited for his target to come into plain sight.
Finally, his stalker appeared, almost staggering into the tiny clearing between the trees. The Doctor smiled grimly and blew out. The thorn flew straight and true towards it's target, imbedding itself in the Stalker's leg.
The sounds of pain and thrashing were moderately gratifying...but the Doctor had no time to appreciate his own cleverness as he quickly slipped down out of the tree, using the sounds of his assailant's movements to cover his escape. Then he settled down to wait, smiling slowly as the Master's minion moved past his hiding place.
His blue eyes watching with all the intensity of a hunting falcon, the Doctor tracked the Stalker's awkward, limping run towards a pool of dark, brackish water.
It stood to reason that his shadowy foe had to be expending an awful lot of energy simply to maintain this projection...which in a way gave the Doctor a slight advantage. He closed his eyes for a second, reaching out beyond the Panatropic Matrix to feel the soft warmth that lay beyond his own mind. Reassured that his treasured companion was still there for him, knowing her strength was all he needed. Despite the constant pain in his leg, the Doctor tensed like a coiled spring, and then leapt...

All our thoughts of doubt and fear,
Are leaving one by one

Engin and Spandrell watched the physiological readout alter as a massive blood-sugar demand became evident.
"It's like he's fighting a duel in there..." Engin whispered.
"His life signs are barely registering!" Spandrell exclaimed. Engin sighed sadly.
"I tried to warn him...the psychic shock involved..."
Sarah wordlessly willed her Doctor on, not listening to either of them. She summoned up all those memories she had preserved lovingly in her mind, the sound of his voice, then gentle touch of his cool skin, the feeling of his lips against hers...
'I love you, Doctor,' She told him silently, 'I know you wont give up.'
"Wait!" Spandrell said then, "His readings are going back up again!"
"He must have an unusually high level of Artron energy." Engin said. But something in the Coordinator's voice sounded unconvinced, and his wise old eyes lingered on where Sarah's hand still gripped the Doctor's.
"What is going on in there?" Spandrell demanded, peering at the console.
"I don't know, Castellan." Engin said wearily, "But whatever it is, to the Doctor it is completely and utterly real." His dark eyes travelled once again to Sarah, not wanting to state the obvious addendum to that statement - that it was certainly real enough to kill him if he failed.
Sarah gripped the Doctor's hand even tighter, knowing that all she could do was keep repeating her silent exhortations for him to keep fighting and not give up.

Sarah looked up from the Doctor's face when she heard another person enter the room. The one was dressed as a guard, his red and white livery immaculate in every way. Spandrell looked at the newcomer in some surprise.
"Solin? What are you doing here?"
"I'm sorry, Castellan," Solin replied, "But Chancellor Goth ordered me to maintain a guard on the Doctor."
The Castellan looked mildly irritated at this not-so-subtle inference that he couldn't do his job, but waved a hand dismissively.
"Oh, very well. But don't touch anything. This is delicate equipment." Spandrell said briefly before turning his attention back to the readout. Sarah, however, kept half and eye on the guard. There was...something about him that raised the hackles on Sarah's neck. Something about his eyes or his body language that felt...funny. But he stood by the door, almost motionless for almost fifteen minutes before he so much as moved.
Sarah had almost begun to relax her guard when he did move...straight towards the A.P.C controls.
"Don't touch that!" Engin yelled, slapping the guard's hand away, "If you disconnect him too soon, you could kill him!"
But Solin moved like a man possessed. He almost threw old Engin out of the way, reaching towards the disconnect controls.
"No!" Sarah screamed, diving at Solin in a completely unexpected flying tackle. They both went down in a heap. The jolt of connecting with the floor stunned Sarah momentarily, but even as she tried to get to her feet, she saw the blinding white flash of a staser bolt, and watched in numb shock as Solin fell limply to the floor.
Spandrell and Engin looked at her, but Sarah didn't say a word, she merely stood shakily and resumed her place next to the Doctor, holding his limp hand in hers.

To Be Continued...