CHAPTER 11

GO-BETWEEN

"Doctor!" Jason flew to the Time Lord's side, managing to catch him before his head struck the floor. Looking up at Azure in anger, he demanded, "What did you do to him?"

Azure shrank back in terror and looked as if she were about to bolt from the room. Jason jumped to his feet, taking her by the wrist. "No, you can't go out there. It's not safe."

"Not safe here," the Eldarian said fearfully.

Jason immediately let her go, holding up his hands and taking a step back. "I'm not going to hurt you, honestly," he said gently. "And I'm sorry if I scared you."

Taking a cautious step back, Azure said, "Contact."

Jason turned sharply to the Doctor. "You were able to establish contact?" he gasped.

The Eldarian nodded. "Doctor…safe."

Jason looked down at his inert friend. "I hope you're right."


Once again the Doctor found himself in complete blackness, but this time he had an idea as to why. A light suddenly streaked down from overhead, illuminating only himself. He could hear the murmurings of hundreds of voices and knew instantly it was the minds of the captive Eldarians. A single voice then came from out of the hundreds, sounding as though the speaker were right beside him, even though he saw no one. "Welcome, Doctor, we hoped you would return. We had overlooked the possibility that our combined energies would overwhelm you. Please accept our apologies."

"I assume I'm in the heart of the Eldarian collective," the Doctor said mildly.

"Correct."

"Good. Then perhaps you'd be so good as to answer a few questions for me. I know quite a bit already, but I should like to know more. Such as, how does a race that communicates solely by telepathy get itself trapped on a cargo vessel?"

There were murmurs from the hundreds, but no direct reply.

"Or is it a prison ship?" the Doctor added pointedly.

"It's a slave ship!" a voice cried out.

"A prison for us all!" called another

"We're used!"

"Trapped in the endless nothingness!"

The Doctor put his hands to his ears as the rising din of hundreds of voices rose up around him. "One at a time! One at a time!" he called out desperately. He felt the same wave of energy starting to overwhelm him and sank to his knees. Suddenly the voice of the apparent leader silenced everyone, allowing the Time Lord to recover his equilibrium.

"We're prisoners here, Doctor. Slaves—"

The Doctor got slowly back to his feet. "You're not telling me anything I don't know already. I want to know how you came to be slaves. I can't help you without all the facts."

"You are a wise man, Doctor," the voice said soothingly.

"Enough of the flattery," the Time Lord snapped impatiently, dropping his casual manner. "I want the truth. And I mean the whole true or I leave now."

"You can't leave!" a threatening voice cried out.

"Oh, can't I?" the Doctor said icily. He drew himself to his full height and closed his eyes. Then his projected self started to fade very, very slowly.

"No! Doctor, please! Stay!"

"I want the truth," the nearly transparent Doctor replied. "No more evasions. No more games. Do you agree to my terms? Or do I leave now?"

"We agree. We agree!"

The Time Lord was again a solid image. "That's better," he said coolly. "Now. The truth."


Jason had returned the Doctor to his bed and sat anxiously beside him, a reluctant Azure having taken a seat by the door. After a few minutes, he noticed her face clear and he wondered if she knew what was going on between the Doctor and her people.

When the Doctor finally opened his eyes, he smiled brightly at his uneasy companion. "Well, that was educational."

"Are you alright?" Jason asked concernedly.

"Couldn't be better."

"What happened?"

"A little information exchange."

Jason was completely baffled. Why was the Doctor suddenly in such a good mood? Then the answer came to him in a flash. He had a plan. "Now what?" he asked.

The Doctor grinned. "Now, we turn things on their head."


A very self-satisfied Bryce Miller returned to his office to find George Hargrove waiting for him. At first he was annoyed at the man's presence until he remembered that it was he himself who had sent for him.

"Sorry to've kept you waiting, George. There was another problem in the computer room." the CEO said as he sat down at his desk. With a heavy sigh, he went on to say, "You know, something, George, once we have this place on its feet, we have got to teach these people how to make a decision by themselves."

George nodded nervously. "Not a serious problem, I hope."

An evil smile passed across Miller's face. "No. Nothing I couldn't handle," he said coldly.

The look on the CEO's face sent a chill down George's spine. "What…did you want to see me about, Bryce?"

Bryce shuffled through a pile of papers on his desk until he found the ones he wanted. "Do you remember when I told you the government was making noises about having us audited? Well, they're making noises again."

Just the mere mention of an audit caused George to go white as a sheet. "But…I thought we'd resolved all that," he gasped fearfully.

Bryce looked up, seeing the man across the desk was very close to a state of panic, reaffirming that he had chosen the right person as his Chief Financial Officer. In a calm voice, he said, "I did, too. But you know the Audit Bureau. Never satisfied. Now they want us to send a duplicate set of figures by messenger. I doubt that will stop an audit, but you never know."

George jumped to his feet, volunteering to correlate the figures himself. He turned and practically ran from the room.

"Thank-you, George," Bryce called after him, adding in a low voice, "For being so predict able."


Jason had been silent a full minute before saying, "I'm almost afraid to ask, but, how?"

"First we need to get the Eldarians out from under computer control," the Doctor informed.

"Doctor, the only way to do that is to remove the collars."

"Exactly."

Jason gave him a dark look. "Don't you think anyone will notice when the staff starts to go missing?"

"Not if they don't. Those in stasis can help the others out here until we're ready," the Doctor told him. "And we can replace the real collars with the fakes you found in that storeroom." He strode into the main room, waving a hand at the abandoned housekeeping cart by the door. "This should do rather nicely in hiding the evidence, don't you think?"

Jason stood staring in amazement. Then he could not help but smile, a mischievous gleam coming to his eyes. A sudden thought struck him and he threw a glance in Azure's direction. "Doctor, you don't expect Azure to do this, do you?"

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Actually, I was rather hoping you might do it. You are rather good at blending in."

"Somehow I knew you were going to say that."