Gunshots were audible throughout the Niagorn's complicated caves, and the central chamber was no exception.
"There is trouble," one Niagorn hissed to the other, with slight difficulty due to the noise. "A human is missing."
"Where did she go?" hissed the other, betraying only a slight angry tone.
"I do not know," the first Niagorn hissed humbly, nearly apologetically.
The Niagorn now sounded quite furious. "Why do you not know?" it demanded furiously.
"The others could follow!"
"I apologise," hissed the first Niagorn. "I will locate her."
The second creature's temper subsided a little – not a lot, but a little. "Very well," it hissed, "but the humans are not to know."
The colonists and the Niagorn were presently engaged in a face-off, over a clearing, which wasn't a common occurrence in this area. The colonists were using a small layer of trees to protect themselves, mostly, while three Niagorn were just standing in front of the cave, as if the bullets speeding past were of no importance. In actual fact, they had positioned themselves so that most of the humans were being hindered by trees, and those that weren't were – by an exceedingly bizarre coincidence – exceedingly bad shots. Even the ones who weren't usually bad shots.
The supply of bullets was fast running out. Colonists, for all their supply of guns, do not usually actually intend to use them except in cases of dire emergency, and funnily enough dire emergencies rarely ever crop up (except when mysterious strangers known only by profession and their assistants turn up to be blamed, of course).
The Niagorn were not actually retaliating. They didn't hold any weapons (well, no visible ones at least) and their hostages were curiously absent – although that might have been a bad sign.
Back in the main chamber, a Niagorn entered, seemingly in a hurry. "I cannot find her," it hissed quickly. "She is not near us."
"She cannot be far!" hissed the more important Niagorn. "Did you search the human establishment?"
"Yes," the junior Niagorn answered quickly. "I checked every transparent panel. Unless she hides in the middle, she is not there."
"She must have hidden in the middle," responded the senior Niagorn, reasonably. "But we cannot get inside..."
There was then a silence, interrupted only by the monotonous gunshots, now blended into background noise.
"That sound annoys me," the senior Niagorn said eventually. "Make it cease."
"Pardon?"
"Bring the two remaining humans out," the Niagorn said. "Make them promise to respect our society – then return the girls."
"But we can't understand the humans," the junior Niagorn protested feebly.
"The Doctor will assist," the senior Niagorn said calmly.
"He has failed us before," the other Niagorn protested.
"Then his intelligence will force him not to fail us again. Go now, young one."
Leela and the Doctor, now equipped with a reel of rope, made their way to the hole that bordered between a rock and the ground that signified where Leela had escaped.
The rope didn't seem to be achieving anything. No one grabbed onto the rope, no one said anything like, "oh look, there's a rope!" - there was not even any noise coming from the hole.
"Hello?" the Doctor called into the hole, after a quite a bit of time had passed. "Are you in there?"
Still no reply. The Doctor turned to Leela.
"Are you sure this is the place?"
Leela nodded. "Of course I am sure," she said.
"Well, they're certainly not there now," the Doctor said, withdrawing the rope.
Leela nodded. "Doctor, the fighting has stopped."
"Has it really?" The Doctor paused to listen, then continuing with, "you know what, Leela, the fighting has stopped!"
"Sir! Sir! Siiii-iiiir..."
"I can hear," Holmes muttered angrily. "And see."
"Oh, I don't dispute that, sir," the young, brunette man said, "it's just that we'd like instructions on what to do, please."
Holmes looked away from the young man to the caves – in front of which were Olivia and Elissa, accompanied by four of the annoying purple beasts.
"Um... you see, James, I don't know exac-"
Holmes was interrupted by a fierce roar from one of the Niagorn – which, he was too far away to tell.
"Do we attack, sir?"
"No!" Holmes cried, rather too quickly for his liking. He coughed. "Certainly not, James."
James seemed puzzled. "So, basically, sir... we do nothing?"
"Precisely, James. Until the circumstances change, we do nothing."
The Doctor and Leela stood behind various conveniently-placed trees. On their right hand side, they could plainly see four Niagorn and two human girls (who Leela knew were Elissa and Olivia). The girls were being held back by the creatures, though it didn't look like it was taking the Niagorn much effort. On their left hand side, however, a row of colonists was plainly visible despite the tree trunks. Most of them were holding guns by their side, very, very loosely.
The Niagorn gave a fierce roar. It didn't seem to mean anything in particular, despite the obvious "hurry up, you humans!"
"They are not negotiating," Leela calmly stated.
"Well, apparently the tether wore thin," the Doctor said, not even looking at his assistant. "Metaphorically speaking, of course."
"The colonists are not reacting," Leela stated. "The creatures have enforced a... a stalemate."
The Doctor beamed and turned to her. "So you were paying attention to chess!"
Leela glared at the Doctor. "Neither side will do anything," she said. "The humans will not move for fear, and the creatures will not move because they have the upper hand."
"You know what, Leela – I think we should interrupt!"
And so then he shed the cover of the trees, and burst into the clearing.
Obviously, Leela followed.
First, the Doctor grinned at the colonists. Then, he beamed at the Niagorn. Finally, he coughed and started to talk.
"Hello," he said. "Have you realised that you're in stalemate? I mean to say, neither of you will do anything because you're scared, and you have the upper hand." He gestured at the sides Leela had referenced while he said this.
By now, the colonists were mostly frowning or looking baffled, and the Niagorn were grimacing. Slightly.
"Are our motivations not justified?" one of the creatures hissed.
"Yes, see, while your motivations are justified, your actions clearly aren't... see, I think you'll find that most groups of people don't take kindly to having various members of their group captured and held hostage... don't you agree, Leela?"
"Yes, Doctor," Leela said faithfully. Then, of course, she withdrew a knife and held it at the nearest Niagorn. "You shall let the humans go," she ordered. "They are only children."
"Uh, thanks," Elissa said sarcastically, despite her current position. "You can't be more than ten, twelve years older than I am..."
"Ahem," the Doctor coughed loudly, trying to pull the attention away from his companion. "Do any of you humans know what they want?"
The humans stared as if the Doctor was crazy. They didn't say anything, though.
"Do you know why Niagorn numbers were decreasing?" he demanded loudly, striding towards their side of the clearing. "It was you! Something you were feeding them was just not good for them. Were you aware of that?"
While a few humans were now looking sheepish, the vast majority were just frowning in deep puzzlement, either because they weren't sure what the Doctor was talking about, or because they'd just remembered that he was supposed to have been safely locked up back at the dome.
"So isn't the solution to your problem obvious?" the Doctor bellowed. "Just stop randomly collecting them, making them sick and releasing them again... and tell them that you won't, first!"
All the humans looked completely baffled now. "Um," said one – a completely baffled red-headed girl, seemingly somewhere in her late teens or twenties. "Um, um... how?"
"Quite simple, really," the Doctor assured her. "See now, come out here. And drop your weapon."
The confused girl did just that, walking slowly towards the stupidly beaming Time Lord.
"Now, you just walk up to the Niagorn, and apologise."
"Shouldn't our leader -"
The Doctor shook his head. "Politicians make lots of promises they don't keep," he pointed out. "You represent the ordinary person. Your word is worth a lot more than some leader's."
The red-head gulped at nodded, then walking up to the intimidating, significantly taller purple beast.
"I understand," she said nervously, "that we have been very, uhm, inconsiderate, of your people, and we have previously not bothered to ask you... well, whether you'd like to be surveyed or not, and would, uh, like to apologise. Furthermore," she continued, "on behalf of our small colony I would like to promise that we will not do that to you any more."
She immediately turned around to the Doctor and gulped. "How was that?" she asked weakly.
"Marvellous," the Doctor nodded. "Now, of course, you do have to live up to your promise."
Leela suddenly summoned attention again by waving her knife at the Niagorn. "She has promised you what you wanted to hear," she told it fiercely. "You must now let the colonists go."
The Niagorn nodded, and stepped sideways so that the two girls could run back to their own side of the clearing. Leela watched them run over, and then turned back to her hand to notice that her knife was gone.
"That was not fair," she scowled.
The Doctor walked up to her, almost chortling. "Come on, Leela. We've got places to go to."
"But that thing just took my knife!" Leela protested. "I thought you said it was wrong to take other people's possessions."
"Yes, well, Leela... sometimes you just have to learn how to let go," he said, leading her back in the vague direction of the TARDIS.
The Doctor and Leela entered the TARDIS. The TARDIS made no move to welcome them back, however, the lights on the console blinking as normal.
Leela was still not happy. "Doctor," she said levelly. "You do realise that I have just lost my second-last knife, don't you?"
The Doctor blinked. "Your second last knife?" he asked. "I didn't even know you had more than one knife!"
"My knife would always get taken from me," Leela explained. "That is why I carried a second."
"But where did you get it?" the Doctor asked – mainly because he had the knack of running into people who were mad at him for not doing something, and not paying for a knife would be a perfect example of that.
"From the kitchen," Leela explained, relieving the Doctor's wildly hyperactive imagination.
"From the kitchen? You mean we have no knives left in the kitchen?"
"Yes," Leela blinked. "That is what I said."
The Doctor sighed. "Leela, how are we going to eat dinner without a knife?"
"We shall eat soup," Leela decided. "You do not need a knife to eat soup, Doctor."
The Doctor pushed a lever, closing the door, and then flicked the dematerialisation switch. "Very well, Leela – soup it is. But tomorrow morning, we're going to a shop that sells cutlery!"
"All right," Leela agreed, almost absently. "Doctor, where is K9?"
The Doctor stared at the steadily oscillating time rotor. "Oh. Well, see, about that..."