Chapter Eight

The Argonauts

The TARDIS materialized on the loading dock of what appeared to be an abandoned building. One among several other abandoned buildings. All the windows and loading bays on the wooden structures had been boarded up and they all looked in serious need of repainting. The only sign of life on the one where they had materialized was a single light that burned above the main door, which was also the only apparent way in.

Puzzled, the Doctor cautiously led the way to the main door. From what the Emperor had said, he expected to materialize near the grounds of Alexandria Foundation, or at least near the Sorenson Mansion. The last thing he expected was to find amid ruin of a warehouse district.

"The place looks deserted," Turlough observed as they passed through the unguarded main door. "Doctor, this can't be the right place. The Emperor must've made a mistake."

"He rarely does," the Time Lord replied mildly, looking down the empty main corridor.

"Well, there's no one here."

"Let's find out, shall we?" the Doctor grinned. He drew a deep breath and turned, intending to bellow out a greeting. Instead, he found himself looking down the barrel of a gun. "Ah, there you are," he said mildly. "How do you do? I'm the Doctor."

"This is private property, y'know," the young man with the gun said fiercely. "You need a pass to be here. You got a pass?"

The Doctor exchanged a mystified look with his companion. "Ah…well, no, actually. Where do we go about getting one?" he asked in a patient tone.

"The Commander'll know what to do with you," the youth said, nodding down the corridor. "That way."

With a resigned sigh, the Doctor and his companion went in the direction indicated. This was not the most promising of beginnings.

A dark-haired woman of about thirty appeared further on ahead. The sight of the little group made her stop dead in her tracks. "Jerry, what on earth are you doing?"

"I caught these two snooping around the main entrance," he reported proudly.

"Actually, you stumbled across us," the Doctor corrected sharply. "And we were not snooping."

"Spies is what they are, Dr. Spencer," Jerry injected.

Dr. Spencer rolled her eyes, an exasperated sigh escaping her. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Jerry, do stop being ridiculous. Who would want to spy on us? And put that thing away before you hurt somebody."

"They ain't got no passes or…or nothin'!" the young man sputtered defensively, holstering his weapon. "I was takin' 'em to the Commander—"

"I'll take them. I'm going that way now."

Disappointed and obviously crestfallen, the sentry turned on his heel and strode off.

"I'm sorry about that," the woman said apologetically. "We've been here so long everybody's getting edgy. What news have you brought us?"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "News? I'm afraid you misunderstand. We're here to help." He introduced himself and his companion to the woman who turned out to be the Chief Medical Officer of the Argonauts, Dr. Amanda Spencer.

"You'd better talk to the Commander then," she sighed. "But don't be disappointed if he turns you away. Unless you have some special skill we can use, I'm afraid we've got more people than we need already."

"I think we may be of some small use to you," the Doctor said disarmingly, exchanging a knowing look with his companion.

As Dr. Spencer led the way, the Doctor noticed the interior of the building bore no resemblance to its exterior. There were no signs of decay as far as he could see. In fact, much of the equipment was state of the art. Compliments of Constance Sorenson? he wondered.

The journey ended at what the Doctor assumed to be the nerve center of the operation. There were maps and papers scattered everywhere about the room. At the far end of an enormous conference table, a man stood studying a star chart, his back to the door. He wore the only military style uniform the Time Lord had seen thus far. Not to his great surprise, it was also one that he recognized, the Alterran Imperial Guard.

"Commander, we have two more volunteers," Amanda announced as she showed the time travelers in.

The Commander sighed and turned. His face revealed nothing of what was going on in his mind, which was a considerable amount, as he looked the unlikely pair up and down. "I don't suppose either of you has any military training, have you?"

The Time Lord grinned unabashedly, having recognized the man in the uniform immediately. "As a matter of fact, I've served under several rather prominent military leaders over the last few centuries."

"Oh? Beginning with Alexander the Great, no doubt," came the astringent reply.

"Among others."

"Now, look, I've no time for games—"

"Quite right," the Doctor agreed, his voice suddenly serious. He moved toward the head of the table, looking the officer in the eye. "Tell me, Commander Tolan, are you any closer to locating Prince Jason than you were eight weeks ago?"

The dumbfounded Commander's mouth dropped open. "Who are you?" he asked once he found his voice.

"My dear Tolan, I'm the Doctor."

The Alterran blinked. "The Doctor…" he repeated, not quite believing this sudden stroke of luck. "How did you know where to find me? We're a good six kilometers from the main house."

"Actually, I was on my way to the Foundation when I learned of your little venture."

Tolan's eyes flickered and the Doctor could see the obvious question behind his dark brown eyes. It was never spoken, however, and the Time Lord wondered if he knew the answer already. Suddenly the Commander asked an even more startling question. "Tell me, Doctor, have you come to lead us?"

"…and that's about all we know," Tolan concluded, having run down the fruitless efforts of the previous eight weeks. "We just seem to be going in circles."

The Doctor and Turlough were seated across from him at the conference table. They exchanged a disappointed look. Even with this dedicated group working on the case there was still nothing more to go on, each lead having turned into a dead end.

Or so it seemed. At that moment another person from the Doctor's past came bursting into the room, this being none other than Constance Sorenson herself. She was so excited that she failed to notice the Commander had guests. "Tolan, you have got to see this!" she said excitedly, slipping a laser disk into a reader. "I think it's—Oh!" Finally registering there were others present, she quickly apologized.

"You're just in time," Tolan said as he got to his feet. He was about to introduce the Doctor, whom he thought she would not recognize, when, to his amazement, Constance gasped, "Doctor!" glancing over at him and then back at the grinning Time Lord. "You are the Doctor, aren't you?" she added hesitantly.

"That I am, Constance," the Doctor replied, rising to his feet. "And this is—"

"Turlough, yes?" she said delightedly, to the astonishment of all present.

"Now how on earth did you know that?" Tolan wanted to know

"This." Constance indicated the disk in the reader. "I was ninety-nine percent sure about it. Now I'm positive."

"Connie, what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about finding HH, Tolan. This disk is an honest to goodness lead. Here we've been scratching our heads and looking under rocks, and they've been passing this disk around the Research Department for more than two weeks." As she spoke, she switched on the reader, the screen displaying nothing but disjointed images and static.

"And just what are we to make of that?" Tolan asked tersely.

Undaunted, Constance went on, "The general consensus is that this is a multiple image recorded in conjunction with a complex combination of other data. For reasons those geniuses couldn't determine, it's unreadable by conventional means."

"And you call that a lead?" Tolan said acidly.

Throwing him a dark look, Constance pressed on, "Somebody had the sense to run it on Evan Spencer's new imaging system. It was able to determine that the blocks of data pertained specifically to the image recorded with it. Molecular makeup, genetic codes, visual references, names and the like."

"A kind of index file," Turlough injected.

"Exactly." Miss Sorenson made another entry on the machine as the Time Lord drew nearer. "It sounds familiar, doesn't it, Doctor?" she asked.

The Doctor was about to ask the point in all this but was cut off as the woman beside him hurriedly continued her story. "When those so-called experts gave up, I gave it a shot. Only this time I told the computer the extract was a medical recording. Just look what it came up with." She stood aside as an image slowly came into focus. It was that of the Doctor himself, all of his biological data scrolling along side the image. With the touch of a key, Turlough's image appeared on the screen along with his pertinent statistics.

"We're all in there," Constance announced triumphantly. "Names, dates, biological data. The works."

The Doctor nodded. "That's from Jason alright."

"A major portion of his personal scans I should think," Miss Sorenson agreed. Seeing the surprised look on the Doctor's face, she smiled knowingly. "Yes, I know about it. HH told me so I wouldn't feel he had a hold over me. As if I could!"

"HH?"

"His Highness."

"Not HRH?"

Constance gave a small smile. "I dropped the R as a joke. You know how Jason hates titles. Especially his own."

Tolan was in no mood for deviations. "Where did that come from?"

"It arrived by messenger, apparently," Constance replied, adding angrily, "And it was made practically under our noses. At an obscure little research center right here on Aegis."

Tolan was already halfway across the room. "Well, what are we standing around for? We've a rescue to organize."

"Wouldn't you at least like to know where it is?"

"You've already told me. Aegis," he called over his shoulder. "You can tell me the specifics after I've notified the Aegin authorities."