5. Difficult way back.
Ommera is in the Tardis Control room reading the maintenance manual.
The Tardis door opens gradually and the Doctor just about crawls in. He had rapidly returned along the metal rungs but was running out of blood oxygen by the time he opened the Tardis door.
Ommera is immersed and doesn't hear or see the Doctor (she might be facing away from the door). A noise alerts her. She looks up and sees the Doctor. "Oh gosh. How long have you been there?" She runs over to the Doctor. She feels his hand. "Icy cold. Pulse ok." She gently slaps the Doctor's face to wake him.
"I have to get medical aid," the Doctor says faintly.
"Yes, you look awful!" Ommera says. She sits down by the Doctor and puts her arms around him and kisses him.
"Not for me," the Doctor groans. "For Angel. Please get her to the sick bay." He collapses.
Ommera is left cradling the Doctor. She takes his pulse. "Pulse still ok. What angel are you speaking of?" she asks rhetorically, as the Doctor has passed out.
Ommera gets up and closes the Tardis door. Then she goes over to the console. She presses the voice control button.
"Tardis, please could you materialise around the Orbiter?"
The Tardis grinds briefly and the Orbiter appears in the Tardis control room.
Ommera goes straight to the airlock and opens them all and goes in.
Neville is alarmed. "More of them?!" Neville was horrified when the Doctor and Crystelle had entered. Now it is less horrifying but more amazement. Just how big is the spacecraft on their heat shield?
"Who is hurt?" Ommera asks calmly.
"She is," Neville indicates Angel who is almost passing out.
"I'll take you through to sick bay," Ommera says, taking charge.
"Sick bay!" Neville says. "Sounds palatial, I'm sure." He can't believe that there is much just out there on his heat shield.
Ommera takes Angel over to the airlock door, but she doesn't want to go through.
"I'm hallucinating," Angel says. "It can't be safe to go through here. It's just empty space outside. I'm going mad." She has heard of space madness driven by all sorts of things. People are driven to do really stupid things and she doesn't want to space herself just because she has some degree of space madness.
"The Doctor asked for you to have medical aid," Ommera pleads with her. "He risked his life to get you that medical aid. The least you can do is have it."
Angel goes limp.
"Oh, she's fainted." Crystelle can see the signs. "Do you want a hand?"
"Please," Ommera says. "What's that in your hand?"
"It's a crab," Crystelle says. "They've plagued this mission. The Doctor wanted a look at it."
Ommera asks Neville, "could you hold the crab while Crystelle helps me with Angel?" Ommera doesn't know his name and there isn't time for everything.
Neville takes the crab very cautiously.
"I'm dreading this bit," Crystelle says. "It's so dangerous. We could die in the vacuum of space."
"Not if I've got anything to do with it," Ommera says. She goes out through the air lock and starts pulling Angel through. This is initially easy until the Tardis's gravity takes over.
Crystelle follows and is startled when she emerges inside the Tardis control room. "What? How did that happen?"
"No time now," Ommera says. "We must get this girl to sick bay and then I MUST attend to the Doctor."
Ommera & Crystelle carry Angel to the Tardis sick bay and put her on a table.
"Tardis, could you please scan her and tell us what needs to be done for her?" Ommera asks. She looks at a screen by the bedside. She reads off the screen: "Moderate infection from wound in her hand."
"I'll bandage that," Crystelle says.
A hole in the wall opens to reveal a small tablet bottle. Ommera reads the label. "One six times a day. Oh great!" She is disappointed that the medication looks so normal. The Tardis has had to produce a tablet bottle that might be analysed back on Earth, so it must look as Earth-normal as possible. Ommera opens the bottle and dispenses one tablet onto the palm of her hand. The tablet dissolves into her palm.
"Oh no. You've taken her medicine!" Crystelle says.
"Oops," Ommera says.
Crystelle prepares Angel's hand facing upwards by her side. Ommera dispenses a tablet into Angel's hand. It dissolves into Angel's palm.
Ommera leaves sick bay and runs to the Doctor. She is very concerned about the Doctor who was extremely unwell when she had seen him last. She approaches the Doctor.
The Doctor is sitting up. He is facing away from the Orbiter. He hasn't noticed it. "I only just made it, crawling through the vacuum of space."
Ommera sits down by the Doctor and puts her arms round him and kisses him. "Angel is in the sick bay so she is on the mend."
"I must examine the crab," the Doctor says faintly.
"I'll get it for you," Ommera says. She gets up and goes into the Orbiter through the airlocks which are still open.
The Doctor gets up and staggers to the Tardis door. "I'll get it myself." He opens the Tardis door and looks down. No Orbiter. "No Orbiter? I'm sure it was just there."
Will the Doctor find the Orbiter just outside the Tardis door? Is he likely to? The Doctor is rather unwell.