Chapter Fourteen
"Operation White-Out"
Mr. Donovan also grinned. "Maybe I should learn how to do that," he said. "It could come in handy sometime."
"It certainly could, but not as a skill, not as a habit in general," the Doctor was rolling the wire cutters in his hand. "I think this just might work," he said, watching the camera.
As we had noticed the last time in this cell, the camera did a security check every hour, on the hour.
The Doctor stealthily checked his watch. "Four o' clock," he whispered.
I calculated the time in my head. We had exactly fifty-four minutes to make our escape, or die in the attempt.
He looked at me and our eyes met. "Mason, do you think?..." he trailed off, looking behind me at the camera. He didn't need to say anymore.
I hid the cutters and stood. "Well," I said in a normal voice, "since there's nothing better to do, I'm going to take a nap."
The Doctor and Mr. Donovan waved me off and proceeded to have a conversation about butterflies. I settled down on a spot right under the camera. Felicity tugged over the blanket she had and sprawled out next to me. I got as comfortable as I dared and closed my eyes part of the way. I could see enough through the slits in my lids to see the camera lens rotate and zoom in on me. I lay still and Felicity heaved a deep sigh. The camera stayed on us and I held my breath and tried to look as sleepy and innocent as possible.
Finally, the camera moved and focused on my companions, who were now talking about the differences of North American brown skippers and the common species of Great Britain.
I slowly edged my way out of range of the camera. Then I sat up and Felicity raised her head. I motioned for her to be quiet. She understood and put her nose down between her front paws. Her eyes followed me as I stood and wedged my feet against the wall so I could stand on tip-toe without falling over.
I took the wire cutters out of my pocket and carefully studied the camera. I waited as the lens scanned the room one more time. I would have to work fast if I didn't want to get caught. The red light of the lens faded. My moment had arrived. I stared at the one wire which came out of the camera and disappeared into the wall. I opened the cutters wide and reaching as far as I dared, got the blades around the wire. I clamped down with the cutters. I yanked the cutters down sharply and the wire snapped in two. The camera drooped down and fell dormant, the red light faded and the camera was dead. I stepped down, pleased, and turned to the others.
"Done," I said with a bow.
"Wonderful!" the Doctor clapped his hands and sprang up. "Now, Mr. Donovan, we can stop talking like intellectuals and start acting like some. What else have we got on us?"
We emptied what was left in our pockets and arranged them neatly on the floor in the midst of our feet. We had the Doctor's gum, his wire cutters, a rubber band, and a bottle of white-out correction fluid. I had also snatched Mr. Donovan's pack of index cards, the Doctor's wristwatch and a tube of toothpaste. The Doctor instantly put the watch on his right arm.
Mr. Donovan picked up the toothpaste and said, "Why on earth did you have this with you?"
"You never know," the Doctor replied. He was counting the number of index cards. "Hmmm," he muttered. "I could really use those paper clips now."
"Never fear, Doc," I said and pulled a very long, shiny strand from my back pocket. "I grabbed them for you. You know, you have enough here to start a store."
The Doctor smiled. "That was the thought, if I ever decide to retire. Bring everything over to the door. I think I have an idea for getting us out of here."
We moved all the items as he said and the Doctor got to work. He spread the index cards on the floor about him and opened the toothpaste tube. He put a blob on each card and then squeezed out a line on the floor, filling the crack underneath the door. Into this paste he pressed a few paper clips and put a few cards on top of them. Next, he began to shove the rest of the cards covered in paste along the door frame, creating a sort of barrier to keep the electrical charge from jumping across the wall to the door, he said. This made it perfectly safe to touch the door without the worry of getting a shock. The Doctor tapped on the door with his knuckles and listened to the sound it created. He did this along each side of the door. When he got to the top, the responding sound was ever so slightly different.
"Ah, here's the manual lock," he muttered. He took his chain of paper clips and removed two. He bent these into the shape of the letter 'P', then he slowly inserted them above the door and wiggled the ends about. There was a slight 'click' sound and the Doctor stepped back.
"Now, if only I had my sonic," he said. "I might be able to raise the door part of the way. It'll be rather tricky by hand."
As if she understood his meaning, Felicity began to whine and tug on his trouser leg. We all looked at her. She gave a determined yip and dashed off to her corner. She came back carrying something long and oddly shaped in her mouth and dropped her prize at the Doctor's feet. He bent and picked up the objects she had brought. Mr. Donovan and I clustered about the Doctor to see what they were. There in his hands lay the Doctor's sonic screwdriver and an antique-looking key strung on a tattered ribbon. As he touched it, the key glowed. I instantly thought of the glowing light on top of the police box. It had to be the key to the Doctor's Tardis.
Mr. Donovan was starring in astonishment. "Now how did she contrive to snatch those?" he pondered.
The Doctor was grinning from ear to ear. "Eureka," he whispered. "Felicity, if you're just an ordinary mutt, I'm the Prince of Wales. Excellent job."
The dog yipped once and beamed up at us, flopping her tail on the floor.
"Right, now," the Doctor stowed the key inside his jacket and fiddled with his screwdriver. "Here's what I' thinking. Before we actually work on escaping this hold, we need to deal with the chap out there. He could spoil the whole thing if we don't do something about it. Donovan, you get the task of cutting off his air. Mason and I will take him down."
Oh, goody, goody, I thought to myself with pleasure, then wondered why I was thrilled at the prospect of beating up an alien. I blamed it on stress.
Mr. Donovan had the chain of paper clips at ready. Now there was a good reason for them. "What about the noise?" he asked. "Won't the guard hear us?"
"Probably not," the Doctor did a few more adjustments on his sonic. "The Crimearians have yet to invent a helmet with a good sound system. I doubt he'll hear anything at all." The Doctor looked at us. "Remember what you're doing," he said. "We will only get one shot at this. And we need to do it right."
We nodded.
"Here we go then." the Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver at a spot in the frame next to the door.
His sonic emitted a faint hum and silently the door rose. When it was half way up, the Doctor put his screwdriver away and we scurried to the opening and peeked out. The cell block was entirely empty. The only living soul in sight was the one guard outside our cell. His back was to us. The Doctor held his finger to his lips and stepped over the line of pasted index cards. We did the same. Mr. Donovan carefully stretched out his paper clip chain.
We looked to the Doctor. He nodded.
With soundless quickness, the Doctor and I had the guard on the floor. Mr. Donovan wrapped the chain around the guard's neck like a noose and blocked the port at the side of his helmet, snapping the intake valve. I punched the guard in the middle and he stopped moving.
The Doctor grabbed the gun. "Quick, now! Back inside!"
While the two of them dragged the guard into the cell, I stealthy 'borrowed' the Doctor's screwdriver and dismantled the control panel outside the door. I stared at the screwdriver, then shut my eyes to recall what I had seen the Doctor do. I saw what I needed in my head. I was able to get the panel open and cut a few wires and crossed a few others and melted one. Happy with it, I snapped the panel shut and slipped under the door.
The Doctor and Mr. Donovan had the guard on the floor between them, his head on Felicity's blanket. The Doctor reached for his sonic and couldn't find it. I held it out to him and he snatched it away.
"How did you get this?" he demanded.
"I took it," was my reply.
The Doctor grumbled and switched on his sonic. He aimed it over my head, the cell door went back to its place.
Then it was time to deal with the guard before he regained consciousness. Mr. Donovan untangled the paper clips and the Doctor and I worked on how to remove the guard's helmet. It was much harder than Mr. Donovan's helmet had been. His had been partially off to begin with. The guard's helmet was securely on.
"Have you ever done this before?" I asked.
"No," the Doctor said. "I never got the opportunity."
"Maybe it would have been better if you had," I replied.
We yanked some more on the guard's helmet and it refused to budge. The Doctor grumbled to himself. Mr. Donovan butted in and made the suggestion of trying around the back of the helmet. It sounded good to me and the Doctor, so we pulled the guard into an upright position. While the Doctor held him, I checked out the back of the guard's suit. It looked fairly plain, but I spotted a small part which was different than the rest and when I pressed on it, there was a puff of air and the bottom edge of the helmet separated from the rest of the suit.
"Good," the Doctor said.
We quickly laid the guard down and the Doctor took hold of the helmet and eased it off. Mr. Donovan, Felicity and I crowded around and gasped when the helmet was off. I don't know what we had been expecting to see, but it was definitely not what we saw. Instead of what we pictured as a Crimearian or some green-skinned alien with bug eyes, we found we were staring at the face of a human being.
"Why, that's not a Crimearian, is it?" Mr. Donovan pointed at the guard's face.
"No," the Doctor said. "Remember how I told you that not everyone on board these ships are here by choice."
"So he's just a slave," I said, holding the helmet on my lap. The guard's eyes were a sickly silver color completely over, much as I had thought. His eyes were open briefly, then they closed.
"Yes, I'm afraid so," the Doctor said. He bent over the guard and touched his skin with his palm. "He's warm," he mumbled.
"0-9 gas," Mr. Donovan and I said at the same time.
"Correct, gentlemen," the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and ran it over the guard's face like a scanning device.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Analyzing," the Doctor replied. He gently opened the guard's closed eyes with his fingers and drew back, sitting on his heels. He blew out a long breath. "Fruit juice."
"What?" I said.
"The 0-9 is pretty well established," the Doctor said. "I can not see a lot of free brain activity. I'd say the gas has been at work in his system for over a long period of time, possibly years, making it almost a part of him. I don't know if there is anything we can do."
We all looked sadly at the guard. Felicity whined softly. The guard's face was young and not worn too much by life. A lock of thick black hair fell over his brow and curled around his ears. He looked like someone I would have been friends with in school. His dark brown skin had no color of life to it, only some interesting blue markings under his eyes, yet he was breathing steadily. There had to be something we could do for him. I recalled the Doctor had once said where there was life, there was hope. I went through the banks of my brain containing medical facts, and searched through it like a shelf of books. Then, a light bulb blinked on.
"Hey, Doctor," I said, "are the long term effects of this gas in any way similar to those of hypnosis?"
The Doctor looked up from his feet. "Yes, I suppose in a way they are. Why?"
"Well, one of the strongest senses is smell, correct?" I said.
The Doctor nodded. "In humans, sure."
I held up the bottle of correction fluid. "Well, this stinks, so maybe..."
A smile slowly crept onto the Doctor's face.
"Aren't the vapors harmful?" Mr. Donovan asked.
"Yes," the Doctor put in, reading the label on the bottle, "but we can't injure the chap anymore then he already is. It's worth a try anyhow," he said.
The Doctor got off his knees and unwrapped a new stick of gum. He stuck it in his mouth and started chewing. "Okay," he said, "I'm going to plug his ears, then I want you to try out your theory, Mason. If this doesn't work, I'm not sure what we'll do."
Mr. Donovan and I nodded. If the guard woke up too soon and was still under Crimearian control, things could get ugly.
The Doctor took the softened gum out of his mouth and rolled it in his hands. Mr. Donovan got behind the guard and propped him up, using Felicity's blanket as a pillow for the guard's head. The Doctor squeezed the gum in the guard's ears firmly. The guard didn't move. The Doctor slapped the guard's face and the guard twitched slightly in response. Then it was my turn.
I shook up the bottle of correction fluid, opened it and held it under the guard's nose. He twitched again and I saw the muscles in his face at work. His eyelids fluttered open. He stared straight ahead and didn't seem to able to see us. I held the bottle closer to his nose. His nose wrinkled slightly and then his eyes began to change. Slowly, the silver glaze became thinner and his pupils returned to their normal size. The silver disappeared all together and his brown irises were as they should be. Pinkness was back in his skin and he no longer looked like the dead. I withdrew the bottle from his nose. The Doctor pressed his hand to the young man's forehead. We were holding our breath.
The Doctor looked down at the guard and softly said, "Can you hear me?"
The guard blinked twice and looked up at us. "Yes," his voice cracked. He could talk, and he was okay.
The three of us almost fell over backwards with sweet relief. We exchanged grins. It had worked! I felt almost like I might pass out, but Felicity whacked my head with her tail in her excitement and woke me up. The Doctor took the guard's hand and helped him into a better sitting position. The guard looked around him and put his gloved hand on his face.
"Gosh, thank you," he mumbled, "but how… ?"
"What can you remember?" the Doctor asked.
"I don't know, it's all too much to process," the guard said. He looked at the Doctor closely. "You seem somehow familiar. I feel like I've met you somewhere before."
"Yeah, probably in this dank hole," I said.
The guard shook his head. "No, no, it was before the Crimearians, before all this. I can't picture you right, you looked different, yet your voice has a familiar ring. My stars, where was it?" He wrinkled his forehead like he was trying to think. I could almost see the gears in his brain hard at work, after many years lying dormant.
The Doctor smoothed his wrinkled jacket out and said, "If a name helps, I'm called the Doctor."
"Of course!" The guard's face lit up in recognition at the name. "The Doctor! I remember now. It was at my home, the small experimental colony on the planet Kazone One."
"Colony?" Mr. Donovan questioned. "First I've heard of it."
"What are you called?" the Doctor asked the guard.
"Number 7940."
"No, your birth name."
"Oh, sorry. I'm Zeno Stelli. You healed my little brother from a solar burn, sir."
The Doctor smiled. "Well, what a small universe it is. How good to see you again, Zeno!"
They shook hands and laughed momentarily.
"I see you've changed your hair," Zeno said. "It's not as gray as it was."
"Yes, it is rather different, I grant you," the Doctor smiled, and stroked his mountain of hair with one hand. "And this is a far cry from the sands of your colony."
"Do you think… Could you possibly take me back to Kazone?" Zeno asked, looking round at us hopefully.
"I'm afraid you know there's not much chance of that, Zeno," the Doctor said. "As things stand, I doubt if the Crimearians even left the planet intact. If I know Grimwarr as well as I believe I do, most of your fellow colonists are either dead or enslaved like yourself on this ship or the others."
"What can we do?" Zeno cried.
"Let me ask this: do you want to get off this ship?"
"Yes, of course I do, sir," Zeno said. "With or without a brain, three years is enough for anyone on this blasted metal tub."
I smirked to myself. I liked this guy already.
The Doctor snatched the correction fluid from me and held up his pack of gum. "Good," he said, "now listen to me closely and do exactly as I say..."
He gave Zeno the task of freeing his people as quickly as he could while the Doctor, Mr. Donovan and myself turned off the device that was controlling the earth's population. As a guard of higher rank, Zeno knew exactly where it was. The device was located near the control room, in a heavily guarded section and was hard to get into, even if you were Lord Grimwarr himself.
"I can call most of the guards off," Zeno said, "But there will still be two left by strict order, and they will be pure Crimearian down to their blood cells."
"Fine, fine," the Doctor said, "We can deal with them. What else?"
"There is a first class alarm setup built in, very high-tech stuff and you will need the right password to get into the settings for the device. I don't know what it is. Human unfortunates are not entrusted with things that classified. Only the captain and Lord Grimwarr know it. The only other Crimearian who has access to that room is the captain's right-hand man, a short fellow called Macare. He tends to the vault, which is also there."
"Ah, that would be the vault our personal effects are stored in, I imagine," I said.
"Yes, in all probability," Zeno agreed. "It's the only one I know of. But, my memory is still a bit hazy."
"That's fine," the Doctor got to his feet and we all followed suit. For a moment, all of us stood there in solemn reflection.
"Do you really think you can save this world?" Zeno asked.
"Well, if we can't, we'll die trying," the Doctor gave us a grim smile. He took Zeno's gloved hand and gave it a friendly shake.
"Here's to the hope we do succeed," the Doctor said.
Felicity gave a resounding bark as if in agreement.
Zeno looked around at us. Though our acquaintance was only that of a quarter of an hour, we were parting as old friends. He briefly clasped the hands of Mr. Donovan and myself in his own. "Godspeed, my friends," he said.
"Godspeed, Zeno," the Doctor said.
The Doctor and I raised the door from its track with our bare hands, then we left the cell for what we all hoped was the last time. The Doctor closed it behind us and removed the index cards. Zeno put his helmet back on. I switched the current in the door on and we parted ways. We agreed to meet up in the corridor beyond the turn, just after the control room.
With Mr. Donovan's bottle of correction fluid and the Doctor's pack of gum in hand, Zeno was off down the corridor, going deep into the heart of the ship.
Because he had been on the ship so long, Zeno knew each and every room and hallway and where they led and what lay behind each closed door. The Crimearian tongue was now for him a second language and he could speak and read it with ease. He also had the asset of knowing which of his crew mates were fellow humans. Even when he had been mentally inactive and under control, he had, though unconsciously, been memorizing the rank numbers. And he knew just where each one of those numbers was stationed.
Zeno's first destination was the mechanic's room. He tapped in the entry code on the keypad and opened the door with caution. There was one mechanic present, his back to him, busy at a work station. Zeno stepped in and shut the door behind him. The mechanic didn't turn.
"Did you get the carbon filter?" the mechanic asked, busy with his repair work.
Zeno naturally did not reply and pounced on him. He was quicker than the Doctor and I had been and soon had the man fully alert and on his feet. The two of them tackled the second mechanic when he entered. He was revived and they held a conference in whispered tones while Zeno gave them the instructions. It was hard for the men to keep quiet as they were so elated at being liberated, but they understood the great importance of the new mission they were handed and were silent in their joy.
When all was settled, they parted with the phrase,
"Godspeed."