The Second Doctor: An unintelligent enemy is far less dangerous than an intelligent one, Jamie. Just act stupid. Do you think you can manage that?
- The Dominators
"So you mean to tell me that the emissaries simply fled?"
The blue-horned man looked down at the floor and nervously adjusted the sling on his arm. "Well, yes, but- they turned my own men against me!"
The figure just stared at him.
He fidgeted again.
"Were you armed?"
"Of course!"
"And you held them at gunpoint, didn't you."
The horned man backed up a few steps, looking even more distressed.
"You said, expect anything! How could we defend ours-"
"Who asked you to defend yourself!" shouted the figure. "What should have been a simple drop has now been bollixed up beyond recognition!" Striding forward, the figure seized the other by the throat.
"When I retained your services," he said softly,"I was assured by your boss that you were their top man in this field. Would you like me to express my disappointment? By, say, sending you back to him in seventeen different boxes?"
The man gurgled, but managed to shake his head emphatically no. On his release, he dropped to his knees, gagging and coughing.
"Get back out there. Try to clean the place up, and I'll try another tack. I just hope you haven't muddied things beyond recovery!" He turned and began to stalk away. "You had better hope nothing's happened with our prisoner, either!"
The blue-horned man babbled something conciliatory and exited as fast as he could.
The masked man continued on, past a sentry-held door, through three gates and finally, removed a glove to palm through a security lock on a heavily-sealed blast door. He entered a small cell. With a hiss and kerchunk, the blast door closed behind him.
The figure seated at the far end of the cell looked up.
"Oh, it's you."
"Indeed it is, Doctor. I had hoped to be arriving with the news that your ransom had been paid, but it appears that good help really is hard to come by."
The man gave a sigh.
"I'll have to do some re-negotiating, but I will get what I came for."
The Doctor got to his feet and dusted himself off. He then took hold of his coat and glared. "And what would that be?"
"Not that it is really any of your business, Doctor," snapped the man,"but I may as well tell you. All I want are a couple of art objects from the Gallery of the High Council. A small price, I should think, for a fellow Time Lord. Especially one of your notoriety."
"Hm. Nothing in that gallery is minor," mused the Doctor. "A more telling point is that you know of the existence of the Gallery at all..." He paced the width of the room a couple of times, shuffling occasionally. The man simply watched him. His actions betrayed nothing.
Suddenly the Doctor stopped and looked up, a troubled frown on his face.
"What really puzzles me," he said slowly,"is why you would offer me for ransom to the Time Lords in the first place. They have never negotiated that kind of thing in known memory, and I'm not really the kind of person they would value that highly..."
His expression changed to one of shock, and he slowly went to a crouch, as if his legs had suddenly gone weak.
"Oh dear," he said weakly. "Oh, my giddy aunt."
"Oh my," said the masked man. "Whatever is the matter, Doctor?"
The Doctor turned to stare at the man, his face still a mask of astonishment.
"You- you never had any intention of ransoming me," he said, his voice close to a whisper.
The figure barked a laugh, and gestured in invitation. "And?"
"You're turning me in, demanding a reward before I'm handed over," said the Doctor. His face had come back to a calmer expression, but his voice hadn't.
"Correct!" said the man, sounding jovial. "I knew you could figure it out!"
The Doctor straightened anew, and gave the man a baleful stare. "Answer me this one thing, then," he said.
"If I can."
"Why get your precious art objects this way? If they had caught up to me on their own, I probably would only stand trial for intervening. At the most, I could be exiled, or marked. But with this," he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, "this is much worse. They would have to justify the loss of several irreplaceable artifacts."
He paused, as if horrified at the prospect of such a loss himself.
"They would seek the maximum penalty."
The masked man nodded. "Now that you've illustrated it for me so succinctly," he said, "they might, at that."
The Doctor pressed his fingers to his temples, and took a few deep breaths. He looked up again.
"Since you've just passed a death sentence on me either way, would you mind telling me what it is you're after?"
The man seemed to consider this. "I believe that would be fair," he said. "The items I have been commissioned to retrieve are the Twin Founder paintings. The portraits of Rassilon and Omega."
"What?!" The Doctor stared, his look of bemusement topping even that shown earlier. "How could you know about those? Who are you?"
"Silence!" The figure raised a hand, and the Doctor staggered back. The door opened smoothly behind the masked man.
"I have been patient enough. I go now to re-negotiate." He stepped out, and the door began its descent.
"Wait!" called the Doctor. "What about my companions? They have no part in this!"
The blast door hissed shut.
"Oh, bother." The Doctor slumped against a wall with a sigh. He started to rummage about in his pockets, and soon produced a striped recorder.
"Jamie, Victoria, I am so very sorry," he said softly. "I had no idea things might end like this."
He put the recorder to his lips, closed his eyes, and began to play.
