Captain Chadha held a device which showed the position of all the pods. As the Doctor opened the door to her escape pod, she was busy determining which blip on her screen represented Officer Veena.
"Just as I thought," the Doctor said. "It's backed off. Not quite far enough that I could land the Tardis here, but…" He stepped out into the clearing around the front of the pod and gave the surroundings a quick scan.
Ensign Goel joined him. "The plants are different than when we went in," he said.
"Yes. More inviting, wouldn't you say?" the Doctor agreed. All signs of brambles were gone, and they were surrounded by beautiful flowers of several varieties and succulent citrusy fruits. Patches of grass grew in areas that were previously bare earth. Any one of them would make for a nice lie down under normal circumstances. "I'll bet they're pumping out soporific pheromones as well. Thus, the helmets."
He turned to the captain, who was just exiting the pod with Obelix trailing behind. "Remember, all of it is the Krynoid. You mustn't touch anything living." He turned and headed for the passage to the main path. "Stay close. We'll be moving fast."
Obelix immediately followed him. The captain and the ensign shared a glance, then ducked underneath the dangling foliage. They emerged in a path subtly changed from the one they'd previously left. The watching flowers remained, but their former soft petals now ended in barbed points, and they flexed occasionally now; opening and closing like the hungry mouths of some predatory insect. The leaves that surrounded them had a sheen to them that hadn't been there before. The effect was of something sticky, or even toxic. The trigger-leaves were gone from the path as well, replaced by clumps of sickly grass, six inches high in places.
The Doctor headed off to the right, and lead them over and around the clumps, between the towering walls of death on either side. Soon they came to the first fork of the path. "Which way?" the Doctor asked.
Chadha consulted her device. "To the right."
"And Pandora and Sastry are off to the left?" the Doctor asked.
"I do not intend to answer any questions about your companion until we have reached Officer Veena," she repeated.
"Captain, I have already agreed to rescue him first, and I'm a man of my word," the Doctor said. "However, if this is the path to them, and we need to backtrack to this location, I would like to mark it in someway. I'm working on a theory I don't much like. Now are they to the left, or are they not?"
Chadha hesitated a moment more, but finally said, "Yes."
The Doctor knelt and scratched the shape of an arrow into the dirt, pointing left. "Thank you. Let's go." He continued down the path to the right.
Another ten minutes later the Doctor held up a hand and crouched low. Captain Chadha was about to ask what made him stop when she heard it. Branches were being broken as something large moved steadily and unimpeded through the thick jungle off to the side of their path. The Doctor pointed to the left and slightly behind them, then motioned for them to continue.
They moved quietly, and slower than any of them wanted, until well after they could no longer hear the reluctant snap of live wood. Something about knowing that there was a monster stalking them made their sense of dread more immediate. Whether or not they touched the sides, or stepped on the grassy triggers to this planet's deadly trap, was mostly up to them. However, they had absolutely no control over when this creature might stumble up them.
The Doctor held up a hand again and they all stopped. He pointed off to the right. There was another passage through the hedge that has so far indicated the location of one of their escape pods. Captain Chadha consulted her device, and nodded to the Doctor. He shone the beam of his sonic around the edges of the passage and tentatively stepped inside. No stalactites this time, but the trigger-grass was in place, and the leaves virtually dripped with the sticky, toxic resin.
They gathered in the clearing on the other side of the passage. Despite the Doctor's intention to hurry, the daylight was starting to lessen. He skipped knocking this time, and used his sonic screwdriver to open the door to the pod.
The door hissed upward, but no light shone out. He stepped inside and waved his light around as the others joined him. Obelix stayed outside, whining.
The inside of the pod was a mess. Cupboards and drawers were open, with their contents spilled about the interior. The chair, intended to keep its occupant safe through planetfall, had been wrenched from its base and was laying on its side. Late afternoon light streamed solemnly through no less than three wide cracks in the hull. A large section at the rear of the pod was blackened, where a fire had briefly raged before a foam suppressant was released.
Worst of all was the body. The Krynoid had come in through every available opening, and three seed pods lay empty around the wreckage of the chair. Officer Veena lay, still strapped into the chair's restraints. He had died on impact, but that didn't stop the plants from draining his body of any available nutrients. A flowery plant grew from his empty eye sockets and gaping mouth, and a second had erupted from his chest.
The three of them stood in shocked silence, then the Captain approached the body. She reached out toward it, but the Doctor put a hand on her shoulder, holding her back. "His dog tags…" she started.
"No," the Doctor interrupted.
"For his family…" she said, reaching out again.
"Touch them, and this will be our tomb," the Doctor said. His tone was firm, but not lacking in compassion. "Let's go save the others."
Pandora had used the alcohol swabs very liberally, then covered the wounds on her arm with bandages. Mahamati had been right, it felt like something molten had been injected into her veins. She did her best not to think about it. What right had she to complain when he had it so much worse? She found a blanket and draped it over him. His temperature seemed to be dropping, and he continued to convulse, but the pills must finally be working because he had dropped off to sleep. Occasionally he would still moan, and his brows were knitted into a troubled expression. Whenever his head tossed from one side to the other, he left clumps of hair behind. The green spots now covered all his visible skin, and had grown a moss-like fuzz.
"Come on, Doctor," she said pleadingly. She wanted to get in contact with them again. She felt a need to tell the Doctor that she'd been… what? Bitten? Stung? Neither sounded right, but she needed to tell him, and more importantly, she needed to hear him say it would be alright. That he can fix it. None of that mattered though, because she had no idea how to operate the screen, and didn't know whether she could reach them anyway, if they were on their way.
She looked to where her gloves still lay on the counter. She thought about putting them back on, but an old saying about horses and barn doors occurred to her. Still, it could be like a snake bite. Just because you've been bitten already doesn't mean you want to be bitten again. She finally walked to the counter and put them on, even if there was no point, it was something to do.
She went back to Mahamati's side, and for a moment, she saw her own face there. She saw her own future. She looked away and blinked back tears. She took a deep breath and settled herself. There'd be no way to wipe away tears, and there was no way she'd be taking the helmet back off.
"Antibiotics," she said. "What kind of first aid kit doesn't have antibiotics?" She left Mahamati to start searching again. She found the food paste dispenser. "Probably full of vitamins, but I doubt I could force feed him." She moved on. Hearing the sound of her own voice helped. The next cupboard was full of resistance bands. "What, no yoga ball?" she said. The next one had a dozen or so packets of seeds and some sort of dehydrated potting medium. "Great. More plants. Just what I needed." A torch in the next drawer, a scanner of some sort in the next, fuses and chipsets in the one after that. She slammed it shut and turned to look around the place. "Why isn't any of this labeled?" she yelled.
Mahamati twitched again under the blanket. Pandora rushed back to his side. "Sorry," she said softly, putting a gloved hand on his forehead.
She was startled at the sound of an animal whine from behind her. She turned to see Obelix come running into the clearing. She smiled with sudden relief and joy, then quickly looked up at the wires joined with duct tape at the top of the open entrance. "Sluta!" she yelled, and the dog sat on its haunches a foot or so from the deadly forcefield.
Pandora moved quickly to the door and stood on tip-toe to reach the hastily bundled wires. There was a barely perceptible shimmer in the air, and the threshold was safe again to cross. She got down on one knee and called to Obelix. "Kom, pojke." The dog stood up and padded to her. She hugged his shoulders and rubbed his back through the suit. The Doctor and two strangers came into the clearing behind him.
Pandora stood and opened her mouth to say something, but the Doctor gave her a stern look and passed by her. Captain Chadha gave her a nod of acknowledgment and followed him. Ensign Goel stayed outside, holding his weapon at the ready. Pandora gave him an appraising look, then turned to join the Doctor and Chadha at Mahamati's side. "Doctor," she said.
He ignored her. "I'm sorry, Chadha, but there's nothing we can do for him. He's all but turned now," he said.
"I do not accept that, Doctor. There must be something we can do," the captain said.
"But there isn't. I'm so sorry, but believe me. I've seen it before. The Krynoid spreads throughout the victim's system, like a virus. It's inevitable, it's irreversible, and it's only a matter of time. Soon he'll become one of those lumbering creatures we heard outside."
"Doctor," Pandora tried again.
"Pandora, please. We'll talk later. Can't you see a man is dying here?" the Doctor said, exasperated.
"So am I!" Pandora yelled back. She yanked the glove off of her injured arm and held it up for all to see. Green spots had formed around the edge of the bandages.
The Doctor's mouth gaped, and his shoulders slumped. Pandora had held onto some hope until that moment. She'd heard everything he said earlier, and she knew it was serious, but even after what the Doctor had said about Mahamati's hopeless case, she had to believe there was still a chance for her, but all she saw in the Doctor's expression was defeat.
"Maybe if we amputated…" he said without any real conviction.
Pandora took a step backward, a chill running up her spine. "Amputate? No, Doctor, please! You can't!" Tears welled up again, and this time she could not control them. "Please, Doctor! Say you can save my arm?"
He continued to look at her sadly for a moment more, then turned to the captain. "Are there any antibiotics on this pod?" he asked her.
"So, you can save her, then?" the captain responded.
"I have to try!" the Doctor yelled.
"But not Mahamati?" she retorted.
"Surely you can see he's too advanced! We'd only be wasting them! Now, quickly: Where are the antibiotics?"
The captain opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a wet, squelching sound from behind them. Roots and vines erupted from every part of Mahamati's body, ripping through skin and clothing alike. Green liquid splashed over the side of the chair and dripped from leaves and shoots that unfurled along the length of the vines. They stretched out in all direction, seeking something to cling to, then settled into a vaguely humanoid form. The creature that was once Mahamati sat up in his chair and turned toward them. The only human thing that remained of him was his eyes.
The Doctor pushed Pandora toward the entrance. "Run!" he yelled. He reached for the captain, but she was already pulling away from the creature. She pushed toward the doorway and started running.
Pandora called out, "My box…" but the Doctor kept pushing her. They got to the center of the clearing and turned.
The Krynoid moved faster than anything that big should be able to. It reached out with a hand which was just a mass of vines that whipped around like tentacles. It grabbed hold of the doorway and flowed out into the clearing, the roots of its feet digging into the bare earth. It seemed to gain strength and grow even larger.
The plant life around them responded to its presence and began to close in, the passage behind them to close up.
The Krynoid reached for the captain, the vines of its hand growing to stretch the distance between them. Ensign Goel came up behind them. "Duck, captain!" he yelled and pulled his trigger.
The Doctor, Chadha and Pandora dove to the ground, and the air above them roared with hellfire as Goel waved the barrel of his flame thrower from side to side, dousing the Krynoid. The creature roared and flailed around. Balls of wriggling, flaming vines flew off, setting fire to the advancing wall of plants.
Goel turned and blasted the passage behind them. Flames raged up the sides and the plants recoiled from the heat. More grew in from behind him and he advanced into the space he had made, then turned to hit the branches that were flanking him. They closed in from all directions, and while he burnt the ones in front, they came closer behind him until he was finally caught by the leg. He tried to turn, but couldn't quite reach the vine that had a hold of him. Another snaked in from the other side and got his arm, then a third started to pry the weapon from his hands. He held on all the tighter and managed to point the barrel downward.
"Stay down!" the Doctor yelled. He put a hand on each of their helmets and pushed them into the dirt. Goel pulled the trigger, dousing himself and all the plants around him in liquid fire. Flames licked up the barrel of the weapon, and found a weak spot. The tanks caught fire, and there was a momentary jet, then a massive explosion. A large circle around where Goel had been standing was entirely cleared of vegetation in an instant.
The Doctor looked up at the Krynoid, still staggering around, one leg burnt off and arms flailing. He looked forward at the clearing, and beyond it could glimpse the path that had led them here. "Run! Now!" he yelled and leapt to his feet.
"My box!" Pandora yelled, looking back at the entrance to the pod.
The Doctor pushed her forward. The plants were already creeping inward, reclaiming the burnt out area.
Pandora turned once more toward the pod. The dog stood in the entrance, cowering from the fiery plant creature that separated him from them. "Obelix!" she yelled.
The Doctor continued to push her forward, but turned to look. Between the branches that were beginning to reform a barrier to the clearing, and under one flailing arm of the Krynoid, he could just make out the dog. "Sitt!" he yelled. "Ner!" He pointed his sonic at the entrance, and the view of Obelix shimmered for a moment, then the Doctor turned and ran.
The Doctor led Pandora by the hand, chasing after Captain Chadha. They sprinted ahead as the walls of the path closed in behind them, in an expanding circle from the point of the explosion.
"I don't even know if we're running in the right direction!" Chadha called over the suit's coms.
"Nobody does," the Doctor called back. "Remember that arrow I drew on the ground before? We never passed it. The trails have been constantly shifting since we got here. I'm not even sure if it connects back to the Tardis any more."
"Doctor," Pandora panted. "I can't keep up."
The Doctor glanced back at her. She was pale, and sweating from their short exertion. Her eyes were heavy, and she was stumbling along. He looked back at the trail closing up behind them. It looked like it was slowing as well. "Sastry's Krynoid was the plants' eyes and ears. With him gone, they don't know where we are anymore. I think it's safe to slow down."
Chadha slowed down to a quick walk ahead of them, and the Doctor and Pandora matched her speed.
"Thank you," Pandora said.
The trail had stopped closing up behind them, and so without verbally agreeing on it, they came to a stop. Chadha leaned over with her hands on her knees. "My crew…" she said.
The Doctor walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. "Ensign Goel died saving our lives. Let's make sure that counts for something." He was quiet for a while, then said, "I never even found out his name."
Chadha looked up at the Doctor with a sad smile. "Abhay. It means 'brave one'."
The Doctor smiled back, and patted her on the shoulder. "He certainly lived up to his name." He squeezed her shoulder and walked back to be with Pandora. He knelt down in front of her and held her hand in both of his. "If you're feeling any better, we should move."
Pandora nodded, though in truth, she didn't feel any better. "But, where do we go? I heard what you said about the trails."
The Doctor held up his sonic screwdriver. The tip glowed blue. He stood up and slowly moved in a circle, and stopped a third of the way around. "The Tardis is that way." He shut of the sonic and pointed down the trail leading closest to that direction. "We head this way. When the path branches, I scan again until we get there."
"Okay, make's sense we go that way, it's all closed up behind us." Pandora said, standing.
"Don't be so sure," the Doctor said. He indicated with a tilt of his head that she should look behind her.
Pandora turned. The plants were moving apart to make a path, curving off in a different direction than the old one had. "Oh. Great."
"Pandora, you're scratching your arm. Does it itch?" the Doctor asked.
She looked down at her arm, not realizing she'd been scratching at it. "No actually. It burns. From the sting."
The Doctor was quiet for a bit, just watching her. "You realize it was the other arm that got stung, right?"
Her eyes got wide, and she felt at the other arm. "It's gone numb, Doctor."
He took her hand. "We need to hurry. If there's any chance to save you, it will be back on the Tardis." He turned and started walking briskly up the path. "Chadha, we're going. Now. Keep up." He brushed past her, despite the narrow space.
They continued a lively pace for another half hour before Pandora began to complain again. "No more. I can't, Doctor, I'm sorry, but I can't." She let go of the Doctor's hand, and bent over with her hands on her knees. "I feel like I'm going to pass out," she said, breathing hard.
"It's okay. Lay down," the Doctor said, helping her to the ground in a clear part of the path. "Just breath."
"It hurts, Doctor. It hurts a lot," Pandora said faintly.
The Doctor looked up at Chadha then back down at Pandora. The veins on her neck were raised and black. They couldn't see any more of her, but her arms were surely covered in green sores by now, possibly more of her. Her legs and arms were twitching uncontrollably. She closed her eyes and breathed fitfully.
"Stay with us, Pandora. We're going to get you back to the Tardis. Once we're there, I've got something that will help." He waited for some sign that she could hear him. "Pandora?" he called out again, shaking her shoulder gently.
She did not respond. Her brows were knitted in pain, and her eyes moved around as if in fitful sleep.
The Doctor looked up at Chadha. "It's the activity. Her blood pumping through her body has spread the infection faster than normal. I'm afraid we've — I've been making her worse. At this rate she hasn't got long. I've got to find some way to slow down her metabolism."
He let go of her shoulders and reached for Chadha instead. She backed away instinctively as he started patting her down. "Doctor?" she said, offended.
"Do you have anything on you? A sedative? Something they may have packed in the suit for survival situations?"
"No, Doctor, nothing. Just air, and this locator," she said, still pulling away from him.
"Air!" the Doctor said. "Maybe if I reduce the air pressure, it will act as a sedative." He rolled her onto her side to reach the regulator valve, but paused before twisting it tighter. "It could also kill her." He laid her back down gently, leaving the valve untouched.
He sat back on his heels, thinking frantically for several seconds, then he leaned over her and grabbed both shoulders, shaking her hard. "Hey! You! Whatever you are, living inside of Pandora! Come out and save her!" He let go of her shoulders and watched her for any reaction at all.
"Doctor?" Chadha said.
He ignored her. When there was no response from Pandora, he lifted her by the shoulders and shoved her back down, the dome of her helmet thumping hard on the ground. "You care so much about that damned box, you're ready to kill for it! What happens if the box's defender dies, huh? Where will you be then? Save her!"
"What are you talking about, Doctor?" Chadha asked.
"Quiet. I need to do this," he spat. "Come on!" He started shaking her violently. "Save her!"
There was no response from Pandora, other than the convulsing of her limbs.
The Doctor gave it another ten or fifteen seconds, whispering under his breath the whole time, "Come on, come on, come on." Finally he said quietly, "No choice."
He reached down and grasped her helmet with both hands and twisted until the seals came undone. He pulled it off and set it aside. He reached down with one hand and pinched her nostrils closed, then he placed his other hand over her mouth.
Pandora's eyes flew open, and met the Doctor's with a look of surprise. She grabbed his arms with both of hers and shook her head back and forth, trying to force him off of her. The Doctor kept hold of her mouth and nose, even leaning forward to put more of his weight on her.
"Doctor, what are you doing?" Chadha said. She grabbed him by the shoulders, trying to pull him back.
"Get off me!" he yelled. He let go of Pandora's nose for a moment to take a swipe at Chadha, who stepped back out of his reach. Pandora sucked in as much breath as she could before the Doctor got his hand back on her nose, pinching her nostrils shut. "I'm so sorry, Pandora. I'm so sorry."
Pandora balled her hands into fists and started pounding on the Doctor's arms, but he wouldn't stop. Her movements grew weaker and weaker until her arms fell to her sides and her eyes rolled back.
The Doctor continued to hold her airways closed.
"What have you done, Doctor?" Chadha asked in horror.
He finally let go. He stood up, whipping out his sonic screwdriver and scanning the area. He settled on one spot. "Now, we run," he said. He lifted up Pandora's body and threw her over his shoulder, then took off running, without looking back at Chadha.
"This is part of a plan, yes? You are going to revive her, correct?" Chadha said over the coms as they ran.
"I hope so. I'm running on hope at this point. I first realized this inevitability when I thought about the fact that lowering her oxygen level might kill her. It made me think of your unfortunate crewman Veena. He was already dead when the Krynoid got to him, so he couldn't be taken over. The Krynoid needs a living system to infest, and the one in Pandora is still at the early stages. It hasn't reached maturity. I'm hoping that killing her does more damage to it than it will to her. If you have a particular god that brings you comfort, say a prayer for her. We have three minutes and twenty-one seconds before oxygen deprivation starts to cause brain damage."
He continued to run. They reached another bulb cannon, but the Doctor didn't even break his stride. He tore off around the corner, holding his sonic out in front, its blue light glowing brightly in the growing darkness. Soon after that, there was another fork in the path, and the Doctor took another scan, then turned almost completely around to take the right fork. After another minute of running down the curved path, he came to a stop.
"There she is. Just through there. So close and yet so far," the Doctor said. Through the brambles and flowering vines that made up the wall to the path, they could see a boxy, deep blue shape. They could just about touch it if they reached carefully.
"Perhaps another passage has opened up?" Chadha said hopefully.
The light on the end of the Doctor's sonic switched from blue to bright white, and he swept it up and down the path. "Doesn't look like it. And I don't have any time left." His expression became resolute, and the light on his sonic changed again, this time to red. It made a buzzing sound that rose in pitch as he slowly pulled the ring back. It became painfully high, then inaudible. He continued to pull back on the ring. The leaves all along the wall began to shake, and soon, the interlocking vines let go and pulled away.
The shape of the police box was revealed. "That's your rescue ship?" Chadha asked.
"Yes. Go. Now," the Doctor said, as the branches continued to retreat around them. The vines were changing as well, thorns were growing to incredible lengths, dripping with toxicity. Chadha had never before imagined an angry plant, but that was clearly what she was looking at now.
She ran for the Tardis door as soon as it was clear. She pulled on the handles, and when that didn't work, she pushed the doors wide and ran inside. He slammed the doors shut, and the Tardis rocked from the sudden assault of all the branches retaking the ground they'd lost. The Doctor ignored it and ran to a bookshelf across the console room. He passed Chadha along the way, and caught her curious expression. "Bigger on the inside. Yes, I know," he said.
"Yes, very clever," she said. "What I don't get is why the doors say to pull if you have to push to get in? We could have died out there waiting for me to figure it out."
The Doctor reached the bookshelf, and pulled back on a red volume in the middle. There was a click, and the shelf swung upward. A thin table, covered in a mattress emerged from the hollow behind the wall, and the Doctor laid Pandora down on it even before it stopped moving. He pulled a mass of wires from a panel under the bookshelf and began sticking them to key points around her head.
"Can I help?" Chadha asked.
The Doctor looked at her skeptically.
"The Nirmala Joshi was a medical ship," she explained. "She was crewed by doctors, including me."
He went back to what he was doing. "Well then, Doctor Chadha, if you can manage an injection, there's a panel in front of you. Third hypo from the right is what we're looking for."
Chadha opened the panel and located the syringe. "Adrenaline?" she asked, unzipping Pandora's suit to get to her chest.
"No," the Doctor said. "It's too soon to revive her. It's a catalyst. It will allow her brain to metabolize fructose. Thanks to the invasive plant, there's plenty of it in her system now. She can go for eighteen, maybe twenty minutes without oxygen that way. But you have to administer it," he said, turning Pandora's head to the side, "here. Between the second and third cervical vertebrae."
Chadha quickly removed her helmet, then shrugged out of her suit, letting it drop to the floor. She picked out the syringe and used two fingers of her other hand to locate the break between vertebrae. She pushed the long needle in until there was a cracking sound, then she pressed down hard on the plunger.
The Doctor finished up with the sticky tabs on the electrodes and flipped on a monitor above the bed. "Good," he said, stepping back. "Okay. That should buy us a few more minutes." He ran out of the room through a doorway to the left of the console. He returned a minute later with a vial of some liquid. "Prepare another syringe, an empty one," he said, and set the vial down next to the bed. He pulled the suit down over Pandora's shoulder, loosened her glove and pulled her arm out of the sleeve. Green spots extended up past her shoulder, and black veins could be seen under her skin all the way up her neck. "Any one of these will do."
"And what is in this one?" Chadha asked as she passed the Doctor a syringe.
"It's a synthetic auxin," he said, filling the syringe up from the vial. "Plant cells use auxin to grow and reproduce. This will theoretically throw a spanner in the works. Also theoretically, it won't harm Pandora at all." He shot a bit of the liquid into several of the larger veins, then looked back up at Chadha. "Theoretically."
"And you just have bottles of that laying around?" Chadha asked.
"No. Course not. But I've got a machine in there that'll replicate anything, as long as you can convince it it's food."
He handed the syringe and the vial to Chadha. "Try to get as many veins as you can. You can hopefully find a few more on her legs. Without blood flowing through her system, you're going to need to distribute it by hand." He came around to Chadha's side of the bed. "In just over ten minutes, the machine will automatically attempt to revive her via direct cortex stimulation." He pointed first to one of the syringes in the wall panel, then to another. "Adrenaline. Cyanide. Don't mix them up. If the machine needs help reviving her, use the adrenaline. If the spots continue to spread before the ten minutes are up, use the other. If you don't, she'll climb off this bed and kill you. Understood?"
"Why me, Doctor? Where are you going?" Chadha asked, holding the empty syringe in one raised hand.
The Doctor ran to the door, then turned back to face her, holding his sonic up in a similar position. "I left my dog outside. I've just got to fetch him."
Pandora blinked her eyes open. It took her a few moments to come to her senses, during which she made eye contact with Doctor Chadha, who was leaning over her. Pandora sat bolt upright, pulling the electrodes on her head to their limit. "My box!" she said, and then, "Ow!" She rubbed at her head, then looked down at her arms. There were needle tracks up and down their length, and the veins were swollen and blue, but at least the green spots were nearly gone.
She looked up to find the Doctor sitting crosslegged nearby in his customary reading chair, with a large book, open on his lap. He reached over to the table next to him, and placed a hand on top of her wooden chest.
"Yes. I killed you a couple hours ago, but I did save your box. Good to see you've got your priorities straight," he said at the obvious relief in her eyes. He set a playing card in the book to mark the page, then closed it and set it beside Pandora's box. He came over to stand next to her. "Please lie back down. Your system is going to need some time to flush out a lot of toxins. Are you hungry at all?" he asked, helping her into a laying position. Doctor Chadha excused herself to let them talk.
"Hungry?" she repeated. "No. I feel like I'm going to vomit. And I'm in too much pain to be properly angry right now. I'll trust you to remind me later." She closed her eyes. "Doctor, you scared the hell out of me back there."
"I know," he said. "And I'm sorry." He started peeling the electrodes off of her head. "On the other hand, I've got a new 'most difficult thing I've ever had to do'. Those are hard to come by."
Pandora felt a slobbery tongue on her hand, and lifted her head enough to see the dog. "Obelix!"
"Yeah. I had to save him too, seeing as how he was right by that box of yours."
"Good boy," she rasped. She patted him on the head as she lay back down on the pillow.
There was a deep base thud, and the electricity stopped arcing over the console. "Ah! That's us, back on New New Delhi. Doctor Chadha, grab your coat."
He ran to the doors, pulling his own hoodie from the hat rack, and throwing it on as he pulled open the doors. Outside could be seen the soaring skyscrapers of the capital city, situated around a stunning stone-for-stone replica of the Swaminarayan Akshardham.
Chadha stepped outside, basking in the smells of home, a place she had barely hoped to return to. She turned back to the Doctor, standing in the doorway of his Tardis. "Thank you, Doctor. I only wish I had something of my crew to return to their families."
"I'm afraid that will never be possible. But do remember to set up the beacons. Warn all future travelers away from that planet."
"I will Doctor. Goodbye."
The Doctor closed the door to the Tardis, and Chadha watched it fade away and disappear into the night. She turned to walk back to her home, but was surprised to hear the sounds of the Tardis's engines again. She turned back around and saw the blue box slowly re-materialize. When it was fully solid, the Doctor opened the door up and leaned his head out.
"Oh, by the way, I found all these crates of antibiotic on some derelict spaceship. I hope you don't mind if I leave it here." With that he closed the door, and the Tardis engines started back up. The blue box faded once again from the streets of New New Delhi. In its place were rows and rows of crates that Chadha recognized as the entire cargo manifest of the Nirmala Joshi.