Part Five: Standoff
Emera had gone quiet, after the initial violence of her grief and horror.
Sitting with an arm draped around the Lindosian's shoulders while she shook with silent sobs, Sarah still couldn't take her eyes off the bodies heaped high in the pit before them. She felt as if the sight of them was burning itself onto her retinas, inescapable and unforgettable. The part of her mind that was still somehow capable of rational thought observed that the corpses were in varying stages of decomposition, which suggested that this charnel pit had been in use for quite some time, and she wondered just how many years the sky raiders had been snatching these people from their homes and bringing them up here to their deaths. She couldn't even begin to count how many were down there. A couple at the top looked quite fresh and a dispassionate voice at the back of her mind told her they'd probably been killed in that tunnel collapse – they looked to have what Harry would probably call crush injuries.
Harry would be a useful person to have around right now. He was unpredictable in tense or emotional circumstances, could be almost ridiculously awkward at times, but he did have a very soothing bedside manner when he chose to turn it on, and although Sarah herself generally had very little patience with being soothed, Emera could certainly do with some just now, and she didn't feel in any fit state to give it.
"My people…" The words were no more than a whisper on the edge of audibility.
"I know," Sarah whispered back.
"There was a man." Emera's eyes were turned away from the corpses, fixed unblinkingly on the ground beneath her, her voice low. "We were pair-bonded, long ago. Toral was his name. He was taken, so many seasons past, before our youngest child had been birthed. And now I see where he found his eternal rest."
"You don't know that." Even as she said it, Sarah knew the attempt at reassurance was futile, but it came automatically, almost unbidden. "He might be with one of the other work parties still…"
Emera shook her head. "No. I know. It is many turns of the seasons now, too many. He is in there, somewhere, so very far from the soil and sun."
She was crying again and there was nothing Sarah could do, nothing she could say – there was nothing that could ever make this better, nothing that could bring back all these people who'd been snatched from their homes and families and brought up here to this desolate moon to live, work and die in slavery underground. The sky raiders hadn't even given them the dignity of a proper burial, had dumped them in here like animals – worse, like refuse.
"But no more." Her own cheeks were wet, and she dashed at them angrily with the back of a grimy hand. "No more. We're going to put a stop to this, Emera. We're going to get your people home so that no one else gets thrown in here like this, no one."
"Why?" Eyes brimming with tears turned toward her, innocent in their incomprehension. "Why do you help us? This is not your world. We are not your people. When the sky raiders came to us they brought destruction. Why would you, who are also strangers, risk all to help us?"
"Why?" Sarah echoed the question, surprised by it. She rarely questioned her own motives for pitching in, only knew that she had never been able to walk past someone in need. Now more than ever she tended to follow the Doctor's example without question or hesitation, plunging headlong into whatever situation they found themselves in, trying to do whatever was right, or at least what seemed right, because there were always lives at stake, and how could anyone just stand back and do nothing when there were lives at stake? "Because I couldn't live with myself," she said, "If I just walked away and left you here like this."
Emera was silent for a moment. "Then we should go on," she said at length.
"Are you sure you're ready."
"I think we must."
Sarah nodded. "All right, then. On we go."
dwdwdwdwdw
"My people are not bad people, you know."
Talib sounded almost fierce, as if it were very important to him that Harry and Roba should believe this.
"Even the ones who work here," he continued as he leant around a corner and then gestured for them to follow. "They're not bad, not really – not most of them. They're weak. They have families to support, bills to pay. Lu-Corps controls the economy and the salary is needed. So they close their eyes to the work they do. They tell themselves it doesn't matter, the natives are only primitives, the money is what matters – feeding those mouths back home. They close their eyes and keep their mouths shut. They follow orders."
Harry was a naval officer; he knew all about following orders. In the military one had to be prepared to do anything, including kill, on the order of a superior officer, without question, for the greater good. It was a matter of trust.
He was also a doctor. He'd sworn an oath to do no harm and had been fortunate thus far in his career that the two sides of his profession, the medical and the military, had never yet come into conflict.
He wondered what he would do if he were ordered to act against his conscience, to cause harm to innocents. Would he continue to trust that a greater good was somehow still being served by those orders? Or would he have the courage to say no and face the consequence?
"Well, they'll lose their jobs now," he said, hurrying after Talib to the next point of cover, "If we pull this off."
"I know that." Talib looked grim. "There will be hardship, for a time. But it must be done. With Lu-Corps gone, the economy will recover, free government will recover – and the primitives will also recover, left to themselves. It will be for the best, for all."
"I'm not primitive."
Harry glanced down in surprise to see Roba glaring fiercely at Talib.
"I know what that means," he said with all the wounded dignity a small boy could muster. "Everyone keeps saying it. It means we don't know anything. But I know things. I don't have a flying cart, but I know things. I know things that you don't."
Talib met Harry's eye and shrugged. It was a very human-like gesture for such an alien-looking creature. "I'm sure you do," he agreed. "I'm sorry if I offended you. But now we must be quiet – we are near the refinery; there will be workers there who may hear us."
"Mum's the word, then," Harry agreed, and two pairs of alien eyes turned upon him, uncomprehending. He tried again, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Er – quietly does it, I mean."
Talib nodded. "Come – this way."
dwdwdwdwdw
There was a checkpoint at the mine exit, manned by a very bored-looking sky raider, who appeared to be playing some kind of logic game on his computer terminal while he waited for the next load to be brought out.
Sarah watched him for a while to get a feel for the lie of the land, and then prepared to sneak back to where she'd left Emera, further back in the tunnel, but stopped short when she spotted another one approaching. Tucking herself back into her hiding place, she listened intently to their conversation, anxious for news about the Doctor or Harry, or any other information that might prove useful.
It wasn't that kind of conversation, however. The two sky raiders chatted at length about their new shift patterns, which it seemed no one was happy with, about when they might next expect to get furlough and how much their children back home might have grown by the time they got to see them, about how they were never getting paid enough to work on a rock like this for months on end…it was, in short, a disconcertingly normal conversation. It was the kind of conversation you might expect to hear around the coffee pot in any office back on Earth in the course of the average working day, and such casual, everyday chitchat felt jarringly out of place coming from the mouths of the slavers responsible for that charnel pit. It felt wrong just to be listening to it, listening to these monsters chattering away as if they were people, as if they weren't responsible for the devastation of so many innocent lives.
At last the visitor headed off, leaving the bored one to his game. Sarah slunk away into the shadows of the tunnel, back to the spot where she'd left Emera, and updated her on what she'd seen: the checkpoint and its guard that barred their exit from the mine.
"Then a di-ver-sion is needed." Emera stumbled slightly over the unfamiliar word. "As before, to allow us to pass."
Sarah agreed and wracked her brains as they crept back toward the exit, trying to think of a way they might be able to distract the guard long enough to sneak past. Emera's expression hardened at the sight of him, and Sarah knew she was seeing that charnel pit again, maybe thinking of the husband she'd lost and the children she'd been taken from.
"I will distract him." The Lindosian's tone was grim, resolute. "You must go on."
"Emera, wait," Sarah hissed, but it was too late, the other woman had already hurried forward to challenge the guard, whose shock at the sight of her might have been amusing in different circumstances.
It didn't seem to occur to him to draw his weapon and start shooting. That much was a relief. He clearly just assumed that Emera was trying to escape – which was true enough, after all – and so tried to herd her back into the mine, where she was supposed to be. Emera evaded him and tried to run past and, as he leapt forward to catch her, Sarah snuck up behind him, snatched up a hefty metal flask from the desk he'd just vacated, and cracked him over the head with it, as hard as she possibly could.
He crumpled to the ground at her feet and she was rather shocked at how good it felt, couldn't get those bodies in that pit out of her mind.
She bent and took the gun from his belt holster, tucked it into her own belt, alongside the Doctor's hat. "Come on, this way."
They'd made it all of five strides past the checkpoint into the moon base proper when an alarm started to ring, bringing them skidding to a panicked halt.
"They know that we have escaped! We will be caught!" Emera was panic-stricken, her newly-found daring and resolve crumbling fast in the face of this setback, and Sarah caught at her hand.
"No, no – the alarm isn't for us." It couldn't be – they were still within sight of the guard she'd hit and he was still out cold. No one had found him and he hadn't set off an alert, which meant it was for something else. The Doctor, perhaps? Harry? A stab of fear mingled with frustration tore through her. They might be doing anything and anything might be happening to them and here she was, unable to help.
Because whatever the alarm was for, there was movement up ahead now, blocking their escape.
The very thought of retreat at this point tasted bitter, but there was no other choice. "Quick, back into the mine!"
As they ran to get back out of sight before they could be spotted, Sarah could only imagine what might be going on elsewhere.
dwdwdwdwdw
"Your escape has been discovered." Talib's prominent brow ridges were furrowed in an expression of deep concern as he listened intently to a transmission on his radio headset and then switched it off again.
Harry's first panicked thought at the sound of the alarm had been that the Doctor may have been captured – or Sarah, perhaps, he'd been worried what might have become of her since they were separated – but this was almost as bad, if not unexpected. "I suppose it had to happen sooner or later."
"But there will be a search, we must hurry."
They'd been hurrying already, as silently as these metal floors would allow, moving swiftly through a maintenance shaft that ran behind what Talib said was a refinery, where lumps of raw lupium ore from the mines were processed for export back to the Tarsin homeworld.
Harry was still hazy on just what lupium was exactly and what it might be used for – a mineral and an energy source, according to the Doctor – but such details hardly seemed important. The Tarsins valued the stuff highly but it was emphatically not worth the suffering it caused, that was as much as he needed to know.
"Here. Just here." Talib stopped in the middle of a nondescript section of the passage and reached above his head to fumble with a panel that was identical to those around it, no distinguishing features whatsoever. Pulling it open at the corner, he reached inside and took out a tiny oblong of plastic and metal, no more than an inch long, then carefully secured the panel once more so that it appeared undisturbed. "Here, this is the device."
"That?" A data storage device, the Doctor had said, containing Talib's research, which was somehow the key to resolving this whole affair. Harry hadn't expected it to be so…small.
"This." Talib's hand was trembling, his voice hoarse. "Months, I've been here months: hiding and sneaking, hacking systems, gathering evidence – with no way to send that information to those who could use it. So very close, and yet so far – and now if the Doctor can do as he says…"
"Oh, he'll do it all right," Harry stoutly assured him. Stepping into the TARDIS had been a bit like Alice tumbling through the looking glass into Wonderland, nothing that he'd once thought he knew seemed safe or certain any more…except for the Doctor, and his uncanny ability to find a solution to any problem, no matter how seemingly insurmountable. And they'd seen a lot that was far more seemingly insurmountable than this. "You'll see. The Doctor's a first rate boffin."
"I hope you're right. Everything rests on it, everything."
Harry lifted an eyebrow. "We'd better get cracking then, hadn't we?"
The steady toll of the alarm lent a heightened sense of urgency to their steps as they hurried back along the maintenance shaft. Talib went ahead, and, as they reached the opening back into the main corridor, he paused to cautiously peer out – then flung out an arm, jerking back.
"Wait!" The warning was hissed under his breath as he urgently pushed Harry further back into the shaft.
"What is it?" Harry carefully shepherded Roba ahead of him, the boy clutching at his arm.
"Guards, at the refinery door – we can't get past without being seen."
"Well, we can't stay here. The Doctor's waiting for that device of yours."
"We must not be caught with it!" Talib's sallow features paled at the very idea of it.
"Well then, if we distract them, perhaps – make a break for it. How many were there? We might make it…" Harry's voice trailed off even as he suggested it. Although he would willingly take the chance for himself, he knew he couldn't – wouldn't – risk Roba's life.
"With both the data and the child, the risk is too great." Talib's pessimism was disheartening. "This is the second escape from custody now – lethal counter-measures will have been authorised."
"If we run for it, they'll shoot to kill rather than capture, you mean." Harry had been shot at with lethal intent before and never much cared for the experience. "Is there another way through, then," he persevered, "if we followed this passage to the other end?"
"No, the passage is blind-ended. There are ventilation shafts – here, you see? But they are small. You or I could never hope of fitting through." Talib's eyes lit up suddenly. "But the boy, perhaps…" He swung around to stare intently at Roba.
"Oh no," Harry protested at once, feeling the reflexive clutch of the boy's fingers tightening on his arm, a silent plea for help. "No, he's a child, you can't possibly expect –"
"But there is no other way!" Talib insisted. "The information must get through, and it must not be found. This shaft will be searched. We cannot escape, but the boy can. If he succeeds, if he gets this device to the Doctor – gets the data transmitted to those who can use it – it will be worth everything, any price."
We cannot escape. Harry didn't like the sound of that one little bit. He looked down at Roba's wide-eyed, frightened little face. "Do you think you could do it, Roba – do you remember the way?"
"It will be safer," Talib added, "Much safer than remaining here with us."
"I remember the way." Roba's voice was little more than the ghost of a whisper. "I remember the turns we took. Must I do it? Alone?"
"I'm sorry, old chap." Harry took hold of the boy's shoulders, bent to look him in the eye. "I don't think there's any other way. You just have to get to the Doctor. He'll take care of you."
"But what will happen to you?"
A very good question. "Don't you worry about that," Harry told him. "Take the device – you understand how important it is?"
Roba nodded. "The Doctor will use it to set my mother free."
"Well, that's the plan, old chap." The essence of it, at any rate – always supposing the Doctor wasn't found first, if that computer room was searched. "So you'll do it?"
Roba stared at his feet, shuffling uncomfortably. "Why do you call everyone old?" he suddenly asked.
The incongruity of the question was startling. A chuckle escaped. "You've been talking to Sarah, my boy. It's a very old habit of mine, I'm afraid – she's been trying to break me of it since we met."
A wan smile crept across the boy's face. "She hasn't done a very good job."
"No," Harry agreed. "She hasn't."
"I will go." Roba was staring at his feet again, his voice small. "If I really must, I will do it."
"That's the spirit." Harry tried to infuse his voice with all the confidence he wasn't feeling, for Roba's sake.
Talib was already pulling the ventilation shaft open, there was no time to waste, but Harry couldn't help remembering what an ordeal it had been for Sarah to crawl through a similar shaft, back on Nerva Space Station – and she'd at least had a radio to remain in constant communication, and directions to guide her route.
"Now, it'll be dark in there," he warned, wishing he could think of another way. "So keep picturing in your mind the turns you need to take, and move as quietly as you can so that no one hears. Remember: it isn't so very far, and the Doctor will sort everything out, once you reach him, so try not to worry too much, eh."
And then there was nothing left to do but lift the boy up to the ventilation shaft and let him scramble inside, sealing it up after him with a final call of "Good luck, and be careful."
"A very brave boy," Talib declared once Roba was on his way, and Harry agreed – but, rather more to the point, now that both Roba and the data storage device were safely out of harm's way, he was rather concerned about their own prospects for escaping this cramped shaft before they could be pinned down by any search parties.
"Now then, what are our chances of getting past those guards in one piece? The Doctor said there was a stun setting on this gun of yours." Keeping his voice low, he pulled the gun out to take another look at it, tried to calculate the angle around to the refinery door – could they be fast enough to get off a clean shot, more if needed? "Sniping from cover like this, we'd have surprise on our side, at any rate."
Talib shook his head. "We wouldn't get far."
What might the Doctor do in this situation? He'd attempt guile rather than force, surely.
"Well, they aren't looking for you," Harry reasoned, mind racing to come up with a solution. After all, Talib was only in danger because he was helping the enemy. Remove the appearance of that collaboration, and surely the danger to Talib would also be removed. "You could walk out of here now, no harm done, so long as you aren't seen with me."
Talib looked as if he were torn between honour and self-preservation. "You would still be trapped here," he pointed out. "And my presence may be questioned, but perhaps – shh, listen! They're coming!"
Sure enough, there were voices at the entrance to the maintenance shaft, getting louder – cutting off any hope they might have had of making a break for it. They were trapped, like ducks in a barrel…but perhaps there was still a chance they needn't both be caught or killed.
"Here, take the gun!" Harry thrust it at the other man. "Tell them you've captured me."
It was the only chance either of them had, and there was no time for a debate, even if Talib had been so inclined. He caught on at once – and played the part extremely well; he'd had plenty of practice, of course, working here. Brandishing the gun, he roughly grabbed the back of Harry's collar and shouted, "Here! I've got one of them."
Just in time. The other guards came charging into view, guns in hand, skidded to a halt at the sight of them, and demanded to know what Talib was doing here and where the other alien was.
"We were separated," Harry quickly said, hoping to distract them from Talib's unauthorised presence when he was presumably supposed to have reported for search duty elsewhere. "I don't know where he went."
"You must know," Talib snapped, giving him a shake. As impressions of belligerent guards went, it was a good one.
"I don't, I assure you! We were trying to find a way back to our ship." It was all Harry could think of that might throw them off the scent.
"You searched the entire shaft?" As he barked the question at Talib, the leading guard grabbed at Harry and he hissed through his teeth as the meaty fist closed around the half-healed animal bite on his upper arm.
"I have – there is no trace of the other alien." Talib avoided meeting Harry's eyes.
The guard yanked Harry toward him, away from Talib. "This is not your zone," he snarled. "You get no credit for this capture – return to your assigned duty and stay away from mine."
Talib met Harry's eyes for the first time since going along with the ruse, very briefly, as he pressed past and scuttled away without saying another word. And then Harry was alone with the other guards.
"It will be better for you to tell the truth now." The lead guard raised his gun, aimed it right between Harry's eyes. "So this is your final chance – tell us where your friend is."
They could shoot if they wanted – at least the others would have a chance. Harry sucked in a deep breath, maintained his story. "I don't know. I really don't."
Glowering, the guard gave in, jerking his head at his colleague. "Come on – take him away."
dwdwdwdwdw
Sarah and Emera had made it barely fifty yards back into the mine when they heard a sound up ahead – someone heading their way. Cut off front and back, they took the only path open to them, dashing into a narrow side passage.
Just in time. They pressed themselves flat against the rock wall as a loaded truck rumbled past, hauled along by a pair of slaves and shepherded by a guard, who snarled at the slaves to pick up the pace as he came within earshot of the alarm that was still sounding, out in the main moon base.
As soon as he reached the mine exit, he was going to find the guard Sarah had knocked out and then there would be another alarm raised – if the others they'd heard approaching hadn't done it already.
Sarah caught at Emera's hand and hurried on, deeper into the mine before any kind of pursuit could be launched. They needed to find a safe place to regroup, needed to think – what were they going to do now?
"We are cut off," Emera whispered, sounding very afraid.
"I know."
"What will we do?"
"I don't know!"
Emera was relying on Sarah, would never have left the relative safety of the work party if not for her, yet she couldn't think of anything – there was simply nothing left they could turn to their advantage.
There had to be something.
Sarah pulled Emera into a little alcove that seemed as good a place as any to stop and take stock. "We'll rest here for a minute. I need to think." She scrubbed her hands across her face and through her hair, tried to marshal her scattered thoughts. "Well, we're still free. That's one thing. And they don't know where we are. That's another."
"Also, you have the barking stick," Emera offered, pointing at Sarah's belt.
"Barking stick? Oh, you mean the gun." She'd forgotten about that, wondered if it could possibly be of any use to them. "I suppose there is only one guard with the rest of your group at the moment…"
But she could already foresee all kinds of problems with that idea even if they did manage to force the guard to surrender; the work party was too large to move around stealthily, and a single hostage wouldn't be much protection from reprisals, if any at all. The trouble was that she couldn't think of anything else to try.
"Come on, I suppose we should try to find our way back to the others, at least, make sure they're all right."
They pressed on, trying to retrace their steps as best they could remember.
They heard the others long before they came within sight of them; the shouting and jeering was startlingly unexpected, echoing through the tunnels and urging them to a faster pace to find out what was going on.
There was only one guard on duty because the other had escorted that truck back up to the moon base. And the slaves had seen the advantage as clearly as Sarah had.
They were fighting back. It was the one thing she absolutely hadn't anticipated, and she belatedly realised that her mouth had dropped open with shock at the sight of the Lindosian slaves, previously so cowed, disarming and overpowering the guard and smashing up their tools and baskets.
Somehow they'd discovered – or re-discovered – some kind of spirit of rebellion, the will to fight for their freedom. But how far would it get them? There was an alert of some kind up in the moon base, another alarm about to be raised down here, no place to run…
"No, stop!"
Sarah ran forward and caught at the arm of a Lindosian man as he was about to bring a rock down on the guard's skull, because slave-driver or not, cold-blooded murder could never be the right thing to do. And then, above the shouts of the giddy-with-nervous-daring Lindosian escapees, she heard another sound: more shouting, this time from back along the main tunnel.
"This way, quickly, we have to go – come on, run!"
Frantic, she urged the rebelling slaves to make a run for it, into the side tunnels while they still could, because it was the only chance they had, but between the noise and confusion she couldn't make herself heard. She caught at the arms of those nearest to her, pushed and shoved them in the direction they needed to go, and saw Emera doing likewise, pulling at the young lad, Olos, who'd helped them earlier.
They seemed to be getting the idea. But they were out of time.
Sarah ran for it, surrounded by frightened and furious former slaves, and could only hope that no one had been left behind.
dwdwdwdwdw
It was stiflingly dark in this cramped little tunnel, barely high enough to crawl along.
Roba had grown up on the open plains of Lindos, most days entering the family tent only to sleep. He'd never known that a place could be this small and cold and hard, the walls pressing in around him until he felt as if he couldn't breathe, and the way ahead too dark to see.
He kept his eyes squeezed shut. It was somehow easier like that – easier to pretend that he wasn't in this tiny tunnel at all, but was back home crawling along the bank of the stream by dark of night, which was the very best time to catch the biggest and best-tasting fish. He'd learned to find his way around in the dark long ago. Remembering where to turn wasn't hard.
Being all alone in this tiny, cramped little space was.
There were voices now, somewhere down below, and he stopped moving, pressed his lips tightly together to keep from whimpering, and held his breath until the voices went quiet, which meant that the sky raiders had moved away.
To think that he'd once thought seeing his mother and neighbours carried away by the sky raiders was as terrifying as anything could possibly be. Since setting out on this journey he'd learned just how many different ways it was possible to be terrified.
But he'd never been alone up till now.
'It's not so very far, and the Doctor will sort everything out when you reach him,' Harry had said. Roba repeated those words over and over inside his head to calm himself down, closed his hand tight around the tiny but precious cargo he'd been given and wished it was Harry's arm, because he'd felt safe, holding onto Harry's arm.
He had nothing to hold onto now except this strange little object. It was so tiny and yet was going to help free his mother. Harry and the Doctor had promised – and so had the other one, the sky raider.
His skin crawled just at the thought of the sky raider, however much it claimed to be a friend. He only hoped it was telling the truth. Harry was on his own with it now, with more sky raiders on the way, and remembering that was almost as heart-stopping as remembering what it had been like to see his mother dragged away by those monsters.
"The Doctor will sort everything out," he whispered to himself. But to do that, the Doctor was relying on Roba to bring him this strange little thing, which meant that completing this task was the most important thing he'd ever had to do – the most important thing in the whole world.
He tried hard not to be terrified at the thought of that, too.
"The Doctor will sort everything out. The Doctor will sort everything out."
He just hoped it was true.
dwdwdwdwdw
As the Doctor connected the final wire to complete his impromptu communications transceiver – which was a masterpiece of a lash-up, if he did say so himself – part of his mind was regretting that there was no one at hand to admire his handiwork, while another part was calculating the odds of Harry being able to get the data storage device safely back to him with the alarm sounding and a search of the moon base underway. Still another part was assessing his own chances of remaining undiscovered here in this server room very much longer, well hidden though he was behind the racks, while another again was worrying about Sarah, who remained unaccounted for and had been for rather a long time now, and another still was running over his preparations in search of any detail he may have overlooked. There were a great many variables in the mix, impossible to predict.
Harry was a long time retrieving that data device. A person given to pessimism might start to feel concerned that something may have gone wrong, but although the Doctor had already formulated several possible back-up plans for such an eventuality, he wasn't quite ready to give up on Plan A just yet.
There was nothing to do but wait, something the Doctor never enjoyed.
A scratching sound caught his attention, coming from up high, inside the wall. Closer inspection revealed a ventilation shaft at just that spot, and as soon as he came close a small voice whispered from inside, "Doctor? Doctor, I found you."
It was the Lindosian boy, Roba. Something had gone wrong, then.
"Good heavens." The Doctor quickly unsealed the pane and the boy promptly thrust out a hand, which trembled.
"I brought this. It's important," he gabbled. "I brought it for you." It was the data storage device.
"That's marvellous, Roba." The Doctor took the device and gently lifted the boy to the ground. He was shaking, the dim luminescence of the cables winding around the darkened room accentuating his wan appearance. The journey through the ventilation shaft had clearly been something of an ordeal. "You've done tremendously well," the Doctor told him, resting one hand on the boy's shoulder and ruffling his fluffy white hair with the other. "I can't tell you how pleased I am. But, er, where's Harry?"
Roba's agitation increased visibly, which did not bode well. The Doctor was already one human friend short.
"There were sky raiders." The boy's voice was a whisper. "We were trapped. They told me to crawl through the tunnel – to bring you that thing." He waved at the device in the Doctor's hand. "It's important. I don't know what happened after that. But I remembered the turns – I found the right place."
"Oh, you were marvellous. You did just the right thing." Even as he reassured the boy, the Doctor was swiftly assessing the implications of this turn of events. He almost regretted his decision not to ask Talib to go alone, but it had seemed prudent at the time – indeed, was the reason he had the device in his hand now – and he was confident that Harry would be far more useful to the Tarsins alive than dead, which meant capture was the most likely possibility, while Talib himself remained something of a wild card. So should he proceed as planned or not? It all hinged on Silrin, really, and whether he might bend or break when pressed. The Doctor rather thought he had the measure of the man, but there were no guarantees.
No, there was nothing else for it. He was going to have to gamble.
"Yes, well, we'd better get on with it, then," he proposed, and Roba wrinkled his nose, his expression morose.
"You keep saying that but you haven't done anything."
"Haven't done anything? Haven't done anything? I'll have you know, young man, that I've worked non-stop while you were off on your travels. Haven't done anything, my foot – what do you call this, then?" The Doctor gestured extravagantly at his improvised transceiver and Roba looked blank.
"I don't know. What is it?"
The Lindosians were extremely primitive at this point in their timeline – they had no vocabulary for such technology.
"This, Roba, is a magic box," the Doctor declared in what he liked to think was his most impressive voice. "We can use it to send a message across the stars. But I think we should take a look at Talib's information first, to be sure we're sending the message we want to send and not another message entirely, which would be rather unfortunate, don't you think?"
He quickly slotted the tiny device into the data port he'd built into the transceiver, linked to one of the consoles against the back wall, and then opened and scanned the files, fast as lightning. It was perfect – everything Talib had said it would be. He flicked a few switches on the transceiver, checked the settings one last time, then looked across at the small Lindosian with a beaming smile.
"Would you like to do the honours, Roba? Come and press this button for me – this one here, that's it."
Roba obediently pressed the button to send the transmission. He looked disappointed.
"Nothing happened."
"The very best magic, Roba," the Doctor said, "Is invisible to the naked eye. Something happened, all right – and someone will have noticed our unauthorised appropriation of the communications array by now, so we'd better announce ourselves, on the double."
He strode back to the console and swiftly tapped a few keys to gain access to the internal communications system, opening a link to central command, and then declared, in his most stentorian tone, "I demand to speak to someone in authority."
dwdwdwdwdw
Harry had expected to be returned to the brig after being re-captured, but instead, his hands cuffed behind him, he was quick-marched in the opposite direction entirely, to a large, open-plan space filled with screens, computer terminals, and busy, bustling Tarsins buzzing around like so many flies.
This was the central command centre the Doctor had talked about – and it was in uproar.
It was several minutes before Harry's guards managed to attract any attention to the fact that they came escorting a prisoner, but a moment later again the officer chap, Proctor Silrin, appeared out of nowhere, bellowing.
"Where is the other one? What have you done?"
"Done? I don't know what you mean," Harry protested. It was the truth, as well. He knew the Doctor was planning something, but hadn't entirely followed that plan in any detail – and he wasn't sure there'd been time for even the Doctor to whip up quite this much chaos.
"Your associate will be found and this insurrection in the mine will be put down!" Silrin almost spat the words.
Harry had barely had time to process the meaning of this sentence – an insurrection in the mine? That could only mean Sarah, surely – before a new alarm started to squawk and a whole gaggle of Tarsin technicians came running to swarm all over Silrin, babbling furiously about some new crisis. They were talking about an unauthorised transmission this time, and that, Harry knew, had to be the Doctor.
Did that mean Roba had reached him safely, then? Harry hadn't been able to shake the nagging concern that something may have happened to the boy, and wished again that there had been any other way – but whether he'd managed to find the Doctor or not, Roba had to be better off out there, even if he was on his own, than here, a prisoner, with Harry.
Right on cue, a large view-screen that dominated the far wall suddenly flickered into life and the Doctor's face filled the entire screen, all forehead and eyes, demanding to speak to someone in authority.
Harry instinctively started forward – to do what, he had no clear idea: would it help or hinder the Doctor to know he was here, a hostage? He had no chance to find out, as the powerful arm of the nearest guard wrapped around him and hauled him back, a hand clamping down over his mouth and a gun pressed against his temple, all the warning he needed not to struggle. He could only watch, in silence, as Silrin strode across the room to stand in front of the screen, all but apoplectic.
"What have you done? What did you transmit?" He rounded on his staff. "Don't just stand there! Find out what it was! Trace him!"
"Ah, there you are, Silrin," said the Doctor up on the screen, beaming happily. "Just the chap. We need to talk."
"Talk?" snapped Silrin. "You can start by telling me where you are – you cannot hide."
The Doctor clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Oh, now, we both know that's not true, don't we, Silrin? Your guardsmen really aren't very efficient. Cheap, I suppose, that's what you get for cutting corners, you know. But I don't actually need to hide any longer, as it happens. That's why I'm calling. I've achieved what I set out to do – it's all over."
"What do you mean?" There was a note of foreboding in Silrin's voice now. "What have you done?"
"I'm glad you asked."
The Doctor was grinning from ear to ear, which meant he either knew he had the upper hand or he was bluffing on no cards because something had gone wrong; either was equally likely, in Harry's experience.
"I've been looking through your files, Silrin," he continued in a conversational tone. "The sealed ones, you understand, they weren't quite as well sealed as you thought they were. It was all rather illuminating, to say nothing of scandalous – I can see why you wouldn't want that information to fall into the wrong hands…or the right hands, I should say. Tut, tut, tut," there was that disapproving click of the tongue again. "Falsified reports, misappropriation of government funding, fraud, corruption, embezzlement –"
"Lies!" Silrin burst out. "All lies!" He rounded on his staff again. "Haven't you traced him yet?"
"I'm afraid not," the Doctor coolly continued. "On either count. And, of course, all that's before we even begin to consider the unlawful appropriation of an occupied planet and the devastation of its indigenous population." His voice hardened; Harry had heard that particular note of controlled outrage from him before, usually shortly before he unleashed his own particular brand of devastation upon his opponents. "Of course, I haven't had a great deal of time to browse," he continued. "Barely scratched the surface, but as good fortune would have it, someone else had already done the bulk of the legwork for me. You were right, Silrin." He winked. "You do have a spy in your camp."
"What?" Silrin became very still.
Up on the screen, the Doctor raised a hand – displaying Talib's data storage device, held between the thumb and forefinger, which meant that Roba had reached him safely. Harry felt himself sag with relief, ever so slightly, and hoped his reaction wasn't too obvious.
"It's all on here," said the Doctor. "All those nasty little secrets you didn't want your people to learn."
"You have transmitted that data to Tarse." It was a statement, not a question.
"I have."
"And you really believe this will have any effect." Silrin's tone was defiant now – too defiant. He was clutching at straws.
"I do," the Doctor calmly replied. "I've been through your records, Silrin, all those communiques from home – your people were already ripe for revolt; I've simply given them a push. How long do you think the company will last, now that the truth is out – or the government, for that matter? And what do you think will happen to you, when they fall? Where does the buck stop, Silrin?"
You could have heard a pin drop in the command centre. Every eye was fixed upon the screen, the Doctor the centre of attention.
"Besides," he cheerfully continued. "Do you really think that's the only trick I've got up my sleeve?"
"What?" Silrin found his voice again.
The Doctor grinned. "Do you play chess, Silrin? No, I don't suppose you do –"
"This is not a game," Silrin thundered.
"No, it isn't," the Doctor coldly agreed.
"I still control this operation. From here, we can ride out any storm –"
"Yes, I rather thought you might say that," the Doctor interrupted. "So, since I was digging around in your computer systems anyway, I took the opportunity to do a bit of creative programming, while I was at it."
"Sir!" one of the Tarsin technicians chipped in. "We've traced the alien's signal to the secondary server room, shall we send –?"
"Not now!" Silrin waved the man away, a note of dread entering his voice as he stared up at the screen. "Creative programming…? Explain!"
"A coded virus, embedded deep within the vital systems of this moon base." The smile was gone now; the Doctor's expression deadly serious. "I told you, Silrin: it's over. You have ten hours – ten hours before it all shuts down, every system, great and small. Order an evacuation."
"A bluff…"
"I'm not bluffing."
"Call it off!"
"Too late for that – it's over, Silrin. Evacuate your people. Take them home to face the music."
Silrin span around, gestured angrily, and Harry was suddenly shoved forward, stumbling at the abruptness of this manhandling, to stand alongside the Tarsin leader, a guard at his shoulder, a gun to his head. A hostage, to be bartered against the salvation of the Lindosian people – and he'd seen the Doctor back down before now when his friends were threatened, squirmed desperately at the thought that it may happen again here, because of him.
"Call it off," Silrin repeated. "Or your associate will be killed."
"No, don't. Don't!" Roba suddenly appeared in front of the Doctor, jumping up and down, frantic, and in spite of everything Harry found himself smiling at the sight of the boy, relieved to have visual confirmation of his safety, touched by his concern. He rather distantly wondered that he wasn't more afraid, since Silrin was quite capable of carrying out his threat and he really didn't want to die…but he did want Roba's people to be free.
He also trusted, more completely than he'd really ever realised, that the Doctor would have more tricks up his sleeve. Since setting out on these adventures in the TARDIS much that he'd once been sure of had been turned on its head, but if there was one thing he'd learned to have faith in it was that the Doctor always had another trick up his sleeve.
"It's all right, Roba, there's no need to worry." The Doctor gently pushed the boy out of sight once more, smiled a very grim smile as he met Harry's eyes. "Enjoying Silrin's hospitality again, I see, Harry. Don't suppose you've been offered any refreshments yet?"
This was a familiar game; Harry played along, confident that the message would be received and understood: don't worry about me, do what you have to do. "Not yet, Doctor."
"No, I didn't get any, either. Terribly inconsiderate, don't you think?" The Doctor's tone was jovial, but his expression was serious as he maintained the eye contact. Was he bluffing or not? Would he back down or stand firm? Harry couldn't tell.
"Yes, very rude –" He broke off as the gun moved from his temple to press up under his chin, and bit his lip, furious with himself for putting the Doctor in this position when so much was at stake. "I'm sorry, Doctor."
"Not your fault, Harry," said the Doctor, and he was at his most inscrutable now. "And I'm sorry, too, because it really is too late. You said it yourself, Silrin: this isn't a game. The virus is already spreading, eating away at your vital systems – you can't afford to waste any time. Evacuate your people before it's too late."
"And if I don't?" Silrin demanded, and the muzzle of the gun was still digging into Harry's throat, the guard just waiting for the command to fire.
"Ten hours," the Doctor repeated. "Ten hours and every system in this base will shut down, including life support."
"Then we will all die – including you, including your associate here, including the slaves you claim such concern for."
"Not if you evacuate first," the Doctor pointed out with a nonchalant shrug. "There's plenty of time to make a clean getaway. Don't you want to go home?"
"No! Not like this." There was that note of defiance again. "Return home having failed…no. I won't! So call it off. I mean what I say – call it off or your associate will be shot, right here and right now." And although the guard at Harry's shoulder actually seemed rather more hesitant than he had a minute ago, the pressure of the gun at his chin easing slightly, still Harry braced himself for the shot that seemed imminent, no longer knowing what to think or expect or even to hope for, while Silrin spat, "Don't you care if your friend dies?"
"Well, I'd rather you didn't harm him, if it's all the same to you," said the Doctor, and there was steel behind the nonchalance of his voice. "But it won't make any difference, either way. This base will cease to function whatever anyone here does now, which renders this debate somewhat moot, don't you agree? Give the order, Silrin. Evacuate the base, take your people home and tell them it's for their own good – you know, Tarse would never have been granted entry into the Interstellar Trade Pact while your wealth remained dependent on the enslavement of an occupied world, they have very strict rules about that kind of thing."
The Doctor had mentioned chess earlier, but it was poker that Harry suddenly found himself thinking about, standing there with that gun digging into the soft flesh under his chin. He remembered playing poker at medical school a few times, and again with some of the chaps at Faslane while he'd been stationed there; he'd never been terribly good at the game, never had mastered the trick of being able to see who was bluffing, or predict who'd fold first, and that came to mind now because this standoff reminded him of those games – with added life-or-death stakes. Who was bluffing who? Who would back down first?
The atmosphere in the command centre had changed. Before there had been an air of crisis, but the bustle of the staff had been purposeful, controlled – they had jobs to do and were getting on with them. Now, though, an air of tension and anxiety had taken hold; they'd all heard the Doctor's claims, and had also heard their leader's reckless defiance. Harry remembered what Talib had said earlier about his colleagues here at the moon base, motivated by financial need rather than belief in any cause. Just how loyal could Silrin expect them to be, now that the company they worked for was in collapse and their lives in danger?
"You don't care if your friend dies?" Silrin pushed the guard aside, caught hold of the gun himself, and suddenly the stakes were that bit different again, because Silrin was quite capable of pulling the trigger out of sheer spite and for no better reason than that, Harry had no doubt of it. Up on the screen he saw the Doctor twitch, just enough to reveal the disquiet beneath that casual demeanour, knew that the Time Lord was on the point of backing down – if that were even possible – and suddenly he was speaking up almost without realising it.
"Er, can I say something?"
"Be silent," Silrin snapped. "This does not concern you."
Speaking as the man with a gun pressed to his carotid, Harry begged to differ. "I rather think it does," he ventured. It concerned him a great deal, in fact, and in more ways than one. "You see, the thing is…" He swallowed nervously. "The thing is: killing me won't really get you anywhere, will it? I'd be dead, certainly, but the virus would still be there, and you'd have lost your leverage without gaining anything." Silence – he had Silrin's attention, tried pressing it a little further. "So it seems rather a waste of effort, in fact. You'd only be postponing the inevitable. So why not simply give it up as a bad job and head home while you still can, eh?"
The Doctor smiled, although his eyes were grim. "I couldn't have put it better myself. So what's it to be, Silrin?"
Silrin seethed; even the breath hissing in and out of that beak-like snout sounded angry, his fingers fidgeting on the trigger. He was close enough that Harry could possibly shoulder-check his way out of immediate danger, taking the man by surprise, but in a room full of agitated Tarsins, most of them armed, he wouldn't get very far unless they could be swayed into full-blown mutiny against their unbalanced Proctor. He waited, painfully conscious of his own heightened heart rate and shallow breathing, a clear indication of stress that belied the peculiar calm he felt.
A moment later Silrin shoved him aside, his focus shifting in another direction entirely, and Harry caught at the edge of a console with his cuffed hands to regain his balance, sucked in deep, long breaths that were pure relief – short-lived relief, as it turned out.
"What about the mutts, then?" Silrin spat the words at the Doctor's image on the view-screen, a manic undertone to his voice. "If I refuse to leave, if your virus takes hold – would you see them die, simply to punish me? Well, fine. Fine, then. Let them die. Why wait? You there," he swung around to holler at a technician sitting at a console nearby, "Turn it off – life support in the mine, turn it off, do it now."
"But sir," the technician protested. "We have guardsmen down there…"
"Don't be a fool, Silrin," the Doctor called from the view-screen, and his casual demeanour, Harry noticed with a start, had dissolved into alarm. He hadn't anticipated this.
But he'd have something else up his sleeve. He always did – didn't he?
"Must I do everything myself?" Silrin pushed the technician out of the way, hurled himself at the console, pressing buttons and flicking switches, and then swung around again, a mad glint in his eye and a triumphant curl to his lip. "There, Doctor – can you save your precious slaves now?"
dwdwdwdwdw