Part Six
"I say – they're there! Captain, I see them!" Harry shouted, eyes fixed on the tiny screen bearing the feed from the whatchamacallit – the occuloid, whatever that was – which had been launched just as the probe took off. It was far too high to make out much detail, but tiny stick figure images of Vishinsky and his party could clearly be seen, rushing across the glade toward the base. His heart leapt with relief when he saw that Sarah was still with them – and the Doctor, too…but he was being carried by the others, something was wrong…
"Turn that feed off!" Salamar snapped. "Record but don't display. Set course for Morestra."
The words sank in only slowly, the order unthinkable, incomprehensible. It had been bad enough that he presumed them dead without evidence – but this?
"You mean you aren't going back?" Harry stared at the man in dismayed incredulity. "Knowing they're there, alive – Captain, we have to go back."
"I don't have to do anything," Salamar furiously retorted. "I am in command here. I will not risk this ship and I will not tolerate any further dissent. If I weren't in need of a replacement medic I could have you spaced for sedition, Lieutenant Sullivan. As it is, you will consider yourself under my command until we reach Morestra, when your future will be decided. Guards, secure this man in the medical bay. Attend to your patient, doctor."
dwdwdwdw
"But why?" Sarah bleakly wondered, sitting alongside the Doctor's prostrate figure hugging her knees to her chest. "I don't understand why – why would they just take off like that when they knew you were still out here – why didn't they wait?"
Vishinsky sighed.
"Captain Salamar," he wearily replied, stressing the title in a way that made it sound almost like a curse, "Is both ambitious and inexperienced…and the good professor has turned his head with promise of wealth and glory."
"But to abandon his own crew…"
"Great wealth and glory." Vishinsky's voice was tinged with bitterness. "Sorenson is not wrong, as it goes – the mineral resources of the Federation are waning, new supplies urgently needed. The man who provides them will be a hero. So will the man who saved him."
"Would you have done it?" she challenged, and he sighed again, shaking his head.
"Never leave a man behind," muttered Wijaya, looking depressed. Even that silly little goatee beard of his looked crestfallen, as if the bottom had dropped right out of his world. "That's what they taught us, that was the training."
"Then why would the rest of the crew go along with it?"
"Captain's orders," Vishinsky softly replied. "Mutiny is punishable by death. Half the crew are straight from basic, green as they come. This was intended as a shakedown cruise," and there was that bitter note again, "A charting mission – soft and simple for Salamar's first command. Pah," he snorted in derision. "So much for that!"
They fell into glum silence, the icy air around their inadequate light circle crackling with quiet menace. It was only a matter of time – the lights would fail, or the aliens would work out how to get past them, or something.
"There's something I still don't understand." Landa unexpectedly spoke up, head tilted to regard Sarah quizzically from beneath her deep fringe, like a puzzle she was unable to make out. "We were sent here, a rescue mission, but you…your friends were questioned earlier, but they didn't give a straight answer. What are you people doing all the way out here?"
Sarah wondered what exactly the Doctor and Harry had said. Not that it mattered, the truth was the truth.
"I don't suppose there is a straight answer to give," she admitted, shrugging tiredly. Now that she'd actually stopped, sat down to rest, her body was making known just how long it had been on the go, adrenaline leeching sourly away leaving enervation in its wake. "We don't really have a reason for being here. The Doctor was supposed to be taking us back to base – to Harry's base, that is. I'd have gone on home from there…until next time."
That had been the pattern for so long she no longer questioned it. She went off on these jaunts with the Doctor for however long they lasted, and then they went back and the Doctor carried on with UNIT and she got on with her life, wrote a few articles, paid a few bills, went on the odd date, maybe helped save the world if it happened to need saving while they were home, and then they went off on another trip again…
Except it wasn't really like that any more, was it? Not since the Doctor had changed, turned from the man he had been, the man she'd first known, into the man he was today. Between one thing and another, they'd barely set foot back on Earth since it happened, and even that had been in answer to a direct summons, a call for help, stopping long enough to save the day only and then taking off again immediately – she hadn't even made it back to her flat to check the mail. He still talked about going back, made all kinds of promises, but he also found any excuse he could to go anywhere else but Earth, one diversion after another, and she hadn't questioned it because she was enjoying the ride wherever it may lead, the thrill of exploration and adventure, unlike anything she'd ever experienced before – or ever would again.
"Well, that was the plan, anyway," she murmured, wondering just how accidental this particular detour had really been. "But the Doctor never has liked to take the direct route anywhere."
"That's what the others said." Landa was clearly not convinced, frowning as she attempted to puzzle through the problem logically. "But this quadrant is at the far end of the known universe, to journey here from Earth would require a mission of not just months but years – this isn't a detour to anywhere. It sounds so unlikely, that's why your story couldn't be believed, why so much time was lost."
There was an accusatory note to her voice now, but Sarah was too tired and too worried to care.
"Well it's true," she said, and whatever anyone might have said in response was forestalled because the Doctor chose that moment to stir, the tiniest of movements but enough to draw her whole attention, exhaustion forgotten. "Doctor? Doctor, can you hear me? It's Sarah. Doctor?"
The Doctor groaned, eyelashes fluttering, and finally opened his eyes, focusing on her with some difficulty.
"Oh, Sarah, it's you," he said with a feeble smile.
"Lie still," she hastily urged as he began to push upright, but of course he didn't pay the blindest bit of attention, stubbornly making it to an almost upright position, although not without help. He groaned and moaned and shook his head, grimacing and grinding the heel of his hands into his temples, and finally looked around with some surprise to see where he was.
"Well," he said at last, rather weakly. "That was a lot less enjoyable than I'd hoped!"
dwdwdwdw
"At least you seem to be hanging in there, old thing," Harry glumly told the comatose figure of Carly de Haan, whose condition was definitely stabilising, although she remained unconscious. Her skin tone had improved markedly, temperature approaching normal – he was almost confident now that she would recover. It was some consolation, at least, considering what a mess everything else was.
He'd been mad to set foot inside the TARDIS again, he bitterly reproached himself. Should have known better – a fat lot of use he'd been.
To rub salt in the wound, Sorenson's blasted cargo was right here, in the medical bay, sharing the quarantine field with the TARDIS. Harry stared disconsolately at the crates, locked away behind that shimmering barrier. They were the key to all this, he was sure – but what could he do with that key?
Getting the forcefield shut down would be a start, although he had no clear idea of what could be done beyond that.
To keep busy, as much as anything else, he set about the control panel he thought might be responsible for the forcefield, in search of anything that might be an 'off' switch, only for a commotion to start up at the door almost at once.
Harry hurriedly jumped back from the controls and endeavoured – badly, he knew – to act nonchalant as the door slid open. Young Utoblo stepped into the room carrying a tray, casting a mutinous glare back at the guard on duty just outside.
"Even prisoners have to eat," he groused over his shoulder as the door slid shut behind him, and to Harry he added, rather more brightly, "I've brought you some food."
Harry hadn't eaten since the TARDIS landed on this benighted planet, which had to be a good 24 hours ago now; he'd also be exhausted, he knew, if he weren't so worked up.
"Thank you," he said with absolute sincerity, hungrily tucking in.
Utoblo glanced furtively over his shoulder at the door.
"Also," he began, lowering his voice, but then dried up, biting at his lip and staring down at his boots.
Harry stopped eating. "Something the matter, Ensign?"
"Sub-ensign," Utoblo corrected. He clearly wanted to say something more, but couldn't quite spit it out, finally turning away with an exasperated sigh and crossing the room to stand at de Haan's bedside. "How's Carly?"
"On the mend, I believe," Harry was happy to report. "I should think she might wake up fairly soon."
"Really? That's good news, at least!" Utoblo's worried face lit up – but then fell again. He picked at a fingernail. "Do you think," he faltered. "Do you think we could have saved Leo, if I'd got to him in time?"
Now there was a question.
"I think," Harry carefully replied, "That we can't possibly know. We were very lucky with de Haan."
"Of course." Utoblo nodded and looked away, biting at his lip. "It's just," he began in a very small voice. "He was…I mean we…that is. Shipboard…fraternisation…it isn't allowed, you know. But he was…and I thought maybe…and now." He hung his head. "Well, it doesn't matter now, does it? That wasn't what I wanted to say."
Rather relieved that he wasn't going to be called upon to dispense anything in the line of emotional reassurance, which he really didn't feel up to, Harry said, "What's troubling you, Sub-ensign?"
Utoblo kept his back turned, shoulders hunched and posture defensive, breathing hard and visibly wrestling with himself. At last he spun around, his worries bursting out.
"Commander Vishinsky and the others – the captain left them behind!"
Harry let out a sigh of relief to finally hear someone else voicing similar concerns to his own.
"I was beginning to think no one else on the ship cared about that," he admitted.
"Everyone cares," Utoblo indignantly insisted. "But the captain gave his orders, so that's final – nothing to be done."
"I think there's plenty could be done," Harry countered. "If we leave them down there, they'll die."
"But the captain said –"
"Do you think he's right?"
Utoblo studied his boots once more. "It doesn't matter what I think," he muttered. "The captain's given his orders."
Harry sighed again.
"My orders were to see the Doctor safely back to base," he gloomily said, turning to look at the TARDIS again – sitting right there, but inaccessible and inoperable without the Doctor. "I'm afraid I haven't done a very good job."
"You saved Carly's life!"
"But I couldn't save my friends."
Utoblo's brow furrowed. "I heard the occuloid spotted them. So we know they aren't dead."
"Not yet, but they will be if we don't go back for them," Harry was sure.
Utoblo moaned and clutched at his head. "I don't know what you want me to do. There's nothing I can do!"
dwdwdwdw
"They call themselves Natara," said the Doctor, already beginning to sound more like himself, although he looked, in Sarah's opinion, like death warmed over. "A kind of collective consciousness, if you will – each mind unique and distinct, yet interlinked. Fascinating…I wonder if I might have a drink of water."
The request was tacked onto the end of the statement so casually that Sarah almost missed it. It was Vishinsky, sitting on the floor alongside her, who glumly answered, "It's outside the circle."
"Circle?" Eyebrows shooting up into the mess of unruly curls flopping across his forehead, the Doctor peered quizzically at the feeble little ring of light all around them. "Oh, I see. That's rather ingenious – it won't hold them out indefinitely, of course."
"Of course," Sarah sighed, because what else had she expected? "That would be too much to hope for."
"They're adapting," the Doctor warned. "They don't really understand our organic sort of life, you know, they've never encountered it before, barely knew this dimension existed before the survey team came poking around – but they're learning fast, picking up new tricks."
"Comforting," Wijaya wryly remarked.
"Yes, isn't it," the Doctor grimly agreed. "To them, our dimension is as intangible as they seem to us, which limits their ability to interact, but we can't rely on that. They were fumbling around blind at first, lashing out, before they stumbled upon the power supply and realised they could draw on it to stabilise the manifestation – give themselves a bit of oomph, as it were."
"You seem to know a lot about them," Vishinsky suspiciously observed.
"Well, my mind was temporarily joined to their collective, after all," the Doctor pointed out. "And I do have some experience in these matters – their thought patterns aren't easy to decipher, but I learned more from them than they learned from me. Enough to know that we must tread carefully, the agreement you struck was a good start, but…" He peered around again, his expressive face crumpling with confusion. "It was a good start, so why exactly are we holed up in here, hiding in the light?"
"Ah," said Vishinsky, his craggy face set in doleful lines, heavily shadowed in the uneven light, which gave him rather a ghoulish look.
"The probe's gone," Sarah flatly explained, no sense beating around the bush, but she found that she couldn't quite meet the Doctor's eyes as she explained, "Took off and left us – before we even got back here, never mind had a chance to return the crystals. So we haven't kept our promise."
How high a price might they pay for that failure? Her stomach churned sourly as the Doctor said, "Oh," and then, "Oh dear," and, "Well, that is a good reason to hide away here in the light, I will give you that," and although his tone was light, his face was sombre, and the air in the room seemed chillier than ever all of a sudden. Or was she just imagining it?
"I seem to recall you mentioning," said Vishinsky, "That that they'd never allow the probe to take off with the crystals aboard."
The Doctor gave him a hard look. "They released the probe because a promise of cooperation had been made, a promise which has not been kept – the ship may have taken off, but it hasn't escaped yet. And we're still here. But that isn't the worst of it."
Something about the tone of his voice and the deadly serious glint in his eye made Sarah shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the chill in the air.
"You do think we're still in danger, then," she said, and she'd already known that, had known it since the moment she saw the probe take off with the crystals still on board, and yet somehow, somewhere deep inside her had been a stupid, desperate hope that she might be wrong, that the Doctor would wake up and know better – but there was nothing reassuring about the look on his face just now.
"More than ever," he said. "And not just us. If the crystals had been returned, that might have been an end to it, perhaps, but they're out there now and that changes everything."
"Why?" Landa asked, shaking her head in disbelief. "You keep talking, but you never explain. What's so important about two crates of stones?"
"You might well ask that question of Professor Sorenson," the Doctor sternly told her. "They were important enough to him that he allowed his team to be picked off one by one, rather than abandon the mission early by calling for help. To him they represent wealth and glory – and for your captain, too, it seems. He abandoned you for the sake of getting those crystals safely back to Morestra – and in doing so he may well have damned your entire civilisation."
Sarah blinked in surprise at this dramatic statement, and saw Vishinsky's jaw drop open and Landa's brow furrow, while Wijaya, looking mystified, said what they were all no doubt thinking: "Er…what?"
The Doctor sighed. "It's really rather difficult to explain. There was a clue in something Harry said earlier…" He stopped, glancing around again with a slight frown. "Where is Harry, by the way?"
Sarah looked upwards, toward the ceiling above her and the sky beyond that and the probe somewhere above it again, way up among the stars by now.
"Gone," she glumly replied. "Him and the TARDIS both. He went back to the probe, remember. He'd have been on board when it took off."
The Doctor lifted an eyebrow. "Well, that's something, I suppose," he mused.
"I don't see how," Sarah grumped.
"Do you remember what he told us about the results of the bio-scan? The touch of the Natara leaves trace elements of an unusual mineral residue."
"We couldn't identify it," said Vishinsky, while Sarah wondered for the first time if she also had that mineral residue somewhere inside her – she'd been touched by the Natara as well, if only for a matter of seconds.
"Because it is absolutely unique to Zeta Minor," said the Doctor. "And would it surprise you to learn that the mineral residue in the bodies of the Natara's victims has the same chemical composition and atomic structure as the crystals we found at the nexus?"
"So they're related!" Sarah realised, wondering what that meant.
"More than related. That's what I learned when I joined with the Natara consciousness," said the Doctor. "They're spores."
dwdwdwdw
"Look, if you could just see your way to letting me out of this room, perhaps I might try talking to the captain again – persuade him to turn the ship around." It was a lousy plan and Harry knew it, and young Utoblo stared at him in disbelief.
"That – would – be – mutiny!" he hissed through gritted teeth. "They'll throw me out the air lock – and you, and all!"
"Well, we must do something," Harry insisted. He couldn't think quite what, but the alternative was unthinkable.
"But we can't. I can't," Utoblo moaned. "He's the captain – he knows what he's doing. He must know what he's doing."
"I'm not so sure, old chap." Harry remembered the look on Salamar's face as the alien attacked, the panic in his eyes as he gave the order to flee rather than wait to retrieve his missing crewmembers.
"You're an officer," Utoblo miserably protested. "Not one of ours, but still an officer. What if it was your captain? Would you be so quick to go against orders then?"
The face of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart flashed before Harry's eyes, stolid and unflappable, steady as a rock. He thought of Commodore Bennetts up at Faslane Naval Base and Captain Arnold on the Ark Royal, good men one and all. Would any of them have made the same call as Captain Salamar…and what might he have done if they had? Orders were orders, after all. It was rather a sobering thought.
"I rather hope I never have to find out," he admitted with a heavy heart. "I'm sorry, old chap, I know you have your orders, I shouldn't ask…but I simply can't leave my friends down there to die."
Utoblo pouted at his boots.
"They might be all right," he hopefully offered. "You don't know…"
"I do know," Harry began to insist, breaking off with a start as the door slid open. This visitor was even more unexpected. "Professor Sorenson!"
The professor didn't reply to the greeting, didn't as much as glance sideways. He hadn't seemed entirely well before, but looked downright ghastly now, wincing and squinting, flinching away from the lights, his waxy face beaded with sweat. As the door slid shut behind him – open only long enough for Harry to see that the dratted guard was still out there, barring any escape – he operated a switch to turn off the main lights and then moved to stand at the edge of the quarantine bay as if drawn by a magnet, staring down at the crates containing his precious cargo with an odd, almost hungry glint in his eye.
dwdwdwdw
Sarah eyed the Doctor uneasily. "Okay, when you say 'spores', you mean…?"
"I mean spores – infant Natara, dormant, left to mature in the unique environment of the nexus, feeding on the natural energies there, the place where two dimensions touch. The 'place of beginnings' they call it, part of their lifecycle – and they knew it only as a breeding ground until the survey team came poking their noses in. But now they know. Now they know there's a whole universe out here."
He leapt to his feet suddenly, swept up one of the lamps and dashed over to the computer console, pulling open a lower panel to begin rooting around inside.
That brought everyone to their feet in alarm.
"What are you doing?"
"Well, now we're for it."
"You've broken the circle!"
"Oh, we seem to be all right for the moment – they've shot their bolt, over-reached themselves, need a while to regroup and recharge. That gives us a little time," the Doctor's voice floated back from somewhere within the guts of the computer.
"A little time to do what?" asked Sarah impatiently, attempting to peer over his bulky shoulder in hopes of some clue as to what he thought he was doing. He never explained properly.
The Doctor resurfaced, bushy curls standing on end, hands full of wires and circuits, eyes full of manic, almost gleeful energy. He was recovering, back to himself, and the sight of it filled her with hope.
"Time to prepare a defence, of course," he said, darting around the room collecting seemingly random bits of equipment as he went. "Come on, what do we know about these creatures?"
"They're invisible and they kill," Vishinsky flatly replied, sitting back down looking depressed.
The Doctor was clearly hoping for slightly more positive input and shot a reproving look at him. "Yes, and?"
Sarah remembered the near misses she'd experienced and what had happened to de Haan, wondering anew if Harry had been able to do anything for her.
"They can be deflected," she said. "If you get there in time.
"Good, and?"
Landa piped up with, "They're light-averse."
"To a degree, yes. And?"
"From another dimension," Wijaya sardonically drawled. "Just visiting in ours."
"They can drain power from our systems," Landa added.
Sarah tried to think. There had to be more. What else had they learned? "Um…they're a hive mind…"
"A collective consciousness," the Doctor corrected. "That's not quite the same thing. Yes, and we've also learned something quite important overall: that while the Natara may have certain advantages over us, they also have certain weaknesses, which we can use."
He'd assembled quite a collection of equipment by now, dropped it onto a clear work surface alongside the computer console and began to sift through the mess, discarding some and focusing on others.
"Can we use it to kill them?" Vishinsky was interested now, clambering back to his feet to watch. The Doctor shot a baleful glower in his direction.
"Not if we can help it," he firmly said, opening the lamp to extract its battery, leaving the room just that bit dimmer; Sarah picked up a flashlight and took it over so he could see what he was doing and he caught her eye, just for a second, by way of thanks. "This is their world, we're the intruders here – the Natara are simply protecting their young. Or were. Wouldn't you do the same? No." He frowned down at the assortment of equipment, shaking his head. "No, this isn't quite right, there's something missing – I don't suppose there's a frequency modulator around here somewhere, Samina – perhaps in the gravimetric scanner?"
As Landa scurried to look, he continued to talk, his deft fingers working away all the while, taking things apart and constructing something new.
"We are the aggressors here," he repeated, frowning down at his work. "But we must defend ourselves, at least until the situation can be resolved. The Natara are able to cross into this dimension – that's part of their natural lifecycle, after all – but full manifestation requires power, which they've been drawing from the solar cell here at this base. It's what they used to attack the probe, a tremendous concerted effort – and it very nearly worked, but they spent their load on it, so to speak. Come dawn, the solar cell will begin to recharge and they'll draw on it once more to re-fuel for another push, but if we can isolate the wavelength they use to make the transfer…"
"How can we do that?" Landa had found the device he'd asked for and pushed alongside him to watch with great interest as he opened it up and removed part of the mechanism, which he then began to build it into the contraption he was assembling.
He grinned, reached into a pocket and pulled out a bulging paper bag, tipping purloined Nataran crystals – spores – into her hand.
"With these. I took them as insulation when I went into the nexus, but they'll also help us here – thrifty, no?" He carefully slotted one of the crystals into his contraption, wiring it in place before connecting the lamp battery. "Find the right frequency and we can build a buffer to hold them off: power for us but not for them."
He glanced up at Sarah with that stupidly infectious grin of his, and she grinned back, heartened by his confidence. "So what then? And what about the probe – and the stolen crystals?"
"Oh, one problem at a time, please, Sarah," he cheerfully reproved. "Who knows? Perhaps by morning Harry will have persuaded Captain Salamar to turn the ship around."
"He didn't stop it taking off," Sarah muttered, but that was unfair and she knew it and was annoyed with herself, quietly adding, "They've probably got him locked up somewhere."
"More than likely," Vishinsky agreed. "Salamar is a proud man, highly conscious of his position. He won't tolerate dissent – and the lieutenant is likely to dissent, is he not?"
"More than likely," the Doctor rather absently echoed his own phrase back at him, head bent over his work. Vishinsky eyed him curiously.
"Doctor, you seem very certain that the spores taken aboard the probe are a threat. If they are dormant, as you claim, where's the danger?"
The Doctor turned wide blue eyes upon him. "They were dormant. Removed from the stabilising forces around the nexus, what do you think might happen?"
Sarah was alarmed by the implication. "Will they hatch? Like eggs?"
"Spores don't hatch." The correction came from Landa. "They germinate."
"Germinate, then," Sarah impatiently said, catching Wijaya's eye as he winked his amusement at his shipmate's pedantry. "Will they germinate?"
"The Natara thought it probable," the Doctor distractedly agreed, fussing over his experiment. "It's why they massed to attack the probe when they knew it was leaving, I felt their alarm, when I was joined to the collective mind – and something else…"
"But surely whatever infants are spawned could be no danger to anyone," Vishinsky optimistically argued. The Doctor gave him a hard look.
"Do you really believe that? No, Commander. They won't be infants in the human sense. They will be Natara – propagated prematurely, perhaps, separated from their home and kind, but that will only make them more dangerous. They'll be born into the wrong universe, confused, angry – and with a powerful survival instinct. They'll need to feed – and they'll have the race memory of the collective consciousness to spur them on. Think what the Natara have learned since the survey team came here. They've learned that our universe exists, beyond the tiny gateway that's served as their breeding ground. They've learned they can function here, in one form or another, that there is fuel and food for them – the electrical energies used in our technology and the warmth and moisture of human bodies, so easily drained by their touch. They've learned that we exist, and are hostile to them – their territory has been invaded, their dormant young attacked and abducted. What more excuse do they need? We came here, Commander, brought ourselves to their attention, and we took them out there, showed them the universe. What else should they do but set their sights on it? And there's something else…"
Elastic face contorting with frustration, he rapped his knuckles against the side of his head.
"Think, think! Something at the back of my mind, something I've overlooked – something I learned from my time with the collective – some contingency set in place…because in one sense you are right, Commander, the newly born Natara will be immature, but they still pose a threat, I felt that. The Natara knew the probe was leaving, taking the spores, it was why they attacked, but they knew they might not succeed, they were prepared…"
"Emissary!" Landa suddenly exclaimed. "Back at the pool, the nexus, when the Natara were talking – they said they'd sent an emissary."
The Doctor stared at her, mouth open. Then he slapped a hand to the side of his face.
"That's it. Of course! That's how they knew, how they learned so much so fast – but how…unless…no, surely not! But would he even be aware…?" Talking rapidly to himself, he pulled a face. "Possibly not – almost certainly not – and yet…no. No, it must be. There's no other explanation…"
"No other explanation for what, Doctor?" Vishinsky impatiently demanded.
"Think about it, Commander. Who experienced the greatest exposure to the Natara? Who worked at the nexus daily? Who survived when the entire survey team were slaughtered?"
"Professor Sorenson." The cold Sarah felt now had nothing to do with any Natara present in the room. "What are you saying, Doctor? What do you mean?"
The Doctor's expression was grim. "I believe, Sarah, that the unfortunate professor has a passenger."
dwdwdwdw
"Er…is everything quite all right, Professor?" Harry cautiously asked, unnerved by Sorenson's odd behaviour.
It was hard to see clearly, the room lit only by the greenish glow of the monitors and screens, but the man didn't seem to recognise that anyone else was in the room at all, stood staring intently at the crates of crystals, the flickering, shimmering forcefield casting deep shadows across his sickly pale face.
Utoblo took a hesitant step forward. "Professor?"
Sorenson showed no sign of having heard. Moving slowly and deliberately, more like an automaton than a man, he stepped over to the control panel Harry had observed earlier and pressed a few buttons.
The forcefield vanished.
dwdwdwdw
"That's it!" the Doctor shouted, interrupting himself mid-sentence. He thrust his improvised gadget aside and rushed back to the computer console.
Sarah followed with the flashlight, certain that he couldn't actually see in the dark, however excited he was about whatever he was doing. "What's what now?"
"The frequency," he said, working feverishly at the circuits deep within the console. "I've isolated the precise wavelength of the Natara's intra-dimensional transference – we can use it to build a protective circuit, a buffer, prevent them draining the solar cells when they recharge. Help me with these connections, Samina."
Sarah quickly stepped aside to allow Landa to pass, and felt warm breath huffing against her ear as Wijaya moved closer, peering curiously over her shoulder. Alongside him Vishinsky fidgeted fretfully.
"Doctor, what you were saying about Sorenson," he worriedly said. "You really think the probe could be in danger?"
"I'm certain of it," said the Doctor, eyes fixed on his work. He scowled. "This is no good. I don't suppose there's a laser micrometer around here somewhere?"
"Saw one in the crew quarters – I'll get it." Wijaya darted away.
The Doctor issued a complicated technical instruction to Landa, which seemed to make sense to her although Sarah didn't understand a word of it, and then said, "I should have realised earlier. It all makes sense now. No wonder the man was in such a state – sharing your mind with a passenger, whether knowingly or not…it's enough to unhinge anyone."
"Passenger," Vishinsky wonderingly murmured. "You used that word before."
Did he really not understand? Or did he simply not want to understand. The Doctor's meaning seemed clear enough now to Sarah.
"You're talking about possession," she said. "You think the Natara have possessed him somehow."
"In a manner of speaking. It explains so much: a Nataran consciousness lodged inside his mind, the reason his life was spared – an unwitting spy, as it were. Almost a suicide mission for the Natara in question once the probe lifted off: no way back. And now especially…"
"He'll need to be there when the spores germinate," Sarah realised.
"Exactly," said the Doctor, eyes fixed on his work. "And while the Natara may have been a mere passenger at first, observing and reporting back to the collective, we now know that they can assume full control of a host body – they now know that they can assume full control of a host body. His first priority will be to ensure the safety and survival of the newly born Natara as they propagate…Commander, whereabouts on the ship was the cargo stored? In the hold?"
All eyes turned to Vishinsky, who paled.
"No," he said. "We placed it in the quarantine field in the medical bay."
dwdwdwdw
Harry watched uneasily as Sorenson knelt beside the crates and began to pull at the catches to open them.
"Er…I'm really not sure you ought to be doing that, Professor."
It was no good, Sorenson wasn't listening.
The lid came off the first crate, and for the very first time Harry caught a glimpse of those ruddy crystals that were at the heart of all this.
He hadn't seen them before so he couldn't be sure – were they supposed to be glowing like that?
dwdwdwdw
"So instead of being secured in the hold, where it might at least take them some time to find their way out, the spores will germinate at the very heart of the ship, surrounded by people – surrounded by bodies!" the Doctor shouted in dismay. "Warm, moist human bodies to feed on – or to latch onto as hosts, like parasites."
"Harry's on the ship." Sarah's voice wobbled, because Harry was a doctor and he'd gone back there with a patient – if she wasn't dead and he wasn't in a prison cell, they'd both be in the medical bay. With the crystals.
"My crew is on that ship," said Vishinsky, grim-faced.
"And the ship is heading for Morestra," said the Doctor, bending over his work once more, his deft fingers flying. "We'll make contact at first light, as soon as the solar cell regains enough charge to power the transmitter. If I can just finish this…where's that laser micrometer?"
"Wijaya went to…get…it." Sarah stuttered and slowed mid-sentence, because he'd been gone far too long and she hadn't realised – hadn't stopped to think.
"It shouldn't take this long, it was just on the –" Landa broke off, eyes widening in alarm.
The door through to the bunk room had closed behind him, and it was quiet out there, too quiet. In all the bustle and rush, they'd grown careless, forgotten the danger.
"He went alone," said Vishinsky, grim-faced.
Sarah reached the door first, Vishinsky and the Doctor at her heel. She threw the door open and then skidded to a halt, because it was too late – too late, again – and how could they have let this happen?
Landa pushed in alongside her, gasping, "Eslam?"
He'd slumped against one of the bunks, his handsome, bronze-toned face wizened and grey, the coiffed, colourful hair he'd been so proud of dried up like old straw, and he'd known, they'd all known, they'd all known the danger, how could they have been so stupid…
His eyes opened, and Sarah leapt back with a yelp that was pure shock.