Part Seven
"Oh, we thought you were dead!" Sarah gasped as Wijaya slowly, awkwardly began to struggle to his feet, instinct urging her to rush over and help…but even as the words escaped she knew her relief was unfounded, and the Doctor's hand dropped onto her shoulder to hold her back.
"Don't get too close," he gently said.
Because Wijaya was dead, he had to be…and yet he was standing, his movements jerky and uncoordinated, his sightless eyes wide open and staring. A puppet.
Sarah felt sick. How had they let this happen?
"Natara," Vishinsky growled through gritted teeth. "What have you done? Leave him alone!"
"He'd done you no harm; there was no need to kill him." The Doctor's voice was filled with sorrow.
"Aliens are not to be trusted." It was the voice of the Natara that spoke, using Wijaya's body as a mouthpiece.
Pressed alongside Sarah, Landa was quivering, while at her heel she could almost feel the waves of fury coming off Vishinsky.
"You are not to be trusted! Let him go," the commander barked.
"What do you want?" The Doctor pushed forward to stand at the front of the group. "You've killed many times before without taking possession of the body afterward…or…no, is that it? An experiment, to find out what's possible, is that what you're playing at?"
The Natara was moving Wijaya's body again, as if fascinated by the way it worked – rotating joints and flexing digits, tilting the head and blinking the eyes.
"We had not realised," said the alien voice, and its stolen lips were no longer quite as out of sync as they had been, the facial movements becoming more natural.
But that was worse, Sarah decided: worse than the unnatural puppetry of just moments ago, because Wijaya's body was so wizened and shrivelled that the most natural of movements looked all the more wrong, a gruesome reminder that this was still a corpse, animated only by the alien consciousness lodged within it.
"We had not realised," said the Natara. "We had thought the aliens fit only for sustenance, variation to our diet and fitting reward to their intrusion. We had not realised they could be more."
"More? More?" snapped the Doctor. "No, wait, don't tell me. Let me guess. Sorenson proved you could lodge within a human body without destroying it, so you used him to spy on his people for you and he never even knew it. Then I went into the nexus and you learned you could take full control of a living body – and you'd need that, wouldn't you, for any serious campaign on this plane of existence, your ability to interact is otherwise strictly limited. You realised that if you could take full control of me, you can also take full control of Sorenson, use him to protect the spores, now they're out there, and when they germinate, he'll be there to guide them. A whole ship full of hosts, borrowed tangibility…but there's a snag, because the young will also need sustenance and you've got the taste now, haven't you, the taste for humans. Heat and moisture, salt and iron, but there won't be enough to go round, not if they're still needed to fly the ship. So you experiment, here, while you've got the chance, because if you can both feed and still make use of the body afterward, well – the universe is your oyster, isn't it, now you know it's out there. Today Salamar's space probe, tomorrow Morestra, the whole galaxy by a week on Thursday, with Sundays off for good behaviour – am I right? Parasites – you'll spread like a plague!"
Wijaya's eyes narrowed, head tilting to one side to listen. The Natara inside him hissed.
"It was not our choice to leave this place, alien. Now it is done, what will be shall unfold. The young must flourish."
"Must flourish, eh? Well, it's a good excuse, I suppose, shame it doesn't wash. Stolen bodies won't last indefinitely, you know. Oh come on, it doesn't have to be like this – just how close are they to germination?" The Doctor was edging sideways now, reaching toward a counter nearby – trying to get at that tool he'd wanted. "There's still time. We can bring them back, no harm done –"
The Natara got there first, Wijaya's body moving startlingly fast, for a corpse, his fingers closing clumsily around the tool and holding it aloft in triumph.
"You wish for this, needed, to use against us – we felt it in the mind of this alien while it still held thought. No, you shall not have it. The time for negotiation is past. The time for making peace is past. It is done. You will not deny us. We shall rejuvenate and destroy all intruders. The young will go forth and flourish. They will bring back more vessels, so that more shall go forth. Aliens will be –"
A beam of light fell across Wijaya's body and the voice cut out, his wizened corpse collapsing unceremoniously to the floor. Sarah spun around to see Landa holding up the largest, most powerful lamp available, her face set like stone.
"That's enough!" she snapped. "You will leave him alone now."
"Good timing, Samina. I don't believe they had anything more useful to add." The Doctor strode forward to bend over Wijaya's body, hesitated slightly and then patted his shoulder, an awkward yet strangely affecting gesture. Then he took the laser micrometer from Wijaya's hand and turned, grim and resolute. "Stay together as a group or in pairs at all times, they'll pick off any stragglers. Quickly now – that buffer must be in place before dawn."
"And the probe?" asked Vishinsky anxiously.
"It's vital that we make contact as soon as possible," said the Doctor. "Anyone in the vicinity of those spores when they germinate could be infected."
dwdwdwdw
"They didn't look like that before," exclaimed Utoblo, staring at the glowing, pulsing crystals in rapt fascination, and an alarm bell went off in Harry's head.
"They didn't?" He wasn't sure what that meant, but was certain it couldn't be anything good.
"Soon," Sorenson crooned. It was the first thing he'd said since entering the room and he didn't sound like himself at all. "It's almost time, almost time!"
The crystals were getting brighter, palpitating visibly in a way that no stone really ever should. The Doctor always said that one should trust one's gut. Harry took Utoblo's arm and steered him toward the door.
"I think we should leave," he said, because he might not know what was going on, exactly, but experience suggested that, whatever it was, hanging around to watch would not be the wisest choice.
"But you can't – the captain said – and the professor…" Utoblo spluttered, gazing back at Sorenson in concern and wringing his hands, but he operated the door control obediently enough and there they hit a snag.
"Where d'you think you're going?"
"Ah. Officer." Harry had forgotten about the guard on the door.
"We need to see the captain – there's something wrong with Professor Sorenson," Utoblo urgently babbled.
The guard was not impressed. "He's in the right place, then, isn't he? What are you doing in there anyway, Utoblo? Don't you have duties to be getting on with?"
"He does. I need him here." Sorenson had come up behind them, sickly pale and sweating. His voice still sounded wrong, almost as if it were someone else's voice entirely.
"Well, there you go. Sorry, kid," said the guard with a grin, hitting a control to close the door. Harry caught at it and tried to hold it open.
"Wait. Can't you see something's very wrong with this man?"
"There'll be something wrong with you if you don't get back." The guard prised his fingers off the door, pushing and shoving and brandishing his gun.
Harry stumbled back and the door slid shut, locking with a distinct little click.
"You are needed," said Sorenson, still in that strange, hollow-sounding voice that wasn't his. "The first."
If Sorenson wasn't Sorenson, then who was he? The alarm bell in Harry's head was becoming deafening.
"The first what?" he asked.
"The young must flourish," Sorenson continued as if he hadn't heard. He went over to the console nearest the quarantine bay and began to disconnect the equipment, pulling the main power cable free from its socket.
"What are you doing?" Utoblo squawked.
"Access is needed. Power is needed. You are needed." Glassy-eyed, speaking like a man in a trance, Sorenson turned back to the crates, and he'd been obsessed with his crystals before, but not like this. "There must be sustenance before we go forth. It's almost time. Almost time."
He bent over the glowing, pulsing crystals and became utterly absorbed in them once more.
It was definitely time to evacuate. Harry pulled Utoblo over to the beds, where de Haan was still sleeping peacefully, and hissed, "Is there another way out of here?"
"I don't know what to do." Utoblo's eyes were wide and scared, the brown of the iris barely visible, the pupils were so dilated. "Can't let you out, I can't let you out, Captain's orders. And he won't let me." He waved wildly at the locked door. "But we have to. I don't know what to do."
Harry knew how it felt to be out of your depth and sinking fast. He'd felt much the same way when he first met the Doctor – still did, in fact, rather a lot of the time on these travels, encountering situations no amount of training could have prepared him for. But he was also quite certain they didn't have a great deal of time to indulge in panic.
"Sub-ensign Utoblo," he said, and then tried to remember the lad's given name, feeling that the familiarity was called for. "Ola. Look, I'm not sure exactly what's going on here, but I believe we're in danger. In fact, the whole ship could be in danger. What do you suppose is more important: following orders from a captain who doesn't actually know what's happening, or finding a way to protect ourselves – and perhaps everyone else, as well? Is there another way out of this room?"
Utoblo stared at him, breathing hard. Then he blinked and rubbed his eyes, and was suddenly calm again.
"There's a storeroom. It connects to the astrometrics lab, shared space. But the connecting door'll be locked too. We'll be trapped in there."
"So long as we can bar the door at this end, it's better than nothing." Harry carefully unconnected de Haan from the monitors and plasma infusion unit, unwilling to leave her behind even to continue her treatment, because whatever was going on with Sorenson and those crystals was dangerous, he felt it with every fibre of his being, and she'd be quite defenceless in this condition. "Quickly, before he notices."
He carefully scooped de Haan up into his arms as Utoblo scurried across to the far wall, hard to make out in the shadowy murk of the darkened room.
Then, "I can't find the door!" Utoblo called out, too loud, and Sorenson let out a shout.
"What are you doing? You aren't to leave. Your bodies are needed for the young."
"Needed for what?" Utoblo squawked. "I can't find it – where's the door?"
"Turn on the lights, Ola," Harry shouted, hurrying across the room with de Haan in his arms and Sorenson hot on his heels.
There was a scramble. Not enough light to see what was happening – or to avoid obstacles – and Harry stumbled under de Haan's weight, felt Sorenson catching at his arm…
The light came on, Utoblo at the wall-mounted control unit. Rather unexpectedly, Sorenson let out a yell and collapsed.
Harry let himself breathe again, while Utoblo's eyes almost popped out of his head, staring from Sorenson to the control panel at his hand and back again.
"I didn't – I just – is he dead?" he asked.
Across the room in the quarantine bay, the crystals appeared to be almost flashing now, emitting a strange sort of whining, crackling sound. Harry looked at Sorenson's crumpled form and knew he couldn't take the time to check if the man was still breathing – still less to ascertain if he were back to himself or halfway round the loop still, or whatever had been wrong with him.
"The door," he said. "Quickly."
Utoblo operated another control and a concealed hatch slid aside. They hurried through into the dark, cluttered room beyond, where Utoblo fumbled with another wall-mounted control panel to switch on the lights and seal the door behind them and suddenly everything was very still.
But the persistent crackle-whine of the crystals in the next room could still be heard, even through the dividing wall.
dwdwdwdw
"Oh, I could do with a really big glass of wine just about now." Sarah sat down alongside Samina Landa with a sigh.
The Doctor had plunged right back into the computer console, trying to complete work on that buffer he was building to protect the solar cell, and Vishinsky was at his side at least trying to look helpful – but Landa, unusually for her, had not gone over to help. Instead she'd taken herself off to a quiet corner and slumped to the floor looking miserable, so Sarah had followed, because even if she did want to be alone, they were supposed to stay in pairs for safety.
Landa didn't reply. Sarah tried to think what else to say.
"I'm sorry. Wijaya was a friend of yours."
"He was an idiot," Landa muttered. "A layabout, always slacking off, cracking jokes…"
"Shall I take that as a yes?"
"It wasn't supposed to be like this." There were tears in Landa's eyes. "He only stayed down here because I was, didn't want to lose face. He could have gone back to the probe."
"I'm not sure he'd have been any safer there." Sarah thought about her own idiot friend, who didn't even know what the danger was but was trapped up there with it nonetheless.
"I don't want to die," Landa whispered. "This mission…it wasn't supposed to be like this."
"You were charting, weren't you, before you were diverted for the rescue mission," Sarah recalled. Boring, Wijaya had called it, a far cry from all this, and Vishinsky had said the crew were inexperienced.
"And we weren't prepared – we weren't prepared for this at all." Landa squinted sideways at Sarah suddenly. "You seem to be, though. You've been one step ahead of us from the start, and we still don't even know who you really are."
Were they back to that again? Sarah sighed.
"We're travellers," she said. "That's all. The Doctor likes to travel, it's what he does. Harry and I came along for the ride, and when we heard the distress signal we stopped to investigate. That really is all there was to it. We just had a more open mind than your lot because we knew we weren't responsible!"
Landa frowned, unconvinced. "But no one just travels without a planned destination – you must have some kind of purpose, some mission?"
Sarah shook her head. "No purpose, no mission, just exploration."
"You don't have any official function at all?" Landa seemed to find this a difficult concept to grasp.
"Not on the TARDIS, no. When I'm at home I'm a journalist…or, I was." She faltered, remembering just how long it had been since she actually worked. She still investigated, all the time – that was half the fun of life with the Doctor – but the results these days were rarely publishable. When had she last filed copy, seen her name in print? The career that had once meant everything seemed to have fallen by the wayside somehow, almost without notice, yet she couldn't quite bring herself to care because, "I don't know any more, I don't know how long this journey will last, I just know it's worth it. To be out here, seeing the universe, exploring new worlds…but you must feel the same, surely. You work for some kind of space agency, don't you?"
"Space Corps," Landa instantly corrected. "Our work is mostly routine – charting and patrolling. We don't generally get to see many sights – and if exploring new worlds is like this, I'm not sure I'd want to!"
"Oh, but it isn't always like this," Sarah hastened to assure her, before honesty compelled her to add, "Well, actually I suppose it is often like this. But it's also wonderful – think about it, we've discovered a whole new life form here. No one ever knew it existed, and here we are."
"Great. We've discovered a new life form that wants to kill us," Landa sourly observed.
Sarah let out a shaky little laugh because there was that. "Well, you can't have everything."
dwdwdwdw
"My mum told me not to join the Space Corps," Utoblo unhappily muttered, slumped in a heap on the floor beside de Haan's comatose form. "There's no future in it, she said. Rustics from a dirt-ball moon like Torah never make it, she said. I told her I'd make captain."
"Perhaps you will," Harry distractedly replied, ear pressed to the storeroom door trying to make out what was going on back in the medical bay. That crackling sound was growing louder, he was sure – and he was almost certain he could hear movement. "So long as we survive this…is there another way out of here?"
"I told you, it's locked."
Harry picked his way through the clutter of stored equipment to check the other hatch anyway, just in case. It was locked.
"Told you," said Utoblo.
"Can't you open it? I really think we need to put more distance between us – it sounds as if Sorenson is waking up."
That brought Utoblo to his feet, quick smart, his narrow face blanching with alarm – but then he sat down again. "He's not the only one. Carly? Carly, are you awake? I think she's waking up!"
De Haan was stirring. Harry felt a rush of relief that his improvised treatment had actually done the trick, that the patient really was recovering – and not before in time, in the circumstances. He picked his way back across the room as de Haan groaned and moaned and clutched at her head.
"Ow," she murmured, sounding more than a little hoarse. "Oh, my head."
"It's all right." Harry knelt and took her wrist to check the pulse. Strong and steady, just as it should be. "Take your time."
She pulled her hand free to rub at her eyes, blinking at him bemusedly as she muzzily murmured, "You were locked up," and it wasn't even the most recent occasion she'd be thinking of, Harry knew.
"Ah," he said. "Yes, well, er…things have moved on somewhat since then."
"We're in trouble, Carly," Utoblo burst out. "There's something wrong with those crystals Professor Sorenson brought aboard, like they're about to explode or something, but the captain doesn't know and he won't listen and he left Commander Vishinsky behind, and now we're stuck in here!"
"What?" De Haan was understandably confused by this babble of information. She struggled to a sitting position and looked around to see where she was, brow furrowing. "Why are we…? Did you say explode?" Her voice sounded terribly weak still. "What's going to explode?"
"In there!" Utoblo pointed frantically at the connecting door leading back into the medical bay. "He's gone mad, the professor! And we're stuck – I don't have access to astrometrics!"
"I do." De Haan began to gingerly pull herself to her feet, looking distinctly wan and wobbly, readily accepting the helping hand Harry offered. "Did you say the commander was left? Left where?"
"On the planet," Harry told her. "My friends as well – and other members of your crew."
"But why –?" She stopped and shook her head. "No, tell me later. You said something was going to explode? We should –"
There was a sudden yell of fury from the medical bay. Sorenson was definitely up and about again – and had noticed their absence.
De Haan's eyes widened. "We should get out of here."
"My sentiments exactly." Harry helped her across the cluttered storeroom to the other door, Utoblo fluttering at her side. De Haan had a kind of key-card, a tiny plastic square, which she used to unlock the hatch, allowing them through into the room beyond, the lights in here coming on automatically as they entered.
Harry looked around to see where he was now – the astrometrics lab, Utoblo had called it. An enormous curved screen set into the far wall dominated the room, with a series of control panels beneath it and more workstations around the side walls. Another door presumably led out into the corridor and de Haan headed straight for it, all but towing him along as she hung onto his arm for support, weak still but determined.
She hesitated when they reached the door. "Wait, where are we going? Do we have a plan?"
"Er…well, not as such." Harry had thought no further ahead than escape from the immediate threat.
"Is the guard still there?" Utoblo asked in a hissed whisper, and de Haan boggled.
"There's a guard? Why in the skies were you locked up?"
"I wasn't! He was!" Utoblo gestured indignantly at Harry, who couldn't deny it.
De Haan shook her head bemusedly and used her card to open the door, allowing them to peer very cautiously around it just in time to see the guard, further along the corridor, opening the medical bay door. He stepped inside with a grouchy "What's going on in here?" that was drowned out even as he spoke by a sort of prolonged popping noise that sounded almost like the muted rattle of a machine gun…followed by the distinct thud of a body hitting the ground.
Not the explosion Utoblo had feared – but perhaps something somehow even worse.
"What was that?"
"What just happened?"
Both de Haan and Utoblo were looking at Harry as if they expected him to have all the answers. The trouble was, of course, that he didn't.
He took a deep breath and tried to think. The guard had made no further sound and Sorenson had also gone quiet.
"I think we should find out what's happening – and see if that man's all right," he decided, medical instincts surging to the fore. "Wait here."
"No," de Haan promptly countered. "No, I think we should stick together."
So they went together, venturing slowly and cautiously along the corridor toward the medical bay, an odd glow now emanating from its wide open door. The temperature dropped noticeably as they grew close, a strange sort of thrum to the air that Harry had felt before – and he knew what it meant, with a creeping sense of dread that sat at the pit of the stomach like a stone as realisation dawned.
They reached the door. All lights and monitors now dead, the darkened room was instead faintly illuminated by an icy mist that filled the air above the overturned crates that had once held crystals, sparking and crackling in electric reds and blues about the power sockets. The wizened body of the guard was barely visible, shrouded by the mist, which wisped and flickered and crackled all about him in a manner somehow reminiscent of wasps swarming around a spot of jam.
Sorenson had talked about young and about sustenance, about needing power and bodies, and it all made a horrible sort of sense now.
Sorenson looked up, his expression one of rapt triumph. His mouth opened, the mist began wafting toward them…
And the door slammed shut. De Haan swiped her card to seal it with an urgent shout of, "Run!"
They ran.
dwdwdwdw
"That's it!" the Doctor excitedly shouted. "It's done!"
Sarah bounced to her feet and hurried over as he extricated himself from beneath the computer console looking tremendously pleased with himself.
"The buffer is complete?" Landa had followed her and bent to peer at the connections, as if reluctant to take his word for it.
"But will it work?" Vishinsky wanted to know.
The Doctor shrugged. "We'll find out soon enough. Night's candles are burned out and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain top. Or something like that."
Neither Vishinsky nor Landa appeared any the wiser, but Sarah knew her Bard when she heard him. She followed the Doctor's line of vision toward the window and saw that the first rays of dawn were at last creeping over the treetops.
"It's getting light."
"That's what I said," said the Doctor, adding, apropos of nothing immediately apparent, "I met him once, you know."
"Who?"
"Shakespeare," he said, as if it should be obvious. "Charming fellow. Dreadful actor."
"Perhaps that's why he took up writing," Sarah distractedly replied, attention focused on the rosy glow over the treetops, wondering how long it would take. How long until they knew whether or not the Doctor's buffer was successful, holding the Natara at bay from the electrical power they craved? How long until the solar cell recharged sufficiently to make contact with the space probe? How long until the Natara came up with a new approach, how long could they protect themselves, how long until the space probe itself came under attack from the Natara on board?
"Perhaps it was," the Doctor rather absently murmured, likewise watching the sunrise.
How long?
dwdwdwdw
"Captain!"
"Captain Salamar!"
Utoblo and de Haan both shouted wildly as they burst onto the bridge ahead of Harry, breathless from their mad dash through the halls of the space probe, spurred on by the alarm that now signalled ship-wide alert.
The captain's initial reaction was perhaps, in hindsight, only too predictable. He took one look at Harry and bellowed, "You! What have you done?"
Harry was dumbfounded. By the time he regained command of his voice, Utoblo was already babbling.
"Sir, the aliens – the aliens are on board, the aliens from the planet, they're here, in the medical bay, it was Sorenson, sir, he was helping them, and they're here! We have to do something!"
Salamar blinked and blanched and gaped and finally stuttered, "W-what?"
"It's true, sir." De Haan leaned heavily against the door frame, thick curly hair tumbling loose to hang lank around a too-pale face. She was far from fully recovered, Harry noted with professional concern, and really shouldn't be up and about yet – never mind dashing around like this.
"What do you mean?" Salamar asked in a very small voice. "What are you saying? Professor Sorenson…"
"I believe he's being controlled somehow," Harry offered, looking around for a chair of some kind for de Haan. He'd been thinking about this. It was the only explanation that made sense of the professor's behaviour, his change in attitude – the voice that wasn't his.
"By the aliens?" asked Salamar wonderingly, as if he could scarcely believe it. "The aliens are on board? Is it really true? But how can that be?"
"The Doctor did try to warn you, you know." Harry spotted an unused operator's chair at a workstation nearby and pulled it across for de Haan, who pulled a face but sat down anyway, rubbing at her shadow-ringed eyes. "They were in the crystals the professor brought aboard. We left them contained in the medical bay, but they'll be loose by now, I'm certain."
The alarm continued to sound in support of this supposition and the lights were flickering, just as they had when the aliens attacked down on the planet, but Salamar only stared, slack-jawed, while his bridge crew shuffled around in agitation, waiting for him to take charge and tell them what to do in the crisis.
The command wasn't going to come, that much was increasingly apparent, and they really couldn't wait any longer.
Harry thought of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart back at UNIT, utterly unflappable whatever the crisis. Commodore Bennetts at Faslane, Captain Arnold on the Ark Royal…not one of them would have left their crew hanging like this.
Someone had to get them moving again, and perhaps the decision to break rank was easier when it wasn't your own chain of command.
He turned to Morelli and employed his very best Brigadier impersonation to ask, "What's our status here?"
She blinked in surprise and glanced uneasily at her captain, but he no longer appeared to be listening, even – shock, Harry diagnosed once more; the man really required treatment, but they could hardly shuffle him off to the medical bay, in the circumstances.
Morelli looked helplessly at Utoblo and de Haan, and other members of the bridge crew, then back to the captain again, as if unable to decide what to do, unable to choose to go over the captain's head when he was standing right there…but the alarm was still sounding, there were ghostly invisible aliens loose on the ship, and at last she took a breath, turned her back on the captain and answered: "We're experiencing unexplained power losses in pockets all around the ship, equipment failure and blackouts. Two crewmen reported dead –"
"Make that three," de Haan interjected in leaden tones. "Matthiesen's in the medical bay – he was the first."
"Four," the crewman called Anwar spoke up, looking grim. "They just found Leisha Karim – no wait…" He raised a hand to the earpiece he was wearing, listening intently. "That doesn't make sense. They say Karim is dead. But they also say she's on her feet and moving…like a zombie."
"There's no such thing as zombies," Morelli immediately reproved.
"Tell that to Karim!" Anwar retorted. He frowned, hand rising to his earpiece once more to signal another incoming communication. "And Farrez – and Varley. I'm getting reports from all over. The dead won't stay dead!"
It sounded impossible…but Harry had seen 'impossible' proved otherwise before. He exchanged worried looks with de Haan, who shakily offered, "If the aliens could control the professor, perhaps they can do this, as well."
"Perhaps." Harry turned to Anwar. "Do your reports say anything about temperature? It always drops when the aliens are near."
"And lights!" added Utoblo excitedly. "They shut down the lights – but Sorenson collapsed when I turned them back on."
Morelli seized on this at once. "We can use that."
She cast a fleeting glance sideways at Salamar, who still hadn't moved, hadn't spoken, seemed lost in a world of his own. Poor chap really had cracked – but that was the least of their worries right now.
Giving up on her captain, Morelli turned back to Harry. "We need to mount a defence. What else do you know about these creatures?"
dwdwdwdw
One by one, the computer systems in the base were flickering back to life, the buffer to hold off the Natara was working, and the Doctor was almost unbearably smug about it.
"Yes, yes, you're brilliant and we all know it," Sarah cheerfully agreed with only a slight roll of her eyes, because the praise was deserved even if he was fishing for it. "But is the radio working yet?"
The Doctor grinned happily. "Let's find out."
They moved as a group to the radio and here Vishinsky and Landa took over, adjusting the controls to their satisfaction before attempting to transmit.
"Zeta Minor calling space probe KX9-06. Zeta Minor calling space probe KX9-06 – come in, please."
There was no response, only the faint crackle of static drowning out the other faint crackle that signalled the continued presence of the Natara, lurking on the threshold between dimensions – the daylight had beaten them back, at least for now, but they hadn't gone far.
The Doctor frowned. "May not have quite enough oomph yet – let's see if we can boost it, divert power from redundant systems…"
He pushed the others out of the way to fiddle with the controls himself, and leaned into the microphone.
"Hullo up there, space probe! This is Zeta Minor, are you receiving?"
There was a pause, another crackle of static – then at last actual words, garbled by bursts of white noise.
"…Minor, this is…06…you…there…"
"They've heard us!" Sarah exclaimed.
"More or less," Vishinsky dryly remarked. He made a move to reclaim the transmitter, but the Doctor was already talking again.
"Hello? You're breaking up – can you hear me?" He began fiddling with the controls again.
There was another burst of static, which cleared up as the Doctor played with the dials, and then a blessedly familiar voice rang out, clear as a bell.
"I say, Doctor? Is that you?"
Harry. Safe and well and not locked up after all. Sarah laughed out loud with relief, while the Doctor beamed from ear to ear.
"Harry Sullivan! It's good to hear from you. How are things up there?"
A slight but ominous pause followed before the reply came back, "Not too good, I'm afraid," and Vishinsky promptly wrenched the microphone from the Doctor's hand.
"What's happened? Where's the captain?"
"Commander Vishinsky?" A new voice, greeted by Vishinsky as Morelli, came over the airwaves now to deliver a terse and alarming report, confirming that the worst had transpired: the spores had germinated and the Natara were loose and wreaking havoc on the space probe.
"Turn the ship around," the Doctor immediately ordered, taking control of the microphone back from Vishinsky. "It is imperative that the Natara are returned to Zeta Minor – they won't make it easy for you, they've set their sights outward, but they must not be allowed to reach populated space or there'll be no containing them. Do you understand?"
Sarah could hear a desperate note in Morelli's voice as she replied, "Yes. But the pattern of progression indicates they're moving toward Main Engineering – they can seize control of the whole ship from there. How do we stop them? We thought light…"
"Light will hold them at bay, surprise light shocks them into letting go," said the Doctor, nodding to an audience that couldn't actually see him. "The brighter the better, but if they've begun to feed off your power supply, all bets are off. It strengthens them exponentially. Their grasp on this plane is tenuous and can be disrupted, but remember we're no longer dealing with one or two guerrilla raiders but a whole swarm. That too will lend them strength. Think, think." He rapped at the side of his head again, brow furrowing with thought. "Exploratory space probe – you have laser equipment aboard, perhaps a photonic field generator or five?"
"Of course." It was Vishinsky who replied.
The Doctor nodded thoughtfully. "Then there might be a way…"
dwdwdwdw
The Doctor really was a tonic. He needn't even be in the room – merely exchanging a few words with him from thousands, perhaps even millions of miles away was enough to instil new hope and raise the gloomiest of spirits. Harry didn't know how he did it, but was grateful nonetheless.
He was also at something of a loose end as that brief conversation with the Doctor came to an end with a rush of activity, Morelli visibly uneasy still with her assumption of command, yet taking charge of the crew quite capably, issuing orders and organising everyone, as per the Doctor's quite detailed and highly technical instructions. Harry wasn't part of this crew, had no official function here and very limited knowledge of the ship and its contents, so, without much he could usefully do to contribute at this stage, it was perhaps only natural that he was the first to notice what was missing.
"I say, where's Captain Salamar gone?"
Morelli was in the middle of a ship-wide communique, warning the crew to close all hatchways, stay in groups and keep handheld lights with them at all times. She faltered and glanced around sharply, but continued to issue instructions while the rest of the bridge crew looked around in consternation.
Captain Salamar was nowhere to be seen.
"He's run away," Utoblo accused with a scowl, looking thoroughly disillusioned with his captain, but de Haan was concerned.
"No, he was listening. How much did he hear? Would he have tried to go after the creatures alone?"
"We can't worry about that now," Morelli determinedly said, setting the radio aside, communique complete. "We'll keep an eye out for him, but we have to continue as planned." She turned to eye Harry appraisingly. "Are you sure you want to be part of this, Lieutenant? You're not on this crew, you could stay here…"
"I'm quite certain," said Harry, who had no intention of waiting tamely on the bridge while Morelli led a team against these Natara creatures; he'd had quite enough of that already, left to stew in the medical bay while this blasted ship took both him and the TARDIS ever further away from Sarah and the Doctor. "I may not be on your crew, but I'm no civilian. I've as much at stake as anyone."
"Well, I won't say no to the extra hands," said Morelli. "All right, then. Anwar, de Haan, the bridge is yours. Barricade the door and try not to die. The rest of you – lights on and let's go."