6. Tracking the Master.
"My mother, Crystelle, used to enjoy tracking the Master..."
"How do you feel about it?" The Doctor wants to know how Chloe feels about being the one to track the Master.
"My mum would enjoy this." Chloe knows her mother enjoyed doing this.
"My dear, she died." The Doctor tries a first step to distance them from asking Crystelle to help.
"She did, but we met her earlier." Chloe's pleased to have re-met her mother on her earlier timeline, even though she has since died on Chloe's timeline.
"We can't go on interrupting her timeline! She had a life to live, and she lived it!" The Doctor thinks Chloe's trying to get her mother involved right now. Diving back in someone's timeline and dragging them to do a job isn't his idea of non-interference! .
Chloe's puzzled by the Doctor's sudden vehemence, she'd just been happily remembering her mother, but there's a task needing to be addressed.
"She lived it very well and enjoyed tracking the Master. Now we must get on with the job!"
Things sometimes snowball away from the focus.
Chloe still needs closure on this misunderstanding, but it will wait.
"Now, I suppose, we must wait until the bag is sent somewhere," Chloe says.
"What if it's not sent anywhere else?" the Doctor asks. He's challenging her assumption.
"Why bag it up?" Chloe asks.
"It might go to another part of the factory, or it might be weighed? Was there a marking on the bag?"
"Yes, it was marked Cement! But they wouldn't build centrifuges for cement!"
"No, but what if the cement is just a by-product?"
"I think you'd better look for yourself!" Chloe's irritated that the Doctor is questioning everything she's saying. But then, what if he's right? Maybe he can see what's happening better than she can. He's had millennia more experience than she has!
Chloe relaxes. "We'd better both go and take a look!" she groans. "Teamwork wins! Better two pairs of eyes..."
"Yes, alright. Sorry I annoyed you. But I agree we should both go."
"My transport?"
"Alright, then." The Doctor's not fully trusting of himself to Chloe's wristwatch transport, but it seems to work mostly, and this trip isn't far. They can walk back if it goes wrong!
Chloe takes them to immediately after she left to minimise visibility time on any security cameras that might be around.
The Doctor immediately goes to the centrifuges and tries to deduce where the residues go to.
He reaches into his robe to retrieve something from a pocket. He shows it to Chloe.
"A small sample pot!"
He breaks a glass pipe, catches a drip from it and re-caps the pot.
"Let's go!"
Chloe reaches for his hand, but at that moment a voice booms out, "Good Evening, Doctor!" .
It was going so well!
They spin around to see the Master at the top of a small flight of stairs.
"Where did you park your Tardis?" he asks.
Oops!
Chloe's far too uncomfortable to stay. She grabs hold of the Doctor's hand again and activates her wristwatch transport...
Back in the Tardis the Doctor's slightly concerned about their exit.
"That was a bit chancy," he says gently. "Now the Master has seen your transport in action. He won't rest until he knows a lot more about it!"
"I managed well earlier - I was able to say I travelled by Tardis, which was true then!"
"Well done, it can't be helped now."
"He would have asked questions about my transport. I couldn't face it just now."
"That's alright," the Doctor soothes her. "And I got away with the sample!" He diverts her attention away from her awkward moment. He hopes there won't be too many other awkward moments with the Master to follow.
"Doctor, this might be where my Mum might do extremely well. I wasn't thinking of involving her earlier, but now I come to think of it..."
"Yes, alright. Maybe there's merit here, but we must be very careful not to interrupt her at a crucial moment."
Chloe recalls the rules the Doctor tries to impress upon whoever might call him when he might be busy - he might be in the middle of some awkward moment himself.
"So," the Doctor says, "How would you best go about gaining your mother's attention without distracting her?"
"I'd quietly materialise my Tardis inside her Tardis, cloaked..."
"Oh, I thought you might use your wristwatch?"
"No, that's a bit complex for my tiny mind!" .
"Why?"
"I'd have two instances of my Tardis to think of at the same time! Doctor, do we really need to track the Master?" .
"That remains to be seen."
The Next Day.
"Doctor, I had a dream."
"What did you dream?"
"You'll laugh at this, Doctor."
"Go on, then."
"I dreamt that what we thought was cement was Pyroxium."
"Hmm, that figures!" His knowledge of dreams tend to point to the dream being right in Chloe's case. He wonders how much skill she's picked up from wearing her Ring of Confidence.
"So, the tracker will end up in some unsuspecting new warp drive spaceship," Chloe says .
"Ha, ha, I see what you mean. We'll be able to see where it goes! Not that it matters!" .
They laugh.
"I analysed the sample from the bottle," the Doctor says.
"And, what is it?"
"There are Lanthanides, alright, and Indium. Compounds of it can be superconductive up to thousands of degrees."
"Remind me why superconductors are so useful here, please, Doctor."
"The idea is to use superconductive magnets to control the warp of space immediately in front of and behind the spacecraft to provide acceleration. It isn't hyperspace, but why is the Master helping someone, and who is he helping?"
"We'll know who he's helping when we track the Pyroxium," Chloe says. She imagines how the Doctor might feel when tracking a bag of cement! .
"But by then his leaking of technology will already have happened. We must stop him before that!"
"I seem to recall warp drive being used in the setting up of my own planet colony, Tinsel," Chloe says. "Do you think it might be related?"
"Oh, dear, vested interests," the Doctor says, but there are things that need checking out. "We must still prevent technology transfer from happening. You may feel like you're defeating your own destiny! If Humans were going to develop Warp Drive, then it would happen anyway. You do know that; don't you?"
"Yes, Doctor. I'll be alright," Chloe reassures him. "Do we need my Mum to track the Master?"
"That's really up to you. I only said it might be a good idea because you'd expressed concern."
Chloe's Mum, Crystelle, had been expert at tracking the Master (ref. 13, and ref. 37)! Should they ask her to help?