Doctor Who: Terror of the Vervoids (2 page)

Janet, her blush enhancing the pink trimmings on her short, neat, white uniform, hastily consulted her clipboard.

‘Your luggage, Professor? It’s not in your cabin?’

‘Really? Do I have to repeat myself!’

The discomfited stewardess winced, but stood her ground. ‘I’m sure we can sort it out –’

‘Problems, Janet?’ The question came from an officer with thinning hair and an ingratiating manner. ‘Let me help.’

‘And who are you?’ Despite his badges of seniority, Lasky treated him like a menial cadet.

‘Security Officer Rudge, Professor. Which cabin did you go to?’

‘You’re asking? And you’re the Security Officer?’ Her incredulity caused him to bestow a benevolent smile.

Rudge was an avuncular individual who punctured his own authority by indecisiveness at crucial moments: a man promoted once too often.

It had not taken Lasky long to sum him up. ‘Cabin Six!’

she bawled. ‘Where else?’

‘May I see your key?’ His smile did not waver as, with bad grace, she thrust the key at him.

He studied the tag. ‘Ah... no... the other way round, I think.’ He offered the key with the tag showing Nine instead of Six. ‘
You’re
in Cabin Nine, Professor. And that’s where your luggage will be.’

‘Let’s hope so!’ Not in the least abashed, Lasky stalked away to join her two assistants, Bruchner and Doland.

A new arrival approached Janet. She accepted his ticket and consulted her clipboard. With a side glance at Professor Lasky, she handed the key to the robust, good-looking newcomer whose hair and beard had gone prematurely grey. ‘
You’re
in Cabin Six, Mister Grenville.’

Grenville grinned wryly and, pocketing his key, crossed to the exit marked
CABINS
. As he did so, the elderly man rose from his chair.

‘Mister Hallet!’ The old man’s wizened features broke into a smile of pleasure. He advanced on Grenville, hand outstretched in welcome. ‘How pleasant! At least one face not belonging to a stranger.’

Ignoring the proffered hand, Grenville tried to pass.

‘I’m sorry. I think you must be mistaken.’

‘Surely not? My name’s Kimber. We met three years ago. On Stella Stora. You came to investigate shortages in the granaries, Mister Hallet.’

Suddenly all attention was on the encounter. The opaque goggles of the Mogarians, Atza and Ortezo, were blatantly fixed on Grenville. So, too, was the attention of Lasky and her acolytes, Bruchner and Doland.

‘I’ve never been to Stella Stora,’ insisted the man Kimber had called Hallet. ‘And my name’s Grenville.

You’re obviously confusing me with someone else.’ He continued to the cabins.

The elderly gentleman smoothed his balding pate, thoroughly confused.

‘Maybe Mister Grenville has a
Doppelgänger
!’ Rudge had been an interested spectator. So had Janet.

‘I could have sworn... the face... even the voice sounds the same...’

As the door closed behind Grenville, the tall, thin Bruchner turned to his associates. ‘An investigator! Did you hear what –’

‘
Bruchner!
’ Lasky’s reprimand was quiet but authoritative. ‘Go and check the safety measures for the isolation room.’

Bruchner, aware he was being told to shut up, nevertheless was too agitated to obey.

‘
Immediately!
’

Reluctantly, he departed. Lasky and Doland watched him go, then exchanged a glance of mutual concern. The Mogarians conversed in agitated whispers. Rudge gazed thoughtfully at the still swinging exit door. Janet, her duties forgotten, stared absently at her passenger list.

The apparently irrelevant mistaken identity seemed to have unnerved more than the elderly Mister Kimber...

2

Grenville, too, had lost his cool. Entering Cabin Six, he slung his case on the bed in obvious anger and frustration.

Encountering old Mister Kimber had been a major blow.

He slumped onto the bed, glared around the simply furnished cabin. Neither the wardrobe nor the en suite bathroom offered inspiration.

But he had to do something!

Listening to ensure no-one was in the corridor, he stole out of the cabin.

‘Come on! Move it!’

In contrast with the guard’s staccato orders, the muted heartbeat of the idling engines throbbed rhythmically through the tenebrous cargo bay.

From a vantage point on a gantry high up in the shadows of latticed pipes and girders, Grenville watched the hive of activity below: loaders, in grey overalls, were trundling cargo into the vast hold.

‘Keep it moving, lads. Keep it moving!’

Surreptitiously, Grenville surveyed the cavernous bay stacked with multifarious packing cases and crates... then he focused his gaze on a row of hooks from which hung overalls, identical to those worn by the loaders.

Officiously, the guard checked the manifest handed to him by the foreman. This diversion provided Grenville with the opportunity he sought. Stealthily descending the iron ladder, he made for the row of hooks.

‘That’s the final batch,’ confirmed the guard. ‘Get your men ashore.’

Trooping towards the exit, the loaders yanked hoods with masks attached over their heads: the air on Mogar was as lethal to humans as the oxygenated air on the ship was to the two Mogarian passengers on board.

Quickly donning a pair of overalls, Grenville pulled the hood over his head and, anonymity assured, filed from the ship with the disembarking men.

Intriguing as this action was to the rest of the court, the Valeyard had an objection.

‘Relevant, I hope,’ cautioned the Inquisitor.

‘Completely. When, may we ask, is the Doctor going to embroil himself in this saga?’

‘Now
I
object!’ The Doctor felt extremely angry. ‘Am I not to be protected from the prosecutor’s insinuations? On what evidence does he conclude that I embroil myself?’

‘None.’ The Inquisitor’s smooth features registered no surprise at the Doctor’s outburst. ‘I shall ignore his terminology. But I confess I share his curiosity.’

‘I fail to see why you are curious, my Lady. You must be aware of where the TARDIS is.’ The sarcasm was barely hidden. That the TARDIS had been ‘bugged’ was something he had learned from the earlier prosecution case. Chagrin had hit him then. Now he could not resist the barbed rejoinder.

‘Obscurity is a recognised ploy for subterfuge,’ sneered the Valeyard.

‘And posing unnecessary questions in order to score cheap points is the ploy used by a prosecutor who has no case!’ countered the Doctor. ‘You’ve been monitoring the TARDIS! You claim it’s been bugged with a listening device! So – you tell the Court where it is!’

Awaiting the prosecutor’s response, the Inquisitor straightened the crimson sash draped across her white robes. ‘I require you to respond to the challenge, Valeyard.’

The Valeyard dared not disobey her. ‘It had entered the sector the
Hyperion III
is traversing.’ His reluctance added to the Doctor’s triumph as, with evident anticipation, all turned to the Matrix screen..

Against a backcloth of distant stars, galaxies and cosmic dust, the streamlined, multi-decked
Hyperion III
surged away from the planet of Mogar and hurtled through space...

... yet inside, no tremor of movement could be felt. No sound of the hyperon particle thruster engines could be heard.

So smooth was the lift-off that not a drop of coffee slurped over the brim of the beaker Janet was taking to the crew’s quarters.

In a sudden, prancing gesture, a gloved fist seized her shoulder.

‘Oh, you startled me!’

Ignoring her bewilderment, the Mogarian, Atza, began speaking. An unintelligible, guttural voice was broadcast from an electronic box linked by a nozzle to his begoggled helmet.

‘You haven’t got your translator switched on, sir.’

Impatiently, Atza jabbed a stud on the electronic box.

‘Why did we not depart on schedule?’ he asked.

Quickly regaining her equilibrium, Janet became the calm stewardess again. ‘We were delayed for a late arrival.

Gentleman from your planet, as a matter of fact.’

‘A Mogarian?’

‘Yes, sir!’

Abruptly, Atza departed. With a shrug, Janet continued along the corridor.

Another disconcerting happening was taking place in the communications room.

Seated before a sophisticated bank of audio and visual transmitters, Edwardes, the twenty-five-year-old Communications Officer, was frowning as he studied a monitor screen.

The object of his concern was a minute graphic glowing on the screen’s North East quadrant.

‘What the blazes can it be?’ he muttered to himself. He had already consulted the flight log and found no notification of other spacecraft. Nor did the graphic conform to any vehicle in the Space Mariners’ Manual.

Nor would it. For the object was the Doctor’s TARDIS.

Unaware of his proximity to the liner – indeed, oblivious of anything but the bouncy, red-haired young woman supervising his programme, the Doctor was pedalling furiously on an exercise bike.

The girl was Mel, his new companion. And instructress!

‘Twenty... twenty-one... twenty-two...’ She and the Doctor counted together: he with martyr-like resignation, she with bubbling vitality.

‘Twenty-three... twenty-four...’

Still counting in unison with her reluctant pupil, Mel trotted from the control room.

The instant she was out of sight, the Doctor stopped pedalling but continued counting vigorously.

‘Twenty-five... twenty-six... twenty-seven...’

His

contribution was even more emphatic as he slumped over the handlebars – then hastily resumed dedicated action on her return: ‘twenty-eight... twenty-nine... thirty!’ He collapsed forward.

‘Here, this’ll buck you up.’ She was carrying two glasses.

The Doctor eyed the orange liquid in the glasses disgustedly. ‘Carrot juice!’

‘It’ll do you good, honestly. Carrots are full of Vitamin A.’ Disingenuously, the Doctor fingered his ears. ‘Mel...

have you studied my ears lately?’

‘It’s your waistline I’m concerned about.’ Mel, who had been with the Doctor for three months, had already learnt to recognise his wily deceptions.

‘No, seriously, is it my imagination’ – he stroked imaginary donkey-length ears through his mop of fair curls

– ‘or are they growing longer?’

Mel, brown eyes twinkling, was not taken in. ‘Listen, when I start calling you Neddy, then you can worry! Drink up!’

‘You’ll worry sooner if I start to bray!’

Grinning, Mel swigged her carrot juice and he, with good-humoured reluctance, took a minute sip....

The persistence of the twenty-two-year-old Mel was matched by the Communications Officer on the
Hyperion
III
.

Trying to make sense of the glowing graphic, Edwardes was coding in signal sequences on a touch-sensitive keyboard.

His efforts went unrewarded. Despite his considerable skills, he could not find a channel that would allow him to establish contact with the strange object.

So baffled was he, that he failed to look round when Janet entered with refreshments.

Putting down the tray, she joined him at the console.

‘Anything interesting?’

‘Maybe. Unidentified craft. I’ve tried all the standard frequencies.’

‘Without response?’

‘Not a bleep.’ Taking the beaker, he tasted his coffee.

‘Perhaps it’s a piece of space flotsam.’

With amused condescension, Edwardes gazed at his earnest colleague. ‘You make delicious coffee, Janet.’

‘Oh well, if you don’t want the benefit of my advice...’

Her haughtiness was all pretence as she flounced from the room.

A smile creasing his pleasant features, Edwardes resumed his signalling. ‘Let’s try you on hyper-frequency.’

He tapped out a code. Waited eagerly for a response.

When none came, he tried again... Absorbed in his task, he did not see the door handle turning... or hear the soft footsteps of an intruder...

The first awareness hit him when the flat disc of a high-pressure syringe stabbed against his jugular... Edwardes’

cry of protest was stillborn. Coffee splattering, he slumped forward, unconscious...

The intruder had not finished.

Gloved hands reached for the touch-sensitive keyboard and began tapping out a message...

3

Exhausted, feet strapped to the bike’s motionless pedals, the Doctor was watching the tireless Mel. Her rope slapped with clockwork regularity against the floor as she blithely reached ninety-seven in her daily dose of a hundred skips.

A signal began bleeping on the control panel.

‘Quick, Mel, press the red button! Get the message on the screen!’

Mel pressed the red button but the screen remained blank.

‘Press it, girl! Press it!’

‘I have.’

Awkwardly struggling free of the straps, he rushed to the console and thumped a green button.

‘You said red!’ Mel was indignant.

‘Did I? It’s the carrot juice making me colour blind!’

A sequence of numbers flickered onto the monitor.

‘Colour blind!’ Mel looked disparagingly at her companion’s variegated costume.

The Doctor ignored the jibe. His concentration was on concurrently translating the numbers into letters as the message continued.

The bleeping ceased.

Decoded, the message read: ‘--
PERATIVE TRAITOR

BE IDENTIFIED BEFORE LANDING EARTH.

MAYDAY END.
’

‘Cryptic,’ was the Doctor’s comment.

‘Mayday call. We have to respond.’

He didn’t need Mel to tell him that. He had already set the co-ordinates. ‘Practically on our doorstep!’

With a wheezing bellowing and a flashing light, the familiar police box, otherwise known as the TARDIS, materialised in the sombrely-lit hold of the
Hyperion III
.

Mel’s mass of red curls jutted from the door. ‘Come on, Doctor. Come on. Hurry.’

She stepped impetuously into the deserted gloom, eyeing the crates and packages.