Doctor Who: Terror of the Vervoids (6 page)

With the guard who had marched her from the fatal scene in the cargo hold at her side, Mel stood before the stern-faced Commodore.

‘I don’t need anyone to defend me!’ She was not easily cowed. ‘I’m quite capable of defending myself!’

Ignoring her defiance, the Commodore addressed the Doctor. ‘How long have you known this woman?’

Unaware of what had taken place, the Doctor prevaricated. ‘Time is a comparative concept, Commodore.’

‘Not now, Doctor!’ Mel was haunted by the sight of Edwardes’ electrocution on the mesh fence. ‘Just answer the question!’

‘I should accept the advice and drop the sophistry. Can you vouch for her?’ This was the Commodore.

‘Completely. Utterly. What’s this all about, Mel?’

‘The Communications Officer’s dead and they think I did it!’

‘She was caught running from the scene. She can’t deny that,’ Rudge accused.

‘I haven’t tried!’ protested Mel. ‘I persuaded Edwardes to show me the hydroponic centre. It was booby-trapped.’

‘Booby-trapped?’ repeated the Doctor.

‘Yes. If it hadn’t been for Edwardes it would’ve been me who was killed.’

During this exchange, the intercom had buzzed.

‘
What!
’ exploded Rudge into the instrument. ‘Are you certain?’

‘What is it?’

‘Medical team report, sir. They went to the hold to attend to Edwardes... and they say there’s no sign of him anywhere.’

‘But there must be,’ said Mel.

‘Maybe he wasn’t dead,’ the Doctor suggested gently.

‘The weird atmosphere down there could lead to phantasmagoria.’

‘Oh, come on! You know me. Am I prone to that sort of imagination?’ She wasn’t. Mel was a skilled computer programmer back on Earth. Her talents were practical; her outlook on life sane and level-headed, without any of the flights of fancy to which the Doctor’s eccentricities might be heir.

The Commodore rounded on Mel’s escort. ‘I thought you left a man down there!’

‘I did, sir.’

‘Rudge?’

‘They say there’s no sign of him either.’

‘The guard’s disappeared too?’ Mel was puzzled but realised it established her innocence. ‘Now, perhaps you’ll accept I’m not responsible. You’ve had me in custody!’

‘The perfect alibi, Commodore,’ ventured the Doctor.

‘Organise a search, Mister Rudge.’ The Commodore was terse. ‘I want those two men found!’

Obediently, guards at his heels, Rudge departed. The Commodore glowered at the Doctor. ‘Since you put in an appearance, first a passenger was fed into the pulveriser and now my Communications Officer and a guard have gone missing! Two, if not all three, killed. Murdered.’

Mel shuddered and hugged herself at the gruesome images the recital prompted.

The Commodore was not finished. ‘But you – standing there in a divine state of innocence – you can’t tell me what’s happening on my ship, can you!’

Meeting the challenge full on, Mel gave him a reply. ‘I can. The answer’s simple enough. You’ve got a killer on board!’

8

Crr-a-a-s-ssh!

The shattering of fragmenting china startled the sentry.

It came from inside the isolation room.

Indecisively, he leaned closer.

Listened.

He had no idea what was beyond that door. Nor did he dare try to find out. Orders were unequivocal: protect but do not enter.

Doland emerged from the isolation room carrying a tray cluttered with broken crockery. Food stains soiled his white smock. ‘An accident. No cause for concern.’ He dumped the tray beside the door. ‘The stewardess will collect that.’

As Doland left, the sentry gazed disgustedly at the debris on the tray.

Unconsciously he rested his hand on his phaser holster.

An apprehension which had not abated when Janet arrived. But before either could comment, Rudge came strolling along the corridor.

He was in the high dudgeon of the weak in temperament: the search for the missing crew members had drawn a blank. A grimace at the mess on the tray.

‘Again?’

Janet nodded. ‘What’s going on in there?’

‘Don’t ask me! I’m only the Security Officer!’

The statement served to fuel the sentry’s unease.

Nor did time lessen the tension.

Passing on his way to the lounge, the Doctor waved a breezy greeting. The sentry’s response was to tighten his grip on the phaser.

Mel failed to register this byplay. She was in mid-lecture. ‘Look, you can’t just adopt a passive role.’ The Doctor was, to all appearances, still remaining obstinately in the neutral corner. ‘We were sent for, remember?’

‘I’m cogitating.’

‘About what?’

The Doctor indicated the sentry by the door to the isolation room. ‘Whether that guard’s job is to keep unwanted visitors out, or...’

‘Keep someone in?’

‘Intriguing, isn’t it?’

‘Does seem strange, I admit, an armed guard outside an isolation room.’

Their voices died away. Alone again, the sentry listened at the door.

Silence....

There was silence, too, in the cargo hold. An almost eerie silence. Just the muffled throb of the engines. No sign of the two bodies. The grill of the airduct was back in place.

Enzu, the Mogarian with the sash, came stealthily in.

His protective suit and opaque goggles reflected the dim auxiliary lighting as he padded furtively between the packing crates.

Reaching the hydroponic centre, Enzu glanced briefly at the disconnected cable before crossing to the pods.

His goggles were slowly scanning the giant empty shucks, when something captured his attention: caught on the edge of the air duct, trapped by the grille, was a wisp of waxy, olive-green leaf...

He plucked it free and felt its texture with his gloved hand... then he pressed his helmeted head against the grille. A distant, vaguely alien, murmuring could be heard...

Further investigation was aborted by a more immediate crisis. The imminent approach of Doland and Bruchner threatened to expose the Mogarian’s trespassing. Swiftly he sought cover in the cargo hold.

Bruchner’s thin face was flushed with anger. ‘No matter how you and Professor Lasky rationalise the situation, we should not have proceeded to the point we’ve reached.’

‘Why you became a scientist, Bruchner, baffles me,’

replied Doland. ‘You have the temperament of an overcautious rabbit.’

The debate intrigued Enzu. Moving quietly, he kept them within earshot.

‘Did you leave the gates open?’ The gaping gates alarmed Doland.

Already in an acute state of anxiety, the volatile Bruchner made straight for the pods. ‘Doland! The pods!

Every one of them! Empty!’

Doland hurriedly joined him. ‘Some fool must have introduced light into the centre.’

‘Introduced light!’ Bruchner’s self control was in danger of crumbling. ‘We’re confronted with a catastrophe and that’s your reaction!
Don’t you realise what’s been unleashed!
’

How different events would have proved had the Doctor overheard this conversation. As it was, he and Mel, knowing nothing of the impending disaster, were entering the lounge.

Turning to the Doctor, she extended her hand. ‘Where are they?’

‘Where are who?’

‘You know exactly what I mean. Where are those seeds?

The ones you picked up in the wrecked cabin. Or did you think I’d forgotten?’

The Doctor rummaged in his pocket and extracted the Demeter seeds. Mel tried to take a couple.

‘Why d’you want them?’ He closed his fist.

Mel indicated Professor Lasky who was seated at the far end of the lounge reading a detective novel. ‘She’s an agronomist. I’m going to ask her about the seeds.’

‘Is she? Agronomist? Hmmm. Better leave me to cope with her.’

‘
You?
’

‘It requires tact and finesse. I’m blessed with both.’

En route to Lasky, he smiled benignly at the Mogarians who were absorbed in an electronic board game. There were only the two of them, Atza and Ortezo: Enzu, of course, was in the cargo hold.

‘Professor Lasky.’

She glanced up as the Doctor spoke. Not too happy at being disturbed, she was even less pleased on recognising the Time Lord. ‘Oh, it’s you, the comedian. What d’you want?’

Her aggressive reception did not deter him. ‘I understand you’re an agronomist.’

‘Thremmatologist, to be precise.’

‘A thremmatologist.’ He held out the seeds. ‘Then you’re well qualified to tell me about –’

‘Stewardess!’ Lasky’s strident roar brought Janet scurrying. ‘Stewardess!’

‘Something wrong, Professor?’

‘Fetch the Security Officer!’

‘Can I help?’

‘At once!’

Janet clicked on her communicator. ‘Mister Rudge to the passenger lounge, please.’ Trying to maintain her air of calm, she returned to her questioning. ‘May I be told what’s wrong, Professor?’

Lasky’s reply was raucous and adamant. She levelled an accusing finger at the Doctor.

‘This man’s a thief !’

The Time Lord was lost for words.

Not Mel.

Looking at his bewildered face, she shook her head.

‘Tact? Finesse? Now what have you landed us in!’

9

If the Doctor was courting trouble, so, too, was Enzu.

Dodging between islands of crates in his advance on the work hut, his fleeting shadow was spotted by Bruchner.

‘What was that?’ On edge, nerves taut, Bruchner squinted into the gloomy cargo section.

‘Nothing. Pull yourself together, Bruchner.’

‘There’s someone in the hold.’

Doland was not convinced but to pacify his colleague he peered about. ‘You’re allowing hysteria to –’

‘I know what I saw! There was a movement!’ Bruchner started in the direction of the hold. Doland tagged along.

In full retreat, Enzu was compelled to dart across the main aisle to reach the exit.

Glimpsing an indistinct figure, the two scientists hurried to intercept.

Too late. The Mogarian had escaped.

If either man had recognised the intruder, he was not saying. Doland gave a fatalistic shrug and Bruchner’s doom-laden eyes had already returned to the hydroponic centre and the empty pods.

A change of mood had overcome their leader, Professor Lasky.

‘That puts an entirely different complexion on the issue,’ she declared to Mel. A friendly smile embellished her face, heightening her mature but extremely attractive features.

Mel had intervened to explain how the Doctor had acquired the seeds. She – and only she – was the recipient of the Professor’s benefaction.

‘A pity your friend the comedian wasn’t as lucid!’

The Doctor’s protest came quickly. ‘I never got a chance

–’

‘Although I can’t understand what they were doing in Cabin Six,’ said Lasky over him. ‘Or why a mineralogist would steal them.’

‘Are they special, Professor?’ asked Mel.

‘Just what I was about –’

‘The Demeter seeds? Yes, they are.’ Again Lasky cut the Doctor off. ‘They represent a tremendous advance. A colossal leap.’

‘Do they? How–?’

‘What did you call them? The Demeter seeds?’ Even Mel was now interrupting the Doctor. It seemed the two women were completely ignoring his presence. An unusual and not enjoyable experience for the extrovert Time Lord.

He tried answering a question since he had failed to ask one. ‘Name of a god –’

‘Food of the gods.’ Lasky had done it again! ‘Bruchner, my assistant – bit of a romantic, highly strung – he christened them.’

Rudge, tardily responding to the intercom summons, had arrived with a guard. Janet, anticipating his arrival, was waiting by the entrance to explain.

The Doctor had not given up. ‘That still doesn’t –’

‘He wasn’t just being pretentious.’ Nor had Lasky given up. ‘They’ll increase yields threefold. And, more, they’ll grow in desert sands.’

By now, Rudge, officiously marching across the lounge, had reached the professor’s side.

‘What is it, man? Don’t stand there hovering!’ she barked at Rudge.

‘You sent for him!’ The Doctor actually managed to finish a sentence.

‘I did?’ Incredulity, then recall. ‘Oh, yes. Not to worry.’

‘But I do worry,’ came Rudge’s bland reply. ‘Especially when serious allegations are made. You accused the Doctor of being a thief.’

‘Oh that? A mistake. The fellow may be a fool but he’s not a criminal.’

Brows drawn, blue eyes glaring in resentment at the purveyor of the back-handed compliment, the Doctor absently tossed a Demeter seed into his mouth and chewed indignantly!

The shenanigans in the lounge would have been dismissed as trivial by the Commodore. Apparent murder and disappearing bodies were uppermost on his list of priorities.

His dark, intelligent eyes were studying the concave window above the control console on the bridge where near-space showed against a navigational grid.

‘Project our course through the sector ahead.’

The duty officer coded in the request. A curving line bisected the grid and a series of figures flashed up on the display panel.

‘Put us onto a straighter course. Reduce the diversion to a point-nought-three safety margin.’

The duty officer obeyed, then read the responding dials.

‘I estimate that brings our ETA forward by seventy-two hours, sir.’

‘Seventy-two hours closer to getting expert investigators aboard.’ He rose. ‘Do it!’ Commodore Travers was a man whose command brooked no discussion. His subordinate began making the adjustments.

Against a background where spiral galaxies and nebula clusters predominated, the
Hyperion III
’s boosters emitted staccato bursts, shifting the massive vehicle’s trajectory.

The sound of the rocket boosters could be heard in the lounge. Although not intrusive, the noise created a constrained stir. Atza and Ortezo gripped the arms of their chairs and the Commodore, descending the twisting staircase, caught the elderly Mister Kimber as he almost lost balance.

‘There is no need for concern.’ His authoritative voice caused all to look his way. Even Lasky, sitting at a table with the Doctor and Mel, glanced up from her book.