Niash blanched. ‘Death... or suspended life?’
The Commander’s voice was firm. ‘Precisely! But it is up to you to choose, and before doing so you may consult with your defending counsel, Manyak.’
Niash nodded and turned to speak to the man who had helped escort him into the Control Room. While they conferred, the Monoid who had also assisted in the task stood silently by, apparently listening to their deliberations, his one eye swivelling as it watched their lips.
Mellium, a young girl, moved towards the Commander.
‘Father, he only made one mistake. He won’t do it again.
You can’t condemn him like this.’
‘I have no wish to do so, but we are the Guardians of all life,’ her father stated. ‘It is the law, and it must be obeyed.’
He indicated another young man. ‘Zentos has made a sound case for the prosecution. The facts simply cannot be denied.’
Manyak and Niash had completed their quick consultation. Manyak turned to face the Commander.
‘Niash accepts the sentence of miniaturisation and is grateful that you have not passed a harsher judgement.’
‘Very well,’ the Commander acknowledged. ‘At least there is hope for him in the distant future.’
Turning to the others present, he announced: ‘The sentence is confirmed. Let it be carried out.’
Niash was led towards a glass-fronted chamber. Mellium stepped forward and grasped his arm.
‘I’m sorry, Niash,’ she cried out. ‘I wish there had been more that I could have done.’
Niash shook his head. ‘The mistake was mine and the sentence is a just one. Now that it has finally been decided I am at peace with myself.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Sometime in the future I will remember you, but in the meantime, travel in hope.’
Her hands flew to her mouth, choking a sob, as she murmured ‘Goodbye.’ He stepped away from her and entered the chamber. A lever was pulled, there was a concentrated flash of light within the chamber and, even as the others watched, Niash grew smaller and smaller until finally he seemed to have been reduced to nothing. Then the bright light died down. Manyak opened the door of the chamber and stepped in to pick up the slide onto which Niash, now a mere speck, had been impregnated. Manyak placed it in a covering dish and carried it away out of the Control Room.
Zentos was conferring with a Monoid, not by speech, but by way of hand signals. The Monoid replied in kind and Zentos turned to face the Commander.
‘My learned friend wishes to thank you, Commander, for the way in which you take care of us all.’
There was a general murmur of assent from all in the Control Room, both humans and Monoids. The Commander acknowledged this. Then, turning, he placed his hand on the shoulder of his still troubled daughter.
‘It was the right thing... the only thing... to do, Mellium, if we are to succeed in our mission.’
Mellium nodded in resignation, finally recognising this to be true.
In the jungle the Doctor, Steven and Dodo were venturing a little further away from TARDIS, fascinated by their surroundings. The animals seemed to have accepted them, to the point they almost ignored them, but from among the trees a large beast moved in their direction.
Dodo was the first to see it and smiled as she pointed towards it. ‘Oo... look at him, then!’
It was a fully matured elephant which brushed the undergrowth with its trunk as it advanced. After a moment’s hesitation they in turn moved forward to meet it and caressed its trunk and bowed head. Then, Finding with its questing trunk that they had no food to offer, it moved on.
The Doctor stared after it and then at the jungle around them.
‘Well,’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s all very, very strange! That was an
Indian
elephant!’
‘Yes, I know,’ Steven responded. ‘But what difference does that make?’
The Doctor chuckled. ‘That’s what I’m trying to work out, my dear boy!’
‘Flowers from America, birds from Africa – and a whopping elephant from India,’ Dodo ventured.
‘Exactly, my dear,’ the Doctor observed.
‘It looks like specimens from all over the world.’
‘Yes, you’re quite right!’ The Doctor nodded. Then he glanced up. ‘Yes! And on top of everything else this is a jungle without a sky!’
Steven and Dodo glanced up.
‘Hey, look at that then!’ Dodo exclaimed.
‘No sun, no clouds... merely a metal roof!’ the Doctor observed. ‘But one that radiates some kind of light.’
Steven stared at the roof that spread as far as the eye could see. ‘It’s extraordinary!’ he exclaimed.
The Doctor pursed his lips and glanced down at the ground. ‘Yes... but besides that there is something else...’
‘What’s that?’
‘The earth... this soil we’re standing on... it appears to be trembling!’ He stooped down and placed his hand on the surface. ‘Yes! One can feel it!’
‘Do you think it’s an earthquake building up?’ Steven asked.
‘Or maybe more elephants... or buffalo, or something...
charging!’ Dodo ventured.
The Doctor shook his head. ‘No! Nothing like those things you’ve suggested! The trembling would be intermittent. This is regular, without break, without pause.
It’s a machine of some kind. A mechanical vibration.’
‘In what circumstances do you get things like this all coming together?’ Steven asked. ‘I mean, animals and plant life from all different continents?’
Dodo puffed out her cheeks and shook her head.
‘And a metal roof and all this shaking?’ she added.
‘Weird!’
The Doctor had straightened up from examining the ground and held up his finger, glancing around.
‘The answer could be quite simple! It could be...’
‘Yes?’ Dodo and Steven asked in unison.
‘... some kind of indoor nature park!’
They were amazed. ‘On
this
scale?’ Steven queried.
‘Yes, improbable,’ the Doctor rejoined. ‘But possible!’
He nodded his head, firming up his own belief. ‘Definitely possible!’
‘But are we on Earth or... ?’ Dodo started to ask, but was unable to complete her question, as her nose suddenly became irritated again and she sneezed. ‘
Atishoo!
’
‘H’m?’ The Doctor glanced at her. ‘Oh, bless you, my dear!’
‘Thanks,’ Dodo sniffed.
‘But don’t you have a handkerchief?’ Dodo nodded.
‘Then use it, my child. We must do something about that cold of yours.’ The Doctor stared at her searchingly. ‘That reminds me... why are you dressed in those stupid clothes?’
He indicated the Crusades period page’s costume. ‘Have you been raiding my wardrobe? Just what do you think you’re doing? Re-enacting history? Returning to an age of heroism? Or playing charades!? H’m?’
‘They suited me and I thought it was all right to wear them! Or do I have to ask permission for that, as well?’
sulked Dodo.
‘Oh, it’s all right this time,’ the Doctor replied with a wave of his hand. ‘But you take care of them because you never know when you might need them again.’ Having passed judgment on the subject he indicated their surroundings. ‘But now we’ll take a last look around and then we’ll get you off to bed!’
‘Does that mean...
sniff
... that you are going to send me home?’
‘Oh, what a tempting idea! But I couldn’t send you home if I wanted to!’
‘All right then,’ Dodo responded. She looked around with a mixture of curiosity and appreciation. ‘I’m beginning to enjoy this space travel or whatever it is!’
With the Doctor leading the way, Dodo and Steven followed, moving deeper into the jungle.
But as they went it wasn’t just the animals they had already seen and identified who watched them. For, from behind cover, a reptilian hand reached out and pulled aside the foliage in order to give a Monoid a better view of them.
Its swivelling eye watched them for a moment. Then the creature drew back, heading off along another path.
The Commander checked the data that was being fed to him by the combined efforts of the humans and the Monoids.
‘Everything seems to be going well,’ he summarised, addressing Manyak. ‘We are holding to the Main Edicts timetable.’
‘Yes, Commander,’ Manyak assented.
‘The humidity levels in the jungle are normal,’ the Commander’s daughter, Mellium, concluded after checking several instruments. ‘And that was our greatest concern.’
In the jungle the Doctor paused to mop his brow.
‘No wonder that child has caught a cold,’ he addressed Steven, indicating Dodo, who had run on ahead of them.
‘The humidity in this place is somewhat oppressive, to say the least of it.’
‘Just like being in a hot house,’ Steven agreed.
‘H’m? It reminds me more of the planet Sava. The last time I was there...’
‘When was that?’
‘Oh, some time ago,’ the Doctor rejoined cautiously.
Some time ago was right. No sense in telling the young man that it must have been three centuries in his terms, although in the Doctor’s own knowledge such a time span had little meaning. Places were places, creatures were creatures... and time was time. All in the
now
period. That was the only way he ever experienced it, the only way he knew it.
His rambling thoughts were broken into by Steven suddenly calling out in alarm: ‘Watch out, Dodo! Behind you!’
A tiger had emerged from the woods. It slunk forward...
then charged at the startled Dodo.
The Doctor whipped off his jacket and waved it in the air as he and Steven hurried forward to her rescue.
Instinctively they started shouting, trying to frighten the beast off... but then stopped suddenly in amazement as the tiger slowed down and, instead of attacking Dodo, started licking at her hand.
Dodo could hardly believe it. The tiger was full-grown, its fangs large and menacing, but the tongue that brushed over her hand was soft and warm.
She looked up as the Doctor and Steven approached.
‘What do I do?’ she asked, uncertainly.
The Doctor shrugged, ‘Just try and stay calm, my dear.
Don’t make any quick moves.’
‘That’s all very well for you to say,’ she rejoined. ‘But you’re standing over there... and this ain’t exactly a pussy cat, you know.’
The powerful creature suddenly turned away from Dodo and moved toward the Doctor and Steven. In a feline way it rubbed against their legs.
‘I hope you’re satisfied now, my dear,’ the Doctor said.
‘Whatever it wants it seems to have a taste for all three of us!’ Then he glared at the tiger ‘and ejaculated: ‘Shoo!’
It was an instinct that had made him use the word, but to his amazement and that of the others the tiger seemed to take notice of it.
It turned and, very sedately, moved away, finally disappearing back under the cover of the trees.
All three sighed with relief, then stared at each other with incredulity.
‘Cor... that was a close one,’ Dodo finally said.
‘Yes!’ Steven agreed. ‘But I don’t understand it, a tiger behaving like that. Maybe it was a tamed one.’
‘Perhaps,’ the Doctor observed. ‘But hardly likely to that degree. It acted totally against the nature of the species.’ He glanced around. ‘I have that strange feeling about this place.., and the longer we are here, the stronger it becomes!’
Puzzled, they continued on their way.
In the Control Room Zentos moved towards the Commander, followed by a Monoid.
‘There is something strange happening in the jungle,’ he stated.
‘What’s that?’ the Commander asked.
‘There is a report from the Monoids. They have discovered the presence of intruders!’
‘Intruders?’ The Commander was puzzled and alarmed.
‘But how can that be? How can they have entered?’
‘I have no idea,’ Zentos replied. ‘I’ll try and trace them.’
Mellium interjected: ‘It’s impossible for anything to be in the jungle that we don’t know about. Where could they have come from?’
‘I don’t know,’ Zentos answered. ‘But according to the information they were somewhere in the co-ordinates ZH6
and OT274.’
Zentos moved to a scanner and operated the levers controlling it. Various images appeared on the screen, then located and held on a clearing in the jungle just as the Doctor, Dodo and Steven entered it. Zentos stood back and indicated the images to the Commander.
‘There they are!’ he exclaimed. ‘Intruders!’
The Commander reacted in bewildered amazement.
‘They look like human beings... but it can’t be!’ he exclaimed. ‘We accounted for everyone... and everything...
that should be in that area.’
Mellium’s attention was caught by another screen which, locked into the primary one, had been searching the surrounding area in the jungle.
‘Father, look! That could be their spaceship. But it’s such an unusual design!’
The secondary screen was holding on the stationary TARDIS.
‘Whoever... whatever... these beings are,’ Zentos said,
‘they must be arrested and brought here for immediate questioning!’
The Commander nodded. ‘You’re right.’ Then he reflected on the nature of the command. ‘But, Zentos... not arrested!
Invited!
’
Zentos nodded and then started to leave, indicating to the Monoids to follow him.
The Doctor and his companions had moved out of the jungle and its sticky heat into the cool atmosphere of a cave. They adjusted their eyes to the comparative gloom within, then Dodo indicated the walls of the cave.
‘Doctor, look at these fab pictures!’
‘Fab?’ the Doctor exclaimed. ‘My child, one day we will have to do something about that English of yours. Most...
elastic... the way you use it.’
‘Elastic?’
‘Very!’ The Doctor peered closely at the cave drawings.
‘Ah, yes. Interesting. Now look at that. It looks like a zebra with two heads.’
Steven moved across to peer over his shoulder. ‘Two heads!?’
‘Correct!’ the Doctor confirmed.
‘Maybe just the imagination of the artist,’ Steven shrugged.
‘Perhaps. And perhaps not. And if not... what then? Hm?’ The Doctor was challenged by the thought.