第 27 页

The pale young man pressed a button when they reached the far wall. The door slid up to reveal an elevator. 'Going down for ladies shoes and handbags,' he quipped, but the smile on his face couldn't extend to his artificial eyes. Sir Marmaduke shivered, wondering what awaited him at the bottom.

Liz Shaw was sitting on a swing in the back garden. Her parents' large back garden at their house in Burton Joyce.

The grass was a lovely rich green, the sky a cloudless blue, and a bright yellow sun bathed her in a warm glow. All the colours were very vivid, the heat too perfect. Something was not quite right.

And anyway, she was far too old to play on a swing.

She got off the swing and looked around. Definitely home, but everything looked too perfect, too neat and tidy.

But she did feel very safe. Very relaxed.

'That's because you remember it that way,' said a voice behind her.

With a start, she turned, and saw a tall man in her place on the swing. He had light brown hair shot through with strands of pure white. There was something she recognized about his pleasantly lined face and rather beaky nose, but his blue eyes were his most notable feature: the way they bored into her, as if seeing through her into, well, her soul.

He was wearing a silly black cloak, and a red velvet smoking jacket. That all seemed very familiar, Liz decided, but she could not quite work out why.

'Do I know you?'

'Oh yes,' replied the man. 'You know me as the Doctor. We work together. We are friends.'

'Oh. Right. So how come I don't recognize you properly, then?'

'Ah, that's a bit difficult to explain. I've put you in a trance.'

Liz raised her eyebrows, pursing her lips in mock concern. 'Well, that's a friendly way to act, I must say.'

'If it helps, I don't like the fact that I've done it.'

'Can't say I do much, but presumably I had no option.' Liz realized the house and garden were gone. They were standing in a huge room, with blank walls and a large door at one end. Liz decided it looked like a school science lab. There were Bunsen burners on the many benches and intricately built objects of tubes and focusing microscopes, thrown together like Salvador Dali's interpretation of something out of Goodbye Mister Chips.

'I recognize this. Why?'

'It's where we first met - at UNIT's temporary headquarters in central London. Before we all moved to Priory Mews in Denham. I spoke to you in Delphon. Remember?' The Doctor was sitting cross-legged, floating about two feet off the floor, framed and silhouetted by the massive rectangular window behind him. Liz decided that the bright light from whatever was outside made the Doctor's indistinct form look angelic - there was a kind of golden aura around him.

'Ah. It's all coming back now. OK, so why the trance?'

The Doctor smiled. 'It's an old Tibetan trick. It slows your metabolic rate right down to the bare minimum. You're still breathing, your heart is still beating, but only just. And this discourse we're having is your brain, needing to keep busy, latching onto the telepathic connection I've tried to establish with you. Simple really.'

'Isn't it just. But why?'

'Ah, that's the tricky bit.' The Doctor floated towards her. 'I hope you can cope with this. No, I'm sure you can.' He smiled. 'You're a very strong young woman.'

Liz rolled her eyes. 'Yes, Doctor, but as scientist to scientist, let's dispense with the archaic flattery and talk sense. Please?'

'All right. Liz, you've been shot.'

'As in by a gun? As in bang?'

'As in bang.'

'So I'm not dead yet?'

The Doctor unfurled himself; planted his feet on the floor and crossed to the lab window. The room was starting to distort slightly. The window the Doctor was near became arched, and behind him a spiral staircase materialized. The whole room contracted, the cold grey walls of the London headquarters giving way to the dull hospital green of Priory Mews. 'Never liked that colour,' Liz muttered.

'When we get back, I'll get Lethbridge-Stewart to repaint it,' said the Doctor.

'Oh, so I am going to get back then?' Liz joined the Doctor at the window. Instead of the familiar Slough Canal, the outside was a massive starfield, planets and stars competing for her attention in the rich, textured dark background. 'My mother once told me that everyone has a star, Doctor. And when that person dies, their star vanishes from the sky.' She turned away, looking back into the laboratory, but sat on the windowsill. 'When my grandmother died, mother took me outside into the back garden. She pointed up at one of the stars, a faint one that was twinkling. "That's Nanna's star," she said. "It's marking her death with respect as we all should. In the morning the star will have gone, having collected Nanna and taken her to Heaven." And no matter how often I looked that next evening, I couldn't see that star any more. I think I still look for it today, if I'm out late. Or working here late. Not consciously, but when I look at the stars I think of Nanna and all the wonderful things she told me.' Liz touched the Doctor's sleeve, pulling him round to face her. 'You'd have liked her. She was your type.'

'Oh, and what type's that, Liz?'

Liz shrugged. 'Oh, I don't know. She knew lots of things and' - Liz smiled at him - 'when she didn't have the answer, she'd make one up that sounded exactly right.'

'Well, we'd have got on like a house on fire.' The Doctor crossed to one of the benches and stared at a piece of equipment. 'Funny thing, the subconscious. Here I am in your mind, your memories, and yet I'm holding my Triacteon Zeiton Regulator and it's fixed. Ever since I was exiled here, the TZR has needed repair, but I've never managed it. Something to do with the block the Time Lords put on me.' He looked up, smiling at her. 'Thank you, Doctor Shaw. When we get back, I now know how to repair it.'

Liz was not really listening. 'Is my star twinkling right now, Doctor?'

'Now, Liz, we are both scientists. We know what makes stars twinkle. We also both know that those sorts of questions cannot be simply answered. When I go back to the real world, it will be up to you to help get yourself through this. I can try and save your physical body, but your spirit needs to be strong too. Your body has gone through a massive trauma as a result of this wound. That shock has caused your subconscious to retreat to a level where we can communicate like this. You need to reintegrate yourself with your conscious mind in order to survive.'

'But do you think I will?'

The Doctor started to fade away. 'I don't know, Liz, but I certainly hope you do. We still need to get to know each other properly.' And he was gone. So was the UNIT laboratory and Liz was back alone by the garden swing. Black clouds ranged across the sky. It was going to rain.

---

The Doctor's eyes snapped open, and Sula backed away, alarmed.

'What were you doing?' she asked tentatively.

The Doctor pushed himself up from his cross-legged position and walked across Baal's laboratory to where Liz was lying on a stone slab. 'Communicating Telepathically.' He touched the slab. 'This is very warm.'

Sula pointed at some controls on the wall above the slab. 'The rock absorbs and distributes the planet's natural warmth. It is the same principle that heats the whole Shelter. Baal reasoned that Apes need a lot of warmth.'

'Then I must thank him. He's right, Liz needs to be kept warm.' He touched the dressing around her shoulder. It was made of the same stringy webbed twine as the clothes he had worn when travelling underwater. 'What a fascinating material.'

'One of our major discoveries.' Baal entered the lab from the direction of Marc Marshall's cell. 'The Apes have yet to synthesize anything similar. It has staunched her bleeding and should help to heal the wound. It is semiorganic, this version carrying a form of antiseptic through its strands. We can adapt it to carry anything we need: heat, light, even antibiotics.'

The Doctor gently touched the material. It pulsated slightly. 'It's alive?'

Baal smiled. 'Sort of.' He gave the dressing a harder poke. It shivered slightly. 'Red blood. I had forgotten that your blood was that bright.' He looked at the Doctor. 'I believe she will live. No vital Ape organs were damaged. One lung has a slight tear along it, but it didn't break the whole tissue. She will be weak for a while. You and this Ape are fond of each other? You are bonded, perhaps?'

'We are friends. Nothing more.'

'Nevertheless, I can sense your pleasure at her survival. Apes give off very strong pheromones in such situations. As a scientist I am always eager to learn new things.'

The Doctor smiled. 'Your new-found compassion does you credit, Baal.'

Baal stepped back. 'Do not mistake scientific interest for compassion, Ape. My study of your companion is purely for the purposes of survival. Ours rather than hers. It suits our purpose to keep her alive.' He pointed back towards Marc Marshall's cell. 'His presence no longer suits us, however. If Auggi were to find him, it would be difficult to explain his condition. Tahni has agreed to take the two of you back to the mainland where she found you both. After that, he is your responsibility.' Baal waved a clawed hand over a sensor. 'And then you will return. Alone.'

'Why?'

Baal pointed at Liz. 'The one she arrived with, the other female. She wounded Krugga and murdered Chukk. She also deliberately shot your friend with her projectile weapon. Crude it may be, but it is effective. This can only mean that someone knows we are here. Someone who wishes to stop my work. I cannot let that happen. Your return will ensure our safety.'

'How do you reason that? What makes you think I won't return with armed soldiers to wipe you all out?'

Baal laughed. 'You think I am a fool because I am rather single-minded in my attempts to save my generation, don't you, Ape? You're wrong. I listened to what you said about your role in Okdel's Shelter. Unlike my mother, I do not see war as the only answer. But if such strategies please her, and keep her away from my real work, I will not interfere. You said you tried to make peace and I believe you. Chukk believed you, for all the good it did him.' Baal opened Marc's cell. 'We are both scientists, Ape. We both long to increase our knowledge, to expand our horizons. I will protect your friend here; you will return to aid me with my researches. I have a list of things I need you to bring back. Tahni would not understand them by herself; or know where to get them from.' He passed the Doctor a small electronic data pad and ran a finger over a stud on it. A list appeared. 'Tahni will translate our script.'

The Doctor looked at Marc's quivering form. 'And what's to stop you doing this to Liz?'

'Your Liz is mature. This was a hatchling and its internal chemistry was still in a state of flux. That was what I needed to explore, to try and integrate with our physiognomy. Liz is useless to us as anything other than a hostage to ensure Tahni's safe return.'

With surprising gentleness, Baal reached down and scooped up Marc's prone body. 'I don't know if your science can help him, nor do I care particularly, but nevertheless I hope he survives. As a scientist, I would not wish to be thought of as a murderer.'

Sula walked in with some of the webbing. She wrapped it around Marc like a cocoon and Baal passed him to the Doctor.

'You know, Baal, you are a very good scientist. Remarkable in fact. But you will never be a great scientist, a true scientist, until you stop regarding everything you do as justified whatever the cost. A true scientist always remains, if you'll excuse the pun, humane.' He started walking into the main lab, looking towards Liz's unconscious body. 'Mankind's history is littered with the dead bodies of scientists who forgot, or ignored, their moral responsibilities. I hope I don't return to find you added to them.' Tahni was in the doorway. 'This way, Ape. Auggi is in the Council Chamber asserting her authority. We must leave now.' She pulled him out of the laboratory and down a small tunnel. 'Our only means of escape is a battle cruiser. This way.'

The Doctor ran just behind her, trying not to bounce Marc too much. Once or twice, the boy stirred slightly but then relapsed into his coma.

'Just round this corner,' puffed Tahni, and ran straight into a recovered Krugga.

'What are you doing -' he began, but then saw the Doctor and Marc. 'No!'

Before he had time to stop her, Tahni's third eye glowed brilliant red and, already weakened from his injuries, Krugga dropped to his knees. His own eye flared red for a moment and the Doctor felt a stab of pain across his forehead, but it vanished almost instantly. For a brief second, Marc's body too convulsed.

Krugga fell forward onto his face and Tahni waved a hand over a door control. 'Why was he here, I wonder?' she muttered as she led the Doctor onto the battle cruiser.

'Is he dead?' The Doctor looked back at Krugga's still form as the hatchway slid closed.

'I don't know. He was already injured.' She suddenly swung round on the Doctor. 'And I don't care. He isn't one of us, isn't a hybrid. He isn't, or wasn't, going to die within the next few years because of other people's meddling.'

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her vehemence. 'I thought you were all very proud to be hybrids.'

Tahni scoffed as she started up the cruiser's power. 'Yes, well, Baal and Auggi would like us all to be, but frankly a majority of us would rather they hadn't bothered having us. What's the point of living only a few years?'

'That rather depends what you do with them.' The Doctor sat in what he assumed was the navigator's position. The craft shot forward rather jerkily and he cast a look down at Marc's comatose body, huddled by the door. 'You'll have to forgive my lack of concern for your wellbeing, but if Marc there is the end result of your researches, then you deserve all you get. At least you'll have a life. You've destroyed his.'