Part 25 (2/2)

'Who, exactly, did Mr Qixotl invite?' Justine asked.

For once, Homunculette grunted his approval. 'Good question. Who was the s.h.i.+ft working for?'

'A power quite familiar to you, Mr Homunculette,' said the Doctor.

'You mean...?'

The Doctor nodded. Qixotl watched Homunculette's face. In the first five seconds alone, it cycled through sixteen distinct shades of purple. The Time Lord turned to Qixotl, fortunately too speechless to swear.

'Sorry,' squeaked Qixotl.

'You invited them them here?' screamed Homunculette. 'You actually wanted me to sit down at the table with... with...' here?' screamed Homunculette. 'You actually wanted me to sit down at the table with... with...'

'Yes, he did,' the Doctor concluded, helpfully.

Qixotl felt his pulse trying to leap out of his wrist. 'Now, listen, let's not get excited. It's like I told the Doctor here, business is, er, business. I can't make moral judgements about my clients, y'know?'

Homunculette lunged. Qixotl curled up into a ball, and covered his face with his arms. n.o.body actually hit him, though, so after a few moments he risked peering out from between his hands. The Doctor stood in front of him, restraining Homunculette with a single finger. 'You're still angry,' the Doctor said. 'Even with the s.h.i.+ft out of your system, you're angry, and you're upset. You have to fight it. This is what the s.h.i.+ft wants us to do.'

'How d'we know s'not in his head now?' asked Manjuele.

Homunculette glared at the Paradox cultist, but the Doctor shook his head. 'The s.h.i.+ft works best when it's dealing with subconscious thought processes. Now we're consciously aware of what it can do to us, it shouldn't be able to manipulate us so easily. That's my guess, anyway.' The Doctor looked around the hall. 'Are we missing somebody?'

Qixotl looked around, too. The Doctor had a point. There was definitely something missing from the room. It was as if a major piece of furniture had vanished, something so large you didn't immediately notice when it was gone.

'The Kroton,' said Cousin Justine.

That was it. E-Kobalt had vanished. He'd probably shambled off out of the room while Qixotl had been cowering from Homunculette; let's be honest, thought Qixotl, it's not easy to miss a lump of matter that big sneaking away, unless you've got other things on your mind. 'He was acting funny just now,' he told the others. 'His head was going mental.'

The Doctor looked grim. 'Krotons have some fairly rigid ideas about how to deal with aliens. Ideal material for the s.h.i.+ft to work with.'

'Not important,' said Trask. 's.h.i.+ft's gone. Let it go.'

The Doctor's face became a shade grimmer. 'The s.h.i.+ft won't leave until it's secured the Relic. It'll take the City apart brick by brick, if it has to.'

Qixotl sc.r.a.ped himself off the ground. 'Not a problem. It can't damage the ziggurat, right? The defences can take out any weapons system it can chuck at us, no trouble. We're safe.'

The Doctor looked still grimmer.

'The defences,' he said. 'I knew there was something I had to tell you. Qixotl... if, theoretically, somebody had shut down all the City's defences, how long would it take to reset them?'

'Couple of hours, probably. It's a delicate kind of system I'm running here. Er, why?'

'Oh dear,' the Doctor said. The next thing Qixotl knew, the Time Lord was hurling himself towards the exit.

Kathleen didn't move.

Kathleen didn't move, again.

Kathleen persisted in not moving.

Sam was, quite frankly, getting sick of this. Tending to the sick was one thing, but she wasn't actually doing anything except sitting at the end of the Lieutenant's bunk, waiting for the woman to wake up screaming or have an interesting muscular spasm or something. Once, a minute or two ago, Kathleen had murmured the word ”dead” in her sleep, but that had been the high point so far.

An alien sauntered past the doorway of the guest room. Its head was gyrating, its arms were wobbling from side to side, and it was making an odd warbling noise as it moved.

Well, it was novel, at least.

That was the problem with this kind of job, thought Sam. Time-travelling was great, yeah, but there was a h.e.l.l of a lot of waiting around involved. The Genetic Politics Genetic Politics book had vanished again, so she didn't even have anything to read. Next time I leave the TARDIS, she told herself, I'm packing a copy of book had vanished again, so she didn't even have anything to read. Next time I leave the TARDIS, she told herself, I'm packing a copy of Mizz Mizz. For definite.

The Doctor's head popped through the doorway, and peered around the guest room. Involuntarily, Sam stood to attention.

'Have you seen a Kroton come this way?' the Doctor asked, somewhat urgently.

'Don't know. Is a Kroton a big silvery-white thing that looks like it came out of a fondue set?'

The Doctor looked surprised. 'Yes, I suppose it is.'

Sam jerked her thumb. 'It went that way.'

He'd vanished before she'd even finished the sentence. Sam looked back at Kathleen. The Doctor was in one of his ”quick, let's save the world” moods, so there was probably going to be trouble.

Kathleen would be all right on her own, wouldn't she? Just for a few minutes?

Sam caught up with the Doctor at the bottom of the stairway, the one where Kathleen had offered her the funny cigarette. Catching him wasn't hard; he had legs like a cranefly, but Sam was a born runner, three miles a day, no excuses. She put her hand on the Doctor's shoulder, and the Doctor jumped.

'I'm coming with you,' Sam told him.

'You don't know where I'm going.'

'Stop picking holes.'

The Doctor looked mildly exasperated. 'We have to stop the Kroton reaching its s.h.i.+p. Luckily for us, they don't move very fast. Not in their high-gravity bodies, anyway.'

'Doctor?'

Sam and the Doctor both turned. The Colonel stood at the far end of the corridor, his face as rigid-looking as ever. He saluted, stiffly, then started marching in their direction.

The Doctor went from ”mildly exasperated” to ”increasingly exasperated”. 'Colonel, now isn't the time '

'Doctor. I know you now. You understand.'

'Understand? Understand what?'

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