Part 17 (1/2)

'Zorg,' said the Doctor, 'meet Major Butcher and Ray.'

'Greetings Zajor Zutcher, Zay,' said Zorg politely, bobbing before the two astonished men.

Butcher turned his head and threw up. The vomit hit the floor and was almost instantly absorbed, disappearing into the fabric of the s.h.i.+p in a minia-108ture storm of coloured light. It was a good thing too, because an instant later Ray also threw up. He watched sheepishly as the floor of the chamber cleaned itself again. 'Sorry about that, cats. It was just Butcher barfing like that. It set me off, man.'

'What is is that thing?' said Butcher in a high shrill voice made ragged by hysteria. that thing?' said Butcher in a high shrill voice made ragged by hysteria.

'Hey come on Butcher, baby. It's obviously an alien. A thing from another world, man.' Ray spoke casually, dismissively. But for all his sang-froid, his hand trembled as he lifted the mescal bottle to his lips and drank with gurgling haste, as though to soften the impact of what he was seeing.

'A thing from outer s.p.a.ce?' Butcher's voice still rang with a ripple of incipient hysteria. 'You mean we're being invaded? By monsters?'

'Don't forget the peyote, Major,' said the Doctor in a calm, rea.s.suring, singsong voice. 'The peyote, the peyote, the peyote. You were forced to eat that sandwich full of that nasty peyote.'

Butcher's eyes shut, as if with profound grat.i.tude. The note of panic evapo-rated from his voice, but there was a tremble suggestive of tearful relief. 'The peyote! Of course!'

'That's right Major, there's no need to be afraid of what you're witnessing at this moment. Because. . . '

'Because it's all just an hallucination. A fever dream brought on by that stinking Indian poison you fed me.'

'Stinking Indian poison, precisely Major.' The Doctor's calm voice was now becoming bored. 'The best thing for you to do is sleep it off, don't you think?

Why waste time with any more of these absurd visions. This fever dream, as you so aptly put it, doesn't merit your attention.'

'I'm not going to waste any more time,' said the Major. 'I'm going to sleep this off.' He lay down on the warm glowing floor of the chamber, curled up in a foetal bundle and promptly went to sleep.

'That was very dapperly done, Doctor.'

'The power of suggestion, Ace, the power of suggestion.'

'Well we just lost another one,' said Ace, prodding with her toe the p.r.o.ne, snoring body of Ray. 'But in this case it was the power of mescal.' The bottle was cradled in Ray's arms, the last of its contents flowing steadily out to supplement the other stains on his s.h.i.+rt.

'I fear my appearance was a little too much for your friends, Zoctor,' said Zorg.

'Please don't be offended,' said the Doctor. 'Even though Ray had a twenty-first-century acceptance of the concept of an alien life form he couldn't come to terms with its reality. And poor Butcher, who didn't have the benefit of half a century of media acclimatisation to soften him up to the notion of creatures 109from outer s.p.a.ce visiting Earth. . . Well let's just say that I thought I'd better intervene with that peyote nonsense. Before his mind snapped.'

'Neat call, Doctor,' said Ace.

'Indeed it was neat,' agreed Zorg, throbbing across the room on his pearly chitinous claws. 'The Zoctor is a resourceful individual.'

'But try asking him to give you the big picture. He's definitely a need-to-know type. Only tells you what it's convenient for you to know at any given moment. Convenient for him, that is.'

The Doctor kneeled by Major Butcher, taking the man's pulse with his thumb and consulting his wrist.w.a.tch. 'Come now, Ace. That's not entirely fair. I've explained everything to you '

'You never told me we were going to be wafted off in a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p with these two stooges in tow.' She nodded at the rec.u.mbent Butcher and Ray.

'The stooges will not be in tow, Ace'. The Doctor moved to check Ray's pulse. 'Indeed they will have to be taken back to the arrivals area and sent back down in tentacles.'

'I'll take care of it, Zoctor,' said Zorg.

'Thank you, Zorg. Once they've reached the ground safely our Mescalero friends will know what to do with them.' He turned to Ace. 'To continue. . .

We are not taking our friends with us. Nor are we going to be wafted off in this s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, as you put it.'

'But we're not going back to the Hill?'

'Not right away, no.'

'Good. I didn't like all that military chicanery. And there was a vibe there.

Because they're all working to build that horrible thing. The gizmo or the gadget as they call it. Its not a very nice vibe.'

'Well you're about to escape it for a brief respite.'

'On that subject,' said Zorg. 'I shall show you where the device is being kept.'

He waved a thick claw. Bright shards of colour pulsed through it like silent fireworks. A hole opened up in the wall, leading down a curving corridor.

'Thank you very much,' said the Doctor.

'Oh and by the way, Zoctor,' said Zorg in his smooth, inhuman voice. 'Would you and Zace like to hear some of my poems?'

'We'd love to,' said the Doctor. 'But not just at the moment.'

Of course,' said Zorg politely. 'You must have much to do. And I will help by seeing that your friends are returned safely to the ground below.' Zorg scooped up the sleeping forms of Major Butcher and Ray, slinging them across his giant translucent claws as if they weighed nothing. He scuttled out of the chamber carrying them. The Doctor moved to the wall where the hole had appeared. Ace hurried after him as he disappeared into the glowing curvature of the new corridor.

110.'He said something about a device, Doctor. What device?' Ace hurried around the curve after the Doctor and found that he was standing still. The corridor had ended abruptly in another opalescent chamber. She caught up with the Doctor and saw the chamber contained a rea.s.suring tall blue shape.

'Oh, that device. You brought it here.'

'Zorg did. I told you I had a plan for retrieving the TARDIS. I believe you called it back-up.'

'So Zorg was our back-up.'

'Yes, an extremely nice, very helpful fellow. But if he ever offers to read you his poetry, do not under any circ.u.mstances allow him to do so.'

'Because his poetry has a strange alien beauty that my mind wouldn't be able to stand?'

'No,' said the Doctor, 'because his poetry is terrible.'

Ace looked fondly at the TARDIS. 'Does this mean our work here is finished?'

The Doctor's smile disappeared. 'Absolutely not. I'm sorry if I gave that impression. In fact, the most dangerous part of our mission is yet to come.'

'And what part of the mission is that?'

'We're going to carry the fight to the enemy,' said the Doctor.