Part 14 (1/2)

'Frog's not one or the other. Well, she's a frog, ain't she!' He paused. 'Got to feel sorry for her.'

Polly nodded, forced a smile. 'Adam - Shade Shade - is definitely a dog.' - is definitely a dog.'

'And you feel sorry for him, right?'

Polly nodded. 'So we're equal.'

'Creben. Joiks,' called Haunt. 'Found anything yet?'

Both men shook their heads.

'As if she needed to ask,' Polly snorted. 'Doesn't she trust them to tell her?'

'She's just trying to keep them motivated, giving them something to do,' said Ben. 'Just 'cause they've got big guns don't mean they're not bricking it like the rest of us. If they feel like she's counting on them, they feel better about themselves.'

The thought hadn't occurred to Polly. 'I suppose that's your Navy background talking.' Then she sighed. 'I really am like a fish out of water round here.'

'Then I'd better watch out for you with all these cats about,'

Ben said, patting her hand. 'Especially the big, bad Marshal Haunt.'

Polly shook her head. 'I'm not sure about her. Something in her eyes... She acts really tough, but I'll bet she's been hurt before. Hurt badly. A love affair that went wrong, or something.'

'Female intuition, is it?' Ben smirked.

'She's probably been a soldier forever, but it's like she's not here because she really wants to be... She just doesn't have anywhere else to go.'

Ben raised his eyebrows. 'Getting a bit deep for me, Pol.'

He looked quite relieved when a distraction came along in mutters and grumbles from the Doctor, as he struggled out of his s.p.a.cesuit. Ben gave him a hand, while Tovel got on with pulling web-like filaments from out of the console. Soon the navy blue s.p.a.cesuit was a shucked skin on the cavern floor, and the Doctor was resplendent again in his black frock coat, starched wing collar and cravat, somehow none the worse for wear.

'Any luck finding where we're going, Doctor?' Polly asked.

'I'm afraid not yet, my child.'

'Only a matter of time though, thanks to those reducing equations of yours,' said Tovel, and Polly could see he was impressed.

The Doctor smiled wanly, but his face hardened as Shade and Lindey came marching back into the control room with Roba and Frog at their heels. As usual Lindey looked a.s.sured and collected. Shade, she noticed, looked less comfortable.

'Half the bullring has collapsed,' Lindey reported. 'There'd be no way through to the s.h.i.+p, even if it was still here.'

The temperature in the room seemed to fall by a couple of degrees. Polly looked longingly at the TARDIS. With the invisible barrier in place it was as out of reach as the soldiers' s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p.

Haunt took the news stoically. 'Then we sweep this place for droids. We kill anything that can kill us. Then we'll find a way to signal back home. We'll figure something out.'

'Are we sure sure this isn't part of the training simulation?' this isn't part of the training simulation?'

asked Shade hopefully.

No one replied.

'We could do with finding Denni,' Creben observed. 'She might've learned something that could help us.'

'She's dead dead,' Joiks muttered bitterly.

Haunt overheard him. 'Thanks to you, we don't know that for certain.' Joiks looked up, stung, but said nothing. 'We don't know anything at all,' Haunt went on. 'It's time we did.'

Now, as if under orders to accentuate the positive, there were murmurs of a.s.sent from the troops.

Haunt turned back to Joiks. 'Can you guide us back to where you lost Denni? That'll be our starting place.'

He nodded, to Haunt's evident satisfaction.

'All right everyone, we're moving out.'

'Everyone?' Polly squawked.

Haunt turned to her grimly. 'Everyone.'

'Madam,' protested the Doctor, 'surely in light of what has happened here with the missing crystals and the vanis.h.i.+ng body, someone should remain here, on guard?'

'I have no one to spare,' Haunt said flatly. 'Besides, what's to guard? The crystals are not in this room, and the corpse fell apart in some kind of power surge when the drives started up.'

The Doctor looked between Haunt and Shel. 'You put a good deal of faith in your adjutant's judgement.'

'We're a team. One unit. All of us,' Haunt said simply. Her gaze swept round the room. 'If we're going to survive, we have to act like one. So congratulations, old man. You and yours just joined the squad.'

'Why do we have to go too?' Polly asked.

Haunt smiled coldly. 'I want you where I can see you.'

V.

Ben tramped along behind Joiks as he led them all off to where he had last seen Denni. The Doctor and Polly were separated from him by the ma.s.s of marching bodies, straggling at the back of the procession. Now and then he heard Frog buzz some kind of prompt to keep them moving, but whether threat or request, he wasn't sure.

The cold seaweedy cave smell of the asteroid now had the added niff of sweaty trooper. It seemed to be driving the white fleas crazy. They were swarming over the troopers, jumping like ticks in their hair, over their skin, everywhere. The light seemed to s.h.i.+ft as they walked along; Ben worked out this was because the weed on the ceilings - fleaweed, he would call it - grew in uneven clumps in these tunnels, rather than the even covering of those closer to the complex.