Part 31 (1/2)

'That's enough.' Haunt sounded a little shaky as she plucked the webset from Frog's forehead. 'We'd better watch this for ourselves.'

'You don't trust me?' Frog said coldly. 'This is still me, you know.'

For how much longer, thought Ben gloomily, scratching the back of his neck. How long till nothing's left of any of us?

The cheery thought led to another.

'So where's Denni's webset then?' he asked aloud. 'If she died first, why wasn't nothing of hers hidden away down there with the others?'

'Maybe it was, and you just didn't find it,' Polly suggested.

'No wait...' Creben looked at Haunt. 'If Shel's not behind this -'

'- Then Roba's chasing after the wrong person,' finished Tovel.

'That's not what I meant,' Creben told him coldly. 'If Shel's not responsible for bringing us here, somebody else is.'

Haunt swore. 'And who went conveniently missing right at the start of all this, without a trace? Who's been moving about freely as a result ever since, making this nightmare happen?'

'It fits,' said the Doctor. 'Yes, it fits.'

Ben stared at him. 'Denni.'

Chapter Thirteen.

They Do It With Mirrors

I.

Polly felt she could weep with frustration. Just as she thought she was getting things straight in her head, another suspect came to light. She came over to Ben, leaving the others to talk worriedly among themselves.

'If only we could just get into the TARDIS and leave,' she said bitterly.

'The Doctor'll -'

'Oh, don't just say that the Doctor will think of something, Ben!' Polly snapped.

He looked like she'd just slapped him round the face.

'Sorry, Ben,' she sighed, and he shrugged. Polly glanced up at the Doctor. He was back rummaging inside the damaged console. Couldn't stay away from the thing. 'It's just, sometimes I wonder what he -'

The Doctor clapped his hands. 'Yes! Yes, of course, that is it. Time! It explains everything. Time held still.'

Ben shot Polly a knowing glance. 'What are you talking about, Doctor?'

'The stasis field. The bodies there are caught in a single moment of time.' He pulled out some components from the charred guts of the console. 'I've seen circuits like these in the TARDIS systems.'

'Then the Schirr aren't dead, only frozen in time?' Polly peeped round nervously at the corpses. 'What about when Shel scanned them?'

'The bodies are outside our own time frame. To the scanner they would have no relevance - and so appear entirely inert.

Dead. But as you say, that is not necessarily the case.'

'Then those navigational crystal things we need to turn around could be in there too!' Polly realised.

'Very possibly,' the Doctor agreed. He paused, took hold of his lapels, looking oddly pleased with himself. But by this time, Haunt had come over with Creben, Shade and Tovel, and she didn't look happy at all.

'We haven't got time to waste on any more speculation,' she said heavily.

'This isn't speculation, it is fact.' The Doctor generously included the newcomers in his explanation. 'Frog said she believed Shel was trying to tell me something. Indeed he was.'

He gestured to the console. 'These controls do not operate the stasis field. They cannot, the connections have been severed.'

Haunt frowned. 'Damage from the explosion when Shel -'

That's what I thought, at first. But the severance of the circuitry is too precise to have been caused randomly.' He turned to Ben. 'Would you be so good as to prise open the metal box beneath the console for me, hmm?'

Shade offered him a knife, like the one Frog had used on herself, and Ben crouched beneath the console, baffled.

'Dunno what you expect to find, Doctor. Looks like a bomb went off here.'

'What is inside?' the Doctor asked, looking up at the ceiling.

Ben re-emerged holding a large, thick chunk of what looked like yellowish gla.s.s.

'That's all?' asked Polly.

'That is all that is needed,' said the Doctor, still staring upward, an evangelical expression on his face. 'Look up at the roof. Look.'

'More gla.s.s,' said Tovel.

'That is how they send the signal,' the Doctor said triumphantly.

'What are you talking about, Doctor,' Creben scowled.

'The stasis field is operated from the platform. It has to be.'

The Doctor seemed to be trembling with excitement as he stalked over to the display of Schirr bodies. Their albino eyes seemed to glare at him, full of hate, as he examined them. 'It must be concealed above.' He waved a hand frantically. 'Will someone please examine the Schirr bodies from above?' above?'

'This is ludicrous,' Creben complained, but Haunt waved him into silence.