Part 6 (1/2)

They were moving towards the door when the Doctor paused to look around him. 'You know, Monitor, there's something rather familiar about this room. But none of this was here last time I came.'

'Your extensive travels put us stay-at-homes to shame, Doctor. Doubtless on one of your trips to the planet Earth you have visited the Pharos Project.'

The Doctor snapped his fingers. 'Of course, the Pharos Project!' Then he realised he was no wiser, and had to ask 'What about the Pharos Project?'

'And what is a Pharos, anyway?' Adric interjected.

The Doctor was strong on Ancient Greek and replied before the Monitor had a chance to speak. 'Means a lighthouse. It's the name of a famous Earth project designed to transmit messages to remote planets.'

'I understand they're trying to get intelligent life to respond,' the Monitor added.

The Doctor smiled. 'But the life is too intelligent to do that before it knows what the Earth people are up to!' He was looking round the room again, and suddenly turned to the Monitor. 'Of course! This is almost identical to the Pharos computer room . . .'

'I always thought you underestimated our Logopolitan skills,' said the Monitor with some pride. 'It's a perfect logical copy.'

'Block transfer computation!' exclaimed Adric, not wanting to be left out of the conversation.

'That . . . and a little more,' the Monitor agreed. 'You see, structure is the essence of matter.'

'And the essence of structure is mathematics!' Adric added excitedly. He had grasped the point, and was keen to let everybody know it. By mathematically modelling the Pharos Project in sufficient detail and supplying the necessary raw energy, the Logopolitans had been able to re-create whole sections of the Earth structure on their own planet.

On the steps down to the street the Doctor said, 'In that case, Monitor, you must be able to model any s.p.a.ce/time event in the universe.'

'Yes, true,' replied the Monitor modestly. 'But for the moment let's content ourselves with solving your little problem, Doctor.'

No wonder they think so little of travelling, the Doctor mused to himself. On their journey back to the TARDIS the party gathered another following of flowing-robed Logopolitans.

The Doctor drew the Monitor out of earshot of Tegan and Adric and said in a low voice 'I wonder if I can ask you a very special favour, Monitor?'

'My dear Doctor . . . of course.'

'I need this repair rather urgently,' said the Doctor, choosing his words carefully, 'because what lies ahead for me is . . . not for them. I'll have to leave them here, Adric and the girl. Would they be too much of a burden?'

'I'm sure we can make them comfortable, Doctor.' The Monitor was puzzled, but it would have been a breach of etiquette to press questions.

They had arrived at the TARDIS a little ahead of the others. The Doctor turned to his old acquaintance. 'I'll be back when I can. Which, to be frank with you, Monitor, will be soon - or not at all.'

The Doctor's handshake was firm. He lowered his voice and added, 'I hate farewells. I hope you won't mind a small deception to keep this simple.'

The Monitor understood immediately. 'You don't want them in the TARDIS with you?'

Tegan and Adric caught up with them at this point, in time to hear the Doctor say, as if in reply to a remark of the Monitor's, 'Dangerous, eh? How dangerous?'

The Monitor took his cue. 'Well . . . there's a chance the computation may produce . . .

an instability.'

The Doctor seemed to take a moment to ponder the question. Then he turned to Adric and Tegan. 'An elementary eggs and basket situation, wouldn't you say? Not to put all of the one in the other.'

Adric tried to protest, but the Doctor persuaded him that even though there might be only one chance in seven hundred million of the process going wrong it was still silly to jeopardise more lives than necessary. Tegan saw the sense of that. Then, with the tiniest wink to the Monitor the Doctor disappeared through the blue double doors.

Adric wouldn't let the matter rest. He turned to the Monitor. 'Then the Doctor is in danger? He said he was expecting danger - great danger, he said.'

The Monitor smiled at Adric's agitation. 'A simple precaution. There is very little that can go wrong.' But seeing the alarm still on the boy's face he felt compelled to add: 'In fact, I must confess, nothing at all . . . I'm afraid I misled the Doctor in order to have the pleasure of your company while he engages on this mundane task. Now, perhaps you'd like to see more of Logopolis . . .'

'No offence to you personally, but I'd prefer to see a lot less of it.' The Monitor's high diplomacy calmed Tegan, but it didn't stop her speaking her mind. 'Can you give me some idea how long we're going to be delayed here. I do have a job to do.'

Adric apologised to the Monitor for his brash companion. 'I'm sorry. She's upset . . .'

'Too right I'm upset,' Tegan declared. 'Wouldn't you be?' But if she was honest with herself she had to admit it was kind of exciting too. At the interview for the job they had asked her what her hobbies were, and she'd said 'Flying and travelling'. If that committee of stiff-necked personnel officers could only see her now!

'That's very odd,' said Adric. 'It looks like . . . Nyssa!' He was peering past Tegan at some distant point behind her. She turned to see a small female figure standing on the skyline, right on the edge of the plateau. She seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

The girl began walking towards the group round the TARDIS. And then she waved.

Adric's mouth opened in astonishment. 'It is Nyssa!'

The figure was running now. 'It's the girl who helped us on Traken,' Adric had time to explain, before Nyssa's arms were wrapped round him in an embarra.s.sing hug of greeting.

Tegan shook Nyssa's hand. 'Hi, I'm Tegan. Did they hijack you too?'

The brown curls bounced around her pale young face as Nyssa shook her head. 'A friend of the Doctor's brought me. He's here somewhere.'

They looked around, but there was n.o.body but themselves and the Logopolitans.

'A friend of the Doctor's?' asked Adric. 'Are you sure?'

Nyssa's serious round eyes echoed surprise that he should doubt her word. 'Of course.

Is the Doctor here?'

Adric pointed to the TARDIS, and Tegan added, 'He's trying out some kind of new trim for the machine. Have you seen inside that thing? It's the most amazing . . .'

Tegan broke off abruptly, struck by something about the appearance of the TARDIS.

During the arrival of Nyssa the Monitor had drawn closer to it, some doubt creasing his normally smooth features. Tegan looked at the time machine, unable to define what it was that was so evidently wrong. But turning to Adric and Nyssa she realised that they saw it too.

The colour was too bright! And as they watched, it quickly became brighter, until it was fluorescing violently.

At first Adric wasn't convinced it was a fault. 'It's the chameleon circuit. The Doctor's reprogramming it...,' he explained to Nyssa. But they could all see the look of alarm on the face of the Monitor and his fel ow Logopolitans. Adric rushed to the Monitor's side.

'What's the matter?'

'A transfer instability. It may be only momentary.'

The Monitor seemed to be right. The fluorescence was visibly dying down. Instinctively, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan pressed forward, but the Monitor gestured to them to stay back.