Part 5 (1/2)

It was late. Sam sat listening to the others talk far into the night. Even Gila had become companionable and less spiky, under the influence of drink and talk. From the bus there came music - one of Iris's old driving compilation tapes, no doubt. Soon Sam found herself drifting in and out of sleep.

'Will you both help me?' She heard Iris's rather slurred voice, apparently coming out of nowhere.

Gila sounded sulky. 'Perhaps if you'd explained things to me in the first place, I'd have helped you of my own accord.'

'Desperate measures,' said Iris.

Sam cursed at herself and lay still. She had fallen asleep and hadn't heard Iris explain herself.

The Doctor was saying.'Getting mixed up with the Scarlet Empress...

Iris, what are you doing? She's a tyrant! A despot! Have you heard her human-rights record on Hyspero alone? It's dreadful. She's brought the whole Scarlet dynasty into horrible disrepute just through -'

'I know, Doctor,' she said through gritted teeth. 'But sometimes we have to compromise our impeccable standards, don't we? And look at some of the people you've collaborated with.'

'Only with the best intentions at -'

'Davros, Napoleon, Al Capone, the Rani, Hitler. Doctor, you've no right to call me names.'

'Perhaps.'

'And besides. She's got me over a barrel.'

There was the clink and glug of more gin being poured. 'No ice,' said Iris sadly.

Gila said,'I'll help you.'

'You will?' Suddenly she seemed less depressed.

'Your mission is to bring the Four back together. You can't do that without me. It will be interesting. And if anyone can sort the Empress out, it's us.'

'Good,' said the Doctor. 'We're decided then.'

'You'll help me, Doctor?'

'Of course.'

'Then we start out tomorrow,' she said.'First light.'

Sam felt herself drifting off again.

She heard the Doctor saying, 'A toast - to a safe and uneventful journey.'

Gila snorted in derision.'Fat chance.'

Gila is back on the screen.

'I was one of the Four. We were great. We could do anything. Rescue anyone. Kidnap anyone. Start little wars and finish them. We were four and we each had separate strengths and skills and powers. Me, the Bearded Lady, the Cyborg d.u.c.h.ess and the Mock Turtle. Ten years ago they were queuing for our services. We were famous.'

'What happened?' asks Iris.

'We broke up the merry band.We scattered across Hyspero.We didn't expect to see each other again.'

Chapter Six.

Another Day, Another Lovely Adventure

The Doctor was the first to wake. He found the small kitchen compartment at the back of Iris's bus, and started preparing breakfast on the old Baby Belling. Sam woke under heaped blankets on the sand to the smell of bacon grilling and the sound of the Doctor singing along, loudly and off-key, to Puccini.

Across the dwindling fire she could make out the shapes of Gila and Iris, both still last asleep. There was a scattering of cigarette b.u.t.ts around Iris and she still wore her sea-green hat, but it was pushed down over her face as she snored and muttered in her sleep. She was going on about Sontarans and perverting the course of human history. Not that she ever cared about such things, by all reports.

Sam went off to find the Doctor.

He was in his s.h.i.+rtsleeves in the cramped galley, slicing bread and stirring mugs of sugary, milky tea.

'So we're going off on some kind of adventure,' said Sam from the doorway, and made him jump.

'Ah,' he said.'I sort of pledged our support last night. Poached or fried?'

'I can't bear poached, like eating eyeb.a.l.l.s. Do you know what it's all about, then?'

She watched him heat oil until it s.h.i.+mmered, and then crack eggs on the pan. 'Mm. Kind of. Iris has been sent to reunite the members of a...

team, I suppose you'd call it, of mutant vigilantes. Or vigilante mutants.

Gila was one of them, ten or so years ago. They all went their separate ways and stopped hiring themselves out for... fighting people, sorting out messes and muddles and so on, whatever that sort of person gets up to.

Ouch!' He'd burnt his finger on the grill pan.

'Stick it under the tap. Who wants them back together?'

He held his hand under the cold tap, wincing. 'Well, it's the Scarlet Empress, the unscrupulous ruler of this province. And what plans she has I don't know. All I know is that Iris thinks she'll be in terrible trouble if she doesn't get these people together.'

'Why don't we just go to this Empress and ask?'

'I'd feel happier facing her with Gila's friends in tow. They were quite famous hereabouts, you know. And besides, there's something going on here I want to know about.'

He presented her with a plate of toast and fried eggs.'All right?'

'So long as I know what we're getting into.'

'Just a jaunt,' he smiled. 'We're a team, aren't we? And this way, we get to see something of the world. Let's wake the others.'