Doctor Who_ Father Time Part 42

The Doctor peered at it, scrolled the picture up and across.

'Come on: according to this, Miranda's cell is a long way off, but the route there seems simple enough.'

Cate peered down a service corridor that went on as far as the eye could see. It looked like it ran straight, parallel to the travel tube, quite possibly from one end of the s.h.i.+p to the other. There was no sign of activity, no indication which way led back to the living quarters and which led on to the engine rooms.

The light was poor, provided by tiny triangular boxes set into the walls every ten metres or so. The walls were lined with pipes, vents and ducts. The floor was a metal grid, with a trough running along the far wall.

'Which way?' Miranda asked. She had a new determination now, a new focus. She was looking for a way out, refusing to be scared, or to give up.

The Deputy shrugged. 'I have never been to this place.' She hesitated, looking into the shadowy depths. 'Possibly no one has.'

Miranda sighed, refusing to be superst.i.tious. 'Someone built this.'

There was a clank, a hundred metres or so to their left.

'Machinery,' Miranda a.s.sured Cate. 'It's probab'

Something clamped itself over Cate's mouth.

Her first thought was that a piece of piping had come loose and entangled itself round her.

But this was warm, smelled of meat. It was a hand. A large one.

Another hand had snaked around her waist and she was being lifted off her feet.

As she was pitched round, she saw Miranda being menaced by a small man with a length of pipe.

'Graltor!' Cate managed to cry out through the gaps in the big fingers. She stopped struggling.

After a moment, she was lowered back to the metal deck and released. She turned to look at her attacker as she suspected, it was the larger man.

The small man had stopped menacing Miranda. She looked him up and down. 'So you must be Tarvin?'

The men glanced at each other.

'You know us?'

'We know you're escaped slaves. We're not armed.'

Graltor was stocky, built like a wrestler. And he was huge hands the size of dinner plates.

Tarvin was a far smaller man. 'Graltor's from a high-gravity planet,' he explained. 'He's the runt of the family. But that's by the bye. The important question is: who are you?'

'Don't you recognise me?' Miranda asked.

The thief scowled. 'Of course I do, I Just wanted to see if you'd admit it. You're Miranda,' he said sceptically. 'You're the Last One.'

Miranda nodded. 'I was taken to Earth when I was a baby. I don't remember any of my parents' crimes. I'm... sorry if they hurt you. I'm sorry for what they did.'

Tarvin was clearly taken aback. 'She doesn't sound like Ferran or any of the other Senators.'

The giant was scratching his chin. 'What are you doing here? Is this your mother or something?'

'Her mother was the Empress, stupid,' Tarvin chided. He looked at Cate warily. 'Elder sister?'

'If she was her elder sister, then the Last One wouldn't be the Last One, would she, stupid stupid?' Graltor grunted.

'I'd be the Last But But One.' Miranda giggled. One.' Miranda giggled.

Graltor chortled.

Cate moved a little closer to Miranda. These two clearly didn't recognise her as the Deputy, and telling them she was Ferran's right-hand woman didn't seem wise.

'She was helping me to escape,' Miranda said.

'Escape where?'

Miranda was reaching a decision. 'Cate can fly one of the saucers, escape the s.h.i.+p and get us to Earth. And you can come with us.'

Mordak was struggling with the shoulder straps of Ferran's armour. He could sense that the Prefect was growing impatient. Finally, everything was in place. Ferran looked at his hologram, flexed his fingers, then began heading for the door.

One of the scientists intercepted him and pressed a control box into his hand.

'What is this?' the Prefect demanded.

'It allows you to access some of the deactivated systems. In theory, any device within about five paces should operate for you.'

Ferran was impressed. 'You've come up with this since the systems went down?'

The scientist nodded.

Ferran slapped him on the shoulder. 'We shall discuss your reward for this when I return.'

Ferran stepped through the doorway and the door swished closed behind him.

The scientist looked insufferably smug.

'You should have discussed it now,' Mordak noted. 'He's going up against the Doctor.'

That wiped the scientist's grin off him.

Mather had known there was something wrong he'd said it, right when they were back in the hangar.

'The guards are keeping away from us,' he repeated.

The Doctor shook his head. 'Why would they do that?'

The corridors were lit with emergency lighting only. They'd come across some of the aliens on their journey. Mather noted that they looked just like people women in long grey skirts, small men in functional tunics. Every so often there would be a robot of some kind: things that looked like automated street cleaners' carts, smaller ones, too, that looked like tarantulas with tools and implements on the end of each leg.

But no guards.

This was a wars.h.i.+p. That was clear just from looking at the exterior of it. And everything the Doctor and Debbie had told Mather about these people led him to expect the inside of the Death Star, or at least the stars.h.i.+p Enterprise Enterprise. Where were the guards?

He hesitated for a moment, watched the Doctor and Debbie hurry along.

And a transparent screen slid down, cutting him off.

'Hey!' he called, banging his fists on it.

The Doctor and Debbie turned, then hurried back. So the door wasn't soundproof.

'I'll try to get it open,' the Doctor promised.

Debbie was running her hands around the edges. 'It's very thin material.'

It was: barely a millimetre thick but pus.h.i.+ng against it had no effect: it hadn't budged.

The Doctor was down on one knee, opening up his briefcase. 'I'll use the sonic suitcase,' he told them, playing around with some instrument wedged into one side of it.

There was a high-pitched squeal. The Doctor smiled, looked up at the door, then frowned when it remained obstinately closed.

Then the squeal became higher still.

'Get back!' Debbie warned, pulling him away.

The thing in the suitcase exploded, showering the corridor with sparks.

The Doctor blinked. 'A deliberate feedback loop,' he said. 'Ferran must have antic.i.p.ated that I'd use it.'

Mather pressed himself against the screen. 'I thought the power was off.'

'They might have found an override.' The Doctor looked around. 'Get back to the shuttle, Mather, I don't think we can open this.'

'Then how will you get back?'

The Doctor shrugged. 'I'll find a way round.'

Mather thought about it for a moment. 'Agreed,' he said.

The hangars could be only about a ten-or fifteen-minute walk away Cate and Miranda agreed on that. Graltor and Tarvin were flagging a bit they'd been on the run for several hours, and were worn out.

Cate took the opportunity to whisper a few words to Miranda. 'We can't take them with us, they're slaves.'

'You're all slaves,' Miranda said sharply.

Cate was shocked, and then surprised just how shocked she was. 'I'm the Deputy of a galactic '

'You're a slave. I'm freeing you, I'll free them. I only wish I could free everyone else.' There was little warmth in Miranda's voice now.

'I am not a slave.'

'You are.'

'No.'

'I can prove you are.' Miranda took the pain inducer from her belt and pointed it at Cate, and pressed the b.u.t.ton.

Cate flinched, then realised it wasn't working.

Miranda looked baffled, and pa.s.sed the wand over. 'Is it being blocked by the walls?'

Cate tried to puzzle that out as Graltor and Tarvin caught up with them. She handed it back to Miranda.

'Did I just see what I thought I just saw?' Tarvin asked.

Miranda nodded.

'Do you want to hurt us?' Graltor objected.

Miranda tossed the wand at him. 'No. And I don't think I could if I did want to.'

Graltor was too slow to stop Tarvin from catching it.

'The wand works,' he said. 'The light's coming on, look. It must be the receivers that are damaged.

Cate took it from Tarvin's hand, pointed it at him and pressed but nothing happened. 'It draws its power from the s.h.i.+p's generators.'

Miranda looked around. 'And if the travel tubes and the lights aren't working properly... Ferran's men don't carry guns, do they?'

The Deputy shook her head and held the wand up. 'He doesn't trust them to they have these, that's all. There are weapons, but they are locked in the armouries. Only Computer can open them, and only with Ferran's voiceprint.'

'Then the slaves can overpower the guards?' Miranda asked.

' "Overpower"?' Graltor grunted. 'Kill. You mean kill.'

Cate grabbed Miranda's arm. 'Those men joined up to serve the Empire and their people, not Ferran. They are men and women doing their jobs.'

'Just following orders?' Miranda hissed.

'This isn't a matter of sides. There are guards loyal to Ferran, of course there are but there are at least as many who aren't.'