CHRIS FOUND HIMSELF shrinking into the Doctor’s side, like it was an instinct to go all girly and powerless next to this big, solid broad-shouldered man.
‘Who are they, Doctor?’ he whispered urgently as the five figures shuffled from the shadows into the main control room of the space station. ‘What are they?’
At first sight, Chris had thought these newcomers were vampires or zombies or werewolves, or a bit of all three with something else even worse mixed in. They were ragged, filthy creatures with long unkempt hair and long dirty fingernails, some with wild straggling beards. All of them wore a similar outfit of tunic and trousers. These clothes, Chris guessed, had once been gleaming white, but now they were shredded, hanging from the creatures’ skinny bodies like torn grey shrouds.
Perhaps the worst thing about the newcomers, though, was the smell. They were caked in filth. Their eyes were blank and uncomprehending. Their bodies moved jerkily and uncertainly, like toddlers taking their first cautious steps. They held their hands outstretched towards the Doctor and Chris like beggars. They made a ghastly chorus of mewing sounds, and short guttural clicks and cries.
To Chris’s astonishment and alarm, instead of sensibly backing away from these creatures as he had done with the Kraag, the Doctor put out an arm and gently took the bony hand of the nearest. He made soothing noises.
‘There, there,’ he said.
He smiled, though Chris could see he was deeply disturbed by the apparitions, whatever they were.
The creature touched by the Doctor lifted its head, and Chris was startled to see that under the shapeless rags and tatters it was a woman.
‘Victims of Skagra’s brain drain,’ said the Doctor.
‘That sphere?’ said Chris.
The Doctor nodded. ‘Their minds were stolen but their bodies survived the extraction process. If you can call this survival.’ He brushed the woman’s hair gently away from her blue eyes. ‘They might know who Skagra is, what he’s after, where he’s gone.’
‘But their minds have been stolen,’ pointed out Chris.
‘Some memory patterns might remain,’ said the Doctor, clearly thinking hard. ‘Locked off in the Broca’s region.’
He turned very slowly, looking between Chris and the cone. ‘Bristol, I would like you to do something for me.’
‘Certainly,’ said Chris brightly. ‘Anything I can do to help.’
‘It won’t be pleasant, I’m afraid,’ said the Doctor.
‘Silly Kraag, silly dog,’ observed the Ship, looking on at the titanic struggle between K-9 and the rock monster. ‘You should really give it up. The pair of you. I mean, all this denial’s not going to get you anywhere, is it? We’re all dead.’
K-9’s laser continued to fire into the Kraag. The searing heat and blazing light would have blinded any organic being. Even K-9’s finely attuned sensors, which operated through every spectrum, were having trouble keeping a clear image of his opponent. The constant wittering from the Ship wasn’t helping things either.
‘Ah,’ sighed the Ship, now switching to its more wistful and reflective mood. ‘“Feel no more the heat o’ the Kraag,” as one of the great poets of that silly Earth planet almost has it. Take a break, get a long sleep in, that’s the whole point of being dead, isn’t it? I intend to do nothing at all now I’ve crossed to the other side.’
‘Nothing – but – talk,’ K-9 managed to say. It was, of course, completely impossible that a machine creature like himself could feel irritation. That was an organic emotion. But several of K-9’s inner servo cut-offs were locking in and out with what could almost have been frustration.
The Kraag suddenly roared. It flung out its arms on either side, as if it was basking in the deadly laser beam.
‘Master!’ K-9 called urgently. ‘Master, hypothesise that the Kraag creature is absorbing energy from the beam! Master!’
‘He can’t hear you,’ said the Ship. ‘For that matter, neither can I. Ho-hum.’
Chris stood in one of the alcoves around the central cone, as directed by the Doctor. The Doctor had gently led one of the survivors, a man, into the position right next to him. Then he took a long length of wire from his pocket and fastened it around some sinister-looking inputs above Chris’s head.
‘Bristol,’ he said darkly. ‘I’m going to allow this man access to your intelligence reserves. It’ll only be temporary. It might just allow his memory to function. I’m sorry, but it’s our only hope of finding Romana.’
He trailed the wire from the inputs and wound it around the head of the dirty, bearded old man. The old man looked up and smiled innocently like a small child. His fellow survivors cowered in a shadowy corner of the control room, looking on uncomprehending.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ said Chris as the Doctor held out his sonic screwdriver.
‘So do I,’ muttered the Doctor.
‘I have total faith in you,’ said Chris.
‘So do I,’ muttered the Doctor. ‘There should be enough power to jump-start the transference circuit, for a while anyway.’ He turned on the sonic screwdriver and touched the tip to the length of wire that ran between Chris and the old man. ‘Take a deep breath,’ he ordered.
Chris took a deep breath.
‘Now!’ cried the Doctor.
Chris felt a tingle of power along the back of his neck. It was not unpleasant, and he was just opening his mouth to tell the Doctor that everything was all right when the world fell away.
Another mind crashed into his.
A bewildering sequence of wild, flashing images tumbled through Chris’s head. He felt himself flashing through purple waves on some kind of futuristic surfboard, a young woman’s hands wrapped around his naked back. He saw lectures, machinery, white boards and computer viewscreens filling up with equation after equation after equation.
The image of Clare faded from his mind, to be replaced by another face. A cold-eyed young man with fair hair and full, sensuous lips. The small part of Chris that still existed was certain he’d seen him somewhere before.
And then, Chris felt himself disappear. Suddenly, he was somebody else.
‘Master, alert!’ cried K-9. ‘Kraag creature is –’ He gathered his strength. ‘Kraag not only absorbing energy – but it is –’
The Kraag turned almost mockingly in the beam, shaking itself. Its entire body was now suffused in the red light, smoke and steam belching from it in furious blasts.
‘It is – growing stronger!’ called K-9 weakly. ‘This unit requires assistance! Hurry, Master!’
The Kraag gave another horrifying roar and stepped slowly to the side and out of the beam.
‘I knew this would end badly,’ said the Ship.
The Doctor looked anxiously between Chris and the old man. Chris’s head was slumped back in the alcove, and the pained expression on his face was not pleasant to behold. The Doctor quickly checked Chris’s life signs and gave him a fond kiss on the brow.
Then he turned his attention to the old man. A little light had come back into the man’s clouded gaze, and the Doctor fancied he could almost see the adult intelligence swimming back up onto the ravaged face.
Suddenly the old man’s arm jerked. He pointed with one long-nailed finger and moaned.
‘Gently now, take it easy,’ said the Doctor, kissing the old man’s brow as well for good luck.
A hissing sound issued from the back of the old man’s throat. Then a single syllable pushed itself up through his lips.
‘It’s…’
‘Please, go slowly,’ said the Doctor.
The old man’s eyes settled upon him. ‘Who are you?’
‘The Doctor.’
‘What are you doing here?’ gasped the old man, every syllable clearly a tremendous effort.
‘Me? I’m here to help,’ said the Doctor. He leaned in close and whispered softly, ‘May I ask who you are, sir?’
‘My name is… Akrotiri…’
The Doctor’s own memory was functioning perfectly accurately. ‘What?’ he gasped. ‘Not C.J. Akrotiri? The neurologist?’
‘The same,’ said the old man. He managed to dip his head graciously. It was a pitiful sight, thought the Doctor, the famed scientist reduced to the level of a babbling idiot.
Carefully the Doctor shook the old man’s hand. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,’ he said, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice. ‘One of the greatest intellects of your generation.’
‘So are we all.’ Akrotiri gestured to his fellow survivors. There were tears forming in his rheumy eyes as he identified them. ‘K. Thira the psychologist, J. Centauri the parametricist, C. Ia the biologist, D. Caldera…’
The Doctor regarded the survivors. ‘I thought I recognised those faces. Arguably some of the greatest intellects in the universe in this time period,’ he breathed. One of the women, J. Centauri, master of parametrics, was staring at her fingers as if trying to count them.
Akrotiri gave a long, grating sigh. ‘And Doctor R. Skagra.’
The Doctor returned his attention to the old man. ‘Tell me about Skagra.’
‘Dr R. Skagra,’ the old man repeated. ‘Geneticist, and astro-engineer, and cyberneticist, and neurostructuralist, and moral theologian.’
‘And too clever by seven-eighths,’ muttered the Doctor. ‘Who is Skagra? Where does he come from?’
‘I don’t know,’ whispered the old man. ‘He never answered any of our questions. But…’ He grimaced. ‘He was very impressive. He offered very handsome fees. So we all agreed.’
This memory seemed to trigger a response in Chris. The Doctor looked over to see the innocent young face of his friend contorted by exactly the same grimace.
‘Agreed to what?’ asked the Doctor, though he had a horrible feeling he already knew the answer to this question.
Akrotiri gestured about weakly. ‘This place, the Institute. It was his idea, he set the place up. A grand experiment. We called it the Think Tank.’
‘Go on, please,’ urged the Doctor.
‘The Think Tank,’ sighed Akrotiri. ‘The pooling of intellectual resources by electronic mind transference. No longer any need, he said, for wasteful duplication of research and lengthy cross-reviewing by scientists with different specialties. We could pool our intellects, think together, a symphony of the scientific mind…’ He weakened once again, his face showing the enormous struggle to hold on to his thoughts.
‘And together,’ said the Doctor, looking up at the spike on top of the cone, ‘you built the sphere, for Skagra? And you all got into this thing and switched on?’
‘Then it was too late,’ Akrotiri groaned. ‘Too late!’ He reached out and his long yellow fingernails clutched at the lapel of the Doctor’s coat. ‘Too late!’
The Doctor looked over anxiously at Chris. He was agitated too, his head twisting and turning under the inputs.
‘Too late!’ Chris called in an agonised voice. ‘He stole our minds!’
‘It’s never too late,’ said the Doctor soothingly. ‘I’ve come to help, remember?’
Chris slumped back against the headrest of his alcove, becalmed.
‘Why would you help us?’ asked Akrotiri.
The Doctor coughed. ‘Well, wouldn’t anybody?’
The Kraag almost seemed to be laughing.
It turned its back on K-9 and started pounding for the exit door from the command deck.
‘Master! Master!’ cried K-9. He snapped off the laser beam and shot forward at top speed. The power cable clicked from the socket on his side.
The Ship watched as K-9 followed the burning red-hot Kraag from the command deck. ‘All very confusing behaviour,’ she said.
Without the distractions on her command deck, the Ship decided to get on with some serious thinking.
‘Now that’s odd,’ she said to herself as the sounds of K-9’s engine and the roaring of the Kraag receded up the companionway. ‘I’m dead, so it should be impossible for me to think.’ She hemmed and hawed, electronics chirruping. ‘Why didn’t I think of that before?’
The Doctor looked deep into the eyes of Akrotiri. ‘I’m going to take you all with me, there’s plenty of room.’
The structure of the station creaked once more.
‘Sooner the better. Skagra obviously built this place to last only until his great experiment was concluded. Now it’s falling to bits.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ said Akrotiri.
The Doctor patted him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t you worry. I can get help for you when all of this has blown over, get your brain back.’
Akrotiri smiled. ‘You are a good man, Doctor.’
The Doctor smiled back. ‘No, I’m not. In fact I’m flippant, boastful and terribly disorganised.’
Suddenly Chris emitted a deep, terrible groan.
The Doctor licked his lips and turned urgently to Akrotiri. ‘Listen. I’m terribly sorry but I’m going to have to disconnect you again. I may not be able to speak to you again for some time.’
Akrotiri nodded.
‘Now please, concentrate,’ the Doctor went on. ‘Did Skagra ever mention his place of origin? Anywhere he might use as a base, anywhere he was trying to get to?’
‘Never,’ said Akrotiri.
Chris let out a cry. His head rocked back and forth in the alcove.
‘Anything – please?’ urged the Doctor. ‘I mean, doesn’t the wretched man have a home to go to?’
Akrotiri struggled to answer. ‘Perhaps…’
‘What?’ spluttered the Doctor. ‘Go on, quickly.’
‘Once, I saw him…’ Akrotiri began. The words were swallowed up in another agonising cry from Chris.
The Doctor got closer. ‘Saw him what? Please!’
Akrotiri shuddered. ‘He was… checking coordinates – on a palm unit…’
The Doctor’s eyes lit up. ‘What were the coordinates?’ prompted the Doctor. ‘Please, Mr Akrotiri!’
Chris cried out once again.
The Doctor reached out instinctively to pull the connection between the two men free.
And then Akrotiri said, ‘Galactic north 9… 6… 5… 5…’
‘Yes?’ called the Doctor, the wire in his hand.
Chris writhed in agony.
‘Galactic north 9…’
‘Yes, I got that bit, 9655! What’s the rest? By what?’
Akrotiri’s dry lips forced out, ‘By… by… galactic east vector 9… 1… 3…’
Suddenly there was a mighty roar and an explosion of heat and noise.
The Doctor was knocked to the floor by the heatwave.
He lifted his head and saw the Kraag, glowing red hot, stomping towards him. Sparks crackled around it, and smoke poured from the floor-plates at its stumpy feet.
The structure of the space station groaned.
There was an almighty crack and one wall of computer banks smashed down.
‘Now listen,’ said the Doctor, calling to the Kraag. ‘I don’t know if you can understand me, but this is a very unstable environment and you are about the worst person to come crashing in here!’
The Kraag roared and raised one arm towards him.
‘You fire that weapon,’ called the Doctor, ‘and this whole place will be destroyed!’