‘Ahh, yes… You can tell the incisors are for chewing through wood. Castoridae, then.’
‘Beavers!’ said Ty in admiration. ‘Although they’re closer – at least in appearance – to the mustelidae. Otters. They’re not quite mammals, though – closer to monotremes, really.’
‘Egg-layers?’ mused the Doctor. ‘Interesting. And semi-aquatic, judging by the webbing between the toes.’
He turned sharply and stared at Ty through narrow eyes before taking off his glasses and slipping them back in his jacket pocket.
‘So why are they here? And why are they in cages?’
‘Ty…’ warned Col. He looked awkward, thought Candy, torn between fetching Pallister and keeping watch over the Doctor.
‘We’re studying them,’ Ty said simply. ‘Me and Col.’
‘And why, considering all you’ve been through over the past couple of months, would you be spending valuable time studying these… these – have you got a name for them?’
‘We just call them otters,’ said Ty.
‘Just “otters”? What’s happened to human creativity, imagination?’ He shook his head, but Candy could see the smile twinkling in his eyes. ‘Love looking for the familiar in the unfamiliar, you lot. Come on!’ he spread his arms wide. ‘You’re on a brand new world, brave new horizons, boldly going where no one’s ever gone before, blah, blah. You should be making up exciting new names for things.’ He looked back at the cages. ‘Call ’em “jubjubs”,’ he suggested. ‘Or “spingles”. Always wanted to find something called a spingle.’ He paused. ‘Or am I getting confused with Spangles?’
‘Let’s just leave them as otters for the time being, shall we?’ Col suggested a little icily.
‘Fair enough,’ agreed the Doctor brightly. ‘Never one to interfere, me. So how come you have time to be studying otters? Shouldn’t you be out building fences or digging wells or something rough and sweaty and butch?’
‘I’m a xenozoologist, Doctor. I’m nearly 60 and, to be quite honest, there’s not much else that I’m good at. Not unless the other settlers suddenly develop the need for an Earth Mother – or a Sunday Mother. And anyway, we’re the advance guard, so to speak. We’re here to set up the colony, investigate the local wildlife. Make sure it’s all hunky dory for when the rest of the colonists arrive – if they bother coming now. Col,’ she said firmly, turning away from the Doctor. ‘Either go and get Pallister or sit down – just stop fannying around.’
Candy let out a little laugh. They were like an old married couple.
Col shook his head. ‘Pallister’ll go ape when he finds out—’
‘When he finds out what?’
Everyone turned to the door. Standing there, in his grubby black suit, flanked by two other colonists – two armed colonists – was Pallister. Silently, they drew their guns and aimed them at the Doctor.
FOUR
There was complete silence. The Doctor stared from one gun to the other and then fixed Pallister with a firm gaze.
‘I take it that you’re Bannister.’
‘Pallister,’ corrected Pallister coldly.
‘Bannister, Pallister…’ said the Doctor airily.
‘What are you doing on Sunday?’ asked Pallister.
‘Well,’ said the Doctor, sucking in a breath. ‘I thought I might wash the car, then have lunch down the pub – and maybe fall asleep watching the footie. Unless, of course, you’re asking me on a date. In which case, I should point out that—’
‘What are you doing on our planet?’
‘Oh!’ said the Doctor, wide-eyed. ‘It’s your planet is it? Sorry – I must have missed the sign on my way in.’
He suddenly turned his back on the three men in the doorway.
‘Anyway,’ he said blithely. ‘What was I saying…? Oh yes. These otters of yours…’
There were two heavy clunks from behind him as Pallister’s men readied their guns. The Doctor took a deep breath and turned back to them.
‘Good thinking, Rossiter. When faced with a puzzle, shoot it! When something comes along you don’t understand, shoot it! When someone you’ve never met before says hello, shoot him! Nice policy.’
Candy swallowed nervously – the Doctor clearly didn’t know Pallister. He might have been an officious nobody, but he was the officious nobody in charge of the Council, and he had a short fuse and a nasty temper when provoked. No one said anything.
‘Right!’ exclaimed Ty suddenly, pushing the Doctor aside and standing four-square in front of Pallister and his goons. ‘This has gone on quite long enough!’ She looked Pallister up and down as if he’d been caught smoking around the back of the schoolhouse. ‘What is going on here, Pallister?’ She glanced disdainfully at the two men, their guns raised. ‘And put those down before someone gets hurt. You might be Chief Councillor, but since when was Sunday a military state? You can’t just go stomping around with your little toy soldiers, waving guns at people. I mean,’ she glanced back at the Doctor. ‘Just look at him. Does he look like he needs an armed guard?’
Candy almost laughed at the expression on Pallister’s face. He seemed totally thrown – not by the Doctor but by Ty.
‘This is none of your concern, Professor Benson,’ said Pallister through gritted teeth.
‘Oh, I think it is,’ countered Ty, planting her hands on her ample hips. ‘Remind me, Councillor Pallister,’ she said, stressing his job title, ‘but unless there’s been a military coup overnight, Sunday’s still a democracy, isn’t it? And I’m pretty sure that the colony’s constitution says that any armed action needs to be approved by the entire Council, not just one member.’ She raised an eyebrow at the two guns. ‘And I think waving guns around at a complete stranger in my lab probably comes under the heading of “armed action”. Or has the constitution changed overnight too?’
‘This man is a stranger,’ replied Pallister, his words almost strangled in his throat. ‘And as such he presents a potential threat.’
‘Threat?’ The Doctor’s face lit up and he whirled around to face Ty and Col. ‘Threat? Me?’ He grinned. ‘Well, I’ve been called a fair few things in my time – but the only people who’ve called me a threat are people who are up to no good.’ He tipped his head back and looked down his nose at Pallister. ‘Which would rather suggest that you, Mister Cannister, are up to no good, wouldn’t it?’
Pallister opened his mouth to say something, but the Doctor just breezed on: ‘Anyway,’ he said simply. ‘I think you need me. And I need you. I have a friend out there that I have to find, not to mention my spaceship. Wouldn’t it make sense for us to work together, eh? A friend in need and all that? Helping hands…? Too many cooks…?’
Pallister just stared at him – and waved the two men forwards, as if instructing them to arrest him.
‘This is mad,’ said Ty as Pallister gave orders to one of the men to escort him to the detention centre. ‘When the Council hears about—’
‘When the Council hears about this,’ Pallister finished her sentence, ‘they’ll back me up. We don’t know where he’s come from or what he’s here for and, until we do, I have no intention of letting him run around the settlement.’
Ty clenched her fists, outraged at the man’s audacity. ‘They’re not going to let you get away with this,’ she warned him. ‘You can’t just go around pointing guns at people.’
‘Desperate times call for desperate measures, Professor Benson.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘Believe me, you’ll thank me when it turns out that this Doctor is here to cause trouble.’
Ty made a sharp tutting noise with her teeth and folded her arms over her bosom. ‘But look at the state of him!’
As they argued, Candy noticed that the Doctor had pulled out the little black wallet that he’d shown to Ty and Col before, and was gently wafting it around behind his back.
‘We only have his word for that,’ Pallister thundered on. ‘And, if you don’t mind my saying, Professor, you seem very keen to believe his story. If he’s just
arrived in a spaceship –if – then how come we didn’t see it land? No one’s come forward to report anything, have they? We don’t know how long he’s been here. Maybe he’s been sent from some other colony to interfere with us.’
‘You’re paranoid, Pallister! What if he’s an adjudicator, sent from Earth for some reason? How’s that going to look on your record, eh? Arresting and locking up an official from Earth – that’s going to make you very popular, isn’t it?’
And as if on cue, the Doctor’s hand appeared between them, holding the black wallet he’d shown her earlier. She took it from him before Pallister could, and opened it again, expecting to find the card proclaiming the Doctor’s status as ‘Madame Romana’. Instead, she grinned at what she saw and thrust it out in front of Pallister.
‘See!’ she said, as he read it. Pallister’s jaw dropped.
‘Doctor,’ he said smarmily, motioning instantly for his two assistants to lower their guns. ‘Please, please accept my apologies.’
Ty could see that the Doctor was clearly trying to hold back a grin.
‘Why didn’t you say you were an adjudicator?’ fawned Pallister.
‘Well,’ the Doctor replied, almost bashfully. ‘We don’t like to go about boasting about these things, you know.’ He leaned close to Pallister and whispered in his ear. ‘And we have to be so careful about the people we tell. I’m sure you understand.’
‘Of course, of course. If you’d like to come this way,’ Pallister said, his voice oily, ‘I’ll have an office sorted for you.’
He swept towards the doorway.
‘How did you manage that?’ whispered Ty as she and the Doctor followed.
The Doctor pulled a spooky face, wiggled his fingers and grinned wolfishly. ‘Madame Romana,’ he said in a strange accent. ‘She know everything!’
Martha realised she’d fallen asleep again – although she had no idea how she’d managed it. The warmth of the burrow or the nest had dried her out a little, but she was still shivering. The rain and the rustling noises seemed to have stopped but, as she shifted about, lying on what seemed like dry leaves, they started up again.
She squinted and peered at the ceiling – was it getting lighter? She was sure she could see vague speckles of daylight, somewhere up above her. As she peered around her, trying to force her eyes to make something out, there was a flicker of movement, a dark shadow on a darker background.
‘Hello?’ she ventured, her voice croaky, her throat sore. ‘Is there anyone there?’
There was no answer, but there was more movement.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ she added. That’s the way, girl, she thought. Keep your voice calm, steady.
Down in front of her there was a thick, sploshing sound, like oily water being disturbed. The whispering and chittering around her stopped abruptly and all she could hear was the water. It was as though they were waiting for something.
Cautiously, she reached up and rubbed her face, feeling the dried mud and dirt caking her skin. As she moved, she heard tiny footsteps again, and squinted into the gloom. It was definitely getting lighter. Martha looked up at the ceiling, and realised that it was something like wickerwork: bits of grass and twigs plaited and threaded together, with the vaguest hint of rosy light showing through the gaps. How long had she been here?
‘Doctor?’ she ventured in a whisper. Perhaps he was here, unconscious, just a few feet away. ‘Doctor!’ she hissed again. There was no reply – just the squeaking from the distance, and the sound of the water.
As she stared into the gloom, she realised that she could see more than before. She was in a chamber, the woven ceiling forming a dome above her. It must have been about six metres across, with a darker, sunken area in the middle. Presumably that was where the water was. Something moved on the other side of the pit, and she could just about make out a slim, upright shape – a shape that immediately shrunk, like an animal dropping from its hind legs onto all fours.
And there were other things – paler things – only just visible in the waxing light. Martha narrowed her eyes and looked around: there was a lower level, just below hers, like a miniature Roman amphitheatre. Sprawled on it, across the pit from her, were three shapes. Could they be people? Perhaps others brought here in the same way she’d been brought. She peered into the darkness, willing her eyes to see…
… and then wished she hadn’t. She felt the bile rising in her throat as she realised what she was looking at.
Laid out in the chamber, their hollow, sightless eyes staring straight back at her, were skeletons. Three of them. Three human skeletons. Their fleshless skulls gleamed pink as the light grew around her, their mouths open wide as if in a final, terrible scream.
Ty was amazed at the speed that things could move. One minute Pallister had been showing the Doctor into a barely furnished office – just a desk and a chair. And the next the Doctor was organising a mission to rescue his friend and his spaceship. It made her think even less of Pallister, if that was possible.
Pallister had spent a good ten minutes apologising until the Doctor had turned to him, fixed him with a steely glare, and told him, in no uncertain terms, to go away and leave him to it.
‘That man,’ said Ty as she peered out of the window into the pink dawn and watched Pallister scuttle away across the square to his house, ‘is bad news. You know that, don’t you?’
The Doctor smiled at her. ‘I think I’d worked that one out.’
He bent over the desk on which a map – that Pallister had magicked up in seconds – had been unrolled, pinned down by an assortment of coffee cups and pots full of pencils.
‘You’re not an adjudicator at all, are you?’
The Doctor seemed shocked at her suggestion.
‘Professor Benson!’ he said, affronted. ‘Are you accusing me of impersonating an officer of the Earth Empire?’
‘We have an Earth Empire?’
He glanced at his watch. ‘You will,’ he smiled. ‘Anyway…’ He turned his attention back to the map, brushing away a few specks of mud that had fallen from his hair. ‘We’re here – and the TARDIS landed here.’
‘That’s your ship?’
‘Spot on, Doctor Watson. Now, are there any beasties out there we need to be careful of? Candice told me about what happened. The flood. Sorry about that. But I’d hate to be responsible for the loss of any more of your people.’
‘No,’ she said after a moment’s thought. ‘Nothing that we know of – that’s one of the reasons Sunday was approved for colonisation – fairly nice planet, all things considered. A bit wet and soggy, but warm. They were going to call it “Wetworld” – in contrast to “Earth” – before we vetoed it. Made us sound incontinent.’
‘Very wise,’ said the Doctor as he smiled, straightened up and took a deep breath.
‘Can you round up half a dozen hefty bodies and some ropes? And if you’ve got any good swimmers around here, that’d help.’
‘You’re going to pull a spaceship out of the swamp with ropes and half a dozen bruisers?’ Ty was incredulous. ‘Just how big is this TARDIS of yours?’
Col started as Candy came back into the zoo lab.
‘Jumpy,’ she said with a tired smile.
‘Thought you were with Pallister and his trained monkeys.’ Col looked distant, thoughtful.
‘Oh, I think the Doctor’s got him firmly under his thumb,’ Candy grinned, putting fresh coffee on to brew. She picked up her forgotten backpack from behind the door and pulled a face as she unzipped it: inside was a mess of smashed shell and gloopy egg.
‘That’s breakfast gone, then,’ Col said gloomily.
‘Give it an hour and the refec’ll be open.’
‘S’pose. So… this stuff about him being an adjudicator… Reckon it’s true?’
Candy shrugged. ‘Don’t see why not.’
‘I’m not sure anything’s what it seems with the Doctor.’
‘Why?’
Col said nothing, and there was
a moment’s awkward silence before he gestured towards the cages, where the otters were starting to wake up.
‘Gonna give me a hand with this lot?’ he said. Some of them were just stretching and yawning; others were pacing in tiny circles, patting down the leaves underneath them. One looked suspiciously like it was having a wee. And the one with the grey smudge on his ear, the one they’d had the longest, was fiddling with the padlock that held his cage shut.
‘OK – what’s what?’
Col checked the clipboard he’d been working on.
‘Ty wants eight of them releasing – says they’ve reached maximum.’
‘Smart and smarter again?’
Col nodded.
‘Y’know,’ said Candy thoughtfully, wandering over to the cage as the smell of coffee filled the lab, ‘I wonder if it’s us.’
‘Us what?’
‘Us that’s making them smart.’
‘You mean when we catch them they’re dim and aggressive, and somehow contact with us ups their IQs? How would that work, then? They can’t just be learning from us: we’ve made sure not to let them see us doing anything “clever”.’
Candy wasn’t sure, although it made as much sense as any of the other theories they’d come up with – and discounted: diurnal rhythms, food supply, separation from their families. Nothing seemed to really explain why the IQs of the otters seemed to rise the longer they were in captivity, before levelling out. Maybe they were picking it up from the humans. Candy knew she wasn’t the brightest penny in the barrel, but she felt sure that the answer was staring them in the face.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door and, before Col could say anything, it slammed open and in staggered Orlo. Candy’s friend was a stocky, beefy lad with a messy shock of black hair and a grumpy-looking face. He was carrying something large and square, draped with an old sack. It rattled and jumped in his arms, and he seemed only too pleased to put it down on the desk.
‘You’re a bit bright and early, aren’t you?’ asked Candy.
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