Doctor Who: The Ark (6 page)

‘That is the crux of my argument,’ replied Zentos. ‘Do you expect us to believe that nonsense that you, in that ridiculous machine you call the TARDIS, managed to travel through time?’ He addressed the court. ‘Guardians, Monoids, these beings, whatever they are, place a heavy strain on our credulity!’

‘That’s not very difficult,’ Steven retorted. ‘If your medical records are anything to go by this Segment of time, instead of being one of the most advanced in knowledge, is one of the most backward.’

There was an immediate reaction, a murmuring of protest from the Guardians and the Monoids gathered in the Control Room.

In the jail-room the Doctor sighed. ‘I warned him that advocacy was a special art – one that often calls for delicacy rather than the heavy hammer.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Dodo retorted stoutly. ‘I think Steven is really giving them what for!’

‘I suppose one could say that,’ said the Doctor drily. He observed her shrewdly. ‘But things might be worse.’

‘How?’

‘It could be
you
in there, defending us – and in that case... h’m!’ He left the thought unspoken. Dodo pouted in silent reply.

Zentos returned to the attack against Steven. ‘We can cope with most things known in the Fifty-Seventh Segment of Time, but not with a strange disease, brought by you and your kind as agents of the intelligences that inhabit Refusis.’

‘Are you still on about that?’ Steven demanded. ‘I’ve told you before – we know nothing of that planet.’

‘My instinct, every fibre of my being, tells me differently...’

‘That, unfortunately, leads me to only one conclusion...’

‘What’s that?’

‘... that man, even in this day and age, hasn’t altered his basic nature at all. You still fear the unknown, like everyone else before you.’

In the isolation unit the Commander had been able to follow the course of some of the trial, despite his occasional lapses into coma, and on hearing this he grabbed the arm of the microbiologist, Rhos.

‘That’s true!’ he cried out.

Rhos and the attendant Monoid restrained him as he attempted to sit up. But his spirit fought back as he listened to the developing trial.

‘That still won’t stop me from combatting you,’ said Zentos.

‘How?’ Steven asked. ‘By destroying us? By ejecting us into space?’

‘If that is the voted judgment of this hearing, yes!’

Manyak moved forward. ‘Steven...’

‘Yes?’

‘Prove to us your good faith! Would your friend, the one you call the Doctor, have any knowledge of how to deal with this fever?’

‘Yes, he probably would if you’d let him out of that cell so that he could have a chance to experiment.’

‘I have the feeling that you are correct.’

In the jail-room the Doctor observed: ‘Well, at least one or two of them are on our side. So all is not lost.’

Zentos returned to the attack. ‘I’m sure he’d love to try –

so that he can spread the fever further and faster.’ He appealed to the others. ‘Guardians, are we to be fooled by such tricks? Are we to be taken in by such nonsense?’

There was an immediate chorus of ‘No’ from all sides.

The Doctor heard this emphatic majority response and sighed. ‘Maybe I spoke too soon.’

‘These creatures may have the appearance of’ human beings,’ Zentos continued. ‘But I think they are something entirely different... and they should be punished.’

‘That’s right!’ came a baying chorus, and one of the Guardians stepped forward with the demand: ‘Eject them!’

‘But I... I don’t think you’ve
proved
any kind of a case,’

protested Steven, wiping his brow. ‘It... it’s nothing but...

but guessing...’ The Control Room was swimming around before his eyes and the chattering, clamouring voices were echoing in his head.

He grasped at the bars of the cage, attempting to stay upright. But his words trailed away and the strength ebbed from his body as he collapsed to the floor.

The Doctor had heard the tremulous, faltering voice.

Worried, he addressed Dodo. ‘This trial is more serious than I suspected... and there is something wrong with Steven.’

‘Do you think he may have caught the fever?’

‘I think so, my dear. It appears that this infection is more virulent than I suspected.’

In the Control Room there was further consternation among the Guardians and the Monoids when they saw what had happened w Steven. They were curious, and at the same time alarmed. Manyak seized on this moment of uncertainty to address, them again.

‘Guardians! Monoids! There is something...’

A chorus of voices tried to drown him out, but Zentos held up his hand.

‘Let Manyak speak. After all, this is a fair trial.’

‘Thank you, Zentos,’ Manyak acknowledged as the noise of protest abated. ‘My appeal for reason in this matter is simple and direct. The Doctor and his companions have not denied that they have brought the fever among us.

They say it was an accident – and I believe them...’

‘So do I,’ Mellium interjected.

‘If they were agents of the Refusians they could have achieved interference and sabotage in a much simpler way, and without exposing themselves to this danger.’

‘But perhaps that was their ploy,’ Zentos suggested.

‘I don’t believe that. In any case, I have another point: the fever is here – it is a fact – and we cannot deal with it.

They might be the only ones who can do something about it.’

‘I wish I could believe that,’ Zentos countered. ‘But my instincts still say otherwise.’

‘And if they are the only ones who can find a cure, what would be the value of expelling them from our spaceship?’

The Commander’s voice was heard interjecting: ‘None at all! If Manyak and my daughter can see that, why can’t the rest of you?’

For a moment they seemed uncertain, caught between the opposing arguments. But as they murmured together, debating the points, another Guardian, a young man, entered the Control Room.

‘Listen to me!’ he called out. ‘I’ve just had further bad news. One of our kind, a fellow Guardian, has died from the fever!’

Immediately the debating of the issue ceased.

‘Do you want to hear more?’ Zentos asked. ‘Never mind the arguments of the defendant because they mean nothing, now that one of our own kind has died.’ He faced them with a final challenge: ‘So, Guardians, what is your answer to the charge? Do you find them guilty or not guilty?’

There was a mixed reaction to his question. Some cried

‘Not guilty’, but the majority drowned them out with their declamation of ‘Guilty!’

‘And by your vote do you agree that we exact the full penalty demanded by the special Galactic Law?’ Again the mixed reaction, with those in favour of the motion drowning out those who thought otherwise. ‘So be it! I formalise sentence in the following manner. The intruders will be taken from here and placed in an expulsion chamber... and be cast out into space! And our friends, the Monoids, in consideration of the fact that one of their number was the first to die, will have the honour of executing the sentence!’

The Monoids bowed in grateful thanks.

Mellium went over to Manyak. ‘The verdict is wrong!’

‘I know,’ he replied. ‘But there is nothing that we can do about it.’

The Doctor clasped his hands together. ‘Well, that’s it, my dear Dodo. Not only the end of the Earth, but the end of us!’ ‘But, Doctor, something must be wrong with Steven.

He’s let them talk, and he hasn’t said so much as a boo to their verdict’

‘You’re right, my dear. Most unlike him after that splendid, cantering start!’ He addressed the relay system.

‘Now I demand to be heard!’ he called out. ‘How can you expect that young man out there to present a defence when he is so obviously ill himself? H’m!?’

Zentos replied over the relay system.

‘The verdict has been pronounced...’

‘Oh, I thought you argued your case very well, young man. But does it count when it is against a
sick
man?’ With satisfaction the Doctor heard uncertainty being echoed in the Control Room. ‘The verdict has been returned, I agree, but I must beg leave to lodge an appeal!’

Again, the murmuring sounds of doubt.

‘Well?’

For a moment there was silence, then the door of the jail-room slid open. The Doctor passed quickly through it, followed by Dodo.

In the Control Room Guardians and Monoids fell back as the Doctor and Dodo entered, as though afraid of getting too near them.

Except for Mellium and Manyak. They hastened to the Doctor’s side, while Dodo quickly went over to Steven in the cage.

She placed her hand on his head. ‘Yes, Doctor, he is running a high fever.’

‘More of it,’ Zentos cried. ‘You and your party have been sentenced to expulsion into outer space!’

‘I know, I know. I heard all that,’ the Doctor rejoined.

‘But if you do that you will be condemning yourselves and everything aboard this ship. Trust me! Help me! Help me to find a cure for this sickness that is beginning to decimate your numbers.’

‘Perhaps there is no cure,’ Zentos replied. ‘Something that you have already seen to.’

‘No!’ The Doctor took up the challenge. ‘Dodo, come here.’ Puzzled, Dodo went to his side. ‘You saw this child before, you heard her sniffles and her sneezing. You remember that her brow was fevered and hot. Well, feel it now!’

Zentos turned his gaze on her, but remained where he was, refusing to take the challenge and the risk. Instead, Mellium stepped forward and placed her hand on Dodo’s forehead.

‘It’s true!’ she exclaimed. ‘Just as the Doctor says. Her brow is cool.’

‘But that could be trickery...’

‘Nonsense!’ the Doctor replied. ‘It is explained by the fact that the child has antibodies in her system which have fought off the fever. And while that young man over there...’ he indicated Steven ‘... is suffering at this moment, his system will fight back and cure itself in time.’

‘But what about us?’ Zentos asked doubtfully.

‘You’re different, your generation no longer has the antibodies, and that is the nub of the matter. We must work to develop them and introduce them among you so that you will be able to fight back of your own accord.’

‘It makes sense to me,’ Manyak said.

‘It will mean hard work. It will need the efforts of everyone, both Guardians and Monoids, if we are to tackle the task.’

‘Look at it another way,’ Mellium implored Zentos.

‘What have we got to lose by doing as he says?’

The Commander’s husky voice could be heard on the relay system. ‘Well spoken, my child.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ Zentos said. But then he looked round at the assembled Guardians and Monoids, sensing uncertainty among them. ‘But if you – all of you – have changed your minds, then the sentence could be reversed.

We might be able to take a chance on them.. as long as we keep a careful eye on what they are doing.’

The murmuring of debate started up again. Then a senior Guardian quickly communicated with a group of Monoids and turned to face Zentos.

‘We have decided to grant the appeal,’ he stated. ‘It may be our only way out. And the Monoids agree with us.’

Zentos bowed as he acceded to the change.

‘Then, I so agree. I think we are taking a chance... but perhaps it is the only one we have.’

The voice of the Commander addressed them: ‘I am glad you have reached that decision before I had to intervene and order it! Now the Doctor and his friends must be given every assistance, every facility, in order to help them with their research. And I am relying on you, Zentos, to support them with your organising skills while I... while I must continue to rest.’ The voice picked up again for a moment. ‘As for you, Doctor... good luck!’

The Doctor bowed respectfully, almost in the manner of the Monoids whenever they expressed their thanks.

4

Steven had been moved from the Control Room back to the jail-mom. Only now its door had been left open and it was being used as a sick bay.

The Doctor hovered over his patient, flanked by Dodo and Mellium. For a moment he pondered, then delivered his first instruction.

‘Cover him with something to keep him warm,’ he said.

‘But why?’ Mellium asked, confused. ‘He is already hot and sweating.’

‘I know it may not make sense to you, my dear, but extra warmth will help break the fever. See how he shivers.

Although his temperature is high he is actually moving through hot and cold cycles. That is one of the contradictory symptoms of this illness.’ He glanced round.

‘Where is that other young lady?’

‘Do you mean me, Doctor?’ Dodo asked.

‘Yes. Now, go to the TARDIS and bring these things back for me.’ He had hastily written a list of items on a sheet of paper.

‘The TARDIS? Me – alone?’

‘Ask for help, for someone to go with you. That young man who spoke up in Steven’s defence...’ He turned to Mellium. ‘What was his name?’

‘Manyak,’ Mellium replied.

‘Yes, Manyak! Now get along with you! And hurry!’

‘OK,’ Dodo replied, setting out.

‘
What
did you say?’

‘OK!’

‘That’s what I thought.’ He sighed. ‘Why I should worry about something like that at a time like this, I don’t know.

But I do. And once we have resolved this dilemma we’ll have to tackle the crisis of your communication.’

‘Me what?!’

‘Never mind. Get out of here. In other words...

skidaddle!’

Dodo shrugged and started out. As she did so, the microbiologist, Rhos, entered.

‘My staff and I are ready to give all the help we can,’ he said. He looked at Steven, who had been covered in sheets of thermo-foil by Mellium. ‘You wish to make him warmer?’

‘Yes! And everyone else aboard this spaceship who has been struck down by the virus. Guardians, Monoids – oh, and the Commander. Do that at once.’

‘Yes, Doctor,’ Mellium replied and immediately left the room. The Doctor turned to Rhos.

‘Now this virus. Basically it’s a germ that lurks in the nervous system...’ He glanced at Rhos enquiringly. ‘I take it that you still do have a nervous system in your physical make-up?’