Pirate Loop, The (13 page)

'So why didn't they?' asked Martha. 'Why not make the badgers like badgers used to be?'

'Ah,' said the Doctor. 'On some worlds they did. But not on very many.'

'Ain't no profit, is there?' said Dashiel, shrugging.

'They were much more useful as badger-human mixes,' said the Doctor. 'Then they could be sent out to work.'

'That's . . .' said Martha. 'It's so bad I don't know what it is.'

'It's market forces,' stated Captain Georgina, from over by the door.

'These three,' said the Doctor, indicating the badgers, 'get their genes from the Western European badger, like the ones you'd get in England. Dies out in your lifetime.' He grinned. 'The Latin name for the Western European badger is
Meles meles meles.
I always liked that one! So I guess the human/badger mash-up would be
Homo sapiens sapiens meles meles meles
!' Martha just eyed him wearily. 'Oh,' said the Doctor. 'Well, I think that's funny, even if no one else does.'

'I'm sorry,' Martha told the badgers. She thought of the miserable lives that these badger pirates had had, where simple things like cheese and tea seemed like amazing wonders.

'She's right though,' said Dashiel, gesturing towards Captain Georgina. 'We ain't as good as them.'

'See?' said Captain Georgina. 'They know that we're better. So it's not right to keep us locked up.'

'Better?' laughed the Doctor. 'They caught you in their spaceship, despite your clever disguise. They stopped you before you could use the experimental drive. And now they're free and you're not. So who's got most points?'

Captain Georgina glowered at him, but she said nothing further.

'What disguise?' asked Martha. 'You said they had a disguise.'

'Oh,' said the Doctor. 'The Brilliant isn't a luxury cruiser. The crew here clearly don't give a stuff about the passengers. It's the robots that are programmed to look after them.'

'It's a cover,' said Martha, horrified. 'You were using them as a shield. It's just about the experimental drive!'

'That is a security issue,' said Captain Georgina testily. She seemed small and impotent where she stood, the cage that held her not even visible. 'I can neither confirm nor deny the allegation.'

'Bet you wouldn't have tested the experimental drive if the passengers had been humans,' said the Doctor.

Captain Georgina bridled at this. 'There's a war coming,' she said. 'Billions of people's lives are at stake. There have to be priorities.'

'As long as they're not your sort,' Martha said to her, utterly disgusted.

'
Our
sort,' corrected Captain Georgina. 'You're humans, too.'

'Lucky us,' said Martha. The Doctor ignored the captain, busy again with the controls. Martha, though, couldn't turn her back on the captain. She felt she had to stare her down, making her look away first. As if that would somehow win the moral point.

'I don't like it either, but it had to be done,' said Captain Georgina eventually. And she looked away.

Martha joined the Doctor and Dashiel at the horseshoe of computers. Dashiel seemed transfixed by the screen that showed the spiky, peach-shaped pirate spaceship. 'Can we call the
Mandelbrot
from 'ere?' he asked the Doctor.

The Doctor laughed. 'Is that what your ship is called?' he asked.

'The
Mandelbrot Sett,'
said Dashiel. 'Yeah.'

'It's a pun!' laughed the Doctor.

'No,' said Dashiel. 'It's a spaceship.'

'Well anyway,' said the Doctor. 'You can't call them. We're still subject to the stasis field. They're in another time zone entirely.'

Dashiel considered this. 'Good,' he said.

'Captain Florence is scary,' explained Archibald. 'An' she won't like any of this stuff.'

'We can stay 'ere,' said Jocelyn.

'What, for ever?' asked Martha.

'Yeah,' said Archie. 'We brung food.' He rummaged in the front of his spacesuit and withdrew a silver tray. Dashiel and Jocelyn also had silver trays tucked into their spacesuits, and they placed the three trays down on the horseshoe of computers.

'Count to somethin',' said Dashiel, closing his eyes tightly. 'One . . . um,
another
one . . .'

Martha looked to the Doctor, who had also closed his eyes. When she looked back at the trays they were filled with canapés. Archibald had brought the tray that held infinite cheese and pineapple sticks. He offered them to Martha.

'Thank you,' she said.

When Archibald had offered the tray to the Doctor and his two comrades, he headed over to the human crew, still imprisoned by the door. He prodded the invisible wall of rubber with his hairy paw, then looked back at the Doctor.

'Are you sure about this?' asked the Doctor, surprised.

'Yeah,' said Archibald.

'And what about you, captain?' the Doctor asked Captain Georgina.

The captain was staring at Archibald, just a foot in front of her. Her expression was impossible to read. And then, to Martha's amazement, the captain simply sighed.

'We can agree to a truce,' she said. 'There's not much else we can do.'

'Brilliant!' said the Doctor and worked the controls. Captain Georgina reached out a hand tentatively, expecting to still meet the invisible wall of rubber. She lifted one cheese and pineapple stick from Archibald's tray, then nodded to him curtly.

'Thank you,' she said.

'You take 'em,' said Archibald, pressing the whole tray into her hands. 'I'll get the blini pizzas.'

He hurried back to the horseshoe of computer desks, and so missed seeing what he'd just achieved. Captain Georgina held the tray of cheese and pineapple sticks and, without thinking about it, offered them to Thomas, stood beside her. Martha could see the look in his eyes – it wouldn't do to refuse the captain. So he took a cheese and pineapple stick, and soon the captain was serving all the crew. Archibald hurried back with the tray of blinis, and Jocelyn joined him with the tray of sausage rolls. Soon a pleasant little party atmosphere was going. And since the badgers and the captain were serving the food, it seemed nobody quite dared question why they weren't fighting any more.

'They're all friends,' said Martha, amazed. She turned to the Doctor, who was busy with the computers.

'Yeah,' he said, not looking up. 'If they can't kill each other they might as well just get along. At least until something happens to change the status quo.' His long skinny fingers danced across the controls, the information on the screens changing too rapidly for Martha to keep up.

'What is it?' she said.

'Go and have some canapés,' he told her.

'Oh,' she said. 'That bad?'

'It is quite bad,' he said.

'What is it?' asked Captain Georgina, coming over with an empty tray in her hands. Archibald also had an empty tray, and it seemed he was going to show her the method for making it full again.

'Oh, nothing,' said the Doctor easily.

Captain Georgina glanced at the screens. 'We're eating up energy,' she said.

'Eating is good,' said Archibald.

'Yes,' said the Doctor. 'But the time loop isn't perfect. It's got a gap in it.'

'So it's more like a horseshoe than a loop,' said Martha, seeing the horseshoe of computers right in front of her.

'Yeah, OK,' said the Doctor. 'Enough with the analogies. So we come speeding round the loop and hit the gap. But the
Brilliant
has stuff that knows how to bend reality, so it guides us back to the other side and round we go again.'

'And when it's doing that, it restocks the nibbles and brings us back to life,' said Martha.

'All part of the first-class service,' said the Doctor. 'But each time it does that, it needs a bit of power to push it round again. Only it's not a bit of power. It's quite a lot.'

'But we don't have power reserves like this,' said Captain Georgina, her eyes never leaving the screens. 'That's more than a ship this size could ever hope to contain.'

'Ah well,' said the Doctor. 'Depends how you look at it. You know how much energy is freed up just by being stood still in time? You're stuck in the space between moments, so it's like you're idling. Plenty of reserves just because none of you are really moving.'

'So we're OK?' said Martha, relieved. For a moment, she'd thought they were in danger.

'Oh yeah,' said the Doctor breezily. 'Well, kind of.'

'Good,' said Archibald.

'When you say kind of,' said Martha. 'You mean we
are
in danger.'

'Yeah,' he admitted.

'The energy needed keeps increasing,' said Captain Georgina, studying the screens.

'Does it?' asked Archibald.

'It does,' said the Doctor. 'You see, you're all using up energy while you're stuck here. Breathing, eating, talking, shooting. And coming back from the dead. It all has to come from somewhere.'

'What will happen?' asked Martha. She didn't like how calmly he was taking it. Usually, just a sniff of trouble was enough to get him all fidgety and excited. It also didn't help that behind them the other badgers and humans were enjoying nibbles and polite conversation. She struggled to take it seriously.

'Well,' said the Doctor, sticking his hands in his trouser pockets. 'There'll come a point where the energy isn't there. It'll hit the gap and there won't be enough momentum to get back round again.'

'So we'll be free?' said Martha.

The Doctor jutted out his jaw. 'In a manner of speaking.'

'We
won't
be free of the time loop?' she asked him.

'We'll be dead,' said Captain Georgina. 'The whole starship will implode.'

'Yeah,' said the Doctor. 'Something of that sort.'

'But there must be something we can do!' said Martha.

'Well yeah,' said the Doctor. 'There's always something. I think I could correct the problem, get us off the sand-bank.'

'So do it!' said Martha.

'Ah,' said the Doctor. 'Still a problem after that.'

'Captain Florence dun't take pris'ners,' said Archibald.

'I'd sort of suspected that,' said the Doctor. 'So that's why it's tricky. If I don't get us out of this, we're all going to die. But if I do, the pirate ship is waiting.'

The human crew continued to eat canapés, chat and ignore their inevitable doom. Martha couldn't bear even to watch them. She could feel her own heart beating, a sudden sense of herself being alive, of wanting to
be
alive.

She looked round at the Doctor, busy at the controls of the transmat booth, trying to make it do anything that might help them. He'd used the sonic screwdriver, he'd also used his fists. Nothing seemed to be working. But he kept at it, and she started to think he was just trying to keep himself busy. So he wouldn't have time to think about being trapped. So he wouldn't have to meet her eye.

Martha couldn't help but think back to what the Doctor had said in the TARDIS, when she'd been begging him to bring them here. He'd said there were rules, that they couldn't get involved and they couldn't change anything. And now the two of them were caught up in the same fate as everyone else.

It could be brilliant, flitting through all time and space meeting all kinds of people. But Martha had seen enough people killed, enough terrible, awful things, to know their travels came with a price. And she'd known there was going to be trouble on the
Brilliant
– that it was going to disappear. The humans and badgers and Mrs Wingsworth had been doomed even before the Doctor set the controls of the TARDIS... And now she and the Doctor were doomed with them.

She made her way over to him. 'You can't get us out of this,' she said. 'Even if you get that thing working.'

He looked up at her. 'Can't I?'

'It would change history,' said Martha. 'And you can't do that. You said there were rules.'

'Rules?' asked Captain Georgina, coming to join them. She seemed to be taking everyone's certain deaths quite easily. Perhaps, thought Martha, it would make her look less effortlessly beautiful if she allowed herself to panic. Or perhaps she just knew there was nothing she could do. Martha's dad always said you should only worry about stuff you actually had any control over. The other stuff would just happen anyway. It was what he usually said when he was arguing with Martha's mum.

'Well, not rules as such,' said the Doctor. 'We have responsibilities. You see, we're sort of from the future and the
Brilliant
disappeared.'

'I see,' said Captain Georgina.

'You do?' said the Doctor. Martha knew he enjoyed it when people freaked out about time travel.

'I'm fully briefed on the implications of the experimental drive,' said the captain. 'It stands to reason where this technology was leading. I assume you've come back to fix the problem for us.'

'Um,' said the Doctor. 'Yeah, well I was gonna see what we could do.'

Captain Georgina nodded. 'Then we sit and wait it out,' she said.

'Well, yes,' said the Doctor. 'But that's not what Martha was asking. Not
can
we get out of this, but if we could, then
should
we?'

'You're telling us it's wrong?' asked Captain Georgina.

'Wrong is bad,' said Archibald, coming over with a tray of blinis.

'So is it wrong to tamper with reality like that?' said the Doctor. 'To come back from the dead?'

'The experimental drive causes problems with causality anyway,' said Captain Georgina. 'Even just starting it up affects what we think of as reality.'

'That's right,' said the Doctor. 'But that's not just true of your clever engine. Look, you change history just by doing anything. Or
not
doing anything. What you do, what you strive for, every choice you ever make. That's what builds the future.'

'But you only get one go at it,' said Martha. 'Normally, I mean. If you get it wrong, that's tough.'

'You have to deal with the consequences of what you do,' said the Doctor.

'Aw,' said Archibald. 'Do we 'ave to?'

'Yes,' said the Doctor. 'It's called being a grown-up.'

'Sounds really boring,' said Archibald.

'Sometimes it would be good to be able go back and do things again,' admitted Martha.

'You'd think so, wouldn't you?' said the Doctor gravely. 'But it doesn't work like that. It's like telling lies. You can never just tell the one fib, can you? Sooner or later you've got to tell another, just to back up the first one. A week later, you're juggling a whole intricate patchwork of lies on lies on lies. You can't remember what you've told different people, and you're probably not entirely sure what the real version is any more. So it's only a matter of time before someone catches you out or you just plain forget something and it all collapses, boom!'

'I've an ex-boyfriend you should explain that to,' said Martha.

'Before or after he's an ex?' he said.

For a moment Martha could see the Doctor turning up on a rainy night in 2005 and sorting out one particular row. 'OK,' she said, unsettled by what she'd just been offered. 'It's just a world of messy and complicated, yeah?'

'That's it,' said the Doctor. 'I hate all that tricky continuity stuff.'

'We just have to accept the hand we're dealt,' said Captain Georgina.

'No cheating,' said Archibald.

'Well...' said the Doctor, and his eyes glittered. 'Our real problem is how we get out of this mess
without
changing history. Which needs us to be very clever indeed. If only we had someone with an innate understanding of the space-time continuum. Someone with several lifetimes' experience doing this sort of thing.'

'Oh,' said Martha laughing. 'You mean like the last of the Time Lords?'

'Yeah, I think he'd do,' grinned the Doctor. 'If only we could find him.'

'I see,' said Captain Georgina. 'You can help us, can you?'

'Can you?' added Martha.

The Doctor met her eye. 'I'm working on it,' he said.

He continued to work on the transmat booth for hours. Archibald and Captain Georgina eventually left him to it and went back to the canapé-scoffing party. Martha felt torn between joining them and staying with the Doctor.

'You want anything to eat?' she said. He didn't even seem to hear her.

She made her way over to the human crew and badgers. They all seemed to be having fun, chatting, telling jokes and stories, and generally not giving a stuff about the problems facing them. Thomas made an unsubtle effort to impress Martha with a story about how fast he liked to drive. Archibald, grinning with new confidence, told the old joke about why pirates are called pirates. And Captain Georgina responded to this with a light and tinkling laugh. Martha smiled to herself. Was Archibald flirting? Was Captain Georgina? Did they even know themselves?

Only she and the Doctor seemed bothered that the ship might explode at any moment. Or maybe they were all just making the most of whatever time they had left. She felt glad for the three badgers, so clearly loving every minute of it. But she was also envious of them, and their ability to fit in. It wasn't just being from Earth that made her an outsider. Now she'd met the Doctor she couldn't just stand idle.

And that was when it struck her. They had a chance. Or at least, they had a choice. A choice between just waiting for the
Brilliant
to explode and daring to brave the pirates.

Archie,' she said.

Archibald grinned at her. 'What you get,' he said, 'if you cross a robot with a pirate?'

'Never mind that now,' she told him. 'I need your help.'

'OK,' he said.

'What do you think the rest of your lot would make of the canapés?' she asked him.

'Huh,' he said. 'They'd like the cheese ones best.'

'What is it?' asked Captain Georgina. 'Have you thought of something we can do?' Around her, other people's conversations died down. The party had been a pretence; they were all desperate to escape.

'Yeah, I think so,' said Martha. 'I think we have a chance. If we can get out of the loop, we just need Archie, Joss and Dash to tell their friends what they found here. The food, the drink, a whole different way of living.'

'But they want the experimental drive!' said Thomas.

'No,' said Martha. 'Whoever's hiring them does. And while they do what they're told, the badgers are just slaves.'

'No one,' said Dashiel slowly, 'owns anyone.'

'Exactly!' said Martha. 'That's what you have to tell them!'

No one said anything. The badgers looked at one another, the humans watched with bated breath. And then Martha jumped at a voice that came from right behind her.

'I think that's brilliant,' said the Doctor.

'Yeah?' said Martha, swelling with pride.

'Oh yeah,' said the Doctor. 'Double A-star and probably a badge.'

'But will it work?' asked Captain Georgina.

'Oh,' said the Doctor, 'who knows? But you've got a choice between certain death and a small hope of surviving. You're a clever lady, you work out the maths.'

And you can get us out of the loop?' she asked.

'Oh yeah,' said the Doctor. 'Easy. I just need to get down to the engine rooms and swap some stuff around. I've got some equipment down there which can help.'

'But how will you get there when the transmat isn't working?' asked Martha.

'Well, it's not working quite like it should be,' admitted the Doctor. 'But I've been talking to it. And I think we've reached an accommodation.'

'Doctor,' said Martha, carefully. 'You're not going to do anything dangerous, are you?'

'Of course I am,' he said.

'If anything goes wrong...' said Martha.

'Then we take the consequences,' he finished for her. 'That's how it works.'

'You can program the engines from here,' Captain Georgina told him.

'I already have done,' said the Doctor quickly. He seemed pleased to move on from Martha's concern for his safety. 'But I need the systems up here and the stuff down there to be doing slightly different things. That's how we jump-start the ship. It's quite clever, really.'

'So we're going down to the engine rooms?' asked Martha, already making her way over to the transmit booth.

'Er,' said the Doctor. 'I am,' he said. 'I kind of need you to stay here.'

'Oh,' said Martha. 'OK, whatever you want.'

'Really?' he said, surprised.

'Well it's going to be important, isn't it?' she asked.

'Oh yeah,' said the Doctor, a little too quickly. 'I need you to be up here watching.'

'Watching what?' she said, looking back at the horseshoe of computers. 'I don't know how these controls work.'

'Not the controls. I don't wholly trust the badgers. And I really don't trust the crew.' He grinned. 'I quite liked Mrs Wingsworth.'

But something in his eyes didn't feel quite right. She folded her arms. 'What?' she said.

'What?' he said back at her, feigning innocence.

'There's something, isn't there?' she said. 'You're going to tell me.'

'All right,' he sighed. 'The transmat might not be much fun. It's meant to be instantaneous but we know there's some kind of delay. And if I'm lucky I won't notice while I'm inside it...'