Poisoned Diamonds (1/3)
Author: nemaline
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all related trademarks are the property of their respective owners, mostly the BBC.
Summary: Taking the Master on a tourist trip to a planet called Midnight turns out not to have been one of the Doctor's better ideas.
Author's Notes: So I haven't posted anything in quite a while, have I?
This is the fic that I wrote, ages ago, for the best_enemies remix challenge. And then all my usual betas mysteriously vanished. And then my laptop died, taking the fic with it, and then my new computer... well, it exploded. Or part of it did, at least. Then there was a long, long period when the entire fic was thought lost forever, and I didn't dare show my face on best_enemies for the shame of it all. I skulked in the shadows and took up knitting. (No, I did. I knitted a Dalek.) And then - glory! A friend of my father's with wonderous computer skills managed to recover a number of files off my dead laptop, including the fic. (And then it turned out that it had been sitting in my email outbox the whole time.)
So here it is, very, very belated. This was done, as I said, for the remix challenge, i.e. to remix a fic written by someone else. This isn't technically a remix so much as a sequel - but it also functions as a remix of Midnight, so two for the price of one.
The original story was Sportsmanship by rhaella , and this story will probably make more sense if you read that first. This was betaed by blackletter , who stepped in (in the middle of exams) to purge my excessive semicolons and generally make it a much better story and so a great deal of thanks.
‘This isn’t my idea of a holiday,’ the Master said, tilting his head back on the headrest of the seat to glare up at the ceiling, arms crossed in irritation.
‘Course it is,’ the Doctor said grinning. Across the aisle, a uniformed hostess was offering a long list of things, most of them with “complimentary” in front of their name, to one of the other passengers. And wasn’t that just lovely? Having hostesses and hospitality and free bits and bats, even if half of them were things no one would actually want - in fact, precisely because they were things no one would actually want. He had just opened his mouth, about to happily launch into an explanation of why it was their utter uselessness that gave them their charm, when he remembered who he was with and stalled. ‘Lovely holiday. Great big sapphire waterfall. Very touristy.’
The Master snorted. ‘Exactly. Touristy. If all you wanted to do was look at the pretty sapphires, you’d have stuck your TARDIS above it and opened the doors. You just want to spend eight hours stuck in a confined space with your favourite pet monkeys.’ The blonde woman across the aisle must have overheard, because she looked momentarily offended. The Master threw her a smirk. The Doctor glared at him, then mouthed a ‘Sorry,’ at the woman, and sunk back into his seat.
A holiday. He’d been very reluctant to agree to give the Master one in the first place; the only reason he had was because the Master’s mind was already more than damaged enough without adding boredom, frustration and prolonged confinement to the mix. The Doctor had no desire to see what a few months of that would do to him. So he’d agreed to give him a little trip out, now and then, under constant supervision, just to keep him from going completely stir crazy. And it was all going fine. Mostly fine. For certain values of fine. True, the Doctor’s first choice of holiday destinations might have gone horribly wrong, but this one, he knew, would be fine. No Spartan massacres here. No one was going to die. And other then insulting and annoying everyone, what could the Master possibly get up to travelling across a diamond planet bathed in extonic sunlight?
The hostess appeared beside them with a wide, if somewhat false, smile and a deluge of individually-wrapped items. ‘That’s the headphones for Channels 1 to 36, modem link for 3D vidgames, complimentary earplugs, complimentary slippers, complimentary juice pack and complimentary peanuts. I must warn you, some products may contain nuts.’
‘Really?’ The Master asked, with a look of wide-eyed amazement. ‘Which ones? The earplugs, maybe? No, wait…’ He frowned, hand on his chin as though to stroke the beard he didn’t have in this regeneration, then snapped his fingers and declared, ‘That’ll be the peanuts!’ in such a sarcastic tone that the hostess stared at him for a moment before he glared at her so sharply that she quickly got the message, setting his collection of complimentary items back on her trolley, lips pressed tight together. The Master slumped back into his seat. ‘Now I see the attraction you find in their company, Doctor. The intellectual stimulation alone must give you decades of entertainment.’
The hostess summoned up a very forced smile. ‘Is everything alright, sir?’ she asked, addressing the Doctor.
‘Oh, he’s fine,’ the Doctor told her, summoning up a broad grin. ‘He’s just a bit cranky. Indigestion. We had lunch at that anti-gravity restaurant, messed with his stomach a bit.’
‘At least I managed to keep my food in my stomach instead of all over the tablecloth,’ the Master said, so innocently that the Doctor could only splutter indignantly.
The hostess’s smile had become rather fixed. ‘I see. Enjoy the trip,’ she said, moving away somewhat hastily. The Doctor gave the Master an irate look; he only laughed.
‘You wanted a holiday,’ the Doctor reminded him. ‘If you start spoiling it by-’
‘Doctor, infuriating you and annoying your little pet humans is the only thing that’s going to make this trip bearable,’ the Master told him, casually stealing his packet of peanuts. ‘Why couldn’t you let me choose where to go?’
‘You’d have chosen Sparta,’ the Doctor pointed out darkly.
The Master’s grin was almost predatory. ‘How do you know I didn’t?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Behind them, the hostess was handing out more complimentaries to an older man and young woman, who were, like the Master, turning most of them down - although far more politely. The Doctor half-turned in his seat to watch, mostly to give himself an excuse to ignore the Master and whatever impossible implications he might make about having caused his TARDIS to go off course, or whatever insults he might throw against the world in general next. Maybe he should have chosen somewhere else to take him. This was going to be a long trip.
The Master, of course, was never happy being ignored. ‘How stupid are your humans in this time, anyway?’ he asked. ‘Because there’s no way this so called sapphire glacier is anything of the sort, not in this-’
He was, unbelievably, interrupted by the older man who was just settling into his seat behind them. ‘Exactly what I always say!’ he said, beaming at the Master over the back of the head rest. ‘They call it that to pull the tourists in, but really it’s just a compound silica with iron pigmentation!’ He looked pleased with himself, and offered the Master his hand. ‘Professor Hobbes. Winfold Hobbes.’
The Master merely rolled his eyes, as though Professor Winfold Hobbes wasn’t even worth the effort of a comeback. The Doctor, seizing the opportunity, took his hand. ‘The Doctor,’ he said. ‘And this is the Master. Don’t mind him. Indigestion. And who’s this?’ he asked, nodding to the young woman.
‘DeeDee Blasco,’ she said, holding out her own hand and almost dropping the things she was holding.
‘Careful!’ Professor Hobbes admonished her. ‘Are those my pills?’
‘Yes, they’re all sorted out for you-’
Professor Hobbes had turned his attention back to the Doctor. ‘I have to ask,’ he said, ‘is your interest in Midnight a scientific one? You seem much better informed than most of the tourists, you see.’
‘Oh, no, we’re just travelling,’ the Doctor assured him, grinning. ‘Though I do like a good bit of science. So does he, when he’s in a good mood.’ The Master had stolen the Doctor’s earplugs and was slipping them in with over-deliberate gestures clearly intended to demonstrate his absolute distaste at the entire journey ‘I take it you’re doing some research?’ the Doctor asked Hobbes.
‘My fourteenth trip,’ Hobbes told him proudly. ‘Did you know, Midnight-’
Whatever he’d been about to say was interrupted by the hostess, who had given out all the complementary items to the other passengers - a middle-aged couple with a teenage son - and returned to the front of the shuttle. ‘Ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon,’ she began, her smile just as fake as before. ‘Welcome on board the Crusader 50. If you would fasten your seatbelts, we’ll be leaving any moment. Doors!’
The doors closed; the Doctor, even knowing that all that was ahead was a long journey with an irritable Master, felt a jolt of excitement. Hobbes and DeeDee had sat down, Hobbes still fussing over whatever items DeeDee was carrying for him. The Doctor settled properly in his seat and fastened his seatbelt. ‘Shields down!’ the hostess went on. The Master, meanwhile, was sitting there with his eyes closed, pretending to be blissfully unaware of anything going on around him. The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. He knew those earplugs couldn’t be that good, and especially not when it came to blocking a Time Lord’s hearing. He knew perfectly well what the hostess was saying. Was this really what it came down to? If he couldn’t fight back in any other way, he was going to rebel by not putting his seatbelt on? It wasn’t like it mattered - they were hardly likely to need them. Still, it set the Doctor’s teeth on edge. It was so… petty.
The hostess was talking about fire exits and passing them over to the driver. The Doctor tuned her out, glancing at the Master’s midsection. If he could just…
As the driver started talking over the intercom link, the Doctor lunged forwards and grabbed hold of the two ends of the Master’s seatbelt. The other man’s eyes flew wide open, but before the Doctor could be pushed away he had clicked the seatbelt closed with a smug grin. The Master shoved him hard, but the Doctor caught hold of his wrists, effectively stopping him from undoing the seatbelt. That was a bad idea, however - the Master just slipped his wrists out of the Doctor’s grip, grabbed the Doctor’s own hands and twisted them in one quick, savage movement. The Doctor yelped, just as the engines started and the shuttle stuttered into motion.
The hostess cleared her throat, and the Doctor settled back into his seat to see that she - and everyone else on the shuttle - was staring at him. He grinned apologetically; the Master, having undone his seatbelt, had gone back to sitting there, eyes closed, serenely ignoring them. ‘If I might remind you all that the Leisure Palace Company prohibits physical fighting?’ she stated, frostily.
‘Sorry,’ the Doctor said.
The hostess looked unimpressed. ‘Moving on,’ she began, ‘For your entertainment, we have the music channel playing retrovids of Earth classics, the latest artistic installation from Ludovico Klein, and a special treat for the youngsters,’ with a sharp glance at the Doctor and the Master, ‘the animation archives. Enjoy.’
Television screens folded down from the ceiling, each one playing really inadvisable Earth pop music; an uninspired piece of holographic artwork flickered into being in the middle of the corridor; and as if that wasn’t bad enough, old black and white cartoons started playing. The Master’s eyes opened, a look of unalloyed disgust on his face, and for once the Doctor was inclined to agree. The blonde woman, sitting there sensibly with a book on her knee, met his eyes for a moment, looking deeply unimpressed. He heard one sound of approval from the female half of the middle-aged couple, but ignored it. After all, it was her against the three of them, and even if her husband, son and Hobbes and DeeDee were on her side… well, the Doctor had never done things by democracy anyway.
He fished his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, shooting the Master a glance - and he was trying to look as miserable and moody as possible, but there was a conspiratorial curl to his lip as he caught sight of the sonic that made the Doctor feel, for a moment, ten years old again and planning things their teachers would have spontaneously regenerated from horror if they’d ever found out about.
He raised the sonic, with one brief sideways glance at the blonde woman sitting on the other side of the aisle from him, who was watching; one quick pulse and the various forms of “entertainment” were shutting down, leaving them in blessed silence. ‘Well, that’s a mercy!’ Hobbes declared.
‘I do apologise, ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon. We seem to had a failure of the Entertainment System-’
‘It wasn’t a failure,’ the Master piped up from beside him, removing his earplugs. ‘My friend here sabotaged it.’
The Doctor gave him a sharp, sideways glare, feeling momentarily betrayed. Which was irrational: the Master was making it the purpose of his existence, at least his imprisoned existence, to make the Doctor’s life as unpleasant as possible. He should’ve expected it. But the Master had loathed the entertainment as much as the Doctor had, after all. And more than that; for a moment there they’d been together in something, allied, even if it was something as insignificant as turning off an annoying pop song.
‘Sabotage?’ the middle-aged woman asked, sounding surprised.
The hostess had fixed the Doctor with a death glare. ‘Of course not!’ the Doctor protested. ‘How could I? It’s not possible.’
‘He used this,’ the Master declared, pulling the sonic screwdriver out of the Doctor’s coat pocket. ‘Ask her. She saw him,’ he added, gesturing to the blonde.
The Doctor threw the woman a brief, desperate look. She seemed to hesitate. ‘I didn’t see anything,’ she said, eventually.
‘But did he sabotage it?’ the man asked. ‘We’ve got four hours in this thing! Make him turn it back on!’
‘I assure you all Crusader vehicles are quite impossible to sabotage, particularly without leaving one’s seat,’ the hostess said. ‘Just in case…’ She walked over and plucked the sonic screwdriver out of the Master’s hand.
‘Hey,’ the Doctor protested. ‘That’s my… torch! My very special handy torch!’
‘You can have it back when we return to the Leisure Palace,’ the hostess told him, slipping it into her pocket. ‘And if either of you do anything to upset this journey again, that’ll be much sooner than you think.’
The middle-aged couple still weren’t happy. ‘But what are we going to do for four hours without any entertainment?’
The Doctor unfastened his seatbelt and sat up, twisting round in the seat so he could see everyone. ‘We could always talk to each other.’
‘Talking,’ the Master muttered from beside him. ‘Your solution to everything.’
‘That or psychic networks,’ the Doctor reminded him cheerfully.
*
98 kliks later, the Doctor was beginning to seriously consider turning the entertainment system back on. True, it would get on his nerves after about ten seconds - but it would also get on the Master’s. Which meant that instead of him sitting there being deliberately infuriating and radiating a petty kind of smugness about it, they’d both be annoyed and irritated. Was that the only way they could ever reach some kind of accord? By being equally miserable?
He really, really hoped not.
He’d kept trying to start conversations, trying to draw everyone in, get them chatting, but no topic had survived longer than a couple of minutes with the Master chiming in with sarcastic comments and scathing commentary. The blonde woman had kept her nose in her book throughout, and therefore pretty much escaped the worst of it; Val (the middle-aged woman, with her husband Biff and son Jethro) had ended up being thoroughly insulted, and it had only been the Hostess’s quiet but savage reminder that she really meant it about turning the shuttle around and taking them all back to the Leisure Palace that kept Biff in his seat. DeeDee had been insulted for her youth and inexperience; Professor Hobbes for his age and affable fascination with Midnight.
So now everyone was sitting in near-silence. Biff and Val talking together in tones that were too quiet to be overheard, and the Master was sitting with his arms folded, smirking. It was cutting off his nose to spite his own face, really. Sitting here staring at the walls couldn’t be much fun for him either.
The Doctor had the feeling the Master was getting much more satisfaction out of making everyone miserable than he would have got from any amount of conversation.
‘Anyone for I Spy?’ the Doctor asked, after a painful few minutes of silence. No one answered.
*
Eventually, he made his escape by heading over to the little galley section to make a cup of tea. At least there was tea. Not good tea, not like they had on Arthanesis, where a colony of humans had taken a barren planet, terraformed it, and turned it into one huge tea plantation. Every kind of tea imaginable. Maybe he should take the Master there? He did drink tea, after all. And he could do with some fresh air. And he couldn’t exactly make the plants wilt through sheer force of sarcasm and cruelty.
He’d probably use herbicide.
The Doctor was very aware of the silence, and very aware, therefore, of the sudden burst of whispering that had broken out in the main part of the shuttle. He glanced over, surreptitiously, while he filled the paper cup with hot water. It was Val and Biff doing the talking, with Jethro and the professor making a few interjections; Jethro’s sounded mostly protesting. The Master turned round in his seat, and whatever look he was giving them must have worked, because they quickly fell silent. As soon as he turned back round, though, Val was giving Jethro a sharp look and a nod of the head in the Doctor’s direction, and Jethro got to his feet with a sigh and walked over.
‘Mum wants me to “find out what’s going on”,’ he said, his mocking tone of voice indicating it was a direct quote. He leant against the partition that divided the little space from the rest of the shuttle.
‘Nothing’s going on,’ the Doctor said automatically, keeping his voice as low as possible, low enough that he hoped the Master wouldn’t be able to hear it. ‘What does she think’s going on?’
‘She reckons your friend over there,’ Jethro began, jerking his head in the vague direction of the Master. The Doctor wished he hadn’t. The Master suspecting they were talking about him was one thing; knowing was worse. ‘Has something wrong with him. Like, psychologically wrong. Messed up in the head.’ He said this in the same confidential-but-fascinated tone of voice most people would use to say things like “a secret agent” or “a rocket scientist” or “a time travelling alien”. ‘Is he?’
The truth was there was something wrong with him, but the Doctor couldn’t have begun to explain that even if he’d wanted to. ‘What do you think?’ he asked evasively, adding milk and sugar to his tea.
Jethro hesitated, then shrugged. ‘Some people are just like that. Bastards. No offence,’ he added, without sounding as though he really meant it. ‘Why are you travelling with him? I mean, you came on board together, sat together, but it seems like you hate each other.’
‘It’s complicated,’ the Doctor said, fishing the teabag out of his drink. He turned back round fully, taking a sip, able now to see past Jethro and out into the shuttle. The Master was watching them, his expression unreadable, eyes dark.
‘Yeah, think I got that. Complicated how?’
The Doctor sighed, his eyes flicking back to Jethro. ‘We used to be friends. Now he needs someone to keep an eye on him, and I’m the only one who can do it. But he doesn’t really like being… babysat.’ He’d nearly said imprisoned, had to find a better word.
‘So he acts like this everywhere you go? Makes everyone’s lives miserable?’
The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. ‘He’s trying to make my life miserable. Everyone else just gets caught in the crossfire,’ he said shortly, then slipped past Jethro and back to his seat.
The Master raised an eyebrow and smirked. ‘Had a nice little chat?’ he asked. ‘Thinking of bringing him along? A replacement for dear Miss Jones? That could be fun,’ he said, glancing over at Jethro as the boy made his way back to his seat.
It sounded perfectly innocuous, but the Doctor knew the Master’s definition of fun; he shuddered, and didn’t answer.
*
The atmosphere in the shuttle relaxed a little once the food was brought out. DeeDee and Professor Hobbes had moved seats, sitting behind Val and Biff, leaving Jethro the only other person on the same side of the shuttle as the two Time Lords, and he was some way back with headphones firmly stuck in his ears. The Doctor sighed as he opened the suspicious-looking food. At least the other passengers seemed to be enjoying themselves a little more now: Hobbes was telling Val and Biff all about Midnight, their voices so quiet the Doctor could hardly hear them.
It wasn’t right, though. He couldn’t do this again, couldn’t bring the Master somewhere he’d just make other people’s lives a misery. Which narrowed down the number of places he could take the Master considerably. There were plenty of uninhabited planets that were perfectly nice - but that would mean the two of them stuck with no company but each other, and he didn’t want to think about how badly that would end up. But as soon as they went anywhere with other people, the Master would just drag them into his game, use them as pawns in his ongoing vendetta against the Doctor. And sacrifice them as easily as a pawn, too, if it was in his favour to do so, or if he got so stir crazy he didn’t care about the consequences. The Master was a danger to everyone, including himself: the Doctor had no illusions about that.
Sighing, the Doctor prodded the meat component of the meal. Beside him, the Master took one bite, made a face, and pushed the food away from him. ‘You’re going to get hungry later,’ the Doctor chided lightly, taking his own first bite of the meal. It was… odd, but not unpleasant, and he knew the Master’s tastes more than well enough to know that it would be perfectly palatable to him too. He was just being contrary. Well, if he wanted to starve himself just to be irritating…
He should have just abandoned him somewhere, found the most secure place of imprisonment he could and left him there where he couldn’t hurt anyone. Including the Doctor himself. But that wasn’t something he could do either, and he told himself it was out of nothing but concern for the wellbeing of both the Master as an individual and the universe at large. Only by keeping him on the TARDIS could he do his best to make sure the Master remained sane; only the TARDIS was a safe enough prison for him. He stole a brief glance sideways at the Master. That was all, he told himself, the only reason.
Maybe they could pay a visit to some of the more unusual lifeforms in the universe. There had to be some which the Master couldn’t easily harm and which were too different in mindset to be dragged into the Master’s little game. That could work. He’d try that next.
Beside him, the Master gave a sudden snort of derision. He heard the distant, and now slightly louder, conversation falter. Was that all it took, now? ‘Stop it,’ he muttered, but the Master ignored him.
After a moment, the professor’s voice started up again, more quietly. He made it through a full sentence before the Master snorted again. ‘What do they teach at universities these days?’
The Doctor twisted slightly in his chair, looking over at the knot of holidaymakers. Professor Hobbes puffed up like an offended pigeon. ‘I am the foremost expert on this planet-’
The Master laughed, shifting lazily in his seat so he could see him, almost as if he were just shifting to get more comfortable. The Doctor gritted his teeth. ‘And who else is remotely interested in this sparkly lump of rock, hmm? Which illustrious minds are you competing with for that place of honour?’ He paused, and let the moment’s silence be his answer. ‘Thought so.’
The professor spluttered. DeeDee leapt to his rescue. ‘Only because no one else recognises its potential!’
‘So what scientific potential does this place have, then? Other than as pretty scenery for the mindless tourists…’ He trailed off, giving Val a pointed look.
‘Hey!’ Biff shouted. ‘That’s my wife you’re insulting!’
‘Really?’ the Master drawled. ‘And here I was thinking she was your-’
‘Will you just shut up?’ the Doctor hissed, having reached his breaking point. The Master’s eyes flickered over to him, and he grinned slowly. The Doctor was the one he was really trying to annoy, and they both knew it; they both knew that with his little outburst the Master had just scored a point.
‘Something bothering you, dear?’ the Master asked with saccharine sweetness.
Biff was getting out of his seat. ‘I’ve just about had it with your-’
Several things happened at once. The Master laughed; the Hostess stepped forward with a snapped comment about no violence; Val caught hold of Biff’s hand and started to say something about not getting into a fight.
Then the shuttle shuddered to a complete stop, and everything fell silent at once - except for the Master, who muttered, under his breath, ‘Finally.’ The Doctor - the only one close enough to hear - darted him a quick glance. What was that supposed to mean?
‘Did we just… stop?’ Jethro asked, leaning over the back of one of the seats.
There was a moment of uncertain silence. ‘We can’t be there yet,’ Dee Dee said, ‘even if we did take a detour, it’s way too soon.’
‘But the shuttle isn’t supposed to stop, it said so in the brochure,’ Val chipped in.
The Hostess gave them all a very forced smile. ‘I’m sure it’s only a short delay,’ she said. ‘If you could all get back to your seats and wait patiently?’ Patiently, the Doctor was sure, meant without giving me any more reasons to throw you all out into the sunlight.
Muttering and confused, with whispered comments about how they were sure the shuttle wasn’t supposed to stop, the passengers slipped back into their seats. The Doctor glanced over to the Hostess, who was speaking to the driver through an intercom, before turning his attention back to the Master. ‘What did you do?’ he asked in a low tone.
‘Me?’ the Master asked. He had pulled the tray of food towards him and was picking at a bit of meat, a small, wicked smile on his face that completely belied his innocent words. ‘How could I have done anything? I’m your prisoner, remember?’
‘Yes, and you’re as clever as me. Almost,’ the Doctor said, keeping his voice low, not wanting to be overheard. ‘And when it comes to causing trouble, you don’t exactly have the best track record. You have a track record longer than a TARDIS manual. And just as convoluted.’
The Master’s lips simply curved upwards a little more. ‘Almost?’ he queried.
‘Almost,’ the Doctor said, and was interrupted by the return of the hostess.
‘Ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon,’ she began, the pleasantry coming out in one long, practiced breath, ‘We’re just experiencing a slight delay. The driver needs to stabilise the engine feeds. It’s routine maintenance, so if you could wait in your seats…’
The Doctor glanced at the Master, saw the look of amusement on his face. He knew just as well as the Doctor did that the hostess was completely making that up, and he was enjoying it. The Doctor’s lips tightened into a thin line. What was the Master up to? Making them break down was counter-productive; he hardly wanted to spend longer in this box, did he? But he was more than petty enough to do so to get to the Doctor. And it was more than possible that, if the shuttle couldn’t be fixed, they’d just send out a rescue vehicle to take them back to the Leisure Palace.
Well, he wasn’t letting the Master get away with it. He got to his feet in one quick motion and strode towards the door that led to the driver’s cabin, pulling his psychic paper out of his pocket and summoning up his best smile for the put-upon hostess. ‘Just going to take a look,’ he said, waving the paper at her. ‘Engine expert.’
He opened the door and had a brief glimpse of the cabin beyond before the hostess grabbed hold of his arm and dragged him back. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing,’ she hissed, ‘but you’re going back to your seat and sitting down, right now, and maybe I won’t call the authorities when we get back to civilisation.’
‘But really, I can help. Honest. Look,’ he said, holding up the psychic paper again.
She gave him a look like he was insane. ‘That card says you’re… of a profession I will not repeat in public,’ she said, dropping her voice. ‘Now go back to your seat!’
Gaping, the Doctor looked at the psychic paper, but it had gone blank. The hostess gave him a shove in the right direction, and he locked eyes with the Master. Of course. He should have realised; it was psychic paper - and the Master, whatever his other flaws, had always been the better psychic of the two of them. It would have been easy for him to project something else onto the paper, particularly with the Doctor not expecting such an attack and not trying very hard.
The other passengers were staring at him. Pressing his lips together, and with as much dignity as he could muster, he walked back to his seat, where the Master had a hand clamped across his mouth to keep from making a noise. The Doctor sank into his seat, folding his arms, and glared at him. ‘I suppose you think that was funny?’
The hostess vanished into the driver’s cabin, leaving behind a shuttle what was still full of whispers, which the Doctor ignored. As soon as the Master had swallowed his fit of laughter, he straightened up and answered. ‘Very funny. And you didn’t even see it coming!’ And then, without a pause in which the Doctor could have offered a retort, he raised his voice to something just above a normal speaking level - loud enough for everyone to hear him - and said, ‘But she’s making it up, Doctor. These kinds of engine don’t stabilise!’
There was a moment’s silence, and then Dee Dee was saying ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, professor-’
‘So something’s wrong?’ Val was asking. ‘We have broken down?’
‘And they’re lying to us?’ the blonde woman was asking. The Doctor noticed she was looking rather flustered. ‘I’m on a schedule-’
‘You mean we might be stuck here?’ Biff asked her. ‘How long?’
‘If we have broken down, they’ll send a rescue shuttle. We’ll be out of here in no time,’ the Doctor told them all, turning round in his seat to address them all over the back of it. He shot the Master a sharp look. Was there anything he could resist making worse?
‘I don’t see how you know so much about it,’ Val said, snippily, crossing her arms as she shifted in her seat, looking uncomfortable.
Her husband was frowning. ‘So we could be stuck here for hours?’ he asked, as the hostess stepped back out of the cabin. ‘What about the air?’
The suggestion sent the cabin into silence for a long moment. The sudden flush of fear was almost palpable, like half a dozen tiny gasps of what had suddenly become a potentially precious resource. Even Jethro looked alarmed. Dee Dee spoke up. ‘It’s fine, the air-’
‘Shut up, Dee Dee,’ the professor snapped at her, and she fell silent for an instant, looking at him with her eyes wide and startled. The Doctor felt a burst of sympathy for her.
The hostess took that moment to come back out of the cabin. Biff leapt in directly. ‘How much air do we have? Are we going to run out?’
‘We’ve got plenty-’ the hostess began, but Val interrupted.
‘You already lied to us about what’s happened to the engines, tell us the truth!’
‘Mum, just calm down,’ Jethro told her, and then everyone was shouting at once. The Doctor closed his eyes. How had the Master managed to stir up this level of panic with a single sentence? He could hear Dee Dee, the only totally calm voice in the room, still trying to explain how the air filter worked. Well. There was only one way to cut through this level of chaos. ‘Quiet!’ he shouted, and the shuttle obediently fell silent for half a second.
Then Val was upon him, out of her seat and striding over. ‘I don’t see how you get to order us around! You’re just as bad as him!’ she shouted, half on the point of tears, gesturing to the Master.
‘Actually, no, I’m not,’ the Doctor told her coolly. The Master coughed something that sounded suspiciously like genocide; the Doctor chose to ignore it. ‘And if you won’t listen to me, then why not listen to Miss Blasco?’
He gestured to Dee Dee, who gave him an uncertain look, then cleared her throat. ‘The air’s on a circular filter,’ she explained quietly, glancing from side to side as though she expected the professor - or the Master - to shout at her again. ‘It’d keep us going for years.’
‘So the only thing we have to worry about is running out of food,’ the Master quipped. Before he could start a mass panic about that, though, there came two loud, metallic bangs, like something knocking on the walls of the shuttle. They resonated through the air; the Doctor could just about feel the vibrations through the soles of his feet.
The shuttle fell silent, more effectively and completely than anything else had managed. Frowning, the Doctor looked up at the roof of the shuttle. What could have made that noise? He glanced, sidelong, at the Master, who was sitting in his seat, unmoving - but there was a look in his eyes as he turned his head and met the Doctor’s gaze, something excited and almost playful. It would have been the sort of look the Doctor wanted to see more often, except that he knew the cause of it wasn’t anything good, and that there was a darkness to it, something that gave him the sudden, vertiginous feeling of staring into the Untempered Schism and seeing something there he hadn’t seen when he was a child of eight...
‘What was that noise?’ asked Dee Dee, her voice a little too quick and a little too anxious, considering she’d been the only calm one until now.
‘It sounded like... someone knocking,’ Val said, shifting backwards, closer to her husband and son.
The professor shook his head. ‘It’ll be the metal cooling down,’ he said, authoritatively. The Doctor knew it wasn’t. He knew what metal cooling sounded like and he knew that wasn’t it. He tore his eyes away from the Master’s as the banging repeated itself, one-two. It had moved.
‘It could be rocks falling,’ Dee Dee offered.
The Master snorted. ‘Huge chunks of diamond falling on our heads. I feel so much safer.’ The Doctor knew he wasn’t afraid at all. Did the Master know what was going on? And how? He didn’t have any control over the TARDIS. He couldn’t have chosen where they ended up. The Doctor had suspected him, back in Sparta, of somehow sabotaging the journey, but that wasn’t possible. And it wasn’t like the flight had gone wrong. He was the one who’d chosen Midnight and he’d landed exactly when he planned to. The Master might, possibly, have been able to influence the TARDIS; he couldn’t influence the Doctor’s thoughts.
And nothing could live on the surface of Midnight, either - yet that noise wasn’t rocks and it wasn’t cooling metal.
‘Will you just be quiet?’ the hostess hissed at the Master.
‘But it sounds like knocking!’ Val said, taking hold of her husband’s arm. ‘There couldn’t be someone out there...’
‘Of course there isn’t anything out there,’ the professor told her, almost as patronising as he was towards Dee Dee. ‘The sunlight is extonic. Any living thing would be reduced to atoms. It’s not possible-’
He was interrupted by another two bangs, almost as if whatever was out there had heard and was mocking him. The Doctor darted another sharp glance at the Master, who was sitting there with he head tilted upwards, listening to the frightened discussion as though it were a symphony. Or merely the orchestra warming up beforehand.
‘What the hell is it, then?’ the blonde woman asked. She was on her feet, now - most of them were - and staring upwards, looking pale, frightened.
The Doctor left his seat and stepped forward. ‘Like they said,’ he told her. ‘Could be anything. Metal cooling, rocks falling-’
‘We’re out in the open,’ the hostess told them, ‘it can’t be rocks.’
Something was out there, bathed in the deadly light of an extonic star. A new form of life? Or, more practically, someone in a very, very solid spacesuit. Not that they had the kind of technology to build such a spacesuit, not in this time period, but... And what would someone be doing, all the way out here? It wasn’t exactly the most hospitable environment for carjacking. Could it be someone lost, abandoned on the surface of Midnight, stumbling by chance on their shuttle? That was an awfully big coincidence. And - another two bangs, moving towards the fire exit door, now - why climb on top of it, move around, knocking and banging on the metal? Why not just head for the door and knock on that? Why not knock out SOS in Morse code or shave-and-a-haircut or something like that?
He’d lied to Val. It wasn’t metal cooling or rocks falling; it was something alive, and he didn’t think it was human or any other species of alien he’d encountered before.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the stethoscope, heading over to the door and listening. Nothing. He couldn’t hear a thing.
‘It’s at the door,’ the blonde woman said, taking a step backwards. ‘It’s trying to get in.’
Val gave a little shriek, and Biff wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘There is no it!’ Professor Hobbes told them, just as the knocking shifted again, two bangs to the main door.
‘What if it breaks the door down?’ Jethro asked quietly. ‘I mean, whatever it is. Rocks, or... something.’
‘You’ll all be vaporised,’ the Master told him, sounding not terribly upset about this prospect, despite the fact that he’d be just as dead as the rest of them. He’d moved so he was in the Doctor’s seat, legs swung out into the aisle, leaning against the chair back and watching the proceedings with an air of satisfaction.
‘It won’t happen,’ the Doctor was quick to tell everyone. ‘That door’s solid.’
‘It’s on two-hundred weight hydraulics,’ Dee Dee offered, though she didn’t look particularly certain that it would keep them safe.
The Master smirked. ‘Doesn’t look that solid to me.’
Biff stepped forwards, despite Val trying to pull him back. ‘I’m sure it’s secure,’ he said firmly, trying to reassure his wife. ‘Looks like cast iron.’
‘It is,’ Dee Dee offered.
And, to prove the solidity of the doors, Biff tested it, swinging his fist against the dull surface, once, twice, three times. ‘See? It’s fine. We’ve got nothing to worry-’
And then the knocking came again. Three times.
Dee Dee was the first to speak ‘Professor-’
‘There is no reason to panic-’
‘It answered you!’ Val gasped, clutching Biff’s arm, pulling him back. ‘Don’t say there’s nothing out there, it replied!’ she added to the professor.
‘Is it always like this, for you?’ the Master asked - the only one in the shuttle speaking with complete unconcern, as though he were merely making small talk. ‘The chaos and the screaming and all the panicking humans?’ He threw Val a pointed look. ‘I’m surprised it hasn’t damaged your hearing, all the squealing and shrieking. Mind you, if Jo Grant didn’t do any harm, I suppose you’re immune.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ the blonde woman asked, rounding on the Master, her eyes wide.
The Doctor ignored them, walking up to the door. ‘My dear friend is something of a magnet for... trouble,’ the Master replied, and the Doctor could hear the amusement in his voice. He was more concerned about the knocking. Had that actually been a reply? Had it - there was no denying there was life out there, now, unless you were Professor Hobbes - been copying, imitating?
One way to find out. He knocked on the door, four times, steady and clear.
‘What do you think you’re doing, don’t-’ the hostess began, but was cut off by the returned, sonorous knocking from outside. One. Two. Three. Four.
‘Make it stop,’ the blonde woman started saying, a note in her voice of pure panic. The Doctor turned, slipping the stethoscope back into his pocket, to see her heading for the Master, grabbing him by his jacket. ‘Make it stop!’
He simply laughed at her, eyes bright, one hand tapping out a rhythm on the side of the chair - one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, the rhythm the Doctor had knocked on the door and the being outside had copied. The rhythm of the drums.
Was there a connection? ‘What have you done?’ the Doctor demanded, striding closer, but the Master simply smirked at him as the blonde woman let go of his shirt and stepped backwards, hastily. The knocking started again, this time continuous, constant.
‘Nothing,’ the Master told him.
‘Now look what you’ve gone and done,’ Biff was snarling, as Val gave a little wail, ‘you’ve made it worse!’
‘It still can’t get in, though-’ Jethro was saying, and all the while, the blonde woman was going on, her voice one long, monotonous note of terror, the words falling out over themselves:
‘No, no, make it stop, why couldn’t you leave it alone? It’s coming, it’s coming for me, stop staring at me, she said she was going to get me, oh god, it’s coming for me, it’s coming for me!’
The rhythm of her panicked words began to match with the rhythm of the pounding against the shuttle, the Master still sat in his seat, a slight frown on his face, tapping out the rhythm of the drums just slightly off-time. ‘Just listen to me, just calm down,’ the Doctor told the terrified woman, who was backed up against the wall of the shuttle, staring with unseeing eyes up at the ceiling, where the pounding was coming from. ‘It’s not-’
She screamed, and the shuttle suddenly shook, knocking out the lights, sending everyone sprawling to the floor. The knocking stopped. There was, for a moment, no sound but frightened gasps for air, a brief burst of music from the entertainment system before it finally gave up the ghost, and the regular drumbeat of the Master’s tapping. The Doctor got to his feet. The shuttle was still intact, and though he thought he had a few new bruises in interesting places he was fine. He was more worried about where the knocking had gone. ‘Everyone okay?’ he asked, striding over to where the Master sat and grabbing hold of his hand tightly, suffocating that infernal tapping.
He was ignored. ‘What happened?’ Val asked, looking around with frightened eyes. The Doctor quickly glanced over the cabin: no one screaming or calling out in pain, just people picking themselves up off the floor in the near-darkness.
Part Two