"You"ll have to hurry," was the faint response. "I"m going to be very sick."
And before the Doctor could prevent it she had left the wheel-house with the First Mate. He tried to follow them, but an officer barred the way and Turlough put out a restraining hand. The last thing he wanted was for the Doctor to start throwing his weight about. It could only lead to trouble.
"Tegan will be all right," he said soothingly. "Whatever"s going on here, n.o.body has threatened threatened us." us."
" Yet Yet," answered the Doctor, cryptically.
Marriner half-led, half carried Tegan along several deserted pa.s.sageways. Her seasickness was now so acute that she hardly noticed which way they were going. She clung to Marriner"s arm as though it were a lifeline. The cabin he showed her into was simply a blur as far as she was concerned, and she collapsed onto the bed. "I just want to die," she groaned, and then became conscious of a gla.s.s of something being held out to her. From what seemed a long way off she heard a voice saying "Drink this", and she was just about to take it when a warning bell sounded somewhere in her mind. With an enormous effort, gripping the edge of the bed as hard as she could, she pulled herself together. Marriner"s face swam into view again, and his hand, still holding the gla.s.s of liquid.
"What is it?" she asked suspiciously.
Marriner smiled. "A mixture."
She took the gla.s.s and sniffed warily at the contents.
"Rum?" she asked. Marriner did not reply, simply smiled soothingly, and said again, "Drink it."
Tegan put the gla.s.s down firmly on the bedside table.
"No thanks."
Marriner shook his head in amus.e.m.e.nt. "It"ll make you feel better," he explained.
"Drink it yourself, then," was Tegan"s tart rejoinder.
"You need it more than I do."
Marriner ignored her comments, but he clearly understood her suspicions.
"It"s quite safe," he said. And when this failed to rea.s.sure her, he took the gla.s.s from the table, raised it to her in a silent toast, drank from it himself and then held it out to her once more. Slowly Tegan took it and raised it to her lips. She had just decided that the only thing she could possibly keep down was something as innocuous as water, when to her surprise that was what it turned out to be.
Cool, clear spring water. Or rather, that was what it tasted like. Limpid and refreshing, it slid down her throat, and the giddiness in her head slipped away and the tension in her stomach relaxed and she felt as though she were floating. Dreamily she lay back on the bunk. She was just conscious of the coverlet being pulled gently over her and through a haze she heard Marriner"s voice. "I must return to duty. The first marker buoy will be coming up soon."
"Marker buoy " Tegan"s speech sounded slurred. Her eyes closed drowsily and she lost consciousness.
Venus glimmered, distant, but clearly visible through the forrard port of the wheel-house. Striker stirred, as though he had just woken from sleep, but when he spoke his voice was measured and precise. "Check our exact position." An officer crossed immediately to one of the computer terminals and Striker continued, with some satisfaction, "Gentlemen, we are about to round our first planet."
"Planet?" Turlough was startled. He thought for a minute he could not have heard correctly, but the Doctor did not appear at all surprised.
"Remember the chart?" he said in a low voice.
"The one Tegan insisted was plotting the marker buoys?" Turlough replied.
"Yes" the Doctor said. "She was right. If you"d looked more carefully you"d have recognised the pattern. It"s a map of the solar system containing Earth. The marker buoys are the planets."
Turlough did not take this in for a second. The idea of using planets to mark a race course seemed so extraordinary. But before he could ask any questions the Doctor was speaking in a low urgent voice in his ear, "Find out where Marriner"s taken Tegan. Now! Slip out while n.o.body"s looking."
Turlough glanced round. The Doctor was right. They were un.o.bserved. All eyes were on the distant planet ahead.
"There"s no need to whisper, Doctor," came Striker"s voice suddenly from the far end of the wheel-house. "You and your companions are free to come and go as you wish.
You are guests, not prisoners."
Turlough could not resist a momentary smile of pleasure at the Doctor"s discomfiture. Then he did as he had been told.
The moment the door closed behind him, the Doctor went into action. It was vital to find out more about this strange race as quickly as possible, and he had decided that the best person to tell him was the Captain. Idly, as though drawn by the mysterious charm of the planet, he sauntered over to the porthole and stared out.
"Very aptly named," he commented. "After the G.o.ddess of beauty herself."
Striker, standing by the helmsman, turned blank eyes in his direction.
"Venus," the Doctor added softly, as though he had been asked a question.
"Ah yes. Venus." Striker came to life. "Our first obstacle.
Our next major obstacle is the Greek."
He operated a switch, and the line of sailing-ships came once more into view on the screen. Almost as if it were alive, the scanner picked out one in particular and homed in. The banked oars of a great Greek galley came into close-up, its sail bellied out, and then, closer still, the scanner moved in on its captain, seated on a lavish throne and studying a chart.
"Critas the Greek," came Striker"s precise voice. "The only captain who could possibly beat me."
The Doctor was so intrigued that for a moment he forgot the object of the exercise. His gaze had dwelt lovingly on the eye painted on the galley"s bow, on the dolphin"s tail of the stern, and on the linen chiton of the man sitting there... He pulled himself abruptly together.
"The period detail of your ships is impressively accurate," he said, echoing the slightly pedantic tones of the Captain.
"There is no point in the race otherwise," Striker replied.
"Accurate except for one thing." the Doctor"s voice was soft, but he made quite sure that it was audible. And it was not until he knew that he had Striker"s attention that he spoke again. "The jewel" he said. And immediately, almost as though reading his thoughts, the scanner moved in close on a ring on the Greek"s finger.
"That isn"t contemporary, is it?" he asked, with deceptive innocence, as they both stared at the great cabuchon ruby.
"Seventeenth-century Spanish, surely."
Striker looked at him sharply, then back at the screen.
"You"re very observant," he said.
"The only thing out of period. I wonder why?" The Doctor"s mild comment seemed to hang in the air for a second, and then, recovering quickly from his discomfiture, Striker switched the scanner back to a view of Venus, now closer still.
"When you meet Critas, you must ask him," he said smoothly, and turned his back.
Turlough had completely lost his way in the maze of pa.s.sages below decks and was beginning to think he would never find Tegan"s cabin. To his relief, he heard a hatch grate open and a figure began descending the companion-ladder ahead. He hurried forward to ask for directions, and for a brief second the notes of a sea-shanty drifted down.
Somewhere overhead the crew were singing. Then the hatch was banged down again and the music was cut off.
When he reached the foot of the ladder, he discovered it was not a member of the crew who stood there, but one of the officers. There was something about the motionless figure that would have marked it out even without the uniform. But as Turlough peered into the frozen face, the eyes moved suddenly and looked back at him.
Momentarily disconcerted, he did not know what to say.
Then, pulling himself together, and with a jerk of his head towards the ladder, he asked, "Where does this lead?" "The deck," came the brief reply, and Turlough felt all sense of reality beginning to leave him. The ship was moving through s.p.a.ce, and yet he could have sworn he had heard men singing above.
As if in confirmation the officer went on, "The crew are busy up there." "Doing what?" Turlough asked.
"Hauling on the halyards."
That was the final straw. "Halyards!" he burst out. "On a s.p.a.ce ship?"
"Certainly," came the imperturbable reply. "We observe the spirit as well as the rules of the race."
Turlough shook his head in disbelief. It was clear that he was not going to get any sense out of this creature, and he turned to continue his search. But before he had taken three steps down the pa.s.sageway, a voice called after him, "The lady"s cabin is on the starboard side." The "thank you"
he was about to say suddenly froze in his throat. How had the man known he was looking for Tegan? An idea began to surface in his mind but he suppressed it. Clearly it had been a case of putting two and two together. The man had simply guessed. Nevertheless, he hurried down the pa.s.sage, almost at a run, very glad to get away.
Tegan drifted up from the warmth of sleep to feel someone shaking her arm. For a moment she was reluctant to open her eyes, but when she did she found Turlough looking down at her. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"Of course!" she answered.
"Are you sure?"
Tegan had never felt better in her life. "I feel marvellous." She stretched luxuriously, for the moment not remembering where she was. "Not s.p.a.ce-sick any more?"
She sat up with a jerk. Turlough was examining the gla.s.s she had drunk from. He sniffed at it. "Probably the same stuff that they give to the crew," he said, putting it back on the table. "It doesn"t seem to do them any harm." "I"m pleased to hear it," Tegan said dryly, and swinging her legs over, she sat up and looked round the room properly for the first time. What she saw gave her a shock. It was not the disorder of the things lying around that startled her, but the actual objects themselves. There, hanging on a hatstand, was the fancy dress frock she had been lent by Lady Cranleigh. And there, tossed idly onto a chair, was a tennis racket she recognised. She could see her name burnt into the handle. And the broken string. It was the one she had used at school, when she was fourteen. The dressing-table looked familiar, too. And the chair in the corner...
She could feel her heart beginning to thump uncomfortably, and breathlessly she looked at Turlough.
He obviously felt the same.
"Some of it"s quite familiar, isn"t it?" he said, in an odd voice, glancing round.
"It"s a sort of weird mix of my room on the TARDIS and my bedroom in Brisbane." Curiously Tegan picked up a small silver frame and her voice rose in a squeak as she saw the photograph it contained. "Aunt Vanessa!" It was indeed her favourite aunt, smiling fondly back at her from the picture as she used to in life. "I don"t believe it!" Tegan looked wildly round the room and recognised more and more.
"It"s as though someone"s been rummaging around in my memories."
"Maybe they have." Turlough"s voice was strained. "I"m beginning to find this ship very strange." He grabbed Tegan"s arm. "Come on," he said urgently. "Let"s get back to the Doctor!"
Venus was nearer still, and the churning belt of clouds surrounding her was getting ominously close. All eyes in the wheel-house were fixed ahead. Striker"s attention was so concentrated that he answered the Doctor"s questions almost absently. Perhaps, indeed, he would not otherwise have answered them at all, the Doctor thought; so he pressed on while he had the opportunity.
"Why are you doing this?"
"The race?" Striker murmured in an abstracted voice. "As a diversion."
The Doctor felt his anger rising, but with great control kept his voice as even as possible. "And the crews for the ships... You"ve collected them from their different time zones. Just as a diversion, too?"
Striker did not reply for a minute. He sounded bored.
"They are Ephemerals."
"Ephemerals?" the Doctor queried.
Striker"s contempt was clear. "Beings like yourself," he said.
The Doctor could contain himself no longer. "You had no right to do it!" he burst out. "Those crews are human beings! They"re real! Living, breathing flesh and blood!"
His fury had not the slightest effect on Striker, who simply turned away, indifferent. For a second. Then he swung round, his face alive and intent, and interested.
"Wait! You are a time-dweller no " It was almost as though he could hear the Doctor mentally correcting him.
"You travel in time a Time Lord "
"You can read my thoughts!" It came to the Doctor in a flash and he wondered why he had not tumbled to it before, it explained so many things. But the Captain was continuing, disdainfully, "A Lord of Time! Are there lords in such a small domain?"
"Small? Where do you function?" the Doctor asked.
Striker turned cold distant eyes on him. "The endless wastes of Eternity."
For a second the Doctor"s heart seemed to freeze under that icy stare, and then all was bustle and confusion, and a voice was shouting urgently, "Marker buoy, sir! Marker buoy!"
They turned.
Venus now filled the entire port, or rather a portion of the planet did, growing larger and larger and closer and closer every second. They seemed about to hurl themselves into the sulphurous fog around her.
"Marker buoy!" The shout was more frantic still.
"Coming up on the starboard bow!"
5.
One Down!
The same excitement caught Tegan and Turlough as they hurried back along the companionways to the wheel-house.
The bosun"s pipe started shrilling urgently, and there was the noise of running feet and shouting. Then, as they rounded a corner, they came upon a surprising scene. A queue of men, wearing what looked like wet suits, was moving towards one of the companion-ladders. At the foot of it sat an officer, doling out "rum" from a large cask. As each man in turn took his tot, he downed it in one, slammed the jigger back onto the cask, lowered a transparent cover over his face, and was then shoved on his way up by another officer. Even as they arrived, a scuffle broke out. A man had reached the foot of the ladder and jibbed, struggling and refusing to climb. It was Jackson.
And it took the combined efforts of Collier and the officer to get him up.