"If you say so," Lawrence drawled. He forced a smile to his lips and said as blandly as he could manage, "May I ask where Jyl Stoker may be found?"
No one expected the meeting to go well, but few could have guessed how spectacularly badly it would turn out. Bunny Cheung was treating Captain Lawrence with only a grudging respect. He was now obviously having second thoughts about the wisdom of calling in help. This made for a rather strained atmosphere, but nothing like the electric tension that filled the laboratory when Jyl Stoker first saw Captain Lawrence.
Lawrence walked confidently into the lab, ducking slightly as he stepped through the doorway.
Stoker looked up from where she sat, arms folded, lips tight. Her face drained of all colour and her eyes bugged with astonishment. The reaction was so unexpected that most people in the room did a double take from her to Lawrence, just to check that the Consortium officer hadn"t grown another head.
"Good evening," Lawrence said, his smile exposing perfect white teeth.
To her credit, Stoker recovered from her shock with record speed. She didn"t say anything in reply immediately; she merely concentrated on lighting another cigar. It was a good performance but no one was fooled: she was playing for time.
Stoker blew out a stream of smoke and flicked her eyes up and down the captain. "Uniform suits you," she said, managing to make it sound like an insult.
Lawrence looked amused. "I thought you"d be pleased to see me."
"You never were much good at thinking," Stoker shot back.
Bunny Cheung said, "I can"t believe you two know each other."
"Our paths have crossed," Lawrence admitted. He turned back to Stoker. "Glad to see you"re all right. I confess I was rather concerned when we received your mayday."
"Wasn"t my mayday," grunted Stoker.
Lawrence ignored this. "Care to tell me what"s going on?"
"Go to h.e.l.l," Stoker told him, getting up to leave. She walked straight past Lawrence without a second glance but paused at the exit to speak to Bunny, "He"s all yours, pal."
An uncomfortable silence settled over the remaining people in the laboratory. Lawrence said nothing, but there was something smouldering like a fuse in his eyes.
"Sorry," muttered Bunny Cheung when it was clear no one else was going to speak. "I had no idea..."
"Of course not," Lawrence replied curtly. "Why should you?"
Bunny closed his hands into giant fists. He clearly regretted sending the mayday now.
Satisfied that the conversation was over, Lawrence clapped his hands and rubbed them briskly together. "Right then. Would someone else care to explain the precise nature of your little problem here?"
It was the Doctor who summarised what had happened so far. Tegan noticed that he was careful to remain neutral where the decision to issue the mayday was concerned.
Tegan suspected that the others, like her, were secretly glad to see the arrival of uniformed officials on the scene. At least they no longer felt so isolated. But it was difficult to appreciate the way in which the Consortium was taking over: within moments, Captain Lawrence was issuing orders to his men with a cavalier disregard for any other authority.
"I"ll have all my men armed with blaster pistols," Lawrence informed the Doctor blithely. "Organise them into patrols and search the cave system. We"ll soon track this creature down and kill it for you."
"And then?" the Doctor asked.
Lawrence almost hesitated. "And then we"ll see. The priority must be to neutralise the threat and render the cave system safe. Don"t worry. My men are very experienced, they"ve dealt successfully with the occasional HLF before."
"Hostile life-form."
"I hope you"re right," the Doctor said.
Lawrence raised an eyebrow "You"re not convinced?"
"Let"s say I prefer to keep an open mind. Firepower is seldom a solution in itself. Besides which, there is more to our problem here than this creature. I have reason to believe that there may be some kind of extra-sensory field effect at work, generated by something located in or around this moon, which is causing perceptual variations."
"Really?" Lawrence smiled condescendingly.
"Don"t believe in phantoms, Doctor. If there"s a hostile life-form here then we can destroy it. End of story."
"I doubt that."
For a long moment the two men faced each other, neither willing to blink first. Eventually Lawrence pursed his lips and said, "Perhaps you would like to accompany the hunting party? See for yourself when we shoot the d.a.m.n thing down."
"I can"t say it would be a pleasure," the Doctor replied smoothly, "but it might be for the best."
Nyssa sat with Ravus Oldeman for a while.
Neither of them spoke; Oldeman sat and frowned, his eyes sharp and bright with the effects of the neurolectrin, but Nyssa was consumed by her own anxieties. While the professor concentrated with his renewed clarity of mind, Nyssa was unable to pin down her own problem. Something prevented her from a.n.a.lysing her thoughts properly.
Something like a mental block, yet more subtle and worrying than that: a lost memory, perhaps. It was all very confusing.
She had not experienced such a sense of confusion and loss since her father had been murdered and Traken destroyed.
Then, however, the Doctor had been there for her: he had taken her under his wing, offered her a home and a life and the opportunity to study. And to help others less... fortunate...
than herself.
Her feelings for the Doctor had changed as well. She could not shake the feeling that he was avoiding her. He didn"t seem to want to include her in his researches, almost as if he didn"t trust her. How could that be? After all they had been through with each other? He only seemed to confide in Tegan now. Could the Doctor be that fickle?
"Charged particle-beam weapon," said the Consortium officer, Crook, holding out a bulky energy pistol for all to see. "Cuts through anything. I"ve seen one of these babies burn a hole in duralinium plate."
"Yes, but have you actually used one before?" the Doctor asked.
"Don"t get smart," snapped Crook. "I could vaporise an apple pip at five hundred metres with this."
"You could vaporise a whole apple tree at five hundred metres with one of those."
Crook glared. "So it shouldn"t have a problem with your Bloodhunter then, should it?"
"I just want you to be careful with it, that"s all."
"Bloodhunter?" Tegan echoed.
The Doctor looked uncomfortable. "Yes, well, we had to call it something. Seemed appropriate at the time."
"Call it what you want," said Crook. "It"s already dead as far as I"m concerned." The officer began handing out more blasters to a group of Adamantium Adamantium crewmen. crewmen.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "They never learn."
Tegan smiled. "Fed up with all the macho talk?"
"Guns always seem to bring that out in humans, I find."
"You"ve got to admit we need some kind of protection, though."
The Doctor nodded. "Oh, we need protection all right. But not necessarily from the Bloodhunter."
"I don"t understand."
"Neither do I yet. At least not fully." A light in the Doctor"s eyes indicated that his mind was working ferociously. "There"s something else at work here, Tegan. I"m certain that the creature is not the real problem, but merely the symptom of a greater evil."
"Have you got any theories?"
"As soon as I know anything useful, you will be the first to know."
Tegan felt rather pleased with this. "We can"t do anything about that until we find this Bloodhunter thing, though, can we?"
"Apparently not.
Tegan looked disappointed as as she watched the last of the blasters being dished out. "I thought they"d spare a couple for us." she watched the last of the blasters being dished out. "I thought they"d spare a couple for us."
"Thank goodness for small mercies: the Doctor said.
Lawrence walked into the comms area and found Stoker smoking a cigar.
"Thought I"d find you here," he said. "Followed the smoke."
Stoker spared him a glance. "Which smoke? The cigar smoke or the stuff coming out of my ears?"
He smiled. "You always did have a temper."
"You mean I always did have emotions," she corrected him. "Unlike you."
He stepped in front of her and she had to look at him. His eyes were a perfect, commanding blue.
"I"m not a machine, Jyl."
Stoker curled her lip. "No, you"re a lousy, double-crossing Consortium toady with a weakness for blondes. How could I have forgotten?"
"If it"s any consolation at all," Lawrence said carefully, "I didn"t know you"d be here. At least not at first. The mayday was intercepted by my 2IC, on one of his routine signal scans.
"Fine."
"I would still have come here, even if it hadn"t been your name attached to the mayday."
Stoker let out a harsh laugh. "You still know how to make a woman feel special, don"t you!"
"I didn"t mean it like that."
For a moment Lawrence had actually looked fl.u.s.tered, and Stoker took advantage. "How is she, by the way? What was her name? Sack something. Sa.s.sy? Sasquatch?"
"Saskia."
"Oh yeah.
"Let"s not go over all that again, please."
Stoker stubbed out her cigar with enough force to snap it in two. "This is the point where I should slap you in the face, isn"t it? Well I won"t, because you"re ready for it now. When I do hit you, it will be low and hard and when you"re least expecting it."
"I see," Lawrence said. "Thank you for the warning. I"m surprised you still bear a grudge, although I suppose it shows you still have feelings for me."
Stoker leapt to her feet, teeth bared. "Go to h.e.l.l, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"
"There you are," Lawrence said triumphantly. "I knew you still cared."
Stoker pulled back her fist, but didn"t deliver. She could see the amused look in his eyes. Those perfect blue eyes. "It was never really about Saskia," she said.
"I know. You just couldn"t stand the thought that I wanted to join the Consortium. You thought I"d jump college with you and fly around the galaxy chasing fortune and glory. You were wrong. That"s what you couldn"t stand."
"I couldn"t stand the fact that you sold out to the Consortium!"
"Sold out? Don"t be ridiculous. The Consortium paid for our education. We all owed it our loyalty. I decided to pay my debt, that"s all." Lawrence turned to leave the room, but paused. "It"s a pity you didn"t do the same thing. Then you might not have ended up here, marooned on a piece of c.r.a.p like this and begging for help."