CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

BACK TO SQUARE ONE

The Doctor returned to the console room to find the Major glaring down at the control console, his arms folded, the cloud of smoke over his head looking like a gathering storm. To say the man did not look happy would have been an understatement. In fact, he looked on the verge of pulling his Magnum and firing it into the communications panel.

“From your expression,” the Doctor began mildly, “I can only assume you were unsuccessful.”

Klaus looked up, his eyes blazing. “Classified!” he snapped angrily. “Eyes only. Need to know. Need to know? What the bloody hell do they think I’m asking for?” This time it was his turn to kick a chair across the room, causing the Doctor to wonder if it might not be wise to remove all the furniture for the time being.

The Doctor gave the frustrated officer a steady look, came to a decision, and nodded. “Right,” he said as he stepped up to the computer. “I’m not really supposed to do this, but I think the situation calls for it.”

Klaus had no idea what the Time Lord was talking about and said so.

The Doctor looked up. “I’m going to see what the TARDIS data bank has to say on the matter,” he stated flatly. “And if that yields nothing, I’m going to the library.”

“Library?” The Major’s eyes flashed to the exterior doors. Surely, he wasn’t talking about out there?

The Doctor could not help but smile. “The TARDIS library, Major. It’s…rather large.”

“Everything in this ship is large. I’ve been in your smaller wardrobe, remember?”

The Time Lord nodded absently, his fingers clattering on the keyboard.

“What…” Klaus began hesitantly, “is Turlough’s status?”

The Doctor looked up, and wanted to kick himself for having forgotten the reason he had come to the console room in the first place. “Out of surgery,” he said calmly. “Jason isn’t giving any promises, which is worrying, to be honest. He’ll let us know.”

Klaus nodded but did not reply. There’s nothing you can do for the boy, he reminded himself. Keep focused on the mission. On finding the creature responsible for this whole mess. He looked over at the Doctor who was scowling down at the computer screen, apparently having the same lack of success as he had with Bonn. He had no doubts that if anyone could find this thing, it was the Doctor. And when they did find it, Klaus promised himself, he would take the greatest satisfaction in blowing its brains out.

* * *

Eroica heard the Doctor leave the sickbay and waited several minutes before going to the recovery room. Turlough was beneath a sterile field on a bed that had a bank of monitors on the wall beside it. Jason was leaning forward in a chair, his head in his hands. He was clearly exhausted.

Jason suddenly started and looked up, seeing the Earl at the door. Damn. I dozed off without realizing. “How long have you been standing there,” he asked quietly.

“Just a few seconds, actually,” Eroica said as he crossed the room. “You look completely knackered.”

Jason gave a weak smile and nodded. “I haven’t been in an operating room in several decades,” he said with a sigh. “And even longer than that to be in one on my own.”

Eroica’s bright eyes widened. It was still difficult to fathom the gulf of years that had passed since he last saw the Alterran. It was still only four years as far as he was concerned. Not the century and a half it had been for Jason.

“I don’t even know how long I was in there,” Jason went on to say.

“More than five hours.”

The Healer nodded. That would be about right, considering how tapped out he felt.

“You should get some rest before you collapse,” Eroica said finally.

Jason looked up in some surprise. “Are you volunteering to act as Turlough’s nursemaid?”

“I’m not entirely useless, you know.”

“You’ll forgive me, Dorian, but you’re not exactly the unselfish type.”

Eroica gave a small smile. “I…don’t really have anything else to do.”

“You’re bored?”

“Yes.” Eroica started to play with one of his curls. “Everyone else is doing something to try and catch the thing that—” He broke off and shuddered, hugging himself. “I can at least sit with Turlough while you get some sleep.”

Jason gave him a sideways glance. “And what are you going to be doing in the meantime?”

“I’m sure I’ll find something.”

“What did you bring with you?”

“Jason…”

Suddenly Jason was on his feet with his hand out. “Give it to me,” he ordered.

“What?”

“The pocket dimension. Give it to me.”

“Why?”

“Dorian…”

“Alright, alright.” Eroica handed over the little pouch. Jason pulled it open and looked inside, his eyes widening. He reached in, pulling out a very large, ornately decorated, and obviously valuable book.

“What in the world…?”

“It’s a book on Renaissance fashions, if you must know.”

Jason looked up accusingly. “You pinched that out of the wardrobe!”

“I was gonna put it back.”

“You liar!”

Before the argument could go any further, Turlough shifted position and moaned before saying, “Could you two fight somewhere else?”

Jason turned sharply, thrusting the book and the pocket dimension back at Dorian before going to the boy’s bedside. “I didn’t expect you to wake up for a couple hours yet,” he said happily.

Turlough gave him an unfocused look. “I’d be more than happy to go back to sleep if you two will argue someplace else,” he said weakly.

“Okay, we’ll do that,” Jason grinned. “You go back to sleep.”

“Gladly.”

Within a few minutes, Turlough was fast asleep. Jason watched him another minute, checked the monitors, and then turned to the Earl. “Dorian, I think we’ve turned the corner.”

* * *

“Nothing!” the Doctor growled. “Damn and blast!” He gave the control console a thump in frustration.

The Major drew a long drag on his cigarette. It wasn’t a good sign when the Doctor got frustrated. The man, well, this version of the man, seemed to have the patience of a saint. “Nothing on this parasite you mentioned?”

The Doctor looked up. “Oh, there’s plenty on the one I mentioned, but that one fed on a completely different emotion.”

“How did you fight it?” Klaus wanted to know.

“What?”

“You said you encounter this…parasite. And defeated it, yes?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

The Doctor blinked and then frowned. Yes, how did he defeat the thing? It had been a very long time ago; during his third incarnation.* Of course! “I didn’t so much defeat is as control it,” he said at last. “It fed on evil, so we controlled it with good.”
* The Mind Of Evil

Klaus gave a derisive snort. “Doctor, sometimes you talk absolute rubbish.”

“That’s the simplest way of putting it, Major,” the Time Lord replied defensively. “I don’t think you want me to go into chapter and verse of what happened, do you?”

“No, I do not.”

“Then suffice it to say, we fought evil with good.” The Doctor paused. “Then a friend of mine, another military man, blew it up.”

Klaus drew a deep breath and told himself not to lose his temper. “Alright. So how do we fight fear? And if you start quoting Franklin Roosevelt, I will hurt you.”

The Doctor could not help but grin at this. The quote the Major alluded to flashing through his mind. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Yes, how does one fight fear? Fighting fear with fear certainly won’t work in this instance. It was an excellent question to which he had no definitive answer.

“You know, Major,” the Doctor said thoughtfully, “when you confronted it, it seemed…baffled.”

“As am I. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you notice? You threatened it, it threatened back. Obviously, it was attempting to make you afraid for Turlough. But instead…” The Doctor’s voice trailed off as the scene played out in his head once again. Then Dorian’s story returned to made, and Jason’s forthright intervention.

Klaus felt himself ready to explode when he saw the Doctor’s eyes light up. He could almost see the light bulb going on above his head. “You’ve thought of something,” he observed.

The Doctor threw him a sideways glance. “It’s only a theory…”

“That’s all we seem to have right now.”

The Doctor drew a deep breath. “You and Jason reacted to that thing with aggression rather than fear and it fled both times.” He paused. “I think the way to fight fear is with defiance, Major.”

Klaus thought this over. “I’m sure that will come in useful,” he said blandly. “But first, we need to find it.”

* * *

After a few hours of well earned rest, Jason went to the console room to find the Doctor sitting in a chair staring down at the papers that were once again spread out on the floor. The Alterran was surprised to see the Major was conspicuous by his absence.

“I sent him to get some sleep,” the Doctor informed.

“I’d tell you to get some, too,” Jason replied, “but I already know what the answer will be.”

The Doctor’s eyes flickered but he did not reply directly. “Apparently the KGB’s Deputy Director of some department-or-other wants some kind of a progress report by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh, swell.”

“Yes. The Major has volunteered to give it.”

Jason’s eyebrows went up. “The Major?” He threw a quick glance back at the inner doors. “Our Major? Mister Not-Even-Close-To-Diplomatic von dem Eberbach? That Major?”

“I must confess to being surprised myself. Although I suspect he just wants to shout at someone. And since we know that there’s no love lost between himself and the KGB…”

An evil grin came to the Alterran’s face. “Oh, I would love to be a fly on the wall in that meeting.”

The Doctor gave him a sideways glance. “Coming from you, that’s not all that out of the question, is it?”

Jason could not help but laugh. “True. But I rather think I’m needed here just now.” He saw a pained look come to the Time Lord’s face. “I came to tell you that Turlough’s out of danger.” The words were barely out of his mouth when he saw relief wash visibly over the Doctor’s entire body.

“Thank you, Jason. That means a great deal.”

“I know. I was one of your traveling companions once,” the Alterran replied knowingly. “I know how you get whenever somebody gets hurt.”

The Doctor gave his friend a pained look. “Jason, I lost one of my companions not too long ago,” he informed soberly. “It isn’t something I’d care to repeat.”

Jason stood with his mouth open, uncertain how to reply to this. He looked down at the papers and up again. “Care to let me in on what this is all about?”

* * *

The Doctor had gone over what little information they had with the Major before the escort arrived to take him to his meeting. The Time Lord had been uncertain as to whether he should accompany him and finally chose not to interfere. This was, after all, the Major’s area of expertise. The fact that he would be traveling with an escort was also a deciding factor. It seemed highly unlikely that the creature would make any moves against him. Of course, it seemed highly unlikely it would make any moves against him even without the escort. The Major was hardly the type to succumb to terror.

The Major’s escort arrived earlier than planned, much to the officer’s delight. He was looking forward to the dressing down he was going to give the Deputy Director where Ivanov and Borodin were concerned. He did not take kindly to KGB agents trying to kill him.

* * *

“I’m gonna be late,” the Major said impatiently to his escort. Neither man so much as glanced back at him. He gave an annoyed growl and found himself wishing for the hundredth time that he knew the location of the Deputy Director’s office. Then he would have been able to make the journey alone and very probably in less time.

The Major’s escort stopped abruptly in front of a non-descript door. The senior officer gave a respectful rap and stepped back.

Klaus was wondering why they were still on the same floor, and why there were no markings on the door when it opened. To his shock, he found himself standing face to face with Alexei Borodin.