Killer Bees Episode Five;Always the Third Doctor!;Welcome to Jeri's Dr. Who fiction Page!;Doctor Who;UNIT;TARDIS;Third Doctor;Katy Manning;Jo Grant;The Master;Roger Delgado
Killer Bees Revised 11/08/97
Episode 5
"Turn up your radio to full!" Mike ordered, and Benton quickly reached over to the radio on his belt and turned up the volume. After a moment, the three bee-like creatures swirled into a tight knot, realigned, and then went out to the far end of the outer room. Yates got up on hands and knees and crawled out of the cell.
"What are you doing?" Benton hissed.
"Saving us! Stay down!" he ordered. He pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall and rolled onto the floor with it. The bees were bouncing off the walls at the other end, seeking a target or a way out. Yates pressed the handle down, and chemical foam shot out in a wide sweep. He arced it back and forth and watched in satisfaction as the bees were knocked out of flight and brought down in the foamy mass.
"It's safe!" he exclaimed. Before Benton could detain him, he plunged across the room into the foam and ran his hands through it. His fingers encountered one of the bees and closed around it.
"Sir, you must stand up," Benton said gently, and Yates stood up. The downed bee was sticky, unwieldy, and solid--not like a real bee, but about the same size. He took a risk and dropped it up his sleeve as he shook foam off his hands.
What were those things?" Benton asked, turning down the radio.
"I wasn't sure how it was being done until now," Mike said. "But it makes sense. We had theorized about this type of--"
He was cut off by another bright flash. Benton turned and reached for the radio, but this was no attack. A small, dapper man in a precise pinstriped suit, matching bowler hat, and color coordinated umbrella with real wood ribs stood before them.
"Mike Yates," he said. "You are needed elsewhere."
"Now wait a moment--" Benton began. But the little man reached around him quickly and touched Yates on the shoulder. Both Yates and he disappeared.
* * * *
"So you were tracking both Mike and me?" she asked.
"Clerk 42 has been tracking Mike Yates," the Doctor told her. "I came into it when he decided that he needed somebody here in person." He picked up his mug of hot water and took a slow sip. She noticed how slowly his hand put it to his lips, and the tremble in his fingers. But he continued as though nothing were wrong. "Clerk 42 is not very fond of humans," he told her. "I mean, he approves of them in theory but is uncomfortable when he has to actually talk to them or see them. I was very surprised when he went to get Yates after we rescued you. But I suppose that after swimming in freezing water with you for thirty minutes, I wasn't ready to mastermind a prison break."
"Clerk 42?" she asked. "He went to get Mike? Where's Mike? And who exactly is Clerk 42?"
"Mike is being detained at UNIT," the Doctor told her. "He tried to rescue you, but failed. Sgt. Benton took him into custody. As far as I could see from my position on the platform, Benton made arrangements for men to go out in search of you, and the police were notified." He set the mug down carefully alongside her mug of tea. "I wish you would drink your tea while it's hot, Jo," he added. Then he explained, "Clerk 42 is a rather high ranking member of the ruling council of the timelords. He likes to portray himself as merely the Clerk, but it's all a front. He has a great deal of pull. Runs things at time, really."
He glanced severely from her to the tea, and she obediently took up her mug and sipped it. She did not want to sleep again, not if the time were this short. But nobody recovers from hypothermia in a morning. The tea was hot and very sweet, the way he always made it for her. It warmed her as it went down. Under the pile of covers, she stretched out her tired legs and resisted the idea of sleep.
"Look," he told her. "Clerk 42 has his hearts in the proper places, but he's squeamish around humans. Try not to be offended by him. He should be back with Mike at any moment."
The comment returned some vigor to her. She had not yet forgiven Mike. "He lied to me," she began, and she told him of all that she had learned at UNIT HQ.
The Doctor looked thoughtful and unhappy when she'd finished. "I suppose the first story was a lie--though not entirely," he told her. "But about the rest--he didn't lie, Jo. He is an authorized agent of the British Crown. Lethbridge Stewart has been very naive."
"Naive?" she asked
"It amazes me that after the summing up he put down, he should expect that somebody in Intelligence would notify him that Mike was taken into service." The Doctor stopped and took a breath. For a moment, very suddenly, he looked incredibly old, and he leaned forward with his arms on his knees. Jo started up, nearly dropping her mug, but just as quickly the look of age and sickness passed from his face. "You know as well as I do that British Intelligence does not trust the UN forces, and the UN forces here do not trust British Intelligence," he reminded her. "They have different priorities. Britain will with hold information from the UN when it is in the interests of the British people to do so," he said. "You remember Axos, don't you?"
"Yes," she said, but she had her eyes fixed on his face, startled.
He gently took her free hand in his, assuring her. "It's all right," he whispered, but he stopped for a long time, his face quiet as he negotiated some inner pain or weakness. The moment passed, and then he went on. "Yates has high placed connections, Jo, and his service prior to Operation Golden Age did not go unnoticed in the government. The nation would be much more at risk if he had not followed out this case."
He was interrupted by a brilliant flash in the cave-like room. A swirl of smoke went up and evaporated quickly, and Jo recognized the man who had been on the train with her. Next to him stood Mike Yates.
* * * *
At UNIT HQ, Sergeant Benton was trying to make sense of what had just occurred, while explaining it to the Brigadier. For the second time, he repeated his account of what had happened.
"Disappeared?" the Brigadier demanded, pacing back and forth in the detention area. "First Gleason disappears and then Yates disappears--"
"I took it from Yates, Sir, that Gleason was killed," Benton told him.
Lethbridge Stewart stopped and stared at him. "What gave him that idea?"
"He said he was saving our lives by keeping us down on the floor sir, and then, there's that pile of dust there, sir," Benton said with a nod at the corner where Gleason had been standing. "I think that's all that's left of Gleason."
"By Jove," the Brigadier exclaimed softly. "Like the Crowther case--the children!" He stopped in horrified amazement. "Poor blighter. Did Gleason have a family?"
"No sir, none close by," Benton said, then he continued: "After Yates shot those flying things down, that other fellow showed up in a bang and a flash. Spirited them both away."
"Hang on," the Brigadier said. He went to the wall intercom. "Cosgrove," he said. "Get the file on the Crowther case. Put it on my desk, will you?"
"Yes sir."
"I'll be right up." He turned to Benton. "Go through that pile of foam that's left then," he ordered. "Dig out those little watchamacallits. We've got to get them analyzed straightaway. And I want an all points bulletin out on Mike Yates. He's the only one who seems to have any idea about what's going on." He strode to the door and then stopped and looked back. "Any word on Miss Grant?"
Benton, in the act of getting down on his knees to search the drying foam, looked up soberly. "None, sir. The police have been very sympathetic, but that rascal's dropped out of sight."
"This doesn't look good," the Brigadier told him. "Along about now, I would expect the Doctor to show up. Keep at it, then. Bring your results up to my office as quickly as you can."
"Right, sir."
Lethbridge Stewart strode purposefully up the stairs. At the top, on the main floor hallway, he passed the now little-used doors to the room that had once housed the Doctor's workroom and lab. He made a mental note to have somebody sort through the clutter of half finished projects in there and get them organized and stowed more neatly. Up one more flight of steps, and something bounced off the corner of the hallway in front of him. Without thinking, he waved it away, regarding it as little more than a fly. Just as it skipped past his ear and sped down the hall, he realized the danger he had been in.
"Cosgrove!" he called. "Lieutenant Cosgrove!" He raced to his office.
The folder he had requested lay on the floor, sprawled open atop a pile of dust.
The Brigadier raced to the intercom on his desk and switched on the Public Address system.
"This is Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart," he declared. "I am issuing a priority One emergency. We have been invaded. I repeat: We have been invaded by a hostile force. This is not a drill. All personnel are to report to radio and communications rooms. I want every artifice for broadcasting that we have to be turned up to full power. You have two minutes to clear your stations and report to the appropriate rooms. Out." He gingerly plucked the folder from the pile of dust and hurried out to rejoin Benton in the detention area. The first thing to do was to get one of those bee things and find out what made it tick and why the radio feedback had driven them off.
* * * *
"I say, must every entrance of yours always be so grand?" the Doctor scolded, not moving from his place by Jo. "Couldn't manage just a wave in the doorway, could you?"
The gentleman in the bowler coughed as the smoke from his appearance cleared. His eyebrows were singed. "One cannot resist the temptation to overawe the human animals," he said by way of an excuse. "They have such delightfully low sensibilities."
"Jo!" Mike exclaimed, seeing her first, then in even greater surprise, "Doctor!"
"Come here, Yates," the Doctor said genially and with a certain dignity. Jo realized that after his fit of weakness, he could not rise.
"But I thought--"
"Never mind; never mind that now," the Doctor told him as he held out a hand to shake. But when they shook hands, he used pressure on Mike's hand against the wrist to gently bring Mike down by the bedside. "Now make up, you two," the Doctor ordered. He transferred Jo's bandaged hand to Mike's. "I insist that you be friends." He glanced at Jo.
"I am sorry," Mike instantly told Jo with a heartiness that she felt she did not deserve. "Whatever was needed, you didn't deserve a lie, Jo. I should have simply not said anything."
"Please," she began, and then stopped. She remembered his distressed face when Benton and the soldier had closed in on him. "Can you ever forgive me, Mike?" she asked. "I did think I was protecting you from the Master, but I should have stayed to give you a chance to explain."
"Oh, you would have come back," he told her, though a little cautiously, not sure if she was ready to be teased. "You wouldn't have left me in stir very long." He smiled. He set her hand on the blanket and looked down at the bandages. "What did-"
"We haven't got time for this twaddle. Come now, Doctor," the other man said abruptly, taking up the tray of syringes by the fire.
"Just bring it here," the Doctor told him, not moving from the bedside. "They won't faint."
"All right." He brought the tray over.
"So you're Clerk 42?" Jo asked him.
He fixed her with a disdainful eye. "Ah, the Doctor said you used to do detective work, Miss. I can tell from your keen powers of observation." Without another look at her, he drew up a footstool and set about loading the syringes. Mike glanced around the cave-like room with its blackened brick walls. "What in the name of the Queen is this place?" he asked.
The Doctor leaned suddenly against the bed, white and faint, but caught himself.
"Don't be a lump, Yates!" Clerk 42 exclaimed sharply. "Get his coat off him, but move carefully."
"Of course!" Without wasting time with questions, Yates stood and helped the Doctor off with his coat.
"Foundry," The Doctor muttered.
"What?" Mike asked as he worked.
"Deserted foundry. This was the tool room. In the basement." The Doctor didn't look up as Yates at last slid the coat down his arms and freed him from it.
"Fire one," Clerk 42 said, holding up a syringe. "Be of some use, man, and pull his head back!"
Jo closed her eyes as Mike held back the Doctor's head and let the other timelord plunge an injection directly into the Doctor's throat.
"Heart next," the Doctor whispered. "That's the worst."
"Whatever you like." The Clerk drew up a different syringe. "Get his shirt open. And listen you, we don't need any tears or hysterics-"
"Leave her alone," the Doctor ordered.
There were seven injections in all: four in the arm, but one in the throat, one in the heart, and one just above the liver. By the end, Mike was as shaken as the Doctor, but he did not ask any questions until Clerk 42 was putting the syringes back on the tray and the tray back on the hearth.
"What's wrong with him?" Yates asked.
"He's just now come from Metabilius," the Clerk began. "That's a planet. You do know what planets are." Mike darted a look at Jo, a look of dread on his face, and saw that she understood.
"He'll pick up his strength within the hour," the Clerk assured him coldly. "Our medical practices are a bit less inefficient than yours."
"He should take this bed," Jo began, sitting up, but the Doctor, leaning on his elbows on the bedside, exclaimed, "No!" He glanced wearily at Clerk 42. "Get me something to lie down on, will you?" He offered Jo the briefest glance. "You stay where you are. We'll need all your strength soon enough. Recover while you can."
Mike, trained to prioritize in an emergency, quickly helped Clerk 42 gather up blankets and odds and ends to make up a bed on the floor by the fire, but he couldn't help mutter, "I wish somebody would tell me what's going on."
"We rescued you from the people you once betrayed," Clerk 42 said coldly. "That is sufficient, isn't it?"
The Doctor put his head down on the bed, as though unable to sit up, but he said, "Tell him what he needs to know." He gasped and closed his eyes. Frightened at his weakness, Jo stroked his head and shoulders, unsure of what to do to help him.
"Thank you, Jo," he murmured. "It's all right. I'll be all right shortly."
And Clerk 42 began to explain, staring with a laborious introduction: "I am the Clerk to the High Council of the Timelords. We have been working on our own methods of apprehending the Master--as you so quaintly call him--and we traced him back here. Now help me get him over here."
They helped the Doctor over to the pile of makeshift bedding and eased him onto it. Jo sat up and watched silently. She had been tired and sleepy. But the Doctor's distress had shaken off her weakness. And then suddenly, she saw the TARDIS. It happened so quickly that there was no time to exclaim in surprise. It was in front of her, and the doors opened, and inside the lighted interior, she could see the console. The TARDIS had always been a bit of a mystery to Jo, but the recognition and relief that she felt at sight of it was comparable only to the feelings of a child who has at last found her mother after a long time being lost.
Just as suddenly, she was back in the room with Clerk 42, Mike, and the Doctor, who suddenly groaned from his bed on the floor. Unexpectedly, a waves of weariness and nausea washed over. She gasped and quickly lay down. The room was spinning.
"Now what about you?" Clerk 42 asked Mike Yates. "You've been following the Master about, haven't you?"
"I never knew it was his trail," Mike said evasively. "I was following down leads to somebody with no clear identification records--obviously a brilliant scientist."
"Yes?" the Clerk said impatiently, demanding more.
Jo opened her eyes and tried to clear her head. When she looked up, she saw that Mike and the Clerk were on either side of her, talking to each other across her. She gasped in surprise and sat up again, only to see that they were where she had last seen them, on either side of the Doctor. Lying between them, the Doctor closed his eyes.
Mike glanced at her, but the Clerk ignored her.
"I'm sorry," Mike told the Clerk. "I cannot discuss my mission you."
"Balderdash!" the Clerk exclaimed. "I just broke you out of prison, young man. I give you permission to no longer remain a hide bound and stupid human. Your duty extends beyond the realms of this ridiculous country. Tell me what you have found!"
"No," Mike told him. "I betrayed my country once for the so-called good of the world. I don't know who you are, and I'm not revealing confidential information to you!"
"Mike, you must tell him," and she wasn't sure whether she said it or the Doctor said it. The voice that spoke was throaty and deep, yet it felt as though she had said it, and the illusion that she was lying between them returned to her.
She jerked awake and rolled onto her side in complete blackness. It was dark enough to make her claustrophobic. She waved her hands in front of her. "Is anybody there?" she exclaimed. Her voice was reassuringly her own.
"Right here, Jo," a voice behind her said. She turned and saw the familiar glow of the fire in the lower corner of the room and realized that she was still safe. In her sleep, she had rolled towards the wall. Mike's form lay stretched out in sleep before the grate. Clerk 42 was either huddled up in some corner somewhere or else he was gone.
His face only partly illuminated by the glow of the small fire and the lower, even glow of the kerosene lamp by his side, the Doctor smiled at her.
"You're all right," she said.
"Of course, my dear. Just a bad spell. You must be feeling better. Come and sit by me, if you like. Wrap up in my cape."
Upon awaking after her rescue, Jo had found herself wearing one of the Doctor's undershirts and a dress shirt of his that came down to her knees. Neither was quite substantial enough in the chilly room.
She did as he said and joined him on a long, low bench where he had a few of his tools spread out. The floor was cold, and she folded her feet up onto the bench.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Dissecting a killer bee," he told her.
"A what?"
She could see him well enough to detect his smile as he gathered up his tools. "Actually a sub micronic device designed to generate an extraction field."
"I think I understood the term `killer bee' better," she said.
He leaned back against the blackened wall. "Yates has been following blind," he told her. "He knew that somebody was using an extraction field with extraordinary accuracy and selectivity. But he didn't know what he was looking for."
"What tipped him off?" she asked.
"He and Benton were attacked in the cells at UNIT yesterday," he told her. "Attacked by a small swarm of these things. Here it is. Take a look at it if you like," and he dropped something hard and cold onto her palm. Her hand flinched at the touch of the foreign item, but then she realized that it was not an insect at all. It felt a little like a bullet, a bullet with wafer-thin fins swirled around it.
"This attacked him?" she asked him.
"Part of a squadron," he told her. "Takes several of them to do the job. Mike nipped this one before Benton saw it, and then Clerk 42 nipped Mike out of there."
"I thought Mike wasn't going to tell you about his case," she said.
"Oh, I talked him into it once I came back around," he told her. "Yates can't understand the science behind this thing without our help, and we couldn't figure out what the Master was up to without Mike's help. So we've made a deal."
"So Clerk 42 actually came here to track down the Master," she guessed. "All that about bringing you along because I asked for you was just a story."
He chuckled and covered her hand with his for a moment, congratulating her on her enlightened cynicism regarding the High Council of the Timelords. "They had to coax a dying man with something, Jo," he confessed. "So they told me you were grieved and alone and heading into danger unless I took a hand to help you. The Master was in London, and you were heading for London, and that was enough for me. I came." He looked down at her in the dimness. "But things work out. I think they were inclined to help you. It just nicely dove tailed together for them. They can pay their debt to you and use me to track down the Master and see what he's up to."
* * * *
"All right, Yates," the Doctor began as Mike set down one disposable cup and hunted through the wrappers for another. Jo was also on her second cup of coffee. She felt a stab of genuine gratitude for the Clerk. In spite of his complaints about not knowing the eating habits of humans, and his several acid comments about their fondness for sweets being similar to that of monkeys and dogs, he had brought them down an excellent breakfast and had not stinted on the coffee.
"Look, are you finished, yet?" the Doctor asked him as Mike carefully poured cream into another steaming cup.
Free from UNIT and reunited with Jo, Mike's carefree side was reasserting itself in the enjoyment of food and companionship. "Why don't you eat something Doctor?" he asked instead of answering.
"These muffins are awfully good," Jo added enticingly. Her clothes had dried before the fire overnight, and she was glad to be in them again--warm and feeling much more herself.
The Doctor grimaced at the food, and Clerk 42 spoke up from where he reclined on the bed with a cup of tea. "The Doctor cannot eat. Leave him alone and get on with your work, you two."
As the Doctor said nothing to gentle the Clerk's rebuke, Mike and Jo dropped into obedient silence.
Though one corner of their worktable was taken up with the carry-away breakfast, most of it was dominated by the three heavily wired boxes that the Doctor had cobbled together overnight. The Doctor turned one so that Mike could see the crude control panel on the front of it.
"Just a simple affair, really," the Doctor told him. "I can guess fairly accurately on the bandwidth that those creatures use to communicate with each other and to communicate with their home base. These detectors are set to that bandwidth. They'll record any frequency emissions that they detect and the relative strength of each. We can use them to trace the operational broadcasts by means of simple triangulation. But they need to be set up very far apart from each other and very high up."
"I ought to be able to get that done this morning," Mike assured him. "Jo can help me, if she likes."
Jo's sudden stab of disappointment at the thought of leaving the Doctor's side--even for a morning--was quickly relieved.
"I need Jo with me today, " the Doctor told him quickly. "We're going back down to the river to find that boat. I tracked her to it once and got on board before it launched, but I want to find out who it's been registered to and where it's been seen along the river."
The comment startled her. "You were on the boat?" she asked him.
"Yes," he told her. "But I wasn't sure about the best way to proceed against the Master and his two henchmen--seeing that they were armed. So I waited around. I jumped overboard as they threw you in, and one of them thought he saw me and took a few shots at me. But I dived pretty low. By the time I came up, they had their attention fixed on you. I think they were deciding that their fellow had been seeing things."
"I did see a fourth person on the boat," she exclaimed. "So that was you."
"By the time I found you in the water, you were already in trouble," he added. "I pulled you down just in case they decided to swing the boat again or shoot at you."
"That freezing cold water doesn't affect you, Doctor?" Mike asked.
"It affected me more than I thought it would," he admitted. "And those chaps wouldn't leave right away, so it got downright parky out there for me. I was talking to you, Jo. But I suppose you didn't hear me?" he asked her.
"No," she said. "I remember that it felt like I was being pulled down, but--" she stopped suddenly.
"Sorry," the Doctor said quickly. "I was trying to tell you it was me, but the water had done its work. Clerk took forever to find us in that blasted rowboat--"
"I knew precisely where you were," Clerk 42 rejoined from the bed. "But it wouldn't do much good rowing right into gunfire, now would it? I had to stand out until they left. Miserable, cold work, that. And by then the girl was absolutely useless, except as deadweight."
"Once we got you into the boat, Clerk 42 transported you right to here, and then came back for me," the Doctor added.
"Yes, how do you do that?" Mike asked him. "That zapping in and out of places?"
"Magic," Clerk said dismissively. Mike grimaced.
"He's got a sophisticated type of TARDIS," the Doctor told him. "That bracelet on his wrist. But it doesn't allow for mass transit."
"A TARDIS the size of a bracelet!" Jo exclaimed in admmiration.
"Well, let's say it's an appendage to a TARDIS," the Doctor told her.
"And where's your TARDIS?" Jo asked.
"You see--" the Doctor began, but Clerk 42, suddenly annoyed, spoke up: "Enough of these interminable questions! These creatures are evolved from parrots, not monkeys! Get about your business, Doctor!"
"He's right," the Doctor said ruefully. Jo and Mike exchanged surprised glances. They had never heard the Doctor capitulate before. But Mike stood up. "Well then, I'll go get these set up. You say that they'll broadcast back to us?"
"Yes, and be picked up on that plotter there," the Doctor said with a nod at a compact plotter that stood near the table.
"All right then. See you later." Mike stood up, shrugged his way into his jacket, and collected the three detectors. "I'll be back as quickly as I can."
"Come back without leaving a trail!" Clerk 42 called after him. "If you can manage it."
Mike did not reply. He could not resist shooting a regretful glance at Jo, and then he went out. Jo looked pensive, but the Doctor jogged her out of her momentary concern.
"Well Jo, let's take a walk down to the river," he said, standing up.
"Sure you're up to it?" she asked.
He glanced down at her and smiled. "Oh, I'll be fine for the next twenty-four hours or so, especially as I've sworn off swimming in the Thames. Come on! You won't even be able to keep up with me!" He went to find his jacket and cape in the piles of clutter that lay everywhere.
Jo had to hunt for something to wear against the cold. The Master had taken her coat. The small fire in their basement headquarters kept it pretty warm. But when Mike had exited, the cold fresh wind from outside had warned them that the cold snap was not yet broken.
In the end, there was only one of the Doctor's smoking jackets to wear. Actually, it didn't make a bad sort of coat--just long enough on her to look like a car coat. She took the blue one and made due with Mike's scarf that he'd left behind.
"Ready?" the Doctor asked her, and he looked down and smiled, a sort of gentle pride and happiness in his eyes. Without thinking, he stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. She realized that he had missed her. In spite of his own pain, at the moment he was happy to be leading her into adventure again.
She smiled up at him, suddenly happy as well. "Ready, Doctor!"
The Clerk interrupted the moment. "Y'look like a dance team or a magic act," he observed sourly.
"What about you?" Jo asked as she pulled on a pair of gloves. "Going to sit here and keep watch? Sweep the hearth, tidy up a bit, and make tea?"
"If I like," he returned. "I haven't yet taken up the habit of reporting my actions to little chits whose clothes don't match."
"Better than answering to pompous asses who don't know their manners," she muttered.
"Listen you two," the Doctor began as he swung the door open. It was a narrow but heavy wooden door that opened at the foot of an aging set of steps. As he swung it open, it suddenly blew out from his hand, and he was pushed back as though from an invisible wall thrusting against him.
"Jo! Get back!" he exclaimed. The fire in the grate suddenly exploded into a sheet of flame and was abruptly extinguished. Clerk 42 rolled off the bed to his feet.
A cloud of gas came behind the invisible wall, and the Doctor pushed Jo all the way back to the Clerk. "Get her out of here! She'll die! It's taking out the oxygen!"
"What about you--there's an energy field building--" the Clerk began.
"Do it my way, you blasted idiot! Just get right back here for me!"
Clerk 42 quickly took Jo's wrist. "Oh, where, where?" he muttered quickly. Her cry of protest at leaving the Doctor was cut off as they disappeared. Before she could even blink, she found herself with him back on the train platform.
"Don't move from this spot!" he exclaimed.
"Just go get him!" she shouted.
But he continued to stand there. He slapped his right hand over the bracelet on his left wrist, a look of panic on his face.
"What are you waiting for?" she demanded. "Go get him!"
"I can't get back in!" he exclaimed. "The energy field's been built up. I'm being walled out. No, it's been dropped now."
He disappeared. At that early hour and in the cold, there were not many people on the platform. Jo waited breathlessly, but just as quickly he was back. He bent forward, coughing and gagging, his lungs full of the gaseous smoke that had infiltrated the room.
Automatically, she tried to help him, but he shook her off. "He's gone!" he said as soon as he could draw a breath. "Only a TARDIS could create a field like that. It must have been the Master. He's found the Doctor and captured him!"
