Colony in Space

A retcon is the deliberate retro-fitting of a story to make it fit the canon. The following story is from the televised canon of Doctor Who, with sections added to smooth it out and make it fit better.

NOTE: Anything that appears in indented boldface type is retcon material that I wrote as additional or changed material. The rest of the text is summary of the canonical version of the story.

Jo Grant crammed her ID card into her pocket and passed through the main doors of UNIT HQ. Sgt. Benton, hurrying to the morning conference, gave her a cheery wave to welcome her back. She smiled and waved back but did not stop to talk. On this morning of all mornings she must be punctual.

She went straight down the corridor and took the turn that brought her to the steps. She went straight down them, her heart now starting to pound, and she found the heavy lab doors. She swung one open and entered the lab. The Doctor was inside, looking down at a complex circuit which he had mounted on a special clamp that allowed him to work on it from almost any angle.

Jo wondered for a moment if he would pay her any notice at all. She had joined UNIT a little more than nine months ago, and she knew enough of the Doctor to realize that he was often unpredictable. He might take no notice of her abrupt week of leave. Or he might show considerable offence at her absence, for she had not asked his permission. Or, she thought regretfully, he might inform her that her tenure with him was over.

The Doctor's shifting attitude toward Jo had prompted the Brigadier to suggest a week of leave to her. She had departed UNIT while the Doctor was still collecting his TARDIS from the destroyed laboratory at the Nuton Power Complex.

Jo hesitated for a moment in the doorway and then stepped into the lab. At the sound, he looked up from the workbench. His lined face, curiously youthful, lit up at sight of her, and he hurriedly rose. "Why Jo, you're back!" he exclaimed. "Come on my dear. I've had the tea lady in on her morning rounds."

To her amazement, he sat her down at the workbench and brought her a covered cup of tea.

"Thank you, Doctor!" she said heartily, her dark eyes bright with gratitude at his welcome. She beamed up at him as she accepted the tea. He returned from his place across from her and pulled his own tea closer.

"I would have brought you tea," she added. As his assistant, it was one of her duties to do so.

"It was my pleasure, Jo," he said. "I've missed you around here. Why, I can't find anything. Hardly anything."

Her bright dark eyes swept the gleaming lab. It had seldom looked more orderly. Though Jo had spent many hours organizing the many shelves, cupboards, and inventory sheets for the Doctor, it was evident that he had tidied up a good bit during her absence.

Remorse, she thought, was a wonderful thing. Though at the moment it was a bit awkward. The Doctor seemed impatient to get back to the circuit he had been working on, yet he was smothering it in his determination to welcome her back. Part of this welcome obviously required conversation, and he was sitting there, hoping she might say something that he could chime in on. A few light words from her would cement their tranquility.

But she could think of nothing. Jo Grant had been so busy preparing for the worst that she was not prepared for the happy resolutions of her concerns about her tenure at UNIT. She took a long pull of her tea and tried to think of what to say. Her mind flicked over their brief history:

In spite of his protests that she was too young and inexperienced to be his assistant, she had rescued the Doctor from Rossini's circus during the Auton invasion. Later, in Stangmoor prison, she had protected and cared for him while he was in a coma after the Master's brutal treatment of him.

How odd, that after those two episodes, he had voiced yet another protest over her employment. Only after facing Axos, when all she had done was disobey orders, slow down their escape from the Axon ship, and shed many tears at his supposed treachery, did he seem inclined to accept her with no further protests. Indeed, his actions seemed designed to persuade her to stay.

"Well, I have missed you," he said again.

The silence began to get long.

"What's that thing you're working on, Doctor?" she asked.

"It's a new dematerialisation circuit." He straightened up, obviously pleased with himself. "If everything tests out correctly, I should be able to depart earth anytime I choose."

His confident optimism startled Jo Grant right out of her awkwardness with him. A laugh popped out before she could stop it, and her bright dark eyes beamed at him over the rim of the cup.

Good natured teasing was something he was comfortable with, and he glared at her in mock indignation. "Are you laughing at me, Miss Grant?"

"Well, you're always poking around that old police box," she added. "And you never get it going, Doctor!"

"I took Axos clean away with it!"

"Yes, but you were only gone a moment or two, and it chucked you right back," she exclaimed. "And even to get that far you had to hook in with Axos's drive system and the Nuton Power Complex." She glanced over at the TARDIS, which stood in its corner in the lab. "I don't suppose that thing could have gone anywhere on its own."

"Miss Grant, you have a closed mind," he pronounced. "From now on you shall get your own tea!" He returned to the circuit on the bench and put his jeweler's glass in his eye.

She set down her empty mug, cocked her head sympathetically, and took on a coaxing voice, "Doctor, why don't you give it up? You've been working on that thing for simply ages."

He lifted the complex circuit and scrutinized it through the jeweler's glass. "You know I can't give it up, Jo. It's far too important."

Just then, the Brigadier entered. "Ah, Miss Grant! Welcome back!"

"Thank you, sir."

He cocked an amused eyebrow at the Doctor, who squinted at the circuit through the jeweler's glass. "Still at it, Doctor?"

The Doctor took up a delicate probe and did not look up. "Now don't you start."

The Brigadier came around the workbench, pleased to see that peace reigned in the lab. "The latest field reports are in," he said. "Still no trace of the Master."

Without bothering to afford a glance at the Brigadier for such obvious news, the Doctor grunted and said, "I didn't expect there would be. His TARDIS is working now. He could be anywhere in space and time."

The assurance did not affect the Brigadier. "Yes, that's as may be, but I've got to keep looking."

"You're wasting your time, Brigadier."

The lab telephone interrupted them. Jo sprang up to answer it. "Hello? Laboratory. Yes, he's here." She looked up. "Brigadier."

"Coming." He came and scooped up the receiver. "Lethbridge Stewart." He paused. "Right. Send him into my office." He cradled the receiver and looked triumphantly at the Doctor. "One of my agents thinks he's picked up a trace of the Master."

Unimpressed, the Doctor continued to examine the circuit. "Your agents are always picking up traces of the Master."

The Brigadier's eyebrows went up at the Doctor's dismissiveness. "This particular agent happens to be particularly reliable, Doctor," he said stiffly. He strode to the lab door, his back rigid. "I'll let you know what he says---if you're interested." And he walked out while the Doctor, unperturbed, continued to work on the circuit.

Jo tilted her head. "Oh, Doctor. Now you've offended him." Her tone was half teasing and half coaxing.

"Well." And he relented enough to let the jeweler's glass drop into his hand. He shot her a sly look. "Look what happened last time. The fellow they arrested turned out to be the Spanish Ambassador."

She giggled, and he beamed in satisfaction at the circuit in his hand. "Well, there we are," he said. "That's done it."

She was interested. "Done what?"

"I've made myself a completely new dematerialisation circuit. One that will bypass the time lords' homing control. I hope!" He pocketed the jeweler's glass.

She smiled at him with good natured patience. "Doctor, you don't seriously think you'll get that thing working again, do you?"

Mildly offended, he replied with gentle sarcasm. "Oh no! I've been doing all this for fun!" He stood up and went to the TARDIS. Jo followed him.

"I mean," she added. "It's just a sort of hobby, isn't it? A kind of game."

He turned to look at her. "A game?" he echoed.

"Well---" She threw her glance at the old police call box. "What have you got in there, anyway, a policeman?"

He hesitated so briefly that Jo did not even realize it. "Why not come inside and see for yourself?" he asked her. There was a hint of challenge in his tone, the sort of challenge that children have when they dare each other to climb trees.

Jo had never known him to invite anyone into the sacred confines of the TARDIS. It was his refuge when the walls of earth had him boxed in; his consolation that offered him days and days of work and planning when time dragged. She glanced up at him as she walked past him, and she approached the narrow, open door. He followed her as she passed through the doorway and came into the gleaming control room.

Her mouth fell open, and she stopped for a moment in wonder, then cautiously edged around the room, staying close to the walls. She stared at the gleaming floor, the vaulting ceiling, and the futuristic console. He strode to the console in the center of the room.

"I don't believe it!' she said when she had her voice back. "It's bigger inside than out."

"Yes, that's because the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental." He pulled open a slot in one of the console's panels. She tore her eyes from the various electronic paraphernalia. "What does that mean?"

He glanced at her. "It means that the TARDIS is bigger inside than out." He connected the circuit and closed the panel. Neither of them noticed the doors as they swung closed in silence.

The Doctor eagerly rubbed his hands. "Now then!" Just as he reached for the testing switch, the central column of the console rose and then fell. He stared at it, amazed. The piston picked up speed and a steady rhythm. "That's impossible!" he exclaimed.

Jo turned and saw the doors. "The doors are closed!" she exclaimed. She turned to him as he checked the controls. "Doctor, let me out of here," she pleaded. Jo was never comfortable with the unknown, and she wanted to be back in the familiar lab where he could explain the wonders of the TARDIS to her.

He quietened his voice. "I can't Jo. I think we're taking off."

Her eyes darted over the moving column in the center of the console. "Well, stop it!"

He quickly checked the controls. "I'm trying to. Something's operating it by remote control."

The curious wheezing, groaning noise that Jo had only heard once before suddenly filled the spacious control room. His eyes narrowed. "The time lords!" he whispered to himself.

Jo's voice shook slightly when she spoke. She tried to sound firm with him. "All right, Doctor, the joke's over. Open the door and let me out?" she pleaded.

He realized that she was truly frightened. Jo Grant was a person who found great security in the ordinary. He quietened his expression and his eyes and come around the console toward her. He looked her in the eye. "I can't, Jo," he said gently. "We've taken off."

She challenged him, still nervous but trying to control circumstances with a good dose of skepticism. "All right then. Where are we?"

"At the moment, we're no where," he told her frankly. He threw his glance to a view screen set into one wall. It was blank, though it flickered.

"Oh don't be silly. We can't be no where," she told him.

"We're outside the space time continuum. Look."

She turned to the screen at his nod. For a moment she was completely unable to realise what was going on. "What's happening? Where are we going?"

"I've no idea. We'll just have to wait until we emerge." He watched the screen. A planet appeared and grew more distinct as they left the vortex. "Planet Zaxarious," he said. "So that's our destination."

Jo made her voice coaxing. "Very impressive. But can we go back to Earth now, please?"

"I don't know, Jo. I just don't know." He returned to the console. She stayed where she was, close to the doors, ready to dart out as soon as she could.

The sound of the TARDIS abruptly ceased. The screen changed to depict a barren, rocky, landscape, surrounded by sharp, bleak hills.

"Is that supposed to be where we are?" she asked.

"That is where we are," he corrected.

She turned to him, her wide dark eyes both frightened and doggedly skeptical. "All right then, if we've landed on another planet, why don't you open the doors?"

"Because the atmosphere out there might be poisonous, that's why. I'll just check. He skimmed his hands over the controls on one panel of the console.

She waited and then demanded, "Is the atmosphere out there poisonous?"

"No, no. It's quite healthy. Similar to earth before the invention of the motor car."

She was impatient and nervous. She went up to the closed doors and then turned to look at him, keeping her distance now that she was forcing him to confront the truth. "Look Doctor, are you going to open the doors or not?"

"I can but try." He activated the door control.

She had her back to the doors, but she heard them swing open to let her escape. "Thank you!" she exclaimed. She turned to escape and then stopped. Before her stretched the vast, unfriendly landscape that she had seen on the screen. "Doctor!" she exclaimed. She turned panicked eyes to him.

He tried to sound encouraging. "That's an alien world out there, Jo. Think of it!"

She ran back to the center of the room, afraid of the vast alien world. "I don't want to think of it! I want to go back to earth!"

He turned startled and disappointed eyes on her. "Look, do you realize how long I've been confined to one planet?"

His words drove home to her the truth that she had missed all along. She realized in an instant what she had missed ever since joining UNIT. "All that talk of yours about traveling in time and space!" she exclaimed. "It was true!" She sounded horrified, and she stared up at him as though she had never seen him before. All the strangeness of the strange world was suddenly hung on him. And she was suddenly alone in a strange world with a stranger.

He came around the console again, his face and eyes calm and kind. "Of course it was all true." And he stroked back her hair in a gesture that restored to her a sense of all that was familiar and safe about him. He looked steadily at her eyes. "Before I was stranded on Earth, I spent all my time exploring new worlds and seeking the wonders of the universe."

The steadiness of his eyes calmed her sudden fear of him. But she was still afraid of the new world.

"But you don't know what's out there!"

"Then let's find out! Don't you want to set foot in another world?" His eyes were so earnest and so filled with longing that her own good nature had to give in at least a little. "Well yes I do, but---"

He slipped around her and went to get his cloak, which hung on a coat stand in the corner. "Good!" He struggled into it while a sudden wind whined down the barren hills outside and echoed in the TARDIS.

She stayed where she was, facing the safe interior, unwilling to turn to the world outside.

He made his voice quiet. "Come on. We'll just take a quick look around, and then I'll try to get you back to Earth. All right?"

She knew then that he was alien, but she was no longer afraid of him. It was clear that he loved the unknown as much as she loved earth. She forced a smile and then turned. "All right."

He led her out onto the new world. The keen wind ruffled back his hair and he gave a sigh of pleasure as he locked the TARDIS doors behind them. In the gray and bleak landscape, a single flower, supported on a tough, rope-like stalk, was thrust up from the rough soil. Jo took hold of it without thinking. It came away easily from the ground, as though ready to be picked. The unearthly beauty of the fragile and broad petals charmed Jo for a moment and even awakened her curiosity as she skimmed one finger along the contour of the velvety, slightly sticky blossom. But she felt open and vulnerable in the barren ravine below the hills, as though unfriendly eyes were watching. She glanced up the walls of the ravine.

The Doctor's face lighted up with sudden interest and a new awareness. He carefully took several paces along a narrow line in the shallow soil, his eyes fixed on the ground.

"What is it?" Jo asked.

"Double line of tracks made by some sort of machine," he told her as she observed the lines in the soil and fell into step behind him. "This planet must be inhabited after all." He looked around, measured with his eye to the top of the nearest steep hill, and said, "I think we'll get a better view from up there." He strode forward.

Uncertain, she stayed still.

After a moment he realized that she wasn't walking after him. He stopped and looked back. "Come on. What are you waiting for?"

Her big dark eyes were doubtful. "I feel a bit scared," she said. The further they pushed from the TARDIS, the more vulnerable she felt.

He made his voice parental: that of a father who is certain that there is nothing to fear. "Come on, Jo," he coaxed. He stepped back towards her and held out his hand. "There's nothing to worry about."

It was impossible to resist him. In spite of the Doctor's early protests about her youth and inexperience, the Doctor had always taken care of her in whatever danger they found themselves. She took his hand and started up the hill with him.

About halfway up, she noticed something and pointed. "Those things up there---" she began.

"Some sort of prefabricated dwelling," he told her. "There's another one, a smaller one up there." And he pointed to another with his free hand. "Let's go and take a look.

"Oh no you don't!" she exclaimed, and a knife's edge of steel entered her voice. "Let's get back to the TARDIS!"

Exploring was one thing, but meeting alien people was something else altogether. Jo had already encountered the Nestenes and the creature from the Keller machine. That was quite enough exposure to extraterrestrial life for her tastes.

He realized that he could push her no further. "Yes, all right," he agreed. To his own surprise, he was not annoyed with her. She had actually ventured out further than he would have given her credit for, and it struck him that she had done so for his sake, trying to understand him. He decided to focus on details that might capture her interest. "Um, do you mind if I take a look at that rock first? It looks rather unusual." He pointed to a long spine of rock that narrowed to a finger and then crumbled into pieces. A narrow vein of silvery ore ran through it, creating a tiny fault from which the crumbling pieces were falling away. They bent to examine it.

Jo took a step closer to the Doctor and looked up at him with anxious eyes. She wanted to go home, and he knew it. But he saw from her eyes that she would what he said, with a little assistance and reassurance.

"It's all right," he told her. "I want to talk to Ashe first. Go with her, and I'll join you later."

"All right," she said quietly. He smiled at her.

Dent allowed him to get a full look at her. For though she was now near fifty, she had the lithe, athletic body of a young woman. And she wore a uniform customized to accentuate her physical prowess.

But the only reaction to flicker across the stranger's face was one of faint recognition at the extra piping on her collar that marked her as the captain.

If she had been disappointed in the Doctor's reaction at sight of her, the faces of the men who now watched her more than made up for it. Dent smiled slightly at her private joke.

Owing to antiquated laws that rewarded monogamy as a partial solution to the population boom, people still married on Earth. But leisure time and the ethics of complete equality relegated marriage to being a mere convenience for people. Until they became colonists.

She had seen enough of colonists to know that the current sexual mores did not apply to them. Put them on a hostile planet with nothing but their hands and a few tools to work with, and their society invariably reverted back to patriarchy. The men, who could labor longer at the heaviest outdoor work, suddenly became the rulers of their own fields.

And with that rule came the rulership of their own little economy. The women, afraid of disease and pregnancy in such a tough environment, became much more dependent. Marriage became a foundation stone of security to both genders. And children---viewed as liabilities on Earth---suddenly became assets. Not only assets, but in the absence of sophisticated entertainment and numerous occupations of time on earth, they became the cherished companions of their parents.

Within a generation, a colony would be practically worshiping monogamy and fidelity. And things like modesty---which she especially detested in men---would inevitably become part of the colonial psyche.

But she would be a breath of fresh air from the past. She intended to be. It pleased her to see the alarm in their eyes as they saw her in the tight black uniform, and they remembered the now forbidden pleasures of Earth.

She walked up to the little group of dusty men, looked each in the face, and then spoke in the flat, militarily precise voice that would snap them back to their current situation. It drove home to them that she was not for their pleasure, that they were nothing but miserable and starving colonists, trapped in the lives they had chosen for themselves. And she was about to drive them off the planet. IMC's planet. Her planet.

Things at last were going well, and Captain Dent, who never missed details, now regarded Jo Grant with a long, thoughtful expression. "You do not dress as a colonist," she said to Jo. "Your clothing is as outlandish as that other fellow's---the Doctor."

No doubt to Captain Dent this was a valid observation. Jo wore black denim jeans and a knit sweater. Dent stepped back and ran her eyes down Jo from shoulder to foot, and then back again, appraising the young woman's body. The young girl turned away, and Winton actually turned crimson.

"Yet you have the morality of the colonists," Dent observed. "Just like the Doctor. You must not be from Earth." She held out her hand and nodded to the Security man holding Jo's arms. "Keep hold of her, but give me her hand."

The captor instantly pulled Jo's right arm up behind her back to keep her in submission and with his other hand on her left wrist, he forced her left arm out and extended her hand to Captain Dent.

Jo pulled back, resisting this as much as she would have resisted putting her hand in a flame or vice.

Dent took the flinching hand in both of hers and examined it.

"Rings," she said. Her eyes met Jo's. "No, you are certainly not a colonist. You wear rings and your hands are soft." She released the hand, and Jo gladly let the security guard pull it back.

Dent thoughtfully paced to her desk and picked up her swagger stick. It was surprisingly heavy for an accessory that was meant to be ornamental. It was wrapped in double-stitched leather, and one end was padded with sand and criss-crossed with tiny leather bands tightly sewn down.

She crossed back to her captives. She put the weighted, padded end of the swagger stick under Jo's chin and forced the young girl's head up.

"Why don't you leave her alone?" Winton snapped.

Dent ignored him. "Who sent you here?" she asked Jo.

"Nobody sent us," Jo said faintly.

"So you are working with the Doctor?"

"Yes," Jo said. "He's a scientist. He has a ship called the TARDIS, but it hasn't worked in ages. When I teased him about it, he brought me aboard, and we took off. But he couldn't control it properly. It landed here."

"I have seen no other ship!" Dent snapped. "What does it look like?"

"Rather---rather like a tall blue box," Jo told her. Dent forced Jo's chin up further and gazed down at the girl's eyes, then abruptly lowered the swagger stick and stepped back. "Are you a scientist?" she asked.

No," Jo said.

"What then? His mate? His daughter?"

"Just his assistant."

Dent raised her eyebrows. "Is that what they call it now?"

The insinuation brought a laugh from the security team and a blush to the girl's cheeks. "It's not like that. The Doctor is a---a very proper gentleman!" she began, and all of them laughed at her, including Dent.

Smiling, Dent used the padded end of the swagger stick to pat Jo's cheek. "You are very quaint. I shall be pleased to see what sort of gentleman this Doctor is."

To his surprise, the Doctor was met by only a single IMC guard when he came aboard the massive, gleaming ship. Instead of being led into the recreation room where he had been kept before, he was led down several long corridors, away from the command centre of the ship. Just as he would have become suspicious, two more guards fell into step behind him, and he was brought through a doorway into a room that he took to be a private office.

There was a desk, but also a couch against one wall, and the room was heavily decorated with exotic bits of art from Earth. The lighting was dim. He was escorted in, but Dent immediately ordered the guards to wait outside. A heavy, sweet scent of either perfume or incense hung in the air.

She had been seated behind her desk, but she stood up as the door closed behind the guards. "I demand the return of Jo Grant and Ellis Winton!" the Doctor snapped.

As she came around the desk, her shoulders relaxed instead of tensed, he realized that she had changed clothes. Then he amended his observation. She had removed the short, long-sleeved jacket reserved for the high ranking IMC personnel. Her shoulders and arms were bare.

"Do you?" she asked him, her voice soft. "Surely you realize that they were trespassing on an IMC spaceship, with intent to commit theft and acts of espionage."

She held his eye with hers, pleased to see that his expression---behind the iron mask of determination---was troubled. She deliberately stepped closer to him, almost pushing into him, but then stopped. She was satisfied to see that he did not retreat.

"I could have your two friends executed for piracy," she said softly.

"That would be unwise," he told her, his voice and eyes stern.

"I think so," she agreed. "They suit me so much better as insurance against any inflated claims you had planned to make to the Adjudicator."

She paused to let her words sink in to him, allowing him to understand her power over him, now that she had his girl captive. At last as he seemed to realize his helplessness, she slid one hand up his shoulder. He glanced down at it, almost as though he did not comprehend. Then he turned his eyes to her as realisation dawned. His face and eyes became quiet.

"You are a very strong man, Doctor," she said. "What is the girl to you? What will you do to make sure that she is treated well?"

"Anything," he told her.

She smiled and watched his eyes, watched to see the disgust, desire, and self-loathing that would be there as he capitulated his will to her will and let her use him. She stroked the back of his neck, and he compliantly bent closer to let her slip her arms around his neck. She raised her lips to kiss him.

The pity in his glance, the patient and disinterested forbearance as she would have kissed him, went over her like ice water dashed into her face. Worse, as he was so close to her, and she was in his arms, his gaze looked directly into her, through her. She could not stop him from seeing her, from brushing aside the leather uniform, the cosmetic perfection, the sight and scent of her. He looked right through her and in an instant saw her as even she did not know herself, found nothing of interest, and withdrew from the inspection, covering her again with her own facade as a man might drape the corpse of a dead woman out of pity for her.

She broke free of his arms and retreated behind the desk. She started punching up buttons in rapid succession while his gaze still rested on her.

The door burst open, and the three security men entered.

"You know the consequences, Doctor! You know the consequences!" she babbled. "The girl is chained to a bomb somewhere with the male colonist. If you betray me, I shall destroy them both---in an instant!"

Still not able to look at him, she suddenly rounded on the guards. "What are you waiting for? Get him out of here! Take him away!"

They shoved him out the door. "You heard me Doctor!" she shouted after him. "You know that I'll do it!"

Jo was standing inside, head down, eyes preoccupied with worry.

"Doctor!" She rushed forward and flung her arms around him.

"Jo! You're all right!" And to her surprise, he kissed the top of her head as he caught her. In an instant she realized that he had been afraid for her. "You all right?" he asked anxiously. He tilted her chin up and looked directly into her eyes.

"Yes, quite all right!" she said quickly. She beamed up at him, confident and happy now that he had come. He scanned her eyes quickly, but they revealed a spirit and mentality intact and unharmed. IMC had not seriously hurt her, nor had the Primitives.

"I'm afraid I left the land rover a good half mile from here," the Doctor told Jo as they trudged away from the Primitive city.

I don't mind the walk," she told him. "I was cooped up in there for ever so long." Her voice was cheerful, but her eyebrows were together, and her dark eyes were perplexed.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Well, when we took off," she said. "You said something about the controls being operated by remote control."

"Yes," he told her. "The time lords most likely." He had nearly forgotten.

"But why?" she asked. "Are they marooning us? Are they still angry with you? Are they on the Master's side?"

He let out a sudden laugh. "Oh no. No, Jo. They are not on the Master's side." He became more thoughtful and then shook his head. "No, I don't think they are especially angry with me, not any more than before. And probably a good deal less. No, I don't know what they're after."

She hesitated. "Who are they anyway, Doctor?"

"Oh . . . " He searched for an analogy to satisfy her. "Sort of like imperious old school masters of mine. Rather stern old chaps and a bit narrow minded. But not---not evil, Jo. Not like the Master. Just---" And he frowned. "Just blasted high handed. Especially when it comes to me!"

She looked up at him as they picked their way over the rough ground. Her dark eyes showed uncertainty. He glanced at her, and he helped her over a shelf of loose rock as they started uphill to the land rover.

"Are you more like us or more like them?" she asked.

"Well, I am a time lord, Jo," he told her. "But the ethics of good and evil, right and wrong, don't change from one species to another. And I like to think of myself as being on the side of what's good and what's right."

This reply suited her exactly. She nodded and smiled up at him, reassured. He pointed out the land rover above them and they toiled up the barren hill. He half expected her to ask about the chances of going home, but she did not. Now caught up in the urgency of the plight of the colonists, she had forgotten her fears for herself.

The Doctor once again found himself revising his opinion of her. He handed her up into the land rover with an old world gallantry that made her laugh.

"Wait a moment." Dent held up her hand and looked at Jo. "I want her rings."

Jo nearly shrank back but then steeled herself. Dent strode across the space between the guards and the condemned captives. Before she could snatch up Jo's hand, Jo held it out to her.

"Captain Dent, you have saved me from despairing of myself," the Master said icily, staring into the distance. "It's nice to know, at the very end, that I have not sunk quite so low as others."

"Is there nothing too despicable for you to do?" the Doctor asked.

There were a few things I would have tried," she said, as she neatly stripped the rings from Jo's fingers. She slipped one of the rings on and examined her hand. She glanced up at him and met his eye. "But you were unwilling, Doctor."

She took Jo's other hand, removed the rings, and walked out of firing range.

The Doctor glanced down at Jo, and she suddenly gripped his hand, afraid. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "We should have gone back to the TARDIS when you said."

Her eyes were big, and wet with fear, but she shook her head. "No---no, I chose. After a while. I wanted to stay." Her voice gasped, and she would have closed her eyes as Dent gave the order to take aim. But his eyes suddenly held hers, quiet, calm, and powerful. She couldn't look at the guns, but she could look up at him.