InsidersEpisode 7 |
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The Doctor became aware that a warm, slack weight against his left shoulder was cramping his arm behind his back. He gave a tug to straighten himself out, and he found that he could not bring his arm forward. In fact, he could not bring either arm forward. They were pinned behind his back. And the weight would not move off his shoulder.
He opened his eyes. The limp weight was Mags, slumped against him. He craned his neck around and saw that her arms were bound behind her, as were his. They were sitting, their knees up to their chins, in a sturdy metal cage that was suspended high in the air. From down below, he heard what sounded like a crowd of people milling around.
His knees had stayed propped in place because the heels of his shoes were set against a cross bar in the flooring of the cage. He did not straighten his legs yet.
"Mags," he said. He tried to jostle her. "Mags! Wake up! We're in trouble."
She opened her eyes, winced, and gingerly straightened up from his shoulder. But her mind was right back on track. "In a jam is right. A right proper jam." She gazed up at him, her green eyes still slightly fogged with pain from the knock on the head. "What in thunder possessed you to put a palm print on a Tusker's desk? In the dark? I mean, how green are you when it comes to dealin' wi' strangers?"
He frowned. "Why? What did it mean?"
"It means you signed our lives away, Major. You signed off your rights, and probably all your bank accounts, and you agreed to whatever the Tuskers have got wrote up for you. And me, too, I might add!"
She looked around, saw the walls of the cage around them, tugged on her wrists, and then craned her neck to look down. She sniffed, and he knew that her senses, more acute than any human's and more acute than his own, were providing her with more detailed information. "My 'eart, it figgers!" she exclaimed. She straightened up and glared at him.. "It just figgers!"
"What?"
"These porkers are runnin' a game. A fight game. Gladiator style. And it looks like we're tonight's main event---"
"But that's illegal in Guardian City!" He was astonished. "There's no violence allowed at all, not in sports or in earnest. And there's certainly no betting!"
"No, o' course not!" Her eyes were filled with disdain. "These beasts have us in a Tusker enclave, which is lots less likely to be invaded and searched, and lots more likely to get plenty of warnin' from Tusker lookouts. An' even if there is a raid, since you signed us away so nicely, they'll get nicked for runnin' an illegal game, maybe, but we'll be held responsible for our own fates." She stopped and let this idea sink in on him. And then she added, "This is 'ow you get away wit' murder in Guardian City."
He nodded. He got right down to strategy. "They'll lower us down to fight---tied up like this?" he asked. "More like a slaughter?"
"It's up to us to get outta these ropes. Lean forward. I know a thing or two."
He pulled himself forward, and she rolled behind him. He heard the velcro fasteners of her jumpsuit pull apart as she freed her inner hands from their hiding place. Luckily, the Tuskers had assumed that she was as human as she depicted herself. They had not detected her inner hands.
Tark inner hands were designed for grabbing and holding, and they lacked the dexterity of their outer hands or of human hands. But Mags was dogged. She kept at it, even when the cage suddenly trembled as somebody in the darkness of the catwalks that surrounded them took control of a winch.
"Got it!" she said as they started to move. She rolled away before he could turn and see her inner hands exposed.
He made no comment on them, and when she said, "I bit the ropes through," he did not contradict her. He swiftly untied her hands. They were lowered a great distance. He got up on his knees and looked out at the building as they came under the glare of the overhead lights. She deftly pulled the jumpsuits flap back into place over her inner hands, restoring the illusion of having a human bustline. She also came up on her knees.
A truly human female may have found the noise and the din and the appreciative audience somewhat daunting, but the Doctor could almost see her cloud of curly hair fluffing out, and Mags' green eyes shone in sudden anticipation.
They were being lowered into an arena, in the center of a great room that housed about three hundred people.
* * * *
Though Sarah followed the route of the slain miners back to a passage that seemed to be part of the tooled passageways, she did not find water, and she felt a stab of disappointment. But even as she nearly gave up and would have turned around, the breeze changed, and she smelled the water nearby.
She had to search in a crouch or on hands and knees, for in this dim recess, away from the brilliant light that poured down on the reflective walls, she was almost completely blind. She crept into the passage, and carefully stood, her fingers guiding her along the cave wall. Keeping her hands on the smooth wall, she followed the breeze, which carried the scent of water. It suddenly strengthened. The wind puffed against her cheek, and she realized that a passage had opened on her left. The opening was wide and tall, to judge from the echoing quality that she felt as she stood at its threshold, as though it had been carved by ancient hands to make a great archway.
Trying to see, she peered inside the cavern and then hesitantly ventured into it. Her shoe touched water, and she drew it back. She listened. There was something about the silence, a vastness. It was the silence of a great pool. She sensed rather than saw that this was a room even larger than the lighted cavern, and that a great lake lay in it.
There was no question of whether or not the water was dangerous to drink. She never even thought about it. She went to hands and knees and crawled forward until the still, clear water was nearly up to her elbows. And then she drank. It tasted fresh and clean. She buried her face in it, felt the coolness ease the burning of her skin and eyes. She lifted her face out, and then lowered it again and drank.
She suddenly plunged forward, almost completely immersing herself. The coolness offered a temporary relief from the mites. She flung back her hair and tried to look around.
It was amazing that the water immediately reduced some of the inflammation of her eyes. Her vision was improved. She was, indeed, on the shore of a great lake. Up above, another passage opened into this vast cavern, a steep drop off from which---perhaps---a brave person could dive down into the water. Further away, a rope bridge had been built across a top corner of the cavern. With her vision improved, she saw that light from the cathedral filtered in behind her, and up above, the faint glow of torches warned her that the miners traveled up above, perhaps down here as well.
Reminded of her danger from their spears, and the need to hurry, Sarah Jane bent down and drank again. She carefully washed her eyes, using her wet fingers to scrub along the eyelids until they were clean. And then she rinsed them again and again, splashing water by the handfuls over her face. She drank again and then took a risk of losing contact with the dangers around her, and she immersed her head into the water. From the tingling, she sensed that the tiny mites were daunted by this. She lifted her head and flung her wet hair back. She was afraid to undress and bathe, but she scooped the water up and down herself. In spite of her terror of the giant spider, Sarah Jane knew that her best chance lay in the shelter of the stone trench, where the spider could not get her, and where the miners did not dare venture.
The injury from Dhunlup's spear still sharply pained her, especially as she moved on hands and knees, and she had some thought that the water might ease the pain if she bathed the bruised area. But it did not have much effect, though her long drinks seemed to ease the discomfort. She took one final drink.
When she turned to go back to her shelter, her vision was much better, and she felt stronger. And yet, by the time she had ventured up the short walkway to the main cavern, she was weak and nauseated by hunger.
This weakness increased so quickly that she was nearly fainting by the time she got back to the lighted cavern. She saw, to her dismay, that the spider was back in its waiting place, barring an opening in the far end. But it was as far away from her as possible, and it made no move when she entered. Staying along the wall, Sarah Jane carefully made her way to the trench. Just as she got to the lip of her sanctuary, something tapped her head. She screamed and dropped inside, then rolled under the low stone roof, but she was unhurt. It had been the great tongue of the creature, swift as a bullet, accurate. Yet it had not killed her. Weak and shaken, she came forward into the trench. She crouched down, her eyes just at the rim, and she watched her captor.
A great breeze was sucked up as the creature slowly lifted itself. Stepping carefully, with a certain hideous grace, it crossed the cavern, the blocks of sunlight on its carcass showing that it was an ebony color and covered with fine, sensory hairs. Sarah Jane scuttled back into the niche as it neared her. She hid under the low rock roof to make herself a difficult target. But it stopped short of the trench. For a long moment there was silence, and then something rolled across the cavern floor and dropped into the niche: a globular, golden ball about the size of a basketball.
Numb with fear, Sarah Jane watched from the furthest, darkest corner of her hiding place. A moment later, a second globule rolled over the rim of the trench and came to a stop alongside the first. She heard the tremendous sound of the massive creature rising again. It lifted itself, and she knew from the change in breeze that it was returning to its watching place.
A sweet, delicate odor rose from the globules. The aroma calmed her. She realized this effect and became suspicious. She crawled forward from the protective overhang and peeped up over the rim of the trench. She considered the option of hurling the foreign objects out of her safe niche, not trusting what they might be. Still unsure, she sank back down out of the spider's sight---if it had sight. The globules were filling the niche with delicate, delicious fragrance, and Sarah Jane's insides knotted painfully, responding to the enticing aroma.
She saw the plastered walls around her, and the old Scottish woman bent over her, not able to see her well. "Eat, poor little lass. Why don't you eat?"
Sarah Jane was not in a bed for this vision. She was seated in a small kitchen. She looked down at a table made of rough planks, laden with bowls of porridge and oatmeal and small round plates of pikelets. Golden honey and rich brown syrup had been poured over everything. The scent nearly drove her mad with longing. The old woman rested an arm across her shoulders and her nearness carried with it a scent of flowers and a sense of calm stillness. She lifted a spoonful of the oatmeal, heavy with a mantle of sweet syrup, toward Sarah Jane, clumsily pointing at her mouth. Sarah Jane obediently opened her mouth and ate. She didn't taste the oatmeal, only the syrup. It was warm and soothed her stomach cramps. She accepted a second spoonful and then she forgot all reticence. The woman, now more certain, fed her with quick scoops, and Sarah Jane ate without pause, hardly drawing a breath between gulps. The nearsighted brown eyes of the old woman were shining down at her with approval, the soft fragrance was all around her, and the soothing food took away her pain and weakness.
Embarrassment nudged at Sarah Jane for such bad table manners, but there was not a word of criticism from the woman, who fed her so quickly she was practically shoveling it in. And when Sarah Jane had finished, panting as though she had completed a race, she threw her arms around the old woman. "Please, who are you?" she asked.
"You may call me Jeanne, lass," the woman said. "Is that not a good name?"
"Yes, thank you," Sarah Jane sobbed.
"And the guardian of the chapel is Athena."
"But who are you?" Sarah Jane asked. “Who are you, really?”
"I have to see you better before I understand enough to answer that."
"But I'm right here!" Sarah exclaimed.
"I know. And I'm right here as well, but you do not really see me very clearly. Perhaps you should see a picture, first. Look over there, at the floor." And the woman pointed to the floor of the small kitchen, just beyond the table. "Along the wall."
Sarah followed the direction indicated with her eyes. For a moment she didn't see anything, but then she realized that the baseboard of the wall had been cut through with a tiny hole, the size of a large coin. And only a few inches from the hole, some hand had set down several seeds, a few pieces of unshelled walnut, and a crumb or two of cake.
As though enticed by the smell of food, a tiny face appeared at the hole, eyes bright and curious. Its cautious whiskers trembled with sensitive awareness. It spent a cautious moment listening and looking, and then with a nimble little hop, it leaped clear of the hole and rapidly took up a seed, eating quickly and moving to the next tiny morsel of its breakfast. It was a beautiful little mouse, chocolate brown, with tiny pink paws that were nearly hands.
"That is the food she likes best," Jeanne said. "And I put it down for her without fail. But I am so big, you see." Her hand came to rest on Sarah's head. "And every other large creature would kill her or drive her off. She cannot comprehend that I intend her no harm, because she has never known a creature like me."
The tiny mouse, alerted by some scent or sound that Sarah Jane could not detect, or perhaps frightened by its own fears, whisked back into its hole. After a moment, the eyes and face appeared again, scanning the area around its hole, where its breakfast lay half eaten.
"It will finally eat everything I provide, after great fear and indecision. But you," Jeanne said kindly, and yet soberly. "Don't be afraid to ask for mercy." And Sarah sensed that this might be a command as well as an invitation. "It is the one request that you understand even as we understand it. Ask for mercy, and you will receive mercy."
Sarah Jane opened her eyes to find herself lying on the floor of the trench. Just as she woke up, she saw the brown, stalk-like tongue whisk away. She sat up. There was sticky syrup around her mouth, and her right hand was coated with it. Nearby, both globules had an empty, deflated look, with trickles of syrup oozing from hand-size holes in their waxy caps.
* * * *
"These aren't all Tuskers!" the Doctor exclaimed as their slow descent gave him a better view of the crowd.
"No, not 'ardly." Mags was patting her pockets, looking for a cigarette to put in her mouth and checking herself for any weapons. "The Tuskers do the shang-hai work, and they tell the crowd we sold ourselves into it. I mean, if anybody asks. But these shang-hai things ain't common. Usually it's two Tuskers hammerin' at each other with swords and flails."
The crowd was predominantly that species that Mags called Tuskers, but dots of blue among the faces showed Salafians, and the bald pates of Ogrons were visible towards the back, and a knot of cloudy halos of hair indicated Tarks near the main doors. Some humans were looking on, but not many. Faces that were unearthly pale showed a few other races, and in one corner, the dark, furry, multi-armed body of a Hybranath sat in semi-isolation. Few humanoids of any species could sit very close to that Hybranathian smell.
"They've got some weapons laid out below," the Doctor said.
"Good. My pockets 'ave been picked clean."
The cage came to rest on the floor of the arena, which was a barred enclosure, open at the top, but webbed up the sides with wide steel mesh. Two short stabbing swords lay on the arena floor.
"Spare me," she whispered. "There's that fat ambassador that conked us. Ringside. Smilin'."
Their cage had no top on it, and so they climbed out of it. There was no question of staying in it, for any attackers could enter with swords and chop them to bits. They had to leave the cage to get their own weapons. As soon as they climbed out, it was lifted back up. Two Tusker warriors, their belts loaded with four knives each, were admitted from two different lockable doors at opposite corners of the square arena.
Mags and the Doctor scooped up their swords and stood back to back, facing their opponents.
"Am I dreamin'?" she whispered. "Or are there only two of them?"
"They won't underestimate us for long," he said. "They can fill this arena with as many of their fighters as they like."
"Then let's start the body count!" She let loose with a fiendish yell of victory and rushed the Tusker who approached her. The Doctor had no time to look at her, for his own man was on him just as avidly, but he heard the crowd give a yell of delight at her eagerness. She was half the size (or less) of her opponent. But before the leering Tusker drew a knife, her sword flashed, and she severed his hand from his wrist.
She yelled again, her green eyes turning to huge balls of ferocious light, her strong white teeth out. From somewhere out in the crowd, a shout of horror went up, and then a cry of anger.
Mags backed up only far enough to take a running leap at the stunned fighter. Her feet struck him in the chest, and her sword arced across his face, taking off one ear and part of his scalp before it clanged off his tusk. The door behind him opened and two more Tuskers charged in. One seized the wounded fighter and dragged him out. The other charged at her, his longest knife---a blade as long as her own weapon---raised.
She leaped away with a nimbleness not given to humans and then leaped like a frog high against the walls of the arena. Her small hand grasped the mesh, and her booted feet found toe holds in it. For a moment she hung in place like a monkey and glared down at him.
The Doctor, for his part, had been far less blood thirsty than Mags, and he was starting to regret it. The first rush from his tusked adversary had been easy to sidestep, and he had sent the armed alien crashing into the metal cross bars of the arena wall. But the fighter came up, undaunted, with a knife in each hand. He rushed again. The Doctor took advantage of slightly superior reach from his long legs and slammed him with a kick in the chest that stopped him before he could stab the Doctor. But the shock of the blow into that massive chest nearly threw the Doctor off balance.
The timelord rolled ungracefully out of the way to avoid a second attack from the knives. Mercy had to be set aside. He ducked again as the whirling knives came at him. He dropped lower to the ground than a human male could have easily done, and as he came up behind the Tusker, he swung his sword in a short, accurate, and vicious arc and hamstrung his opponent.
Another Tusker was already being admitted into the arena on the Doctor's side. But the outraged yelling from members of the audience was getting louder. There seemed to be some sort of scuffle going on in the aisles.
The fresh Tusker rushed the Doctor, and the time lord danced away, grabbed his wounded opponent by the thick mat of hair on the back of the neck, and pulled him up as a shield just as the new man struck. The wounded Tusker caught the blow in the joint of his shoulder. The knife was wedged in place. Perhaps horrified at such a blunder, or just wild with anger, the new attacker actually tried to pull it out.
Mags, from her high perch, saw this and swung herself like an agile tree monkey through the air. Her foot tapped the Doctor's shoulder as she skipped off of him, and her short sword slashed the face of the Tusker attacker.
The Doctor turned away in time to catch the heavy wrist of the man who had been on Mags. For a moment they wrestled, and then the Doctor went down willingly. He jammed his foot up into the Tusker's crotch and rocked over on his hips. It propelled the Tusker into the steel crossbars mesh, and he collapsed, his hairy hands clutching his groin.
Mags came up from her opponent, her sword wet with blood. She looked at the Doctor. For some reason, no other Tuskers were charging into the ring.
"It's a melee out on the floor," the Doctor gasped.
"We gotta get that ambassador," she said. "He knows what we're lookin' for."
"Right then. Take a flying leap." He dropped his sword and laced his hands together. He gave a nod at the arena wall. At ringside, the Tuskers were shouting at a knot of fighters in the main aisle. The Doctor suddenly understood. Tarks in the audience had realized the awful truth that Mags was a little Tark female. Tark-like in their loyalty, they were rushing the arena to free her. There were only half a dozen all told, but Tark ferocity, as Mags had just proved, was a grand and terrible thing. The Tuskers who should have been lined up to enter the ring were wrestling with them and struggling to push them back.
"Tally-ho!" Mags yelled. She ran across the arena, jumped up on his hands, and sprang against the wall. She landed high and scrambled over.
"Right behind you!" the Doctor shouted. One of the door guards, alarmed at the spectacle in the aisle, had put his back to the door and was watching in amazement as the riot grew. For now a band of Ogrons appeared to be joining into things. They were pulling up chairs from the floor---some with occupants still in them---and hurling them over as they cleared a path to reach the embattled Tarks.
The mesh was too narrow to allow the Doctor to grab the guard, but the time lord took up one of the discarded knives in his free hand. He slipped up to the meshed door as the guard watched the fight in the aisle. Deftly, the Doctor slid the knife through the mesh and hooked it through the guard's belt in back, pinning him into place by his belt. The Tusker couldn't hit him through the mesh and couldn't even turn around to face him. The Doctor could just fit the broader blade of the short sword through one of the diamond shaped holes in the mesh. He jabbed the tip into the back of the guard's head at the base of the skull.
"Move, and I'll kill you and take the key any way I can," he said.
The guard stopped.
"Open the door," the Doctor said.
The door into the arena locked only on the inside, so that captives could not escape. The guard flipped over the bolt on the outside, and the Doctor shoved him forward, still pinned to the door, and the door swung open.
Mags was already at the ambassador with her sword, the point at his chest. The Doctor rushed to the ringside just in time to stop an attack against Mags from the ambassador's body guard. He slashed with his sword just as the Tusker lunged, and the Tusker, slashed across the chest, stumbled back. The Doctor slashed again above the eyes, blinding him for the moment. An Ogron came up behind the bodyguard in the melee of pushing and shoving. He grabbed up the huge body like it was nothing, swung it over his head, and threw the Tusker into the crowd.
"Mags!" the Ogron bellowed.
"About time, too!" she shouted. "Get this piggy 'ome, Kogrik! 'e's got what we want."
Kogrik flashed a snarl. The Tusker ambassador, still in his ringside chair and obviously terrified, was about to speak, but Kogrik's sledge hammer fist crossed his face at the base of the snout. The ambassador went limp.
White search lights suddenly cut into the large room, and the overhead lights went out. A piercing whistle that rattled the hinges on the cave cut through the air. It shrilled three times.
"Oh Kogrik, you never called the cops, did you?" Mags asked.
"Had to!" he exclaimed. "Not enough with me to free Mags."
"Hoist up that sack of pork then. I'll see if we can't talk our way outta this!"
"We had to be brought in discreetly when we were kidnapped," the Doctor said. "Perhaps a rear entrance. We can plead the rank of the ambassador and tell the police we want to get him home without further incident. After all, how would it look---the ambassador knocked out in a melee at an illegal game?"
"Good idea, Major. I forgive you your stupidity in gettin' us into this," she said.
"Service entrance that way." And Kogrik, the huge ambassador slung over his shoulder like an ungainly sack, pointed to the opposite side of the building.
"Awright, let's go."
* * * *
Sarah Jane expected to be sick from the sweet food she had eaten, but the only after effect of her protracted meal was a languorous sleepiness. The sweet syrup on her hand was fragrant, and Sarah Jane thought that it might attract more of the microscopic mites that inhabited the grainy rock of this planet. But it had the opposite effect. When she curled up, with her hand near her face, the itching in her eyes abated sharply. On a hunch, she dabbed her sticky hand around her eyes and then slept. When she awoke, several hours later, her eyes were not nearly as swollen as they usually were after sleep, and they were not crusted over at all.
She was not healed from the infection, but it was improved, and she began to hope that she might co-exist with it for some time before losing her eyesight.
The cavern was still dark when she awoke. She crawled out from under the low roof into the open trench and looked up. High above, through the great fissure, a few stars glimmered in the foreign sky.
"Jeanne," she asked out loud, and the sound of her voice startled her. It had been so long since she had spoken. "Are you real?"
Far across the cavern, she saw a faint shimmering cluster of dim lights, and she realized that the Insider, thwarted for the moment, had not entirely left her. He was still waiting for death to take her in this lonely, barren place. She was suddenly very lonely. Tears stung her eyes again. As always, they burned the tiny welts raised by the mites and seemed to stimulate the infection and irritation. But she dabbed around her eyes with her hand, and the faint residue of syrup helped her to bear it. She had to cry. In many ways she had caused her own troubles, and yet it did seem like a tragic self-deception to think that life had been as simple and straightforward as she had once thought. If she’d known there were such creatures as the Insider, she would have lived a much more careful, circumspect life. Like a child on a bicycle that rides innocently into the path of traffic, she had run herself into the path of a terrible and voracious enemy. Perhaps the Doctor had been killed trying to save her.
"The problem," the old woman said to her. "is that I don't have very good glasses to see you with."
The woman was turned away from the bed where Sarah Jane lay. Her white head was bent over a chest of drawers that faced the foot of the bed, and she was rummaging in the top drawer.
"There now!" She held up a pair of spectacles and put them on. Then she turned to Sarah Jane. "Oh dear me, no! That won't work." She turned away again, discarded the glasses, and rummaged further. The drawer in which she was searching was filled with many different kinds of spectacles, all flung together in a tangle.
Puzzled by this, Sarah Jane forgot her tears. She sat up, curious. The old woman searched and withdrew another set of glasses. She donned these and turned to Sarah Jane again. For some reason, Sarah Jane shrank back from this inspection, and the old woman instantly whisked them away. "Perhaps you could help me," she said to Sarah Jane. "If I could find the right glasses, I could see you better."
There wasn't even space in the tiny room for both of them to stand, so Sarah Jane stayed where she was in the bed.
"I'm not sure that I can help you," Sarah Jane said. "Shouldn't you just try on each pair until I come into focus?"
"But dear, how will I know when you are in proper focus? If you're a soft, blobby little thing and I select a pair that makes you look thin and hard, how would I ever know?"
"Well, I'm not a soft blobby little thing," Sarah Jane said gently, meekly.
"And yet, how does one know?" the woman asked, genuinely puzzled. She folded her arms and set her chin in one hand, deeply pondering this problem.
The question seemed to be rhetorical, but Sarah Jane offered an idea. "You see, in my world, we don't go just by sight."
The old woman turned the round, blind eyes towards her. But once again, they seemed to fill with sudden enlightenment. "Is there more than hunger to be filled and thirst to quenched?" she asked. "In the way you experience your world?"
"We use all of our senses, especially if we can't see. We listen, and we smell, and we taste, and we touch. You'll know I'm not blobby and soft, or hard and sharp, by your other senses. Well, not taste."
"The senses!" the woman exclaimed. "I think you've solved it." She put her hand out until she found the mattress, and then she felt along the edge of the bed, found the headboard, and at last laid her wrinkled hand on the side of Sarah Jane's face with a gentle grasp. Sarah again smelled the faintly sweet smell that was a part of her, and felt the gentle calmness of her bearing. Her intent, clearly, was to find some way to better discern her visitor. But after a moment, she used her fingertips to touch Sarah's swollen eyelids.
"You have an infection," the woman said gently. "In its late stages."
"I think it's why that Insider is following me so closely," Sarah Jane gasped.
This reply startled the old woman. "Who?"
“The Insider. He’s terrible. He inhabits dead bodies. He can use them for a while as his own. Only now he wants to inhabit bodies of the dying. He can revive their lives for a bit. He likes it better.”
“How can this be?” And the woman passed her hand over Sarah Jane’s head and then over her eyes again. “Now I understand. We could not see him. He is so slight to us. Oh my." Whatever she was divining about the Insider, now that she could focus on him through Sarah, she was startled, but not dismayed. "Do you know he thought that he might control Athena? And she never knew he was there!”
“He’s staying close by me to get his chance at me,” Sarah Jane told her.
“He had you brought here so that you would die slowly. This is his plan for you. I see it now.”
This, Sarah Jane new, was true. From the beginning, the Insider had intended to kill her.
"Oh dear," the old woman said. "You are a stranger to this universe, aren't you? Do you know many things?"
"I used to think so," Sarah Jane told her. "But I'm just a prisoner, really. Nothing but food. Sometimes I think I never really knew anything at all."
"And you are still afraid of Athena?"
"She killed those tusked men. It was horrible."
"She will not kill you."
"You won't let her?" Sarah Jane asked. This plea also startled the old woman. She stroked Sarah Jane's face with her hand, and Sarah Jane clung to her wrist with both hands.
With her free hand, the old woman pulled a pair of spectacles from the pocket of her jumper and put them on. "And you communicate through your senses. Of course. Your senses are all through you. Hunger and thirst and pain and grief and joy and love are all intertwined with your senses. Now I see you," she said softly. "Now I know you better." She leaned over Sarah Jane, her eyes clear behind the spectacles. Her gaze was kind and clear. "You may bathe and drink every morning, and Athena will not harm you. And every day, Athena will give you syrup. Eat it, and clean your bed with it, and use it as a salve, and you may yet heal the infection. It will take several days to know."
Emboldened by the concern of the old woman, Sarah Jane spoke "Please, couldn't I stay here with you?"
"I'm not far away from you. But you cannot perceive me. Nobody will snatch you from me. And I will not let the whisper creature enter you against your will. I am more powerful than all of them, and Athena is my guardian. Be patient."
"Is this a dream?" Sarah Jane asked.
"This is a place I have created to help you. This place is your spectacles to see me."
When Sarah Jane opened her eyes, the cavern was still dim, but the sky through the fissure above showed that a new day was dawning.
* * * *
The three conspirators actually got all the way out into the dark street before they were stopped. Their downfall was that none of them knew the Tusker enclave very well. They exited the arena's building from the rear and crossed the wide street.. Though the enclave had been designed along the same lines as the rest of the finest sections of Guardian City, the Tuskers on their own turf had blacked out or blocked up windows, and there was little light. Plenty of street lights stood around, but they were not illuminated.
"Awright, lemme think," Mags said.
They were up against the wall of a long, low building, and they could not find the end of it to get around a corner.
Three sharp whistles, not quite as bone rattling as what they had heard in the building, shrilled at them, and a brilliant white searchlight from the front of the arena building fixed on them. Footsteps raced toward them. "Spare me!" Mags yelled. "It's Mags Hardbottle. I ain't runnin' away from a proper nick, then!"
The light dimmed, and the Doctor saw a band of the Guardian City police closing on them.
"Set the ambassador on 'is feet Kogrik," Mags whispered, and Kogrik did so. He held up the unconscious Tusker.
The Doctor noticed that the police had the rioters against the wall in front of the arena's building. They were not handcuffing anybody, but they were a strong enough presence to have quelled the fighting. The arrested Tarks, Ogrons, and Tuskers, now sullenly subdued, were facing the wall in silence. As of yet, none of them had turned to get a look at Mags. This was because the police who guarded them wanted them to keep still.
"Everybody just stay quiet," a human officer shouted at their backs. "We'll get you separated at the cells, and then each side can tell his story. The negotiators are coming!" The different species, the Doctor realized, would be transported in separate vehicles. Apparently, clan fighting between the different races of the galaxy was not unknown, not even in Guardian City, where violence was outlawed and sidearm weapons were banned.
His attention was brought back to Mags, who was cheerfully lying to the police on her own account. They had turned off their search light. Mags was trying to stay in Kogrik's shadow, for she did not want to be spotted by any of the Tarks in the crowd that was up the wide street.
"Lookee 'ere, 'ow's it gonna look, haulin' in 'is lordship?" she asked. "An' from Tusker turf, too. Lemme get the ambassador back to 'is digs. He's good for the fine. But if you 'umiliate 'im in front of 'is own people, you'll have nuthin' but grief over it."
The particular police band that had surrounded them was made up of two Tarks, an Ogron, a human and two robot restrainers.
"But what happened in there?" the human officer asked. "The Tarks over there are saying these people were going to put a little female Tark to death. What did you see?"
She shook her head. "I'm sorry gents. 'e was that drunk." And she nodded at the slumped ambassador, who was leaning against Kogrik. "We had 'im in the loo for a while, and then decided to get 'im away. I poked me head in the arena area for mebbe a second or two. This fine gennleman----" and she nodded at the Doctor, who smiled and tried to look old, dignified, and kindly, "offered us a lift. But that was before things got started." She made her voice plaintive. "'ave a 'eart. You dunno what it's like draggin' a drunk ambassador outta trouble. I'm right sorry I took the job."
The human and the Ogron seemed inclined to let her go. "You know how drunk they get," the human whispered to the Tark officers.
"But what about the Tark?" one of them said. "A little female? To be put to death?"
"Tell you what," Mags said. "You chaps got me card. You come up tomorrow, and I'll work the case for you for free. I can put out me feelers. See if I can't roust up some info. Mags Hardbottle ain't gonna let no female anything get massacred by nobody. You oughtta know that about me by now."
They nodded.
"Right then." She glanced at Kogrik. There was suddenly a small sound like an air pistol's snap. The ambassador, who was starting to come around, suddenly cried out. His eyes opened. He gasped and then fell out of Kogrik's grip.
All of them fell to the ground with him. A tiny white shaft, more narrow than a cigarette, jutted out of his chest.
"'e's been darted!" Mags exclaimed. She looked up the street to the band of arrested rioters, which had not changed. They had their faces to the wall of the arena. "By one of them!"
The Doctor did a quick check on the ambassador. "He's dead. It's a poison dart. He's been murdered."
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