The Revengers;Always the Third Doctor!;Jo Grant;Katy Manning;Jon Pertwee;UNIT;TARDIS;
The Revengers
Episode Eight
Written by Jeri Massi
"The latest report on the dead gym manager is that he was indeed in the very early stages of the disease," Breed announced as he set a slide into a microscope. "I thought you would want to view a sample, Doctor."
The Doctor leaned over the microscope and squinted into it. "Mmm." He adjusted the focus. "Not nearly so well formed. Probably had another five years before symptoms showed. Maybe a good bit longer."
"Well, why the huge difference?" Jake asked.
"Age." The Doctor straightened up. "Protein synthesis not as active in an adult male as in an adolescent male. The boys were hit when they were most susceptible. Also perhaps genetic predisposition. And since Len was not boxing himself but coaching, he most likely did not ingest as much. Exposure was reduced."
"Well at least the poor man was spared from having this sword hung over his head," Jake muttered.
"Not sure that inhaling an acid mist was a much better choice." The Doctor folded his arms and leaned back against the table, facing the two men. "Have the others been brought in for testing?"
"About a dozen so far." Breed glanced at Jake. "I've got the samples labeled and in storage at my office. Dashed delicate affair, trying to convince them to come in for the tests without saying anything to panic them."
"Look here." Jake turned to the Doctor. "I'm not even sure it's worth it. If these chaps are doomed, why hang the knowledge around their necks?"
"Because I may be able to slow down the progression in some of them." The Doctor nodded down at the microscope. "If Len had lived, I could have helped him because the disease was not so very advanced yet."
"And besides," Breed added. "The fact is, we cannot be sure that the poisonings have stopped. We must do random testing on the population and assure ourselves that the poisonings are not continuing through other vehicles of transmission."
Jake squinted thoughtfully. "Maybe Lowry will tell us. Come clean."
"I very much doubt it!" The Doctor's voice was severe. He glanced around the room. "We ought to have the Brigadier here. I wonder what's keeping my assistant." He looked at the chief inspector. "Say, what about Lowry? Where is he?"
With a helpless shrug, Jake said, "Can't find him. He wasn't scheduled to lecture today and had no appointments, so we don't know if he's in hiding or simply going about his own business."
"Well, are you at least looking?"
Jake controlled himself from making a snappish answer and said, with great civility. "Yes, Doctor. We're covering every gym and shadowing the pub where he usually takes lunch. And of course we are covering his college and his flat. He must surface sooner or later."
"Those measure won't work with Lowry," the Doctor declared. "That young man's got a tremendous ability to show up where he's not expected. He gets things done that way. Making contact when people are at a disadvantage." The time lord frowned in thought and stared out of the narrow window of the room. By now, night had settled its cold and dark blanket over the city. "In fact, I would suppose him to try to get in at UNIT if he could, but the place is too well guarded even for him."
"Why UNIT?" Breed asked.
"That's where I keep my secrets, sir," the Doctor said. "And that's what Lowry hates: secrets that he doesn't understand. He likes to be holding the high card at all times."
Jake shook his head. "If he's our man, he's probably on his way out of the country by now. Killing Braithewight---if he did kill Braithewight---was a sign he's losing his nerve on this. He's trying to cover his tracks now. Escape will be next."
"Maybe." But the Doctor did not sound convinced. "But Lowry doesn't behave like other people. He may try to somehow get the whip hand even now. Or make one last grab for knowledge before he gets away. Jo!" He stood up and crossed to the door. "Where's that girl got to? You did tell her how to find us."
He pulled open the door.
"Look, how can we definitely tie this in to Lowry?" Breed asked at last. "We've seen how he might have pulled it off, but we haven't linked him to actually doing any of it."
"Check the library books," the Doctor said absently. He stood in the doorway in the attitude of a man listening.
Breed obediently picked up one of the two volumes that the Doctor had brought along. "Yes?"
Summoned from his reverie, the Doctor glanced at the man over his shoulder. "The sign out card, man. Look at it. D'you have any idea how rarely these books get checked out? They have stamp cards that are more than twenty years old. I took them from the library as evidence."
Breed flipped open the book to the back cover. Normally book borrowers signed a card and turned it in at the librarian's desk. The card was stamped with the due date, and a matching date was stamped into the card holder that was attached in the back.
Breed withdrew the card. "Well, I'm blowed!" he exclaimed softly. "He signed it out!"
"Yes, eight years ago," the Doctor said. "He signed it out three times---for six weeks---and the other book as well. It took some searching, but I was pretty sure that at the ripe old age of nineteen or twenty, Lowry would never assume that the murders would be traced back to library books."
"I wish you had told us this sooner, Doctor," Jake said. "I need to put out a call. This is enough to search his flat. We can show a reasonable need to search for the materials he might have used or stored."
"You don't think you're going to find concentrations of thalidomide bound to an organophosphate," the Doctor said. "He isolated it and used it seven years ago!"
"Of course I do!" Jake winked. "And along the way I may find the DNP he isolated two nights ago." The chief inspector glanced around. "Besides, this way we can find out if he's still poisoning people. Drat! No phone in here."
He made for the door. "I'll go with you," the Doctor said. "I need to find Jo."
They returned to Jake's office while Dr. Breed put away the equipment in the evidence room. Jake took up his own telephone. "She must be in the other office," he said. "Maybe she got tied up on that call."
The Doctor went out and found the next office. He entered, saw the telephone in its place, and stepped further into the room.
"Jo?" he asked.
Something bumped in the closet, and he cautiously opened the door. She was at his feet, her mouth taped, her hands only loosely bound behind her. But he saw the rickety apparatus---twisted up from coat hangers---from which the empty drip bag was still suspended.
"Breed!" he shouted. "Jake!" He pulled her out of the closet, pulled off the torn rags from her wrists, and stripped off the tape. She let in a great breath and her eyes fluttered open. She tried to lift her head.
"What was it? What was it?" he asked her. He pulled her out full length and checked her pulse.
Jake bolted in. "Good---"
"Get Breed! Get his bag!" the Doctor shouted. "Jo, what was it? Did he say?" He pushed back her eyelid. The membrane was pale and cold. She was in shock.
She came to herself, gasped, and tried to speak. She choked on a sob, and then said, "Thalidomide and diaphorate."
"Phosphorodithioate," he said. "Don't lift your head." He tapped a finger as hard as a bullet against her neck.
"No!" A wave of numbness passed through her, and her head fell back.
"Where? The arm? The hand?" He ran his hands down her arms, searching, watching her eyes. As she winced involuntarily, he found the site of the injection on the back of her left hand. He scooped up one of the rag strips that had bound her and fixed it fast around her upper arm, tightening it just under the deltoid muscle.
"No," she began as the pain brought her around. "You're hurting me!"
"We've got to stop the circulation. Breed!" he shouted. But Breed was rushing in, a heavy medical bag in his hand.
"Give it here!" the Doctor shouted. "Hold that tourniquet!" He rummaged in the bag as Breed complied, selecting and discarding single dose cartridges of medicine. "This will do it. Jo, this is going to slow you down a bit and make you sleepy. I'll be right with you," he said.
"On top of shock, Doctor?" Breed murmured. "She's been traumatized."
"We have to. There's no time to lose. How long was she in here?"
He pulled her other arm up, stripped back the sleeve, and injected the full contents of the dose. She tried to pull her arm away. "Now, now, my dear. We're going to help you," Breed said.
"Come on," the Doctor ordered. He scooped her up.
Jo had a confused impression of fluorescent lights spinning by, and then sudden and cold blackness, and a hurtling noise of traffic and men's voices. Then she was in the back seat of Bessie, wrapped in the comforting smell and warmth of the Doctor's cape. At last, she thought. She decided that muddled images of pain and fear had been a bad dream. But then a sense of danger returned to her, and she heard the Doctor shouting. "Breed! Breed! It won't start!"
And then Jake's voice saying, "There's petrol here on the ground. Someone's gone and cut the gas line."
"Take my car, Doctor. It's right here. Do you need assistance?" The cultured voice was Breed's.
"I need Lowry in custody. He can't be far away. He may still be in the building!"
She was roughly snatched up, and a lightning bolt of fear went all the way through her. She had been injected with the nerve gas poison, and the Doctor was afraid for her. He only had so much time to be able to save her. Otherwise, she would turn into what Hughes and Simms had become. She struggled to come around.
"Jo, I'm still with you. Don't be afraid. There's still time."
She was bundled into another car, her arms wrapped tightly to her chest. For some reason, she could not focus her eyes or her thoughts. She felt the leather seats and smelled the rich smell of luxury. The heavy car door closed. For just a moment, she panicked, thinking she had been loaded into a hearse, that they were going to bury her before she had properly died.
But when she took in her breath to cry out, she smelled the more subtle, reassuring smell of the Doctor's cloak. She was tightly wrapped in it. She took in another breath, trying to smell it, and she struggled to be able to push her face down into it, because she was frightened. But it was too low on her shoulders for her to reach it with her face. She tried to remember what was wrong. It had to do with Mark and dead people and something about long chains of proteins.
Then she saw the back of the Doctor's head. She was lying across the back seats, and he was up front, driving. She realized as she became still and felt the vibrations of the car and heard the faint whining from the engine behind its roar, that he was going very fast. He always drove fast, but usually not in other people's cars. However, the back of his head looked very authoritative. He seemed to be sure of what he was doing.
Dimly, from very far away in her mind, she recalled Mark's words. He was going to kill the Doctor. He had done all this to kill the Doctor. She remembered then that he had injected her with that terrible poison, and that he had done it to kill the Doctor. She pushed against the restraint of the cloak that she was wrapped in. She had to sit up and tell the Doctor that Mark meant to kill him.
Unexpectedly, she heard the quick exchange of voices. A puff of cold night air hit her face. She opened her eyes again and saw the Doctor exchange short, terse words with a man in a UNIT uniform who peered into the open driver's side window of the car, and in the background she saw one of the high fence posts of the perimeter of UNIT's grounds. The car rocked slightly as they accelerated again. The cold wind puffed harder into her face for a moment before the Doctor rolled the window up. As they rocketed forward, she heard a sound of something that moved. It was not her, and it was not the Doctor, but some heavy object in the boot. It had not rolled or thumped, but slid: a cautious, sliding sound. Instantly, even through the haze of the shock and the blows from Mark's hand and the drug that the Doctor had injected to slow her heart down, Jo knew what it was. Somebody was in the trunk of the car. He had slid to adjust himself.
"Doctor," she gasped. "He's in the back!"
There was no response. The cold air was off her face, and she was becoming irresistibly drowsy. She fought a numbness in her lips and face. "He's in the boot!"
She didn't understand why the Doctor did not answer, but then she realized that she was not speaking loudly enough. Her voice was coming out too weakly.
"Doctor!" she exclaimed. She pushed against the restraining cloak and her giddiness. "Doctor!"
"We're here, Jo! It's all right!" he exclaimed.
She was gone for a moment, back into the dizzy blackness. When she came around again, the Doctor was sliding her out, picking her up, strong and capable and dreadfully determined. She felt again the lightning bolt of fear that jumped from him into her. It roused her. She knew she had to warn him of something, but she forgot what.
"Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid," he whispered. But he was afraid. Bright lights replaced the cold darkness. Men were getting out of their way, and the Doctor was shouting. Keys jingled.
She saw bits and snatches of the lab and then his face over hers, his eyes dreadful again, dreadful with both fear and determination. He stripped away the cloak. Her hands were free. For some reason, this made her think that she could remember what it was she had to tell him. "Doctor---"
"Yes, it's ready in that container!" he shouted to somebody. "Give it here and then get out! I'm not to be disturbed. One of you get in touch with Jake and maintain contact until he gets that Lowry fellow!"
He put her head on his arm to free his hands. He was doing something, focusing his eyes on something in his hands right by her head.
"Just lock the doors and get out! As many of you as can, assist Jake in finding him!" he shouted. "Have him brought right here! Don't tell Jake until he's in custody!"
He looked down at her, wrapped his arm tightly around her head and hid her eyes, and then suddenly she felt a burning pain in the back of her head. She tried to scream, but he was holding her too tightly against his shoulder. It threw her back to the closet, to Mark. She struggled with a wildness that surprised herself.
Her flailing foot kicked him on the insides of his legs, and her free hand hit him and hammered against his back and his ribs. She burst out crying from the pain.
Suddenly he was gone, and she heard a faint throbbing, the subdued and hushed sound of a generator. She rolled to get away, almost blinded with pain, and the floor came up and hit her. She saw stars and had the wind knocked out of her.
"Jo!" she heard the Doctor exclaim from far away. She actually tried to get to her feet. He stopped her and then lifted her in his arms. She was still crying.
"Jo, this is to save you," he said urgently. "I'm sorry I hurt you! I didn't want to hurt you. This is to save you."
Nothing that hurt so much could save anybody, she thought. But suddenly there was softness around her. Her vision cleared. He was over her again, laying her down in something like a bed. He pulled some type of sheeting up from her bare feet to her hips, and almost immediately a slow pressure pushed against her legs. For some reason, this calmed her. She caught her breath and stopped crying.
"This is for your blood," he said, and something pinched her arm.
"Where am I?" she asked.
He hesitated. "At the lab," he said gently. "One more. This may sting." Something bit into her upper leg. It hurt, but only for an instant, and then the pressure on her legs closed around it. She looked to her side, saw the high walls around her, and realized that he had laid her in that coffin-like thing in the lab.
"No!" she shouted, and she tried to get up. She would have succeeded, except that he pushed her back down. "Jo, this is to save you!"
"No!'' she shouted again. She tried to climb out.
"Please Jo, there's no time." He pushed her down with one arm and his other hand busily worked at something. He was going to have the lid come down on her, she thought. Instead of trying to climb out again, she instantly wrapped both hands around his neck.
"No, Doctor! Don't put me in here! I'll be good, I promise!' she exclaimed.
"Jo, you're a very good girl," he told her. "You've got to let me go!" He tried to pry her hands apart from the back of his neck. A wave of drowsiness was insistently coming up around her.
She closed her eyes and hung on to him for all she was worth. "No, please don't put me in here. Don't close the lid!"
"Jo, nothing will hurt you. I'll take you right out!" he exclaimed, still trying desperately to pry away her hands from his neck.
"Please Doctor, I'm afraid! Don't!" she pleaded, and fresh tears came from her tightly closed eyes.
He suddenly gave with her instead of pulling away, coming into her grip. "All right," he said gently. "All right, Jo. It's all right now. I'm here."
The softness in his voice calmed her. But she hung on to him around his neck. He gathered her up in his strong arm. "What's frightened you?" he whispered. The drowsiness came up more pervasively, and she was less able to resist it. With his free hand, he stroked her head. "Tell me what you're afraid of," he said, his voice comforting, calm, and kind. He touched the side of his face to hers, letting her sense his nearness. She forgot her fear for an instant and her hands loosened. Just as she realized her mistake, he slipped away. The lid, which had been trying to close on its pneumatic slides, came powerfully into place and locked closed with a hiss. Jo's cry of anguish was cut off. The gas inside came up, and within seconds, she was completely unconscious. But he heard the scrabbling as she tried to get out, before the gas took her.
Outside the coffin-like apparatus, the Doctor strode over to a small control panel, took readings, and operated the controls. He watched the slender tubing that led from the coffin to the filtering equipment. It quickly filled with Jo's blood, ran it into the 20 cc tank, and then passed it through the filters. The blood came out the other side, a sleek, dark racer of black, and followed the tubing back into to the coffin, where it would pass through the shunt and re-enter her system.
Her pulse and brain activity were steady and normal. The Doctor locked the operation into place, and then came back to the coffin. "Jo," he said. He spread his hands over the lid. "I'm sorry. I know it frightened you." He bowed his head and was silent for a long moment. He put one hand over his forehead, as though suddenly overwhelmed.
The barest sound of a scrape made him lift his head. Mark Lowry stood in the lab.
For a moment, the Doctor didn't even move. He didn't react at all except for a small light of recognition that passed across his face.
"Have you come to finish her off?" he asked. "Disappointed that you didn't quite kill her?" He lowered his hands and spread his fingers again over the head of the coffin.
"If I had wanted to kill her, Doctor, she would surely have been dead before you found her." Lowry unhurriedly unbuttoned his ugly and cheap sport coat and removed it. He drew a syringe from the pocket and uncapped it. Then he threw the coat aside.
"Strychnos toxifera, Doctor," he said.
The Doctor stepped away from the coffin. He let out a snort of scornful humor. "Curare! Going to put me to sleep, eh?"
"A rather deep sleep," Lowry said. "One from which you will not awaken."
"Hardly. Or to be more precise, you'll need a lot more than what you've got there."
The Doctor's breezy attitude seemed to disarm Lowry for a moment, but then the young man narrowed his eyes, appreciating the Doctor's excellent ability to turn any engagement into a battle of minds.
"Ten cc's is enough to kill three men, Doctor, and as I have a highly refined toxin here, I'm sure there is enough for you."
"Well, there's only one way to find out. But I'll make it easy for you if you will give me a moment."
Moving away from the coffin, the Doctor came around the workbench so that he could face Lowry with nothing between them. As he did so, he removed his own velvet jacket. And then, as Lowry did not immediately advance, he unbuttoned his white shirt with a certain leisurely dexterity, as a man might do before jumping into a pool for a swim. He pulled it off and threw it aside, now stripped down to his undershirt and trousers.
"I am at your service, Professor Lowry," he said amiably.
"You do take bravado to the last degree, Doctor," Mark said, but he hesitated, suspecting a trap or trick.
"This is not bravado, Lowry. You came here to kill me. But I promise you, you will not walk out of this room. Unless, of course, you wish to surrender right now."
"Now you're being foolish."
"Well, I thought not. But it's good form to ask. Did you come expressly to kill me?"
"I may spare you, provided you show me the apparatus you used to investigate the nerve gas poisonings." Lowry's eyes revealed a certain eagerness, and a degree of confusion. He had expected that the lab would be sophisticated, crowded with the latest in electron microscopes and spectroscopes. What he saw instead was a place that looked like the back of an electronics repair shop, abutting onto what looked like a chemistry lab.
Other than the coffin-like apparatus that was now filtering Jo Grant's blood, there was nothing else that even remotely suggested that a scientist could have done state of the art research here.
"There must be another lab," Lowry said. "Take me to it."
"Everything I have is in this lab," the Doctor said, truthfully enough. He gestured at a tall police box across the room. "I keep my best equipment in there."
"In a police box?" Lowry's amazement turned to anger. "I'm going to kill you, Doctor, and if I do not find what I'm after, I'll kill the girl as well."
"Will you indeed? Have you thought of how you're going to get away?" the Doctor asked.
"I shall be taken under arrest, of course," Lowry told him. "And I shall plead guilty to everything. Once in prison, it will take me less than a year to work out an escape. I shall have all kinds of chemical weapons at my disposal in prison. It doesn't take much."
"I see." The Doctor became brisk. "Well, come on then. Jo has told me what a keen boxer and martial artist you are. And now you're armed with 10 cc's of deadly poison. Have a go!"
Lowry still hesitated. The Doctor took a step toward him, and all levity vanished.. "Or shall I go first?". The look of his eye was as cold and remote as any gaze from the Master. Lowry attacked.
The young man feinted with a jab of the syringe and swung a roundhouse punch with the other hand. It was beautiful, fast, and thrown in a smooth and tight circle. The Doctor blocked it off his elbow and slammed his foot into Lowry's groin, just to the side, so not to entirely disable the young man.
The timelord stepped back as Lowry went to the floor on his knees. In some anguish, Lowry looked up at him. "Not quite sporting of you, Doctor," he gasped.
"Oh, did you want to use Western rules?" the Doctor asked politely. "I was fighting by Chinese rules. Groin kicks are perfectly legal in Chinese boxing."
Gasping for breath, Lowry got to his feet, leaning heavily on the workbench. "I'm going to enjoy this," he said. In spite of his anguish, he still had the syringe between him and the Doctor, and he seemed to be under the impression that it was fending the Doctor off.
"I'm already enjoying it," the Doctor told him. "There's something quite refreshing in evacuating all the hot air from a great big bag."
Desperate for an edge, Lowry tried to go back to the mental dueling. "Miss Grant then," he said, still catching his breath. "She goes for an old codger like you?"
"Women have always found me irresistible," the Doctor told him. "It's one of the many burdens I must bear." He smiled and set his fists on his hips. Though stripped of the finery of his shirt and jacket, he was still an elegant, powerful, and conceited figure. And he knew it.
The reply was sardonic and revealed his entire contempt for all of Lowry's observations and calculations. But Lowry did not realize this. "So you do not mind that I also intend to win her back?"
"Who? Jo?" the Doctor asked. "After injecting her with a killer poison, and after killing me---assuming that you do!"
"She's the type who loves to forgive, Doctor. I shall confess my sins to her. She shall redeem me. Re-make me. It's what she's done to you, isn't it?"
Again, Lowry had the pleasure of seeing a certain quietness come into the Doctor's eyes. "Jo is generous and kind," the Doctor admitted. "But no fool. She has a fairly good understanding of villainy and evil. You duped her once. I don't think you'll do it twice."
"Do you love her?" Lowry asked, and he suddenly lunged again. The sudden attack did take the Doctor by surprise, and Lowry plunged the syringe into the Doctor's chest, on the thickest part of the muscle. He would have jerked his hand back to retreat, but the Doctor grabbed the wrist and locked it in place against his chest with both hands.
"Oh no!" the time lord exclaimed. "You've taken this much trouble to inject me. Let's give it a fair chance." Gripping Lowry's wrist, he pushed down on the thumb that Lowry had locked onto the plunger. The Doctor pushed it all the way in, injecting himself with the entire dose. In spite of being locked in the Doctor's grasp, Lowry's own eyes widened at sight of what he thought was sheer suicide.
The Doctor let him gape a moment, then buffeted him with a right backfist. The blow snapped the young man's head back. The Doctor stuck him again and then released him. Stumbling, Lowry retreated down the length of the workbench, waiting for the Doctor to fall over. Instead, the time lord plucked the spent syringe from his chest and threw it down.
"Time for emergency plan B," he said. "Or shall I take the offensive?"
"No human could be immune to that!" Lowry exclaimed.
"Did I say I was human?" The Doctor took a step closer.
"Whatever you are, I can beat you," Lowry declared.
"Come and try. Shall we switch to boxing?" And the Doctor put his fists up in a John L. Sullivan pose, his backside stuck out, his knees awkwardly bent. Lowry rushed him, and the Doctor hit him with a jab like a sledge hammer and a left cross that put the young man on the floor. Unruffled, the Doctor stepped back again and let Lowry pick himself up.
"Still time to surrender," the Doctor said.
Mark Lowry hauled himself up by gripping the edge of the work bench. He had a reddening eye and seemed dazed for a moment. He quickly collected himself and looked around to see where his opponent had gotten to, but the Doctor was standing still. In fact, the time lord had retreated further away, close to the great lab window which Mike Yates had once shattered when he'd disposed of a bomb the quick way.
"Luring me away from your precious pet, Doctor?" he asked.
"Jo?' the Doctor asked. He glanced at his watch. "Oh, Jo's fine now. Nearly done, in fact. But those controls are locked.. You cannot get her."
A sudden pounding on the lab doors interrupted them. "Doctor!" Mike Yates called. "Doctor! He's on the grounds!"
"Looks like you've been found out," the Doctor said.
"I was careful to re-lock the doors after I got in, Doctor." Lowry's voice was acid.
"No doubt you are a keen lock-pick," the Doctor's voice was again that of an amused adult. "Probably how you started this habit of dogging the footsteps of other people and inviting yourself into places. After all, it's what you did with Dr. Breed and me. Your way of keeping tabs on the investigation, I suppose. Also gave you a chance to toss in the red herring of an infectious agent. Tell me, was it how you got in with Braithewight and Sparrowe?"
"They came to me," Lowry told him. The pounding distracted him for a moment. But he turned to the Doctor again. "I killed the wretched boys who killed a tormented young man. So what?"
"You also killed Ralph Braithewight."
"Because he turned on me! He lost his nerve! So did Neil, but Neil went out with some dignity."
"Was that dignity?" the Doctor asked.
Men were slamming into the doors, trying to force them open. The Doctor glanced over at the noise, and Lowry charged him. This was a solid attack, meant to be a running jump kick with both legs. Anybody else would have retreated if he had seen it coming, but the Doctor rushed in, closing the distance before his enemy could jump. The time lord dove his head like a bullet right into Lowry's stomach, wrapped both arms around the younger man at the top of his legs and lifted. With a great shout, the time lord sprang straight up. He catapulted Mark Lowry upside down through the air, into the window. Lowry's head hit the bottom of the sill and then his body crashed through the glass.
The doors burst open. "He's gone through the window!" the Doctor shouted. "Get a medical team out there!" And then he ran to the coffin to see to Jo.
* * * *
"You're all right. There's no danger any more. You're all right."
Jo had the sensation of flying through the air, feet first. In fact, it felt as though her feet were leading her. Just point them where ever she wanted to go, and that's where she went. Fortunately, she was flying high enough so that treetops and tall buildings were not a danger.
"Jo, you're all right. There's no danger any more. You're all right."
Time to come down. She stretched full length, her arms over her head, her legs straight out, her feet flexed, and the image of flying left her. It had been years, she realized, since she had flown. All she really wanted to do was nestle down in this bed and sleep.
A warm, rough surface was gently passed across her face. Oh, now she remembered. That dreadful man in the closet had given her an injection that had turned her into a cat. She no longer minded being a cat, though she dimly recalled being very frightened at the time. But now some other cat was trying to make friends with her. The warm, wet surface passed across her face again. She sputtered, flapped her hands a few times, and opened her eyes to see the Doctor's face over hers, his eyes gentle and concerned. "You're not even a real cat!" she exclaimed with great indignation. She had been bound up tight with something, as she recalled, but now she was in soft covers. She pulled them up over her face. "Go pet the other cat!" she exclaimed. She nestled down and went back to sleep.
Standing by the bed, the Brigadier cast a puzzled glance at the Doctor. "Cat?" he asked. "What's all this about cats?"
"She's still coming out from the effect of two narcotics," the Doctor said. "And her own trauma. She's still dreaming." He set aside the wash cloth and very gently drew the covers back from her face so that she could breathe unhindered. She didn't stir. He rested his hand on her head and said in a low and quiet voice, "Jo, you're all right. There's no danger any more. You're all right."
Even the Brigadier thought that he saw her pass more deeply into sleep. The Doctor resumed his ministrations. She had abrasions on the side of her face from when she had fallen to the floor in the lab. The Doctor gently applied a topical ointment to them, something of his own concoction. "This will make sure that there are no marks or scars," he said.
"Well, I'll leave you to it. I'll check on Lowry. Still alive, last I heard, but the brain damage is severe. If he does recover, he'll be lucky to get enough brain function to walk and say his name."
"Right."
But the Brigadier did not move. At last Lethbridge Stewart said, "Look, I've known you to take on three or four men at a time and use those blasted finger stabs of yours to disable them. So why did you pitch Lowry out a window?"
The Doctor did not look up. "I told you, I was defending myself against a savate flying kick."
"Not getting revenge on Lowry?"
"I didn't need revenge on Lowry."
"Or protecting future generations from him?"
He said nothing. The Brigadier waited, but the Doctor said no more, until at last Lethbridge Stewart turned and walked away. The Doctor didn't look up as the Brigadier left. The ointment had a pungent fragrance to it. Jo stirred again, stretched halfway, and opened her eyes. Her nose wrinkled. "I want tea instead," she said. She saw him and instantly smiled, but he could see that she was still slightly confused.
"How are you?" he asked.
"It was those protein chains," she said. "He got me."
"Yes, but you're all right."
"How tall will I be when it's all over?"
He frowned as though in thought, put his hand on top of her head, and then looked down towards her feet, measuring her with his eye. "Just about exactly five feet tall, I would say," he told her.
"Well that's not much different from what I was."
"No, not a whit."
She sighed and looked perplexed. He gently applied the astringent to a tiny abrasion over her eyebrow. "Did you think it would make you taller?" he asked.
"Yes, because he did those things to the protein chains, and they lengthened out, and there got to be more of them, so that if you took the nerve gas poison, it made you taller." She frowned in sleepy thought. "Isn't that right?"
He wiped his hands on the wash cloth and then rested his hand across her forehead. "Well, that's not perfectly accurate. But it's close enough for now."
"So why aren't I taller?" she whispered.
"I filtered it out of your blood before it was absorbed," he whispered back. "Don't you remember?" He held her eyes with his and looked at her, his own eyes quiet and kind and sorry. "It frightened you." He stroked the good side of her face.
"What frightened me?"
"I did."
She tried to think this through, but she gave up. "No, you're remembering it wrong way 'round, Doctor," she said at last. Her eyes were closing. He stroked her forehead.
"Are you sure, Jo? I'm pretty certain I frightened you."
"No, because I love you," she said, her eyes closed as she drifted into sleep again. "Everything you do is always good."
She fell asleep, at peace with the world and with him. For a long moment he only looked down at her, his face quiet, filled with a look that might have been sorrow, or might have been a look of enlightenment, or might even have been touched with grave acceptance and satisfaction. He knew that she was still under the effect of the narcotics. She would never remember saying it. He rested his hand across her forehead. Then slowly he bowed his head, bringing his face close to hers, his eyes closed. Somebody looking in might have thought he was in prayer, or that he was listening to her breathe as she slept, or that he himself was dozing. But nobody looked in, and he stayed that way as she slept, their faces almost touching but not quite, his hand on her forehead.
