The Pirate Loop (10 page)

'Oh, good analogy!' cooed the Doctor. 'I'm adding that one to the list. Yes, the
Brilliant
is sand-banked in time, and so it's like the rest of the universe is frozen. Which is what you see on your screens. In fact, they're just carrying on as usual and you're the ones who look like you disappeared.'

The crew considered this. 'It could offer a major tactical advantage,' suggested the handsome man.

'Possibly,' said the captain.

'Well not really,' said the Doctor. 'You can't move like
this, can you? Can't do anything, really. Except make conversation and eat canapés.'

'Have you got any canapés?' Martha asked the handsome man with the handlebar moustache.

'Not here,' he told her. 'But they have them in the cocktail lounge. Which apparently we can't get to.'

'No,' said Martha. 'Sorry about that. I'm Martha by the way.'

'Thomas,' said the handsome man. 'Er. Aide-to-Captain Thomas Five-Shoelace, Slow Station Settlement.'

'Aw,' said the Doctor. 'I've been to Slow Station. Did the thing of jumping off the orbital tower and free-falling to the surface!'

'I think everyone does that,' said Thomas.

'All right,' said Captain Georgina, impatiently. 'I think your explanation matches the available evidence and what we know about the experimental drive. Even if it is unusual.'

'Yeah well,' said the Doctor. 'Experimental drives don't act like you expect them to. That's why they're experimental.'

'Thank you, Doctor,' said the captain. 'My main concern is what we do to free ourselves from the sandbank.'

'Ah well,' said the Doctor. 'Strictly speaking, you don't.'

Captain Georgina was about to ask him why not when there was a crash from the wall of cold scrambled egg.
Three rough-looking, space-suited, helmeted figures charged through the eggy material and came clattering onto the bridge. Their spacesuits were battered and battle-worn, with a skull and crossbones daubed on each of their chests. It took a moment for Martha to recognise the three badger pirates, because they'd put on their helmets.

'Doctor!' said Dashiel, his voice echoing because of the helmet. 'Fort you must 'ave died!'

'Sorry to disappoint you,' said the Doctor. 'How long have you been waiting for us?'

'Er,' said Dashiel. 'Dunno. Coupla days.'

'Sorry,' said the Doctor. 'Got chatting.'

'Who are these people?' asked Captain Georgina, maintaining an impressive air of calm. No, thought Martha, the captain was sneering at the intruders, like they weren't good enough to be in the same room. Around her, Martha saw, the other humans had raised their own elegant, little guns.

'Well,' said the Doctor. 'They used to be pirates, but we've been having words. That's Dashiel, Jocelyn and Archibald.'

'Allo,' said Archibald, waving a hairy paw.

'I see,' said Captain Georgina. 'They do seem to be carrying guns.'

'Oh yeah,' said the Doctor. 'But don't worry about that. I disarmed them hours ago—'

As he spoke, Thomas erupted in a plume of brilliant pink light. He had barely enough time to scream before
he had been entirely consumed.

'Ah,' said the Doctor, scratching at his jaw. 'That really shouldn't have happened.'

'They started workin' again,' Dashiel explained, as he shot the brunette who still worked at the horseshoe of computers.

'Oh yeah,' said the Doctor. 'I should have thought of that. The loop affects the guns as well.'

'Fire at will!' cried Captain Georgina. 'Repel the invaders!'

'Wait!' cried the Doctor. 'Wait!'

One of the uniformed men dived forward, firing his elegant little gun into the attacking badgers. A blast of bright white energy smashed into Dashiel, hurling him back into the wall of scrambled egg. His broken body lay steaming on the ground.

'Huh,' said Archibald as he fired back at the uniformed man. The man was consumed in pink light. Archibald and Jocelyn ran forward, using the horseshoe of computers as cover while they fought the rallying humans.

'Oh, this is just silly!' said the Doctor. He grabbed Martha's hand and they rushed to the only other shelter – the transmat booth set into the wall. The door opened easily, and the Doctor locked it after them with his sonic screwdriver.

'You've got to stop them!' said Martha.

The Doctor was watching the fire fight closely. Captain Georgina and her men were caught with nowhere to hide. They fought back valiantly, but it was easy for
Archibald and Jocelyn to pick them off one by one. Martha felt a little dizzy, her eyes blinded by so much brilliant pink and white light.

Yet the Doctor seemed to find it all fascinating. 'How did they get through the wall?' he asked, as if watching some scientific experiment and not a room of people being killed.

'Doctor, they're wiping each other out!' said Martha.

'Oh yeah,' said the Doctor easily. 'They're bound to. But then they'll just wake up again.' He turned to look at her, then seemed more taken by the controls of the transmat. 'That's funny,' he said.

'Oh, it's hilarious,' muttered Martha as she watched another couple of uniformed men eaten up by pink light. There was just Captain Georgina and one of her men left, curled up close to the far side of the horseshoe of computers, just out of sight of the badgers.

'Thomas was right,' said the Doctor, still scrutinising the transmat controls. 'This hasn't been used in hours. You couldn't use it anyway. The delay between the two booths would just tear you apart. No way out, I'm afraid.'

'Doctor!' said Martha through gritted teeth, as Archibald reached round the horseshoe to shoot the man beside Captain Georgina.

'Well, that
is
funny,' said the Doctor. 'Because when we were down in the engine rooms, something was trying to get through. Which means, since Thomas went and came back again already, that whoever we saw arriving
hasn't set off from here yet.' He seemed to notice Martha wasn't paying him any attention, and looked back at the fighting.

Jocelyn and Archibald were creeping round the sides of the horseshoe of computers, while Captain Georgina, alone now, waited for them to reach her. She cradled the elegant little gun in her hands. After a moment Martha realised she wasn't just cradling it, she was working controls in the handle.

'Gotcha!' said Archibald, leaping out at her and firing. From the far side of the computers, Jocelyn was leaping too, keen not to miss out on the kill.

But before the pink energy hit Captain Georgina she exploded in white light. The blast tore through the horseshoe of computers, screens and keyboards shattering all around. Jocelyn disappeared behind the explosions. Archibald's body was sent tumbling across the room, so that he smashed into the door of the transmat booth and lay still. Martha reached for the handle of the door, but it wouldn't open.

'I have to help him,' she said quietly.

'You can in a minute,' said the Doctor, busy again with the controls of the transmat.

'They've killed each other,' said Martha so quietly she barely heard herself.

The Doctor turned to her, put a hand on her shoulder. 'Yes,' he said. 'But they'll be fine again in a minute.'

'But they'll just get up and start fighting again,' she said. 'It's so stupid!'

'I know,' said the Doctor gently, his eyes looking deeply into hers. And then he grinned. 'Which is why we'll have to be really clever if we're going stop them.'

'Oh,' she said. 'You've got a plan.'

'Yes,' he said. 'And, even if I say so myself, it's really quite a good one.'

The Doctor pointed the sonic screwdriver at the door of the transmat booth, and with a click the door unlocked. The moment it opened, Martha was assaulted by an appalling stink of death and burnt fabric. She stepped carefully over Archibald's smoking body, following the Doctor over to the smashed and still burning horseshoe of computers.

She glanced back and Archibald's body had vanished. Martha knew he'd be coming back, that all the humans and badgers would be resurrected. And yet it didn't make her feel any less sick at having watched them slaughter one other. She felt again the cold steel blade that had killed her earlier that day. The time loop on the
Brilliant
brought them back from the dead, but it didn't stop violence and pain.

The Doctor fussed with the horseshoe of computers, the keyboards and screens all suddenly just as they had been before the badgers attacked. Then, happy with
whatever he'd done, he collected up the scattered guns and weapons and set to work on them with the sonic screwdriver. He had that serious, single-minded look in his eyes he often got when tinkering.

'Anything I can do?' she asked.

'Um,' he said, glancing quickly round. 'Don't think so. But it's nice of you to ask.'

She stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans and walked slowly round the horseshoe of computers. For all she was bored, she had the eerie feeling of all sorts of activity going on wherever she wasn't quite looking. There were bodies and wreckage strewn across the floor, but she'd glance away and then it would be tidy. It was just easier to close her eyes and count slowly up to ten.

When she opened them, everything was better. The bridge was clean and gleaming, the mess all taken care of. In front of the door blocked by the wall of scrambled egg sat the human crew and the three badger pirates. The badgers took off their helmets. Archibald waved at her with a hairy paw.

Beside him sat Thomas, the handsome man with the handlebar moustache. His uniform had charred and torn in a way which made him even more good-looking. Thomas tried to punch Archibald on the end of his wet black nose, but his fist struck what seemed to be an invisible wall of rubber, and bounced back to smack himself hard in the face.

'Oh yeah,' said the Doctor, still busy with what had once been a heap of guns. 'You want to look out for that.
I've messed with your wall of electricity and now it's not going to kill you. But you'll stay in your individual little pockets of it until you promise to behave.'

'Promise!' said Archibald immediately.

The Doctor adjusted a control and Archibald scampered free, joining Martha and the Doctor at the computers.

'But that's not fair!' protested Captain Georgina, as if he'd confiscated her sweets.

'Life's not fair,' Martha told her. 'Didn't your mother tell you?'

'Doctor,' said Captain Georgina gravely, completely ignoring Martha. 'You must be aware that the penalty for hijacking a starship is summary execution.'

The Doctor didn't even look up from his work on the former guns. So Martha took it on herself to answer for them both. 'You already killed us,' she said. 'So I think we're even, yeah?'

The captain held Martha's gaze, her eyes blazing with purest fury. 'You,' said Captain Georgina. 'Will. Release. Me. Now.' She spoke so carefully, so calmly, with such menace that it gave Martha goose bumps.

'Sorry,' said the Doctor airily. He finished whatever he'd made from the guns and came round the side of the horseshoe of computers to address his prisoners. 'Look, we got off to a bad start before. You seemed to be under the impression that you lot were in charge.' He grinned. 'Now are you going to play nicely?'

Dashiel and Jocelyn both promised to behave and
were duly released. The humans, taking their lead from Captain Georgina, sat where they were saying nothing. They looked, thought Martha, like a row of big sulky children.

'You're just going to leave them on the naughty step?' asked Martha.

'Have you got a better idea?' asked the Doctor, busy with his work.

'We could kill 'em,' suggested Dashiel.

'That is a possibility,' said the Doctor. 'But let's not, eh? Why don't you tell me how you three got in here? You've not got sonic screwdrivers, have you?'

'Nah,' said Dashiel. 'Archie told us what we 'ad to do.'

'Yeah,' said Archie proudly. 'You said. Vibrations.' He pronounced the last word carefully, like he was worried he might break it.

'Well, technically,' said the Doctor, 'it's resonance, but we'll let that pass. So what did you do?'

'Told Gabriel to make it vibrate,' said Jocelyn.

And he just did as he was told?' asked Martha. She had learnt Gabriel had a very literal mind, and you needed to ask him things precisely.

'Nah,' said Archibald. 'He din't. So we asked Mrs Wingsworth.'

'I see,' said the Doctor. 'Clever.'

'We 'ad to say "please" and "thank you",' explained Dashiel. 'But then she told the robot.'

'You see?' said the Doctor. 'You just have to ask nicely.'

'Yeah,' said Dashiel, his eyes full of wonder at this amazing strategy.

'So Gabriel, what, vibrated,' said Martha, 'and then you could all get through?'

'He made a thing like yours,' explained Dashiel, pointing to the Doctor's top pocket, where he kept the sonic screwdriver. 'Made from broken guns.'

'He's a smart cookie, that Gabriel,' said the Doctor. 'Your guns are full of all sorts of aiming and power accessories. You know what I've just made out of them?'

'No,' said Dashiel.

The Doctor showed them the peculiar hotchpotch of wires and circuits he'd been working on when they awoke. 'It'll be a Teasmade when it's finished.'

Martha wanted to laugh at the looks on the badgers' faces – they were so impressed with everything. And the Doctor just lived to show off the whole time, so they made the perfect audience.

'Do you even know what a Teasmade is?' she asked them.

'Er,' said Dashiel, 'no.'

'Makes tea?' asked Archibald.

'That's right,' said the Doctor.

'Tea is good,' Archibald explained to his comrades.

And if I can get the timer to work,' explained the Doctor, 'you can set it in advance. So you put it on before you go to bed and it wakes you in the morning with a fresh cup of tea.'

'But won't the guns just repair themselves when the loop works?' asked Martha.

'Maybe,' said the Doctor. 'But I'm hoping the ship will recognise that I've made them into something more useful.'

The badgers nodded, wide-eyed at this genius. Then Dashiel put out a hairy paw and touched the back of the Doctor's hand. 'We fort you'd been killed,' he said. He spoke gruffly, trying to cover up the real feeling in his voice. Despite everything they'd been through, despite all the pirates had done, Martha felt her heart go out to them.

'You came to rescue us,' she said.

'Yeah,' said Archibald. 'Kind of.'

'You came to avenge our deaths,' said the Doctor more sternly.

'Yeah,' said Dashiel.

'But you know better than that, don't you,' said the Doctor. 'Is revenge a good thing or a bad thing?'

'Good!' said Archibald with enthusiasm. Dashiel nudged him in the ribs. 'Er, bad,' said Archibald.

'But why?' said Martha to Dashiel and Jocelyn. 'Last time I saw you, you wanted me dead.'

'Yeah,' said Jocelyn. 'Sorry 'bout that.'

'But Archie said,' explained Dashiel. 'How you're good. How you let us eat the food.'

'An' we were bored,' added Archie. 'What?' he said, when Dashiel nudged him again.

'You're not really taking their side over ours, are
you?' said Captain Georgina from over by the wall of scrambled egg. She had got to her feet and stood with her hands pressed against the invisible rubber wall, so that she looked like she was performing some not very ambitious mime. The humans were all beautiful, well-toned and glamorous, but imprisoned they all looked awkward and unsure, and a bit silly. 'They're stupid, clumsy animals,' Captain Georgina continued. 'And they smell disgusting.'

The badgers bristled. 'We're not stupid,' said Dashiel.

'Now, now,' said the Doctor to the captain, wagging his index finger at her. 'That's not very nice is it? Look where your airs and graces have got you so far.'

'What do you mean?' asked Captain Georgina. 'These things are
made
to be inferior.'

'Yeah,' admitted Dashiel, shrugging.

'I don't understand,' said Martha. 'You mean this lot made the badgers?'

'Well, not this lot specifically,' the Doctor told her. 'Your lot generally. Humans. You didn't think it odd what the badgers are wearing? Uniforms with a skull and crossbones.
Human
skulls. Shows who's really in charge.'

Martha couldn't believe her ears. 'You mean they're slaves,' she said. 'Like the mouthless men down in the engine rooms?'

'Oh, they don't call them slaves,' said the Doctor. 'But you need someone to do the dirty work for you. You get into space and it's no longer immigrants but Ood and Monoids and Vocs.' He gestured towards Captain
Georgina and her staff. 'And then this lot are growing their own. Hands in the engine rooms who won't answer back and badgers to do all their thieving.'

'It's disgusting,' said Martha.

'We did not make the badgers!' Captain Georgina protested.

'No,' said the Doctor, darkly. 'But your species did. Some rival gang or faction from just down the street. Someone who's seen the war coming.'

'Yeah,' said Jocelyn. Dashiel glared at her.

'We dun't talk 'bout the client,' said Archibald. 'It's con-fiden'-shawl.' Again he spoke the last word with great care.

'Oh that's right,' said the Doctor. 'You've gotta protect your clients. Imagine how embarrassed they'd be if anyone found out what they were up to!'

'Yeah,' said Dashiel, though he didn't seem quite sure what he had just agreed with. Martha could see his brain struggling to understand.

'They don't own you,' she told him. 'No one owns anyone.'

'Hah!' laughed Dashiel, and then his eyes narrowed as he realised it wasn't a joke.

'How can something like this happen?' she asked the Doctor. 'How can it be allowed to happen?'

'You really want to know?' asked the Doctor.

'No,' said Dashiel earnestly.

'Yes,' said Martha. 'We have to face this stuff.'

'People like this lot,' said the Doctor, waving a hand
at the imprisoned human crew and not quite including Martha with them, 'live like the whole universe is there solely for their entertainment. They trash their own planet and, despite years of evidence and warnings, all kinds of species die out.'

'Badgers,' said Jocelyn quietly.

'Yeah,' the Doctor admitted. 'I'm sorry.'

'S'OK,' said Jocelyn.

'But not all the humans were the same,' said the Doctor. 'There are ones who were different and cared. And they did their best to gather loads of DNA records and set up a library of all the extinct species they could. One day, they said, humanity would know better and then they could recreate all the wildlife.'

'So why didn't they?' asked Martha. 'Why not make the badgers like badgers used to be?'

'Ah,' said the Doctor. 'On some worlds they did. But not on very many.'

'Ain't no profit, is there?' said Dashiel, shrugging.

'They were much more useful as badger-human mixes,' said the Doctor. 'Then they could be sent out to work.'

'That's . . .' said Martha. 'It's so bad I don't know what it is.'

'It's market forces,' stated Captain Georgina, from over by the door.

'These three,' said the Doctor, indicating the badgers, 'get their genes from the Western European badger, like the ones you'd get in England. Dies out in your lifetime.'
He grinned. 'The Latin name for the Western European badger is
Meles meles meles.
I always liked that one! So I guess the human/badger mash-up would be
Homo sapiens sapiens meles meles meles
!' Martha just eyed him wearily. 'Oh,' said the Doctor. 'Well, I think that's funny, even if no one else does.'

'I'm sorry,' Martha told the badgers. She thought of the miserable lives that these badger pirates had had, where simple things like cheese and tea seemed like amazing wonders.

'She's right though,' said Dashiel, gesturing towards Captain Georgina. 'We ain't as good as them.'

'See?' said Captain Georgina. 'They know that we're better. So it's not right to keep us locked up.'

'Better?' laughed the Doctor. 'They caught you in their spaceship, despite your clever disguise. They stopped you before you could use the experimental drive. And now they're free and you're not. So who's got most points?'

Captain Georgina glowered at him, but she said nothing further.

'What disguise?' asked Martha. 'You said they had a disguise.'

'Oh,' said the Doctor. 'The Brilliant isn't a luxury cruiser. The crew here clearly don't give a stuff about the passengers. It's the robots that are programmed to look after them.'

'It's a cover,' said Martha, horrified. 'You were using them as a shield. It's just about the experimental drive!'

'That is a security issue,' said Captain Georgina testily. She seemed small and impotent where she stood, the cage that held her not even visible. 'I can neither confirm nor deny the allegation.'

'Bet you wouldn't have tested the experimental drive if the passengers had been humans,' said the Doctor.

Captain Georgina bridled at this. 'There's a war coming,' she said. 'Billions of people's lives are at stake. There have to be priorities.'

'As long as they're not your sort,' Martha said to her, utterly disgusted.

'
Our
sort,' corrected Captain Georgina. 'You're humans, too.'

'Lucky us,' said Martha. The Doctor ignored the captain, busy again with the controls. Martha, though, couldn't turn her back on the captain. She felt she had to stare her down, making her look away first. As if that would somehow win the moral point.

'I don't like it either, but it had to be done,' said Captain Georgina eventually. And she looked away.

Martha joined the Doctor and Dashiel at the horseshoe of computers. Dashiel seemed transfixed by the screen that showed the spiky, peach-shaped pirate spaceship. 'Can we call the
Mandelbrot
from 'ere?' he asked the Doctor.