The Pirate Loop (3 page)

'When were you ever on dial-up?' asked Martha.

'I read about it,' said the Doctor. 'Well,' he said to the mouthless man. 'That way's blocked for the moment. Probably with some movie about a cat on a skateboard. So we'll go see your captain on Shanks's pony.'

The mouthless man stared dumbly at him.

'He means,' said Martha, 'we're going to have to walk. Why can't you talk normally?'

'What?' said the Doctor. 'And be just like everybody else?'

The mouthless man led them back round the TARDIS and then off to one side. They followed a narrow passageway to a thickly reinforced door. A complicated sequence of different handles and locks allowed the mouthless man to open it.

Martha had expected to see the plush fittings of a
luxury ship. Yet the way was barred by a strange, pale skin of material, like a kind of fungus. It totally blocked the door. The mouthless man again gestured emphatically; it was this obstacle he'd tried to explain.

'Somebody really doesn't want us getting out of here,' said the Doctor. 'Cor, this is a bit unusual!' He put his hand out and stroked the pale surface. 'Feels like cold scrambled egg!'

'Do you know what it is?' asked Martha.

'Oh yeah,' said the Doctor. 'Seen this before. The TARDIS can get clogged with the stuff.'

'It's some sort of time fungus, then?'

'That's the technical name for it, obviously,' laughed the Doctor. 'You get it where time doesn't quite meet up. Time, right, comes in chunks.'

'Chunks?' said Martha.

'Yeah,' said the Doctor. 'Really! But "chunks" sounds silly, so your lot use the Greek word
quanta.'

'Like quantum mechanics,' said Martha.

'That's it exactly,' said the Doctor. 'So it comes in chunks. And this stuff lives in the gaps between moments, between the Planck units. Ship like this, it's going to make a lot of it. But it's weird to see it
inside
the ship.'

'It's some kind of weed?'

'Nothing like that. Something much, much, much more peculiar. You imagine you're in a lift, going between different floors.'

'This is another analogy, is it?' said Martha.

'Yes, it's another analogy. It's the only way you'll understand it! Right, you're in this lift. But it's one of those old warehouse lifts that doesn't have any doors.'

'So you see the floors going by.'

'Yeah, that's it. And when you're between floors?'

'Uh . . . Well, you see the bits in between the floors. Concrete and stuff.'

'Right! Now what's happened is that our little bump has stopped the ship between different floors. Only some of the ship's on one floor, and some of it's on another.'

'So this is the concrete between floors?' Martha rubbed her hand against the pale substance. Yes, it was soft and rubbery, just like cold scrambled egg.

'Yeah,' said the Doctor. 'Normally no one sees it. Which is good 'cos it doesn't half make a mess.'

'So we can't get through it, then?'

The Doctor laughed. 'What?' he said. 'When I've got this?' And he brandished his sonic screwdriver. 'I just need setting twenty-eight.' He waved the sonic screwdriver at the scrambled egg material. After a few seconds he poked the eggy skin with his finger. His fingertip broke through the surface.

'See?' he said. You just step through sharpish before it hardens again.'

'It's that simple?' said Martha, not wholly convinced.

'Trust me,' said the Doctor.

She laughed. 'You know you only say that when it's really bad.'

'Do you want me to go first?'

That was enough to decide her. 'No,' she said. 'You can cover my back.'

It took a while for the sonic screwdriver to soften the stuff blocking the door. Martha had time for another cup of tea and a one-sided chat with the mouthless man in Bermuda shorts and leather apron. It seemed brilliant at first that she could tell him anything and all he could do was listen. But the unfairness of it soon got to her. She had told him all about her family, and Dad and Annalise, and she didn't know one tiny thing about the mouthless man himself. Did he like his job? Did he have someone who loved him? He just watched her, nodding encouragingly but not even able to smile.

Again she felt that fierce determination to do something for these people. Somehow, she and the Doctor were going to make things better.

'Right,' said the Doctor, prodding the scrambled egg with his fingers. Think that's soft and squidgy.'

'How thick is it?' asked Martha, suddenly rather nervous.

'Er . . . No idea,' said the Doctor. 'I've never done this before. Can't be too thick if it resonates so quickly. But who knows?'

That's not exactly reassuring.'

'No? Well, I'll be along right after you. We can compare notes on the other side.'

'OK,' she said, not feeling very much better. She took a deep breath and braced herself, like this was a fairground ride.

'And don't wander off,' said the Doctor.

She stuck her tongue out at him and walked boldly right into the strange material.

The scrambled egg material closed tightly around her, cold and rubbery and awful. Martha pushed on through.

She emerged blinking into a narrow corridor, all dark and varnished wood, with plush, red carpet underfoot. You could tell there had been money spent on it, sure, but the corridor felt cramped and not very extravagant. Someone as tall as the Doctor would have trouble standing up straight.

There was none of the eggy material on her – she was entirely clean. She glanced briefly up and down the corridor to check nobody was coming. Martha itched to explore further but she knew that the moment she did the Doctor would pop through the scrambled egg behind her and only roll his eyes. So she settled down on the floor to wait for him. Her back rested against the smooth, hard wood. She checked her watch; it was a
little after two in the morning. Time didn't mean much when you travelled with the Doctor.

The floor and walls vibrated gently with power, and in the pit of her stomach Martha could feel that the ship was moving. She pressed a hand against the skin of scrambled egg that blocked the way back into the engine rooms. It felt warm and slightly sticky, but it did not yield.

She shivered with sudden fear. Of course, she thought, there just wasn't any way that she could be separated from him for ever. If the door didn't work, he could use the teleporter thing. Whatever it took, the Doctor would find a way back to her. She had complete faith in that.

But it was still taking him ages. Martha found that she was bored. 'Come on,' she told the wall of cold scrambled egg. 'I'll give you five minutes and then I'm going to explore.'

'Are you quite well, madam?' said a voice she didn't know.

Martha looked round quickly, to see her own face reflected back at her. She looked a little surprised.

'I do beg your forgiveness,' said the polished metal robot, backing away from her smoothly. His tone made it sound as if when he spoke he was also raising one eyebrow, as if it were all her fault. He wasn't like the robots of Milky-Pink City; while they had been all keen-to-please, he sounded well-schooled and sarcastic. Martha looked him quickly up and down.

'You're some kind of waiter?' she said.

'Really, madam, you're too kind,' said the robot drolly. 'I am a starship's steward.'

'Course you are,' said Martha, getting quickly to her feet. The robot made no move to assist her. He was a bit shorter than she was and even skinnier, his chrome surfaces sparkling brightly. And she found him somehow unsettling. It took a moment for her to realise that he hadn't been built to seem like a man in a suit. Not even the Doctor with his skinny arms and legs could fit inside so slender a body. The robots of Milky-Pink City had been built with bigger bones, so as not to freak out the humans.

'Might I enquire as to your berth number, madam?' the robot asked her wearily. She got the feeling it spent a lot of time rounding up lost passengers.

'My what?' said Martha. 'Sorry, I'm new around here.'

Somewhere off in the distance, Martha felt sure she heard a crash. Not a crash like the ship changing gear or anything. A crash like something going wrong.

The robot didn't seem to notice, though. It stared at her with unmoving, metal eyes.

'Your berth number, madam,' it repeated. 'It will be on your key-fob and on the door to your berth.'

'Oh!' said Martha. 'Like my room number?'

'Indeed, madam,' said the robot.

'Oh, well, I'm not—' She was about to say that she wasn't a passenger, but had a sudden thought. 'What do you do with stowaways round here?'

The robot stood up a little straighten 'Checking,'
he said. After a moment that seemed to suggest it had delved through a vast bank of memory, it continued: 'There is no precedent for dealing with stowaways aboard the
Brilliant,
madam. Yet the regulations state that our first priority is to our passengers' safety. So in such an instance the crew are authorised in the use of deadly force.'

'Right,' said Martha. 'You'd kill them?'

'We would be authorised to do so. Might I enquire as to your berth number, madam?'

'Oh, right,' she said. 'It's Twenty-Eight.' That was the sonic screwdriver setting the Doctor had used on the scrambled egg. Maybe it was lucky.

'Checking,' said the robot.

Martha waited for it to conclude that she was a liar and a threat to the passengers. She couldn't see if it had any weapons, but perhaps it fired lasers out of its eyes. Martha had met a couple of species who could do stuff like that.

'I do apologise, Ms Malinka,' said the robot. 'I shall remember your name from now on.'

'That's OK,' said Martha nervously. 'But really, call me Martha.'

'As you wish, Ms Martha,' said the robot.

Again there was a crash from somewhere else on the ship, possibly upstairs. It definitely wasn't anything good. Again the robot seemed not to notice. Martha gave it the benefit of the doubt, worried that if she started asking questions she'd make the robot suspicious.

'And have you got a name?' she said. 'Since we're being all informal.'

The robot bowed. 'My designation is "Gabriel".'

'Hello, Gabriel,' said Martha easily. 'Glad we got that sorted.'

'Indeed, Ms Martha,' said Gabriel. He seemed to be waiting for something. Martha couldn't think what it was. She found it unnerving being watched at the best of times, but this bloke, with his impossibly skinny body and a head that worked like a mirror, was really something else.

'What?' she said.

'Might I get you an aperitif, Ms Martha?' said Gabriel.

That'd be nice,' said Martha. 'What have you got?'

'It might be best were you to accompany me to the cocktail lounge, Ms Martha. Then you can choose from our extensive menu.'

'Ah,' said Martha. 'Thing is, I'm waiting on this bloke.'

'I am programmed with discretion parameters, Ms Martha,' said Gabriel.

'No! Nothing like that! You're as bad as my mum.'

'I do apologise, Ms Martha.'

'He's just this bloke. Nothing special. Nothing, you know... And I'm meant to wait for him.' She grinned. 'Could you just go and fetch me a cocktail?'

'I regret we are not advised to encourage passengers to take drinks out of the cocktail lounge, Ms Martha.'

'It's a health and safety thing, is it?'

The third crash was much more noticeable; the whole ship lurched under their feet. Martha collided with the very hard, dark wood of the wall. Gabriel swayed expertly in time with the lurching, and remained coolly on his feet.

'No, Ms Martha,' he said. 'They might spill them.'

'And that would make a mess of your lovely carpets, I suppose,' she said.

'More importantly, it would inconvenience the passengers, Ms Martha.'

Martha sighed. It wasn't merely that she'd said she wouldn't wander off. After all, the Doctor would expect her to use her initiative. Especially since, with all these crashes, there had to be something going on. But things always had to be so complicated, didn't they? She wanted to ask the robot what that was all about, but feared it might show she wasn't a passenger. And then the robot might kill her.

So she had to go along with him, though she had no way to tell the Doctor where she had got to. Martha had never really been one for handbags, mostly because she kept losing them, but right now a pen and a bit of paper would have been quite useful.

'If I might make a suggestion, Ms Martha,' said Gabriel. 'Once you have accompanied me to the cocktail lounge, I would be happy to return here. I could wait on the gentleman and explain to him where you are.'

'Well, yeah, that'd be good,' said Martha. But she had been with the Doctor long enough to know a trap when
she saw one. 'Why are you so keen to get me into this cocktail lounge?'

The robot had a smooth, expressionless face and yet still contrived to look guilty. 'I apologise for any perceived subterfuge, Ms Martha,' he said.

'And if I refuse to go with you?'

'Checking,' said Gabriel. 'The regulations state that our first priority is our passengers' safety. So in such an instance I would be authorised to escort you by force.'

'I see,' said Martha. 'So I don't really have any choice, do I?'

This didn't seem to have occurred to Gabriel. 'Checking,' he said. He checked for a moment and then admitted dourly, 'No, Ms Martha.'

Martha tried to remember the route as they made their way to the cocktail lounge. They turned left, left again and then right, and then made their way up a wide staircase. The ceilings were higher on this new level but it still felt cramped and claustrophobic.

Gabriel led Martha into a lavish ballroom, a vast space after the narrow corridors, but still small and claustrophobic. Loud and laughing voices came from somewhere beyond.

Two rows of slender columns divided the room in three. The columns, reaching from floor to ceiling, suggested that such a wide, open space threatened the integrity of the ship. Martha had already learnt that space travel was never as glamorous and clean as it looked on
telly. Yet when the Doctor had told her about the
Brilliant
before, she'd imagined something slightly less difficult. Something glamorous and a bit posh. This was more like a rickety old crate with nice carpet.

Another robot packed up tables and stacked them in a corner; Martha had clearly missed dinner. It all just got better and better.

Gabriel did not seem to acknowledge this other robot as he led Martha past. She resisted the urge to help with the tables. But as she crossed the room, she could see the carpet glittering with broken glass. Now she looked, one of the tables had been smashed apart, too; the robot stacked broken pieces. Again, the robots declined to acknowledge whatever had happened. Martha felt a sudden need to run, though she knew she had nowhere to go. Besides, the voices coming from the next room sounded lively and friendly.

Beyond the ballroom, and through a discreet door, the small cocktail lounge awaited. Her nostrils flared at a sudden tang of oranges and lemons. For a moment she thought the lounge must be perfumed, but as she stepped through the door she realised the sweet stench came from the tentacled aliens.

There were maybe a dozen of them, tubby, egg-shaped creatures, either all-orange or all-pale-blue. They crowded around the great bay window, looking out onto twinkling stars. Martha realised they were right at one end of the ship, where the passengers could sip elegant drinks and admire the view. Their ball gowns
looked expensive and floaty, and they wore lots of heavy jewellery all down their long and nimble tentacles. Martha watched them busy with chatting and drinking, and ignoring her arrival. For all she couldn't name the species, she felt like she must have seen them before. And then it struck her: it was like going to a party with Mr Tickle's family.

'Hello!' she said brightly, like her sister did at parties. The aliens stopped talking to look at her. There was a sudden, horrible silence.

'Er . . .' said Martha. She hated being the centre of attention. And these aliens had big, staring eyes. It didn't help that she knew their posh party through the stars depended on those sorry, mouthless men, slaving away downstairs.

'Might I get you an aperitif, Ms Martha?' said Gabriel. The party of aliens clearly took this to mean they could carry on with their urgent conversations. Martha was again ignored. She couldn't thank Gabriel enough.

'That'd be nice,' said Martha. 'What have you got?'

Another robot manned the long bar on one side of the lounge. The menu offered all kinds of brightly coloured drinks that Martha had never heard of. The only thing she recognised on the list was 'hydrogen hydroxide' – or water, as they called it back home. Martha could have it in a glass, in a bowl or in an 'immature Mim'. She thought she could live without knowing exactly what that last one was.

She sipped her water, feeling under-dressed in her
jeans and vest-top, and terribly tall and awkward around the dumpy aliens. It was no fun being so noticeable at a party; it made her all self-conscious. She just wanted to be invisible. Slowly, Martha made her way to the great bay window and looked out into the darkness beyond. The stars seemed tiny, so distant that she couldn't tell if the ship were moving towards them or away. Perhaps one of those tiny pinpricks of light was her own sun. Or perhaps she was too far from home even for that. She would never get used to that feeling.

'And what do you make of it all, dear?' asked an orange alien beside her, so suddenly Martha spilt her glass of water.

'Oh, I'm sorry,' said Martha, feeling even more stupid as other aliens turned to look at her.

'No, no,' said the alien, kindly. 'We're all a little unnerved. I'm Mrs Wingsworth. My friends call me Mrs Wingsworth.'