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Authors: Ian Briggs

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BOOK: Doctor Who: Dragonfire
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'Yes, darling - won't be a minute,' replied her mother, not bothering to emerge from the feathers.

The mechanical sound grew louder as the mysterious object materialised. There was a flashing blue light on top of the object, which stopped at the same time as the sound, once the object had fully materialised. Stellar had

never seen anything like this before. She tugged at her mother's sleeve once again.

'What is it, Stellar?' demanded her mother irritably, as she turned to see what her daughter was so concerned about. She looked at the tall blue cubicle now standing between two freezer chests. 'Yes, it's a Police Box, darling. They have them on a dirty planet called Earth. I'll show you some pictures when we get back to the spacecraft. Now where do you suppose they keep the deep-frozen lavatory paper... ?' She flounced off down the aisle, pushing her trolley in front of her, and dragging her wide-eyed daughter behind her.

 

The Doctor emerged cautiously from the TARDIS and looked round. No one seemed to have noticed the TARDIS's arrival. He was constantly surprised at how people are so preoccupied with themselves that they never notice what's going on about them. Mel followed him out, and looked round.

'A freezer centre!' she exclaimed in dismay. 'I thought this was going to be an adventure!'

'Trust not to appearances, Mel. There's no knowing what kind of evil might be lurking in the freezer chests... Follow me.'

The Doctor loped off towards a door marked Refreshment Bar, leaving the sensible-minded Mel wondering which was barmier - the Doctor, or the idea of a freezer centre in space - as she hurried after him.

Walk into a refreshment bar on any planet in the Twelve Galaxies and you might just as well walk into a refreshment bar on any of the other thousands of planets. They're all much the same. The same brightly coloured lighting and exotic fruit drinks everywhere. The same frontier-post bustle, with curious aliens arguing in strange languages. And the same bad-tempered barmen, who would rather spend their time polishing glasses and tumblers than serving customers.

In Iceworld, the barman was called Eisenstein, and he was currently glowering at three customers seated at the door. His assistant, a rebellious-looking sixteen-year-old waitress, was hurrying backwards and forwards with trayfuls of drinks. The three objects of Eisenstein's ill humour were a tall reptilian creature, a woman with blue hair and silver skin, and a small furry creature with disgusting table manners, who was actually a Galactic Ambassador. The woman seemed to be calling the Ambassador 'Erick' as she dropped small pieces of food into its mouth.

Erick was managing to drool half of the food all over the table (which Eisenstein would have to clean up afterwards) and spit the rest of it over the customers sitting nearby. Disgusting! thought Eisenstein, as he watched a small piece of half-chewed seaweed fly out of Erick's mouth and arc gracefully down the cleavage of a pig-featured hologram model sitting three tables away. Absolutely disgusting!

Just then, the door swung open and the Doctor marched in, propelling Mel alongside him. He looked round, then straightened himself, and strode up to Eisenstein. 'Hello. We've just arrived. What can you recommend to quench the thirst and fortify the spirits, eh?'

'May I suggest an Astral Cascade, made with fresh orchid juice?' offered Eisenstein, grateful that the new customers at least seemed to have decent table manners. 'Completely non-alcoholic for zero-gravity travel, but it packs a punch like nitro-9!'

'Splendid! Just the thing. We'll have two of them, please.'

'Certainly, sir.'

At a table in a dark corner, another customer was arguing with the waitress. He spoke with a distinctive thick voice. 'There must be some mistake with the reckoning, Sprog...'

'The mistake's in your wallet, not my arithmetic!'

argued the teenage waitress back. 'And don't try and pay in Nebulous Shillings neither. I got into trouble for accepting them yesterday.'

The Doctor looked at Mel. There was something familiar about the customer's voice.

 

'Do you take Asteroid Express?' enquired the customer.

Of course!

'Glitz!' exclaimed the Doctor and Mel simultaneously, as they bounded across to the dark corner. Glitz choked on his milkshake.

'What? No. Never heard of him,' he replied, trying to hide his face.

'Of course it's you,' countered Mel. 'Don't you remember us - Mel and the Doctor? You haven't forgotten, have you?'

Glitz looked up. There was no mistaking the biggest rogue this side of the Greater Space Lanes: the rugged leather jerkin (for keeping out the astral storms), the securely tied money pouch (for containing the profits from his dubious financial deals), the neatly trimmed beard (for attracting the ladies), and the look of hurt innocence (for getting him out of trouble) - a rogue right down to the space dust on his boots.

'Shh! Keep your voice down!' he hissed.

He peered at Mel, trying to remember where he'd seen her before. 'Of course I haven't forgotten you... er..." Suddenly, he remembered. 'Mel!

And the Doctor!' He turned to the Doctor to shake his hand, but instead of the Doctor he remembered from their last adventure together, he now saw a goon grinning like an idiot.

'Here - hold the space race...' muttered Glitz suspiciously, 'you're not the Doctor.'

The Doctor turned away crossly. 'I've regenerated. The difference is purely perceptual.'

 

'Oh... right...' Glitz didn't have the faintest idea what the Doctor was talking about, but he knew from

experience that with the Doctor anything could happen. And it was a rule of Glitz's never to ask too many questions. The waitress, meanwhile, was getting restless.

'Here - what about this bill that you haven't paid?'

Glitz turned back to the Doctor. 'You couldn't help me out, could you, Doctor?' he whispered. 'Only - I appear to be temporarily financially embarrassed.'

The Doctor sighed, and pulled a handful of banknotes out of his pocket.

He selected a ten crown note and gave it to Glitz. 'This is just a loan, you understand.'

'You're a gent.' Glitz passed the note to the waitress. 'Here you are -

and I'll pay for my two friends as well. And keep the change.' The waitress's eyes opened wide in amazement. So did the Doctor's.

'Just a moment - that's a ten crown note!' But the waitress was gone.

Glitz leaned across to the Doctor. 'Here -you couldn't do me another favour, could you? You see, I'm in a spot of bother.'

'What is it this time, Glitz? Another dodgy deal of yours backfired?'

'No, nothing like that - straight up. Fact is...' he glanced round, and then beckoned the Doctor and Mel to lean closer as he whispered, 'I'm on a mission of a highly philanthropic nature.'

"What's that?' whispered Mel.

Glitz looked at Mel. 'It means it's beneficial to mankind.'

 

'I know what philanthropic means! What's the mission?'

'I have been entrusted with the delivery of certain secret documents, which unnamed nefarious parties would stop at nothing to grasp within their own grubby digits.'

The Doctor looked at Glitz in horror. 'You mean... they'd...'

'... kill you?' continued Mel.

Suddenly, a hand fell on Glitz's shoulder. The Doctor, Mel and Glitz looked up to find themselves surrounded by guns. Captain Belazs had her hand on Glitz, holding him firmly in his place. 'Sabalom Glitz. We've been looking for you...'

Mel sprang up. 'Leave him alone! If you kill him, you'll have to kill us too!'

'Steady on, now, Mel..." cautioned the Doctor, watching the guns.

Captain Betezs turned to Mel in surprise. 'What are you talking about?'

'He's told us everything. About how you want to stop him delivering his secret documents.'

'Shh...' interrupted Glitz.

Belazs turned to Glitz, who was trying to smile innocently. 'Becoming quite a story-teller, aren't we, Glitz?' She turned back to Mel. 'The truth is, I'm not interested in any secret documents which Mr Glitz may or may not possess.' Mel and the Doctor looked at Glitz accusingly. His innocent smile was starting to wear thin. Betezs continued. 'I'm more concerned with the one hundred crowns he took from my employer, Mr Kane, under false pretences.'

 

'That was highest quality merchandise!' protested Glitz.

Belazs turned on him. 'It was a space-freighterful of deep-frozen fruit which turned out to be rottenV

'A bit on the ripe side, maybe...'

'They were putrefying, Glitz!'

'A little past their prime, possibly...'

'And Mr Kane does not run Iceworld to subsidise crooks like yourself.

The 100 crowns, please.' Belazs held out her hand for the money. Glitz looked to the Doctor for help, but the Doctor's goodwill had run out.

'I think you'd better return the money, Glitz.'

'I can't.'

'Why not?'

'Well, there was this game of cards... I got well damaged...'

'What about the 102 crowns you also sold your crew for?' interrupted Belazs.

Mel was appalled. 'Sold your crew?'

'The mutinous rabble!' retorted Glitz. 'The ungrateful cretins! I generously offered them ten per cent of the profits on our last deal, to share between them, and what did they do? Tried to take control of the spacecraft. But I was too smart for them, and they got well spanked! I relieved myself of them for seventeen crowns each -which was rather more than they were worth, I fancy!' Glitz chuckled to himself.

Belazs held out her hand. 'The money...'

 

Glitz smiled weakly at her. 'Gone the way of all organic matter, I'm afraid - down the tubes ...'

'In that case, we're confiscating your spacecraft.'

'The Nosferatu? You can't do that!'

'Oh yes we can - unless you return the money you owe. You have seventy-two hours to find the 100 crowns, or you lose the spacecraft.'

Bel&zs clicked her fingers at the other guards, who followed her as she walked smartly out. Glitz turned to the Doctor again.

'You've got to help me, Doctor.'

'You've only yourself to blame,' snapped the Doctor crossly. Glitz turned to Mel.

'Mel - think of the adventures we had together...'

But all Mel could remember was how she'd just been made to look an idiot by Glitz's scheming. 'You lied to us, Glitz.'

The Doctor and Mel both stood up and moved to a different table, where they struck up an interesting conversation with a pig-featured hologram model who'd just caused a diplomatic incident by stuffing a Galactic Ambassador into a plate of stewed seaweed.

CHAPTER THREE

In the Cryogenics Chamber, Sergeant Kracauer looked on as a clear tube descended over the immobile form of the dark-haired crew-woman.

The four tubes next to her encased the other four members of the Nosferatu crew, and were already coated with a frosting of ice.

 

The door from the Restricted Zone hissed open, and Kracauer turned to see Kane enter the chamber. 'You're going to have trouble with this lot when you defrost them, Mr Kane.'

'Trouble?'

'They didn't volunteer willingly.'

'Ah... willingly...' Kane's black button-eyes scanned the rows of glistening tubes, each containing a motionless figure. 'But none of my mercenary force will be willing when I bring them out of cryo-sleep.

Neither willing nor unwilling. The process causes complete loss of memory. With no memories, they can have no past, no future, no will of their own. No purpose except to obey me.' His eyes filled with cruelty, and his voice dropped to an evil whisper, 'My power shall be absolute.'

In the Refreshment Bar, the Doctor and Mel were now sitting by themselves, since the pig-featured hologram model had been rescued by her manager before she could cause any more diplomatic incidents with items from the menu. Glitz was sitting by himself, in disgrace, at an adjoining table. By the bar, the teenage waitress was arguing with Eisenstein. She was glaring angrily at a fatuous-looking couple at one of the tables. 'It's not my fault!' she protested. 'First they asked for two Vanilla Venuses - then one Vanilla Venus and one Starfruit Juice - and then two Starfruit Juices. How was I supposed to know that the bimbo had changed her mind again?'

'And we'll have less of your insolence, young lady.'

'I'm not telepathic,' grumbled Ace.

 

'You will do as you are told,' ordered Eisenstein. 'Now less of your lip, or you're out on your ear.'

'Yes, Mr Eisenstein.' Ace knew that she was beaten, and she couldn't afford to lose the job. She picked up the two Astral Cascades which the Doctor and Mel had ordered, and was still grumbling when she reached their table. 'If I didn't need the money, I'd chuck this job.' She plonked the drinks down, and then sat down herself. 'I hope he meets the dragon in a dark passage one night!'

'Dragon? What dragon?' asked Mel, mystified.

The waitress looked up as though she'd just noticed Mel for the first time. 'Oh, it's just some legend. There's supposed to be a terrifying dragon living in the Ice Passages beneath Iceworld. But I think the real dragon around here is Mr Eisenstein.'

Mel smiled broadly, and turned to the Doctor. 'Now I get it. I knew there must be a reason why you brought us here. You want to see a dragon, don't you?'

The Doctor was now bursting with enthusiasm. 'No, really, Mel - it's fascinating! Lots of people claim to have seen it over the centuries, but there's never been any proof, see?'

'You mean like the Loch Ness monster?'

'Loch...' corrected the Doctor with the authentic Scottish accent he'd acquired during his last regeneration.

The waitress was listening to this with growing disbelief. 'You're going to go looking for the dragon?'

 

'Absolutely!' affirmed the Doctor.

'Nah - it's just tinsel, innit?'

'Well, that's the whole point, young woman! If we were to go searching after an everyday coelacanth or dodo, it wouldn't be half as exciting!'

'What - you're really going to do it?'

'Scientific progress depends on it.'

'Cor - can I come too?'

BOOK: Doctor Who: Dragonfire
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