The Doctor stepped warily from the TARDIS, Anna at his back.  They were alone and standing in a dimly lit tunnel.  Walls, ceiling and floor were made of an unfamiliar metal, corroded and stained.  Conduits ran along the ceiling, as did bundles of cables, some of which were coming apart, dangling loosely to the floor.  The air was cold, tangy with an odor she did not recognize.  And beneath it all was a low, tympanic thumping.

Either end of the tunnel was lost in shadow, but it gave the impression of continuing forever.  Octagonal light fixtures of a clouded, glass-like material were set at regular intervals on the wall, but only some were illuminated.  Most were cracked or broken.
 
"Which direction?"  Anna asked.

The Doctor dug into his pocket and produced a small black box.  He waved it about. "Left," he announced.

"Doctor? Are you armed?"

"Certainly."  He tapped his forehead and grinned impishly.

Great.  Unarmed, in hostile, alien territory.  Anna felt the all-too-familiar tightening of her stomach.  There were her powers, of course.  If it came to that, she would use them and relapse be damned.  There would be no problem recharging here.  The place was filled with blackstones.  She could feel them as a singing in her blood.

Her early impression of an endless corridor began to look like fact.  They walked and walked, and still it stretched before them without sight of the end.  The floor and walls were set infrequently with hatches.  The Doctor paused long enough to try one, but it would not budge.

Eventually, they reached an intersection.  Undecided, the Doctor stood, brow creased, aiming his box this way and that.  Visions rose in her mind, unwelcome, of wandering forever in a vast maze until they died of thirst or hunger.

"There," he said abruptly.

A hatch lay under their feet and he bent to have a closer look.  The handle was recessed; it did not give way to his insistent pressing.  She knelt beside him and added her strength, but the latch proved impervious to pushing, pulling, or twisting. Losing patience, she aimed her mind at it.  There was a screeching of stressed metal, and the hatch reluctantly opened.  They looked into a dark, deep shaft.  A ladder clung to the side and a current of cold air surged up from the depths.
The pounding was abruptly louder.

The Doctor gave her a sharp look, then promptly lowered himself into the shaft and started down the ladder.  She followed with less enthusiasm.  The rhythmic pounding completely surrounded her, making her feel as if she was descending through a monster's gullet.

Down they went.  Soon her arms were aching, her legs trembling with fatigue, and still the end was not in sight.  It could not continue infinitely..could it?  Just as Anna was beginning to think  it could, she ran out of rungs.  For a moment, she flailed wildly, heart leaping into her throat, expecting to plunge to her death.  But her foot found solid ground.  With a sob of relief, she released grip on the ladder and collapsed into a heap at the bottom of the shaft.

"All right?"  The Doctor asked, a bit breathless himself.

"I need a nap."

He grinned. Here there were three more hatches, one of which was ajar.  Fortunately, the Doctor's magic box decreed that their direction lay through that one.  After a moment's hesitation, he pushed open the panel.

Another tunnel lay before them, much like the first, except it was lower, darker and dirtier.  The sense of great age and neglect was strong here.  Rivulets of water ran down the walls and dripped from the ceiling, gathering in small puddles on the floor.  Faintly glowing slime was visible in fine, ivy-like traceries across the walls.  There was a strong ozone smell.  It mingled with other odors -- metal, and kind of petroleum odor and....organic decay.  She moved cautiously after the Doctor.

The tunnel ended abruptly at yet another hatch.  This time, however, the Doctor hesitated.  He stared at the hatch for several long seconds.  Popping out his sonic screwdriver, he fussed with something.

"Alarm," he announced.  "Now disabled - I hope."

He seized the latch.  Again, it resisted his efforts.  Anna leaned back against the wall.  The sense of being very near blackstones had increased until it was a genuine distraction.  She bit her lip, trying to focus on the Doctor, the tunnel, anything but the intoxicating presence of so much energy.  If the Doctor would only hurry.  She considered the hatch.

"Anna .  Please - don't use your telekinesis!"

"It would get us where we're going a lot faster."

"And the cost?" he asked.

"We're saving the world, aren't we?  Are a few lives too much to pay for that?"

He stood up, met her eyes squarely. "That's not the way you really feel," he said quietly.  "Hold on, Anna.  You can do it for a little while longer."

Anna pushed away another flicker of irritation, bit back on a sarcastic retort.  He was right.  With luck, she could keep enough control to believe it.  She joined him at the hatch and together they pulled.  Nothing.  So they pushed.

"DOCTOR!"

Without warning, the doors parted and the Doctor was gone.  Cold, dry air tickled her nostrils.  She leaned over the edge, terrified at what she might see.

The hatch opened into an enormous cavern.  Anna blinked in astonishment.   Most of the floor was covered by a thick blanket of dry and dusty dirt.  Brittle stalks protruded here and there in neat rows.  From the distant ceiling hung devices that looked a lot like dangling fluorescent light fixtures, except that these were much larger and obviously not light sources at all.  Those were even higher overhead and their illumination was so dim that the cavern was lost in a permanent
twilight.

And in here the throbbing faded to a deep, almost dead silence.

"Dr. Taylor!"

She leaned further over the edge.  Directly  below, the Doctor regained his feet, brushing the dirt from his clothing.  He looked up at her, smile flashing in the gloom.

"That last step's a doozy," he warned.  "Come down!  I'll catch you."

Muttering under her breath, she scrambled through the hatch and, closing her eyes, let go.  The Doctor caught her deftly, surprising strength in the slight body.

"What is this place?"

The floor rolled away toward the far limits of this place - limits Anna could barely see.  It looked as if there might be buildings, their roofs peeping over the twin humps of artificial hills.  The air was stale and still.

"This was farmland,"  the Doctor marveled.

Anna shook her head.  She estimated the room encompassed at least fifteen square acres.  The Doctor bent and scooped up some dirt. While he sifted it thoughtfully through his fingers, Anna moved out onto the dead field.

"Maybe we should check those buildings," she said, pointing toward the "hills."

The Doctor nodded.

They found two stone structures nestled in a tiny glen.   Upon closer inspection the buildingss were ordinary enough.  The doors were the familiar hinged variety, several of them standing open.  Anna peered into one of the larger ones.  After her eyes had adjusted to the deeper gloom of the interior, she saw a single room with rectangular slabs lining each wall and a counter down the middle with a trough laid into it.

Perhaps it had been lodging for the space-faring farmers.  Nothing portable remained, suggesting an orderly departure.  One of the buildings held some built-in equipment, the sight of which moved the Doctor to exclaim happily.

"Computers," he said in response to her blank expression, and hurried to have a closer look.

"They don't look like computers."

"Not like Earth's," he corrected and began fooling about with one of them. Moments later, however, he sighed and stepped away. "No power."

Anna nodded, not really listening.  The singing in her blood had become howling.  She took several long, deep breaths and thought about the one remaining dose of antipsychotic in her bag.

"Might as well keep going," the Doctor said, disappointed.  "Too bad."

"Were you planning to sabotage the ship through a computer virus?" she guessed.

He shook his head. "What I need," the Time Lord replied, "is information.  Who are these people?  What do they want?"

"They  want us," she said shortly.  "I should think that was obvious, Doctor."

She liked the computer virus idea, but the Doctor was already on his way out the door.  It took a full five minutes to reach the far side of the cavern.  By that time, Anna's mouth felt as if it were thickly coated with the dusty soil.  She sneezed several times, loudly, and jumped at the echoes that responded.

There were doors lining a towering wall.  The Doctor applied his screwdriver to one and it slid apart to let them into a broad, low corridor.   Here the air was reasonably fresh and moving.  Ambient lighting filled the passage.  They saw no one, but somewhere ahead, around a corner, Anna heard footsteps moving away from them.  The Doctor heard them, too, for he put his finger to his lips and started in that direction.  At the corner they stopped and peered around.

Ten feet further on was a group of very weird, ugly creatures and they appeared to be shepherding a bound human in their midst.   There was something familiar about the man --  whipcord body, dark hair swinging across gray-clad shoulders.  A bright, hot spot in her mind's eye . . .

"Danner!"  she hissed.

The Doctor stiffened. "You're sure?"

She nodded.  The Doctor spared her a brief, worried glance.

"A weapon," she pointed out tersely, "would be handy right about now."

"Feeling adventurous?"  he asked abruptly. "I have an idea.  Give me two minutes, then attract their attention."

"What?"

"Don't let them catch you.  See if you can draw them back to the farming cavern."

"What if they're armed?"

"Then use your powers."

"But you said not to . . ."

Too late.  He was already on his way back down the passage.  Heart pounding, she turned and, drawing a deep breath, stepped around the corner and into the open.

 "Hey!" she shouted.  "Hey, you!"

The two creatures at the back of the group turned.  Huge, bulging eyes, tiny puckered mouth, no expression whatsoever on those alien faces.

"You eetee idiots!"  she jeered.  "Can't catch me!"

"Anna?  ANNA?"

She had a brief glimpse of Danner's face, wide-eyed, mouth falling open.  Two aliens broke away from the group and started toward her.  One of them raised a spindly-fingered hand and pointed.  Instinctively, she dodged back around the corner as  something exploded against the wall where she had been standing.

"Anna!  Get the hell out of here!"  Danner shouted.

She needed no such advice, pelting back down the corridor toward the doors.  A rapid, slapping sound followed her.  She pushed at the door and fell through.

"Here!"  The Doctor tossed her something.  She grabbed it automatically.  It was the end of a metal tape measure.  He was already ducking down, pulling the  tape out as far as it would go.  She tightened her grip on the end as the doors slid open and two of the beasties rushed in.

"Now!" cried the Doctor, and they both pulled.

The creatures went sprawling, ripping the sharp-edged tape from her hands.  She did not wait to see what the Doctor had planned.  Running out, she jumped on the back of the nearest and was vaguely pleased to hear a snapping sound.  The Doctor was busy wrestling the other into submission.  Anna stuck her head back out into the passage.  There was no sign of reinforcements, but a great deal  of noise was coming from around the corner.  She tiptoed to investigate.

Of the remaining four aliens, two were already down, black blood spreading across the floor.  The other two had Danner backed against the wall.  The blackstone's hands were bound, but he was holding his own with some pretty flashy foot work.  One of the aliens, kicked hard in the jaw, staggered back.  The other tried to come under Danner's guard.  He dropped, one leg sweeping out and across, oversetting the alien.  On his feet with blinding speed, the blackstone
drove his heel into the creatures face.  It spasmed violently, then lay still.

The surviving alien turned and bolted away down the corridor.  Without thinking, Anna reached with her mind, caught it and slammed it  against the wall.  The body left a slick black smear on the metal as it slid limply to the floor.

"Whoa," said Danner.

There was a brief, poignant silence.

"That's right," Anna said finally.  "Captain McAllister and I belong to same sorority."

Color drained from his face and he stared at her, speechless.

"It's OK," she lied.  "You're safe.  I'm here with the Doctor. . ."

"Is everyone all right?"  The Time Lord hurried around the corner.  "Danner?"

Danner's face lit up in an incandescent, disbelieving smile.   "Doctor!" his voice shook.  "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Among other things -- looking for you."   The Doctor peered worriedly into the blackstone's face.  "You're hurt!"

"Never been better!"   The happy grin encompassed her, as well.  "Do you know a way out of here?"

Anna was hypnotized by the pulse at the base of Danner's throat.  It took all her strength to haul her gaze away.  She found the Time Lord watching her, brow creased.  Danner, watching them both, glanced at the dead alien and swallowed hard.  She could feel fear, hot and sweet, and beneath it unwilling desire.  She stopped herself from taking a step toward him as he turned to the Time Lord.

"Are you sure she's, um, OK?"

"I'm sure she's not," replied the Doctor with devastating candor,  "It may be a good idea for you to go back to the TARDIS."

Anna watched Danner digest this information.  "No way.  Just get these cuffs off and (no offense, Anna) keep *her* away from me."

INTERLUDE

The news was bad.  Lermor stared at the reports and felt his belly go to mush. The tests were all positive.   There was no longer any doubt. The human was a  Prime, alright, but she was bonded.

Ten feeders -- ten -- were dead and she was only just sated.

Callifer's dismay was clear on his face.  He checked and rechecked the archive's too-brief description of what they had on their ship.

"We cannot leave," Lermor said.

Callifer cursed and rounded on him.

"We must, sir!  Our orbit is decaying exactly as predicted.  Already, the gravitational stresses are affecting the planet.  Our lesser danae are in place.  There are men preparing to bring the psionic drive back on line."

"Adjutant, There had been no Primes in the Dev universe for almost ten thousand years.  The legends, however often they might conflict, were very clear on one thing.  A bonded Prime without her mate is the last thing any sane Devian wishes to contemplate.  If this feeder they are bringing is not the man, everything thing we have must be used to find him."

He leaned forward, fixing the other Dev's gaze with his own flat stare.

"She is satisfied now with ten feeders.  Read that report under your hand.  Without her mate, a Prime is less and less able to process their energy.  Ten feeders today, fifteen next week, a hundred next month?  And then what?"

Callifer was white, but defiant. "The new feeder will be the one, sir.  I'm certain of it."

"I hope so.  Because if he's not, and we can't find him, our only choice will be to destroy her.  Otherwise, I can promise you that l'Shylian will cease to exist.  What the entire Empire could not do will be accomplished in three seconds of white-hot chaos by a single alien female.  I, for one, would prefer to avoid that."

*   *   *

"All clear."

From the intersection, Danner motioned them forward.  The Doctor consulted his tracer again.  They were getting getting closer to the most interesting energy readings on the ship.  According to the blackstone, they were also getting closer to Palas, which correlated nicely with the Time Lord's theories.  He looked up as the lights flickered and went out.

"I can't believe this."  Anna's voice was abnormally loud in the sudden silence.  "How did these creatures get all the way here - and manage to destroy us - when they can't even keep life support going."

"No kidding," Danner agreed. "You should have seen the place they took me first.  Ridiculous."

The lights blinked back on.  This time, however, they were brighter and steadier.

"But they did get here, didn't they?" The Doctor reminded them, pocketing his sensor and setting of down the leftmost passage.  "And they did nearly destroy Earth.  So it stands to reason, does it not, that appearances are deceiving?"

"A philosopher," marveled Anna.  "Spare me."

Her reactions were becoming quicker and nastier.  The Doctor shook his head slightly as Danner bristled.

"Then what do you think is happening?"  Danner asked him.

The Doctor looked quickly up and down the three corridors.  Empty.  In fact, over the past few minutes, the Time Lord and his two companions had seen no one else, human or alien.

"I think that these beings came to Earth out of sheer desperation," replied the Time Lord.  "I think their power source failed them.  That 'primitive' machine room you described sounds like a stop-gap measure designed to keep them alive until they've repaired it."

"Then where did everyone go?" Anna demanded.  "Are they crammed into a useable portion of the ship somewhere?  Are we going to open a door and find a million of those weird creatures staring at us?"

"How the hell should he know?"  Danner was fed up with her sniping.  "And the skilke are just lackeys.  Probably aren't even alive.  The Cardinal's in charge - or whatever he is."

"You're right about the skilke," agreed the Doctor.  "I had a look at one in the farm chamber.  Artificial.  A step above robot and a couple below android.  Here.  Let's try this place."

It was another set of doors, much like the ones that led into the dead farm zone.   He pushed and it gave easily.  Immediately on the other side were two skilke, both of whom spun around, deadly fingers splayed.

"Good call, Doctor," Anna jeered and blew the skilke into the opposite wall.

"Anna!"

She smiled.

"Anna, fight it!"  The Doctor seized her hands and held them tightly, forcing her to look at him.  "What about that last dose of medication?"

She ran her tongue over dry lips.  "Not yet."

From the corner of his eye, the Time Lord saw Danner creep up the corridor, vanish around a corner.  Anna saw this, too.  She shook off his hands.

"This is ridiculous, Doctor," she hissed.  "We're just putting off the inevitable."

"Maybe, but if you can hold on long enough for me to get to the real power source and disable it. . ."

"Cut me loose.  There are blackstones very near -- thousands of them.   It's like being a junkie locked in a room with ten pounds of heroin -- I can't think of anything else!"

"Doctor?"

Biting her lip, Anna moved away as Danner, back from his reconnaisance, came up to them.  He looked at Anna uncertainly.

"Major roadblock.  The hall goes on for about fifty feet - does a couple of turns and ends at a big door with lots of alien signs everywhere.  There's stuff near the ceiling that might be survellience equipment.  The door's also guarded by two skilke - and skilke like I haven't seen before.  Instead of those little gun-hands, these have big gun-hands."

"A high security area.  Exactly what I'm looking for!"   The Doctor pulled out his detector and took another reading.

"What is that?"

"Energy-sensor.  Standard issue for maintenance workers in the power conduits of Pesaida Nine.  They use it mainly to detect rogue simirium streams.  Accidently walking into one of those can be lethal."

Anna was now as far from both of them as she could get and still be in the room.  He tried not to think of that particular time bomb.

"We have to get past those guards," he told Danner.  "I think I know a way.  Will you come with me?"

"Of course."

"Dr. Taylor - we're moving!"

They doubled back and took the next door down.  This opened into a small room filled with dust and metal boxes.  The Time Lord rubbed at one of them with his finger.  Beneath the thick coat of grime were several unfamiliar symbols.

With Danner and Anna trailing after him, he prowled along the edge of the room, now and again shoving boxes away from the walls.  Behind a tall stack, he found what he had hoped for.  A service hatch, altough a very small one.

His screwdriver made short work of the bolts.  Danner dropped down next to the Doctor and helped pull the grate away.

"Not more tunnels?" Anna griped.

The Doctor wrinkled his nose at the unpleasant smell that seeped through into the room.  Danner eyed the narrow opening without optimism.

"This is a joke, right?"

"Afraid not."  The Doctor said.  "Wait here a moment."

He got up and steered Anna gently to a nearby box.  She sat down, startled.

"Listen, Anna," he said earnestly,  "the room at the other end of this service tunnel is a critical control center.  All I need is a little more time to disable it. If I'm successfull, I'll prevent this ship from leaving orbit and destroying your world in the process.  Anna -- do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I'm not completely psycho yet, if that's what you're hinting!" she replied.

"Good.  I'm trying to buy time - to give the TARDIS' medical computer a chance to find some cure for this disease."

"OK.  But I can't go through there.  It's too small, too dark."  She shivered violently. "I'll hide -- wait for you here."

"I understand," he said simply.  "But if something goes wrong, can you find the TARDIS again?"

She swallowed hard, eyes flickering away and back.   "I think so."

"Good." He pressed the key into her hand.  "We'll be as quick as we can.  If not, get back there, by any means necessary!"

"Ok."

With another worried look at her, the Doctor turned to Danner.

"I'll go first," he said in a low voice. "Be as quiet as possible."

The blackstone nodded.  The Doctor  pushed head and shoulders into the opening.   It was uncomfortably close.  Danner scrambled in after him and swore.

It was impossible to even crawl, so narrow was the conduit.  The Time Lord inched forward on his belly, pulling himself along with small presses of his elbows against the floor, pushing with his toes.  Within minutes he was scraped and bruised.  If the passage narrowed ahead of him, they were in trouble.

Behind him, Danner was having every bit as much fun, small grunts and gasps signalling each tight turn, each bit of protruding metal.  It seemed an intermiable distance.  Pull, push, pull, push, rest and try to ignore his increasing discomfort.  Pull, push.

It was now completely dark in the conduit.  It was also getting warmer.  Sweat was trickling down his back and the constant friction of his body against the conduit walls was not helping the condition of his poor shirt.  Twice the fabric caught on something, giving him several bad moments before pulling free.  Then, just as he was beginning to think he was mistaken and this bloody tunnel went on forever, he pushed free of the confining space.

For a second, the Time Lord sprawled in the sudden emptiness, content to lie perfectly still while the Danner squirmed out of the tunnel to join him.  Slowly he lifted his head, eyes adjusting to the meagre light.  They had reached a fork in the road - more tunnels lay directly before them.  The subtle, unwholesome odor he had noticed earlier was much stronger now.

"Whew! Nasty.  Which way, Doc?"

"Left."

Which was, thankfully, the larger corridor.

They made much better time now.  On hands and knees they scrambled along and soon saw a small circle of light ahead.  Five minutes later, they reached a large square of wire mesh.  Danner got there first and gasped.  Coming up after him, the Doctor felt a flood of relief.

The room beyond was of considerable size, narrow but very long. It was lined on either side by large, transparent cylindars mounted on computerized bases.  There were dozens of them, all of them filled with a dark, gold liquid.   Marching down  the center of the room was a towering wall of computers connected to the cylinders by great ropes of bound cables.

There were several skilke in the room.  They moved from cylinder to cylinder, touching a key here, a control there.

Then the Doctor glanced down and, at last, found the source of the stench.

"Oh, my God!" whispered Danner and swallowed audibly.

On the floor by the base of the nearest cylinder were bones that glistened wetly in the dim light.  Beside them was an object that resembled a large piece of leather.   A moment later, he recognized a tiny, wizened arm.

The floor was covered with the pitiful remains, few of which appeared human.  A skilke moved past the grate, heedlessly crushing the bones beneath flat feet.  The Doctor's stomach turned.

"What are they doing?  What is this place?"  Danner whispered.

The Doctor shook his head, taking a closer look at the nearest cylinder.  Through the dense, murky fluid the naked form of a human female materialized, bumped languidly against the rounded, transparent wall, and disappeared again.

The skilke had moved away, out of sight.  The Doctor rocked back on his heels and dug out his screwdriver.  He found the now-expected alarm lines and circumvented them.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting in there."

"Great.  I knew it!"  Danner managed - barely - not to smash his fist into the wall.  "Doctor, you're insane!"

"It looks like they've filled nearly all the cylinders.  If the rest of their system is intact, my guess is they'll be powering up any time.  It's a psionic drive, just as I thought.  Nothing less could get them this far, or allow them to enter Earth's orbit without ripping the planet apart."

He pushed the grate carefully aside and crawled from the tunnel.  Danner, muttering furiously under his breath, was right behind him.  Trying not to think of what was underfoot, the Time Lord ducked behind the nearest cylinder.  Careful stay out of sight, he made his way to a place offering a good view of the central computer bank.

"Now what?"  Danner whispered.

"Do you see any of the skilke?"

Danner leaned perilously into the open.   When he ducked back, his expression was grim. "One of the nasty ones -- and a couple of humans.  At least, from here that's what they  look like."

A voice echoed loudly through the room, making the two of them jump.  It was issuing instructions in an unknown language.  The TARDIS scrambled to do a linguistics match.

". . .shut down of emergency power commencing.  Re-set dann drive in mark nine units."

The Doctor began maneuvering toward the small group on the far side of the room.  Ghostly forms drifted to the outer edges of the cylinders he passed.  Perhaps it was a trick of the uncertain lighting, but the Time Lord thought he saw pleading in the wide, blank eyes.  He quickened his step.

Voices reached them now - a strange, high chittering  interspersed with deeper tones from humanoid throats.  The Doctor stopped, held out a hand to stay Danner. The lights suddenly dimmed to almost nothing.  The everpresent whisper of ventilation fell silent.

"She's not here, Doctor, but she's really close."  Danner said softly.

The Doctor nodded, only half listening.  There were two men standing with the skilke before a control panel that, unlike the rest of the bank, was up and running.

"It's the Cardinal!"   Danner was stunned.  "No -- two Cardinals!"

 The Doctor watched as the humanoids consulted, identical heads bent together.  One of the men touched something.  The lights went on again.  To eyes accustomed to the ship's usual twilight, the sudden flood of brilliance was painful indeed.  Blinking determinedly, the Doctor did some calculations.

"Can you take the skilke?"  he whispered.

"No!"

"If I distract it?"

The lights faded again and there was cursing from the control panel.

"All right."  Resigned.  "What's the plan?"

A few moments later, when he was sure Danner was in position, the Doctor left his hiding place, strolling conspicuously toward the aliens.
 
The skilke saw him first, emitting a shrill whistle that brought the other two around swiftly.  Danner was right.  They might have been identical twins.  Cadaverous faces took on expressions of ludicrous surprise.  The skilke raise a thick, hollow arm.  Smiling, the Doctor stopped.

"Good evening -- I think.  Is it evening?  Ah, well.  I see you're ready to leave this ridiculous rock.  Probably none too soon, eh?"

One of the men motioned to the skilke.  It lowered its arm halfway, but did not relax its wary stance.  The other man stepped forward, fixing the Time Lord with sunken, glittering eyes.

"What is this?  An unsupervised human loose on the restricted level?"

"Please!  No need for insults."  The Doctor stood as tall as he could, the picture of wounded dignity.  "I am the Doctor, a Time Lord,  and extremely interested in this very impressive ship.   Are you really powering it on psi?  Amazing!  What are you using for an interface?"

The twins exchanged looks - and one glanced at the computer bank behind them.  The Doctor tried to keep his elation from showing.

"Who are you, by the way?  I can't beleive the Time Lords have never heard of a species this advanced!"

"We are Dev, of the Clan v'Shylian," replied the man on the left.  "And we have not heard of Time Lords."

The Doctor was edging closer to the control panel.  Skilke and Dev slowly turned to follow his movements, suspicious.  "Oh, that's not surprising.  I take it you don't originate in any of the local galaxies?"

"You ask many questions, Time Lord.  How did you get here?  Are there others with you?"

The Doctor was within reach of the panel. "I came on my ship, naturally.  Much smaller than yours -- what a surprise, eh?  How many people can this craft sustain?  Tens of thousands, I'd guess.  I noticed a room earlier that looked like it had once been dedicated to food production.  By the way, are you clones or does your species have a single phenotype?  And how do you keep the Terran females alive in those vats?"

"Move back from the controls, Doctor!"

Looking confused, the Doctor made a great show of stepping hastily - and clumsily - backwards.  A lurch to the right and his heel came down hard on the foot of the nearest Dev.  The man swore and pushed at him.  Babbling apologies, the Doctor turned and trod on the other Dev's foot.  The skilke sensed something amiss, and leaned forward, gun hand swinging up.

Anytime, Danner. . .

Something plummeted from the top of the computer bank.  The skilke began to turn its eyes upward, but too  late.  The blackstone landed with graceful precision on the construct's head, a quick twist of his ankles snapping vertebrae.  Head lolling, it stood, frozen.  Danner jumped to the floor and punched the nearest Dev in the gut.  The Doctor hastily drove an elbow into the abdomen of the other.

"Keep them busy!" the Doctor ordered, running for the control panel.

The interface controls were printed in Devian and meaningless.  THe Doctor was relieved to note, however, the the basic configuration was not unfamiliar.  He focused on the printing, opening his mind, sending his impatient request toward the TARDIS.  Translations came, but too slowly.  This touch-pad brought up the interface, that lever controlled oxygen input to the vats.    At the moment, the only controls activated were those monitoring the captives' life support systems.

"Doctor!"

"Not now."  He stared at the bewildering array of touch-pads, knobs and levers.  There!  A collection of glyphs resolved itself into "manual override."

"Doctor!"

It was on manual now.  Thirty small, embedded discs on his right were identified by the TARDIS -- a keyboard.  He hit a couple  disks, then jumped as a sudden, deafening wail filled the room.

"Damn!  We're busted!  Move it, Doctor!"

"Go!"  replied the Time Lord without looking around.  "Find Anna - she'll lead you back to the TARDIS!"

"The hell with that!"

 "GET OUT OF HERE!"

The screen blanked, came to life again displaying new codes.  He began inputting data as fast as he could.  Danner's hand settled on his arm; he shook it off.

"Doc - Anna's probably going to kill me."

The Doctor spun around.  The two Dev sprawled face up below a nearby cylinder, heads at a grotesque angle, eyes wide and glassy.  He looked away.  It was hard to meet the blackstone's frightened gaze.

"She won't kill you.  The TARDIS will know what to do with her!  You'll be safe enough there.  Now go!"

He had a glimpse of Danner's doubtful face before turning resolutely back to the interface.  The alarm continued its grating screech overhead.  Footsteps approached from the right.  Lots of them, moving fast.

Danner was gone, vanishing into the darkness between the vats.  Trying desperately not to think about what he had just done to the blackstone, the Doctor returned to the controls.  Fingers moved swiftly across the disks.  The screen fluttered, changed, and changed again.

"STOP HIM!"

The screen blanked.

"FIRE!"

The universe blanked.

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