Doctor Who_ Enlightenment - Barbara Clegg [12]
Venus glimmered, distant, but clearly visible through the forrard port of the wheel-house. Striker stirred, as though he had just woken from sleep, but when he spoke his voice was measured and precise. ‘Check our exact position.’ An officer crossed immediately to one of the computer terminals and Striker continued, with some satisfaction,
‘Gentlemen, we are about to round our first planet.’
‘Planet?’ Turlough was startled. He thought for a minute he could not have heard correctly, but the Doctor did not appear at all surprised.
‘Remember the chart?’ he said in a low voice.
‘The one Tegan insisted was plotting the marker buoys?’ Turlough replied.
‘Yes’ the Doctor said. ‘She was right. If you’d looked more carefully you’d have recognised the pattern. It’s a map of the solar system containing Earth. The marker buoys are the planets.’
Turlough did not take this in for a second. The idea of using planets to mark a race course seemed so extraordinary. But before he could ask any questions the Doctor was speaking in a low urgent voice in his ear, ‘Find out where Marriner’s taken Tegan. Now! Slip out while nobody’s looking.’
Turlough glanced round. The Doctor was right. They were unobserved. All eyes were on the distant planet ahead.
‘There’s no need to whisper, Doctor,’ came Striker’s voice suddenly from the far end of the wheel-house. ‘You and your companions are free to come and go as you wish.
You are guests, not prisoners.’
Turlough could not resist a momentary smile of pleasure at the Doctor’s discomfiture. Then he did as he had been told.
The moment the door closed behind him, the Doctor went into action. It was vital to find out more about this strange race as quickly as possible, and he had decided that the best person to tell him was the Captain. Idly, as though drawn by the mysterious charm of the planet, he sauntered over to the porthole and stared out.
‘Very aptly named,’ he commented. ‘After the goddess of beauty herself.’
Striker, standing by the helmsman, turned blank eyes in his direction.
‘Venus,’ the Doctor added softly, as though he had been asked a question.
‘Ah yes. Venus.’ Striker came to life. ‘Our first obstacle.
Our next major obstacle is the Greek.’
He operated a switch, and the line of sailing-ships came once more into view on the screen. Almost as if it were alive, the scanner picked out one in particular and homed in. The banked oars of a great Greek galley came into close-up, its sail bellied out, and then, closer still, the scanner moved in on its captain, seated on a lavish throne and studying a chart.
‘Critas the Greek,’ came Striker’s precise voice. ‘The only captain who could possibly beat me.’
The Doctor was so intrigued that for a moment he forgot the object of the exercise. His gaze had dwelt lovingly on the eye painted on the galley’s bow, on the dolphin’s tail of the stern, and on the linen chiton of the man sitting there... He pulled himself abruptly together.
‘The period detail of your ships is impressively accurate,’ he said, echoing the slightly pedantic tones of the Captain.
‘There is no point in the race otherwise,’ Striker replied.
‘Accurate except for one thing.’ the Doctor’s voice was soft, but he made quite sure that it was audible. And it was not until he knew that he had Striker’s attention that he spoke again. ‘The jewel’ he said. And immediately, almost as though reading his thoughts, the scanner moved in close on a ring on the Greek’s finger.
‘That isn’t contemporary, is it?’ he asked, with deceptive innocence, as they both stared at the great cabuchon ruby.
‘Seventeenth-century Spanish, surely.’
Striker looked at him sharply, then back at the screen.
"You’re very observant,’ he said.
‘The only thing out of period. I wonder why?’ The Doctor’s mild comment seemed to hang in the air for a second, and then, recovering quickly from his discomfiture, Striker switched the scanner back to a view of Venus, now closer still.
‘When you meet Critas, you must ask him,’ he said smoothly, and turned his back.
Turlough had completely lost