Doctor Who_ Enlightenment - Barbara Clegg [13]
Somewhere overhead the crew were singing. Then the hatch was banged down again and the music was cut off.
When he reached the foot of the ladder, he discovered it was not a member of the crew who stood there, but one of the officers. There was something about the motionless figure that would have marked it out even without the uniform. But as Turlough peered into the frozen face, the eyes moved suddenly and looked back at him.
Momentarily disconcerted, he did not know what to say.
Then, pulling himself together, and with a jerk of his head towards the ladder, he asked, ‘Where does this lead?’ ‘The deck,’ came the brief reply, and Turlough felt all sense of reality beginning to leave him. The ship was moving through space, and yet he could have sworn he had heard men singing above.
As if in confirmation the officer went on, ‘The crew are busy up there.’ ‘Doing what?’ Turlough asked.
‘Hauling on the halyards.’
That was the final straw. ‘Halyards!’ he burst out. ‘On a space ship?’
‘Certainly,’ came the imperturbable reply. ‘We observe the spirit as well as the rules of the race.’
Turlough shook his head in disbelief. It was clear that he was not going to get any sense out of this creature, and he turned to continue his search. But before he had taken three steps down the passageway, a voice called after him,
‘The lady’s cabin is on the starboard side.’ The ‘thank you’
he was about to say suddenly froze in his throat. How had the man known he was looking for Tegan? An idea began to surface in his mind but he suppressed it. Clearly it had been a case of putting two and two together. The man had simply guessed. Nevertheless, he hurried down the passage, almost at a run, very glad to get away.
Tegan drifted up from the warmth of sleep to feel someone shaking her arm. For a moment she was reluctant to open her eyes, but when she did she found Turlough looking down at her. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘Of course!’ she answered.
‘Are you sure?’
Tegan had never felt better in her life. ‘I feel marvellous.’ She stretched luxuriously, for the moment not remembering where she was. ‘Not space-sick any more?’
She sat up with a jerk. Turlough was examining the glass she had drunk from. He sniffed at it. ‘Probably the same stuff that they give to the crew,’ he said, putting it back on the table. ‘It doesn’t seem to do them any harm.’ ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ Tegan said dryly, and swinging her legs over, she sat up and looked round the room properly for the first time. What she saw gave her a shock. It was not the disorder of the things lying around that startled her, but the actual objects themselves. There, hanging on a hatstand, was the fancy dress frock she had been lent by Lady Cranleigh. And there, tossed idly onto a chair, was a tennis racket she recognised. She could see her name burnt into the handle. And the broken string. It was the one she had used at school, when she was fourteen. The dressing-table looked familiar, too. And the chair in the corner...
She could feel her heart beginning to thump uncomfortably, and breathlessly she looked at Turlough.
He obviously felt the same.
‘Some of it’s – quite familiar, isn’t it?’ he said, in an odd voice, glancing round.
‘It’s a sort of weird mix of – my room on the TARDIS
and my bedroom in Brisbane.’ Curiously Tegan picked up a small silver frame and her voice rose in a squeak as she saw the photograph it contained. ‘Aunt Vanessa!’ It was indeed her favourite aunt, smiling fondly back at her from the picture as she used to in life. ‘I don’t believe it!’ Tegan looked wildly round the room and recognised more and more.
‘It’s – as though someone’s been rummaging around in my memories.’
‘Maybe they have.’ Turlough’s voice was strained. ‘I’m beginning to find