Doctor Who_ Match of the Day - Chris Boucher [1]
Keefer was not yet Prime Division. But he would be, he was confident of that. He had a talent for survival and an instinct for the spectacular counterattack. It made him good copy and a crowd-pleaser in a contract duel when the tri-dee cameras could cover an agreed killing ground. Indeed, as his nerves settled, Keefer’s anger that this coup had been undeclared only increased. If the remote tri-dee cameras had recorded it there was no question that it would have been shown planet-wide and there was a strong possibility that it would have made the full interplanetary network. It could have been the breakthrough into Prime Division that he had waited for. He cursed the assassin again. ‘Scuffling scuffwit, I’d have taken your contract. You didn’t have to short-cut. I’m not that expensive.’
He got to his feet and moved back to the runner. Now all he’d get out of it was some local publicity. If his agent did a little fast promoting they might make the mid-evening newscast and the next fax-sheet issue. He dialled up Jerro Fanson’s private number on the remote-call.
‘Rational intelligence,’ said the Doctor, tapping dubiously on one of the control console’s transdimensional flux relay indicators, ‘is based on the capacity to remember.’ The indicator continued to blink intermittently and the TARDIS
continued drawing supplementary power from the less predictable zero point energy flux.
Leela yawned and stretched. ‘You have told me that,’ she said. ‘You have told me more than once that rational intelligence is based on the capacity to remember.’
‘I have?’ The Doctor was not really listening. ‘I must have forgotten.’ He tapped the indicator again. Was the TARDIS
really losing stability and developing a dangerously random half-dimensional drag, or was he looking at a faulty indicator and imagining the rest?
‘Knowledge that is not based on memory,’ Leela parroted,
‘is instinct which is a matter of evolution. Training is not the same as instinct although it looks the same.’ She pulled the hunting knife she always carried from the sheath on the belt of her tunic and offered it to the Doctor. ‘You have also said: when in doubt hit it with something heavy.’
The Doctor ran a hand through his unruly curls and smiled his vivid, wolfish smile. ‘That was a joke,’ he said. ‘On the other hand so is this.’ He took the knife and hit the relay indicator with it. The indicator continued to blink. ‘Last time I was on Earth,’ he said, ‘or maybe it was the time before that... well whenever it was, I came across an interesting puzzle.’ He hit the indicator again; harder this time. Nothing changed. ‘A watch - that’s a small mechanical device for matching the passage of time against the movement of the planet and indicating it on a dial - was running fast and so never showed the correct planetary time. Whereas a broken watch that wasn’t running at all actually showed the correct time once every twelve hours.’ He hit the indicator harder still. ‘So which watch was better? The constantly inaccurate one, or the occasionally correct one?’ He hit the indicator again and it stopped blinking and went off altogether. The Doctor stopped smiling and frowned. ‘And which is this do we think?’
Leela was getting used to the Doctor’s habit of teasing and of using games to test her. She thought for a moment then said, ‘There is no answer to this puzzle. Both the devices are useless unless you know the correct measurement of time to begin with. And if you know the correct measurement of time to begin with both devices are useless.’
The Doctor nodded appreciatively. ‘That’s very clever,’ he said. ‘Rather too logical for someone who insists on carrying something like this about with them.’ He handed the knife back to her.
‘You have told me that before too,’ Leela said, sheathing the knife with a small flourish and adjusting