Doctor Who_ Match of the Day - Chris Boucher [10]
That is your name isn’t it?’
Leela said, ‘He wanted you to fight him so that he could kill you.’
‘I gathered that,’ the Doctor said, ‘but he does seem to have gone off the idea now.’
Leela poked the fallen man with her foot. ‘He is pretending to be dead.’ She poked him again only harder this time.
‘Playing dead fools no one,’ she said loudly at his clenched face.
‘I’m going to try and get you some help, Jarvis.’ The Doctor stood up. ‘And in the meantime Leela’s going to stop kicking you. Aren’t you Leela?’
‘The man is not a warrior,’ Leela said contemptuously. ‘He challenges you to fight and when he loses he sulks like a child.’ She leaned down and shouted directly at his face, ‘Like a frightened child!’ Stubbornly the security man did not move or open his eyes. ‘Do you think I should cut his throat, Doctor?’
‘I think you should stop tormenting him,’ the Doctor said.
‘It’s probably not good for him and it’s obviously very bad for you.’
‘What is he waiting for?’ Leela demanded. ‘I do not understand what he thinks is going to happen.’
The Doctor peered up into the dome. ‘The disembodied voice claimed to be coming to sort this out. Maybe he’s in a lot more trouble than we realise.’ He surveyed the arena carefully. ‘There seems to be only one way in or out of this place.’ He nodded at the entrance to the tunnel they had come from. ‘So if there’s medical help to hand it’ll be somewhere in there presumably.’ He started to walk towards it. ‘Are you coming with me or are you staying to look after Jarvis?’
Leela trotted after the Doctor. ‘He can look after himself,’
she said. ‘It is not my fault that he is injured.’
But before the Doctor and Leela could leave the arena, several more security men, black-clad and burly, marched in double time from the tunnel entrance and formed out into a skirmish line in front of them. After a few moments a small, dapper man dressed in a soft grey uniform, which did not carry the anonymous identification that marked the others, bustled out of the tunnel. He stopped abruptly when he caught sight of Jarvis lying on the ground. ‘Who did that?’ he demanded.
‘It was a misunderstanding,’ the Doctor said. ‘A clash of cultures.’
‘A clash of cultures? What does that mean?’
The Doctor shrugged. ‘He lacked culture and there was a clash.’ He walked back to the fallen man. ‘His arm’s broken I’m afraid but it could have been worse.’ He flashed a grin at Leela. ‘A lot worse.’
‘A lot worse?’ The man in grey shook his head in a dumb-show of disbelief. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Trust me, I’m the Doctor,’ the Doctor said. ‘My companion was comparatively restrained.’
‘Your companion?’ The man in grey turned his attention to Leela. ‘You are responsible for this?’
‘I broke his arm if that is what you are asking,’ Leela said defiantly. ‘But he is responsible for what happened to him.
He wished to fight. I fought him. He lost. Do you wish to fight me now?’ She looked from one to another among the security men. ‘Any of you?’
‘You haven’t killed him,’ the man in grey said.
On the ground Jarvis gasped softly and his closed eyes clenched more tightly shut but apart from that he made no sound or movement.
Leela said, ‘Of course not. Why should I kill him?’ She looked at the Doctor. ‘A warrior does not kill unnecessarily.’
The small man in grey sighed and shook his head again. ‘A challenge has been made,’ he said in a voice that suggested he regarded Leela as a rather stupid and recalcitrant child.
‘Blood has been spilled. You have prevailed. You must kill him. It’s not seemly to toy with him here. It may be the modern way. It may be the way the tri-dee audiences like it.
But that is not how it’s done here. Not here. Now kill him. Kill him! Kill him now!’
‘Now just a minute,’ the Doctor protested.
The man did not look at him. ‘I’m not talking to you,’ he said. ‘This does not concern you.’
‘It most certainly does concern me,’ the Doctor said. ‘I will not have this. You will not -’
‘I will not kill him,’ Leela interrupted, speaking as much to