Doctor Who_ Match of the Day - Chris Boucher [52]
But there was something worse than the Doctor‟s careless attitude to the TARDIS that was making her more uncomfortable. What really bothered her was that the Doctor seemed to have changed his mind and had settled into this world. He was involving himself enthusiastically in the world of duelling, which before he had claimed to despise. He called himself an agent now and he was already representing seven fighters and her. He was always in his office talking through the communications devices, making plans with other agents, making arrangements to stage duels. After all he had said about how uncivilised it was to take pleasure in fighting, he was saying now that she should fight simply to entertain people. She had tried to argue with him, to remind him that she was a warrior not a brawler, or a „scuffler‟ as these people called them, but he would not listen. He told her not to worry, that he had a plan, that he would explain when he had time only he never seemed to have time. Meanwhile he wanted her to get on with training his other fighters because people liked to watch the training. Some wanted the chance to join in. Warriors did not train so that people could watch them or fight with them. And how could that be part of a plan? The truth was she did not believe he had a plan. She was almost sure he was doing what he always seemed to do: he was enjoying himself finding out about things while he waited to see what would happen. As far as she could see that was as much of a plan as he ever had and it was no plan at all: it was just a way of looking at things. She had even heard the Doctor refer to what he did as „casual science‟, by which he seemed to mean enjoying himself finding out about things while he waited to see what would happen...
But while Leela was not sure about what it was that the Doctor was doing, she was sure about what he was not doing.
He was not making any attempt to keep his promise to the unpleasant Jerro Fanson and try to find the coward Keefer and warn him of the danger he was in. Well, like the Doctor she had given her word but unlike him she intended to keep it. A warrior, unlike a shaman, was bound by the given word.
She had distrusted Jerro Fanson and, from what she had been told, his fighter was as untrustworthy as he was himself, but it made no difference to the promise. It was who gave their word that mattered, not who they gave their word to. As the warrior trainer had said: character is what you do when nobody is looking.
She had thought long and hard about how she should approach the search for a duellist who had run away and hidden himself in a world she was not familiar with. There was only one way that she could think of. No matter what the world was, no matter what the quarry was, the basics of the chase were always the same in her experience. The ways and places of hiding were limited and there was always a trail that led to them. The most difficult part of any hunt was finding the first spore, the first sign of the trail.
She decided she would have to pretend that, like Keefer, she too was in trouble and afraid. She would then ask the other fighters she was training with what they could do to help her to run away and hide herself. Among the options they gave her it might be possible to spot the first trace of the running man.
For those on the interplanetary grand tour there was little to recommend Piran. It may have been the largest known planetary satellite, but to them it was still just a frozen, featureless, minor curiosity. Most did not bother to go down to the surface, hidden as it was in a dense brown haze and with nothing to offer when you got there but robot mine heads and the crowded and violent pressure-domed work camps. The tourists had not