Doctor Who_ The Bodysnatchers - Mark Morris [83]
Tuval looked at him in disbelief.'Impossible.'
'I'm afraid not,' said the Doctor gently. 'If my clothes don't convince you, then here's someone that will.' He held out his hand. 'Sam.'
Sam, still not entirely sure what was going on, came forward warily, rounding the chair so that Tuval could see her.The Zygon stared at the human whose body print it was wearing, and then its shoulders seemed to slump in defeat. 'What have you done to my people?'
'Nothing,' said the Doctor. 'Or at least, nothing that you need worry about.
You might say I'm working towards a mutually beneficial solution to this situation for all concerned.'
'Doctor,' interrupted Sam,'who is this gorgeous person?'And then before the Doctor could reply, she blurted,'Oh, don't tell me. It's a Zygon, isn't it, wearing my body? Bloody cheek! Is my nose really that big?'
'Only in certain lights,' said the Doctor, smiling.'This is Tuval. Tuval, your twin here is called Sam.'
'Hi,' said Sam.'I won't shake hands if you don't mind.'To the Doctor she hissed,'Is she - I mean, it - dangerous?'
'Why don't you ask Tuval,' said the Doctor, and then raising his voice,'You're not dangerous, are you,Tuval?'
The Zygon looked surprised by the question.'I do not intend to harm you, if that is what you mean. I am a scientist, not a warrior.'
'There, you see,' said the Doctor. 'Besides, the state-of-grace circuits won't allow any aggressive action to be committed within the confines of the TARDIS. Well... not unless they break down again,' he added.
The Zygon scientist produced a vial of milky fluid from inside its jacket (which of course was identical to the jacket that Sam was wearing) and began sucking on it greedily.
'Hey,' said Sam,'what are you doing?'
The Doctor put a hand on her arm.'It's all right, Sam, it's lactic fluid. Zygons need regular infusions.' He crossed to the carpet bag, opened it and extracted a small spray canister. 'I think it's time we got these suits off, don't you?'
He squirted a fine spray from the canister over himself, like a man applying far too much deodorant, and immediately the daxamoil suit began to turn brittle and milky in appearance. Digging in his fingers, the Doctor was now able to tear the suit easily. He ripped it away from himself and dropped it on the floor, where it continued to deteriorate, then crossed to Sam and sprayed her too. As Tuval drained the vial of lactic fluid and sank back with a sigh, Sam stepped from the ruin of her suit like a snake shedding its skin.
Sated and much revived, the Zygon scientist inquired, 'You said something about a mutually beneficial solution, Doctor?'
'Yes, I did,' said the Doctor, unzipping his wet suit and discarding it with no inhibitions whatsoever. Seemingly oblivious to Sam, who was blushing wildly but trying to appear cool, he hopped back up on to the dais wearing only his long Johns and began to get dressed while simultaneously resetting the TARDIS coordinates.
'I didn't much like Balaak's plan to commit genocide,' he said, buttoning up his trousers and tucking in his shirt.'Too messy by half. So I popped back to your ship and laced your milk supply with one hundred millilitres of highly concentrated anaesthetic. Four hours from now every single Zygon on the ship will be sleeping like a baby.'
'Oh, I get it,' said Sam, still with a flush in her cheeks. 'We're going to hop forward in the TARDIS and...'
'And?' prompted the Doctor, shrugging on his frock coat.
She frowned. 'Tie them all up and tickle their feet until they promise to go away?'
The Doctor smiled. 'That was my first plan, but I spotted a couple of tiny flaws in it. So what I thought we'd do instead was materialise inside the Zygon ship, release all the captive humans, and then link the damaged Zygon drive systems into theTARDIS:
'Which means you could then take their ship far away from Earth before any of them wake up,' said Sam triumphantly.
'Exactly! I'd pilot the ship to an uninhabited planet as closely allied to the Zygons' own ecosystem