Part 26 (1/2)

The Lowell woman was being lead past by old Phil Downey - apparently he knew the woman. Locked inside with her personal trauma, she looked like she'd need leading around for the next ten years of her broken life. At least.

As Martha was carried by on a stretcher, all jittery under her blankets. Makenzie decided to follow her inside, sit with her awhile. They were all waiting on the word from his brother anyway, and Makenzie couldn't think of any better place to wait than inside the church.

The Doctor whipped out a plastic folder full of doc.u.ments, then cast his coat over the armchair, (apparently) forgetting it was occupied. Flopping indecorously on the couch alongside Leela's bed. he swung his long legs to make himself perfectly comfortable.

Predictably. Parker leaped up, fit to explode. Drawing on all her reservoirs of patience. Melody coolly dismissed Pydych and wandered over to perch on the edge of the couch. She waited there with the needle, while the Doctor rolled up his s.h.i.+rtsleeve.

'I do hope you'll be gentle,' he said, settling back to read.

'You won't need much. About an armful. I should think.'

'So,' Melody hazarded, 'you found some time to browse our computer files.'

'Well, there was a great deal of non-standard software which started me wondering,' he answered, skimming the top sheets of the doc.u.ments. 'Too many files relating to things extraterrestrial and not much else, that sort of thing. Of course I had my suspicions, both of you wearing sungla.s.ses without b.u.mping into things. And you're really too intelligent for intelligence agents, for another thing. Well, one of you is.'

Parker's shadow tensed, but Melody waved him off. 'Then Mr Theroux here chose to refer to the Stormcore by its original designation - Prism. Over thirty years out of date.'

'Quite, well, we have been here a long while,' conceded Melody tightly. 'Anyway, you must have seen the files we've collated on your good self, Doctor. Your UNIT file.'

'Ah, blackmail is an ugly word, but it never seems to stop people using it.'

'No, that's not what I'm getting at.' Melody waited for him to look up from the pages. 'Doctor, we've been stuck here for longer than I care to say. Our best chance of finding some means of transportation home lay in securing positions within the government.'

'The government that brought our craft down in the first place!' complained Parker.

'Ah, well at least you're a species who appreciates irony.

That's something.'

'Anyway, Doctor,' Melody smiled patiently, 'we came across your file years ago, and it didn't take much to work out your race of origin. All your different guises, as it were. And there's no way you stayed on Earth voluntarily - not for that long-term stretch you did. So I'm betting you understand - what it's like to be stranded, unable to get home or even just leave, travel where you want.'

'Oh, I don't know, there was always plenty to see and do.'

But Melody saw straight through the glib front that time.

'Oh, all right,' the Doctor dropped the doc.u.ments in his lap grudgingly. He searched her gaze like he was scanning a familiar star chart. 'Well, since we have so much in common, we really should be playing on the same team, wouldn't you say?'

'I'm all for that, Doctor,' Melody stood, openly relieved.

'Where do we start?'

Behind her Parker remained silent. Sulking, no doubt.

'Garvey.' Morgan clapped a hand on the older sergeant's back as soon as he'd found him. The man looked like he'd had a rough time up on the mountain, and his depleted squad had only rolled into town on the snowmobiles a short while ago.

'Take two of your men and break me a trail out over the lake.'

He brought his arm down like a knife, cutting a line out past the church, where he had sent his brother to gather in the flock. 'South west heading. Make d.a.m.n sure we've got a minimum eight inches of ice all the way. otherwise those people are heading out on foot.'

'Sir, I'd like to respectfully request-'

'Denied. Get moving. When you're done you can come back and guide the convoy across.'

Morgan spun on his heel and marched off, mad at the guy for wanting to be a hero. n.o.body in their right minds would ask to stay behind and defend this place. n.o.body.

Parker refused to pace the room - he wasn't an expectant father - but he was rapidly getting bored of watching the Doctor's blood meandering through the tubes, its course diverging to each of the beds. Melody reckoned on an hour or more to infuse the two patients and it was starting to feel like double that, when the Doctor leaped off the couch like Archimedes out of his bath.

'What have we got?' Parker darted forward.

The Doctor shushed him while he leafed through the papers a second time. 'Melody, would you be so good as to check on our patients?'

Parker bit his tongue, irked to see Melody obliging without a word. He could see from here that the frozen lattice was clearing from both patients' complexions.

'Looks like your antibodies are doing the trick nicely, Doctor.'

'Delighted to hear it.' The Doc yanked the tube out of his arm and tossed it aside along with about half the papers. He made a beeline for the dresser, and cleared its surface of everything but the lamp. Then he set out several sheets of one doc.u.ment under its illumination.

'Take a look at this. Most of it's some nonsense about a commando raid on a local observatory.' Presumably the sheets he had left strewn over the couch and floor. 'This is the interesting part: weather reports.'

'Sure, they get me leaping out of bed every morning.'

'When your enemy appears to be meteorological in nature, they should do.'

Melody fetched a Band-Aid for the Doctor's arm. Parker shook his head at the sight of his partner playing nursemaid, then moved to peer over the Doctor's shoulder.

The fact that he didn't care for wind and rain, and was rapidly losing what admiration he'd ever had for snow, was essentially the full extent of Parker's meteorological expertise.

He'd seen radar pictures before though and the pages looked ordinary enough to him.

'See this area of low pressure,' the Doc pointed, 'driving a severe cold front in from the north-west. Here it runs into drier winds from Canada, and we get this cyclonic storm system that seems to be very taken with the state of New Hamps.h.i.+re.' He whizzed his finger around in a hurricane-like spiral, then tapped the next snapshots in sequence. 'But look: the key storm centres divide and multiply - into increasing numbers of microstorms.'

'Like cellular division.' Parker searched the others' eyes for confirmation.

Melody dropped into a crouch for a closer look at the last few frames. 'No,' she said. 'The concentrations of nimbostratus increase with each division. It's more like accretion.'

The Doctor stood tall and straight, like a monument to the dead. 'Precisely. Each storm centre ama.s.ses greater and greater energy as it forms and the cycle continues. Increased density and ma.s.s around gravitational centres, like the formation of star systems. Except this one is very much a living system.'

'So. Where's it getting its building blocks?'

'Parker, we already know how it acc.u.mulates ma.s.s.' Melody rose slowly. 'Bioma.s.s.'

Parker was sorry he asked.

'There is where it's formed its nucleus. Right above Melvin Village.' is where it's formed its nucleus. Right above Melvin Village.'

'Let me guess. Doc - you pinpointed the Pris - the Stormcore, using our our device.' device.'