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pyre.
'I'm so sorry, Faroon.' Exiting from the TARDIS, the Doctor, with his intuitive
empathy, felt compelled to offer condolences. 'When I think of Beyus, I shall
remember with admiration the sacrifice he made.'
'He must have been convinced it was the only way to be certain of saving the res
t of
us.'
'He'll not be forgotten,' asserted Ikona.
'Nor will you, Doctor,' said Faroon, flattening her right palm against the Docto
r's palm
in the Lakertyan parting salute.
'Oh, I dare say we'll pop in again some day.'
'You will be most welcome, Doctor.'
'Ready, Mel?'
'Yes . . . Cheerio, Ikona.'
'I wish I were coming with you, Mel. . .'
'Nobody will credit this - least of all you - but so do I . . .' She raised her
palm inviting
him to bid her farewell according to his custom.
'I do have another regret.'
'What's that, Ikona?' asked the Doctor.
'After all the suffering she's caused, the Rani has escaped, unscathed, in her
TARDIS!'
Glancing quizzically heavenwards, the Doctor wondered if that were true. The
question nagging him since they attacked the laboratory still hadn't been answer
ed.
Where were the Tetraps?
The noisome, hairy bipeds were hanging from the ceiling of the control room in t
he
Rani's TARDIS. Already their rancid odour was impregnating the clinical furnishi
ngs.
Suspended upside-down with them was a slim, writhing, scarlet-clad body.
Competently dealing with the instrumentation on the console was the grinning Ura
k:
student had graduated to master! His quadview scanning, he padded to the
distraught Rani.
'Mistress . . .' With the callousness he had demonstrated when she had lain stun
ned
beneath his electronic net, Urak brushed the dangling brunette tresses from her
upside-down features. 'You have taught . . .us so much . . . When we get to . .
.
Tetrapyri. . .arbus,your. . .incredible. . .brain will show us . . . how we conq
uer . . . our
needs . . . There will be . . . plasma in . . . abundance . . .'
'Amsalp . . !' Slimy rodent lips dribbled in anticipation.
Urak's ivory cuspids gleamed. His forked tongue lasciviously pricked the Rani's
cheek . . . and as paralysis stiffened every sinew, the Rani's vision was filled
with the
celebratory flapping of oily, membraned wings and rolling bloodshot eyes . . .
'Amsalp . . . Amsalp . . .' The Tetrapyriaban cry echoed. . .
'Oh, memory like a dromedary!' About to go into the TARDIS, the Doctor suddenly
smacked the top of his hat. Rummaging in his pocket, he extracted the flask with
the
rococo stopper he had purloined from the lab.
'Antidote for those killer insects in the globe,' he explained, giving the flask
to Ikona.
'The Rani always takes out an insurance policy.'
Ikona accepted the flask, removed the stopper -and emptied the contents on the
ground!
'You're impossible!' Mel did not expect the iconoclastic Ikona to show gratitude
, but
this! 'Why did you do that?'
'Tell her, Faroon,' said the young Lakertyan.
Ikona believes our people must meet their own challenges if they are to survive.'
The Doctor did not question the philosophy.
'You know, Mel,' he confided as they turned again to the TARDIS. Tkona reminds m
e
of myself when I was his age.'
'That I can believe!'
He stood aside for her to enter the TARDIS.
'In you go, Mel. Time and tide melts the snowman.'
'Waits for no man!'
'Who's waiting? I'm ready.'
Mel looked at the mischievous face, the small, wiry frame in its cream coat, fla
ttened
straw hat and correspondent shoes. Now the umbrella was destroyed, all outward
semblances of the sixth Doctor were lost.
'You're going to take a bit of getting used to,' she groaned.
The final assertion to be heard from the seventh Doctor before the TARDIS
dematerialised were the optimistic words:
'Oh, I'll grow on you, Mel. I'll grow on you!'