A click of the flint-locks signalled a presence behind them. A pistol in each hand, there stood a little woman with flowing, curly fair/brown hair. Youthfully middle aged with a quite pleasant chubby face, she was dressed simply, yet voluptuously in boots, skirt and blouse; the badge on her tricorn told all - a lady pirate!
'Miss 'Erriot and Mister Smith! Oi bin lookin' for you two. Arrr!'
Zoe had heard such a voice on an audio-computer library record.
'Nice to meet you, Mrs Archer,' she said. The woman was momentarily flummoxed but did not point her pistols at them. Instead she smiled.
Ned was falling in love. Not even Zoe, or Valerie could compare with the little lady with the pistols. Maybe she would abduct him onto her boat and he could sing to her. Who cared about the Cybermen? That was Zoe's problem.
Zoe wanted to know who the lady was and how she knew them.
'I be Cap'n Ermintrude O'Turpin, o'the good ship 'Rosey MARE'. The finest pirate ship on the seven seas. Arrr. It be manned by some the' most hardened wimmin crim'nals come out o' Woodworm Grubs, me deario. Arrr.'
Zoe was scared. Where was the Doctor? Where were the Cybermen? The TARDIS?
'The Doctor? Oh arrr! 'Eee tol' me ta give ya this, young lady.'
Ned felt hurt as Captain Ermintrude bounced off giggling back to her ship after removing a map from her blouse and giving it to the studious Zoe who set off along the beech in the opposite direction, Ned following bemusedly.
~~~
Young Jamie was not too happy with what the Doctor had done to Robert-the-Bruce's bagpipes. A microphone cable ran from the instrument to the input socket of the satellite-operation computer in the flight-deck. The signal had confused the Doctor, so he had decided to confuse the signal and thus put the satellites out of action.
'Right, Jamie,' said the Doctor, adjusting the frequency. 'Start to play...Now!'
The Doctor plugged his ears with his polka dot hankies as Jacobite tunes were instantly transmitted into space. Satellite after satellite shut down and spun around the globe in silent death like silvery ghouls.
Back on earth, Jamie McCrimmon was getting quite flustered. 'Dokterr, these pipes arrr gettin' red hot!'
'Keep playing, Jamie!' shouted the Doctor, not hearing what he presumed to be a complaint above the terrible whine of the pipes, like an alley cat with stomach cramp.
'You're doing a marvellous job!' he assured the young Scot, as smoke began to belch from the tartan and the pipes caught fire and were dropped to the floor in a crash of ashes. The Doctor didn't dare lift his face to the obviously murderous glare of his companion.
'Well, it worked!' he said. 'Let's go and find Zoe and Ned. I think I know where they'll be.' At last he could sleep peacefully at nights.
'X' marked the spot. A cave of gold. The rocks shone almost black and spectrums hung in the air like eerie cobwebs as the sun shone through a crack or two in the seemingly liquid ceiling. Why had the Doctor sent them here? Should they have trusted Ermintrude?
It was Ned who found the device. A boring metal box it had three tall, thin cones with buttons on the tip of each labelled 'X', 'Y' and 'Z' in turn. The pair were confused. What was going on?
Krot and Jenos followed their footprints along the shore. With only a few minutes to go to the death-ray operations, recovering the cable-coupling was pointless, but they had received no further commands from Zelnod and so, they entered the dark cave and that was really silly and illogical wasn't it?
'Here they come, 'Fruit and Nut' ! ' muttered Ned. Had Ned and Zoe been led into a trap? This was Ned's chance to be a hero! What was he going to do? He turned to the box as the Cybermen advanced. 'X' marked the spot, he thought and he was sure that tip 'X' would have been his mother's solution.
As if by magic, the cave filled with music. wonderfully dreamy and potently exciting music. Ned felt giddy. There were guitars, drums, maracas. He knew the song. He wished he had the heart to sing it.
'Here we come,' he cried, picking up his guitar. 'Walking down the beech...' What a wonderful, magical cave. Rivers of ether, walls of radiant gold, rainbows in the air. Zoe caught the magic too and so did the Cybermen.
'Hey, Hey! We're the...' everyone sang. What fun! The music was in control of itself. You could do anything in this cave. Anything could happen at all.
Zoe began to dance with one of the Cybermen as the other danced by itself holding a bunch of balloons while Ned picked up a shovel and hard-hat and began to dig a hole which he then sat in.
Captain O'Turnip swung in on a vine and tossed custard pies at the Cybermen. Somebody started peeling bananas ( I bet it was me). A Cyberman waltzed onto one of the skins and banged his head on a wall, while the other tied the balloons to his handle-bar ear-pieces and flew to the ceiling. The music grew louder and began to feed back on itself into a great and cacophonous crescendo. Ned fainted as the ceiling exploded in a shower of rainbows and fluttering gold dust. Everyone dropped into golden slumbers.
~~~
Well, the adventure he had always wanted was over. The planet had been saved and everyone had gone home, the Cybermen dead. But Ned hadn't got the girl, none of them. There was still Valerie - the light of his life...the one he adored...the girl who was destined to...chose by fate to...he no longer cared for specification. What was there to be afraid of? Anything was possible now. If she refused him he would go down to Rio. Life was free. All you needed was love. It had always been said. Everything had been said. Every song had been sung. He no longer cared for description.
The Doctor seemed to be talking to someone in the control room. Zoe couldn't sleep anyway. Thank goodness the Doctor hadn't invited Ned to join the TARDIS crew. Creep! When she entered the control room the Doctor was alone, but there was an image fading on the mended TV screen. She watched from the doorway as he took two pistols from his pockets and a map like the one Ermintrude gave to her and placed them in a box which he pad-locked and placed in a service cupboard.
'Ah, Zoe!' he cried a s she came in. He took his recorder from another pocket and gave her a little 'toot!' . 'I think a late night recital of Gallifreyan folk-songs is called for. I'll just go and practice. See you in half an hour!'
Left alone, she went to the cupboard and examined the box the Doctor had just left there. There was a message attached to it: 'Do not open for 4000 years!'
Zoe went to bed confused.
written by
IAN McPHERSON
copyright 2009
artwork by
IAN McPHERSON
copyright 2009
With thanks to dear little Miss B and thanks to Stephen Law for 'Terror Cruise'