The Story of Sally Armstrong (Doctor Who)

Chapter 18

"Halt!" a voice said from behind them. He smiled; they had most definitely found the right place. "Put your hands up and turn around nice and slowly." He found himself very curious as to what kind of weapon he would be confronted with.

When he turned around, he tried to hide his disappointment. The two men were just standing there. They must have heard someone else say this before, clearly not knowing the implications of their own words.

"I'm sorry, is there a problem?" The Master began to put his hands down, gesturing for Sally to do the same. He waited for them to reply, fighting the urge not to just dispose of them with his TCE.

"You do not have the authority to be here. You are not permitted to be together outside of your room." He said this in a way that made it sound as if there was no life in his voice, as if he himself did not understand the reason behind this rule and was merely repeating what had been said to him a hundred times before.

"Oh, really?" The Master went on in a manner that if anyone who didn't know may think he was genuine in wanting to know about their culture, which he did know more than he was letting on. "And how would we know this as foreigners?"

One of the men paused for a moment, looked at his companion then back at the Master and Sally, choosing the words he wanted to use before they came bumbling out of his mouth. "Well— Well, it was implied."

"Implied?" the Master repeated with more enthusiasm than the man. "Well, that's hardly telling us anything. I mean, I did wonder why I never saw any men or women together, or why you had the need to keep me and Sally distracted in different parts of the castle. But you can't just expect us to know what we are and are not allowed to do if you don't tell us."

He was not used to anyone questioning him. He did, after all, have the gold triangle on his lapel that would indicate authority. He looked down to check if it was still there. Yes, it was there, so why did this man think he had the right to speak to him like that?

"What do you plan on doing with us?" the Master asked. The smugness in his voice was now all over his face. He knew now they had no weapons, and he was almost certain they would have nowhere to contain them. The only thing they could do now would be to escort them back to their rooms and hope they didn't step out of line again. He also knew he would do everything in his power to seem as they were complying until the last minute.

*****

The two men walked them to their room. They didn't say anything to either of them, making Sally walk ten feet ahead of them they went down the corridors. When they made it to their door, the Master followed Sally in and the men closed the door behind them. At first, Sally thought they would lock the door and keep them in that room until it was time for them to leave, but they simply closed the door behind them and walked off.

Luckily the men didn't enter the room. Sally felt it would be far harder to explain why they had a blueprint of all of the castle. Without a moment's hesitation, the Master plopped himself down in front of it and found the exact room they had just been in. "Right here!" he exclaimed, pointing with great enthusiasm to a blank spot on the map that was close to the gold vibrating room. "Here is where we need to go. Now, we just need to act as innocent as possible between now and then. I would say we have, oh, maybe a forty-five spans at most to do all this and get off-world. I'm sure they will want to get us off as soon as possible."

"No thanks to you," Sally muttered under her breath. Thankfully he either didn't hear her or choose to ignore it. He went on to explain their plan, which seemed much more difficult now that that they had lost the trust of the locals. The Master didn't seem to think that would be a problem for them at all.