The Doctor pored over the notes Dullet had handed him, while Wil surveyed the situation.

 "Hey, if the TARDIS is as large as it seems to be inside, I'm sure we could fit everyone on the station in there with some room left over."

 Jadi couldn't help but laugh at that one. "Face reality, Kid. Do you understand anything about large crowds? Do you know what they're like? People crammed together under stress only leads to trouble. Riots, panics, soccer games, I've seen 'em all. This one has 'bloodbath' written all over it."

 "I tend to agree with Jadi on this one," the Doctor injected. "We'd never get all these people in the TARDIS in time. We have to find another option." He propped Dullet up, took a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket, and wiped the spittle from the station commander's face. "Nice to meet you, sir. I am the Doctor. These are my friends Wil, Jadi, and Angela. And you are. . . . "

 Dullet stared off, as if he hadn't heard the question.

 "Why don't you try that 'I know you . . . ' schtick? Always worked for me..."

 "I would appreciate your sense of humor better, Mr. Morok, if we weren't staring a deadline in the face." He reached into Dullet's pocket and removed what he assumed was a billfold. He leafed through it looking for identification. "Look, Mister. . ." the Doctor quickly found Dullet's credentials, "Dullet, I think you have an emergency here."

 "Yeah," the commander slurred, "dams are gonna fail, and we're all gonna fall into the black hole and die!"

 "You may not have time to fall in. There are some strange things going on in the heart of that hole."

 "No stranger than you are, stranger! Have a drink! On me!"

 "No thank you, you're already covered in alcohol. My pouring another drink on you is not going to help." The Doctor paced away from his companions, deep in thought.

 "We aren't going to get very far just standing here. I'm afraid we're going to have to split up after all." He glanced back at Dullet, who had once again lapsed into unconsciousness. "I'm going to need to sober him up; his assistance could prove invaluable." He looked between his two male companions. "Wil, you know a thing or two about dealing with drunks. Do whatever you can to sober the Commander up. I think there's a pot of coffee on the hotplate." The Doctor tossed the TARDIS key to Wil, who caught it easily. "Jadi, take Angela, and run a quick reccy of as much of the station as possible. You might be able to find escape pods or transmat terminals, to help in the evacuation."

 "And what about you?"

 "I'm going to try to find my way to the command center. There might be a way to prevent this disaster, and if there is, I will find it."

 The intruder had been in Dullet's office many times. When you knew the way in, it was quite easy to bypass the security systems. Even to turn them to your own will.

 The intruder left its burden on the Commander's desk. Hopefully this time the old man would get the message. These two hadn't, and the intruder was tired of having to do things the hard way.

 Having found his way to Central Command, which he had correctly deduced to be at the topmost level of the very center of the station, the Doctor was surprised to find no one there. A room that large, surely, must have at least one person on duty at all times. So where were they now?

 Absentmindedly, the Doctor picked up a series of maps and blueprints that had been lying on one of the control panels.

 ARCIS STATION, EST. AD 4817 TERRAN ADVANCE CORPS.

 The station apparently had forty levels, and was designed to hold nearly 4,000 people at once. The Doctor groaned, now realizing the scope of the job he had sent Angela and Jadi to accomplish.

 Pocketing the map, the Doctor walked over to a door with "Station Commander" stenciled on it. The Doctor tried it, but found it locked. He removed Dullet's credentials from his pocket, and inserted the plastic card into the slot.

 ":AUTHORISATION PLEASE:" chimed a computerized voice.

 "Commander H.G. Dullet, access level 125." The Doctor had no problem memorizing the information printed on the front of the card.

 ":VOICE PRINT DOES NOT MATCH THAT OF HERBERT GEORGE DULLET ON FILE:"

 "Ah, well, you see, I'm not quite myself today."

 ":YOU ARE AN INTRUDER:"

 "Don't be silly. How would an intruder manage to get Dullet's credentials away from him?"

 The computer considered the question for a second. ":YOU HAVE KILLED THE COMMANDER:"

 "Nonsense. Scan the station. He's still alive."

 ":CONFIRM COMMANDER DULLET ALIVE IN SHOPPING AREA:"

 "Ah, you see?"

 ":BUT YOU ARE HERE:"

 "Let me ask *you* a question. When beetles fight their battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles, what do we call it?"

 ":WHAT:"

 "We call it . . . a diversion." The Doctor snipped the wire connecting the security circuit to the door, and pulled it open. "Thank you, Theodore," he whispered as he stepped inside.

 He had retrieved the coffee pot the Doctor had mentioned, and was carefully ministering to Dullet. *You've come a long way, huh?* he thought as he poured the hot liquid down the Commander's throat.

 Once the cup was completed, Wil stepped back to look at the figure of Dullet. The Commander had been lapsing in and out of consciousness for about twenty minutes, and none of Wil's tricks seemed to be working.

 Finally having exhausted most of the methods he knew of, Wil crunched down next to the drunken officer and not-too-gently slapped him across the face, hoping it would at least wake him up again.

 That was when he felt the blaster between his shoulder blades.

 In the past hour, they had examined six docking ports, finding them empty, and two transmat terminals, finding them in disrepair. As yet, no sure way off the station. Hopefully, if the Doctor found the communications array, they could at least call for a few ships to help evacuate.

 Eventually, the two of them came to a large door which Jadi couldn't open. He nodded to Angela, who took a few seconds studying its keylock. Moving lightning-fast, she disabled the lock and pulled the door open.

 The stench nearly knocked them back twenty paces.

 "Hmmph," Jadi muttered, "just the station's rubbish tip. That's not going to help us any." He pulled the door closed again, and they continued along the corridor.

 A few minutes later, Jadi realized that Angela had fallen a few steps behind him. That was a bad sign. He turned to confront her, only to get a blaster shot square in the chest.

 "Gwilym Young. From Paracastria. And you are?"

 "Unimportant. You are not a resident nor an officer on this base."

 "No, you see, we just arrived."

 "We?"

 "I'm travelling with three others."

 "How did you get here? There have been no ships allowed to dock or depart for two months now."

 "It's a long story."

 She looked down at the man she had recently told that his station was going to be destroyed. He was a proper mess. Once this was dealt with, she would have to send someone back to clean him up. "I'm arresting you for assault upon the Station Commander." Keep your hands where I can see them.

 Wil spent a whole half-second thinking 'What would the Doctor do?' before realizing he would comply -- in his own way.

 "Of course." He flicked his hands into the air. "Nothing up my sleeve . . . presto!" Seemingly from nowhere, he produced three wooden balls, and began to juggle them.

 Igon was flabbergasted. "What are you doing?"

 "Juggling. If it's not your favorite act, don't worry. This, too, shall pass, as my Grandfather said while he swallowed the watermelon."

 "Stop that! Stop that right now! Do you take me for a fool?"

 Wil continued his juggling, "Of course not, you see, I'M the Fool!" He quickly collected the three balls and hit Igon in the head with them. She recovered just in time to see Wil dash off around the corner.

 "Oh, dear. Looks like we have more to worry about than a black hole here." He reached out and closed the dead men's eyes, then removed the ident badge from one. 'Puller, Jac' read the name on it. "Now what did you die of, hm? Or more importantly, why did you die?"

 The Doctor's rather logical questions to a rather illogical subject were interrupted by a rustling noise. Apparently, someone else was in the office, most likely in the second room. Not wanting to be implicated in a double murder, at least not this time, the Doctor ran.

 He had been apprenticed, against his will, to Gareth when he was eight, and much to his family's surprise his temperament had proven to be too much even for the Court Fool. His parents pawned the boy off on Gareth when his tendency to tell jokes at exactly the wrong time had caused them much embarassment at Court. They had hoped that the Fool could fine-tune Wil's natural talents, and make him into an asset to the family and the Court. But they hadn't counted on Gareth's temper, or his drunkenness.

 Before long, Wil had discovered a small gap in one of the walls, which had been covered by a tapestry. Whenever he had annoyed Gareth, he would quickly duck into his little hole and hope to ride out the storm until the Fool either forgot about thrashing him, or passed out from his liquor. The hiding hole was the only place - indeed, the only thing - that he could truly call his own in this world. He spent his hours there in thought, contemplation, and fear. And now, in the air duct, for the first time in a very long time, Gwilym Young contemplated his situation.

 *What am I doing here?*

 He was back in the rubbish bin, slumped in the corner, and the access door was closed. Of the myriad thoughts that entered his mind, he only managed to articulate one.

 "Where did she get a stun-capable pistol?"

 He reached into his pocket - at least she hadn't robbed him - and pulled out a small black box. Jadi often planted small listening and tracking devices on his prey when he got the chance, and Angela Ferris was no exception. She was several hundred meters away, and moving fairly quickly. He pressed the green button on the box.

 Angela had suspected that Jadi had placed a bug on her, but the sound she heard come through it startled her. She had no idea that it was capable of two-way transmissions.

 "You should have killed me, Ferris!"

 Oh, that Morok was so resourceful. "And have a murder rap hanging over my head, too? I'm not stupid, Morok. Besides, I'm not a killer, I'm a thief. Before long, the Doctor and little Buzzcock will discover you're missing, and come looking for you. Shouldn't take them more than, oh, a few hours. Be nice to that boy; I think he fancies you. And by that time, I will have found a way off this station and be on my way to freedom. In the meanwhile, you're in perfect company."

 Jadi reached for the red button on his controls before Angela's voice interrupted him again. "Jadi, do you know why most bounty hunters don't use two-way bugs? They're too easy to find." The electronic whine caused by a melting transceiver filled the bin and threatened to break Jadi's eardrums.

 The sight back in Central Control still disturbed him. He was used to seeing dead bodies, true, but still, somehow, they never ceased to put him on edge. Something on this station was important enough to kill for. But what could it be?

 He found the door he was looking for, and inserted Puller's identicard into it.

 ":AUTHORISATION PLEASE:" the computer responded.

 "Let's not go through this again, shall we?" His fingers once again moved swiftly over the pad, and the door opened.

 What he saw took his breath away.

 After Wil recovered, Gareth had apologised to him, and vowed that he would never mistreat the boy again. And the Fool kept his word. From that day on, they had an almost ideal relationship. Gareth proved to be more of a father to Wil than Gym Young had ever been, and Wil became rather adept at caring for the aging jester. Wil served as an adequate assistant, often recovering from tricks or blown punchlines when Gareth had been drinking too much that day.

 In time, Wil often went to Court in place of, instead of alongside, Gareth. On days when the Fool had too much liquor in him, Wil would provide the entertainment alone, as if it had been planned that way from the beginning. He proved to be quite a Fool in his own right, and might have continued as such if fate hadn't intervened.

 He had lost Ferris, most likely for good this time. Oh, he had been counting on that bounty - even thinking of retiring on it - and didn't like the idea of losing it. More so, he hated the fact that he had let her get the drop on him. *Your times with the Doctor have been making you weak, Morok!*

 He pulled at the door's handle, but it wasn't moving. He tugged on the lever marked "open," but it didn't. *The person who designed this station must have been one sadistic bastard.* he thought.

 But as hard as the door was proving, Jadi had never, in all his travels, found a door that didn't have some kind of sneaky way of opening it when someone else didn't want you to. After making a careful study of the area around the door, he pried off what looked like an access panel to the door controls. It turned out to be just that. He studied the circuits carefully, and made the logical choice of the big red "EMERG" button. He pressed it.

 Nothing happened.

 Jadi banged his head into the door a few times before something got his attention: one sound you never want to hear when you're on a space station.

 He heard a hiss.

 The final insult had come that fateful night. Wil had been covering for Gareth as had almost become customary. In recent weeks, Gerund had been considering naming the young lad as the official Court Fool. Wil nearly had the job locked up when Gareth came staggering in.

 The Fool swayed gently, as if light enough to be moved by the slight wind in the Great Hall. Wil had known that Gareth had been in his cups that day, but things had obviously gotten much worse in the few hours Wil had been entertaining at Court.

 As Wil relinquished the floor to his mentor, Gareth strolled up to the throne. He looked the Lord of the Manor straight in his eye, and launched into a scandalous monologue. "Your immenseness, I bid you good evening." Wil discreetly made his way to the doorway, and missed most of the insults the Fool flung at the fat Freeholder. As he reached the door, he turned just in time to see the King's guards descend upon Gareth, and the image of what they had done to his teacher would be burned onto the backs of his eyes for the rest of eternity.

 Wil ran. And ran, and ran, and ran. He was busy fighting back tears as he ducked into his hiding place, and curled up tight. He wanted to cry long and hard, but he was afraid of making a noise and betraying his location.

 As night fell, Wil crept out of the Castle and fled Deneurys forever.

 *Is that all you know how to do, boy?* he scolded himself. *Run?* He had run from Deneurys to the cities of Paracastria. As things started to get bad, he ran from Paracastria by hitching a ride in the TARDIS. And now, he was running away from a security agent on an alien space station. He knew how to jump, vault, somersault, and everything else besides dance, but he could run better than most.

 But he was tired of running, in both figurative and literal senses. It was time to face his demons head on.

 As he removed the screen and prepared to descend back into the corridor, he reached a decision. His days of running had ended. If -- when -- he survived this one, he would ask the Doctor to take him home.

 "I didn't think humans had access to this kind of technology."

 His theorizing was interrupted when he came across something that obviously didn't belong in the control panel: a bomb.

 The hiss got louder, and Jadi could feel a distinct breeze. He took a deep breath and held it. He desperately pulled at the outer door handle, trying to get it to move. The breeze worked its way up into a wind. It wouldn't budge. He slammed the EMERG button so hard that it nearly shattered. No response. Jadi grabbed the handle with all his might, to no avail. The hiss had become a roar. It was all over; there was no way he was going to get through the door now. A safety lock had probably already engaged, anyhow.

 *Oh merciful . . . * he tried to think of a deity's name, but couldn't, * . . . whatever . . . I'm sorry.*

 The countdown reached zero, the airlock doors opened the rest of the way, and the bin's contents were uncerimoniously sucked out into the vacuum of space.

 To be continued . . . .