‘Don’t worry!’ he added, seeing the alarmed look on Liz’s face, ‘The process is virtually instantaneous and you won’t notice a thing.’
As he spoke, he was hurriedly attaching several wires from the console to the device, and having finished this, began to race around the console flicking switches.
‘And safe?’ asked Liz tensely.
‘Perfectly!’ said the Doctor reassuringly. ‘The crucial thing is that because it deconstructs and reconstructs, it can separate out something that should not be present – like a venomous infection.’
The Doctor ran rapidly around the console, pressing switches in reckless haste. Liz stroked the Brigadier’s sweat soaked brow, and bit her lip vexedly. Stupidly ignorant, patronising and overbearing though she had found the man, she hated the idea of watching him die in agony, so far from home.
‘Hurry Doctor!’ she pleaded, ‘He can’t have long left!’
Just as she said those words, she felt a rumble from deep within the ship, seeming to vibrate through every surface. The central core of the console began to rise and fall, and the sounds of the TARDIS mighty engines roared triumphantly as the ship left Tara and rushed across space and time to return to Earth.
The journey was hardly more than a minute, but it felt like a lifetime for the travellers, not least for Liz as she watched the Brigadier’s laboured breathing. It came as a shock when the noise stopped, and the Doctor cried ‘We’ve done it!’
Liz looked down at the Brigadier. For a dreadful moment, she feared the worst, seeing no breathing nor other signs of life. Suddenly, to her intense relief, he gave a sharp strong breath and his whole form seemed to relax. Liz gave a gasp that was half exaltation, half sob.
‘He’s made it! Oh Doctor! He’s made it!’
A loud bang from the console made Liz look up in alarm, and she saw the Doctor looking forlornly at the molecular suppression transmitter, which had exploded in a shower of sparks and wires, and was now smoking copiously.
‘Oh well,’ he said ruefully, ‘That’s worse than useless now.’
Liz walked over, and took his army kindly.
‘That was your way to escape, wasn’t it?’ she asked in an understanding tone. She looked seriously at him, ‘But you surely could never have let the Brigadier die, could you Doctor? Even for your freedom?’
There was an uncomfortable silence, causing Liz to feel anxious for a moment that the Doctor would have done exactly that. But when he spoke, he said softly.
‘That’s what Duke Grendell never appreciated Liz. Freedom to do whatever you want is no good, if you don’t have the freedom to do the right thing.’
He smiled genially at Liz, and said ‘Come along Liz. We better get Alastair to the infirmary.’
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