Island of Death by Barry Letts

the window again.
     
    ‘Well...’ Sarah was thinking fast. ‘At least let me buy a book... You know, with information about it all, and the rules and so on.’
    And maybe the password?
    Helga reappeared. ‘I have cashed up. I cannot take your monies. But... here, I give you Mother Hilda’s book. No, no, no - it’s a present. It has brought many to the Great Skang.’
    She held out a thinnish hardback, with a portrait of Hilda on the dust jacket.
    And with that Sarah had to be content.
     
    The Doctor’s mind was not on the TARDIS’s relativity circuit.
    Yes, he had to get it fixed; but that was only a matter of testing each connection and sub-system in turn. Probably it was nothing more than an electron entanglement that had snapped.
    As he sat in the dusty, dry excuse for a garden at the back of the hotel, he was quite aware that his fiddling was a displacement activity. He had no plan, it was true, and he couldn’t think of one. Lethbridge-Stewart seemed determined to go through official channels, and unless that was handled with the utmost care, it could be the very thing that frightened them off. It was essential that they should get more information; more information about the cult, and by extension, the Skang itself...
    He heard the door of the hotel sitting room slam. Was the Brigadier back so soon? Hm. He mustn’t appear too eager.
    The Brigadier was too full of himself already.
    So first he finished checking the calibration of the chronon scale; always a tedious job. Only then did he close the silver case, put it in his pocket, and make his way to the French windows.
     
    She’d occasionally caught sight of one. She’d seen the word on menus. But she’d never tasted one.
    It’s just about impossible to eat a mango like a well-brought-up young lady unless you’ve been shown how to by an expert - especially if you’ve been told that, for safety’s sake, all fruit in India should be peeled.
    ‘Oh my God!’ exclaimed Sarah, as the sloppy, slippery, squishy thing shot from her fingers, to be neatly fielded by the Doctor as he came in. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry!’ she continued, as he politely handed it back to her. ‘I missed breakfast, you see, so I... Thanks...’
    The Doctor smiled distantly as he fastidiously wiped his fingers on the immaculately laundered linen handkerchief he produced from his sleeve.
    ‘Is the Brig about?’ she went on. ‘I went out on a bit of a recce, and I’ve got some info.’
    ‘He’s gone to find his Indian colleague - the person you would no doubt describe as his “oppo”,’ replied the Doctor drily. ‘Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to bring him round to my way of thinking.’ His measured tones suddenly disappeared. ‘You’d think a military man, of all people, would realise that going off at half-cock is likely to lead to your shooting yourself in the foot!’
    Neat, thought Sarah. A perfectly valid mixed metaphor. She looked at the orange pulp in her hand. There was no way of eating it that her mother would have approved of, it seemed.
    Oh well, in for a penny...
    Blimey! So that’s what a mango tasted like. Food of the gods, that’s what!
    ‘So what is this info?’ the Doctor asked. ‘I freely admit, even though I castigate Lethbridge-Stewart for his methods, I’ve yet to come up with an alternative.’
    That was one of the things she liked about the Doctor.
    Arrogant at times, yes, but always honest.
    ‘Well done,’ he said, when she’d told him her story, right up to Helga and the packing up of the books. ‘It’s possible that they are preparing to decamp even from Bombay. In which case, where are they going? And why?’
    ‘Oh yes,’ said Sarah, and there’s one other thing. Hang on...’ Wiping her fingers surreptitiously on the hem of her tee-shirt (it hardly mattered, the front being already soggy with mango juice), she delved into her shoulder bag and produced the book she’d been given – ‘The Way of the Skang’
    by Mother