'Gabriel?' said the Doctor. 'She called you Gabriel?'

'Indeed, Mr Doctor.'

'That's her name for you?' he laughed.

'I regret it is my designation, Mr Doctor.'

The Doctor realised he'd been rude – which was good, as he normally needed other people to point that out to him. Probably Martha's influence, he thought. He patted the machine fondly on its less burnt shoulder. 'Oh, don't say that. It's a nice name, Gabriel. If I remember rightly, it means you're here to help us. And are you here to help us?

'Indeed, Mr Doctor,' said Gabriel. 'My function is to serve the passengers.'

'And I bet you do it brilliantly. What did Martha want you to warn me about?'

Gabriel considered. 'Ms Martha did not ask me to warn you about anything, Mr Doctor. I said I would escort you to the cocktail lounge.'

'Right,' said the Doctor. 'I'm going to walk into a "them" some time, but so long as there's nothing you should be telling me.'

'Checking,' said Gabriel. 'Might I enquire as to your berth number, Mr Doctor?'

'My what?' said the Doctor. 'Oh, I'm not a passenger. I'm just helping out.'

Gabriel considered this new fact. 'I have nothing I should be telling you, Mr Doctor,' it said.

'OK,' said the Doctor warily, sure he was missing out on something important. But he had things to be getting on with: find Martha, then find the Brilliant's captain, then work out a way of getting back into the engine rooms, and then – if the ship hadn't blown up by that point – see what he could do to fix Gabriel. 'Come on,' he said. 'You'd better take me to this cocktail lounge.'

Gabriel led the way along the corridor. They turned left, left again and then right, and up a wide staircase into a dining room where the ceiling was a little higher and the Doctor could stand up straight. Two rows of columns held up the low ceiling. An area at the far end of the room was free of columns, which probably allowed for dancing. Stood in this space, definitely not dancing, were two badger-faced people in spacesuits.

The Doctor had met a lot of different species, but he couldn't remember any that looked quite so like humans with badger faces. Which meant, what with the mouthless men downstairs and all, that he could make some educated guesses about what sorts of creature they must be. It helped in working out what they might be doing aboard the Brilliant that the badgers each wore a thick gold earring in their left ears, both had a skull and crossbones crudely painted on the chests of their battered spacesuits and both brandished heavy space guns. The fortieth century had quite a vogue for old-school piracy in space, recalled the Doctor. Badger-faced ones were just a bit more distinctive than the ones he'd encountered before.

'Hiyah!' he said to them, keen to appear friendly. 'Have I missed tea?'

'Thought Dash'd done for this one already, Archie,' said one of the badgers. She had a gruff but female voice, and a noticeable accent. Maybe Home Counties. Maybe even Hampshire. Perhaps just down the road from Romsey. The Doctor realised she wore pastel pink lipstick around her hairy, snarly mouth.

'Thought Dash'd done for it an' all, Joss,' said the other badger, raising his heavy space gun. He had the same accent, more broad Southampton than like pirates in old movies.

'Hang on a tick—' began the Doctor. But he was too late. Archie shot Gabriel squarely in the chest, and Gabriel disappeared in a ball of pink light. When the light died away, there was nothing left to see of Gabriel, just a metallic tang in the air – he had been completely obliterated. 'That was a bit . . .' began the Doctor, tailing off as the two badgers pointed their heavy space guns at him. He tried a disarming, goofy smile. 'Wasn't it?'

'What are you, then?' said Archie the badger space pirate.

'Me?' said the Doctor. 'Oh, I'm no one important.' He grinned. 'Well, we're all important, aren't we? But I mean, I'm nobody you want to worry about.'

'Can I kill 'im?' Archie asked Joss gruffly. His wet, black nose twitched with excitement.

'He doesn't have to, you know,' the Doctor told her. 'I might have skills. Or know stuff.'

'What sort of stuff?' said Joss. The Doctor wondered what that name was short for. He'd once been good friends with a Josephine.

'Oh, you know,' he said. 'I can do tricks. Make stuff. I know a few jokes.'

Aw,' said Archie excitedly. 'Go on, tell us a joke!'

'OK,' said the Doctor.

A clean one,' warned Joss.

'Oh,' said the Doctor. 'OK. Um . . .' He racked his brains. 'Ha! Got one. Why are pirates called pirates?'

Archie and Joss conferred in whispers before they both shrugged at each other. 'We don't know,' said Joss. 'Why are pirates called pirates?'

The Doctor beamed. 'Because they ahhhhr!' he said.

The two badgers stared at him. 'I don't get it,' said Archie, scratching his head with a hairy paw. 'Can I kill 'im yet?'

'I've got other jokes,' said the Doctor quickly. 'Funny ones.'

'Not jus' yet, Archie,' said Joss. 'We wanna know where 'e's come from, don't we?'

'Yeah,' leered Archie. 'Where'd ya come from?'

'Just, er, back there,' said the Doctor, pointing to the stairs.

'There wasn't no one down there when we looked before,' said Joss.

'I was sort of hiding,' said the Doctor. 'I thought it was a game.'

'It weren't no game!' snarled Archie. Then he turned back to Joss. 'Was it?'

Joss considered. 'I reckon,' she said, 'this gent shows us where 'e was hiding. And if we don't like what 'e's got to show us, then you get to kill him.'

'Yeah!' said Archie eagerly.

'Yes, that does seem entirely fair, doesn't it?' said the Doctor. He stuck his hands into his trouser pockets. 'Well you might as well follow me, then.'

Ignoring the way they prodded him with their guns, the Doctor led them back down the stairs, left, right and right again into the passageway that ran past the door to the engine rooms. He had to stoop because of the low ceiling, and his mind was a whirl of thoughts and stratagems. He'd already worked out a couple of ways by which he might escape, but he needed to know what these pirates were after. So it was time to test a theory. 'Here we are,' he said.

'What's this?' asked Joss warily as she looked at the membrane that blocked the doorway.

'It feels like scrambled egg, doesn't it?' said the Doctor.

'Scrambled what?' said Joss.

'Egg,' said the Doctor. 'It's what chickens come in.'

'He means packaging,' Joss explained to Archie as they both sniffed and pawed the eggy material. 'Yeah, I guess it is like that.'

'And I was in there,' said the Doctor. 'Hiding. Like I said.'

'Huh,' said Joss. Anyone else in there?'

'Just some engineers. It is the engine rooms. They won't give you any trouble.'

The badgers' eyes lit up at this, just as he thought they might if they were here to pinch the experimental drive. Joss thumped the skin of scrambled egg with the end of her gun, a blow that should have done real damage. She might be a lady badger, thought the Doctor, but she could hold her own with the boys. Yet despite the force of the blow, the skin of scrambled egg did not yield.

'How'd you get through it?' she said.

'Er, you don't,' said the Doctor. 'You can only go through one way. From that side to this.'

'Hmm,' said Joss. 'It's got to be some kind of barricade. We'd better tell Dash about this,' she told Archie.

'Yeah,' said Archie. He aimed his gun at the scrambled egg and fired two blasts. The skin fizzed with pink light for barely an instant, but was otherwise completely unharmed. 'Bah,' said Archie. 'That's no fun.'

'So we should tell Dash, then?' suggested the Doctor, just to get things moving.

'Yeah,' said Joss. 'Good idea.' These badgers, thought the Doctor, weren't exactly the brightest species he'd ever encountered on his travels. Yet Joss was eyeing him warily, her dark eyes hidden by the twin black stripes down her face. It made her expression difficult to read, but the Doctor could see a wily, predatory cunning. She might not be an intellectual, but Joss could well mean trouble.