Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord : The Ultimate Foe (11 page)

It brought home to the present Doctor how much there was in his own temperament that he deplored. In past regenerations he had been irascible, intolerant and retaliatory – an endless list, now distilled and personified in this tormenting Valeyard.

‘However, I should be happy to elucidate,’ the Valeyard continued.

Mel wasn’t too keen on accepting the offer, but appreciating how deeply preoccupied the Doctor was. ‘I’m listening,’ she snapped, and hoped he’d keep it simple!

‘That, my misguided young woman, is the ultimate weapon. Subatomic particles: gravitons, tau-mesons – all will be completely disseminated! Now you see them. Now you don’t!’

‘You vain fool!’ she retorted. ‘Destroy us and you destroy yourself!’

Her fervour invoked a gale of laughter.

‘I’ve met some pretty despicable people in my twenty-three years, but none comes anywhere near you!’ She stormed to the Doctor, shook him from his self-recriminatory ponderings. ‘Do you know why he finds the prospect of extinction such an hilarious joke?’

Accosted by guilt, the Doctor tried to shrug off the ghastly image of his own transgressions: misdemeanors great and small which translated themselves into this black-robed hyena! Laughing! Joke? Mel’s pleading stung him into action. ‘Sorry... I’m sorry...’

‘Forget the apologies. Please concentrate on what’s happening here.’

‘Concentration has seldom been the Doctor’s strong point. Flights of fancy into the never-never land have always offered the greater attraction of escapism,’ gibed their captive.

Balefully the Doctor glared at his tormentor.

Rejoicing in his task, the Valeyard persevered with his goading. ‘You see, he knows the war is lost. The armies opposing him are too formidable. I’m not alone. Ask yourself, how did I gain access to this holy-of-holies – the Matrix? Only one body has the authority to sanction the privilege. The High Council of Gallifrey! Not even this dauntless buffoon can bring down such a Goliath.’ Studied commonsense took over. ‘So capitulate. Greet the end gracefully.’

The resentment simmering in the Doctor abated: he could scent a false trail.

And that was a garden path he had no intention of being led up! The only flowers he’d find there were those destined for his wreath! His protagonist’s verbose goading was meant to divert him.

Just as the pieces were beginning to fit!

The Valeyard’s threat of dissemination was tantamount to suicide. Yet the Doctor knew the narcissistic prosecutor would not allow himself to be killed. It was irrational: hadn’t the trial been contrived in order that he – the Valeyard – might plunder the Doctor’s remaining lives?

Survival for him was an immutable proviso.

Then for whom was this ultimate weapon meant.. ?

Realisation dawned.

Trembling, fumbling, he extracted the document taken from Popplewick’s office.

‘A hit list!’ He waved the list of names at Mel. ‘The writing, Mel!’

‘Yours, Doctor –’

‘Mine – and his! Don’t you see! He’s made a hit list!

That’s why they’re all crossed through!’

‘But they’re all in the Trial Room. And we’re in the Matrix.’

Again Mel had given him the missing fragment of the puzzle. ‘The Matrix screen!’ That was to be the conveyor of death! ‘Mel, get to the Trial Room! Tell them to disconnect the Matrix and evacuate the Court!’

‘How –?’

‘Do it! Or there’ll be mass murder!’

Mel hared for the exit, lampooned by the Valeyard’s taunting laughter.

Their panic afforded him renewed amusement.

So did something else.

Under cover of their absorption, he had succeeded in working loose his tethered wrists...

21

‘How do I get out of the Matrix?’

This was the question Mel would have posed but for the Doctor’s interruption.

She wished she had persisted. The beam of Astanneus Light had deposited her in an alley... Perhaps if she returned to the alley, she would find an exit there.

Weaving through the warren of slums, each a decrepit replica of the other, would have confused the average voyager. Mel was above average. At least, her memory was.

It led her to the exact spot.

A fruitless mission.

No shaft descended to spirit her into the world of reality.

Then her ability for total recall came again to her aid.

Remembering how the bogus Mel enticed the Doctor back to the Courtroom, she recollected that the exit was effected through the wall of an archway.

Maybe the Valeyard had been seduced by his own cleverness...

Maybe he had unwittingly divulged the secret of re-entry to the Trial Room...

Gentle snores snuffled from the benches in the Court: many of the elderly Guardians of the Law, lulled by the unscheduled interval, were dozing.

Diligently searching for a precedent, burrowing in a tome of Gallifreyan Law, the Inquisitor, too, was infected by drowsiness.

Only the guards remained alert and stiffly at attention.

‘Why can’t we go?’ Glitz was bored with watching the vegetating Court on the Monitor in the Master’s TARDIS.

‘We wait.’

‘For what?’

The Master did not condescend to explain. He was anticipating an event: an announcement that would set the seal on his ambitions.

‘Well, look, give me my divvi and I’ll vamoosh.’

‘Divvi ?’

‘Spondooliks! The swag!’ A sigh of resignation at the Master’s cloddish lack of familiarity with his fraternity’s slang. ‘The chest of jewels! I’ve delivered the tape, now I’m entitled to my –’

The Master clapped his gloved hand over Glitz’s mouth and concentrated on the monitor.

‘My Lady! My Lady!’ The plaintive cry of the Keeper rushing into the Court. ‘Oh, My Lady!’

‘Ah...’ The Master grinned. ‘Listen, Glitz.

Remain absolutely quiet!’

The Keeper’s harassed baying aroused the Time Lords and the Inquisitor from their lethargy.

‘An urgent message, My Lady!’ Dismayed by the devastating news he had to impart, he stammered, reluctant to be its harbinger.

‘I am listening, Keeper.’

‘My Lady, the High Council has been deposed.’ A gasp of incredulity from the benches.

A grunt of satisfaction from the Master. He alone had put the spark to the tinder. The damaging evidence exposing the treasonable double-dealings of the High Council to cover up the violation of the sacred Matrix by the Sleepers from Andromeda, had been recorded by the renegade and infiltrated into every VDU on Gallifrey.

In their homes, recreation centres, libraries, University, and even in the Meditative Sanctums of Astral Harmony, the Time Lords of Gallifrey had learnt of the unpardonable treachery engaged in by their elected rulers: a betrayal surreptitiously maintained for centuries.

The civil disorder brought about by his expose, exhilarated the Master. It was a hundred percent proof nectar; intoxicating him; transporting him to a state of ecstasy never before attained; made all the sweeter by the undeniable fact that the dissolution could not have been achieved but for the self-lacerating machinations of the Doctor and his alter ego, the Valeyard.

‘Insurrectionists are running amok on Gallifrey!’

continued the Keeper.

‘Splendid! Splendid!’ burbled the Master.

He imposed his image onto the Matrix screen.

‘Thank you, Keeper. That is the news I have been awaiting.’

His gloating visage filled the screen.

‘Listen carefully. I have an edict to deliver.’

Subdued by the impact of the Keeper’s tidings, nobody in the Courtroom demurred.

‘Somewhere the Valeyard and the Doctor are engaged in their squalid duel. With luck they will kill each other...’ He paused to consider the choice prospect.

‘But that is a mere coincidental occurrence. What I have to impart is of vital importance. To each and every one of you.’

A dramatic pause. That he was invulnerable, was beyond doubt. His superiority over all other beings was unimpeachable. No small voice of caution disturbed this certitude.

‘Now that Gallifrey is collapsing into chaos, none of you will be needed. Your office will be abolished. Only I can impose order. I have control of the Matrix!’

He flourished the cassette.

‘To disregard my commands will be to invite summary execution!’

With nonchalant hauteur, he strolled to the computer.

‘Now you’ve purged that little lot from your system, can we get on? Load the cassette.’ All this talk of abolition and executions gave Glitz the collywobbles: incredibly, he was beginning to wonder if the jewels were worth the candle!

‘You really are the archetypal Philistine! Moments such as this should be savoured...’ Ostentatiously, he loaded the cassette into the computer and switched on.

Instantly he began to shiver as if struck by palsy.

In abject horror, he shied from the computer... but it was as though his legs were wading through glue... his trembling movements were exaggeratedly sluggish...

‘What’s – wha – is – happ – en – ing –?’ Glitz, too, was affected... slow motion prolonged each vowel and consonant.

‘A – lim-bo- at – ro – ph – i – er...’ The Master sounded like a record player in need of winding.

‘A – limbo – at – r – o – ph – i – er – ?’

The drawn out question echoed hollowly around the Court. Colour was draining from the screen... movement lost impetus... then stopped... leaving Glitz and the Master suspended, motionless, in the dismal greyness of limbo...

Popplewick had substituted a Limbo Atrophier for the genuine tape.

The Valeyard had triumphed again.

22

The Valeyard was anticipating more triumph.

‘You are elevating futility to a fine art,’ he drawled.

‘There is nothing you can do to prevent the catharsis of spurious morality.’

After removing the casing of the Particle Disseminator, the Doctor was tinkering with its complex innards.

So far success had eluded him. The pulsating energy discharging from anodes zigzagged along vacuum tubes and the countdown digital clock remorselessly registered each micro second.

‘If you could compile this monstrosity – it follows that I should be able to unravel it!’

With the delicacy of a brain surgeon, he inserted a wafer-thin probe into the labyrinthine circuit...

A splutter of static forced him to jerk away... but not before the tips of his fingers were singed.

Mel’s guess was correct.

The archway did provide access to the Seventh Door and the sealed corridor.

Clattering up the steps, she barged into the Trial Room.

‘Disconnect the Matrix!’

Already distracted by the Limbo Atrophied bodies on the screen, the Inquisitor took refuge in protocol. ‘Your lack of decorum, young woman, is really beyond–’

‘Forget the high-flown etiquette! Disconnect the Matrix and get out of this place!’

‘We cannot switch off without the Keeper. And he is not present.’

True. She had despatched him to gather the latest reports from Gallifrey.

‘Then send for him! Quickly!’

‘Guard –’ The request was belated. Infected by the panic Mel was engendering, the guard had not waited to receive the order!

Sucking his scorched fingers, the Doctor glared at the multivolt circuit. He had no technical knowledge of Particle Disseminators – and yet, as he had intimated, if the Valeyard had constructed it...

Similar conclusions were badgering the Valeyard.

Should the Doctor dig deep enough into his subconscious, he might excavate the formula..

Regardless of a rawness caused by the chafing, he strained at the loosened bonds.

‘Stay calm... stay calm...’ The Doctor lectured himself.

‘Think... think...’ Easier said than done. The lives of all those in the Trial Room depended on him.

Including Mel’s.

For it was entirely at his instigation that she was there...

The petrified images of Glitz and the Master began to decompose.

‘We’ll have to get out!’ Mel didn’t understand the degenerative collapse happening on the screen, but she knew that’s where the danger lay. ‘If it’s not already too late!’

Neither guard nor Keeper had arrived. Presumably the bearer of the Key could not be found, Or the guard had panicked and fled!

‘Too late.. ?’

‘Get out.. ?’

‘Why is she shouting.. ?’

‘What shall we do.. ?’

General indecision and confusion spread.

‘Unhand me, woman!’ This from an elderly sage whom Mel was attempting to usher along the narrow aisle.

‘Move! If you don’t want that to happen to you!’ She pointed at the disintegration underway on the screen.

In confirmation of her dire prediction, flowing tentacles of ions swirled from the screen and advanced into the Courtroom...

‘The Ion Avalanche Diode! That’s the clue!’ The Doctor sounded far more confident than he felt. ‘If I increase the particle velocity by a factor of ten...’ he twirled a tiny ratchet –’... that should overload to destruction this obscenity you’ve devised.’

Standing clear, he waited for the de-acceleratory whine...

The Particle Disseminator did not even hiccup.. !

Multi-layered ghosting caused the factorising images on the screen ominously to lose definition as the build-up of ions invading the Court broadcast the malaise.

Already several Time Lords were slumped over and inert, their aged physiques unable to resist the corrosive onslaught.

Fit and young as Mel was, her legs lacked co-ordination too. In a despairing bid for safety, she attempted to reach the exit.

But every step was like walking in an ocean of treacle...

she wasn’t going to make it...

– then the screen imploded..

‘Eureka!’

The Doctor pranced out of the alcove.

‘So it couldn’t be immobilised!’

The triumphant declaration spurred the Valeyard into straining harder at the bonds. He, above all people, recognised the Doctor’s questing intelligence: had he mustered that intellectual prowess sufficiently to abort the debacle? ‘What’ve you done?’