Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord : The Ultimate Foe (9 page)

And paid for the privilege!

He had no delusions, therefore, about the calibre of the partner to whom he was allied. At least, no delusions about his crookedness.

But he hadn’t anticipated desertion.

‘Did you entertain, for the briefest of moments, I would desert you, Sabalom?’ Could the Master thought-read?

He’d even picked up the same vocabulary!

‘You cleared off, didn’t you? Left me for dead, didn’t you?’

‘My friend, you wrong me. It was ever my intention to return.’

‘Yeah? You could’ve fooled me!’

No onerous task mused the Master... but he resisted expressing the insult aloud. He had other uses for the cretinous rascal. ‘Then, why am I here? Waiting to welcome you into my TARDIS?’

‘I dunno. Haven’t worked that out yet. My cerebral juices must’ve taken a shaking.’

‘Your "cerebral juices" as you term them, will not be required for the task I have in mind.’

‘What task?’ said Glitz, sidling warily into the TARDIS.

‘I want you to rejoin the Doctor.’

‘When did I volunteer to become a permanent agent provocateur?’

‘Sabalom, you underestimate yourself. Talent should be recognised. You are a maestro as a double agent. You have a vocation for it, my friend.’

‘I’ve a nose for a con, too!’

‘Such accusations offend my sensibilities.’

‘Do they!’

Unappeased, Glitz joined the Master at the monitor screen where he was watching the Doctor and Mel entering the Fantasy Factory.

Entering the Fantasy Factory!

That was the last straw!

‘If all that guff means you want me to go in there – not a chance!’

‘Come, come, my friend. Collaboration between you and I is an essential ingredient of our plans.’

‘You won’t get me going near no quill pens again! And that’s final!’

A scowl distorted the Master’s smooth forehead.

Murderous wrath was never far below the surface and this idiot was driving his patience to the limit!

If he didn’t need him...

But he did. To get back inside that Fantasy Factory.

And if he wouldn’t do so voluntarily... there was an obvious answer for a practitioner in the hypnotic arts.

The renegade reached inside his jacket and eased out a bejewelled medallion.

‘Look at this, Sabalom.’

He dangled the fascinating stone temptingly before the cowardly minion’s avaricious gaze.

‘Yeah! Final!’ The blustering wasn’t ended. ‘I’m not going! I’m staying here till –’

Glowing... the medallion began to swing...

mesmerically...

‘– I can get back to my –’

Two greedy eyes followed each swing...

‘– own kind – and –’

Left, right... left, right...

‘– and – some – honest – thieving –’ the homily trailed off.

Eyes and medallion were in perfect harmony...

‘Splendid... Splendid...’ lilted the Master. ‘Listen carefully to me...’

The expression on the rough, tanned face was blank.

Pinpoint pupils, moving rhythmically, never deviated from the swaying stone.

‘Listen only to me...’

Left, right... left, right... Eyes and medallion were in metronomic accord...

‘When you wake, you will do exactly as I tell you...’

crooned like a lullaby.

The power he could wield through hypnosis afforded the Master great pleasure. Ascendancy, in no matter how minor a degree, tickled his vanity. His name – the Master –

was symptomatic of where his desires were aimed. Some day he would become Master of the Universe... the Cosmos... meanwhile, taming this amoeba was a necessity.

‘Exactly as I tell you, Sabalom...’ The puppet must be soothed into abject obedience.

‘Are you listening... Sabalom... my friend.. ?’ he paused to allow for the slurred ‘Ye-e-es.’

Nothing.

‘Sabalom Glitz... are you listening.. ?’ Smooth as silk...

‘Not really,’ came the bright and breezy reply. ‘I was wondering how many grotzis that little bauble cost you!’

Infuriated, the Master tucked the medallion away and opted for a more direct method.

Lugging a chest from beneath the console, he threw open the heavy lid.

‘Perhaps this will appeal to your crass soul!’

The chest was full to the brim with gold trinkets, gleaming silver goblets, and priceless gems.

A transformation overcame the acquisitive crook. He could hardly breathe.

He was overwhelmed by this vision of El Dorado!

‘Truly a heart-warming sight for a connoisseur such as myself.’

Now he
was
mesmerised!

Nothing could seduce his gaze.

A swarm of asteroids could be approaching and Glitz would not stir!

‘There isn’t a living creature I couldn’t bribe with that lot!’

Bribery and corruption were the two gods whom Sabalom Glitz worshipped. Wherever he travelled, he’d managed always to grease the palms of officialdom: civil dignitaries and senators, policemen and lawyers, presidents and dictators, all had been suborned.

The necklace of diamonds entangled with a lapis lazuli and sapphire tiara, was alone worth a cool million grotzis.

As for the ruby the size of a plover’s egg..!

‘Yours... if you follow my orders.’

The king’s ransom could have been the widow’s mite for the Master! He was bidding for higher stakes.

‘You’re talking the language I relate to.’ Glitz’s paws were itching... aching to touch... to caress...

‘Link up with the Doctor. And lead him to the Valeyard.’

Fear battled with cupidity. ‘Why me? Why can’t you do it?’

‘He would not trust me.’ It didn’t take a genius to arrive at that conclusion.

‘What makes you think he’d trust me?’

Like iron filings to a magnet, those rapacious digits were being lowered into the cornucopian chest.

‘He’s a sentimental fool. Always had a soft spot for a petty rogue!’

He slammed shut the lid – fractionally missing Glitz’s hurriedly withdrawn hands!

16

The junior Mr Popplewick was absent.

Desk, single candle and other accoutrements of the fusty, Dickensian office were still in place. Only the diligent clerk was missing.

The Doctor poked and pried. Mel, trailing behind, was more circumspect in what was for her an antediluvian reconstruction of bygone days.

‘I still reckon we’d be better off outside the Matrix,’ she said.

‘You do?’ A hypothetical question. He was riffling through the leather-bound ledger.

‘Seems to me we should try to entice the Valeyard to where the odds would be more even.’

‘How do we do that?’ He flipped open the lid of the desk. Empty.

‘Well, since you’re obviously determined to stay in-side the Matrix...’

‘Yes?’

‘I hate to say this.’

‘Force yourself.’

‘Why don’t we use you as bait.’

‘Assuming it is me he’s after,’ responded the Doctor, jostling her into the second office.

This, too, was deserted. No senior Mr Popplewick.

‘Oh come on,’ continued Mel, scathingly. ‘Look at the elaborate lengths he’s gone to already.’

The Doctor recommenced his prying. ‘Yes. They have been elaborate. Maybe too elaborate.’

Obscure remarks from the Time Lord were par for the course, but the straightforward Mel rebelled against ambiguity. ‘There are occasions in our relationship when I feel an interpreter wouldn’t come amiss!’ She stomped to the door labelled WAITING ROOM...

‘Don’t go through there –!’

Too late!

A voracious Tyrannosaurus Rex reared towards her from the midst of a curtain of fire!

Peeping through the keyhole, Glitz saw the primeval apparition fractionally before Mel slammed shut the door.

He almost suffered a cardiac arrest!

What had he landed himself in now! When he and the Doc had gone into that waiting room, they’d ended up on the sand dunes. That was grim enough, what with the Doc sinking in the mud and then them being hounded by a cloud of asphyxiating gas! But it seemed there were nastier surprises in store!

Never keen on surprises anyway, he tiptoed across the junior Mr Popplewick’s office towards the exit.

Half a mo! What about those jewels.. ? He’d stand no chance of getting them if he disobeyed orders...

Hesitating in mid room, he found himself level with the desk... Ever the opportunist, a firm advocate of ‘not looking a gift horse in the mouth’, he lifted the desk top.

Nestling in the previously empty desk was a black oblong box.. !

A frisson of ecstasy raised a rash of goose-pimples as he purloined the priceless cassette –

‘Sticky fingers, Mister Glitz?’

The thief almost vacated his skin! Half-rimmed spectacles resting on his retrousse nose, quill pen lodged behind his left ear, Mr Popplewick senior had entered the office!

Despite the veiled threat in the steely accusation, Glitz clung onto the cassette. He read the inscription. ‘ "Matrix Memory Bank". I thought this was destroyed on Ravolox.’

An understandable comment. He had stolen the cassette himself, only to have it snatched from his grasp in the holocaust that overtook his enterprise.

‘That was a duplicate. This is the master tape.’

‘ "Phase Three, Four, Five, Six"!’ Overawed, he hugged the cassette to his well-protected bosom. ‘All the secrets of the Matrix!’

‘Not all. The primitive phases one and two have been relegated to the archives.’ The precise, civil servant diction was out of sync with the authoritative manner. ‘Now will you kindly put it back.’

‘Mr Popplewick... I’d give my soul for this...’

‘You would?’ Popplewick calmly extracted an old-fashioned flintlock from his frock-coat pocket. Cocked it.

‘Would you indeed...’

His soul he may be prepared to sacrifice, his life never!

Gulping, bewitched by the barrel of the gun but still nursing the cassette, Glitz made one last bid. ‘Ah, you want to negotiate, Mr Popplewick, sir...’

‘Look at this, Mel!’

The Doctor’s search had unearthed an interesting item: a scroll with a list of names.

Mel wasn’t impressed. After the shock of what lay beyond the waiting-room door, she was even more anxious to quit the Matrix and return to reality.

She scanned the scroll. ‘A list of names. Whose?’

‘Time Lords attending my trial. Every member of the Ultimate Court of Appeal. The Supreme Guardians of Gallifreyan Law.’

The import of the list was lost on Mel.

Not on the Doctor. Gathering these worthies together for the purposes of officiating at a major trial, was to be expected. Finding their names on a scroll in a factory clerk’s office, was not.

‘Why’re they all crossed through?’

In her inimical fashion, Mel had voiced his own query.

A thick, black line was scrawled through each entry. He did not know the reason, but the vehemence with which the lines had been drawn, made him apprehensive.

So did the handwriting...

‘Notice anything, Mel?’

She studied the document. Shook her mass of red hair.

‘The handwriting.’

Sudden realisation. ‘It’s yours!’

Absolutely true. Each vowel, each consonant, bore the indelible curlicues of the Doctor’s calligraphy.

‘Did you?’

‘Write it? No, Mel.’

‘Then who?’

He knew who.

What he didn’t know was why.

But all hypotheses were curtailed by the arrival of two visitors.

Popplewick and Glitz bundled into the office.

The flintlock was cocked.

But no longer by Popplewick!

The corpulent clerk flinched as Glitz, swaggeringly cock-a-hoop, jabbed the ancient weapon into Popplewick’s rump.

The tables had, apparently, been turned.

‘Whoa! That’s far enough,’ cautioned Glitz.

‘I really must protest at this unseemly behaviour.’ The bumbling speech pattern had regained its hint of humility.

‘You are contravening all established procedure!’

‘Due to my not inconsiderable powers of persuasion,’

gloated Glitz, giving Popplewick’s ample form another emphatic jab with the barrel of the flintlock. ‘This menial’s agreed to take us to his boss. The mysterious Mr J. J.

Chambers, Doc.’

‘Good.’

The Doctor had not finished studying the names. Nor had he been able to deduce the reason for their being crossed through. He wondered whether to ask Popplewick

– then decided against bothering, convinced the explanation would not be forthcoming.

Stuffing the list into his pocket, he deliberately grasped the handle of the waiting room door. ‘Will you lead the way, Mr Popplewick?’

‘No!’ The flabby cheeks wobbled with alarm. ‘Not through there! Er – Mr Chambers is across the courtyard, sir.’

‘Yeah, well if he isn’t – there’s going to be one bureaucrat less in the Matrix!’

With a weapon in his hand, Glitz felt very brave!

Yet... how did he get the weapon.. ?

Not having witnessed the earlier exchange between the pair, this was a puzzle of which the Doctor had no knowledge as the quartet filed through both offices.

He did have knowledge of another hazard though.

‘Just a moment, Mr Popplewick.’ He plucked the quill pen from behind Popplewick’s ear and laid it delicately on the desk. ‘You’ll not be needing this.’ When the combat of the quills had been raging in the courtyard, the Doctor was in his zombie-like state. His faculties had been anaesthetised by the disorientating onslaught to which the Master had subjected him, yet his senses – especially that deeper sixth sense – had registered the attack.

‘Very astute of you, Doc,’ congratulated Glitz. ‘You should live long.’

‘I already have. More than nine hundred years. Carry on. Carry on,’ he chortled merrily.

‘Get cracking!’ growled Glitz, giving another jab to the clerk as he led the way through to the courtyard below.

Mel delayed. ‘Doctor, what’s the secret?’ Mercurial changes of mood were characteristic of the Time Lord, but Mel had a feeling this flippancy was all an act.