Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord : The Ultimate Foe (12 page)

‘Stimulated an antiphase signal that’ll nullify the Telemetry Unit. The whole system should self destruct!’

‘You blundering imbecile!’

‘Yes, well you would think th–’

‘You’ve triggered a Rayphase Shift. There’ll be a massive feed-back. Into
here
!’

Wrenching free, he knocked the Doctor aside and scrambled for the Particle Disseminator.

Mauve signals changed to indigo... to sulphurous orange... to palpitating gangrenous emerald...

‘No!’ protested the Valeyard, grappling with the controls. ‘No, it must be aborted!’

It couldn’t be. The disseminating process spewed the glittering fireflies of ions into the engine bay.

Bombarded by the ions, the Doctor, who had fetched up near the door as a result of the Valeyard’s blow, managed to drag himself clear.

Not so the Valeyard.

Silhouetted by multi-layered ghosting, on his knees, he dragged his impoverished body across the floor...

Almost spent, with agonising slowness, his twitching fingers scrabbled for sanctuary...

Leaning on the gate to the kiln, the Doctor gulped air –

succour for his oxygen-starved blood cells.

Wanting to put distance between himself and the results of the Rayphase Shift, he staggered to mid courtyard.

The fairy lights of the Fantasy Factory were dimmed by what can best be described as a volcanic firework display above the bulbous kiln.

White, red, blue, yellow.

In torrid primary colours, the disseminating particles were shooting, in spiralling tentacles through the chimney.

Whoosh!

In a rapid succession of pyrotechnics, burst followed burst, their ferocity intensified by the tapering stack they had to mount before dispersing into the extravagance of Space: Bonfire Night and the Fourth of July condensed into one magnificent spectacle.

A twinge of sadness furrowed the Doctor’s brow. He transferred his gaze to the kiln’s entrance... the Valeyard was still trapped inside...

He should have been relieved.

He wasn’t. Being party to the death of any living soul was anathema to this Time Lord.

Even that of a nihilist as evil as the Valeyard.

His weary tread reverberated on the cobblestones as he turned sombrely towards the archway. On the previous occasion he had taken this route, he reflected, that bogus creature had been guiding him to the spurious trial and intended tête-à-tête with Madame Guillotine.

Bogus creature!

Mel!

Was she safe?

Weariness evaporated. He pounded into the tenebrous tunnel.

His intended destination was a shambles.

The benches, cluttered with the inert forms of slumped Time Lords, were littered with debris. A pall of stillness hung over the Courtroom.

Cream and red uniformed guards were in recumbent huddles beside the white-gowned Inquisitor whom they had valiantly attempted to rescue before they, too, succumbed to the disseminating ions.

But of Mel there was no sign.

Had the Doctor’s retrieval come too late?

Had she, in trying to save the Time Lords, been herself struck down?

Wait! A movement from the dock.

Almost imperceptibly, a blue-clad arm flexed... Mel, dazed, groped for the handrail to haul herself upright.

Simultaneously, the Inquisitor stirred...

Nullifying the Telemetry Unit and provoking a Rayphase Shift may have induced a massive feed-back into the kiln...

But it had also saved the occupants of the trial Room...

the Supreme Guardians of Gallifreyan Law...

23

The Matrix screen was a gaping hole.

A vivid reminder of the fierce implosion.

‘That’s simply a piece of hardware. It can be repaired,’

said Mel, stoically. ‘At least none of us was permanently damaged.’

‘For which we have you to thank, Melanie,’ the Inquisitor insisted.

‘Not me. The Doctor.’

Promptly on cue, the hero made his entrance.

‘Now let’s see, where were we? I was about to be sentenced, I believe.’ The overtly contentious sally was an indication of his relief at finding Mel and the others unharmed.

The Inquisitor smiled.

‘All charges are dismissed. We owe you an immense debt of gratitude.’

‘Hear, hear!’ applauded the Time Lords.

‘In that case, we’ll bid you goodbye. Come along, Mel - ’

‘No!’ quavered a Time Lord.

‘Don’t leave!’

‘Tell him about Gallifrey!’

‘He doesn’t know what’s happened!’

‘He must be told!’

‘We may require his help!’

The overlapping protestations stopped the Doctor in his tracks.

‘They came to bury Caesar, now they praise him,’

quipped the Doctor, mutilating Shakespeare’s text. ‘What don’t I know?’

Quelling the hubbub, the Inquisitor explained.

‘There had to be a reason for the Master’s brooding presence,’ commented the Doctor when she had related her tale.

‘Doctor... after you learned of the High Council’s transgressions, you uttered some bitter statements.’

‘I don’t reject them.’

‘A harsh judgment.’ A gentle rebuke from the Inquisitor.

‘Made in haste, you consider?’

‘Oh he’ll repent them at leisure,’ mediated Mel.

‘No.’ The Doctor was adamant. ‘The abuse of power is repugnant to me. Discovering its existence among the elite of Gallifrey –’

‘A tiny minority only, Doctor.’

Murmurs of approval for Mel’s wisdom!

‘Don’t help her out, Mel. The honourable lady’s leading somewhere, can’t you see?’

‘Where?’

‘She wants me to go home to Gallifrey!’

‘I do. Once law and order have been re-established, a new High Council will need to be elected... Can I persuade you to stand for President again?’

A chorus of approval from the benches.

Ever the Thespian, the Doctor gave a deep bow. ‘I thank you for your confidence, my Lords, but... I’ve a better idea.’

‘He’s going to suggest you stand!’

Mel’s adeptness in anticipating her mentor was improving.

‘Indeed I am. And if there were such a thing as an intergalactic postal vote, you’d have mine!’

‘I shouldn’t advertise that if I were you, My Lady,’

teased Mel.

Amused by the impish banter, the Doctor ushered his companion towards the exit.

‘Ah –’ he paused. ‘Er – there is a small favour I’d ask.’

‘Name it, Doctor.’

‘When you restore the Matrix, I don’t care what you do with the Master... but apply leniency to Sabalom Glitz.

He’s not beyond redemption.’

‘Just don’t let him near the crown jewels!’ advised Mel.

‘Gallifrey doesn’t have any crown jewels,’ chuntered the Doctor as they left the Courtroom and approached the TARDIS.

‘Right, a bracing glass of carrot juice...’

Carrot juice was a pet hate of the Doctor’s! He frowned his protest.

‘... then we’ll get you on the exerciser.’

Mel’s determination to reduce those excess bulging inches had not diminished!

‘Perhaps I’ve been rash in refusing to stand for Lord President.. !’

‘Come on!’ The diminutive companion bundled the Doctor into the TARDIS.

‘Carrot juice!’ moaned the Doctor.

Later, over the bellow of the TARDIS’s dematerialisation, his plaintive cry could still be heard.

‘Carrot juice... carrot juice...’

Tottering on unsteady legs, the Time Lords gladly quit the Trial Room.

‘Keeper!’ called the Inquisitor.

Having arrived, the official stood with his back to her, gazing at the wreckage.

‘Repair the Matrix screen, Keeper. Requisition any items you need.’

‘Yes, My Lady.’ The muted reply was deferential...

Gazing sideways, he watched her leave...

Then turned...

The Key of Rassilon gleamed on its silver chain, the flowing copper-coloured robes fell in folds about the spare figure... but the smiling face framed by the russet skull cap... was not that of the Keeper.

It was the Valeyard’s...

And the sardonic laugh that resounded around the deserted Court was his too...

Mel wasn’t laughing.

The Doctor had just told her they must part.

‘You’re from my future, Mel. You can’t stay with me now.’

‘So what happens?’

‘For a start, I don’t have to drink carrot juice!’

‘No, seriously.’

‘You were taken out of Time for the purposes of the Trial. Now you’ve got to be returned.’

‘Well, can’t you work a fiddle or something? Change Time and let me stay?’

‘Change, Mel? Haven’t I just been tried for –’

‘Meddling. I know. I know... When?’

‘When what?’

‘Am I to be taken back?’

‘Look at the console.’

Not a flicker of movement.

The Doctor had followed all the recognised procedures, but, except for dematerialising the TARDIS, the sophisticated mechanism was non-operative.

‘We have to be placed in the exact situations we were in before we were – hijacked, so to speak. Neither you nor I have any choice, Mel.’

Despite the quiescent interior controls, the TARDIS

was moving. The beam of light that had abducted the police box and wafted it to the Space Station housing the Courtroom, was now propelling it towards a destination that lay in the Doctor’s future. Mel had to be restored to Oxyveguramosa, a verdant stellar fragment in the Apus Constellation. Only then could the Doctor be returned to the position in Time from which he was snatched. He wondered whether to attempt an explanation of the chronology to Mel. ‘I’d better not,’ he muttered.

‘What?’ enquired Mel.

‘Oh, nothing. Nothing. Just thinking aloud.’

Before she could nail this evasion, the TARDIS jolted to a halt.

‘Au revoir, Mel,’ he said teasingly.

She hesitated, reluctant to leave him.

‘Go on.’ He empathised with her qualms. ‘You’ll be with me again. Quicker than you imagine. Who knows, maybe a slim-line version!’

Mel exited.

She turned back and blinked – two TARDISes in the shape of the blue police box were standing side by side!

Before she could collect her senses, one of them dematerialised...

Tentatively she entered the remaining Time Machine.

‘Mel, you promised you’d have this programme completed!’ The Doctor was tinkering with the computer...

what’s more, he had shed several centimetres from his girth!

‘Cat got your tongue?’ he grumbled. ‘Don’t you want to resume our fascinating travels?’

‘That depends.’

‘On what?’

‘How much you’ve confused the situation.’ She peered at the VDU. ‘Move over!’

Not offended, he grinned. Having this dynamic redhead as a companion was a prospect he viewed with unqualified pleasure.

But that pleasure was to be tempered by a hazardous journey into uncharted territory.

Hazards that were destined to have a profound impact on the Sixth Doctor.

For he was about to embark upon a series of adventures that would eventually culminate in a confrontation with the Rani.

After which, this Doctor would never be the same again...

• Front cover
  
• Rear cover
  
• Title page
  
• Copyright
  
• Contents
  
• Prologue
  
• 1 The Key of Rassilon
  
• 2 An Unwelcome Intruder
  
• 3 Evil Intent
  
• 4 Twelve-and-a-half
  
• 5 Treason
  
• 6 A World Apart
  
• 7 A Lethal Greeting
  
• 8 Mr Popplewick
  
• 9 A Sticky End
  
• 10 To Be Or Not To Be!
  
• 11 Out of the Frying Pan
  
• 12 The Baiter Bitten
  
• 13 False Witness
  
• 14 Off With His Head
  
• 15 Mesmeric Riches
  
• 16 Point and Counterpoint
  
• 17 About-face
  
• 18 Two-faced
  
• 19 Double-faced
  
• 20 Particles of Death
  
• 21 The Price of Vanity
  
• 22 The Keeper Vanishes
  
• 23 Carrot Juice
  
• Epilogue