Doctor Who_ Castrovalva Part 1

DOCTOR WHO.

CASTROVALVA.

by CHRISTOPHER H. BIDMEAD.

1.

Escape from Earth

'He's changing,' said Adric. 'The Doctor's regenerating.'

A cold unfriendly morning had begun to whiten the sky beyond the high wire perimeter. Tegan exchanged a glance with Adric and Nyssa, but none of the three friends dared to approach the Doctor. For inside that red ocean of great-coat, festooned with the familiar long woollen scarf, the figure on the ground seemed so fragile as to be hardly there at all. They watched him struggle to sit up, and from that strangely smooth and vacant face they heard a voice that was not very like the Doctor's. But the sense of what he said was lost under the crisp intrusion of several pairs of footsteps running towards them across the tarmac.

The long pin-drop of silence shattered into confusion.

In a moment uniformed guards loomed over them, and above the clamour of the approaching ambulance Tegan managed to hear: '... these are secure premises. You lot have got some explaining to do.'

As if you could explain something like that to an inquisitor behind the visor of a security helmet? You would have to retell the whole terrifying story of Logopolis, and of the Doctor's last deadly struggle with the Master-perhaps his last forever-high up there on the Pharos transmission tower in whose ominous shadow they now stood.

The guard took hold of her arm, none too gently, to steer her out of the path of the approaching ambulance, while his two colleagues closed in around Adric and Nyssa.

Still shattered by the Doctor's terrible fall, Tegan turned her anger on the guards. 'Take your hands off me... This is an official uniform.' If she had a wild hope that they might somehow be impressed by her purple air-hostess outfit she was mistaken.

Adric's tone was more reasonable. 'Don't be silly,' said the boy, trying to sound calm. 'We want to help. But you can't take us away from the Doctor. Something may have gone wrong with his regeneration...'

The ambulance had drawn up beside them, like a white wall suddenly shutting them off from the Doctor. The driver jumped out and disappeared around the other side of the vehicle, and a man in a white coat emerged from the rear doors to follow him. The guards hustled the three companions against the side of the ambulance. 'Arms up and lean on it. Come on, quick.'

Swift professional hands searched Nyssa and Adric for weapons. As it came to Tegan's turn she noticed that by craning her head to the left she could look through the windows of the driving cab to the patch of ground on the other side where the white-coated man was bent over the Doctor. The uniformed driver had returned to fetch a stretcher from the back of the vehicle.

The guard concluded his search. 'No weapons.'

'Of course not,' Tegan snapped. 'We're all perfectly harmless... unfortunately.' Looking through the two windows of the driving compartment, she saw the ambulance men lifting the limp figure onto the stretcher.

She closed her eyes tight, trying to shut out the reality of what was happening to the Doctor. After a fall from that height it seemed impossible that he should live at all. And yet just before the arrival of the guards they had all seen him open his eyes and reach out towards the shadows behind him where his future had been waiting. That surely must have been a dream, thought Tegan, remembering with a shudder the way the vague and luminous figure they had come to know as the Watcher had stepped out into the light, grasping the Doctor's hands and drawing closer and closer until their two shapes began to merge. This was the process Adric kept calling 'regeneration', a process that all the Lords of Gallifrey went through from time to time.

Except that this time because of the apocalyptic events surrounding their adventure in Logopolis, the Doctor's new self had overlapped the old, watching and waiting for the moment of union.

Adric was still trying to reason with their captors. 'The point of this Pharos Project of yours is to track down alien intelligences, isn't it? We thought we'd save you the trouble and come to you.'

He looked across at Nyssa for confirmation, and she shook the curls of her chestnut hair in a curt nod. It was unusual for Nyssa to tell anything but the strict truth, but in this case the strict truth was far too complicated. And it was perfectly true that they were alien intelligences.

The disbelieving guards peered back at them. Adric, with his strange smile and wicked black b.u.t.ton eyes might well have pa.s.sed for a visitor from another planet, for all the guards knew. And come to think of it, the younger of the two girls did have a remote, aristocratic quality that was somehow unEarthly. But the other girl's broad accent could never have come from anywhere further than the Antipodes.

'We're what you're looking for,' Adric repeated. He was starting to become heated now, forgetting to use a grown-up, reasonable tone of voice. 'Alien intelligences. I come from somewhere up there...' He jabbed his finger towards a distant spot in the sky with such emphasis that the guards couldn't resist looking up. 'That's the way into E-s.p.a.ce...'

The ambulance man in the white coat looked up too as he was on the point of climbing in after the stretcher. The hesitation was a mistake, because at that moment the engine sprang into life, and the vehicle suddenly began to accelerate across the enclosure with its unlatched rear doors defiantly waving goodbye in the slipstream. Adric had seen what Tegan was up to out of the corner of his eye, and been ready for it. Now he gestured to Nyssa. The pair of them ran off after the ambulance at top speed.

With a screech of tyres, Tegan wrenched the wheel round in a tight U-turn, heading the ambulance back towards her two friends. A long way away across the enclosure she could see the main gates, but even as the plan to escape that way formed in her mind the gates began to swing shut and the wail of a warning klaxon fractured the morning air.

Nyssa was nimbler than Adric, and had managed to jump up on the side of the ambulance, reaching one arm in through the open window and holding on to the outside handle with the other hand. As Tegan swung away in another 180-degree turn, in the rear mirror she saw two of the guards seize hold of Adric. He struggled fiercely, but as more guards arrived he was over-powered.

Tegan reached across the driving seat and helped Nyssa in, steering perilously with one hand as she negotiated her way between a row of huts. 'We'll have to go back for him, I suppose,' she hissed.

Nyssa was already scrambling over the back of the seat into the rear of the ambulance, where the Doctor's stretcher was on the point of slipping out onto the tarmac that raced past below them. 'No, the TARDIS,' Nyssa shouted, grappling with the flapping doors. 'We've got to get the Doctor somewhere safe.'

Adric felt himself being lifted to his feet. 'All right, all right... Just let me get my breath back.' There was a crowd around him now, and the strange young boy was never shy when it came to being the centre of attention-even when, as now, his audience was not entirely friendly. Beyond the crowd, some hundred yards away where it had materialised in the shadows at the base of the great radio antenna, he glimpsed the blue telephone box that was the outward guise of the Doctor's time machine, the TARDIS. It meant safety if only he could get to it.

Through the windscreen the two girls could see the TARDIS too. The ambulance was cruising quietly along behind the row of huts, but it seemed inevitable that the big white vehicle would be spotted as soon as they broke cover. The klaxon was still sounding, reminding them that the establishment was swarming with people. There was nothing for it but to take a chance.

Tegan glanced back to make sure the Doctor was secure on the stretcher, crossed her fingers... and put her foot down firmly on the accelerator.

The crowd around Adric heard the whine of the accelerating engine and turned to see it hurtling across the enclosure towards the base of the antenna. As the ambulance reached its goal Tegan swung it into a skid so that it ground to a halt with the back doors almost touching the time machine.

'Get the Doctor into the TARDIS,' Tegan snapped. But there was no need. Nyssa was already scrambling out to open the rear doors.

Adric took advantage of the distraction to renew his struggle with the guards, now that a dozen or so of the staff were headed in the direction of the ambulance. The guards were heavy, but he was good with his feet. Spurred on by the desperate sense that the TARDIS doors might close him out, and leave him marooned forever on this planet of fools and bullies, Adric managed to bring one of them crashing to the ground.

In the distance he could see the girls helping the Doctor out of the ambulance. The two guards had Adric's arm pinned behind him securely now, and he paused for breath, watching with very mixed feelings as the Doctor and the girls disappeared into the safety of the TARDIS.

Only a moment later the crowd arrived to batter on the firmly time-locked doors.

Nyssa had reached the door lever just in time. She knew it was the door lever because it was the one control in the TARDIS console room that produced instant, simple and visible results. She surveyed the a.s.sembly of dials, b.u.t.tons and levers in front of her and then looked up at Tegan, who had been struck by the same thought.

'All this technology,' said Tegan, 'and there's nothing we can do with it.'

Nyssa's tone was more practical. 'In any case, we can't take off without Adric. The first thing we must do is get the Doctor somewhere safe...' She turned to where they had left him resting, slumped over the console, and caught sight of the small door that led to the TARDIS corridors closing behind a burgundy coat-tail.

'Where's he off to now?' exclaimed Tegan, running after him. Nyssa made a move to follow, but the picture on the big viewer screen caught her eye. It showed Adric being marched across the enclosure by the guards. Was there nothing they could do to help?

Adric had not quite given up trying to explain. 'I suppose you realise the Doctor's just saved us all from the Master. And now he's going to take off, and you'll never have a chance to thank him.' He stopped. No one was listening. The driver had recovered the ambulance, and now it rolled up beside them as they walked towards the main building of the Pharos Project. The driver shouted to the guard through the open window.

'Three of them holed up in that police box thing.

Someone's gone off for a key.' , Adric smiled to himself. He knew enough about time translation mechanics to know that the interface was safe from any ordinary Earth device. And that brought him back to the question of how he was going to get in there himself. He hoped the Doctor was well enough to take charge, in which case he could be confident-well, reasonably confident-that some sort of rescue would be organised. Or 'improvised' would be a better expression where the Doctor was concerned. But that last sight of him being dragged like a lifeless bundle into the TARDIS wasn't rea.s.suring. If the Doctor wasn't well enough Adric would have to rely on the girls, and that didn't inspire any confidence at all in the brash young boy.

Adric broke off from his thoughts, suddenly aware that the guards had stopped and were looking upwards, although there was nothing to see in the pale dome of the morning sky but shreds of clouds with a hint of yellow sun behind them. And then the yellowness seemed closer, bringing with it a throbbing sound he had heard before.

The colour thickened above them, congealing into a sinister yellow shape as the reverberations grew louder.

The Master's TARDIS, still in its Corinthian column configuration, hovered in the air over their heads.

Nyssa saw it too on the viewer screen, and Tegan came running back along the corridor in response to her shout.

'What's the matter?' Nyssa pointed at the screen. The Master's TARDIS was shimmering above the ambulance, and seemed to be sending out some kind of energy that made the people below stagger, draw back and slump to the ground.

Tegan seized the exit lever and the two heavy doors swung open effortlessly. She ran out, calling Adric's name, and Nyssa followed her cautiously out onto the tarmac of the Pharos enclosure.

It was a scene of total confusion. 'Adric!' Tegan shouted, as she began defiantly to approach the Master's TARDIS.

'Adric! Where are you?' As if in answer the Corinthian column swooped up into the air, dispersing the cloud of yellow light and revealing Adric, still on his feet amid the inert bodies.

Tegan and Nyssa ran forward to grab hold of their companion. The boy seemed badly dazed, offering neither a.s.sistance nor resistance as the two girls rushed him back towards the TARDIS.

Adric's state of shock persisted even after the double doors had enclosed them all in the safety of the TARDIS.

The girls didn't notice at first; there was work to be done.

'I suppose,' said Tegan, 'that we'd better... take off... or something.' She hesitated in front of the console, gazing at the complexity of b.u.t.tons and switches.

It was then that the two girls became aware of Adric's intense concentration on the co-ordinate panel. They made way for him as he reached out towards it and began flicking switches and pressing b.u.t.tons with almost mechanistic precision.

Tegan drew Nyssa aside. 'Are you sure he knows what he's doing?'

'He told me he took off once before,' said Nyssa. 'On Alzarius, his home planet. But that was by mistake, and it almost ended in disaster!'

'Disaster!' echoed Tegan. She turned her head, her eye caught by the time column. It was now alight and already beginning to oscillate. 'I'm sorry I asked, really. Because it looks as if he's done it again.'

The jumble of bodies sprawled across the cold tarmac began to stir into consciousness. The first that were able to raise their heads glimpsed the remarkable sight of the two TARDIS machines, the Master's yellow pillar and the Doctor's blue police box, bleaching out into invisibility.

Whether it was the residual effects of the stun ray or some extraordinary trick of acoustics was hard to say, but the unmistakable chuckle of the Master seemed to echo on around the Pharos enclosure long after the throbbing of the time motors had drained away into the morning sky.

2.

Towards Zero.

The viewer screen showed the planet Earth as a mist-wrapped blue-green sphere receding into the star-filled distance. Nyssa came to stand beside Adric at the console.

'Good take-off,' she said.

But the boy's attention was concentrated on one of the TARDIS control panels, and he didn't even turn his head when Tegan came running back into the room through the small door that led to the corridors. 'The Doctor seems very strange. His mind's wandering. I'm really worried about him.'

'He's bound to be weak,' said Nyssa. 'That's the effect of the regeneration.' She glanced across at Adric, who had told her all she knew about the way Time Lords like the Doctor were able to rebuild themselves. But Adric seemed more concerned with the careful, slow process of setting the co-ordinates.

Tegan shrugged. 'You'd better talk to him, Nyssa. I don't understand any of this scientific stuff. He's gone off after something called the Zero Room.'

Adric looked up abruptly from his labours at the console. 'The Zero Room?' he echoed. 'I'll go.' And without another word he crossed to the small door and went out. Tegan stared after him. 'I like that,' she said, clearly not liking it at all. 'We rescued him, and he never even said thank you.'

Adric had shared many adventures with the Doctor, and knew the TARDIS well. But the internal dimensioning was not like the ordinary architecture he was used to on Alzarius. The great hulk of the Alzarian starliner, in which his people had been forced to winter out the terrible time of Mistfall, was a colony-cla.s.s ship, constructed of myriad corridors on several levels, but its design was nowhere near as complicated as the configuration of the TARDIS. It wasn't just that they were an enormous maze of twisty corridors, all alike. The Doctor had explained that the TARDIS architecture was 'soft', able to be remoulded at will, as if the rooms and connections between them were made of some kind of logical putty.

The boy was deep inside the ship now, but it was obvious that the Doctor was somewhere nearby. In the last few corridors Adric had been coming across odd bits of debris, clearly emptied out by the Doctor from the copious pockets of his overcoat-perhaps as a way of laying a deliberate trail to be sure of getting back. And now here was the coat itself, lying abandoned on the floor. Further along Adric came across a strand of wool tied to a door handle.

Adric followed the wool. It turned a corner, and then another corner. And there, walking backwards down the corridor, carefully unravelling his scarf as he went, was the Doctor.

He looked up as Adric approached. The body was stooped, like an old man, but the face under the mop of blond hair was the face of youth, with an open smile and an expression of complete bewilderment in his eyes. It was clear that he didn't recognise Adric.

'Come to help me find the Zero Room, eh?' asked this new Doctor cheerfully, and without waiting for a reply held out a hand, obviously feeling that introductions were necessary. 'Welcome aboard. I'm the Doctor. Or will be, if this regeneration works out.'

'I suppose this is the Mean Free Path Tracker... and this panel must be a referential differencer...' Nyssa ran a finger across the console panel, being careful not to alter any of the switch settings. That, unfortunately, was as far as she dared go with her guesses about the console functions. The big disappointment came when she tried to make sense of the co-ordinate patterns Adric had set up. She puzzled over the array of small dials and levers for a long time, but there was no means of knowing where-if anywhere-the TARDIS was headed.

She looked up at the viewer screen. 'Pretty awe-inspiring,' said Tegan, who had been gazing at the enormous starfield for some time now. 'Infinity.'

'No, not infinity.' Nyssa believed in being accurate.

'There are boundary conditions out there that bring you back to your starting point.'

'That's rea.s.suring. So we'll eventually get back to Earth.'

Nyssa smiled. 'In about a hundred quadrillion years.'

Tegan glanced at her wrist-watch, without appreciating the irony of the connection. Inside the TARDIS ordinary chronology didn't have very much meaning, but she still had a sense that Adric had been gone for a very long time.

She left the viewer screen to peep out through the small door that led to the interior.

'I know the TARDIS is huge,' she said over her shoulder to Nyssa. 'But it can't be taking them this long, surely.' The corridor stretching away into the distance showed no signs of life, and there was no sound except the very distant throb of the TARDIS engines. She had once been lost in that maze of white corridors during her involuntary first trip in the TARDIS, and she hated to be reminded of the terrifying experience.

She shut the door and walked back to the console.

'What on earth is a Zero Room, anyway?' she asked Nyssa, who despite being so young seemed to know an awful lot about technology. The Doctor had muttered something about null interfaces, but it was all just gobbledygook to Tegan. She was an outdoor girl.

Nyssa was not like Adric; if she wasn't entirely sure about something technical she said so. 'It sounds as if it might be some sort of neutral environment. An isolated s.p.a.ce, cut off from the rest of the universe.'

Tegan laughed. 'If that's all the Doctor needs I could have shown him round Brisbane.'

The Doctor trekked on with no very clear idea of where he was going, although the unravelling of the scarf, which Adric had to help with when it got tangled, left an unequivocal statement of where he had been. With each new twist of the route the hum of the TARDIS engines, though still distant, grew perceptibly louder, but for the past few minutes the sound had been drowned by the Doctor's voice. He was in a voluble mood, excitable and fragile at the same time. Adric couldn't get a word in.

'Ordinary s.p.a.ces show up on the Architectural Configuration Indicators, but any good Zero Room is balanced to zero energy with respect to the world outside its four walls-or however many walls it may have... There was a very good polygonal Zero Room under the Junior Senate Block on Gallifrey, with widely acclaimed healing properties. Romana's always telling me I need a holiday.'

Adric broke in. 'Romana's gone, Doctor.' It had been a long time since they had left her to help with Biroc's continuing fight against the slavery of the Tharils.

'Gone! Really! Did she leave a note?'