Doctor Who_ Castrovalva Part 4

Tegan blushed. 'He's... Adric's...'

Doctor was impatient for an answer. 'Well, where?-We need him.'

Nyssa turned the pointer and the colour of the s.p.a.ce behind the roundel slowly changed, going down through the colours of the rainbow until it became a deep cerulean blue. By the time she had put back the panel the smoke was already beginning to dissipate in the corridors, and it had become noticeably cooler.

She arrived back in the console room just in time to hear the Doctor asking about Adric's whereabouts, and her reappearance at that moment gave Tegan a split second to think.

'It's cooller out there in the corridors already, that's something,' Nyssa announced, by way of a distraction. But deceiving the Doctor made her feel uncomfortable, and in response to Tegan's raised eyebrows telegraphing for help across the room she took a deep breath and stepped forward. 'We have to talk to you about Adric, Doctor. You see...'

Tegan began her explanation at the same time. 'We thought Adric was in the Zero Room, but...'

As it happened, the Doctor wasn't listening to either of them. He had noticed the screen, where the starfield was getting visibly denser by the minute. 'Tell me later,' he said, much to their relief. 'There's not much time. Once the starfield approaches critical ma.s.s we'll be shut into the Inrush. Where were we?' He took the notebook from Tegan's hand, but the wriggling pencil-marks told him nothing, although he had learnt shorthand once, a long time ago. Then he caught sight of the rubber on the end of her pencil. 'Ah yes, deleting rooms.' He was beginning to look a little unsteady on his feet. He groped for the wheelchair and sat down.

'Are you OK?' Tegan directed the question to the Doctor, but it was Nyssa who provided the answer.

'His adrenalin is normalising. It was helping to bridge the synapses.'

The Doctor waved these irrelevances aside with an impatient hand and handed the notebook back to Tegan.

'Sssh-come on, we've got to finish this. About seventeen thousand tons of thrust. Say twenty-five percent of the Architecture.'

'A whole quarter of the TARDIS!' Tegan exclaimed.

Nyssa looked doubtful. 'Which twenty-five percent, Doctor?'

'Doesn't matter... same thrust.'

'Oh, that's all right, then,' said Tegan.

The obvious point that had escaped her was picked up sharply by Nyssa. 'It certainly isn't all right. We don't want to jettison the console room.'

'You bet we don't,' said Tegan. 'Not if we're in it!' She turned to the Doctor for his views on the matter, but he appeared to be dozing now. She took him by the shoulder and shook him gently. 'Doctor! Please. One last thing...'

The Doctor opened his eyes, and said, as if seeing her for the first time: 'h.e.l.lo?'

'How do we make sure we don't jettison the console room?' Tegan said slowly, spelling the words out one by one.

The Doctor nodded. 'Ah, yes... That's the trouble with manual over-ride. It'll be completely random.'

'Random!' said Nyssa, in something rather louder than her normal tone.

The Doctor lay back in the wheelchair and closed his eyes again. 'Get K9 to explain it to you. Good luck.'

The two girls looked at each other, and then up at the viewer screen, where the stars were closing in rapidly.

'Thanks, Doc,' said Tegan. 'I think we might need it.'

The Master's skin was tight on his face, like a thin mask pulled on over the skull, and the dark eyes had the cruel gleam of gun-metal. 'Well, Adric... This is my proposition.

Life will immediately become more comfortable for you if you join forces with me. Or do you prefer to remain in the web throughout eternity-a mere utility.'

The boy stared back with what might have been defiance; or perhaps the eyes were glazed with pain and immobility. The Master left him to ponder the question, and the escalator contracted again, returning him to the console. After a moment he touched a switch and turned back to the web. 'You may speak.'

The boy did not respond immediately, but his face betrayed his hesitation as he weighed the temptation.

Then, in the hollow voice of defeat, the words came slowly: 'What do you want me to do?'

The thermal protection circuits had dispersed all but the last few wisps of smoke from the room, and now instead of the heat and the air of crisis an atmosphere of deadly stillness prevailed, as if the occupants were crystallised in this final moment of their lives.

Perhaps not all the occupants. Beneath the viewer screen, where the starfield's tightening grip was mercilessly displayed, the Doctor slept peacefully in his wheelchair, oblivious of the tension around him. Nyssa and Tegan stood motionless over the console, their eyes focused on a single red b.u.t.ton among the cl.u.s.ter of complicated dials and switches. Presumably it had been there as long as the TARDIS itself, but they had never had cause to notice it before. Now it was the single most important thing in their lives, and the one word engraved on it was engraved on their minds as well. The word was EXECUTE.

Tegan was the first to break the silence. 'It seems so still now.'

'We've pa.s.sed the boundary layer. We're moving straight towards the Inrush.' Nyssa glanced down at the calculations she had been making. 'We've got thirty-eight seconds.'

'You make it sound like a scheduled flight to Los Angeles,' exclaimed Tegan. 'How can you keep so calm about it? We're playing Russian roulette with the TARDIS!'

'Thirty-one seconds,' was all Nyssa said.

Tegan looked down at the dangerous red b.u.t.ton. 'If I press that it could be the console room we jettison.'

'If?' Nyssa returned the monosyllable with a top-spin of irony. 'You taught me about "if". As a scientist it's easy to be tyrannised by facts.'

'"If" can work too,' Tegan conceded. 'But I didn't know it would be this chancey.'

'There's no risk at all,' Nyssa said, 'unless you turn the "if" into a fact.' Tegan had to admit that Nyssa had a point.

The red b.u.t.ton was a dreadful gamble, but the alternative was a certainty. She wasn't sure how or why it had been decided that she should be the one to press the b.u.t.ton that either meant escape from the Inrush or the end of her, Nyssa, the Doctor and everything. It was so unfair. Why couldn't the Doctor be the one to do it?

Nyssa was still counting. 'Five seconds... four...'

Tegan reached for the b.u.t.ton, and shut her eyes.

The universe was brilliant with approaching stars that were now as close together as sunbeams dancing on water.

Among the dazzling points of light the tiny blue craft sped inconspicuously towards its doom, an oak-leaf riding on a tidal flood.

But nothing is inevitably so; even the fixedest course may change or may be changed. Quite suddenly, the police box became huge, exploding in a flash of dazzling blue light that dimmed the rushing cosmic panorama. The explosion seemed to drain colour and substance from the craft, leaving, as the flash subsided, a ghostly TARDIS image continuing on the same course.

In their inverted time scale the stars drew closer and closer, until they were packed like pebbles on a beach, like grains of sand, like molecules in granite and like the atoms of a diamond.

And then it was Event One, the beginning of everything: a sharp white nothing that blotted out the worlds to come.

5.

Jettisoned!

All this was reported to the Master on his viewer screen.

He knew nothing of the Doctor's desperate design to escape, and this last and-as far as he was concerned-final glimpse of the TARDIS stirred deep intestinal satisfactions. Above him, on the web, Adric's eyes spoke loudly of his own feelings. But as his hated captor turned back to him, Adric masked his horror with a smile.

'So... this petty feud with the Doctor is over, Adric. You are wise to join me.'

The boy met the Master's eyes. 'You've got to keep your side of the bargain.' The Master had given his word that as soon as Adric consented he would release him from the agony of the web. But now as the escalator carried him up to arrange the disconnection of the threads, the Master seemed to be struck by a sudden doubt. As if it drew its power from the mind of its inventor, the device stopped in mid-flight.

'I wonder...' said the Master, 'if you are truly sincere? I sense a barrier behind your eyes. You're keeping something from me?'

The boy tried hard to smile back at him. 'How could I.'

'The universe is purged of the Doctor and his impossible dreams of goodness. You and I belong to the future, Adric.'

Adric saw that the Master was watching him closely, testing his reaction. He attempted a nod, but the web constrained his head. 'The Doctor was doomed, I see that now.'

The Master seemed satisfied with the answer. The escalator started up again, extending above the boy's head and bringing him within reach of the suspension points from which the great silvery web hung. As he worked at the business of disconnection, the Master resumed the conversation. 'He might have escaped from the Inrush- yes, even that was possible. But I had in store a trap behind that trap that would have been a joy to spring.'

'Another trap?'

'Of course. The intelligence to plan for contingencies is what distinguishes victors from victims in this great and greedy universe. I had in mind a journey back in time... a long waiting... Why are you so curious?'

Adric did not answer, but no answer was necessary, because at that moment, just as the Master was in the act of disconnecting one of the threads, a small blue spark made him jump back in surprise. 'Residual voltage in the Hadron Amplifier?' he exclaimed, turning accusingly on the boy. 'You're receiving an image.'

The Master ran down the escalator to the console and spent a moment manipulating the levers. 'What are you concealing from me? Some distant event, beyond the range of my own scanner? I'll burn through your barrier. Bring it to me, boy. Can it possibly be...?'

Adric screwed his eyes up tight, fighting against the technology that was pillaging his mind. But once more the Master's voltages overcame his resistance. It appeared on the screen, the image that had begun as a wish and had clarified in his mind to a certainty. The familiar police box shape hung in s.p.a.ce, spinning gently against a scattered galaxy of stars.

The Master pulled at a lever on his console and a row of galvanometers kicked into life. His concentration was on the screen, and he ignored the moan of pain from behind him that accompanied the swelling voltages. 'Closer, boy. I must see him...'

Up on the web Adric struggled. Though his consciousness was dimmed by the steady drain of the technology, he had begun to realise that he had some measure of control. By an enormous act of will the resistance in his body could constrict the current and drive it back on itself. Now he put everything he could muster into fighting the Master's voltages. Through almost unbearable pain he saw to his satisfaction that the image on the screen was crumbling away.

Adric's wilfulness amused the Master. In antic.i.p.ation of aeons of co-operation, voluntary or otherwise, he was prepared to tolerate the temporary disobedience. To prevent further damage to his new acquisition, the Master closed a switch on the control panel and the boy slumped into unconsciousness.

'So, Doctor, you have survived,' mused the Master in the silence that followed. 'But at what cost, I wonder...'

That very question was occupying the minds of Nyssa and Tegan. For a long time now the Doctor had been sleeping fitfully in the wheelchair, unstirred even by the enormous G-forces released when Tegan had pressed the EXECUTE b.u.t.ton. Tegan was searching the data bank to find out what to do next. The only relevant information was that regeneration was a natural process for Time Lords, but there was no advice about what to do when it went wrong...

Nyssa bent over the Doctor, concerned at his pasty skin-colour and shallow breathing. 'We must get him straight back to the Zero Room.'

'Wait!' Tegan had found something. 'Ambient complexity is the cause of many of these failures of regeneration,' she read out aloud. 'Some real locations are known to have properties similar to Zero environments, and in some cases are eminently more effective...'

Nyssa was beside her at the console. 'That's it. We need to take him somewhere uncomplicated. Somewhere away from technology.' She read on over Tegan's shoulder: 'Cla.s.sic plainness of surroundings, as exemplified by regions like the Dwellings of Simplicity...'

They looked up 'Dwellings of Simplicity' and found the single word 'Castrovalva'.

The Doctor continued dozing inertly in the wheelchair as Nyssa trundled him down the corridor. Apart from the melted lipstick staining the walls the TARDIS showed little sign of the ordeal it had been through. At one point where the lipstick had almost vaporised away she was obliged to stop and check the route. The Doctor stirred, without opening his eyes.

'Castro... valva...' he murmured, savouring the name he must have heard in his sleep.

'That's right,' said Nyssa, leaning over him. 'The data bank is certain it's the best place to recuperate. It's in Andromeda, a small planet of the Phylox Series...'

As if the very name had some recuperative effect, the Doctor opened his eyes. 'And how do we get there?'

'Don't worry, Doctor, Tegan seems to learn very quickly.'

'The air-hostess person's flying it, eh? Well, I wish her the best of luck.' There was a note of impish cynicism in his voice that Nyssa understood only too well. She had her own very p.r.o.nounced doubts about Tegan's ability; doubts that were justified by the terrible jolting received from time to time as they proceeded on along the corridor.

Tegan was not altogether immune to similar doubts herself, and when Nyssa left her to wheel the Doctor away to the Zero Room the first moments in front of that complicated console had been very frightening. But believing you could do something makes you confident, and confidence brings achievement closer. Tegan didn't mind whether you called it the magic 'if', or-rather more grandly-'recursion'. The idea had helped them survive the Inrush, and she had a feeling it might just get them to the safety of Castrovalva.

Not knowing which to choose from the myriad b.u.t.tons, levers and handles, Tegan had shut her eyes and groped for whatever instruments came to hand-and the response of the TARDIS was to bank suddenly, throwing her across the room. But when she picked herself up from the floor she was delighted to find that the time column was alight and oscillating.

'That's it!' she exclaimed, 'I've done it! I'm flying the TARDIS!'

The fact that she hadn't and wasn't didn't transpire until very much later.

Navigating the TARDIS is not like navigating a plane; once the co-ordinates are set there is nothing much to do but sit back and worry whether you set them correctly.

Another big worry for Tegan was the matter of landing.

The Doctor had told her where to find the landing protocol in the data bank, and had gone through it with her quickly, but she knew that when the time came her reactions would have to be tuned to respond immediately.

So during the course of the journey she rehea.r.s.ed the procedure again and again, correcting herself from the small screen of the data bank until she had developed a solid confidence.

Unfortunately, in a way, most of the operations that had to be performed prior to touchdown were taken care of by the TARDIS's infrastructure sub-systems, and there wasn't very much to occupy her mind.