Doctor Who_ Shakedown Part 36

The Lord Chancellor bowed to the glowing sphere.

'Shall you open the gateway? Will the rest of the Shining Ones return now?'

'No!' said the burbling voice fiercely. 'The gateway must never be opened now. It must close for ever. I came here only to send a warning ' Suddenly it noticed Bernice, standing by the entrance. 'What is that?'

'It is a human, Great One, a scholar who entered the Temple. I have granted her sanctuary.'

'Kill it!'

The Lord Chancellor's body quivered in distress. 'Great One, I promised her sanctuary '

'Kill it. It has seen the Great Secret and it must die.'

Bernice turned to run but one of the Chancellor's aides was suddenly at her side, gripping her arm with its powerful foreclaw.

'Summon the Harrubtii and give her to them,' said the Lord Chancellor sadly.

'You promised sanctuary,' said Bernice. 'You gave your word.'

There was grief in every line of the Lord Chancellor's body.

'That is so, Domina. But when a G.o.d commands...'

'Rubbish!' said a familiar voice. 'That thing's not a G.o.d it's a Rutan.'

21.

a.s.sault 'Doctor!' cried Bernice joyfully. Wrenching free from the claw of the Sentarrii aide, she ran to join him. 'Am I glad to see you!' She looked at Chris and Roz, looking grim and efficient with their drawn blasters. 'You too!' She took the Doctor's arm. 'Doctor, look!' She pointed to the glowing crystal control room.

'I'm looking,' said the Doctor, genuinely impressed. He bowed to the glowing sphere. 'Rutan workmanship at its finest. I congratulate you.' He went up to the Lord Chancellor, grasping him warmly by the foreclaw. 'And how are you, old friend?'

'Doctor,' said the Lord Chancellor, in very different tones from Bernice, 'this is not fitting. You intrude on our most sacred moment.'

'Nonsense,' said the Doctor firmly. 'Important, yes, momentous even. But sacred no!'

'Kill them,' burbled the Rutan in its eerie fluting voice.

'Kill them all!'

'Now don't start that again,' said the Doctor firmly. 'I hate violence myself' and my two friends here hate it even more.

So if you threaten us again they'll blast you into glowing gobbets!'

The Rutan crackled angrily; the Sentarrii wailed in horror.

'Doctor,' said the Chancellor in anguished tones, 'you threaten our G.o.d!'

'If it were a G.o.d there'd be precious little point in threatening it,' pointed out the Doctor. 'But it isn't. It's a Rutan, a member of a highly evolved species from the other side of the galaxy. They have a number of interesting attributes, including polymorphism and group consciousness, but I a.s.sure you, divinity isn't amongst them.'

'Doctor, you do not understand,' whispered the Lord Chancellor. 'The Rutans are are our G.o.ds.' our G.o.ds.'

In the control room of Tiger Moth Tiger Moth Lisa and Kurt sat looking at each other. Lisa and Kurt sat looking at each other.

'We're doing the right thing,' said Lisa.

'Absolutely,' said Kurt. 'Only '

'Only what?'

'Only it doesn't feel right.'

Kurt fiddled with the scanner controls, changing the field from the earth below to the skies above. Suddenly he tensed.

'Lisa, look!'

She came to join him. There on the screen was a blunt, dreadfully familiar shape.

'Sontarans!' said Kurt. 'It's another a.s.sault craft.' He took a blaster from a wall-locker and headed for the door. 'I've got to warn the Doctor.'

Lisa s.n.a.t.c.hed up a blaster and followed him.

He paused. 'What do you think you're doing?'

'Protecting my investment. Come on!'

They ran towards the airlock.

In the Temple, the Lord Chancellor was desperately defending his creed. 'The Rutans are are the Shining Ones. Long, long ago the Shining Ones came to us from on high, bringing us truth and knowledge...' the Shining Ones. Long, long ago the Shining Ones came to us from on high, bringing us truth and knowledge...'

'They made contact with you at a time when you were still at a primitive stage and they were already highly evolved,'

said the Doctor. 'They gave you knowledge, certainly, though for purposes of their own. But they fed you lies as well. They encouraged you to worship them as G.o.ds.'

The Lord Chancellor gestured up at the soaring dome.

'But they gave us all this, the Temple, the University!'

'You gave them the Temple, in mistaken adoration,' said the Doctor. 'The University, the Great Library you achieved yourselves. They gave you your start, but you have outstripped them in achievement. The Sentarrii are honoured as scholars on all civilized worlds. Who has heard of the Rutans?'

The Rutan crackled with rage. 'The whole galaxy shall hear of us once the Sontarans are destroyed!'

Kurt and Lisa ran into the Temple.

'Let's get your friend and go, Doctor!' shouted Kurt. 'The Sontarans are here!'

The warning came too late. In a roar of retro-rockets, the Sontaran a.s.sault craft slammed to the ground, directly in front of the Temple. A ramp sprang out and squat armoured figures ran down it, heavy blasters in their hands.

'This is where I came in,' muttered Kurt.

With the Temple and all its occupants covered by Sontaran blasters, a strangely familiar figure limped down the ramp.

'I don't believe it,' whispered Lisa. 'It's Steg!'

Steg made his way up the Temple steps and paused in the doorway. 'Those of you who are armed can see how you are outgunned. Some of us would die, but not one of you would survive. Put down your weapons now!'

'Do as he says,' said the Doctor.

Reluctantly, Kurt, Lisa, Roz and Chris obeyed.

At a sign from Steg, a Sontaran trooper gathered up the weapons, stacking them against the wall.

Steg looked swiftly around the dome, scanning its occupants one by one, ending with Lisa.

'Greetings, Captain Deranne.'

Lisa sighed. 'How many times do I have to kill you, Steg?'

'More than once it seems. We Sontarans are hard to kill. As indeed, are you, Doctor. And you, Kurt, my smuggling friend.

Yes, I recognize you now. Seeing you with the Doctor brings it all back. I may yet carry out my death sentence on you both!'

Steg moved closer to the Rutan, studying it curiously. 'And you, I take it, are Karne?'

'We were Karne,' said the strange warbling voice. 'We were many others. We are Rutan. We learned of your plan and came here to frustrate it.'

'And instead you have helped us,' said Steg. 'I take it you planned to send a message through the gateway? How?'

'We thought of all possibilities. Even this one. Pa.s.senger units are provided for such emergencies. We shall pa.s.s through the Gate, travel the Way and take a message of warning.'

'Not now,' said Steg. 'Instead we we shall send a message through the Gateway though not precisely the message you intended. Open the Gate.' shall send a message through the Gateway though not precisely the message you intended. Open the Gate.'

The Rutan made no response.

Steg turned to his troopers. 'You two cover the human prisoners. The rest of the squad, surround the Rutan.'

In seconds, the Rutan was ringed with Sontaran blasters.

'Hear me, Rutan,' said Steg. 'If I give my troopers the command to fire, you will be disintegrated, blasted to fragments of your filthy primal slime. No shielding can protect you from so many blasters at such close range. Open the Gate or you die.'

'Give the order if you wish, Sontaran,' said the cold clear voice. 'You understand nothing. We are Rutan, we cannot die.

Why should we obey you? This fragment of our consciousness has no importance. You achieve nothing by destroying it.'

'Something of a dilemma for you, Commander Steg,' said the Doctor unhelpfully. 'The lack of an individual consciousness removes the terror from the threat of death renders it meaningless in fact.'

Steg swung round at the sound of the Doctor's voice. The Doctor ignored him, giving all his attention to the great crystal control console.

'Do you understand this device, Doctor?'

'Oh, I think so,' said the Doctor confidently. 'It may look like the original mighty Wurlitzer, but basically it's a very simple s.p.a.ce-time warping template. Not unlike the one in the TARDIS but about a million times simpler.'

'Excellent. I take it, therefore, that you are able to open the Gateway?'

'Oh yes. But why should I?'

'Please, Doctor,' said Steg wearily. 'You may be a Time Lord, but you you are not part of a group consciousness. Or even if you are your friends are not. Death still has some terrors for you and for them. Must I really utter the usual threats?' are not part of a group consciousness. Or even if you are your friends are not. Death still has some terrors for you and for them. Must I really utter the usual threats?'

'You mean if I don't open the gate for you, you'll kill all my friends, one by one, in a variety of increasingly messy and unpleasant ways?'

'Something along those lines, yes.'

There was a long pause.

'In that case,' said the Doctor, 'you leave me no choice.'

Chris was horrified by his sudden surrender. 'Doctor!'

'Do you really want to die for the Rutans, Chris?' said the Doctor gently. 'More important, do you want to see Roz and Bernice die? Not to mention Kurt and Lisa?'

Chris hung his head. It felt all wrong but he could find no reply.

'Don't look so shattered,' said the Doctor. 'What do we care what happens to a faraway planet of which we know little?'

'What about the broad picture?' asked Roz.

Like Chris, she had no answer, but she felt curiously let down.

'I'm losing my taste for the broad picture,' said the Doctor.

'Somehow it never seems quite worth it when you start counting the cost in the bodies of your friends. Anything I have to do to get us out of here alive, I'll do.'

'Then do it, Doctor,' said Steg impatiently. 'Or must I execute one of your friends, simply to convince you I am sincere? Order of least importance would be best. Where shall I begin? This overgrown bug here?' He gestured contemptuously towards the stricken Lord Chancellor. 'Or this petty criminal, Kurt?'