Doctor Who_ The Tomb Of Valdemar Part 21

If the higher dimensions are released, time will cease to exist.

The door opens. The Doctor leaps to his feet.

A wan-looking officer stands there Carlin was his name wasn't it? Seemed a sensible enough fellow. Saner, at least, than Hopkins.

'Now, what can I do for you?' the Doctor asks, innocently.

Carlin seems embarra.s.sed, bemused in some way. 'We're moving into the atmosphere. You seem to know a bit about what's going on. I want you and Pelham on the bridge. Just in case.'

'What about Mr Hopkins? Can you keep him off me? He doesn't strike me as the type who appreciates advice.'

'I'll do what I can. Just don't push your luck.'

Robert Hopkins returns to his lists of efficiency percentages.

However, he finds the pragmatic statistics less soothing than usual. How clever this Doctor thinks he is, how charming, how absolutely awfully terribly amusing and witty and sardonic. At some point in the future, hopefully the very near future, Hopkins would like to remind this babbling idiot of some universal truths. The breaking point of the body, the weakness of the spirit, that kind of thing. He would enjoy teaching these lessons. Iron and flesh, Doctor, talk all you like.

It had been galling to accept that he would have to do what the Doctor suggested after all. Hopkins may have been looking forward to the damage he might do to his prisoners, but he isn't an idiot. Not where Paul Neville is concerned. Any kind of trap might be waiting for them in this golden palace thing.

How he hates Paul Neville, hates everything he represents.

Not only the centuries of misrule and subjugation of his own cla.s.s, almost of his own race. Hopkins has long ago sated his blood l.u.s.t in that particular quest for vengeance.

No, it is this spiritual, religious mysticism that he hates.

This decadent belief in spirits and souls and the greater life to come all nonsense, all lies to placate the fear of mortality.

He understands. Robert Hopkins understands, about life and death. There is no more, no less, than existence. No soul, no 'inner being', no higher purpose; just a cold, indifferent universe and the lives that pa.s.s through it. Nothing exists except that which one makes exist. Will to Power. Like it or not, that is everything.

This Ashkellia, this 'tomb of Valdemar'. Robert Hopkins looks at the statistics in the logbook and sees it for what it is.

A planet, the second planet in its system, orbiting at a distance of eighty-nine-million miles; a minor star in a spa.r.s.ely cl.u.s.tered back-end of the galaxy.

He has read the reports on the cult, their sad beliefs. The last dying breath of an obsolete social order, the final clinging to mysticism. It would make him laugh, if he were capable of laughing. How he had hated the resigned, pa.s.sive faces of those at the theomantic universities, as he and his men ploughed through them with sword and shot. He had shown up their religious convictions for the falsehoods they were.

Even believers could scream if you took your time and were brutal enough.

The cult is smashed now, he knows that. He wonders whether Neville does. How Hopkins would love to explain it to him the details, the ruination, all by his hand.

Yet a nagging doubt remains, even in his selective mind.

The cult isn't smashed, not entirely. And the strongest of those he had slain had still died with the word 'Valdemar' on their lips. The downfall of Paul Neville, this Magus of a little obscure cult a cult that stubbornly refuses to die, the symbol of all that opposes the New Protectorate is all that he feels he has left to achieve.

Well, Hopkins himself will parade that grey-bearded head on a pole through Earth Parliament if he has to. Because Hopkins is better. Because Hopkins knows that nothing matters, that out here in the stars there is no one to judge.

Paul Neville murders in the name of evil, in the name of Valdemar, always failing to understand the true perspective.

Let him do that, let him do those things. Hopkins knows better. He murders in the name of the only true universal law. He murders in the name of nothingness.

The intercom beeps. Hopkins realises he is soaked in sweat. The logbook is crushed in his hairless hands. He will have to wear the hairshirt to keep himself calm.

'Report!' he barks into the bra.s.s cylinder.

'Citizen Hopkins,' comes the voice of Carlin. 'We have broken orbit and are commencing descent. We should reach the coordinates obtained from the tracer in one hour.'

'You sound worried, Carlin.'

'Sir, sensors indicate that acidity levels contained in the atmosphere will cause severe damage to hull integrity. We will not be able to remain there for long...'

Hopkins flicks the 'send' command. 'We will remain as long as is necessary. I will not flinch from my duty.'

'Of course, Citizen.'

'Where is the Doctor?'

Carlin pauses. Hopkins listens to his breathing.

'On the bridge. We felt it would be wise-'

'What? How dare you! I'm coming up immediately.'

'Sir.' His cousin fails to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

Despite himself, despite all his knowledge, Robert Hopkins raises his head to the ceiling of his metal cage and looks up.

Without even realising he is doing it, he prays. Give Paul Neville to me, he hisses at the cold void outside. Give him to Give him to me me!

Chapter Eleven.

It's funny, thinks Miranda Pelham, but before Hopkins arrived, the bridge had almost seemed a relaxed, normal place to be.

The crew had been silent and efficient, just as a crew ought to be, only speaking when they had important information to relate. This Lieutenant Carlin seemed a humane and sensible officer, overseeing the ship's descent calmly and carefully.

The Doctor watched, to Carlin's right a Gonzalo to his duke as they entered the maelstrom. For a while Pelham had the impression that the cavalry were on their way to kick the stuffing out of the bad guys.

Hopkins's arrival changed all that.

For a start, as the hatch to the bridge opened and he strutted in, the ship lurched suddenly. As he opened his mouth to shout something unpleasant, Hopkins was totally caught out, flying over and smacking his head on the navigational consoles. Terrified officers helped him to his feet, pulling his captain's helmet up from over his eyes.

Now, the whole atmosphere has changed. The crew is nervous, over-enthusiastically studying their instrument readouts.

'Captain on deck!' bellows Carlin, and all stand to rapt attention. Hopkins smooths out the ruffles in his silk and leather uniform, then falls over again as the ship lists.

'Hull breaches on decks three and six, Lieuten-Citizen Hopkins.'

'Get men down there and get them sealed,' barks the inquisitor, looking around, daring his men to laugh. Carlin vacates his seat and Hopkins settles himself in, neatly avoiding humiliation in the subsequent lurch.

When the ship has righted itself, he starts to look around.

Pelham knows exactly who he is looking for and attempts to shrink back into some non-existent shadows.

It does no good.

'You'd better have a d.a.m.ned good explanation for their still breathing, Carlin,' Hopkins hisses.

'Oh, he has,' says the Doctor, much too flippantly for Pelham's liking. 'He has. Tell him, Carlin. He's all ears.'

Carlin coughs. Before Hopkins turns too red he speaks up.

'Well, they are the only people with any idea what's inside this palace, Citizen. I thought it best...'

'Leave the thinking to me.' Hopkins glares at them. Any excuse, Pelham realises, any at all.

'We're one hundred and twenty kilometres into the atmosphere, Citizen, descending at ten kps.'

Thank you, bridge technician person, she breathes, thank you.

'Activate sensor equipment,' orders Hopkins, snapping into the job. The buffoon has gone, replaced by the sinister figure she knows only too well. Hopkins is back on the hunt.

'Problems with the sensor array, Citizen,' says Carlin. 'The acid is attacking our probes.' He bends over, squinting at the sensor terminals. 'But I think we've found it. Large metallic object, some unknown elements, could be your palace.'

Hopkins looks up at the Doctor, who confirms: 'It is the palace. I would be very careful if I were you.'

'Hull breaches occurring on nine decks now, Citizen.'

There is a tearing sound overhead. A sudden b.u.mp of turbulence sends them all scrabbling for handholds.

'Visual, give me a look at the d.a.m.n thing!' Hopkins orders.

The crew swarm over their controls, trying to find a spectronic reading that can penetrate these clouds. Infrared reveals the column of vast heat from the planet's core, supporting the structure.

'My G.o.d...' whispers Carlin.

'Don't be stupid,' Hopkins warns him. 'It's a building, that's all. There's nothing supernatural about it. Forget the docking bay, Neville will have thought of that. Take us over the top of the thing. We'll burn our way in.'

Yeah, right, thinks Pelham, nothing supernatural at all.

She is feeling the same unease, the same background ice she felt the first time that she approached this ancient structure.

There is something unreal about it, a sense of ancient... what could it be... ancient evil?

'There! There it is!' Hopkins loses his cool. He leaps out of his seat and jabs like a maniac at the viewscreen.

Indeed, through the acid clouds, the clouds that even now gnaw at the New Protectorate cruiser, the bulbous shape of the palace emerges, dark no longer.

The doubts return, unbidden. It is as if the palace has become sick.

The air on the bridge has become hot, thick. Compensators whine deep under her feet as they attempt to cope with the atmospheric conditions. Pelham is drawn to remaining silent as she stares, and she realises she is not the only one. All gaze silently at this thing towards which they are driving.

The column of superheated air that sustains the palace's position high above the surface, is almost visible, glowing with an obscene light. The palace itself seems to throb with its own unearthly breath. It glistens. Nothing she can specify, it is just wrong. Something that shouldn't exist here.

She thinks of herself caught in this sticky structure, the life drained from her. She sees her own face, her own dead face staring sightlessly back at her. The palace makes her think of night and a dark, earthen crypt.

'It... it's alive...' she mutters, after an eternity.

'No,' says the Doctor. 'Not life, not in the sense that we know it. Not even an "it" as we know it. Just something that can shape matter, objects, minds. Remember, we are seeing this with the benefit of the vaccine. These others, and Romana, will be affected and they won't even know it. They won't be seeing what we can see. What this palace has become is what everything will become, if the gateway is opened.'

'Whatever you say...' she replies. 'I can't go there again. You have to stop Hopkins going there. We'll die, I know it.' She looks at him, knowing the mask that fear is making of her face.

'I'm sorry, Miranda, I can't do that.'

'Don't, don't say that. You have to.'

'I've made a terrible mistake and the consequences will be catastrophic unless I can stop it. There will be nowhere to go to unless we prevent Neville opening the tomb.'

She feels like stamping her feet. 'Do you always get so high and mighty in the face of certain death?'

'It's a living.'

'Prepare an artisan team,' says Hopkins. His voice is hoa.r.s.e but and Pelham groans once more dreadfully expectant.

'And fetch Redfearn,' he continues.

Carlin nods and, unable to tear his eyes away from the growing palace, flicks the intercom switch. 'Calling Mr Redfearn. Mr Redfearn to the airlock please.'

The ship clangs on to the roof of the palace. Hopkins selects a retinue and they all shuffle down to the airlock. The artisan team well, some stripped-to-the-waist thugs and some welding apparatus, anyway are already there, filling the small chamber with smoke and sparks. The work turns the cramped s.p.a.ce into a furnace. Pelham has been kitted out in a kind of makeshift, iron clad outfit, without the iron, which doesn't help. The shirt is too rough, the breeches too tight and the boots too hard. The Doctor, meanwhile, gets to keep his mad professor's outfit, down to that stupid scarf.

Pelham can feel the buffeting of this mad atmosphere. The metal plates of the hull buckle and twist with the violence of the storm.

Mr Redfearn, it turns out, is a small, pale, rather rakish-looking man in his early forties. His main distinguishing feature, if Pelham is forced to allocate one, would be his brightly coloured, expensively tailored waistcoat, which he wears beneath a smart grey jacket. That, and the black wide-brimmed hat which he raises to the boarding party.

'Mr Hopkins. Gen'lemen,' he states formally, in an accent that has to originate from the Presley colonies. 'Ah trust y'all have a reason for disturbing mah three-card stud? Ah was in possession of a peach-like hand capable of stunning mah opponent into foregoing the game.'

'Your opponent?' asks Pelham, stunned by such an inappropriate figure.

Mr Redfearn places a hand on his waistcoated chest.

'Mahself. Worthy adversaries are so rarely to be found in this day and age.'

Mr Redfearn sees her with his hawkish eyes and smiles. He bows. 'Ms Pelham. Delighted t'make yoh acquaintance. Mr Niles Redfearn at your service.'

Hopkins, like the rest of his boarding party, is buckling armour and weapons all over himself. He holsters his pistol.