The Sands Of Time Part 30

It took only a few minutes to rip down the thin wall. Atkins managed to get his hand through the hole made by Ra.s.sul's bullet and pulled out handfuls of plasterboard. Before long the hole was large enough for the two of them to tear out pieces, and when the first board was gone, they were able to get behind and push down the other plasterboards which formed the skin wall of the room.

'Help them clear the rest of the walls,' Ra.s.sul said to Tegan. She joined the Doctor and helped him pull down the last next sections. Prior was already working on one of the other walls, while Atkins completed the last.

When they had finished, the bas.e.m.e.nt was full of dust. It settled slowly, drifting like mist and catching at the back of Tegan's throat. Through the dust, Tegan could see the actual bas.e.m.e.nt walls which had been concealed by the plasterboard. She looked round, and could tell from Atkins' expression that he was as puzzled as she was.

He was peering at the closest wall. 'What is it?' he asked. 'Some sort of inscription?'

'In a way,' the Doctor said. 'We are standing inside the tomb of Nephthys.

Brought stone by stone from Egypt over twenty years ago, and reconstructed here.'

'How right you are, Doctor,' Ra.s.sul said. 'And your next logical deduction must therefore be?'

The Doctor stared at Ra.s.sul for a moment. Then he nodded, and crossed to another wall, opposite the main entrance. Most of the dust had settled, though the Doctor's feet kicked up new showers and clouds as he walked.

Tegan watched as he approached a familiar symbol within the inscription.

The cartouche, the name of Nephthys.

He paused for a moment, then pressed the centre of the open square. And the wall swung back to reveal the secret chamber behind.

'Shall we?' Ra.s.sul walked up behind the Doctor and pushed him lightly in the small of the back with his gun. The Doctor stepped through the open wall, and Ra.s.sul waited for everyone else to follow.

The room was exactly as Tegan remembered it. Except that the two Shabti figures from the corridor were standing either side of the door as they entered, as if on guard. She stared into the face of one as she pa.s.sed. It was the image of Vanessa.

Ra.s.sul entered the room behind them, standing just inside the doorway.

One hand was in his jacket pocket, the other held the gun steady.

The Doctor had crossed immediately to the mummy. 'An impressive set-up,' he said. 'Why not release Prior's mind so he can tell us about it?'

'Really Doctor,' Ra.s.sul sounded disappointed. 'Prior's mind has not been his own for many years. And I'm afraid all vestiges of self-control are now extinguished.'

The Doctor shook his head sadly. 'You won't succeed. Even with all this, it won't work.'

'Oh?'

'You obviously realize that the configuration of the tomb is key. The psionic focus must be exact if you're to harness the raw power of the stars of Orion. So, you've altered the structure of this house to construct a pyramid, and you've rebuilt this whole of the tomb area in the bas.e.m.e.nt. You may even have got the measurements exactly right and have the top of the pyramid the right height above the floor of this chamber.'

'Oh we have, Doctor. Trust me.'

'I do, I do. But have you considered the alignment of the ventilation shafts within the pyramid? They're actually transport corridors for the power before it is focused by the Sphinx. The position of the Sphinx is, I grant you, not so important. But you have to have the power here to focus in the first place.' He grinned and leaned on the edge of the sarcophagus.

'Do you think I am totally naive?' Ra.s.sul's voice was a snarl of contempt.

'The skylights are exactly positioned to allow the energy to pa.s.s down the shafts and focus.'

'And the stars?' Tegan said. 'The Doctor says the constellations shift over time, and anyway we're not in Egypt.'

Ra.s.sul threw back his head and laughed. 'To miss something so elementary,' he said. 'Incredible.'

'Ah!' The Doctor pointed a victorious finger at Ra.s.sul. 'So you have missed something.'

Ra.s.sul shook his head. 'No, Doctor. You have. If the constellations move, or rather the Earth's position relative to them, then so must we.'

The Doctor's eyes narrowed and Tegan could almost hear the calculations going on inside his head. 'We're talking over twenty-thousand years until the alignment is back to the original position. By now the offset must be thousands of miles. At a rough guess -' He broke off and his eyes widened.

'What is it Doctor?' Atkins asked.

'The Doctor has just worked out, at last,' Ra.s.sul said, 'that the alignment of Orion's Belt relative to the Egypt of the Osirans exactly matches that over London today.' He smiled. 'Or rather, tonight.'

'But you still need a receptacle.' The Doctor punched the air with his fist, a sharp jabbing motion to punctuate his point. 'You need a living form for Nephthys to inhabit. This one's dead,' he gestured at the mummy he was standing beside. The bandages were stained and crumpled. The form sagged, barely resembling a human form any more than a rag doll.

'I know,' Ra.s.sul said, his voice suddenly low and forced between clenched teeth. 'Believe me, Doctor, I know.'

The Doctor frowned. 'And you need the life force already to have taken hold. You need it to be somehow intrinsic to the recipient.'

Tegan felt her stomach tighten and she realized what he was saying.

'Doctor, what about Nyssa?'

'It's all right, Tegan. The reason she was ideal as a constraining container for the reasoning, calculating evil of Nephthys is exactly the reason she can never become Nephthys. Every atom and dendrite of her would rebel against the evil that is so alien to her as soon as it gained any sort of consciousness. It would never work.'

Ra.s.sul said nothing.

'So where does that leave us?' Atkins asked.

'Well, it leaves us with this sad unfortunate.' The Doctor drew his hand along the mummified form in the coffin. He shook his head and patted the bandaged arm.

A strip of cloth fell free as he touched it. It slipped over the edge of the arm, revealing a dusty grey area beneath. The Doctor stared at it for a second.

Then suddenly whipped out his spectacles, and leaned closer.

'Someone's been taking tissue samples,' he said. His voice was a mixture of anxiety and disbelief. 'Who on earth would want to do that?' He looked over the tops of his gla.s.ses at Ra.s.sul.

But the answer came from Tegan as the facts clicked into place in her brain. 'Prior,' she said quietly. And Ra.s.sul smiled in confirmation.

'Prior?' Atkins asked. 'But why?'

'Norris told us that Prior wasn't always an archaeologist. I found a room, the other night... Before he got this bee in his bonnet about Egyptology, I think he was into genetics.'

'Oh no,' the Doctor said quietly. Then he sat down cross-legged on the floor.

'The study of Egyptian genetics is fascinating,' Ra.s.sul said. 'As is the application of computerized axial tomography to mummified remains.'

'Of course.' The Doctor slapped the floor between his legs. 'I should have realized. A CAT scanner. He scanned the Nephthys mummy.'

Tegan looked from the Doctor to Ra.s.sul and back again. 'A cat-what?' she asked.

The Doctor looked up at her. His face was slack and resigned. 'CAT scanning is quite simple really,' he said. 'You x-ray the mummy from all angles along the central axis, and the computer builds a three-dimensional picture from the x-rays. People have been doing it since the nineteen-seventies. You can see all sorts of interesting things - bones, jewellery, even internal organs, wherever they now happen to be packaged. And all without unwrapping the mummy.' He looked over at Ra.s.sul. 'You can also unleash an awful lot of trapped psionic power. Like the mind of Nephthys.'

'Nephthys is already free?' Tegan was horrified.

'No. Horus would have planned for that. Some power would leak into the immediate area. That's probably how Ra.s.sul here got control of Prior. The rest would be stored in some sort of back-up container.'

'Like Nyssa?'

'Same principle. It means this mummy is worthless though.'

'You are very astute, Doctor.' Ra.s.sul stepped towards them. 'The backup containers, for there are in fact four of them, now house the instinctive side of Nephthys' mind. But the mummy in here has other uses.'

'Of course, the relics. They acted as focus points for the power anyway, so they were ideal to pick up the released evil and loathing.'

Ra.s.sul nodded. 'They must be present when the sleeper awakes, then her mind will be whole and she will live again.'

'Aren't you forgetting something?' Atkins asked. 'The Doctor said that Nyssa could not become Nephthys. You still need a host for her mind.'

'Doctor?' Ra.s.sul asked. 'Do you understand yet?'

The Doctor's voice was scarcely audible. 'The skin samples.'

'Exactly. Prior took the samples twenty-two years ago. Using his expertise in genetics he re-hydrated the tissue.'

'Twenty-two years?' Tegan said. 'That would be a year before Vanessa was born.'Ra.s.sul nodded. 'Yes,' his voice was a hiss of triumph. 'That is what Prior used the reconst.i.tuted tissue for. Vanessa Prior is a clone of Nephthys.' He raised his arms above his head, as if in supplication to the G.o.ds.

And Atkins launched himself across the room, cannoning into Ra.s.sul's heavy frame and sending his flying through the open doorway.

The Doctor was on his feet in a flash, and ran to the connecting room.

Tegan raced after him, but it was already over. Ra.s.sul was shaking his head and picking himself up from the stone floor. Atkins stood in front of him, holding Ra.s.sul's pistol.

'Well done, Atkins.' The Doctor strode across to join him. Atkins offered him the gun, but the Doctor shook his head. 'No, no. You keep it. Now, I suggest we continue our discussions somewhere a little more comfortable.

There's still a couple of things to clear up, I think.'

Atkins and the Doctor crossed to the main door, Ra.s.sul following them warily. Prior was still standing motionless in the other chamber, so Tegan brought up the rear. Atkins stopped at the bottom of the staircase. 'After you,' he said to Ra.s.sul. Ra.s.sul smiled. 'I think not,' he said calmly.

The heavy bandaged hand of the Osiran service robot lashed out from the shadows of the lower staircase. It caught Atkins full on the chest, hurling him across the room. He crashed into a display case, sending it smashing to the ground. The headress within cracked on the stone floor, beads and precious stones ricocheting along the room.

The ma.s.sive mummy descended the last few steps into the chamber, and started to lumber towards Atkins. Behind it, another mummy stepped down into the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Atkins recovered himself quickly, rolling on to his back and climbing to his feet. The mummy lurched towards him, seeming to increase its speed as it approached. Atkins raised the pistol and fired in one movement. The crack of the shot echoed off the walls and the bullet tore into the mummy's extended chest.

It did not even slow down. The slight trail of smoke rising lazily from a tiny hole was the only sign that the robot had been hit. Atkins aimed the gun again, but the mummy was already upon him. It smashed his arm aside, sending the gun skidding across the floor. The mummy raised its right arm high above its head, read to crash it down on Atkins' skull.

'No.' The voice rang across the chamber like a chord from a giant organ.

Vanessa stood in the doorway at the foot of the stairs, a mummy standing either side of her. She was still wearing her night-gown, together with the ring and the bracelet. Beside her, one mummy held the cobra, the other the statue of Anubis.

Ra.s.sul had already recovered his gun before any of the others realized what was happening. 'You see,' he said, his eyes gleaming and his voice full of eager antic.i.p.ation, 'already the instinct and impulse of Nephthys is taking hold. She knows not to kill him yet, although she has not thought through the reasoning that he may be useful. Perhaps as a hostage to ensure the Doctor's co-operation.' He bowed to his G.o.ddess. 'Soon you will be whole again. Soon you will be as you were before Horus ripped your mind apart. And in there too, somewhere, will be the woman you were before Nephthys joined her mind with yours.'

The two mummies beside Vanessa lumbered forward and positioned the relics on a the low shelf behind the dais on which the sarcophagus rested.

Then they swung round and lurched their way back to Vanessa.

As Ra.s.sul watched them, Atkins eased his way round the motionless mummy that had attacked him. It was still standing with its arm raised ready to strike. As he pa.s.sed it, the huge figure seemed to relax, its arm lowered, and it turned to face Vanessa. Atkins joined the Doctor, and Tegan in the middle of the room. 'Sorry, Doctor,' he said.

'So what happens now?' Tegan asked the Doctor. Her voice was trembling.

'Is Vanessa already gone?'

'Not quite. At least, I don't think so.'

Ra.s.sul had heard the exchange. 'The presence of the relics and of Nyssa when she wakes will complete the cycle. Nephthys will be reborn, complete and anew. The relics without Nyssa are already enough to possess the clone with the spirit of Nephthys. Her instinct and intuition are keyed to the DNA pattern of the original... host.' He paused before the final word, as if trying to think of an alternative.

'And that's what you're after, isn't it?' The Doctor stepped forward, and stared Ra.s.sul straight in the face. 'It's not Nephthys that really interests you. It's the woman she was before Horus forced Nephthys' mind into her body.'

Ra.s.sul said nothing. He returned the Doctor's stare impa.s.sively.

The Doctor continued: 'And you'll destroy another human being for that.

Clone or not, Vanessa is a living human with her own personality.'

'You should use the past tense when you speak of Vanessa,' Ra.s.sul said in a low voice. 'Doesn't that mean anything to you?' Tegan shouted at him.