Doctor Who: Festival of Death: 50th Anniversary Edition (29 page)

‘Very good, sir.’

‘We shall leave in five minutes.’ Rochfort collected his blaster, and strode over to the fountain.

Byson watched as Rochfort splashed his face. ‘I don’t know what he expects to find,’ he said, turning back to Romana. ‘Do you mean it? You really are from the future?’

Romana nodded.

‘Then you’ll know what happens to us, won’t you? You’ll know whether we get rescued or not.’ The words streamed out of Byson’s mouth.

Romana cast her mind back to Evadne’s lecture on the ‘Mystery of the
Cerberus
’. The emergency services had arrived two months after the disaster. So if the passengers only held on for a few more days, they would be saved.

But what could she say to Byson? If she told him the truth then he wouldn’t take up the Repulsion’s offer, and she would alter
the
course of history. But if she told him that all the passengers of the
Cerberus
had died before they were rescued, she would be encouraging him to accept the Repulsion’s offer.

‘I cannot tell you,’ she said eventually.

‘You can’t tell me?’ said Byson. ‘You mean, no one comes to rescue us? That we’re all just left here to rot and die, is that what you’re saying? That the tunnel stays sealed for ever?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Romana closed her eyes. She had no choice. ‘The emergency services will eventually arrive, but they will be too late. They will find nobody alive on the
Cerberus
.’

The Doctor skidded into the observation lounge. It was a gloomy shade of orange, the emergency lights picking out the tourists hunched in the seats, cradling their drinks.

He was overjoyed to see the TARDIS waiting unobtrusively in the far corner and strode towards it.

‘Doctor.’

The Doctor spun around. It was Romana.

‘Romana? You’re all right! It’s so good to see you!’ He clasped her gladly by the shoulders.

Romana smiled back at him. ‘Where have you been? I was concerned…’

‘What?’ A memory joggled in the Doctor’s mind. He put a finger forward to hush her. ‘How did you get here?’

‘What do you mean, “how did you get here”? I was in the crowds, we were heading for the Great Hall, remember, and –’

‘Oh, I remember. We lost you. Which means…’ The Doctor realised this wasn’t his Romana, this was a Romana from their previous visit to the G-Lock. She had mentioned something about seeing him leave in the TARDIS, and now it was happening, just as she had described.

‘Of course,’ said the Doctor, punching the air. ‘You said something like this would happen.’

‘Did I?’ Romana stared at him as though he were mad.

‘Yes, and you were right, well done. Aah. You know, I don’t mean
to
be terribly rude, but I’m in a bit of a hurry.’ He dug out his key, and turned for the TARDIS.

‘To do what?’ said Romana anxiously.

‘You’ll find out in the fullness of time. Hopefully. Sorry, must dash. Goodbye.’ The Doctor smiled apologetically, ducked into the TARDIS and slammed the door in Romana’s face.

The Doctor strode into the console room, the doors humming shut behind him, and set to work on the control panels.

A sequence of coordinates appeared on the time-path indicator. The final destination of Romana’s time trail. The Doctor darted to the opposite side of the console, laid in the coordinates and quickly activated the dematerialisation circuit.

As the TARDIS’s engines grumbled into life, he heaved a sigh and brushed the hair out of his eyes.

On the scanner he could see Romana staring up at the TARDIS. She was shouting soundlessly: the scanner’s audio facility was playing up again.

‘Goodbye, Romana!’ the Doctor called out, and the scanner shutters slid shut. He crossed back to the console and watched as the central column rose, rotated and fell. His hands nudged various levers, preparing the TARDIS for rematerialisation. ‘And, hopefully, hello Romana.’

‘Ready, Byson?’

Byson took another swig of water, and nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’ He got to his feet, gathered his laser blaster and torch, and let Rochfort lead him to the main doors. The woman, Romana, moved after them.

‘Oh no, not you.’ Rochfort pointed his blaster directly at her face. ‘You’re staying right here.’ He turned to the passenger appointed to guard duty. ‘Byson and I will be returning shortly. Do not open these doors for anyone else, to enter or to leave. If she attempts anything, kill her. Do you understand?’

The passenger, a young, jittery man, clasped his gun tightly to his chest and nodded. Romana returned to her seat, and sat down with
an
aloof smirk.

‘Open,’ barked Rochfort. The doors grated apart, and he disappeared into the darkness.

Byson took one final look at Romana. There was something about her, a certain confidence in her eyes, that gave the impression she knew more than she was admitting. Deep in troubled thought, Byson followed his captain.

Romana watched as the main doors shut with a dull clang, and shifted in her seat to face away from the guard. She looked down at her boots, and let her mind drift over recent events, past and future. She had a good idea what Rochfort and Byson would find on the lower levels. But had she caused them to search there, or would it have happened anyway? Had she set in motion the events that would lead to the massacre on the G-Lock in two centuries’ time?

But that would be impossible, Romana told herself. She had been brought here by the time distortion caused by the Repulsion, whatever that was. If her actions in this time had in some way helped the Repulsion to create that time distortion, that would be a self-originating loop, and that was a tautological impossibility. An action cannot cause itself.

No, what must have happened was that originally, in some parallel existence, she was not here and Rochfort and Byson had gone down to investigate the lower levels anyway. Then, after that first time, they had caused the events on the G-Lock, which had caused her to be transported back in time, which had led her to inadvertently give Rochfort and Byson the idea of searching the lower levels. There had to have been a first cause.

‘Hello,’ said a bright voice, interrupting her thoughts. ‘My name’s Tarie. Who are you?’

Romana looked up. In front of her was a young girl, no more than six years old, with wide, inquisitive eyes. She had dark, curly hair, and wore a cross-patterned blue dress.

The girl from the dream.

*

The circle of light glided across the wall like a restless ghost, and fell upon a gold plaque set into the wood panelling.

‘Corridor 79,’ read Byson. He let the beam slide further down the corridor, illuminating the cabin doors that stretched away into the gloom.

Rochfort advanced down the corridor, his boots clomping on the thick carpet. He twisted each door handle as he passed, but found every cabin locked.

‘Captain!’

‘What is it?’ Rochfort caught Byson in the glare of his torch.

Byson blinked rapidly. ‘Up ahead, sir.’

Rochfort followed Byson’s gaze. The hallway ended a few metres away, disappearing into complete darkness. As Rochfort directed his torch into the shadows, the light reflected over ripples on some shifting surface.

Byson’s light drifted around the edge, following the line where the walls, ceiling and floor melted into the nothingness. ‘What do you think it is, sir?’

‘Quiet, Byson.’ Rochfort halted on the very edge of the void. As he looked closer, he could see the blackness swilling about, its surface undulating like a pool of oil.

There was a voice. Quiet, sibilant, almost inaudible. It was coming from within the darkness. And it was speaking to him, Rochfort. It wanted him. It wanted him to surrender himself to the void.

Rochfort peered into the shadows. There was something in there, half-hidden. A single red light.

‘Captain Rochfort!’ yelled Byson.

Rochfort stepped forward.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

THE OBSERVATION LOUNGE
was still and dark, as if in mourning. Overturned tables and chairs littered the floor, amidst jagged bottles and discarded wine trays. Chewed fragments of clothing were all that remained of the passengers. And outside, the hyperspace void swirled like an endless slow-motion plughole.

A distressed trumpeting broke the silence and the shadowy panels of the TARDIS exterior solidified into existence. Its dirty windows gazed glumly out at the scene.

The Doctor emerged, looping his scarf around his shoulders. He surveyed the surroundings, teeth gritted. ‘Romana?’ he called, peering into the gloom. ‘Romana?’

He picked his way across the lounge, his boots crunching on the broken glass. He could smell it hanging in the air – the familiar scent of death. ‘“Not a soul in sight, alive or dead”,’ he muttered. ‘Ah. The Mystery of the
Cerberus
.’

He delved into his pockets, and pulled out his torch. Clicking it on, he proceeded to the main doorway.

Byson stamped his feet, trying to get feeling to return to them. He watched his own torch-lit reflection as it undulated on the surface of the wall of blackness.

Five minutes ago, Rochfort had disappeared. He had simply walked straight into the gloom and been gulped up, like a stone dropping into tar fuel. Since then Byson had been alone, Romana’s words running anxiously through his mind. The emergency services would not find anyone alive, she had said. Which could only mean that the Teredekethon authorities had left them for dead.
They
were doomed.

A series of ripples bobbed outwards as Rochfort broke the surface. His face perfectly calm, he approached Byson.

‘Captain Rochfort, sir,’ gabbered Byson.

‘Do not be alarmed, Byson.’ Rochfort’s lips twitched into a smile. ‘It is perfectly safe.’

‘But what is it, sir? What happened?’

‘I have been to another place.’ Rochfort looked back into the blackness. ‘Another reality.’

‘But sir,’ protested Byson. ‘That is the hyperspace–real-space interface. You should have been destroyed, the forces in there are literally astronomical.’

‘There is nothing to fear.’ Rochfort indicated his own, undamaged body. ‘I am the proof of that. Please, enter yourself if you don’t believe me.’

‘But I don’t understand, sir. Why did you go in there in the first place?’

‘I heard a voice. It… it invited me.’

‘A voice?’ said Byson incredulously.

‘There is an intelligence in there, Byson.’ Rochfort gripped Byson’s shoulders. ‘It is good! It showed me miracles, a realm beyond the wildest of dreams!’

‘Did it, sir?’

‘Don’t look at me like that, Byson,’ snapped Rochfort. ‘I haven’t gone funny, you know.’ He led Byson up the corridor. ‘It made me an offer. It is going to help us.’

‘Sir?’

‘It wants to take us away from this place. Take us into the future.’

‘Sir?’

‘It will transport us forward two centuries, to a time where the hyperspace tunnel has reopened. Once there, we will be able to begin our lives again.’ Rochfort paused. ‘We will be reborn.’

‘Sir?’

‘Say something other than “Sir”, Byson.’

‘Sorry, sir,’ said Byson. ‘You mean to say that we can get out of
here
? We can escape into the thirty-first century?’

‘Yes,’ said Rochfort. ‘That is exactly what I mean.’

‘But what is it? How can it do all this?’

‘It has the power to do anything in creation. All we have to do is to deliver the remaining passengers into its realm and it will do the rest.’

‘That seems awfully generous of it, if you don’t mind me saying, sir.’

‘We should not question its motives. It is our only hope.’ They reached the stairwell at the end of the corridor and Rochfort leaned back, one hand on the railing. ‘How long do you think I was in there for, Byson?’

‘I don’t know. About five minutes?’ said Byson.

‘I was in there for at least two hours,’ said Rochfort. ‘In the domain of the Repulsion…’ He pointed towards the darkness, ‘… time has no meaning at all.’

The Doctor halted at the top of the staircase. Something was moving ahead of him, its shadows flitting across the ceiling. It made a padding sound, a rapid succession of carpeted footfalls.

The Doctor slammed off his torch light and crouched behind a nearby statue. He smoothed his hair out of his eyes and looked down into the deck below.

Its long legs dancing around it, the creature emerged from the shadows and strutted across the deck. Two mandibles swished at the air in front of it and its beady red eyes glared ravenously. Some sort of giant spider, thought the Doctor. Though the odd thing about it was that it seemed to have been assembled from individual limb and torso sections bolted together. Like a Meccano kit of a monster, constructed by some deranged model enthusiast.

The Doctor rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a battered paperback,
Bor Pollag’s Book of Alien Monsters
. ‘Let’s see what old Pollag has to say.’ Straining his eyes in the near-darkness he thumbed through the pages, holding the book up to compare the various illustrations. ‘Akker-Takker. No. Algolian Sithersback. No. Apostle
of
Grarb. No.’ He flicked over the page. ‘Aha! Arachnopod.’ He read the text beneath the picture. ‘Bioengineered life form … homicidal tendencies … criminally insane … widely believed indestructible.’ He grimly returned the book to his coat. ‘Oh dear.’

A hush fell over the Great Hall as the passengers lifted their faces to the two men climbing up the staircase. Tarie rubbed the sleep out of the corners of her eyes, and walked through the maze of grownups’ legs. No one had spoken to her for days. All of the grown-ups were tired, and the hopeful talk of rescue had long since died away. Now they just ignored her, staring ahead, as if they were willing themselves to die. She wished her mother was here.

Now there was a new arrival in the hall. A woman with a kind, noble face, like a picture-book princess. She stood apart from the passengers, under armed guard. Watching the men on the stairwell, the woman lifted her chin and pouted disdainfully.

The younger man held up his hand for silence. ‘If I may have your attention please? Thank you. Captain Rochfort has a very important announcement to make. Captain.’