Doctor Who: Festival of Death: 50th Anniversary Edition (39 page)

Romana unwound the chain from the ducting and Evadne dropped forward. Harken grabbed her, one arm around her waist, and glanced around desperately. The floor was shaking, and the lights flickered plunging them into intermittent darkness. ‘How are we going to get out of here?’ he shouted over the rumble of the necroport.

Romana indicated the TARDIS. ‘In there.’ She pushed open one of the doors.

‘What? In that thing?’

‘Get in!’ said Romana sternly. Harken decided it was better not to argue. He hoisted Evadne into his arms and disappeared into the police box.

Romana dashed over to K-9 and lifted him up. She headed back to the TARDIS, only to find Harken blocking the way, wearing a shocked expression. ‘What is it now?’

‘You know it’s bigger on the inside in there.’

Romana rolled her eyes and attempted to push past him. The necroport was filling with smoke, stinging her throat. ‘We haven’t got time for this –’

Harken raised a palm. ‘Yes, but first…’ He scurried across to pick up his discarded holocamera. Shoving it in the folds of his coat, he returned to the TARDIS. ‘Didn’t want to forget this!’

Romana sighed, and yelled over to the brain centre, ‘Come on, Doctor!’ before following Harken into the TARDIS.

Paddox waited a few seconds, and opened his eyes. He pulled himself upright, smoothing down his white coat, and advanced on the necroport controls. He squinted through the smoke at the psychothermal-energy indicator. There was still sufficient power. Excellent.

He programmed the controls to activate after a brief delay, and climbed inside the middle coffin, stretching himself back, feeling the metal enclosing his body. Then he reached for the headset and placed it on his skull.

This would be it. The culmination of his life. The moment of his death. And birth.

>
and we dillied and dallied, dallied and dillied
–

>
NO!
screeched the Repulsion. >
YOU CANNOT
–

The Doctor flicked the final switch, sending the direct power voltage into ERIC’s central processor.

There was silence. And then:

>
I die. At last, this is the end
, said ERIC
>Goodbye, cruel universe. Data? Block?

There was a blinding flash as the central processor erupted into flames, and the Doctor fell backwards, covering his eyes.

The tape reels spooled in opposite directions snapping the tapes, and reversed unravelling them across the floor.

The light bulbs flashed and popped. The circuit boards exploded. The memory panels buckled under crackling fire.

The Doctor used the doorframe to pull himself upright. He launched into a dramatic eulogy. ‘Alas, poor ERIC, I knew him well –’

The interaction terminal blew apart and he decided to beat a retreat. He backed into the necroport chamber, covering his mouth with his scarf.

All around him circuits were fizzling, wires were melting, and electronic components were spitting sparks. Within a few moments, the whole place would be consumed by fire.

The Doctor headed for the TARDIS, and then stopped. There was someone lying in the middle coffin. Paddox.

He skidded over to the casket. ‘Paddox. You can’t do this.’

‘You are too late, Doctor,’ said Paddox. ‘This is the end. My redemption is calling.’

‘But it won’t work. You can’t go back and change your own past.’

‘No, Doctor, you are wrong.’

‘You can’t do it!’ hissed the Doctor. ‘You don’t understand. You’re not physically capable. You exist within time, not parallel to it. Nothing will change. Your past has already been written. You can’t rewrite a single line.’

Paddox closed his eyes and smiled. The necroport activated. His heart monitor gave a long, sonorous bleep. He was dead.

The Doctor stared at the corpse for a moment, and then at Gallura and Nyanna in their coffins. He remembered where he was, and raced for the TARDIS. He bounded through the doors, slammed them behind him and, without a pause, the police box dematerialised.

Then there was a deafening roar and everything went white.

Paddox gazed across the empty moorland. In the distance, a single tree stood on the horizon. Beneath it was an Arboretan, silhouetted.

Suddenly, the Arboretan was standing beside him. It was the one from the necroport, the male. The one who was channelling him into the afterlife. The one through which he would return to his birth.

The Arboretan looked at him, staring right into his soul.

Paddox felt his heart pounding. And then he noticed some other figures on the horizon. A small girl in a blue dress. And dozens of other people, humans and Gonzies and Yetraxxi, all standing perfectly motionless, the wind fluttering their outlandish clothes.

A miraculous white light. There, in front of him. A glowing space, the size of a door. Somehow, it filled him with a feeling of great calm, of warmth. Of comfort. There was a whooshing, sucking sound, like a million words being played backwards, and Paddox could hear his mother’s dull, steady heartbeat resounding in his ears, flowing through his veins.

He could wait no longer. Paddox stepped into the light.

The emergency medics stretchered away the last of the corpses from the observation lounge. Their leader, a young woman, swung a life-detector in an arc. It failed to bleep. Returning the detector to her belt, she nodded to her turquoise-clad colleagues, directing them out through the main doors, and followed.

There was a brief lull and then the TARDIS materialised in the far corner. The Doctor emerged. ‘Here we are. The morning after.’

‘So the Repulsion was destroyed along with ERIC?’ said Romana, helping Harken carry the unconscious Evadne out of the police box. Harken panting with the effort, they sat her down in one of the nearby chairs.

‘Yes!’ said the Doctor. ‘Romana, how is our friend Evadne?’

Romana placed a palm on Evadne’s forehead. ‘She should be coming round soon.’

‘Good,’ said the Doctor. ‘Good.’ He put his hands in his pockets and strode away. ‘Romana, you know what to do. I… um, have a small errand to run.’

‘But Doctor,’ called Harken, chasing after him. ‘I have to interview you. I must find out just how you averted the G-Lock from certain destruction, the public needs to know. And I want to ask you about your magnificent TARDIS machine.’ He pulled a microphone out of his coat pocket.

‘Later. Much later. Goodbye, Harken Batt.’ The Doctor
disappeared
through the doors. ‘I have to go and see a dog about a man!’

Harken turned away, and paced the lounge. So this was it. The G-Lock had been saved. According to the Doctor, all the zombies were dead – permanently, this time – now that whatever had been controlling them had been destroyed.

Harken brightened. Now that the crisis was over there was only one thing left to do.

Interview the survivors. The deceased, the dying and the injured. Yes, he thought, that was a good turn of phrase, he could use that in his documentary. His documentary about how the Doctor – with his invaluable assistance, of course – had saved the G-Lock.

He looked back at Romana and Evadne. He could interview them later. Without saying a word, he crept out of the main hall and down the corridor.

The victims of the disaster were his first priority.

Brushing aside the cobwebs, the Doctor stepped into the hold of the
Montressor
. It was exactly as it had been when they had first arrived. His torch beam picked out the cobwebbed hooks arranged along the arced ceiling and, at the far end, the TARDIS.

‘Aha!’ said the Doctor. ‘Here we are!’ He rummaged in his coat for the keys and unlocked the door of the police box.

The TARDIS console room hummed brightly. The Doctor crossed to the control panel, and pressed the switch to close the doors.

There was a ground-level whirring. K-9 glided up to meet him.

‘Master?’

‘K-9,’ The Doctor crouched down. ‘Hello, old chap. I want you to do me a favour.’

‘Query. The location of the mistress Romana?’

‘The mistress Romana? That’s what I’ve come to speak to you about. You see, K-9, I’ve come from the future.’

‘The future?’

‘Yes. I’ve come back to talk to you.’

*

Romana gently rocked Evadne awake. ‘Evadne?’

Evadne’s eyelids flickered. She awoke, her body suddenly tensing. ‘What… No! No!’ she screamed. ‘Stop it! Get it away from me!’

Romana gripped her by the shoulders. ‘Don’t worry. You’re perfectly safe.’

‘Safe?’ Evadne stared at her wildly. ‘But the Repulsion… it was in that robot dog thing, it was trying to kill me!’

‘It’s all over, Evadne. It’s all been dealt with.’

‘But…’

‘Believe me, nothing’s going to harm us. The zombies are all dead.’

‘Straight up? Dead?’

Romana passed her a cup of water. ‘Have this.’ She watched as Evadne sipped. ‘The Doctor succeeded. That’s all you need to know.’

‘The Doctor?’ Evadne frowned. ‘Hang on, what happened to the Doctor, anyway?’

Romana looked away.

‘I remember. He died, didn’t he? He gave up his life. I saw it.’ Evadne’s eyes filled with tears, and Romana took the cup from her. Evadne’s face crumpled. ‘The Doctor died!’

Harken Batt let the viewfinder glide across the rows of tourists sitting in frightened confusion. Medics filled out the scene, dragging in trolleys and winding bandages. He followed a bearded medic as he crossed the medical bay and let the camera linger on a Gonzie wearing a tie-dye kaftan.

Abruptly, the picture was filled with a blur of garish colour. Harken lowered the holocamera and found himself facing an overweight man in a suit, tie, and loudly patterned shorts.

The tourist stared at him. ‘Are you him?’

Harken Batt smiled and started thinking of excuses to end the conversation. ‘I am, yes. Harken Batt, investigative reporter.’

The tourist offered Harken a podgy hand to shake. ‘My name’s
Jeremy
,’ he said. He glanced around nervously. ‘I believe I have some footage you may be interested in.’

‘And what footage might that be?’

Jeremy described it, and Harken felt a warm glow inside. It was too good to be true.

He gave Jeremy a gleaming smile and led him away, one arm around his shoulders. ‘How would you like to be my new holocameraman?’

The Doctor rubbed his lips. ‘So what do you have to do, K-9?’

‘I am to locate the Doctor master – the earlier Doctor master – and inform him that the hyperspace conduit is due to collapse due to a build up of geostatic pressure.’

‘Caused by?’

‘Caused by the blockage of the hyperspace–real-space interface leading to an imminent and total loss of hyperdimensional viability.’

The Doctor grinned. ‘How long?’

‘Approximately four hours and thirty-one minutes and counting.’

‘Well done, K-9. And what should you say if I ask you how you happen to know this?’

K-9 cleared his throat. ‘“That information is unavailable”,’ he proclaimed fruitily.

‘And what if I ask you why that information is unavailable?’

‘“That information is unavailable”. I should then escort the Doctor master to the interface on Corridor 79.’

‘Good boy,’ said the Doctor. He reached for the door control.

‘Query,’ said K-9. ‘Doctor master instructed me to remain in the TARDIS.’

‘Did he really? I mean, did I really? Well, I’m the Doctor, and I say you can leave.’

‘You wish to retract your previous command?’

‘Yes.’

K-9 whirred. ‘Logic circuits reconciled. The latter instruction takes priority.’

‘Good. And if he asks you why you’ve disobeyed him, say…’

‘“That information is unavailable.”’

‘Clever dog.’ The Doctor opened the TARDIS doors and strode for the exit.

‘I still can’t get my head round the fact he’s dead.’

Romana checked her watch. The Doctor would be back soon. ‘Listen,’ she said, standing up. ‘There’s something I want you to do for me.’

‘What is it?’ said Evadne.

‘I am about to be captured by Metcalf’s guards,’ Romana whispered. ‘I want you to come and rescue me.’

‘Eh?’

‘It’s perfectly simple. In precisely forty-eight minutes’ time, you make your way down to the cells, overpower the guard and let me out.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘Can you do that?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘And then I want you to take me to see the necroport. It is very important you remember.’

Evadne stood up. ‘All right, I’ll do it. But I still don’t see…’

‘Don’t let it worry you. As long as you’re in the right place at the right time, everything will be fine.’

Evadne moved towards the doors, and put on a cheery face. ‘Forty-eight minutes, you say?’

‘Forty-seven.’

‘See you later, then,’ grinned Evadne, and left the observation lounge.

A moment later the Doctor swept in through the other door. Following Romana’s gaze, he looked across to where Evadne had been standing. He grinned deliciously. ‘Evadne?’

‘You just missed her. She seems to be under the impression that you sacrificed your life to save the G-Lock.’

‘Yes, yes,’ nodded the Doctor. ‘Well, I did! After a fashion.’

Romana raised her eyebrows.

The Doctor leaned over her shoulder. ‘But just think of all the confusion it will cause.’

‘It would have been much easier if we had known all along that you would survive.’

‘Would it? Who can tell? If we had known that, perhaps we would have acted differently. Perhaps it had to be this way for us to succeed. The web of time, remember.’ He frowned. ‘I should have asked Gallura, he would know.’

Romana turned to face the window. There was a small figure there, her hands and face pressed against the glass, staring out into hyperspace. Romana reached for the Doctor’s hand. ‘Doctor…’

The Doctor gazed at the girl ruefully. ‘Eddies from the past, Romana.’

‘What? You mean she isn’t real?’

‘Oh, she’s real all right,’ said the Doctor. ‘But she only exists as a temporal echo. A reverberation.’

‘You mean the distortion created by the necroport…?’

‘Created a rupture in time. A breach between the centuries which still hasn’t healed completely. Which explains your experiences when we first arrived.’