Doctor Who: Shada (5 page)

The Doctor grinned and nodded. ‘So I did! How kind of you to remember me after all these years!’

‘That’s my job, sir,’ Wilkin said smoothly.

‘And you do it splendidly. Now, then—’

Wilkin interrupted him. ‘Professor Chronotis, sir? He returned to his room forty-two minutes ago.’

The Doctor took a step back in amazement. Romana suppressed a smirk.

Then the Doctor leaned in close to Wilkin. ‘How did you know I wanted to speak to Professor Chronotis?’

‘That’s who you asked to see when you were here in 1964, 1960 and 1955, sir,’ Wilkin replied.

‘Did I really?’ marvelled the Doctor.

‘Though not, as I recall, in such charming company,’ said Wilkin, giving a little bow to Romana.

Romana extended a hand and introduced herself. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said brightly, and with a nod to the perplexed Doctor, added, ‘Nicely done.’

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed for a moment. He stepped back in and put a conspiratorial arm around Wilkin. ‘I was also here in 1958,’ he said grandly.

For the first time the tiniest crease of a frown appeared on Wilkin’s brow. ‘Were you, sir?’

‘Yes,’ the Doctor nodded, shooting Romana a triumphant look before adding mysteriously, ‘but in a different body.’

Wilkin smiled his blandest smile. ‘Indeed, sir.’

‘Come along, Doctor,’ called Romana. She was still thinking of the voices they had heard down at the river. If there was trouble coming, and there probably was, the sooner they cracked on the better.

‘Nice to see you again, Wilkin, bye-bye,’ said the Doctor, and breezed off. Then he had a sudden thought and turned around to hand Wilkin the paddle. Wilkin’s hand was already outstretched to take it.

‘Thank you, sir,’ he said.

At least the Doctor knew when he was beaten, thought Romana, as he strode off into the university, this time without a backward glance.

Soon they were standing at the door of Room P-14. Before the Doctor had a chance to knock, a scratchy voice called from inside, ‘Come in!’

But this time, instead of being taken aback, the Doctor smiled broadly and ushered Romana through the vestibule and into the room. Romana was pleased to be back. There was a time when she’d have squirmed at the muddle and mess, all the books strewn around the place, but now she found the odour of decaying aldehydes and tea leaves strangely reassuring.

The room was empty – or rather it was full, but empty of the Professor. The Doctor nodded towards the kitchen and whispered to her, ‘He’ll ask us if we want tea.’

‘Tea?’ called the scratchy voice from the kitchen.

‘Yes please,’ called the Doctor. ‘Two cups!’

‘Milk?’ called the voice.

‘Yes please,’ called the Doctor.

‘One lump or two?’

‘Two please,’ called the Doctor, winking at Romana. ‘And two sugars.’

Romana wasn’t sure what to make of that remark, but it caused the Professor to hurry out from the kitchen, a tray with three teacups in his hands, and a broad smile across his face. He seemed like such a nice old man. Immediately she liked him.

The Professor set down his tray and came forward to shake the Doctor enthusiastically by the hand, his eyes alight with welcome for his old, old friend. ‘Ah, Doctor! How splendid to see you again!’

‘And you, Professor!’ said the Doctor. ‘This is Romana.’

The Professor beamed and shook her warmly by the hand. ‘Ah, delighted, delighted. I’ve heard so much about you, young lady.’

The Doctor looked surprised. ‘Have you?’

‘Well not yet but I’m sure I will have done.’ He looked momentarily confused and put a hand to his forehead. ‘Do excuse me. When Time Lords get to my age they tend to get their tenses muddled up.’ He hustled them to a sofa that could just about be distinguished under heaps of books and, after clearing a few away to create a little space, they sat down.

The Professor placed their cups of tea on the wonky table and then a thought seemed to strike him. ‘Oh, would you have liked some biscuits too?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have said no,’ said the Doctor.

The Professor headed back to the kitchen. ‘Crackers?’

The Doctor grinned broadly. ‘Oh, sometimes, sometimes.’

As the Professor fussed around in the kitchen and the Doctor flicked idly through the nearest stack of books, Romana reflected on the incongruity of her surroundings. Until the distress signal had been picked up by the TARDIS, causing the Doctor to drop everything – literally – bypass the Randomiser and head for Earth at what passed for top speed, she had never heard of Professor Chronotis. The Doctor had explained how Chronotis, as was the custom for very elderly Time Lords of great service, in the declining centuries following their twelfth and final regeneration, had been offered the opportunity to retire somewhere out in the wide universe by the High Council of Gallifrey. It was a custom that dated back millions of years into the Time Lords’ own history, and very few had ever accepted the offer. But Chronotis had jumped at the chance, packed his bags for Earth and set himself up as a professor at Cambridge.

‘Three hundred years,’ Romana marvelled as the Professor handed her a refill.

‘Yes, my dear,’ said Chronotis a little proudly.

‘In the same set of rooms?’

Chronotis nodded. ‘Ever since I retired from Gallifrey.’

Romana was puzzled. The life expectancy of a human was far shorter than that of a Time Lord, even a very elderly one. ‘Didn’t anybody notice?’

‘Oh yes, of course they did,’ said the Professor airily. ‘But that’s one of the delights of the older Cambridge colleges. Everyone is so very…
discreet
.’

He lowered himself onto a stack of atlases, stood up again, swept the books noisily to the floor with surprising strength, and plonked himself down into the armchair they had been occupying. He leant over and turned up the dial on a battered electric fire. The October afternoon was beginning to lose its warmth.

As part of her studies at the Academy, Romana had visited the chambers of the most ancient Time Lord academics and found them as sterile and dry as anywhere else in the Capitol. But now, as another bar on the fire glowed into life with the faintest sizzle of burning dust, Romana reflected that she felt almost as comfortable here as she did in the TARDIS.

The Professor sipped at his tea and tapped the Doctor on the knee with his spoon. ‘Now then, Doctor, young fellow. What can I do for you?’

The Doctor blinked in surprise, his knife halfway between butter-dish and cracker. ‘What can you do for me? Don’t you mean, what can
I
do for
you
?’

‘I don’t think I do,’ said the Professor.

‘You sent for me,’ said the Doctor patiently.

The Professor looked nonplussed. ‘Sent for you?’

‘I got your signal,’ said the Doctor.

Chronotis frowned. ‘Signal? What signal?’

‘Romana,’ said the Doctor, ‘didn’t we pick up a signal from the Professor? Would we come and see him as soon as possible?’

Romana nodded. ‘And we came straight away.’

Chronotis shrugged. ‘I haven’t sent you a signal. But it’s very splendid to see you. Have another cracker.’

The Doctor exchanged a worried glance with Romana.

‘Professor,’ he said, suddenly very grave, ‘if you didn’t send that signal – then who did?’

Chapter 6

ALL WAS WELL in Wilkin’s world, but then it always was. Wilkin would simply not permit it to be any other way. He had found his place and purpose in life. The place was St Cedd’s, and the purpose was to maintain the order and calm established here centuries before, until the time came for him to hand over the task to an equally calm and ordered successor. Wilkin saw himself as a cog in the wheel of time, positioned here to ease the lives of those around him, and was a firm believer in the bit of the Bible that said ‘A soft answer turneth away wrath’, if not many of the other bits. But even he had his limits.

The encounter with the Doctor-with-no-name and his charming companion had put him out not one jot. If people chose to wear ridiculously long multicoloured scarves and to turn up on occasions decades apart not looking any older, it was none of his business.

But now, as he pinned another notice on the board and permitted himself just a tinge of inward pleasure at the thought of scrambled eggs on toast and the BBC’s Saturday serial in a few hours, he found himself bristling for the first time in years.

A quite ludicrously dressed person was stomping – yes, that was the only word for it,
stomping
– through the entrance to the courtyard. Now obviously it was no business of Wilkin’s if people chose to attire themselves in long silver capes and wide-brimmed silver hats, and went about carrying old carpet bags, that was their own affair.

But this fellow had none of the Doctor’s affability or charm, and Wilkin was quite sure he had never seen him before.

He was in his early thirties, and might have been handsome – his features were symmetrically pleasing and he had full, sensual lips – were it not for two things. Firstly, there was the jagged scar that ran across the right side of his face, so that actually it wasn’t symmetrical at all. And secondly, those full, sensual lips were curled arrogantly in a permanent disdainful sneer. All sneers were disdainful, Wilkin admitted to himself, but this one conveyed unfathomably deep levels of coldness and condescension.

‘You!’ the stranger barked.

Wilkin shot back his own best look of coldness and condescension, which was pretty good but couldn’t really compete. He then turned back sniffily to the notice board.

‘You! Gatekeeper!’ the stranger barked again.

Wilkin looked about the otherwise empty courtyard with exaggerated politeness. ‘Were you addressing me?’

‘I want Chronotis,’ said the stranger.

Wilkin winced at the lack of formality. ‘Professor Chronotis?’

‘Where is he?’ the stranger demanded.

Wilkin wanted this rotter out. ‘He will not want to be disturbed. He is with the Doctor – a friend.’ He added with emphasis, ‘A very old friend.’

The stranger stared down at him for several seconds. He hands moved as if to open the carpet bag. Then, without another word, he turned on his high silver platform heels and stomped back out of the courtyard.

Good riddance. Wilkin wondered where on Earth he had been brought up, with manners like that.

It would have surprised Wilkin to discover that the stranger had not been brought up on Earth at all. It would have surprised him even more had he learnt that his intervention had quite probably saved the lives of the Professor, his very old friend the Doctor and the fair Romana. And it would have left him agog with fear and horror had he been party to Skagra’s thoughts as he stomped back out to the streets around St Cedd’s. Though of course Wilkin would never have shown it. He was only ever inwardly agog.

Skagra was considering the information the Earth gatekeeper had supplied. So Chronotis had an old friend called the Doctor.

The Doctor, the Doctor
…

Something about those words had made Skagra retreat and reconsider. He was certain that he had read something about this ‘Doctor’ in the course of the researches that had led him here halfway across the universe. And any ‘very old friend’ of Chronotis could not possibly be an Earth human. So the Doctor was a Time Lord.

Skagra needed more information. Who was this Doctor? Doctor who?

Chapter 7

ROMANA WAS WORRIED. ‘Anyone that could send a signal directly to the TARDIS must be terribly advanced.’

‘Terribly’s the word,’ agreed the Doctor. ‘And what’s more…’ He nodded towards where the Professor was absent-mindedly clearing away the tea things, ‘they not only had to know who we are, they have to know who the Professor is.’

Romana considered. ‘Then it can only be a Time Lord.’

The Professor tutted across at them. ‘Really, my dears, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.’

Romana remembered the voices they’d heard on the river and shuddered. She wasn’t at all sure about that.

The Doctor held out a hand and started to tick off items on his fingers. ‘So. Whoever it is sent the signal, they know me, they know you, they’re probably a Time Lord—’

Suddenly the Professor jumped and clutched at his hearts. ‘Wait!’

They waited. He stood in the same position, his expression a curious mixture of enthusiasm and embarrassment. More seconds ticked by.

‘Professor?’ ventured Romana.

Chronotis sprang into life again. ‘Well, now you put it like that, young fellow,’ he said with a broad smile, ‘I’ve had an idea about who might have sent that message. Someone who knows you, knows me, and someone who – yes, quite – just happens to be a Time Lord.’

Romana considered. The Time Lords had produced a share of genial exiles – the Doctor, the Professor and, she supposed, herself – at least. But they had also spawned a number of criminals and renegades.