Doctor Who: Time and the Rani (10 page)

'Beyus, she's your responsibility.'

'Mine? How can I govern her behaviour? She's not Lakertyan.'

'Just make sure she understands the penalty of non-cooperation!'

Penalty or not, Ikona and the Doctor were re-entering the lists.

'In my opinion, returning to the laboratory is a futile exercise. I've a feeling Mel's beyond all help.'

'No, the Rani wouldn't do that. She never does anything without a reason!' The Doctor was adamant.

Ikona glanced at the slight figure manfully negotiating the precarious track. Already he could detect beneath the vulnerability an obdurate courage to be reckoned with.

'Then why the elaborate deception? Why didn't she just release Mel?'

'A bird in the hand keeps the Doctor away.'

'You're probably right.' Again the placid acceptance of the mixed-up proverb.

'Only in this case, Ikona, it'll have the opposite result!'

A staccato crack from the catalyst.

A gurgling from the viscous sludge in the crystal tank.

The pyramid machines were functioning.

Nevertheless, the Rani was discontent. 'The increase in brain activity is not enough!

We're going to miss the Solstice!'

Scrutinising the space view of Lakertya on the screen, she simultaneously punched in calculations.

'Perhaps the . . . stimulation . . .of a greater . . . genius, Mistress . . .a brilliance . . .

that surpasses . . . all others . . .'

Urak's fawning idolatry produced a cold response. 'Do I gather you're suggesting /

climb into one of those cabinets?'

'Your capable . . . presence is . . . squandered in here . . .I could . . . operate the machines . . .'

The plausible explanation foundered. 'I'm sure you could.' She went into the arcade.

'Prepare the Doctor's cabinet for occupation,' the Rani instructed Beyus.

'That'll be a waste of effort!' Mel retorted. 'You've got to find him first. And then catch him!'

Her recalcitrance worried Beyus. It merely spurred the Rani.

‘I need neither find nor catch him,' she declared, a small smile emphasising her smugness. 'The bumbling fool is ready-made as a sacrificial lamb.'

'He's shrewder than you think! Underestimating the Doctor's a common fault!'

'Really?'

The condescension goaded Mel. 'He's got qualities you'll never have!'

'Such as?'

'Something I'd call humanity.' Even to Mel the answer sounded lame.

'You're as sentimental as he is.' The disparagement came as she walked into the laboratory. 'Get on with your work.'

Beyus thrust his clip-board across the entrance to prevent Mel trotting after the Rani.

'Don't antagonise her! All she has to do is press a button and every Lakertyan will be exterminated!'

'I could nominate a few candidates for extermination myself!' muttered Mel.

Ignoring the petulant remark, Beyus resumed his preparation of the cabinet.

'Surely the Doctor would not let himself be shut up in there,' Mel thought as she read the label. She longed to see her mentor again . . . but not through the glass of one of these tombs . . .

A change of much greater import, at least in the Doctor's opinion, was monopolising his deliberations.

From an underground silo, a sleek, snub-nosed rocket had been jacked up the ramp that cleaved the pyramidal roof of the laboratory complex. 'Mmm, a GTA rocket, sure enough, Ikona.' Having conducted the Doctor to the vantage point from which they could survey the complex, Ikona regarded this latest, sinister development with dismay.

'Did you notice it's got a fixed trajectory?' asked the Doctor.

'No doubt it'll still play havoc with our planet!' 'Maybe as a side-effect, Ikona. Not the intention.' He craned up at the dark asteroid starkly delineated against the cerise sky. 'I'd say the target is the asteroid of Strange Matter . . . which means the launch is locked in to a precise time.'

'Could it be the Solstice?' The Solstice would be when the asteroid was furthest from Lakertya's equator and nearest to the laboratory complex.

'That's due,' Ikona continued.

'Assuming it is . . . the Rani's overriding priority will be to meet the countdown. No more setbacks or delays . . .I must get into the sealed chamber!'

Recollecting what he had seen of the interior layout, he felt certain the key would be in there. The pulse beat heard through the improvised stethoscope came to mind.

He shuddered. 'That'll be out of the frying pan into the mire!'

'I'll come with you.'

'No.'

'I want to help.'

'You can. By drawing off the guard.'

'That bluff worked once. The Tetraps may not fall for it again.'

'I don't see why not. Start the diversionary tactics, Ikona,' the Doctor ordered, sounding much more optimistic than he felt. . .

The elliptical quadview of the patrolling guard homed in on Ikona. Quitting his post, he gave chase.

Certain the ruse had succeeded, the Doctor scurried into the complex.

A Tetrap eased from a concealed position to block his path!

He spun about: Urak cut off his line of retreat! Yet again the Doctor had been hoodwinked by the Machiavellian Tetrap!

Exposing his teeth in a malevolent grin, Urak closed on the Time Lord. 'We have been . . . expecting you . . . Doctor.' The forked tongue flicked the Doctor's cheek . .

..

16

'We must be able to something!' Mel whispered, furtively examining the cabinet ordained for the Doctor. 'Can't we make it blow a fuse?'

'What good would that do?' scolded Beyus. 'At least he'll be kept alive in there.'

'Don't try to reason me into compliance! You're wasting your breath -'

The door to the long, narrow catacomb clattered open.

Urak and the Tetrap guard humped the unconscious Doctor into the sombre arcade.

'No!' screeched Mel as the lumbering brutes dumped the Time Lord into the cabinet.

'Leave him alone!'

She was prevented from hurling herself into an attack by Beyus.

'You. . ! Lakertyan. . !' grunted Urak. 'Connect this . . . specimen to . . . the main input. . .'

'I won't let you!' bawled Mel, struggling to break from Beyus's grip. But the tall, spare Lakertyan leader was too strong.

'Listen to me!' He shook Mel roughly, then looked defiantly at Urak. 'These Tetraps are completely without conscience. They will not hesitate to kill!'

A sadistic grin split the vulpine face: Urak took the remark as a compliment. He lowered the glass front, sealing the Doctor into the cabinet. 'Set the . . .temperature .

. . gauge . . .'

'We're setting nothing!'

'Your stubbornness will not help your friend,' cajoled Beyus as he released her.

'And putting him in there will? That's some twisted philosophy if you like!'

The fight had not gone completely out of Mel but discretion began to oust suicidal valour.

'How far have you got?' The incisive question heralded the Rani's arrival.

'I need to realign the final calibrations before he can be connected to the main input,'

stalled Beyus.

'Make certain those levels are kept stable.'

'If you're hoping for any positive results, you're going to be disappointed,' forecast Mel. 'The Doctor won't collaborate.'

'I'm sure - were he able - he'd express his appreciation of such unstinted confidence.'

The Rani's amused gaze was on the Doctor who lay with his hat on his knees and his neck clamped into a polyethylene collar from which sprouted the tubes that linked him to the pyramid machines in the laboratory.

'As soon as the activity indicator reaches eight-point-one-five, increase the stimulation,' commanded the Rani.

Not only were the Rani and Beyus absorbed in the task, but the Tetraps also gave it their undivided attention.

Nerves tingling, Mel slipped into the laboratory. Somehow, some way, she had to spike the grisly exercise.

The four pyramids, in full spate, were a lure.

But Mel could not forget the Doctor's obsessive certainty that inside the spherical chamber was the kernel, the nub, of this grandiose scheme.

She tapped nine-five-three into the combination lock.

The panel stayed shut.

She didn't give up.

Five-nine-three.

Again no luck.

Perhaps three-nine-five.

A slender, manicured finger interposed and tapped in the correct code.

The panel glided open.

'Is this what you're looking for?' asked the Rani.

Magenta light washed over Mel. It oscillated rhythmically with an oppressive throbbing from the interior.

Also from within the chamber came a weird, guttural, synthesized voice:
TO REPRODUCE THE LEPTONIC ERA TEMPERATURE OF TEN TO THE

POWER OF TWELVE K, IT WILL BE ESSENTIAL TO CREATE A CATACLYSMIC

EXPLOSION THE EQUIVALENT OF A SUPERNOVA.'

Cold tremors trickled down Mel's spine.

Tentatively she went into the spherical chamber . . .

A circular, wrought-iron gantry surmounted by a golden railing caged a massive brain.

Three metres high, composed of a mottled grey and magenta material identical to the liquid in the crystal pyramid tank, the cerebral mass dominated the spherical chamber.

Tiny veins and capillaries ran, like purple rivers, through furrows and grooves, causing the fibrous cells to pulsate with the fluctuating purple glow.

Dumbfounded by the prodigious spectacle, Mel falteringly ventured further in.

Beyond the vibrant brain, dimly lit by the alternating magenta, was the breech of a rocket launcher.

'WHILE TIME DILATION IS NOT QUESTIONED. . .'

Mel jumped: she was alongside the voice synthesiser.

'. . . OUR UNDERSTANDING OF TIME IS STILL ATA PRIMITIVE STAGE.'

'It won't be when the Doctor adds his contribution!' said the Rani. 'Urak! Bring her to the arcade!'

Urak, even more gruesome in the magenta glow, bundled Mel out and followed the Rani across the laboratory to the arcade.

'Beyus!'

'Yes?'

'Is the Doctor connected to the main input?'

Beyus, making the final adjustments, did not respond. In vivid contrast with the intense emotions being generated by the prospect of his contributing to the gigantic brain, the usually hyperactive seventh Doctor reposed in a state of vulnerable serenity.

'I said, is he connected!' rapped the Rani.

'Yes,' replied Beyus reluctantly. 'Everything is ready.'

'No, Beyus! For once don't do as she tells you -Urak's claw muffled Mel's mouth.

From behind, he crushed her into his downy arms . . . the darting, forked tongue almost licking her ear. . .

'Switch on!'

Beyus obeyed.

A spasm shook the Doctor: the impulses from his brain were ready to be tapped.

'His well-being is in your hands now,' the Rani rasped to Mel. 'Remember that.' She returned into the lab.

Urak drooled as he contemplated the lobe of Mel's ear before pitching her to Beyus's feet.

'You . . . Lakertyan . . . you will be . . . responsible . . . for this creature's . . .

behaviour . . .'

Stumbling to her knees, Mel could only stare numbly at the Doctor's cabinet. . .

17

On the laboratory monitor screen, the encrusted, gnarled asteroid of Strange Matter could be seen casting its shadow over the planet of Lakertya.

'Time is getting. . . very short if. . .we are to be. . . ready for the . . . Solstice, Mistress

. . .'

'I'm aware of that.'

While awaiting the Doctor's unique contribution to augment that of her kidnapped geniuses, the Rani was relaying indices of the satellite's position, weight and velocity into the computer.

'The Doctor must. . . have had help . . .'

'Urak, if you have a point, make it!'

'The culprits could. . . still interfere. . . They should be . . . punished . . .'

The Rani paused. Urak had a point and it was relevant.

'Shall we release . . . the insects in . . . the globe and. . . rid ourselves. . .of all the. .

.Lakertyans. . ?'

'Too drastic'

'It is unchar . . . acteristic . . . of the Mistress . . .to besenti. . . mental. . .'

'Sentiment doesn't come into it. Squandering a resource does. Until this experiment is successfully concluded, I can't be certain I won't need them as a labour force.'

From a cupboard in the bench, she extracted a casket of silver bangles. 'Selective retribution will bring any dissidents into line.'

Gleefully, Urak accepted the casket.

The glee rippled contagiously through the eyrie. Their membraned capes fanning the steamy fug, the hanging Tetraps came awake and flopped ecstatically from the rafters.

Not even the pungent ambrosia of the plasma trough enticed them from rallying to Urak's expedition of repression.

Spring-heeled, the ebullient Tetraps stomped from the eyrie, their ungainly progress reflected with clockwork precision in the glass-fronted cabinets.

Mel almost envied the somnolent intellectuals as she fought the surge of nausea evoked by the revolting creatures.

Mental bile sickened Beyus. Watching the Tetraps' departure, he suspected their assignation would bode no good for his subjects.

A paradox. By temperament poles apart from Beyus, the abrasive Ikona was about to experience the same foreboding.

The suspicious ease with which he had evaded the decoyed Tetrap guarding the perimeter, made him ultra-cautious in his return to the environs of the complex.