Doctor Who: Time and the Rani (4 page)

Mel was less sanguine. 'Always providing they don't flush us out first!'

'Come on! Come on!' The Doctor lifted his perspiring face.

A discharge of sparks had showered from the hole in the machine. The Doctor was using a makeshift acetylene torch to solder broken circuitry.

'Come where?' In ill humour, the Rani surveyed the chaos in the lab. Flex and cable criss-crossed the floor and the crudely-joined tubing for the torch added to the muddle.

'Why I chose you as an assistant, I'll never fathom! Perhaps I will when I've regained my memory.'

'What is it you want?'

'Look at me! Can't you see? Mop my brow!'

With bad grace, the Rani produced a silk handkerchief and dabbed his brow. Moving away, her dignity suffered another blow. Irately, the Doctor tugged at the tubing, unwittingly causing it to loop round her sneakers, almost upending her.

'Watch where you're going!'

Fighting to curb her temper, she dumped the offensive handkerchief in a wastebin beneath the rack of vials. 'It was your fault!' she snapped.

'Bad workmen always blame their fools.'

'Tools! Blame their tools!' The idiot was really proving a trial! If only she didn't need his expertise. . .

'Do I detect a hint of displeasure, Mel? This egalitarian spirit doesn't strike a note of harmony.' Another shower of sparks erupted from the hole. 'Or could it be you think yourself superior to me?'

The Rani's tapered fingers caressed a vial bearing the legend
cyanide
. . . 'How could I possibly assume that, Doctor?' It took every ounce of self-control to maintain the meek role she had opted to play.

'Quite. Although I feel far from superior at the moment. This is all a mystery to me.'

The soldering stopped.

'Surely there's a catalyst in there,' she encouraged.

'Yes. Yes,' he chided, quitting the machine. 'Must you state the obvious? I'm well aware that its function is to fuse the impulses from there' - indicating the conduit -

'with this goo.' He dipped his thumb into the crystal tank. 'But what's it all for!' He studied the thumb as though the answer might be written there. 'I'm beginning to think this set-up had nothing to do with me.'

'Why's that?' she asked, apprehension usurping vexation.

'Omnipotence. The mind responsible for this bag of tricks operates on a grand scale.'

Inwardly she cursed his prescience. At all costs he must be prevented from discovering the secret of the spherical chamber.

'All the more reason why it should be you, Doctor.'

'Then . . . why do I have such an overwhelming sense of foreboding . . .' His perturbed gaze strayed from contemplation of the mass of tubes and apparatus to the door of the arcade.

Weighed down by a yoke from which dangled two buckets of red liquid, Beyus passed the cabinet entombing Louis Pasteur.

A thumping on the arcade door startled him.

'Why is this door locked?' The Doctor's demand could be clearly heard.

So could the Rani's reply. 'You locked it.'

‘I did?' came the incredulous response.

Careful not to slop the plasma, Beyus continued on his unsavoury errand.

Having been baulked by the arcade door, the Doctor, in high dudgeon, strutted to the panel of the spherical chamber. 'Is this locked too?'

Repairing the machine had been entirely forgotten, much to the Rani's chagrin.

'You - and only you - know the combination number.' Humouring the fractious dupe, she decided, was the best means of coaxing him to work.

'What's in there?'

'I've no idea.'

With random jabs, he tried to operate the combination lock. Irritated at his lack of success, he embarked on a tour of investigation which ended when his foot became snared in the mess of cables. Frustration boiled over into petulance.

'You seem very adept in the art of ignorance, Mel. Are you as clueless as you appear?'

'Don't blame me, Doctor. I've never been inside. You wouldn't let me.'

'Wouldn't I?'

'You said the air wasn't sterile enough for humans.'

Disentangling his foot from the cable, he squatted on the edge of the bench. 'That's it then!' He folded his arms. 'I'm doing nothing more until my memory returns. Nothing until I know what I'm about. I won't work in the dark like this. No! No! I'm finished!'

Patience and tolerance were not virtues the Rani cultivated, but she had to exercise both in this circumstance. 'Oh, come on, now,' she wheedled. 'You thrive on challenge. And you're the only one with the knowledge to repair the machine.'

This last statement was genuine: it was part of the reason for hijacking the TARDIS

and bringing the meddlesome Time Lord to Lakertya.

He refused to be appeased. 'No, I'm adamant! This could be some diabolical scheme.'

A prophetic conclusion.

He was yet to learn how prophetic.

An unwilling collaborator in the 'diabolical scheme' was at that moment performing a ritual that never ceased to be an ordeal.

The yoke cutting into his shoulders beneath the lime green tabard trimmed with an orange cloak draped across his tall form, Beyus entered the portal of a tenebrous underground eyrie. The menial task he had been allotted, ill-fitted his status as the Chief Functionary of the Lakertyans. Yet he was performing it without protest.

Bracing himself, he lifted a barred grating and descended into the eyrie.

Vaguely discernible in the gloom were indistinct brown shapes, some two metres long, hanging from the rafters. In the steamy, fetid fug, an occasional rustle added to the macabre atmosphere.

Averting his eyes, Beyus emptied the buckets into a hopper. The thick, red, revolting mixture oozed its noisome way down a chute to a feeding trough.

As its nauseous smell wafted to the rafters, a more excited rustling disturbed the rancid darkness . . .

6

It was dark and musty, too, inside the drainpipe.

And cramped. Especially for Ikona's lanky frame. Doubled over, he hugged his leather-thonged legs to his chest.

Mel's petite form was more compatible with the confined space, but the claustrophobic atmosphere and the waiting were galling. 'Do you think -'

Ikona's golden palm clapped over her mouth. The hollowness of the pipe magnified every sound and Ikona knew Urak would not yet have given up the chase.

Nor had he.

His three hundred and sixty degree view of the plateau betrayed no living beings.

Not easily deterred, Urak, ears cocked, stood motionless, his muscular, prehensile feet centimetres from the concealed access to the drain . . .

‘Here, drink this!' The Rani's patience strained at the leash.

The Doctor, obdurately ensconced on the bench, had not relented from his refusal to continue repairing the machine.

'You're just over-excited. It'll calm you down.'

He accepted the tumbler she was profferring. 'What is it?'

'Only water.'

'Hmmmm.' Absently he tipped the contents into the sink.

A fortuitous act. Water it certainly was, but the Rani had spiked it with an hypnoidal inducer while he was gazing dolefully at the spherical chamber.

'Don't try to placate me! Leave me alone!'

'You can't just loll around, Doctor. It's simply not like you!'

'How do you know what I'm like? I've regenerated.' He waggled his over long sleeves, hoisted up the trousers sagging from his waistline. 'Look at me! Look at me!'

'You've changed outwardly, but you must have the same sweet nature.' The Rani almost gagged as she uttered the last three words, but desperation beckoned.

'Perhaps this is my new persona. Sulky. Bad-tempered. Think how I spoke to you earlier.'

'You didn't mean it.
I
was at fault.' Desperation indeed!

'Well, that's probably how I am now. You can't regulate regeneration, Mel. It's a lottery and I've drawn the short straw.'

The Rani did, of course, understand regeneration. Like all Gallifreyans, she had thirteen lives. Unlike the Doctor, she still enjoyed her first. This virtuoso scientist did not believe in taking personal risks. When carrying out her experiments - and many of them were very bizarre - she always devised an antidote or an escape plan to ensure her own survival. In fact, the nearest she had come to forfeiting one of her lives was on her last encounter with the Doctor.

Sent hurtling at ultra-warp speed to the remote regions of the Milky Way, she and that other exiled Time Lord, the Master, had been caged in her TARDIS at the mercy of a carnivorous Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The jar, in which she was preserving it in embryo, had been smashed and Time Spillage had caused the primeval monster to grow larger by the second. Hungry, lacerating jaws had gaped at the two tasty morsels flattened by centrifugal force against the walls . . .it seemed nothing would prevent the pair of renegades from becoming a dinosaur's snack!

However, the Time Spillage that accelerated the Tyrannosaurus from babyhood into virile youth also accelerated it into full size. Its spine snapped against the ceiling of the TARDIS.

The Master, his megalomania in full spate, had claimed divine indestructibility. But the Rani knew better. . .

'Anyway, I need a radiation wave meter. And versatile as I am, even I can't improvise that!'

The bald statement interrupted the Rani's reverie. This was a new and more hopeful tack. 'What about the TARDIS? Will there be a radiation wave meter there?'

The TARDIS?' The Doctor rallied. 'D'you know where it is?'

'Yes, of course.'

'I could do with a breath of fresh air. We'll go there together.' Springing from the bench, he pranced from the laboratory.

'Wait -!' Her entreaty went unheeded. The jaunty seventh Doctor had departed.

Before following, she activated the monitor. The screen was divided into four elliptical sections of the plateau.

'Urak!' She edged a minicomputer-bracelet from beneath her sleeve. The device allowed the Rani to communicate with Urak. 'Remove the girl from the TARDIS.' She did not want the Doctor to go blundering into the genuine Mel.

'She is not . . . there, Mistress . . .' A revelation Urak would have preferred to avoid.

'Find her, you incompetent fool!' 'Certainly, Mis . . . tress . . .'

Crouched together, maintaining a dismayed silence, Mel and Ikona could hear Urak's reply: he was that close to their hideaway.

Mel's brown eyes sought reassurance from Ikona. He had none to give. His stern profile with its aquiline nose and protruding, unfurrowed brow, was silhouetted against the curved interior of the drainage pipe: not a muscle stirred beneath the shiny scales fringing his cheeks.

'Come on, Mel!' hollered the Doctor. He was ambling along the path, expansively filling his lungs. The Rani caught him up and passed him, only too happy to get to the TARDIS quickly.

Her haste found no response. Instead the Doctor was engrossed in his surroundings; fascinating virgin territory for him. Blithely disregarding her impatience, he paused to examine the texture of a basalt slab. A few more paces and he spotted the skeleton of Sarn.

It held no sad significance for the Doctor. Not a glimmer of memory recalled the shy and blameless young Lakertyan who had compassionately come to his aid.

'Unusual specimen,' he mused. 'Can't say I recognise it.' The length of the spine intrigued him. 'Humanoid with reptilian influence wouldn't you think, Mel?'

'Lakertyan. A race so indolent they can't even be bothered to bury their dead.' Said in an imitation of Mel's diction, the sentiment was definitely the Rani's!

'Really? I suppose we've explored this planet. I wish I could remember.'

'There's not a lot to remember. A benevolent climate and indulgent regime has induced atrophy. They've failed to realise their full potential.'

'Rather a harsh judgment, Mel.'

'Not mine. Yours!' The spite was barely concealed.

'The more I know about me, the less I like . . .'he said bleakly.

'Doctor! Let's get on!'

Mel wanted to get on too. They had heard Urak move away and she was anxious to resume her quest.

'Can we go?'

Head hunched over his knees, Ikona gave no response.

Sighing with irritation, Mel wriggled to the end of the pipe.

Gingerly, mole-like, Mel's mop of curls poked out of the hideaway. A brief, perky peek all around, then, like a gopher popping back into its burrow, she disappeared again. 'No one about. Come on!'

'It is too soon.'

Not for me. I'm going to find the Doctor.'

'If he's been captured, he's as good as dead.'

The idea sent a shudder through her. 'Were you born a pessimist, or is it self-induced?'

'I'm a realist.'

'At least tell me where he'll be!'

Ikona did not bother to reply.

'All right. I'll find him without you.' She squirmed, on her stomach, from the drain.

'One thing about the Doctor,' she thought as she brushed clinging grit from her trews,

'I can't miss him in that outfit!'

7

The multicoloured jacket with its velvet lapels was thrown on top of a rumpled heap of yellow and black trousers, plaid waistcoat, green sneakers and spotted cravat.

The trimmings of the sixth Doctor were being discarded.

Flanked by hanging rows of garments, the Doctor was selecting a new outfit in the dressing room of his TARDIS.

Posing before a full-sized mirror, he donned an ankle-length French cutaway trench coat with fold-back corners,
circa
1812, tweaked a strand of his straight hair into a kiss curl on his forehead, crowned it with a cocked hat, then struck the Napoleonic stance of one hand tucked inside the trench coat.