Doctor Who: Time and the Rani (8 page)

'With a unique conceptual understanding of the properties of time . . .'

Ignoring the planet and its asteroid flickering on the monitor screen, he made for the spherical chamber.

'Do you have any idea what's in there?' he asked Beyus.

Beyus was at the exit, keeping watch for the Rani. 'No. She's never permitted me to see.'

'Pity. Why have you - um - er - assisted?'

'Collaborated is the word you are avoiding. I've no choice - She's coming!'

Stampede!

In the general scramble, the Doctor bundled Mel into the arcade. 'Look after Mel!'

'I'll take her with me,' volunteered Faroon.

'Doctor, you can't stay!'

'Go, Mel! Go!'

Slamming the door to the arcade, he scampered to the machine, adopting a bravura show of nonchalance as the Rani entered.

Disaster! He had omitted to switch of the monitor!

'Let me see,' he blustered. 'Yes. Yes. That's polyethersulphone.' He took possession of the amber sheet as a diversion. 'Excellent. How clever of you, Mel.

Where did you find it?'

'Storeroom,' came the flat reply. She had not missed the flickering screen. 'Why's the monitor on?'

'On? Is it? The monitor? I was just trying to jog my memory. No luck though. Hold the other end, Mel!'

She held the plastic sheet . . . but her keen eyes were not on the Doctor tightening the casing clips. They were on the scorched stool. 'Turned pyro-maniac, too, have you?'

'Pyro - er - yes. Soldering what-d'you-call-it slipped. You're not concentrating, Mel!

Hold the sheet still. I'll have to manoeuvre it into position.'

'You're rather adept at manoeuvring, aren't you,

Doctor?'

A flutter of uncertainty from him. 'Ah well, where there's a will there's a Tom, Dick and Harry.' He fastened the last clip. 'QED.'

'Do I take it the machine's now operational?'

'No, no, no, no! There's information I simply must have before I make the final delicate adjustments.'

'Such as?'

'Ideally, what's in that spherical chamber.'

'Less ideally?'

'The identity of this rather interesting substance.' He dipped his knuckle into the goo in the crystal tank.

'The information's essential, is it?'

'Crucial.'

'So if I told you its chemical composition, I could do this -' She stabbed the starter button.

'Stop! You can't'

His voice was drowned by a composite din of gurgling, engine whine and staccato cracks from the catalyst as the simmering, glutinous liquid oozed through the elaborate arrangement of tubes and transparent pipes on its journey to the spherical chamber.

The Doctor's consternation held him spellbound.

The Rani watched him with cool appraisal.

'You know, don't you?' She stripped off the wig to release her own brunette tresses.

'But your usefulness is not over. You've another role to play!'

Wildly, the Doctor snatched up a mess of flex and cables, tossing it over the Rani. In the brief respite, he managed to tap the combination number into the lock and dashed into the arcade.

Neither Mel nor Faroon was there. The Doctor brushed past Beyus and made for the door at the far end of the narrow arcade.

'Not that way!'

Beyus's warning went unheeded. The Doctor had dashed into the portal of the eyrie .

. . and nipped inside . . .

Not only the darkness confused him. Mote-infested glimmers of light suggested the eyrie boasted no door connecting with the outside. Nor did any cool fresh air sweeten the fetid atmosphere that wafted in pungent waves off the greasy brown pelts of the abominations hanging upside-down from the rafters.

'Out of my path!' The Rani stormed past Beyus.

She, too, descended into the eyrie.

Squinting through the gloom, she knelt beside a rack of net-guns to inspect the gap between the hanging Tetraps and the floor.

There was no sign of the escapee's legs. Repulsed by the stench, she withdrew.

A rustling from the rafters. But this was not from the dreaming Tetraps.

It was the Doctor - suspended from the rafters!

Gingerly, he lowered himself, bringing his head level with that of a sleeping Tetrap.

A veined eye snapped open!

A forked tongue darted between razor sharp teeth . . .

13

'Er - excuse me - we may not see eye to eye -'

All four eyes opened, giving the Tetrap a quadview of the eyrie.

'Er - I mean - try to see it my way . . .'

The rear and side eyelids closed: the creature was focusing on its quarry.

'Oh dear - I'm really not intending to be personal

Oily pelt glistening in what little illumination shafted through the bars of the grating, the Tetrap insinuated itself between the Doctor and freedom.

'After all, a bat may look at a Time Lord . . .'

The slavering tongue flicked -

A click!

A spurt of white flame!

The Tetrap flopped to the ground beneath a sizzling electronic net.

'Quickly, Doctor!' It was Beyus.

Non-aggression was Beyus's philosophy and his avowed intent, but the Doctor had voluntarily championed their cause with no concern for his own life. Having waited for the Rani to go into the grounds, Beyus had descended to the eyrie and unhitched a net-gun.

'You must leave,' he urged.

The Doctor needed no second bidding.

'You will have to escape through the laboratory,' said Beyus, preceding the Doctor into the arcade. 'The Rani left by the other door.'

'Mistress Rani?'

Urak's voice.

From the lab!

'Mistrss Rani?'

Urak's sweeping quadview established the Rani was not in the lab. She could be in the spherical chamber. Or the arcade. Unfortunately for the Doctor, Urak decided on the arcade.

Urak's hefty, hairy carcass blocked the doorway as he perused the lengthy expanse.

The Rani was not there.

Nor was the Doctor.

Only Beyus checking the dials on the cabinets.

'You . . . Lakertyan . . . have you seen the . . . Mistress Rani. . ?'

Beyus was slow to reply.

'Quickly . . ! Answer . . !'

'She went into the grounds.'

Urak stamped along the arcade. 'Clear my way . . !' There was ample space for him to pass but he chose to make Beyus squeeze into a niche. 'The Mistress has . . .

profound insight . . . but I think she . . . is mistaken . . .to rely on . . . any of your . . .

worthless race. . .'

Failing to provoke a response, he continued on.

Pausing only for the Tetrap to disappear from sight, Beyus unsealed the cabinet labelled The Doctor -and its namesake eased forth!

'Can't say I share the Rani's taste in pets!'

'The Tetraps are nobody's pets.' Anticipation of the Rani's return made Beyus nervous. 'And you'd be wise not to forget it.'

'This is what I'll never forget!' Indignantly the Doctor trudged the line of incarcerated luminaries.

'Unique talents! Every one of them! The Rani's roamed the universe plucking these geniuses out of time! At the height of their powers! Reducing them to the status of laboratory specimens!'

His rising, intemperate anger perturbed Beyus. 'Go! Please!'

'Time! The concept of time! I'm sure it's at the core of what she's up to. Why else reserve a place for me -a Time Lord - in this abysmal parade?'

'If you are still here when she comes back, you will find out. From inside that cabinet!'

'Which you'll help her put me in.'

There was just a slight hesitation before Beyus answered. 'If she catches you . . .

yes.' So far and no further: compassion had prompted him to save this stranger, but expediency was motivating him now.

'You know, Beyus, your collaboration with the Rani is difficult to understand.'

'My people are under threat. If you do manage to escape, go to the Centre of Leisure. The reason is there.' He ushered the Doctor into the lab. 'Now, hurry! And be careful. The grounds outside are a minefield of traps.' He had already reached the exit.

'There's nothing outside to compare with that!' Fingers fluttering in vexation, the agitated Doctor was staring at the asteroid on the monitor screen.

'A harmless asteroid?'

'It's composed of Strange Matter, Beyus. A devastating force. With the right trigger' -

his roving gaze switched to the gurgling liquid in the tank and to the pulsating machine - 'that harmless asteroid, as you call it, could incinerate your planet. And anything else in this corner of the galaxy!' Again the spherical chamber claimed his attention. He pressed his ear to the panel. 'What has she got imprisoned in there?'

Frustrated by the lock, he slapped and kicked the solid panel in frustration.

It was almost as if the physical venting of his anger sent a dose of adrenalin to his brain. Inspiration dawned.

'Well, all good things come to a bend,' he misquoted.

Strutting to the catalyst machine, he wrenched off the plastic sheet, ripped a component from the innards and flourished it aloft. 'Microthermister.'

All activity in the apparatus had ceased.

'I doubt if she'll have a spare!'

'She won't need one. You are going to put it back!' Beyus snatched at the microthermister. Missed. 'Give it to me -' Another snatch - but the Doctor, in evading the bid, caused Beyus to fall, knocking his head against the dais.

'I'm sorry . . .I'd no intention of hurting you -'

The patter of high heels from the arcade!

Torn between wanting to minister to Beyus and the desire to flee with the microthermister, the Doctor wisely decided to afford priority to the latter.

He fled.

Desultory hiccuping slurps from the liquid in the crystal tank greeted the Rani.

'Who's sabotaged that?' she demanded, giving the dazed Beyus an unsympathetic shake. 'What happened?'

'I -I - my head -'

'Was it the Doctor?'

'I - do not know who he is. He stole something from the machine. I tried to stop him -'

The Rani stabbed a large red button on the control board.

A klaxon wailed.

The banshee blaring percolated to Ikona.

Lurking near the perimeter, he saw Faroon leaving the complex amidst the furore incited by the flashing red warning lights and persistent strident whine.

He wondered whether Mel was safe: perhaps this general alert was the result of her incursion.

Faroon had thought this too. True to her word, she had been conducting Mel through the grounds when she spotted the Rani, hands on hips, on a ridge scanning the surrounding area.

'She's looking for us,' said Faroon.

'Maybe,' replied Mel as they cringed behind a freestanding pyramid, unaware that it was the Rani's TARDIS! 'I can think of a more likely explanation - the Doctor's on the loose.'

Circumspectly, she peeked round the angle of the TARDIS. 'Whatever the reason, Faroon, you mustn't be caught with me.'

'I cannot abandon you. I promised.'

'I'll be all right. Really, I'll be fine!'

Faroon had reluctantly complied.

But Mel's confidence, boldly declared to Faroon, had evaporated with the onset of the klaxon: she needed a better haven.

Cautiously, she again craned her neck round the corner to spy out the land.

Moist nostrils quivering, a Tetrap glared unblinkingly at her.

She opened her mouth to scream.

No sound came.

In abject terror, she turned to run. Urak confronted her!

Gloatingly he spread his bony, hairy arms, stretching the mucous membrane cape.

Mel, transfixed by fright, was enveloped into the embrace of the nightmarish apparition.

'The Mistress . . . will be over . . . joyed to see you . . .' With the tenderness of an obscene lover, Urak's lips drew closer to Mel's face.

The forked tongue darted, piercing her ashen cheek.

A scarlet glow emanated from Mel . . . When it faded, she was stiff. Paralysed. Only her wide, terror-stricken eyes had movement.

Urak released her to the guard.

'Uoy wonk erehw . . . ot ekat reh!'
Translated from the Tetrapyriarban, his instruction was: 'You know where . . . to take her!'

14

Flight, the fugitive Doctor decided, should not be a rash skedaddle. No, it should reject the obvious; he opted for a longer, more arduous route.

There was also an added bonus: the labyrinth of misshapen rocks provided excellent cover.

Or so he thought!

'Stop! Don't take another step!' came a warning.

'This is a turn-up for the cook!' exclaimed the Doctor. 'A talking rock!' For only an inanimate monolith confronted him.

Until Ikona's golden mane poked from behind it.

'You must be the Doctor!' A conclusion accompanied by a wry smile. 'I've met your companion, Mel.'

'Well, don't hold that against me.'

'I can see where she gets her sense of humour. And you're going to need it!'

'That bad?' The Doctor had stayed rooted to the spot.

'Move those stones.
Very gently!'

The Doctor obeyed . . . glistening in the granulated shale was the percussion cap of a 'bubble'.

'More of the Rani's nasty tricks,' he said, retreating. 'If you've met Mel, you must be Ikona-'

Ikona had disappeared.

The Doctor soon discovered why: a Tetrap guard had stolen up on him!

'Er - haven't I seen you hanging around somewhere?' the Time Lord stuttered.