Shada Read online

  ‘Not my own past, the past of Gallifrey,’ the Doctor whispered back. ‘I suppose this is how it must feel for normal people.’

  The very end of the passageway opened out into a huge chamber, and at its centre sat the comforting blue shape of the TARDIS.

  ‘You see,’ the Doctor whispered to the Professor, ‘strategy.’

  He was just about to step out into the open and vault over to the TARDIS when a Kraag stomped around the side of the police box, eyes glowing fiercely, and obviously very much on guard duty.

  The Doctor flattened himself against the wall of the passageway and gestured the others back.

  ‘So much for strategy,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I think we’ll try this your way, Professor Chronotis.’

  They turned about and hurried in the other direction. The Professor took the lead, wringing his hands and tutting continually like the White Rabbit.

  ‘By all the suns, I hope we’re not too late,’ he muttered. Suddenly a thought seemed to strike him and he turned and looked down. ‘K-9?’

  ‘Professor?’ queried K-9.

  ‘Be alert. If Skagra tries to use the sphere on –’ he faltered for a moment – ‘on anybody, you must destroy it!’

  ‘Affirmative, Professor,’ said K-9.

  The Professor hurried on down the hallway, K-9 and the Doctor following. ‘I rather thought we were going to destroy it anyway,’ the Doctor mused into his shirt-collar, never taking his eyes off the Professor’s threadbare-tweeded back. ‘Yes, I’d sort of taken that as read.’

  The strange little party continued to move through the deep, dark hallways of Shada, quiet as ghosts, each one lost in his own thoughts.

  Chapter 60

  THE MASSIVE INNER doorway of Chamber T slid slowly upwards. Skagra pushed Romana through, then followed her inside with the sphere and the Kraag Commander.

  Romana looked around. The chamber was roughly circular, and consisted of hundreds of sealed black cabinets that resembled upright coffins. They were arranged regularly around the curving walls. Each cabinet was marked with an identifying sequence of numbers and letters in Gallifreyan notation. A connecting ramp led to higher levels, the cabinets stretching upwards into the darkness.

  ‘The prisoners of Shada,’ said Skagra. ‘Each in their own separate cryogenic cell. Alive, but frozen in time, in perpetual imprisonment.’ He turned to Romana with a slight smirk. ‘A very humane solution, don’t you think?’

  Romana shrugged. ‘Don’t look at me. I’m not answerable for the Time Lords.’

  ‘Soon no one will be,’ said Skagra, ‘as the Time Lords, like every other race, will become irrelevant!’

  Romana coughed. ‘You’re starting to get that mad gleam in your eye that the Doctor was talking about,’ she said, with a small sigh. ‘I knew you would. This is, after all, quite insane.’

  Skagra walked slowly closer to her. ‘You are afraid.’

  Romana tried to keep her gaze level. The longer she kept him talking, the greater the chance that something – anything – might stop him. ‘Of course. I’d be insane if I wasn’t afraid,’ she said.

  ‘There will be no fear in the Universal Mind,’ said Skagra. ‘But perhaps, just one last time, I should like to see that primitive animal emotion. I should like to see your fear, your terror. The terror of a Time Lord.’

  ‘You are seeing it,’ said Romana. ‘Is it worth it?’

  Skagra smiled, a broad, terrible smile, and strode to the nearest cabinet. He read the nameplate. ‘Subjatric the tyrant!’ Then he punched out a command sequence into a tiny panel built into the side of the cabinet.

  Immediately there was a scrape and a clank from somewhere deep in the dormant machinery. The door of the cabinet shuddered. Icy vapour began to swirl from within, the chemical tang catching at Romana’s throat.

  Skagra moved to the next cabinet and read off its nameplate. ‘Rundgar, brother to Subjatric. Together, they dragged Gallifrey down into a second Dark Age!’ He punched at the cabinet’s panel and there was another clanking noise and more freezing cryogenic gas swirled.

  ‘What are you doing, Skagra?’ demanded Romana. ‘You came here for Salyavin. These others can’t possibly mean anything to you.’

  Skagra moved to another cabinet. ‘But they mean something to you,’ he said. ‘It is a rare honour to bring a Time Lord’s nightmares to life.’ He entered the release code. Again the vapour poured out. ‘Lady Scintilla!’ he read from the nameplate. ‘And my actions have a practical purpose, as ever. They, along with you, of course, can become the first to participate in the Universal Mind!’

  Romana watched appalled as the doors of the cabinets, each one containing a forgotten horror of Gallifreyan civilisation, began slowly to creak open.

  Chapter 61

  CHRIS DECIDED TO break the silence. It was hard to think of anything worth saying to Clare in the face of the incredible events of the last few hours, and he’d have to choose his words carefully to avoid another argument. He was tempted to observe that it was odd how some days turned out, but realised that would just sound incredibly trite. Then he considered launching into a detailed and no doubt pertinent reappraisal of what their experiences might mean for science, but something told him that Clare might murder him before he could get to any particularly juicy bits of insight.

  So, as the universe might soon be coming to what might as well be an end, he decided to say, ‘I love you.’

  It was surprisingly easy once he’d made the actual decision. His lips were ready at last to form the first of those three little words. Here goes –

  ‘Chris,’ said Clare, breaking the silence. ‘There’s something very strange about Professor Chronotis.’

  Chris’s moment was lost. ‘Why single out the Professor?’ he asked instead, surprised and disappointed at how easily he’d given up. He looked anxiously towards the door. ‘And who knows what’s going on out there? Aliens, time travellers, ghosts, tin dogs, they’re all odd.’

  ‘Perhaps we can find out what’s happening,’ said Clare. She got up from the sofa and examined the control console. ‘There should be a scanner, and we could throw out an external line.’ She drummed her fingers on the edge of the panel.

  ‘I don’t like getting left behind,’ continued Chris. ‘I mean, just because we come from Earth doesn’t give everyone the right to be patronising to us.’

  Clare selected a control on the panel.

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ Chris advised, jumping up to guide her away from it. He looked down at the maze of instrumentation, shaking his head. ‘Admittedly, all this does make us look a bit primitive. I don’t have even the faintest idea how it all works.’

  ‘I have,’ said Clare, and pressed the control.

  Immediately there was the whirr and tick of hidden hydraulics, and a small screen extended from the control console. The screen showed a large, empty red-walled hallway.

  Chris blinked. ‘You have?’ He looked between Clare and the screen. ‘Yes, you obviously have.’ A thought struck him. And it would explain so much! ‘Of course! You’re from another planet!?’ he spluttered.

  Clare rolled her eyes and punched him on the shoulder. ‘No, you berk, I’m from Fallowfield. Now listen, I need to tell you something. About the Professor.’ She frowned and drummed her fingers on the panel again, as if trying to catch a fading thought.

  ‘Go on, then,’ urged Chris. ‘Tell me.’

  Clare tapped the screen. ‘The image translator is bussed into the real-world interface. It reads off the exact N-space coordinates.’

  Chris coughed. ‘That’s what you needed to tell me?’

  ‘No,’ said Clare after a pause, as if she was fighting some block of confusion in her mind.

  ‘It was something about the Professor,’ prompted Chris, a little worried. Clare was many things but she was not a scatterbrain. He blinked. And she was not a technical expert. She knew what she needed to know about the apparatus used in her field. But nothing beyond that. When he�
�d tried to interest her in his little proton accelerator, she’d turned up her nose and suggested they go to the pub.

  He realised Clare was staring at him, as if willing him to ask the right question. He’d often had that feeling from her, but this time she seemed almost desperate.

  ‘What you’re trying to say is that the Professor’s been teaching you how to work his machine?’

  Clare frowned. ‘Yes. No. He… he didn’t teach me. He showed me.’ She glanced between the control panel and Chris’s concerned face. ‘Chris, it all just sort of – appeared in my head. Like the Professor barged in the front door of my mind and shuffled my thoughts about. Suddenly I understand it all. But I don’t understand how I understand it.’

  Chris sighed with relief and patted Clare on the shoulder. ‘There there, Keightley, it’s just these TARDIS machines of theirs,’ he said confidently. ‘They let us understand any alien languages we might come across. The Doctor explained it. They rearrange the thoughts of their passengers automatically. It’s nothing to worry about.’

  Clare groaned. ‘Don’t be stupid, Chris. I think I know the difference between a simple extruded telepathic circuit’s field of operation and psycho-active addition.’

  Chris licked his lips. A thought, a very uncomfortable one, was forming at the back of his own mind. ‘Clare,’ he said slowly, ‘did you just say psycho-active addition?’ He thought back to the aftermath of the sphere’s attack on the Professor.

  Clare shrugged. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And such a power would be the opposite of psycho-active extraction, I guess?’

  Clare nodded. ‘Obviously.’ She blinked and shook her head. ‘But I don’t know how he made me know that it’s obvious.’

  ‘I think I’m just beginning to understand,’ said Chris. It was all adding up about Professor Chronotis. The book, the miraculous return from the dead, and now this –

  He made decisively for the door. ‘Wait here!’ he ordered Clare.

  ‘No way,’ said Clare, very aggressively.

  And then she said, ‘All right then,’ very agreeably, as if she was a completely different person.

  It looked as if she was surprising herself. Probably, thought Chris, she was – and this was all confirming his theory.

  Chris hovered at the door. ‘I’ve got to go after the Doctor. You’ll be safer here.’ He sneaked the door open.

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Clare. ‘I must stay here. Look after the old place.’

  Chris nodded slowly. Then he turned and set off decisively into Shada.

  And Clare, who hated being left behind, turned with a smile back to the scanner and began to search for an external line sub-routine on the image translator as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  Chapter 62

  LADY SCINTILLA, GREATEST of the Visionaries, stepped from the cabinet where she had been imprisoned for countless thousands of years.

  She was quite unlike the illustration in Our Planet Story, reflected Romana, not at all that haughty flame-haired woman in red robes. The real Lady Scintilla was short, even dumpy, and she wore a simple orange tunic with the number of her cell stencilled on the sleeve. Her eyes stared forward unseeing, her consciousness blurred from the cryogenic process. But there was one thing those illustrators of Gallifreyan nursery books had got absolutely right. Scintilla’s slender fingers ended in six-inch razor-sharp nails painted blood red.

  From the other cabinets staggered the tyrant brothers Subjatric and Rundgar, similarly attired in orange prisoners’ suits. They were tall, with the high domed foreheads, long, sallow faces and beaked noses so typical of the older Prydonian families. But there was, even in their current mindless state as they recovered from cryogenic immurement, a savageness and cruelty in those features, the innate primitivism that had caused them to usurp the powers of the then-President and wage terrible war on their own people.

  Romana called across to Skagra, who stood almost mesmerised before the reviving criminals. ‘They’ll be fully awake soon, Skagra. I wouldn’t give much for our chances when they come to.’

  ‘Thank you for the reminder,’ Skagra said neatly. ‘The time has come. The beginning of the Universal Mind.’ He sounded as if he could scarcely believe it himself.

  With a swift, cutting gesture he summoned the sphere into his gloved hand. Then he walked slowly and reverently towards another of the black slab-like cabinets.

  He reached out with his free hand and gently touched its ebonite surface. ‘In here. The man I have sought for so many long, long years. The man whose power I will use to reshape the entire universe!’

  His fingers moved to the cabinet’s small input panel.

  Romana felt black despair. In this, the darkest moment of her life, she permitted herself a supremely illogical and unscientific whim. Surrounded by nightmares of her childhood, as alone as she had ever been, she closed her eyes and wished.

  She wished the Doctor was here.

  Skagra’s gloved index finger tapped at the control panel, beginning to key in the release code.

  ‘Let Salyavin be released,’ he whispered.

  ‘Er, sorry to intrude again, Skagra,’ said a voice suddenly, the voice of the man Romana had wished for. ‘But I really wouldn’t do that, if I were you.’

  Skagra’s head whipped round. The Kraag Commander’s head whipped round. Romana, a smile illuminating her face, turned her head slowly and opened her eyes.

  In the doorway stood the Doctor, K-9 at his feet, and – incredibly, impossibly – the absolutely, definitely dead Professor Chronotis at his side. Romana hadn’t even dared wish for that! But how wonderful it was to see the nice old man again.

  ‘Doc-tor,’ gurgled Skagra, more than just a hint of a mad gleam in his eyes, the tic over his right temple kicking dangerously.

  ‘Well if it’s not him, it’s someone very handsome wearing his scarf,’ said the Doctor, striding into the chamber. He patted Romana gently on the back. ‘Hello, Romana, not dead I see. Good, good.’ He blinked at the three prisoners, who were milling about like zombies by their cabinets. ‘Quite a party you’ve got going here, Skagra. Don’t think much of this lot, they look half-cut already, and it’s always best to try for a good mix of evil and not evil on the guest list, I find.’ He nodded to the Kraag Commander. ‘You need to have a word with your bouncer. So, is nobody going to offer me a crisp?’

  Chronotis shot forward, passing the apparently casual Doctor with surprising agility. ‘Skagra, stop! You must not release Salyavin!’

  Skagra signalled to the Kraag Commander. It stomped angrily towards the intruders, glowing claw outstretched. Chronotis was forced to retreat by the intense heat, staggering back into the Doctor’s arms.

  ‘You’re too late!’ cried Skagra. He pressed the final key in the sequence and stood back, eyes glittering. ‘Salyavin is released!’ he cried.

  The inner mechanism of the cabinet clunked.

  Cryogenic gas swirled from within.

  The heavy door creaked slowly open.

  Romana looked instinctively for the Doctor’s reaction. To her amazement, he wore an expression that seemed knowing and slightly amused.

  The door swung fully open.

  There was nobody inside.

  Skagra stared into the cabinet. He seemed to see something through the dissipating vapour. Then he let out a guttural, animal cry and collapsed to his knees, the sphere falling from his grasp and hovering distantly as if confused.

  ‘Careful what you wish for, Skagra,’ said the Doctor, almost pityingly.

  ‘Salyavin…’ whispered Skagra in a small, broken voice. ‘Where is Salyavin?’

  The Doctor ushered Romana, K-9 and the Professor gently forward. The Kraag Commander, seemingly baffled by this turn of events, simply let them pass.

  Romana looked beyond Skagra and into the empty cabinet. Where the Great Mind Outlaw should have been was nothing but a sheet of paper, fastened to the back wall with a drawing pin. Romana gasped at the message it bore:r />
  It was the ancient V of Rassilon, the greatest and rudest insult of the Dark Times. The script beneath read in Old High Gallifreyan:

  HA HA HA, ———1 YOU! LOVE SALYAVIN X

  ‘No, this cannot be,’ whimpered Skagra. ‘My life’s work… the Universal Mind…’

  The Doctor gently lifted Skagra to his feet. ‘The dream is over, Skagra,’ he said almost sadly. ‘The Great Salyavin fooled all of us. He escaped from Shada centuries ago.’

  Skagra almost fell into the Doctor’s arms. Tears began to cascade from his eyes.

  ‘Help me,’ he wailed. ‘Please – help me, Doctor…’

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ said the Doctor, looking around at Romana, Professor Chronotis and K-9. ‘There’s nothing for any of us to worry about now.’

  Skagra’s anguished sobs grew louder.

  The Doctor patted him on the back. ‘There there, it probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway. Between you and me, Skagra, using that one little sphere to dominate the minds of everyone in the universe would have taken an incredibly long time, probably more time than the old thing’s got left to it anyway. I don’t honestly think you’d thought that bit through properly.’

  Chronotis had shuffled past the Kraag, and was looking into the empty cabinet. He tugged at the Doctor’s sleeve. ‘Then it really is all over, Doctor?’

  The Doctor nodded. ‘Yes, Professor Chronotis.’ He smiled warmly down at the little old man. ‘We’ll clean up a bit, find poor old Skagra here the help he so desperately needs, get these charming people –’ he indicated the Ancient Outlaws – ‘back to sleep, and then I see no reason why Shada shouldn’t stay a secret, as Salyavin intended. Then we all go home for tea and crackers.’

  ‘As Salyavin intended?’ queried Romana.

  ‘He was the Great Mind Outlaw, remember,’ said the Doctor. ‘And what a great escape he made. What better than to vamoose and then use your mind powers to make your jailers forget there was ever a jail in the first place?’

  Chris Parsons hurried through the deep, dark red hallways of Shada. At last he would prove himself, at last he was going to be useful, and at last he’d show the universe in general – and Clare in particular – that he was no slouch. There were no flies on Chris Parsons! Whatever that meant.