Doctor Who: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead (Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious)

by Steve Cole

  Chapter Eight

  The Doctor was trying not to think of the jumble of words and numbers that kept bubbling up through his memories. He told himself: You’re the master of your own fate. Of everyone’s fate, if you choose to be. You’ve never fitted in with someone else’s pattern, and you’re not going to now.

  Then he thought of the ancient Andalian, cross-legged in the Tombs of the Ended. The one who’d called talk of the Kotturuh, ‘Scare-stories.’

  Perhaps there was some truth in that? The Doctor had given himself a full diagnostic check-over. There was no kind of chronolock. No evidence of genetic tampering. Only traces of Kotturuh DNA on his throat from where it had gripped him, and the spatio-temporal coordinates. Some sort of autosuggestion, he supposed; simple enough technique. Well, he’d make sure to steer clear of Andalia. Why would he ever want to go back?

  I’m a Time Lord, the Doctor told himself. Whatever relationship the Kotturuh have with Death and changing form, mine goes back further.

  ‘Mr Ball has located the source of the transmat beam!’ Brian declared, pointing to a tumbling rock on the scanner. ‘An asteroid in deep space beyond this star system.’

  The Doctor came over to take a closer look. In a way, the Dark Times were not well named; the image of space was not uniform black, pricked with stars as in his age. It was clumpy, with stars of so many colours ranged across the void in ragged streamers. Distant galaxies were still close enough to be seen unaided, haunting the void like eerie phantoms.

  Mind shying from the image, he focused on the asteroid and noticed something like a golden bud stuck to one side of the rock. He scanned closer. ‘It’s a spacecraft. Mid-sized freighter by the looks of it, hugging that asteroid to avoid Kotturuh detection. Let’s drop in on them, shall we?’

  ‘A logical next step.’ Brian regarded him. ‘Are you feeling any ill effects?’

  ‘Whoa!’ The Doctor jumped as a twisted, hideous figure suddenly rose into view before them on the screen. A snarl was fixed on its grey, stone-like face, claws extended towards them like a starving beast reaching for meat. But this was no attack. The creature was tumbling slowly in the void.

  ‘Our friend the gargoyle from Mordeela,’ the Doctor realised. ‘It must’ve escaped … or been thrown overboard.’

  ‘Perhaps the child caught hold of it in error,’ said Brian.

  ‘What coordinates was it repeating?’

  ‘Mr Ball believes it was, Betel asha tisa-two-erba-zero-sebe thalathun.’

  The Doctor tapped the data into the TARDIS systems and checked the readout. ‘Planet called Turska Gordansis. Datepoint … some six months from now.’

  The body grew transparent and seemed to gust away in impossible winds.

  ‘The Kotturuh?’ Brian suggested awkwardly, as if naming a former lover in front of a spouse. ‘Reclaiming what’s theirs?’

  ‘Nothing’s theirs.’ The Doctor flicked some switches and the materialisation motors shook through the ship. ‘I just hope Estinee’s all right.’

  He stepped out into a rusty cargo hold, lit by fierce white lights. The mining machine was parked on a transport pad, a hatch open in the side. There was a compartment hidden inside, large enough to hide a child. Crystals spilled out from the hatchway.

  ‘Not just extracting Estinee, then,’ the Doctor murmured, picking up a handful of crystals. ‘They really were mining.’

  Brian’s attention was taken by something else. A nameplate. ‘This is the Polythrope,’ he said. ‘The ship owned by Professor Fallomax.’

  ‘She’s getting the old act back together,’ the Doctor breathed. ‘Let’s go softly, till we learn what’s what.’

  Estinee sat slumped in a seat in the Polythrope’s control deck, sipping warm berryjuice. The relief of hearing the motors of the mining robot coming down the tunnel towards her! She’d been terrified that the Kotturuh would find it slipping through their shields this time and destroy it before she could crawl inside for cover. And then, when the Doctor had taken control of the machine, she’d felt for sure that she was dead. If Fallomax hadn’t reasserted remote control and teleported her out …

  The random blinking of the lights and the turn of the drive spools were a comforting mechanical lullaby after all she’d been through on Mordeela. She also took a strange, arm’s-length comfort from Fallomax’s souvenirs of home – the intricate patterns of the mats hanging from the walls, the carvings and the ceremonial knick-knacks ranged along the consoles … They made the confines of their shared space a little homelier.

  Estinee understood the need to hold on to things that were lost. She still had her doll, sat in a dusty corner waiting for a harvest party that would never happen. I’m too old for dolls, she told herself as usual. But she smiled at the doll all the same and imagined it smiled back.

  The only flicker of happiness had come when she’d shrugged off her Lifeshroud at last. It sat in a heap at her feet, and she felt so much lighter. But still she was cold, with a shivering she knew would stay with her for days. Just the touch of the Kotturuh left her feeling that way.

  Professor Fallomax was programming her computer. Her pale violet skin glowed in the glare of the screen, and over her black jumpsuit she wore the original, bulkier Lifeshroud, its cables cobwebbing her limbs. Like a picket fence half lost in overgrown land, she wore a coronet of wire and crystal over her crimson hair and the high slope of her forehead. Depending on her mood, Fallomax called this Lifeshroud ‘my hiding place’ or ‘my prison’. Estinee was just grateful it worked. If the Kotturuh had tracked down Fallomax, they’d have killed her – and Estinee might have stayed lost on Mordeela for ever.

  ‘Did you wait for me?’ she asked Fallomax.

  ‘Sure I did. Waiting for you my whole life, kid.’ Fallomax had brought up a solar system schematic on the screen; the lines of orbit made reflected halos around the double-iris in each of her eyes.

  ‘On Andalia, I mean. Did you wait for me?’

  ‘Well, I had to take off. You’d been kidnapped. The Kotts were coming. I couldn’t risk them finding me, could I? I tried to fix the teleport on your Lifeshroud but it wouldn’t respond …’

  Estinee kicked the ’Shroud. ‘You should fix that.’

  ‘I will. Now, our friend the gargoyle is indeed from Turska Gordansis … out in the Dekmar Wastes. Attack coming in … six months or so?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Estinee slumped further back in her seat. ‘You wanted me to get caught by the Kotts again, didn’t you. So I could find you more dates for shifting Lifeshrouds.’

  ‘You think I like risking Kott contact – even with a customised mining robot? Anyway, we’ve already got two shows upcoming.’ Fallomax tapped on a planet showing just at the edge of her screen, and data flowed across it. ‘But now Turska Gordansis can slot in just before Panhelion. The systems are a good distance apart, with luck the Panhelions won’t hear a thing of how it goes on TG …’ She looked sideways at Estinee. ‘Course, it is a shame you couldn’t bring back any more Kott victims so we can really rack up those dates …’

  ‘I tried. But I never thought the Doctor would come looking for me.’ Estinee thought of the white-headed creature with the wormy mouth beside him. ‘I had to try and help him. Him and that thing …’

  ‘I don’t know why your Doctor’s come sticking his nose in, but he can take it out again.’ Fallomax was only half listening, Estinee knew – lost in the scrolling green data on the screen. ‘Ah, good. There’s been a lot of Death Fear on TG. And each continental empire would sell out the others for some kind of advantage …’ She looked up, stared into space – quite literally – through the cockpit windows. ‘After you’ve demonstrated Lifeshroud a few times around the planet, demand ought to build—’

  ‘No way. No more than one demo per planet!’

  ‘Orders are never so good on a video. They miss the theatre of it.’

  ‘It. Hurts.’

  ‘I know, I know. Fine. One show. Just make it a good one.’ Fallomax was back staring
at data on the screen. ‘We’ll have to check how quickly TG can raise funds for outer-world credit. If we time it right, we should be able to take payment for Lifeshrouds and the crystals to power them before the Kotts come swooping in, so we don’t miss out like on Andalia …’

  ‘Excuse me, Professor Fallomax?’

  The voice came from behind them. Fallomax jumped and swore while Estinee yelped.

  A familiar pinstriped figure, gaunt and dishevelled, stood in the cockpit doorway with the Ood beside him. ‘I’m the Doctor, this is Brian.’

  ‘Surprise,’ said Brian, attempting an evil inflection.

  Fallomax was floored. ‘Where did you …? What are you …?’

  ‘What am I? Right now? Hmm.’ The Doctor pretended to think about it. ‘Angry. Yeah, angry about sums me up.’

  ‘I can’t have people on my ship.’ Fallomax started scrabbling in a drawer. ‘Leave my ship.’

  ‘Same way as your Very Important Gargoyle from Turska Gordansis left it – straight overboard? No, thanks. And I wouldn’t go for a weapon either, if I were you.’

  Fallomax turned, holding a small bronze pistol. A crackle of energy burst from the sphere the Ood cupped in its hand and the pistol was knocked to the floor.

  ‘Told you. Leave it there.’ The Doctor seemed to be talking to both Brian and Fallomax. Then he looked at Estinee. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘The Professor got me a ride—’

  Fallomax shot her a look. ‘Keep out of this, Estinee.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure she’d love to,’ said the Doctor, stepping forward. ‘But you haven’t given her much of a chance, have you – demonstrating the power of your wonderful product wherever you go? Only now we know what you’ve really been up to, don’t we?’

  ‘We do, Doctor,’ Brian agreed graciously.

  ‘At first, I thought the Kotturuh followed you to the worlds you brought your show to – striking before the populations have the chance to get their Lifeshrouds working. But it’s the other way round, isn’t it?’ The Doctor looked at Fallomax, and the anger had gone, replaced with a disappointment that was somehow worse. ‘You find out where the Kotturuh are headed, and get there just ahead of them. Peddling your Lifeshrouds to the masses, playing on their fears, giving them hope … Taking their cash knowing full well they won’t live long enough to use them.’

  Fallomax looked down at her pistol on the floor. ‘You don’t know a thing about me, or Lifeshroud—’

  ‘So, tell me, what d’you do, circle back when the dust has settled? Gather up your Lifeshrouds where they dropped in the dust and stick them on the trolley ready for the next suckers? Why not? It’s only you who knows what’s coming for them, cos you let a child spy on the Kotturuh for you …’

  ‘Look at me!’ Fallomax gestured at her Lifeshroud bodysuit, and the crown jammed into her hair. ‘You think I wear this stuff for fun? You think I want to fund my work this way?’

  ‘I haven’t the first clue,’ the Doctor stormed back. ‘And I don’t know how you first came to use Estinee in your Wild Frontier Theatre show or why the Kotturuh should want to take her back to Mordeela when she’s already been judged, or how you’re able to steal stuff away from under their big veiled noses but—’

  Estinee was so riveted by the anger in the Doctor’s voice – by the idea that he should actually seem to care about her welfare – that she didn’t notice Brian’s furtive movement until it was too late to react. He had taken a slender silver gun from the lining of his black jacket.

  And she screamed as he fired it straight at her.

  Estinee blazed bright as a sun in the gun’s energies. Brian kept his finger calmly on the trigger.

  ‘What the …?’ The Doctor threw himself at Brian, brought his fist down on the Ood’s arm. The gun was chopped from Brian’s grip, and he put up no resistance as the Doctor shoved him up against the wall of the cockpit, shaking with fury. ‘Why would you do that?’ Fearing what he would see, he turned first to Fallomax – who had fallen back in her chair with her hands shielding her eyes – and then to Estinee herself.

  She lay like a broken doll in the tattered remains of her linen jumpsuit. Her skin had been burned glossy-red. It was veined with ash.

  He tightened his grip on Brian’s shoulders. ‘She wasn’t wearing the Lifeshroud!’

  ‘And yet,’ Brian panted through his red morass of fronds, ‘she is breathing.’

  The Doctor turned, watched, incredulous, as Estinee started to shiver and twitch. He let go of Brian and crossed to her. The angry glare of her skin was fading already, just as it had on Andalia.

  ‘She’s alive. Healing.’ The Doctor looked at Fallomax. ‘She’s not wearing the Lifeshroud …’

  ‘Mr Ball has reached a conclusion, Doctor, ’ said Brian quietly. ‘It is not the Lifeshroud that cheats death. It’s Estinee. She does it herself.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Medicapsule, Professor.’ The Doctor’s voice shook as he lifted Estinee in his arms. ‘You must have one on board.’

  ‘Yes, last room astern,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to worry about Estinee, she’ll be all right—’

  ‘I suppose this must happen a lot,’ the Doctor said icily. ‘All part of the medicine show. Lifeshroud is the Dark Times’ equivalent of snake oil – a useless “cure-all” tonic sold to the gullible, the desperate – the dying, though they don’t even know it.’

  ‘It will save lives,’ Fallomax protested. ‘It’s not a magic cure against all death but it will keep them safe from the Kotturuh. I’ve got more of the Mordeela crystals now, I just need time and funding to—’

  ‘Shut up, you’ll keep. Now, you.’ The Doctor swung his attention threateningly back to Brian. ‘One thing, and make it good. How did you know you wouldn’t kill her for real?’

  ‘Intuition on my part. Observation on Mr Ball’s.’ Brian shrugged slightly. ‘When I fired upon her on the stage, she tried to work the Lifeshroud’s transmat. It seemed to me that the entire circuit was jammed, and yet cellular regeneration still took place. She is the miracle here, not the technology.’

  ‘You didn’t know for certain.’

  ‘I am certain now. There had to be a reason why the Kotturuh would confine her to Mordeela when she’s already been judged. She is a freak of nature – a child immune to their touch. Immune to death.’

  The Doctor pushed past him, rushing Estinee to the medicapsule, a large brass coffin-shaped affair set into a pink, stuccoed alcove. Dark Times! He could’ve laughed: the beautiful improbability of a child naturally immune to death; these days deserved to be called the Brightest Times Of All. But of course, always, there were creatures like the Kotturuh wanting to take something so miraculous, so wonderful, and drag it down into the dirt and darkness, try to break it or suppress it. Angrily he kicked a green button on the side of the medicapsule and its lid swung open. He laid Estinee down in it and hit the heal cycle.

  Then the ship pitched under some great impact, throwing him against the wall. The whushhh of the ship’s systems was replaced moments later by the froufrou swank of an extremely irritating alarm.

  ‘What’s happening?’ the Doctor cried.

  ‘Something just burned away our cover,’ Fallomax shouted.

  ‘The asteroid has been destroyed,’ Brian confirmed.

  The Doctor ran back. Every light and gauge in the room was glowing purple. Indicator needles jumped as if in time to a skipping pulse. Chunks of rubble floated past the cockpit window.

  ‘Unidentified ship, closing fast,’ said Fallomax.

  ‘Kotturuh?’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Can’t tell,’ said Fallomax, ‘scanners are out.’

  A low clanging rumble rang through the Polythrope.

  ‘Whoever they are, they’re going to board,’ said Brian, the silver gun back in his grip. He hurried away back towards the cargo bay.

  ‘No time to get us all into the TARDIS …’ The Doctor scooped up the bronze pistol from the floor
and looked at Fallomax. ‘You and I are going to have a talk. But first things first.’ He pressed the pistol into her grip. ‘Stay with Estinee.’

  Then he turned and ran after Brian through the mauve shadows of the Polythrope. He found the Ood back in the cargo bay, shifting the mining machine in front of the filigree airlock shutters to form a barrier.

  The Doctor pulled out his sonic and buzzed the doors – just as they began to rumble open. ‘No good, can’t keep them locked. That ship must’ve hacked the security protocols …’

  ‘Take cover?’ Brian gestured behind the mining machine as if it were a place set for dinner.

  ‘Let’s try some diplomacy,’ the Doctor suggested, as two humanoid creatures in thick, yellow protective suits and bulbous space helmets ducked under the barrier, ornate rifles in their many-fingered grip. ‘Hello! I’m the Doctor and it’s not my ship either. Perhaps we should put down the guns and talk?’

  The two guards hesitated. Brian shot them and they fell back screaming in an intense burst of light.

  ‘Excellent diplomacy, Doctor,’ Brian said.

  ‘You killed them?’

  ‘I am an assassin.’ He fired a third energy blast that cut down the next guard too.

  ‘Stop it!’ The Doctor wrestled the gun off him. ‘No one’s paying you!’

  ‘On the contrary, good Doctor. I am paying him. So I’d thank him to stop eliminating my troops!’

  The Doctor and Brian turned as the door finished rising. A hairy, misshapen blob with a single eye, the size of a Shetland pony, perched on three fleshy tails. It was no hologram this time, but the real, living—

  ‘High Ambassador Chalskal!’ The Doctor stared. ‘How’d you find us?’

  ‘I believe Brian referred to it as Snoop DNA? I surreptitiously light-scanned a good deal into his own system so I could follow your progress.’

  Brian bristled. ‘I was about to say that Mr Ball and I apologise for terminating your employees. However …’

  ‘Your efficiency is commended,’ Chalskal said, waving the matter away, and swung himself forward. ‘As High Ambassador of Skalithai and Standing Throne-Being of the Pan-Victis Defensive Alliance, I offer you this formal bow of appreciation for the success of your mission.’