The Sixth Doctor thought for a moment then frowned. 'Not really - the trial wasn't going too badly, I thought. I flatter myself that I'd presented one or two rather impressive arguments. Then suddenly everything blurred and there I was being sentenced to death and marched off to execution.'
The Doctor nodded. 'I believe the Valeyard was trying to force an alternative timeline. If he'd managed to have you executed, that line would have become the true one. By rescuing you I destroyed it.'
'Nonsense! The Valeyard is a petty legal official. Temporal manipulation of that kind would be quite beyond him.'
'I think the Valeyard is considerably more that that,' said the Doctor quietly.
'According to your - our - memory of him anyway. Tell me, didn't you find him curiously familiar?'
'No I didn't,' said the Sixth Doctor irritably. 'What are we going to do when we arrive on Gallifrey? March into the President's office and demand an explanation?'
'Yes, we are as a matter of fact.'
'Terrific. As an escaped prisoner, I'll probably be shot on sight!'
'Don't worry, I've got a plan.'
'I'd be interested to hear it.'
'All in good time. Meanwhile think about where you were - before the firing squad business I mean.'
The Sixth Doctor looked puzzled. 'In a courtroom.'
'Yes, but where was the courtroom?'
'I'm not sure. Some kind of space station, wasn't it?'
'Exactly. I took a visual record on my way in.'
The Doctor touched a control and the space station appeared on the scanner screen. For a moment the two Doctors studied it.
The space station was an impressive sight. It hung in space like some vast Baroque cathedral embellished with spires and towers and battlements, surrounded by a huge floating graveyard of wrecked spaceships, lashed by the electric lightning-flares of an unending space storm.
'Extraordinary place,' said the Sixth Doctor. 'I didn't really take it in on my arrival.'
'What's really extraordinary is the fact that you - we -were brought there at all,' said the Doctor.
The Sixth Doctor shrugged. 'I was brought there for my trial.'
'Yes, but why there?' persisted the Doctor. 'Why not in the Capitol on Gallifrey - surely that's the only proper place for the trial of a Time Lord?'
'Security?'
'Undoubtedly - but whose?'
'Not mine, certainly!'
The Doctor nodded towards the monitor screen. 'Just look at the place,' he urged. 'It's in a kind of limbo.
As far as I can tell, it's not on any established interplanetary routes. It's in an area of perpetual space turbulence, surrounded by the hulks of spaceships, presumably wrecked in the unending storms. A kind of Sargasso Sea in space.'
'A good place to avoid.'
'It most certainly is. And I'll tell you another thing. The bulk of metallic debris around the place and the constant electrical storms would confuse most spaceship scanning systems. Any spaceships that did wander near would probably just register the space wrecks and clear off as soon as they could.'
'I'm a little fed up with playing Doctor Watson to your brilliant Sherlock Holmes,' snapped the Sixth Doctor.
'Would you mind getting to the point?'
'Come on, Doctor, think! Who do we know with the motivation, the resources, and the sheer low-down, deceitful sneakiness to set up a massive well-protected covert base?'
Put like that it was obvious.
'The Agency!'
'Exactly!' said the Doctor. 'Our old friends the Celestial Intervention Agency.
And what I want to know is - why are they providing the setting for my trial?'
***
'A Presidential Inquiry?'
President Niroc was appalled.
He had been looking steadily more horrified ever since the TARDIS had materialised in the anteroom to the Council Conference Room, having apparently bypassed the transduction barriers as though they didn't exist.
Apparently the barriers had mysteriously switched themselves off as the obsolete Type Forty TARDIS arrived, switching themselves on again as soon as it had materialised.
The transduction barrier technicians were baffled.
'Rassilon knows what's going on,' said one of them.
'Yes,' agreed his friend. 'He probably does...'
The two Doctors had then marched into the conference room, interrupting a vital meeting of the Inner Council and demanding an immediate interview.
The breach of the Capitol's security had brought the arrival of a squad of the colourfully-uniformed Capitol Guard, slighdy too late as usual, and looking, as always, as if about to burst into a rousing chorus.
By then the Doctors had established their joint identity beyond dispute by a brief telepathic mind-link to the President.
It was hard to tell what horrified President Niroc most -the fact that there were two of them or the fact that they were there at all. He sent the guards away, having, at the
Doctor's suggestion, suspended the meeting of the Inner Council.
'We have matters of the highest Presidential and State security to discuss,'
said the Doctor mysteriously.' Too sensitive even for the Inner Council itself.'
With much discontented muttering, the elaborately robed members of the Inner Council had filed from the conference chamber, and the President had taken the two Doctors into the luxurious Presidential suite, where he had made an attempt to assert his authority.
Since he was thin, rather ratty-looking and unusually short for a Time Lord, this wasn't easy, but he had done his best.
'All this is most irregular, Doctor - Doctors. You have no right to be here at all - and to be here in two incarnations concurrently...'
'As I'm sure you realise, my Lord President, such an event is only possible in the gravest emergencies.
There are, after all, several precedents.'
Niroc gulped. Had the Doctor the backing of some higher authority? Higher even than the Presidency?
'You mean -'
The Doctor held up his hand. 'At this time, we can say no more - can we Doctor?'
'Certainly not,' said the Sixth Doctor sternly, wondering what the Doctor was talking about.
The Doctor didn't know either. He was bluffing as usual, carrying things off with a high hand.
'Very well,' said President Niroc. 'For the moment we will leave the matter of your actual presence aside. What really concerns me is this - why are you here?'
'To demand an immediate Presidential Inquiry into my trial.'
A Presidential Inquiry? An inquiry into an ongoing trial - an inquiry into an inquiry?' Horrified, President Niroc shook his head. 'Such an inquiry is in the gift of the President alone - and I most certainly refuse.'
'I urge you to reconsider, Lord President,' said the Doctor.
With all the obstinacy of a weak man, Niroc shook his head.
'Why should I listen to you?'
Tired of being a bystander, the Sixth Doctor joined in.'To begin with, there is a strong possibility that I, not you am Lord President of Gallifrey,' he said calmly.
'How dare you make such a claim?'
'I was informed at the trial that I had been deposed; said the Sixth Doctor.
'We both know that such a deposition, carried out in absentia, is of questionable legality.'
Like the Doctor, the Sixth Doctor was largely bluffing. However, a sudden flicker of alarm in the Lord President's eyes told him that perhaps he might really be on to something. Perhaps I'm still President after all, he thought.
He folded his arms and put a noble, Presidential expression on his face.
'The claim is ridiculous,' said Niroc, trying to sound more certain than he felt.
'Even if you oppose the claim,' said the Doctor, 'You will not deny that I am ex-President of Gallifrey?'
'Ex-President, certainly.'
'It is the traditional privilege of an ex-President of Gallifrey,' said the Doctor sternly,
'to summon a Presidential Inquiry, if he is convinced that matters of Gallifreyan security are involved.'
Niroc gaped at him.
'It's quite true,' said the Doctor cheerfully. 'Read the small print. I studied the Presidential Charter one dull afternoon. I think it was intended as a way for ex-Presidents to keep an eye on the excesses of their successors.'
'So you see,' said the Sixth Doctor,
'we can pursue our claim for an inquiry either as ex-President or as President!'
'It's entirely up to you, Lord President; said the Doctor.
'Of course,' said the Sixth Doctor consolingly, 'when you're deposed you can always set up an Ex-President's Presidential Inquiry!'
Niroc thought hard, but could see no
way out.
'Very well, I will order a Presidential Inquiry. It will begin as soon as the trial is over.'
'That will be a little late,' said the Sixth Doctor. 'As soon as the trial is over I will very probably be dead.'
'The inquiry will begin immediately,' said the Doctor.
'But half the High Council are away; protested President Niroc. "They're serving as jurors on the Doctor's - on your trial.'
'Excellent!' said the Sixth Doctor.
'Only half a dozen are needed for the Committee of Inquiry - and I should very much prefer to choose from those Time Lords who were not selected as jurors at my trial!'
'We shall need a small secure conference room with access to a Matrix screen,' said the Doctor. 'We will also need the use of an office with a data terminal.'
Scowling ominously, Niroc sent for an aide and gave orders that the Doctors were to have whatever facilities they required.
When the Doctors and the astonished aide had departed, President Niroc announced that he was not to be disturbed.
Once the doors were sealed, he went to a corner behind his enormous desk and pressed one of the mouldings in the elaborately-decorated wall-panelling. A panel slid back revealing a concealed, sound-only corn-unit.
The President punched a secret code into the console.
A calm, faintly-inhuman voice said,
'Yes?'
'This is the President.'
The voice seemed unimpressed.
'Why have you called? This unit is for use only in a crisis.'
'This is a crisis. The Ravolox arrangements are in jeopardy.'
'Explain.'
'The Doctor is here - two Doctors. They're demanding an inquiry...'
Niroc poured out the whole story of the Doctors' arrival. When he had finished the voice said, 'Wait,' and the corn-unit went dead. The President could imagine the urgent discussions taking place in some secret conference room. He waited, his panic already beginning to subside. Those he served could deal with the problem of the Doctors. They could deal with anything.
The corn-unit came to life again. 'Niroc.'
'I'm here.'
'Continue to give the Doctor every cooperation in the setting up of his inquiry.'
'But if he starts asking questions about -'
The cold voice cut him off. 'The Doctor's inquiry will never take place.'
'What are you going to -'
'Obey instructions. Measures will be taken.'
'What measures?'
'You have no need to know.'
The corn-unit went dead and the President closed the secret panel. He took his place at his desk and let his staff know that he was once again available for Presidential affairs.
His panic had completely subsided now. Let the Doctors set up their ridiculous inquiry. They would never live to see its end.
Indeed, given the ruthless efficiency of his unseen masters, they might not even live to see it begin.
Chapter 18
Flavia
The Presidential aide detailed to look after the Doctors was a stiff-necked and aristocratic young Time Lord called Plinoc. It soon became apparent that he owed his post to his high-ranking social position rather than to his intelligence or his charm.
Plinoc listened to President Niroc's orders with horrified disbelief, regarded the two Doctors, especially the Sixth Doctor with deep distress and said curtty/Follow me, please.'
He took them to a small, luxuriously-furnished office just off the Presidential suite.
The Doctor regarded it with approval. Perhaps this young fellow was more efficient that he appeared.
'Excellent,' said the Doctor. 'Exactly what we need, first try. Well done!'
Plinoc smiled thinly at this young upstart's naivety.
'I'm afraid you are under a misapprehension, Doctor. Finding the accommodation you have requested is going to be very difficult. The Capitol is terribly overcrowded already. Perhaps somewhere on the outer periphery.'
'Then what's this place?' demanded the Sixth Doctor.
'This is, in fact, my office.'
'Not, in fact, any more it isn't,' said the Doctor. 'We're taking it over. Just you go off and find us a suitable conference room for the Presidential Inquiry.'
'Oh, and we should like some refreshment sent in as soon as you can,' said the Sixth Doctor. 'Wine, pasties, cakes, cold meats, a few puddings and syllabubs and so on. The best of everything will do.'
'I must protest -'
'I shouldn't bother,' said the Doctor.
'You heard the President say we were to have whatever we wanted. Well, at this particular moment in time, as they say, your office is exactly what we want!'
'And the refreshments,' said the Sixth Doctor. 'Don't forget the refreshments!'
They bustled the still-protesting Plinoc out, then, the Sixth Doctor went over to the data terminal in the corner. 'We'd better start selecting our committee. There must be some honest Time Lords left on Gallifrey.'
As he spoke a small, neat, determined-looking Time Lady hurried into the room. She stopped short at the sight of the Doctor, hesitating for a moment.
'Doctor?'
They exchanged the brief moment of mind-touch that courtesy required in such situations.
'Doctor, it is you! I couldn't believe it when they said you were back!' She studied the Doctor affectionately for a moment. 'Another regeneration, I see. Very wise of you. I thought the last was a little - vivid. This one however has been most successful. I've seldom seen you look better, Doctor.'
'Thank you, Lady Flavia. A great pleasure to see you again.' The Doctor took her outstretched hand and kissed it. 'You, of course, are as lovely as ever.'
'It's me as well,' said the Sixth Doctor, emerging from behind the data terminal. He sounded rather hurt. 'In fact, I was me long before I was him!'
Flavia stared open-mouthed at the colourful figure before her. There was another moment of mind-touch -with the same result - before she sank into one of the guest chairs.
'You're both the Doctor. This is highly irregular, even for you! I know there are precedents, but those took place in cases of the most extreme emergency -'
'This is an emergency,' said the Doctor. 'Something is rotten in the state of Gallifrey.'
Lady Flavia was silent for a moment.
'I cannot deny that what you say is true, Doctor. It has been hard for me to speak out. As a deposed President myself, my motives might be questioned.'
'Not by us,' said the Sixth Doctor.
'What's been going on here?'
'I scarcely know where to begin, Doctor.'
The Doctor produced one of his favourite quotations from the literature of his favourite planet.' "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop." Go back to the last time you had more than one of us to deal with.'
Lady Flavia collected her thoughts, then began.
'As you know, Doctor, I was rather pitchforked into the Presidency when President Borusa's mysterious disappearance was followed by your own precipitate departure from Gallifrey.'
The Doctor looked abashed and murmured an apology.
Flavia waved it aside. 'As it happened, things worked out surprisingly well. I served for so
me time and achieved much. People and Council alike were content, and Gallifrey prospered.
Then I became aware of - murmurings.'
'What kind of murmurings?' asked the Doctor. 'It was said that I had never been properly elected, that it was time to give the High Council a proper choice. At first the complaint seemed reasonable. I had assumed the Presidency in irregular circumstances on a temporary basis. Through long use I had come to think of the office as my own by right.'
Doctor Who: The Eight Doctors Page 19
