Doctor Who: The Eight Doctors

by Terrance Dicks

'We're doing all we can, but you see how things are. We need some great leader to unify us, a person everyone will listen to...' She hesitated as an idea struck her. 'Perhaps if you were to address them?'

  'Me?' The Doctor shook his head. 'I'm linked to the scandal that caused all this. Besides, in this incarnation I don't officially exist yet. No, I couldn't win them over -'

  Suddenly the Doctor broke off, staring into space - or rather, into his own past, the past which had only recently become available to him once more.

  Would it, could it work? he wondered. Dare I even ask?

  'What's the matter, Doctor?' asked Flavia in alarm. Was the Doctor about to fade away when they needed him most?

  'I couldn't win them over,' repeated the Doctor. 'But I know a Time Lord who could... Lady Flavia, you must hold the fort here. Filibuster if you have to, but don't let them dissolve the High Council until I get back!'

  He ran from the Panopticon Hall, leaving behind the scene of mounting chaos.

  ***

  As he hurried along the deserted corridors a voice yelled, 'Down, Doctor!'

  Instinctively the Doctor threw himself flat, just as the fierce crackle of a staser-bolt sizzled over his head. Then the roar of blaster-fire passed over his prone body, this time from somewhere behind him, and he saw a black-clad figure topple from a high balcony, staser-rifle still clutched in lifeless hands.

  'Are you all right, Doctor?' called a familiar voice.

  He turned and saw General Vared running towards him, leading a squad of the Capitol Guard.

  'They nearly got you that time,' he said. 'We've mopped up most of them, but there are still a few snipers left.

  Luckily the Shobogans are staying quiet.'

  'Only for another twenty-four hours,' said the Doctor, and explained the deal that he'd made.

  'Well done, Doctor,' said General

  Vared. 'Where are you off to now?'

  'It's vital that I get to the President's office as quickly as possible.'

  'I'll send a couple of my men with you, just in case.'

  ***

  So it was that, escorted by two of the Capitol Guard, the Doctor reached President Niroc's office without further incident.

  Dismissing them with thanks, he hurried inside. The luxurious suite of offices was empty. Presumably Niroc was somewhere in the Panopticon hall, lobbying for dear life - his own.

  The Doctor made his way to the Inner Council conference room, and stood looking around. It was quite unchanged. There was the harp on its stand in the corner with the portrait of Rassilon, the legendary Time Lord hero, behind it.

  There was a secret door beneath the portrait, but the Doctor was not concerned with that now. He went to the transmat booth in the corner, studied the controls and searched his Time Lord memory for the setting he needed. After a short while he made a careful adjustment and the booth lit up. The Doctor stepped inside and faded away.

  ***

  He arrived, as he had hoped, in an antiquated transmat booth that stood incongruously in a shadowy corner of a vast cathedral-like chamber. In the centre of the chamber was an enormous bier, on which lay the effigy of a motionless figure dressed in ancient ceremonial robes.

  It took all the Doctor's courage to walk forward and stand before the bier. It wasn't his first encounter with Rassilon, but the experience was always terrifying. He was in the presence of a legend, a remote, all-powerful being who had guided Gallifrey from the beginning.

  Moreover the Rassilon legend was a mixed one to say the least. Not always wise and kind, Rassilon could be ruthless and cruel.

  An example of Rassilon's ruthlessness was before the Doctor's eyes at this very moment. Around the edge of the bier was a frieze of Time Lord figures. If you looked closely, you could see that the eyes of the figures were furiously alive.

  The Doctor stood gazing at the figure in the centre. It represented a Time Lord he had loved and revered since his schooldays, a Time Lord with whose help he had battled the Master and the enemies and invaders of Gallifrey. A Time Lord he had delivered into Rassilon's power, to be condemned to an eternity of living death.

  Lord President Borusa.

  Having played and lost the game of Rassilon, Borusa now lived, if he could be said to live at all, as one of the stone figures set into Rassilon's bier.

  It had been a harsh judgement, one the Doctor was now about to challenge. It was a dangerous thing to defy the authority of Rassilon, but this was his one last hope. He had no way of knowing if his scheme would work, or what the consequences would be for himself, but still the Doctor drew a deep breath and raised his voice.

  'Lord Rassilon!'

  Echoes ran round the vaulted chamber and slowly died away.

  For a long, long moment, it seemed that nothing would happen. Then a deep, husky voice growled: 'What is it now, Doctor? You had better have good reason to disturb my long sleep.'

  The voice came from everywhere and from nowhere at once, rolling around the tomb like distant thunder. It was as though the tomb itself had spoken.

  'Lord Rassilon, hear me. Gallifrey is in peril...'

  In a brief, impassioned speech, the Doctor described the situation - the present corrupt High Council's terrible crimes and its imminent self-destruction.

  'There is only one Time Lord who can save us now,' concluded the Doctor.

  'I beg you to release him so that he can redeem his past crimes in the service of Gallifrey.'

  There was another long pause. Then the great voice said,'You would trust him again, Doctor?'

  'With my life, and with the fate of all Gallifrey.'

  'He endangered you and all your other selves in his selfish quest for immortality.'

  'That was an aberration,' said the Doctor firmly. 'His true self is the one that served Gallifrey so faithfully for so many long years.'

  'And if he betrays his trust again?'

  The Doctor spoke without hesitation.

  'Then I will take his place here.'

  'You would risk eternal imprisonment in Borusa's cause?'

  'In the cause of Gallifrey - your Gallifrey, Lord Rassilon!'

  Once again the voice of Rassilon rolled like angry thunder around the tomb:'So be it, Doctor!'

  The bier blurred and shimmered, and suddenly a figure stood before the Doctor - a tall, hawk-faced old man in the robes of a High Cardinal. His hair was white, his face seamed and wrinkled, but his eyes still blazed with fierce intelligence.

  Instinctively the Doctor dropped to his knees, took the old man's hand and kissed it.

  'Lord Borusa!'

  This, the Doctor realised, was not Borusa's most recent regeneration, the one whose fierce pride had tipped over the edge of ambition into madness.

  This was an earlier Borusa who had helped him fight off the Sontaran/Vardan invasion. The Borusa who had always been a dedicated servant of Gallifrey.

  Borusa touched his old pupil's head for a second and then snapped, 'Get up, boy, get up!'

  The Doctor scrambled to his feet and, under Borusa's steady gaze, began to shuffle his feet uneasily, as he had done so often when summoned to his teacher's study at the Academy.

  'Another regeneration, eh?' said Borusa at last.

  'Yes, sir, the seventh.'

  'I don't approve,' said Borusa. "The form of the incarnation is too young.

  You were always trouble as a young man, Doctor. I trust that the years have brought wisdom and discretion.'

  'I hope so too, sir.'

  'Hmm,' said Borusa sceptically. 'Well, come along, Doctor, come along. I understand we have a great deal of

  work to do!' With that, he strode off towards the transmat booth.

  Feeling exactly as if he was back at the Academy, the Doctor followed him.

  As he knelt to reset the transmat controls for the Panopticon the Doctor said, 'If I could brief you on the current situation, Lord Borusa -'

  'You have already done so,' came the reply. 'A creditable speech, reasonably clear and con
cise. Seven out of ten, Doctor.' The Doctor touched a control and they both faded away.

  ***

  They reappeared in the transmat booth at their destination and emerged into the still-seething

  Panopticon hall. As Lord Borusa walked across the crowded floor, the quarrelling Time Lords instinctively moved aside for him, like turbulent water parting before the bow of a great ship.

  A mounting groundswell of astonished murmurings followed his stately progress across the floor. Feeling rather self-conscious, the Doctor strode along behind him, doing his best to look mature and dignified.

  Lord Borusa mounted the speaker's podium. The Time Lord currently using it for an impassioned speech stared at him for one incredulous moment, then hastily bowed and stepped aside. Borusa simply stood there, waiting as the angry voices died down and whispers spread through the Panopticon hall.

  'It is Borusa!'

  'Borusa has returned to us!'

  The Doctor realised that most Time Lords had no idea of the tragic circumstances in which Borusa had left them. As far as they knew, he had merely vanished in mysterious circumstances. Now, equally mysteriously, he had returned.

  The imposing figure waited until the silence was complete and then said, 'I am Borusa. Will you hear me?'

  There was a respectful murmur of assent.

  'I left you, for a time, to go into seclusion. Now I have returned - for a time -

  to serve you once more, if you will have me.'

  Once again the murmur of agreement.

  'I ask for your trust and for your obedience - until the affairs of Gallifrey can be so arranged that you may rule yourselves once more. Will you give me that trust?'

  There was a long pause and the Doctor held his breath. Then someone shouted, 'Yes! Lead us Lord Borusa!' and there was a general roar of assent, with cries of, 'Lead us, Borusa! Lead us!' from all over the Panopticon hall.

  Borusa held up his hand and there was silence once more.

  'I must warn you, there are difficult times ahead. As you now know, the High Council, in collusion with the Celestial Intervention Agency, has committed the most heinous of crimes - a crime which has led to armed revolt and to high treason.

  That High Council must be deposed, and its leaders impeached.'

  There was an angry roar of agreement.

  'Time Lords, do you so vote?' asked Borusa.

  A massive shout of 'Aye!' shook the hall.

  'By order of the Full Council, it is so ordained,' said Borusa formally. 'When justice has been done, and when the Agency has been curbed and disciplined, we shall have a new election and a new and honourable High Council. But before there can be a new High Council, we, the Time Lords of Gallifrey, must undo the evil already caused. With your consent, I shall form a temporary Council of Administration to carry out that task.

  In doing so I can help you to regain the honour of Gallifrey, and I too can regain my own!'

  This time the roar of applause almost lifted the dome of the great Panopticon Hall.

  ***

  The Doctor was saying his farewells. Everyone was frantically busy now, mopping-up after the crisis, and it was difficult to find a moment to say goodbye.

  Borusa had patted his shoulder, told him to stay out of trouble and plunged back into a meeting in Temporal Control.

  General Vared had given him a painful handshake and a salute. He was now presiding over a Committee of Inquiry into Agency involvement in the recent disorders, and heads were rolling.

  The Doctor found Lady Flavia, now a leading member of the Council of Administration, deep in preparation for the coming negotiations with the Shobogans. She passed on a warm invitation to victory celebrations in the Golden Grockle which the Doctor reluctantly declined.

  'I'm too old for that sort of night out now. Besides, it's time I was on my way,' he said. 'I shouldn't really be here at all!'

  Take a look at this before you go, Doctor.'

  She showed him a video transcript of the end of the Sixth Doctor's trial.

  They watched a now obsequious Inquisitor telling the Sixth Doctor, who seemed to have survived the hazards of the Matrix and be in excellent form, that all charges were dismissed and that they owed him an immense debt of gratitude. His freedom restored, the Sixth Doctor went cheerfully on his way. The Doctor sensed that his other self was happy to know that Peri was alive and well, and looking forward to travelling with new companion Mel - if she'd only stop feeding him carrot juice.

  'All those taking part in that travesty of a trial will soon be on trial themselves,' said Flavia grimly. 'We must determine which were rogues and which were fools.'

  The Master and Sabalom Glitz were trapped in the Matrix, where they would remain for the time being.

  'We can deal with them at our leisure,'

  said Flavia. 'We have more important things to worry about than two petty criminals!'

  The Doctor smiled, thinking how hurt the Master would feel at that description, not to mention being classified with Sabalom Glitz.

  'And the Valeyard?' he asked.

  Flavia gave him a worried look. 'I ordered his arrest but he is nowhere to be found.'

  'Don't worry about it,' said the Doctor.

  'We're bound to meet again - after all,

  he's almost a part of me! Goodbye, Lady Flavia. I'm sure we'll meet again too - if we haven't already!'

  The Doctor made his way to hisTARDIS, still in the anteroom to the President's office. He disappeared inside, and soon the TARDIS

  disappeared as well.

  The Doctor was almost whole again now, most of his memories restored.

  What he didn't realise was that the hardest task of all still lay ahead of him.

  Chapter 22

  Holiday with Danger

  Sitting in his TARDIS, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands, the Seventh Doctor was in trouble.

  As far as appearances went, this particular Doctor made an unimpressive figure. Small, dark and not particularly handsome, his only distinctive feature was his penetrating grey eyes.

  His clothes were as undistinguished as his appearance: shabby check trousers, brown sports jacket, garish

  Fair Isle pullover. A battered straw hat and a red-handled umbrella hung from the nearby hatstand.

  There were no obvious indications that the Doctor was in trouble. He was safe inside the TARDIS, where no enemy could reach him and there was no unexpected trap waiting for him there - yet.

  No, the Doctor's enemy was inside his own mind. For no particular reason, he was feeling depressed.

  It was a condition which occasionally attacked Time Lords, especially those with half their regenerations behind them. In fact, the condition attacked most intelligent lifeforms and was well known on many planets, including old Earth.

  There it was known as accidie, and to

  the Church it was a mortal sin - a denial of God. It was also known as ennui, the megrims, the blues, or the black dog. But whatever the name, the symptoms were always the same: listlessness, boredom, a sense that life was ultimately meaningless

  and futile, without point or purpose.

  If short-lived humans can be oppressed by such feelings, how much more vulnerable is a Time Lord, weighed down by the burden of regeneration after regeneration.

  When life seems to have no value, an almost unending supply is a curse, not a blessing.

  The Doctor could remember mornings on Gallifrey when a daisy on a snowy mountainside or a drop of dew gleaming on a blade of grass was a sufficient reason for living.

  No longer.

  He told himself he was simply bored, that perhaps, much as he hated to admit it, he was lonely. He badly missed having a travelling companion to share his journeys with.

  Both problems could easily be remedied.

  The cosmos was full of excitement and adventure. As for companions, well

  - Earth, and any other planet with intelligent life, was full of sentient lifeforms eager to see the Universe at his s
ide.

  But the Doctor was sick of risking his neck in some noble cause - and even more sick of doing nothing. Fed up with being wise and kindly and patient and patronisingly paternal, his persona had darkened, he had become detached. He could barely believe some of the things he had done these last few years. And now, no one was here, and he realised with a cold bitterness just how much he hated being alone.

  The Doctor knew in his hearts that he should go back to Gallifrey and place himself in the hands of the Chief Hospitaller and his team of psycho-techs.

  There were drugs, there was neurosurgery, there was endless well-meaning talk...