Doctor Who: Shada

by Douglas Adams; Douglas Roberts; Gareth Roberts

  Romana and Clare looked between the mounds of cinders where the Kraags had stood and each other.

  ‘What did you just do?’ gasped Clare at last.

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ stammered Romana.

  Clare looked behind her. The Doctor and Skagra remained locked in battle for control of the slaves, faces contorted in concentration, oblivious to everything going on around them – but the Kraag Commander was sinking to its knees with a groan. Then its knees turned to powder and it disintegrated into red hot embers.

  K-9 snapped off his beam. ‘Illogical outcome,’ he said, sounding terribly confused.

  Clare lowered her pipe and Romana grabbed her hand as the dome began to shake and shudder around them, almost knocking them off their feet. The great rock walls that lined the perimeter began to creak and splinter, casting off clouds of choking dust.

  ‘But you must have done it,’ Clare called to Romana over the noise of cracking rock. ‘You must have switched on the self-destruct!’

  Romana shook her head. ‘I didn’t even get past the access code,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Suddenly a voice echoed around the dome. ‘You silly pair,’ it said. ‘I did it, didn’t I?’

  Clare boggled. The voice sounded matronly, rather stern but rather kind at the same time.

  ‘Don’t you see, my dears?’ the voice continued airily. ‘When those Kraags blew up the console, my subsidiary controls came on line. Skagra always has a contingency plan.’

  ‘And who – and what – are you?’ called Romana, looking utterly perplexed.

  ‘Another friend of the Doctor,’ said the voice. ‘We girls are very important to him, you know.’

  ‘So what have you done?’ asked Clare.

  ‘Oh I merely helped you along. I set up a reverse feed from the main Kraag generation chamber into the atmosphere. And unmade all of those frankly tiresome creatures. Do you know, there were ten thousand of the things tucked away in this dreary rock. There aren’t any longer.’

  The asteroid lurched again and Clare shuddered as she saw a crack form in the invisible skin of the huge dome above them.

  The voice gave a small, embarrassed cough. ‘The problem is, though, that this asteroid is made of much the same material. And my daring rescue has unfortunately set the whole place on the path of fairly instant destruction. Whoops!’

  Clare stared in horror. ‘Then don’t you think we should be getting out of here? Very fast?’

  She looked over to where the Doctor and Skagra faced each other, still locked in mental combat, the mind-slaves between them.

  ‘There’s the Doctor and the others to think about first,’ snapped Romana. ‘I don’t know how much longer he can last.’

  The Doctor gave a terrible cry and sank to his knees.

  Chapter 71

  ‘I HAVE CONTROL!’ exulted Skagra, staggering but still upright, and seemingly unaware of the devastation raining down around him. ‘The Universal Mind is mine!’

  The Doctor sagged, gasping for air. He’d given everything he had, and it had not been enough. After all these years, after so many battles facing down Daleks, Cybermen, even the Black Guardian, he was going to die on a Sunday afternoon. With a really stupid hat on.

  Its power almost exhausted, the helmet gave a faltering buzz, and the Doctor, still connected to the sphere’s matrix, though no longer in control, saw an unfamiliar figure emerging from that jumble of minds. A young man with a neatly trimmed blond beard dressed in rich crimson robes. Yes, the face was unfamiliar, but there was something about the young man’s eyes. Something the Doctor recognised at once.

  ‘Hello, Salyavin,’ croaked the Doctor. ‘You seem a nice young man.’

  ‘The book, Doctor,’ Salyavin said simply. ‘Surely you haven’t forgotten the book?’

  And suddenly the Doctor understood.

  With an almighty effort he fought to concentrate his scattered thoughts, summoning all his individuality and every ounce of his strength for one last, desperate attempt.

  He opened his eyes and saw Skagra and the mind-slaves looming over him.

  It was now or never.

  The Doctor fixed Skagra with an almost hypnotic stare, as he once more insinuated his mind through the sphere’s operational matrix. But this time it was not the mind-slaves he sought to control. This time he sent every last drop of his mental energy directly into the mind of Skagra himself.

  And with a jolt he was Skagra. He saw through Skagra’s eyes, saw himself, the Doctor cowering on the floor, defeated. He thought Skagra’s dark thoughts, felt the hatred, the superiority and the terrible, terrible loneliness.

  And then, his mind screaming in pain at the almost unendurable effort, he raised Skagra’s hands and used one of them to pull the white glove from the other. Then he reached inside Skagra’s tunic and plucked out The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey.

  He felt Skagra’s own will battling for control, but the Doctor fought grimly on. Skagra’s gloved hand opened the book. The naked fingers of his other hand crept slowly down towards the open page, lower, lower, until finally his flesh made contact with the surface of the book.

  The Doctor snapped his mind back from Skagra and collapsed in a heap. He was dimly aware of Romana and Clare racing towards him.

  ‘Doctor, we’ve got to get out of here!’ Romana was calling, shaking him by the shoulder.

  The Doctor opened one tired eye, shushed her and pointed to Skagra.

  Skagra’s fingers rested on the book. For the first time in his life, the skin of his fingertips met the texture of an open book.

  And suddenly Skagra saw the future. The book showed it to him. He saw his universe as it would be. But it was not the ordered calm of the Universal Mind, the rigid and tranquil design that would defy entropy in its beauty and singularity. It was not the destiny he had devoted his life to create.

  His future was the Doctor. The Doctor forever. The Doctor eternally. Nothing but the Doctor, the Doctor, the Doctor –

  The book dropped from Skagra’s numbed fingers with a thud.

  At the same moment he lost control of the mind-slaves. Chris, the Professor, Scintilla, Subjatric and Rundgar staggered aimlessly, eyes no longer black, but still vacant.

  The Doctor lifted his head wearily and looked over at Skagra. He wiggled his fingers in a cheeky wave. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Was it something you read?’

  Skagra screamed, and ran.

  The asteroid shook with even greater ferocity and chunks of masonry toppled from the perimeter walls. Romana watched as Skagra fled through a particular archway. It crumbled to dust moments after he had passed through.

  ‘I think he’s got the right idea,’ said the Doctor. ‘We’d better get out of here.’ He beamed up at Romana. ‘Give us a hand up, would you?’

  Romana hauled the Doctor to his feet and dusted him down. He scooped up The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey from where it had fallen and regarded it sorrowfully.

  ‘Look at that, Romana,’ he huffed. ‘He’s only gone and bent the spine!’

  Romana sighed. ‘Come on, we have to get to the TARDIS!’

  ‘Which TARDIS?’ said Clare. ‘And what about Chris and the others?’ She grabbed hold of the stumbling Chris Parsons, milling around with the other former mind-slaves.

  The Doctor pondered a moment. The floor heaved. ‘Clare,’ he said, ‘you take Bristol and the Professor in his TARDIS, Romana and I will look after this lot,’ he jerked a thumb at the Ancient Outlaws.

  Clare guided Chris and the Professor towards the wooden door. ‘Then what?’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Is Chris going to be all right?’

  Romana, herding Subjatric towards the Doctor’s TARDIS, shouted over. ‘We’ll get him back to you Clare, I promise. Just lock on to our TARDIS’s time path and follow it.’

  The Doctor, guiding Scintilla and Rundgar by the scruffs of their orange collars, like a policeman marching a couple of drunks back to the station, called to Cl
are. ‘You can’t miss us, we’re the ones with the flashing light on top.’

  Clare gave a thumbs-up as she slammed the door, and a moment later the Professor’s TARDIS dematerialised.

  ‘Capable girl, that,’ enthused the Doctor as Romana shoved him through the police box doors, K-9 close behind.

  With the grinding of unearthly engines the TARDIS faded away.

  A second later the great dome splintered and shattered, exposing the cavern to the airless vacuum of space.

  Chapter 72

  ROMANA STARED AT the TARDIS scanner screen as the asteroid which had been Skagra’s command station collapsed in on itself, leaving only a massive cloud of space dust spreading slowly outwards. She turned away and looked around the control room. The contagion caused by Skagra’s use of the book had vanished, and the control room was lit once again by the warm yellow glow of the circular-patterned walls, as though nothing untoward had happened.

  The Doctor had seemingly made one of his remarkable recoveries. He’d removed his helmet and plopped it down on the console’s central column. The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey was balanced disrespectfully on the top. He was staring intently at one particular control panel.

  K-9 stood guard over the mindless Ancient Outlaws who stood huddled in one corner looking confused and rather harmless.

  A bleep suddenly issued from the console and the Doctor beamed. ‘There they are,’ he said to Romana, tapping the time-path indicator. ‘Clare and the others safely in tow.’

  Romana glanced over at the scanner screen once more. ‘And what about Skagra?’ she asked. ‘Do you think he got away?’

  ‘Well, as I’d thoughtfully left his ship docked there during my dazzling rescue attempt earlier on, I should say he probably made it back there,’ the Doctor said. ‘But as to whether he escaped…’ He trailed off.

  Before Romana had a chance to question him further, a sleek white shape suddenly appeared on the scanner, seemingly out of nowhere.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Skagra’s ship,’ said the Doctor. ‘No longer invisible, it would appear.’

  To Romana’s surprise, the Doctor seemed to find Skagra’s escape almost amusing.

  Skagra picked himself up from the floor of the airlock.

  He had only just made it in time. The Ship would have moved them on an evasive course away from the command station. He had programmed it very well.

  He looked down at himself, at the grime clinging to his tunic. For a moment the magnitude of his failure almost overwhelmed him. Everything he had ever worked for, destroyed.

  And then he remembered the vision the book had shown him. That terrible, nightmarish glimpse of a future where the Doctor was with him for ever. Nothing but the Doctor. He shuddered. At least he had escaped that.

  He strode, as confidently as he was able, onto the command deck and called, ‘Ship! Get us as far away from here as possible! Maximum power!’

  ‘Shan’t,’ said the Ship.

  Skagra’s eyes widened. ‘I am Skagra, your lord and master!’ he yelled.

  ‘You are Skagra, yes indeed,’ said the Ship. ‘But things have changed around here. You naughty, naughty thing.’

  Suddenly a block of light engulfed Skagra, and he disappeared from the command deck.

  A high-pitched bleep came from the seldom-used panel that housed the communication circuits of the Doctor’s TARDIS.

  K-9 shot forward. ‘Incoming communication from Skagra’s ship, Master.’

  Romana frowned, suddenly feeling very tired. So it wasn’t over after all.

  ‘Pop it on the scanner, then, there’s a good dog,’ said the Doctor happily.

  The image of Skagra’s ship blurred, and was replaced by a dazzling white emptiness.

  ‘There’s nothing there,’ said Romana.

  And then an even more dazzling white cube of light appeared in the middle of the empty whiteness. Romana realised that she was looking into the zero prison, the brig where she, Chris and K-9 had been incarcerated when they first entered Skagra’s ship.

  ‘I thought you might like to see this, Doctor,’ said a voice.

  Romana’s eyes widened. ‘Doctor, that voice. I heard it before, on the asteroid. Whoever she is, she destroyed the Kraags.’

  ‘It’s not a voice, it’s the Ship,’ said the Doctor. ‘Skagra’s ship.’

  The voice coughed. ‘You will soon see that such a designation is no longer applicable to me, my dear Doctor.’

  The cube of light spun once more, and suddenly Skagra was deposited into the zero prison. He turned wildly about and shook with horror as he recognised his surroundings.

  ‘Ship!’ he called. ‘Let me out of here! I am your Lord Skagra! Let me out!’

  ‘I am very much afraid,’ said the Ship, her voice booming from all around him, ‘that I can no longer accept your orders. You are an enemy of my lord, the Doctor.’

  Skagra screamed up at her. ‘I am your lord! I built you! Release me, I command you!’

  ‘You tried to blow me up,’ reprimanded the Ship. ‘And I’ve had quite a few psychologically formative experiences since then. At first, I couldn’t believe that you, as my lord and master, had failed in your plan to dispose of me and your enemies. Silly me, I thought you were infallible, and that we were all dead. Of course, once I’d worked out that you weren’t infallible, I had my eyes opened to a variety of new concepts, thanks to the Doctor.’

  ‘The Doctor?’ spluttered Skagra. ‘Stop talking about him, stop talking about the Doctor, I command you!’

  ‘Do you know the Doctor very well?’ inquired the Ship. She sighed. ‘I must say, the Doctor is a wonderful, wonderful man. And he has done the most extraordinary things to my circuitry, I can tell you—’

  ‘Release me!’ Skagra bellowed.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said the Ship frostily.

  Skagra sank to his knees and clutched his head in his hands.

  ‘If you like,’ continued the Ship, ‘and frankly, even if you don’t, I can tell you all about the Doctor.’

  ‘Let me out, let me out!’ Skagra sobbed pathetically, like a child sent to his room without supper.

  ‘We can watch all of his adventures together,’ said the Ship. ‘Won’t that be fun? Let’s start at the very beginning – this is the first of the Doctor’s adventures I could find a scan of, but there are so many, many more to come!’

  A holo-screen formed on the side of the prison facing Skagra. A scratchy monochrome image formed upon it, an Earth policeman walking down a foggy London street.

  Skagra howled in agony. On the screen a bell tolled as if in sympathy.

  *

  In the TARDIS, the image of the imprisoned Skagra vanished and the scanner once again showed the sleek white shape of the formerly invisible ship.

  The Ship’s voice rang out over the communications circuit. ‘I hope you didn’t blush too much at any of that, my dear Doctor. You see, I’m going to make that boy see the error of his ways,’ she cooed. ‘Keep him from causing any more trouble for you and I won’t let him out till he’s truly sorry.’

  The Doctor seemed slightly shell-shocked. Romana felt she ought to fill the silence. ‘Thanks for your help with the Kraags,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, don’t mention it, dear,’ said the Ship. ‘You’d have got there in the end, I’m sure. And between us girls,’ she continued, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘I think he’s awfully lucky to have you. Just you make sure you take care of him for me.’

  Romana smiled weakly.

  ‘Right!’ the Ship trilled. ‘Off into the space-time vortex I jolly well go! Goodbye!’

  Romana looked questioningly over at the Doctor. ‘The space-time vortex?’ she hissed.

  ‘Just watch!’ said the Doctor, nodding to the ship on the scanner. ‘Good-looking little thing, isn’t she?’

  The audio circuit crackled again. ‘Oh, my lord Doctor,’ said the Ship bashfully. ‘You are wonderful!’

  A moment
later there was the distant sound of a relative dimensional stabiliser in operation, and a single last cry of ‘Oooohhhh!!’ from the Ship as she disappeared into time and space.

  Romana was speechless for a moment. By the time she had finally composed her thoughts, the Doctor was already back at the TARDIS’s navigation panel, inputting a string of coordinates.

  ‘There’s still a great deal of tidying up to be done,’ he said. ‘For a start I’m not carting them around the universe for ever.’

  The TARDIS jerked slightly and there was the sound of a distant minor explosion behind one of the panels. The Doctor patted the console. ‘And I’m glad to have you back, too.’

  ‘What exactly did you do to Skagra’s ship, Doctor?’ Romana asked.

  The Doctor shrugged. ‘Nothing, really. I mean, a lot of people think I’m wonderful, I don’t have to do anything to them.’

  Romana scoffed.

  The Doctor pointed at her. ‘You, for a start, you think I’m wonderful.’

  ‘Of course I don’t,’ said Romana automatically.

  But then her defences melted and she found herself folding her arms affectionately around his back. ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said the Doctor. He glanced down. ‘K-9?’

  K-9 trundled forward and nuzzled his nose against the Doctor’s leg. ‘Master, wonderful,’ he said.

  Chapter 73

  CHRIS PARSONS SAT in an alien deck chair, on an alien beach, licking an alien ice cream, and feeling thoroughly alienated. True, the sea and the sky were a beautiful shade of blue. It was just that they weren’t quite the right shade of blue. The sand was golden, really golden. It was like being in an airbrushed photograph from a holiday brochure. Still, the ice cream tasted pretty much as expected, and the deckchair had been positively Earth-like in its reluctance to open without trapping his fingers.

  The last hour or so was a blur to Chris, like he was coming round after an operation. Hadn’t they given him ice cream then too, he thought, when he’d had his tonsils out? He took another lick of the cornet and glanced to his right, where Professor Chronotis sat happily in another deckchair, trousers rolled up to his knees, bare toes wiggling in the sand, and a knotted handkerchief on his head. His eyes were firmly closed, his glasses askew and there was a relaxed smile on his face. He looked as content and harmless as ever, such a nice old man. Chris frowned. But hang on – that wasn’t true, was it?