He removed three data slices from the package and threw them on the floor. ‘Our most recent encounters …’
His foot ground them into the metallic floor, twisting and shattering them beyond use or saving. Then he looked up at Lucy once more. ‘What are you waiting for? Off you go!’ His fist hit the datapad and she felt a lurch in her stomach as she entered the time vortex.
The huge radio telescope was tilted at 90 degrees, its antenna pointing across the landscape. Beneath it, Lucy found herself in an area of heathland – all gorse bushes and rough grass tufts. It seemed most unlikely she would find her husband anywhere near such a place, but she knew he wouldn’t be wrong about this.
She walked towards the telescope, reasoning it was far more probable that he would be tampering with this vast contraption rather than wandering the countryside.
Suddenly, an annoying warble filled the air – obviously, some sort of alarm.
Lucy took cover in the undergrowth and watched as a group of four people half-ran, half-staggered across the grass. Three security guards with white hats pursued them. They easily caught the group, which Lucy could now see consisted of two women, a man and a boy. She didn’t think either of the males looked like her husband – or what she thought he might look like given her previous encounter.
Suddenly, an ambulance pulled up and the man – who was dressed from top to toe in burgundy – was put in the back by two grey uniformed orderlies. While the boy was pointing at something in the sky, the two women jumped into the driver’s cab and sped off across the heath. Lucy almost laughed. It was like watching a comedy programme from her youth: lots of people running about, escaping, being caught, and causing mayhem.
But then she heard the sound she’d been told to listen for: the asthmatic wheeze of a TARDIS. It had materialised by the ambulance, which now stood abandoned. This was her chance. She darted forward, flattening herself against the side of the vehicle. The guards, the ambulance men and the boy were all too astonished by the arrival of the time ship to notice her. Suddenly, colourful bolts of lightning flashed from the ship’s exterior, stunning all the men, who fell to the ground.
With no witnesses, Lucy ran to the ship and stumbled inside, the clopping sound of her shoes alerting the man in the console room to her presence. He finished what he was doing at the controls and turned to face her. In his hand he had a small black weapon that looked like a plastic pepper grinder.
‘Not a step closer, my dear,’ he said.
He was a handsome man with a clipped beard – younger, Lucy thought, than the regeneration she’d visited before, but not too dissimilar really. He was squinting at her as if he were short-sighted and couldn’t quite make out who she was.
‘I know you,’ he said, edging around the console. His grin was perhaps even more frightening than Harry’s.
‘Help me!’ A weakened cry came from beyond a small door that led off the console room. Now Lucy knew she had the right man.
‘Yes,’ she said. We met once before. When you were in prison.’
He laughed. ‘Yes. I recall it very well. You had a bargain to make, yes?’
She nodded.
‘And now?’
‘The same bargain.’
‘From your mysterious employer.’ He squinted again. He clearly did it when he was strategising. ‘Last time, I made an assumption about where you came from. I am not sure I was right about that.’
‘You weren’t.’
‘And you can tell me no more about who your employer is?’
‘His name is Harry.’
The man cackled. ‘Ooh, this is delicious. You still have the data slices?’
‘Some of them.’ She held out the six remaining packages.
‘How interesting! You’ve lost three.’
‘My employer wants to impress on you the urgency of the offer. He destroyed the other three.’
The man stroked his beard. ‘Oh my dear, you have been naive! I might have agreed had the collection had been complete. But only six? I’m afraid not.’
‘Please!’ wailed the voice from the next room.
‘And as you can see I am occupied at the moment.’
Lucy stepped forward. ‘Please.’
The man was suddenly serious. He aimed the weapon at her chest. ‘I am armed,’ he said. ‘I could kill you.’
‘Must escape …’ the voice moaned.
‘I have to go,’ the man said, backing away. ‘As you can hear: I have a … guest. But you first.’
Lucy sighed but nodded. She felt a tear on her cheek. Was it frustration or dread?
‘Goodbye, Lucy,’ he said. ‘Or is it au revoir?’
He laughed again and Lucy gave her wedding ring a violent twist.
‘He said what?’ Harry was angry this time.
‘He might have agreed if I’d still had nine.’
Harry smashed his fist into the mesh that surrounded the console. Then he slowly turned to face her. ‘You’re not trying hard enough.’
‘I am, Harry! I swear.’ She choked on the last word. No matter what he looked like, her husband could not be reasoned with. ‘You … they just won’t listen.’
He froze, cocking his head. ‘Yes. I remember.’
He walked around the mesh, stroking it now. ‘Recursive occlusions. Paradoxes. What a mind. What a mind!’
Harry completed his circle of the room and came up to Lucy, his breath catching her hair. ‘One last chance then,’ he spat. Then he was reeling away across the round chamber. ‘One last spin of the wheel. One last throw of the dice.’
He stopped, facing away from her.
‘Make sure, this time. Now, please attend carefully …’
When Lucy arrived, she was almost relieved. It was London. Her London. The way she remembered it before Harry came along: frenetic – but in a good way – humming, full of life. She even knew where she was. Paternoster Row on Ludgate Hill. Right in front of St Paul’s, surrounded by tourists and cafés.
To one side were a group of schoolchildren in naval uniform and a crowd of teachers and parents. A couple of policemen walked past, clutching guns closely to their chest. This gave her pause, but perhaps there was some security alert?
Lucy frowned. This was not where Harry had said he would send her. He had said it would be the same man as last time. He’d said that it was important. He’d also said she would arrive in some far-flung outer borough of London she’d literally never heard of and that she’d have to go to Horsenden Hill.
Something had gone wrong.
Lucy was just beginning to contemplate staying there – never going back – when she noticed a woman watching her from a nearby table. She was dressed unusually for the twenty-first century. The hat for starters. A purple and black number that matched her dress. She was peering at Lucy over the rim of a tea cup. Lucy felt uncomfortable and turned to walk away.
‘Lucy?’ The voice was sing-song but precise.
Lucy wondered if she was someone she’d met at a Downing Street do. Or perhaps a friend of her mother’s? This was not the time, but Lucy felt drawn to the voice somehow. She turned.
The woman was smiling a very thin smile, her eyes equally thin.
‘It is you! As I live and breathe!’ She made a dramatic gesture to her forehead to show she might faint and then rose to greet Lucy as she would a long-lost friend. She kissed her on both cheeks and took her arm, gently leading her back to the table. ‘Long time, no see!’
Lucy sat down. She had no idea what to do. Perhaps she should return to Harry. He’d made a mistake. He’d see that. It wasn’t her fault.
The woman raised an arm and snapped her fingers. ‘Waiter!’
Lucy gawked at her. No one did that any more. And if they did, they’d certainly not get served any time that year.
A waiter came running over. ‘Yes, madam?’
‘Mistress, actually, but close enough,’ the woman said. ‘My … friend here looks like she could do with a cuppa and my Lapsang needs a top-u
p. Tea OK with you?’
Lucy nodded. ‘Forgive me,’ she began. ‘But I don’t …’
The woman waved away her concerns. ‘That’s OK. Wife of the Prime Minister. Busy, busy, busy! Weeeeee!’ She wobbled her head. ‘Must make your head spin.’
‘I suppose.’
‘And that husband of yours!’ She leant in. ‘Quite the ladies’ man. Handsome. Strong. Masterful.’ She smiled. ‘I could quite go for him maself.’
Lucy looked at the woman; was that a tinge of Scottish? The woman smiled back at her and picked up an odd-looking smartphone – or was it a tablet? The women gazed at her over the top of it.
‘We should take a selfie! Commemorate the moment,’ she said. Then she dropped the smile and the device. ‘Maybe later.’
The waiter arrived with the tea.
‘Ooh! Goody! Shall I be mother?’ The woman took the pot and poured two cups, passing one to Lucy who lifted it to her lips.
‘Let’s talk about men!’
Lucy choked on the liquid, spilling it down her front. The woman passed her a napkin to clean herself up.
‘I say men, I mean man. Just one. Your husband.’ She winked.
‘Harry?’
‘That’s the one.’ The woman took a sip of tea. Then she put the cup back in its saucer very precisely and looked at Lucy with steely eyes. ‘You hate him, don’t you?’
Lucy hesitated. She smiled. Then she looked at the woman’s eyes. They were like swirling galaxies. They almost felt familiar; compelling her to do what she didn’t want to do.
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
The woman sat forward and took Lucy’s hands in hers. ‘You. Are. Not. Alone,’ she said.
Lucy stared at her in astonishment.
The woman smiled. ‘You’ve got a friend in me!’
The woman leant back in her chair, carefully removing her hat.
‘Now, don’t ask me how I know. Just listen. You have three Gallifreyan data slices in your possession. I would very much like to have them. You see I have plans! They won’t affect you, I promise.’
Lucy shook her head. ‘How …’
The woman scowled. ‘I said: just listen. He gave them to you to get something he wants. Yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘What I’m suggesting is you use them to get something you want.’
‘What I want?’
The woman smiled. ‘I appreciate your husband’s predicament. Really, I do. But I think you should think about you for once. Have some “me” time. Do a “me” thing. We both know you want to leave him and we both know that’s not possible.’
Lucy looked at the ground. ‘I should go,’ she said and stood up.
The woman pulled her back into the chair. ‘Hush now. That’s silly talk! I know what he’s done to you; what he’s been doing to you. What he’s still doing to you. Even now. Manipulation. Abuse. Scorn. Rejection. If I were you, I’d kill him!’
She smiled sweetly and took another sip of tea.
Lucy pulled her chair closer to the table, making a horrible scraping sound on the pavement. ‘I can’t.’
The woman sneered. ‘No such word as “can’t”, Lucy. Isn’t that what your father used to say?’
‘You know him?’
‘Uh-uh-uh! No questions. I won’t answer.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘OK. Just one. Yes, I know him. I know he has many businesses. Industrial, chemical, medical. He’s a Lord, isn’t he?’
Lucy brightened. ‘Yes.’
‘But the trouble is, your husband is a Lord, too. A Time Lord. And if you kill him, he’ll just change and come after you.’
Lucy’s happy expression wilted. ‘There is no escape. I thought about staying here. Not going back.’
The woman shook her head. ‘You need to Lady Macbeth up! And here’s how. Soon he will become vulnerable. An opportunity will present itself. A 9mm opportunity, if you catch my drift.’
‘A gun.’
‘Top of the class! That Roedean education did pay off after all. Who says blondes are dumb? They have all the fun, right? Not like dull old brunettes.’
Lucy examined the women while she spoke. She was animated, clearly very clever, and she knew things she couldn’t possibly know without the benefit of time travel. She must be a Time Lord, too, Lucy thought. The woman winked.
‘That’s me!’
If she was a Time Lord, she could be an enemy of Harry’s. She might just be Lucy’s best way of escaping. Hell, she was Lucy’s only way of escaping.
‘You want me to shoot Harry?’
‘Trust me. He won’t regenerate. He’ll have his reasons. But I’m afraid you will go to prison. Ironic, really.’
Lucy agreed. How could she go to prison for ridding the world of the worst dictator it had ever seen? But then she realised: she had played her part. Too well, in fact. She’d even … liked some of it. The power. The ability to do whatever she wanted. But what price had she paid?
‘It won’t be easy,’ the woman said gently. ‘Trust me, I know. But that won’t be the end of it. He’ll try to come back, to resurrect himself. And he’ll use you. But this will be his big mistake. Huge!’
Lucy couldn’t believe it. Use her? ‘Why?’
‘Because I’m going to tell you what you need to do. What chemicals you need to get your father to make. Who to bribe at the prison to become your friend.’
Lucy stared at the woman. She seemed earnest. Was this the only way Lucy had of escaping the hold Harry exerted on her? She nodded. She supposed it was. She reached into her coat and pulled out the data slices. She slid them across the table and the woman took them with a gleeful laugh.
‘Now, say something nice.’
‘Thank you,’ Lucy said. She smiled and meant it. ‘For telling me this. For helping me.’
The woman’s eyes slid to the side and she gave a little choke of laughter. ‘Well, I couldn’t very well keep it to maself, now, could I?’
THE EVIL AND THE DEEP BLACK SKY
DESPITE TRAVELLING AT a velocity of more than 700 kilometres per second, the space station never seemed to move. Its engines were fighting the most massive gravitational forces, straining just to stay in one place. The engines’ performance and the station’s relative position were monitored constantly, not only by the most powerful computers but by the best engineers the Time Lord race had ever produced. These were the criteria for survival when you lived on the precipice of a black hole.
In the vehement periods of insomnia, Omega would find a modicum of peace by visiting the observation chamber to stare at the vast ball of nothing they were orbiting. He found it calmed his mind to see the object of their study, to look it in the face and try to take its measure.
The black hole was called the Heart of Messina because of the blood-red nebula that ringed the stellar collapse some distance out, a circular shape caused by lensing. What had once been the planetary system around the Messinian sun had long since been swallowed by the whirlpool of spatial forces. The area around the Heart of Messina was devoid of any life now, although the huge powers of attraction were already pulling in more distant objects such as debris fields, asteroids and even exoplanets.
Omega was determined to succeed this time. Despite the fact he and Rassilon were friends – good friends – the stellar engineer was jealous of the soldier-politician. As Lord President, Rassilon commanded the respect of all Gallifreyans; his successes in building Time Lord society and in combatting the massive threats they encountered as they expanded their empire were well documented and celebrated publicly. Omega’s work was long and laborious. Most of it was kept secret from the rest of society, so no parades and feasts for him. No plaudits. That had to change. Omega was tired of living in the shadows – especially the one cast by his friend.
‘Lord Omega?’
He turned away from the huge window. It was Lady Karidice. She was standing in the doorway as if it was she that had been caught off guard not him. He attempted a smile, but it was half-formed.
&
nbsp; ‘I did not realise others came here,’ she said.
‘No,’ Omega said. ‘Nor I. That is, I have never seen anyone else here.’
The Time Lady came forward now to stand beside him and they both turned to look at the view.
‘It is curious,’ Omega said, ‘that the very object we know can power our future is in actuality an absence of anything. Does that portend an empty future for us?’
Karidice laughed politely. ‘I believe the expression you use is: “time will tell”,’ she said.
‘It always does …’ Omega replied.
‘Especially today.’
Omega nodded. Today was the day. After all the theorising, measuring, rechecking, modelling, experimentation and preparation, today he would make history. And Karidice would be by his side. Although he disliked the term assistant, she was certainly a trusted colleague and a high-ranking one. She had a brilliant mind, amazingly quick and adept at the type of calculation that – if all their work proved correct – would keep Omega alive in the next few hours.
‘Shall we go?’ he asked.
She looked at him and nodded, suddenly silent at what lay ahead. He took her arm and babbled some anecdote about how he had recently got the better of Rassilon in some childish debate about something trivial.
The main control room was circular, with an energy spire at the centre that extended up from the floor through the ceiling to the void outside. There was a simple, curved door in the structure at floor level that led into the small dematerialisation chamber. Around this were arrayed control desks at which sat technicians and scientists, all pouring over the data one last time.
On one side of this area was another door that led to an antechamber – a dressing room in which hung the suit. It was in itself a marvel of Time Lord engineering. It was made of special isomorphic plating that protected the specific wearer from the powerful forces of the time vortex and the Heart of Messina itself.
Omega gave a brief greeting to his team and went into the dressing room, closing the door. He took a moment to savour the momentous nature of the occasion. This would be the one, he knew. After this, he would be adored and revered as Rassilon was. He would make their research public and his race could finally take their position as the true Lords of Time and earn the right to dub themselves thus.
Doctor Who: Myths and Legends Page 6
