‘All the wealth, all the pleasures of this world are within our grasp,’ said the Countess. ‘We are rich, we do not age – and we are bored, Doctor, so bored…’
‘You don’t age? Where are you from?’ Peri challenged.
‘We have moved through time so often and lived so long… We have changed so much, seen past and future alter around us time and time again…’ The Countess threw her head back and laughed. ‘Do you know, I’m not sure we any of us remember.’
‘So you tinker with history – to amuse yourselves?’
‘But it is such a fascinating game, Doctor,’ said the Count. ‘A kaleidoscope. Touch one piece and the whole picture changes.’
‘Think of the new scenario you spoiled, Doctor,’ said the Countess. ‘Winston Churchill dead before World War Two. England under a Nazi king allied to Hitler. How fascinating to discover how the future would alter. Now we shall never know.’
‘And you do all this just for fun?’ said Peri, horrified. ‘You can’t do that!’
‘How do you know how much of your own time was shaped by us, child?’ the Countess asked, still clearly amused. ‘We may have brought you into being!’
‘We are Players,’ said the Count arrogantly. ‘Masters of Time. We can do as we will.’
‘Now, satisfy our curiosity,’ said the Countess. ‘Like us you travel through time, you even change your appearance. Tell us what you are, Doctor, before you die.’
‘First I will tell you what you are,’ said the Doctor sternly. ‘You call yourselves Players, Masters of Time? I call you vandals. Evil children who throw a slab of concrete on the track, derailing the train of history for the pleasure of hearing the smash and the screams of the dying. Moronic hooligans who throw grit in the machinery of history for the fun of hearing it grind screaming to a halt.’ The Doctor’s voice was filled with withering scorn. ‘Don’t humans cause each other agony enough, without you adding to it for your amusement?’
Peri had never heard him sound so stern – or so angry.
The Count and Countess stood white and shaken under the lash of his scorn.
Recovering, the Count said, ‘And what kind of superior being are you, Doctor?’
‘I am a Time Lord. My race is far from perfect but we respect time, we understand it, and we have powers that are beyond your petty comprehension.’
‘Time Lord or not, you have no more concern with time, Doctor,’ snarled the Count, raising the blade of his swordstick. ‘It is time for you to die.’
The Countess trained her automatic on Peri’s heart.
The Doctor took a step forwards, placing himself between the Countess and Peri.
‘You’ll achieve nothing by killing us,’ he said. He looked down at the assassin’s body. ‘I’m sorry your friend here had to die – but, after all, he who lives by the sword…’
‘We are not concerned with justice, Doctor,’ hissed the Count. ‘Only with revenge!’ He drew back the swordstick, preparing to lunge for the Doctor’s heart.
The Doctor didn’t flinch. Instead his eyes widened in pleased surprise as he gazed past the Count as if at someone behind him.
‘Mr Dekker! In the proverbial nick of time,’ he cried.
Both the Count and the Countess turned – to find nothing but the garden wall.
‘Now, Peri!’ thundered the Doctor. He grabbed the Count’s sword arm.
Peri lunged for the Countess’s gun. The Countess drew back, but not fast enough. Peri felt the cold metal of the automatic under her hands and the strength in the Countess’s wrists. For all her elegance the woman’s grip was like steel. If only Dekker really had come back…
The Doctor grappled with the Count for possession of the swordstick. Like Peri, he found his opponent unexpectedly strong.
‘A fine Player you turned out to be,’ said the Doctor mockingly. ‘Falling for the oldest trick in the book!’
The Count didn’t bother finding a witty riposte. Instead he kicked the Doctor in the stomach with brutal force, propelling him back against the far wall. His head slammed against the brick and he slid to the ground.
The Countess tightened her grip on Peri’s wrists, holding her locked, immobile.
‘Give up my dear,’ she said lightly, as if this were some after-dinner amusement. ‘It’s all over. There’s nothing you can do to save your friend now.’
Peri watched in horror as the Count strolled almost idly across to the fallen Doctor. The blade of the swordstick glinted in the dappled sunlight.
‘Look out, Doctor!’ Peri shouted.
The Doctor didn’t seem to hear her. He was shaking his head dazedly as if to clear it. The Count prepared to deliver the killing thrust.
‘No!’ screamed Peri.
Abruptly she twisted round, trying to throw the Countess off balance and reach the Count before he could act.
Instead she tumbled over the corpse of the would-be assassin and almost fell.
Abandoning the struggle for the gun, she grabbed at the Countess’s dress to save herself.
Turning the gun on Peri, the Countess fired – at the very moment that Peri’s weight spun her round.
The gunshot echoed round the high walls. Birds clattered out from the trees, leaving a silence hanging over the garden.
Peri kept her eyes tight shut for a moment, convinced she’d been shot. Then she heard the Countess gasp.
She opened her eyes. The Count was staring straight at her, his face twisted in an expression between a mocking smile and the dawning of absolute outrage. There was a red spot on his forehead. As Peri watched, blood welled from it. Then the Count toppled forwards to land at the Countess’s feet.
Carefully, the Doctor rose, his expression grave. He beckoned to Peri and she moved warily round to stand beside him.
The Countess stood staring down at the body of the Count. She let the gun slip from her hand as her body began to convulse and tears streaked down her face.
Peri darted swiftly forward and snatched up the gun, but the Countess ignored her. She threw back her head and actually clutched her sides.
Suddenly Peri realised – the woman was laughing.
The Doctor stepped forward and knelt by the Count, feeling for a pulse. He nodded, gravely. ‘He’s dead.’
‘I imagine I’ll be in trouble for this,’ said the Countess, dabbing daintily at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. ‘I don’t think the rules make provision for such an unusual event!’
The Doctor jumped up angrily. ‘Your game never ends, does it? You’ve killed one of your own kind and all you can think of is how it affects some stupid rule.’
The Countess smiled. ‘Surely you understand by now, Doctor? All that matters is the Game.’
‘Even coming here to avenge that unfortunate young man was just a diversion for you, wasn’t it?’ accused the Doctor. ‘You couldn’t care less about the fate of a living soul!’
Peri looked down at the Count’s body and shuddered.
‘Don’t you dare judge me,’ warned the Countess, her eyes flashing. Then, her anger disappearing, she smiled, slightly. ‘However…’ She took a step towards the Doctor.
Peri raised the automatic warningly, ready for another attack. But the Countess was charm itself as she approached the Doctor.
‘We have so much in common, Doctor,’ she purred.
‘We most certainly do not!’ said the Doctor, appalled.
‘You walk through time as we do,’ she said. ‘You meddle, you manipulate humans as we do.’
‘No,’ said the Doctor, looking sternly down at her. ‘I do no such thing. My motives for any… interference are very different from your own.’
The Countess looked up at him. ‘How could I have been so foolish as to wish to do you harm?’ She smiled, completely composed, as if nothing untoward had occurred. ‘You’re too powerful, too important, to be allowed to escape our Game just yet. And now you’ve caused the deaths of two of us. They must be replaced…’ She reached up and adjusted the Doctor
’s tie. ‘I think you must join us in our entertainments, Doctor. You will make a splendid Player!’
‘Never!’ said the Doctor. ‘In any event, Peri and I are about to leave this parochial patch of Earth far behind us.’
‘Oh, but you’ll be back, Doctor. Your face may look different, your form may change, but…’ She nodded. ‘You’ll be playing our Game again.’
‘No,’ said the Doctor, his voice rising a fraction. ‘I want no part of it.’
‘The choice is yours, Doctor,’ said the Countess. ‘You can become a Player, like us. Win again, perhaps, as you have done today. Or you can be a Piece, ours to control.’ She turned and stepped demurely over the Count’s fallen body. ‘And then… The hand of the Player must never be seen. So how will you ever be able to tell whether the moves you make are your own – or ours?’
The Countess turned and walked towards the open French windows.
‘No you don’t!’ yelled Peri, raising the automatic. ‘You can try playing your stupid Game from a prison cell. We can get you locked up on Murder One – you just killed someone, unless it’s slipped your…’
Peri’s words trailed away. The Countess hadn’t gone into the house. She’d just vanished. Peri turned away from the French windows to find the corpses had disappeared too.
There was only the Doctor standing there now, a troubled frown on his face.
‘No,’ Peri heard him mutter. ‘Never!’
‘Doctor…’ she said tentatively.
The Doctor turned as if awakening from some nightmare.
‘Time to go, Peri,’ he said.
He took something that looked like a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket – the device he’d used to put the TARDIS in parking orbit when they’d arrived in Green Park.
He opened the back and touched a control – and suddenly the air was filled with a familiar sound.
All at once, there was the TARDIS, blue and square and oddly anachronistic, standing in the middle of the little lawn.
The Doctor produced his key, opened the door, and ushered Peri inside. He followed her in, closing the door behind them.
Moments later, with a defiant wheezing, groaning sound, the TARDIS dematerialised.
ENVOI
The space was filled with voices, old and young, male and female, every timbre and every accent.
An angry voice cut through the tumult.
‘Two Players killed? And one of them at your hands!’
The voice of the Countess was cool and amused.
‘An unfortunate accident. We are all subject to hazard.’
‘Yet you allowed this Doctor and his companion to live?’
Again the furious hubbub arose.
‘Vengeance!’ called a voice and other voices took up the cry.
‘Vengeance! Vengeance! Vengeance!’
‘No!’
The sheer authority of the arrogant old voice silenced them. ‘The death of the Count was due to hazard – the Countess bears no blame. She has done well. By allowing the Doctor to live, she provides us with a worthy opponent in some future Game.’
‘The Doctor refused to play,’ objected the angry voice.
‘He will play,’ said the Countess confidently. ‘His pride will allow him no choice.’
The old voice said, ‘Remember, we are Players. Hazard adds to the spice of the Game. We mourn our brethren, accept our losses and move on. The Game is endless.’
The voices blended into a chorus, speaking as one.
‘Winning is everything – and nothing
Losing is nothing – and everything
All that matters is the Game.’
Next in the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Collection:
REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS
BEN AARONOVITCH
ISBN 978 1 849 90598 5
The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Collection
Eleven classic adventures
Eleven brilliant writers
One incredible Doctor
With unfinished business to attend to, the Seventh Doctor returns to where it all began: Coal Hill School in London in 1963. Last time he was here, the Doctor left something behind – a powerful Time Lord artefact that could unlock the secrets of time travel. Can the Doctor retrieve it before two rival factions of Daleks track it down? And even if he can, how will the Doctor prevent the whole of London becoming a war zone as the Daleks meet in explosive confrontation?
An adventure featuring the Seventh Doctor, as played by Sylvester McCoy, and his companion Ace.
Gary Russell
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The ultimate series companion and episode guide, covering seven thrilling years of Doctor Who. Download everything that has happened, un-happened and happened again in the worlds of the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors.
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First published in 1999 by BBC Worldwide Ltd.
This edition published in 2013 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing.
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Copyright © Terrance Dicks 1999, 2013
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Doctor Who: Players: 50th Anniversary Edition Page 22
