Divided Loyalties

by Gary Russell

  DIVIDED LOYALTIES

  GARY RUSSELL

  For Brian Hayles, Innes Lloyd, Donald Tosh, Gerry Davis and Graham Williams for providing the sandbox and the bucket and spades

  Published by BBC Worldwide Ltd,

  Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane

  London W12 OTT

  First published 1999

  Copyright © Gary Russell 1999

  The moral right of the author has been asserted Original series broadcast on the BBC

  Format © BBC 1963

  Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC

  ISBN 0 563 55578 5

  Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright © BBC 1999

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton Round One

  Messages

  1

  Her Body in My Soul

  The TARDIS was hovering in the space-time vortex - drift compensators stopping it from going anywhere hazardous - although soon its automatic guidance controls would silently operate on a pre-programmed set of commands, opening a gateway between the vortex and real space. From there it would, to all intents and purposes, step sideways and out into a charted but near-empty region of space - one of the Doctor’s favourites in fact.

  He rarely needed sleep - certainly not as often as his three young travelling companions did, but when he did so, he slept deeply and well.

  He could have parked the TARDIS on a planet somewhere, but somehow that nearly always led to an adventure of some sort, and he felt they all needed a break from that - on their last stopover, they had accidentally started a fire in a city called London. As Pudding Lane fell victim to flame and cinder, he had abruptly sent the TARDIS spiralling back into space, wanting to be as far away from that little mishap as possible.

  Thus, he had elected just to float in an uninspiring region of the galaxy while they all rested.

  The Doctor’s bedroom was a bizarre affair, consisting of a large four-poster complete with ornate awnings, silk sheets and an enormous chocolate-coloured toy rabbit. An original Jackson Pollock was attached to the door with chewing gum.

  Hey Doc was scribbled in the corner, Happy times and places, J. All the Doctor had done was accidentally knock one of Pollock’s paint pots over but this had impressed the artist so much he later presented him with this unique picture which he insisted was ‘Azure in the Rain by a Man Who’d Never Been There’. Travelling with the Doctor at the time had been his old friend Romana, who made the pithy comment, ‘Gosh, you’d never know’. But then, Romana would.

  However, that was a lifetime ago - almost literally. The Doctor currently asleep in the TARDIS appeared to be a young, fair-haired man with a not unattractive face that was designed to smile. He normally wore Edwardian cricketing gear, complete with long beige overcoat. That coat was currently attached to the end of the four-poster via a plastic Mickey Mouse coat hanger. The Doctor currently wore white pyjamas, with tiny question-mark motifs sewn on to them.

  If sleep was rare enough for him, dreaming was more so.

  But at this moment, his unconscious mind had situated him in a bizarre corridor, with no end. On one side the walls, ceiling and floor were a perfect white, on the other, jet black, the shades meeting dead centre of ceiling and floor.

  The Doctor stood astride both black and white and discovered that the side of him in the dark seemed to be like a monochrome photographic negative.

  He held his two hands up, surprised that he wasn’t actually more surprised.

  ‘Doctor... you have to help me...’

  The voice was male, but he didn’t recognise it. He tried to call out, but couldn’t make his voice work.

  Behind him, a door slammed, but he was unable to turn.

  Then another.

  And another.

  ‘How many doors must you slam, Doctor, before you understand the magnitude of what you did?’ asked a different voice.

  Then everything went dark - except the Doctor was now caught in a harsh spotlight from above. It surrounded him but offered no other illumination. He was no longer in any way negative, but the harshness of the light made the outlines of his hands indistinct and he couldn’t make out his own feet - just a blast of halogen from the knees downwards.

  ‘Doctor... I need your help. We need your help. We are dying...’

  The first voice sounded plaintive.

  And unbidden, a series of co-ordinates flashed through the Doctor’s mind, and the name of a planet. Dymok.

  He’d never heard of it.

  ‘You have to come...’ The voice faded away, and the light around his feet began to get brighter. He tried protecting his eyes, but even with them closed he could still see his own skeleton, so bright was the light.

  It consumed him and he finally found the voice to scream!

  He awoke in his bed, sweating and shaking.

  ‘A dream...’ he muttered. ‘I had a dream of... of...’

  But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t bring into his memory one iota of the dream.

  So he opted to forget about it and drifted back to sleep.

  And didn’t dream again.

  Dymok was a small planet, the fourth in a solar system. It had no satellites and few distinguishing marks. With a scattering of landmasses and a number of large oceans it was, in human terms, pretty average.

  And yet it had recently become the centre of attention simply because of its inhabitants. Recluses in an age when ‘recluse’ was a word people had to look up in The Dictionary of Archaic Phrases, their determination to shut themselves off from the universe around them intrigued everyone.

  Over the last few decades, people had ventured forth towards Dymok, ignoring its inhabitants’ protestations of seclusion and anonymity. Nothing intrigues the masses, or sells news, better than people who don metaphorical dark glasses, scarves and hats, screaming ‘Bugger off’. And the Dymova were shouting louder than anyone else via their silence.

  The biggest yell had been when a cargo ship hired by news reporters had run the blockade into the planet’s outer atmosphere. If anyone had been able to get a message back to Earth, or even the nearby space station that acted as beacon, warning buoy and first-line defence all in one, it would have been incoherent.

  Why?

  Because to some, the ship was invaded by giant twenty-legged spiders. To others, voices demanded that the airlocks be opened and everyone walk out to meet their ancestors. And to the three holovid technicians in the cargo hold? They were suddenly told to overload their famously temperamental equipment, unusually stored next to the solar stacks, which naturally would ward off the extra-dimensional brick-men who were entering the universe with proclamations of conquest.

  No one would ever know this of course because, when the solar stacks went up, so did the rest of the ship and everyone on board.

  But why had the crew experienced these ridiculous images and phantoms?

  It was the work of one elderly man - the Observer.

  And today he stood on slightly arthritic legs, gazing up at the night sky, seeing far beyond what his natural eyesight should allow. He could see beyond the dark clouds that threatened to douse him in rain. He could see beyond the radiation belt that protected his world from the sun’s harshest rays. And he could see far beyond the dark skies -

  among the stars in fact.

  His gaze settled upon the area surrounding the Imperial Earth Space Station Little Boy II. More specifically, he was focused on the tiny tear in the fabric of the universe that would enlarge shortly to spew out something currently occupying the space-time vortex. A unique craft, manned by unique people. In particular, he was focused upon one of its occupants.

  ‘Yes,’ he croaked to anyone who migh
t be listening. ‘Yes, she is the one we seek. She is the one I need.’

  He refocused his mind on the immediate terrain. Behind him, the black pyramid pointed far into the air - that was where he needed to be. At its apex.

  He swallowed hard, closed his eyes and concentrated. This was going to hurt, but it was necessary. He knew that the one thing he must never do was allow his eyes to open once he reached the pyramid. He needed to ensure his concentration was not broken by outside stimuli.

  ‘Move.’

  And slowly, eyes still closed, he walked to the base of the pyramid, reached forward and found handholds and footholds, then began climbing, using his mind rather than his sight to feel, to know, where the grips and ledges were. Slowly but very safely, the old man began his ascent.

  Because of her.

  2

  The New Dark Age

  ‘And I’ll wager you, good sir, that none can beat this hand.’

  Sir Henry Rugglesthorpe sat back in his leather chair, a self-satisfied grin on his face. And why not? It was not as if this strange man could possibly beat him. He had three aces in his hand. The six of clubs matched the six of diamonds on the table - the wild card which automatically acted as his fourth ace. And the fifth he had passed back to the dealer at the start of his game. As everyone else had folded, the chances of his opponent having five of anything were non-existent and thus, confident, Sir Henry took the gamble.

  ‘Is that so?’ murmured the smiling newcomer opposite him as he placed his cards down on the green baize table with a slight theatrical flourish.

  There was an audible gasp from the others grouped around the club table.

  ‘You consider yourself to be... adequate at this game, don’t you, Sir Henry?’

  Sir Henry stared at the fanned cards facing him. A six of hearts and four aces - the wild making it five. ‘King of the tables, they say, good sir. King of the tables.’

  In his own hand were four cards - less than a minute ago, there had been three aces. Now, a three of clubs, the six, a jack of hearts and an eight of diamonds.

  Useless.

  Gritting his teeth he let the cards flop face down on to the table, his heart beating faster, his eyes widening. How had this happened?

  Back at home, his wife would be doing her needlework. His daughter would be preparing for her coming-out ball. His son would be studying for his place (guaranteed, naturally) at Marlborough.

  All three awaiting the return of their husband or father to the familial bosom for another night.

  But tonight, if Sir Henry returned home, it would be as a broken man in every sense. No one else at the club actually knew the wager he and the stranger had undertaken. It was enough to bankrupt him - but Sir Henry’s method was infallible. It always had been - that was how he had made his fortune. Bought his title. Lied and cheated his way through society. For no particular reason, a memory of last year’s greatest triumph - dancing with his wife at King George’s accession ball - flickered through his mind, but it vanished in an unfocused mental shrug.

  How had the cards changed?

  How had the stranger cheated?

  But to accuse him - effectively for no good reason - was bad form. And who would believe him?

  Silently Sir Henry rose from his chair, bowed slightly and gave the stranger a tight smile.

  ‘If you will excuse me, sir, your victory has unsettled me somewhat. I shall return in a moment.’

  As he turned away towards the lavatories he heard the stranger speak, his rich, educated tones resonating throughout the club.

  ‘Please, Sir Henry, it is but a game. I have enjoyed the sport, but I have no intention of ruining you. Or damaging your reputation as a king of the tables. Let us discuss my...

  rewards.’

  Sir Henry froze on the spot. Such behaviour was unspeakably rude, especially at the club. His honour was further impugned by the stranger’s offer to erase the debt -or whatever he intended.

  Angrily, Sir Henry turned on his heel and prepared to face his tormentor. For a split second he shut his eyes: he felt giddy but that cleared and he opened his eyes again.

  He was no longer in the club.

  There were no leather chairs. No quiet murmured speech and the occasional rustling of The Times. No subtle clink of ice in glasses and a boy pouring Scotch or a good brandy.

  Instead, Sir Henry was standing... somewhere else entirely.

  His giddiness had cleared due to the slight breeze that kissed the back of his neck, and as far as he could see the ground was a series of bizarre splashes of colour that seemed random and indistinct. They stretched away in every direction and the furthest ones he could see appeared to be squares.

  It was like a grotesque, child’s version of the countryside, he realised. Like tiny fields, all of differing colours rather than just grass, mustard or turned earth. The corners of each one were marked by vast oak trees that looked dark and aged, vast branches spreading sideways.

  Good shelter from the rain, he thought and momentarily relaxed until he was jolted back to reality.

  ‘There’s something missing,’ murmured a bass voice in his ear.

  Sir Henry discovered the stranger beside him, no longer dressed as a member of the Firestrong Club of Jermyn Street, W1. No, he was now in some ludicrous garb, multicoloured like that of a jester or a circus magician. No, wait, it was more distinctive than that. Sir Henry remembered his schoolboy drawings and paintings. This was the clothing of some Chinese official, an ancient figure of authority. A mandarin. But the stranger was no oriental - his language and visage were those of a cultured Englishman in his late forties.

  He had a lined but not unkind face that seemed almost serene as he smiled and waved his right arm out towards the furthest coloured fields - blue and orange and green and purple and pink and...

  ‘Do you like my home, Sir Henry Rugglesthorpe? My realm? Is it not the most beautiful and charming place you have ever seen?’

  ‘Where are we?’ Sir Henry asked, rather more quietly and less angrily than he intended. He cleared his throat. ‘Where is the club?’

  The stranger, the mandarin figure, laughed - rather unpleasantly, Sir Henry decided. ‘The club is exactly where it always has been. Observe.’

  Sir Henry stepped aside involuntarily as, beside them, part of the green square they were standing on slid away. Rising upwards by means of some infernal machinery was... was something sir Henry had not, until now, ever encountered. It was shaped like a man, but was larger - its arms, legs, torso and head all squared off. It had a circle of wire on its head and a crude approximation of a face. Upon its chest, a tiny window glowed.

  The mandarin pointed at the window. ‘Observe the screen, Sir Henry.’

  Sir Henry flinched as he leant towards the metallic man and peered at the window.

  No, not a window - a projection screen of some sort. Like one of those television receiver things that the radio people had begun using last year. On it Sir Henry could see a flickering monochrome image. It appeared to be the interior of the Firestrong Club, the card table at which he had sat. He frowned in concentration.

  With a sigh, the mandarin reached over and gave the mechanical man a blow around the back of its head.

  ‘Magic Robot, perform!’ he commanded.

  The image flickered and strengthened, becoming full colour and perfectly sharp.

  ‘I recently upgraded his receiver to digital,’ the mandarin figure muttered, but to his companion he might as well have actually been speaking Mandarin. Sir Henry understood only that his colleagues, his friends at the club, were seated at the card table playing poker as if nothing had changed. The grandfather clock in the hallway could clearly be seen reading a quarter after seven. Only moments had passed since he and the stranger had been sitting there, playing the infernal hand that had resulted in this phantasmagoria.

  ‘I am dreaming...’

  The mandarin laughed again, this time notably more cruelly. ‘No, you pitiful creature, not
dreaming. But you may find this a nightmare. Observe.’

  And Sir Henry nearly lost his balance as the ground shot away beneath him... No! No, he was growing taller, the trees receding until they were no larger than mushrooms at his feet.

  He could see for miles now and the fields were indeed tiny coloured squares covering the flat lands. The tops of the trees formed familiar shapes at the top corners of each field.

  Numbers.

  ‘Do you understand now, Sir Henry?’

  Sir Henry shook his head. He did not want to understand.

  The mandarin shrugged. ‘It doesn’t really matter, my friend.

  Understanding I do not require. Sport, I do.’ He pointed forwards. ‘We are standing on Square 1. Observe the tree below us.’

  Indeed, the branches formed the Arabic figure 1. Those on the tree on the next field, a 2, and so on. In the furthest distance, he could see field 100.

  ‘As I said, something is missing. ‘The mandarin held out his hand, palm upturned. ‘Gaylord LeFevre?’ he called.

  A puff of purple smoke appeared upon his palm, and re-formed into the shape of a man. He wore a green baize jacket, a top hat, chequered waistcoat and a long moustache. ‘Monsieur LeFevre joined me on his way to New Orleans in 1846,’ the mandarin said by way of explanation. ‘He shared your passion for the colourful cards. I liked his steamboat but, alas, not his manners.’ He addressed LeFevre directly. ‘Something is missing, Monsieur. Regardez-vous.’

  LeFevre, clearly not at all affected by either his abrupt arrival or the gargantuan size of his master, turned and looked.

  ‘Apologies, Lord,’ he drawled. ‘I will get it sorted out immediately.’

  LeFevre was replaced by the purple smoke, which then withdrew completely into the mandarin’s palm once more.

  Before Sir Henry could speak, his companion gestured forward with his head. ‘Look, Rugglesthorpe, look.’