Doctor Who: Festival of Death: 50th Anniversary Edition (26 page)

‘Simmonds, report!’ shouted Rochfort.

‘The hatch… the hatch has split, sir. They’re coming through now,’ gasped Simmonds. There was the high-pitched frazzle of laser blasters discharging, followed by a strange, repetitive clacking. ‘No! No! No!’

Simmonds screamed, gurgling as if he was being strangled. Something hissed, ‘Eats! Must have eats!’

And then the intercom went dead.

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

THE DOOR CREAKED
open, spilling light into the blackness, and Romana strode into the Great Hall. The clink of her footsteps reverberated off the ancient stone walls as she walked towards the shadowy outline of a coffin.

Evadne levered the door shut. ‘Well, this is it,’ she whispered. ‘This is where the Beautiful Death takes place.’

As Romana’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, she fancied she could sense a presence, waiting. A clear case of subliminal anxiety manifestation, she told herself, and dismissed the thought.

The windows in the gallery above suddenly lit up. Romana could make out the bright control room within, the faint shapes of the scientists flitting back and forth.

The necroport was bathed in a ghostly glow. Romana was struck by how sinister it was; its surface was perfectly smooth, covered in paintings of skeletal angels. A small podium had been erected on the far side of the machine. She approached the entrance hatch. ‘It’s not guarded?’

‘No need,’ said Evadne. ‘Everything’s kept locked, and only staff know the entry codes.’ She shuddered at the sight of the necroport. ‘And, I mean, who would be stupid enough to want to go in there?’

Romana heaved the hatch open. Inside, the ladder dropped away into blackness.

‘I’ll go first then, shall I?’ said Romana.

‘But you can’t change your own past,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s one of the laws of time travel, I forget which exactly, but definitely one of them.’

‘You are a Time Lord, Doctor,’ said Gallura. ‘You know that history is not immutable.’

‘If history could not be changed, there would be no need for a law to forbid it,’ added Nyanna.

The Doctor frowned. ‘So what does this have to do with the secret of the Arboretans? Supposing for a moment that you could change your pasts. If you can go back and avoid things, how come you have ended up here, hmm?’

‘What has been is what always will be,’ said Gallura. ‘We follow the Path of Perfection.’

‘But –’

Nyanna’s fronds wavered, as if she sensed something. ‘Paddox is approaching. You must leave us.’

The Doctor listened. He couldn’t hear anything apart from the drone of the G-Lock’s generators. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Please, Doctor,’ Gallura urged. ‘You must go now.’

The Doctor straightened his cloak. ‘Ah, well, if you insist.’ He nodded to each of them, and backed into the corridor. The door slid down behind him.

A second later there was the steady clack of approaching footsteps. Quickly, the Doctor pulled out the skull mask and slipped it over his face. It was tight, uncomfortable and tasted of rubber. He wondered how the guards put up with it.

Paddox strode down the corridor towards the cells. To his displeasure he noted that the prison guard seemed to have disappeared, leaving his desk unattended. At least there was a skullguard on duty, standing to attention, his empty eye sockets staring dead ahead.

‘Where has that idiotic prison guard got to?’ said Paddox.

The skullguard made a search-me gesture.

‘I see. So you’ve been left here instead, have you?’

The skullguard nodded.

Paddox reminded himself to have a word with Metcalf. This was not the first time the prison guard’s inefficiency had caused him concern.

He punched the door-opening control and stepped into the cell containing the two remaining Arboretans. They looked at him blankly, their faces showing no trace of fear. As a race they were passive creatures, with no sense of self-preservation. They would comply with his commands without the slightest resistance, even when undergoing dissection.

The elder of the creatures, a female, stood up and moved calmly out into the corridor. It was as though she could read his mind.

Paddox kept his pistol trained on the Arboretan as he locked the door and addressed the masked guard. ‘You, skullguard. Come with me.’

The guard shuffled uneasily.

‘Don’t worry, I’m sure the prison guard will be returning presently.’ Paddox weighed the pistol in his hands, thinking. ‘Executive Metcalf has informed me that we have a prisoner. A saboteur who was posing as a neurelectrician. An absurd fellow, calls himself “the Doctor”.’

The guard said nothing, so Paddox continued. ‘Metcalf suspects that there may be other saboteurs at large within the G-Lock, and I am anxious that the security of the necroport should not compromised.’

The guard nodded vigorously.

An idea occurred to Paddox. ‘Hold this,’ he said, thrusting the pistol into the guard’s hands. He would question the prisoner himself. Paddox walked up to the Doctor’s cell, and reached for the door-opening mechanism.

There was a loud clattering. Paddox spun round to see the guard on his knees, retrieving the pistol from the floor.

Paddox rushed back and snatched the gun out of the guard’s hands. ‘Give me that. Obviously you cannot be trusted not to shoot yourself in the foot.’

As the guard stood up, Paddox waved the Arboretan down the corridor. ‘You. Forward.’ He turned to the guard. ‘And you. Follow me.’ He looked down. The guard’s cloak was slithering along the floor. ‘And do try not to trip up on the way.’

*

The interior of the necroport had changed little; the desk untidily piled with electronic equipment, the doorway leading into a room full of twinkling lights, the three coffins with their wire-mesh headpieces. Except this time the coffins were empty. The corner where the TARDIS had stood was just empty floor.

‘Grief. This place is well spooky,’ said Evadne. She peered into each of the coffins. ‘What goes on down here, do you think?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ said Romana. She traced the wires from socket to socket. All the cables fed through into a transformer unit, with a dial indicating the level of power. The transformer in turn linked to the three coffins. ‘How extraordinary.’

‘What is it?’

‘The direction of the particle flow into the capacitors. Of course!’ Romana clenched a triumphant fist, and crossed over to Evadne.

‘Say no more,’ said Evadne. ‘The direction of the particle flow. Staring me in the face. Right, now that’s sorted, let’s get out of here.’

‘It’s all a sham,’ said Romana. ‘The necroport isn’t the power source for the Beautiful Death at all.’

‘Eh, hang on. If it isn’t the power source…’

‘The Beautiful Death is the power source for the necroport! It’s a device for drawing energy from the participants, gathering it together, and then transferring it into these three units here.’ Romana indicated the coffins.

‘I don’t get it,’ said Evadne. ‘You’re saying this thing is taking power out of the people upstairs?’

‘Yes. Not electricity, of course. Some sort of psychothermic energy transference.’ Romana paced back and forth. ‘Yes. Whilst they remain dormant, this machine accumulates their psychothermic energy. Like charging up a battery.’

Evadne was stuck on the first part of Romana’s speech. ‘Psychothermic?’

‘A hypothetical form of energy released during the death process,’ said Romana. ‘It is the necroport absorbing the psychothermic energy that causes the participants to die.’

‘And then what?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Romana, crestfallen. ‘It directs it to these coffins. And then, when the half hour is up it feeds back a psychothermic pulse to the participants, reviving them.’

‘So basically, what you’re saying is, right, it takes the consciousness out of the people upstairs, and then puts it into whoever’s lying there.’

‘Basically, yes,’ smiled Romana, placing great emphasis on the word ‘basically’.

‘But what’s it do that for?’

Suddenly Romana could hear footsteps clanging above them. Both she and Evadne looked up. Someone was climbing into the necroport.

‘Quick!’ Romana steered Evadne into the adjoining room. The walls were filled with spinning tape reels and banks of glimmering lights. Piles of dusty ticker tape littered the floor.

Rows of circuit boards were slotted into computer banks, bundles of multicoloured wiring exposed to view. A monitor showed static.

‘What do you think all this stuff does?’ asked Evadne.

Romana shushed her, and pulled her down to a squatting position by the doorway. Together, they leaned forward to look into the necroport chamber.

Three figures walked in. The first was Paddox, instantly recognisable in his high-collared white laboratory coat. He beckoned forward the second figure – the female Arboretan Romana had seen on her previous visit. Following them was a skullguard, its body slightly stooped.

The Arboretan climbed into the right-hand coffin and lay back, crossing her arms over her chest. Paddox then fixed the wire mesh on to her head. He examined all the cables that linked her to the transformer, tugging on the connections to check they were fast. After finding everything to his satisfaction, he pressed a sequence of buttons. Immediately all the instruments flashed into life, and a low, throbbing hum filled the air.

The Arboretan started to writhe.

Paddox faced the guard. ‘Remain here. I want this place kept
absolutely
secure.’ He collected another pistol from his desk, and handed it to the guard. ‘And if anyone other than myself attempts to enter, kill them. Do you think you can manage that?’

The guard nodded.

‘I shall have to trust you,’ said Paddox. He took one last look at the squirming Arboretan, and allowed himself a brief smile before he marched over to the ladder and clambered out of the necroport.

After Paddox had gone, Evadne whispered to Romana: ‘What do we do now?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But we can’t go out there because of the guard. We’re trapped.’

‘Yes, I am quite aware of that.’ The guard was wandering around the chamber as if he was searching for something. There was something oddly familiar about his shambolic gait.

The guard removed his mask to reveal the Doctor’s face, grinning wildly. ‘“Absurd”? How dare he call me absurd! I’ve never heard anything so absurd!’ he huffed. His eyes darted to and fro and, in his most booming voice, he called, ‘Romana?’

Romana sighed, and rushed up to the Doctor. ‘Doctor!’

‘Ah, there you are,’ said the Doctor, clapping her on the shoulders. ‘And Evadne?’

Evadne emerged. ‘You must be the secret agent known only as “the Doctor”?’

‘Er, yes, that’s right,’ said the Doctor. He turned to Romana and muttered, ‘What have you been telling her, exactly?’

Evadne caught sight of the Arboretan, and rushed over to her coffin. The creature was showing increasing signs of distress. Wisps of steam were rising from her twitching body. ‘Isn’t there anything we can do?’

The Doctor turned to Romana, and she shook her head. ‘You know the future, Doctor,’ she said. ‘We can’t save her.’

‘No,’ said the Doctor glumly. ‘Any more than we can save ourselves.’

Paddox swung the hatch shut. He could feel the floor trembling as
the
necroport energised, the vibrations in sympathy with his own gathering excitement.

The main doors opened, and attendants poured into the hall. Immediately they set to work, readying the coffins for the impending ceremony. A man in a full-length grey coat hurried over to the platform, followed by an unkempt youth. Paddox watched as they started setting up camera lights, the man in the coat shouting instructions that his colleague did his best to ignore.

As the Great Hall began to fill with activity, Paddox slipped unnoticed to the staircase and made his way to the necroport control room.

The Doctor folded up the cloak and uniform and threw them carelessly into the corner, along with the laser pistol. Evadne watched him with a mixture of awe and incomprehension. He was a very unlikely-looking spy. But then, thought Evadne, in the spying profession that was probably an advantage.

Romana was inspecting the Arboretan’s headset. The creature’s limbs were contorting painfully. ‘The necroport appears to be using her as some sort of channel.’

‘What?’ The Doctor glanced over the instrumentation. ‘Of course!’ he exclaimed. ‘He’s using the Arboretans as mediums!’

‘Of course,’ said Romana. ‘The necroport alone can’t give people a journey in the afterlife. It needs the Arboretans to act as psychotemporal conduits.’

‘Yeah, of course,’ said Evadne, not following the conversation, but feeling she should contribute.

‘So all you need to do is connect an Arboretan to the necroport,’ said Romana. ‘And then anyone else who is connected to it can enter the next world…’

‘… going via the Arboretan’s consciousness! Yes!’

‘Hang on, you mean the necroport…’ Evadne pointed at the wall, ‘… is using her…’ she pointed at the Arboretan, ‘… to treat everyone to the Beautiful Death?’

‘Yes,’ said the Doctor and Romana together.

‘But how…’ began Evadne, and gave up.

Romana continued. ‘But if Paddox is sending hundreds of people through into the afterlife at once, the strain on the Arboretan must be enormous.’

‘Fatal, I should imagine,’ said the Doctor gravely. ‘Paddox has been running these experiments for years. He’s wiped out almost the entire species.’

‘Gallura said you should “avenge the extinction of the Arboretans”.’

‘Yes.’ The Doctor brooded. ‘Genocide. Evil on a scale that is almost inconceivable. But there’s one thing I still don’t understand.’

‘Only one thing?’ said Evadne. ‘I can think of at least fifty.’

‘What’s he doing it all for, hmm?’ The Doctor swept grandly around the room. ‘Why does he need to treat two-hundred-odd people to the Beautiful Death simultaneously?’

‘Because he’s trying to gather enough power to do something, and the only way he can do that is if everyone dies at once,’ said Romana.