Doctor Who: Festival of Death: 50th Anniversary Edition (37 page)

The Doctor blinked and the shape had moved to the horizon, standing beneath the skeletal tree. A second later and it was right beside him, so close he could hear it breathe.

‘I am the Repulsion!’ boomed the shadow. It spoke with the Doctor’s voice.

‘Hello. I’m the Doctor.’

They had reached the upper levels of the G-Lock, K-9 wheeling a short distance behind Romana. The corridor ahead was littered with bodies and collapsed ducting.

K-9 came to a halt. Heavy ducting lay across his path. ‘Assistance required, mistress. Terrain too difficult for this unit to navigate.’

Romana was about to pick him up when there was a movement ahead of them.

Four refugees from the
Cerberus
were advancing down the corridor. They hurled the bodies and wreckage aside as if they weighed nothing at all, and as their eyes fell on Romana and K-9 they gave hisses of guttural delight.

‘K-9, can you stun them?’ whispered Romana.

‘I regret my defensive systems will prove ineffective against nonmortal entities, mistress.’

‘Is there anything you can do?’

‘Affirmative.’ K-9 extended his nose laser and swiped a beam of red light over the ceiling, across a conspicuous fault line where a recent crack had been replastered. The ceiling smashed to the floor in a billowing cloud of dust and blocked K-9 and Romana off from the zombies. ‘Laser power now depleted below minimal utility.’

‘Well done, K-9,’ said Romana, brushing her jacket. ‘Now can you find another way to the Great Hall?’

K-9’s ears whirred. ‘Calculating route.’ He revolved, and started down the corridor. ‘Affirmative. This way, mistress. Please follow.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Romana. ‘I can keep up.’

Harken groaned and tried to forget about the agonising pain in his arms. Instead, he thought about Romana. Oh, how much longer would she be?

Paddox had disappeared too; he was off making final preparations for his mad scheme, no doubt. The last Harken had seen of him, he’d been checking the wiring that looped around the walls.

Harken craned forward, but he couldn’t see the entrance ladder. That battered blue box was in the way. He tried to read the writing on the door, but the light was too dim. But, in an odd sort of way, the box was comforting.

Suddenly he heard a clang above him. The hatch! Some footsteps clattered down the ladder, and stopped. He could hear hushed talking, but couldn’t make out the words. But it sounded like Romana. Oh, please let it be Romana.

Eventually she appeared, striding confidently into the necroport, her hands on her head. She looked at him with mild surprise. There was a girl with her, pleasant-looking, with auburn hair and earnest eyes.

‘Romana! You’re back,’ said Harken. ‘At last! I thought I was doomed to a desolate and desperate demise. Quick, get me out of here before that lunatic Paddox comes back –’

Paddox appeared behind Romana and the girl, his blaster raised.

‘Oh. Help,’ said Harken.

The Doctor trudged through the grey quarry. The incessant rain spattered into deep puddles.

‘You know, for a pocket dimension, this isn’t very impressive,’ said the Doctor. ‘Are you doing it on the cheap?’

The shadowy nothingness of the Repulsion stood nearby. ‘It is my reality. The manifestation of my will.’

‘Well, you’re not very imaginative then. I mean, you don’t even
have
your own shape or voice. They do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but even so…’

‘Within my domain, my command is absolute, Doctor.’ There was a rumble of thunder.

‘Yes, very good, no need to go overboard on the special effects,’ said the Doctor. ‘But if you’re so all-powerful, how come you need to take over people to enter the real universe, hmm?’

‘I require hosts in order to enter the realm of the living.’

‘Oh, I see. You mean, because there’s nothing to you, you need other people’s bodies to ride around in?’

The Repulsion didn’t reply.

‘But why use the passengers from the
Cerberus
at all? Why not just transfer yourself straight into the bodies of the people taking part in the Beautiful Death?’

‘It is easier to transfer my being into subjects who have surrendered themselves to me. The passengers from the
Cerberus
made most willing hosts.’ The Doctor could have sworn the Repulsion was smiling.

‘Ah! And the people taking part in the Beautiful Death were too difficult to take over? How terribly inconvenient of them.’ He kicked a stone. ‘What about K-9?’

‘Oh, do not doubt that I can place myself within any subject that has entered my domain, willingly or unwillingly,’ hissed the Repulsion. ‘Just as I can enter the minds of anyone connected to the necroport, Doctor.’

‘Can you really? Yes, well…’ The Doctor coughed uneasily.

Romana looked at the pistol pointed at her and gave a calm smile. ‘I have an idea,’ she suggested politely. ‘Why don’t you give me the gun, and I can point it at myself whilst you’re chaining Evadne up?’

‘No, I have a better solution,’ sneered Paddox. ‘I point the gun at you, and then you chain Evadne up.’

‘Of course.’ Romana looked over Paddox’s shoulder, and gasped. ‘Doctor, you’re alive after all! Thank goodness!’

‘What –’ Paddox spun round, only for Romana to slam against
him
, sending him reeling, the pistol and chains clattering across the floor.

She ran over to the access ladder, and called out, ‘Evadne, well don’t just stand there, come on!’

Evadne stared back, not sure whether to run or not. She glanced over to Paddox, who was recovering his pistol.

Romana gave an exasperated sigh and started climbing the ladder.

Evadne watched, frozen to the spot, as Paddox levelled the gun at Romana and a narrow beam of light stretched across the room, connecting with the wall by Romana’s shoulder. A moment later, and that part of the wall erupted into a shower of sparks.

Romana continued to climb, disappearing from view, and Paddox fired again causing another explosion. He dashed over to the smouldering ladder and took aim, but he was too late. There was a clang as the hatch slammed shut.

The garden was overgrown; the statues were clothed in thick coats of ivy, and the fountains were dry and crusted in lichen.

The Doctor listened to the recording of laughter and birdsong, and addressed the dark figure beside him. ‘What is it you want, exactly?’

‘What do I want? I want to live. To exist. To be able to experience life.’

‘And you can’t do that here?’

‘This place is nothing. It is outside life and death,’ said the Repulsion bitterly. ‘I want to live in the real universe.’

‘And then?’

‘And then I will take my revenge. I have spent an eternity observing the universe from the outside. An eternity of being taunted by those who have life. I will destroy. I will destroy until only I am left alive.’

‘And you plan to do that in a couple of hundred bodies?’ The Doctor laughed derisively, and started down the terrace steps. ‘Good luck to you!’

‘No,’ said the Repulsion. ‘Now I have a better idea.’

*

Romana pushed open the door and stepped into the gloom of the Great Hall, K-9 rumbling across the floor behind her. She let the door fall shut, and moved forward. And then she ducked back behind the nearest coffin.

There were three figures standing a short distance from the necroport. The Doctor, hunched and forlorn, Hoopy, his eyes darting about in bewilderment, and… herself. She was engaged in a conversation with the Doctor, constantly flicking aside her hair.

It was unnerving, seeing her former self like this. It was also terribly dangerous. If her former self should accidentally spot her, or they should meet… no, it was too awful to contemplate.

She had to reach the Doctor; she had to get K-9 down into the necroport. But there was no way she could get past the Doctor, Hoopy and herself without being seen.

K-9 motored up beside her. ‘Mistress –’

‘Shh, K-9.’ Romana crept down the aisle, making her way towards the necroport. Keeping her body crouched, she managed to reach the coffin nearest to the Doctor. She beckoned to K-9 to join her behind it. He trundled forward, his body jiggling from side to side.

After he had reached her, Romana peered over the top of the casket.

The Doctor was indignant about dying in the necroport. ‘That corpse you saw down there is going to be me, or rather, I am going to be that corpse. I can’t avoid that any more than I can alter my own past. Second law of time travel.’

‘The first law,’ her former self corrected him. Romana couldn’t believe how conceited it made her appear.

‘Exactly. And now I can’t prevent my own death, any more than I can go back and resit my basic time travel proficiency test –’

Romana dived back as the Doctor suddenly slammed his fist on the coffin with a loud clang. Leaning on the side of the casket, she could feel the reverberations rumbling through her body.

The Doctor yelped in pain. ‘Any more than I could go back and stop myself doing that.’

*

Evadne strained at the manacles holding her wrists, but it was no use. She gazed across the necroport chamber, to where Paddox was making final adjustments to the instruments. His hands were trembling.

‘Harken Batt, leading insect-on-the-wall documentary-maker?
The Guilty Conscience
?’

‘No, doesn’t ring any bells,’ said Evadne, turning back to face her fellow captive. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘That, my dear, is a long story, full of misfortune and great personal tragedy.’

‘Go on then, I could do with a laugh.’

Harken looked down. ‘I am here because… well, because of a documentary I once made. Due to circumstances beyond my control I hasten to add, it left me ruined. A laughing stock. Ever since then, I have been attempting to stitch together the tatters of my reputation.’

‘What documentary?’

‘
The Guilty Conscience
,’ sighed Harken. ‘It was to have been the highpoint of my career.’

‘What happened?’

‘The documentary was about the criminal underworld. Gangsters and so forth. But unfortunately, such people tend to be… well, very secretive about their methods.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

‘I was finding it impossible to get to anyone, and I had an editor on my back. So I decided to… well, film a reconstruction.’

‘Grief! You decided to fake it?’

‘No,’ said Harken indignantly. ‘Reconstructions are a standard journalistic practice. It is not faking it, merely…’ He searched for the euphemism, ‘… working on a different level of authenticity.’

‘Bet you didn’t tell your editor that, though.’

‘Of course not. The news network would never have bought it if they’d known.’

‘So you fake up this documentary. Then what?’

‘I did not “fake” it. I was merely applying a broader palette of
truth
. Anyway. I hired some unknown actors and finished the documentary. And the end result was excellent. Everything was all set, the film was scheduled for broadcast, prime time. And then…’

‘And then?’

‘How was I to know he would pass the audition?’

‘Who? What audition?’

‘One of the actors I used, playing my gangland boss. The same day my film was due to go out, he was announced as the new face of Nova-Bright washing powder.’

‘“Nova-Bright Makes Your Pants All White”?’ Evadne suppressed a laugh. ‘I get it. And so they cancelled your documentary?’

‘Oh no, it went out all right. It was too late to do anything about it. They were showing his adverts during the commercial breaks. Every ten minutes.’ Harken broke down. ‘The press, of course, had a field day. Sub-Etha One sued for damages. And I, Harken Batt, the greatest investigative reporter of my generation, was ruined.’

At the sound of Harken’s sobbing, Paddox snapped. He stalked over to them, gun raised. ‘I must have silence!’ he screamed, his whole body shaking. ‘Or I will kill you both now!’

‘What do you mean, you have a better idea?’

The Repulsion stood on the distant cliff, a silhouette gazing out to sea. The Doctor turned away, and the Repulsion was standing on the shingle beside him. ‘I can enter the minds of anyone connected to the necroport. I can enter you, Doctor.’

‘What?’ The Doctor shook his head. ‘No.’

‘I will place my entire being within you,’ said the Repulsion, picking over each word with delight. ‘I will be a Time Lord.’

‘No!’

‘Within your body, I will be unstoppable. The entirety of space and time will be in my grasp.’

‘You can’t… What about the passengers from the
Cerberus
?’

‘They are superfluous. Without my influence, they will die.’ The shadow disappeared.

The Doctor straightened his shoulders. ‘You won’t be able to do
it
. I haven’t surrendered myself to you.’

‘You cannot resist.’ The Repulsion appeared behind him.

‘What?’

‘Your consciousness will be overwhelmed. You will be as nothing.’

‘No!’ yelled the Doctor, his face locked in an expression of pure horror.

‘I will live,’ hissed the Repulsion. ‘I will be you!’

Romana waited behind the casket, K-9 beside her. On the other side of the coffin, her former self and the Doctor were still in conversation. The lizard Hoopy had shuffled off, and she watched as he perched himself, sighing with boredom, on a coffin directly between her and the necroport.

‘So, as I said, we have to go back in time again,’ her former self was saying. She strode down the aisle of coffins, towards the main doors. The Doctor followed her.

Romana watched them talk for a moment, and then turned back to the necroport. This would be her only chance. But as she peered over the casket she saw that Hoopy was still in the way, flicking idly at his neck beads.

‘And we still haven’t found out what we’re up against, or what this Repulsion thing is trying to do,’ said the Doctor. ‘Or what slyboots Paddox is trying to do. Or how I’m supposed to save the day, for that matter.’

‘So we have to go back again.’

Hoopy was looking the other way, his eyelids drooping. Romana tapped K-9 on the head, and straightened up. ‘Come on, K-9.’