Doctor Who: Festival of Death: 50th Anniversary Edition (40 page)

The girl turned around, and looked directly at them. She giggled.

‘Can she see us?’

‘Oh, I should expect so. But the effect will soon pass. She’ll have to return to the interface. Look.’ As the Doctor spoke the girl ran across the room, her body fading away to nothing.

‘Back to the domain of the Repulsion?’

‘Well, what’s left of it,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s the only home she knows.’

Evadne turned a corner, and halted. Two Investigators were standing outside the door to Metcalf’s office.

‘This is the place, Rige,’ said the older, world-weary man. He consulted his notebook. ‘Executive Metcalf. He’s the one who sent out the galactic distress signal.’

Rige craned his neck, surveying the smoke damage and exposed cabling. ‘Signal.’

The older Investigator adjusted his collar, and then opened the door without knocking. Evadne watched as Rige followed him inside, and the door slid shut.

Walking away, she checked her watch. Forty-one minutes until she was due to rescue Romana. Just enough time for a quick can of caffeine brew.

The Doctor twisted the TARDIS key into the lock. As he was about to step inside Romana placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Doctor?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Aren’t we forgetting something?’ she said. ‘Paddox?’

‘Paddox got what he wanted. He’s gone back to live his life over again.’

‘But doesn’t that mean he could change history? The first law…’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘He didn’t realise that the ability to change the past is specific to certain species who, in a sense, exist outside time itself. Such as Arboretans…’

‘Or Time Lords?’

‘Or Time Lords,’ said the Doctor. ‘But as humans don’t have that ability he won’t be able to alter a single thing.’

‘You mean, he will live his life, but exactly the same as before?’

‘Yes. Doomed to repeat the same mistakes, over and over again. Consigned to an eternity of reliving his own personal hell.’

‘But that’s horrible.’

‘He destroyed an entire race,’ said the Doctor. He stared into the distance. ‘We all have our regrets, things in our past we wish we could change. But those regrets are part of what makes us who we are. Oh, the Arboretans can go back, and follow their “Path of Perfection”, but what sort of an existence is that? No existence at all. If you could go back and rub things out and start again, life would no longer have any value, no meaning. It is the fact that you only get one chance that makes the small joys of life so precious.’ The Doctor smiled at Romana.

‘Very profound, Doctor.’

‘Live your life as though it’s your last,’ said the Doctor. ‘Because it
is
.’ He ducked inside the TARDIS. ‘Probably.’

‘And whilst we’re on the subject of coming to terms with past failures…’ said Romana, closing the door behind her.

The TARDIS motors started up, the lamp flashing on and off. There was a painful grinding, and the TARDIS slowly wrenched itself out of existence. And then, with a sudden crump, it reappeared.

‘Doctor,’ came Romana’s voice. ‘You haven’t realigned the synchronic multiloop stabiliser yet.’

‘What? How do I do that?’

‘The analogue osmosis dampener!’

‘Oh! Of course! The analogue osmosis dampener!’ A brief pause. ‘What’s that?’

‘Honestly. You’re never going to pass your basic time travel proficiency at this rate.’

‘My… Right! That does it! Give me that!’

The door of the police box swung open and the Doctor emerged. In his hands was a small, battered paperback.
The Continuum Code
.

‘Basic time travel proficiency!’ muttered the Doctor. He flicked the pages, tore off the cover, and threw the book into the waste-disposal unit. ‘Pah!’

For a brief second the Doctor looked up, his face breaking into a smile, and then he disappeared back into the TARDIS.

And, with a wheezing, groaning sound, the TARDIS dematerialised, heading for another adventure.

‘Gallura is born.’

The elders and birthsayers clustered around Nyanna as she held the newborn baby in her arms. She smoothed the baby’s skin, wiping away the sap from its mouth and eyes. Its skin was flushed, riddled with bulging veins.

The moment she had anticipated for so long had finally arrived. The moment of the past, and the future. The tension was unbearable.

‘The last of the Arboretans,’ muttered one of the elders. The others shushed it, as they jostled for position.

Nyanna lifted the baby close to her face. ‘Gallura,’ she asked it. ‘Did the Doctor succeed?’

‘Yes,’ said the baby, its eyes flicking open. ‘The Doctor succeeded. This time.’

E
PILOGUE

For the rest of his life he would remember it as the day he died.

Koel’s mum took a brisk breath and tightened her grip on her son’s wrist. Koel twisted against her, tugging at her arm, trying to pull her attention down to him.

The voice of the intercom smoothed over the hubbub. ‘It is my pleasure to inform you that the Alpha Twelve intersystem shuttle is now boarding. All passengers for Third Birmingham should make their way to embarkation lounge seven at their earliest convenience. Felicitations.’

‘That’s us,’ his mum sighed. ‘Time we were gone.’

From behind Koel’s eyes, Paddox watched. He could see what his younger self was seeing, every sense and smell. For the first years of his life his vision had been blurred, his hearing sensitive to the slightest, high-pitched sound. But now every moment was more vivid, more heartbreakingly pure than he had ever imagined. It was the greatest feeling; to be able to experience all the joys of childhood again, to see his parents, young and smiling. He could even hear the simple, spoken thoughts of his younger self in his mind.

And now, after six years, the day had finally come.

Koel recoiled at the sight of the clawed slats bending out of the floor. His mum dragged him forward and he tripped on the metal steps, surprised by the upward rush and the ever-lengthening stairwell growing beneath them.

As they left the dome, Paddox watched the amber lights swimming
past
. Closer, he could see a young boy in a sky-green duffle coat rising on an identical escalator beside him. Paddox gazed deep into the boy’s tearful eyes. Somewhere behind those eyes he could see his own reflection looking back at him.

At the last moment Koel was lifted off the escalator by his mum and deposited on the grid-patterned carpet of the departure lounge. They joined his dad in the fenced maze winding towards the entrance of the airlock. In the airlock two security guards glowered at the procession of travellers, hands resting on rifles. Their masks were bulbous, like the heads of giant insects.

An observation window filled one wall of the lounge, overlooking the bulk of the intersystem shuttle. The shuttle wallowed in the blackness, constrained only by the access tube. Through its transparent lining, Koel could see the passengers picking their way along the pipeline.

Paddox shouted out to Koel. All of the passengers on the shuttle would be killed. He must not board the shuttle, he must stop his parents boarding the shuttle. But Koel couldn’t hear him.

And then Paddox finally realised. He was merely a passenger in Koel’s mind. He couldn’t move a single muscle in Koel’s body. He couldn’t exert any influence at all on Koel.

Paddox screamed in anguish. He would have to watch his parents die before his eyes all over again, knowing what was going to happen but powerless to intervene. Unable even to look away.

He would have to relive all that pain and misery and loss.

And then he would have to live his whole life again, unable to change a single action.

And then, after he had sacrificed himself to the necroport, he would be forced to go back in time and do it all over again. And again.

For ever and ever, in an endless, unremitting loop.

Paddox howled, but no one could hear him. No one would ever hear him.

A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Huge thanks to my read-through people, to whom I am very indebted; Mark Clapham, Helen Fayle, Sietel Gill, Matt Kimpton, Jon Miller, Mark Phippen, Henry Potts and Ben Woodhams. And special thanks to Sarah Lavelle, Jac Rayner and Justin Richards, for their patience and understanding.

Extra bonus thanks go to Gary Russell, Who_Ink and all @ Mute. This book should be read on a Saturday at about tea-time.

Next in the
Doctor Who
50th Anniversary Collection:

F
EAR OF THE
D
ARK

TREVOR BAXENDALE

ISBN 978 1 849 90522 0

The
Doctor Who
50th Anniversary Collection

Eleven classic adventures

Eleven brilliant writers

One incredible Doctor

On a moon of the ruined planet Akoshemon, an age-old terror is about to be reborn. Something that remembers the spiral of war, pestilence and deprivation – and rejoices in it. The Fifth Doctor joins a team of archaeologists searching for evidence of the planet’s infamous past, and uncovers more than just ancient history. Forced to confront his own worst fears, even the Doctor will be pushed to breaking point – and beyond.

An adventure featuring the Fifth Doctor, as played by Peter Davison, and his companions Nyssa and Tegan
.

 

Gary Russell

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