Doctor Who: Lungbarrow (37 page)

'I know what that is,' said Dorothée. 'That's the Hand of Omega.'

'So
who
is he?' said Romana.

'He's not the Doctor,' said Innocet emphatical y.

They caught angry thoughts from the figure, but whether these were relayed through the Doctor or directly from the man himself, they could not tell.

'I warned him. I warned Rassilon that if force was used against the dissenters, if their sanctuary in the Pythia's temple was violated, then I would leave his accursed planet to its own devices!'

He pul ed off his shoe and threw it, but the missile shot straight through the box as if it did not exist.

'But if I go, there will be no way back. Rassilon wil be left with absolute control. No checks, no balances. Gods, how I long to be free. Free of schemes, ambitions, and free of my dark, brooding self.'

For a second, Dorothée thought he was going to throw himself down from the monument. He nearly stepped out, but instead he pulled back and slid down the curve of the edifice. He dropped the last twenty feet and landed like a cat.

Figures moved out of the shadows around him. A knife flashed, but the box was suddenly among them, flinging bolts of energy at the helpless assassins.

'So Rassilon seals his own fate.' The figure's thoughts were weary and saddened. 'But there will be much to prepare for my departure and one impossible farewel to make.'

He laid a silky grey rose at the foot of the monument. Then, throwing away his other shoe, he loped off into the city.

The Doctor followed.

'Are these really his memories?' complained Dorothée. 'What's this got to do with the Doctor?'

Romana and Innocet exchanged glances, but said nothing. They were moving deep into the slums of the lower city, down il -lit streets and alleys peopled with ragged shadows.

185

A group of guards were standing at one corner, drinking. The figure paused for a moment against a doorway. He wrapped his cloak tightly round himself and the gloom swallowed him.

The Doctor moved on without pausing.

'Where did he go?' said Chris as they hovered past the empty doorway.

Dorothée turned to Innocet. 'If these are the Doctor's memories, surely we'd only see things through his eyes?'

Innocet nodded. 'But these are more than memories.'

The guards burst into drunken laughter.

The Doctor was already passing above them.

'There he is,' said Leela. The cloaked figure had slipped out of the shadows ahead of the Doctor, and was hurrying away.

The first shades of grey were leaking into the night sky when he finally reached a shuttered house, wedged between a seedy tavern and the dingy shop of a memory broker. He let himself in and padded up the wooden stairs.

The old alien woman, sewing in the little room stacked with books, hardly acknowledged him when he entered. Her Punchinello face huddled near her chin, overshadowed by her wispy domed head.

'Where's my granddaughter?' he said.

She put away her needle. 'Sleeping, Meyopapa. Half the night she spent on the roof watching the fire.'

'I told you not to let her up there,' he growled. 'Not where she can be seen.'

The old woman scratched her teeth. 'No use arguing with that one.'

He fished a jingling purse out of his cloak. 'You have to leave, Mamlaurea. It's no longer safe here.'

'Go home?' she said. 'Back to Tersurus?'

He nodded grimly. 'And take Susan with you. Take the first Astrafoil you can get places on. Carry as little as possible. You mustn't look as if you're fleeing.'

The old woman was staring at him. 'Meyopapa, you not coming too?'

'Some time, perhaps.' He bent to look out of the little window. The window in through which Dorothée and the others were staring.

He looked directly through them. His black hair was swept back, but even in the early light, his face was deep in shadow.

The Doctor was inside the room, but Dorothée could not see his face at all. She only saw his head give a twitch of shock as a young girl walked into the room.

'Grandfather!' She hurled herself at the man, burying herself in his cloak. 'Oh, Grandfather, I thought you'd never come. It's been days. Where have you been? Did you see the fire? What happened to your shoes?'

'Yes, I saw it, child. Deplorable.'

Her hair was cropped short and her eyes were huge and brown, set in an elfin face. She was laughing. 'Oh, I've missed you. I was reading Pelatov and then I suddenly knew you were here.'

He looked directly at her. 'And you've seen no one else?'

186

'No. I don't go out. I know it's dangerous out there.'

'And how do you know that?'

'Well, you told me.'

'Hmm?'

She was only half daring to meet his eye. 'And there are strangers in the street below. I've seen them from the window.'

He glared at the old woman. She shrugged and bustled out. 'I cannot turn my eyes every way all at once.'

'I'm sorry, Grandfather,' said the girl and hugged him again.

'No, no, Susan. It's I who should be sorry. This is no way to bring up a child, not locked away with a fussy old nanya and a crotchety grandfather who's never here.'

'You have your work,' she said. 'It's a great secret. That's why you protect me.'

'What's that? What do you mean?'

She lowered her eyes. 'I never saw my mother. But I know that she died when I was born, at the very same moment as the Pythia cursed the world.'

'What's that old woman been telling you?'

'Not Mamlaurea. My mother told me. I stil hear her thoughts in my mind. And father too. Ever since he died in battle.'

'On one of Rassilon's filthy bow-ships.'

Susan was smiling gently. 'Mother told me that I'm the last of the real children of Gallifrey.'

'Dear child,' he said. 'That's why you're so precious.'

'But you'll always be with me too, Grandfather. I'll always know you.'

Dorothée finally caught sight of the Doctor's face. He had turned away from the scene. There was a look of bewildered fear in his eyes.

Time froze as he saw the ghosts at the window.

'Oh, no. Not now!' He tugged at his vest. 'Whatever happened to privacy?'

'We came to fetch you back,' said Innocet.

'What for?'

'For your sake, Doctor,' said Romana.

He peered at Innocet. 'Do I know you?'

'Yes, Snail. It's me. You brought me back too.'

'Innocet?' he said gently and looked deep into her eyes. 'I thought I'd lost you.' And then his tone changed. 'Oh, very convenient. Any excuse to conduct a nice little fact-finding mission on what the Family embarrassment has been up to.'

187

'Doctor!' said Leela. 'Never speak to anyone like that again!'

'Chance would be a fine thing,' added Romana.

Chris moved in. 'We don't even know who these people are.'

'Good. Neither do I. So go away!'

Dorothée despaired. 'Doctor, don't you trust us?'

'Trust you? I can't even trust myself.'

'We cannot go,' said Innocet.

'What?'

'Your mind has taken refuge in Chris's body. If we lose you, we shall lose him too. Do you want that?'

He surveyed them all. 'Interfering uppity companions.'

'More trouble than we're worth,' said Dorothée.

'Absolutely.'

'No peeking,' said Romana. 'Word of a Prydonian President.'

He nodded sullenly and turned back to the scene.

'No, Grandfather! I won't leave you!' The girl was clinging desperately to him. Her eyes were red with tears.

'You cannot stay here, Susan. It's too dangerous on Gal ifrey. Mamlaurea's family wil take good care of you.'

'But I won't go. I want to be with you and help you.'

'Susan!' His voice was suddenly dark with authority. She covered her mouth in shock. 'You have to go. I may well be going away too. Perhaps on a long journey.'

'Where?' she whispered.

'I don't know. But I will always be with you. You said that yourself. And one day I will return. And you wil remember me.'

He held her very tightly as the old woman came into the room with two bags and cloaks.

Susan was quiet as she was prepared for departure.

He picked several books from the stacks around the room and slid them into her bag. Then he hugged her again.

'Please take care of yourself, Grandfather.'

'And you, dear child.'

'I'll be waiting.' She pulled away quickly and her nurse hurried her from the room.

The old man - at least he seemed suddenly very old -stood at the window for a while. Turning back to the room, he walked the shelves, running his hand slowly along the spines of his books.

'Always the same,' he said.

188

At length, he walked down the stairs and out into the street.

'I thought there were no parents on Gallifrey,' said Dorothée.

The Doctor turned towards her. 'Some people might find that a positive advantage,' he said icily, and moved off into the air.

'There were parents once,' said Innocet. 'It depends how far you go back.'

Again, they were drawn along after the Doctor.

'I assume we're talking the Pythia's curse here,' Dorothée concluded.

The distant fire had dwindled, but a pal of smoke still drifted over the city, choking the grey morning. Many new buildings were under construction. There was an optimism which was lost to the later Capitol that they knew. The upper city spanned the lower on vast arches. These were crowned by further arches and bridges, all of them carrying buildings and gardens, domes and belfries.

As they flew towards the centre of the city, the sun broke through the smoke. It was a pale, stifled sun with no warmth as yet, but Innocet wept openly again at its emergence.

'Leela?' called Chris. 'Are you OK?'

Her arms were linked between him and Romana, but she was pale and her eyes were shadowy. 'It's the flying,'

she said. 'It will pass.'

There was a tower ahead, rising clear above the honeycomb of arches. The Doctor was moving towards its summit, which was crowned with lush green planting.

A man wearing a dark red robe stood among the pearl-grey roses that grew there. The man was not tal and his moustache was thick and spreading. He was studying a chessboard, its pieces set in mid-game. But it appeared that, within each square on the board, there was yet another game with its own pieces. A game to be won before the square could be part of the greater game.

The Doctor moved closer to see, plainly fascinated and unable to resist.

Deep within those inner squares, there were more squares, pul ing the eye down. The Doctor was either shrinking, or the boards within boards were growing around him. The others felt themselves being dragged in.

'Where have you been?' demanded the man in red and the spell was broken.

Another man, the shadowy, cloaked man they had followed, faced him with a look of disdain. 'Avoiding your personal guards, Rassilon. Why were they trying to kill me?'

Dorothée felt Innocet's grip tighten on her hand at the mention of that name.

'I instructed them to find you. No more than that.'

'They were more demonstrative.'

The ruler of Gal ifrey looked into the depths of the chessboard. 'I cannot afford to lose you.'

'Why? What do you need to confess now?'

'Nothing,' said Rassilon. 'You will know that I have taken the action I deemed necessary to al ow my reforms to continue.'

189

The other walked away to the edge of the garden, where a balcony overlooked the city. 'I warned you. A purge is not a cure. If this blood letting continues, you will soon be drowning.'

'But I have so little time!'

'Because you trust no one else to continue your work.'

'It is too precious. And now I cannot even trust my guards to bring me my friend.'

'A friend?' The other seemed amused. He clasped his hands to his chest like a priest.

'Yes,' insisted Rassilon. 'At least I can trust you to criticize me.'

'And those dissenters at the temple? Were they also your friends? Or was their martyrdom something else you left to the discretion of your guards?'

Rassilon followed him back through the roses.

'You mustn't go. Gallifrey needs your wise counsel.'

'A mistake,' said the other.

'No.' Rassilon was in earnest. 'We have time travel. Harmony. The Looms and the Houses. We have a future again. None of this was achievable without you. In the face of extinction, we have stability.'

'Too stable. Too much Harmony for ever and ever, slower and slower. Gallifrey without end.
Gallifreya perpetua.

Gallifrey ad nauseam.
The children of the Looms of Rassilon will each have thirteen lives. While we, dear friend, the doomed relics of another age, have but one brief life a piece.' He sighed. 'Time to find something better to do.'

'You cannot go,' said Rassilon.

The dark figure shook his head. 'I bequeath you my roses, Rassilon. They are plagued by scissor bugs. You may have to purge them too.'

As he walked away, there was a flash in the air. A web of electric blue flickered round and over the garden.

'You cannot leave,' Rassilon said.

The Doctor shot his companions a warning glance, before moving in beside the dark figure.

'Energy nets?' said the man. 'Are you so afraid of losing me? What do you really fear, Rassilon?'

Rassilon studied him coldly. 'After all this time, I stil hardly know you.'

This seemed to please his prisoner. 'They do say, my Lord President, you have truck with unnatural powers.'

'And do I?'

'Don't you know?' He set off back to the balcony. Rassilon followed. 'That depends upon what our narrow perception defines as unnatural. I cal them other powers.'

'They are much overrated,' said the other.

Dorothée, watching with the companions, saw something move among the rose arbours. The shadow of a figure that she could not identify.

The other was studying the flickering barrier. 'And this from someone who professes to despise superstition.'