Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani (11 page)

‘How did thee know that?’ Stephenson found this new acquaintance more and more unpredictable.

The Doctor, typically, ignored the query. ‘Stephenson, it’s too risky for you out there. Let me go.’

‘But Faraday–?’

‘If Faraday is there, I’ll bring him to you.’

Stephenson’s resolve wavered.

‘I promise.’ The
coup de grâce
. ‘You could finish assembling your modified steam bypass.’

‘Well – then tha’ best take gun.’

‘Thank you, no.’ However, he did have a parting request. ‘Stephenson – I can’t explain. But this is important.’

‘What is’t, Doctor?’

‘Don’t trust Luke...’

Luke was indeed a changed youth. jack Ward, aching from tiredness and unable to sleep, was writhing in the chair, yet his son regarded him almost dispassionately.

‘P’raps sleeping draught’s t’answer.’

‘At least it would sedate them.’

Ravensworth agreed with Peri, but had no means of getting a medicament, short of sending to the town for an apothecary.

‘If I had the proper herbs I could make a sedative,’ Pert offered. ‘Trouble is, I know nothing about the vegetation in this area.’

‘I may be of use there. Somewhat of an amateur botanist myself.’ Ravensworth selected a thick volume from his bookcase.

Accepting it, Peri consulted the index then flipped through the pages to the appropriate illustration.

‘That’s what I need. Valerian. Know it?’

‘
Valerians officinalis
. Matter of fact, I do. It’s an indigenous plant. Grows wild hereabouts.’

‘’Appen I can assist, my lord,’ Luke intervened. ‘Take Miss Peri to collect herbs.’

‘Excellent idea. Just be careful where you go.’

Too true, Peri thought. She didn’t want to bump into any of the aggressors who were roaming the countryside.

Lord Ravensworth had no qualms. ‘Not to worry, young lady. You’ll be in safe hands with Luke.’

‘I were thinking of Redfern Dell, m’lord.’

‘Couldn’t have suggested a better place myself.’

The reptilian embryo’s membrane-covered eyes stared fixedly from a jar.

‘You saw the apprentice?’ the Rani asked the Master, who had come post haste from briefing Luke.

‘Yes.’

‘He’ll get Stephenson to Redfern Dell?’

‘Not just Stephenson.’ He shuddered with disgust as she topped up the embryo jars with a green, slimy glutinous liquid.

‘Don’t be enigmatic. It’s out of character.’

‘I’ve made doubly sure. He’s been instructed to get the girl there too.’

The additional mucus caused the baby dinosaur’s pink underbelly to float uppermost.

‘Is it entirely imperative for you to do that now?’

grumbled the Master.

‘Be patient. Stay calm.’

‘I’ve waited too long for this moment to be calm. If you knew how often the Doctor’s gone out of his way to sabotage my plans!’

‘Only on this occasion he didn’t go out of his way, did he? You contrived to get him here.’ She put the mucus bottle in a cabinet. ‘Force the TARDIS off course, did you?

Override the guidance system?’

‘Can we forgo the nostalgia, and concentrate on the present!’

‘With pleasure.’ She activated the external door mechanism. On tenterhooks, the Master barged out of the control room first.

The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness had spread its rich mantle over the woods of Redfern Vale. Squirrels were harvesting hazel nuts and acorns. Ruby-skinned apples and russet pears weighed down the boughs in the lush valley.

But it could have been a desolate crater on the moon for all the Rani and the Master saw as they quit the old mine and headed for the Dell.

‘Are you sure this plan will work?’ he queried.

‘I don’t make mistakes.’

‘If that were true you’d still be on Gallifrey.’

‘Experiments are always subject to the unexpected. They can be capricious.’

‘Capricious!’ he said incredulously. ‘Turning mice into monsters!’

‘A marginal error. Quickly corrected.’

‘The Time Lords didn’t think so.’

‘Petty spite on the part of the Lord President. Just because they ate his cat.’

‘Took a chunk out of him too, I remember! Pity it wasn’t the Doctor!’

‘That will soon be remedied...’ The Rani began the steep climb to the ridge above Redfern Dell.

The glory that burnished the landscape was not wasted on the Doctor. Whatever Earth’s imperfections – and there were many – he knew of no comparable planet; the inspiration of poets, composers and artists. How could anyone want to desecrate it? He lengthened his stride but kept to the byways. A clash with roving aggressors would put everything into the melting pot.

A vague, almost indiscernible presentiment gnawed at him.

‘ "Will you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly",’ he misquoted. ‘No, I think not...’ The Doctor abandoned the path and made a rougher trek through the bracken.

Like a couple of vultures, the Rani and the Master lurked beneath a spreading oak.

‘I’d be happier if I could see them.’ The Master was chafing at the bit. The vantage point the Rani had chosen limited their view of the clearing below.

‘A sentiment they’d reciprocate. We stay here. Out of sight!’

And out of sight they were. Peri, concentrating on looking for the valerian plants, nevertheless gazed up at the great oak cresting the ridge. It was a prime specimen. The botanist’s routine desire to classify made her speculate on how old it was.

‘Best keep moving, Miss.’ Luke was subject to no such diversions.

‘Okay, okay. I’m coming.’ What was bugging him?

She’d conducted many similar expeditions and wasn’t about to be hustled by a rookie! She handed him a sample leaf. ‘Here. You can’t go wrong if you match this.’

‘I’m sure I’ve seen likeness further in’t Dell. This way, Miss.’

Vaguely perplexed, she lingered on the outskirts as Luke resolutely led on.

A glimpsed movement at the edge of the Dell alerted the Master. In anticipation, he eased forward.

Delight changed to fury. It was Luke.

He must get rid of the oaf before the fool spoilt everything! Impulsively, he drew the TCE – a hand chopped it from his grasp!

Before the Master could collect his wits, the Doctor had recovered the pernicious weapon.

Thorny brambles had snagged the Doctor’s trousers and shredded his sneakers, but the onerous detour had permitted him to circle the ridge, coming up to the rear of the great oak.

In his frustration, the Master berated the Rani. ‘So much for your arrogant superiority!’

‘A trait you both share.’ The Doctor addressed the Rani.

‘I got the message. I’m here. Now what obnoxious fate have you conceived?’

‘Why me?’ she asked.

‘He blames you for the failure.’

Her silence mocked him.

‘Not this –’ The Doctor flourished the TCE. ‘That’s too simple. You’ll have brewed something more malignant.’

But what? Their attitude bothered him as he watched them for any tell-tale signs.

If his attention had not been so fixed, he might have seen Luke sauntering into peril. Instead, the Doctor mentally analysed the facts. He started with the black, frisbee-like objects. What had she said about them? They’d change his lifestyle? Then there was the message that had brought him.

‘Is it down there? In the Dell? Where I was supposed to go?’

He glanced down... and saw Luke.

But his cry of warning was still-born.

Reaching for a clump of valerian, Luke trod on a disc.

Instantly, a fountain of bark-like flakes gushed into the air enshrouding him. Mushrooming upwards, they blocked out the sky, cavorting and dancing on the breeze before beginning to settle.

When they did, two arms were raised in supplication and a brown, corrugated torso was surmounted by swirls and knots that faintly resembled Luke’s face.

Where the handsome, golden-haired apprentice had stood, there now stood a tree; a tall, lithe sapling, not adorned with autumn leaves but with the burgeoning buds of Spring. Time was out of joint...

16

Rage burned in the Doctor’s hearts. He levelled the TCE at the Master and the Rani.

‘No! No! An accident!’ The Master, above all, could recognise murderous intent. ‘It wasn’t meant for him!’

‘And you’re so warped, so callous, you think that justifies what you have done!’ Never in all their confrontations had the Doctor experienced such an irresistible surge of hatred. ‘First you turn an innocent young man into your acolyte, betraying his friends! Then you defile him with this monstrous act!’

‘Stop being sentimental.’ The Rani felt no remorse.

‘What’s happened? Animal life has been metamorphosed into vegetable matter. So what?’

‘You’ll be telling me next he’s better off!’

‘In essence, he is. A tree has four times the life expectancy of a human being.’

Her Philistine rationalisation appalled the Doctor. He had always harboured a sneaking admiration for the Rani.

No more! ‘They should never have exiled you! They should have locked you up in a padded cell! Move! Before I forget my abhorrence of violence and eliminate the pair of you!’

A scream.

‘Peri!’

Innocent of what had overtaken Luke, Peri had strolled into the Dell. With a ’fool’s luck’, treading carefully in her unsuitable red shoes, she had managed to avoid the outer booby traps.

Her collection of herbs was sparse until she spied the generous clump beneath the tall sapling. Red heel poised above a disc, she began to stoop to gather the valerian – a branch of the sapling suddenly swooped, entangling her head and shoulders, forcing her, struggling, back from the disc.

That was when she screamed.

‘Stay still, Peri! Stay still!’

Assailed by a tree then, from nowhere, the Doctor’s voice, Peri wondered if she was hallucinating.

‘The tree won’t hurt you!’

She must be hallucinating!

Again the reassurance rang out: ‘The tree won’t hurt you if you stay still!’

She gave up the fight.

Amazingly, the branch gently swayed aside, releasing her. Despite the personal nightmare the catalyst had plunged him into, the metamorphosed Luke still retained a vestige of his innate decency.

‘Perhaps now you’ll accept "there are more things in heaven and earth" than your barren philosophy allows!’

challenged the Doctor.

The Rani shrugged. ‘And perhaps you’ll accept you face a dilemma.’

The Master also detected an advantage. ‘More of an impasse.’ He felt confident again; the moment of danger when the Doctor might have used the TCE had passed.

‘Wrong on both counts. There is no impasse. And the dilemma, Rani, will be resolved by you.’

‘Get to the point.’

‘You put those evil contraptions in the Dell. So, you can lead Peri out!’ The Rani shot him a glance of defiance.

‘Refuse, and I shan’t hesitate to use this!’

The look she gave the Doctor was venomous. But the logic of his ultimatum was irrefutable. Grudgingly, she descended from the ridge, then paused, deep in thought.

‘She can’t remember!’ The Master’s evaluation was pessimistic. ‘She probably set them at random!’

‘I doubt if the Rani’s ever done anything at random.’ He called to Peril ‘Be patient.’

‘But if she has? What then?’

‘You’re nominated as understudy. I should think you’d turn into a laburnum tree.’

‘A laburnum? Why?’

‘The pods are poisonous.’

Compartmentalising her emotions, keeping them from impairing her decision making, was a discipline sacrosanct to the Rani. The great leveller, fear, shattered that credo. In choreographed terror, she embarked on a complicated pattern of moves.

Peri’s disorientation grew as she recognised the woman in chic leather gear coming towards her. What was the Rani doing here?

Nearing the sapling, another problem loomed for the Rani. There was only a light breeze, yet its leaves were furiously quivering and rustling. What had the Doctor said? ‘There were "more things in heaven and earth"...’ She was going no closer!

‘Come to me,’ she ordered Peri. ‘Keep an absolutely straight line.’

‘Tread exactly where she does!’ The Doctor meant to sound encouraging, but Peri was confused.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Stop bleating and do it!’ said the Rani. She began to retrace her route, but went too fast, causing Peri to overbalance. She clutched the Rani for support, almost pulling them onto a disc.

The Rani’s composure snapped. ‘Incompetent dolt!

You’re worthless!’

‘Not to me she isn’t! You’d do well to remember that!’

The harshness of the Doctor’s tone had the desired effect.

With absolute concentration, the Rani continued weaving a tortuous route among the discs, always making sure Peri was in attendance.

Exploiting the Doctor’s absorption in his companion’s fate, the Master began surreptitiously to sidle away.

‘The next step could be the last...’ The Doctor’s voice was barely audible; his gaze remained steadfastly on the dell. But the Master, who had not heard of peripheral vision, stopped. He did not doubt the threat.

The Rani, also, had halted. ‘Can you jump without falling on you face?’ she asked Peri.

‘Sure.’

‘Copy me and you’re out of danger.’ She leapt, and so did Peri.

‘What was that all about?’ she yelled as she scrambled up the slope.

‘You wandered into a minefield of the Rani’s making,’

explained the Doctor.

She looked back at the peaceful dell. ‘A minefield? In there?’ A sudden, chilling thought. ‘Luke! What about Luke? Where is he?’

‘He just saved your life.’

‘You mean Luke...? The tree...?’ The questions were rhetorical as the horror of comprehension benumbed her.

Brusquely, the Doctor waved the TCE. ‘Get going. I want you two off this planet before you commit any more atrocities!’

Crocodile-fashion, the four began to file from the ridge.

Strident, ill-tempered laughter emanated from below. A mob of aggressors, some brandishing knives, were trampling through the woods. A dead sheep’s carcase was slung from a pole wedged on their shoulders. Obviously it was destined to be skinned and roasted.