Doctor Who: Time and the Rani (13 page)

'Hmmm,' mused the Doctor, examining Faroon's bangle. 'You've got to give the Rani full marks for ingenuity.'

'Maybe if we're careful, we can cut them?' suggested Ikona.

'That's a daft idea!' This could only be Mel! 'They're bound to be booby-trapped!'

'Less of the pessimism, Mel.' The Doctor was delicately prodding the jewel with his penknife. 'Not all the cards are in the Rani's flavour. Ah!' He prised off the jewel exposing a micro-circuit. 'If we could loop an extension wire from here to here' -

indicating the two minute terminals - 'the circuit wouldn't be broken when the bangle was opened. Mel?'

'Yes?'

'You're the computer expert. How about it?'

'Where am I going to get the right kind of wire?'

Tearing a video game from its moorings, Ikona ripped the power pack from its innards and dumped it in Mel's lap.

'Where there's a will, there's a . . .' he faltered.

'A beneficiary!' chortled the Doctor.

Mel peeled a length of wire from a coaxial lead.

'Hold your horses! I can't guarantee this is going to work!'

Betraying none of the trepidation she felt, Faroon thrust her ankle forward for the experiment.

Smoothing the wrinkled wire, Mel inserted it into the terminals with unerring accuracy.

'Faroon, if I'm wrong about this . . .'

'Go ahead.'

Taking a deep breath, Mel unhooked the clip fastening the bangle . . .

The bypass worked!

'Splendid. Don't know what you were worrying about,' blustered the Doctor, giving Mel a congratulatory tilt of his hat. 'Necessity's mother laughs at locksmiths.'

'Love!' corrected Mel. 'And invention!'

'What's that got to do with it?'

'Necessity is the mother of invention. And love laughs at locksmiths!'

'Er, quite.' The Doctor officiously took charge.

'Ikona, you help Mel remove the bangles. Faroon, I'm going to need your assistance in organising the Lakertyans.'

'Haven't you overlooked something, Doctor?' She indicated the revolving globe. 'If the Rani releases the insects in there, we'll all be dead!'

'Then we'll have to finesse her, won't we?'

'Finesse?'

'A double-bluff. Speciality of mine . . .'

Reverentially, the Rani and Urak loaded a slender cartridge, vibrant with potent but latent energy, onto a belt that conveyed it smoothly into the rocket's breech.

With orchestrated dedication, she checked the data feedback comparator. The error detector registered nil and the data from the systems analyser reported that everything was functioning within permitted tolerances.

One further check was necessary.

On the monitor screen, the orbiting asteroid destined to consign history to a nuclear furnace was but a hair's breadth from the superimposed graphic that depicted the point of the Solstice.

'You'll stay here and guard the perimeter until after lift-off, Urak.'

'After
lift-off. . . Mistress . . ?'

'You said yourself the Doctor could still make trouble. Get out there and see he doesn't.'

'And . . . where will the . . . Mistress be . . ?'

'In my TARDIS. I want to record the experiment from there.'

T would prefer . . .to be with you . . .'

'Undoubtedly. But you can't!'

She returned to the spherical chamber.

No grin split the vulpine nozzle. Instead, beneath the cockscomb of bristle, the pupil in the bloodshot orb dilated as his quadview focused on a single image . . . that of the disappearing Rani, an imperious flounce of scarlet and gold . . .

22

Crisply, decisively, the Rani initiated the countdown.

Impersonally, the synthesised voice began to intone the descent to purgatory.

Concomitantly, the corresponding numbers clicked over loudly on an automatic digital display.

Experiencing an almost intoxicating exhilaration, the usually unemotional Rani contemplated the spherical chamber. Satisfied, she re-entered the lab.

The drone of the synthesised countdown together with the metronomic clicking, could be clearly heard as the Rani skirted the four pyramid machines and crossed elatedly to the exit.

The solitude of the arcade heightened Beyus's sense of isolation. His certitude had never been absolute despite his public utterances. Now the calamitous misfortune that had befallen Lakertya was reaching its climax, he could not rid himself of the insidious suspicion that his stance, however well-intentioned, was flawed: a
volte-face
so painful Beyus shied away from it, clinging to the hope that his initial premise was correct.

It was a hope that was shattered by the unexpected arrival of Faroon.

'It's clear. Come along, Doctor,' she called, having ensured only Beyus was present.

The Doctor entered.

'You were told not to listen to him!'

Ignoring Beyus's censure, the Doctor eased open the door to the lab. Faintly, the countdown could be heard. 'When that voice reaches zero, there'll be nobody left on Lakertya to listen to me or anyone else!'

'You were warned about his glib tongue!'

'Believe me . . . the Doctor's telling the truth!'

Convincing Beyus was not the Doctor's immediate priority. Leaving Faroon to cope with the task, he went to the portal of the eyrie.

Baulking at going inside, he surreptitiously lowered the grating, shot home the securing bolt, and tiptoed back to the arcade.

'What is it you want me to do?' asked Beyus.

'See who's in the lab.'

Faroon accompanied Beyus while the Doctor nipped to the exit door. 'Coast's clear!'

Ikona and Mel hastened in.

'Right, quickly, all hands to the stumps!'

'Pumps!' corrected Mel, busying herself disconnecting Einstein's cabinet.

Ikona, new to the arcade, joined the Time Lord who was disengaging Louis Pasteur's cabinet.

'Take good care of him, Ikona.'

'He is someone important?' said Ikona, peering with curiosity through the glass.

'Louis Pasteur will rid his world of a major scourge. He'll save the lives of tens of millions.'

'Hey, come on! This isn't a conducted tour!' yelled Mel. 'Don't just stand there gawping, Ikona. We've got to get all of these characters to the TARDIS!'

'You'll deafen them before we get there if you don't stop that squawking!' Bemused he might be, but subdued he was not!

'Doctor, come through,' Faroon urged.

In the spherical chamber, the Doctor put into motion the first stage of his plan. Willing himself to ignore the relentless countdown, he tampered with the relay loop of the voice synthesiser box.

Then came the next stage.

It involved his trusty umbrella. Not giving a fig for superstition, he opened it indoors.

Strung from the spokes were the silver bangles of death. . .

The eleven bewildered geniuses, some unsteady from their enforced incarceration, were filing from the arcade.

'You know where the TARDIS is, Ikona,' declared Mel. 'We'll meet you there.'

Not waiting for his agreement, she raced to fetch the Doctor.

'Hurry, Doctor! Hurry!' Mel burst into the spherical chamber with but a single thought in mind.

'Mel, there's something bothering me . . .'

'The only thing you've got to worry about is that!' She pointed defiantly at the digital clock. 'We haven't a second to spare!'

'Mel's right,' Beyus said. 'I'll finish in here.'

If the third and crucial stage of his plan was to succeed, the Doctor knew he should accept the exhortations. But there were elements unfolding that he had not anticipated.

'Beyus, don't leave it too late.'

'I know what I have to do.'

'Doctor! Come on!' Mel tugged him into the lab.

'Go with them, Faroon.'

'Can't I wait for you, Beyus?'

'It has not been your habit to question my actions, Faroon. This is not a good moment to begin.'

Reluctantly she complied with his wishes.

Positioned so that she could see the rocket, the Rani stood beside her TARDIS.

Ten. Nine. Eight. The countdown was simulated on her minicomputer-bracelet.

'SEVEN. . .SIX. . .FIVE
. . .'intoned the synthesised voice in the spherical chamber.

The approaching zero did not rufflle Beyus's calm. He had jammed the umbrella through the interior locking mechanism. This meant neither the Rani nor her loathsome acolyte, Urak, could get in . . . equally it meant he was trapped inside . . .

Beyus had also carried out the Doctor's instructions.

Hooked over the golden rail surrounding the magenta brain, were the bejewelled silver bangles

'.' . . FOUR . . . FOUR . . . FOUR . . .'

Four . . . four . . . four . . . ticked on the Rani's minicomputer-bracelet. Frowning, she tapped the dial -

'It's over! You're beaten, Rani!' The Doctor's shout came from some distance away.

'I've aborted the launch. And the Lakertyans are preparing to attack!'

On cue, Lakertyans, male and female, moved from cover. They advanced, their colourful robes easily discernible against the granite grey rocks.

'You imbecile! You've signed their death warrants!' she yelled and viciously stabbed buttons on her computer-bracelet.

In unison, the jewels on the bangles strung to the golden railing, glowed . . . then flashed into the searing white heat of a multiple explosion that consumed the brain and devastated the spherical chamber - exactly as the Doctor had planned.

A homily he was fond of expounding praised the virtues of simplicity: a credo to which he should have adhered. The scheme had been a mite too elaborate.

Vibrations from the explosion jolted the voice synthesiser.

'. .FOUR. . . THREE. . . TWO. . .'
the countdown had been inadvertently reactivated.

'. .ONE. . .LIFT OFF!'

Smoke snorted from the rocket's take-off boosters!

Goodbye, Lakertya

Majestically, the ground-to-air missile rose from the ramp. The downdraughting flames scorched and blackened the pyramidal roof of the complex. Velocity built up, surging through Mach one . . . Mach two . . . until the dynamic rocket, accelerating to escape-speed, thrust through the cerise upper atmosphere.

In curling plumes of smoke, it jettisoned the boosters and angled towards the gnarled asteroid of Strange Matter.

Faces uplifted, taut with strain, Faroon and Mel, Ikona and his scholarly charges, watched for sight of the harbinger of death - a blinding flash of light which would herald the incinerating fireball. There was no comfort in the knowledge that the end, should it come, would be instantaneous.

Breezily, the Doctor joined the forlorn group.

'Not to worry, Mel. The delay in lift-off means the rocket will miss the asteroid.'

'Are you certain?' She was no coward: if the Grim Reaper was about to swing his scythe, Mel didn't want to be fobbed off with a glib bromide.

'Oh, absolutely! A miss is as good as a smile!'

Luckily Mel could not see behind the Time Lord's back - where all eight fingers were crossed!

Exhaust gases burning, the rocket drew nearer to the asteroid. From ground level, it seemed impossible it could miss.

But miss it did.

To become a dwindling nomad hurtling into the infinite void of space.

It was not the only object disappearing into that emptiness.

The Rani's instinctive reaction at being outwitted, was to boil over in frustration and fury. But she was a realist. Lakertya and its asteroid of Strange Matter had become a lost cause.

She retreated into her pyramid TARDIS and, with a bellow like a ruptured elephant, it dematerialised.

The mournful bellow was an appropriate requiem for the Rani's shattered dreams.

More than that, amid the ashes of the magenta brain and the scattered debris of equipment, was a tattered orange cloak. In his atonement, Beyus had paid the ultimate price.

Conducted into the Doctor's police box, the geniuses' curiosity overflowed. The relative dimensions of temporal physics was a concept that intrigued them. How could the interior be greater than the exterior?

'Explanations later,' said the Doctor, ushering the motley band into the TARDIS's comfortable lounge.

A promise he meant to keep. But the secrets they were to learn would never be revealed. The Time Lord intended to return them, individually, to the exact situation they had been enjoying when the Rani snatched them - only his delivery would be made a microsecond before the kidnapping.

A microsecond before the adventure began.

An adventure that, for the geniuses, therefore, never happened.

The same consolation was not available to Faroon as she gazed at Beyus's funeral pyre.

'I'm so sorry, Faroon.' Exiting from the TARDIS, the Doctor, with his intuitive empathy, felt compelled to offer condolences. 'When I think of Beyus, I shall remember with admiration the sacrifice he made.'

'He must have been convinced it was the only way to be certain of saving the rest of us.'

'He'll not be forgotten,' asserted Ikona.

'Nor will you, Doctor,' said Faroon, flattening her right palm against the Doctor's palm in the Lakertyan parting salute.

'Oh, I dare say we'll pop in again some day.'

'You will be most welcome, Doctor.'

'Ready, Mel?'

'Yes . . . Cheerio, Ikona.'