Doctor Who: Shada (13 page)

Chris almost put out a hand to console Romana but stopped himself.

K-9’s eye-screen flashed. ‘Minimal cerebral impulses detected, Mistress!’

The Professor’s dry cracked lips moved. ‘He’s trying to talk to us?’ gasped Chris.

‘Negative,’ said K-9. ‘The speech centres of the Professor’s brain are completely inoperative.’

Romana checked the Professor’s chest, both sides, again.

‘Well,’ Chris said sadly, ‘the collar was a good idea but it doesn’t seem to be helping—’

‘
Shhh!!!
’ Romana said sharply, and to his astonishment Chris found he couldn’t say another word.

‘K-9, amplify the Professor’s hearts beats!’

K-9 extended the probe from his eye-screen to the middle of the Professor’s chest. Suddenly a throbbing double pulse beat filled the room, fast and irregular.

Romana clapped her hands together. ‘Brilliant! The Professor is a brave and clever man.’ She waved to Chris. ‘Listen!’

Chris listened. The pulse beats were wildly irregular, thumping fast then slow then fast again. It didn’t sound very healthy at all. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘He’s beating his hearts in Gallifreyan Morse!’ she cried. She leant over the body. ‘Professor, I can hear you! What do you want to tell us?’

The pulse beats resounded. Romana translated the message slowly. ‘Beware… the… sphere. Beware… Skagra. Beware… Shada.’

The heartbeats stopped suddenly.

‘Professor!’ cried Romana.

‘All life function has now ceased, Mistress,’ said K-9. ‘Professor Chronotis is dead.’

Chapter 24

THE DOCTOR PEDALLED furiously through the twilit streets of Cambridge, an ancient and dangerous Gallifreyan artefact of potentially terrifying power sitting rather casually in the woven wicker basket attached to the handlebars of his bike. The Doctor rounded a sharp corner, emerging onto one of the footbridges that criss-crossed the Cam, tinging his bell to clear the way, though there was nobody to be seen. It did add a much-needed sense of urgency, he felt.

Suddenly, as the Doctor’s bike started up the cobbled incline of the bridge, he saw a man striding forcefully in his direction. As the man reached the crest of the bridge, he stopped and stood still, right in the Doctor’s path. Even a barrage of irritated tings wouldn’t get him out of the way. The Doctor had no choice but to brake hard, wobble a bit, and slither to a halt a few feet in front of the fellow.

He was a tall, slender, fair-haired man wearing ordinary Earth clothes of the period which didn’t seem to quite fit him. In one hand he carried a large carpet bag.

By the sodium glow of Cambridge’s municipal street lights, the Doctor stared hard into the man’s eyes. They were cold, icy blue, with an almost staggering condescension behind them. Otherwise his face was blank, lent a slightly sinister note by what looked like a duelling scar across the left cheek.

‘I’m terribly sorry, am I in your way? Or are you in mine?’ the Doctor enquired.

The stranger ignored this remark.

‘It’s just that I’m on a rather important errand, and—’

‘Doctor,’ the man said, simply and emotionlessly.

The Doctor blinked in surprise. ‘Though it’s terribly flattering to be recognised,’ he said, spreading his arms in apology, ‘I simply don’t have the time for autographs right now.’ His tone changed, suddenly serious. ‘But if I did, who would I be making it out to?’

The man’s eyes never left the Doctor’s. ‘I am Skagra,’ he stated. ‘I want the book.’

The Doctor smiled broadly. ‘Well, I’m the Doctor and you can’t have it.’

Again, there was no flicker of reaction from Skagra. ‘So you possess it? And yet you attempt to hide it from me?’ he asked.

The Doctor waved a hand airily. ‘Yes, I suppose I do. But don’t worry, it’ll be taken to a place of safety.’

‘Where?’

‘Oh, just a little place of safety I have in mind.’

Skagra lowered his carpet bag to the ground and a small grey sphere suddenly shot out of it, hovering next to its master’s right hand. Skagra glanced at the sphere, then back to the Doctor.

‘What you have in mind, Doctor, you will reveal to me. In fact, everything that you have in your mind will be mine.’

The Doctor leant forward over the handlebars of the bike and looked Skagra up and down, casually letting a length of his scarf fall into the basket as he did so, covering the book. He pulled a disparaging face. ‘Do you know, I’m not mad about your tailor,’ he said.

Skagra’s face betrayed no reaction, but the sphere at his side gave a small jerk, as if anxious to begin its work. From it came the babble of inhuman voices the Doctor had heard before. But there was something different about it. Another voice had been added to the hubbub, a vague, scratchy voice the Doctor thought he recognised.

With a small gesture, as if handling a well-trained dog, Skagra released the sphere and it flew straight for the Doctor’s head.

With a violent kick, the Doctor shot his bike backwards, using the downward curve of the bridge to gain momentum. At the bottom, he wrenched the handlebars around and described a perfect 90-degree turn, only wobbling very slightly in the process. As the sphere zoomed after its prey, the Doctor gave another mighty kick, then began pedalling furiously away from his pursuer, heading back into the narrow Cambridge streets.

Skagra watched as the absurd figure on the absurd vehicle vanished into the darkness, the sphere close behind. He turned smartly and began to walk in the opposite direction. He now had full access to the dead human’s knowledge of this dwelling area. He knew precisely where he needed to be.

The Doctor tinged his bicycle bell for all he was worth. It was typical, really. Now he was fleeing for his life from a presumably homicidal alien device, the people of Cambridge seemed not to want to miss all the fun. The streets were teeming with life. Innocent people with no clue of the danger they were in from the Doctor’s spherical stalker. Not to mention the Doctor himself. He’d passed his cycling proficiency test, he was sure, but it had been a few centuries back and in a different body with a different centre of balance. Frankly he was more than a little out of practice.

He sped around the corner of one of the grand college buildings and found himself on a collision course with a cluster of undergraduates gathered beneath a lamp post, singing at the top of their voices. The Doctor swerved desperately, causing one of the choristers to jump back in fright and momentarily spoiling the harmonies of a very good a cappella
Chattanooga Choo Choo
. The Doctor sped on, waving in apology and tinging his bell to punctuate a downbeat, reflecting that ham and eggs in Carolina would have been considerably finer than his current predicament. He risked a look over his shoulder and saw the sphere rounding that same corner, luckily ignoring the surprised students as it fixed again on its quarry.

The Doctor turned back to the road ahead. Now this looked more promising. He had a straight run and began to pedal with ever more energy, trying to get as much distance as possible between himself and the sphere. It all seemed to be going surprisingly smoothly, and he allowed himself a momentary hope that nothing could possibly go wrong –

And then he reached the crossroads. Directly ahead of him, milling over a zebra crossing, cameras slung around their necks, was an enormous gaggle of Japanese tourists, snapping away at the buildings, the lamp posts and even the crossing beneath their feet. If they started snapping at the sphere, thought the Doctor, it was more than likely to start snapping back. So he braked hard and looked desperately to the turnings on either side of him.

The left turn was completely blocked by an enormous truck, with almost equally enormous men in denim jeans and black T-shirts lugging musical instruments and amplifiers into an adjacent building. The truck, the men and the amplifiers were all emblazoned with a Latin motto. So, thought the Doctor, he couldn’t go that way either – he had no wish to upset the status quo.

Desperately, the Doctor looked to his right. Down that way, to his horror, he saw a chapel disgorging nun after nun after nun until the street was black with them. For goodness’ sakes, thought the Doctor, why weren’t all these tourists, roadies and nuns at home watching television on a Saturday evening like normal people.

The babbling noise of the sphere was getting closer. He risked a quick look behind him and saw it zooming down the street, almost upon him.

That was when his eyes alighted on a small, narrow alley, running parallel to the street on his right. He had no choice, he’d have to chance it.

He kicked off and swerved into the alley, bouncing heavily on its cobbled surface. The alley was barely wide enough for the Doctor’s broad form. His elbows and shoulders knocked against the brickwork as he frantically made for the patch of lamplight at the far end.

Suddenly, with a screech of brakes, a brown car slammed to a halt ahead of the Doctor, totally blocking the only way out of the tiny alley. Only seconds from a collision, the Doctor was forced once more to brake hard. The wheels of his bicycle locked and he found himself propelled over the handlebars, landing painfully on the stone cobbles several feet in front of his former conveyance.

The Doctor groaned and looked up. The door of the car which had so effectively barred his escape clicked open –

And Skagra stepped out, casually slipping on a pair of immaculate white gloves. He looked down at the sprawled figure of the Doctor with no appreciable reaction. The Doctor looked behind him and saw the sphere approaching fast from the other end of the alley. There was no way out. Instinctively, the Doctor pushed himself backwards on hands and knees, trying reach the basket of the toppled bike. The book was the most important thing, after all.

The basket was empty.

Though the sphere was now only feet away, Skagra’s voice made him turn.

‘At last,’ Skagra was saying as he reached down to pick up
The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey
from where it had fallen, knocked from the basket along with the Doctor, and until he’d gone and crawled off it, shielded by the Time Lord’s formidable bulk. The Doctor cursed inwardly – he’d virtually handed his precious charge to the enemy!

The sphere was almost upon him.

With an almighty effort, the Doctor leapt to his feet, grabbed the toppled bike and flung it up at the sphere. The bike hit the sphere’s metallic surface with a clang, sending it skittering through the air and back down the alley.

The Doctor, panting with exertion, whipped round – to see the brown car carrying Skagra, book and all, speeding away into the Cambridge night.

Suddenly, like a bullet from a gun, the sphere shot back up the alley behind him, buzzing almost angrily. It began to whizz at head-height, lightning-fast, in a circle around the Doctor. It was too fast to make a break in any direction.

The Doctor was trapped.

The hissing, whispering voices grew louder and louder, and the Doctor clapped his hands to his ears. The sphere dived at him, sending him sprawling on to the cobbles with a smack.

He cried out as he felt the cold impress of the sphere on his forehead, plucking at the edges of his consciousness. Then it began to suck out the Doctor’s mind.

Part Three

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Chapter 25

SUDDENLY THE DOCTOR heard the greatest sound in the universe, more delightful than the dawn chorus, more lovely than the laughter of children, more sweet than a mountain stream. It was the wheezing, groaning sound of the relative dimensional stabiliser of a Type 40 TARDIS in materialisation mode.

The sphere buzzed in confusion, detached itself and dipped back, distracted from its task momentarily by this intrusion. The Doctor took his one opportunity. He leapt to his feet and dived for the still-forming doors of the police box as it solidified up from transparency at the mouth of the alley.

Romana slammed the big lever on the control console as the Doctor burst through the doors. He was red with exertion and collapsed breathlessly on the floor.

‘Mistress!’ called K-9, alerting Romana to the scanner screen.

On the screen, Romana saw a small grey sphere buzzing angrily through the air outside. Every so often it launched itself against the TARDIS doors like a confused wasp trying to pass through a window. A grating vibration echoed around the control room each time it made contact, setting her teeth on edge.

‘Can it get in?’ she asked K-9.

‘Insufficient data, Mistress,’ said K-9. ‘Suggest immediate dematerialisation.’

‘Do it, K-9!’ Romana ordered.

K-9 trundled forward, probe extended, and set the dematerialisation sequence in operation automatically. A moment later the central column was rising and falling as the TARDIS vanished from the alley.

Romana knelt down to check on the Doctor. He blew out his cheeks, coughed, and patted her on the arm. ‘Romana,’ he finally managed to gasp, ‘thank you, thank you very much, thank you so much, thank you…’ Then he shouted, ‘You took your time, K-9!’