Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord : The Ultimate Foe (2 page)

Half his size, a quarter his weight, Mel felt less fear of the blustering Glitz than he did of her.

‘Er – I – er – Sabalom Glitz.’

‘I’m Mel. You’re shaking! Pull yourself together, man!’

‘Well, I don’t know where I am. It’s very disconcerting for an experienced traveller such as myself to suddenly find he’s somewhere he hadn’t planned to go and...’ A devastating thought! He gazed at the casket in horror.

‘And arriving in a coff –’ He could not complete the word.

‘In a – Mel, you don’t think I’m – I mean, I haven’t been croaked, have I?’

Glitz was alive and kicking and, with his devotion to self preservation at any cost, he was likely to stay so for a good many years.

No such rosy future stretched before the Doctor.

The Keeper of the Matrix, having obeyed the summons, was dispassionately tightening the noose around the defendant’s neck. ‘My Lady, no one can enter the Matrix without the Key of Rassilon.’ He tapped the huge key safely fastened to a chain looped across his chest.

‘Is it at all possible for the data stored within the Matrix to be tampered with in any way?’ The Inquisitor was anxious to be absolutely impartial.

‘Quite impossible, My Lady.’

‘By whom is the Key used?’ asked the Doctor.

‘Qualified people. For inspection. Once in a milennium perhaps, to replace a transducer.’

‘Keys can be copied, you will agree.’

‘The Key of Rassilon never leaves my possession,’

avowed the Keeper, pressing the precious article to his bosom.

‘Except when it is in the hands of these qualified people!’ persisted the Doctor.

The Valeyard stretched to his full majestic height: the argument was beginning to swing in the prisoner’s favour!

‘This is a ridiculous allegation, My Lady. The Doctor is challenging the evidence of the Matrix on the grounds that it has been tampered with. A charge he is totally unable to substantiate.’

‘That is accepted,’ the Inquisitor replied. ‘Wild accusations of malfeasance do not constitute a defence, Doctor.’

‘The Matrix can be physically penetrated. The Keeper has admitted as much!’ shouted the Doctor. ‘And the evidence you have been shown is totally at variance with my own memory! Therefore it has been deliberately distorted!’

‘And who would do such a thing – if it were possible?’

‘Somebody who wants my head!’ He pointed an accusing finger. ‘Such as the Valeyard!’

He was right.

Though not entirely.

His head was certainly wanted – but not only by the Valeyard...

2

‘Ouch! That hurt!’

Mel had given Glitz a hearty pinch to convince him he was still in the land of the living! It hadn’t been easy to find an exposed spot, what with his leather cladding on one arm and thick protective cloth on the other, but she’d managed.

‘If you’re expecting an apology, forget it,’ she said. ‘Now, I’m going through that door. Coming or not?’ Without awaiting a reply, she began mounting the steps to a closed portal.

‘Are they all your sort here?’ grumbled Glitz.

Nevertheless, he followed: better to have this tiny harridan by his side than nobody at all!

‘Let’s find out, shall we – Listen!’

A voice, feminine, authoritative, could be heard from beyond the door. ‘There is only one way to rebut the evidence of the Matrix, Doctor...’

‘Doctor?’ Mel gulped in surprise.

The voice continued ‘... to produce witnesses who can support your version of events. Can you do that?’

‘Of course I can’t! You know I can’t!’

Mel’s face lit up. That was indeed her cherished Time Lord. But who was the woman laying down the law?

‘Then we must accept the Valeyard’s evidence.’ The well-modulated female tones again.

‘My Lady, such witnesses as I might call are scattered all over the Universe. And all through Time. How can I find them now?’

Then came another voice. Oily. Vengeful. Mel took an immediate dislike.

‘My Lady, the Doctor is blatantly lying. His sole defence against the charge seems to be this ridiculous –’

Mel had heard enough.

She pushed open the door and burst into the Trial Room. Close on her heels, ludicrously trying to hide behind the petite girl, scampered Sabalom Glitz.

Consternation from the assembled throng.

The Doctor was the first to recover.

‘Mel! Glitz! How did you get here?’

A brief glance at the courtroom... and Glitz was immediately on the defensive! ‘I was sent, wasn’t I? Not my wish, mind you.’

‘Same here.’

Mel harboured no such guilt complex. Nor was she concerned for herself. Simply for the Doctor – who was occupying the prisoner’s podium.

‘What’re you doing in there, Doctor? Why are you on trial –?’

‘Be silent!’ The precipitate arrival made the usually calm Inquisitor tetchy: there was a protocol to Gallifreyan court proceedings, and the intervention of extraneous persons was not according to the book. ‘Who sent you to this Court?’

Sheltered by Mel and spurred on by the Doctor’s obvious dilemma, Glitz became quietly expansive. ‘That’s the beak, is it?’ he whispered, giving a nudge and a wink.

‘They all look the same. Carved out of something hard and nasty.’

‘I should warn you my hearing is excellent!’ rasped the Inquisitor.

Bravado melted. ‘Uriah Heep’ took over. ‘Naturally I wasn’t referring to you, your worshipfulness –’

‘Your name, I take it, is Glitz.’

‘Sabalom Glitz, your honouress, at your service –’

‘You said you were sent here, Sabalom Glitz. By whom?’

Before he could answer, another voice, low, well-modulated, menacing, replied.

‘By me, Madam.’

Every head turned to the back of the Courtroom.

There on the giant Matrix screen, a spectre of Nemesis, was the Doctor’s most implacable antagonist.

The scales of justice had tilted...

And not in the defendant’s favour...

3

Seen in close-up on the Matrix screen, the regular features appeared even paler, the dark hair, beard and moustache even darker, the black-as-night velvet costume even blacker.

His brooding eyes surveyed the scene below him. ‘By me, Madam,’ he repeated, enjoying the consternation his intrusion had caused.

‘This is entirely irregular!’ reproved the Inquisitor, not in the least daunted by the apparition of evil. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am known as the Master. And, as you see, I speak to you from within the Matrix.’ An expansive smile. ‘Proof, if any be needed, that not only qualified people can enter here.’

‘But – how –?’ The Keeper’s fingers grasped the Key hanging on its silver chain. ‘You – you haven’t the Key of Rassilon –’

The Master held up an identical model. ‘I have a very good copy, Keeper.’

‘Ah!’

‘Exactly, Doctor. Just as you said – it is possible.’ His gaze switched from the mortified Keeper to his hated enemy in the dock.

Bold blue eyes returned the gaze: the Doctor appreciated the irony of his adversary providing the proof of his contention that the Matrix had been infiltrated.

None of this impressed the Inquisitor. ‘Do you realise you are imposing your presence on an official Court appointed by the High Council to consider the most serious –’

‘Madam, I
know
!’ he interrupted. The orders of the High Council meant nothing to him. He was a renegade Time Lord who had been exiled from Gallifrey. ‘I have followed the trial with great interest. And amusement.’

The cruel lips widened, the regular white teeth gleamed.

‘But now I must intervene for the sake of justice.’

‘Humbug! Take no notice of him!’ the Doctor fumed, affronted by the hypocrisy. ‘Justice! He doesn’t know what justice is. He’d see me dead tomorrow.’ Quite true. The Master’s dedication to the Doctor’s destruction was legendary.

‘Gladly would I, Doctor.’ The smile faded as the Master recalled, with bitterness, the last occasion on which they had met. It had been on that despicable planet Earth in the nineteenth century when the workers were running amok.

In alliance with another renegade, the Rani, he had embarked on a campaign to destroy his
bête noire
.

The Doctor’s thoughts were following the same train.

Only his went further. At the end of that episode – an episode he christened ‘The Mark Of The Rani’ – the two renegades were sent spinning into space locked in the Rani’s TARDIS. Hurtling, out of control, towards the far reaches beyond the Milky Way.

How, then, had the Master escaped?

‘I can guess what you are wondering, Doctor,’ came the unctuous tones. ‘And before I dispose of you, I will assuage your curiosity. However, my present concern is to prevent you from forfeiting your remaining lives to the Valeyard.’

Forfeit his remaining lives? Mel gripped the Doctor’s arm in fear. She had so many questions: who was this creep? What had the Doctor done? How had she herself been brought here? Yes, that was an unexplained puzzle. One moment she’d been immersed in writing an experimental programme for one of the TARDIS’s complex computers – the next she’d found herself incarcerated in a custom-made casket. No light. No sound.

Until, lifting the lid, she was confronted by the shivering specimen now doing his best to wheedle past the guards and out of the door!

Futile. The guards, clad in immaculate uniforms of cream, red and gold, were not merely ceremonial adjuncts to the elegant assembly. Nor were the phasers they levelled loaded with blanks. Glitz, coward incarnate, hurriedly retreated to the dock, using the Doctor’s portly form for a shield!

The Master was continuing. ‘As an opponent, Doctor, I can deal with you.’

‘What’s he on about, Doctor–?’

‘Sssh!’ The Doctor wanted to hear what was being said.

‘But... I am not prepared to countenance a rival.’

A rival? The Doctor was intrigued. ‘To which rival do you refer –’

‘My Lady,’ the Valeyard cut in. ‘I must propose an immediate adjournment.’

‘I am sorry, Valeyard. The prosecution’s evidence is completed. The ball, as the Doctor might say, is now out of your court.’

‘Admirably put. I have little regard for the idiotic High Council, but in selecting you to preside over this travesty of a hearing, Madam, they chose wisely.’ The Master’s audacity left the Inquisitor speechless. He carried on talking. ‘Doctor, I have sent you two star witnesses. I knew you would need them.’

‘No!’ the Valeyard thundered. Beneath his close-fitting skull-cap, his forehead creased into a scowl. ‘With respect, My Lady, the matter of admissible witnesses is for you to decide. We have seen enough to know that Glitz is an admitted criminal.’ He was referring to evidence presented at the beginning of the trial when Glitz had been shown on Ravolox trying to steal a black ‘box’ which he believed was priceless. No exaggeration. The ‘box’ contained the secrets of the Matrix!

‘Any testimony from him, therefore,’ maintained Valeyard, ‘must be dubious in the extreme.’

‘But not from me!’ Mel averred. ‘I’m no criminal. Nor am I a liar. Any testimony I give will be the truth and nothing but the truth.’ She’d heard that phrase used in courtroom dramas and thought it would help emphasize her validity as an honest broker.

‘We are not impugning your integrity.’ The Inquisitor spared a smile for the earnest young Mel.

‘Let Sabalom Glitz speak!’ The clipped order was issued from the Matrix screen. ‘I assure you, Madam, he is too scared in this august conclave to utter other than the truth.’

Hesitation from the Inquisitor: despite the unusual turn events had taken, it was her wish – and her duty – to ensure the Doctor had a fair trial. ‘Criminals have been known to speak truthfully,’ she said to the protesting prosecutor. ‘Especially when their own interests are at stake.’

‘My point, My Lady, is that this person who calls himself the Master, whoever he might be –’

A hoot of laughter burbled from the screen. ‘
Whoever
he might be!’ The chortle rolled hollowly around the room.

Why did the statement afford the Master such amusement, the Doctor wondered. As he studied the gloating face enlarged to many times its normal size, he felt a sense of foreboding that he could not explain.

But the mystery was about to be unravelled.

And when it was – the Doctor’s presentiment of evil would prove to be only too justified...

‘This
person
...’ re-emphasized the Valeyard, not allowing the Master’s derision to divert him from his argument.

‘Should not be permitted to produce surprise witnesses of whom the prosecution has no pre-knowledge.’

‘As I understand it, Valeyard, the evidence for the prosecution is concluded. The Doctor may now, in his defence, call witnesses to rebut that evidence. After which you have the right to cross-question them on what they have said. That is the procedure.’

‘If I might intercede –’

The Inquisitor had had enough interference from the interloper on the Matrix screen. ‘You may not! You have no part in these proceedings, sir!’

‘Corporeally, of course not. But I am present – and enjoying myself enormously.’

‘I’m glad somebody is,’ muttered Mel. ‘The sooner this is over and we can get out of here, the better!’

‘Maybe we could scarper together,’ whispered Glitz.

‘This has nothing to do with us now, has it? So why don’t we make a silent strategic withdrawal? Just the two of us –’

If the expression in Mel’s smouldering eyes was not sufficient answer for the thick-skinned Glitz, the Doctor’s shove was. ‘Quiet!’ He was absorbed in the Master’s dissertation.

‘I merely wished, Madam, to comment on the shortness of the Valeyard’s memory.’

‘In what respect?’

‘My Lady, pay no heed to –’

The Inquisitor waved the prosecutor’s objection aside,

‘Let him continue.’

‘The Valeyard – or, as I have always known him – the Doctor...’ A dramatic, deliberate pause.