The Doctor looked grim. 'We don't have any choice. The Creature is already dead. Ace is still alive...'
Kane's eyes blazed triumphantly. 'At last...' he whispered. 'After three thousand years... Bring it closer.'
Mel took a small step towards Kane. She looked at Ace who was still held tight by Kane and obviously frightened.
The Doctor had been watching Kane's eyes, trying to get the measure of his match, and he decided that the cheery approach would be most effective. 'Three thousand years, eh? That's long enough for an entire civilisation to have come and gone.'
Kane turned to inspect the oddly-dressed man who was smiling affably.
'Are you some kind of an idiot?' he asked slowly.
The Doctor strode forward, beaming, and extended a hand. 'I'm the Doctor. These two are my friends Mel and Glitz. And the small one that you're holding in a menacing fashion is Ace.'
Kane knew he was being made a fool of. His expression twisted angrily as he tightened his grip on Ace.
'Doctor!' screamed Ace, in fear.
The Doctor halted. 'Ah. You know, for someone who's had the patience to wait three thousand years, you seem to be in rather a hurry suddenly.'
'Here,' broke in Glitz, 'what's all this three thousand years?'
The Doctor looked at Kane. 'Three thousand years since you were exiled here from Proamon - along with the Creature.'
Kane's piercing gaze tried to read the Doctor. 'Who are you?'
'Oh, just a traveller.'
'What do you know of Proamon?' Kane turned his eyes on the others.
'The Creature showed us everything,' said Mel, 'on the hologram.'
For a moment, Kane looked away, thinking of something else. 'The archives ... I was going to destroy them.'
'Oh, keep them for the souvenir value,' suggested the Doctor, 'along with the Ice Garden.'
'But why was the Creature doing time here as well?' asked Glitz.
Kane turned angrily on him. 'The bio-mechanoid was my jailer! Look around. Controls lying dead. Power units waiting for an energy source...
The Dragonfire is the energy source!'
At last, the Doctor was beginning to understand. 'And without the crystal's energy, you were powerless.'
'My people thought they could imprison me on this wretched planet by implanting the power source inside the Creature. They shall learn of their folly.'
'A living creature was created as the key to your prison! Fascinating.'
Kane's eyes drifted away again - drifted back over three thousand years. 'There were times when I ached for death - to journey from the cold, dark face of Svartos, round to the sun-blistered surface on the other side, where I would quickly die. But I was owed my revenge!'
Kane's eyes blazed with anger once more. 'And now, with the Dragonfire, I have the power to return to Proamon and exact my revenge!' He nodded at Mel, who was holding the crystal. 'The girl - you
- bring me the
Dragonfire!'
Mel clutched the crystal tighter. 'No! I'm not going to lift one finger to help you.'
Ace panicked. 'Melanie!' she cried, and turned to plead with Kane.
'Don't listen to her. She doesn't mean it.' She turned back to Mel, begging her, 'Doughnut! Give him the treasure, please. I'm only sixteen.
I'm too young to be freeze-dried!'
'Come on, Mel,' joined in Glitz. 'This isn't the time for being fastidious.'
Mel didn't know who to listen to. If she gave the crystal to Kane, he would use its power for evil. If she didn't, he would kill Ace. She turned to the Doctor for help. 'Doctor?'
The Doctor tried to play for more time with Kane. 'If I could just explain...' But Kane snatched off one of his gloves, and held his bare hand towards Ace.
Ace screamed in terror: 'Doctor!'
'Stop wasting my time,' hissed Kane. 'The Dragonfire is mine now.
Either you can give it to me willingly, or I shall take it from your dead bodies.'
The Doctor turned helplessly to Mel. 'The logic is inescapable.'
Defeated, Mel stepped slowly forward with the crystal.
Kane smiled in triumph. 'Place it in the circuit -there.' He indicated a crystalline structure in the centre of the room. The Dragonfire fitted neatly into a gap. 'Now - away!'
Mel stepped back again. Kane pressed a sequence of buttons on the Control Desk. The crystalline structure began to close round the Dragonfire. As it locked into position, the immense fire was released from the Dragonfire once more. But this time, instead of twisting in empty air, the optical energy was focused by the array of crystals surrounding it, and concentrated into a powerful beam that burned upwards to another crystalline structure suspended above it. This split the
beam into hundreds of tiny, focused rays of light, which reflected and refracted throughout the crystalline structure of the Control Room.
As the energy circulated rapidly round the Control Room, empty screens and monitors flickered back into life. The whole room seemed to be waking from a deep sleep. Kane released Ace to concentrate on the newly activated controls. She ran to Mel's arms.
Kane punched control switches and keyed in instrument settings, and slowly the whole room began to vibrate.
Mel held onto Ace. 'Doctor, - what's happening?'
The Doctor listened to the growing roar in amazement. 'It sounds like a starflight photon drive.'
'Starflight drive?' echoed Glitz. 'It can't be..."
The huge crystalline limbs, towering over the shadows on the dark side of the planet Svartos, began to move and crack. Huge beams of ice snapped under the strain, and crashed down. Slowly, the immense structure began to rise out of the planet's surface, shaking off its chains of confinement. From beneath the planet's surface, more crystalline limbs broke free, and as it drifted clear of the planet, it looked like a colossal snow crystal, floating away into space.
'This is a spacecraft!' exclaimed Glitz. 'The whole colony's a spacecraft!'
As the giant snow crystal floated free of the planet's shadow, and out into the fierce sunlight, the ice began to melt, and the metallic structure of a spacecraft became visible under the centuries-old encrusted ice.
Kane looked around. The scanners and displays glowed obediently, waiting for his instructions. 'My hour of vengeance... I feel it!'
'Vengeance on whom?' intruded the Doctor. 'You're too late, Kane.'
'All your frozen mercenaries are dead now,' declared Mel.
Kane laughed. 'I can soon find more.'
'But where can you find another home planet?' insisted the Doctor.
'You're talking in riddles, Doctor. Proamon is my home planet - as you already know.'
'Was your home planet.'
Kane looked blankly at the Doctor.
'Check your navigational equipment,' insisted the Doctor. 'It's all fully operative now.'
Kane turned to the navigational guidance console and keyed in a set of co-ordinates. The screen responded with a star chart. Kane looked at the display, and then re-keyed the co-ordinates. 'There must be something wrong with it. A minor malfunction after three thousand years inactive...' He tried to correct the problem.
'Sadly not,' explained the Doctor. 'Your planet, your race, your entire civilisation were destroyed, one thousand years after you were exiled.'
'It's not possible...' Frantically, Kane punched at buttons, trying to correct the display.
'Look at the sun of Proamon. When you left, it was a cold Red Giant, surrounded by freezing planets.'
Kane looked. 'There's nothing here but a Neutron Star...'
'That's right. Your sun turned supernova two thousand years ago. All of its planets were engulfed in the explosion. Your people were annihilated. Your planet was obliterated. You're too late for your revenge, Kane.'
'My home...'
'A civilisation at its height, and suddenly - nothing.' The Doctor turned to Kane. He saw the terrible realisation on Kane's face, and suddenly felt sorry for him. 'You have no home.'
'No! No!' Kane's voice hardened again. He spun round, and punched furiously at a button. 'No! It shall not be!'
'No! Don't do that!' cried the Doctor.
The shutter covering the observation window began to slide open. The blinding bright sunlight streamed through the widening gap. An impersonal automatic voice intoned a warning: 'Danger. Unfiltered sunlight.'
'Get down, everyone!' shouted the Doctor. 'Take cover!' The others dived behind the control consoles, and the Doctor threw himself after them. Kane didn't move. He watched, as the shutter opened wide, then he stepped into the burning light.
He felt his skin scorching. The searing heat of the sunlight burned into his flesh. His skin began to vaporise in the heat, and steam rose from his body. He opened his mouth wide and screamed in agony.
As his flesh melted away, his body began to shrink. He sank to the ground, twisting and screaming with the blinding pain.
Finally, the screams died away.
The Doctor reached round the front of the Control Desk with his brolly and knocked the button controlling the observation window. The shutter began to slide shut. Soon, the Control Room was safe again. The Doctor and the others emerged from hiding and looked round. All that was left of Kane was his insulating uniform. His body had melted completely away...
In the TARDIS Console Room, the Doctor was busy checking the stabiliser settings at the control console. Mel watched him. She liked this new incarnation. He was still a bit grumpy at times, and occasionally he behaved like a fool, but he cared deeply about people -
all people, not just his friends.
'Well, I suppose it's time,' she said.
The Doctor was preoccupied with the TARDIS's controls. 'Yes - strange business, "time". It delights in frustrating our plans. All Kane's hatred and bitterness, thwarted by a quirk of time.'
'I meant, I suppose it's time I should be leaving...'
The Doctor looked up. His bright expression had dropped. 'Already?'
He looked so helpless, all of a sudden - like a child who'd lost his playmate. Mel tried to explain. 'I don't belong here. I'm not a traveller, like you. I need somewhere I feel I can belong...'
'But so soon?'
'It's time.' She smiled warmly, and reached to hug the Doctor, but he turned quickly away.
'Ah, yes - "time" again. Always keeps popping up when you least expect it! Just when you think there's no time left, suddenly you've got all the time in the universe, and there's a lot of time in the universe, believe me.'
For a moment, Mel saw something in the Doctor she'd never seen before - the lonely traveller, journeying to the ends of time in a battered blue Police Box, on a voyage
with no start and no finish.
He turned to her. 'Think of me when you hear a clock strike...'
She embraced the Doctor warmly, and he hugged her.
Glitz coughed loudly as he strode into the TARDIS. 'Well, we've officially renamed this craft the Nosferatu II, and the engines are nicely warmed up - so, next stop sunny Perivale, eh Sprog?'
'S'pose so,' said Ace miserably, following Glitz into the TARDIS.
Mel turned to Glitz. 'Have you got room for another one?'
'You Perivale-bound as well?' asked Glitz in surprise.
'I was hoping you might take me a bit further.' She smiled ingratiatingly.
Glitz was getting suspicious. 'How much further?'
'How much further are you going?'
'Here - half a millisecond...'
'Excellent!' interrupted the Doctor. 'Mel can keep you out of mischief, Glitz.'
'And that means no more dodgy deals,' warned Mel.
'Thanks a billion, Doctor.' Glitz glared at the Doctor as they shook hands farewell. 'Well, come on then. You two can toss a coin to decide which of you has to scrape the ice off the windscreen..."
Mel turned quickly to the Doctor. 'Ace doesn't have anywhere to go, Doctor...' she whispered.
'Nonsense,' replied the Doctor. 'It's an idyllic place, Perivale. Lush green meadows ... village blacksmith...'
'Doctor - she comes from the twentieth century!'
'Ah.'
'Come on, Mel,' called Glitz from the doorway. 'Get your digit out!'
Mel turned to leave. She looked back at the Doctor. 'I'll send you a postcard,' she promised.
'But I don't have an address.'
'I'll put it in a bottle, and throw it into space. It'll reach you - in time.'
Glitz and Mel left, and Ace trudged after them.
'Excuse me,' called the Doctor. 'Where do you think you're going?'
Ace looked back. 'Perivale.'
The Doctor's eyes twinkled. 'Ah, but which route are you taking? The direct route with Glitz - or the scenic route?'
Ace didn't know what to say. She could hardly believe this was true.
'Well, do you fancy a quick spin round the Twelve Galaxies, en route to Perivale?'
The girl from Perivale punched the air in delight. 'Ace!!'
The Doctor tried to be stern. 'There are three rules. First: I'm in charge.'
'Anything you say, Professor!' agreed Ace, still bouncing with delight.
'Second: I'm not a Professor - I'm the Doctor.'
'Whatever you want!'
'And third...' The Doctor broke into a smile. 'Well... I'll think of a third one before we reach Perivale!'
Stellar had heard voices in the Freezer Centre, but when she got there, it was empty. She looked at the tall blue box which had appeared so mysteriously out of nowhere.
'There you are...' called her mother, from the other end of the Freezer Centre. 'I've been looking all over for you. Hurry up - we're late.' Her mother disappeared through an exit. Stellar ran after her. Then she stopped. There was a strange mechanical grinding sound coming from somewhere. She turned to look back at the tall blue box. There was nothing there now except a sort of blue flashing. She reached out, trying to catch the dancing blue light - but it receded quickly into the past, and disappeared.
The Starchild smiled. On a distant planet, the sun was rising on a new day.