Doctor Who: Shada (41 page)

‘The Doctor?’ spluttered Skagra. ‘Stop talking about him, stop talking about the Doctor, I command you!’

‘Do you know the Doctor very well?’ inquired the Ship. She sighed. ‘I must say, the Doctor is a wonderful, wonderful man. And he has done the most extraordinary things to my circuitry, I can tell you—’

‘Release me!’ Skagra bellowed.

‘Certainly not,’ said the Ship frostily.

Skagra sank to his knees and clutched his head in his hands.

‘If you like,’ continued the Ship, ‘and frankly, even if you don’t, I can tell you all about the Doctor.’

‘Let me out,
let me out
!’ Skagra sobbed pathetically, like a child sent to his room without supper.

‘We can watch all of his adventures together,’ said the Ship. ‘Won’t that be fun? Let’s start at the very beginning – this is the first of the Doctor’s adventures I could find a scan of, but there are so many, many more to come!’

A holo-screen formed on the side of the prison facing Skagra. A scratchy monochrome image formed upon it, an Earth policeman walking down a foggy London street.

Skagra howled in agony. On the screen a bell tolled as if in sympathy.

*

In the TARDIS, the image of the imprisoned Skagra vanished and the scanner once again showed the sleek white shape of the formerly invisible ship.

The Ship’s voice rang out over the communications circuit. ‘I hope you didn’t blush too much at any of that, my dear Doctor. You see, I’m going to make that boy see the error of his ways,’ she cooed. ‘Keep him from causing any more trouble for you and I won’t let him out till he’s truly sorry.’

The Doctor seemed slightly shell-shocked. Romana felt she ought to fill the silence. ‘Thanks for your help with the Kraags,’ she said.

‘Oh, don’t mention it, dear,’ said the Ship. ‘You’d have got there in the end, I’m sure. And between us girls,’ she continued, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘I think he’s awfully lucky to have you. Just you make sure you take care of him for me.’

Romana smiled weakly.

‘Right!’ the Ship trilled. ‘Off into the space-time vortex I jolly well go! Goodbye!’

Romana looked questioningly over at the Doctor. ‘The space-time vortex?’ she hissed.

‘Just watch!’ said the Doctor, nodding to the ship on the scanner. ‘Good-looking little thing, isn’t she?’

The audio circuit crackled again. ‘Oh, my lord Doctor,’ said the Ship bashfully. ‘You are wonderful!’

A moment later there was the distant sound of a relative dimensional stabiliser in operation, and a single last cry of ‘Oooohhhh!!’ from the Ship as she disappeared into time and space.

Romana was speechless for a moment. By the time she had finally composed her thoughts, the Doctor was already back at the TARDIS’s navigation panel, inputting a string of coordinates.

‘There’s still a great deal of tidying up to be done,’ he said. ‘For a start I’m not carting them around the universe for ever.’

The TARDIS jerked slightly and there was the sound of a distant minor explosion behind one of the panels. The Doctor patted the console. ‘And I’m glad to have you back, too.’

‘What exactly did you
do
to Skagra’s ship, Doctor?’ Romana asked.

The Doctor shrugged. ‘Nothing, really. I mean, a lot of people think I’m wonderful, I don’t have to
do
anything to them.’

Romana scoffed.

The Doctor pointed at her. ‘You, for a start, you think I’m wonderful.’

‘Of course I don’t,’ said Romana automatically.

But then her defences melted and she found herself folding her arms affectionately around his back. ‘Of course I do.’

‘Of course you do,’ said the Doctor. He glanced down. ‘K-9?’

K-9 trundled forward and nuzzled his nose against the Doctor’s leg. ‘Master, wonderful,’ he said.

Chapter 73

CHRIS PARSONS SAT in an alien deck chair, on an alien beach, licking an alien ice cream, and feeling thoroughly alienated. True, the sea and the sky were a beautiful shade of blue. It was just that they weren’t quite the right shade of blue. The sand was golden, really golden. It was like being in an airbrushed photograph from a holiday brochure. Still, the ice cream tasted pretty much as expected, and the deckchair had been positively Earth-like in its reluctance to open without trapping his fingers.

The last hour or so was a blur to Chris, like he was coming round after an operation. Hadn’t they given him ice cream then too, he thought, when he’d had his tonsils out? He took another lick of the cornet and glanced to his right, where Professor Chronotis sat happily in another deckchair, trousers rolled up to his knees, bare toes wiggling in the sand, and a knotted handkerchief on his head. His eyes were firmly closed, his glasses askew and there was a relaxed smile on his face. He looked as content and harmless as ever, such a nice old man. Chris frowned. But hang on – that wasn’t true, was it?

He turned his attention to a third deckchair, to Chris’s left, where the Doctor sat. Despite the blazing sun, he was still wrapped up in his full scarf and winter coat ensemble. His only concession to the climate was a pair of extremely large and expensive-looking sunglasses. In one hand he held what looked like a much smaller version of the sphere that had caused them all the trouble. He was poking at it with his sonic screwdriver, letting out an occasional ‘Oh’ and ‘Aha!’

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ ventured Chris.

‘Ah, Bristol!’ cried the Doctor, pushing his shades down his nose to give Chris a friendly wink. ‘Feeling better, are you, back in the land of the living?’

‘Yes,’ said Chris slowly. ‘Though I’m still a bit confused about a few things.’ He looked around the beach, where none of the holidaymakers seemed to be at all perturbed by the wooden door that had appeared in the side of one of the candy-striped bathing huts. ‘I mean, where’s Clare, for a start?’

‘She’ll be along in a minute,’ said the Doctor. ‘You just eat your ice cream and ask me to explain everything.’

Chris sifted through his confused memories of everything that had happened since the sphere had zoomed for his forehead back on Shada. ‘So,’ he began tentatively, ‘you know when I, sort of, burst in and, sort of, shouted out that the Professor here was really Salyavin—’

The Professor harrumphed. ‘Undergraduates,’ he muttered, without opening his eyes.

Chris carried on. ‘I thought I was being quite useful then, but I sort of get the impression that I wasn’t actually being very useful at all, with that whole bursting-in thing?’

‘Well, frankly, no,’ said the Doctor after a pause. ‘It was possibly the least useful thing anybody in the universe could have done at that particular point. If I hadn’t been quite so appalled and furious at that point, I’d have been impressed that you’d worked out the Professor’s little secret.’

Chris’s head dropped. It was hard to know what to say to that. ‘Er, well, sorry anyway,’ he said.

The Doctor smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Bristol, it’s not the end of the world. It could have been, but it wasn’t.’

‘It’s all my fault, sort of, though, isn’t it?’ said Chris. ‘I mean, if I hadn’t borrowed that book in the first place—’

The Doctor interrupted him. ‘But you didn’t.’

‘I think I did,’ said Chris. ‘I’m quite clear on that bit.’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘You didn’t borrow the book. The book borrowed you.’

Chris just stared at him, his forgotten ice cream dripping onto his jeans.

‘Oh yes,’ continued the Doctor, ‘these incredibly powerful and unknowable old Artefacts, they’re nobody’s fools, you know. It sensed danger, and it chose you as its protector. Probably subconsciously influenced the Professor to guide you to it. It liked the look of you, Bristol.’

‘That’s a very odd way for a book to behave,’ said Chris.

‘It’s a very odd book,’ said the Doctor. ‘None of us had a hope of reading
it
. But through this whole thing, right from the very beginning, it’s been reading
us
.’

‘What?’ spluttered Chris.

‘Yes,’ nodded the Doctor. ‘That book has been able to read every one of us, like a…’ He paused. ‘Like a book. And when Skagra actually touched it—’

‘When was that?’ asked Chris.

‘Oh yes, you wouldn’t remember,’ said the Doctor, ‘your mind had been sucked from your body and your physical form was a mere puppet of Skagra’s demented will at that point.’

The Professor grunted. ‘Could happen to the best of us.’

‘Luckily I was able to reverse that,’ said the Doctor, waggling his miniature sphere at Chris.

Chris opened his mouth, full of questions.

‘Anyway,’ the Doctor breezed on, ‘Skagra touched the book and obviously he didn’t like what he saw.’

‘I saw the past when I touched it,’ said Chris.

‘I think Skagra saw the future,’ said the Doctor. ‘And he didn’t like it. Because the book didn’t like him, you see. He was shocked out of himself for a moment, and lost control of his precious Universal Mind.’

‘And I’m very glad to be me again, thank you,’ said Chris. ‘But those other poor people. That fisherman, the scientists on the Think Tank. It was too late for them, I suppose, with no bodies left to go back to.’

He looked sadly out to sea where a small group of young, bronzed holidaymakers were gathered around a surfboard, apparently without a care in the world.

‘Of course it wasn’t too late,’ said the Doctor. He pointed to the same group of holidaymakers. ‘There they are, all present and correct. There was another one in there too, nice chap called David.’

Chris reeled. ‘What?
What
?’

The Doctor waggled his sphere again. ‘I lashed up my own control for the telepathic matrix. Condensed the five little spheres you’d all been lumbered with into this one. Then, with great skill, sent your mind and the Professor’s mind and those naughty Ancient Outlaws’ minds back home to your bodies. Oh, and sent the others into new ones.’

‘
New bodies
? How? Where do you get
new bodies
?’

The Doctor waved around the beach. ‘This is a level eleven civilisation. The people on this planet have got genetic engineering down to a fine art. Never mind a facelift, they can run you up a whole new you if you ask nicely. I asked nicely, I got them to brew me up seven new bodies for the homeless minds in the sphere.’

He waved to the holidaymakers. They waved back.

‘They all look rather different,’ said Chris. ‘All young and muscly and sort of beautiful.’

‘Well, why not?’ said the Doctor. ‘And now they all seem rather keen to stay here and have some fun. Who can blame them? They deserve it.’

Chris squinted as a middle-aged woman emerged from a bathing hut, called ‘Coo-ee!’ and skipped across the sand, joining the group as they splashed around in the sea. She pulled the largest, most handsome of the men into a massive hug, ruffling his hair.

‘Oh,’ the Doctor said, ‘and I promised David I’d fetch his mum from Earth for him. He seems like a nice boy, and she’d only have worried.’

Chris shook his head in amazement. ‘You really are wonderful, Doctor,’ he said.

‘It has been noted,’ said the Doctor.

The Professor grunted. ‘I helped with all that, you know,’ he said. ‘As he seems to have forgotten to mention. Mind like a sieve, that one.’

This comment reminded Chris of what he’d been going to ask earlier. It was a rather delicate matter. ‘Er, Doctor,’ he began, leaning towards the Doctor and trying to keep his voice low. ‘Another thing. If our friend here –’ he pointed to the Professor – ‘is – or was – S, A ,L—’

The Professor’s eyes sprang open. ‘Salyavin? What about him? Good riddance, I say.’

Chris jumped guiltily. ‘Well, I was just going to say – no offence, or anything – wasn’t Salyavin supposed to be evil? The terrible criminal, the Great Mind Outlaw, and all that stuff. Which is why they, you know, locked him up forever, and all that.’

‘I’ll let the Professor tell you his story in his own words, just as he told it to me,’ said the Doctor.

The Professor leant forward and opened his mouth to speak.

‘You see,’ the Doctor said, before the Professor had a chance to begin, ‘the Time Lords, for all their great power, are a frightened people, they always have been. When you’ve got all that power, it can make you a little jumpy. They tend to react very strongly to anything unusual, anything they don’t understand or that doesn’t fit in with their particular way of doing things. Anything that could be considered a threat to them.’

‘Yes, I remember you saying,’ said Chris. ‘They might have destroyed Earth just because the book went missing.’

‘Exactly,’ said the Doctor. ‘Good to see you’ve been paying attention.’ He gestured to Chronotis. ‘Carry on, Professor.’

The Professor opened his mouth to speak.

‘Poor Salyavin here,’ said the Doctor before he had the chance, ‘had a very unusual talent, the power to place his mind into other people’s. We Time Lords have a minor gift for telepathy, but Salyavin’s talent was unique. But he was different, that was all, not evil. The most he actually did was to play a few regrettable, childish and very enjoyable pranks. Making the Lord President think his knickers were on fire, making everyone dance round the Panopticon doing the can-can, et cetera.’