‘And killed the pilot.’
‘As well as damaging a second engine. Which is still active.’
Kari looked again at the pilot, this time with even greater awe. He was more than an alien; he was the last survivor of a universe which he’d destroyed with his error, and his dying moments had been spent looking on the new universe that he’d inadvertently brought into being in its place.
But if the second engine was still active... didn’t that mean that the whole process could take place again?
The Doctor was staring at one of the console controls. ‘Did you see anything move?’ he said. ‘I haven’t been looking. why?’
‘Something’s changed, and I’m not sure what.’ He seemed to be looking most intently at a T-shaped control handle that was almost within the reach of the pilot’s gloved hand. The three-fingered claw lay on the panel, actually touching nothing.
But as they watched, the handle moved a fraction.
‘A pre-ignition sequence!’ the Doctor said. ‘It’s already been programmed in!’
‘But he couldn’t. He’s dead!’
‘The ship doesn’t know that. It‘ll go ahead anyway.
We’ve got to try to shut the damaged engine down.’
‘But how?’
‘Well,’ the Doctor said, shifting himself around to reach across the control panel, ‘we can start by seeing if we can reset that handle.’
Olvir tried to get ahead of the Garm, but he hadn’t counted on the labyrinthine complexity of the Terminus interior. He couldn’t effectively make his way alone, and when he tried to retrace his steps the Garm had, of course, moved on. He listened, but the beast made no sound. It was only Nyssa’s weak calling of his name that gave him something to follow. He caught up just as Nyssa was being strapped to an upright before the damaged reactor globe of the ship’s engines.
He saw Bor’s junkheap. More important, he saw the deadly crack that was only partly covered, light streaming though like the gaze of Satan. Nyssa called his name again, and Olvir started forward.
If he hadn’t still been wearing Vanir armour, walking into Valgard’s staff might have killed him.
Olvir folded, all the breath smacked out of him. He felt as if he’d been rammed in the midsection by a truck. He hit the floor, sack-like and out of control, as the Garm ambled across his lurching field of vision towards the stacked machine parts. Olvir wondered with a detached kind of curiousity what might be coming next. For the moment, he had only the most tenuous contact with his body and his surroundings.
He tried to focus on the Garm, but Valgard got in the way.
‘Where are the others?’ he demanded, hefting his staff ready for another blow.
‘What?’ Sensation was returning to Olvir now, and its return was bad news.
‘The other spies!’ Cheated of prey once, Valgard wasn’t going to allow Olvir any advantages. The staff came down towards Olvir’s head in a bone-splitting hammer-blow. Olvir ducked, took some of the force on his protected shoulder, and slid up under the rod to grab hold of Valgard. The staff was useless for close-up fighting, and it was here that Olvir would have the edge of youth and strength.
It wasn’t the bonus that he’d hoped. Valgard had over-ridden the metering mechanism on the intravenous Hydromel dispenser that was fixed to the chestplate of his armour, and he’d used up all of his reserves in a single shot. For a while, at least, he would feel immortal. Olvir tried some of his best moves, the ones that had won him points in combat training, but Valgard blocked them all. They spun and they circled, and Olvir had little chance to register what the Garm might be doing.
Valgard tried to break free to make a useful distance for his staff, but Olvir wouldn’t let him. Olvir tried to bring his burner around for a close shot, but Valgard knocked it to the floor and kicked it away. They swung around again. Olvir could see that the Garm was leaning hard against the side of the junkheap.
The animal bulldozed the scrap aside. Radiant light burst through, and Nyssa was directly in its path. She screamed.
Olvir suddenly switched tactics. Instead of pulling away, he launched himself onto Valgard. The Vanir suddenly found that he was trying to hold the combined weight of Olvir and two sets of armour.
Given warning, he might just have managed it. He swayed for several seconds, but he was already beaten.
He crashed to the ground with Olvir on top of him.
They rolled apart, winded. Olvir was feeling sick and dizzy at this, his second hand-out of abuse, but he struggled to his knees. If only he wasn’t too late. He had to get Nyssa away from the danger of the radiation field.
But Nyssa was no longer there.
Olvir stared mutely at the chain and the straps that had secured her. They swung gently in the deadly light. He made it onto his feet. There was no sign of the Garm, either, and no clue as to where they might have gone. His burner had come to rest close to the reactor globe – too close for safety. He’d have to reach into the hottest part of the danger area in order to reach it.
‘I wouldn’t,’ Valgard said from behind him. ‘The radiation would kill you.’
Olvir turned. Valgard was still on the floor where he’d fallen, but he’d managed to prop himself up. He said, ‘Get much closer and you’re dead, unless you can get to a decontamination unit.’
‘You’re lying.’
Valgard shrugged. ‘Go ahead, then. In my day we had better training.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You’re a raider, aren’t you? Combat trained.
Colonel Periera, was it? The one they call the Chief?’
Olvir tried not to let his surprise show, but it was unavoidable. He said, ‘How do you know?’
Valgard shifted a little in an attempt to make the most of the strength that he had left. ‘I recognise the moves,’ he said. ‘He taught the same ones to me. I was with him for five tours until he turned me in for the reward.’ He shook his head, and smiled at the memory. ‘I was lining up to do the same to him, but he beat me to it. Good times.’
‘How did you get here?’
‘We’re slave labour, all of us. That’s how the Terminus works.’
‘Where are the guards?’
Valgard almost laughed. ‘Don’t need them. If we don’t work, there’s no Hydromel for us.’ He put out a hand. ‘Help me up,’ he said, but there was a whining note in his voice that caused Olvir to step back a little further.
‘Come on,’ Valgard said, ‘Look at me. I’m a danger to nobody. I’m finished and I’m dying.’
But Olvir wasn’t to be won around. He said, ‘Where did that thing take Nyssa?’
‘Who?’
‘The girl. Where did it take her?’
‘I don’t know. This is the first time I’ve ever been into the zone.’
‘Will he harm her?’
‘He’s supposed to be helping her to get cured.
That’s what he’s here for.’
Olvir glanced across at the straps and chains. They’d stopped swinging. If this was Valgard’s idea of a healing process, he’d got it badly wrong. Was it worth even attempting to find Nyssa if she was doomed anyway?
He said, ‘How can this be expected to cure anybody?’
‘Help me, and I’ll show you.’ Valgard was just a little too eager in his offer. Olvir didn’t believe that the Vanir knew any more about the inner workings of the Terminus than he did.
Olvir said, ‘I’ll find her myself.’ The Garm hadn’t passed them as they’d fought, so that limited the choice of directions. Olvir took a guess and moved off.
‘Don’t leave me,’ Valgard called after him.
One of the tactical principles of the Chief’s combat training programme was that no enemy should be left alive if there was a possibility that he could pose a future threat. Olvir obviously thought that Valgard was finished and not worth the attention... which was what Valgard had wanted him to think.
As soon as he was sure that Olvir had gone, the Vanir scrambled to his feet. He wasn’t fast, but he was a long way from being the helpless invalid that he’d pretended to be as long as the young raider was around. He got his staff and went over to the reactor globe, approaching in such a way that he was out of the direct line of the radiation. The staff was his protection as he used it to draw Olvir’s burner out of the danger area.
His time in the zone might be getting short, but he had a weapon. Let them try to stop him now!
‘Are you all right?’ Tegan said anxiously, and Turlough fanned some of the acrid smoke away. His attempts to pull down some of the shielding in the newly uncovered section of the underfloor area had started a small electrical fire, but it had quickly burned itself out.
‘I’m all right,’ Turlough assured her.
‘I might be able to help you if you’d tell me what you’re trying to do.’
‘There was some kind of radiation leak around here, remember? It gets worse when the motors are running. That’s when the door to the TARDIS is fully materialised... that leak must be the engine signature that the emergency programme attached itself to.’ And as if to prove a point, Turlough leaned back and started to kick at the cladding which lined the underfloor tunnel. There were sparks and more smoke, but pieces of the cladding came away.
Tegan looked up. On the wall behind her, a faint ghost-image of the door to the TARDIS was starting to appear. She was about to tell Turlough, but the liner’s automated warning voice beat her to it.
‘
Primary ignition is now beginning
,’ it boomed down the corridors. ‘
All systems running on test. Departure
sequence is beginning now.
’
‘What’s happening?’ Tegan said.
‘I should think that’s obvious. The liner’s getting ready to leave.’
‘But we can’t leave yet!’
The liner was deaf to any argument that Tegan might offer it. ‘
All drones to designated assembly points
,’ it went on, ‘
Countdown to secondary ignition follows.
’
Turlough heaved himself half-way back to corridor level, and he looked at the results of his work with some satisfaction. He estimated that the door was about one-third materialised. Tegan was no longer looking; she was more concerned about their imminent departure. They were already separated from the Doctor and Nyssa, and it was a situation that threatened to become permanent.
‘The ship’s on automatic,’ Turlough told her.
‘There’s nothing you can do.’
‘But I’ve got to try,’ she said, and before he could argue any further she’d set off towards the control room.
She covered the distance in record time. As she ran, the decks beneath her feet began to rumble with the buildup of launch power. Coming into the command area stopped her short for a moment. It was a room peopled by busy ghosts, ranks of empty seats before which controls were setting themselves and read-outs were displaying to no purpose. But Tegan knew that all of this activity was only secondary, a reflection of the orders that were being issued by the automatic command centre at the forward end of the room.
‘
Departure sequence is now under way,
’ the box announced calmly. ‘
Countdown to docking disengagement
is now beginning. Preparing to blow clamps and withdraw all
lines.
’
She began to look for some main control or master switch, but there was nothing. ‘Can anyone hear me?’
she said, knowing that she was wasting her time. ‘You must stop.’
‘
Countdown to primary burn is now under way.
’ The deck was almost shaking.
‘
Test mode on all systems is disengaged, all systems
operating within permitted tolerances.
’
‘Can’t you shut up!’ Tegan yelled in frustration, and she slammed her fist down on top of the automatics.
The control box shut up.
Tegan couldn’t believe it. An alarm started ringing somewhere, and a call of
Emergency! Launch abort
was echoing around the rest of the liner, and several lights on the control console had died whilst others were blinking furiously.
She ran back to tell Turlough. For the first time since they’d arrived, it was starting to look as if the whole messy adventure might be brought to a safe conclusion.
The floor panel was still open, but the door to the TARDIS had faded again. And it seemed that Turlough had gone with it.
The rise in engine power prior to the aborted launch had given Turlough the opportunity he needed. The underfloor leak had intensified, the door had become solid, and Turlough had wasted no time in going through. He made straight for the console room, and he set his communication cube down by the master control.
‘
The Doctor still lives.
’ There was no expression in the voice.
‘He’s powerless,’ Turlough said, ‘He’s trapped, he’s probably dead already.’ He did his best to sound confident, but he could see too late that it wasn’t coming through.
It would have made no difference, anyway. The Black Guardian’s voice was dark with anger. ‘
You
represent a poor investment of my time and energy,
’ it said, and the brightness of the cube began to increase. ‘
There
is only one course to follow with such an investment.
’
Without warning, the cube escalated to peak brightness. The energy explosion that followed was like that of a bottled sun breaking free.
The Doctor hadn’t been having much success with the main control handle of the Terminus. He took off his jacket and tried to force it from every angle, but there seemed to be no way of moving it. Kari tried when he became exhausted, and then they combined their strength and pushed together. The only movement that the handle made was in the direction that had already been programmed in.
‘Why won’t it move?’ Kari demanded, exasperated, as they took a couple of minutes to get their breath back.
‘It’s computer-controlled,’ the Doctor said. He was about to add something else, but he didn’t; instead, he looked over the console as if he was seeing it in the light of a new idea.
Kari knew better than to interrupt. After a few moments, the Doctor said, ‘The technology here is phenomenal.’
‘I don’t understand why it’s still functional after all this time.’