The Doctor huffed. ‘We’ve still got to transcend the time vortex.’
‘But we are going to be okay, right?’
The Doctor refused to commit himself to an answer, and marched over to the console and continued working there. He eyed the array of navigational aids and made some adjustments. The TARDIS rattled again as Peri clung on to avoid falling over.
‘Go to the store room and bring me the brown leather box.’ Knowing her fate if she were to utter a question, she stormed off, quite aggravated by the way the Doctor treated her. The Time Lord smirked as his assistant disappeared.
He was quite aware of his attitude, but that was all part of being in control. In any case, he mused, Peri’s fiery temper mde for a more interesting day.
Maylin Renis crossed the main corridor to find the steps leading to the Power Vault. Removing the amulet from his neck, he placed it like a key into the main door of the room that controlled all power within the Citadel. Only he had access to this important and vital area, though today his routine visit was to be shared by Mykros, who slipped in as the solid steel doors shut fast behind.
The Maylin turned to see Mykros’s fresh young face behind him. He was not pleased.
‘Are you aware of the penalties for being here without permission?’
Mykros was silent. He was not about to commit himself that readily. The Maylin’s aggressive tone mellowed. ‘There are no microphones or cameras in here Mykros; the delta configuration rays harm delicate instrumentation.’
Mykros sighed, quite relieved, and ventured forward with interest. This was his first visit to these vaults.
‘I suppose you can stay,’ reasoned Renis. ‘You can help me.’
Mykros lapped the small room, taking in the nature of the place and making mental notes. ‘What do you do here?’
The Maylin knew instinctively he should not answer, but did so all the same. ‘I switch power to the Borad’s vault.’
‘You mean, give him more energy?’
‘That’s right.’
‘That means you can stop it?’
Renis was quite taken aback by the very idea, and paused before he replied: ‘The Borad’ll wipe us out within hours if he sensed any deliberate loss of power.’ But trying to reason with Mykros was always an uphill struggle. The young Karfelon mused at the idea as Renis continued to carry out the purpose of his visit. He pulled another amulet from his pocket, similar to his own, but this one had a mirror at its centre.
‘A mirror!’ marvelled Mykros. ‘Haven’t seen one of those since I was a boy.’ The Maylin was not about to discuss the matter, except to place both amulets into the power panels simultaneously. ‘The amulets open the panels to enable me to switch energy.’
Mykros took a closer look. He could read the various sources of energy available, and how the Borad was currently creaming off large amounts of his own vault for personal use. ‘No power, no androids, no Timelash, no Borad.’
Renis was unimpressed by Mykros’s logic and told him so while glancing at the instructions for the day’s power changes. The Maylin’s face suddenly dropped, and Mykros was not slow to notice this. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
Renis rested his head in one open hand, rubbing his temple. ‘He wants me to switch all the power from the hospital today.’
‘That’s murder!’ protested the young Karfelon, shocked by the very idea.
Renis moved forward and began carrying out the instructions as Mykros’s strong grip clutched his hand, restraining him from going any further. The Maylin pulled away sharply, and stretched out to effect the power switches as Mykros watched in abortive silence. ‘I’ll do all I can to support you, but do not ask me to risk my position.
Maybe I will have more opportunity as Maylin when the time comes.’
Renis completed the final re-channelling of energy, depleting the hospital of its vital power. With great sadness he ushered Mykros out, only to find an android waiting.
‘It’s all right, Mykros was simply assisting me,’ piped up the Maylin, as he handed over one of the amulets to the mechanised Karfelon. The black-faced creature with short golden hair peered at them with his bright staring eyes.
‘Mykros is required in the Inner Sanctum chamber immediately,’ chirped the android.
‘But -’
‘You, Maylin,’ it interrupted, ’will attend the Borad at once.’
The Karfelons exchanged glances. Few were ever given an audience with the Borad. Most never returned.
The Doctor dug deep into the leather box and pulled out two sets of straps, banding one pair to Peri. She accepted them with an old-fashioned look.
‘Now fasten these around you, and hook yourself up to the console.’
Peri did as she was bid as the Doctor did likewise. The TARDIS engines laboured under the growing strain of negotiating the time corridor in space as the vibrations upon the craft grew worse.
Holding on tightly, the time-travellers underwent the adverse effects of a Kontron Tunnel. Without the belts, both the Doctor and Peri would have without doubt been thrown around the console room and battered severely.
At the same time as they gripped the straps with both hands, the gravitational forces within the TARDIS were removed. The Doctor was the first to fly into mid-air, his feet being pulled to the walls. Peri screamed, never having experienced a ride like this before. She too was tossed into flight, feeling the unpleasant effects of weightlessness.
‘Hang on Peri!’ shouted the Doctor. Peri’s cheeks, now bright red, glowed like hot plates. She gritted her teeth and hung on tightly. The thirty second experience seemed to take forever to come to a quiet conclusion as both travellers landed, making solid contact with the TARDIS floor once more.
They had transcended the vortex, but this was only the beginning.
Maylin Renis re-arranged his toga before entering the vault of the Borad. As he stepped into the darkened chamber with some trepidation, he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise to the occasion. As he cautiously entered, the mechanism of the Borad’s chair spun its occupant around the chamber’s outskirts. Renis peered through the dim shadows, but saw very little.
‘Do you take me for a fool?’ growled the voice of the Borad provocatively.
Renis trembled, but answered a confident reply. ‘No Borad, you know I would never do that.’
‘Then why do you plot against me?’
Renis fumbled for a guarded reponse, only to hear his own voice echo about the vault in the form of a recording.
It had been stored earlier during the power switching with Mykros. ‘But that cannot be,’ he reasoned.
‘Because there is no monitoring in the power vault?’
prompted the Borad. ‘
Imbecile!
I had one fitted into the dark-centred amulet. When fed into the power panels it is shielded from delta configuration rays.’ The laugh of the mature Karfelon suddenly altered drastically to a strong hollow chuckle. Gradually, the Borad’s chair moved out into the main light source, as Renis stood and watched the emerging shape - a shape he had never seen before.
Sweating with cold terror, and choking with fright, the Maylin attempted to come to terms with the sight before him. Backing away, he attempted a futile escape, merely falling into the hands of a fiercesome android which propelled the quaking Maylin back into the centre of the vault on his bended knees.
Fingering the arm control panel on his chair, the Borad pushed a lever forward to emit a pure burst of time-energy directly on to his shivering prey. As the Maylin looked up for the last time, the column of white light surged through his doubled body accelerating time itself forward. Maylin Renis aged rapidly to a period far beyond any normal Karfelon lifespan, then further forward until all that remained of him was a skeletal outline that crumbled to dust.
The android surged forward and picked up the amulet from the pile of ashes. The Borad issued explicit instructions to elect a new Maylin. It was time for Tekker to take the helm.
It was not long before Tekker had the amulet about his neck and power firmly in his grasp. He adjusted his chain of office before making an entrance into the assembled chamber of the Inner Sanctum. The members present rallied an applause more out of fear than loyalty as the Karfelon’s sharp features hid the council to be seated.
Vena, quite dismayed by the events before her eyes, rushed to the new Maylin with the obvious question on her quivering lips.
‘My dear Vena,’ offered Tekker with subtle insincerity,
‘your father has suffered a fatal seizure - but the news grows worse...’ A curt wave signalled the entrance of two guardoliers bearing Mykros, their prisoner.
Vena, completely shattered and with tears streaming down her face, rushed to embrace the man she loved. From the portals of the Inner Sanctum to the steps of the Timelash, there was but enough time for Mykros to whisper a vital message: ‘The strength of the Borad rests in the amulet.’
Tekker, gleefully ordering the time vortex to be prepared, activated Vena into quick motion. She burst forward and ripped the amulet from Tekker’s tunic, rushing to the doors of the Timelash to dangle the chain of office just inside. Shocked, Tekker screeched to an android to retrieve the vital key to the planet’s power. But in the disorganised flurry that followed both Vena and amulet were inadvertently ejected into the swirling seas of the time-tunnel, leaving all in the chamber numbed by the accident.
Tekker eyed the camera at the far corner of the room.
He knew the consequences if the amulet were to remain lost forever. The new Maylin, barely elected, swallowed hard as he sensed the warm flow of blood fill his cheeks, head and neck.
Peri breathed a sigh of relief as she replaced the bracing belts into the brown leather box. A high pitched tone filled the interior of the TARDIS, making her drop the storage unit. She clapped both hands over her ears and winced.
The Doctor, evidently less susceptible to the cutting sound, scanned the controls for an answer to this unexpected audio intrusion. And then, at the highest pitch of the shrill noise, the semi-solid form of Vena passed through the console room, as if she were flying through time and space without the constraints of solid matter.
Tekker strutted about the chamber with rather less bravado than before. He had instructed all his scientists to come up with a solution to resolve the problem of the lost amulet, or suffer the consequences. Brunner and Kendron busied themselves at the control of the Timelash, but it was clear that little could be achieved.
‘If we don’t get the amulet back,’ threatened Tekker,
’we’re all done for.’
‘All five hundred of us?’ bleated Kendron. Brunner grunted unhappily and resumed his attention to the Timelash fascia, only to discover a pulsating light beingemitted along the vortex’s corridor. Tekker spotted the bleeping light too and rushed to monitor the moving entity.
‘Must be Vena,’ mumbled Kendron, being characteristically negative.
‘Rubbish,’ snapped Tekker, his confidence quickly returning. ‘It’s far too large, and travelling in reverse.’
‘But what craft can penetrate the Timelash and manoeuvre its way back to this point of origin?’
Tekker grinned enthusiastically. ‘The sort that can retrieve the amulet.’
The three councillors continued to watch the progress of the blob on the screen, and it soon appeared as a definite shape. Using a scanner, they were finally able to discover what exactly they were dealing with.
‘A TARDIS,’ declared Kendron, as Tekker’s mind worked overtime. ‘I wonder,’ he mused. ‘Could this be the Doctor’s return?’
The Borad, also observing proceedings, was delighted to see the emerging TARDIS, which now materialised inside the Inner Sanctum chamber. He too relished the Time Lord’s return, but for other selfish reasons.
4
Sezon lurched forward, reaching automatically for his blaster. Startled, he turned to see his comrade still fast asleep. Cursing the fact that he too had fallen asleep, the self-made combat soldier stirred the glowing embers of the camp fire. The five hour Karfelon night had passed, and the twin suns of the planet were out in all their wickedly hot glory.
‘Sezon,’ came a quiet voice from within the cavern.
Sezon instantly recognised the half-sleepy tones of Katz who stretched and yawned. The two met by the mouth of the cave for their usual first-light meeting.
‘Damn it, Katz, I fell asleep on watch.’ Katz half smiled, forgiving the broad-shouldered warrior, but knowing how serious the consequences could have been if guardoliers had paid them a visit unannounced.
‘You’re just too tired,’ said Katz, ‘we all are. The life we lead is tearing us apart. We’re just not trained for this type of existence.’ This did little to soothe Sezon’s feelings in the matter and he trudged around the cave, displeased.
‘If it were one of the others, I’d have had their hides!’ he growled, wishing there was someone else to have his.
Katz built up the fire to cook some breakfast. There was never a lot to eat, a few currants, danjek berries, roasted nuts and hot fruit juice. Much the same as the other two meals of the day. Sticking to military storage targets, the regiment hardly ever got close to raiding food supplies, and all that remained was the sparse vegetation of the planet’s steamy surface.
Katz and Sezon were once respected scientists of the Central Citadel, some six solar orbits back. They remembered suffering the rule of the Borad for a similar time until things became too unbearable to continue. Yet the Karfelon was basically a peace-loving being, and it went against the grain to take up arms and fight; the very reason why the majority simply knuckled under the dictator’s degrading rule.
At the same time Katz and Sezon decided to rebel, diplomatic relations were severed with their neighbouring planet Bandril. The Borad had broken the Treaty of Co-operation set up a long time back by the historically famous Doctor. The agreement outlined a trade treaty whereby Karfel made regualar exports to Bandril of grain, which was grown and packed in special climate-adjusted domes near the Central Citadel. It was food vital to a planet without the power or expertise to do the same for itself. In fact Bandrils’ rising population depended on the food supply, and their leaders were very concerned at the break in diplomacy. But until now the Borad still allowed grain to be exported, though the price had quadrupled. Katz realised the time had come for the power crazy ruler’s own ends to be satisfied. Much of the payment was in solar power cells, and the Borad had collected enough.