THE INFINITY DOCTORS

LANCE PARKIN

Published by BBC Worldwide Ltd

Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane

London W12 0TT

First published 1998

Copyright © Lance Parkin 1998

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Original series broadcast on the BBC

Format © BBC 1963

Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC

ISBN 0 563 40591 0

Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright to BBC 1998

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham

Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton

For Cassandra May, always.

This book and its author owe a great deal to Cassandra May,

Mark Jones,

Mike Evans, Mark Clapham, Kate Orman, Jon Blum and

Rebecca Levene.

Thanks also to Donald Gillikin, Patricia Gillikin, Elsa

Frohman, Lawrence

Miles, Henry Potts, Benjamin Elliott and Gavin Standen.

Prologue

The Old Days

Each snowflake melted as it batted into the thick walls of the

Citadel, but still they came, like an invading army.

Eighty‐five storeys below, everything was black or white.

Only the tallest of the ruins were visible now, the snows

covered the rest. Not that there had been much to see before

the ice had come, merely the ancient temples and

amphitheatres, the last evidence of a race that had ruled by

the sword and built an empire planet by planet until it had

spread across the universe.

When the temples had been built, the future had been an

open sea. Gallifrey had been ruled by seers who

remembered the future as they remembered the past.

Destiny was manifest, the bountiful cargo that filled the holds

of a thousand thousand starships. The prophecies had been

bound and bound up to be the charts used to circumnavigate

infinity. Explorers travelled ever outward, apprised of the

marvels they would find, aware of the dangers. Prospectors

rushed to the stars, knowing where to look for gold. Heroes

took great risks, certain of the outcome. The future had

shone as bright as the moon, and had been just as

incorruptible.

Those times had gone, swept away in a few short years.

The statues and towers had toppled and the fleets had been

scuttled. The heroes had died, blind and alone, as all true

heroes must. And as the temples and libraries had burned,

the Books of Prophecy had been lost to the fire, along with all

the other books. Only one fragment had been salvaged from

the rubble. Now there were only memories of those definitive,

intricate maps of what was to come. But the memory cheats,

it steals, it lies, it tells you what you want to hear.

Today was a day to live in the memory.

The ships were a dream come true, and looked the part.

Just from the vivid coloration of their hulls it was obvious that

they didn’t belong here – they hung like vast tropical fish

amongst the half‐submerged clock towers and minarets, light

like the planet hadn’t seen for a generation pouring from their

portholes and hatches and into the evening. No wonder that

the crowds of Newborn thronged around the observation

levels of the quays. The older generation were more

sceptical, seeing the whole enterprise as wasteful, potentially

catastrophic. The ships hadn’t been in the prophecy, they

insisted. This was a betrayal, a calculated attempt to sever all

links with the future they knew: it hadn’t been foretold that the

Gallifreyan race would become sterile, there was nothing in

the Fragment about Looms, Houses, Cousins, this, that or

the other.

Only a handful of the Elders had ventured out here from

the shelters, obvious from their stature, let alone their robes

of office. Many of them still begrudged the decision that the

ships would be crewed by the young, that only a handful of

crew members would be over ten years old. But the

announcement came as no surprise. Those born since the

darkness had fallen were a race apart from their ancestors.

The young were eager, enthusiastic and their best days were

still ahead of them. They didn’t dwell on the glories of the

past, they wanted to live in the future, shape it, rather than

merely remember. The new order was no longer shocking,

indeed it was becoming comfortable, familiar. The Old

harboured a new resentment: the New should have been

temporary, they had been meant as a substitute while things

settled down, a poor substitute at that. But now they were the

only future. And with the wisdom of the ages, some of the

Elders knew it would only be a matter of time before the

younger generation began to see the past as a dead weight,

one holding them back, preventing them from reaching their

potential.

Teams of the young were loading the last supplies aboard

the ships, passing boxes and modules along in carefully

orchestrated lines. In their designated dome, the flight crews

would be putting on their uniforms, with the help of the

necessary attendants and helpers. A phalanx of the Watch

stood guard over proceedings. An army of engineers in

protective garments swarmed around and inside the ships,

checking every last detail. A small band of musicians had

started playing a tune, and the Newborn had taken up the

chant.

‘Sing about the past again, and sing that same old

song.

Tell me what you know, so I can tell you that you’re

wrong.

Just sing about the past, and the past’s where you

belong.

Let’s travel to tomorrow, and learn a brand new song.’

Their voices drifted up on the wind. Two robed figures, a

man and a woman, watched proceedings from their own

balcony on the highest level of the Citadel. It was open to the

elements, but the snows and the winds circled around them,

not daring to intrude.

‘They are magnificent,’ Omega declared without needing

to speak.

‘A dream come true,’ his wife agreed silently. She was

slender, with green eyes. Beneath her fur cloak she wore a

close‐fitting bodice and leggings.

He towered over her, he seemed to be twice her size at

least, an effect only magnified by his immense armour. It was

bronze, studded with aluminium, with a lead breastplate. ‘I

must go to my ship. We have to embark before nightfall.’

‘Good luck,’ she said wordlessly.

‘We have prophecy, so who needs luck?’ he laughed,

hugging her. She nodded, and they parted. He strode away,

leaving the woman alone on the observation balcony with her

thoughts and memories.

Or so she had thought.

‘Who indeed?’ the little man said, breaking the silence.

She turned to face him.

‘How long have you been here?’ He stood in the middle of

the tiled floor as though he always had been there.

‘Time is relative.’ He checked his pocket watch. ‘Or at

least it might be from lunch time tomorrow.’

‘We know from the last line of the Fragment that the

expedition will succeed. It is written.’ She turned back to face

the ships. ‘It is what comes afterwards that is uncertain. But

soon we will not just know the future, soon we will walk

amongst it.’

‘The Fragment,’ he said, walking over to her, placing his

hand easily on her shoulder. ‘I thought you must have

guessed.’

She knew what he was about to say.

He spoke softly, deep sadness in his voice. ‘Rassilon

needed to rally his people, he needed to justify his insane

plan. You remember what it was like a decade ago, after the

Curse. The Elders were looking to the past, they were giving

up. All we had was our memory. All those golden ages and

legendary adventures, all that infighting over which past glory

was the best past glory. Gallifrey had died.’

‘Even without Rassilon, we would have lived for many

millions of years. We are very difficult to kill.’

‘Oh yes. We’re immortal, barring accidents. But accidents

happen, my Lady. We would have died in the end without

Rassilon and his plan. Didn’t it ever occur to you how

contrived the situation was? A workman clearing away the

rubble of some fallen temple just happened to find a page

from the Book of Prophecy. A single page, a little charred

around the edges. Didn’t you think that was odd? Didn’t you

wonder what had happened to the rest of the book? And it

was such a useful page – the very one that told of the coming

decade, showed the whole of Gallifrey that we would become

the first of the Lords of Time. Even Rassilon’s enemies

conceded that the future seemed to be quoting word‐for‐word

from Rassilon’s manifesto half the time. An interesting

coincidence, wouldn’t you say?’

‘The discovery of the Fragment was the clearest possible

indication of our destiny,’ she said firmly. ‘The universe

moves in mysterious ways.’

‘The Fragment!’ the little man snorted. ‘Rassilon wrote it

himself, placed the paper under a stone during one of his

walkabouts. He doesn’t want to see the future, he wants to

shape it. The Scrolls are what might happen, what he wants

to happen, not what will. Without the Fragment, Rassilon and

the Consortium would not have been allowed to continue the

time travel experiments, we’d have squandered the planet’s

resources just trying to stay alive, rather than investing them.’

And it made sense, but it made the future an abyss.

She shrugged his hand from her shoulder, turned to face

him. The little man didn’t speak for a moment. Finally, in that

soft voice of his, he said, ‘There are many races across the

universe who have never remembered the future.’

She shuddered. ‘It has been bad enough not knowing

what would happen this last nine years. To be blind for

ever… is that how you want to live?’

‘You would be surprised how easy they find ways to

explain away what happens. They have many beliefs that we

would find strange. They talk of “cause and effect”, “quantum

mechanics”, “prediction”. Mostly they put their trust in their

gods. They believe that the gods can directly influence the

mortal sphere, rewarding their followers, punishing the

unbelievers. The laws of physics bend to tile will of the gods.

They call it “divine intervention”.’

She stared at him.

‘A curious notion,’ she said finally.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Without it, we are forced to create our

own miracles.’

He pointed back at the ships and she turned. The sun was

behind her, and barely above the horizon. The shadows were

long, matt black, beginning to flow together, like droplets of

mercury. The ships hung above the ruined Capitol, inviolate.

The gangways and docking tubes had withdrawn, the ground

crews were retreating back to the safety of the Citadel. The

singing had stopped some time ago.

Without further ceremony, the air filled with an unearthly

wheezing, moaning sound and the massive ships faded away

like memories. Then there was nothing there except the ruins

of the Capitol, the shadows of the past, and a winter’s

evening.

‘Shouldn’t you have been with your ship?’ she asked.

But he had gone.

Part One

Intervention

Chapter One

Night Beneath the Dome

He’d never seen the rain, but he’d heard it.

It clattered against the lead and concrete of the Dome,

sloshed into the gutters and heaved its way along until it was

sucked down the drainpipes or thrown from the spouts.

Whenever it was raining there was a hiss that filled the air,

and a pulsating, chaotic pattering. It sounded like an animal

clawing away at the shell of a tortoise; edging around, testing

defences, quickly withdrawing when it found any opposition.

You could only hear the rain if you were this close to the

Dome, and that meant that you had to be at the highest

points of the Citadel, the parts in the East Towers where it

reached right to the apex. In fact, here the masonry of the

Citadel’s roof formed the skin of the Dome, and some of the

lofts and attics actually lay between the inner and outer

layers of the Dome walls. Although the Time Lords had an

infinite amount of energy at their disposal, these areas were

kept dark, and weren’t heated. Few people ventured this far

from the splendour of the main chambers, only the

occasional Technician and the semi‐regular patrols of

Watchmen. A few tafelshrews had lived here once, but they’d

long since turned into fossils, and their descendants had

probably scurried off, evolved into spacefarers and left

Gallifrey altogether.

From time to time, Captain Raimor had wondered what

rainfall looked like. He’d never been carried away by this

curiosity, never been so moved as to venture to one of the

derelict observation attics or to look up the subject in one of

the Archive Libraries. He had never had the desire to

accompany one of the maintenance teams that – once a

century or so – would go Outside, clambering up the side of

the Dome to check the state of the tiles and guttering.

Someone had told him once that rain was nothing more than

falling droplets of water, and how interesting could they be?

The clock tower in the Old Harbour was tolling Four Point

Five Bells, he could hear it even through the Citadel walls. It

was the mid‐point of the night, traditionally the time when the

vampires and the other ghosts of dead immortals walked in

the lands of the mortal men.

Over the sound of the rain he could hear footsteps.

‘Who goes there?’ Raimor intoned wearily.

‘It is me, Peltroc,’ an eager voice called out. Peltroc was a

youngster, not even eighty years old. Raimor envied him his

lined face and greying hair. Complications with his last

regeneration meant that Raimor’s physical form was a great

deal younger in appearance than he would have liked. Most

members of the Chancellery. Watch wore younger bodies

than the Gallifreyan norm, but Raimor’s new body was barely

past puberty. There were promising signs: a receding

hairline, the first traces of worry lines developing on his

forehead, but it would almost certainly be a century before

he’d be comfortable with his appearance. The way you look

shouldn’t matter, but it did, and no one took him seriously any

more. He was wondering whether he could fill the intervening

decades before this body matured with a spell in Traffic

Control.

Peltroc always joined him at this point. Those who weren’t

in the Watch might have questioned why it was that some

sections of the weekly patrol required one Watchman, yet

others required two or three. But each route had its own

tradition, and tradition had served Gallifrey well. There had

been the Watch long before there had been Time Lords, and

there were ten million years’ worth of history coded in the

traditional routes. Some reminded of great disasters: the

storerooms of the Endless Library were searched every night,

ensuring that there would never be another Biblioclasm. The

chambers of the High and Supreme Councils were ritually

sterilised before each session, even a quarter of a million

years after the Blank Plague had been eradicated. Triumphs

were remembered, too: ceremonial marches every month

retraced the victory parades that had followed the wars

against Rigel, Gosolus and the dozen or so other worlds that

had launched attacks on Gallifrey since the time of Rassilon

and Omega. Then there was the wreath‐laying at the tombs,

cenotaphs, memorials and monuments all around the Capitol,

to remind that the present had not been built without

casualties.

As they set off on their patrol Peltroc was full of his boyish

enthusiasm, as ever. ‘It’s raining again.’

Raimor affected a surprised expression. ‘Is it? I didn’t

notice.’

‘It’s rained a lot recently.’

Raimor saw a whole night of similar banter yawning in

front of him. ‘And what do you put that down to?’ he asked

dolefully.

Peltroc considered the question. ‘Could be the aliens,’ he

offered. He wasn’t rewarded with a reply, so he spent a

couple of seconds refining the answer. ‘It didn’t rain so much

before they came on the scene. Perhaps it’s Rassilon’s way

of telling us to keep ourselves to ourselves, let them sort out

their own problems.’

The boy wasn’t right, Raimor knew that, but his theory

certainly had its attractions.

‘Rassilon’s Rain,’ he snorted. ‘I like the thought of that.

Just think, Peltroc, up there are two battlefleets, heading this

way. A hundred warships on each side. It’s madness. It’s

sure to lead to trouble. There’s the paperwork more than

anything else.’

‘I heard that there’s a fair few on the High Council that

would agree with that. You talk to a Time Lord, he’ll tell you

that he’s not happy.’ Peltroc sniffed.

‘The President used his casting vote, though. So the alien

fleet will arrive at dawn.’

‘But the aliens themselves won’t be on Gallifrey until

tomorrow night, will they?’

‘Didn’t you read the briefing? The aliens arrive at dusk.

Nine Bells precisely. They’ll spend the day before that in orbit

sorting out some last‐minute details.’

Raimor held up his lantern. The guard light probed the

darkness, creeping into the nooks and crannies, but there

was nothing there and the light quickly shuffled back into its

cage. It was quiet here, and this part of the Capitol was

always kept cooler than the occupied quarters. He knew

every inch of it, and nothing ever changed, no one ever came

here. Night after night he would go about this beat, pacing his

way from the Watch quarters, through the Archives, to the

edge of the Dome. He’d follow the dome around for three or

four hundred yards, weaving through the honeycomb of

cell‐like rooms and long‐deserted galleries until he found

himself here. Then together with his partner they would

trudge back to their dormitories.

Their wrist communicators chirped.

Peltroc was looking as shocked as Raimor felt.

They had never chirped before.

Raimor held it up, angling his wrist experimentally,

wondering what to do next.

It chirped again, and a text message flashed across its

face.

FOUR POINT SIX BELLS. BREAK‐IN AT ARCHIVE

CHAMBER FOUR ZERO THREE. INVESTIGATE AND

ADVISE.

Raimor frowned.

‘So what do we do?’ Peltroc asked.

‘Investigate and advise, I suppose.’

He had been past Archive Chamber 403 just a few

minutes ago. Idly, as they made their way back there, Raimor

wondered if he had managed to trip the alarm himself. Some

of the security systems dated back to the Old Times, but

whatever their pedigree, they were notoriously sensitive.

Notoriously erratic, too. As Raimor and Peltroc arrived at

Chamber 403, they saw that at least one thing hadn’t worked.

Iron security shutters were meant to have slammed down

when the alarm was activated, sealing the chamber until the

guards arrived.

Raimor hesitated at the open archway into the chamber.

He couldn’t hear anything or anyone in there. He realised that

he was resting his hand on the butt of his staser. It was a

peculiar instinct, and – rather ashamed that Peltroc might

notice – he withdrew it, placing his arm back at his side.

Peltroc stepped in first, and Raimor was happy to let him.

The room, like many in this part of the Capitol, was filled

with dusty display cases and ancient lacquered cabinets.

Raimor knew that this was part of the Citadel that dated back

to the time of Rassilon. It was still possible to see that from

the angle of the roof, the quality of the masonry, the shape of

the room. The brickwork and panelling along one wall was

recent, a partition perhaps only ten millennia old, but it

couldn’t hide the room’s heritage: in former times this had

been an open balcony which had overlooked the old

starharbour. Since then this room must have been a hundred

things, from the office of a high‐ranking Ordinal to student

lodgings. Nowadays no one ever came here, except the

patrol.

Peltroc and Raimor crossed the room, light from their

lanterns nervously scouting the way.

There was a giant stuffed bird in one case, trapped aloft in

a suspensor field along with a millennium’s worth of dust. It

glared down at the two guards, three of its wings drawn back

as if ready to lash out at them. A pile of oily cogwheels lay

next to it – presumably they were discarded components of a

giant clock mechanism. A battered wardrobe sat at an angle

to the rest of the room. One comer was dominated by a vast

suit of armour. A rusty plaque informed anyone who read it

that it had once belonged to Tegorak, although the name

meant nothing to Captain Raimor. Vast cupboards loomed

along the walls, not giving away anything about their

contents.

One of the clear‐fronted cabinets lining the back wall had

been disturbed. Glass lay in shards over the tiled floor. There

had been a simple lock on the case, but the thief had

bludgeoned it off. Raimor glanced around, and found the

remains of the scanner alongside the brick that had been

used to smash first it, then the glass. Rather a clumsy way to

go about things.

Peltroc was occupying himself with the cabinet door, so

Raimor began a quick search of the room.

Raimor grimaced. ‘What’s in there?’

Peltroc peered into the gloomy cupboard and shrugged.

‘Just boxes. Nothing special.’ He pulled out one of the

caskets and waved it around by way of demonstration.

‘Some mischief‐makers from Low Town.’

‘They don’t usually come up this far.’

‘There’s not much farther up for them to go unless they

fancy a stint walking around on the Dome.’

‘Could be the aliens.’

Raimor nodded thoughtfully. ‘Aliens might not realise that

there’s nothing important in this room. Either way, we need to

report this. Remember? “Investigate and Advise”. We’ve

investigated.’

Peltroc held up the casket. ‘Who do we advise about all

this, then?’

Raimor looked around, as if the answer to the question

might emerge from the gloom. ‘This part of the building is

owned by Prydon College. We need to tell a senior

Prydonian.’

Peltroc grinned. ‘He’s a Prydonian, isn’t he?’

‘He consorts with aliens, too. He practically is an alien.

That settles it. Bring the box and the brick.’

The cloaked figure heard the two guards leaving the room,

heard their footsteps receding.

Alone once again, he edged around the cabinet, found the

hole he had made. He reached in, carefully, to avoid the

jagged glass. His hands ran across the tops of the caskets,

sitting in their rows, letters and numbers embossed on them.

The one casket he was looking for wasn’t there.

His hand probed the gap on the shelf where it should have

been.

He remembered the Watchman saying that he would take

a casket with him.

‘No,’ he hissed. ‘No!’

The red eyes were upon him, staring at him, not saying a

word or needing to.

Raimor and Peltroc made their way to the elevators and

down fifty storeys.

This time of night, the Citadel was virtually deserted. There

were a couple of other patrols on duty, a handful of Time

Lords in Temporal Monitoring and the night porters at the

Colleges, but that was it. Tonight, they passed about half a

dozen Time Lords. More than usual, probably preparing for

the arrival of the aliens.

As a member of the High Council, his rooms were right at

the heart of the Citadel. Although it was a little distance from

the Council chambers, they had to cut across one of the

galleries that overlooked the Panopticon to get there. There

was no chance of hearing the rain this far under the Dome.

Few Time Lords ever saw the public areas of the Citadel

at night. The fountains still ran, there was still the

ever‐present humming of machinery, but the lighting was

lower, shadows were cast from every transept and alcove.

Everything became unfamiliar.

Perhaps the best example was the Panopticon itself, the

enormous hexagonal hall that occupied the entire central

area of the Citadel. During the day, even on a minor feast

day like Harrenenmas, colourful banners would be waving

from every column. The centre of the floor was inlaid with the

omniscate, the Seal of Rassilon, an ancient, swirling, circular

design that symbolised infinity and eternity. Far, far, beneath

there was the Eye of Harmony; the black hole that the

ancient Time Lords had harnessed. The power from that was

infinite, to all intents and purposes, providing every erg of

Gallifrey’s energy; and plenty to spare. Around this focal point

would be a couple of dozen Time Lords in their robes, along

with their attendants and pupils. A choir might be singing,

there would certainly be music or chanting of some kind. One

group would be making an offering, there would be ten

serious philosophical discussions underway and twice as

many games of chess. By any right, the Gallifreyans should

have been dwarfed by the architecture, but instead they filled

the vast space. The Panopticon would be alive.

By night, the Panopticon was the largest tomb in the

universe. Silence hung like cobwebs, the slightest scrape or

clatter echoing guiltily around forever. The same places that

seemed gay and airy at day seemed murky and stagnant by

night. The floor, an expanse of marble large enough to land

aircraft on, was the colour of bone. A vast statue of one of the

Gallifreyan Founders stood in each corner of the Panopticon.

At night they looked like giant ghosts, frozen in time. Raimor

found it difficult to walk past them without paying his

respects.

Raimor always took a minute to stare down at the

Panopticon at night. He could hear Peltroc shuffling

impatiently at his side. The lad would have to wait.

A Time Lord in a violet robe was walking down the gallery,

his head bowed. He almost collided with the two Watchmen.

‘I’m sorry, my Lord,’ they both muttered.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ the Time Lord said, almost

apologetically. ‘I say, Captain, there isn’t anything the matter,

is there?’ The Time Lord automatically addressed Peltroc,

because Peltroc looked the right age. Raimor recognised the

man as Lord Wratfac, an expert on cosmic radiation who’d

been lecturing at Patrex College since the decoupling era. He

was probably taking a short cut on his way to one of the

Infinity Chambers.

‘Don’t worry, my Lord, it’s nothing we can’t handle.’

Lord Wratfac had bushy eyebrows and a rasping voice.

‘It’s not something to do with the aliens, is it?’

‘That’s what we are trying to establish,’ Raimor said.

‘You’re going to see him, are you? The troublemaker?’

‘That’s right, my Lord.’

‘It’s very late, he’ll probably be asleep.’ But before Raimor

could respond, Wratfac gave a cackling laugh. He jabbed a

finger into Raimor’s chest. ‘Serve the young fool right! Carry

on the good work.’ He walked off, still chuckling to himself.

A short walk later, they had reached their destination.

Raimor rapped at the door. There was no reply. He tapped

his foot.

‘His servant’s a bit slow,’ Raimor remarked.

‘Doesn’t have one,’ Peltroc sniffed. ‘Doesn’t believe in

them.’

‘Doing some poor bloke out a job, then, isn’t he? Not that

anyone would work for him.’

The door still hadn’t opened.

‘He’s asleep,’ Peltroc said. ‘We should leave our cards and

wait till morning.’

‘We’ll do no such thing,’ Raimor replied stubbornly. ‘You

heard what Old Ratface said.’

He knocked again. This time, the door unbolted itself.

Warily, trying to show the appropriate respect, they

stepped into the anteroom. The door closed itself behind

them. They made their way through into the main part of the

lodgings, all too conscious of their boots squeaking against

the varnished floor. It was a rare privilege for ordinary

Gallifreyans to be allowed into the chambers of a Council

member. In nine centuries’ service, Captain Raimor had only

been in such a place three times. From the look on Peltroc’s

face, this was the first time he’d had such an honour, but it

was clear that he had been expecting something elaborate:

peristyles and fountains. But this room was only a little larger

than a guard’s berth. All six walls were lined with bookcases,

making it seem even smaller. A staircase led up to the upper

level.

Raimor stepped past a large wooden globe. He didn’t

recognise the planet it represented, and the globe itself

looked like the product of a non‐Gallifreyan civilisation. It was

typical of this particular Councillor that he would have a map

of an alien planet as such a prominent feature of his room.

An odd world, too, with the landmasses broken up into

colourful jigsaw pieces.

‘He’s not here,’ Raimor snorted, careful not to raise his

voice. He turned back to his companion. ‘Look at this place.

It’s all wrong.’

Peltroc was examining himself in an ornately framed

mirror. ‘How do you mean, Captain?’

Raimor fished for the right words. ‘A room like this… it

should strive for mathematical simplicity.’

Peltroc frowned at his own reflection. ‘I never got the hang

of maths,’ he said softly. ‘All that adding and subtracting.

Never got the hang of it. Maths is anything but simple in my

book.’

‘What it means,’ Raimor sighed, ‘is that a room such as

this should have clean, straight lines. It should look like it was

designed by a computer. If there absolutely has to be a curve

it ought to be a parabola, or an arc. There’s no excuse

whatsoever for colour. This room is gloomy, it’s cluttered.’

‘I see what you mean now,’ Peltroc whispered. He’d turned

his attention away from the mirror and towards the shelves.

‘Does this bloke really need so many books?’

‘I’d remind you, son, that this “bloke”, whatever we might

think of him, is still a member of the High Council. Show

some respect.’

To his credit, Peltroc straightened. ‘Sir.’

There was a large fireplace on one wall, the light from it

filled half the room. Two pictures in heavy frames hung above

the mantel. The smaller painting was of a couple: the man

was powerfully built with rugged features, a weathered face

with dark eyes; the woman was a redhead, a little plump.

Pride of place, though, was a large informal portrait of a

beautiful lady with short black hair and a straight golden

gown. Her shoulders were bare, she wore a necklace with a

blue gem pendant and held a scroll in her hand. Facing the

fire – and the pictures – was a large, high‐backed chair.

‘Who?’ Peltroc grunted, gazing across at the pictures.

Raimor nudged Peltroc and indicated the chair. ‘Never

mind that,’ he whispered. ‘I think we’ve tracked him down.’

Raimor stepped across the room and over to the fireside.

It was warmer over here, comfortable. Next to the chair was

an occasional table. On it rested a wooden tray, and on that

was a neatly arranged collection of silver jugs and pots.

There were also three bone china cups.

‘My Lord?’ Raimor asked, bending over the chair. A rather

bemused grey cat stared up at him. It blinked and stretched,

in a calculated effort to appear unconcerned, even bored,

with the guard.

A second later Raimor was upright again.

‘He’s not here.’

At the other end of the room, Peltroc tried to help by

checking behind a tapestry, but all he found was the alcove

containing the food machine. Tutting to himself, Raimor

turned his attention back to the table. Steam was rising from

the spout of the tallest jug. He could only have been gone a

moment or so.

‘Good evening, gentlemen. How can I help you?’

Raimor started, and turned.

He was standing between them, square in the middle of

the room. He wore a thick cotton night‐gown. His long face

was oval, with an aristocratic nose and a full mouth. He had a

high forehead, emphasised by his close‐cropped hair. He had

sad blue eyes, and he was clutching an old book.

The Doctor.

‘Sorry to wake you, sir.’

The Doctor was staring at him as he walked over. Raimor

could almost feel him looking into his soul, but all the old

Watchman could think was that the Doctor wasn’t as tall as

he looked. He stopped inches away from Raimor.

Then he smiled. ‘No, no, no, you didn’t disturb me. I was

finding it difficult to sleep. I was just reading. The Iliad. Have you ever read it?’

‘No, sir.’ Peltroc had made his way to Raimor’s side.

‘You should, you should.’ An wave of realisation passed

over his face. ‘Here,’ he said, pressing the book into the

Captain’s hand. ‘Take it. I’ve not finished it, but I can work out

how it ends. And take a seat. Shoo, Wycliff.’

The Doctor carefully placed the cat in his box and took his

place in the chair. As it dragged itself around to face the room

rather than the fire, the Captain made a show of examining

his gift. This edition was recent, perhaps a millennia old.

From the crest on the spine it was clear that it had been

commissioned by one of the minor college libraries. If he had

been addressing anyone other than a member of the High

Council, the Captain might well have asked how it had ended

up in private hands. Instead he merely thanked the Doctor.

‘It’s Captain Raimor and Constable Peltroc, isn’t it?’ the

Doctor asked softly. Peltroc had found a rather rickety

wooden chair, and it quickly transpired that this was the only

other seat. Raimor declined the Doctor’s suggestion that he

sit on the rocking horse, choosing to remain standing.

‘Tea?’ the Doctor offered.

The two Watchmen nodded, although neither was sure

what they had just been asked. As they took their places, the

Doctor leant over the table, selecting the smaller of the two

jugs. Deftly he splashed a little white liquid – nothing more

exotic than milk, by the look of it – into each china cup.

Pausing to smile up at his guests, he replaced the small jug

with the larger one, filling each cup almost to the brim.

Finally, he took a spoon and swirled the contents of each cup

in turn. The operation complete, the Doctor passed a cup

over to both of the guards, taking the third for himself.

Raimor took his cup, and almost immediately he’d

managed to slop a little of the drink into the saucer. The liquid

was brown, grey vapour was drifting up from it. Raimor

sniffed it and took a swig. It was bitter, almost acidic, but that

was counterpointed by the milk. Probably a plant extract of

some kind. Pleasant enough.

‘A display cabinet was smashed open in the Archives,’ he

explained. ‘We don’t know why.’

The Doctor sipped at his tea. ‘Who says there has to be a

reason?’

‘Well, sir, that’s what we thought: it was probably just

vandals.’

The Doctor smiled. ‘You misunderstand me.’ He pointed at

the pocket watch that nestled between the teapot and milk

jug. ‘How did that get there?’

Raimor hadn’t noticed the watch on the table before. ‘You

must have just put it there,’ he concluded.

‘Must I?’

‘It doesn’t have to have been you,’ Peltroc offered. ‘It could

have been someone else.’

‘Why?’

‘Things don’t just happen,’ Peltroc explained. ‘If I find a

coin in the street, then that’s because someone has dropped

it.’

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘And that’s the only

possible explanation?’

Peltroc screwed his face up. ‘The owner of the coin…

might… have put it there deliberately.’

‘But this watch wasn’t here a moment ago, and now it is.’

He paused. ‘What if there were two watches?’

The Doctor glanced down, and feigned amazement at the

two identical watches he saw there. ‘Two watches. Or

perhaps the same watch, twice over. Time and space are

elegantly inter‐related, you know. Time is relative, as they

say.’

‘A trick, my Lord,’ Raimor said, a little impatiently. ‘You are

trying to make a philosophical point, sir, using the watch.’

The Doctor grinned. ‘And now both the watches have

vanished, anyway.’

‘My Lord, if we could return to the crime.’

‘What has it got to do with me?’ The Doctor scowled. His

face fell. ‘I’m not a suspect, am I, Captain?”

Raimor chuckled politely. ‘No, sir. The room is owned by

the Prydonian College and as the most senior member of the

chapter –’

‘Apart from the Magistrate,’ the Doctor pointed out.

‘Well, yes, sir…’

‘We thought it might be the aliens, my Lord,’ Peltroc

stammered from his seat.

The Doctor cocked his head to one side. ‘Why do you

think that?’

‘No Gallifreyan would do that sort of thing.’

‘But the aliens don’t actually arrive here until tomorrow

night, do they?’

The two guards looked at each other. That hadn’t occurred

to them.

‘They did it with this brick,’ Peltroc said helpfully, holding

out the offending article.

The Doctor smiled forgivingly as he examined it. ‘I don’t

suppose you brought the lock up?’

‘Er, no, sir.’

‘What sort of lock was it?’

‘Retinal.’

The Doctor pursed his lips. ‘Why smash it open? They are

straightforward enough to bypass.’

‘If you’ve got Gallifreyan eyes,’ Peltroc murmured to

himself.

‘Even if you haven’t, it’s still quite easy,’ the Doctor

assured him.

Raimor continued his story. ‘The alarm went off, but the

iron shutters and bell were both jammed somehow.’

‘It would only take a couple of blocks of wood and a

cushion or two,’ the Doctor mused to himself. ‘Was it the

nearest cabinet to the door?’

Raimor tried to remember. ‘No, there was a stuffed bird

and… the smashed cabinet was right at the back of the

room.’

The Doctor smiled. ‘So what was taken?’

‘Taken?’ they said simultaneously.

‘We don’t think anything was taken,’ Peltroc explained.

‘Just vandalised.’

The Doctor rolled his eyes. ‘Someone walked into a room,

disabled the alarm, walked up to the back wall, smashed off a

lock and broke into a single case, leaving everything else

intact. Hardly the actions of a mindless vandal.’ He narrowed

his eyes. ‘Although he’s clever, he’s not very well informed.

He managed to pick the only day of the week that your patrol

is up there. He’s lucky you didn’t walk straight in on him.’

‘We don’t know if anything was stolen, sir,’ Peltroc‐piped

up. ‘You might be able to tell us.’

‘Me? Which chamber was it?’

‘403.’

The Doctor pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Off the

beaten path. Despite that, I don’t ever recall going there. Not

for centuries, anyway.’

‘I brought you this casket,’ Peltroc said smugly. ‘It came

from the cabinet.’

The Doctor eagerly set about opening it and examining the

contents.

‘There wasn’t anything special in there,’ Raimor observed.

‘Well no. If there had been anything special in there it

wouldn’t have been in there, would it? Now, the key to the

mystery must be in here somewhere.’ The Doctor opened the

box, fished out what he found, laying everything on the table

beside him. ‘Interspatial protractors. The last time I saw one

of these was at school.’ He turned one over and over in his

hand, rotating it through its five dimensions. Next he found a

couple of translucent discs.

‘Are those data cards?’ Raimor asked.

‘Yes,’ the Doctor sighed. ‘But you can tell just by looking at

them that they’ve been corrupted for centuries. Only a hard

burst of radiation could do that. Which means they were

wiped before they were put away in this box.’

Right at the bottom of the casket was the hilt of a knife.

‘Careful with that,’ Raimor warned.

‘What is it?’ the Doctor asked. Peltroc looked equally

blank.

‘A force knife. Works on the same principle as a forcefield,

creates a blade.’

The Doctor flicked it on. The blade shimmered into

existence, solid as metal. The Doctor examined it. ‘Why not

just use a proper knife?’

‘Try it,’ Raimor suggested.

The Doctor weighed the knife in his hand and then

stabbed it down at the table. He was clearly surprised when it

went straight through the tray and the tabletop. It had slid

through the silver and wood as if they weren’t there, right up

to the hilt. Now it looked as though it had always been there,

and no force in the galaxy could remove it.

‘That’s a sharp knife,’ Peltroc observed.

‘The blade can be anything from a quark to a metre long. It

adjusts itself so it can cut through anything, even at the

molecular level. If you’ve got a death wish, you can split an

atom with it. It was designed as an all‐purpose tool.’

The Doctor glanced down at it. ‘I’ll stick with the sonic

screwdriver, I think. It’s more my style.’

He rummaged around in the box for a minute, producing a

bunch of keys, a handful of treazants and a couple of cracked

exitonic circuits before he looked up sadly. ‘It’s all junk.

Nothing valuable. There’s no reason why we couldn’t have

just thrown it all out millennia ago. There are no clues here.

I…’ his voice tailed off, as he had just found a slip of paper,

one that was brown with age and folded in half.

There was a single word on the paper, hand‐written, in

capitals.

WHO

The Doctor was wincing, screwing up his eyes as though

someone was shining a bright light at him.

Raimor and Peltroc glanced at each other. ‘Are you all

right, my Lord?’

‘Can’t you hear it?’ he said. ‘It’s coming towards us, but all

around us.’ The Doctor shook his head, as though he was

trying to dislodge something. Then he looked up, fixing

Raimor in his sights.

‘I’m fine,’ he assured them. ‘A headache, that’s all. Not

enough sleep.’ He straightened. ‘There’s nothing more that

you can do here. Return to your patrols, I will make the

necessary arrangements.’

The guards snapped to attention saying, ‘Sir!’, before

marching from the room.

It was Seven Bells, two hours to dawn, and there had been

enough excitement for one night, so Raimor and Peltroc

skipped the last part of their patrol. They returned to

barracks, changed out of their uniforms into their day‐tunics,

checked in their weapons and communicators and released

their lights into the luxquarium.

Tonight had been eventful, and tomorrow would be a long

day. Both men were going to be on duty when the aliens

arrived, and would be spending most of the day beforehand

in the Panopticon, practising their drill. Raimor grumbled

about this before heading to his berth. Before he went, the

Captain handed Peltroc the copy of the Iliad, saying that he had no use for it. Peltroc watched him go, flicked through the

book to the frontispiece, looked at the first colour plates and

then dialled up a meal on the food machine: nothing fancy,

just basic nutrition. He’d eat the food, start the book and then

get some sleep.

Peltroc thought about elephants, and wondered how they

could possibly play four‐dimensional snooker.

He shook his head. What was that all about?

Holding the cues would present a particular challenge, and

they’d probably object on moral grounds if the balls were

made of ivory.

As he moved to sit down, his chair was kicked away from

him. There was something sharp at his throat before he’d hit

the ground.

‘This is a force knife. It can cut through anything. In the

right hands it can split an –’

‘– an atom,’ Peltroc stammered. ‘I know. I’ve just had this

conversation.’

The knife blade pressed into his skin, drawing blood. ‘Then

you should know to treat whoever is holding one with

respect.’ The voice was calm, too calm to be natural.

‘Release the mental blocks.’

The hand holding the knife drew back a little, giving

Peltroc his first glimpse of his attacker. Black cotton gloves,

loose sleeves in heavy grey material. The hum of the knife

filled the air, hovering like a wasp over his neck.

Realisation dawned over Peltroc. ‘Oh, now I get it. You

were trying to read my mind, and you couldn’t. You just saw

gibberish. Elephants, was it?’

The man stepped back. He was wearing a thick grey cloak

that swamped his body. His head was concealed beneath a

heavy hood. ‘All the Chancellery Watch are trained to resist

the mind probe,’ the voice said calmly. ‘But there are ways to

break through your conditioning, if you know how. Chamber

403. I was there.’

The room had been so dark, Peltroc realised. There could

have been an army hiding in there. Why hadn’t it occurred to

them to look? He was thinking about it again… remembering

everything and a particularly surly‐looking bull elephant

potted the black, and gathered up the row of coins stacked

up along the side of the table, grinning smugly at his mates.

His hypnotic conditioning was kicking in again.

‘Show me your face, and we’ll talk,’ Peltroc replied.

There was a sound something like a roar, something like a

cry of anguish.

The knife swept through the air, slicing the leather‐bound

Iliad in two.

‘Everything is at stake, Constable Peltroc, and your life is

unimportant. You will tell me what I want to know, one way or

the other.’

The guard whispered something. The hooded man leant

closer to catch it.

Peltroc grabbed the cowl. ‘Let’s see who you are.’ He

tugged down. The head was blank, an egg of smoothly

polished chrome. Peltroc took a step back, his terror reflected

back at him. Whatever it was gave a gurgling laugh and

began advancing towards him, arm raised.

Before Peltroc could scream or call for help, everything

went black.

The fire was dying down, the teapot had grown cold, the night

was nearly over and the Doctor hadn’t slept. Wycliff wasn’t

having any such problem, and was still fast asleep on his rug.

Something was wrong.

Water was seeping into the Doctor’s shoes. He scolded

himself for standing right at the edge of the shore, with the

sea lapping around him. The Doctor looked down at his feet

for a moment, before turning to gaze around his

surroundings.

The landscape here was timeless. It was Earth, of course,

unmistakably Earth. No other planet had the same light, the

same smells or sounds. There was no confusing the Sun that

hung in this clear winter’s sky with another sun, and there

was literally nothing quite like this sea breeze anywhere else

in the universe. The Doctor guessed that it was the English

coast. A couple of hundred yards away, seagulls circled the

cliffs, their cries drifting across the beach.

And then there was something else here, something

fearful. The Doctor could sense it closing in on him,

surrounding him. It was watching him with ancient eyes.

The world was blood‐red, the Sun was swollen, twice as

old as it should be. Red light filled the sky, filled the sea, but

there was little warmth. The beach had grown dark, and was

darkening further.

A grey shape was moving across the face of the Sun. The

Doctor relaxed a little, recognising it as an eclipse. The Moon

was passing between the Sun and the Earth. But… the sun

was larger now, bloated with age, so how could the Moon be

blotting it out? The Chinese used to think that eclipses were

caused by dragons taking bites from the Sun. It would have

to be a vast creature, with eyes the size of the Earth, a tail

longer than any comet’s. The Doctor imagined the creature’s

mouth opening, the sun in its claw like a fruit. If he could see

it, the Doctor realised, then there was nothing he could do. It

was in the past. The Sun had died long ago, and now its light

was catching up with it.

There were howling winds in the distance, although the air

felt warm. The Earth was lost.

Black columns were sweeping the earth like searchlight

beams. Pillars made from the opposite of light, angling,

snapping on and off, dancing over the sea and the cliff tops.

The Doctor scanned the heavens for their source, but they

were like sunbeams poking through the clouds.

Laughter surrounded him, mocking laughter that drowned

out every other sound. He could hear it calling his name.

Something from the past and future, something infinitely

bigger than him. Everything was at stake. Everything.

There was someone alongside him, staring out to sea. A

man his age, his height, but with flowing, shoulder‐length

hair. All his children were dead, and the seas were dry. The

stars were coming out, now. Night was falling.

The Doctor’s eyes snapped open.

It had all been a terrible dream.

Chapter Two

Total Perspective

The Main Temporal Monitoring Chamber appeared larger

than it was, but as its central feature was the whole of infinity

and eternity this was hardly surprising.

The room was a torus, a ring the size of a stadium, and it

encircled an Infinity Chamber, one of the ultimate

expressions of Time Lord technological achievement, beyond

the dreams of even the founders of Gallifreyan civilisation. It

wasn’t simply a device that monitored or observed the known

universe, it encapsulated it. To all intents and purposes, the Time Lords gathering here weren’t watching an image of

Gallifrey’s moon, Pazithi, they were watching Pazithi itself, in

full scale. The Time Lords entered, moved clockwise around

the colonnade that marked the perimeter of the room until

they found their place and shuffled out onto the floor of the

Chamber. In all, a little over five hundred Time Lords were

present, all bathed in the holographic moonlight. More than

half the total number, which was almost unprecedented,

especially as it wasn’t even quite dawn yet. This must have

been the first time that some of these people had ventured

out of their room for decades. The public galleries weren’t

quite so busy, but there was still a respectable turnout. The

Chamber hummed with conversation and expectation.

Larna hesitated, removing herself from the shuffling crowd.

Everyone already knew precisely which part of the

amphitheatre they should be standing in. They clustered in

the usual groups determined by elaborate equations of

seniority, office, family ties, college allegiance and personal

acquaintance. Everyone knew where to stand except for

Larna. Her robes flapped and blocked her feet and hands,

the high‐backed ceremonial collarpiece was digging down

into her shoulders.

‘Are you lost, my dear?’

She turned. It was Lord Hedin. He had a thin face, kindly

and shrewd. He was an historian, a mainstay of the High

Council, as his father had been before him. Larna had

attended some of his lectures about the Old Time. He was

usually to be found in the Endless library compiling the

bibliography for his life’s work, the three‐hundred‐volume Life

of Omega.

‘This is the first time I’ve been here, my Lord,’ she

explained. ‘On the floor of the Chamber, I mean. I’ve spent

most of the last few years in the public galleries or operating

the machines.’

Lord Hedin smiled. ‘You’re Larna, aren’t you? One of the

Doctor’s pupils?’

‘That is right, my Lord.’

‘You are a Time Lord, now, my Lady. You may call me

Hedin.’

She acknowledged him by bowing her head.

He pointed out a space on the floor. ‘As a recent graduate

of Prydon and a full citizen of the Capitol, you should stand

there.’

Had she seen the Lord Ghene and the Lady Thlau earlier,

she would have been able to work out for herself that she

should stand close to them.

‘You’ll be within earshot of the High Council themselves,’

Hedin said.

The prospect pleased Larna, although the tone of Hedin’s

voice suggested that this was a mixed blessing. ‘You

recognise the Councillors?’

‘Of course,’ she said. She knew the names of everyone

standing around the President: the Magistrate and the other

Ministers, the Castellan, the Co‐ordinator of the Matrix, half a

dozen Cardinals and a couple of cowled representatives from

the religious orders. Larna found it difficult to believe that now

she was a cog in the same intricate clockwork as these

people, that she was beginning to acquire titles and duties of

her own.

Hedin pointed out a neatly bearded Councillor in jade

green robes. ‘Who’s that?’

‘Councillor Norval, the Chief Scientific Adviser.’

Hedin nodded. ‘Have you noticed that he’s not used to his

robes yet, either?’

He did look a little overwhelmed.

‘But the Lord Norval has been a Time Lord for four

thousand years,’ she said.

Hedin smiled. ‘Look around, my dear. See how virtually

everyone here is in the same predicament as yourself. What

was that word you used? Overwhelmed. All your fellow Time

Lords, even very senior ones, are still overwhelmed by the

folds and flows of the material or the weight of the

collarpiece.’

Larna brightened. ‘Thank you… Hedin.’

Hedin smiled.

‘The alien fleets are in position,’ a Technician proclaimed.

‘It’s not long since you did that job, is it?’ Hedin asked her.

‘Last time you were here you would have been wearing that

monochrome tabard.’

It was impossible to become a Time Lord without at least a

short stint as a Technician, although Larna had never been

on duty on such a momentous occasion. ‘The last time I

served as a Technician was for the conjunction of the planets

Tarva and Alambil.’

‘I missed that,’ Hedin said sadly.

‘Full records were archived within the Matrix, my Lord. You

could replay them whenever you wanted.’

Hedin nodded. ‘Yes, but it’s not the same as being there,

is it?’

‘Archiving causes no degradation of pattern –’ she

paused, her mind catching up with her mouth. ‘You are right.

There is a qualitative difference between watching the data

being collected and watching a recording.’

He was smiling. ‘Do you know the Duty Technician today?’

She looked across. ‘He was in one of my study groups.

His name is Waym of Olyesti.’ She found herself envious of

Waym, but also glad that she wasn’t at the controls. Few of

the Time Lords had noticed the Technician as they had

shuffled into the chamber. Not that many had noticed him

now, even after he had spoken, but a single mistake on his

part might mean shame, disgrace, even an end to his

academic career. There had been a hint of nervousness in

Waym’s voice, and he seemed dwarfed by his surroundings.

‘Olyesti is one of the Three Minute Cities in the East.’

‘That is right.’

‘Despite his family connections you graduated before him.’

‘Probably because his tutor seemed more interested in

kaons than students,’ she said, before she could stop herself.

Hedin chuckled. ‘Wratfac?’

‘That’s right, my Lord.’ She looked around, worried he

might have overheard, but couldn’t see him anywhere.

‘A fool. Worse than that, an old fool.’ The ushers began

calling for silence. ‘I had better get into place. It has been

good to talk to you, my Lady Larna.’

She bowed her head and took her place.

Larna didn’t have to strain too hard to pick up on the topic

of conversation. The assembled Time Lords might not have

noticed Waym’s presence, but they had noticed an important

absence. Beneath the normal conversations, Time Lords

were beginning to mutter about the gap in the ranks of the

High Council. Where was the architect of today’s

proceedings?

‘There is still time to call this off,’ one of the backbenchers

insisted from behind the President.

The President’s current body was tiny; withered, his face

was even more pale than his ivory robes or the white of his

beard. He barely seemed to have the strength to stand and

wear the ceremonial Sash of Rassilon at the same time. He

didn’t turn to face the man who had addressed him. ‘I have

consulted the Matrix,’ he said, indicating the metal circlet that

hovered above his head like a halo. ‘This is to be a

momentous day.’

There was more muttering.

A Council member stepped forwards, Lord Norval, who

Larna had just been talking about to Hedin. ‘Lord President,

as there is a delay here, perhaps we might use this

opportunity to turn our attention to the temporal flicker in –’

‘Oh no you don’t,’ called another, taller, Dromeian

Councillor as he pushed his way to the front of the crowd.

Larna realised that it was Castellan Voran, who had just

arrived with his fat little assistant, Pendrel. ‘Before we worry

about that, we really must look into the latest disturbances on

Tyler’s Folly. Certain of the other higher powers are

recommending that their people withdraw from the area. The

planet is a major temporal nexus and the events there –’

‘Are of limited and local interest, Voran, as well you –’

The Castellan waved his hand dismissively. ‘And a

temporal flicker isn’t? Unlike your little problem, Tyler’s Folly

is actually on the agenda for the next Council Meeting.’

The President raised his hand. ‘Enough!’

The two Time Lords fell silent. The President nodded,

grateful. ‘Magistrate? Where is the Doctor?’

The Magistrate moved forwards. He was a man of medium

height, dressed in the thick black robes of office. His face

was sallow, with a small, pointed beard, but that wasn’t what

you remembered about him. You remembered his dark,

burning eyes. The Magistrate was one of the President’s

most trusted advisers, and the Doctor’s oldest friend.

‘I shall look for him, Excellency.’

The President shook his head. ‘I need you here.’ He asked

one of the Cardinals to locate the Doctor and then turned out

to the throng of Time Lords. ‘Open the gates of the Time

Vortex.’

They hadn’t even tied him up.

He was in Low Town, Peltroc knew that even as he

opened his eyes. The air was full of the smell of wet carpet

and roast grockleroots, the sound of crowds outside bustling

along cobbled alleyways. He was sitting on a chair, which in

turn was sitting in the middle of a bare room, a first‐floor one

judging from what he could see out of the grimy window.

There wasn’t a carpet, the room was lit by a chemical lantern

hung from the ceiling, and the only items of furniture were a

battered, ancient wardrobe and a chest that looked as if it

had once spent a century underwater. There was only one

door.

Peltroc stood, flexing and stretching. There didn’t seem to

be any lasting effects of being knocked out, not even

grogginess. Whatever the masked figure had planned for him

hadn’t been done yet. Every mind probe that Peltroc was

aware of required the subject to be conscious.

Low Town was a shanty town that had grown up around

the columns that kept the Capitol Dome level. Even on

Gallifrey, there were the poor. Many people in Low Town

came to the Capitol looking for work in the Guard, or the Civil

Service. Perhaps some had tried to apply for the Academy.

Others might have left the life in the Capitol, disillusioned with

the rule of the Time Lords. Peltroc sometimes felt that way,

and he could see that this was a very different way to live

from the disciplined, ordered world above, but he could see

no benefit in coming down here. The truth was that people

lived here because this was a halfway house with many of

the advantages of the Capitol, such as energy sources, fresh

water and the rule of law, but with none of the social

obligations to the ‘Timeys’, no loomgeld or tithes. The

authorities tolerated Low Town because it allowed them to

monitor and control lawlessness, keeping it confined to Low

Town where they could see it. More than a few Time Lords,

particularly the younger ones, had ventured down here to the

bars and the brothels to see how the other half lived. They

were hypocrites: aristocrats playing at being commoners for

the night. Invariably the Capitol Guard had to venture down to

extricate them from the clutches of some criminal or other,

but at least those Time Lords acknowledged the existence of

places like this. The sad truth was that the poor lived in Low

Town because most of the elite didn’t care one way or the

other what the poor did.

He went over to the window, wiped away a finger’s length

of dust and peered out, trying to see if he recognised the

area.

Some parts of Low Town were almost respectable. In

places rich merchants had found and refurbished the ruins of

old villas, and restored the old roads, parts of the ancient city

that the Dome hadn’t enclosed when it had been erected by

the generation after Rassilon. There was genuine civic pride

there, not to mention a flourishing economy. Other parts of

Low Town were filthy, temporary structures made from

packing materials and wreckage. There was no disease, of

course, no starvation, and the lifespans here were as long as

the Time Lords’ – once you’d taken into account that the

accident rate was several orders higher than the controlled

environment of the Capitol and Citadel. But in Low Town the

gift of immortality simply meant that the poor lived in squalor

for ten thousand years more than they otherwise would.

This was an area somewhere between the two extremes,

like most places were. It was dark outside, so this was either

a subterranean part of the Town, or it was night outside. No

way of telling which from in here. No way of telling exactly

which street it was.

There was a creak on the stair. Someone was coming.

Peltroc tensed, unable to get into a better position. Another

few seconds and he could have been behind the door, ready

to attack. The door unbolted and a man and a woman

stepped in.

They wore the cloth smocks preferred by the Outsiders,

those Gallifreyans who had rejected the civilised life in favour

of the wilderness beyond the walls and domes. Their tanned

faces and the muscles of their arms suggested that they were

genuine outcasts, and that they would know how to use the

metal blades sheathed at their waists. The modem‐looking

communicators and utility capsules clipped to their belts

suggested that they hadn’t abandoned all technology. The

male was a bear of a man, she was lithe, her hair tied in

braids.

‘Huran, he’s up!’ the woman cried out.

‘Of course he’s up,’ a calm voice said from behind Peltroc.

‘Hurry! It s nearly dawn.’

He had been standing behind him the whole time. Still

wearing the hooded robes, and still with that blank, metal

face. Peltroc wondered whether it might be a robot, or an

artificially generated form of some kind. Perhaps even

something as sophisticated as a shayde. But the more he

thought about it, the more Peltroc became certain that there

was a man under all that. A man wearing a mask and a voice

distorter. There was an unsteadiness there that would have

been programmed out of a robot. But it was impossible to

guess what he looked like, or even his physical build. The

male Outsider was preparing a syringe that he’d produced

from his belt.

‘Now, Constable Peltroc, you will tell me what I want to

know,’ the masked man said. The Outsider handed the

syringe to his master, who brandished it like a knife.

The blank face loomed a little closer. ‘Ask me politely,’

Peltroc told him. ‘I might tell you anyway without the need for

any of this.’

The masked man lunged at him, stabbing the syringe

clumsily but brutally into Peltroc’s side.

Peltroc cried out with pain, and in that moment of

weakness he felt a mind brush against his. It felt as if he was

trapped in a room with a tiger. Asking about the box.

Whatever had been in the syringe was eating its way through

his mental defences. He could feel it, warm in his veins,

spreading like acid. He wouldn’t be able to rely on his

conditioning now, but he had willpower of his own, he wasn’t

without some resources.

Peltroc slumped, grasping the back of the chair to stay

upright. ‘Why are you so interested? There was nothing. Just

a knife, some discs and some keys,’ he heard himself say.

Peltroc was watching the two Outsiders out of the comer

of his eye. After all that trouble taken to conceal his face, the

masked figure had made an obvious mistake: he’d hired two

people whose expressions could be read like a book. No

reaction to the first two words, but when he’d said ‘keys’…

the way they had looked at each other, they might as well

have shouted that it was the keys they were after.

‘I won’t tell you,’ Peltroc said, tensing, straightening.

The man in the mask hadn’t noticed. It occurred to Peltroc

that the mask might be quite restrictive – his opponent might

not have much peripheral vision. The figure reached into the

folds of his cloak, producing the force knife. ‘You will tell me,

Constable, one way or the other.’

He aimed the device, making a rather clumsy show of

adjusting the settings.

Peltroc lifted the chair up, swung it around, smashed it into

the side of the masked man. Caught unawares and

off‐balance, he collapsed with a gurgling gasp, the knife

rolling from his hand.

The female Outsider was running for him, screeching.

Peltroc scooped up the knife and brought it to bear on her.

The power setting dial must have been twisted as it rolled

along the floor. The blade that shot from the hilt was the

length of a lance, enough not only to impale the Outsider’s

chest, but to lift her off her feet and slam her into the rear wall

with such violence that the plaster cracked. Her body slid

down, legs and neck twisted, eyes rolled up.

Both Peltroc and the remaining Outsider were too shocked

to react for a moment. Then the man – Huran – bore down on

him. It was easy enough to dodge him, let him crash into the

floorboards. Peltroc knew that his priority was the leader, not

the hired muscle.

The masked figure had run to the door. Now he smashed

it down with a single kick. He was wearing heavy boots that

looked almost metallic.

Peltroc aimed the sword at the doorway, but the masked

figure was already out of sight, and he could be heard

clambering down a flight of stairs.

Huran punched Peltroc, bringing him to his knees. A

couple of kicks in the ribs and he was sagging on the floor.

The knife was still in his hand, still set to hit someone with the

force of a moving train.

‘Don’t make me do this,’ Peltroc whimpered.

‘You killed Yiri, Do you know how long we’ve been

together?’ Each word was punctuated with a flailing punch or

a jabbing knee.

‘I don’t want to kill you,’ Peltroc said.

But Huran couldn’t hear him, he was pinning Peltroc down,

pounding away at him, not caring whether he was hitting his

face, his chest, his genitals. Peltroc felt a rib break, he

wanted to be sick. The Outsider wasn’t thinking, he wasn’t

combat trained. If he was, Peltroc would be dead by now.

That was something to hold onto as blow after blow

connected with him. Something to hold on to. The knife.

Mustn’t lose hold of the knife.

And then the Outsider was on the other side of the room,

cradling the body of his lover. She was so small next to him,

she looked like his doll.

Peltroc must have blacked out, just for a moment. The

Outsider had left him for dead. The world was… muddier…

its sounds and sights less well defined than they should be.

He was deaf, and blind in one eye. He cried out in shock, but

didn’t hear it. It was just the blood in his eyes and ears, he

told himself after a moment of panic. And he was so weak

now that what Peltroc had thought was a scream to wake the

dead hadn’t even reached the other side of the room. Huran

didn’t know he was awake… alive.

There was one thing he could do, except let himself die.

He pulled himself up, lunged at Huran, the blade

sword‐sized, stabbed him in the back, through his heart,

twisted the blade and pulled it to the left and through the

other heart. It was the way he’d been trained to kill a

Gallifreyan with a sword, but the first time he had ever had

cause to use his training. The Outsider jerked once, then

slumped forwards, collapsing into a broken heap with his

lover. His blood slid frictionless from the blade, dripping down

the hilt.

Peltroc’s knees buckled and he blacked out again.

Three floors below the Infinity Chamber level, the Great

Panopticon Bell had begun to chime Nine. It could be heard

through the floor of the Main Temporal Monitoring room.

The Cardinal sent to fetch the Doctor was barely away

from the President’s side when there was a commotion at

one end of the chamber. The crowd of Time Lords was

parting, with considerable reluctance and grumbling. At the

centre of the disturbance was the Doctor, his skullcap in one

hand, the other waving in front of him, trying to clear the way.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he told anyone that would listen. He

bustled past Larna’s group and reached the President’s side.

‘Have I missed much?’ he said breathlessly, grinning as he

pulled the skullcap onto his head, adjusting it until it was

right.

This was the man who had invited the aliens to Gallifrey,

and Larna’s ex‐tutor. Now he stood less than ten feet from

her, at the President’s side. While everyone else’s attention

returned to the vast display in the centre of the room, Larna

kept her eye on the Doctor. He was alongside a handful of

his High Council colleagues, men who were his friends, like

Hedin and the Magistrate. He was perfectly at home in his

scarlet robes, wearing them as though they were day clothes.

But despite the gleam in his eyes and the smile, Larna

sensed a sadness there. It was not difficult to guess why.

Unlike almost everyone else, everyone apart from poor

Savar, the Doctor had travelled. This was a man who had

looked up at other skies, left footprints in alien soil. To have

such freedom, only to be denied it… surely that must be

infinitely worse than never tasting it at all.

Condemned to watch the universe on monitor screens,

rather than to walk in it.

‘The fleets are in the Vortex,’ Hedin informed the Doctor.

‘They are about to arrive,’ the President corrected him.

The Bell struck for the ninth time.

‘There you go,’ the Doctor smiled. ‘I’m not late at all, I’m

bang on time.’

Space and time unfolded gracefully and the two space fleets

faded into view in their allotted positions, one over each pole

of Pazithi Gallifreya.

Just from the most superficial observation it was clear that

the fleets had been built by races which had evolved along

fundamentally different lines, on opposite sides of the galaxy.

One was composed of huge, brutal structures in dark

metal. For a number of practical reasons, such as ease of

production and battlefield repair, everything that poured from

the robot production lines and space docks was modular,

prefabricated, standardised, and every ship looked much the

same. The only difference was the scale: the smallest

fighters were barely three metres across, the flagship was

over three miles in diameter. They had all the defensive

screens, shields and fields that you’d expect of a fighting

vessel, but as well as that they had thick armour,

compartmentalisation, back‐ups and redundancies that would

appear ludicrously cautious in any other context. Some

warrior races took pride in ornamentation – decoration on

sword hilts, or space armour. There was no evidence of that

here. Everything was starkly functional, and while the ships

were beautiful in the way that piston engines or suspension

bridges can be beautiful, there was no art there, just

mass‐production. The fleet hung over the north pole of

Pazithi Gallifreya: solid, immovable.

The other fleet was more pleasing to the eye. Each ship

was perfectly symmetrical, and radiant. They looked like

snowflakes and were lit from within, sparkling against the

night sky like captured stars. And like snowflakes, each one

was different. But this had nothing to do with aesthetics. Their

technology was based on crystalline structures, optic

information passing and spreading and diffracting through

complex prismatic forms. The ship’s builders could grow

diamonds in vats and cultivate them at the atomic level while

they were forming. It was an ideal building material if you

could use it: light, hard, virtually impossible to cut or distort.

Diamond ships that shone like crystal chandeliers were just

as functional as the metal of their enemies. Although the

mothership was vast, the other ships tended to be smaller

than their opponent’s counterparts. They swirled and flurried

around their mothership, in carefully orchestrated patterns

that nevertheless seemed chaotic to an outside observer.

The logistics of battle, the logic of force and counterforce,

meant that the evolution of the two races’ weapons

technology had converged over the course of their long war.

Allowing for the differences in biology and technology, the

fleets were of roughly the same size – about a hundred

capital ships and around ten times as many support vessels.

In most circumstances, tacticians agreed that a couple of

capital ships were enough to subdue a planet.

The fleets had been segregated, but only symbolically. At

their closest point, they were about two thousand five

hundred miles apart, well within firing range. The moon

wasn’t even a physical barrier and the fleets could have

conducted a war without moving. Guided missiles were quite

capable of flying around Pazithi, gravitational lenses could

bend energy rays around the moon’s thick atmosphere. Or, if

that proved too subtle, just about any ship over the average

size from either fleet contained ordnance that could crack

apart the moon, and the larger ships could have used

gravitron beams to direct the radioactive rubble at key

strategic points in the enemy fleet.

Both sides would now know the strengths and

weaknesses of their enemy. During the course of the war,

both sides had collected more than enough data to be able to

model probable outcomes. Like chess computers, or

grandmasters, the battle computers would be able to think a

million moves ahead. Like a chain of dominoes falling, there

was an inevitability to events. Very early on, within ten or

twenty seconds, both sides would know whether they were

destined to win or lose the day.

In the early stages of the war, prisoners had been taken,

enemy vessels captured for scientific analysis or simply to

strip down for raw materials. Virtually all that the two sides

knew of each other came from this source. Databases, mind

probes, sealed orders, analysis of scientific achievement,

communications ciphers. All of it had been recovered by the

victors from the battlefield. The winner would gain an

advantage in all future struggles. It had quickly become a

standard tactic, when all was lost, to set all remaining

weapons, every reactor and every battery to self‐destruct. All

that power unleashed at once in a massive explosion that

prevented even the smallest item of your technology from

falling into the clutches of the enemy. Naturally, if timed

correctly, the blast often destroyed most of the other fleet,

too. Over the course of the war it had become a fine art

calculating the optimum moment to commit mass suicide –

letting the enemy getting close, but not so close that they’d

get suspicious and escape into hyperspace. Now, virtually

any combat ship that self‐destructed could take a mass the

size of a small planetoid with it, and in a few notable cases

the ‘self’‐destruction of a warfleet had resulted in the

devastation of planetary systems.

All of which meant, in practical terms, that when the two

races encountered each other a few shots would be fired and

then one fleet would realise it had lost, self‐destruct, and take

the other with it. Few battles lasted for more than a minute

nowadays, and generally less than one percent of the

combatants on either side survived.

The fleets over Pazithi began scanning each other, picking

out anything even potentially hostile, assessing every threat

from the exact configuration of armament and manning levels

on the largest ships to broad sweeps for nanoweapons.

Within seconds, battlelines and plans had been drawn,

targeting solution after targeting solution found, missiles

armed, energy cannons aimed.

But neither side fired first. Today, for the first time in

recorded history, Sontaran and Rutan fleets were sharing the

same star system without instantly trying to annihilate one

another.

The commanders of the two fleets realised that the other

wasn’t going to attack at around the same time. Keeping a

careful watch on their enemies, the battle computers started

looking around for other targets. This was a five‐planet star

system, with a star that showed signs of extensive

re‐engineering to keep it within the main sequence. Only one

world showed any significant habitation, Gallifrey itself. The

largest population concentration was a large domed city in

the Northern hemisphere.

As one, every gun, missile and other weapon in both fleets

trained themselves on the Capitol.

The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that no one had

seen him. He looked around to check, but all eyes were on

the image of the fleets. All eyes except Larna’s. She’d always

been one of his more perceptive pupils. Paradoxically, the

way she had carefully braided her long blonde hair to look

older simply emphasised how very young she was. But now

she was a Time Lord, and one of only a handful in the room

who genuinely wanted this initiative to succeed. He grinned

over at her, she rewarded him by smiling back. Larna had

only just graduated so this must be the first time she had

worn her cranberry robes, but she looked quite at home here.

‘Temporal transfer is now complete,’ the Technician

announced.

‘A magnificent display,’ Hedin admitted. ‘But are so many

ships really necessary?’

‘They are trying to impress us,’ the Magistrate chuckled.

‘This is intended as a demonstration of their strength.’

Hedin turned away from him, gazing back down at infinity.

‘Surely not… it’s quite impressive, I suppose, but –’

‘They betray their insecurity,’ a female voice blurted.

The Doctor and his colleagues turned around at the

sound. The people around Larna seemed to edge away,

leaving her exposed. The Doctor fancied that he could

actually hear the sound of so many eyebrows being raised.

‘What are you teaching your students these days, Doctor?’

Voran asked. He was a long, thin man, a professor nine

times over, a member of the Council, but no one liked him.

‘That their elders can be their betters. That every teacher is still a student. Larna was one of my very best pupils. You

could learn a lot from her.’ Baiting such a man wasn’t

satisfying, the Doctor noted. He wouldn’t change his

opinions, he’d go out of his way not to.

‘Come and join us, Larna,’ the President said. She

stepped a little closer, her face flushing. ‘Closer, child,’ the

President said, delighted with her. Although he was amongst

the oldest of all the Time Lords, the President loved the

company of the young. That, the Doctor reflected, was one of

the reasons his own activities were tolerated and

encouraged. He and the Magistrate were the only members

of the Council less than two thousand years old.

‘Go on,’ the Doctor prompted gently.

Larna stepped a little closer to them, clearly trying to

collect her thoughts. ‘These are warrior races. Their cultures

are based on power, military superiority. But they must know

that Gallifreyan technology is far superior to theirs. They

know that if they fire their weapons then they’ll just bounce off

the quantum forcefields and transduction barriers. We could

dematerialise every weapon, we could make it so that their

home planet never existed.’

One corner of the Magistrate’s mouth rose, a sure sign

that he was enjoying himself. ‘So why aim all their weapons

at us? Who are they trying to impress?’

A rhetorical question, but one that Larna was happy to

answer. ‘Not us. The Time Lords aren’t warriors, they know

that. They are trying to reassure themselves. They think of

themselves as… not our equals… but they want to be able to

think that they have power. Why else would they send a

hundred ships? We can guarantee safe passage far better

than a fleet of their warships. The Sontaran delegation and all

their provisions could fit in one shuttlecraft, the Rutan

emissary only needs something the size of a lifepod.’

The Magistrate had his head back and a broad grin on his

face. ‘They are impotent. Better to send one ship, with one

crewman. If it is the right ship and the right man.’

‘Yes, my Lord,’ she agreed hurriedly.

The Doctor placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘Well done,’

he whispered. Hedin also had a wry smile on his face.

The President was still watching the fleets. ‘There are

many warlike races in the universe,’ he said sadly, ‘many

skilled in creating and using the most terrible weapons.’

‘The ability to wipe out your rivals has proved a highly

effective method of ensuring your own survival,’ the

Magistrate said, almost admiringly.

‘There are other methods of thriving, of course,’ the Doctor

said. He looked around, challenging those near him to come

up with suggestions. He tried to phrase the invitation so that it

would include not just his pupils, but the High Councillors.

Perhaps even the President.

‘Becoming traders,’ one Lord suggested.

The Doctor nodded. ‘Or just sell your expertise – the

Vegans are miners, the Schlangi build spacecraft. Both sell

their services to anyone that will pay, and their customers

protect them.’

‘Become parasitic, serve or feed on a successful race,’ a

young student added.

‘Simply hiding, not drawing attention to oneself… ‘Voran

suggested.

‘Becoming energy beings of pure intelligence,’ Pendrel

said, giggling. No doubt he was pleased that he’d come up

with a more noble example than his master, Voran.

‘Swarming across the universe in such numbers that no

one could kill you all,’ Hedin added, with a hint of distaste. ‘I

believe that both the Sontarans and Rutans evolved along

those lines originally.’

. The Doctor nodded. ‘It is the only reason the war

between them has gone on so long. In the right conditions a

breeding Sontaran individual is capable of producing a million

offspring a minute. They are full grown and ready for combat

in six days. The Rutans are essentially giant amoebae, each

cell is capable of becoming a fully formed individual, part of

the group mind.’

‘I’m surprised that they didn’t wipe themselves out long

before discovering space travel,’ the President said. ‘Most

uncivilised.’

Lord Norval shook his head. ‘As an evolutionary strategy,

there are many advantages to being war‐like. An effective

military is single‐minded, organised. As well as the best

weapons, it needs the best communications, the best supply

lines.’

‘The strategy is risky, though. Live by the sword, die by the

sword,’ the Doctor told them.

‘On the other hand,’ Larna piped up, ‘some civilisations

discover that during a war, or living under the threat of war,

there is a period of technological advancement. Often a

development on one side will force a new advance on the

other. When the Sontarans developed spectronic drive, the

Rutans suddenly needed better sensors or they’d be wiped

out in sneak attacks. So they invented better sensors.’

The Doctor looked wistfully at the fleets. ‘The

Sontaran/Rutan Wars are not so much an arms race as an

arms marathon, an arms decathlon. Think of what they could

have achieved if their scientists had spent the time building

ploughshares instead of swords.’

A number of the assembled Time Lords ventured the

opinion that all aliens were savages.

‘It is a normal stage that most civilisations go through,’ the

Doctor reminded them all. ‘Gallifrey itself went through a

phase of galactic conquest and warfare, many millions of

years ago.’

Voran objected. ‘I am aware of that. We grew out of it. The

Sontarans and the Rutans have been fighting since the time

of Rassilon and Omega. It’s in their blood, their genes, their

memes… they don’t know any better. Might I ask what is next

on the Doctor’s agenda? Perhaps he might try to negotiate a

settlement between the cats and the dogs!’

There was laughter, and enough for the Doctor to feel

disappointed, He put a brave face on it. ‘I don’t have an

agenda, Lord Voran.’

‘Live by the agenda, die by the agenda,’ Larna said, more

than a hint of anger in her voice. There was a little more

laughter, including chuckles from the President and the

Magistrate. That silenced the Doctor’s critics.

The Sontarans and the Rutans had been run‐of‐the‐mill

militaristic societies when the universe was young. Each had

built up an empire in the usual way, emerging from their

homeworlds, subjugating local planets, expanding their

sphere of influence. Nothing unusual up to that point. Rapid

population growth meant that colony worlds could swiftly be

populated, converted into mines and factories, added to the

expansion effort. Other races were run by the military, they

had warriors’ codes, they had evolved whole societies from

honour, chivalry and espionage. Life was a series of glorious

battles, of magnificent conquests and terrible defeats, of

heroes and traitors, kings and lords and knights and armies.

There were stories, legends, sagas about wars and warriors.

But the Sontarans and Rutans were different. In a way, Voran

was right. These were two races that existed for war, that had forgotten everything else. But surely, surely, some part of the

Sontaran and Rutan mind longed for peace. Why else would

they fight except for the hope of a better time once the war

was over?

‘When are these fleets from?’ asked Lord Hedin.

The Magistrate stepped forward, a holographic Penrose

diagram annotated with unreadable runes appearing behind

him. ‘To minimise disruption to known history we selected a

period in the far future. Three hundred thousand years before

the Last of Man.’

‘And such a very great time after the fall of our own

people,’ Hedin noted.

‘Everything has its time,’ the President replied sombrely.

‘As its Lords, we above all others must know that.’

The Time Lords watched over the timelines, observing and

recording everything from the beginning: Event One, the Big

Bang that marked the creation of the universe from a naked

singularity, to the end, Event Two: when the universe would

collapse back into singularity. Although they could survey the

entire universe from the lofty heights of Gallifrey, it was

impossible for the Time Lords to travel into their own future

and they couldn’t change their own past. That was the fealty

paid for their title. But as they amassed information, as they

prepared projections, they couldn’t help but glean something

of their own destiny. They couldn’t see their future, but they

could snatch the reflection of what was to come, extrapolate

from the ripples and shadows in Time. A legend recounted on

the wall of a ruin here, a footnote in a textbook in a forgotten

library there. They knew some of the names that would

appear in the history books of the future: Varnax, Faction

Paradox, Catavolcus, the Timewyrm. Threats to the entire

Time Lord race, but quantifiable ones, ones that the Time

Lords were destined to survive.

There was another.

Details were vague. There was to be a conflict, a war

fought at some point against an implacable force. It wouldn’t

be the first time that the rumour of the destruction of Gallifrey

had spread. But then only one of the rumours had to be true.

The High Council were uncertain what to do. Were they to

command the Matrix to scour the universe looking for threats

of the magnitude the legends seemed to talk of, or would that

just be the first event in a chain that would inevitably lead to

contact and conflict with the enemy? The sub‐committee

dealing with the issue, to everyone’s relief, had not yet come

to any conclusions, after several millennia of deliberations.

The President was staring out at the fleets again.

‘This is the last chance that we have to change our minds,’

the Doctor warned. ‘Invite the delegations down and we will

have committed ourselves.’

‘You are having doubts?’ the Magistrate asked.

‘No,’ the Doctor said. ‘No, but others here have always

had their doubts. They’ll dress it up with sarcasm, they’ll talk

behind our backs. But when this was discussed in Council,

they filed through the lobbies, they backed their President like

they always do. I just want them all to know that I’ll give it up.

I’ll stop now, send the fleets home. It took a year of

negotiation and TARDIS diplomacy just to agree which fleet

would appear over which pole of Pazithi. But I’ll abandon it

all. I’ll do it if my fellow Time Lords agree that is the best

course of action. Speak now, or hold your peace. If we

proceed, we’ll proceed to the bitter end, whatever the cost,

whatever the consequence.’

‘Well, I for one object,’ Voran said after a pause. ‘This is

nonsensical. This mere Doctor is a halfwit if he thinks he can change anything.’

‘He is a Time Lord,’ the Magistrate warned. ‘A member of

the Supreme Council.’

‘He barely scraped his PhD, as I recall. Not one college

wanted him for post‐doctoral work. Yet he wears that badge

of academic failure as his name. Do you really feel the need

to parade your ignorance, Doctor?’

The Doctor smiled. ‘No. But nor do I need to quantify it,

Senior Lecturer Professor‐nine‐times‐over Voran.’

Pendrel clapped his hands together. ‘This Doctor has my

vote!’ he squeaked. The look that Voran flashed him stopped

him dead.

‘During the course of the war, how many have died?’

another Councillor asked.

‘We could ask the Matrix to compute the death toll,’ the

Co‐ordinator informed them. ‘An immense task, even for us. I

estimate it would take a day or so to get the precise casualty

figure.’

‘And would it bring back a single one of the dead?’ the

Doctor asked.

‘You know that it would not.’

‘Then we don’t need to count them. Let us change the

future.’

A number of Time Lords murmured their assent.

The President turned to him. ‘You really think that we can

end this war?’

‘Yes.’

‘These races have nothing in common.’

‘Wrong. Wrong. There’s a rule of combat that not even the

Time Lords have forgotten. Know your enemy. The

strategists and scientists on both sides have come to

understand each other. At the moment they only use this

knowledge to kill, but it is a common bond. It is a place we

can start to look for solutions.’

The President laughed. ‘Only you could see an opportunity

amongst such total war, old friend. Very well.’ He turned to

the assembled Time Lords.

‘Do any of you have a reason or the courage to object?’

None spoke.

The President raised his hand. ‘Then in the name of

Rassilon and Omega: proceed.’

Chapter Three

The Enemy Within

Larna still wasn’t used to having a maidservant, and was

surprised every time she returned to her chambers to find her

there, in the middle of some domestic task.

Vrayto was an old woman, quiet and wizened. They had

known each other only for a matter of weeks, and neither was

yet comfortable with the other. Vrayto had been in service for

a long time, and knew better than anyone how to remove the

ceremonial collarpiece, placing it to one side so that she

could help her mistress out of her robes. Larna didn’t even

need to unbraid her hair, untie her shirt, pull down her

petticoats or unbutton her breeches, that was done for her as

well. She drew the line at the undergarment, removing it

herself behind the shower screen and handing it over.

Through the crack in the panels, Larna could see Vrayto

standing patiently with the robes over her arm.

‘Thank you,’ Larna said, ‘you may go now.’

Vrayto’s head was bowed a little as she left the washroom,

the maid was apparently embarrassed by something. Larna

wondered what she had done to offend her this time.

Perhaps there had been an arcane breach of etiquette. Was

it not the done thing to thank your servant?

Vrayto would be stowing the robes away in their locker,

ready for the next ceremony. That would be next week: the

Feast of Rassilon the Lamp. The robes were millennia‐old,

and although they had been altered for her, they had

originally been tailored for a man. It was the same with all the

ritual garments. There were only a handful of female Time

Lords, and the petty considerations of the flesh were felt to

be unimportant. No concessions were made for her. It was

one of the paradoxes of society here within the Citadel.

Everyone knew that women were the equal of men – such a

statement bordered on the facile. But no one ever questioned

why women rarely applied to the Academy, or why so few of

the applications were accepted. Over ten percent of the

Gallifreyan population was female, but no more than a dozen

of the thousand Time Lords were women. In ten centuries of

service, it was entirely possible that Vrayto had never served

a woman before. Perhaps Vrayto was jealous of Larna’s

youth, her vigour, her success.

More likely, she was ashamed that her mistress reeked of

sweat, dust and anointing incense in roughly equal measure.

Vrayto hadn’t given any sign that she had noticed, but how

could she not have? The dirt offended Larna, The oil and

water shower responded to her presence, now, activating

automatically. It was embarrassing that she enjoyed such a

purely sensual pleasure, but she lingered, let the thousand

tiny jets of hot water pummel her, kneading the muscle oil

into her skin and caressing shampoo into her scalp. The

thought that Vrayto would disapprove of such hedonism

made it all the more appealing. The shower had a limited

degree of sentience, but Larna’s hair was too long for it to

wash, so she worked the foam down using her hands. That

done, she straightened, her eyes closed, her arms by her

sides, emptying her mind of anything and everything except

the whoosh of the water and the feel of it as it swept away

the grime that had come away from her robes to cover her

skin.

The Doctor was right to try to end the war, Larna knew

that. No: more than that, she felt it, at the base of each heart.

The alternative was to do what the other Time Lords would

do: observe the war, quantify it. Many of the students

believed as the Doctor did. Perhaps hers would be the

generation with ambitions that reached further than the roof

of the Dome. They could be men and women who went out

into the universe in an attempt to find the truth, make contact

and spread science and light. Larna had her doubts. Each

generation felt this way, each thought that they would usher

in an age of revolution and a better way of doing things.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, the dust and cobwebs

and routines got into the blood, the desire always cooled.

What had been energetic had always become ossifted.

Worse still, those who retained their fervour into adult life had

become tyrants, intent on power whatever the cost. There

were those who placed the Doctor in that category, as no

better than Pengallia, Marnal or Morbius.

She gasped in frustration, before remembering where she

was or that Vrayto might have heard her. The mere idea that

the Doctor could be thought of as a tyrant made Larna burn

inside, it provoked an anger that she felt ashamed she

couldn’t control. They knew the Doctor, they’d heard the

sincerity in his voice as he argued his case at Council, at

fringe meetings and in his lectures. Hadn’t they looked into

those sad eyes, seen his soul laid bare?

The water massaged her shoulders like strong hands, it

played over her face and chest. The things she had said

today in front of the High Council… if she had given them a

moment’s consideration she couldn’t have said them. But all

those acolytes around her had thought the same. In the

safety of their common rooms and dorms, she’d heard them

all denounce the Public Record broadcasts that mocked the

Doctor’s plans and misrepresented his aims. If she was to be

damned, then at least it would be for something in which she

believed. She saw the Doctor smiling at her. His gratitude

meant more than anything else to her, that smile was worth a

hundred professorships.

Larna could sense the shower’s impatience, and set it to

dry and powder her. That done, she stepped out. Vrayto

should have been waiting for her. Instead Larna was alone,

her nightshirt over the back of a chair, the hairbrush still in its

case.

She wriggled into the crisp cotton shirt, found some

slippers and pushed on her hairband. Her hair needed cutting

again: her fringe was barely above her eyes.

Vrayto came into the room, carrying a card.

‘Have we got guests?’ Larna asked, wondering who it

could be.

Vrayto looked down at her shoes, disapprovingly, offering

the card. ‘Technician First Class Waymivrudimqwe wishes to

talk to you,’ she announced. ‘Despite the hour.’

Larna nodded, unaware of any problems with the eighth

hour of the day. ‘Waym,’ she said, buttoning herself up. ‘I’ll

see him.’

‘Like that?’ Vrayto asked.

Larna looked down at herself. ‘This night‐gown covers

parts of my body I didn’t even realise that I had, Vrayto.’

‘You’re a Time Lady, now, ma’am. There are standards.’

Larna sighed, and walked out the door.

Waym was standing by her sofa, still in his Technician’s

uniform. Vrayto hadn’t offered him a seat. Larna corrected

that, and sat next to him, both feet firmly on the floor. Thanks

to Vrayto she felt absurdly self‐conscious. Her housemaid

hovered at the edge of the room, chaperoning them carefully.

‘I’m sorry to come round unannounced, but you’re the

best‐qualified person I know.’

‘You’ve not dragged me out of the shower to help you with

an essay?’

‘No, no.’

‘Relax, Waym. Look. I know I’m a Time Lord now, but it’s

still me.’

That seemed to put him at his ease. ‘Larna, I noticed a

problem when I was running the Chamber this morning. I

think the aliens might have infiltrated it.’

Larna frowned. ‘What sort of problem?’

‘I noticed it just before the fleets arrived. Look, it’s going to

be easier if I show you. I’ll meet you in Chamber Epsilon iii a

couple of minutes.’

Larna stood. ‘Why can’t I come now?’

Waym pointed vaguely towards her. ‘You’re in your

nightshirt.’

She was already on her feet. ‘It’s ankle length. Epsilon is

only up on the next level. Come on.’

There was barely time to aim a triumphant smile at Vrayto

before she strode out of the room –

– and straight into the Doctor, who had been running past her

doorway. He steadied her, and himself. He had found the

time to change into his normal clothes, or rather the clothes

he normally wore. The Doctor was the only person on

Gallifrey to wear a battered cashmere jacket, pressed silk

shirt and tailored tan trousers. He peered down at her over

his glasses. She began apologising.

He didn’t seem to notice what she was wearing. ‘Like I just

said, Larna, we’ll need to discuss it, but I’m busy with the

alien delegations. Come to my room at Nine Point Five Bells.’

The Doctor hurried away, his jacket flapping behind him.

Her hearts sank. He needed to discuss her behaviour.

Conduct was very important to the Time Lords. She would

not have been able to graduate from the Academy without

knowing that. Some Time Lords were still best‐known for

minor transgressions of decorum they had performed

centuries before. Lord Glebun would be Glebun the Flatulent

until the day he died, despite his groundbreaking research

into fluid dynamics. Such actions could blight careers,

exclude you from the best circles and societies. What she

found most disappointing was that Vrayto had been proved

right. She could picture her servant now, a smug grin on her

face.

‘That’s hardly fair,’ Larna scowled at Waym. ‘It was him

running, not me.’

The Doctor sat on Rassilon’s foot, legs dangling, wriggling as

he tried to get comfortable.

In his own day, Rassilon had been thought of as an

architect. That was difficult for some modern Time Lords to

believe. Nowadays Rassilon was the greatest of the

founders, the Father of Gallifrey, the man who not only saved

the planet but gave it the gift of time travel and the wisdom to

use that gift wisely. His achievements went far beyond

designing some pretty buildings. Modern Time Lords knew

the Panopticon, took it for granted. They barely used the

elaborate exitonic landscapes of the Matrix any more. The

Citadel had been there for so long that there was no power in

the way it both dominated and blended into the enclosed

cityscape of the Capitol. And so it was that some of the most

awe‐inspiring buildings in the known universe became

everyday experiences, places you had to walk through to get

to or from lectures.

The Doctor envied the Sontarans and the Rutans the

experience they would have this evening as they saw

Gallifrey for the first time. Few Time Lords stopped to

consider the thought that had gone into the design of the

Panopticon. The statues that stood in each corner were a

clever trick of perspective. When you entered the Panopticon,

passing under an impossibly high archway, you were

immediately faced with the statue of one of the legendary

Founders of Gallifrey, the six individuals credited with the

creation of modem civilisation. Enter the hall from the north,

for example, and you’d see a statue of Omega in the

southern corner, a big bearded man, resplendent in a

somewhat romanticised version of the hydraulic space suit

he’d worn at Qqaba, his helmet under his arm. Your mind

would sketch in an idea of scale, and guess that the statue

was perhaps three times actual size. You’d walk towards the

raised area at the centre of the room. The statue wouldn’t

move. Only as you walked out underneath the canopy of the

Panopticon Dome would you realise how big this place was,

that it would take an hour to cross. And only when you turned

around to see how far you’d come did you realise that the

arch you had originally come through was formed by the legs

of another statue, and that Omega must be the size of a

tower block.

If you’d come in from the north, you’d have walked

between the Legs of Rassilon, between sculpted feet the size

of houses. There was a way of remembering the names of

the statues and what they had done for Gallifrey. It was an

old nursery riddle, a six‐line rhyming logic puzzle that every

Gallifreyan learned off by hearts. The Doctor could only

remember the first half.’

‘Neath Panopticon Dome

Rassilon faces Omega

But who is the other?’

At that point the Doctor’s memory got a bit hazy. The last

word of the next line was ‘brother’, he remembered that

much. The Doctor had never been impressed: solving the

riddle was rather easy, and even the bits he could remember

didn’t scan or rhyme properly.

Regeneration had caused all sorts of problems with

Gallifreyan figural sculpture and iconography, but fortunately

there was a consensus about what Rassilon looked like. For

some reason, lost in the mists of time, the founder of

Gallifreyan society was always depicted wearing leather

sandals. That made Rassilon the best bet if you fancied a sit

down, far better than Omega’s industrial footwear or the

spiny combat boots of Apeiron.

‘There were giants in those days.’ It was the Magistrate,

emerging from the evening shadows.

The Doctor looked down at him from his vantage point on

Rassilon’s big toenail. ‘They weren’t really this big, you

know,’ he called down.

‘I was speaking metaphorically.’

‘I know. So was I.’

‘An hour to go.’

‘Yes. But where will it go?’ the Doctor wondered as the

Magistrate clambered up to join him. He pulled himself up

hand over hand with little effort, not even his knee‐length

cloak could slow him down. It was the first time they’d been

up here since their college days, and it had taken the Doctor

five or six minutes to make the climb. Still, the Magistrate did

need his help. The Doctor reached down, took his hand,

pulled him up.

‘You’re looking smart,’ the Doctor observed as the

Magistrate took his place alongside him. ‘Black suits you.’

Underneath his cloak was a collarless tunic. The

Magistrate brushed some dust from it. ‘What are you going to

wear?’

‘This,’ the Doctor said, flicking his old college scarf over

his shoulder. ‘Don’t you think?’

The Magistrate raised an eyebrow. ‘Not very formal.

Scruffy, in fact. Won’t our guests be offended?’

‘Sontarans and Rutans have different sartorial standards,’

he shrugged. ‘I’d dress to impress them, but my suit of

armour’s at the cleaner’s.’ The Doctor yawned, looking out

over the Panopticon. ‘I’m sure they’ll like the soldiers,

though.’

A phalanx of the Chancellery Watch was practising the drill

for the morning. They were in full ceremonial uniform,

crimson, striped fur, breastplates and cloaks. They’d formed

a neat square, and were marching up and down, boots

clacking against the marble floor as regular as the tick of a

clock. They’d done these drills for thousands of years –

literally in the case of many of the soldiers. Long ago they

must have exhausted every creative possibility there. That

was the point, wasn’t it? They weren’t thinking, they were

doing something that came as naturally and easily to them as

breathing. But all they were doing was marching, not fighting.

It had been a while since the Watch had seen action, longer

still since they’d faced an external threat.

The Magistrate smiled thinly, as if reading the Doctor’s

thoughts. ‘Don’t underestimate them, Doctor. After a

thousand years of target practice and battle meditation they’d

be able to show the Sontarans a thing or two about

hand‐to‐hand combat.’

The Doctor cocked his head. ‘Think so? My money would

still be on the genetically re‐engineered guy from the high

gravity world.’

‘I have no doubt that Lord Voran would agree with you.

But the President was on your side, “old friend”,’ laughed the

Magistrate, imitating the President’s plummy voice.

The Doctor chuckled, and then looked thoughtful for a

moment. ‘I have never needed to tell anyone that they are an

old friend.’

‘Why would you need to? You have so many new friends,

after all. Larna is a credit to you.’

‘Thank you. My brightest pupil.’

‘You’ll raise a generation of revolutionaries, yet, Doctor.’

The Doctor nodded. ‘One way or the other.’

The Magistrate smiled. ‘How big is the Sontaran

delegation?’

‘We got it down to ten in the end.’

‘Is everything arranged now?’

‘Down to the last detail. Crossed every “i”, dotted every “t”.

They’ll be Scooped down at Nine Bells tonight, To avoid any

complications, the Sontarans will arrive at the Western

Materialisation Zone, the Rutans will go to the Eastern one.

They’ll be welcomed, and then a squad of Watchmen will

escort them along the walkway through the Capitol and into

the Citadel until they meet here, in the middle of the

Panopticon. The Public Record cameras will capture the first

meeting. This will be their first face‐to‐face encounter for a

fair while. It could be a little awkward, so all we’ll do is say

“hello” to each other. After that, they’ll be taken to their

respective xenodochia by the Guard. The conditions in their

rooms exactly match their homeworlds.’

‘I see a problem.’

‘Just the one?’

‘You’re the chief negotiator, the one who has brought the

two sides here, the only individual in the universe that both

races will talk to.’

‘That’s not too much of a problem, I hope,’ the Doctor

laughed.

‘If the Sontarans and Rutans are arriving at the same time

at different ends of the city, then who’s going to meet them?

You’ll be in here, I presume. If you were to favour either of

the races with your company, the other might be offended.

But they are also going to be deeply offended if they are met

by some minor official.’

The Doctor rubbed his chin. ‘Good point.’

‘It’s a shame I can’t be in two places at once,’ said the

Doctor.

‘Yes,’ the Doctor called over from Rassilon’s little toe, ‘that

would solve everything.’

Both Doctors grinned.

Larna entered the Infinity Chamber in front of Waym.

This was a smaller chamber than the main one, just a

balcony that looked down on the universe. Larna would have

made her way to the control console, but there was someone

there already.

‘It’s Savar,’ Waym said. ‘Sorry, Larna, he wasn’t here

before.’

‘That’s OK. I don’t mind him.’

‘No? I think he’s creepy.’

Savar was hunched over the console, tapping away at the

controls. He wore vivid blue robes. He seemed obsessed

with the buttons, mesmerised by the way they flashed and

winked. He might look perfectly ordinary, but Savar wasn’t a

healthy man.

‘Lord Savar,’ Larna said. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Larna!’ he cried out. ‘ Lady Larna,’ he corrected himself,

before returning to the controls. He hadn’t acknowledged

Waym’s existence.

She moved over to him.

‘They took my eyes, you know,’ he told them thoughtfully.

‘It was after I found God, and before I came back here.’

Larna nodded, and looked over to Waym, a sad smile on

her face. Long ago, long before they had been born, field

trips out into the universe had been a little more common.

The High Council had relaxed their non‐intervention codes by

a degree or two and allowed a limited degree of

observer‐only travel to intergalactic scientific conferences, or

sites of special interest. Once again the TARDIS time

capsules travelled the universe on official Time Lord

business. Savar had set out on such an expedition.

A decade later, they’d found him.

The rematerialisation of his escape pod had been

detected in the depths of space. A TARDIS rescue crew had

been dispatched straight away. What they had found was

horrifying – a capsule stripped bare of virtually everything but

its pilot, left squatting alone in darkness. Savar had been

mutilated, his eyes had been removed. Both eyeballs, every

millimetre of optic nerve, even the lobes of the brain that

dealt with vision had all been taken. However it had

happened, the experience had driven Savar mad. He’d been

returned to Gallifrey and his body had been healed, a new

pair of eyes had been spun for him. But his mind, some even

said his soul, had gone. He’d babbled about his eyes, how

his eyes had taken his eyes, how he’d fallen off the edge of

the universe and that he’d seen the face of god. The

surgeons couldn’t repair his soul. Even a couple of

regenerations later, Savar was a broken man, a once‐great

scientist and traveller reduced to a harmless distraction. Most

Time Lords ignored him. Those that didn’t, like Larna and the

Doctor, tended to treat him like a small child. Neither fate

appealed to Waym.

‘I think I’ve found God again,’ Savar concluded sadly.

Larna smiled at him. ‘Do you mind if I take the controls?’

‘Not at all, my dear.’ He stepped back, to let Larna

through, and Waym took his place alongside her.

Waym checked the settings. Savar had reprogrammed it,

knocked it off all the carefully selected co‐ordinates that

Waym had been trying to monitor.

‘We need to see the arrival of the alien fleet,’ he told

Savar.

Savar chuckled, pointing at the display.

Space and time unfolded gracefully and the two space

fleets faded into view in their allotted positions, one over each pole of Pazithi Gallifreya.

This time, the display was awash with annotations, added

by Savar’s hand. Larna froze the image and began leafing

through the notes. Waym already knew where to look, and

could see that there really was something unusual there.

‘There’s a wall of… something,’ Larna concluded. ‘Like a

ripple in spacetime.’ She pointed it out on the display. There

was an almost imperceptible disturbance, across the whole

picture, originating behind Pazithi, sweeping towards and

through Gallifrey in as much time as it took the Vortex gates

to open. It was like the image on a viewscreen being a pixel

out, nothing more.

‘You did well to spot this,’ Larna concluded.

‘What is it?’ Waym asked.

‘It is the end of the universe,’ Savar said simply, ‘and there

is nothing we can do about it.’

The other Doctor had clambered over to them and they stood

next to each other, like twins.

‘Doesn’t this violate the Laws of Time?’ the Magistrate

asked, unsure which of the Doctors he should be addressing.

‘Not all of them,’ the Doctor replied, laughing at his own

joke.

‘I wish I’d said that,’ whispered the Doctor.

‘You will, you will,’ the Doctor mumbled back.

The Magistrate looked at the newer arrival. ‘You are from

the future?’

‘I’m him from an hour and a half in the future. I’ve just

popped back here after greeting the Rutan delegation.’

‘Did everything go smoothly with them?’ the Doctor asked

himself.

‘You know I couldn’t possibly answer that without serious

implications to the Web of Time. It went fine, and judging

from the grin that’ll be on my face in an hour’s time, the

Sontarans were no trouble either.’

Both Doctors checked their wristwatch. ‘We’d better get

into place,’ they concluded.

‘No need to synchronise watches,’ the Magistrate

observed. ‘Or Doctors.’

The earlier Doctor slapped his counterpart on the

shoulder. ‘I’m off to the Western Platform. Don’t do anything I

wouldn’t do,’ he advised, before he began clambering down.

‘I knew he’d say that,’ the Doctor muttered.

‘It could be a malfunction with the chamber,’ Larna

suggested. ‘I’ll need to see the fault locator records.’

‘Do these things ever go wrong?’ Waym wondered.

Savar nodded sagely. ‘Oh yes, from time to time.’

Waym scowled at him. ‘I wasn’t talking to you. Larna?’

She was trying to release the controls from Savar’s

program, but with no success. ‘Could you let me have a

look?’

Savar shook his head, grinning like an idiot. ‘I’ve not

finished yet.’

Larna tried again.

‘What could it be?’

Larna frowned. ‘Well, Infinity Chambers draw their

information from the Matrix. They don’t observe the real

universe, just a very, very elaborate computer model of the

universe. One that’s accurate to the last quark. There could

be a glitch in the data.’

‘Caused by?’

‘Intervention,’ Savar said suddenly. ‘Divine intervention.’

‘No alien race has access to the Matrix. Well, not any

more. Over the years, a number of races have tried and…’

She broke off, staring at the two fleets hovering over

Gallifrey.

‘If this image of the universe has been interfered with, then

the fleets might not be there at all. Something else could

have come through the vortex gate instead, something that

we just can’t see. The Doctor could be walking right into a

trap…’

She checked the chronometer set in the console. Eight

Point Eight Nine Bells. ‘It’s nearly nightfall. He’ll be in the

Panopticon. I haven’t got much time…’

She bolted out of the room, the hem of her night‐gown in

her hands.

A squad of Watchmen ringed the materialisation zone, the

Doctor stood a little way off‐centre. Behind him, the

hourglass‐shape of the Time Lord Citadel was dominating the

skyline of the Capitol. Aircar traffic had been diverted away

from this part of the city, but it was still bustling.

As one, the clocks began chiming Nine Bells.

The centre of the platform began to shimmer. An ebony

pyramid rotated into three‐dimensional space, and continued

to hang there, spinning slowly. The Doctor held a blue control

pad in his hand. He pressed the green button.

The pyramid faded away as it stopped swirling, and in its

place was a single Rutan, if such a term meant anything. It

was a churning mass of various slimy, viscous substances,

like a giant oyster swimming in thick vegetable soup. It

glowed and pulsed from within. And then, as quickly and

instinctively as a pupil dilating in bright light, the Rutan began

to adapt to its new environment. Its outer layers grew thicker,

the way that skin forms on cooling cocoa. Tendrils began to

sprout from its underside, the diffuse glowing began to

concentrate into three points, deep within the body. This had

the effect of backlighting the creature’s nascent internal

organs and muscle structures. Within a matter of seconds,

the Rutan had transformed itself into a creature that

resembled a translucent squid. Electricity crackled around it.

It sat there, not acknowledging its surroundings.

The Doctor licked his lips. ‘Hello?’ he called over.

No response, not even a flickering tentacle. The Doctor

walked over to the Rutan. Without anything like an eye, an

ear or a nose, how did it perceive the world? Obviously not

from sight, sound or smell. To a Rutan, the world must be

made up of temperature fluctuations or variations in the local

electrical or magnetic fields. Or, perhaps, they didn’t even

make that distinction. To a telepathic group mind of

metamorphic amoebae, the universe probably existed in a

binary state: Rutan and Not‐Rutan.

The Doctor bent over the Rutan, not even sure that it knew

he was there.

A slit had just appeared in the Rutan’s flank. It would be

about wide enough for the Doctor to put his hand in, not that

he had the slightest intention of doing so. It parted, the sides

of the slit thickening up. Inside it was black.

The Doctor knew he was staring, but doubted that the

Rutan could blame him for that, or even distinguish one

humanoid facial expression from another.

As the crack opened wider, the Doctor saw teeth. A row of

white teeth like a baby’s, and behind them a fat red tongue.

‘Greetings, Time Lord,’ the mouth – the Rutan – said in a

woman’s voice. ‘The humanoid larynx is not capable of

recreating the sound, nor is the humanoid mind of sufficient

sophistication to appreciate the complexity of the vocabulary,

grammar nor syntax, nor is the humanoid nervous system

adequate to fully experience the language of the Rutan. For

convenience, we have reluctantly adopted your primitive

method of communication.’

‘That is most considerate,’ the Doctor replied in Rutan.

The mouth dropped open.

‘Shall we go in?’ the Doctor said sweetly.

The only elevator from the Infinity Chamber floor down to the

Panopticon was restricted to Time Lords, to prevent public

access to the TARDIS Cradles in between. Larna had been

forced to use the emergency staircase that swept around the

lift shaft. There were literally thousands of steps down from

the Infinity Chambers to the floor of the Panopticon. Hard,

grey, stone steps. Halfway down, it had occurred to Larna

that there was no reason why the stairs couldn’t be

dimensionally transcendental. It would be a straightforward

engineering job to arrange the staircases so that you never

needed to go up or down more than one flight of stairs to get

to whichever level you wanted. She began to model the

neatest solution in her head. The mathematics kept her mind

from the cramp, her aching hips and sore feet. By the time

she had reached the bottom of the stairs she had it all

planned, and she vowed to raise the matter to Council as

soon as possible.

Not that it helped her now.

As soon as she had finished her descent, it all caught up

with her, and she found herself doubled up, desperately

unable to suck enough air into her lungs. Sweat was pouring

from her forehead, and her back. She was dizzy, her bare

feet simultaneously icy cold and stinging with heat. She was

too tired to even acknowledge the Doctor’s presence.

‘Have you just run down all these stairs in your nightie?’

the Doctor asked.

Larna nodded, almost managing to straighten herself up.

He was bent over her, unsure whether to put his arm

around her shoulders or to give her enough space to recover.

Wisely, he chose the latter.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked gently. ‘Did you have a bad

dream?’

‘You noticed what I’m wearing this time,’ she replied

hoarsely. ‘And this time it was me running.’

The Doctor looked blankly at her.

‘Terrible danger!’ she blurted, remembering the reason

that she had been running in the first place.

‘Calm down. What about it?’

Larna caught her breath. ‘We’re in it. I don’t think that the

aliens are all that they seem –’

‘But I’ve just welcomed the Rutan. Everything went

swimmingly.’

‘Just the Rutan?’ Larna asked, puzzled. ‘I thought that the

Sontarans were due at the same time.’

The Doctor checked his watch and slapped his forehead.

‘Look, Larna, we’ll talk about this. Go to my room, get

yourself a drink, make yourself at home. I’ll be there soon.

I’ve not quite finished yet, and I don’t like to leave a job only

half done. If a job’s worth doing blah blah, and all that.’

With a smile, the Doctor tapped in his access code and

opened up the elevator. The door slid smoothly shut behind

him.

And, around two thousand steps too late, it occurred to

Larna that she was allowed in the Time‐Lord‐only elevators

these days.

A little later and earlier, the Doctor stood at the Western

Materialisation Zone. Behind him, the hourglass‐shape of the

Time Lord Citadel was dominating the skyline of the Capitol.

Aircar traffic had been diverted away from this part of the city,

but it was still bustling.

As one, the clocks began chiming Nine Bells.

The centre of the platform began to shimmer. An ebony

pyramid rotated into three‐dimensional space, and continued

to hang there, spinning slowly. The Doctor held a blue control

pad in his hand. He pressed the green button.

The pyramid faded away as it stopped swirling, and in its

place were ten Sontaran warriors, in full space armour. They

were identical – squat humanoids, with rounded shoulders

and torsos. Their limbs were bodybuilder‐powerful. The

armour was made from a soft, almost‐leathery silver material

that covered every square inch of their skin. They wore vast

dome‐shaped helmets. The Doctor wondered how they told

each other apart. They must be able to, as combat was

almost impossible without the ability to distinguish rank and

position. They were all exactly the same height and build, the

only distinguishing features at this stage being insignia on

their collars and regimental motifs on their helmets. They

didn’t wear medals, or other marks of past glory, but there

were certain electronic devices clipped to their belts. No

weapons, though, as had been agreed. All but three of the

Sontarans stood in a rough circle, around – presumably –

their leader. They were scanning their surroundings, looking

for traps, fearful of ambush. The remaining two were hoisting

crates on their shoulders. The boxes were almost as big as

they were, and presumably contained provisions and other

equipment. Deep within the Citadel, a monitoring team would

have scanned the contents, using techniques so subtle that

the Sontarans weren’t even aware of the scientific principles

involved, let alone the scan itself. If there were weapons in

those crates, they would already have been quietly disarmed

or removed.

‘Welcome,’ the Doctor said. ‘I am the Doctor.’

The Sontaran at the centre of the circle stepped forwards,

his protective circle closing up behind him. He reached up to

his helmet, removing it. As he did so, the others, except the

two carrying the crates, did the same. All Sontarans shared

the same toady face, smeared on a domed head the colour

and texture of clay. There were traces of individuality there,

though: facial hair, scars from past battles, even tattoos and

traces of sunburn.

But behind the cosmetic differences, the face that every

Sontaran wore was that of their leader. And the Doctor was

astonished to discover that this was the man standing in front

of him now. This Sontaran was wrinkled, the skin loose and

fading into a sickly orange colour, the piggy eyes seemed

even closer together. Tufts of crudely manicured hair

sprouted from his ears, nose and chin.

‘General Sontar,’ the Doctor gasped.

He was the only old Sontaran. The history of the Sontaran

race was obscured by the passing of time, and the rigorous

reworking of propaganda, but most versions of events

mentioned General Sontar. At some point around the

declaration of war with the Rutans – no one could agree

whether it had been just before or just after – the Supreme

Council of the urSontaran Warburg realised that there was

military advantage in cloning their finest warriors. Most

renowned of all was Sontar, the mastermind behind the

victory in the two‐thousand‐year war with the Isari. He had

been such a perfect warrior that before long every new

soldier was a done of Sontar. Shortly after that there had

been a military coup, and the population had been purged of

all non‐Sontarans. Either that had happened, or something

completely different. The authorities couldn’t agree, and there

was little point asking either the Sontarans or Rutans for an

objective discussion of the matter.

This wasn’t the original General Sontar, of course, he had

died millions of years ago. The natural Sontaran lifespan was

about fifty years – but thanks to the war none reached that

age except Sontar, safe on his Throneworld, surrounded by

medics, bodyguards and energytasters. As Sontar drew the

last breath into his dry, withered body, his consciousness

was downloaded into a custom‐made clone, and his

immortality was assured. To an outsider, his perpetual cycle

might resemble the way Time Lords regenerated. But there

was every difference. With each regeneration, a Gallifreyan

gained an entirely new body, with a new nervous system, a

new appearance and a new personality. All but the most

basic experiences had to be discovered anew. Regeneration

brought fresh perspectives, removed the stagnation that

developed with old age and staying the same for too long.

The process that General Sontar went through kept in place

all the blinkers, clinkers and cankers.

‘Your presence is an unexpected honour,’ the Doctor said.

He’d been expecting a Cabinet member, but not its head. He

recognised a Sontaran handful of the others: Admiral Krax of

the Three Millionth Fleet, Chancellor Stroc, Chief of Staff

Grol. All with enough firepower at their command to level a

galaxy. But Sontar had the power to level them.

‘My presence is a clear demonstration of the priority the

Sontaran race assigns to the campaign for peace,’ Sontar

bellowed.

If things went wrong, then no doubt there would be

another General Sontar on the Sontaran Throne by this

evening, the Doctor mused. In the early days there had been

civil wars and schisms as rival General Sontars vied for

supremacy, each convinced – and each of them correct in

the assertion by every definition – that they were the rightful

heir. Nowadays, the Sontaran War Cabinet simply declared

which of them was the one, true General Sontar, and all

Sontarans followed that order, that Sontar, without question.

Life was less complicated that way.

‘General, I appreciate exactly the significance of your

presence.’

‘Good,’ Sontar barked. He looked around. ‘So this is the

fabled city of the Time Lords.’

The materialisation platform was thirty‐five storeys above

ground level, and allowed excellent vistas of the Capitol. It

must have been difficult for an outsider to distinguish the

larger computer banks and machines from the tower blocks.

Everything under the Dome was carefully harmonised, joined

with a delicate network of walkways and roadways. There

were terraced gardens, sculpture parks, clock towers and

ornamental lakes. Architecture without any limitations on the

architect’s imagination, lit perfectly by the holographic lamps

fixed to the roof of the Dome, preserved in this weatherless,

controlled environment.

‘The Capitol has stood for millions of years. It was

Rassilon’s capital, although of course in those days it looked

very different and the Dome had not yet been built. The Time

Lord Citadel dates from the time of Rassilon and Omega,

although many parts are much older. Negotiations will be

held in there.’

The Doctor indicated the Citadel, although he didn’t need

to – it was the largest building, set right underneath the apex

of the Dome.

‘Proceed,’ Sontar ordered. Before the Doctor could react,

the Sontarans began marching as one along the walkway

that led to the Citadel. The Doctor kept pace, and although

the Capitol Guard were caught unawares, they quickly closed

ranks to escort the alien delegation.

Sontar had fixed his gaze on the dark structure, but gave

no sign of an emotional response. ‘Military Intelligence

informs me that not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords.’

‘Quite correct. And not all Time Lords are Gallifreyans,

although the vast majority are.’

‘All the Time Lords are in that Citadel?’

‘Correct. All the colleges, living quarters, control rooms

and scientific research facilities.’

‘It seems too small for that.’

‘The Citadel, like many of the Capitol’s buildings, is larger

on the inside than the outside.’

‘Who lives out here?’ Sontar asked, indicating the city with

a sweep of his claw.

‘Ancillary staff and their families. Technicians, artisans,

cleaners, artists, engineers, cooks, musicians. Everyone the

Time Lords need to support them and their Citadel. Although

truth be told the Citadel is probably self‐sufficient.’

‘It was once a fortress,’ Sontar stated.

The Doctor turned to him, puzzled. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Of course it was,’ the General laughed. ‘Look at the

thickness of the walls, the buttresses and battlements. I

should say it was a stronghold built to withstand a siege. No

need to be coy about your race’s past with me, Doctor.’

‘I’m not. You are clearly right, it’s just that it never occurred

to me before.’

‘There are no great legends of those battles? Does every

Time Lord not sing praise of that day?’

‘No.’

There was a gleam in Sontar’s eye. ‘I wonder who it was

that the Time Lords fought? It must have been a glorious

conflict, and a magnificent victory. Yet you choose to honour

those that died by forgetting them. You should remember,

Time Lord, that all your power, and this beautiful city, were

not built without sacrifice.’

The Doctor nodded. ‘Oh, no. Gallifrey honours its dead, as

you will see. When we reach the Panopticon you will see the

Flowers of Remembrance of the Lost Dead. There –’ he

pointed across the city to an unassuming geodesic structure

– ‘is the Tomb of the Uncertain Soldier.’

‘You value a lack of decisiveness in your military? This

man died because he hesitated?’

‘No, no, no. This was a Gallifreyan body recovered from

an alternate reality. We couldn’t identify him because that

soldier, and many like him who fought in the Time Wars,

didn’t hesitate at the critical moment, they chose to cancel out their own timelines for the greater good of Gallifrey.’

‘An impressive sacrifice. It would please me to hope that

my own men would destroy the universe rather than let it fall

into enemy hands.’

The Doctor smiled forgivingly, and didn’t correct the old

General. ‘Later, I will show you some of the surviving

buildings that never existed or ever will, and we’ll tour the

Omega Memorial. Our entire civilisation was built from his

sacrifice. It is thanks to Omega that we became Time Lords.

Many Gallifreyans still worship him, including the current

President, who has written a number of volumes on the

subject.’

‘I would like to learn of how your race acquired time travel.’

I bet you would, you old fox, the Doctor thought.

‘No doubt we’ll have that opportunity,’ he said.

The Past

Eldest Sun

They had turned their backs on one hundred billion stars.

The Gallifreyan fleet had left its home galaxy and was

deep in intergalactic space. Now the ships slowed down as

they approached their destination, dropping out of vworp

drive and proceeding at near‐light speed towards the target

co‐ordinates. Omega had no need to look back. The galaxy

behind him was a vast spiral, a hundred thousand light years

from one side to the other. It was too far away now to make

out any but the crudest of features. Within that mass was

Gallifrey’s sun, along with every star that could be seen in the

night’s sky of his homeworld.

There were two generations of stars. The spiral arms were

filled with the youngest suns, which scientists designated

Population I. Gallifrey’s sun was a typical example, hot, rich

in elements heavier than helium and hydrogen, surrounded

by a planetary system. Towards the galactic core were

clusters of older, larger, redder stars, those of Population II.

They had formed before the heavy elements, indeed they

were the nuclear factories in which the heavy elements had

been forged. As Population II stars died they exploded,

seeding the galaxy with heavier elements, the process that

had brought the Population I stars into being many billions of

years ago.

But even the Population II stars contained traces of metals

and other complex molecules that could only have been

created in the hearts of stars. Long ago, long before even the

first galaxy had formed, there must have been another type

of star. These Population III stars were supermassive, far

brighter and hotter than their modem equivalents. Gallifrey’s

sun had been shining for around three billion years, and‐even

without the assistance of a solar engineer – would do so for

twice as long again. The processes within a Population III

star were so intense that they would have burned out three or

four hundred times faster. The typical Population III star lived

for ten million years before going supernova. In the early

days of the universe these short‐lived, vast stars had been

the fuel for the newborn galaxies, filling them with riches. All

the Population III stars were long dead, either vanished

altogether or become vast black holes.

All but one.

Qqaba was the last in the universe, of that Omega was

certain. It had barely survived this long, sustained by a drip

feed of interstellar matter from the intergalactic nebula that

partially obscured it. Even so, it had been teetering on the

brink of death for aeons when Omega had found it. He had

reconfigured the star, kept it alive. If he had discovered the

star a week later, it would have been too late. Qqaba would

have died, and so would have Gallifrey.

Now they had returned to Qqaba to destroy it.

A dying star.

No doubt there were writers capable of capturing the

waning majesty of such a thing, or its sheer scale. A poet

might be able to sum up a man’s feelings as he saw such a

spectacle, find words for the new emotions that welled up in

its presence. Perhaps he would fall back on physical

description of the mundane surroundings of the observation

bay, and note that everything was transformed by the

evening starlight, becoming either harsh crimson light or

sharp black shadows. There might be room for philosophical

or moral instruction in that imagery, Omega thought. He

didn’t know. He was an engineer, not a poet, and he was

here to do a job.

He ran his gloved hand over each casket in turn. Their

clasps and buckles rattled with expectation and impatience.

He could feel them in there, radiant. They were so beautiful,

so intricate. They were children in a womb, twins, with many

possible futures. Omega had brought them into existence,

built boxes that were larger on the inside than the outside,

filled them with basic programming and operational

parameters and opportunities, let them feed on energy and

data. Unobserved, the Hands had slipped the bonds of

technology. Even Omega didn’t know what they were any

longer, he couldn’t know without collapsing their potential.

Whatever was in the boxes might be infinite, it could be

anything.

Their thoughts touched his, the link of parents, children

and lovers through the ages. They had always felt cold, they

told him in unison, they had always known their destiny.

‘Today was a day to live in history,’ Omega thought.

‘What about tomorrow?’ they asked. ‘This wasn’t an

ending, this was a beginning.’

‘Who knows where it will all end?’ Omega asked out loud,

the words echoing around the room.

They knew. Should they tell?

‘It is time.’

His mind linked with the captains of the other ships in the

fleet. They were on the control decks of their own

starbreakers, they would follow him in. There was no room

for hesitation or hubris. There was no doubt. There was only

the Plan, and that began with a single word.

‘Open,’ he said.

The caskets cracked open, the merest chinks of light filling

the room.

‘Go.’

And they were gone, spiralling round each other, singing

like dolphins.

Others could track them, others could monitor their

progress. Omega was content to watch through the dark

windows and the shaded visor of his helmet. Two points of

light, brilliant even against the surface of a star. Then they

were gone, plunging into the photosphere, the convection

zone, the vast radiation zone, onwards to the core.

There was a burst of static in his earpiece. ‘The computer

indicates that the star has reached the point of collapse.’

‘Activate the stasis halo,’ Omega responded automatically.

He could feel the halo activating, the protective field granting

the ship temporal grace, swathing it from the rest of time and

space.

When new, Qqaba had been twenty times more massive

than Gallifrey’s sun. The huge weight of the star had pressed

down on the centre, and it should have collapsed – except

that the sheer pressure squeezed energy from the hydrogen

in the core, energy that pushed outwards, holding the star up.

In its heyday, this star shone fifty thousand times brighter

than Gallifrey’s sun. But it burned so fiercely that within ten

million years it had converted all the hydrogen fuel into

helium. It cooled, lost energy, and the inner parts began to

shrink. This only intensified the pressures once more, helium

burned, the star swelled and darkened. Helium burning took

place for a million years, and once the helium at the core had

gone, the star ran through increasingly desperate

alternatives. Converting its carbon into neon, magnesium and

oxygen sustained it for ten thousand years, and then burning

the neon had kept the star alive for a dozen years. The

oxygen lasted for four. There was only one fuel source left –

the traces of silicon. Qqaba had been creating energy using

nuclear fusion of silicon for just a week when Omega had

discovered it, and it had already run dry. Since then, the

nuclear processes were only kept going by Gallifreyan

technology. By the Hands of Omega…

Omega had already sensed it. Was that intuition, or was it

the Hands telling him? He could hear the spacedrive of his

ship powering up.

All was going to plan.

For the whole of its life, the energy radiating outwards from

the core had balanced out the gravitational force pulling

inwards. There had been equilibrium, stability. Now there was

nothing left in the core that the star could use as fuel. The

only elements left were iron, cobalt, nickel – all too stable to

break down with any ease. As the last molecules of silicon

were converted into iron, the star died. Over a million years,

the core had burned away most of its mass, and it was now a

vestige of its former self, only around one and a half million

kilometres across.

Three tenths of a second later, the core was ten kilometres

in diameter.

The energy involved in the compression was

incomprehensible. Most of it was shed as heat and light,

enough of it to disintegrate atomic nuclei. The chains locking

protons, electrons and neutrons together as atoms and

molecules were shattered. These fundamental building

blocks of the universe began behaving differently in their

strange new environment. Tiny electrons were pressed

together to form neutrons by sheer force of gravity. Neutrons

normally formed the nucleus of atoms. Here, as the core

reached a new equilibrium, all that was left of the core was a

sphere of densely packed neutrons, a hundred kilometres

across but with twice the mass of the Sun.

The haloes are malfunctioning.

The news came from all around. He heard it via the

telepathic link to the others, the shouts of his crew over the

intercom, his instincts.

The pressures at the heart of the star were so intense that

the neutron material was squeezed harder than it could bear.

It sprang out, sending a shock wave out into the rest of the

star.

He would not be denied this moment, he would watch. He

would survive, he knew this from the Fragment. The others

would find a way to restore the shields.

With no energy radiating from the core, there was nothing

supporting the outer layers of the star. Although Qqaba was a

mere shadow of its former self, there was still enough

material there to build a dozen Gallifreyan suns. All of that

matter, weighing down on the core. The outer shell began

falling down the gravity well to the core, at a quarter of the

speed of light.

‘Neutrino flood detected,’ the helmsman called.

It was half a minute since the star had died.

The haloes had not been restored.

Omega knew that he would die. That glorious dying star

was suddenly a maw that he was staring into. He knew his

destiny. He heard the first sparks and muffled explosions as

radiation began to blast apart his ship.

A shock wave had formed in the core. Even now it surged

outwards. It was immensely powerful, easily enough to

reverse the infall of the outer layers. Suddenly there were

fifteen solar masses heading outwards, an expanding

spherical shock front. The instruments were registering the

neutrinos now because neutrinos have no mass, and they

were so small that they were passing through all but the

densest matter at the speed of light. They were created after

the shock front, but they outran it. The shock front was

already on its way, it had already happened.

But the Fragment…

He heard one of their voices, then the other.

‘No!’

‘The Fragment’s a forgery. Rassilon’s work.’

‘No!’

‘You deny it even now?’

‘I thought you had forged it.’

Omega wasn’t listening to their squabbling any longer. He

stood, hands behind his back, facing the shock front. Around

him his crew betrayed their animal instincts, they flinched,

they cowered, they tried to run or shield themselves. The

Gallifreyan fleet was right in the path of the destruction,

facing towards it, unprotected. Omega’s ship was the closest.

It had about ten seconds. The other ships had a quarter of a

minute more.

Every piece of matter in the star was becoming

compressed and energetic. Very heavy elements rapidly

formed from this neutron soup. The core was now a neutron

star, barely twenty kilometres across.

There was a great deal of material in the shock front.

Two‐with‐twenty‐eight‐noughts tonnes. It took energy to force

that amount of matter outwards and even the death‐throes of

the heart of a star can’t generate enough.

The shock wave slowed, almost to a halt. It was still a

hundred kilometres from Omega’s ship. There must have

been members of his crew that thought they had been saved,

that there had been a miracle.

There was a tear in Omega’s eye.

Remember the neutrinos? Remember how they travel at

the speed of light? Remember how they can travel through all

but the densest matter?

As the shockwave slowed, the layers of stellar material

started piling into one another, jamming, solidifying. The

outer layers of the star formed a shell, compressed to a

density of three hundred trillion neutrons in every cubic

centimetre.

Thick enough to stop just a few of the neutrinos.

Remember the neutrinos? Remember how they travel at

the speed of light?

They hit the outer layers with literally infinite force. The

dense material absorbed the energy, ablated it, spread it out.

But it was too much.

The neutrino impacts blasted the shock front outwards

again, away from the core, faster than ever. The shock front

was now travelling at two percent light speed.

Omega’s crew saw it coming.

Hard radiation evaporated the outer skin of the hull. The

ship popped, burst and blistered like a fruit on a fire. Below

him, Omega heard the screams of his crew, but he couldn’t

see them through the thick black smoke and the red pall of

the emergency lighting. Emergency lighting here, when the

light outside was melting the hull! He could smell his own

flesh, he stared at the shock front as it swamped his ship,

annihilating it.

The shock front passed through him.

If the Fragment was a forgery, then why was he still alive?

‘This is my destiny,’ Omega objected over the terrible

noise of the deckplates and bulkheads obliterating. He had

fulfilled that destiny. ‘Feel the Energy around us!’

Gravitational forces, raw matter, the stuff that universes are

made of. Space and time and matter are linked. ‘These are

the reins, seize them! ‘Why wasn’t he dead? He could hear

the other two in his mind, talking to each other, but not to

him. Their voices were fading.

‘We can power the stasis haloes with our minds. The ships

will be saved.’

‘Not Omega’s, the machinery has gone.’

‘We can’t save his ship or his crew.’

‘We can save him.’

Their minds had gone, his ship had gone, but Omega was

still there, truly immortal in his stasis halo. Gravity had taken

a hold, he plunged towards the dawning neutron star at the

heart of the destruction at a third the speed of light. Time

began to slow around him. This wasn’t just his imagination:

the intense gravity had dilated space and time, rendered

them plastic. He could feel Time washing through him,

altering him, even through his protective shield.

The surviving starbreakers would be bathed in the Time

Energy within the next few seconds. They would collect a

fraction of that power, siphon it, store it in vast batteries. That

was the Plan – that would be the fuel for the timeships. But

what Rassilon hadn’t foreseen was that the crews

themselves would be exposed, they would be anointed in the

energies. Omega saw it all now, he saw Time laid out in front

of him as plain as the stars in the night’s sky. He could feel

the harmonies there.

He saw the future, he felt the time winds at his back.

There was one last process taking place at the heart of the

star.

If any object is squeezed small enough – the exact size

depends on the mass of the object, but is easy to calculate –

then space closes up around it. The object drops out of

spacetime. All that remained was a perfect matte black

sphere, a hole in the universe. But the object would have a

gravitational pull, it could still draw matter and energy

towards it. The very centre of the hole would have infinite

density in an infinitely small radius. None of the laws of

physics would apply there, space and time would be

uncoupled. Anything might exist there, a man might be a god.

Omega smiled, opened his arms, ready to embrace the

singularity.

He could hear their voices again, infinitesimally faint, over

the roar of the dying star.

They could see the effect the singularity was having on

space and time. It was like a hammer smashing against thick

glass, or a block of ice. Cracks developing, growing together

into a network of lines. The universe was a block of stone

before, now it was being chipped away to reveal the

sculpture that had always lain within it. Spacetime is

shattering, the laws of physics have been repealed.

Rassilon was panicking. Rassilon would not let it happen.

Omega could feel Rassilon’s mind once again. He lifted

his head, strained to hear the voice far above him.

But the mind wasn’t speaking to him, it was speaking to

the black hole, encompassing it, manipulating it. By sheer

force of will, Rassilon passed a new law of physics. He struck

up equilibrium, established beautifully elaborate equations. A

surface appeared upon the darkness, a surface from which

the escape velocity was exactly the speed of light. The naked

singularity was covered, the hole in the universe was sealed

over, and outside the storm was subsiding.

The universe was safe. Nothing can ever be allowed to

escape from the darkness.

The crewmen of the surviving ships were the Lords of

Time.

Omega stared up. He couldn’t see anything, but he heard

the event horizon slamming shut far above him.

There was no force in the universe that could reach him

now; no form of contact. There was only him, immortal in his

stasis halo, protected from his infernal surroundings.

He fell, an impossible, anomalous streak of light against

the darkness.

Omega fell forever.

Chapter Four

Sleep in My Mind

The door to the Doctor’s room recognised Larna and opened

for her, even though she was a little early and she hadn’t

brought a card.

She had spent a great deal of time with the Doctor over

the last few years, but most of it had been in his office at

college, and she had never been invited to his private rooms

before. They were configured in a different way to her own

chambers. She had only just moved in, and had yet to settle.

The Doctor had lived here for many, many years and every

brick and floorboard was infused with his own personality.

Larna knew that the Doctor wasn’t here. This was a chance

to look around.

There was a full‐length mirror by the door, and Larna

stopped to look at herself in it. She had got used to walking

around in nothing but her nightshirt by now, but this was the

first sight of herself as others would see her. She had

recovered from the exertions of running down the stairs, and

the nanoweave of the cotton had worked its magic on the

sweat, also keeping the garment clean and crisp. The shift

had a high collar and fitted cuffs, and swathed every inch of

her skin apart from her head and her hands. Larna had worn

day robes less decent than this nightshirt. Besides, the love

of formality and decorum shared by all Time Lords might

disapprove of her being in another’s chambers in one’s night

wear but would also prevent anyone from finding her here, or

from enquiring about it if they did. After this morning Larna

had realised that there was only one Time Lord’s approval

that she sought, and the rest could be damned. She ran her

fingers through her hair, tightening the braids.

The main room was of an average size, and was full of

books and artefacts from every planet in the universe. On the

floor as she walked through the door was an intricately

woven rug. Larna found herself stepping round, as it felt

disrespectful to place her bare feet on it. She moved down

into the main area, past a wooden globe of Sol Three. The

most cursory examination of the room revealed that there

were many objects from the Earth here, from every period in

its history. Time Lords had long been fascinated by a planet

so similar to their own – same length of day and year, same

gravity, same distance from the same type of sun. The

Earthlings also strongly resembled Gallifreyans. A significant

number of Time Lords felt a special affinity with Earth, and

none more so than the Doctor. Earth was an important

cornerstone of galactic cosmology, its history underpinning

much of established time. Earth had a vibrancy that Gallifrey

had lost, or which had degenerated into cheap Low Town

thrills.

She remembered the words of a human writer: ‘We are all

in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’ When

an Earthman looked up at the stars, it wasn’t simply to

measure the flow of electrically charged particles or variation

between the absolute and apparent magnitudes.

The Doctor’s cat, Wycliff, was brushing around her legs.

She knelt down to stroke him. That was another similarity

between Gallifrey and Earth: the demanding nature of the

local cats. Locating a bowl near the food machine, she

dispensed some food and milk for him. He munched away at

his meal, tail quivering. Larna dispensed a drink for herself

and began to sip at it as she explored the room. A variety of

coats and hats hung from a wooden hat stand. His robes of

office lay in a heap at its base. Either they had fallen off or

he’d simply thrown them there in the first place. A dozen of

the galaxy’s finest wines lay in their rack, the dust gathering.

Larna found the Doctor’s chair, facing the fireplace.

Guiltily, she wondered whether she could sit there, rather

than the guest chair. He wouldn’t be here for a few minutes

yet, so she moved the book she found there – Four Quartets

– and settled down, tucking her legs up rather than use the

footrest. Over time, the cushions had become moulded to his

body, used to his presence. The chair was upholstered in a

velvet material like the coat the Doctor used to wear. It was

still warm from where Wycliff had been dozing. She finished

her drink, seeing the Doctor’s room from his perspective. She

realised that there wasn’t a video screen in here, so she

would be unable to watch the Doctor and the alien

delegations arriving in the Panopticon.

The chair faced the fireplace, framed by a heavy marble

mantel, with a number of ornaments. There was only one

timepiece in the whole room, an ormolu clock from Earth that

sat on the mantelpiece, its day divided up into twelve hours of

equal length. The longer of the two hands was between the

two and the three, the shorter sat about a quarter of the way

between the five and the six. At the side of the chair was an

occasional table, and it was littered with junk. A tea service

was surrounded by bric‐a‐brac: computer cards, a bunch of

keys. There was a slip of brown paper. Instinctively glancing

around to confirm that she was alone, Larna opened it.

There was a single word, hand‐written, in capitals.

OHM

Larna recognised the word from somewhere. It was an

Earth word signifying the SI unit for electrical resistance,

named after one of their scientists, but there was some other

meaning that eluded her. She put the paper away guiltily,

sure someone had just seen her. But she was still alone,

apart from Wycliff.

There was an empty wooden box there, too, presumably

where all the stuff had come from. Sticking right through the

table was a knife. Larna plucked it out, surprised how easily it

came free. The knife couldn’t be metal, it must be a field of

some kind. She tapped at the tip of the blade to see how

sharp it was, and was rewarded by it pricking her thumb. She

yelped, dropping the knife.

Larna sucked a drop of blood from her finger.

Two pictures hung over the mantelpiece. The first was a

computer painting of a couple. The man wore a body in late

middle age, with white hair and a clipped beard. The woman

was smiling. Their eyes were extraordinary: his were dark

and knowing, those of an ancient warrior. Hers were grey,

young. Larna didn’t recognise either of them, but somehow

knew that the painting represented a moment in time that had

now been lost. They were dead, now, or separated by the

tides of time and deserts of space.

The second picture was so beautiful that as Larna looked

up at it she felt a tear form. This wasn’t drawn by a computer,

it had been hand‐painted. The woman in the painting was

almost feline, with hair in a black bob and eyes such a vivid

green that they would seem unnatural if only they weren’t so

right. She was slender, with bare, freckled shoulders. This

woman was so much older and wiser than she appeared.

This picture was just a shadow of her, it only captured one

facet of a passionate, intellectual, lovely person. The gown

she wore was archaic, made from a flowing gold material that

no Gallifreyan woman had worn for generations…

There was a scroll in her hand, bearing an inscription.

Larna strained to read it. It was in High Gallifreyan.

‘“Death is but a door”,’ she whispered.

And then there was a door in the wall in front of her that

hadn’t been there before.

The Doctor stood between the Sontaran delegation and the

Rutan. His past self had nipped away before either the

delegates or the Public Record cameras had noticed him and

would now be on his way up to the TARDIS cradles. The rest,

as they say, was history. Now he could turn his full attention

to the conference without worrying that the universe was

going to unravel because of the time paradoxes he had

created.

The delegates were face to face for the first time. It was

impossible to tell what the Rutan was thinking. Its tentacles

were quivering and patterns of colour flushed across its skin,

but the Doctor couldn’t be sure whether that was a sign of its

emotional state, or just how its body reacted in these

conditions. He knew that he would have to be careful not to

favour the Sontarans simply because they were humanoid,

with expressions and emotions that he could relate to. That

said, the Sontarans were no better at the moment: they’d all

put their helmets back on as they entered the Citadel, and

only their eyes were visible, glaring through the narrow

eye‐slits. Their stance suggested grim resolution, but it

always did.

A word out of place here, and the Doctor knew that the

delegates would storm away; return to their ships and

resume hostilities.

‘Welcome, once again,’ the Doctor said, careful to turn to

both delegations as he said it. ‘Thank you both for coming.

We will convene at First Bells tomorrow. We have prepared

quarters for you, as per your specifications. You will find the

conditions of your homeworlds perfectly recreated there. Are

there any further issues before the Chancellery Watch escort

you to your rooms?’

The column of soldiers split into two groups, saluting the

aliens, and began to form into ranks of escort.

‘There is the matter of security,’ the Rutan said. ‘Do we

have your total assurance that the Sontarans will be confined

to their rooms, preventing them from assassinating the

Rutan?’

‘Neither yourself nor the Sontarans will be confined to

quarters, but if you choose to leave the xenodochia, you will

be escorted by the Watch and carefully monitored. Both

delegations have the freedom of the Citadel, except, of

course, you will not be allowed into your opponent’s quarters.

Neither side is permitted weapons of any kind, and both have

agreed to be continually monitored to prevent the acquisition

of any weapons.’

The Doctor paused. ‘You are all perfectly safe here, the

safest that any of you have ever been. I hope that in this

atmosphere of tranquillity, without the constant threat of

assassination or attack, you may learn that there is common

ground between your two races.’

The Sontarans and Rutans remained unmoved.

The Doctor’s smile flickered.

The Doctor’s empty words had drifted up like convection

currents. Now the roof vault echoed with the sound of

marching boots, as the Chancellery Watch led the alien

delegates away. They thought they were safe, that the Time

Lords could guarantee their security. They were wrong, and

so utterly complacent.

A masked figure perched on one of the roof‐beams that

supported the Panopticon Dome. Beneath its mask, it smiled.

They would see how wrong they had been.

Huran woke up dead.

He screamed, drawing air into phantom lungs and hurling

it out of his ghost‐throat. It was like being alive, like it. He was only breathing because he chose to, there was no blood in

his veins or food in his stomach.

The Time Lord stood watching him the whole time. He was

a senior member of the High Council, one of the Ministers.

He wore a black robe that absorbed every photon of light that

fell on it. There was no sympathy in the man’s eyes, no

feeling at all. Behind him were two of the Watch: a young one

and the man that had been held hostage. The man who had

killed him. They were sifting through a tray of Huran’s

belongings.

‘I’m dead. Aren’t I?’ Huran asked.

‘Yes,’ the Magistrate said simply. ‘We found your body

above the shop in Fish Street. Your current form is a

computer simulation, reconstructed from your brain patterns.’

He indicated a glowing datacube slotted into his hand

terminal.

Thoughts spiralled around Huran’s head, not quite

connecting with each other. ‘You’re going to fix me up, aren’t

you, though? Force a regeneration by remote.’

‘No.’

A digital shiver ran down Huran’s spine. ‘You could do it,’

he insisted. ‘You brought that guard back.’

‘We found Constable Peltroc in time. Despite the injuries

that you had inflicted on him, the surgeons were able to effect

a full recovery.’

‘If you found him in time, you found me in time!’ Huran shouted.

The Magistrate didn’t deny it. ‘Your body has already been

recycled,’ the Time Lord calmly informed him.

‘Then weave me a new one!’

The Magistrate shook his head.

Huran closed his eyes, never more aware of the skin on

his face and the weight of his skull. ‘Yiri,’ he said.

‘The female has also been matriculated.’

‘Could we be together when this is over?’

‘It is already over.’

‘But we both still exist, even if it is only as simulations. This

is still me. We could be downloaded into the same program,

we could be together.’

‘Whyever would you want to do that?’

‘You’d never understand, you motherless dried‐up Timey –

’ The rest of the words didn’t come out, however much Huran

wanted them to.

The Magistrate yawned, then released one of the controls.

‘Constable Peltroc is a hero, injured in the course of his

duties. You were a criminal, Huran, and so was your mate.

There is no reason why we should extend any privileges to

you. However, we are not inhumane and have no wish to

annihilate you. Both your biodata records will be archived and

preserved.’

‘Show me Yiri, promise that we can be together. If you

don’t, then I won’t tell you anything.’

The Magistrate sighed, tapping at his hand terminal. ‘You

were assisting a masked man in the abduction of a Capitol

Guard. Who was this man?’

Huran smiled, ready to stand his ground, but then found

himself answering. ‘I don’t know his name. He was a Timey,

never gave us his name.’ It was him speaking, but he wasn’t

Huran any more. Just a computer model, a push‐button copy.

The Time Lords knew everything about him, now, even more

than he’d told Yiri. They knew about every lie, every false

boast, every excuse, every private thought and moment. All

they had to do was ask.

The interrogation continued without his needing to think. ‘A

Time Lord? Why do you say that?’

‘You all speak and act the same way, you all act as if you

own the place. And only Timeys have telepathy, you’ve made

sure of that.’

The Magistrate nodded thoughtfully. ‘When did you first

meet?’

‘Ten days ago, Outside. Said he needed some work doing

and that he’d pay us in components.’

The Magistrate raised an eyebrow.

‘Spare circuits and gears, other parts for machines. Hard

to come by normally, unless you’ve got contacts Inside.

Always valuable, especially new ones.’

‘What sort of work?’

‘We rented that room for him, helped him find stuff.’

‘Did you help him break into Chamber 403?’

‘Where?’

‘An archive storeroom in the Citadel. Immediately before

Constable Peltroc was abducted, certain items were stolen

from there.’

‘Not by me or Yiri.’

‘Are you suggesting that your employer was able to carry

Peltroc’s unconscious body from the barracks to Low Town

without help?’

‘I never said that, I just said that it wasn’t me. I was with

Yiri in Low Town. The boss called, said he needed some

drolminathol.’

The young guard stepped forward and whispered into the

Magistrate’s ear. ‘A chemical relaxant designed to weaken

telepathic defences. Street name: intermace. The physician

found traces of it in the Constable’s bloodstream.’

‘Yeah,’ Huran agreed. ‘Common enough if you know

where to look. Whores use it when they have Timey

customers and they want to get really friendly.’

‘Your employer, the renegade, was after knowledge, and

he felt that Constable Peltroc had that knowledge. What did

he want to know?’

‘I’ve no idea. Something about some keys, that’s all I

know.’

‘Keys to what?’

‘I don’t know which keys.’

‘The Great Key? The Key to Time?’

Huran laughed. ‘Those are out of his league. I think it was

more personal than that.’

‘Let’s talk about your employer.’

Constable Peltroc moved forward. ‘When you came into

the room, he said, “We have to be quick, it’s nearly dawn.”

What was so important about the dawn?’

‘Dunno. We only ever saw him at night. Yiri reckons he

works early shifts back at the Dome and that someone would

miss him.’

‘You never saw him during the day?’

‘No. Never got a message from him either except after

dark.’

‘Did you ever see him without the mask or cloak?’

‘Never. You know the question you should be asking?

Why does he wear a mask, eh? Only one reason. We’d

recognise his face. Why wear a voicebox unless we’d

recognise his voice?’

The Magistrate nodded, mulling over the question. Then,

without ceremony, he unplugged the datacube and placed it

in its rack with the others.

It was as if Larna was walking amongst the stars.

It was impossible to judge perspective, the room could be

the size of a bedchamber or an arena or both. A field of

candles against a black background. The room was warmed

by them, awash with golden light and filled with their

fragrance.

There was a small glass bowl in front of her on a little

plinth. She knelt down, and found a necklace nesting

amongst a few flower blossoms. A silver chain with a

sapphire pendant. Larna had seen it somewhere before, she

was sure, but couldn’t say where. She put the necklace on.

Everything felt so right. In this room nothing else existed, it

was like the best meditation. This was peace, she thought.

Larna didn’t know how long it had been since she had

stepped out of the Doctor’s room and into this place. Time

had ceased to matter. She turned, to see how far away the

door was.

The Doctor was a silhouette in the doorway.

‘I-I’m sorry,’ she said.

Her hand had moved to cover her chest. It had known

before she had that this was a private place, and that she

was intruding. Suddenly the room was an empty, vast void.

She was an alien here.

The Doctor stepped down into the room. Warm light fell

over his face as he walked towards her.

‘I’ll leave.’ But she would have to get past him.

‘No,’ the Doctor said, as the door began to slide shut

behind him. He was standing over her now, the traces of a

smile on his face. ‘I have no secrets from you.’

They were almost touching, and Larna’s hand was by her

side. She had lowered her head, out of respect.

The Doctor touched the pendant lightly with his index

finger, then pulled it away. He wore a ring on the middle

finger of his right hand which had the same blue gem set in it.

‘It suits you,’ he concluded softly.

Larna had just remembered where she had seen the

necklace. ‘The woman in the picture died, didn’t she?’

There was no need for the Doctor to say anything.

‘I didn’t know.’

‘It was a long time ago,’ he said matter‐of‐factly. ‘A year for

each candle, and so long ago that everyone else has

forgotten.’ There was a tear in the corner of his eye. ‘I’ve

forgotten her. I only remember now when I want to. You can’t

change the past.’

‘Yet you have this zero room for her.’

‘This place is for me. I have many other places, too.’

‘You’ve travelled,’ Larna whispered. ‘I’ve never left the

Dome. I’ve never even been to Low Town. I want to. You had

the chance to leave. Why did you come back?’

‘This is home.’

‘Tell me about her. Where did you meet?’

‘We didn’t.’ The Doctor paused.

‘You painted that picture of her,’ Larna said.

The Doctor nodded. ‘She taught me to dance.’

Larna smiled, and so did the Doctor. Their eyes and

thoughts met.

And they had the floor to themselves and they were

dancing beneath a sky the colour of amber. He was dressed

formally, a neat row of gold buttons running down his chest,

matching the silk of her gown. The harpists were playing a

pavane. It was a celebration of some kind, a festival, it didn’t

matter which one. The entire household and their friends

were all around. There were a number of aliens, too – Mr

Saldaamir, a pair from Althrace, and a fat yellow‐skinned

man with red fins around the crown of his head. Everyone

was smiling, spellbound, watching their choreography.

Anywhere else this would be unspeakably decadent, but

even here it was scandalous. The young son and the older

woman. What would his father think?

It didn’t matter to them. The dance was everything, all that

existed at that moment. Elaborate equations of form and

sound were expressed through their slow, stately

movements. He led, not merely remembering what she had

taught him that afternoon, but developing it, elaborating upon

it. Now, for the very first time, she was learning from him. And

they knew, they remembered, that she still had much to teach

him and that she would learn from him in turn.’

The music stopped and every single guest began to

applaud them, even the harpists. This was the first time that

they had ever been so happy, but the night was still young.

She reached out to stroke his face, daring to do it and

damn the consequences.

Larna was going to pull her hand away, but the Doctor

held it there, sliding his fingers between hers, placing his

other hand on her waist, never taking his eyes from her. His

touch was warm, and as they drew together she could feel

the velvet of his jacket against her, even through the cotton of

her shift.

They began to dance.

Gallifrey’s nameless sun rose over the Capitol Dome, as it

had done since the first days of the universe.

No sunlight penetrated the Dome itself, but the Oldharbour

Clock that stood in the Eastern parts of the Capitol marked

the occasion by chiming Nine Bells. On the ledge beneath

the vast clock face, an intricate mechanical ballet began, as

life‐sized animated figures emerged from their positions and

set about their daily routine. They were gaily painted and

beautifully dressed, certainly symbolic of something, although

even the few Gallifreyans that had noticed them couldn’t

agree what it might be. One of the problems was that the

clock had never been built. Not in this timeline, anyway. It

was a paradoxical survivor from the Time Wars, probably the

only vestige of its parallel Gallifrey still in existence. It had

just appeared one day, no one remembered when.

The analogue Time Lords that had built the Tower had

imbued the clockwork figurines with a degree of sentience

and the capacity for self‐development. Now, unknown to

anyone, the clock people were the most intelligent beings on

Gallifrey. Their social interactions were complex, if perfectly

regulated, and they had developed a complex framework of

philosophy and etiquette to explain their world and their

actions. It would be some time yet before they realised that

they were just characters on a long‐forgotten clock face, but

the discovery would come. When it did there would be

dissension, schism and war. But still they would circle each

other in perfect orbits, moving their limbs in perfect arcs.

The chimes from the Clock Tower could be heard on the

Eastern side of the Citadel. Raimor and Peltroc heard it as

they walked through one of the common hexangles around

the Panopticon galleries. All around them, Time Lords and

Technicians began to emerge from their quarters and glide

smoothly to their work and their leisure. Life in the Citadel

normally ran like clockwork, everything in harmony, the same

every day. Today, though, there were notes of discord. Lord

Henspring almost bumped into Captain Jomdek as they

passed the living fountain. Lady Gehammer was nowhere to

be seen, Lord Norval took her place. Tiny things, unimportant

things, but Raimor noticed them. The guards themselves

were late trudging back to barracks. It had been an eventful

eighteen hours. The damn aliens were already a chaotic

influence.

The Magistrate swept past them, giving them the faintest

acknowledgement. His black cloak swirled behind him like a

living thing.

Peltroc’s shoulders were sagging, he’d had something on

his mind for the last few hours.

‘What’s the matter, son?’ Raimor asked. ‘The surgeons

fixed you up, didn’t they? You’re probably healthier than you

were this time yesterday.’

Peltroc still didn’t smile. ‘Probably.’

‘What is it?’

‘When he was talking to Huran,’ Peltroc began, indicating

the Magistrate, ‘he called me a hero. I’m not a hero.’

‘You acted bravely. Got two dangerous criminals, and you

nearly caught the ringleader. You’ve certainly given us a lot

to go on. That’s heroism.’

‘I killed two people. One of them was a woman.’

‘That was an accident.’

‘The other one wasn’t. I stabbed him in the back. That’s

not heroic.’

‘He’d have killed you. And –’

The Doctor hurried between them, in those ridiculous

clothes of his. He greeted them as he passed.

‘– and you never gave up, you never gave that masked

lunatic what he wanted.’

Peltroc shook his head. ‘So why don’t I feel like a hero?

Why am I still shaking?’

A Technician was running towards them. A young lad with

blond hair. Naturally, he took one look at them and concluded

that Peltroc was the senior officer.

‘You have to come quickly!’ he blurted.

Raimor stepped forwards, tried to reassert any authority

that he had. ‘Calm down, sir. I’m sure we can help you.’

‘I’ve just found a body,’ the Technician blurted. ‘In

Chamber Epsilon. It’s Technician First Class

Waymivrudimqwe. I think he’s been stabbed.’

The Doctor could have sworn that for a moment the guards

on the Conference Room door weren’t going to let him in.

Just as the Doctor was on the threshold, Lord Nulquemper, a

minor official with an obscure function, interposed himself.

‘Good morning, Doctor. Late again, I see.’

‘I am, Nulquemper, so if you could just –’ the Doctor tried

bobbing around him, but the little man ducked across to block

him.

‘The alien delegations arrived some ten minutes ago, a

few minutes earlier than scheduled.’

‘Yes well, I’ll –’ the Doctor stared at the door. ‘Where are

they?’

‘In the Conference Room.’

‘Who’s in there with them?’

‘ With them, my Lord Doctor?’

‘With. Them.’

‘No one, my Lord.’

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, but it took

a couple of seconds for the words to arrive. ‘For ten million

years, the Sontarans and the Rutans have killed each other

on sight. To prevent that from happening here, they were

supposed to convene in different antechambers and only to

enter the Conference Room itself when I had arrived.’

‘Were they?’ Nulquemper said, his face the picture of

innocence. ‘Oh, but you were late, weren’t you?’

‘There’s probably a war underway in there!’

The Doctor shoved him out of the way, much to

Nulquemper’s alarm. He flung open the doors, not knowing

what he would find.

The Rutan and the Sontarans were sitting at the triangular

negotiating table. As there were ten Sontarans but only one

Rutan, the arrangement looked a little unbalanced. General

Sontar sat with his knees beneath the table, two advisers at

either side. The remaining five Sontarans sat in a neat row

near the back wall.

The Rutan just sat there, its underside half‐draped,

half‐perched on the chair.

To a rather frosty silence, the Doctor took his seat. They

had been sitting here like this for the last ten minutes. It was

like a playground game, staring at each other, hoping the

other child would blink first. Neither race had eyelids.

‘I am a few minutes late,’ he began. ‘I apologise.’

No response from either party, they didn’t even turn to

face him. They sat watching each other suspiciously across

the table. There were no weapons here, both sides knew

that, but they still suspected that this was a trap of some kind.

For another ten, agonising, seconds no one spoke.

‘What language are we to use?’ one of the Sontarans

growled.

‘Whichever you want to hear,’ the Doctor explained,

grateful. ‘One of the advantages of holding a conference here

on Gallifrey is that there will be no difficulties with translation.

Your races have different names for planets and units of

measurements. The planet the Sontarans call New Quentar,

the Rutans call Sisswurgplok. We classify it as Procyon. You

will always hear a name you understand, you will not be

forced to use the name coined by your enemy.’

The Rutan gurgled. ‘It is not as straightforward as that in

all cases, as our units of time are based on the rotational

period of our homeworlds and a Rutan year is three times the

length of a Sontaran year and a Gallifreyan year is different

again.’

‘Oh yes,’ the Doctor said, brightening. ‘Take the way that

Gallifrey measures an hour. In the ancient days, we used

sundials, divided up into nine periods. We called those

“hours”, after an ancient sun god. There were also nine hours

of darkness, measured by candle, or hourglass. Nine Bells is

always dawn in the morning and dusk in the evening. A very

simple system, but also very complicated. Out planet is

slightly tilted on its axis, so there is more daylight in the

summer than in winter. But whatever the time of year, the

sundial would divide the daylight period into nine hours, So

hours vary in length from forty‐five minutes in the depths of

midwinter to one hundred and ten at midsummer. At the

moment, this being towards the end of the eleventh month of

the year, each daylight hour is about fifty‐five minutes long,

each hour of the night is about one hundred and five.’

The Rutan snorted, which was a rather extraordinary sight.

‘Illogical, unscientific.’

The Doctor nodded. ‘Oh yes, especially now that we live

under the Dome, and never see the sun anyway. But that’s

still the way we do it, for the most part. Some Time Lords

operate their own systems, based on their own body clock or

the needs of their job. My point is that the phrase “one

Gallifreyan hour” is pretty meaningless at the best of times,

and would take the best part of a day to explain to

non‐Gallifreyans. But everything is translated for you. If I say

“one hour”, the Sontarans would hear it as ‘Four subLunar

cycles’ and you would hear it as “Sixty‐Three Million Beats”.

We would all understand which period of time was meant.’

‘We would expect the Time Lords of all the universal races

to understand that time is relative,’ the Rutan said.

General Sontar gave a gruff laugh. ‘It would be irony

indeed if they did not.’ Either out of etiquette, or because they

were slower on the uptake, the other Sontarans waited for

Sontar to finish before chuckling themselves. It was an odd

sound, like the revving of a motorbike engine, and not without

a hint of malice.

The Doctor smiled broadly.

The Rutan had cracked a joke and the Sontarans had

laughed. There was hope for them all yet.

Larna was dreaming, she knew that because sunlight didn’t

stream over the Capitol’s roof gardens and it wasn’t Outside

either, it wasn’t wild enough to be the place that she’d read

about. She knew she was dreaming because really she was

safe in the Doctor’s bed.

There were no paths here, no carefully laid out

flower‐beds or mazes or hedgerows. But the purple grass

was neatly manicured, and there was a bench by the side of

the pool. There was a delicate mist in the air, one that hid the

rest of the world from her, and her from the rest of the world.

But the sky was blue, cloudless, and the air was warm. She

wondered whose garden it was, and how she had got here.

She wondered what she was wearing, and noticed that she

wasn’t wearing anything at all. But there were no Time Lords

here to disapprove, only butterflies, and this was just a

dream.

Her feet were still sore from climbing so many steps.

Because she could, she stepped into the water. The pool

wasn’t quite bath‐warm. She walked further in, letting the

water lap around her toes, her thighs, her waist, her breasts,

her neck. The water began to take her weight, lift her. Lazily,

she let herself drift until she was horizontal, on her back,

facing up into the perfect sky, unable to see anything else.

Her hair had unwound, and floated around her. Her head was

far enough in the water now to cover her ears and block out

the sound of the birdsong. She closed her eyes.

For dream‐like minutes, there was just her, with the water

and the sun different kinds of warm against her skin.

And then there was something else, something fearful.

Larna could sense it closing in on her, surrounding her,

watching her, and the water was freezing cold, cramping her

limbs, making her gasp for air, locking her muscles. Her eyes

were open, but she couldn’t move. She was sinking, she

wasn’t going to drown, but the sky hanging over her was

blood‐red. The garden had grown dark, and was darkening

further. The trees and grass were trembling in the breeze.

The water had become gelid, a pane of glass was forming

between her and the air.

Her ears were immersed, this was all happening silently.

Despite that, laughter surrounded her, mocking laughter that

drowned out every other sound. Everything was at stake.

Everything.

There was urgent knocking, gloved fists against wood.

The sky had cooled to black iron, and Larna was staring

down at her own body from it. She looked calm, and seemed

to be shining because everything around her body was so

dark. Her hair and eyes were golden, and if her teeth were

ivory then her skin must have been pearl. Petal blossom blew

over her from the garden, and into the black water. She was

dead, she realised. There was a clean wound, just beneath

her left breast.

Her death didn’t alarm her, why should it? This was just a

dream, and everyone else was dead, too.

But it wasn’t a dream, and she was naked. There were few

stars, but she could see herself, feel herself, freezing over.

As she watched, she began to unravel, strands of DNA and

hair unfurling. And there was something peeling her away

until there was nothing left. It didn’t hurt, but she was dead

and so she couldn’t stop it, she couldn’t even move. Behind

her, all around her, the garden was unravelling, too. The

butterflies vanished like untying knots, the bench and grass

dissolved into strands of cotton.

She screamed.

The Magistrate flung open the door, to find the Lady Larna

tangled in the bed sheets. She was alone, screaming. Her

waist‐length hair was bedraggled. The Magistrate crossed

the room in three paces, clamped one hand over her mouth,

held her down with the other. She struggled, and she was

strong, almost managing to throw him off the narrow bed, but

finally she calmed down.

Finally, he withdrew the hand, let her sit upright.

Her eyes were wild, her chest was heaving, the pendant

hanging from her neck was leaping about like a jumping

bean. Despite that, she bowed her head. ‘Magistrate…’ she

said reverentially.

‘Never mind that,’ he snapped.

Whether it was his tone of voice or the look on his face,

she had regained her composure. ‘I had a nightmare,’ she

told him. ‘I was unravelling, just coming apart.’

‘What have you done with the Doctor?’ he asked.

She stared around, aware of her surroundings for the first

time. ‘Nothing,’ she said guiltily, far too quickly. ‘It isn’t what it looks like, we didn’t do –’

She pulled her cotton shift back into place, but still didn’t

look comfortable. ‘He was here,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t hear

him leave.’

The Magistrate shifted around, ready to stand.

Larna grabbed his arm. ‘We have to get to an Infinity

Chamber. I’d forgotten – we have to get to Chamber Epsilon.

I left a program running. I’ll explain when we get there.’

Something about her voice made him agree to the request

without thinking.

His wrist communicator bleeped. The Magistrate pulled

back his glove to uncover it.

‘This is Nulquemper. The Doctor arrived a few moments

ago. He is now –’

‘Priority over‐ride. Magistrate, this is Constable Peltroc.

There’s been a –’

‘I’m not alone, Constable. Please give me a moment.’ The

communicator went dead and the Magistrate turned to Larna.

‘I will talk to the Constable in the main room. Please join me

there, once you are dressed.’

He swept from the bedchamber, closing the door carefully

behind him.

The Doctor’s room seemed the same as always, just a

little too cluttered for the Magistrate’s liking. However many

times he came here, there would always be some new

artefact or treasure to see. He smiled. This was the first time

that he had found a woman in amongst the bric‐a‐brac, He

was unsure whether to feel elated or disappointed. Glancing

up at the portrait that hung over the fire, the answer came to

him. Larna was so young, but she was no longer the Doctor’s

student, and she was one of the few things on Gallifrey that

he was completely happy with. It was a matter for them, and

them alone.

There was no sign of Wycliff. The Magistrate checked the

cat’s box.

‘Are you alive or dead in there, puss?’ he asked the box

solemnly. There was no reply.

The guest’s chair was where it always was. The

Magistrate sat there and called Peltroc.

‘There’s been a murder, sir. A Technician.’ The agitation

was evident in the man’s voice. Death was unusual here.

‘The renegade?’

‘Could well be, your lordship. He was stabbed, and, as you

know, the masked man carried a force knife. The body’s still

here, in Infinity Chamber Epsilon. I called you before I called

anyone else.’

‘Epsilon…’ the Magistrate murmured.

There was something in the corner of his eye. Amongst

the small heap of junk – keys, coins, datacards – on the table

was a force knife. There were a couple of drops of blood on

its hilt.

‘That’s right, my Lord, Epsilon.’

The Magistrate steepled his hands. This complicated

matters. ‘How tall was the renegade, did you say?’

‘Average size, I’d say. Difficult to say what was inside the

cloak.’

‘Could it have been a woman?’ the Magistrate asked.

There was a pause. ‘No reason why not. Damn strong

one, though. Is something the matter?’

Lady Larna had come through the door. She had dressed

herself in some of the Doctor’s clothes. The Magistrate

recognised the brocade waistcoat, he wondered if she did.

Larna and the Doctor were around the same height, and so

she carried the outfit well. She was also wearing a collarless

white shirt with baggy sleeves and gabardine trousers that

she’d had to find a belt for. She had brushed out her blonde

hair, and left it loose. She was barefoot. Putting on the

Doctor’s clothes had given her some of his confidence, and

she stood poised, alert.

‘I’m ready,’ she said.

The Magistrate nodded. ‘Thank you, Constable,’ he told

his communicator. ‘Please don’t let anyone in. I will be there

shortly.’

Part Two

The End of the Universe

Chapter Five

Cause and Effect

The Doctor had turned his hand to many things over the

years, but he hadn’t the first idea how to conduct an

interstellar peace conference, he’d known that all along. He

had hoped for a degree of informality, and knew that he didn’t

want to get bogged down with procedural matters – leaving

the room after the second day, elated that they’d finally

decided what shape the negotiating table should be, but in

reality not one step closer to real achievement, or making a

real decision.

However, the first thing he did was a terrible mistake: he

asked the Sontarans and the Rutans why they had started

fighting.

The origins of The War were a genuine historical mystery,

and the subject of academic and popular debate across the

galaxy. To prepare for the Conference, the Doctor had tried

to lay his hands on as many as possible of the books on the

subject. There were thirty or forty distinct theories attempting

to account for the start of The War, and each theory

branched off in a thousand different directions. It was like

studying an evolutionary chart, seeing ideas developing,

evolving, refining themselves. Research and themes

cross‐pollinated, sparking new and frequently bizarre

explanations. It was fascinating, and the Doctor could have

written any number of monographs on the subject, but it was

absolutely no use if you wanted the answer to the question.

By hearing the reason the war started from the horses’

mouths, the Doctor wasn’t just hoping to solve an academic

puzzle, he thought it would help the two sides to settle their

differences. If they realised that it had all been a terrible

misunderstanding, the Sontarans and Rutans could shake

hands and agree to differ.

The Rutan spoke first. The War had started when a

Sontaran armada had invaded Rutan space. Eight hundred

warships had emerged from hyperspace in the Constellation

of Zyt, and systematically destroyed all evidence of Rutan

colonisation in the area, from planetary capitals to remote

deep space observatories. There had been no warning, no

attempt at diplomacy or even communication. No prisoners

had been taken, there were no survivors. When scoutships

arrived to respond to the emergency broadcasts, they found

twenty‐seven Rutan colonies in ruins, the destroyers long

gone.

The Doctor listened to every word of the Rutan, but he

watched Sontar. The ancient General’s wide mouth was

curled into what would have been a smirk on a human face.

He was leaning back, clearly enjoying every moment as his

ancient enemy was forced to recount details of a Sontaran

victory. The other Sontarans mirrored his actions, either

because of genetics or good Sontaran manners.

‘You glory in this, General,’ the Doctor stated.

The Sontaran grunted. ‘That was a good day, I was on the

flagship as we burned the Rutan from threetimes threetimes

three worlds. But the Rutan is not telling you the whole story.

We were on a mission of vengeance. Two days before, a

Rutan raiding squadron had devastated the world of

Holfactur, on the edge of the Established Space, and killed

many millions of civilians.’

‘Established Space?’ the Doctor asked.

Krax glared at the Doctor from across the wide table. ‘It is

a self‐evident fact of nature that the Sontaran Empire

spreads across the three edges of the universe, containing

galaxies and clusters of galaxies beyond number. However,

the Sontaran race has yet to establish its presence in the

whole of its domain. The area currently under the direct

control of the Sontaran race and its dominions is Established

Space, the rest of the universe is Soon‐to‐be‐Established

Space.’

‘Thank you for the clarification,’ the Doctor said.

‘There are no civilians,’ the Rutan shrieked.

The Doctor was about to ask whether it meant generally,

or amongst the Sontaran population, but the Rutan didn’t let

him get a word in edgeways.

‘This so‐called civilian planet of Holfactur was a military

training camp. We know this because the Sontarans had

deployed forces trained on Holfactur in the Purple Areas of

Rutan Space.’

‘The home of your biological warfare programme,’ Grol

snapped. ‘An area devastated, with native populations

sacrificed in your quest to create a virus that would wipe out

the Sontaran race.’

Krax was leaning forwards, hands clasping the edge of the

table as though he was about to tip it over. ‘We sent our men

in to prevent another Mancastovon.’

General Sontar stared straight at the Rutan. ‘While I sit on

my throne there will never be another Mancastovon!’

‘You are powerless to prevent it, mud‐creature!’

‘As you were powerless to prevent our victory in the Battle

of Hwyx,’ Sontar bawled. ‘One Sontaran ship wiping out ten

thousand Rutan warcasters. No wonder you shifted your

research efforts to underhand methods of combat.’

‘The Battle of Hwyx was a freak, a fluke, a luckiness.’

The Doctor clutched his head in his hands. This wasn’t

working out the way he had expected.

The Magistrate had chatted to Larna as they’d walked up to

the Infinity Chamber. He was very senior, with a reputation as

a rather forbidding, humourless figure – ‘his hearts as black

as his robes’. His job, as enforcer of laws from the Citadel

bylaws to the First Law of Time, left him no time for lecturing

at the Academy, so she barely knew him except from the

Public Record broadcasts. They talked about the Doctor.

Larna had started with a couple of discreet observations. The

Magistrate had known the Doctor all his life, and although

they’d had their differences in the past, it was clear that they

loved one another. He commended Larna on her insight.

Then he had proceeded to recount an anecdote from the

Doctor’s and his murky past, a ribald incident that had taken

place during a trip to Low Town. He and Larna had laughed,

and for the first time she realised why the Doctor and the

Magistrate were such friends.

She had walked into the Chamber – puzzled by the guard

on the door, and the Magistrate’s need to exchange

whispered words with him – and she had found herself

staring at the corpse of one of her friends.

Waym was slumped over the control console. They hadn’t

covered the body, they hadn’t even moved him or closed his

eyes. He lay in a pool of his own blood. Waym’s clothes had

self‐repaired and self‐cleaned and so the tabard didn’t bear a

single hint of the stab wound that had killed him. All around

them the Infinity Chamber was still running its programme,

panning and zooming in, zooming out and panning, over and

over. Perhaps it was that making her dizzy.

The Magistrate was hovering behind her.

‘And what exactly was it that you wanted me to see in

here?’ he asked, his voice still containing some levity. Talking

to her, joking about the Doctor, it had all been a ploy to put

her at her ease. He hoped to lull her into false security, he

hadn’t wanted to give her time to prepare. The result was that

Larna felt cut adrift, as though her mind and body were in two

places.

‘I didn’t do this,’ she said, aware that the words sounded

slightly hysterical.

‘I didn’t suggest that you had,’ the Magistrate said calmly.

‘Oh yes you did,’ Larna said, finally finding something to

latch on to, something that wasn’t Waym’s corpse.

Composure and control. She had to be rational. ‘Why hasn’t

he regenerated?’ she asked.

‘Did you think that he would when you stabbed him? It

could be construed as mitigating circumstances.’

‘I didn’t… do you really think that I am capable of such an

act?’

He smiled. ‘We are all capable. The attacker inserted the

knife through the left heart, then brought the blade through

the spinal column and the second heart. Surgically precise.

Death was instantaneous.’

All it would have needed was a thought. If Waym had

managed to think a single word before he died, he’d have

triggered the regeneration. His body would have done the

rest for him. It needn’t have been his thought. If she had been here, she could have thought it for him, inserted the keyword

telepathically. ‘Can’t the surgeons do anything?’

The Magistrate’s eyes were boring into hers, he was

almost certainly reading her thoughts. ‘No. It’s too late for

that. The murderer knew what… he or she was doing. But,

my dear, you wouldn’t have known how to do it, even if you

wanted to, would you?’

Larna turned to him, tried to convey her sincerity. ‘No. I

was here last night, he asked me to check something for

him.’

‘What time last night?’

‘Just before I went to the Doctor’s room – about the time

the aliens arrived. Savar’s program is still running.’

‘Savar?’

‘He was here when we arrived. There’s some sort of freak

effect that he and Waym noticed. Can I show you?’

The Magistrate allowed her over to the console, lifting

Waym’s body off and dumping it down on the floor. Larna

tried not to think about it, she concentrated on the console,

blanking the bloodstains from her mind.

‘Here,’ she said, pulling a couple of levers. ‘A disturbance

in spacetime that passed over Gallifrey as the fleets arrived.’

‘A fault with the system,’ the Magistrate concluded. He

used Infinity Chambers every day as part of his job, he knew

that they weren’t infallible.

‘That was what I thought. I ran a check.’ She located the

relevant display panel.

The Magistrate bent over it, confirmed that there wasn’t a

malfunction. Then he returned to the image of the universe.

‘I thought it might be interference, perhaps using the

arrival of the aliens as cover. I tried to find the Doctor to warn

him.’

‘So the Doctor knows about this?’

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t have time to tell him. He was

just about to meet the aliens. He seemed distracted.’

The Magistrate was smiling at something. ‘And didn’t you

have time afterwards, in his room?’

But there was gentleness in his words. Larna didn’t

answer, knowing that he wouldn’t press the point.

‘What’s it doing now?’ The Magistrate was more interested

in the image than her now he’d eliminated her as a suspect.

‘It’s running a program of Lord Savar’s. Trying to locate

something, by the look of it.’

The Magistrate nodded. ‘We need to establish the scale of

the interference. I need to see the Council. We also need to

find whoever killed your friend. You had better leave your

statement with Captain Raimor.’

He swept from the room, leaving Larna alone with Waym.

‘You deliberately avoided our fleet to provoke such a

response from us.’

‘And was that the reason that you detonated nuclear

weapons in the atmospheres of Halran II, Gwel and Kalla?’

Negotiations had been continuing like this for an hour or

so when the Doctor slammed his fist down on the table.

Both sides stopped dead.

‘Gentlemen,’ the Doctor said. ‘This is getting us nowhere.

It’s time to change tack.’

The Sontarans and the Rutan both turned their full

attention to him. The Rutan had withdrawn some of the

tentacles it had been flailing about, all ten of the Sontarans

sat on their haunches, nineteen eyes glowering at him.

The Doctor smiled weakly. ‘Er… we can’t change the past,

and so we shouldn’t dwell on it. If there is to be any

progress… we will have to abandon the old rivalries, and

strive towards understanding one another. If the war is to

end, we must cast aside some of the bitterness. Both sides

have seen casualties and made the most terrible sacri–’ He

stopped. The Sontarans and Rutan hadn’t moved.

‘Do you really think that a feeble string of Time Lord

clichés will end a war that has lasted since the universe was

young?’ Sontar snarled.

The Rutan had screwed itself up small, its green skin was

flecked with reds and purples. ‘Your words are as

meaningless as Sontaran defences, as empty as a Sontaran

head, rivalling only dust for worthlessness.’

‘Well,’ the Doctor said through clenched teeth. ‘At least

you agree on something.’

‘Wait,’ Stroc said. ‘You say that you cannot change the

past?’

The Doctor was glad that the subject had changed. ‘Well,

no.’

Sontar was nodding thoughtfully, a bizarre sight. ‘You are

a Time Lord. Surely you can change history?’

‘No, no,’ the Doctor grinned, ‘it doesn’t work like that. It’s

difficult to explain to non‐Time Lords. It’s something that we

know instinctively. Like asking a bird how it flies. Time runs a

set course, to a pattern. Or‐yes, this is a better analogy – like

a song. We can hear the tune, and we notice if any of the

notes are wrong.’ Get them off the subject, get them talking

about something else.

The Rutan was quivering, eager to join in. ‘How can

history not be altered? If you can travel into the past then you

must be able to affect it. You would know the gaps in your

enemy’s lines and you would have technical capabilities far in

advance of those of your enemy. Just having foreknowledge

would put you at a forewarned advantage.’

The Doctor leant back, steepling his hands. ‘That’s why

you have to be so careful.’

‘So it is possible?’ Stroc insisted, his piggy eyes even

narrower than was usual.

He had caught the Doctor off guard. ‘Er, well, yes. In

theory. But it’s far, far too dangerous. That’s why Time Lords

are sworn to protect established history.’

‘From what?’ General Krax asked. That man was always

identifying threats, finding enemies, locating targets. More

brutal than Grol, less of a tactician. Grol sat in command

centres, co‐ordinating fleets. Krax was a front‐line troop.

Speak to him in a language he understands. ‘Well, we

want to minimise disruptive influences. If, say, the Cybermen

were to destroy the Earth before the human race had

reached their full potential, then the consequences to

universal history would be catastrophic.’

‘So you take sides!’ the Rutan gurgled. ‘We are but aphids

in your garden? Time is a weapon! How is your Established

History really that different from the arrogant, misguided

Sontaran assertion that they have Established Space?’

‘Long ago,’ began the Doctor, ‘a generation or so after

Rassilon, around the time that your War was hitting its stride,

there were those that thought as you did. They tried to use

Time to destroy and subdue their enemies. For thirty

thousand years, on a thousand planets, we fought the Time

Wars. The devastation would have destroyed the universe

had it not been for the intervention of certain higher powers.

Since that time, Time has been stabilised. It is impossible to

change Gallifrey’s past, or to know its future. That is the price

that we must pay as its guardians.’

‘But you know the future,’ Stroc said. He was the most

thoughtful Sontaran here, although there wasn’t exactly much

in the way of competition. ‘You can monitor our future. You

can observe the universe, this Conference is history from

your perspective. Are you telling us that you know its

outcome?’

‘No. We have selected you from a point in time about

which little is known.’

‘Little is known by the Time Lords,’ said Sontar slowly.

‘Again we dance to the Time Lord’s agenda.’

‘No!’

‘You can alter history,’ the Rutan stated curtly. ‘You say it

is difficult to explain, we say it is difficult to justify. You have a version of history that is beneficial to your race, and you

prevent all other outcomes with your knowledge of what is to

come. You alter history.’ They were directing their fire at him,

not at each other.

‘Yes if necessary. As you know. In the past, we Time

Lords have used our powers to remove forces from the

universe that threatened all life. The –’

‘Are the Sontarans and the Rutan now such a threat that

this is why the Time Lords show sudden interest in our

military‐political situation?’

‘No, no. That’s not what I meant at all.’

‘There is a way to end this war,’ Sontar said.

‘Yes?’ said the Doctor quietly.

Sontar clenched his fist, waved it at the Rutan. ‘Wipe it

out. Prevent it from ever evolving, It is a parasite, a creature

of nothing. This war has lasted millions of years and the

Sontarans have lost so much. The Rutan is an obscenity

against nature, a half‐formed thing that looks like biological

waste products, not a life‐form.’

The Sontaran leader slumped back in his seat, perhaps

realising that he had overstepped the mark. When he looked

up again, it was straight at the Doctor. Sontar’s eyes were

red‐rimmed, but beneath the folds of skin and the bloodshot,

they looked like Time Lord eyes. Tired Gallifreyan eyes that

had seen no peace for geological ages, that could never be

allowed the luxury of sleep.

‘I remember how it was before The War,’ Sontar said

wearily. ‘There was fighting then, the suppression of local

populations, even wars between rival urSontatan factions.

But there was more than war.’ Sontar paused. ‘I remember a

hunting trip in the forests of Sontara with a patty of friends. All

those different faces. I remember women, and childhood,

growing up, sex, ambition, feasts, old age, laughter. This

Rutan creature has known none of that. But neither have my

men. We have lost so much, and if the Rutan win, then all of

that will be lost forever.’

The great Sontaran sighed, or growled, the Doctor couldn’t

be sure which. ‘Erase them from the universe.’

The Doctor couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘No, you must

come to an agreement.’

‘But you could do it?’ Sontar grunted.

‘The technologies and abilities of the Time Lords are

without limit, not even we fully understand the powers at our

command. The capability exists to wipe out both the

Sontarans and the Rutans at the touch of a single button. I

will not do so. I want the universe to benefit from your

existence, not your destruction.’

‘I have a counteroffer,’ the Rutan announced. ‘An alliance

between the Rutan and the Gallifreyan Time Lords. We will

restore order to the universe, we shall unify the universe

outside for you, pacify it. We shall be your army. We shall

swear allegiance to your race for all eternity in return for the

annihilation of the Sontaran hordes.’

The shrill words hung in the air for a moment or two.

‘You have nothing to offer Gallifrey, nothing that we

couldn’t take from you anyway. But that is not our way. I am

not here to choose between you. I am here to help you to

talk, to find grounds for co‐operation. General Sontar, you

say you want to end the war, and I believe you. So end it.

Rutan, you want to be a force for good, a galactic policeman.

You do that. It is as easy as that.’

‘No. The Sontaran plans to escalate this conflict, kill the

galaxy rather than admit defeat.’

‘You are sitting at a conference table, here to discuss

peace. You have heard Sontar’s words. Whatever makes you

think that the Sontatans want to escalate the war?’

The Rutan formed a throat and cleared it.

There were very few in the Capitol who looked younger than

Larna, but Captain Raimor was one of them. His helmet

almost came over his eyes. His voice had barely broken. He

and his cohort, a constable called Peltroc, had led her to a

nearby alcove to question her.

There was only one chair, and they offered it to her. They

stood over her, maladroitly, apparently unsure how to

proceed. After a minute or so, the Captain clumsily unclipped

a headset from his belt and handed it to her. Larna handed it

straight back.

‘It is your right, my Lady, of course,’ Raimor began in a

voice that was meant to be worldly‐wise, but merely sounded

braying, ‘but could I ask why you refuse to let us use the

mind probe? It would quickly establish your innocence.’

Because my mind is a private place, Larna thought,

because it doesn’t just have my own secrets in there any

more.

‘I have my reasons,’ she said coldly.

Raimor pulled out an old‐fashioned computer notepad and

stylus. ‘You were the last person seen with the murdered

man.’

‘May I remind you that I am a witness, Captain, not a

suspect.’

‘I’m sure the evidence will speak for itself,’ Raimor told her

pompously.

The other one, Peltroc, spoke. ‘According to your

housemaid, Technician Waymivrudimqwe visited you

yesterday evening.’

‘That is correct. He had been using the Infinity Chamber,

and sought my advice about a problem he had encountered.’

Peltroc, the junior one, didn’t really know where to look

when he asked her a question. ‘Unusual that, a Technician

visiting a Time Lord.’

‘We were in the same class at the Academy. I have only

just graduated. We were friends.’.

Raimor bent over her, put his face in from of her own.

‘More than friends? Lovers?’ he asked, breathing over her.

She and Waym hadn’t been lovers, she had never even

considered it, but she wouldn’t give this Captain any answer

to such an impertinent question. The general population of

the Capitol loved to hear stories of hypocrisy and decadence

amongst the Time Lords. They liked to think that for all their

principles and powers, that their betters were just like them:

obsessed with their baser desires.

‘That is no concern of yours,’ she told him. It was hard to

take the smooth‐faced boy’s threats seriously. Whatever the

case, as a noblewoman she outranked him, whatever he

thought of her. Raimor had got the message. He pulled back.

Larna was unsure what jurisdiction the Watch had over

Time Lords. She had a feeling that any formal enquiry about

something as important as this should have to be conducted

by a tribunal of her peers, not merely the nearest couple of

guards.

‘What time was this?’

‘I arrived back at my room at around eight and had a

shower. Waym arrived shortly afterwards.’

‘So you went up to the Chamber with him?’

‘Yes.’.

Raimor checked his notes carefully. ‘And he was still alive

at this point?’

‘Evidently.’

‘Any witnesses?’

‘My housekeeper.’

‘And witnesses after you left your room?’

‘My room is only one floor below us here, a couple of

minutes away.’

‘So, no witnesses.’ Raimor noted that down on his pad, his

manner suggesting that he’d just won some crucial point.

‘Wait… yes, we saw the Doctor just as we left.’

Raimor and Peltroc looked at each other.

‘In chambers, gone Eight Bells?’ Peltroc asked.

‘Yes. He was in a hurry.’

‘Were you?’

‘We didn’t have to be. I just told you: it is only a couple of

minutes from my door to Epsilon.’

‘Constable Peltroc here was kidnapped the night before

last, held against his will.’

‘Such a crime is unknown here!’ Larna was genuinely

shocked. What was happening here? Murder and kidnap

were things that happened in stories, not in the ordered world

of the modem Capitol. ‘You think that it was the same man

that killed Waym?’

‘The same person, yes,’ Raimor said levelly. ‘Naturally,

you’ll do anything you can to apprehend this criminal.’

Larna shrugged. ‘If there is anything I can do.’

‘Would you mind putting this on?’ Raimor asked. He

offered her a tiny black dot.

Larna took it from Raimor. ‘What is it?’ she asked,

suspecting it to be some lie detector.

‘A voice distorter, like the one that Constable Peltroc’s

kidnapper wore.’

‘How do I wear this?’ she asked.

‘Top lip,’ Peltroc prompted.

Raimor scowled at him. Larna suddenly realised what was

happening. If she had known how to use a voice distorter,

that would be evidence against her. ‘You think that I’m the kidnapper?’

Peltroc grabbed her wrist, Raimor helped to force her hand

up to her face.

‘It’s for the best. Don’t struggle and you won’t get hurt.’

‘Get your hands off me!’ Larna pulled her wrist down

between Peltroc’s thumb and forefinger, lurching back and

away from the guards. The two men almost fell over each

other.

‘You’re stronger than you look,’ Peltroc observed, nursing

his wrist.

‘I am a Time Lord, Captain Raimor, don’t forget that. Now,

watch.’ She placed the black dot on her fingertip and pressed

it to her face. It must have looked like a beauty spot. ‘What

would you like me to say?’ she asked. A calm, male, voice

said the words.

‘She’s him!’ Peltroc blurted. ‘It’s the voice.’

Larna tore the voice distorter off and flung it over at the

Constable. ‘It’s a voice distorter, you idiot,’ she shouted. ‘It

distorts voices. The whole point is that it makes me sound

like him. You wear it. Go on, put the damn thing on yourself.

You will sound exactly the same.’

Raimor sneered. ‘Is that your best defence? That Peltroc

kidnapped himself?’

‘I’m sure you could find the evidence to prove it,’ she

informed him. ‘After all, he was at the scene of the crime.’

She turned to Peltroc, who was still cringing from her. ‘You

saw your kidnapper, I presume. So you saw her face.’

‘My attacker wore a face mask and cloak,’ he stammered.

‘As well you know,’ Raimor added.

Larna ignored him. ‘A mask, a cloak and a voice distorter?

So what makes you think it was me? What makes you even

think that it was a woman?’

Raimor held up a metal tube. ‘The Magistrate found this

force knife in the Doctor’s room. You were in the room at the

time.’ The captain was careful to keep his tone of voice

neutral, but just as careful to imply that she and the Doctor

had been colluding in some way.

‘I didn’t put it there,’ Larna told them.

‘Your fingerprints are all over it,’ Raimor noted, passing the

knife over. ‘And you’ve never seen this before.’

‘I was in the Doctor’s room, I never denied that. I saw the

knife there.’

‘You did more than see it.’

‘I touched it.’ She held out her thumb, which still bore the

scar. ‘I pricked my finger on the blasted thing.’

‘That’s your thumb,’ Raimor said, his face twitching with

the excitement that he’d discovered an inconsistency,

however small, in her story.

Larna rolled her eyes. ‘I didn’t take that knife into the

Doctor’s room, it was there when I arrived. I left it on the

table.’

‘Ah,’ said Peltroc triumphantly. ‘That’s where you’re wrong.

We put that knife there.’

‘What?’

‘We went to the Doctor’s room the night before last, just

before I was kidnapped.’

‘The night before last?’ Larna repeated quietly.

‘Yes.’

‘So the knife was placed there just before you were

kidnapped and a full day before Waym was killed? It was still there this morning, afterwards.’

‘Er… yes,’ Raimor said, after a moment or so trying to

work it out on his fingers.

‘Can I go now?’ she asked.

‘Maybe it’s the same knife, twice over,’ Peltroc said

suddenly.

Raimor and Larna broke off to look at him.

‘Time and space are elephantly inflated,’ Peltroc informed

them knowledgeably. ‘That’s what the Doctor says.

Remember, Raimor, all that business with the watches.’

Larna stood. ‘I’m leaving,’ she announced. She was

halfway down the corridor before she realised that she still

had the knife in her hand.

The Rutan could barely contain its anger, excitement and

glee. It quivered, colour changes flashing across its skin. Its

voice was surprisingly level in comparison. ‘We have many

spies within the Sontaran ranks, know that our enemy are

developing the most terrible weapons, and that the Sontaran

race is not a race dedicated to peace.’

‘What sort of weapons?’ the Doctor asked calmly.

‘The Sontarans have developed a device, a device that

infects a star with a self‐replicating form of dark matter, a

device the purpose of which is clear to all.’

The Doctor was horrified. ‘Baxterium?’ he whispered,

turning to General Sontar. ‘The only purpose of a

baxteriological device is to kill a star by inhibiting the fusion

processes at its heart.’

The Rutan held some sort of computerised report in its

tentacle, presumably all the evidence.

General Sontar licked the edges of his lipless mouth. ‘The

process is irreversible, a disease with no cure.’

The Doctor was trying to work out the implications of such

a weapon. Photons are manufactured in the cores of stars,

and because they are light, they travel at the speed of light.

But they don’t pass straight out, they claw and zigzag and

spiral their way up the gravity well and they do it forever. The

journey from the surface of the sun to the surface of Gallifrey

took eight minutes; the photon’s journey from the core of the

sun to the surface took six hundred billion times longer. The

light hitting Gallifrey was as old as civilisation on the planet.

‘Without the right preparation it would take ten million

years at least to snuff out a star.’

‘It is a strategic weapon, not for battlefield use,’ Sontar

conceded.

‘Hear the voice of the Sontaran warmonger!’ the Rutan

cried shrilly. ‘This is not a creature of peace! This

flesh‐creature plans to double the warspan, not to end it!’

The Doctor let the monologue die down. ‘I’m afraid I rather

agree with the Rutan. You seem ready to fight for millions of

years more.’

The old Sontaran snorted and twisted himself to address

one of his subordinates. ‘Show him the case,’ he ordered.

General Grol opened up the metal box, pushing it across the

negotiating table until it came to a halt in front of the Rutan.

With a hiss of hydraulics, the case opened itself.

‘Unlike the peaceful Rutans, we don’t have cowards

whose job it is to skulk amongst the ranks of the enemy,’

Stroc said. ‘We collect our intelligence the honourable way.

One of our most brave agents found this at a Rutan research

facility, and – after an heroic and inspiring escape – brought it

to Sontar. Its true purpose is so foul that it took our scientists

a year to comprehend it.’

‘You recognise the device?’ Sontar grunted.

The Rutan was a neutral shade of green. ‘It is called a

Converter and is used to swap electrons for positrons, used

to reverse certain other of the fundamental interactions,

within a precisely designated area, used as a scientific

instrument. The Converter is based on metamorphic

technology, technology beyond the understanding of

creatures made from replicated meat, and many scientists

were killed by the Sontaran butcher‐trespasser‐thief that stole

it from us.’

‘Gentlemen, if we could keep it civil.’ The Doctor held up

the metal cylinder, examining it. It was the size of a flask with

a far‐too intricate control mechanism at one end. ‘General

Sontar, it’s a scientific instrument. A particle accelerator of

some kind, by the sound of it.’

Sontar grunted, letting Stroc answer. ‘It is used to create

anti‐matter. You will note that this device has a Rutan timing

mechanism and is set to influence a sphere one thousand

miles in diameter. All matter within that area becomes

anti‐matter within a second. That anti‐matter then annihilates

matter over a much greater area. This device could destroy

Gallifrey, its moon and the two fleets. It is capable of

seriously harming a star. Our own star‐killer technology was

developed as a direct result of this provocation, and is

primitive compared to our enemy’s.’

‘You concede your inferiority, yet only a Sontaran, with a

heart made of war, could think of such an application for a

scientific tool,’ the Rutan objected.

The Doctor realised that he was holding the device a little

more gingerly than before. ‘You will admit that it can be used

for such a purpose.’

‘That much is obvious.’

Sontar leant back in his chair. ‘Doctor, if you were to

monitor the star system of Huwyma, three months ago, you

will see the “scientific applications” this Converter is put to by

the Rutans. Huwyma was a Sontaran colony, now it has been

completely destroyed in an anti‐matter annihilation.’

The Doctor prompted the desk and a holographic image of

the planet faded up over the tabletop. It was as if someone

had taken a bite out of the world. Lava was still pouring out

from the vast, fresh crater, but the seas had long hissed

away, and surely every living thing on the planet must have

been dead before that happened. The surface was charcoal,

the atmosphere layer upon layer of soot, ash, steam and

tektites.

‘Huwyma is a Rutan world, conquered by the foul

Sontarans, who used it to create primitive neutron weapons.’

The Doctor looked levelly at the Rutan. ‘That’s not the

issue here. Was a Converter used to destroy the colony?’

Krax stood, grasping the edge of the table. ‘Use your eyes,

Time Lord! That is the Rutan Converter operating at a mere

ten percent of its potential yield.’

The Doctor stayed seated. ‘Sit down!’ he snarled.

Krax found himself sitting.

‘Was a Converter used to destroy the colony?’ he asked

again.

‘It was,’ the Rutan stated.

The Doctor took a deep breath. ‘I thought we were here to

talk of peace, of ending the war. Instead I discover that you

are both trying to escalate the conflict. I am very

disappointed.’

He pressed a button on his desk. Both sides became

agitated.

‘I’m summoning the Watch. They will escort you back to

your quarters. We have said enough for one day. Tomorrow,

I hope… you know what I hope.’

The Doctor left the room.

As the Magistrate bowed his head, the rest of the Supreme

Councillors watched him, a little suspiciously. They had been

about their business when he had summoned them to

Temporal Monitoring, he could tell that by what they were

wearing. The President, Norval and the Keeper of the Matrix

all wore ceremonial robes, so they had been about some

official matter. There were a couple in the stark black and

white duty robes – they had probably already been here in

Temporal Monitoring, or hereabouts. A couple were still in

dayclothes. They were all milling around the antechamber to

the Monitoring Hall – hadn’t any of them the wit to go in?

‘Why have you have called us, Magistrate?’ Castellan

Voran asked. He was one of those in a simple starched toga.

He had probably been in his rooms, reading, when his

message had come through.

‘I have an important announcement,’ Hedin declared.

The Magistrate’s eyes narrowed. This was not a time for

distractions. ‘Lord Hedin, if it could wait –’

Hedin ignored him. ‘After nearly four centuries’ work, my

biography of Omega is complete.’

There was a polite round of applause.

The President stepped forwards, patted him on the

shoulder. ‘Congratulations, Lord Hedin. I have proofread the

book. I feel that it is the very last word on its subject. As you

know I have more than a passing interest myself and –’

‘Lord President,’ the Magistrate interrupted. ‘There have

been a number of incidents in the last day.’

‘Incidents?’ a couple of the monks murmured.

‘Are they to do with the aliens?’ Norval mused.

‘Or the Doctor? Is that why he isn’t here?’ Castellan Voran

wondered hopefully.

The Magistrate finally had their attention. ‘I have no reason

to believe that it has anything to do with the aliens. The

Doctor is currently chairing the Conference, and there is no

need to interrupt his important work there. If I may make my

report.’

He stepped through the door that led to Temporal

Monitoring. A dozen Technicians and Junior Grade Time

Lords sat in their high‐backed chairs, monitoring energy

levels, scanning the Time Vortex. The Magistrate crossed the

roundelled floor, keeping to the left of the room to allow the

rest of the Councillors to see the infinity chamber, like a vast

arena sunk into the floor. A holographic image of the

universe. Everyone here would recognise the familiar fractal

shape, rotating imperceptibly slowly.

He folded his hands behind his back, and began to speak

before everyone had quite finished getting into their places.

‘During routine work yesterday, Technician First Class

Waymivrudimqwe observed anomalous behaviour within the

Infinity Chamber.’

He nodded to the Duty Technician. None of the staff here

knew about Waym’s death yet, there was no need for them to

be distracted by the knowledge. The young lad who had

found the body had been sent back to his dorm for the day.

The picture zoomed in on Pazithi Gallifreya, it showed them

the fleet and the distortion of the image.

It zoomed in again, and the flaw became more obvious.

A zoom to the molecular level, and the disturbance looked

catastrophic.

Everyone in the room understood the importance of it, no

one had ever seen anything like it before. They huddled

around their nearest control panels.

The President stood in the middle of the room, resting his

hands on his walking stick. ‘It’s a breach in spacetime.’

The image zoomed out again, to show the whole of

Gallifrey’s galactic sector. The time reference at the bottom of

the picture showed that these were live pictures. There was a

line of distortion, moving slowly bluewards, away from the

direction of universal expansion. It was a filament crack that

bisected spacetime, moving through it like a cheesewire. It

had at least eleven dimensions, meaning that it was travelling

through time as well as space, not to mention in a number of

directions that didn’t have common names.

‘It appears to be spreading. How fast?’

The Keeper of the Matrix looked up from his display. ‘It

would be able to cross the universe within a matter of weeks.’

Not as fast as a TARDIS, then, the Magistrate thought, but an

incomprehensible velocity by any other standard, so many

more times faster than the speed of light that the calculation

was meaningless.

‘Can we see the ends of the phenomenon?’ one of the

Councillors asked.

The scale increased to galactic level, the line still started

above the top of the picture and ended below it. Another

zoom out revealed that the line bisected the entire Local

Group of galaxies. It took another twelve zooms before they

had established that the effect was longer than the universe

was wide.

The Time Lords watched the image, but couldn’t believe it.

To a man, they had broken away from their own screens to

stare at the main display, ignoring the protocols of where they

should be standing.

‘It is the largest phenomenon ever observed,’ the Keeper

of the Matrix told them, after consultation.

The assembled Time Lords began babbling amongst

themselves. The Magistrate scowled. There needed to be

some order here, clarity of purpose, not the usual bickering.

He looked over to the President, whose job it was to impose

such order, but he was staring up at the screen, deep in

thought. The President was the master of a dozen

disciplines, including astronomy, temporal physics and

history, but decisive leadership was not one of them.

The Magistrate was about to say something when the

President spoke.

‘Is there curvature?’ he asked.

The other Time Lords fell silent and turned to the screen.

At this scale, the curve in the effect was noticeable.

‘Any curve when viewed from close up enough looks like a

perfectly straight line,’ the President reminded them. ‘Take a

step back and it’s clear that the effect is an arc. Take enough

steps back and it may even be a circle, with a centre.’

‘Like a ripple in a pond,’ the Magistrate said.

The President grasped the Magistrate’s arm. ‘Indeed. But

where’s the centre, hmm? What sort of pebble could possibly

do that to the entire universe?’

‘Show me Hindmost,’ the Magistrate ordered.

The scale increased again, and again, and again.

Viewed in its entirety, the universe was a beautiful fractal

form. But the same laws that gave it that precisely chaotic

shape also smudged its edges Traces and wisps of matter

and energy could be found beyond the mathematical

boundaries of the cosmos. Hindmost was the most distant

significant piece of baryonic matter known to Time Lords.

Space and time had been formed from the Big Bang, and the

universe was still expanding out from that central point.

Hindmost was a clump of matter that a fluke of physics had

left trailing behind the rest of the universe. That meant that it

was the back marker of the expanding universe, for ever

plunging forwards with the rest of the cosmos but destined

never to catch up. Behind it was nothing. Hindmost was a tiny

planetoid, barely big enough for a man to stand on. Not that

anyone had ever been there. Only the Time Lords had the

ability to detect it, and they could think of no reason to visit.

Apart from its location, Hindmost was unremarkable and it

was so far away that a TARDIS would have to be specifically

re‐engineered for the journey.

A red dot marked the position of the asteroid in relation to

the universe. Viewed from this distance, it was clear that the

line of distortion was curved, but even at this scale, there was

probably only a twentieth of the radius visible.

It was impossibly large. The pebble that had cast this

ripple was further away than was physically possible.

Larna wasn’t quite crying.

She was sitting on her own, right in the middle of the

deserted refectory. She was hunching up, but at the same

time desperately trying to keep her back straight. The Doctor

made his way towards her, through the rows and rows of

empty benches and trestle tables…

‘I never knew you had such a sense of style,’ he beamed

approvingly when he saw what she was wearing. ‘Did you

sleep well?’ He placed his tray on the table, and sat opposite

her. Larna’s bowl of suet was untouched, she hadn’t so much

as picked up her goblet of wine. More worrying, she was

toying with a force knife exactly like the one Raimor and

Peltroc had shown him a couple of nights ago.

‘Waym’s dead,’ she told him, almost choking on the words.

The Doctor stared at her for a moment, finding it difficult to

believe. Waym was a promising Technician, one of Wratfac’s

pupils. Larna had been with him yesterday evening, he

remembered. They’d all bumped into each other outside her

room.

She looked up. ‘I’m sorry, this isn’t the done thing. I

shouldn’t be crying in public.’

Larna thought he was horrified with her, the Doctor

realised, not at the death of her friend. Her face was so pale.

He looked around. Table after table, bench after bench

were empty. There were a handful of kitchen staff around the

edge of the room, rearranging cutlery and platewarmers, but

no Time Lords. ‘This is hardly public.’

‘Where is everyone?’ Larna wondered.

The Doctor took her hand. ‘How did it happen?’ he asked.

She looked up at him. As he had thought, sharing the

news was making it easier to cope with. ‘Stabbed, last night

while he was working in Infinity Chamber Epsilon. I was the

last person to see him alive. They thought I did it…’ her voice

trailed off. She realised that she was brandishing the knife,

and handed over to the Doctor, who pocketed it.

‘Who thought that?’ the Doctor asked.

‘A couple of the Watch. They’ve been trying to get a

confession out of me all day. In the end they had to let me

go.’

The Doctor nodded.

Larna fell silent again, looked down at her plate.

The Doctor leant forward. ‘The death of a loved one is –’

‘I didn’t love him,’ she said quickly. ‘I liked him, he was a friend.’

‘That’s all I meant,’ the Doctor said.

She was watching him. ‘You’ve been through this before,

haven’t you?’ she asked.

The Doctor let the memories wash over him. ‘Many times.’

Larna was still watching him carefully. ‘If you could change

the past, would you bring her back?’

‘You can’t change the past,’ he said automatically.

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘I’ve found that it’s better to look to the future than live in

the past.’ He paused, a feeling of elation sweeping over him.

‘Of course!’ he was on his feet, grabbing Larna, kissing her

forehead. ‘I have to get back to the Sontarans and the

Rutan.’ He was halfway across the refectory before he’d

finished the sentence. ‘I’ll see you later.’

A small army of Time Lord scientists and specialists jostled

for places around their monitor screens, scrutinising the data

they had collected. And as they checked and rechecked their

observations, they had discovered that the breach was

widening, propagating across almost half the known

universe, spreading ever outwards. It was as if the universe

was a sheet of ice, and this was a crack developing in it,

spreading, branching out, growing wider.

‘Is it as dangerous as it looks?’ the Castellan asked finally.

As an administrator rather than a scientist, he was standing a

little way back from the monitors.

The Magistrate broke away from the pack to face him.

‘That, of course, is the question. There were no effects

whatsoever when the breach passed through Gallifrey last

night, not even at the subatomic level.’

‘No effect?’ Voran echoed.

Lord Norval joined them. ‘It is rather the opposite. It is as if

it has picked up every single particle, looked at it and then

put it carefully back where it was found.’

The President was watching over them all. ‘Can we be

sure that history hasn’t changed?’

‘Yes.’ The Magistrate indicated the image of the universe

on the main viewer. ‘The effect has passed through roughly

half of the known cosmos. So, this half of the universe has

yet to be affected – it is the “before”, if you like. We are in this half, the “after”. Both are identical.’

Norval shook his head. ‘They can’t be completely identical.

There will have been changes at the quantum level, and that

must have had some effect at the macro scale.’

The Magistrate scowled. ‘Of course. I meant no significant

change, obviously.’

‘But the potential is there for catastrophic change?’ the

President asked.

Lord Norval was gazing at the image of the universe. ‘If

the effect could be controlled, then literally everything in the

universe could be manipulated. Judging by the shape and

nature of the effect, this alteration could be retroactive.’

‘It has the power to change established time?’

‘Nothing can change the established past,’ the Keeper of

the Matrix insisted. ‘Our entire science, all our knowledge, is

based on that one principle. History cannot change.’

The Magistrate sighed. ‘My Lord President, this breach is

so large, so powerful, that the most surprising thing about it is

that the past hasn’t already been affected.’

‘Gallifrey is under threat?’ a monk muttered.

The Magistrate nodded. ‘It is like a fire or a cancer,

spreading unchecked through the structure of the universe.’

The President rubbed his beard. ‘Can we stop it?’

Lord Hedin nodded. ‘Whatever it is, once we identify the

source and understand the processes at its heart, it should

be possible to seal it off. It will require intervention on our

part.’

Norval was busy calculating something. ‘Better than that,

we might be able to harness the power in some way.’

The Magistrate raised an eyebrow. ‘Take control of it?’

Norval nodded. ‘Oh yes. No reason why we couldn’t. You

say it’s like a fire – well, our ancestors found fire rather useful

once they understood it. Something like this that can make

quantum observations without affecting what is being

observed. It’s pretty close to an Agathon Engine, a holy grail

of Gallifreyan science. It would allow us to observe both

position and velocity of quantum particles.’

Voran scowled. ‘So what?’

‘If we could do that, Castellan, then with our time travel

technology it would allow complete observation of the

universe at the quantum level. We’d know everything. Until

now, no one has been able to solve the Agathon Equations

that would allow this, although strictly speaking such a

solution is not ruled out by Time Theory.’

The Magistrate tried to remain calm. ‘If the breach can be

controlled in that way…’

‘Oh, controlling the source would be relatively easy,’

Norval said. ‘The controller would need to be sentient, but

that’s all. A sentience in control of the observer effect on a

universal level. A fascinating thought experiment. They’d be

omniscient. Come to think of it, they’d be omnipotent, too.

Whatever they observed would exist – the universe would

literally bend to their will.’

The Magistrate almost choked. ‘A thought experiment?

Whoever harnesses the Effect will control the universe, and

there will be no way of defending ourselves from them.’

Norval nodded. ‘In theory,’ he agreed, before returning to

his monitor.

‘Fellow Time Lords, this is the greatest threat to

Gallifreyan security that we have ever encountered,’ the

Magistrate insisted.

The President smiled. ‘In theory, Magistrate. But there is

no evidence that the Effect is under anyone’s control, yet.’

Could they not see?

The Magistrate’s eyes narrowed. ‘It is only a matter of

time. The answer is simple: we must locate the source of the

Effect, we must travel there and prevent access to it.’

‘Can we do so?’

. ‘We must,’ the Magistrate told them. ‘Until we do, the

entire universe is under threat, Gallifrey included. Nothing is

safe.’

Chapter Six

Grey Universe

The Castellan’s office was spartan, all arches and airy light.

Unusually for the Citadel, the room had a window, looking

down over the Panopticon.

It was a large room, but needn’t have been. Business was

conducted in the three‐sided alcove at the far end. The

Doctor crossed the marble floor, his footsteps echoing guiltily

around.

‘Anyone home?’ he called, trying not to say it too loud in

case there was. Unusually, none of Castellan Voran’s

assistants had been in the outer offices either. Perhaps it was

their tea‐break.

The control panel he needed was hidden somewhere in

the room, probably at the far end. The Castellan’s chair was

a ludicrous high‐backed plastic construction. The Doctor did

a quick search, but couldn’t find any concealed panels. The

desk, an immense ebony slab, was now the prime suspect.

One side was piled high with papers, dockets and plastic

sheets. The other was empty, apart from a sculpture that

resembled a molecular model – coloured resin balls linked by

white struts.

The chair was half‐facing the only painting in the room, a

sepia portrait of Castellan Fordfarding, an old man with a

high forehead, an aquiline nose and thin white hair. He had

lived around the time of Rassilon, and was still seen as the

greatest holder of the office of Castellan, mainly because of

his obduracy and complete lack of imagination. The Doctor

made a quick examination of the picture, and found slight

pixellation where the painting met the frame. The portrait

concealed a scanner screen, one that the current Castellan

sat at his desk and studied. So the controls should be on the

desk.

It would be easy for anyone to prove he had been here.

He was leaving skin cells, fingerprints, strands of hair,

telepathic traces – everything you’d need to identify him but

his calling card. The key to this, the Doctor mused as he

headed back to the desk, was not to tip anyone off that he

had been here. If no one asks the question, then they

wouldn’t find the answer. So, he needed to be quick, and he

had to be careful not to do anything to arouse any suspicion.

The molecular model was bothering him. It was the only

dash of colour in the room.

On a hunch, the Doctor plucked off the top ball, the orange

one. The entire model collapsed, showering bits all over the

surface of the desk. The balls began rolling away, bouncing

off the desk, leaving the little struts lying in a heap.

The Doctor was left holding the orange ball between his

finger and thumb, and feeling rather foolish. Now it was in his

hand he recognised it as an encoded key – if he held this up

to the right son of reader, then the Chancellery Watch would

receive the signal to go to Orange Alert, This would happen if

an unauthorised intruder entered an area he shouldn’t have.

Say, for example, that they discovered someone in the

Castellan’s office, tampering with sensitive security

equipment.

The Doctor quickly collected up all the balls he could find

and slotted them back together with the struts. Once he

finished, he looked at his handiwork. There was something

wrong with it, the shape was somewhat irregular. The Doctor

realised he was still holding the orange ball, and so a strut

must have been missing. Gingerly; he pocketed the orange

ball and left the display well alone…

He sat down on the Castellan’s chair, the servos adjusting

for his weight and height before he could stop them. He

looked over to the portrait again.

The control panel for the scanner must be on the desk

somewhere. He ran his fingers along, trying to feel for the

seam. After a few seconds he gave up and pulled out the

sonic screwdriver. A quick squirt from that, and a section of

the desk paned and a retinal scanner flipped out.

With its pantograph and pivots it looked like a shaving

mirror. It began extending, swivelling itself, looking for

something. The Doctor leant forward, letting it find his face.

The round lens duly located itself over his right eye. The

Doctor screwed up his left eye and stared into the blue light.

This was an eyeboard, a control panel that automatically ran

a security check every time you gave a command by

checking your retina print. Like a keyboard that scanned your

fingerprints. There was a knack to fooling these things, and

the Doctor had it. He stared deep into the scanner, tried to

focus on something in the morass of faint blue. And then

there was the illusion of movement, his eye trying to tell him

that he was zooming forwards. Instinctively he grabbed the

arms of the chair. Information was squirting straight down his

optic nerve to his brain, and it wasn’t a very pleasant

sensation. He blinked, activating a new subset of options. He

blinked again. He started humming to himself. It started out

as a Gounod aria, but soon drifted off into Lennon.

There was a click, and he heard the keyboard plopping out

of the surface of the desk. He broke away from the retinal

scanner to check, then returned, squinting at the scanner

until the keyboard morphed, changed to a configuration the

Doctor was happier with. One final correction to the layout of

the keys and the Doctor was ready. He dismissed the eye

board, which slid back into the depths of the desk, and

tapped at a couple of the keys.

The picture of Castellan Fordfarding vanished, replaced by

a series of menus and status displays. The Doctor hesitated

over the keyboard for a moment before punching in a short

code sequence. A number of the menu entries erased

themselves, a couple of the status displays switched places.

Transferring a handful of command functions and over‐rides

took a couple more seconds.

The door at the far end of the room swung open.

It would be a few seconds before the new arrival found

him. The Doctor’s work was done. He typed one last

instruction and the keyboard reset to its default configuration

before slipping back into the desk. The images on the

scanner faded out, the picture of Fordfarding reappearing in

their place.

The Doctor leant back in the chair, his hands behind his

head, to welcome the new arrival.

It was Castellan Voran, the Magistrate close behind him.

‘I took that promotion I was offered,’ the Doctor joked.

The Castellan didn’t smile. ‘Is the Conference over?’

‘For the day,’ the Doctor said warily. ‘I was looking for you,

but you weren’t around. What’s going on?’

‘We have a problem,’ the Magistrate told him, folding his

arms.

‘A big one?’

The Magistrate smiled. ‘Oh yes.’

The Castellan squeezed around the Doctor, bent over the

desk, let the eyeboard emerge. He frowned at the displays.

The Doctor smiled at him, trying to look casual.

The scanner activated, showing an image of the universe.

‘Nice trick,’ the Doctor observed. I’ll have to get one of

those pictures for my room.’

Castellan Voran tutted. The Magistrate nodded towards

the screen. ‘Look closely.’

The Doctor peered at the picture, unsure what he was

looking for. ‘Is that a flaw in spacetime?’ he asked finally.

The Castellan didn’t speak, he simply readjusted the angle

of the viewer.

The Doctor watched a succession of images, all telling him

the same thing.

‘Have you tracked the source of the disturbance?’ he

asked.

‘No,’ said Voran.

The Magistrate was more forthcoming. ‘Whatever the

Effect is, it is well beyond the boundaries of the universe. We

need to locate the source to repair the Effect, seal it off from

the rest of time.’

Finally, the picture showed them the entire universe from

some ‘distance’. The Effect was a curved line.

‘You think that the Effect is a circle, with the source at the

centre.’ A statement, not a question.

‘Yes,’ said the Magistrate, ‘don’t you?’

The Doctor drummed his fingers against the top of the

desk while he considered the other options. ‘Yes.’

‘But you see the problem with that theory?’

‘Well, yes. The centre is a very long way away.’

The Magistrate shook his head. ‘The centre is outside the

boundaries of the universe. It can’t exist, so the source can’t

exist.’

The Doctor stood up, smiling. ‘Beyond the current

boundaries. But the Effect is moving through time as well as

space. Boundaries change.’ From the macroscopic

perspective of the scanner’s image it was clear that the

universe was roughly spherical and expanding. It resembled

a balloon, with the whole of spacetime on its skin. That

analogy was the one that Gallifreyan tutors used in

schoolrooms, the problem with it being that there was nothing

inside the balloon, and nothing outside. The Effect originated

somewhere towards the centre of the balloon literally in the

middle of nowhere. ‘Take the Effect’s eleven‐dimensional

nature into effect,’ the Doctor suggested.

‘The universe has expanded since its creation,’ the

Castellan said impatiently, ‘the arc of the Effect suggests that

its point of origin is right at the dawn of time, when the

universe was a great deal smaller. We did think to look in the

far past.’

‘I’m sure you did,’ the Doctor said sincerely. He turned to

the Magistrate. ‘What effect is the Effect having?’

The Magistrate was looking thoughtful. ‘None whatsoever

at the moment, although the potential is there.’

‘And who do you think is behind it all?’

The Castellan and the Magistrate looked at each other,

bewildered.

‘It’s a natural phenomenon,’ the Castellan answered.

‘Possibly…’ the Magistrate responded, his voice trailing

off. ‘No sentience that we know of is capable of producing

anything as powerful.’

‘Centro is,’ the Doctor replied without hesitation. ‘True,

none of Centro’s spacewarps have ever reached anything

like this level, but they could if he found a large enough

power source. He certainly has the persistence.’

The Castellan scowled, and gestured towards the picture.

The cracked display of the universe vanished. In its place

appeared an image of a metal skull with camera eyes, its jaw

slack, as if it was screaming. Brilliant white shards of light

transfixed it.

‘Centro is where you left him,’ the Castellan assured them.

‘For now,’ the Doctor agreed, relieved. ‘But if it isn’t

Centro, then who is it? The Klade? The Tractites? The

Ongoing? It could be the Nibblepibblies.’

‘It could be them,’ the Castellan agreed, unaware that the

Doctor had just made them up. ‘But it is much more likely that

this is a natural phenomenon. We’ve prepared a report.’ He

handed over a wad of notes.

The Doctor nodded, made a show of reading the first

couple of paragraphs. ‘Good. Right, I’ll run a check on the

Effect from my TARDIS, try locate the Source from there.’ He

got up and started to make for the door.

The Magistrate caught his arm. ‘You can use Main

Temporal Monitoring.’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘No. Much easier working from

familiar surroundings.’ The Magistrate didn’t seemed

convinced. ‘My notes are all in the TARDIS.’ Still no

response. ‘I work better on my own.’

‘Whatever you say,’ the Magistrate said grimly.

‘There are good people there: Hedin, Norval, the

President. You’re not exactly the class dunce.’

‘I hope you know what you are doing.’

The Doctor nodded. ‘So do I.’

Larna bumped into the Doctor as she left her room. ‘We must

stop meeting like this,’ he said lightly.

She smiled. ‘I thought you were on your way to the

Conference.’

‘Yes, yes, I am.’

‘So why have you got a Time Regulator under your arm?’

‘I haven’t… it’s…’ he faltered, ‘How did you know? It’s in a

case.’

‘It’s in a Time Regulator case,’ she giggled. ‘Nothing else

is that shape. Look, it’s OK. I’m not going to tell anyone.’

‘Right, right. Thank you.’ He hurried away.

Larna watched him go, then set off in the opposite

direction.

If the Watch weren’t going to talk to Savar, then she was

going to have to. Lord Savar’s rooms were a few levels below

hers – she’d checked with one of the porters exactly which

one. Despite his experiences in space, and his erratic

behaviour since, he was still a Time Lord, and no one had the

hearts to evict him from chambers.

She knocked on the door.

After a moment, it opened. Savar stood there, smiling at

her, the way he always did.

‘Can I come in?’ she asked, once she’d realised that he

wasn’t going to offer.

He checked his pocket watch. ‘You will have to be quick, I

was just about to go to sleep.’

Larna apologised, but wasn’t about to let that stop her. It

wasn’t even Nine Bells yet. She pushed her way in before

Savar could change his mind.

The room was bland, disappointing. Larna hadn’t known

what to expect, but Savar was unique, and she thought his

room would be too. But these resembled the guest quarters

of a family Home – neutral colour scheme, a couple of

decorative objects that wouldn’t offend anyone or make any

form of statement. The bookshelf was virtually empty, the

battered wardrobe was out of place. The only thing of any

note was the huge freestanding clock, ticking its way

relentlessly to Nine Bells.

‘Would you like a drink?’ Savar offered, but he had already

sat down. The table in front of him had a scattering of charts

and notebooks on it. There was also a small hand terminal,

which bleeped every couple of seconds. It reminded Larna of

a dripping tap.

Savar was cross‐legged on his chair, examining a time

chart.

‘You know what it is, don’t you?’ she asked. ‘The distortion

we noticed.’

‘Yes.’ He looked up at her with eyes full of sadness. ‘The

end of the universe.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

Savar coughed. ‘I didn’t realise that the concept was

ambiguous.’ He glanced up at the clock. ‘My dear, you really

ought to run along, it is getting late.’

‘Waym was murdered,’ she insisted.

‘Yes, yes, I know,’ he returned to his charts, embarrassed.

‘You were the last person that saw him alive.’

He didn’t look up. ‘Yes.’

‘They thought that I did it. Some of them still do.’

‘Well, we both know that isn’t the case.’ He looked up, his

eyes were pleading with her. ‘We can discuss this in the

morning.’

The clock began to chime.

Larna stood her ground. ‘One of my friends died, one of

the guards was kidnapped. This man is vicious.’

Savar looked agitated. ‘Please leave,’ he said.

‘I’m not leaving until I get some answers. This is serious.’

‘Leave,’ Savar said softly.

The Clock chimed for the ninth time.

A shadow fell over Savar, and when it had passed his blue

robes had become a heavy grey cloak and his face had

become younger, bearded, more distinguished. But there

was nothing where his eyes should have been, the sockets

were empty, surgically clean, full of shadow.

Larna backed away.

He gave a thin smile, and glanced over at the door. The

lock rattled, bolts slammed. Telekinesis.

‘Savar…’ she pleaded. This was the Savar who was found

in space without his eyes. The insane one. Somehow the

timestreams had become crossed. It was possible – against

the Laws of Time, of course, but allowed by laws of physics.

Or perhaps this Savar had transferred from a parallel

universe, one where he hadn’t been cured, or… This was the

man who had killed Waym, stabbed him through the hearts.

He’d kidnapped a guard at knife point, stolen property.

He took a step towards her. There was nowhere to run.

‘My name is Larna,’ she said.

‘I know.’ He was her height, with slim build.

There were a dozen folds in his thick cloak to hide a knife,

it could be concealed in either boot. She glanced down. The

shoes were part of a spacesuit, she recognised the heavy

silvery material.

‘Are you going to kill me?’ she asked.

‘Only if you try to stop me,’ he said. His voice was deep,

with an edge of panic.

‘I may even help you,’ she replied, trying to keep him calm.

‘What are you planning to do?’

‘The key.’

Larna felt Savar’s mind brush against her. She readied her

mental defences, then saw the expression on his face. Block

his thoughts and she would be killed, she knew that. She let

Savar remember for her. It took him a moment to find what

he was looking for. A couple of memories from her childhood;

familiar images of landmarks from the Capitol; a few abstract

principles of Infinity Chamber operation; the faces of some of

her tutors.

The image of the Doctor lingered for a moment.

The Doctor’s chair faced the fireplace, framed by a heavy

marble mantel, with a number of ornaments. There was only

one timepiece in the whole room, an ormolu clock from Earth

that sat on the mantelpiece, its day divided up into twelve

hours of equal length. The longer of the two hands was

between the two and the three, the shorter sat about a

quarter of the way between five and six. At the side of the

chair was an occasional table, and it was littered with junk. A

tea service was surrounded by bric‐ a‐ brac: computer cards, a bunch of keys.

Savar smiled.

Nifcol looked around the TARDIS cradle he was guarding.

This was one of the most secure areas of the Citadel, and

only the oldest and wiliest of the Watch were given duties

here. A dozen TARDISes were dotted around the room, each

in their own pool of light. Nifcol wasn’t a Time Lord, but even

he could sense the power that each of these machines

contained. They hummed to themselves, and Nifcol caught a

faint telepathic buzz out of the comer of his mind.

One of the TARDISes in particular. Nifcol stepped over,

running his hand down its side. It was warm, there was a very

slight vibration. At that moment, the pitch changed.

There was someone else in the room. A Time Lord. The

Doctor. This was his TARDIS.

‘My Lord,’ Nifcol began. ‘Entry to this area is only allowed

with approval from the Castellan’s office.’

The Doctor smiled. ‘If you’ll check your screen, you’ll see

that I have that authorisation.’

‘I checked earlier, sir, no one has that clearance tonight.’

‘If you could just check again.’

Nifcol nodded, and took his hand terminal from his belt.

Sure enough, the Doctor had been granted the authority by

the Castellan himself.

He looked up. The Doctor was beaming sweetly at him.

But there was something odd here. Nifcol looked him up and

down. The Doctor had short hair, which wasn’t covered, and

he was wearing odd clothes, but he always did.

‘What’s that under your arm?’ he asked him finally.

‘This arm?’ the Doctor said, holding up a carry case.

‘No sir, the other one.’

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘It looks unusual, sir.’

‘Well, yes.’ The Doctor held it out. It was a large toy

tafelshrew, a big blue fluffy thing with goggly eyes and a big

red smile. It was about a foot long.

Nifcol took it from him, examined it. ‘Why are you taking

this with you?’

The Doctor looked down at his boots, then back up, but he

wasn’t able to look Nifcol in the eye. ‘No reason,’ he said.

Nifcol tucked the tafelshrew under his arm. ‘With respect,

sir, I really think that I should look after this, don’t you?’

‘I need it… for my research,’ the Doctor said quickly,

Nifcol shook his head, moving the stuffed tafelshrew out of

the Doctor’s reach. ‘No you don’t, sir.’ He found his clipboard.

‘If you could just sign the requisition form, I’ll let you into your TARDIS, but I’m afraid I can’t let you take this in with you.’

The Doctor looked crestfallen, but he nodded. He stepped

up to the threshold of the TARDIS, slipping the key from his

pocket and into the lock.

‘Are you sure I can’t take that?’ he asked.

‘Quite sure, sir,’ Nifcol said firmly, ‘The regulations are

very strict about what one can and can’t take into a time

capsule.’

The Doctor opened the door to his TARDIS and stepped

inside.

The control room looked the same as always. The Doctor

moved up to the console in the centre, pulling the lever that

closed the doors pressing the control that locked them. He

turned on the scanner. The guard, Nifcol, was examining the

toy tafelshrew, prodding its middle. The Doctor chuckled,

shaking his head and rested the Time Regulator on one side

of the console. Simple psychology: Nifcol hadn’t been

remotely interested in the dull‐looking carry case tucked

under the Doctor’s left arm, not with such an oddity under his

right.

The Doctor set to work isolating the recall circuits. The

readouts confirmed the new directives that he had

programmed in at the Castellan’s office, The displays

adjusted to the new instructions. This TARDIS was now

completely independent of Citadel Traffic Control but no one

in the Citadel would be informed of this – the Doctor had

been very careful to make sure that the scanners in the

Capitol wouldn’t be watching his activities. He switched on

the power circuits let them warm up while he worked.

He bent underneath the console, unfastening a couple of

access panels. Then he opened up the case he’d been

carrying and took out the Time Regulator. It was

straightforward enough to interface one with the other – the

Doctor simply clipped a couple of wires together. That done,

he moved around the console, adjusting a setting here,

flicking a switch there. He reached the navigation panel. He’d

never really got the hang of it, but he knew the basics. He

operated a slide control, twisted a dial, jabbed at a couple of

over‐rides. A tiny warning bell was chiming somewhere in the

console. The Doctor found the switch that silenced It.

. He crossed back to the Regulator that he had installed.

He fiddled with the scanner controls, using the instruments

on the Regulator to adjust the image. The rather baffled

Nifcol vanished, replaced by a series of scenes from the

Citadel: a triad of students checking each others lecture

notes; the kitchen staff in one of the refectories preparing for

dinner; two of the Watch at their posts in the Archive.

General Sontar; reclining on a couch. The Doctor tapped

the control, keeping that image on the display.

The Sontarans’ room was suffused with red light and high

gravity. One of the nameless Sontarans was attending to his

leader, checking that the energy cables plugged into the back

of the General’s neck were connected correctly. This was

how Sontarans fed – electricity was sent directly down the

vent at the back of their necks, stored in bioelectric cells in

the abdominal cavity. The other senior Sontarans sat in a

huddle, awaiting their turn. They all looked so tired. In the

privacy of their own loom, they slumped, they sagged. None

of the Sontarans were speaking to each other, or doing

anything other than wait for their energy feed. The Doctor

hadn’t expected to see them singing, or knitting, or watching

soap operas, but they weren’t doing anything. They looked

like patients in a military hospital, half‐exhausted,

half‐shell‐shocked.

He saved the co‐ordinates and then fed a couple of

commands into the Regulator. The image refocused to the

Rutan chamber.

The screen filled with a picture of blue‐grey water that

made the Doctor feel cold just looking at it. It was murky, too

– rich in metallic fluid organic compounds. The Rutan sat in

the centre, in something very similar to its natural form. It was

dormant, inscrutable.

The Doctor repeated the instruction to the Regulator to

save the co‐ordinates before returning to the TARDIS

console. The power circuits were fully charged up now.

It was time. Sontar had finished feeding, and was standing

up. The other Sontarans were entering their dormancy phase

– a dreamless sleep during which their bodies repaired

themselves.

The Doctor patched the TARDIS console into the Citadel’s

architectural configuration. Holographic plans of the

xenodochia level appeared in the air in front of him. A couple

of minor adjustments and his work was done.

He pulled the big slide control on the Regulator. The hum

of power started to build up all around him. He slipped a blue

control pad from his coat pocket. There were two buttons,

one red, one green.

The Doctor had just built a primitive Time Scoop, taking a

few short cuts by feeding it through the TARDIS computer.

He turned away from the console. Two ebony pyramids

rotated into three‐dimensional space by the back wall of the

control room, and continued to hang there, spinning slowly.

The Doctor pressed the green button twice.

The pyramids faded away as they stopped swirling, and in

their place were General Sontar and the Rutan. The Rutan

was re‐adjusting to its oxygen‐breathing form, water dripping

from it. Sontar was disorientated.

‘What is this?’ Sontar snarled.

‘Good evening, gentlemen. Welcome to my TARDIS. I’ve

brought you here –’

‘This was not part of the agreement,’ the Rutan squeaked.

‘We are alone here, wherever this is, this was not part of the

agreement.’

‘Where are my men?’ Sontar roared.

The Doctor turned away for a moment, pulled the last few

levers. The central column began rising and falling

rhythmically. ‘They are safe in your chambers. I have –’

Sontar pounced, leaping a good ten feet, pinning the

Doctor to the console. His powerful bifurcated claw was

grasping at the Doctor’s throat, his finger and thumb were

around his neck, the middle finger was crushing against his

lips, chin and mouth.

‘How dare you?’ Sontar roared, filling the air with his oily

breath.

‘Sontaran!’ the Rutan shrieked. ‘That is a Time Lord! Do

not kill the Time Lord!’

The Doctor was unable to open his mouth. He was pinned

under Sontar, who must have weighed several tonnes even

in Gallifreyan gravity.

‘I am the leader of the most powerful race in the universe!’

Sontar roared, trembling with rage. ‘You will not treat me like

some podling. I am not a pet for you to take out of its cage

when you please.’

The Doctor tried to speak, but couldn’t even draw breath.

Sontar’s eyes were burning a furious red. They narrowed

to tiny slits. ‘You will pay for your insolence.’

The Sontaran snapped the Doctor’s neck and then threw

his broken body across the control room.

The Station was one of the Time Lords’ secrets.

It sat right on the edge of Gallifrey’s Constellation, in a

perfect orbit around a red supergiant. There were a few

barely inhabited worlds in this sector of space, but they were

far from the normal trade routes and of little commercial

interest. The area was notorious for shipwrecks and

vanishments, and the charts would tell anyone consulting

them that this was because of the particularly high

concentration of asteroids, dust clouds and freak energy

fields. The remains of once‐powerful star cruisers passed

silently by, powerless. Each of the ships was surrounded by a

halo of metal fragments. Once a century or so, these dead

ships would drift past older, less easily explained ruins. This

part of the galaxy was a place that space pilots told stories

about, not the sort of place they would ever visit, whatever

payment you offered. Those that travelled out here had a

habit of never coming back.

So no one ever saw the Station from the outside, had ever

seen the dark cathedral‐like shape, with a vast pyramidal

tower emerging from the centre. No one had ever noticed

that it, alone of all the ships of this graveyard in space, had

escaped collision with asteroids and the other cosmic debris

of the region. The pristine hull was dotted with spires and

masts, fins and gutters. Some of the features might have

been weapons emplacements, huge hangar bays or landing

strips. Equally well they might not have been. Whatever

angle it was viewed from, the Station appeared to be lurking

in the shadows. It was very difficult to judge its size, but it

was clearly the size of a city, if not a continent.

The interior of the Station was a maze of living quarters,

workshops, armouries, engine rooms, storage holds and all

the other rooms and features one would expect to find in a

space station of its size. At some point in its history, the

Station could have held a million people, maybe more, but if

that had ever happened that had been a long, long time ago.

Most of the time nowadays there was a skeleton crew, a

handful of middle‐ranking Time Lords, their servants and a

small army of maintenance and service robots. It was a job

that attracted the reclusive personality types.

Today the crew of the Station had swollen to three or four

dozen. Most of these were Technicians, a few were members

of the Watch. Half a dozen were Time Lords. They were all

congregated within a couple of levels of the control deck. The

Magistrate stepped from his TARDIS, out onto the main

control area. Scientists and engineers in brown tabards were

running tests and simulations, upgrading systems where they

needed to. The Station had been built to last, though, and

there was little work to be done. At the moment he alone

knew the purpose of their presence here.

The other Time Lords were waiting for him by the control

deck. This was a larger version of the standard TARDIS

console, and shared the same hexagonal shape. But this was

the size of a house, with three distinct levels leading up the

sloped sides to the vast pillar in its centre. There were three

Councillors, three specialists. The Magistrate had chosen

them for their scientific knowledge, but also for their

decisiveness. He needed people he could rely on.

He wasted no time with ceremony.

‘The Doctor was right. The Matrix has located the source

of the Effect far in the future. So far, in fact that it is difficult even for a Time Lord to comprehend!

The timezone in which the Time Lords lived was around

ten billion years after Event One, the creation of the universe.

Ten with ten noughts after it. That was enough years to

contain the creation of matter, the formation of stars and

galaxies and planets, the rise and fall of many galactic

civilisations. To all things there must come an end. The

universe was no exception. All matter would eventually

decay. Baryonic matter – anything with more mass than a

proton – would break down into its component parts as its

energy levels fell. This would be a very long process: the last

proton would fizzle out in around one hundred thousand

trillion, trillion, trillion years. Ten with thirty‐one noughts after it.

‘We have located the Source to within a few decades of

Event Two, the end of the universe. It is far beyond the limits

of our knowledge.’

The assembled Time Lords nodded, clearly still seeing this

as an abstract scientific or philosophical question. The Matrix

could model the universe, and use that model to make

projections of the future, but even it could only see a few

billion years into the future. The model was constantly being

refined and updated, new observations were continually

being made, but even Time Lord knowledge had to end

somewhere. That point was clearly defined.

From its creation, the Universe had been expanding,

forced outwards by the force of the Big Bang. Eventually,

when the universe was a dozen or so times older than it was

now, that impetus would run out, and the universe would

begin to collapse back in on itself. At that point, time ended…

at least as the Time Lords understood it. More correctly, time

would be redefined in some unknowable way. Planets and

stars and life would certainly still exist in the collapsing

universe, but there would be no Time Lords to watch over

them, and the laws of physics would have been subtly

rewritten. Whatever this collapsing universe was like, it would

slowly wind down, losing its energy to the forces of entropy.

Eventually, after an incomprehensible amount of time, the

universe would be cold, lifeless, dead, and it would then

collapse back into a single point.

Hedin was worried. ‘The source of the Effect is out of our

reach. No TARDIS can make such a journey.’ He was right,

of course. The Time Vortex petered out a little before the

universe stopped expanding, marking the point beyond which

no TARDIS could travel.

The Magistrate nodded. ‘Our Infinity Chambers are barely

able to discern the Source, even with the energies it is

pouring out. It is like looking for a distant planet with an

optical telescope.’

Lord Norval was rubbing his beard. ‘But we can’t travel

there, can we? Even if we found a pathway, a TARDIS can

travel – what? – no more than a few billion years between

refuelling. It would take a billion such journeys – it would take

us a hundred million years to get there.’

The Magistrate nodded. ‘At the very least. Which is why

the president has authorised the construction of a timegate.

Essentially this will be a hole in spacetime, powered and

controlled from Gallifrey. We will pilot this Station through the

timegate, where it will be our base of operations.’

The other Time Lords were looking concerned. The

Technicians and Guards had stopped working. They were

sworn to protect time, and here they were contemplating

punching a hole in it.

‘There is a degree of risk in the journey,’ the Magistrate

conceded. ‘There will be damage to spacetime – nothing that

we can’t retroactively repair. But we already know the

dangers of leaving the Source unguarded.’

‘The fleet will be flying blind,’ Lord Quarduk noted.

‘Indeed. And when we arrive in the far future, we will be all

but cut off from Gallifrey. There will be a single link to the Eye

of Harmony. Through it we will be able to communicate with

the High Council and draw the energy we will need.’

Norval folded his arms. ‘And we are to take control of the

Source.’

The Magistrate nodded. ‘Our first priority will be to

establish an exclusion zone around the Source, to prevent

other races from taking control.’

One of the Time Lords laughed. ‘No other race could

reach it, let alone harness it.’

‘We do not know everything about our future,’ Hedin

cautioned. ‘Races may well emerge in the interim with the

necessary capabilities and technologies.’

‘If another race reaches the Source before we do,’ the

Magistrate informed them solemnly, ‘then Gallifrey – our

entire universe – will be defenceless. We must make this

journey, and we must succeed.’

Wycliff stirred a moment before it arrived.

There was a wheezing, groaning sound and a battered

wardrobe materialised in the centre of the Doctor’s room. The

floorboards creaked a little under the new weight. After a

short pause, the door opened, and Savar stepped out, pulling

Larna behind him.

‘Find the key,’ he ordered calmly, releasing her.

Larna brushed her hair back into place with her hand, her

eyes adjusting to the light. The control room of Savar’s

TARDIS had been dark. ‘I still don’t see what is so important

about it.’

‘All will become clear.’

‘Why can’t you just talk to the Council? Or the Doctor? If

you know anything at all about the disturbance in spacetime

then you should tell them. They might be able to stop it.’

Larna had reached the table and had found the bunch of

keys. She held them in her hand, examined them. They were

perfectly ordinary.

Savar snatched them from her. ‘There is only one way that

I can end this.’

‘I might help you.’ She tried to put a hint in her voice that

the help would be psychological in nature.

‘No.’ He turned to her, his expression pained. ‘No. You

would try to prevent me from doing what I must.’ He felt the

keys, selected the one he wanted and discarded the rest.

He herded her back towards his TARDIS.

Thoughts swirled within the Rutan, formless thoughts,

indecipherable to the lesser races. The Sontaran

meat‐warrior was hunched over the control station of the

Doctor’s time machine. It was unable to fathom the

instruments, there was nothing in this creature’s crude

experience that had prepared him for this. Its animal

mentality had become unstable, it was acting irrationally. But

the Rutan was with the Host, it was infinite. The Sontarans

were just individuals, and even the greatest amongst them

was but one.

‘You have committed murder. The murder of a Time Lord,’

the Rutan stated, body tensing, adopting a combat form. ‘It is

a fact of nature that those that kill Time Lords themselves die.

The Time Lords are very particular about ensuring that. By

killing the Time Lord you have killed yourself.’

‘Now I will kill you,’ the Sontaran said inelegantly, bringing

its ungainly body nearer the Rutan.

‘The death of this Rutan will not help your cause. The

Rutan are without number. Now you have killed a Time Lord,

all of Gallifrey is your enemy. The Sontaran race is finished.’

The Rutan paused, new concepts flushing through it. ‘The

Rutan race swears revenge for this dead Time Lord. We will

ally ourselves with Gallifrey. You will be erased from history.

You will never have existed.’

The Sontaran was within half a metre of the Rutan. Its fist

was raised.

The Rutan unfurled a tentacle, whipped it around the

Sontaran, and into the probic vent at the back of his neck. It

found the orifice, forced its way in.

Sontar flailed, tried to reach behind itself with its

unmalleable limbs.

The tentacle developed the muscles to lift the Sontaran

from its feet. Sontar struggled, but the tip of the tentacle was

half a metre within its body, now, developing spines and

barbs to keep itself there. To the Rutan, the Sontaran was a

collection of electrical and temperature fields, concentrated in

the torso. It began to drain the energy from the Sontaran’s

body, sucking it into itself. A satisfying method of execution.

The Sontaran clearly felt pain during this procedure, that was

clear from the form of its face, with its bulging eyes and the

screeching wideness of its mouth.

‘Your corpse will be a peace offering to the Time Lords,’

the Rutan told Sontar. ‘All the secrets of the Sontaran Empire

are mine. The electrical patterns of your meat‐brain, those

things that you assert to be your thoughts and memories will

be absorbed into the Rutan. That will be our prize. The

Sontaran race will be a race of slaves, or of cattle. You have

lost. You are lost.’

It was drinking the Sontaran’s thoughts now.

One memory was foremost. Sontar had stood in the

laboratories as the scientists – the Rutan could remember

each and every one of their names – had made their

proposal. The War had been running badly for centuries. His

clones had fought bravely, they were numberless, tactical

geniuses, but they were losing. The propaganda broadcasts

still told of magnificent victories, but even the feast perceptive

foot soldier must have noticed by now that the magnificent

victories were taking place closer and closer to home. The

Rutan fleets were now less than fifty light years from the

Throneworld.

(The Rutan remembered this time from the race memory.)

Every one of the trillion Sontarans had to eat, had to be

kept warm. Most of the space aboard their warships were

given over to providing food and water. The scientists had

shown him a new clone. One without a digestive system or

sex organs, one with easily synthesisable mineral solutions

rather than blood. A stripped‐down Sontaran, one that could

be fed raw energy. They’d simplified the structure of the brain

at the same time, streamlined much of the nervous system.

Redundant features such as eyelids and fingernails had been

removed. It would have no toes and only three fingers. This

body would be easy to duplicate and maintain.

With heavy heart, Sontar had signed the order. From now

on, every Sontaran would be like this. He had wept that night.

‘You have lost so much,’ the Rutan said.

The Rutan was unsure what to think, so it analysed its

surroundings instead as it digested this new piece of

information.

The column at the centre of the control console had

stopped moving. There was a resonant chime, far below

them.

‘Stop!’ a voice ordered.

No further analysis of the environment was needed. This

was the Doctor. He was a powerful presence. There was

much below the surface here, like an ice‐ocean.

‘You live!’ the Rutan said.

The Doctor was at the edge of the room, close to where

the Sontaran had thrown him. He was rubbing his neck, as if

there was slight stiffness. ‘It is very difficult to die inside the TARDIS while the engines are running. We exist in a state of

grace, outside time as you would understand it.’

The Rutan twitched its tentacle around, holding up the

Sontaran for the Doctor’s inspection. ‘Nevertheless, this

ignorant, insolent creature attempted such a foul act. I have

captured the creature that would have been your murderer. I

will kill it!’

‘No!’ the Doctor said loudly. ‘Let Sontar go.’

The Rutan retracted the tentacle, let the Sontaran fall to

the floor.

‘I understand. You wish to kill the creature yourself.’ The

Rutan had all but finished the Sontaran, which lay, dull and

inert, at the Doctor’s feet.

The Doctor held out its prehensile paw, helping the

Sontaran to its feet. The Rutan saw its energy fields, knew

that the Sontaran was weakened.

‘Kill it!’ the Rutan said.

‘You don’t understand, do you?’ the Doctor asked. ‘I

couldn’t kill Sontar in here, even if I wanted to. Now, I

appreciate that bringing you here was a little unorthodox, but

I wanted to show you something.’

He stepped over to the console, checking the controls.

‘We’ve arrived.’

‘Where?’ the Sontaran grunted.

‘Ten thousand years after your own time. You wanted to

see your future. I’ve brought you here. This is what will

happen, unless you change your ways.’

He was holding something in each paw: in one, the Rutan

anti‐matter Converter, in the other the Sontaran star‐killing

weapon.

‘You said you did not know our future,’ the Rutan noted.

‘Indeed I don’t. But I can guess what I’ll see when I open

that door. A spiral arm of dead suns and shattered worlds.

The ruins of two mighty empires now just a curiosity for

archaeologists. My guess is that we won’t see any Sontarans

and Rutans. Your races will be long dead.’

Sontar drew out a long, hissing breath. ‘Or a Sontaran

galaxy, free from the stain of the non‐Sontaran. A glorious

empire, united under my rule.’

The Rutan remained silent.

‘Perhaps that,’ the Doctor conceded. ‘Perhaps one under

Rutan control. But what was the price of victory? Let’s see,

shall we?’

He moved round to another part of the console.

‘Bear in mind that whatever we see is not fixed. The past

cannot change, but the future is constantly in flux. It is never

too late.’

He flicked a switch.

Shutters along one wall slid smoothly open, revealing a

scanner screen. The display was a simple grey colour.

The Rutan waited, but the picture did not appear.

The Doctor was adjusting some of the controls.

‘This is the future?’ Sontar grunted.

‘The Sontaran was at the console,’ the Rutan stated. ‘It

may have altered the settings through its ignorance and

incompetence and caused the malfunction of the scanner.’

The Doctor moved his head. ‘No.’

He paused, then reached for another control. At the far

end of the console room, a set of double doors swung open.

Outside it was possible to see the same sea of grey

nothingness The Doctor walked slowly over to the threshold

and perched there, gripping the door frame to stay inside.

The Rutan followed him over, the Sontaran trudging into

place behind them. It gazed down, out past the Doctor. There

was nothing there. The Rutan could not hear the

consciousness, or sense energy patterns, It couldn’t detect

atomic forms.

Even in the darkest, most desolate comer of the universe

there more than this: virtual particles appearing and

annihilating, a gas ion every square metre or so, the

occasional photon. There was just the Grey, fixed for ever. It

was the only Rutan, the only Rutan the only Rutan. It felt

panic form deep inside its body, it looked at the Time Lord,

hoping for comforting words.

‘There’s nothing left,’ the Doctor said quietly. ‘No time, no

space, no matter, no energy. The entire universe has gone.’

Chapter Seven

AD

100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0

00

The room was small, but it didn’t need to be any larger.

It was an alcove, deep within the Citadel, a place few

people ever visited. On the surface it resembled a hundred

similar rooms dotted around the Capitol: three enamelled

consoles, full of blinking lights and enigmatic displays, set at

points facing the centre of the room, a couple of

uncomfortable chairs, and a large view screen on the back

wall. The lighting levels and gloomy decor would hardly

encourage anyone to stay here longer that they had to. This

room was situated by one of the great power conduits that

ran through the lower half of the Citadel.

This deep down, the floor and walls throbbed with power

from the Eye. Rassilon had captured the black hole, brought

it to Gallifrey, imprisoned it beneath the Panopticon using

unyielding equations and the strongest mathematics. For

some reason lost to time, Rassilon had insisted that the black

hole be called the Eye of Harmony. There was a brick‐lined

column, like a vast chimney stack, capped by the vast iron

globe set in the centre of the floor of the Panopticon, a

hundred storeys above, down to the Eye of Harmony, a

thousand miles below. Secondary conduits and runnels

branched off at irregular intervals. A plan of the energy grid

looked like a vast tree, the end of each twig representing an

individual power point. Some branches were thick: those that

powered the TARDISes, the Infinity Chambers, the Matrix

and the other time travel equipment. The smaller branches

powered the food machines, the hypocaust, lighting and the

other items of domestic equipment.

An infinite amount of raw power blasted from the Eye, up

the shaft, and was channelled along the conduits. The spare

energy… well, actually, no one knew what happened to the

spare energy. Perhaps it was just returned to the Eye of

Harmony, perhaps it served some other purpose.

The Lord President and two minor noblemen huddled

around one of the control panels. The President was staring

into an eyeboard, using his authority to make all the

necessary changes to the security codes. Only the President

and a handful of the Council were authorised to make such

changes. The two noblemen monitored his work, as their

duties demanded.

Gradually the five‐dimensional map of the timegate began

sketching itself in on the display screen, tracing a line parallel

to the Effect. As each stage of the journey was plotted, the

power requirements were calculated. It would take almost all

of the energy generated by the Black Hole to keep the

timegate open.

There was an industrial‐looking piece of machinery

hanging from the ceiling. It was hexagonal, with a number of

glass arrays and prisms stuck to the underside. As the

President blinked in his authority codes and set up new

power channels, the machine began humming, lights began

fading up from within it. Within seconds, a column of energy

began cascading down. The energy glittered and sparkled

like a waterfall: golds and silvers and platinums glinting in the

dim light of the room. Before this column reached the floor,

though, it twisted into another dimension. Human eyes would

have seen it abruptly cut off a foot or so from the floor.

Gallifreyans were more sensitive to time, and saw it twist

away like a tornado.

‘Ergosphere at full phase,’ the first nobleman announced.

‘Time column stable,’ the other confirmed.

The Magistrate came into existence. There was no

distortion, no delay in the image despite the fact it was being

transmitted from many light years away. It was as if the

Magistrate was in the room, to the extent that the air moved

around the image, and it radiated heat.

‘Preparations here are complete,’ the Magistrate informed

his President. ‘The crew have been briefed, our equipment is

ready and the TARDISes have been stowed.’

The President acknowledged the news with a small smile.

‘Good work, old friend.’

The Magistrate smirked at the expression. ‘Is the Doctor

there?’

The President shook his head.

‘Doesn’t he know about this mission?’

‘We can’t find the Doctor anywhere.’

The Magistrate digested the knowledge. ‘If this mission

should fail, then the Doctor will be Gallifrey’s only hope.’

‘The Peace Conference is due to resume at dawn, a few

hours from now. No doubt he will resurface then.’ The

President leant forwards,

the President and a handful of the Council were

authorised to make such changes. The two noblemen

monitored his work, as their duties demanded.

Gradually the five‐dimensional map of the timegate began

sketching itself in on the display screen, tracing a line parallel

to the Effect. As each stage of the journey was plotted, the

power requirements were calculated. It would take almost all

of the energy generated by the Black Hole to keep the

timegate open.

There was an industrial‐looking piece of machinery hanging

from the ceiling. It was hexagonal, With a number of glass

arrays and prisms stuck to the underside. As the President

blinked in his authority codes and set up new power

channels, the machine began humming, lights began fading

up from within it. Within seconds, a column of energy began

cascading down. The energy glittered and sparkled like a

waterfall: golds and silvers and platinums glinting in the dim

light of the room. Before this column reached the floor,

though, it twisted into another dimension. Human eyes would

have seen it abruptly cut off a foot or so from the floor.

Gallifreyans were more sensitive to time, and saw it twist

away like a tornado.

‘Ergosphere at full phase,’ the first nobleman announced.

‘Time column stable,’ the other confirmed,

The Magistrate came into existence. There was no distortion,

no delay in the image despite the fact it was being

transmitted from many light years away. It was as if the

Magistrate was in the room, to the extent that the air moved

around the image, and it radiated heat.

‘Preparations here are complete,’ the Magistrate informed his

President. ‘The crew have been briefed, our equipment is

ready and the TARDISes have been stowed.’

The President acknowledged the news with a small smile.

‘Good work, old friend.’

The Magistrate Smirked at the expression. ‘Is the Doctor

there?’ The President shook his head.

‘Doesn’t he know about this mission?’

‘We can’t find the Doctor anywhere.’

The Magistrate digested the knowledge. ‘If this mission

should fail, then the Doctor will be Gallifrey’s only hope.’

‘The Peace Conference is due to resume at dawn, a few

hours from now. No doubt he will resurface then.’ The

President leant forwards, conspiratorially, ‘The Lady Larna is

missing, too.’ He straightened, beaming. ‘Besides, your

mission will not fail. Remember, Magistrate, that I have

consulted the Matrix. This is to be a momentous time for

Gallifrey.’

‘You know the future?’

‘Not all of it,’ the President admitted. ‘The Matrix merely

shows me the pattern of what is to come, not the detail. But,

Magistrate, soon you won’t just know the future: soon you will

walk amongst it.’

The Magistrate made a curt, almost military, nod. ‘Is the

timegate ready?’ he asked.

‘See for yourself.’ He indicated the screen.

The Magistrate looked over his shoulder. The display was

lurid, and anyone who knew about such things would be able

to see that the flight plan was preposterous and the power

requirements were absurd.

‘It is,’ the President confirmed.

The Magistrate hesitated, perhaps because he realised

that he could see the Station in which he was standing on the

display, a tiny mote surrounded by raging energies. The

history of the universe was represented by a long, spiralling

line running up the screen. The past was marked in blue, the

present and known future in green, the unknown in red. At

this scale, the blue could hardly be seen, the green didn’t

even register, and the red line accounted for over ninety‐nine

percent of the total length.

‘Time moves in circles,’ the President noted. It was an old

Gallifreyan proverb, one that was literally and metaphorically

true. The display showed the time spiral, the map of time.

Usually, the Time Lords only concerned themselves with the

first few hundred coils of the helix.

The Magistrate raised his head, his teeth bared in a smile.

‘Activate the timegate.’

The President pressed the control. The image of the

Magistrate snapped out of existence and the energy column

at the centre of the room brightened still further. The

President turned his attention to the display screen. It

showed the Station making its way steadily up the time spiral.

He smiled. There was something beautiful, elegant, about the

Station’s progress.

The Magistrate screamed.

All around him, the crew were on their knees, screaming.

The TARDISes were screaming from their cradles. The

Station itself was screaming. Bulkheads designed to sit safely

at the heart of a supernova began buckling and distorting. He

could hear the engines stepping up a level, then another

level, automatically compensating for the stresses.

The Magistrate managed to pull himself to his feet by

sheer force of will. It was like struggling against a hurricane

force wind. It was Time, he realised, passing over them and

through them at an incredible rate. Without the stasis haloes

they would have been obliterated.

He hauled himself over to one of the seats, slumped into it.

Ten feet from where he had been standing, but he felt like

he’d run a marathon. He caught his breath.

There was something watching him. He could feel red

eyes bearing down on him, staring at him, fixing him in place.

All around and beyond the station were… shapes. The

Magistrate tried looking into them, but couldn’t interpret them.

The image of the Station, reflected and distorted? He didn’t

know. Outside, reality was superimposing itself on whatever it

was that existed here: ghost‐like shapes rutted past the

window. There were vast insects, bizarre mechanisms, even

purely abstract shapes. Some were more human:

angular‐faced women in golden cloaks; a blue‐skinned figure

in an immaculate business suit; a man with a single bionic

eye. The Magistrate saw himself with six faces wearing a

black tunic, head back, mouth in a cruel rictus. He heard

mocking laughter. The universe had fallen to the darkness.

The Station continued to fall.

Dok‐Tor had not said a word since they had left futurity.

The Time Lord was sitting in his chair, hands steepled,

staring at the console. If he hadn’t known better, Sontar might

have thought that the steady rising and falling of the column

at the centre of the console had lulled him into a hypnotic

stupor. But Dok‐Tor’s silence and lack of movement weighed

on Sontar’s mind.

Sontar was tired. Sapped of his energy by the accursed

Rutan, he knew that he was lucky to be alive. Perhaps it was

only the same magic that had saved the Dok‐Tor’s life that

sustained him now.

The Rutan sat in the opposite corner of the TARDIS

control room, poised on its hind tentacles, apparently ready

to pounce. After a war lasting millions of years, it was difficult

for Sontar to feel anything but loathing for the Rutan and its

kind. It had been many years since Sontar had come into

physical contact with a Rutan. Neither side took prisoners

any longer, and both sides had used diplomatic missions as

lover for sabotage or assassination attempts. Hatred was like

a trusty sword: he knew its weight and balance. It seemed

the natural emotional reaction to have, hardwired into his

nerves and sinews.

And had it all been for nothing? The universe was

destined to end, Sontar knew that, but his scientists had told

him that it would not be for untold trillions of years. Ten

thousand years was nothing… a clawful of lifetimes

compared with those that he had already endured.

Sontar shut off his eyes, and remembered the grey

universe. Nothing but mist. Dok‐Tor had stood over the

console of his time machine, tried to interpret what its

instruments told him, but there was nothing to interpret.

Nothing.

The Doctor had babbled about the lack of even the

fundamental particles and forces, he had run tests and made

observations designed to demonstrate that this was not a

local problem. But after an hour of experiments, he had not

changed his conclusion that the universe was gone, utterly.

How could that have happened? At first Sontar had

suspected a trick, and so had the Rutan. This was a

conjuring trick, designed to scare them, But Dok‐tor had been

scared, too. This wasn’t the way that the future was

supposed to be, this wasn’t what is meant to happen, it was

Impossible. He said it over and over again, checking that it

wasn’t his time machine at fault, already knowing that it

wasn’t.

Had his people done it? Had the Rutans? Sontar imagined

himself, in a younger clone body, ninety‐nine centuries from

now. The throne he sat on was the same, the courtiers were

different, although all their faces were familiar. A triumvirate

of scientists stood before him. They were telling him about

the ultimate weapon, one based on simple principles, but with

the ability to destroy vast tracts of time and space. The Rutan

would already have such a weapon, his Spymasters were

telling him.

A generation later, Sontar saw Rutan warships drifting

over the Throneworld, crystal nests floating past the

landmarks of his Palace, like lanterns against the darkness.

Energy bolts streaking down, slamming into the ground,

shattering the statues and palace walls, smashing through

the defences. The gates have fallen. Rutan pour through the

gaps in the walls, shock troops like giant jewelled crabs in

their armoured battleforms.

Green blood in his eyes, his uniform torn, clawing into his

thorax, Sontar drags his dying body over to the control, he

operates the ultimate weapon. If his Sontarans are to die

then the universe will die. The ground is rocking from another

nearby explosion. He presses his claws against the button

with his last ounce of strength.

The countdown begins.

20

12

11

10

2

1

0

‘A glorious victory,’ he hisses. The universe dissolves into

grey. He is the last to die.

Sontar reactivated his eyes.

He stood, still not used to the low gravity of the Time

Lords’ homeworld or their time ships. He took a few steps

towards Dok‐Tor. The Rutan turned slightly, suspiciously.

‘Check your instruments again, Time Lord.’

Dok‐Tor frowned. ‘Why?’

‘I… have reached a decision. I have not felt this desolate

since the defeat at Hwyx.’

Dok‐Tor looked puzzled, but followed the order.

‘What am I looking for?’ he asked.

‘Has it changed?’

Dok‐Tor shook his head.

Sontar sighed. ‘I have just made a vow. If it is within my

power, if it is ever within my power, I shall not let what we

have just seen happen.’

Dok‐Tor looked at him clearly unsure how to react to the

announcement. ‘No?’ he asked.

‘No,’ swore Sontar solemnly.

‘Me neither.’

The central column was slowing down.

We will be back on Gallifrey in the next few minutes. My

people have detected a disturbance in spacetime. It’s the

only thing I can think of that could possibly have had this

effect.’ The Doctor stopped, stared up at the ceiling. ‘Either

the disturbance itself destroyed the universe, or the Time

Lords’ reaction to it did.’

There was very little that penetrated the dark of Savar’s

TARDIS, just that from the lights on the console and the soft

glow from the scanner. Larna’s eyes had adjusted enough to

tell her that the decor of the control room was hard, military

even. All steel handrails and sharp angles. Savar himself was

somewhere in the darkness.

‘I can help you,’ she said. He needed someone to talk to,

he needed someone who could get the right medical care for

him.

‘You changed,’ she said. ‘Do you know why you changed?’

She still wasn’t sure how much Savar could “see”. His

eyes might be blind, but his telepathy and acute sensitivity to

the time field seemed to compensate. He didn’t know what

she looked like, he’d not touched her – thankfully – the whole

time they had been alone. So he almost certainly didn’t know

how long her hair was, or its colour. Unless he had simply

been able to lift that information from her mind.

‘Night fell,’ a calm voice said from nearer than Larna would

have guessed.

‘It happens to you every night?’

‘Of late.’

‘Why?’

‘Because my master demands it. There is a power drain

from the Eye of Harmony,’ he said, changing the subject.

‘Why?’

Larna edged towards the console, locating herself in front

of the controls for the main computer.

‘What are you doing?’ Savar asked her. He was on the

opposite side of the console. She could see his face through

the transparent central column. He was blind, how could he

fly a TARDIS without seeing the controls? As Larna listened,

she could hear the console whispering, she could see Savar

carefully guiding his hands around the switches. The

telepathic circuits had been adjusted, she realised. They

were telling him everything he needed to know. TARDISes

were symbiotically linked to their owners. Was this TARDIS

as mad as Savar?

‘I am trying to access information from the minutes of the

High Council meetings,’ she told him. ‘There would have to

be consent for such a diversion of power.’

‘The power is being drained!’ Savar insisted.

‘No,’ Larna corrected him firmly, ‘it is being used by the

High Council to power some device. Can’t you see?’

‘Is that meant to be a joke?’ he snarled.

‘No. No. Sorry.’

Savar was bent over his instruments. ‘Show me.’

Larna pulled a few levers, and the display on the scanner

changed. The pitch of the console’s whispering changed, too.

She assumed that he was being kept informed of the

readings.

‘This is the Citadel energy grid normally,’ she adjusted the

setting, ‘and this is it now. Power has been channelled away

to –’ Larna check another readout – ‘a control room in the

lower area of the Citadel not far from the Council Chambers.’

‘What are they powering?’

‘An artificial wormhole, a tunnel that leads into the far

future.’ She reached down without looking, located the

switches she needed flicked them.

‘How far?’ he asked, looking straight at her.

Larna shrugged. ‘Off the scale. I could check, but I just

don’t know where they could be heading. It’s beyond the

expansionary phase of the universe.’

Savar moved around the console, until he was at her side.

Hurriedly, she pulled her hand away from the bank of

switches.

‘I know…’ he said calmly. ‘I know what they will find.’

The Doctor was busy preparing for landing.

No one on Gallifrey seemed to have noticed his absence.

He patched himself into the Citadel’s traffic control system

with one hand, adjusted the TARDIS s course slightly with

the other. Gallifrey was surrounded by force fields and

transduction barriers, but there were plenty of chinks in the

armour. It was easy enough to slip a TARDIS through if you

knew the right tricks.

The console gave a bleep, and a ticker tape printer began

reeling out a couple of inches of tape.

The Doctor watched it, fascinated. Until that moment, he

hadn’t even known that there was a printer there.

He tore off the slip and read it. It was from Larna.

‘Ah… there’s going to be a slight detour,’ he announced to

the Rutan and Sontar. ‘I just need to nip out for a moment.’

He recalculated the landing position, dialling the new

co‐ordinates in. He smiled at them, trying to reassure them.

The TARDIS landed, gently.

The Doctor kept the power circuits on, but locked off all the

controls.

‘Right,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Won’t be long.’

He pulled the lever that opened the door and was outside

before the aliens could react. Then he closed the door,

locking it, slipping the key into his jacket pocket. The TARDIS

had landed in a peculiar little room almost a cupboard. This

was deep within the Citadel, he could feel the hum of the

power conduits. This wasn’t far from the Council chambers.

There was ancient equipment down here, some of the oldest

time machines.

He had landed his TARDIS alongside another one. On

their field trips to other planets, the Time Lords had quickly

learnt to disguise their technology from prying eyes. Each

time capsule had an array of defences, and this included the

ability to transform its outer appearance into a native object.

The systems had never been entirely reliable. The Doctor’s

own TARDIS was stuck in one form. This other one

resembled a battered old wardrobe. It was unmistakably a

TARDIS, though: place your hand on the side and you could

sense that it was alive, or at the very least that there was a

vast amount of power concealed behind its mundane outer

shell.

Larna had sent her message from in there, but it was

firmly locked. The Doctor bent down, examined the floor at

the base of the door. There were footprints leading from the

other TARDIS, Industrial‐looking boots, and a woman’s bare

feet. The Doctor crouched down. The boots had been

striding, the woman had been dragged along behind, he

could tell that by the scuff marks in the dust.

He heard footsteps. The Doctor hid himself in a niche in

the wall behind the two TARDISes, but was careful to allow

himself a view of proceedings.

It was the President, flanked by two Watchmen, with two

very minor noblemen in Technicians’ pinnies trailing after

him.

‘I shall monitor the arrival of the Station from the Council

Chambers,’ the President intoned. ‘You will stay here and

monitor the power flow.’

‘Very good, Lord President,’ the elder of the two replied.

The President swept away, with the guards.

The two Time Lords didn’t return to their power room

straight away. One of them looked right at the Doctor. ‘What’s

that?’

The Doctor told himself not to flinch but the message got

lost somewhere and he flinched. But the other Time Lord

hardly looked up. ‘A couple of TARDISes,’ he groaned.

‘Here?’

‘Oh yes, they often go wandering. Specially down here

near the Eye. Like moths to a flame.’

They stepped in, passing inches from the Doctor.

‘Well, we can’t leave them here, can we?’

‘No.’ He pulled back his glove to talk into his

communicator.

‘Transduction Control, this is Lord Kwep. Please transduct

two time capsules to their cradles.’

‘As you Wish, my Lord.’

Within a couple of seconds, the surfaces of the TARDISes

began to shimmer, and they faded away. They’d been

teleported back up to their cradles, over a hundred storeys

above. The Rutan and General Sontar were still in there.

He’d have to get back to them. A more pressing problem was

that the Doctor’s hiding place had been severely

compromised.

Luckily, the noblemen had turned away, and were shuffling

back to the power room. Once he was sure they were out of

earshot the Doctor slipped out.

The Corridors around here were a labyrinth, a real mess.

Somehow over, the years, they’d escaped redecoration and

rearrangement. This wasn’t a place for ceremony, it was a

workplace, and so the logic ran that everything had to be

gloomy, functional.

Clearly the President was down here for a reason: it must

be the Effect. What was all that about a Station? Perhaps,

after due deliberation the Council had made their projections,

and they knew about the grey universe. They could have sent

a team to investigate it. Perhaps not. He would have to warn

them, but first he had to rescue Larna.

As if to emphasise that point, there were screams in the

distance. A man and a woman screaming. The Doctor ran

towards the sounds, feet pounding against the stone floor,

turning the last corridor so fast that he nearly lost his balance.

The two nobles he had just seen were lying in the middle

of the corridor, their blood staining the floor tiles. They’d been

slashed with a long force blade. One had been stabbed

through the hearts, the other had half his skull sliced away,

Both were quite dead.

And although the Doctor was ashamed to think it, he was

relieved that neither of them was Larna. She couldn’t be far

away.

He heard her scream, she was just around the corner. He

dashed towards them, heedless of his own safety.

He was just in time to see a power room door slam down.

Behind it he’d seen the control bank, a swish of grey cloak

and a flash of white, the silk shirt of his that Larna had been

wearing.

The Doctor slammed his fists against the shutters in

frustration.

The Station didn’t slow down, it simply arrived.

The crew pulled themselves to their feet. No one was

injured. Now it was over, the Magistrate reflected, he could

look back on it as an exhilarating ride. The images he had

seen were simply dreams, things of no significance now that

they had gone.

There was work to be done.

‘Open the portholes,’ he ordered. ‘Prepare the defences.

Our first priority is to seal off this time zone. Establish a

communication channel with Gallifrey.’

The opaque screens dissolved back, letting them see the

universe. At the same time, sensor arrays came on‐line,

scanning the universe. The Infinity Chamber in the central

column lit up. The Time Lords formed a circle, looking up into

the image of this dead universe.

Darkness. There were no stars, no galaxies, there was

little matter or energy. Virtually nothing was left at all. In the

Gallifreyan timezone, the universe was still warmed by the

heat from the big bang. There was background radiation

permeating the universe, at a practically constant three

degrees Kelvin, That was only three degrees above absolute

zero, but it seemed positively tropical compared with the

temperature registering outside the Station now:

0.0000000000001 Kelvins. The instruments showed that

there were stars here, but the hottest were barely over five

Kelvin, cold enough instantly to turn water into ice, cold

enough to freeze oxygen solid. Over the aeons that had

passed since his lime, matter had slowly evaporated,

returned to its subatomic components. The largest star left

was barely bigger than Gallifrey had been, and the vestigial

planets that orbited them would be no larger than boulders.

There was no light here, simply degrees of darkness.

It made their task easier. If it wasn’t behind its stasis halo,

then this Station would be burning bright against the

heavens, like a match struck in the dark. The amount of

energy it must be expelling, the Source should be

incandescent. Of course, just as common as the embers of

stars here were the black holes, formed as galaxies and

clusters of galaxies had collapsed in on each other. The

universe was tiny, now, and contracting further.

For the first time the Magistrate wondered what the people

of the universe were doing on this day. There might still be

life out here, huddled close to the last sources of energy. He

wondered if the descendants of the Time Lords would be

amongst their number. The planet Gallifrey itself would be

gone, of course, its star long exhausted. The people of

Gallifrey might have migrated to a new planet, or perhaps to

an artificial environment of some kind. Gallifreyans had

traditionally resisted the urge to transform into beings of pure

intelligence – an option they considered rather gauche. When

their new home wore out they’d get themselves a new one.

Onwards and onwards. Time Lord society had remained

stable for millions of years, but that was nothing when

compared to the projected life span of the universe. Perhaps

some of the projections were correct, perhaps by this time

the Time Lords would be long dead. But if Gallifrey could fall,

then what hope for the lesser races? The Magistrate

wondered if there was there any life here at all. Was

sentience just a phase the universe went through?

No.

The Time Lords had achieved so much in mere millions of

years, their science exceeded their imagination. What

technologies must their descendants have at their disposal?

Life would have found a way to leave this dying cosmos

altogether.

The Magistrate looked down at this cold, dead vestige of a

universe. He hoped so.

The madman holding Larna would be expecting the Doctor to

come through the door. The Renegade had already

demonstrated that he had expert knowledge of the Capitol’s

security systems. He knew that the thickest security doors

could be over‐ridden, and he’d be ready on the other side of

the door, with that force knife of his. He’d be able to cut

Larna’s throat before the Doctor had got his foot through the

door. The Doctor checked his watch. Eight point nine bells.

He’d been stood out here for ten minutes trying to work out

his options.

But there just wasn’t another way in.

The Doctor rested his palm on the door. It was pulsing with

energy. There must be an active time column in there.

Even if he had time to get up to the TARDIS cradles, the

Doctor knew that the power room was heavily shielded. He

considered transduction, transmatation, teleporting… a whole

load of other words used to describe essentially the same

process, but none of them would work. Nothing got in or out

of that room except through the open door. The Doctor, as a

member of the High Council, had the authority. The Doctor

hesitated. The Renegade had the knowledge somehow. So

did that mean that the madman was a Councillor? Or that he

had been a Councillor in the past? Or – and this was the

prospect that worried the Doctor the most – that he was from

the future?

Four bursts from the sonic screwdriver and the access

panel to the door came loose. The Doctor lifted it down,

tapped in his authorisation lode. The door unlocked itself,

perfectly silently. The Doctor took a deep breath, tugging the

force knife out of his pocket. Larna had given it him in the

refectory. He played with the dial and formed a metre‐long

u-type leaf blade. He weighed it in one hand, checked and

then adjusted its balance, and then swung it experimentally.

He was ready, but he didn’t open the door, not yet. He would

have to choose his moment carefully.

He heard Larna.

‘The timegate is closing,’ she said. ‘The time vehicle,

whatever it is, has come to rest.’

Even through a thick metal door, the Doctor could hear the

fear in her voice. She was a hostage, trapped in a tiny room

with a known killer. She’d have seen the Renegade kill those

men, but she wouldn’t have seen the Doctor hot on their

heels. She didn’t know that rescue was at hand.

‘When?’ a man’s voice said. The Doctor recognised the

voice from somewhere. He spent valuable seconds trying to

place it.

‘Within a few years of Event Two. It is difficult to say from

here with any great certainty.’

‘Keep the timegate open… do it!’ The voice passed inches

from the door. Which meant that he was on the other side of

the room, now. Wasn’t he?

‘The end of the universe,’ Larna said. Left‐ hand side of the room.

‘What?’ He just moved back towards her.

‘Before, you told me that it was the end of the universe.

You we right.’ Left‐ hand side of the room.

‘Yes. Good. You have done well.’ Right in front of the door.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked. Left‐ hand side.

‘I am preparing a phased energy pulse.’ He’d paused right

in front of the door. ‘I am going to channel the energy from this column and direct it to the Station.’ he said simply.

‘The Station will be destroyed,’ Larna objected.

‘Yes. But the timegate will remain open. We will travel

down it in my TARDIS.’ Right‐ hand side.

There was no more time. The Doctor raised the sword in

one hand, slapped the door control with the other and leapt

through the door as it whooshed open.

He caught a flash of Larna to his left, the glittering of the

time column to his front, but he spun to his right. The

Renegade was standing over a control panel. His sword was

drawn, but it was loose in his hand as he concentrated on

operating the console. Not for long. The Renegade lunged,

as the Doctor knew that he would. The Doctor blocked, then

thrust.

The Renegade parried, trying to twist the blade out of the

Doctor’s hand using brute strength, but the Doctor had

already begun his countermove, and the blades just glanced

off each other, giving the Doctor time to straighten and look

at his opponent properly for the first time.

The grey cloak the Renegade wore was rather luxurious.

Underneath that, there seemed to be a spacesuit of some

kind.

His face!

‘Savar…’ the Doctor gasped. He knew who this was… but

this wasn’t his current incarnation. This was his fourth

regeneration, the one that had vanished, the one whose eyes

had been taken. The angular cheekbones, the curly beard, it

was unmistakably Savar. And his eyes were missing. It had

taken the Doctor a moment to notice what was wrong. He

had thought that the face was in shadow, but the eyes were

shadow; there was nothing else there. The eyes were meant

to be the windows to the soul – well, true enough, without

them Savar looked incomplete, more like a skull than a face.

‘Savar, it’s me…’

But the sound of his voice merely gave Savar something

to aim at. He had grabbed his sword in both hands and now

swung it at the Doctor with all his strength. The Doctor

half‐fell, half‐ducked to get out of its way. The blade swiped

the air above him, carving a great scar in the stone wall.

The Doctor scrabbled, trying to gain footing,

Savar lifted the sword above his head and brought it down,

but the Doctor was already out of the way. The blade gouged

a hole six inches deep in the marble floor. The man’s face

was twisted, murderous.

But Savar… Savar was a noble man, an explorer, a

scientist. He had been a friend of the Doctor’s father. He’d

been the Doctor’s friend. After his return, they’d never shared

the same relationship. Savar’s condition had limited him, and

rather like an elderly body with a debilitating illness, or

encroaching senility, the young and healthy – and the Doctor

was no exception – had avoided him, found him faintly

distasteful. Unconsciously, perhaps, they were all scared that

Savar’s condition was contagious.

The Doctor was crouched now, sword in one hand. He

pulled himself to his feet, swiping the blade ahead of him to

give himself a little room.

Savar had returned to the console. The Doctor brought

down his sword on the controls, making them explode.

Savar lashed out, and would have sliced the Doctor’s arms

off at the elbow if he hadn’t let go of his sword and thrown

himself back. He landed at Lama’s feet, and she helped him

up. He stood between her and Savar, although he knew that

his body offered little protection against a forceblade. Her

breathing was uneven, panicked. He could hardly blame her.

‘We’ll be all right,’ he told her calmly.

Savar turned and began to advance, sword in front of him.

The Doctor’s blade was embedded in the console on the

other side of the mom, like the sword in the stone.

‘The energy pulse is on a countdown,’ she told him. ‘He

managed to get it going.’

He glanced over his shoulder. ‘How long?’

She gave a helpless smile and shrugged.

Savar lurched at them, but they leapt out of the way –

Larna towards the centre of the room, the Doctor to the edge.

‘That was close,’ the Doctor laughed, hoping that the edge

of panic in his voice wasn’t too obvious.

Savar swung around, taking the two strides towards him

that he needed to.

He was blind. Savar couldn’t see him, he was going on

sound and… telepathy.

The Doctor stayed perfectly still and he reached into his

mind. There was a point within him that… his breathing

stopped. His hearts slowed, His mind emptied. The Doctor

could still see, but only a blurred image, Savar stopped in his

tracks, unsure what had happened.

‘Over here!’ Larna called from her console. She knew. ‘I’m

just about to deactivate the energy pulse.’

Savar turned his back on the Doctor, and was about to

take his first step towards Larna when the Doctor reached

out, grabbing Savar’s shoulder, and pulled down with all his

might. Savar lost his balance, crashing to the floor.

The Doctor pulled himself over, pinning Savar down with

his knee in his chest, his hand chopping Savar’s wrist once,

making him drop the sword.

‘Doctor!’ Larna shouted.

Savar still had a free hand and moved to grab at the

Doctor’s throat, but the Doctor had anticipated the move, and

blocked it. Savar formed a fist and jabbed it hard into the

Doctor’s stomach. The Doctor gasped, eyes watering. Savar

was rolling free, lifting the Doctor from the floor. His back

arched, and the Doctor nearly toppled off.

And then something had grabbed Savar’s free arm and

pressed it to the floor.

Larna was alongside him, kneeling on Savar’s wrist, one

hand flat on his collarbone, keeping him pinned.

‘Bitch!’ Savar growled.

Larna grabbed the back of his head in one hand and then

brought it hard down on the marble floor. The Doctor felt the

body go limp.

The Doctor looked across at Larna and grinned

breathlessly.

‘Thank you for rescuing me,’ he said.

‘Thank you for rescuing me,’ she replied.

They both got to their feet, a little awkwardly. They

hugged. Larna was still shaking. Then she broke off, bent

down over Savar, began a search of his robes.

‘He had a key,’ she explained. ‘That’s why he broke into

the Archive Chamber, that’s why he kidnapped Peltroc. The

guards left it in your room.’

She found it, and handed it over.

‘This is a TARDIS key,’ the Doctor said, after a quick

examination. He jabbed his thumb behind his shoulder,

‘Savar’s TARDIS. The wardrobe that was out there?’

‘It can’t be,’ Larna said. ‘We got the key from your room,

and we went to your room in his TARDIS. He already had the

key for that one.’

‘In that case it must –’ the Doctor glanced over to the

console. ‘You did switch off that energy pulse, didn’t you?’

Larna’s eyes widened. The two of them leapt at the

console, flicking switches, working together to reroute the

power circuits. Finally, the pitch of the time column changed.

‘Close thing there,’ the Doctor said, stepping away from

the console and wiping his forehead with his handkerchief.

He moved past Larna to examine Savar.

The crew of the Station had set up time buffers and early

warning systems. Time travel to and from this timezone was

impossible now, except for the narrow channel they were

using to connect with Gallifrey.

With the defences in place, it was time to explore. The

Infinity Chamber’s observations were being hampered by the

high concentrations of black holes and dark matter in the

dying universe. The Magistrate had ordered that three

TARDISes be sent out to map the dead universe. Lords

Hemal, Quarduk and Norval were dispatched, each heading

in a different direction. Information from their ships was

relayed to the Station, where the Infinity Chamber began

filling in the blanks in its model.

Hedin watched as the map began filling itself in. It was like

picture restoration: scraping away the accumulated dust and

dirt and soot from the candles to reveal the vibrant colours

underneath.

The Magistrate hovered behind him, full of anticipation.

‘Why so impatient?’ Hedin asked.

‘I can feel it,’ the Magistrate told him. ‘Power. Gallifrey is

on the brink of a discovery that will put it… well, who knows

where?’

Hedin could feel it, too. Time Lords felt the flow of time as

the lesser races felt the air against their skin. ‘But we are

already by far the most powerful race in the universe. Isn’t

that powerful enough?’

The Magistrate shook his head, a smile on his face.

‘A generation ago, the President thought as you did,’

Hedin said.

The Magistrate raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? I didn’t think

his ambitions stretched beyond devising new ceremonies and

procedures.’

‘He and I studied the Old Times together. The ROO texts,

the legends of Rassilon and Omega.’

‘Back then, Gallifreyans were more adventurous.’

Hedin’s smile flickered. ‘That’s one way of looking at it,

certainly.’

‘Not one that you share?’

‘No,’ Hedin said, almost apologetically. ‘For many years I

have thought that the best thing about Gallifrey being the

supreme power in the universe is that no one else is. Imagine

Gallifrey’s might in the hands of the Daleks or the Faction

Paradox. Better not to use the power than to use it unwisely.’

The Magistrate scowled. ‘If Rassilon had thought as you

did.’

An alarm buzzed.

It was an urgent signal from Lord Norval.

He had found the Source.

The Doctor was bent over Savar. Unconscious, the blind face

still seemed troubled, enraged. As the Doctor watched, a

shadow lifted, and it was the real Savar again, the small mild,

man.

‘It must be dawn,’ Larna said, inexplicably.

Savar’s eyes fluttered open. He was clearly disorientated

and this was hardly helped by the Doctor looming over him.

So the Doctor leant a little closer.

‘Where am I?’

‘One of the power rooms,’ Larna said from across the

room.

‘I didn’t –?’

The Doctor nodded down at him. ‘You most certainly did.’

He held out the key. ‘And it was all to do with this key. What’s

so important about it?’

‘It opens the door of my TARDIS,’ Savar said.

‘Your original TARDIS? The one that was lost?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I take it you found it again. Where?’

‘There.’ Savar said, turning his head as much as he could

to indicate the power display.

The Doctor glanced at it and frowned, before returning his

attention to Savar. ‘Right at the end of time. It’s a long way to

travel. Why is it worth murdering and kidnapping for, hmm?

What’s in that TARDIS, Lord Savar?’

‘A power beyond that of God,’ he said.

Lord Norval’s TARDIS was a plain white obelisk, spinning in

space.

Inside its impossibly large control room was a three‐sided

central console. Beside it stood Norval, altering course every

so often, checking that the TARDIS’s scanners were still

working at full efficiency and that the communication link with

the Station was being maintained. He was a small man, in a

collarless jade tunic. The Magistrate had chosen him

because he’d run the odd errand for the High Council in his

time: delivered messages, acted as an emissary. Chiefly he

was an astronomer, though, quite at home in this strange, old

universe. This was a place that he’d only read about in

academic journals: a storybook land where time ran

backwards and the stars were colder than ice.

The Source stood out from the dark background of this

dead place. It was only a very few degrees above absolute

zero, but it was amongst the hottest, most energetic things

still in existence. Even the black holes, emitting nothing but

Hawking radiation, counted as hot in this place. Apart from

the temperature, there was also the shape. On the scope,

each black hole looked like a tiny dot. This object resembled

a dash. The TARDIS had automatically alerted him to its

presence, and he’d changed course to get a closer look.

Still many light centuries away, the time field sensors had

begun to go haywire as the Effect started registering. At that

point, Norval knew for certain what he had suspected.

Immediately, he had sent a signal to the station, informing

them that he had found the Source.

At this distance, even using Gallifreyan technology, it

wasn’t possible to get a very clear image of the object – there

were just too many black holes and clouds of dark matter, all

squeezing close together as the universe contracted. The

Magistrate had suggested that he move his TARDIS to a

point where he had a clearer view. Norval decided to keep

his distance, and chose to lay in a set of co‐ordinates that

would place him around ten light years from the object. Even

without accurate maps of the area, it had been relatively easy

to find a suitable spot.

He opened the shutters of the scanner.

It dominated the screen even at this distance.

When confronted with the infinite – as the Time Lords

were ever day – it became banal, somehow, easy to imagine,

impossible to understand. Norval’s first impression was that the object looked like knitting needle stuck in a black grape.

The computers sole supplied the information that the object

was a light year long and that the black hole had a diameter

three times that of Gallifrey. But neither image helped him to

comprehend it… even the Gallifreyan language lacked the

vocabulary to bring home the sheer scale of what he was

seeing.

Every system on the ship started whirring and chattering

with new data These finding were relayed on to the Station. It

left Norval free to make his observations, to try to come to

terms with the Needle He was sure that nothing like it existed

in any timezone known to Gallifrey. He conferred with the

Magistrate, who checked the data with the matrix itself.

The Magistrate’s voice echoed around the console room

from the various speakers.

‘Lord Norval The object is artificial. I repeat: someone built

it.’

The Past

I of the Needle

‘I have been a broken man for many years,’ Savar began,

‘but had no idea upon which wheel I had been broken. I had

my dreams, brighter and more vivid than before, but upon

waking, I couldn’t remember anything more than flashes of

colour, or a sense of movement. The truth was there,

tantalising me. I felt that there was something watching me,

red eyes in the sky, red eyes in the walls and floors and

ceilings.

‘The last ten days have been different. At night, I have…

it’s the breach in spacetime. It affects the mind. It has given

you both nightmares, or waking dreams. The coming of night

changes me now, transforms me into my past self, yet grants

me my current memories. It turns me into something I am

not, a twisted venomous version of myself, As I might have

been. Why me? Because I was there at its creation. I have

seen the face of God.

‘Once, as an arrogant young man, I thought I could

change the universe. A common belief amongst those just

starting out in life. A few of my contemporaries thought as I

did: your father, Hedin, your mentor, Lady Zurvana, even our

beloved President… although he was merely a Chancellor

back then. Come to think of it, that was before you were

awarded your doctorate, so you wouldn’t have called yourself

the Doctor. No. Hedin was still a Hedin.

‘Mid‐day, in the Panopticon. The banners and sunlight

were streaming. Was that before or after your wedding?

What about the children? It was before the grandchild. Of

course it was… you were much younger, standing at your

father’s side. You… you looked much as you do now. We

played chess, I beat you, and you almost cried. No one had

ever beaten you before. As we played, the adults discussed

astronomy, You displayed your knowledge of the

Chandrasekhar Limit. Just that morning you had been

studying black holes. The others were impressed, and I

cooed my own platitudes.

‘But I was planning to do more than study black holes and

learn their names.

‘Two million years ago, Omega, Rassilon and the others

took their starbreakers to Qqaba. Omega was lost, of course,

but the others survived. The time energies infused them,

made them into Time Lords. Rassilon captured the black

hole, led it back through the streets of the Capitol in the

greatest victory parade the universe had yet seen. Infinite

power, time travel, incredible advances in science and

technology, the banishment of all its enemies. Gallifrey had it

all. But Omega was lost. Oh, the Time Lords never forgot

him, they honoured his name. But Rassilon took most of the

credit, and all of the spoils.

‘I planned to do more than remember Omega: I planned to

rescue him.

‘Gallifrey has lost its way. For twenty thousand centuries

we have squandered our great inheritance, we’ve been

content to watch from our private utopia. We don’t serve, but

neither do we rule. Oh, you think I’m just another Morbius,

intent on raising an army and conquering the universe, or a

Marnal off on some impossible crusade. No. You think as I

do, Doctor, although you won’t admit it. You want the

universe to change, and change begins at home. That’s why

you came back: you sense what is coming. Your father felt as

we do, and so did the President back then. You think we are

on the brink of a new golden age. I sense from her thoughts

that Lady Larna agrees.

‘It was simple enough. Remember what you told me about

black holes, all those years ago? That’s right: “nothing can

escape a black hole”. Well, you know now that isn’t true. All

you need to do is travel faster than light, although in practice

the intense gravity warps hyperspace as it warps normal

spacetime, so spaceships can’t just fly faster than light to

break a black star’s hold.

‘Yes… well done, Larna. They told me that you showed

promise. A TARDIS. I was the one who would pilot my

TARDIS into the black hole. I would rescue Omega, and I

would bring him back to Gallifrey, where he would take his

rightful place as Lord High President of the Time Lords. It

would be so easy, and why had no one thought of it before?

‘Oh yes, Doctor, your father knew of this. Did he approve?

At first. But when it came to it, he merely stayed in his high

tower. He watched, at least, as long as he could. Not even

the Time Lords can see past the event horizon of a black

hole. I passed through it in my TARDIS. He didn’t see what

happened to me after that, and I never saw what happened

to him.

‘After a time travelling through the darkness, I saw a

doorway. It led into another universe, one with brighter

colours and sweeter smells. It led into a garden. My TARDIS

came to rest, and – suitably protected, of course – I stepped

from him and onto the stonework of this gate that divided the

two universes. All around me was black, except for the light

pouring from that doorway. There were sights, and smells,

but no sounds. I could see the birds in that alien sky, I could

see a waterfall, but I couldn’t hear them. I was about to place

my foot over the threshold.

‘I hesitated.

‘And he was there. Ohm, ancient god of the Time Lords,

chained to heaven as the legends told. I saw him, in the

distance, and then closer, towering over me. He spoke to me,

but I couldn’t hear what he was saying, and he couldn’t step

over the threshold into our universe. He beckoned me

forward, with one gloved hand. And then I knew that if I set

foot in that place that I would be lost, and that it would mean

the end of everything.

He asked me what I wanted. He told me he could change

the past, give me whatever I desired. He showed me my

friend, dead two decades. He had died in a storm, his boat

lost with all hands. Ohm showed me the boat returned to

port. He showed me visions of how my past might have been

had I been Astronomer Royal or had I left Gallifrey. Whatever

I wanted, he said, as the past changed around me. All the

mistakes of my youth, all my failed conquests both

professional and personal. It could all change. Would I like to

be a Prydonian rather than an Arcalian? Which title, honour

or job would I wish? Would I rather be a woman than a man?

It could all change, yet remain the same. His voice was a

whisper. Just help him to leave this terrible place and a

universe would be mine. Nothing was fixed, nothing. The past

wasn’t real, the present wasn’t real, the future wasn’t real.

‘Fear filled my hearts at this prospect.

‘“I am who I am!” I shouted.

‘I fled. I stumbled back to my TARDIS, slammed closed

the doors, I lung myself at the controls. The flight from the

black hole… all the way there, I had been fretting about my

return. A journey such as mine had never been attempted

before. Now, the technicalities didn’t matter: I had to escape,

or all would be lost.

‘My TARDIS reached the event horizon without incident,

but as we reached that final hurdle, we were attacked. The

control room crackled with green lightning, I could feel the

power seeping away, could sense the Time Vortex around

my ship fading. I could feel the external shell of the TARDIS

annihilating. I did what I could, I wrestled with the controls.

‘My TARDIS screeched and shrieked as he tried to get

free. Time and space… they are different things there. Matter

and energy aren’t as know them. Finally, after an hour at the

console, I broke free, or so thought. I set the controls for a

massive burst of speed, to get away from this terrible place.

But I looked back, and I saw that the tiniest part of my

TARDIS was still trapped in the black hole. I looked again,

and I saw the hand of Ohm grasped there, pulling us towards

the doorway.

‘I panicked. I told the TARDIS to fly on, to leave. But this

wasn’t some cave, or the jaws of some sea creature, this was

the event horizon of a black hole. There was no escape.

‘An irresistible amount of power, trying to break free from

an immovable force. A puzzle for the mathematicians! But no,

Lady Larna, you are quite right. By definition, either there

wasn’t going to be enough power, or the event horizon would

release me.

‘There wasn’t enough power.

‘Oh, my TARDIS tried. He struggled, pulled, stretched out

like toffee, pulled himself through more dimensions than we

can conceive of. All the time I was clinging to the console. All

the time, I knew that my TARDIS couldn’t make it.

‘There was only one course of action to me, I abandoned

my dying ship, made for the escape unit. Behind me, I saw

my TARDIS, his outer shell stretched and looped around

itself, chameleon circuits reconfiguring and reconfiguring,

trying to get away. But to no avail.

‘Stretched thin, now, like a vast needle, a line that must

have been a light year long, I saw the moment my TARDIS

gave up the fight. He began falling, slipping into the black

hole like a drowning sailor. I heard his telepathic cries for

help, I heard him pleading: “Don’t abandon me, don’t leave

me in this terrible darkness.”

‘As he fell, he tore a hole in time, like a fingernail down a

blackboard. It was as if a hole had been ripped from the page

of a book. I saw the pages behind ours, other times and

spaces. Not parallel universes, but palimpsest universes.

Reality is a slate, and history and memory and matter and

time are just patterns of chalk on that reality. There is so

much left unwritten, or just sketched in. A casual word, a

glance down the wrong alleyway and… and everything could

change. The Time Lords hold such power, the power to

destroy a planet or change a young girl’s past. We devour

time as a beetle chews up leaves or bacteria rots a corpse.

That power scares me. Nothing is safe, nothing is sacred.

‘But these observations were useless to me. I was alone. I

was away from the black hole, but in a notorious area of

space, with no power to enter the Vortex, not enough power

even to call Gallifrey for help.

‘I wrote the name of what I had seen on a piece of paper.

OHM. The ancient name of the trapped God.

‘I drifted, ice forming on the skin of my lifeboat. My food

and water ran out, my air was growing stale. I have no idea

how long I drifted. A hundred years? A thousand?

‘They came while I slept, burning through the

indestructible walls of my escape capsule. They were

scavengers, they stepped into the darkness. They glinted,

like emeralds and rubies, their legs were metal, jointed in all

the wrong places, with glass spines embedded in them.

‘An insect species, I thought. Their compound eyes

watched me, swivelling in their sockets as they saw the

technology that surrounded me.

‘I told them my name, and where I was from. That

interested them. They spoke to me. Asked me questions. I

wondered if they were real, or were creatures from my

dreams. I had long passed the point where I could make the

distinction.

‘Then they took my ship apart – their hands were like army

knives, unscrewing and peeling back and sawing away the

control panels, the power conduits, the computer core, the

light fittings, the springs and mounts of my chair. They

scraped away samples of the carpet, of the walls, of the

fabric of my spacesuit. They passed it back behind them, into

their ship, they did it without rest, relentlessly stripping the

capsule of everything that could be taken.

‘Then they started with me. They took some of my hair, my

skin, my blood, extracted material from my glands, drained

my spinal fluid. That wasn’t enough for them. They stopped

for a moment, communicated with each other in a chittering

voice, like a man walking over broken bottles, and then they

took my eyes. One held me down, without effort, and the

other was over me, a hand over each eye, a needle‐thin

blade coming from its end finger. I felt the eyes slipping from

their sockets, only the optic nerve holding them in place.

Then I felt the nerves sliding out, like swords from a

scabbard. I could still see. I felt the other one, the one who

was holding me down, lean forward. I heard a sound like a

buzzsaw.

‘I heard them leave, welding the wall back into place

behind them. It wasn’t enough for them to let me die, they let

me live. Despite that I shouted after them. “Come back,” I

called. “Don’t leave me!”

‘But they had gone Without my eyes, without life support,

alone in space, I saw it all. I had time to think, and to dream.

‘Nothing is real.’

Chapter Eight

Death of a Time Lord

The Doctor had stood, Larna at his side, as Savar had told

his story. He’d listened to every one of the madman’s words,

speaking in a soft voice only to answer a direct question. It

had been quite a contrast with Savar, who had strutted and

paced around the room, the pitch of his voice rising and

falling as he spat out the words. What this Savar lacked in

physical presence and strength, he attempted to convey with

venom.

The anger was as terrifying as it was fascinating. As Larna

watched Savar’s face contorting, as she analysed his

sentence structure and posture, she realised that he was

insane, by any of the accepted definitions. Of course that had

been obvious from the actions of his other self: murder,

kidnap, seemingly random destructive acts. This disturbed

Larna, not for its violation of the criminal law, but the physical

ones. Time Lords felt time flow through them, but more than

that, they helped to shape and refine time and space around

them. All sentient life did this, of course, their observations

helping to resolve quantum events, bring the universe into its

current form according to the four anthropic principles. But

because of their unique powers and the scope of their

technology, Time Lords did more than most races to affect

the universe. Their victories in the Time Wars fought in the

generations after Rassilon had helped to stabilise the

cosmos, they had laid down the foundations of the modern,

rationalistic universe. Would a mad Time Lord have the

opposite effect? Would his insanity become contagious,

affecting the past and the future like a virus?

When he had finished, Savar stood there panting like an

animal, exhausted by his rants. The Doctor had glanced

across to Larna, who had smiled nervously. The Doctor was

an adept telepath, one of the most proficient that Larna had

known, but Savar’s powers seemed to be in a league of their

own. She could feel his mind snarling at her. A further sign of

his mental instability – that he couldn’t even keep his

thoughts to himself?

‘The Effect can change the past?’ The Doctor asked.

‘Yes,’ Savar replied calmly.

There was a look in the Doctor’s eyes, an intensity. These

two men had a lot in common, Larna realised. Both had left

the Capitol, seen the universe and been changed by the

experience. Needless to say, the Doctor’s experiences had

been a great deal more enriching. Both were explorers, but

Savar was dangerous, the things he had seen had been

destructive, deathly.

‘Changing the past is impossible,’ Larna interjected. ‘It’s an

alchemist’s dream, like being able to reverse entropy or see

the future.’

‘The Time Lords of old could see the future,’ the Doctor

noted.

‘It’s a fairy story, unscientific rubbish.’

The Doctor looked over to her, flashing a quick smile.

‘That’s exactly what Rassilon said.’

‘What would you do with the power to change the past?’

Savar asked.

The Doctor looked away. ‘We have to see the Council,’ he

told Larna quietly. ‘We have to take Savar to them, give him a

chance to argue his case.’

Larna couldn’t believe what she had just heard. ‘He killed

Waym, he killed those other two Time Lords, kidnapped me

and that guard…’

The Doctor nodded, brushing her face with the back of his

hand. ‘And he’ll pay for his crimes,’ he promised. ‘But he

holds the key to this, literally. This all started because of the

damage his TARDIS caused to spacetime.’

‘What are you saying there?’ Savar asked from the other

end of the room. All these years it had seemed that everyone

bar a handful of people had been unsettled by Savar. All

these years Larna had been disgusted by the others’

dismissal of him, their taunts and quiet bullying. All these

years, the bullies had been right: Savar was creepy, there

was something sinister about him.

‘We have to see the Council,’ Savar agreed. ‘You must

convince them that I am right.’

‘No!’ the Doctor said softly. ‘They will not listen. They will

try to harness the Effect.’

Savar rubbed his chin. ‘That must not be allowed to

happen.’

‘You’ve changed your tune,’ Larna said. ‘You wanted to

rescue Omega, or Ohm, or whoever it is down there.’

‘The blind Savar wants that,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘But you

don’t, do you?’

‘My other self is a servant of Ohm. I sense that there is an

evil at work. I want to seal off the future, prevent access. We

can seal the breach in spacetime from here.’

‘You haven’t gone out of your way to persuade them,’

Larna shouted back.

The Doctor stepped between them. ‘No, no, he hasn’t.

Although to be fair, it would certainly take some explaining…

According to his logic, the Council doesn’t matter. The

universe is going to end, so individual lives are of infinitesimal

importance. That’s not a philosophy that is filling to win him

many friends. We have to help him argue his case.’

‘I agree,’ said Savar thoughtfully. ‘It is not too late to

prevent this.’

Larna was angry again, just seeing the face, hearing the

voice. ‘Why do I have to listen to this madman?’

‘I’ve seen the grey universe,’ the Doctor explained

urgently. ‘There’s nothing capable of that except the Effect.’

There was a glimmer of terror in his eyes. If he couldn’t

persuade her, how could he hope to persuade the Council?

‘But the Station is in the future now,’ Larna said, pointing

at the display screen. ‘That’s what will happen to the

universe: it will run its course. The future you saw doesn’t

happen.’

‘Have you understood nothing, child?’ Savar asked her.

‘While that Effect is active, nothing is fixed. The future with

the Needle is one future, but not necessarily the one that we

will enjoy. The Effect has the power to control every aspect of

time and space, from the smallest particle to the Absolute.

We have to warn the Council of this. We have to tell them of

the omnipotent power of that place.’

‘That is exactly what we mustn’t do.’ the Doctor warned. ‘If

we even mention the sheer power of this thing, we’ll do

nothing but encourage them to investigate it.’

‘We are going to lie to the Council?’ Larna said.

‘To save the universe, yes. Come on.’

Norval’s TARDIS hovered, its scanners beginning to capture

beautiful images. The pictures and associated data were

relayed to the Station, where the Time Lords and their

computers analysed what they saw and prepared their

reports.

Norval crossed his arms, studying the image on the

scanner, letting his TARDIS fly itself. Except for its size the

Needle seemed fairly straightforward. The Needle was a

tube, like an immense length of drainpipe or a drinking straw.

Gallifrey could have fit neatly down hole in the centre. At one

end, the Needle was stuck in the black hole, and this twisted

its straight lines a little, and bathed it in hard radiation and

gravitational distortion. All around that end of the Needle

were waves of spacetime distortion: the Effect that they had

detected from Gallifrey. These radiated out from the black

hole like spray from fountain.

The Needle was bone‐white, smooth and immaculate.

There were no craters, no irregularities. There had been

impacts, inevitable encounters with asteroids, maybe even

larger objects, but the Needle itself hadn’t been damaged.

Instead, rocks and ice had dashed themselves against the

surface, forming dirty smudges that were barely visible from

this distance.

The spectroscope had just come up with something

interesting, Norval noticed it just before he heard the

Magistrate’s voice.

‘Norval, fly a little closer,’ The Magistrate read out a series

of co‐ordinates.

The TARDIS was already making the necessary course

correction, its scanners homing in on the designated area.

Norval stared.

Impossibly – but not, by far, the most impossible thing

about this artefact – a swathe of the surface at the end

furthest from the black hole had once sustained a biosphere.

It represented only a hundredth or so of the tube’s surface,

from this distance it was a speck. But even so, it was a huge

area: a million times more habitable land than even a Dyson

Sphere could provide. Enough room, perhaps, for the entire

Population of a galaxy. There must have been artificial suns

here at some point, providing all the heat and light the

population needed.

Like everything else in the universe, it was long dead now.

The entire great stretch of the tube’s surface was deep with

thick snow and ice. This wasn’t simply frozen water –

although there was enough of that to have filled a hundred

thousand oceans on Gallifrey – but also frozen oxygen and

nitrogen. As the last energy of the universe had dissipated,

the air had cooled and solidified, the sky had fallen, encasing

the cities that had dotted this part of the surface. The tallest

buildings were around ten miles high, and poked out from the

snow.

Over the next few minutes, Norval identified at least a

hundred settlements, one of which had been the size of a

continent. The architecture was a mix of styles. Most of the

buildings had been built from a white material, possibly a

ceramic. It was clear, though, from the size and spacing of

their doors and windows, that the people of this place had

been humanoids of roughly Gallifreyan height, that they had

needed roadways and arable fields.

Men like us, then, Norval thought. Had this been their last

refuge? An ark where the last people of the universe had

lived? If that was the case, then they hadn’t made it to the

end. Even the race capable of building this place hadn’t been

able to prevent their own extinction, as the universe

collapsed and faded around them.

The end had been a long time coming: there were no

bodies frozen in place, no evidence that buildings had been

smashed by a tidal wave of snow. But neither was there any

evidence of spaceports, or an evacuation effort.

‘There are no roads between the cities,’ he noted.

‘No,’ the Magistrate said, ‘but the distances between the

cities are so vast. They must have used transmats or aircraft.’

‘Assuming that there was any contact between the cities at

all,’ Norval replied. ‘There is no space debris, no satellite

network, no artificial moons. It may have been the case that

the cities just didn’t know of each other’s existence. Each city

certainly has a distinct architectural style.’

Hedin’s voice: ‘It’s difficult to say, but some of the buildings

are a lot older than the others. This place could have been

settled for a very long time…. tens of millions of years at

least. Spacefarers would have seen this place from many

light years’ distance, it must have dominated the heavens of

a thousand worlds. Ships could have arrived quite

independently of each other. This place is so large that their

sensors might not have registered other life: Civilisations

larger and more mighty than most galaxies ever saw could

have risen and fallen here, without ever encountering their

neighbours.

‘Are there any life signs?’

Norval checked. ‘I am still some distance away, and the

Effect is preventing a perfect view of the object, but if there is

life down there then there isn’t very much of it. Should I fly

closer?’

There was a pause.

‘Magistrate?’

‘No. Best to be cautious.’

Savar strode through the Capitol, the Doctor at his side, the

Lady Larna following. He sensed the fear of the Watchmen at

the door to Temporal Monitoring as he approached and the

Doctor negotiated their way in.

Temporal Monitoring echoed with the murmured words of

those watching from the Gallery and the hum of the Infinity

Chamber machinery. This was a public occasion, with crowds

filling the galleries, cameras recording the momentous events

for posterity. The Temporal Monitoring Main Chamber hadn’t

changed since his day. The Gallery was a hundred feet

above the floor of the chamber, filled to rafters with the

plebeian classes, baying and calling as if this were some

theatrical production, with the Time Lords below them staring

solemnly in space, as though it wasn’t.

He looked around. ‘Where are the Council?’

‘The Council are here, just in the wrong place,’ Larna told

him quietly.

They were standing around the Chamber, looking down at

an image of the object. It was being relayed from a TARDIS

by the look of it. There were various sub‐images: magnified

details of features on the surface. Frozen cities. It looked like

there was an ice age down there. Every planet must be like

that in the far future, without suns to warm them. The Doctor

broke away from them, striding towards the Councillors.

‘What is the Doctor doing?’ Savar asked.

‘He has gone to talk to the Council. They haven’t noticed

him yet.’

‘Lord Norval, how large is the Needle?’ he heard the

President ask.

‘It is certainly large enough to qualify for the Bdo scale,’

another voice – coming from a loudspeaker – announced. ‘It

is a tube, approximate one light year long, but barely fifty

thousand kilometres in diameter. One end is embedded in

the black hole. The timespace distortion Effect emanating

from the intersection radiates in the visible and near‐visible

spectrum for a distance of a million parsecs.’

‘Oh yes,’ said the Doctor, announcing his presence, ‘but

as they say on Arrakis, “If you think that’s big, you should see

the sparrows”.’

The assembled Time Lords began to turn his way.

‘So the Doctor has finally decided to grace us with his

presence.’ Castellan Voran declared.

‘Ah yes, and the Lady Larna has also shown her face,’

Pendrel added. ‘Synchronicity, I believe it is called.’

Savar fancied he could feel Lama’s blushes. The President

himself was stepping out from the group, the Doctor beside

him, walking towards them. The Castellan was two paces

behind them.

‘Lord Savar,’ the President declared, his voice weak with

age. Savar bowed his head, as etiquette demanded.

‘Lord President,’ the Doctor told them. ‘Gallifrey faces its

greatest threat.’

‘Yes, but also a great opportunity.’ It was the Magistrate,

standing at the President’s side. He had thought that the

Magistrate was in the far future.

His expression must have betrayed his confusion. ‘That is

a projection,’ Larna prompted him, ‘the real Magistrate is on

the Station.’

Savar turned to this simulacrum Magistrate. ‘Do you know

what you have found?’

‘Not yet,’ the Magistrate conceded. ‘It appears to be of

Gallifreyan origin.’

‘Indeed,’ Savar whispered.

‘Be very careful,’ the Doctor said, addressing the

Magistrate. ‘That object is all that remains of a TARDIS that

was damaged as it tried to break free of the black hole. It has

torn holes in the spacetime continuum. Those holes have

formed the Effect. There must also be collision of time energy

from the TARDIS and anti‐time from the collapsing universe,

which means…’ his voice trailed away. ‘Well, I’m not sure

about that bit.’

The President was beginning to piece it together. ‘Your

TARDIS?, he asked.

Savar nodded.

A number of the Councillors were muttering. Above all,

Time Lords were sworn to protect the timelines, and this

defied all those laws.

‘This thing is an abomination,’ one of the monks intoned.

‘How has your TARDIS managed to break free now?’ the

Magistrate asked.

‘That’s simple enough,’ Larna explained. ‘Under the

uncertainty principle, some of the particles from within the

black hole will occasionally appear outside the event horizon.

Over time every black hole evaporates. The black hole on

that image is the same one that Savar flew his TARDIS into,

but in the intervening aeons, it has shrunk a little. Less mass

equals less gravitational pull. When Savar tried to get out

originally he almost made it – in the far future, the black hole

is easier to escape from.’

The Castellan was puzzled, ‘What was your TARDIS doing

in a black hole in the first place?’

‘Savar was performing scientific observations into

gravitation,’ the Doctor said quickly. Savar felt the President’s

discomfort.

‘But why couldn’t these observations be made from

Gallifrey?’

There were notes of concern from the gallery, and

members of the Council.

‘Because, Castellan,’ Savar said levelly, ‘sometimes to

solve that which is unknown about the universe one has to

look beyond the roof of the Capitol Dome.’

There were giggles from the gallery fodder.

‘Not so, Lord, ah, Savar,’ an elderly voice said. The

Keeper of the Matrix stepped forwards. ‘The Matrix is the

repository of all knowledge. It contains all the mathematical

axioms and scientific principles that govern the universe, and

can apply them a great deal more efficiently than anyone

Gallifreyan. There are no mysteries to the Matrix.’

‘There are limits to its knowledge,’ Savar asserted.

‘Perhaps your ambitions do not stretch beyond acquiring

academic qualifications and meaningless ceremonial titles.

Mine did.’

‘And precisely what was your ambition?’ the Castellan

asked.

Savar smiled.

The Doctor grasped his arm. ‘Savar, don’t…’ he warned.

Savar shook him away, raised his head, showed his face

to the gallery for the first time. ‘I was planning to rescue

Omega himself!’

For a moment, those lining the galleries were unsure how

to react.

Neither was the Castellan. ‘Omega?’ was all that he

managed to say.

The Time Lords were returning their attention to the image

in the Infinity Chamber. Savar could sense the turmoil as they

tried to grasp what they were seeing, he revelled in the chaos

that he had created in such an ordered place.

‘Such was my arrogance that I thought I might liberate the

greatest of our number from his eternal tomb.’

‘So you have succeeded. After all this time, Omega has

been found.’ There was a tone of awe in the President’s

voice.

Lord Hedin pressed himself forwards. ‘We must land, we

must finish your great mission.’

‘It is not Omega down there, but something infinitely more

dangerous.’ But they weren’t listening to Savar’s pleas.

The Doctor could feel them slipping away. He made yet

another appeal. ‘No. No. There is great danger here.

Magistrate, you must stay away from the Needle –’

‘You must destroy it!’ roared Savar.

‘– and return to Gallifrey.’

‘Only the President can give such an order,’ the Castellan

reminded the Doctor disdainfully.

‘President?’ Savar begged.

The old man was calm. Savar felt his thoughts. The

President had studied Omega, he had written a dozen books

on the subject. His time in office had been dedicated to

restoring Omega’s reputation. This would be a culmination of

his Presidency, standing down to allow the restoration of

Omega, his crowning as the first Lord High President since

Rassilon himself.

‘No!’ Savar cried. ‘No!’

‘We should seize this opportunity,’ the President breathed.

‘Not only the Effect, but Omega himself!’

The Doctor had failed. The President was about to say it,

he was about to allow this expedition to proceed. The Doctor

was saying something, but Savar had no time to listen.

He reached into his robe, wrapped his hand around the

force knife.

‘No!’ the Doctor shouted. Savar knew the words were

directed at him, but they served no purpose.

Savar leapt, his hand clenched over the dagger. He

telepathed his President’s feelings, as he had for all his

victims. He felt the fear running lip the spine, the coldness in

the hearts as they quickened. The increased heartsrate only

made his target still easier to find. The eyes he didn’t have

were wide with terror. But did not allow the emotions to cloud

what must be done.

He brought the dagger down, plunging it through the

ribcage. With a metal blade you’d strike up, to avoid a

glancing blow off a rib. With a force knife there was no need

for such subtlety. It passed through the bone like air.

The President fell forwards, warm blood spilling over his

cream robes and the ceremonial Sash of Rassilon he wore.

The Doctor was pulling Savar away, grabbing him from

behind. All around, people were breaking ranks, calling for

the Watch and for the physicians. The Chamber full of

clattering footsteps.

It said something about Gallifrey that the President’s personal

physician was at the scene almost a full minute before the

Watchmen. Surgeon Granola knelt at his President’s side,

opening up his medical bag. The President himself wore an

old body, and might not have the strength to regenerate.

‘Why?’ the Doctor asked Savar.

Savar was grinning. ‘Be calm, Doctor, just a blow to the

primary heart. Nothing that an hour with a surgeon won’t

cure. But it’ll leave something of a power vacuum. No

decisions will be made, and our purposes will have been

served.’

The Doctor looked up at the circle of Time Lords that was

beginning to form around them. ‘Neat,’ he concluded curtly.

‘Thank you. Show me the key to my TARDIS.’

The Doctor did so, finding it in his jacket pocket.

‘Use it wisely.’

Half a dozen of the Watch had pushed their way to the

front of the crowd. Now they separated the Doctor and Savar.

Savar offered no resistance, indeed he was very calm as one

guard strapped the restrainer on his wrists, the others frisked

him for weapons. His knife was already lying on the marble

floor, covered in the President’s blood This time he wasn’t

carrying a spare.

As Savar was led away, the Doctor knelt at the President’s

side. The old man looked up at him, a little disappointed. The

Doctor leant over much to the irritation of the physician

working on the stab wound.

‘If you have to be here, help remove this Sash,’ Grutnoll

harrumphed.

It was heavier than it looked, but easy enough to lift over

the President’s head. It was a great segmented thing, and it

resembled the carapace of an armadillo, only it was made

from a material that seemed to be half‐gold, half‐leather. The

Doctor held it in his hands as he bent over the President. The

blood was already beginning to dry out.

‘So,’ the old man whispered. ‘Isn’t this what you always

wanted?’

The Doctor was rather taken aback. He held up the Sash.

‘This?’

‘ Change,’ the President explained. His voice was so weak.

As Savar had said, a blow to the primary heart was not the

most serious of injuries, not with all the medical and scientific

techniques at the Time Lords’ disposal. But the President’s

body was so old, so weak.

The Doctor considered his response carefully. ‘No. This is

a backwards step, this is looking to the past.’

‘Omega was the greatest of all the Gallifreyans, the

records are very clear on that.’

The Doctor had read every one of the President’s papers

on the subject, he’d helped Hedin with his biography and he

had his own special insight into the man.

‘Omega would have been a tyrant,’ the Doctor declared.

‘He wouldn’t just be welcomed on Gallifrey, he’d be lauded,

paraded, crowned President. Do you really think that people

like Voran and Pendrel would want to stop a man who has

crushed stars in his hand, a man who stood side by side with

Rassilon as the Capitol fell?’

‘Isn’t that what you always say you want the Council to

do? Intervene?’

He lent over the President. ‘I want the Time Lords to help

others to reach their potential, I want them to spread peace

and knowledge. I didn’t want them to conquer the universe.’

‘No!’ the President snapped. ‘There is another reason you

wanted the Magistrate to stay away from the Needle. Tell

me!’

‘I can’t.’

‘I am the President of Gallifrey.’

‘I’m in sorry, Lord President, but I can’t tell you.’

‘Very well,’ The President lifted his hand. ‘Castellan Voran.

I place you in charge of this situation.’

The Castellan licked his lips. ‘Such an elevation is against

all custom, Lord President.’

The Doctor smiled, sympathising. The promotion was

something of a poisoned chalice in the circumstances.

‘That is not so: the President has the right to name his

successor. You, Castellan.’

‘Gallifrey needs strong leadership at this time,’ the

Magistrate shouted.

‘This could very well be the decision that leads to the

destruction of Gall–’ the Doctor stopped in mid‐sentence.

‘How?’ the Magistrate asked.

The Doctor could see the Castellan out of the comer of his

eye, talking to one of the Technicians. Somehow the Doctor

doubted that he had much longer to make his case. ‘You

have to trust me,’ the Doctor said. ‘I know a little about what’s

down there and –’

‘Doctor?’ the Magistrate asked.

‘Can you hear me?’

Both the Doctor and the Magistrate turned to the

Castellan. ‘You’ve cut the sound link.’

‘I have muted the Doctor’s words, yes. Doctor, you are a

dangerous influence. The President’s wishes were very clear.

Lord Norval is to prepare for landing on the surface of the

Needle.’

The Magistrate loomed over the hologram table. Temporal

Monitoring was represented on it, the tiny councillors

resembling tiny dolls, or chess pieces. He could see the

Doctor gesticulating, but he couldn’t hear him. Behind the

Doctor, a small circle of Councillors and monks were running

through a rather abridged version of The Ceremony

Temporary Investiture, hurrying to ordain the Castellan.

‘No,’ the Magistrate said. ‘Not before I hear what the

Doctor has to say.’

The tiny hologram of the Doctor ran forwards, stood right

in front of the Magistrate’s hologram. But no words came out.

Instead: ‘Lord Norval, this is the Castellan, invoking

Presidential authority. Land your TARDIS, please.’

‘No!’ the Magistrate shouted. But he could tell from his

displays that the Station’s voice link had been cut, too.

Gallifrey was talking directly to Norval.

‘As you wish,’ Norval said. He had no idea of events on

Gallifrey.

‘Castellan, I must be allowed to speak with Lord Norval. I

have operational command here. This Station might be

needed as back up.’ But the Castellan was ignoring him.

‘Energy burst from the surface of the Needle!’ shouted one

of the Technicians.

The Magistrate hurried over to the main display.

‘Heading for Norval’s TARDIS?’ the Magistrate called.

‘I’m just trying to track it. There we are.’

Norval’s TARDIS began arcing towards the Needle, but

the strange light was far below.

The main screen switched to an overview of the scene.

Lord Norval’s TARDIS was zooming in on a point on the

surface of the Needle. The tiny pinprick of green light was

millions of miles away, heading away from Norval.

‘A ball of energy, ten feet in diameter, travelling at just

under the speed of light.’

‘A natural phenomenon?’ Hedin asked.

The Magistrate shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

Hedin nodded. ‘Analysing composition now.’

The Magistrate watched the tactical display. The ball was

slow as lightning, but there was something mesmerising

about it. On the other side of the Needle, Norval’s TARDIS

was beginning its descent.

‘It’s just light,’ Hedin concluded. ‘Possibly a signal flare of

some kind. Limited sentience, perhaps. It could be a probe of

some kind?’

‘A weapon?’ the Magistrate asked.

‘Possibly.’ There was no concern in the Technician’s

voice. Why would there be?

‘Locate its point of origin,’ the Magistrate suggested. Hedin

nodded.

Alarms started ringing all over the console deck.

‘What is it?’ the Magistrate asked calmly.

‘Lord Norval’s TARDIS just crossed a detection beam.’

‘Didn’t he see it?’

‘It was a passive sensor. Now we know where to look we

can see that there is blanket coverage of the Needle.

Someone knows that he is there.’

They heard the Castellan’s voice. ‘Norval, change course

on a random vector.’

The TARDIS vanished momentarily.

And rematerialised right in the path of the energy ball.

‘Don’t worry,’ the Castellan said. ‘It’s just light. It will pass

straight through you.’

‘It might temporarily blind the scanners and cause slight

damage to the outer plasmic shell,’ Hedin warned. ‘It might

be as well to drop to full defence mode.’

Norval nodded. ‘Five seconds. Four, three, two, one.’

The ball of energy hit the TARDIS. It punctured the

forcefield. It went straight through the secondary force field.

When Norval’s TARDIS automatically made an emergency

jump five seconds into the future to avoid the impact, the ball

of energy followed it. Finally it blew a hole in the outer

plasmic shell.

The Magistrate’s screen faded out.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

He turned to the main viewer, which was showing an

external view of Norval’s TARDIS. Green energy raged

through the gap in the out shell, eating through it like acid,

making the hole larger and larger.

‘The dimensional barrier might be breached,’ Hedin

warned sharply. ‘The infinite interior dimensions might start to

pour out.’

But there was no need to worry about the eventuality. The

green fire was destroying the interior just as effectively as the

exterior.

‘A self‐sustaining chain reaction,’ the Magistrate noted.

There was a final flash of light, and then the TARDIS had

gone.

There was silence on the bridge of the Station.

There was uproar in the Temporal Monitoring Room.

‘Clear the public galleries!’ one of the ushers was calling.

Larna watched the Councillors, and she was as

dumbstruck as they were.

The Castellan was staring down at‐the image. ‘How is this

possible?’ he asked. ‘How is this possible? Re‐establish the

voice links.’

The Doctor stared at him. ‘I told you, Castellan, anything is possible now. Someone down there on the Needle used the

Effect against us.’

‘No,’ said Larna.

They all turned to her.

‘If they had control of the Effect, then they wouldn’t need to

use anything so crude. They could have just wiped Norval

from the timestream.’

‘We have run an analysis of the energy ball,’ the

Magistrate announced. ‘It was a concoction of energies that

seems to have been custom‐made to destroy a TARDIS.’

‘But it was launched before they detected Norval,’ Larna

objected.

‘Only from our perspective,’ the Doctor noted under his

breath.

‘In any event, there is no such weapon,’ the Castellan

snapped.

‘Not yet, Castellan,’ the Doctor said. ‘But there will be

plenty of time to develop such technology. Fellow

Councillors, it will only be a matter of time before whoever

fired that weapon discovers the existence of the Station.’

The Magistrate rubbed his beard. ‘The Doctor is right. We

can’t defend against it… if they have control of the Effect,

then not even Gallifrey is safe.’

‘They don’t have control of the Effect,’ Larna repeated. ‘If

they had, they wouldn’t need to use anything else.’

‘That’s only a guess,’ the Doctor warned her.

‘I have located the source of the energy ball,’ Hedin

announced. ‘A structure on the surface of the Needle. We are

not close enough to run a full scan, but there are energy

sources there, and traces of sentience.’

The Castellan was nodding, almost distractedly. ‘We must

destroy it.’

‘What?’ the Doctor shouted. ‘Destroy them before we have

even found out who they are?’

‘They have killed a Time Lord,’ Hedin noted. ‘There is no

greater crime. They fired without provocation.’

‘How would we destroy them?’ another Councillor asked.

‘A directed blackstar,’ the Magistrate suggested.

‘The blackstar was devised to crack open Dyson Spheres.

Using it on the Needle will annihilate an area a billion

kilometres in diameter.’

‘A tiny speck on the surface.’

‘An area hundreds of times larger than the surface of

Gallifrey,’ the Doctor objected, ‘an area large enough to

support trillions of lifeforms.’

Voran held up his hand. ‘I am not suggesting that we use

a blackstar, there are other options.’

The Magistrate and the Doctor both turned to face him.

‘You can’t mean…’

‘In the face of ultimate force, we would be justified in using

the ultimate countermeasure. Show me it.’

The image in the Infinity Chamber shifted. Now it showed

an apparently empty starfield. The picture panned slowly

across, until a barren ice planet filled the screen. There didn’t

seem to be anything else there, until a patch of blackness

appeared in the bottom half of the screen, Looking closely, it

was possible to discern a disc, the light sliding from the

omniscate on its top surface. It passed behind the ice planet,

and it became apparent that the disc was larger than the

world it was passing.

‘Prime it,’ Voran ordered. ‘We must be ready to use it.’

‘Once again the glorious past raises its head,’ the Doctor

said archly. ‘Even during the Vampire Wars we never had to

resort to the –’

‘They fired first,’ Voran snapped, cutting him off. ‘What is

done is done.’

‘Not any more,’ the Doctor whispered.

But the Councillors were already moving into new

positions, like dancers preparing for a new act. The Doctor

was left alone with Larna in the middle of the floor.

He grabbed her. ‘How do we stop them?’ he asked.

She bit her lip. ‘They’ll need the Great Key, they’ll need to

reconfigure the phased energy conduits, they’ll need to

establish a spacetime vector–’

‘That isn’t what I asked,’ the Doctor snapped.

‘I’m thinking,’ she shouted back. ‘Power room. They’ll need

to channel the energy beam through the timegate.’

‘Shut down the gate and they can’t fire?’

‘Right!’

‘Come on!’

No one noticed them leave.

They hurried out of Temporal Monitoring and past a couple of

gossiping Time Lord historians in the antechamber. They

broke into a run, cutting across a number of quadrangles and

atriums to reach the main staircase. The Doctor led the way,

pounding down the steps three at a time. Lama lagged a

little, until the Doctor grabbed her hand and pulled her along

behind him.

They swept down the main staircase, passing small

groups of Watchmen and Technicians. No one challenged

them as they carried on down the staircase to the power

room level. They were alone down here, alone apart from the

bodies of the two men that Savar had killed.

The power room door was still open, the floor was still

littered with the debris from his swordfight with Savar. That

had only been a quarter of an hour ago, the Doctor realised,

and his body hadn’t quite finished with the adrenaline that it

had produced back then. The column of time energy

coruscated in the middle of the room, pouring like a waterfall.

Larna had already found her place at the control panel.

The Doctor joined her. He needed both hands, so he pulled

the Sash over his head. They didn’t need to speak. Remove

the safety interlocks. Done. Activate an eyeboard. Done.

Access the power control systems. Done.

The Doctor stared into the retinal scanner. This wasn’t as

straightforward as altering a couple of settings, as it had been

when he’d used the eyeboard on the Castellan’s desk. This

required total immersion. The soft blue glow filled his vision,

like the sky. The sense of movement and freedom in three

dimensions felt like flying.

One of the Castellan’s aides hurried into Main Temporal

Monitoring with the case that contained the Great Key. The

Castellan was at one of the consoles, surrounded by

Technicians who were prompting him. He, and he alone, as

Acting‐President, had the authority to do this.

He placed the case reverentially on the console, opened it

up. Just looking at the Key, it was difficult to imagine that this

was one of the most powerful artefacts in the universe. In

times of great emergency, it allowed the President of the

Time Lords to unlock some of the Time Lords’ self‐imposed

restrictions, it allowed them to break their own rules. The

Gallifreyans had weapons and techniques at their disposal

that could never be used lightly.

The Castellan took the Key from the case, slotted it neatly

into its allotted place on his console. He turned the Key, then

placed his eye over the eyeboard.

‘They’ve got the Great Key!’ the Doctor called.

The datascape around him had just changed beyond all

recognition. It had been like a clear sky before, and now

there was a vast storm cloud t here, and he was floating

towards it.

‘They will try to configure a conduit,’ Larna told him.

Although she was standing a foot away from him, her voice

seemed to come from a million miles away, or from a dream.

The sky was churning.

The Doctor was still squinting into the scanner. ‘I’ll try to

stop it.’

‘There’s someone trying to stop me,’ the Castellan

whispered.

The Technicians merely murmured.

‘Well,’ he demanded, ‘what do I do?’

‘You are the only man with the necessary authority,’

Pendrel assured him.

The Castellan began altering the settings, saw the conduit

forming. But there was still someone in here trying to block

his every move. Sad blue eyes.

‘It’s the Doctor!’ the Castellan yelled. He checked the

readout. ‘He has to be in the Power Room. Send the Watch

down there.

‘He’s seen me,’ the Doctor sighed.

‘Don’t worry, you’re slowing him down.’

‘He’s got the Key, it’s too powerful.’ The sky was black

now, the tip of a tornado swirling down and down. The Doctor

knew not to get too close. But how could he stop it forming?

The Castellan’s eyes appeared in the air in front of him.

‘Give up Doctor, there is no way that you can win.’

The Doctor stared back. ‘I have to. You’ll destroy us all.’

‘I am the President of the Time Lords, with the full backing

of the Council, and the Great Key itself at my disposal.’

The conduit was almost fully formed.

The Castellan kept staring at it, and the harder he stared,

the more solid the conduit became.

The conduit snapped into place. Power began flowing

down it. The hum of the machinery in the power room

changed pitch.

‘He’s done it,’ Larna cried. ‘All he needs to do now is

calculate the spacetime vector.’

‘Which console is he using?’ the Doctor asked, without

taking his eyes away from the scanner.

‘I –’

‘Hurry!’ he ordered.

He could hear her moving around. ‘Console Five, Main

Temporal Monitoring.’

The Doctor gave the eyeboard a single command.

The spacetime vector equations began resolving themselves.

The Castellan watched the datascape as mathematics of

crystalline clarity began to appear.

The Castellan smiled. The Doctor had a prowess at this

sort of thing, but he had been beaten. He could see the panic

in the Doctor’s eyes.

The Castellan’s console beeped.

‘What is that noise?’ he asked.

The Technicians weren’t sure.

‘Tell me!’ he commanded, unable to move his head

without breaking the connection.

‘It’s… look away! Look away!’

The Castellan scowled. ‘The equation is nearly ready.’

He looked into the datascape, saw the new power

configurations in place, saw the co‐ordinates fading up as the

answer appeared.

There was a flash of light so powerful it felt almost solid. It

shot up through the eyeboard, shutting down every safety

feature as it came. The light pierced the Castellan’s eyes,

lunged down his optic nerve.

The Castellan lurched back from the console, clutching his

face, crying out load. The Technicians moved to catch him.

He couldn’t see. He swore he could smell burning.

‘Finish it!’ he ordered, rubbing his eyes. ‘Finish it!

Someone take over!’

‘Only you have the authority,’ one of the Technicians

reminded him.

The pitch of the humming began winding down, and almost

immediately the column began to fade a little. Like iron in a

fire it would be a little while before it had cooled down

completely.

‘You did it,’ Lama exclaimed. ‘The timegate is shutting

down. They won’t be able to launch the blackstars or

anything else, not now.’

The Doctor leant back, catching his breath.

‘How?’ she asked.

‘He blinked first.’

As the eyeboard retracted, the Doctor stood and took a

step towards the time column. Larna had also worked her

way around her console, now she was between him and the

column of energy. Together they watched as the power

began to bleed away.

Larna clasped the Doctor’s hand. ‘They’ll have to work all

day to get that running again.’

‘Well done,’ he said.

The door chimed. Someone was trying to get in.

‘I…. need to get past you,’ he said.

‘Wait,’ Larna said, moving to block him.

The Doctor hesitated.

‘I know what you’re planning,’ she said.

The Doctor bit his lip.

There was a banging at the door. ‘Doctor! This is

Constable Sapro! Open this door!’

She glanced over her shoulder. ‘You are planning to be

the last thing through the timegate before it shuts down.

You’re going to the far future, because you want control of

the Effect for yourself. You want to change the past.’

The Doctor didn’t reply.

‘Take me with you.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, look at you… you’re not even wearing shoes.’

She glowered at him.

‘It will be too dangerous.’ He paused. ‘You won’t be in any

trouble here. You can say that I forced you to help me. Larna,

I haven’t much time.’ He could hear the power levels

dropping. Behind Larna, energy column was fading a little. It

was only a matter of moments before the timegate powered

down.

She moved closer to him, filling his field of vision. Behind

her the column was diminishing more and more as every

second went past. ‘Doctor, I’m not stupid.’

He took her hand, held it to his hearts. ‘I never said that

you were, I–’

‘I know what you want to do. You know I can’t let you.’

The Doctor caught his breath. ‘You can’t stop me,’ he said.

‘I only have to delay you,’ she replied. ‘Just a few more

seconds. You’ll thank me, Doctor.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘I –’ Larna glanced down, saw the blood on her waistcoat.

In the Doctor’s hand was the force knife, hilt deep just below

her left breast.

‘A single blow to the primary heart,’ the Doctor explained,

lowering her tenderly to the floor. ‘The guards will be through

that door in a moment, it’ll only take a surgeon an hour to fix

you up. But you’ll have to take it easy for that time. And that’s

only as long as I need. It’s for the best: they’ll think that I was

forcing you to help me. I’m so very sorry.’

Right on schedule, the iron door began to reverberate as

staser blast after staser blast began slamming home.

Larna shook a little, the shock was beginning to hit her

nervous system. ‘Very neat,’ she said. ‘No loose ends, no

complications. You always win, don’t you, Doctor?’

‘No, no. Not always. If there was another way…’

Larna smiled. Then she twisted her torso around to the

left. The force blade sliced through her spinal column, found

her right heart. She pulled herself to her full height, despite

the damage to her spine, bringing the blade up through the

heart. The action was enough to kill her.

Horrified, the Doctor tried to establish a telepathic link. He

needed to trigger her regeneration. But all he found was

Larna blocking his way again.

‘I want to save you,’ he said, bending over her.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘you can’t have everything that you want.’

She kissed him, then fell back. The Doctor tried to steady

her, and ended up lowering her to the floor.

He stood over Larna’s body, watched the dark stain

spread over her crisp white shirt. Her face and fingers were

already becoming grey. But her hair was just as vivid a

blonde as before, her eyes were just as blue. The Doctor

didn’t know what to do. He was clutching the knife that had

killed her. He didn’t know what to do.

The door was buckling. It would only be another few

moments before the guards were through. There was blood

all over his hands, all over the Sash.

Larna was right, he’d already made his choice.

He stood, the knife still in his hand.

He leapt forwards, into the energy column.

Part Three

The Opposite of Matter

Chapter Nine

Thresholds

The Doctor fell.

It was like plunging into a lake, that same sense of not

knowing which way he was, and having something alarming

wash over his skin, filling his ears and forcing him to screw

his eyes shut for a moment. There was the same sense of

inexorable movement as he was dragged down. He plunged

further and further, and the water was much colder and

deeper than he was expecting. His mind was giving him

advice that would have saved his life if he had been

underwater. Every instinct screamed at him to hurl himself

upwards, break the surface, fill his lungs, pull off the Sash,

take off his coat. Their weight is making you sink. But it was

only the arcane power of the Sash that was preventing him

from being torn apart by the time energies. It was his

lifejacket, not a millstone.

By the time the Doctor had opened his eyes, he realised,

he had already travelled beyond any future known to the

Time Lords. All around him, the swirling walls of the Time

Vortex were an almost comforting pattern, even if they did

seem to form the sides of a bottomless well. But waves of

colour and sound were streaking up past him, with no pattern

to them, at least no pattern he could decipher.

He let himself fall further. Not that he could stop it now, of

course. He started to see things. Were they there, or were

they simply tricks of the mind? One of the most fundamental

philosophical questions, one that not even the Matrix had

solved: what is reality?

Memories of years long gone, thoughts of family and

childhood. He remembered his father and mother. He

remembered a trek in the mountains, and what he found

while sheltering from a storm in an ancient cave.

He saw himself falling. There was someone with him… a

woman… professional‐looking with a generous mouth,

wearing a tailored suit and baggy coat… heavily pregnant,

with long legs, high cheekbones and ruffled black hair Be… a

teenager, blonde streaks in her ginger hair and Rupert bear

trousers… a wiry young woman with blue eyes and blonde

hair.

He saw Larna, lying drowned in a black tam her skin like

moonlight on the water. No, not drowned. There was a knife

wound, washed clean. She looked so peaceful floating there,

and so young. Her slender body was almost androgynous

and it seemed symbolic, a representation of everything that

he had lost over the years.

He let go of the knife, which crumbled to dust.

Larna faded away, and time continued to wash over him.

He turned his mind outwards, tried to imagine the universe

beyond that of his own head. All the stars from his own time

would have reddened and died, new stars would have sprung

up in their place. But just as city streets retain their shape

over the centuries, the galaxies would survive in something

like their current form. There would be change, of course.

Giant galaxies, such as Gallifrey’s, would exert gravitational

pull over their satellite galaxies and draw them inexorably in.

It was a process so slow that the civilisations rising and

falling there wouldn’t even notice it happen. In the Doctor’s

timezone, the Sagittarius Galaxy had already been absorbed.

Perhaps– he was in the realms of speculation now– the fate

of the giant galaxies was to be absorbed into ever larger

groups of stars, the galactic groups merging into vast

clusters, the clusters into ultraclusters, the ultraclusters into

just one vast monogalaxy.

There was a definite moment when the Doctor realised

that he had changed direction The universe had stopped

expanding, the energy of the Big Bang finally spent. The

cosmos drifted onwards for a little while, then began

collapsing, much faster than it had expanded. It began to feel

a little cold, too, like being caught in an autumn breeze, but

that sensation must have been purely psychological.

There were red eyes, watching him.

And then he was standing on the deck of the Station,

catching his breath.

The power room was an almost identical copy of the one

he had left. But it felt emptier. There was something here all

around him. Evil. What else could have compelled him to kill

Larna? For the first time he allowed himself to think about her

death, to examine his emotions and state of mind. It shocked

the Doctor to realise that he felt nothing other than numb.

Larna was part of the past, and the past didn’t change. She

was gone, and no amount of introspection would change that.

He knew then that nothing from without had influenced

him, that he’d taken the knife himself and made the choice all

for himself.

The door slid open, revealing the Magistrate and a couple

of Watchmen. The Doctor dusted down his jacket,

straightened his scarf.

‘Hello there,’ he said, trying to sound cheerful.

The Magistrate grabbed him by the lapels and slammed

him against the nearest bulkhead, fixing him with dark eyes.

‘You’ve killed us,’ he shouted, making the Doctor wince.

‘You’ve cut off our power, left us stranded here. It will be

hours before Gallifrey can re‐establish the link.’

‘At least a day,’ the Doctor said. The Magistrate slammed

him against the wall again and then let go of him, let him slide

down the wall, turned his back on him.

‘If I hadn’t done it, you’d be dead,’ the Doctor called after

him.

‘Without power we are dead.’

‘You’ve still got battery power.’

‘For an hour, perhaps an hour and a half.’

The Doctor beamed. ‘Then why not use what power you

have to capture one of the local black holes and use that as

an energy source? It’s not as though there’s a shortage of

them around here.’

The Magistrate stopped in his tracks, hesitating. Finally he

nodded to one of the Watchmen, who hurried off to the

control deck to organise it.

‘There you go. What would you do without me?’

‘Spare me, Doctor, I am not in the mood. A Time Lord has

died, we face an enemy of unknown origins and powers, one

capable of destroying a TARDIS. By killing our power and

cutting off our links with the Council and the Matrix, you are

hardly helping matters.’

‘The High Council were planning to attack the Needle. If

they had done that, there’s no telling what would have

happened. We might have wiped out whatever is down there,

but there was no guarantee of it. Whatever’s down there

could be in control of the Effect, and if that’s the case then I

have just prevented a war that Gallifrey couldn’t possibly

have won.’

‘If they are in control of the Effect then they may destroy

us anyway.’

‘I don’t think they are. They clearly have access to

technology in advance of our own, though, and this Station

has to be considered at risk.’

There was a mechanical thunk all around them, and the

flickered, before returning to their previous brilliance. ‘My

crew harnessed a local black hole; the Magistrate informed

him. ‘Good. Good.’ The Doctor looked around, unsure what

to do. ‘I to get across there. Down to the Needle.’

‘Lord Norval was killed trying to land,’ the Magistrate

reminded. ‘Yes…’ the Doctor said, his voice trailing away.

‘And you won’t be?’

‘No…’

‘They have detector beams, cross them and they launch a

retroac attack – hit you before they detect you. It’s impossible

to get do there.’

‘No. No.’ The Doctor paced the room, tapping his lip. ‘No.’

‘If I might make an observation: saying that doesn’t make it

true.’

‘This close to the end, the parallel universes are beginning

converge, aren’t they?’

‘Those that survived this long.’

‘Right. Now… in our time, the parallel universes keep a

nice s distance from each other. We can use a TARDIS to

travel sideways time, but it’s hazardous.’ The Doctor had

begun to make complicated gestures in the air to explain his

theory. ‘What if I were to transmat myself around the

defences, via an alternate universe, one where t defences

don’t exist? The beauty is that I could convert myself into

state of quantum uncertainty, and then I’d have to arrive,

because the only way the events could be resolved would be

for someone down there to observe me.’

‘Or if you tripped the defence grid.’

‘I’d be down there already. They’d have to change the past

to eras me, but by doing that they’d set up a paradox, one

part of which would involve me down there. So I’d get

through in some form.’ The Magistrate was shaking his head.

‘Well, have you got a better idea?’ the Doctor asked. ‘That’s

hardly an idea at all. It’s ludicrous.’

‘It’s quantum mechanics: of course it’s ludicrous. I’ll get a

transmat bracelet. Next thing you know, I’ll be down there.’

There was a mechanical thunk all around them, and the lights flickered, before returning to their previous brilliance. ‘My

crew have harnessed a local black hole,’ the Magistrate

informed him.

‘Good. Good.’ The Doctor looked around, unsure what to

do. ‘I need to get across there. Down to the Needle.’

‘Lord Norval was killed trying to land,’ the Magistrate

reminded.

‘Yes…’ the Doctor said, his voice trailing away.

‘And you won’t be?’

‘No…’

‘They have detector beams, cross them and they launch a

retroactive attack – hit you before they detect you. It’s

impossible to get down there.’

‘No. No.’ The Doctor paced the room, tapping his lip. ‘No.’

‘If I might make an observation: saying that doesn’t make it

true.’

‘This close to the end, the parallel universes are beginning

to converge, aren’t they?’

‘Those that survived this long.’

‘Right. Now… in our time, the parallel universes keep a

nice safe distance from each other. We can use a TARDIS to

travel sideways in time, but it’s hazardous.’ The Doctor had

begun to make complicated gestures in the air to explain his

theory. ‘What if I were to transmat myself around the

defences, via an alternate universe, one where the defences

don’t exist? The beauty is that I could convert myself into a

state of quantum uncertainty, and then I’d have to arrive,

because the only way the events could be resolved would be

for someone down there to observe me.’

‘Or if you tripped the defence grid.’

‘I’d be down there already. They’d have to change the past

to erase me, but by doing that they’d set up a paradox, one

part of which would involve me down there. So I’d get

through in some form.’

The Magistrate was shaking his head.

‘Well, have you got a better idea?’ the Doctor asked.

‘That’s hardly an idea at all. It’s ludicrous.’

‘It’s quantum mechanics: of course it’s ludicrous. I’ll get a

transmat bracelet. Next thing you know, I’ll be down there.’

A lion face stared at the Doctor, its head cocked. It had a

thick red mane, its face was lighter. Its eyes were coal‐black,

but there was a glimmer of intelligence there. There was a

moment of contact, of mutual respect.

The creature was on top of the Doctor, pinning him down.

It had bowled him over the moment he had arrived, even

before he had found his footing on the broken, uneven

ground. The Doctor was on his back now, able to look right

into the eyes of the creature. He felt hot breath on his neck

and melting snow creeping into his coat. He forced his head

around… and then whatever it was on top of him roared and

leapt away, intent on something else. The Doctor pulled

himself up, congratulating himself on reaching the surface of

the Needle. Then he was slammed back to the ground by

another of the things.

The Doctor could hear another of the beasts roaring, its

voice echoing around this arena. This one was pinning him

down with powerful forearms… it wasn’t a quadruped, then.

The Doctor twisted to try to get a better look, but the creature

reared over him, and snarled. He thought better of moving.

He didn’t recognise the creature, but there had been plenty of

time for entirely new species to develop. This one wasn’t as

novel as it might be. It had the head of a lion, but the body

looked like a cross between a kangaroo and a gorilla. It might

have been a hybrid, the Doctor supposed. It let out a roar.

Its ears pricked and it looked away from him for the first

time. The pressure on his chest eased. Then the creature

had gone. The Doctor scrambled to his feet. The other

creature, the first to attack him, had also vanished.

‘Where did they…?’

It was dark here, and cold, but nothing like as dark and

cold as the rest of the dead universe. He buttoned up his coat

and tucked his scarf in. The bitterest winter wind Outside on

Gallifrey was warmer than this. At first he thought that he had

materialised in a courtyard or a cloister, but then he saw the

splintered beams around the edges of the ceiling and seen

that this room had – until recently – been covered by a roof.

He was walking on smashed slates. It had been a large

room, a ballroom perhaps, or a meeting hall. The walls were

sheer redbrick cliffs three or four storeys high. The sky here

was featureless, black objects on a black background,

The light came from dull lamps fixed at intervals around

the walls. Electric lamps by the look of them, but barely

20‐watt bulbs. There was some warmth here, but it was very

bitter. There were at least a dozen exits along each wall.

Which didn’t really help.

There were three men standing around him.

Two behind him, one in front They wore outfits that

resembled the shinobi shozoku of the Japanese ninja: loose

– even baggy – sleeves and leggings, a tighter fit around the

shoulders, waist and cuffs, a wide belt and flat‐soled boots.

There had been patterns embroidered into the material once,

but now they had washed out into a grey sameness. They all

wore glistening cloaks made from a rubbery‐looking

substance.

All three were male, all three were in late middle age.

Broad‐chested types. Old soldiers. They had guns and a few

other pieces of military equipment slotted and clipped into

their belts. The Doctor tensed.

‘Greetings, Doctor,’ the one in front of him said. The

accent was unfamiliar, but full of sadness.

‘You know my name?’ he asked.

The one at his right moved towards him. He was taller

than the first. ‘We must leave here. The Maltraffi must have

roared, as the rest of the pride are coming, they will arrive in

a few minutes.’

‘Those lion creatures are called Maltraffi?’

‘They have learnt not to fight us; the third one, whose skin

was a little darker, stated, ‘as we will always drive them

away.’

The Doctor wondered if there was a message there for

him. ‘Yes, I was just wondering why they ran off so fast. I

mean, they are so much larger and more agile than a man,

they had all those claws and teeth.’

‘Yes,’ the tallest one replied.

‘And you are the people that killed Norval?’

‘Did we?’ asked the dark‐skinned one.

‘You destroyed his TARDIS as it came into land.’

‘All who try to come here must die,’ said the first one, and

the way he said it, you’d think that he was making a

conciliatory gesture.

The Doctor hesitated, taking time to choose his next words

carefully.

‘That does not include you,’ the first one said quickly.

‘Of course not,’ the tallest reaffirmed.

The Doctor smiled helplessly.

‘Gordel,’ said the dark‐skinned man.

‘Willhuff,’ said the tallest man.

‘Pallant,’ said the first man.

‘Er…’

‘You were about to ask our names.’ A statement, not a

question.

‘Yes,’ the Doctor admitted.

‘We do not have much use for names around here,’

Willhuff said sonorously,

They had moved into a murky corridor, glowing with the

same faint light. The Doctor affected a casual glance as they

passed one fitting.

‘These are Thompson Lamps,’ Pallant informed him. ‘They

are everlasting.’

‘Old‐fashioned tungsten‐filament bulbs?’ the Doctor asked.

‘Surely in a hundred trillion trillion trillion trillion years

someone could have come up with something better?’

It occurred to the Doctor that they might be mind readers.

They had that annoying habit that psychics had of answering

questions before he’d asked them. He framed the thought,

‘Are you a psychic?’ and aimed it the first one.

Pallant didn’t even glance his way.

Perhaps he was a psychic liar. He framed a slanderous,

inflammatory and anatomically precise insult and directed it

at Willhuff. He didn’t even blink.

‘We are here now. This is Helios.’

‘Er… yes, good,’ said the Doctor, a little embarrassed.

There was one point of illumination: a small bonfire in the

middle of the room. There was a column of smoke, with

ashes lazily ascending it. The orange flames were

comforting, hypnotic. There was another man there, an older

man with a large wooden staff which he used to poke the fire.

He was wearing the same loose‐fitting garments as his

colleagues, and had a neat white beard.

It was tempting to let his eye be drawn towards this old

man and the fire, but instead the Doctor took the time to look

around the room. It was a rather forbidding place and the

gloom made it difficult to come to any firm conclusions. This

had been a colossal dome, indeed it contained most of the

structure. The uppermost part of the roof had cracked and

fallen away, like a boiled egg tapped with a spoon. Wear and

tear had done the trick, though, not enemy action or a natural

disaster. The room was full of shelving and racking, all

stacked to the point of overloading. And all around were

statues and fragments of statues: men in full armour, women

draped in marble cloth, horses and lions and eagles and

bears.

‘This room contains artefacts from the planet Earth,’ the

old man said.

‘It’s a library?’ the Doctor said. ‘Or a museum. An art

gallery! Although not a very well‐maintained one.’ He paused,

looking over to his hosts.’ If you don’t mind me mentioning it.’

They didn’t seem to. ‘You will join us for mushrooms,’

Pallant said.

‘Our priorities are different here,’ Willhuff told him, almost

apologetically.

The other men were taking their places around the fire.

Helios had been frying mushrooms on a metal tray. The

Doctor sat, realising at the last moment that his seat was just

a pile of great big leather‐bound books. The spines had come

away, the leather was faded. There were other, smaller,

books lying around. He picked one up, opening it to the title

page.

‘ O Time Your Pyramids,’ he read. ‘The lost novel of

Borges. I thought I had the only copies of this.’ He bent over,

picked up three more volumes. ‘ Alice’s Adventures in

Wonderland, The Time Ships, Slaughterhouse‐ Five.’

The others barely acknowledged him, content to nibble at

their mushrooms.

The Doctor looked around, saw their shadows flickering

over the walls of the dome, and all the artefacts here. ‘This is

the last of Earth? Preserved here?’

‘There seems to have been flooding,’ Pallant admitted, a

little embarrassed. ‘Many of the books were damaged

beyond repair.’ He held up one. The complete works of Milton

– the title was picked out in gold leaf on the cover. The

pages, however, were crinkled and mashed into each other.

‘They are in a terrible state,’ the Doctor tutted.

Pallant tossed the book onto the fire despite the Doctor’s

gasped attempt to catch it. The Doctor looked down, watched

the fire consume each page in turn, watched the ashes float

up and out towards the ceiling. Comus, Paradise Lost,

Samson Agonistes, Areopagitica, all Milton’s Latin poems

and State letters. All gone because the Doctor anticipated

that Pallant was going to throw the book to his left, and he

actually threw it to his right.

‘We have no other use for them,’ Willhuff said, almost

apologetically. ‘There is so little time remaining, now. Little

time for reading.’

Gordel passed over a small bowl of the mushrooms to the

Doctor. ‘You will enjoy these, although you will think that they

are a little too sweet at first.’

The fire had been started with broken‐up furniture, fuelled

with some of the largest books. The Doctor bit into a

mushroom, and wondered what treasures had already been

lost to the flames. At the same time, there were more

pressing concerns. He had to see a man about a God.

‘Yes, these are sweet, you’re right. The taste grows on

you, though.’ He held up one of the books. ‘Do you read

these before you burn them?’

‘We are the last ones. Even the immortals are long gone

now,’ Pallant said, not answering the question. He’d sparked

off a whole new set for the Doctor, though.

‘You are the only life remaining in the entire universe?’

‘Perhaps, perhaps not. A few pride of Maltraffi survive, the

mushrooms survive. There may still be other forms of

sentience which I will never make contact with. Beings of

dark matter, abstractions, that sort of thing. There may even

be other people here, but we will never meet them, and that

is all that matters.’

‘It is impossible to die here, at least until the final end,’

Willhuff added.

‘Yes, of course… I was just going to ask what the Maltraffi

eat, but this is a TARDIS, everything here exists in a state of

temporal grace. That’s why the collection here survived the

proton decay that’s affected the rest of the universe.’

The Doctor picked up another, newer book. This one was

handwritten. A diary. He slipped it into his pocket to read

later. Not very good manners, but his hosts weren’t being

very forthcoming, and time was drawing short. The Doctor

looked up at the sliver of the night’s sky visible through the

gap in the roof. Total blackness, all its possibilities and

potential mined and exhausted.

Helios looked up from his bowl of mushrooms for the first

time. ‘The Librarinth is a vast place, containing the greatest

artefacts from many thousands of civilisations. We thought

we would bring you here because Earth is a world for which

you have great affection.’

Willhuff was reaching down and searching through a cloth

sack at his side. The contents of the bag rattled, clinked,

rustled. What was in there, the Doctor wondered, plunder

from the rooms they’d visited? If they really were the last

people left alive then it was hardly stealing, was it?

‘Isn’t there a room like this for Gallifrey?’ the Doctor joked.

‘We found this.’ He handed the Doctor a small pocket

book.

He examined it before opening it. It was bound in reptile

hide of some kind, with an omniscate embossed on the

cover. He flicked it open.

‘A book of prophecy,’ Willhuff explained. ‘The Other

Scrolls.’

‘Surely all the prophecies are used up by now?’ the Doctor

lightly. ‘This is as much use as last year’s calendar.’

‘It talks about the future of Gallifrey and your people,’

Pallant told him.

‘Well,’ the Doctor said, gently closing the book. ‘I don’t

think I should look at it.’

The men were silent.

‘You’re showing me this for a reason?’ The Doctor opened

it up again, flicked to a page near the end, some superstition

preventing him from reading the very last page. He glanced

down and read a sentence at random.

He slammed the book shut, suddenly pale.

‘By your logic, it has already happened,’ Gordel assured

him.

‘It won’t happen that way.’ The Doctor threw the book into

the fire, where it hissed and crackled. ‘It may be in your past,

but it is still in my future. I have free will, I can prevent it from happening that way.’

‘I am sure that you won’t.’

‘You certainly seem very sure.’

‘There are few records about the library itself,’ Willhuff

said, changing tack again.

‘No records? You mean of where everyone went? Is there

no indication of when this place was abandoned?’ The Doctor

paused. ‘Who built this place? Your ancestors?’

‘God,’ said Willhuff reverently.

The Doctor almost choked on his mushrooms.

Pallant was holding out his hands. ‘There are the various

monuments, we mustn’t forget them. The House of God has

travelled through other universes in its time. Many races have

come to the librarinth over the ages. It has been our sacred

duty to prevent the unworthy from finding Him. All the

evidence suggests that there have been many wars fought,

that many millions have died. Now, as the universes finally

converge into a single, final, end, we know that we have

fulfilled our vows.’

‘Amen,’ said Gordel.

The Doctor had seen this sort of thing on a number of

worlds, places that suffered some terrible catastrophe:

meteor strikes, atomic war… anything that could make a

civilisation collapse, leave a tiny population eking out a living

in the ruins, unable to comprehend their surroundings or their

ancestors.

‘All praise to the Lord,’ Wilfhuff said.

Helios gestured around. ‘The legends tell us that God is

here, behind one of these doors. Of course we don’t know

which one.’

‘I imagine that if God lived anywhere, then it would

probably be somewhere like this,’ the Doctor conceded

thoughtfully, munching a mushroom. This sort of society often

incorporated the remnants of their technology and ‘race

memories’ of their past into elaborate religions and legends.

‘Yes, the graveyards on the southern side of the building,’

Pallant whispered. ‘I remember going to them once. There

are dues on the tombstones.’

‘We mustn’t forget the time you found my grave,’ Helios

said matter‐of‐factly.

‘How is that possible?’ the Doctor asked.

‘Who is to say? Every morning we wake and find

ourselves here, we remember where to find the mushrooms,

which room we are in, where the Maltraffi lie in wait for us.

What other way is there?’

‘You have an admirable philosophy. Discover each day

anew.’

Pallant looked at the Doctor, smiling. ‘We are

Gallifreyan/Human hybrids, the Children of Kasterborous.

Before the Curse, we pursued interventionist policies

designed to promote harmony in the known galaxies, and

ushered a new age of universal peace. We failed in our

mission: this is our punishment.’

The Doctor’s eyes widened.

‘That is Willhuff’s theory,’ Helios added. ‘I think I like it

best, even though it probably isn’t true. It relies on apocryphal

sources and a great deal of speculation on his part. Gordel’s

theory is equally outlandish. I incline to the view that we are

from the Accidentally Left Behind When Everyone Else

Transcended This Reality Interest Group. It would certainly

explain our obsession with finding God.’

‘I think that Helios is Merlin,’ said Willhuff.

Gordel looked wearily at the others. ‘We are dearly the

super‐evolved survivors of the Thal race, fleeing the

penultimate destruction of Skaro, that sparked off the Final

Dalek War.’

‘You don’t have the slightest idea who you are or where

you came from, do you?’ the Doctor asked, exasperated.

‘Where is my diary?’ said Pallant suddenly.

‘Your diary will turn up shortly,’ Gordel said, looking

pointedly at Doctor.

Willhuff and Gordel had begun to write in notebooks, ones

almost identical to the one the Doctor had found.

The Doctor shrugged, feigning ignorance. ‘Would anyone

mind if I stretched my legs? I just want to look around this

room. Who knows, Pallant’s diary might be over there.

Anyone else coming?’ None of them answered. ‘You’ve

probably seen it already,’ the Doctor concluded, getting up.

The four men sat around their fire, Helios and Pallant

finishing off the mushrooms, the other two writing their

diaries. The Doctor stepped away, carefully over the broken

ground, and found a spot between two shelves, just under

one of the electric lamps.

When he was sure no one was able to see him, the Doctor

tugged Pallant’s diary from his pocket. He flicked through,

starting about three quarters of the way in. It was mainly

maps, a rather appealing symbol of a Maltraffi’s face

presumably marking out the territories of the various prides.

They did read the books, or at least Pallant did. The pages

were dotted with quotes, and some even had glued‐in pages

ripped from various volumes. There was one page taken from

a dictionary of architectural terms, showing various forms of

door, a copy of the periodic table, a couple of pictures of

women. Just reading a few pages, the Doctor discovered

information about where to find water and mushrooms, a very

specific list of things it would be inadvisable to try, and an

almost childish title page: ‘This book belongs to Pallant’.

The first section was a straightforward autobiography. Too

straightforward. Why did Pallant have to give his mother’s

name, the names of his brothers and sisters? The Doctor

couldn’t think of a reason why Pallant would need to make a

note of such banalities. Any other generation might have

written for posterity, but there wasn’t a posterity any more,

there was only fifteen years of future left. Who was he writing

this for?

Were they all amnesiacs?

That could be it… ‘Every morning we wake up and find

ourselves here’, that’s what Pallant had said. So he’d check

in his diary, and find out who he was. If they all had problems

with their memories that might explain their rather odd

behaviour and conversation techniques. It would explain why

they were trying to piece together their pasts from the scraps

of knowledge they uncovered while looking for fuel. Perhaps

the Effect was affecting them in some way. Writing a diary

like this would be a very good way to cope with time

distortion and reality shifts.

No, There was something wrong with the theory. These

diary entries were meticulous, almost obsessive, in their

details. Here: the account of his arrival. Times, descriptions

of the Maltraffi, exactly which books he had picked up. Exact

word for word quotes, and how Pallant felt. The person that

had written this hadn’t got anything wrong with his memory.

The Doctor paused and re‐read the last paragraph on the

current page. It described how Pallant had lost the diary, how

the Doctor had enjoyed the mushrooms and how he’d gone

off to be by himself.

The Doctor stared back over towards the fire, where the

four men were still about their tasks. When had Pallant had

time to write this?

He wet his finger and turned the page.

The Time Lords attacked the Librarinth without warning,

defeating us. There was nothing we could do that could be

done, our every move was anticipated and

counter‐ anticipated. Two of their kind moved through our ranks as if we were not there.

He turned the page.

Helios was gone, Willhuff was seriously wounded, though

he was restored by the golden light. The Magistrate and his

fleet were gone, as was our god. What good had come of this

day?

Now that was rather odd.

A diary from the future? But no… the Doctor instinctively

knew that these people weren’t time travellers. They… he

fished around for the answer. Had someone already written

the script, and they were just players?

The Doctor gave up and checked today’s diary entry.

‘Of course!’ he whispered.

‘Of course!’ he exclaimed. ‘You remember the future. Only

the future, not the past. How odd. Oh, I found your diary by

the way.’ He threw it at Pallant, bowling a real googly, but

Pallant knew where the book would end up, and he caught it

easily. The Doctor grimaced. The following conversation

might well be a little awkward.

‘It is a curse,’ Willhuff said glumly.

‘I don’t know. It’s useful, really. It saved me a lot of time

when I trying to work out what was going on: I just flicked to

the next page and saw the answer. You get to win the lottery

every week and back every winning horse, it’s great if you’re

playing cards, all your guesses are correct, you only need

buy insurance in years when you know you’ll need it, no

nasty shocks around the next corner or an unexpected bill,

you get to avoid all the traffic jams… well, here you get to

avoid the Maltraffic jams, you’ll know straight away whether

you’ll hit it off with a new friend.’ The Doctor hesitated. ‘But

you’ll know how every love affair ends before it even starts

and the punchline to every joke you hear, you’ll know what

you’re getting for your birthday, you’ve heard every song

you’ll ever hear already, you remember growing old but not

your childhood friends, you couldn’t read an Agatha Christie

novel because you’ll know how and why the butler did it,

there are no pleasant surprises. And when you look at

someone you’ll know how they die.’

‘The past is a mystery to us, as the future is to you.’

‘But the past has happened, hasn’t it, that’s the difference.’

‘It must appear odd from your perspective, but your

predicament is more odd. At least we have a record of the

past. You hurtle blindly into the future.’

‘And I wouldn’t have it any other way. So you cope by

writing your diary… but you do it the night before. “Tuesday:

Tomorrow I’m off to the zoo, and I’m writing this because by

the time I get back I’ll have forgotten I’ve been.”’

‘Our memories are like yours, they merely face in the

opposite direction. We are not infallible… something might

happen tomorrow that slips our mind, but we all have vivid

memories of events a decade from now.’

‘There’s the slight difference that if you lose your keys, all

you’d have to do is remember where you’re going to find

them and go there first… but I suppose you’d say the same

about me, that all I’d have do is remember where I left them.

It’s still a logical absurdity. What if you told me that…’

‘The future has happened. We’d tell you the correct

answer: thirty‐five.’

‘If you’d let me finish. What if I were to ask you to tell

which number I was thinking of? You’ve just said what it

would be. Fine. In that case I say something different. I’d

say… thirty‐five.’

The Doctor hesitated. He’d not said ‘thirty‐five’, he’d said a

different word, and then before that, they’d said it, so he’d

said a different number, so they’d said it. It was an endless

sequence, like trying to name the biggest number, or working

out whether the chicken came before the egg. He could

understand what was happening, but the answer remained

just one step out of reach. It was a simple question with an

infinite answer.

The past is as malleable as the future. We see the future,

we do not affect it. It might seem paradoxical to you, but as a

time traveller you must understand something of the complex

nature of the universe. There have been occasions on your

travels when you have seen the past unfurling around you,

just as you remember reading would happen. Time is

relative.’

‘The observed past does not change,’ the Doctor objected.

‘That is one of the fundamentals of time theory.’

‘You have free will,’ Willhuff assured him, ‘in the past, the

present and future. Nothing is fixed, nothing that can be

remembered can’t be forgotten.’

‘But how can you say that I’ve got free will when you know

what my actions will be?’

‘We will stop you.’

‘Doing what? Ah, but of course. You know why I am here.

You know that I’m looking for the doors, and you’ll try to stop

me.’

‘You will fail. From our perspective you already have.’

‘You’ve read a few pages ahead, is that it? Life’s just a

book that you can flick through. Well, I may rewrite the history

books yet, you know.’

‘We have our sacred duty. This is a place of great power,

and there are those in the universes that would have that

power for themselves.’

‘So you kill anyone that comes here, like poor Norval. And

you knew where his TARDIS would end up when it made that

random jump. You fired your weapon even before your target

arrived. No wonder the Maltraffi steer clear of you.’ He sat

looking at their faces, watching them in the firelight.

Willhuff pointed to the back of the room. ‘You spend the

whole night in that corner, in a self‐induced coma.’

‘We bring you closer to the fire in the morning,’ Palant

said.

‘Then, just as you are regaining consciousness, your

colleagues come down and rescue you.’

Helios smiled. ‘Wander off if you want, we already know

that don’t reach the Door, and exactly how you spend the

night.’

‘You’ll not try to stop me?’ The Doctor was already pacing

away from them, his mind juggling the various possibilities.

Lying in that corner asleep? That didn’t sound like him at all.

It had always been the same since his very earliest days: if

someone told him to do something, he would do the exact

opposite. Keep Off the Grass; You Mustn’t Go Down There;

Please Don’t Violate the Laws of Physics. But these people

had seen the future, they were telling him what had already

happened. There was another way, he knew that, there was

a way to escape them. But the Doctor found that he was

marching purposefully towards the very corner that Willhuff

had indicated. This part of the room had same sort of

fascination something always had when it was forbidden.

Don’t Look There; Try Not to Think About That.

He was about to turn on his heel and stride off in

completely opposite direction when a thought stuck him in

place.

‘What if the solution is in that corner?’ he whispered to

himself.

He set off towards it with new vigour.

He was meant to lie down in this comer… he did so.

No solution presented itself.

His shoulders sagged. It was cold down here. He pictured

himself there, lying down, just as the old warriors had

foreseen.

He rolled over, peeked at them. They were all still sitting

around the fire. They’d glance up from time to time, checking

that he was still there.

Of course!

They only thought they saw him here. Actually he’d

sneaked off, fooled them. All he had to do was fashion a

dummy of some kind, something that would deceive them

from this distance, in a room that was pretty murky anyway.

Except that Pallant said that they’d come over and moved

him in the morning.

The fact that they saw the future was confusing him. He

needed to take a step back. Picture the scene as an observer

would. A bird’s eye view. He ran through a number of

permutations, but the best he could hope for was that they

were lying, trying to change his course of action. Why would

they want to? If he did escape, they would know that they

didn’t succeed. Was it a self‐fulfilling prophecy? They would

demoralise him so much that he would give up even trying?

Well, one of the features of a self‐fulfilling prophecy is that it

comes true, whatever the underhand methods used.

He’d fooled them somehow, and he’d been in two places

at once.

He remembered his trick with the Sontarans and the

Rutans – his stomach dropping as he also realised that he’d

completely forgotten about the Conference, he had left the

two leaders stuck together in his TARDIS. There was nothing

he could do about that now. First things first. He’d been in

two places at once then. Of course he’d used his TARDIS,

and there were no time machines around here.

So what did he have to hand?

He emptied his pockets: a ball of string, sonic screwdriver,

the transmat bracelet, his copy of Four Quartets, a bag of

Monster Munch, a bottle of iodine and the Rutan Converter.

It was an eclectic set of items, and it took him a full ten

seconds to work out how he would do it.

Helios had stood, making a half‐hearted effort to stretch. The

old man had glanced over at the Doctor’s sleeping form, and

then picked his way across the rubble towards one of the

archways.

The Doctor had seen it all from his vantage point, standing

in the shadows on the other side of the room, So far, the plan

was working. Now he had to follow the old man.

He slipped from the room, careful not to disturb the others.

Hellos was a fair few seconds ahead of him, and the

bricklined corridors here were labyrinthine, but the Doctor

could hear the old man’s boots squelching along the wet

flagstones. He followed the sound, trying all the time to gain

on them. There wasn’t day or night here, just night. Perhaps

the Needle People slept when they wanted to.

The sounds of footfalls had stopped. There was a whirring,

grinding sound. Then the Doctor heard Hellos moving again.

He couldn’t be more than a dozen yards from him. It sounded

like a heavy door pulling itself open.

The Doctor peeked around the corner. There was a

doorway, and a light pouring from it that would have been

faint anywhere else, but which was almost blinding here. The

Doctor edged forwards, looked through. It was a small room,

almost a crypt. Helios was nowhere to be seen, but there was

plenty of other things to occupy the Doctor’s attention. This

was a shrine to the universe, the most precious items

carefully preserved in their own display cabinets and caskets.

A rather battered segment of the Key to Time; a semi‐organic

helmet; the much‐coveted Crown of the Fifth Galaxy; a

blue‐gold ovoid with a flower growing from it… there were

many other objects, some of which the Doctor recognised,

some of which he couldn’t put a name to. Objects of power in

their time, but their time had long past. These were relics

now, nothing more. There was also a backlit computer panel

mounted to the wall. It seemed nondescript, but might bear

further examination.

There were wet footprints on the marble floor, and they led

straight from the door through one of the walls. The Doctor

smiled, tracing the steps until he found the secret door. Once

you knew the was door there, locating the small pedal switch

that opened it was a doddle. It parted gracefully and silently,

revealing yet another corridor.

This part of the building was a little warmer, a little lighter

and a lot better maintained than the rest. The walls hadn’t

fallen to damp or disrepair, the musty smell wasn’t quite as

pronounced. There was a hum in the air, electricity or energy

of some kind.

The far end of the corridor opened up into a large

chamber. The Doctor hesitated at the entrance. The room

was well‐lit, and dominated by a set of great double doors.

They were set into the floor, like a bomb bay, or the way into

a Kansas storm shelter. These were an immaculate white,

like porcelain. There was a keyhole and two handles, set

slightly apart from each other. Helios was here, as the Doctor

assumed he must have been, knelt facing the back wall,

supporting himself awkwardly on his stave. He was mouthing

some prayer, or invocation. When he had finished, carefully,

ritualistically, Helios stood and walked over to the doors,

examining them.

The Doctor shifted forward to get a better look, his shoe

dragging against the dry marble. Helios looked up, surprised

by the noise.

‘I know you are here, Doctor,’ Helios said calmly. ‘I see the

future, remember?’

‘And the past,’ the Doctor noted, stepping into the room.

‘You reacted after I scraped my boot just then, not before.’

He stopped in his tracks. ‘And that also suggests that your

knowledge of the future is not perfect or you wouldn’t have

been surprised.’

Helios smiled, more than a hint of warmth there. ‘You

always were too clever for your own good. Alone amongst

those here, I see the past as well as the future, but I have

only snatches of memory of either.’

‘The worst of both worlds.’

‘Indeed. I have no idea, for example, how you managed to

get past the others, or trick us into thinking you were asleep

all night.’

The Doctor walked over to the doors, talking to disguise

the fact that he was getting a good look at the lock, the

handles. ‘I was very, very clever, and I’m itching to tell you

how I did it, but if I ever do, then you might remember what I

say and you’ll be able to warn them. Perhaps even

retroactively.’

The doors had faint roundels on them, worn smooth by the

ages.

‘Now you want to open these doors.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘I thought I might,’ the Doctor admitted lightly.

‘In all the millennia that we have been here, very few have

reached this far. But you cannot be allowed to gaze upon the

face of God.’

The Doctor smirked. ‘God? He’s behind these doors, is

he? Odd, that, because when we were talking about Him

earlier, I distinctly remember Pallant saying that he didn’t

know which door God was behind. Funny thing is, you’ve

known all along where the gates are, all about the secret

route to them. You’ve kept that information from the others,

though, haven’t you?’

‘The temptation might prove too great for even the most

devout of his servants,’ Helios said easily.

‘But the temptation is not too great for you?’

The lined face clouded over. ‘No! I have resisted

temptation for many millennia, I know that I resist until the

end.’

‘So you’ve never tried to open the door?’

‘No! Of course I was tempted, but I resisted.’

‘Not been tempted even the once?’ the Doctor tutted,

reaching into his jacket pocket. ‘What if I were to tell you that

these aren’t the gates of heaven, just the doors to a damaged

TARDIS belonging to a man named Savar? What if I told you

that I had the key to this door?’ He held the key up, let it glint

in the soft light.

Helios gave a faint smile, held out a closed hand. ‘I’d tell

you that I know, that the door is unlocked anyway, and –’ he

opened his hand, revealing an identical key.

‘You know the truth, but still you won’t open the door?’

‘I know what I have been told, but I have faith. I believe

that my God is behind those doors, awaiting me.’

‘So why not open the doors?’

‘What?’

‘Why resist? What are you so worried about?’

‘I…’

‘Go on. If you’re that sure, then…’

‘What if I were to open the gates –’

‘Yes?’

‘What if I were to open the gates and God was not behind

them? What if there was no God, after a hundred thousand

centuries of waiting? As long as those doors remain closed,

there is always a possibility. Open that door, and the

possibility might evaporate.’

‘Schrödinger’s God,’ the Doctor chuckled, slotting Savar’s

key into the lock. ‘A very cruel thought experiment, I’ve

always thought, one for the imaginary animal rights

campaigners. Imagine locking a cat up in a box and trying to

poison it. Time to let your god out for a stretch and a chance

to use his litter tray, I reckon.’

‘You cannot be allowed to open the doors,’ Helios

shouted, brandishing his stave.

The Doctor turned the key, unconcerned. He reached for

the handle.

The stave parted the air in front of the Doctor’s hand, then

it swept back, until its tip was hovering an inch from his face.

The Doctor fell back, his hand slapping down onto the

ground for support.

‘Almost made it,’ he concluded.

Helios turned away, tapping the doors with his staff.

‘Whatever is beyond the doors, it is a power that no man

should possess.’

‘The universe of anti‐matter,’ the Doctor explained as he

got to his feet. ‘A spacetime continuum like ours, equal but

opposite, reached via a singularity. Normally, if I’d opened

the doors, the two universes would have come into contact.

There would have been annihilation.’ He held up a small

cylinder. ‘But this is a Rutan device that converts anti‐matter

into matter and vice versa. It will stabilise the gateway. I know

what I face, Helios, and I’m not afraid of it.’

Helios shook his head. ‘You don’t know. You don’t have

the slightest idea. If you did you would run away from here,

screaming, cowering.’

The Doctor studied the old man’s face.

‘I know you,’ he realised.

‘Yes,’ Helios said simply. ‘As I know you.’

‘Do you remember what happened? Why you are here?’

‘Not all of it,’ Helios admitted. ‘But I think that is for the

best. I remember my wife and my family. I remember names

and times. I know that I came to the Needle to continue my

father’s work… I can say no more.’

‘If you know me, you know why I have to open these

doors,’ the Doctor said.

Helios caught the Doctor’s arm, stared deep into his eyes.

‘There will come a day when all is lost.’

The sincerity in his voice alarmed the Doctor. ‘Today?’

‘No. What you face now, the universe will survive. But you

have already taken your first steps on…’ he stopped himself.

‘You have seen glimpses of what is to come. You read the

scrolls, you’ve seen the enemy. Step through those doors,

and that future is set in place.’

‘The future can’t be fixed,’ the Doctor said firmly. ‘There’s

always hope, there is always a way out. Forewarned is

forearmed.’

‘I can’t say any more,’ Helios insisted.

‘Then step out the way,’ the Doctor suggested, reaching

for the handle again. ‘I know what I’m doing. If there is a

power here, it can be harnessed, used to our advantage.’

This time Helios didn’t stop him.

‘You knew,’ the old man said quietly. ‘Remember that as

the universe falls around you. You knew what you were

doing, it was your choice. I have lost everything now,

everything but my faith. I tried.’ Hellos straightened. ‘I saw the

future, I knew that I was destined to fail to convince you. But I

tried.’

He turned, and walked from the room.

The Doctor hesitated, but only for a moment. The doors

were humming, he could hear whispering around him.

Meticulously, he placed the Rutan Converter at the top of the

doorway, slotted the key into the lock and stood back as the

doors slid smoothly open.

A column of fire burst between the open doors, throwing

him to one side. A column of flames rose up to the ceiling.

The heat was intense, and the Doctor backed away a little

before it started to singe him.

There was someone within the flames.

‘I have come here for you,’ the Doctor said. ‘I know who

you are.’

‘And who is that?’ a voice asked calmly from the fire.

The Doctor straightened. ‘You are one of the greatest of all

our race, you are Omega.’

There was laughter but not the booming, mocking laughter

the Doctor had been expecting. A woman’s laugh.

‘You don’t know a hart from a hind.’

She stepped forward from the centre of the flame to its

edges. Fire flickered up between her toes and around her

long legs, reaching up as far as her navel. She was backlit by

the flames, and there were amber shadows over her body

Blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders, covering her. Her

lips were red, her eyes were blue.

And for a fleeting moment she was a smaller, fuller,

woman with short, dark hair, green eyes, freckles on her

shoulders and a birthmark on her ankle.

Blonde again, she smiled down at him.

‘You are here already,’ the Doctor said, laughing, hardly

daring to believe it. He stepped towards the fire, hot air

blasting over him. ‘I came here for you. I was going to ask

him –.’

‘I know.’

She held our her hand.

‘He has been expecting you.’

Together they stepped into flame.

Chapter Ten

A King of Infinite Space

The Doctor stepped through the garden, the woman at his

side.

He had got used to the cold of the Librarinth, and how

musty the air had been, and the darkness. Only now did he

realise how few colours there had been at the end of the

universe. The world had been sepia, drained of colour and

light. His new surroundings were dazzling, the fresh air blew

against his face. It was difficult taking it all in at once.

It was a warm spring day here, light was streaming

through the trees. They were walking hand in hand along the

banks of a stream, on even, weedless, grass. The stream ran

through a carefully ordered garden, where every tree, statue

and flower had apparently conformed to some vast design.

The flower beds, statues and pathways were all spotlessly

neat, although there was no sign of any gardeners. There

was music like birdsong in the air.

The Doctor flexed his anti‐proton fingers, tapped his lips

with them.

‘An anti‐matter body feels exactly the same as one made

of matter,’ she assured him.

‘This body is much like my old one,’ the Doctor agreed.

‘Whereas you, on the other hand…’

She was wearing a loose‐flowing gown in ivory silk and

lace, with bare shoulders, gathered at the waist by a wide

belt. Her long blonde hair was held up by a gold clasp, and

swept down to the small of her back. She wore a necklace of

white flowers, and held a feather fan. She was his height, a

little taller as her feet were bare and he was wearing shoes.

She smiled. ‘I regenerated.’

‘Only Time Lords regenerate when they die,’ the Doctor

objected. ‘The Gallifreyans of old avoided the problem by

never dying.’

‘It came as a surprise to me, too,’ she said, laughter in her

voice. ‘I was born a Gallifreyan, but I’ve lived long enough

that I may just have evolved beyond that.’

The Doctor looked over at her, unsure about her. If it was

her. ‘How did you end up here?’ he asked.

‘Omega brought me here. He has made this his domain.’

At that moment, they turned a corner and, ahead of them,

massive, was Omega’s castle. It was the size of a mountain,

as dark as a storm cloud. It appeared to have been piled

there, layers of buttresses and battlements upon layers. The

walls were either sheer rock faces or solid blocks of stone.

Some of the turrets and towers defied gravity, tapering or

seeming to hover.

The Doctor bristled, sensing the power radiating from the

place.

‘You knew Omega before you knew me,’ the Doctor said.

‘A long time before. A very long time ago.’

‘You were his wife,’ the Doctor murmured.

‘I am two million years old. Do you know what that

means?’

One corner of his mouth lifted, the start of a smile. ‘I

should wish you happy birthday?’

She stopped, facing him, angry. ‘It means that I was born

knowing the future, and that I was a young woman at the time

of the Curse. It means that I saw the starbreakers leave for

Qqaba, and the Time Lords return. I remember the Darkness.

I’ve lived in palaces and on the streets. I’ve lived amongst

two hundred generations of Time Lords. I’ve seen so many of

my friends and lovers grow old and die around me. I’ve seen

mountain ranges rise and fall. I’ve lived long enough to see

even Gallifrey change. If I hadn’t changed in that time, then I

wouldn’t have lived my life, I’d have wasted it.’

‘Oceans of water under the bridge,’ the Doctor said

thoughtfully. ‘My theory of evolution is that it’s not what you

are, it’s what you do with it.’

‘I did what I could,’ she replied.

They had stopped by a small pool.

‘We have some privacy out here,’ she said quietly.

‘Shall we sit down?’ the Doctor offered, taking off his

jacket and laying it down on the grass, worried for her

immaculate white gown. She knelt, then sat there, stretching

out one leg, tucking the other underneath it. She batted

herself with her fan. The Doctor knelt behind her, so that she

had her back to him, and that his chest almost touched her

shoulderblades. He steadied himself, not quite touching her

leg. He looked over her and down into the pool. The water

was so clear you could see right to the bottom.

‘There should be fish in there,’ the Doctor observed.

And there were a dozen rainbow streaks in the water. The

Doctor looked up, delighted. She looked back over her

shoulder at him and he grinned back.

He looked at her face, the first time he’d had a proper

chance to do so. It was almost too beautiful: oval, framed

with golden‐blonde hair. She had deep red lips, a perfectly

proportioned nose, blue eyes.

She turned back to the water, watching the fish darting

from one side of the pool to the other, leaving the Doctor to

look at her broad shoulders and thin neck. Her skin was so

pale. He reached out, touched an almost alabaster left cheek

with his left hand.

‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he told her.

She stroked his wrist. His hand was drawing fingertip

circles on the side of her head. She kissed the base of his

thumb. She lifted her right arm, bent it back so that her hand

could reach the back of his head. She drew a line up his neck

to his hair, toyed with his short hair. All the time they were

drawing closer together.

‘I didn’t think –’ he began.

Her thoughts. A single point of contact at her temple and

they were sharing thoughts and memories. The Doctor

closed his eyes. This was her, there was no possible cause

to doubt that now. She had lived so much longer than him,

lived at his Family home for countless generations. She had

tutored his grandfather and his father. She had been there at

his birth. She had nursed him, taught him, danced with him,

loved him, borne his children.

She had let go of his hand. ‘You were always there.’

‘I knew that I’d find you.’

The Doctor remembered the night that he had been too

late, saw it as she had. The Watch marching through the

courtyard of their home, rounding up the children and the

House guests. The Capitol was burning on the horizon, and

even from here it was almost possible to hear the mobs in the

Panopticon. Her eyes were full of tears as the Watch

searched the bedchambers for her daughter‐in‐law, read out

the charge that the family had been consorting with aliens.

And she couldn’t say anything as they dragged her away, or

they might find out her secret, they’d know that not all the

Womb‐Born had died, that some had merely been hiding

amongst the general population for all these hundreds of

centuries.

She shifted herself around until they were knelt facing

each other.

Her daisy‐chain necklace had come unravelled and was

about to fall away. Her hand was flat against the small of his

back, steadying them both. He was holding onto her

shoulder, skin against skin.

‘I’ll never leave you again,’ the Doctor promised.

‘Whatever I have do, I’ll never leave you.’

Even this early in the morning, the market was bustling.

Captain Raimor didn’t pretend to understand the full

complexities the Low Town economy. Produce and other

items were brought to the market by traders from all over

Gallifrey and hawked here. There was an ancient currency,

the treazant coin, but mostly goods and services were

exchanged. Fish from the subterranean sea were exchanged

for silvertree wood or nails for the fishermen’s u-boats, That

was a simple case, and the system was a great deal more

elaborate than that, with strict rules about the basis of

contract, the value of goods, that sort thing.

The market was Outside, right on the edges of Low Town,

not even in the shadow of the Capitol Dome. Sunlight

streamed over the place, picking out the brightly coloured

wares and the rich patterns of the merchants’ robes. It was

noisy, too, bartering voices merging in with the whine of

horse drawn gravcarts, the clump of feet, the clattering of

crates of goods being loaded and unloaded. There was

bunting out today, and an air of excitement. One word over

and over again. ‘Omega.’

Raimor and Peltroc made their way through the aisles of

the market area, the crowds instinctively parting in front of

them to let members of the Chancellery Watch through.

Raimor’s expert eye could spot everything from pickpockets

to gangster bosses amongst those present, but the best thing

about the criminal fraternity was that its members understood

the rules. The people here knew that the Watchmen weren’t

interested in them and their dealings, they only came down

here on Time Lord business. No one was stupid enough to

try to pick a fight, not when a hundred Watchmen could

transmat in at a moment’s notice. The grossest offenders

disappeared into the woodwork for a minute or two, knowing

that there were still a few things that the Watch couldn’t turn

a blind eye to. But the lower criminals like the palliards and

twachylles didn’t even move from their patches.

‘Unashamed,’ Peltroc muttered.

‘They don’t bother us in the Capitol, Constable, and so we

don’t bother them down here. If a Time Lord were to come

down to pay a visit, and found himself in trouble, then… who

are we to judge our elders and betters?’

There had been efforts in the distant past to clean up Low

Town, purge it of criminals, but all such actions had been

doomed to failure. The authorities had removed some

gangland boss only to find his rivals taking over his interests,

his territory and his assets, growing stronger as a result. It

was a chaotic system, one that neither the Watch nor the

High Council really understood.

‘Best to adopt a code of non‐interference, like the High

Council, isn’t that right, Peltroc?’

‘Is there going to be a place for us in the new regime, do

you think?’

‘New regime?’ Raimor scowled.

‘ Omega,’ Peltroc said. ‘There’s talk that the President is

planning to abdicate in his favour. I can’t see Omega

standing by while others rule Gallifrey.’

‘Yes, well, perhaps the Watch don’t share the general

population’s relish.’

‘Passed the Omega Memorial on the way down here,’

Peltroc said. ‘There were crowds gathering.’

‘There were people praying and laying tributes in the

Panopticon last night. The Council weren’t sure whether we

should be arresting them or joining in.’

‘You know, though, don’t you?’

‘I’ve been with the Watch for nearly nine hundred years,

Constable. Plenty of time to read the regimental histories. I

know my duty.’

‘You’ll try to carry it out?’

Raimor just looked over at Peltroc.

‘You’d kill Omega?’ Peltroc repeated.

Raimor nodded. ‘Rassilon gave us express orders, and

Rassilon had his reasons. He knew that for all their power, for

all their knowledge, his Time Lords aren’t perfect. He realised

who the enemy really is.’

‘The Watch was here before the Time Lords, and the

Watch will be here long after the Time Lords have gone,’

Peltroc said, quoting the first line of their oath of office.

‘That’s right.’

‘Isn’t the Doctor one of the Four Names, too?’

‘He is. But Rassilon was very clear that the Doctor should

only be killed when he –’ Raimor paused, then reached out

and grabbed one of the passers‐by by the collar of his jacket.

His target was a small man in a patched‐up tunic. ‘And where

do you think you’re going?’

The man had the same myopic look and twitching

expression he always had. ‘Captain Raimor, sir. Just on my

way through the market, Strictly tekram business only, yeah?

Your new body suits you, Captain. Little young around the

edges for my tastes, but – eep!’ Raimor yank him off his feet,

placing him down between himself and Peltroc.

‘Who’s this, Captain?’ Peltroc said, getting into the spirit of

things by bending over the little man.

‘This is Grote,’ Raimor told him. ‘Remember how I said the

Lower class keep themselves to themselves? Well, this is

one of the exceptions. He’s a forger, I caught him once with a

number of keys to the Capitol.’

‘Aw, Captain. That was three hundred years ago!’ Grote

objected whinily. ‘It’s not as though I used them or anything.’

‘Oh, I remember you telling me about him once,’ Peltroc

said. Accidentally or not, the lad had picked up on Grote’s

particular brand of paranoia.

Grote blinked. ‘I’m known to the Watch?’ he said slowly.

‘ Everyone knows about you up there, Grote,’ Raimor told

him. ‘When tutors want to scare their pupils they say, “Don’t

do that or you’ll end up like Grote.”’

‘Wait… the Timeys know about me?’

‘Time Lords,’ Peltroc corrected slowly. ‘They don’t like that

word you just said. It doesn’t show the proper respect they

say. Only Groteys use that sort of language, the Time Lords

say.’

Raimor allowed himself a smirk. Peltroc would have to be

careful not to overegg the pudding, but by the look on his

face, at least one of Grote’s hearts had just stopped beating.

‘But…’ Grote began, unable to think of the second word for

an instant or two. ‘But surely the Time Lords have got better

things to be doing today? What with the aliens and the Doctor

and Omega. People down here are excited enough by the

idea that Omega’s coming back… it must be a party up

there.’ He jabbed his finger upwards to indicate the Dome.

‘Funny you should mention the Doctor,’ Raimor said softly.

‘Tell me what you know.’

‘Well, he’s vanished, hasn’t he? That was on the Public

Record.’

‘People don’t just vanish.’

‘Yeah, I know, he’s gone to ground. Hiding.’

‘Is that what he’s doing?’

‘Well, isn’t he?’

‘You tell me, Grote. You know the Doctor, don’t you?’

‘ Everyone knows the Doctor,’ Grote objected. ‘You know

the Doctor. Makes you a suspect, does it?’

‘The last person to use that line of reasoning was an

accomplice of the Doctor,’ Peltroc said.

‘She ended up dead, stabbed through the hearts,’ Raimor

added. ‘She’s not the only one who’s ended up that way in

the last couple of days.’

‘I think that he knows where the Doctor is,’ Peltroc said,

with a surprising air of menace. ‘Shall we use the mind probe

on him?’

Grote tried to back away. ‘Hey, you know, no need for that.

He doesn’t come down here as often as he used to. I haven’t

seen him for years.’

Raimor glared at Grote, made him jump again.

‘I haven’t,’ Grote insisted. ‘He’s probably jumped into that

TARDIS of his and left Gallifrey again.’

‘All the TARDISes have been accounted for, Grote.’

Raimor sighed. ‘Run along. If you see the Doctor, you find a

way to tell me, OK?’

Grote was absurdly grateful, bowing and scraping as he

backed away from the two Watchmen. He merged into the

crowd and vanished.

‘The Doctor’s not here, is he?’ Peltroc said.

‘No. And even if he were, he’s not the murderer.’

‘So why did the Acting‐President send us down here

looking for him?’

‘It’s all politics, Peltroc.’ They found a bare stall, and rested

there for a while. Raimor took his helmet off, scratched his

head. He looked up at the Dome, looming over Low Town,

glinting like ivory in the sunlight. ‘They’ve got infinite power in

there,’ he said. ‘They can do just about anything, go

anywhere, know everything. Most aliens must think that they

are gods. They don’t realise that all that power, all those

options… it’s as limiting as having no options at all.’

Peltroc snorted. ‘That sounds like the sort of line the elite

would come up with to keep the rest of the population happy

with their lot.’

‘Perhaps. But why do you think they spend all their time

performing rituals and ceremonies, why do they spend so

much time plotting against each other and awarding each

other honorary degrees? Because when you live for ever and

can do anything you want, you might as well do nothing at

all.’

The two Watchmen leaning against a market stall faded

from the cracked glass. For a moment it was a mirror once

more, showing nothing more than a vast form hunched

forward in his throne. It was a monster, it must not be faced.

A new image began to form, sunlight banishing the golden

glint of metal and dissolving the red glare of his eyes.

A man and a woman, walking in a garden. He was a little

over average height, with a long face and closely cropped

hair. He wore a baggy silk shirt and tan, narrow‐cut trousers.

A blue woollen jacket was draped over his arm. He was

wearing Argyle socks, with no shoes. Her hair was loose. He

recognised the flowing white dress, noting that the wide belt

she usually wore with it was missing.

They were walking briskly, businesslike, along the main

path leading to the castle. It would be a matter of minutes

before they reached the drawbridge. The man wore a serious

expression. Behind them was nothing, nothing at all. If either

of them were to turn their heads, then the garden would be

there for them to observe. But otherwise… it… didn’t exist

except as a thought, but this was all there was here: his

mind, and who was to say that it was real and who was to

say that… he could not… The throne room began to dissolve,

fade into nothing as he began to think the unthinkable.

He reasserted his thoughts, concentrated on the new

arrival.

This was the Doctor, here in the universe of anti‐matter.

He was staring up at the castle, clearly impressed by the

architecture, the ramparts and battlements, the solid stone of

the walls. But it was a castle of the mind, it had only existed

for an instant before he’d turned the corner, it would cease to

exist as the Doctor and his wife crossed the threshold.

‘Are you the only one here?’ The Doctor asked. His voice

was soft, he swallowed his words.

Her voice was clear, like music. ‘Yes. Apart from Omega,

of course.’

‘He’s keeping you here against your will.’

She smiled. ‘I’m not his prisoner. He intervened to rescue

me. I was right on the brink of death in the matter universe.

When he brought me here he converted me into anti‐matter,

repaired the damage. His will sustains me. It’s the reason

that I can never leave.’

‘We’ll find a way,’ the Doctor promised.

Omega laughed, leaned towards the mirror. If anyone in

the universe could make good that promise it was the Doctor.

But first things first.

The Doctor was thinking aloud. ‘So he brought you here.

That means that Omega can affect our universe.’

‘The breach in spacetime caused by Savar’s TARDIS

allows him to observe, and a degree of influence.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘When we dream, it’s only for a second or two at a time.

We can have dreams that seem to last for ever but they all

take place in a single second.’

‘Not strictly true,’ the Doctor corrected her, ‘the rapid eye

movement phase of sleep in which dreams occur can last up

to an hour and a half a night.’

‘But you understand what I mean?’ she said,

mock‐exasperated. ‘You understand that I have no way of

telling whether I have been here for a day or a thousand

years.’

‘Has Omega changed since you knew him?’

‘He’s not mad.’

‘That isn’t what I asked.’

She hesitated, aware of the eyes upon her. ‘He’s been

trapped here all this time.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘No. No, he hasn’t changed.’

‘He still loves you?’

A hand, trapped in its gauntlet, reached out to the mirror,

tried to touch her face behind the glass. ‘That isn’t why he

brought me here.’

‘No?’

‘He brought me here because of you. You have the only

thing that he wants. Freedom.’

‘I don’t understand why he’s trapped at all. If he’s got the

power to create all this, he must be able to whip up an

escape route.’

‘No.’

The Doctor stopped. ‘Oh come on, if the Rutans can

convert matter into anti‐matter then I’m sure that Omega

can.’

‘It isn’t as simple as that. This universe only exists

because he wills it. Without his consciousness it would cease

to exist.’

‘So he can’t leave because he just can’t take that last step,

a part of him has to stay behind.’

‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand why he would

want to leave. It’s a beautiful place. He’s a god here!

The Doctor looked up. ‘He wants to go because the sky is

wrong.’

She looked up, and as soon as she did, she frowned. ‘I

never noticed that before.’

Omega sighed. The sky here was impossibly blue and the

clouds looked as though they had been daubed on with

poster paint and a thick brush. It wasn’t the colours, it was

the shape. It looked as if the sky and the clouds had been

painted onto the inside surface of a vast dome, one that

seemed to curve and fall beyond the horizon. It didn’t feel like

the outside at all.

‘There’s sunlight, but no sun,’ the Doctor said.

Omega knew that. The light streamed down, but it wasn’t

come from anywhere, and the shadows were confused, lying

at different angles at different places.

‘This place is created from his thoughts, and after all this

time, he’s forgotten what the sky looks like,’ the Doctor said.

‘And that’s why he needs to escape. For all his power, he’s

impotent.’

No, Omega thought. No. That wasn’t it. In any act of

creation, there is always frustrated ambition. The most

perfect sculptures and portraits and poems are not quite what

the artist imagined. Sometimes the faults are minor,

occasionally they are even beneficial, forming unintended

meanings, new purpose or clarity. More often, though, the

perfect form remains trapped in the mind. Even here, where

his thoughts and dreams were all that there was.

Omega remembered the sky. He remembered the sun on

his face, the clouds drifting past. But he couldn’t recreate it.

He closed his eyes, head slumping forwards. When he

returned his gaze to the mirror, the image was that of the

matter universe. It was an office, a bright, airy place. It

overlooked a vast statue of a young man, his space helmet

tucked under his arm. It was a man with a stony face full of

hope, just about to forge a glorious future that he would not

be part of.

Castellan Voran was uncomfortable in his chair as the Great

Panopticon Bell struck Four Bells.

He was merely the Acting‐President, and had felt it in poor

taste to take up residence in the Presidential Chambers,

especially as his tenure should only have lasted a couple of

hours. But that had been this morning, and now Surgeon

Grutnoll was advising that the President should get at least

another day’s rest. It had been a minor wound, but the

President had worn his current body for over a millennium.

The stabbing wasn’t enough to justify complete bodily

regeneration. The Castellan just wished that the President

had picked a better time to be stabbed, that was all.

From this office he could look out over the Panopticon,

and see the people gathering at the foot of the Statue of

Omega. Ask them why they were doing it and they probably

couldn’t answer. Omega was returning, and the people

needed a way to express and explore their feelings about

that. The Castellan wondered if he’d be out of a job. When

Omega returned, there was no doubt that he’d be given a

place on the Supreme Council. He’d almost certainly be

elected President – which College would stand against him?

Would Omega sweep away the old structures or would he try

to work within them?

So this was ‘change’, this was what the Doctor had been

going on about all these years. The possibility of gain, the

probability of loss.

As Acting‐President, Voran could consult the Matrix, but

he couldn’t connect his mind directly to it. He had to list the

problems himself and find his own solutions.

The most important thing was to rescue Omega, and to do

that, Gallifrey would have to find a way to re‐establish the link

with the future and then to defeat the inhabitants of the

Needle. Restoring contact with the Station was simply a

technical matter, and the science teams were confident that

they would succeed by nightfall.

A way to get past the defences of the Needle existed, the

Castellan was sure of that, but it was a matter of finding that

way. The Time Lords had fought wars before, and a number

of times those wars had been waged and won against

opponents a great deal more powerful than themselves. But

this was the first time since Marnal’s day that such a show of

force had proved necessary, and the key to victory had

always been preparation. The Time Lords had always been

careful to collect intelligence reports. They’d never allowed

themselves to fight without knowing their enemy. That had

been Marnal’s Error.

However, there weren’t many enemies who could survive

being hit by a blackstar, and there were plenty of other tricks

up Gallifrey’s sleeve.

The Castellan only hoped that the Doctor hadn’t doomed

the Time Lords to extinction. With the timegate closed, there

was no way of knowing what was happening in the far future.

The Station’s batteries must surely have run down by now.

The Magistrate was a resourceful man, and would have

found a way to preserve his crew, the Castellan sure of that.

But they would be defenceless out there on their own. With a

full day to prepare and the Effect at their control, whoever

was on the surface of the Needle would have the Station at

their mercy. If that was the case, they could locate the

Station’s planet of origin, and launch a attack of their own,

hours before the blackstar could be launched.

The man who had stabbed the President, Lord Savar, was

in custody but was saying nothing sane, merely his usual

rants and raves.

The source of all Gallifrey’s problems, the Doctor, had

vanished, leaving behind an almost‐full city Morgue. A

Technician called Waym. A pair of minor noblemen working

in the power rooms and the Lady Larna. The Technician had

been the member of a powerful eastern family. His Senior

Cousin had come over from Olyesti by rail, arriving in full

mourning dress with her retinue of servants and robots. The

Castellan had met her at the terminus and gone to the

morgue with her, seen them all lying there, ceremonial

clothes draped over the faces of the three Time Lords.

Waym’s face was uncovered, as befitted his status, His

Senior Cousin conducted a short ritual and then her

assistants had placed the corpse in an iron coffin. They

would take the body home and bury it, which was the custom

in the east. Out of respect, the Castellan had got someone

from his office to arrange all the necessary permits in

advance. The Cousin had perhaps spoken a dozen words in

the whole hour she had been in the Capitol.

The three Time Lords were being matriculated now, their

mind being processed so that they would join the vast

collective consciousness of the Matrix. When Larna’s mind

emerged from the datascape, perhaps it would prove

possible to solve the mystery of the Doctor’s disappearance.

Constable Sapro’s report into the affair was sitting on Voran’s

desk half‐read. The Doctor had left the Temporal Monitoring

room with the Lady Larna during the investiture. He had

deactivated the timegate and sabotaged the power links.

Larna had been stabbed, presumably because she had

refused to co‐operate with his plan. The Watchmen had

broken down the door, but the Doctor had gone. Sapro

offered no explanation as to where he might have gone. His

men were continuing their search of the catacombs,

ventilation ducts and sewers.

Voran’s secretary, Pendrel, came bustling through the

door.

‘Couldn’t you knock?’ the Castellan asked irately, holding

up the sheaves of Sapro’s report.

‘Apologies, Acting‐President. It’s rather urgent, sir.’

‘Have you noticed, Pendrel, that everything seems to be

urgent this morning?’

‘The Sontaran delegation want to talk to you, sir, they say

that their leader has been kidnapped.’

They walked over the drawbridge, into Omega’s fortress. The

moat was dry, covered in grass.

Inside was a long corridor, lit by burning torches. The

ceiling was low, the floor was bare flagstones. There were no

doorways leading off, just a set of double doors a hundred

yards or so in front of them.

‘Fascinating décor,’ the Doctor noted, his words not even

echoing from the masonry.

‘Omega maintains only what he needs here.’

The Doctor jabbed his thumb back over his shoulder. ‘That

garden is hardly functional.’

‘That is his gift to me, he grants me the power to tend it.’

The double doors at the end of the corridor swung open as

they reached them. They stepped into the throne room

together. The room was triangular, with a simple vaulted

ceiling. The door they had just come through was at one

point of the triangle. The throne itself was on a raised dais

opposite. It was a vast upholstered thing, with a high back

and vast arms, but it reminded the Doctor of an armchair

more than anything else.

There were darkened archways leading off in all

directions. A full‐length mirror sat by the throne. The only

other feature was a vast fireplace, with a roaring fire.

The Doctor watched the flames dancing in the hearth, as

fascinated as a moth might have been. He wanted to reach

out, let the fire lick his hand.

‘The source of his power,’ she told him.

‘A fire?’

She shook her head, smiling. ‘That’s how he chooses to

represent the singularity. It gives him control over the

physical laws in this universe.’

They stepped over to it, and the Doctor looked into the

flame. When a certain type of black hole formed, all the

matter and energy it contained collapsed in on itself, the

immense gravitation condensing and condensing the material

until it reached infinite density. That condition repealed some

of the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics, breaking

down the ordinary distinctions between matter and energy,

space and time. Instead of ‘normality’, there was just

quantum… well, at the point a singularity formed, words

couldn’t to hope to explain what was going on. Theoretically it

allowed anything to emerge, anything to happen. A state of

singularity was how the universe had been created, and this

is how it would end. Usually, the fact that all such

singularities were locked away safely behind event horizons

kept them from affecting the universe. Trapped behind the

event horizon himself, Omega had found a way to bring the

theory into practice, a way of harnessing the power of the

singularity. He had shaped it to his will.

‘I imagine that it will also let him channel anti‐matter

through the Effect to give him an practically inexhaustible

supply of energy in our universe.’

‘That’s more your field than mine,’ she replied.

‘It’s evil,’ the Doctor told her. ‘Can’t you hear it whispering?

A sound like a lullaby?’

‘DOCTOR.’

The voice seemed to come from all around, as if it was

being relay by a loudspeaker system. Despite that, the

Doctor could sense that the source of the voice was to his

right, emerging from one of the archways nearest the throne.

Anyone who had been to the Panopticon would have

recognised the man who stepped out, although most would

have been surprised by his sheer size. He was over seven

feet tall, and broad with it. His hug muscular shoulders and a

beard that curled down his chest only emphasised that this

was an ogre of a man.

He wore a purple cloak that reached to the floor, hissing

as it was dragged over the flagstones. Was there a hint of a

limp there? The Doctor couldn’t be sure, it might just be the

weight of the golden armour. He wore a helmet, one that was

almost fitted to his skull, encasing the back of his head,

covering his hair. Great ram’s horns sprang from the temples,

curled behind his ears, sweeping back around until their tips

faced forwards and upwards. The Doctor wasn’t sure whether

the horns were part of the helmet or not.

He dragged himself past them, not even stopping to look

at his guests. Instead he climbed the three steps of the dais

and took his place on the throne, hands clasping the arms of

the chair.

‘Lord Omega,’ she said. ‘This is the Doctor.’

‘Yes, leave us,’ he commanded. ‘Dress for dinner.’

She bowed, and left through one of the archways.

‘Am I all right as I am?’ the Doctor asked, indicating his

coat with his hand. ‘I didn’t realise we were going to be quite

so formal. The invitation didn’t say black tie.’ He looked up at

Omega, whose purple cloak was spilling over the edges of

the throne. ‘Or fancy dress.’

‘Would you like a drink?’ Omega asked.

The Doctor shook his head. ‘No thanks… a chair if you

have one, I’ve travelled quite a long way to get here and I’ve

not sat down for a while.’

A small wooden chair appeared behind him.

‘Thanks.’ The Doctor sat, realising that it made him appear

even smaller and less significant compared to the giant on

his throne on his dais. He stood, began pacing around the

room. He examined the mirror, peering into it. Apart from

seeing himself, he saw stars and planets.

‘A window out over the universe of matter,’ Omega

explained.

The Doctor pursed his lips. ‘That’s what I call a looking

glass.’ He looked around again, aware that Omega was

staring at him. ‘Nice place you have here,’ he concluded. ‘So

you saw how I got past the Needle People?’

‘It was simple enough. When matter is transmitted, a

duplicate is created at the destination and the original is

destroyed. You rigged your transmat bracelet so that the

original was not destroyed. That body is in a self‐induced

coma.’

‘Clever, wasn’t I?’ the Doctor said lightly. ‘So you can look

out over the real universe. What about this place?’

‘This is my domain. I see everything here, I know

everything here, I control everything here.’

‘Including your wife?’

‘She is bathing, preparing herself. Wearing nothing but

that new body of hers.’ He leered. ‘Would you like to see

her?’

The Doctor turned away from the mirror. ‘Would I like to

see her? No.’ he said matter‐of‐factly. Instead he looked into

the fire, watched it flare up.

‘“No”? Perhaps you mean “not like this”. She would never

know. You could touch her, take her thoughts, and she

wouldn’t know.’

The flames were calmer now, almost hypnotic. ‘Is that

what you have done?’ the Doctor muttered. ‘Is that why you

brought her here?’

Omega’s laugh filled the room. ‘I have other priorities. Her

heart belongs to you, for the moment. She is a fascinating

woman.’

The Doctor turned. ‘You are jealous of us? You want her

for yourself!’

‘If I wanted her, Doctor, make no mistake I could have her.

And she has no feelings for me now, if she ever did.’ The

Doctor looked Omega in the eye for the first time. The

ancient Time Lord’s face was lined, his red eyes surrounded

by shadow. It was as if he hadn’t slept for a million years, and

borne the weight of creation on his shoulders all that time.

‘We talk, that is all. She has told me of Gallifrey, the Time

Lords, her dead children, the countless millennia that she has

lived through while I ruled… this. She has a rather unique

perspective on the history of our planet.’

The Doctor had been walking towards the throne as

Omega spoke, Now he stepped onto the dais. ‘She has seen

the best and worst of what our people have to offer.’

‘Your people, Doctor.’

The Doctor took another step up, looked Omega in the

eye. ‘You’re a Gallifreyan, Omega. You’re more than that.

You must have been hit by the time energies when Qqaba

went nova. You must have taken the full force of the

explosion. My bet is that you understand Time a great deal

better than your average Time Lord.’

Omega laughed, the sound originating all around the

room. ‘You may be right.’

‘And existing outside your native universe must also have

given you – what was your phrase? – a “unique perspective”.’

The red eyes narrowed. ‘I have seen the past and future

change. I have seen a universe where there was no

Rassilon, and the Time Lords were gods thanks to me. I have

seen a universe where Rassilon still rules Gallifrey from deep

within the Matrix. Another where he was a woman, and my

lover.’

‘Parallel universes?’

‘Such places exist, but this was our universe, riddled with

paradox and contradiction likes weevils in a biscuit.’

The Doctor drew back a little. ‘I know a number of

seafarers who prefer their biscuits with weevils. It adds to the

taste, and weevils are a very good source of protein, or so

I’m told.’

Omega was ignoring him. ‘In all of those realities, in every

version of history I am trapped here. Sometimes by

treachery, sometimes by design, once even through choice.

There are an infinity of choices, an infinite number of Doctors.

Yet I am all the Omegas, I am the only one.’

‘So you’ve searched all those different realities looking for

a way to escape, and never found the answer?’

‘I have the answer.’

‘The breach in spacetime? The Effect.’

‘I have used it to observe the universe of matter. As it

grows, so do my powers there.’

‘But they are still very limited. And I rather think that the

Effect is out of your control now. When Savar’s TARDIS fell

into the black hole, you tried to use it to escape, you tried to

power it up using the anti‐matter here. But it didn’t work for

some reason, it just triggered the Effect. You might have lit

the blue touch paper, but now the anti‐matter‐matter

reactions have spread far faster and further than you were

expecting.’

Omega’s face was a mask of rage, ‘True, but this is not a

bad thing, it allows me control over events.’

‘Including events in the past?’

‘Indeed.’

‘You can’t change the past, it’s impossible.’

‘Shall I bring back Larna, make it so she never died?’

Omega paused. ‘Make it so that you never killed her?’

The Doctor straightened. ‘Yes.’

‘As you wish.’

The image in the mirror became cloudy, and then began to

resolve.

The door to the Castellan’s office slid open, and the Lady

Larna walked in, escorted by a member of the Watch.

The young woman had changed back into high‐collared

dayrobes. Her hair was tied back. It was formal clothing, but

not her robes of office. She refused to sit, forcing

Acting‐President Voran to stand as well. What she wore was

a message, one that Voran had no difficulty in decoding: she

was quite prepared to lose rank and status as a result of her

actions, but she would not recant them.

‘Lady Larna,’ Voran said, hoping to convey a patronising

tone.

She gave a small nod. ‘I am not sorry for my actions, and

demand my right as a Time Lord to stand before a full

Tribunal to justify them.’

Voran smiled, and decided to sit after all.

‘After all this is over Lady Larna, I sincerely hope that there

is enough of Gallifrey left to hold a judicial review.’ He made

a show of looking through Constable Sapro’s report. ‘It says

here that when he entered the power room, you were clearly

trying to prevent the Doctor from jumping into the time

column.’

Larna grimaced. ‘If that idiot hadn’t pulled me away, I’d

have managed to stop him.’

Voran chuckled. ‘Perhaps. In view of the current crisis, we

will have to delay your trial. You demonstrated a great deal of

guile and technical expertise in helping the Doctor to

sabotage the power room. We need those talents to undo the

damage. I’m going to second you to the restoration team.

Dismissed.’

Voran’s secretary, Pendrel, came bustling through the

door, pushing his way past Larna.

‘Couldn’t you knock?’ the Castellan asked irately, holding

up the sheaves of Sapro’s report.

‘Apologies, Acting‐President. It’s rather urgent, sir.’

‘Have you noticed, Pendrel, that everything seems to be

urgent this morning?’

‘The Sontaran delegation want to talk to you, sir, they say

that their leader has been kidnapped.’

The Doctor watched Larna leave the Castellan’s office. The

image in the mirror began fading away, replacing itself with

the Doctor’s own, haunted face.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘She is a beautiful young woman.’

‘Yes,’ the Doctor said, faintly embarrassed.

He remembered her lying on the mosaic floor of the power

room, her blood spilling over the tiles, the knife that had killed

he in his hand. He looked over at Omega, and thought of his

wife, thought of her protrait in his rooms and her pendant

round Larna’s neck. The Doctor had mde his choice,

discarding – murdering – Larna. He had climbed over her

dead body to get here, he had abandoned her and Gallifrey

and the Sontarans and Rutans, all because of the power

here.

‘You still feel guilt, do you?’ Omega said.

‘Of course I do,’ the Doctor insisted. ‘Whatever I have

done to redeem myself since, I still stabbed her.’

Omega frowned. ‘But now there was no crime. You are

feeling guilty about a crime that you didn’t commit.’

‘I committed it.’

‘Not any more. It never happened.’

‘And it’s as easy as that?’

‘Yes.’

‘It seems like cheating, somehow,’ the Doctor noted,

remembering that he had taken Larna’s hand, started to

dance, shared thoughts and intimacies with her.

‘Just different rules.’

She had returned, wearing a green dress that wouldn’t

have been out of place at a medieval banquet on Earth. It

had a full skirt and an embroidered bodice, with a tight

waistband. Her hair had been carefully arranged around a

pearl tiara.

‘Dinner is served,’ she announced.

The Doctor walked over to her, took her arm.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘Are you all right?’ he repeated. She gave a careful nod.

The Doctor looked up and the throne room had become a

banqueting chamber, dominated by a large triangular oak

table. There was a high‐backed chair at each point of the

table, and three full place settings had been laid. Beyond the

other archway was the clanking of pots, the rattling of cutlery,

the hissing of pans. The kitchens. And the room had always

been like this, he remembered. They’d walked in and the

table had always been there, and Omega had always been

seated with his back to the fire. The flames glinted from the

metal armour and framed his vast body. An effect, of course,

that was fully intentional.

The Doctor stepped back into the room, pulled a chair

back for his companion, then took the remaining one for

himself. He glanced down. The cutlery was all of the finest

silver, lovingly engraved with various designs familiar from

ancient Gallifrey. Each of the three diners had enough of it in

front of them to open a shop: laid out in front of his plate, for

example, was a teaspoon, tablespoon, coffee spoon, soup

spoon, cake spoon and a serving spoon, along with a few

others with more arcane function. There were equivalent

numbers of knives and forks.

He looked up. Omega was already munching at a leg of…

something. Chicken, probably,

‘What will you have, Doctor?’ he asked, the meat visible in

his mouth as he spoke.

‘I’ve not seen the menu,’ he replied.

‘You can have anything. Anything at all.’

‘Anything at all?’ the Doctor repeated softly.

Omega nodded.

‘Not meat. I’m a vegetarian.’

‘Whatever you eat, Doctor, no animal will die. Your meal

will be the product of my mind.’

The Doctor snapped a smile. ‘It’s the principle.’

‘What principle? That you don’t eat imaginary animals?

Feast yourself on minotaur steak and dragon scale soup.’

‘When I meet unicorns, Lord Omega, the very last thing

that I want to do is turn them into burgers. It would be like…

well, you wouldn’t serve roast Gallifreyan, would you? Even

imaginary Gallifreyan.’

‘No? I could do so…’ He paused, a wide smile on his lips.

Then he laughed, the half chewed remains of an imaginary

chicken spluttering out over his part of the table.

The Doctor shuddered, ‘Could I see the menu, please?’

Omega grunted his disapproval, but with a flourish of his

gauntlet a slim volume appeared on the Doctor’s side plate.

The Doctor grinned, and picked the book up. ‘Ta.’

‘What will you have?’ Omega asked his wife as the Doctor

busied himself. She selected a vegetable soup and a glass of

a particular type of Gallifreyan sweet wine. It duly appeared

in front of her. She selected the appropriate spoon, and

began to eat.

The Doctor opened the menu in the middle. The pages

were thin almost tissue paper, like the pages of his mother’s

old Bible. He had to wet his finger to turn them. He flicked

through a few starters.

‘Well, Doctor?’

‘Perfectly well, thank you, Lord Omega.’ He closed the

menu and then opened it up. Once again it seemed to open

in the middle. This time it was halfway through listing all the

Main Courses, in tiny writing. This page listed three dozen

variations of beef dishes. He rifled through the book, a dozen

pages at a time, but never seemed to approach the end.

Finally, he slammed it shut.

‘The best thing about books,’ the Doctor confided to his

fellow diners, ‘Is that you can always tell when you’re getting

to the end. No matter how tricky the situation the hero’s in,

you hold the book in your hand and think, “Hang on, I’m two

hundred and twenty‐nine pages in, with only another fifty‐one

to go. It started slow, but it’s building to a climax.” This menu,

though, with every single detail spelled out for you on an

infinite number of pages is just dull. Where’s the fun if

everything’s possible?’

Omega glowered at him.

‘I’ll just have a glass of water, please.’ It appeared in front

of him. ‘And the bill.’

‘You’re my guest.’

The Doctor sipped at his water. ‘Tanstaafl. There ain’t no

such thing as a free lunch. We both know that I was brought

here for a reason. If we could get down to business.’

Omega placed his drumstick on his plate, where it

dissolved.

‘I want to cross back to the universe of matter.’

‘Well,’ the Doctor said, taking a deep breath, ‘you can’t

have everything that you want.’

Omega rumbled, the castle shaking a little.

‘There’s no use rumbling,’ the Doctor said scathingly. ‘It’s

not possible. Your consciousness is needed to maintain this

universe you’ve created, without you all order will end. But

you’re a part of this universe. You can’t leave without

destroying yourself. You’ve been here for two million years,

an infinite amount of power at your disposal, and you’ve not

worked out a way around that problem. I’m very flattered that

you think that I’ll work out a way over dinner, but…

sometimes there just isn’t a solution.’

‘You are very perceptive,’ Omega growled.

‘Well, yes,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Now, the solution seems

obvious: get another consciousness in to take the burden

from you. He maintains the universe while you make your

escape. That’s the deal you offered Savar – to be a god here

in this infinite gilded cage. But Savar didn’t like the terms, and

all you managed to do was make him especially sensitive to

the ravages of the Effect. I take it that you are behind his

transformations?’

Omega nodded.

‘So you started fishing around the universe, looking for

another candidate. A Time Lord on the brink of death,

someone with nothing to lose. You’d answer their prayers,

not only give them life, but eternal life.

The Doctor glanced across the table, smiled across at his

wife. ‘But our mutual friend here refused.’

‘No,’ she said softly. ‘No, I didn’t.’

Omega’s laughter filled the room again.

The Doctor looked around, a little disconcerted.

‘Tell him,’ he commanded.

‘I was killed,’ she said calmly. ‘A bullet in the back of the

head. Not enough of my brain survived to initiate or control

the regeneration process. I would have died. Omega was

watching me, he removed in from spacetime, the instant

before my death. I materialised on a vast expanse of grey

sand, naked and alone. I thought it was the afterlife, and in a

way it was.’

‘After a while, I made myself known to her, made her

comfortable.’

‘I’m sure you did,’ the Doctor said. ‘After all, you had so

much to gain if she accepted the terms of your offer.’

‘Listen to him, Doctor. He saved my life.’

‘For a reason,’ he replied. ‘He wanted his freedom in

return. If Omega simply wanted to save you, he could have

manipulated the timelines, made it so the bullet missed. I was

testing you out on that one before, and you proved you could

bring Larna back to life without having to bring her here.’

‘Perfectly correct.’

‘But your little scheme didn’t work, did it? Why not? Her

consciousness should have been enough. That’s been

bothering me. Is that why you brought me here? To find out

why it didn’t work?’

‘You are not here to provide the answer, Doctor. You are

the answer.’

The Doctor pursed his lips tapping them with his finger.

‘Are you absolutely sure you’re asking the right question?’

Omega leant back in the chair. ‘I shattered one set of

chains only to discover another. My body was destroyed.

Only my… soul survived, Only that part of me which is me

still exists. There is nothing of me that can return to the

universe of matter. Not without… help.’

‘Omega needs a consciousness here to maintain the

universe as he leaves,’ she explained, ‘I could fulfil that role.

But at the moment there’s nowhere for him to go. He needs a

body for his soul to take over. He can’t create one from

scratch, for the same reason he can’t leave the universe of

anti‐matter.’

‘My body’s already taken,’ the Doctor said, palm over his

chest. ‘By me.’

‘You have a spare.’ Omega pointed at the cracked mirror.

The Doctor saw himself, asleep on the floor of the Librarinth.

‘A Time Lord body, in the universe of matter, right on top

of the Effect itself. I could transfer myself into that, resume

my place in the universe. A situation so perfect it is almost

contrived.’

‘By whom?’ the Doctor asked.

Omega chuckled.

‘You will remain here, in a universe where you are a god,

with the woman you love and thought you’d lost for ever. You

can shape this place, populate it, at will. You will have

everything, all that you want. Literally your wildest dreams.

Everything but the power to return to the universe of matter.’

The Doctor stood, grabbing the edge of the table. ‘And

what makes you think that I’ll agree to all this? Why would I

let a god loose in the universe, particularly one with a grudge

against the Time Lords?’

‘I wouldn’t be a god there, a naked singularity cannot exist

in the real universe. I don’t want to be a god there. Before I

was a god, I was a man, and I long for that again. It is the

only thing my powers cannot grant me here.’

The Doctor smiled, not fooled by Omega’s pained

expression. He turned away from Omega, paced towards the

fire. ‘You came from an age when Gallifrey ruled by the

sword, when it used its great powers to dominate others. As

President you will be given full access to the Matrix, the

Great Key, the Demat Gun, the Magnetron, the blackstars…

not to mention a whole arsenal of weapons that only the

President knows about. And you’re one of the Gallifreyan

Elders, one of the true Immortals. You would be President for

ever. Singularity or not, even as a man there would be

nothing to stop you. Nothing. So I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly

allow you to go back.’

Omega gave a small smile, barely noticeable.

‘Whatever makes you think you have a choice?’

Chapter Eleven

Speak of the Devil

A burst of blue light splashed over the ramparts of the

Station, the only light in the dark universe. Moments later,

there was a distant roar, like a crashing wave or a rumble of

thunder. The entire structure of spacetime was churning and

boiling like a cauldron, and the Station rocked with it, but the

stasis halo held.

The six crewmen stood at their posts around the Station’s

console. They’d got used to the shifting floor beneath them

many hours ago and, as the Station rocked, they rocked with

it. The Station wasn’t sustaining any damage, and they’d

concluded that this wasn’t an attack directed at them, simply

a side‐effect of the increasing size of the breach in

spacetime. Since contact with Gallifrey had been lost, the

crack had widened, and space and time around it had

strained to accommodate the growth. Sudden, violent bursts

of energy were only the most obvious effects. After almost a

day in the dead universe, the crew of the Station had

analysed the anti‐matter/matter annihilations that caused the

breach, they had begun to be able to predict the Effect’s

behaviour.

A few of the less sensitive monitors were still aimed at the

Needle, and Lords Hemal and Quarduk had brought their

TARDISes around to surround the object. At a very, very safe

distance, of course. Those remaining in the Station were

calm. They were waiting now, sure that they could sit out the

storm. They were waiting to see if the inhabitants of the

Needle would react to their presence, waiting for the

disturbances to subside, waiting for Gallifrey to restore the

timegate.

They had spent the day building up a composite map of

the habitable area of the Needle, collecting as much

intelligence as their instruments allowed. Hedin had been on

duty the whole time. The Technicians were operating a rota

system: five hours on, five hours off. Even the Magistrate had

needed rest, although – like the other crewmen who had tried

– he had found it impossible to sleep. He sat in his armchair,

sipping at his wine, admiring the older man’s stamina. Hedin

was still there, patiently plotting points and comparing the

results of observations with the computer predictions,

showing few signs of fatigue.

‘We have it, now, I think,’ Hedin announced. ‘Complete

topography, with a full analysis of energy flow.’ The

Technicians at the other stations were nodding.

The Magistrate placed his glass on the side table and

returned to the console, climbing back up the steps to take

his place in the centre of the control deck. Kinxoc, the

youthful Technician who at been at the post, stepped down.

‘Show me,’ the Magistrate commanded.

A holographic representation of the Needle appeared in

the column in the centre of the console. All six people

operating the Controls stared into it. It was surrounded by

fine yellow lines.

‘The defence perimeter envelops the whole Needle,’ Hedin

began, ‘with the energy projectors mounted every few million

kilometres along the length of the Needle. There is a greater

concentration in the habitable zones.’

The image rapidly zoomed in to the area that had

supported a biosphere.

‘Here there is very little activity. Plenty of evidence of

extensive life in the distant past, almost no life or energy

signs now. But there is a small fusion generator… here –’

(another zoom) – ‘and this is the crucial area.’

It was a roughly pyramidal structure, several miles high, in

a state of serious disrepair.

‘There are life signs down there. It also coincides with a

major nexus of the information infrastructure. I suspect that

the entire defence system is run from a complex in that area.’

‘Lifesigns? Have you located the Doctor?’ The Magistrate

stared into the image as if he might see him there.

Hedin gave a quivering smile. ‘I cannot say. Hold on–’

There was a bright flash of light, running from one end of

the Needle to the other. The entire structure rocked visibly.

The Needle was so large that any force capable of doing that

was truly awesome.

The lights had begun to flicker. The Magistrate looked

around. ‘Are we under attack?’ he asked.

Technician Apa was grinning. ‘No, no. Just the opposite.’

There was a wheezing groaning sound, and a featureless

white obelisk slowly faded into existence in the corner of the

control deck. Before the process was complete, the door had

slid open and half a dozen Time Lords and members of the

Watch began to pour out, fanning around the room. They all

carried medical cases. Three coffin‐like medical caskets

floated out after them on a raft of antigravity.

At the front of the group was the Lady Larna, in a

cranberry work tunic.

The Magistrate smiled. She’d seen him, and made her

way towards him. He joined her halfway down the steps of

the console.

‘You have power here,’ she said.

The Magistrate nodded.

‘Your link to the Eye was cut, we feared the worst.’

Hedin had shuffled around to meet them. ‘The Doctor

came up with a solution.’

‘He made it,’ she said nodding. She’d known, and had

never doubted him. ‘Where is he now?’

The Magistrate swept his arm to indicate the central

column and the hologram of the Needle.

Larna nodded again, businesslike. She knew just as well

as the Magistrate that the Doctor could look after himself.

‘We haven’t much time.’

She unclipped a small box from her cuff and slotted it into

the nearest control panel. Instantly, the image of the

Castellan appeared. It fizzed for a second. The Magistrate

frowned. Technology as simple as a temporal imaging

system shouldn’t fail. He looked back over to Larna, who had

her finger on one of the controls and a grimace on her face.

‘He’s planning to remove it from spacetime, he’s been

itching to do it all night. Talk to him.’

The Magistrate nodded. She released the control.

‘– to them. See to it, Pendrel.’

‘I can hear you now, Castellan,’ the Magistrate announced.

The tall hologram turned around, clearly pleased that the

link was open again. ‘I’m still the Acting‐President,

Magistrate. It is good to see you. We feared that you had

been destroyed. Our counter‐measure is primed and ready

for launch’.

‘The situation here has stabilised. Hold your fire.’

Voran was clearly annoyed. ‘A pre‐emptive strike might –’

‘The Doctor is down there,’ the Magistrate insisted.

‘Right now, Magistrate, that statement is more likely to

make we to –’ The Castellan sighed, a little melodramatically.

‘If you are sure…’

The Magistrate was nominally still talking to the Castellan,

but turned to Larna. ‘The Doctor managed to reach the

surface of Needle, but we don’t know what has happened to

him since. We’ve no got detailed maps of the Needle,

including its defences.’

The Castellan was nodding. ‘You seem to have the

situation under control there. Good. There are a number of

matters that “demand my attention here on Gallifrey. We will

continue to monitor your situation, and of course you may

have any men or resources that you feel are necessary. I will

send reinforcements to you, Magistrate, but I’m afraid that

Lady Larna must now return to the Capitol.’

The young woman gave an almost imperceptible shake of

her head. The Magistrate stepped between them. ‘The Lady

Larna’s expertise is needed here, Castellan. We need to form

a plan of action.’

Voran sighed. ‘Very well. I want that plan from you within

the hour, I’m keeping our other option on standby,

Magistrate, and I want the Station and the remaining

TARDISes to go to Demat configuration. The situation there

still endangers Gallifrey, don’t forget that. That’s it, Pendrel.

Thank you.’

The image of the Castellan was gone.

‘Thank you,’ Larna said. ‘What’s the Doctor planning?’

‘I was rather hoping that you would tell me that.’

‘He wouldn’t tell me.’ There was disappointment on her

young face. ‘But there’s power down there. I don’t think he

wants it for himself but it’s such a temptation.’

The Magistrate pointed out a section of console. ‘Thanks

to Lord Hedin, we know that the Doctor managed to reach

the surface, we even know roughly where he is.’

She was already moving towards the instruments. ‘I’ll see

if I can pinpoint him.’

‘I haven’t been able to,’ Hedin said, shaking his head.

Larna smiled down at him. ‘Lord Hedin, you are clearly on

the brink of exhaustion,’ she whispered, ‘and it has probably

been a while since you have created an Infinity Chamber

model, rather than just manipulated one.’

‘Besides,’ the Magistrate began, impressed by her lack of

modesty, ‘you should find it much easier to locate his

telepathic traces.’

Larna blushed, and both Hedin and the Magistrate

chuckled.

He hadn’t slept for many weeks.

Savar’s dual existence robbed him of sleep, of dreams.

His other self, the blind one, had no sense of the loss. It

fuelled his insanity, served his purpose. His dark master was

returning. This Savar sensed it, he had to prevent it at all

costs.

He could sense the powers of evil and darkness drawing

closer. Not just the trapped god. He was merely the first. His

defeat might ward off what was to follow, though, delay the

inevitable.

There had been a time when Savar had doubted the

existence of evil, seen it as a construction of an ordered

society or of that society’s elite. Darkness then had simply

been the absence of the light. But not anymore. He was evil, or a part of him was, at least. He knew that as night fell a

version of him emerged with dark hearts. He could feel that

evil within him now, locked into his blood, his marrow, his

DNA. But was that evil within everyone or just him? If it

remained locked away, then was that just the same as it not

being there at all?

He had a waking dream of the future, he saw candlelit

tunnels, the very oldest parts of the Citadel. The place this

would be decided. He had to be there, he had to call on the

darkness within him.

His mind reached into the lock of his cell. It found the

tumblers and bolts, drew them around, slid them apart.

The door clicked open.

Larna rubbed her eye, watched another panning shot of the

Needle’s surface move across the display. She tapped a

search sequence into the computer.

The console gave a soft chime.

‘I’ve found him,’ she announced.

The Doctor’s bio‐signature was registering at the edge of

the structure that Hedin had located. There were other life

forms there, too. Now she knew where to look, Larna began

increasing the resolution of the scan.

The Magistrate was stepping up the console to stare into

the central column. The display was zooming in at dizzying

speed towards the structure. It focused in on a dome, then

the scanners penetrated even that. ‘Already?’ he asked.

‘Hedin was closer than he realised.’ But she could tell that

the Magistrate didn’t accept her explanation, that he was truly

impressed.

The display in front of her was resolving into a sharp

picture.

Larna gasped.

The Magistrate stared into the column, looking at the same

image: the Doctor lying slumped on a pile of bricks.

‘Is he alive?’ she asked.

‘He’s in a deep coma,’ Hedin reported. ‘Four humanoids in

the same chamber.’ The picture switched, showing three

sleeping men in dark clothes. A fourth sat on guard, watching

over them.

‘Are those the Needle People?’ asked one of the

Technicians. ‘I was expecting… you know… something

bigger.’

‘What do we do?’ she asked.

The Magistrate looked at the image of the Doctor for a

moment.

‘Come with me,’ he ordered. ‘Lord Hedin, report our

findings to the Council.’

Voran stared down into the Infinity Chamber.

From here he had a perfect view of the Station and the two

TARDISes as they moved into their attack positions around

the Needle. They were the only four objects with any energy

or light to them in the dead universe.

The ranks around him were depleted, and no one seemed

entirely sure where they should be standing, except the

monks who kept their distance.

Hedin – an image of Hedin – stood at his side. ‘As you

see, Acting‐President, we have taken up a defensive

position.’ The Chamber image moved silently down to the

Needle, until they were inside one of the buildings.

‘Activity is centred here,’ Hedin reported. ‘This is where we

have located the Doctor. The Magistrate plans to take his

TARDIS down there and –’

Voran felt a familiar tug at his sleeve.

‘What is it, Pendrel? It had better be important.’ Voran

turned, to be confronted by Pendrel and, behind him, one of

the Sontarans.

‘This is Chief of Staff Grol. He wishes to speak to the

leader of the Time Lords on a matter of the greatest

importance.’

The Acting‐President snorted. He’d forgotten all about the

aliens. They could rot for all he cared, but he was shrewd

enough not to say that out loud. It was squat, and wore the

same space armour as the creatures he’d seen on the Public

Record Video. It smelt of diesel oil.

Voran turned to Hedin. ‘Please bear with us, my Lord.’

Hedin bowed respectfully.

‘Where is Dok‐Tor, the leader?’ the Sontaran barked. His

bloated head and piggy face did not go well together, the

wispy moustache simply adding to the impression that this

was something less than human.

‘I am the Lord Voran, Acting‐president of the High Council

of the Time Lords.’ He didn’t think it advisable to mention that

the man in charge of the negotiations was a fugitive and a

murderer.

The Sontaran grunted. ‘You will suffice. We have lost

contact with our leader.’

‘He is very busy in conference,’ Voran said delicately. He

hesitated. ‘A private session with the Doctor and the Rutan

ambassador.’

Behind Grol, the image in the Infinity Chamber flared up.

Voran leant around the Sontaran to get a better look. The

Needle was crackling now with energy.

‘Hedin, what is that?’ he asked.

‘A surge in energy from the breach in spacetime,

Acting‐President. It falls within our predicted model.’

The alien gave the same grunt as before. He stepped back

between Voran and the Infinity Chamber. ‘You are lying, you

are a dishonourable creature.’

Voran was rather taken aback. ‘How dare you! I am the

leader of the High Council of the Time Lords.’

‘Your title means nothing to me. Show me General

Sontar.’

Voran scowled. ‘Oh, go away, would you? I’m far too

busy.’

The Sontaran jabbed his claw towards Voran. ‘You have

taken the supreme leader of our race hostage. That is an act

of war. Our delegation will return to the fathership. If you do

not present Sontar to us within one hour, we shall be forced

to take military action. We are acting within our rights under

Intergalactic Law.’

‘You are declaring war against Gallifrey?’ Voran said, still

straining to see around Grol. ‘That is ludicrous.’

Grol strode past him, towards the exit.

Pendrel looked over at Voran expectantly.

‘What?’ the Acting‐President asked, shrugging

apologetically at an impatient Hedin.

‘You will have to authorise the use of the time scoop to

return Sontarans to their fleet,’ Pendrel explained.

‘Fine, fine. Good riddance to them. See to it,’ Voran said,

waving hand. ‘I’m sorry, Lord Hedin. You were saying?’

Idly, Larna wondered what Vrayto would make of the

Uncertainty Suit.

Her maid would have approved of the fact that it covered

every inch of her body except for her face and her hands, but

at the same time she would have been shocked by how thin

that covering was. It was a matt black skin, stretched taut

over every curve and joint of her body like a silk stocking.

Putting the garment on had been an unpleasant experience –

she’d placed a patch on her hip and it had quickly spread

over her like a mould. Now it was on, it was dry, and

surprisingly warm.

Larna was in the Magistrate’s TARDIS, in the nearest

guest quarters to the console room. Modesty had prevented

her from changing in the presence of the Magistrate.

She looked in the mirror, and was surprised. Vrayto would

definitely approve. Rather than drawing attention to it, the

Suit made her body a void, a black shape that you almost

instinctively looked away from.

Which was the whole point.

She tied her hair back. Once that was done, she was

ready to return to the console room and the Magistrate.

He was also in a Suit. Larna found it impossible to look at

him, so instead she concentrated on what he was doing. He

was bent over one of the medical units that her team had

brought here from Gallifrey. It was a metal casket that bore a

disturbing similarity to a coffin. Only the pulsing of soft light

from within the box and the two symbols on its lid gave away

its true purpose. The Magistrate was using a small tool to

stabilise the anti‐gravity field that held the coffin aloft.

He pulled himself up, and Larna giggled when he looked

straight past her.

‘Are you ready?’ he asked, taking his place at the console.

‘You know what we must do?’

She took a deep breath and nodded. ‘We fly in, via a

parallel universe, the method that the Doctor used, and then

rescue him.’

He handed her a small palm‐dispenser. It fitted neatly in

her hand, sticking there.

It contains four Z-caps,’ he explained, holding one of his

own up. ‘Discs the size of a coin that stop the flow of time

over a limited area. Press one anywhere on a person’s body

and they will be immobilised.’ He slotted the disc back into

place, ready for use. ‘Once we have secured the Doctor and

timelocked the Needle People, we will locate the Needle’s

control centre and disable the defence systems.’

Larna’s expression must have betrayed her feelings,

because the Magistrate smiled.

‘There’s no risk,’ she said, ‘I know that.’

Now his smile was wider. ‘There’s a risk,’ he chuckled.

‘We are going to be risking our lives. And our actions down

there – actions that the Acting‐President does not know

about, and which he hasn’t authorised – might well provoke a

war between the people on the Needle and the Time Lords.’

She caught her breath, then laughed, suddenly liberated. ‘I

understand, and I’m ready. When do we leave?’

The Magistrate pulled a lever, and the door swung open.

‘We arrived while you were changing.’

He strode through the door, and the first of the Needle

People was on his back, unconscious, before she’d followed

him out. She wondered what the strange crumpling noise

was, only to see the Magistrate bending over the slumped

body of an old man in loose black clothes. There was a

Z-Cap on the man’s forehead.

The floor was littered with rubble. There was broken

ground beneath her feet, a cracked dome above her head.

She glanced back and saw that the TARDIS had disguised

itself as a block of fallen masonry.

The Magistrate was already advancing towards the fire in

the centre of the room. Larna – her training finally asserting

itself – helped him by pulling in close behind him, advancing

with him, watching his back. In the image of this room that

they had seen from the Station, the Doctor had been lying

unconscious by the fire. Three Needle People had been

asleep there. The fourth had been on guard, nearer the edge

of the room. He was the one that the Magistrate had just

immobilised.

The light quality here was poor, but her eyes quickly

adjusted to it. She hadn’t been ready for the cold, and the

Suit was no help. She had to rub her hands together and

speed up her metabolic rate.

The Doctor was there, prone on the floor, seemingly in a

deep coma. The three Needle People were around him,

asleep.

She stepped over to the Doctor, and she could hear the

medical unit following close behind her.

The three Needle People were stirring. She could imagine

the Magistrate edging round them, invisible now in his Suit

and the darkness. The best she could do was stay in plain

sight, distract them while he got into position. This way she

could also tend to the Doctor.

‘Halt!’ a voice commanded behind her, to her left.

‘Good evening,’ she said, not looking up. Instead, she

knelt at the Doctor’s side. As she had thought, he was in

some sort of healing trance. There were no signs of external

injuries.

‘Stand up.’

She didn’t. They were moving to surround her. The oldest

one held a stave, a six‐foot wooden pole. The others had

guns of some kind.

‘Where’s Pallant?’ one of them asked. A hand knocked at

the lid of the medical unit. ‘This is some sort of mobile

intensive care unit?’

Larna rose to her feet, folded one hand in front of the

other. ‘It’s only a medical unit,’ she said.

‘Hands apart!’ one of them shouted.

Another, the eldest one, the one with the stave, was

pulling back, disappearing into the shadows. An odd time to

leave the room.

Two of them remaining. Larna smiled, and began walking

towards the nearest. She had just seen the Magistrate in the

shadows. The eldest man was making his escape, the

Magistrate was following him.

‘Halt or I fire!’ the man she was approaching called.

Larna continued to walk towards him. She was between

them both now.

‘I don’t know what to do…’ he shouted across to his

comrade helplessly.

‘Helios, what do we do?’ the other one cried pitifully,

obviously appealing to the old man who had deserted them.

Larna hesitated.

They both opened fire. The guns were energy pulse

weapons of some kind, firing off sparse bursts of light and a

chirping sound. At this range, they couldn’t possibly miss.

The Suit kicked in, and suddenly Larna was standing a

little to the left of where they were aiming, and so they

missed her. A simple application of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty

Principle, linked with really rather primitive time travel

technology. The Suit monitored the future, and arranged for it

and its wearer to be elsewhere when anything hostile was

due to hit it.

But the energy had to go somewhere. Two energy bolts.

The first came from in front of her, streaked past her head,

she heard a crack and a muffled explosion as in slammed

into the back wall. The other bolt came from behind her. It

spat past her at about chest height, travelling in a perfectly

straight line. A fraction of a second before it happened, she

realised it was going to hit the man in front of her.

His chest burst, and he fell back, his legs and arms

flapping irrelevantly. Larna tried to shout a warning, but it had

already happened, he was being thrown back by the force.

The man behind her was panicking, firing again and again at

her. Other blasts started blowing chunks from the walls and

shelves.

Larna was unscathed as she strode towards the wounded

man, the shots simply bounced from the medical unit. There

was, however, the danger that a stray shot could hit the

Doctor.

Larna reached the wounded man, knelt beside him. There

was a nasty, sucking wound where the man’s chest should

be. She slipped a Z-cap from her palm. He was still alive,

looking at her with pleading, terrified eyes. She smiled down

at him, pressed the Z-cap to his forehead. He froze, the

wound had stopped moving. A stable condition, as a

physician might have put it.

The old man with the stave had fled, the wounded man

was frozen, the night Watchman was frozen. There was one

remaining, the gunman. He’d hardly moved, he was still

standing by the fire, not very far from the Doctor or the

medical unit. He was still firing at her, but he seemed to

understand the hopelessness of doing so: the shots were

less frequent now. Thankfully, it hadn’t occurred to the

gunman that he might take the Doctor hostage. His only

tactic was to unclip his cloak, letting it drop to the ground,

freeing up his arms a little more.

Larna strode towards him. He shot twice, both bolts going

wide. When she was two feet away he swung the gun at her,

trying to club her with it. He missed. There was a metal plate

by his chair. Larna bent down and picked it up, allowing him

time to miss her once again shooting from point blank range,

this time blowing a great hole in the floor. She swung the

plate at him, connecting with the side of his head. Dazed, he

lost his footing.

He managed another shot. It hit the plate, knocking it out

of Larna’s hand, hurting her. She yelped, clutching her wrist.

She went cold as she realised that he had dislodged the

Z-cap dispenser, and it was on the floor somewhere, in

amongst the debris.

The Suit fizzed.

No, this wasn’t happening…

She held out her arm, saw it beginning to resolve. He’d

damaged the Suit, managed to catch it out. In moments she

Would be facing an armed man, a trained soldier, wearing

nothing but a body stocking.

A glint caught her eye. One of the Z-caps, picked out by

the firelight, just out of reach.

She stood her ground as her Suit’s power faded, let the

gunman assess her: see where she was, that she was just a

woman.

The Suit had seconds of life left. He raised his gun. They

were three feet apart, standing over the Doctor.

Larna reached out, grabbed his wrist with one hand and

twisted it. He squealed, dropping the pistol. He balled his fist,

but she rolled out of the way and he punched solid marble,

almost certainly breaking his hand. Despite that, the man

lurched for her, throwing all his weight behind a punch that

was destined to miss. Larna side‐stepped, recovered the

Z-cap from where she had seen it and pressed the disc onto

his forehead. He fell over, almost comically; frozen in position

but still subject to gravity.

Larna took a deep breath and knelt down to examine the

Doctor, feeling for his pulses. He was warm – warmer than

she was. He was in a deep coma. She checked his

breathing, his neck and his chest. He didn’t show any

obvious signs of injury. She put her arm around his waist,

grabbing his hip, placing his arm over her shoulder and

hoisted him up.

He made a low moaning noise.

‘You’re safe,’ she told him. They were fully upright now.

The medical unit had moved around in from of them, its lid

was open, it was tipping itself up on its end to allow him in.

Larna took a step forward, bringing the Doctor with her. He

dropped into the casket. The lid was already sliding shut.

It was cold. She remembered that the last of the Needle

People to fall had discarded his cloak. She found it, draped it

over her shoulders. As she had suspected, it was very warm.

The material was a good insulator, and it felt as if it contained

heating elements, like an electric blanket.

She’d forgotten about the Magistrate. He had gone up

after the last one, the older man with the staff. After that he

would start looking for the room where the defence controls

were. Larna had seen which door they had used. She hurried

after them, through and along a short, dimly lit corridor. There

was silence… no, she could hear someone moving around.

This was the first time she’d ever done this, the first time that

she’d ever walked down a corridor without knowing what was

at the other end. She’d spent her entire life in the perfectly

regulated environment of the Capitol, she knew every room

and alcove. Here… here there could be a room full of the lion

things that she’d seen from the Station, or defence robots

that didn’t show up on scans.

Twenty yards along was a brick archway. The sound was

coming from that room. Lama tensed, peeking around the

corner.

‘Come in, my dear, it’s all over.’ The Magistrate was at a

backlit control panel. The old man was slumped in one

corner, bruises over his face and a Z-cap stuffed in his

mouth. The walls of this small room were inset with ledges

and alcoves, these were packed with various ancient looking

artefacts from any number of planets.

The Magistrate noticed that her Suit wasn’t working.

‘Trouble?’

‘I got them all, the Doctor’s safe in the medical unit.’

He returned to the controls. ‘Do you have your computer?’

She took her place beside him, unclipped the terminal

from her belt, placed it over an interface socket, and dialled

the activator. Gallifreyan equipment was generally able to

decipher other technology, and this was no exception. The

unreadable text on the display rapidly resolved into

Gallifreyan script.

‘It’s advanced,’ she said. ‘Normally I’d just link it up to the

Matrix, but if we do that, there’s a chance that the Needle

People could infiltrate.’

‘They’ve all been dealt with,’ the Magistrate reminded her.

‘The ones we know about, and we don’t know how smart

their computers are.’

He nodded thoughtfully.

Even just using portable equipment, the alien computer

couldn’t keep its secrets.

The Magistrate peered at the display. ‘This controls the

defences for the whole Needle,’ he said disbelievingly. ‘Well,

Hedin predicted that this was where we would find the control

system.’

She adjusted a few of the dials. ‘This is the only controller.

The entire defence system is automated, channelled through

this box.’

‘Sensible enough when there’s a small population here,’

he said coolly. ‘It would be prudent to leave back‐ups hidden

around the place, but they’ll need priming and programming.

Can you reroute all defences through that box?’

She nodded, tapping the control that did it.

‘Defence grid now controlled from here. All defensive

systems dropping to standby mode.’

‘Good. May I?’ The Magistrate moved her aside and then

took a stubby black tube from his belt. He pointed it at the

wall panel, which cracked, then burst into a shower of sparks.

‘That should help us,’ he said. He took her computer from

her.

‘We should get the Doctor back to the Station. Go back to

the TARDIS and get him inside. I’ll finish up here.’ He handed

her the TARDIS key.

‘I don’t want to go alone –’ Larna began, but swallowed

the words before the Magistrate heard her.

He smiled, trying to put her at ease. ‘Take this,’ he

suggested, handing over the weapon he had used to destroy

the control panel. ‘You won’t need it, but if it makes you feel

safer…’

The gun was heavier than it looked. Larna checked she

was able to find the trigger and then clipped it to her belt.

The build‐up of energy around the Needle was reaching a

climax. Bolts, like lightning, began flickering across the

surface. They caused no damage, or noise. Silently, they

surged along the length of the Needle, radiating outward.

Something was happening.

Something was coming.

The Magistrate was on his knees, gasping for breath. The

flagstones were wet, cold water was seeping through the skin

of his Suit.

‘Will you serve me?’ a calm voice asked.

‘Never!’ the Magistrate spat, facing his attacker.

The red eyes boring down on him grew brighter, the

Magistrate heard himself yelping, and couldn’t help but look

away.

‘I have watched you, I have seen all your lives. I know

what you have been and what you will be. You do not

deserve an end like this. Serve me!’

‘No,’ the Magistrate said, summoning as much dignity as

he could.

‘So be it.’

With a wave of a hand, the Magistrate vanished.

The ground was shaking at irregular intervals as Larna

reached the room with the fire, the one where the Doctor was

safe in his medical unit. It sounded as if there was vast

machinery beneath her, like the engines of a vast

ocean‐going liner. Machinery that was spasmodically grinding

down to a halt. The sounds were mechanical, echoing,

distant.

She walked towards the fire, the only point of heat in the

room, the only source of light apart from weak lamps

mounted on the walls and a soft blue halo around the medical

unit. The firelight was enough to define the outlines of the

shelves, and the shapes of the items stacked on them, but it

wasn’t enough to tell what the items were.

The only sound was the heartbeat thump of the medical

unit’s generator. She knelt to check the readout. It told her

that the Doctor was in a deep coma, with no signs of physical

injury.

Larna held up the TARDIS key.

There was a noise from the back of the room. A rustling,

clattering noise.

She was on her feet in an instant, head down, poised for

an attack.

The three unconscious Needle People would be where

she had left them. She picked her way across the rubble to

check each one of them in turn. The first was holding out his

hands as if he was trying to ward her off. Some instinct

prevented Larna from getting too close. She told herself not

to be so foolish: the Z-cap was still plainly visible on his

forehead.

The second man wasn’t going anywhere, the Z-cap was

saving his life. There was a hole in his chest, a wound made

even more vile by the fact that it wasn’t moving, that the

blood was held in pace by the stasis field. Larna wondered

who these people were, what they were called. On the

Station, she had scanned the area for life signs. There were

a number of groups of hunting carnivores, but very little else

in the way of life. Although they couldn’t completely rule out

the possibility that there were other inhabitants, they hadn’t

found any other Needle People anywhere. Did they feel as

lonely, as isolated as Larna felt here? She knew that she had

a Station and a planet to return to. This ruin was all that these

people had.

Where was the third one?

She turned, trying to reorientate herself. He had been by

one of the three doors, but which one? Whatever direction it

was into shadows. She steeled herself, allowed her pupils to

dilate to improve her vision. The way was clear: the people

had cleared a route through the debris to the door. Beneath

the rubble was a beautiful marble When there had been

sunlight here, it must have been possible to beautiful

gold‐green veins there, but such subtleties were a thing of

the past in this deadening darkness.

There was another clattering. Coming from the direction

she was heading. Larna took a deep breath, but didn’t stop.

The last one was standing where he should, the Z-cap

stuck firm to his head where the Magistrate had put it. He

was the last one here, she corrected herself. There was the

other one, the oldest, frozen to the floor of the control room.

This one was darker than the others. He looked calm,

confident. Again, something prevented her from getting too

close. She was six feet away. Even from here, even in the

darkness, she could see that his metabolic processes were in

stasis. He wasn’t breathing: his chest wasn’t rising, his

nostrils were perfectly still. Even the most skilled gymnast

would not be able to hold that one‐legged pose naturally, not

without some tremble of muscles, some slip of his foot.

He was in stasis, so why was she so afraid of him?

She told herself to stop being so foolish and took a step

closer.

His clothes were worn, faded. The cuffs were frayed.

They’d been beautiful once: ornate embroidery over the finest

cottons and silks. The rubbery cloak he wore looked newer,

as though it had been broken out of stores only a few years

ago.

She took another step, and now they were inches apart.

His face was kind. This was an honourable warrior, not

some vicious fighter.

She reached out, stroked his face. She was still afraid of

him. This man was a statue, held in place by the same

processes that stopped yesterday being today, or page two

hundred and thirty‐seven of a book from being page two

hundred and thirty‐eight.

She was a Time Lord of Gallifrey, she had graduated top

of her year. And now she was here on an alien artefact,

trillions of years from home, in charge of the situation,

entrusted with the life of a member of the High Council. This

was where she had always wanted to be, and now she was

letting her irrational fears conquer her.

Larna smiled, and closed her eyes. She was at one with

the universe. Her isolation was liberation. This is how she

always hoped it would feel. There was danger here, there

was uncertainty, but there were real choices and

opportunities. She didn’t know what would happen next, or

what she would see when she opened her eyes.

Something brushed against her hand.

Her eyes and mouth snapped wide open. There was a

small sound, not even a yelp. Larna realised that she had

made it.

There was a trail of dust over the man’s face and shoulder.

It had been dust and plaster from the ceiling.

She started breathing, brought her body’s production of

adrenaline back to something like its normal levels.

Calm again, she turned her back on the frozen warrior,

back to the fire in the centre of the room. The medical unit

was still there, solid as a standing stone.

She was just in time to see it topple onto the fire.

It crushed the light out of the fire, sending a cloud of

cinders billowing in all directions. The room was suddenly

dark, but Larna was already striding across it, certain of

where she was heading. Its antigravs had failed, all its power

had gone.

‘Doctor!’ she shouted. He’d be all right in there, protected

by the unit’s casing for a little while. She couldn’t say how

long.

Pain! She’d caught her leg on something. A metal beam.

She stopped, reached down to assess the extent of the

injury. When her hand came up sticky with her own blood,

she felt as if it had infected her, as though the particles of

rusty metal were growing inside her body like bacteria.

She was dizzy, she had to sit down. Some part of her

brain guided her safely down to the floor.

It saved her life.

The medical unit burst open in a shower of shrapnel. The

heat of the flames must have generated pressure enough to–

‘Doctor!’ she shouted again. She was on her feet, her

wounded leg forgotten.

The remains of the medical unit were twisting and curling

in the heat of the flames.

Larna stood at a safe distance, knowing that if the Doctor

was still in there that he would be dead. Her only hope was

that he had somehow been removed. She made her way

forward, but the heat was intense.

There was clattering behind her. Larna tugged the

Magistrate’s gun from her belt and held it up like a torch.

‘Who’s there?’ she asked.

The shadows were moving. A glimpse of a head here, a

limb there, all around her. She was casting some of them

herself, but not all of them. Not all of them. There was

someone else here.

It was the Doctor.

He stumbled out of the shadows, steadying himself on the

side of a shelving unit.

‘Doctor,’ she said softly. ‘It’s me.’

He stood properly, straightening his back, staring around,

a little wildly.

The room shook, the brickwork beginning to grind against

itself. Trails of dust and plaster hissed down.

‘Great power… unleashed. We have to get to safety.’

For a moment she wondered if he’d become another

Savar, driven mad by what he had seen.

She took his hand. He looked down at first, unsure, but

then looked her in the eye and broke into a tight, uncertain,

smile. He looked her up and down, as if he barely knew her.

Finally, he lurched forwards, hugging her, almost squeezing

the breath out of her, planting kisses on her face.

‘Larna,’ he said, ‘Larna, Larna.’

She rested her head on his shoulder, unsure who was

supporting who. ‘I thought you’d gone,’ she said.

The Doctor shrugged her off his shoulder and began

looking around for an exit. ‘We have to hurry, the

anti‐matter/matter annihilations are increasing.’ As if to

emphasis the point, the ground shook once more. ‘The

breach in spacetime is growing wider.’

He had seen the TARDIS and started to stride towards it.

Larna caught his arm.

‘Slow down. Doctor, look, you’ll have to explain what’s

going on.’ She indicated a pile of books, hoping that he’d sit

down for a moment.

‘Sorry. Yes,’ he began, but carried on towards the time

machine. ‘I’ll explain on the way.’

He reached the door, ran his hand across it.

Larna opened it with the key, and they stepped over the

threshold.

The console room was warm and dry compared with the

surface of the Needle People. The Doctor was stepping over

to the console. Larna trailed after him, having to rub her

wounded leg as she moved. ‘We have to wait for the

Magistrate.’

The Doctor didn’t react, instead he started flicking

switches and pulling levers, seemingly at random.

‘There’s no time. We must get back to Gallifrey.’

‘No!’ Larna shouted, but it was too late: the Doctor had

thrown the dematerialisation switch. The central column

began rising and falling rhythmically, and Larna could feel the

power surging into the vast time engines beneath them.

The Doctor was hunched over the instruments, checking

and rechecking the course he’d laid in. ‘We’ll travel directly

down the timegate,’ he explained. ‘It’s a long journey, a

couple of hours at least.’

He turned to her, looked at her properly for the first time

since she’d rescued him. He smiled, a little awkwardly.

‘Your leg is in quite a state,’ he said. He began rummaging

through his pockets. ‘I’ve got some iodine here, I think.’

‘Tell me what’s happening,’ she asked as he came over.

‘Why have we abandoned the Magistrate? What about

Omega?’

He knelt down, peeled away the part of her Suit around

her leg wound. He had found a small bottle and soaked his

handkerchief with the contents. Now he pressed it to the

wound, made her wince.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘What happened?’ she said, softly. ‘Savar said there was

great power down there, but that –’

The Doctor placed a finger to her lip. She caught his wrist.

‘Tell me!’ she insisted.

‘I crossed the threshold,’ he said. ‘I passed into another

universe. Anti‐matter, regulated by a naked singularity.’

She let go of his wrist. Instead of returning it to his side, he

stroked her cheekbone with his fingers and traced a course

around her ear, before bringing it back.

‘The boundary between the universes of matter and

anti‐matter is a source of infinite, self‐sustaining power. A

sentient being can harness that power by using the

singularity, and bring theories into fact, It literally allows you

to do anything you can imagine – uncouple matter and

energy, resolve paradoxes, redraft the laws of mathematics

and physics.’

‘Including finding a solutions for the Agathon Equations?

Allowing whoever controls it to control the past?’

‘Yes. Just like Savar said. Omniscience ad omnipotence.’

She gasped a laugh. ‘Why come back?’

‘All that power comes from harnessing the singularity, and

that’s behind the event horizon of the black hole, shut off

from the rest of universe, like nature intended. It can only

exist in the universe of matter.’

‘It –’ Larna began. The Doctor stared into her eyes. ‘Might

it be possible to –’

His lip curled into a smile. ‘– to have a naked singularity in

this universe?’ he finished for her.

‘It ought to be possible,’ she said. ‘We’d need to find a way

evaporate a black hole to expose the quantum foam at the

core. We’d then have to find a way to control the energies

that were released First of all, we’d have to harness a black

hole.’

The Doctor smiled. ‘Or to go somewhere where there’s

already a captured black hole waiting for us.’

Larna hesitated. ‘The Eye of Harmony.’

The Doctor shrugged. ‘A rather melodramatic name, but

yes. The black hole that Rassilon brought to Gallifrey.’

Larna looked over at the central column, rising and falling.

She bit her lip. ‘It would make us into gods.’

‘Would you want that power?’ he asked. He was testing

her, she realised.

‘Isn’t that what you always say you want the Council to

do? Intervene?’ The Doctor lent over her, brushed her face

with his hand. Larna let him. ‘You want the Time Lords to

help others to reach their potential, you want to spread peace

and knowledge. You don’t want to conquer the universe.’

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

She laughed. ‘It doesn’t matter what I want.’

His hand moved down her neck to the pendant at her

collar. He toyed with the blue gem for a moment. Larna

looked down at his face.

‘Of course it matters,’ he said. ‘It matters more than

anything.’

‘What do you want me to say?’ she asked quietly. ‘It’s

fantasy…’

‘It’s power,’ he said, sliding his hand over her shoulder,

baring it. ‘You know how to take it. What would you want with

it?’

Larna swallowed. ‘You’re testing me.’

‘Don’t you want me to test you?’ He was working at her

shoulder, massaging away some of the stiffness.

‘The High Council won’t let us evaporate the Eye of

Harmony,’ she laughed. ‘It’s the source of power for all of

Gallifrey. And it’s not ours.’

‘They might want it back,’ the Doctor conceded, leaning

closer.

‘Think about what you’re saying: civil war on Gallifrey,

infinite firepower on both sides. They would have no choice

but to use timewar against us.’ She shuddered. The Time

Wars in Gallifrey’s past were a nightmare of contradiction,

paradox and death. After the war, the Time Lords had been

forced to seal off whole areas of time and space that had

become damaged beyond repair.

‘ I’d use timewar against them. I’d use it first, if necessary.’

‘Do you think that’s what created the grey universe?’ she

asked, trying to ignore his attention. ‘A Time Lord civil war?’

‘It’s not the only way it could have happened, but it

certainly could have happened that way.’

‘And you’re prepared to risk it?’

‘Are you? I would need your help, your expertise.’

She tensed. ‘You’re not the Doctor, are you?’

‘No.’ He leant in, nuzzled the side of her neck.

‘You’re Omega. You’ve taken control of the Doctor

somehow, crossed back into this universe. What have you

done with him?’

‘The same thing I did with the Magistrate, put him out of

harm’s way.’

He kissed her cheek. She pushed him away.

‘You are evil,’ she stated, preparing to stand.

He held her shoulder, didn’t let her up. ‘How? I have given

the Doctor what he desires the most. I have ended an

injustice, made things as they should have been.’ He leant

back in again. ‘Without the singularity I am one man. With it,

we would be gods. Do you really think anything could stop

us? You could have anything you want. More than that: you

could have everything you want. It wouldn’t be tyranny, not

one drop of blood need be spilt, the universe would willingly

submit to you. Is that evil?’

‘Would you submit to me?’

‘Is that what you want?’ he asked, releasing his grip on her

shoulder. ‘Without the singularity, I’m powerless to prevent it.’

‘You’re just a man?’ Larna felt the weight of the

Magistrate’s gun on her belt. ‘Mortal?’

He smiled, held out his hand. ‘I’m just a man. It’s your

choice, Larna. What do you want?’

Chapter Twelve

Infinity and Beyond

Hand below hand, hand below hand, Savar climbs down the

brick power shaft towards the centre of Gallifrey and the Eye

of Harmony.

The pointing has worn over the millennia, there are plenty

of holds for his hands and feet. The mortar crumbles as his

fingers brush against it. Behind him is a column of energy,

blasting up from the Eye. It’s pure white, thick as a tree trunk.

It pulses slightly, it hums like a monastic chant.

The source of this energy, and so much more besides is

calling to him, or so he believes. Is that his mind, or some

Time Lord instinct? The intense gravity of the black hole

warps space and time around it, and he can feel that

distortion as a lesser creature might sense a bright light or a

hot flame. Even here, still far from his destination, his skin

tingles.

All the time, the dark Savar inside him strains, writhes,

trying to get out. It wants to reach the Eye at all costs, too.

That scares him a little, the thought that he might be

collaborating with that, or even that they might share

common purpose.

He understands the paradox, he knows the lunacy of the

thought, but he must reach the Eye before the other Savar,

he must get there first.

Savar continues his descent.

Lightning flashed over the magic garden, the distant thunder

waking the Doctor.

The night air was cool against his skin, but not too cool.

The ankle‐deep grass was as soft as any mattress. She was

fast asleep besides him, at the base of a great apple tree, the

smell of her hair mixing with that of the blossom. He could

feel her swelling with every breath, and the throb of her single

heart. There wasn’t a moon in the sky, but there was auroral

light, as if it were nearly dawn. But there would be no

morning here, not until he willed it.

The Doctor got up, gently so as not to disturb her, and

stood over her for a moment. She was at peace, only a little

curled up, her head resting serenely in the palm of her hand.

Her long, curved body was a pale grey in the no‐Moonlight,

her blonde hair looked white. He looked at her and knew that

he couldn’t imagine life without her.

They had been here, together, since the universe had

begun.

He knew that this was a prison. He knew that he had been

placed here by a being called Omega. The Doctor knew that

he wasn’t meant to have that knowledge, that Omega hadn’t

wanted him to know. What the Doctor didn’t understand was

why Omega had kept that information from him. Why would

Omega have thought that he would ever want to escape?

Restless, Larna had made her way back to the control room.

The decor of the Magistrate’s TARDIS was sepulchral

throughout; narrow corridors with coal‐black walls leading to

dark, crypt‐like bedchambers or cavernous libraries and

laboratories. The control room was no exception: a gloomy,

intimate space, panelled with ebony, bereft of furniture apart

from a single, severe, high‐backed chair. The only things by

way of decoration were gleaming mechanisms mounted to

the walls that may have been vital machinery or mere

sculpture. Here the familiar humming of the TARDIS took on

a brooding, sinister note.

Larna took a place at the console itself. The central

column was rising and falling like a piston. Far beneath her

feet, she could hear the lullaby grinding of the time engines.

The lights and displays on the console winked and flashed in

their arcane sequences. The time path plotter pulsed, but still

wasn’t giving any indication of their arrival time. The journey

was out of the hands of the TARDIS or its pilot. They were

essentially falling through the hole in time rather than flying.

There was no indication that their course had varied even

slightly from the mathematically perfect, pre‐set, preordained

course calculated by the Matrix. There wasn’t a hint that any

of the innumerable safety features that the TARDIS bristled

with were failing to operate. Despite that, Larna could sense

the unease of the TARDIS, and she shared it.

The return trip to Gallifrey had been straightforward; a far

more pleasant experience than the outward trip, with its

visions and hallucinations. Despite her long day, despite her

aching muscles and headache, Larna had been unable to

sleep. Part of it was excitement her not wanting to miss a

moment of this adventure. But mostly it was fear of having

another nightmare and of feeling herself die again. The last

few nights it had been so real. Drowned in an icy lake,

stabbed through the heart by the man that she loved… she

had woken each time, desperately surprised and grateful to

be alive.

There was a whirring and clicking from the console. She

moved round in time to see a display slapping into place. It

would only be another ten minutes before they arrived. Arrival

point was confirmed as being far below the Citadel.

He would need to know.

She stepped down from the console dais and walked from

the control loom. The master bedroom was nearby, the door

was open.

Larna walked in, expecting him to be asleep there, where

she had left him. The bed was empty, except for the white

cotton sheets laid curled and twisted at the foot of the

four‐poster and the pillows at broken angles to the

headboard.

She turned as he emerged from the shadows behind her,

doing up the last button of a high‐collared black jacket, hiding

the crisp white shirt beneath. He didn’t have his – the

Doctor’s – glasses on. Was that vanity, or an indication that

he didn’t need them?

He picked up pair of leather gloves, but after a moment it

seemed he had decided against wearing them. ‘Those are

the Magistrate’s clothes,’ she chided him.

‘You took the ones I had been wearing,’ the Doctor’s voice

reminded her lightly.

‘I’m sorry,’ she began, looking down at the cashmere

jacket, feeling a twinge of guilt.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he said, his arm snaking around her

waist. ‘They suit you much better than me.’

She looked at his new outfit. The clothes were severe,

neat, and this man in the Doctor’s body didn’t look like the

Doctor at all. ‘Yours are also fitting,’ she said.

He kissed her cheek. ‘Barefoot again,’ he noted, a little

coldly.

‘You know your shoes don’t –’ she began. ‘How did you

know about before? You have his body, do you have the

Doctor’s memories as well?’

His mouth curled. ‘No. The breach in spacetime allowed

me to observe the matter universe, and I had special interest

in the Doctor.’

‘You watched us?’ Larna asked, her hand instinctively

rising to cover her chest.

‘I observed much of the universe,’ he said. ‘I saw the three

suns of the Sigimund Galaxy aligning to form the Aurora

Arctialis, I saw the spinning of leptons, the formation of

gemstones, the birth of kings, the preparation of great

banquets.’ He paused. ‘I saw it, but I was condemned not to

touch nor smell nor taste it…’ he looked around the small,

dark room as if it was the summit of the highest mountain,

glorying in every detail. For the briefest moment, he was the

Doctor again.

‘We’ll be landing in about ten minutes,’ she said.

He nodded, as if he had already known.

‘Do we need to prepare?’

‘No.’ He laid the gloves down on the bed.

The garden was monochrome with a pastel wash.

The tree was darker, almost black. The Doctor looked up

admiringly at it, and then decided to climb it. Balancing was

easy, he found a branch that was easily thick enough for him

to perch on it and for it to support his weight.

From this vantage point, the Doctor could see the plan of

the hedgerows and flower beds, straight lines and perfect

order for almost as far as the eye could see. On the horizon,

though, he could see that the garden was surrounded by a

high stone wall. Outside the walls was moorland, flat and

empty. Beyond that was the sea, it was just possible to see it

glinting and hear it crashing. The night’s sky above them was

full of stars arranged in unfamiliar constellations.

This wasn’t a prison, and he didn’t want to leave.

The Doctor ran his hands along the rough, ancient bark of

the tree trunk. How long it had stood, what history it had

seen, how many other lovers had fallen into blissful sleep in

its evening shade?

He knew that the answer was none.

This tree had stood for less than a day, if it stood at all.

This was a figment of his imagination. All the signs of

weathering, any initials he found carved in the bark, or

branches that had snapped off in winter storms were simply

put there by his unconscious mind to convince him that this

was real. For some reason, the thought made him uneasy,

and he decided to climb down from the tree.

Who was to say that it was any different anywhere else?

The past didn’t exist, only the memory of the past. Perhaps

the past was necessitated by the present, and not vice versa.

It was only the first night, but a number of centuries had

already preceded it.

If time was an illusion, then what did that make a Time

Lord?

No… the past existed, it was real, he’d been there, his

own past and other people’s.

He looked down at the woman sleeping far below him. She

had been part of him for generations before his birth. She’d

taught his father and his father and his father. She’d helped

to raise him, she’d been his tutor, his friend, his first love, his

wife, the mother of his children, she had been everything to

him in the past. She had always been there, she wasn’t just a

whim, a fictional construct.

But how would he know if she was?

There was a rumble of thunder far away, over the sea.

Either she had always been there, or the past was

changing, renewing itself. If he woke up tomorrow and she

had never been there, would he still remember her? He

looked down at her again, suddenly full of the thought that he

should be with her for every moment that he possibly could

be just in case she vanished, never to be seen or mentioned

again.

He scowled, although there was no one to see it. This was

nonsense, sophistry, The Doctor knew exactly who he was,

who he’d always been. He was a Time Lord, from the Noble

House of Lungbarrow on the planet Gallifrey. He had been

born of the Loom, son of the greatest explorer of his age and

a human woman, Annalise… no… his mother’s name had

been Penelope. He knew his father’s name, at least: his

father’s name wasn’t Ulysses, and he was a professor at

Berkeley.

His own name escaped him for the moment, but he knew

that he had one.

Lightning flashed overhead, unbidden, marking out the

silhouette of the fortress like a signal flare.

It was a cathedral, kilometres across.

Light streamed from stained glass windows set in the

limestone ceiling, walls and floors. It was a vast circular vault,

a web of buttresses and supporting ribs. Close to, the arcs

and parabolas appeared to be straight lines, as flat as the

surface of a planet. Each roof beam was wide enough for an

army to walk along, although no army would ever be allowed

this far.

It was impossible architecture, of course. The inside of the

chamber was far larger than the outside. The floors and walls

eschered into one another and out along the power conduits

and great arched portals. The light wasn’t sunlight. Gravity

was a local phenomenon, governed by whims rather than

law. Look too closely and it was all too possible to see that

the room was held together by optical illusions and false

perspective,.

But no one who came down here ever spent long looking

at the architecture because hanging, aberrant and isolated in

the mathematical centre of the vault, was the Eye of

Harmony itself.

The black hole was encased in an iron globe ten

kilometres in diameter. The dark metal was pitted and

cratered with age, there were streaks of rust running along it,

like dry river beds. It was suspended in its own gravity

apparently motionless. The power radiating from it was

palpable, compelling.

At the top of the globe was a tiny aperture, and from that

poured all the energy that Gallifrey needed, and so much

more besides.

Savar stepped down into the vault, found his footing on

the stonework.

He scurried down to a higher level, knowing where the

TARDIS would arrive, and that it was imminent. The

wheezing, groaning sound filled the air, echoing around the

chamber. Savar was in place to see it arrive hidden at a

higher vantage point. The air swirled and parted like the

curtains of a magician’s cabinet. The TARDIS stood where it

hadn’t before. In this sanctuary of sanctuaries there was no

need for camouflage, and the time capsule retained its

natural form, that of a bone‐white obelisk.

A panel in the front slid open, and two figures emerged.

The first wore the Doctor’s clothes, but the waist‐length

blonde hair and the graceful movements were those of the

Lady Larna. The second figure wore the Doctor’s body, but it

was not him either. Savar could sense its red eyes and true

form. The trapped god, unbound and here, at the fount of all

Gallifrey.

Savar reached for the force knife he’d recovered from his

room. Clutching it in his hand, he began edging down.

‘Explain the principle to me,’ the Doctor’s voice asked.

‘You don’t know?’ Larna replied. There was no anxiety, no

hint of coercion. She was the trapped god’s willing servant.

‘Rassilon’s plan was simply to use the supernova as fuel.

It would have supplied Gallifrey for many centuries. After

that… I imagine we would have detonated another star.

There is hardly a shortage.’

After a moment’s silence, she continued. ‘The Eye of

Harmony is a rotating black hole. As it spins, it distorts space

and time around it. The area affected, the ergosphere, is

concentrated around the equator.’

‘This globe contains both the black hole and the

ergosphere?’

‘That is correct. Otherwise we would have been destroyed

by gravitational forces and radiation. Although in theory it is

possible to escape from the ergosphere, anything within it

would break up – part of it sucked down into the black hole,

part of it flung out in the direction of rotation. But the part that escaped would be accelerated by the distortion of spacetime,

like a slingshot. The black hole is so powerful that a tiny

amount of energy can be amplified to near infinite levels.’

He pointed to the column of light pouring from the hole in

the globe.

‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘The inside surface of the globe is

mirrored. Rassilon shone a lamp through that hole, just for a

second or so. Since then, the light has bounced from the

ergosphere to the mirrored surface and back, gaining energy

every time it re‐emerges from the ergosphere. That ray of

light now provides the fuel for all of Gallifrey.’

He laughed. ‘Ingenious. Magic.’

‘Superradiant scattering,’ she corrected him primly,

‘allowed for by all the laws of physics.’

‘And at the heart of the black hole is the singularity, the

point where those laws break down.’

‘The point where physics allows a certain latitude,’ she

replied, quoting one of her tutors. ‘But the universe is careful

to hide such a dangerous place. Between us and the

singularity is a cloud of radioactive matter; then a region of

massive spacetime distortion; then an event horizon – a

gateway that will let us in but not let us return; finally a stellar mass or more of matter that becomes steadily more solid

until, at the core, it has reached infinity density.’

‘I am Omega. Nothing is hidden from me.’

From his vantage point, Savar smiled.

As the thunder caught up, the Doctor peered over the garden

to the castle.

The trees and the hedges and the sky were whispering to

him. ‘What’s the matter, what’s the matter, what’s the

matter?’

‘What’s the matter?’ his wife asked, stirring and looking up

at him.

The leaves were rustling. All around him, they were

crinkling, shrivelling, falling.

‘Omega,’ the Doctor whispered, sitting at her side.

She shivered, drawing her gown over her shoulders. ‘He’s

gone,’ she told him. ‘He left us in peace here.’

‘No.’ He stared at her face. ‘No. No. No.’

The Doctor looked over at the castle. There were lights on

in there.

The wind was whipping up the newly autumnal leaves.

The rosebuds died on their stems, the grapes wrinkled on

their vine.

‘Come on!’ the Doctor shouted, standing, starting to run

towards the castle. She was right behind him.

A cold night wind drifted over as they ran through the

garden.

The leaves were shrinking, desiccated, coming off the

branches in droves. The stream was running dry, the

imaginary fish flapping uselessly in the parched mud. The

Doctor stopped when he saw them willed them away. He

stared up at the sky. The stars were winking out one by one.

The air was thick with autumn leaves and particles of dust.

The lawns beneath their feet were sprinkled with sand now.

Lightning flashed around the fortress, lingering for longer

than was natural.

‘Come on,’ she urged.

He picked up his pace.

Omega stepped up to an observation pulpit, located a small

control panel and flipped it open. He began keying in a series

of code sequences, rewiring the ancient circuits with the

Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. He had already surrounded their

section of the chamber with a stasis halo. Now he was

drawing a new power grid, preparing to implement it.

Larna leant over to get a better look at what he was doing.

‘Would you like me to check your work?’ she asked softly.

‘That will not be necessary,’ he replied, shifting a little,

blocking her view.

‘These are complicated equations, I could –’

‘No,’ he replied firmly.

He touched a control, and the panel closed itself up. ‘I’m

done here. Throw that switch, would you?’ He pointed over to

a large lever on her right.

Larna hesitated. ‘Are you sure this is the right thing to do?’

‘Throw the switch.’

Larna shook her head.

He moved towards her. ‘Do it,’ he commanded. He

grabbed Larna’s wrist in one hand, and before she could

prevent it he’d grabbed her other wrist, too. He pushed her

back, pinning her to the console, then slowly turned his

hands, twisting her wrists, hurting her. She broke from the

grip and lashed out at him, her hand balling into a fist as it did

so. Larna had always been strong: the strongest of her

Cousins, the strongest of her classmates.

She hit him hard, right in the face, and he went down.

Larna examined the control panel Omega had been

working at and checked the new settings. He was planning to

close the aperture. If the energy was sealed in the

containment globe, it would increase exponentially; the

pressures would pent up and before long the globe would

explode. The singularity at the core of the black hole would

be exposed, but the energy released would certainly destroy

the Capitol Dome, it might enough to destroy Gallifrey.

Larna reached forward to disable the controls.

A hand grabbed her from behind, an arm was around her

throat, pulling her away from the controls. She tried pushing

him away, but he was too strong for her. She bent her knee,

trying to wriggle free, but that didn’t work either. He punched

her hard in the stomach. She sank to her knees. Omega

strode towards the lever.

Larna looked around for a way to stop him.

She still had the Magistrate’s gun. She could feel it on her

hip. Although that was the Doctor’s body, it wasn’t the Doctor.

She mustn’t think of it as the Doctor, mustn’t let her

memories stop her from destroying the body. Larna reached

round, felt the warm metal. Her fingers wrapped around it,

finding the trigger. Omega was holding out his hand to grab

the lever.

She raised the gun. There was no time to aim it.

The Doctor – Omega – dived out the way as she

squeezed the trigger. The end of the device opened up and

glowed, an energy bolt sizzled out. It shot off into the depths

of the chamber, with little effect.

Omega was down on her before she could fire the second

shot. He stood on her wrist, already hurt in the fight with the

Needle People. He kicked her with his other foot. She

dropped the gun, and he caught it with one hand.

He lifted her, carried her over to the lever.

‘THROW THE SWITCH,’ he commanded, dropping her

onto it. She fell shift beneath her back, and she scraped

down it.

Omega had stepped out of the way.

Larna scrabbled around for the lever, tried pulling it back

down, then up again, then down. It was too late.

Behind her, the aperture was closing, the column of

energy was fading.

Voran was staring into the Infinity Chamber.

The two remaining TARDISes and the Station hovered in

their positions at points around the Needle. The energy still

crackled from the surface of the artefact, it seemed to have

intensified.

‘Lord Hedin, has there been any contact with the

Magistrate or the Lady Larna since they departed?’

‘No, Acting‐President,’ Hedin admitted, ‘Our sensors

suggest that the defensive grid has been deactivated. There

was also a suggestion of a TARDIS launch, but the breach in

spacetime is now interfering with our sensors.’

Voran steepled his fingers and drummed them together.

‘Worrying, worrying.’

‘We could send down another TARDIS?’

‘And risk another loss? No. Stand by for further

instructions.’

Pendrel hurried over. ‘A communication from the Sontaran

fathership sir. It is Chief of Staff Grol once again.’

Voran shook his head. ‘I suppose I’ll have to talk to them.’

The squat form of the Sontaran Chief of Staff appeared in

front of him, rezzing and fizzing as the two technologies

came to an arrangement.

‘Acting‐President,’ the rasping voice began, ‘you have had

your chance. You have not presented Sobtar to us. In full

knowledge of the Supreme Sontariat, I formally announce

that the Sontaran Empire is now at war with the Time Lords

of Gallifrey.’

‘You can declare war all you like, it still doesn’t mean I

know where your General Sontar is.’

Grol’s eyes narrowed. ‘You have violated every principle of

Galactic Law.’

‘We enforce those laws, Grol. We wrote most of them.’

‘That gives you the right to break them at will?’

‘Chief of Staff, we have misplaced your leader, and I’m

terribly sorry about that, but what would you have us do?’

‘We could check the last place we saw him,’ Pendrel

suggested.

Voran scowled. ‘Has anyone actually checked the

xenodochia?’

There were a few muttered comments from the monks

behind him.

‘Now you must face the retribution of the Sontaran race for

the terrible crime you have committed,’ Grol growled.

‘Vengeance will be swift and massive, and the universe will

long sing of the day when –’

Voran yawned. ‘Do what you will, Chief of Staff, we are

currently dealing with a situation that –’

‘Acting‐President,’ a voice behind him interrupted.

‘Shut up, Pendrel. I’m sorry about that, Grol. As I say, a

situation that requires our full attention, one that is a little

more important than looking for some lost alien.’

‘Acting‐President,’ Pendrel insisted.

He turned away from the Sontaran to see Pendrel. The

ridiculous man was virtually tugging at his robes. ‘This had

better be important.’

‘It is, Acting‐President. It’s the transduction barriers.

They’ve been switched off.’

‘What? On whose authority? Turn them back on, you idiot.’

Another aide came over to one side. ‘There is no power

going to the transduction systems or to the quantum

forcefields.’

One of the Technicians was frantically squinting into his

eyeboard. ‘Total power drain on all systems. We’re losing

them all, one by one.’

‘Gallifrey is utterly defenceless,’ Pendrel concluded.

Grol’s face was set is a long, lipless smile. Then his eyes

narrowed, stared straight at the Acting‐President.

‘Admiral Krax, you are authorised to commence the

attack,’ the Sontaran said, his image fading away.

The Sontaran fleet had held its position since its arrival. Now,

as one, their spectronic drives fired.

The fleet maintained its double arrowhead formation, their

weapons systems coming on‐line. They were quickly at battle

speed. For the last few days, the strategy computers had

been analysing Gallifrey. Bomber units were already

streaking ahead of the main fleets, torpedoes ha already

been loaded into their tubes. The energy weapons had bee

charging up for days.

Behind them, the Rutan fleet was also powering up.

The Sontaran strategy computers had predicted this, but

had concluded that the Rutan computers would not be

expecting the Sontarans to attack Gallifrey itself. Caught

unprepared for vital seconds by the Sontarans’ audacity, the

Rutan strategists would realise that there were two

possibilities: either the Gallifreyans would swiftly annihilate

the Sontarans, or the Sontarans had a secret weapon

powerful enough to punch its way through technology a

million years more advanced than the Rutans’ own. Neither

option favoured Rutan intervention.

The sudden power loss was unexpected, but a sign of

providence, a sign that the war gods favoured the Sontaran.

As predicted, the Rutan ships let the Sontaran fleet power

forwards, monitoring it closely.

The bridge of a Sontaran ship is a womblike space, suffused

with red light, power cabling and umbilicals.

Admiral Krax sat at its heart, a hundred pilots and warriors

at their stations around him. He couldn’t see them, his eyes

were covered by blinkers that gave him independent displays

of fleet and enemy strength.

Fighter and bomber units were streaking ahead, already in

the Gallifreyan atmosphere. The combined firepower of the

fleet could shatter the planet into rubble. How long could the

Capitol survive such an assault?

Gallifrey stood before them, defenceless. There wouldn’t

be another chance like this.

‘Fire,’ he ordered.

The Doctor saw it in the mirror.

‘Gallifrey…’ he said, his voice trailing off. He concentrated,

felt the breach in spacetime shift. But he couldn’t control the

Effect.

The first missiles were detonating on the planet’s surface.

‘Gallifrey will be destroyed,’ she told him.

‘The Capitol Dome is indestructible.’

‘But Gallifrey itself isn’t,’ she insisted. ‘And Omega is

loose.’

The Doctor stared into the mirror. ‘That is where I came

from once, but not any more. I come from here, now. I belong

here with you. He can’t hurt us, here. He made me a god.’

The picture shifted. There was a familiar young woman,

with ash blonde hair. She was crying, in pain. His wife placed

a hand on his shoulder. ‘Larna?’

He nodded.

‘She’s beautiful.’

The Doctor nodded again, a little embarrassed. ‘Look at

her, though, she isn’t you, she never could be. She’s from

there, and you’re perfect, you’re everything.’

‘You could stop Omega.’

‘I know.’

‘You are the only other being in creation in control of a

singularity. You are the only thing that can stop him.’

The Doctor nodded.

‘You can go back, now. Omega was trapped here, but now

that he’s exposed a singularity in the universe of matter, you

can use it as a doorway. It’s a clear way home.’

‘This is home,’ the Doctor insisted. ‘You are all that I want.

I’ve left that place behind, with all its squabbling and

imperfections and unrequited love and decay and…’ His

voice trailed off as he gazed into the mirror and saw a man in

his body pinning Larna down, as he saw her mouth

screaming at him for help. ‘You are perfect, you are all that I

want. If Omega had offered me the choice between this and

that, then I would have chosen this.’

‘You must go back.’

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘My will keeps you alive. You’re a figment

of my imagination. If I leave, you will die. I can’t leave you. I

can let this end.’

Perfect red lips smiled, a little uncertainly. ‘Everything

ends. You know that, you know that it’s how it’s meant to be.’

She kissed him.

Omega was all over Larna. She could feel his breath on her

face. Hot, ammoniac, like a bull’s. He was pinning her down,

she could feel his strength on hers. Larna had always been

strong, but she wasn’t anything compared to this. She could

feel her muscles clench and strain against this creature, but it

was as if they belonged to someone else. Her strength just

wasn’t relevant.

‘Omega!’ a familiar voice called from behind her.

Omega released his grip, turned to face the new arrival.

Framed in the entrance to the pulpit was Savar, The one

who could see. The force knife in his hand was a

broadsword, longer than he tall.

‘I have waited a thousand years for this moment,’ Savar

said, advancing.

‘Have you, now?’

‘He’s got a gun,’ Larna shouted over.

Omega levelled the Magistrate’s weapon, but Savar was

already bringing his sword up. He sliced the gun in half.

Savar raised the sword.

Omega’s eyes flashed red.

A shadow fell over Savar, and when it lifted there was

another Savar. A blind man in grey robes.

‘Master,’ Savar answered, lowering himself to his knees. ‘I

offer myself to you. A body in this universe of matter. I have

waited a thousand years to make such a sacrifice.’

‘You’re just an hour too late,’ he observed. He held his

hand to his chest. ‘I have a body, now.’

The blind man hesitated.

‘Savar, Larna called. ‘Remember me? It’s Larna.’

‘Master…’ Savar said helplessly.

‘He’s going to kill you,’ Larna warned him. ‘He’s going to

kill you unless you kill him.’

Savar was hunched up, he didn’t seem to be listening.

‘He’s been using you, but now he doesn’t need you any

more. Kill him!’

Savar leapt forwards, swinging the sword, bringing it down

hard on Omega’s shoulder. The blade connected with

Omega’s neck, half‐severing it. His head lolled.

Larna pulled herself out of the way.

The second blow sliced the left femur, the third chopped a

kneecap.

Omega slipped over.

‘I am your god,’ the Doctor’s voice rasped, blood and spit

in his mouth. He held out his hand. ‘Bow down.’

Savar brought the sword down on his shoulder, and the

arm flopped back. All part of the same movement, the blade

swept up, cutting his nose and cheek.

He swung the broadsword straight at Omega’s head.

Omega caught it in one hand, tugged it from Savar’s grasp

and tossed it over the edge of the pulpit.

‘There is only one future.’

He gave a great shout, an animalistic roar from deep

inside him. When he had finished he stood there uninjured,

his broken bones mended, the blood gone from his wounds.

‘There is only Omega.’

He waved his hand, and Savar evaporated. The blind

man’s cloak tottered back, slapping into the ground in front of

Larna.

She slumped.

Omega bent over her. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I really see

why the Doctor has his companions. Doing all this is really

much better with an audience.’

‘You turned him,’ she said. ‘You transformed him into the

blind Savar, the alternate one.’

‘Not just Savar.’

She could hear screaming. Men howling, like wolves.

Agonised sounds that started like words.

Larna looked up at him. Omega had his back to her, he

was staring up at the containment globe. The iron was

bubbling, blistering, disintegrating. At its heart was a chink of

something. The singularity.

‘Night has fallen on Gallifrey. Can’t you feel it? Oh, don’t

worry, my dear. You’re protected, here in the stasis halo. But

out there, they’ve all transformed. Voran, Pendrel, all of them.

They’re blind and alone, desperate. Without the power of the

Eye to protect them, without Rassilon watching over them,

hear what they’ve become. Hear what they are really.’

A man crying. A choir screaming in harmony. Strangulated

calls and guttural, primeval noises. Explosions, shattering

masonry, falling statues, burning flesh. All of the sounds

echoed down from the Citadel, filtered through the thick

limestone walls.

Larna pulled herself up, stood eye to eye with him.

‘With the power of the singularity, you’ll be able to do

anything, have anything. Is this really what you want?’

The Doctor’s face smiled down at her.

‘Yes.’

He stepped off the edge of the pulpit, fell towards the

singularity, grasped it, became god.

As the power flowed through him, Omega shed the Doctor’s

skin. He became a vast, hunched creature like a bull or a

warthog. The armour that surrounded him was built from solid

plates of metal, the sort of cladding usually only seen on

battleships. He had ram’s horns, a beard that curled down his

breastplate. His right hand burned with the singularity where

he had touched it. He was no longer a man, no longer an

animal… no, he was a force of nature like a hurricane or a

forest fire.

Men can’t fight the hurricane.

Omega saw that it was good.

There was a slow clapping from behind him.

He turned. The Doctor was there, mocking him with

applause.

‘Apotheosis,’ the Doctor said. ‘The merging of your

physical body and the power of the singularity.

Congratulations.’

Omega’s eyes flashed red, he willed the Doctor’s

destruction, invoked the fundamental powers of the universe

to annihilate him.

The Doctor yawned, held up his right hand. Flame

flickered around it. ‘Snap,’ he said calmly. ‘I’ve got a

singularity of my own. Let me show you something.’

They were standing on grey, devastated ground. A

desolate place, the sky full of fog, and gravel and tektites

underfoot.

‘Where are we?’ Omega demanded.

‘A planet in the seventh galaxy which died in nuclear fire.

The twelfth world of its star system. It is centuries since that

war and the radiation levels have fallen. The sky is still black,

the oceans and lakes are still frozen.’ The Doctor paused.

‘This is Skaro.’

They began to walk on the broken, blackened soil.

‘Is there anything living here?’ Omega asked.

The Doctor drew a deep breath. ‘A fifth of the population

died in the initial attack. Toxic gases, waste and biological

agents filled the air as the cities burned. Every piece of

asbestos, every drop of toxic waste. Another fifth of the

population died, because there were no adequate surviving

medical services to stop them from dying. Immense amounts

of particle matter quickly accumulated in the upper

atmosphere, obscuring the sun. Water supplies froze, food

would not grow. Another fifth of the population died. And, as

the long winter ended, a year later, the situation became

worse. Every animal larger than an insect had already died.

With no predators to hold them in check, insect life swarmed

across the planet. The corpses were beginning to defrost.

Epidemics and pandemics spread with nothing to stop them,

What could survive here, what would want to survive?’

Omega’s eyes narrowed. ‘The Time Lords could have

prevented this. With our powers, we could prevent this from

happening here and on the million planets where the same

pattern was repeated, over and over. Or we could simply

remove this from history, excise it.’

The Doctor pursed his lips, apparently impressed. ‘So you

can destroy it?’

‘Gladly.’ Omega waved his glove, and the planet’s star

went nova, obliterating the dead planet in an instant. They

watched the destruction from a safe vantage point in a

neighbouring star system.

The Doctor gave a quiet, satisfied smile.

‘Now bring it back.’

Omega grunted, but with another wave of the hand, the

planet was back in place.

‘Destroy it,’ the Doctor repeated.

As the planet blew itself apart once again, he turned to the

Doctor.

‘What is this meant to prove? All this proves is that we

have the power of the gods.’

‘You’re nothing,’ the Doctor said finally.

‘You will not deny me. I am everything!’ Omega shouted.

‘You’re both,’ the Doctor snapped, silencing him.

‘Destroying and undestroying planets with the merest

thought.’

‘What I can do to one planet I can do a thousandfold. I live

in infinity, Doctor, not in some narrow universe where only

one thing can happen. Now you can kill and let live. We can

make the universe dance to our every whim, to all our

whims.’

The Doctor smiled sympathetically. ‘Of course we can.’

‘You doubt me?’ Omega snarled.

The Doctor gave a tiny shake of his head. ‘Oh no. I pity

you.’

‘You are not worthy of godhood.’

‘No, it’s not that. What’s the point of controlling a universe

without meaning, where nothing of any consequence ever

happens? Why shed tears when someone dies if they can be

brought back, why cheer on your favourite team when if they

lose they can also win? I don’t want to be a god.’

‘You are weak.’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘Answer me this, Omega:

what’s the opposite of matter?’

‘Anti‐matter,’ Omega replied instantly.

‘Wrong, wrong, wrong. The opposite of matter is “doesn’t

matter”.’ The Doctor sighed. ‘That’s what we’ve created – a

universe where everything is nothing. A universe where

nothing matters. Of course you can rewrite history, but you

shouldn’t. As long as you have these great powers, nothing is

real.’

‘I am god, Doctor, I define reality. I am all.’

‘Of course you are, of course you do, of course you are,’

the Doctor said, smirking.

Omega roared and raised his hand.

The Doctor smiled. ‘Even if you could kill me, you’d only

get bored sooner or later and bring me back. You’re trapped.

You’re trapped by your omnipotence, just as you were

trapped in the anti‐matter universe.’

‘That is not true,’ Omega insisted. But for all his

omniscience and omnipotence he couldn’t say why.

‘Because you will it?’

Omega felt the galaxies within him. He felt the stars and

planets in his mouth and his eyes, time and space flowing

through him like blood. ‘I am infinite. I am everything.’

The Doctor raised his head. ‘Is that all you are? Infinity? Is

there nothing more than you?’

Omega faltered. ‘You are right.’

There was silence for a moment.

‘Is this all that I am?’ Omega asked, looking down at his

hands. ‘Is this it? My moment of triumph? I have dreamt of

this moment for more nights than the Time Lords have ever

dreamt. To be a god! To be the god!’

The Doctor grinned. ‘I knew you’d see sense. You can still

be a man, Omega. Before you were a god you were a great

man. Become that again. Come back to Gallifrey and resume

your place there.’

Omega gave the same, small, flickering grin. ‘“Think’st

thou that I who saw the face of God and tasted the eternal

joys of heaven am not tormented with ten thousand hells in

being deprived of everlasting bliss”?’

The Doctor tapped his lips. Quoting Mephistopheles

wasn’t always the sign of a stable mind.

‘Faking a real life?’ Omega spat. ‘Such a life would be just

as much a sham as being a hollow god.’

He paused, looked around. ‘Nothing is real now, nothing

has meaning.’

He stepped away from the doorway, a tear in his eye.

‘You have destroyed all my hopes, you have condemned

me to a meaningless existence.’

‘Not meaningless!’ the Doctor shouted. ‘You must find new

meaning in your life, yes, but no life is meaningless.’

‘There is only one freedom left to me.’

The Doctor grabbed Omega’s arm. ‘There’s no need to

take your own life.’

He smiled down. ‘Not just my own life. This universe is

lost, this universe has no meaning. Time to end it.’

Outside, the dead stars and planets began vanishing.

Time and space began to wind down.

‘You can’t destroy the whole universe,’ the Doctor gasped

from the doorway.

‘And why not?’

The Doctor shrugged. ‘Well, for one thing, where would

you live afterwards?’

‘There will be no afterwards,’ he said quietly. ‘There will be

no before. This universe will never have existed. There will

have been no torment, no betrayal by friends and lovers. No

disappointments or disease, no wars. No one will ever have

died or lost a loved one. It will be a simpler place, a better

place.’

The Doctor remembered the garden, and the beautiful

woman with moon‐white skin. ‘Everything ends,’ he said

softly.

‘Indeed.’

The Doctor took a deep breath. ‘You’re right, perhaps It’s

time to end it.’

Omega gave a grim smile. ‘You were a worthy opponent,

Doctor.’

‘Thanks. Shake on it?’ The Doctor held out his hand,

Omega clasped it.

‘One last thing,’ the Doctor noted. ‘Ever wondered what

would happen if a singularity came into direct contact with an

anti‐singularity?’ He squeezed Omega’s right hand very tight.

Everything ended.

Larna watched as the aperture opened, as the column of

energy burst forth once more. To her side were the smoking

remains of Savar’s cloak. Around her the screaming and

bombardment had stopped.

In front of her was the Doctor’s body, naked and inert. It

was pale, but his chest was rising and falling, ever so slowly,

his breath was condensing in the cold air.

She bent over him, taking her jacket off, covering him up.

‘Doctor?’

His eyes flickered open. ‘Larna?’

It was him, she knew it. ‘Where’s Omega?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said weakly, pulling himself into a sitting

position. ‘Banished. Sealed away. Dead. I don’t know. His

singularity came into contact with my anti‐singularity. I don’t

know what happened after that… there’s no such thing as an

anti‐singularity, I made it up, so there’s no theory to account

for what happened next.’

‘And you?’

‘I… I think I might have just saved the entire universe from

destruction.’

Larna helped him into his jacket.

The Doctor smiled, a little uncertainly. ‘Thank you, Larna,’

he said finally.

Larna laughed lightly, and kissed him. ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

Epilogue

So This is Victory

Sunlight poured through the cracks in the Capitol Dome, like

a liberating army,

High above, maintenance teams had been working around

the clock to repair the damage, and this would be the last

sunrise that the Capitol would ever see. Golden sunlight

picked out the vivid colours of the roof terraces, the intricate

mahoganies of the Citadel walls, the golds and silvers and

marbles of the clocks and monuments. It made the walkways

and computer towers gleam. This was the home of the most

powerful race in the cosmos, this was the capital city of the

universe. A day since the defeat of Omega and the events of

the previous week seemed like a distant nightmare. The

rubble had been cleared, the damage from the riots and the

bombardments had been cleaned away, the dead had been

interred. Life was returning to normal.

The chimes of the Clock Tower rang out over the

hexangles of the Eastern side of the Citadel. The Time Lords

and Technicians began to emerge from their quarters and

glide smoothly to their work and their leisure. Lord Henspring

and Lady Gehammer passed each other by the living

fountain, three members of the Watch marched past, on their

way to lay a wreath at the Monument to Lost Explorers. A

small group of students stood around discussing the

cultivation of roses and chess endgames. Deep within the

Citadel, the TARDISes sat in their cradles, surrounded by

humming machinery, as they had done for hundreds of

thousands of years.

Constable Peltroc hoisted the phased trion burster up against

the keyhole, Captain Raimor keyed the firing sequence. A

small group of Watchmen stood around, trying to hold back

the Sontarans. Half a dozen Councillors stood nervously on

the other side of the room. Technically, they were still at war

with the Sontaran Empire, although the Sontarans had been

markedly less hostile since the restoration of the transduction

barriers.

‘Hey, hey,’ said the Doctor, bustling in, ‘careful with that

TARDIS, it’s a family heirloom.’

Acting‐President Voran waved his hand, and the two

guards lowered the burster, grumbling a little.

‘Open this capsule up, Doctor, we’ve waited long enough.’

The Doctor gave an uncertain smile, fishing the key from

his coat pocket, He opened the door, then he stepped back

to see what would emerge.

For a moment there was no movement. Then General

Sontar stepped over the threshold. The Doctor had left him a

broken man, violated and drained by the Rutan. The creature

that emerged now was entirely different. It looked like Sontar,

but with little of the ancient creature’s brooding menace.

The Doctor acknowledged the Sontaran leader’s arrival,

but was more concerned with what was behind him. The soft,

gelatinous glow of the Rutan was becoming visible.

The other Sontarans tensed. But Sontar shook his head.

The Doctor gasped.

‘We thought you would have killed each other,’ the

Acting‐President informed him.

‘I killed the Rutan,’ Sontar said. ‘It killed me.’

‘Over and over, again and again,’ the Rutan echoed.

‘Within the confines of your time machine, the final death is

not possible. Within minutes our enemy lived once more,

whatever horrors we had inflicted. A fascinating technology.’

Sontar edged forwards. ‘After a while, we realised the

futility of our actions. Our thoughts turned to escape. We did

not co‐operate in these attempts, but each learned from the

other’s failures. The console was locked off, and resisted all

attempts to reactivate it. There were no other exits.’

The Rutan flared brighter. ‘It soon became clear that

escape was impossible. We meditated on our fate – to be

confined for ever with the deadliest of our enemies, in the

certain knowledge that whatever our hopes, whatever our

achievements, that we were doomed. The universe would fall

to the Grey.’

‘It was then that we realised how much we shared, how

insignificant our differences were. We talked. Events have

transpired as you planned, Doctor. Alone, unable to fight or

escape, we reached an accommodation.’

The other Sontarans shifted in place, but none dared to

contradict their emperor.

‘Thank you, Doctor. Your wisdom has shown us the path

to peace.’

‘Thank you,’ Sontar repeated. ‘An unorthodox method, but

more effective than a thousand years of peace conferences.

You tricked us into thinking you were a fool, with nothing to

say. All the time, you had your plot. Chain us together and

leave us to find our own peace. You are a brave and cunning

man.’ He slapped the Doctor on the back.

‘Well,’ mumbled the Doctor as he regained his footing, ‘it

was nothing.’

‘We will signal our fleets, and signal the immediate

cessation of hostilities.’

‘Is it really as easy as that?’ Voran asked. ‘Your entire

economies have been geared for war for thousands of years.

War is in your blood.’

‘Blood can change,’ the Rutan said.

‘Both our races are capable of rapid adaptation,’ Sontar

explained. ‘As the Time Lords know, clone races are easily

controlled, easily guided. The Sontaran clone banks can be

re‐engineered, the Rutan Host can suppress the creation of

certain of the more hostile forms.’

‘Words into ploughshares?’ asked the Doctor.

Sontar nodded. ‘Exactly that.’

‘Our races pride ourselves on our obedience, our

single‐mindedness. Now we are united in peace.’

‘Just like that?’ the Doctor asked.

‘Just so. There will be the largest demobilisation in the

history of the universe, massive restructuring of the forms of

our empires. But these are mere details.’

‘I wish you well.’

Sontar smiled and held out its claw, and the Doctor shook

it. The Rutan unfurled a tentacle, which the Doctor squeezed.

Finally, General Sontar turned to the Rutan and offered it

his claw. The Rutan grew a three‐fingered hand and shook it.

‘The war is over,’ Sontar said. ‘Thanks to the Doctor. The

Time Lords, of course, will man the checkpoints, guard the

buffer zones around our territories. With Gallifrey maintaining

the peace –’

The Doctor held up his hand. ‘No, no, no. Not our style at

all. We’ll be happy to advise you, but we’re not going to

watch over you. This peace is your responsibility, no one’s

going to enforce it for you.’

‘I understand,’ the Rutan agreed.

Sontar was nodding thoughtfully. ‘We must return home,

and begin our work.’

The Watchmen snapped to attention.

Voran nodded, pleased. ‘Good. Good,’ he said, as the

Sontarans formed ranks behind their leader and the Rutan

delegate and began marching from the room.

For a moment there was silence, the Doctor and Voran

alone together.

‘Well,’ the Doctor said.

Voran paused. ‘And there is work to be done here. There

will be a Council meeting at Eight Bells to discuss the

aftermath of this affair. Your attendance will, of course, be

expected.’ He swept from the room.

The Doctor closed the TARDIS door and put the key back

in his pocket. He patted its side.

‘Well done, old girl,’ he said.

The Doctor knocked on Larna’s door. Her maid, Vrayto,

opened it.

‘Councillor…’ she said, curtseying.

Behind her, the Doctor caught a glimpse of Larna. She

turned, a broad smile on her face. The Doctor stepped past

the maid and down into the room. He knew what the quarters

in this part of the Citadel were like – this wasn’t too far from

his own room. The main difference was the lack of clutter –

the shelves hadn’t been filled, let alone packed to bursting.

There were no pictures on the walls, and only a handful of

ornaments and trophies lying around. There were a few

crates full of things though.

Larna was looking over a large sheaf of paper.

Astronomical diagrams by the look of them – reports from the

Astronomy Bureau. She was wearing a neat collarless jacket

and tight trousers in Prydonian scarlet and orange. Her hair

was loose, down her back.

‘You’ve been a Time Lord for a little while now,’ he said.

‘You really should have found the time to unpack.’ He

rummaged in the crate and pulled out a psychology textbook.

‘I’m packing up.’

He laid the book down.

‘I got a new job. I got what I wanted.’

There were plenty of vacancies now, as the Time Lords

shuffled around to fill the gaps left by the deaths and

disappearances. Rumours were circulating about the

possible new appointments to the High Council. Voran would

no doubt be rewarding his cronies like Pendrel. But every

promotion caused a further vacancy to form, more duties and

titles to spread amongst the Time Lord aristocracy.

To avoid thinking about what he wanted to think about, the

Doctor racked his brains, tried to imagine what they’d have

given Larna. ‘Head of research somewhere? Something

practical?’

She nodded. ‘The breach in spacetime caused a lot of

damage. I’ve been appointed leader of the group that will

clear up the mess left by the Effect. We’ll be locating and

neutralising the after effects.

The Doctor opened his mouth and waved his hands

helplessly. ‘Well done,’ he said finally. ‘That’s quite a

responsibility.’

‘Well, most of the other candidates are dead or –’

The Doctor pulled back. ‘No need to be modest. It’s a high

honour. You wouldn’t get the job if you couldn’t do it.’

‘There will be a lot of fieldwork,’ she said. ‘I’ll be away from

Gallifrey for most of the time, leading a team of specialists.

It’s just what I’ve always wanted. The chance to travel, to

leave the Capitol. There will even be contact with other

timefarers.’

‘You could be away for some time.’

‘The Matrix estimates that it will take around two thousand

years.’

The Doctor’s smile flickered, ‘That is a long time,’ he

mumbled.

She looked over at him, a little sadly. ‘Yes.’

The Doctor stood, ‘I… don’t want to hold up your packing.

I’ve always hated goodbyes. Good luck.’

Larna leant over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thank you,

she said.

There had been one candle for every year.

The Doctor snuffed out the last between his thumb and

forefinger. The room was dark, the smell of wax heavy in the

air, reminding him of a church. It must have been the smoke

that was making his eyes water, He stepped from the room.

The door closed, and – anticipating its owner’s mood –

locked and bolted itself. And then there was nothing behind it.

The Doctor slumped against the wall for a moment.

So this was victory.

Lord Norval, Savar and a couple of dozen others dead: the

Magistrate lost. Larna leaving. Omega… whatever, Broken.

His wife gone. Voran Acting‐President, Pendrel as Castellan.

Hedin back in the Endless Library, rewriting his biography of

Omega from the beginning. Nothing had changed, because

nothing ever changed on Gallifrey except over geological

timescales. Nothing was better, nothing was worse. The

Sontarans and the Rutans could change, it seemed, but not

his own people.

He looked over at her portrait, remembered the day he

had painted it. She’d been standing in the atrium of the family

home, in that dress of hers that she had found somewhere.

As she had stood there, she’d told him, ever so calmly, that a

miracle had taken place. She was pregnant. He remembered

how he had felt – that combination of elation and trepidation.

The knowledge that there was a future, a sense of destiny, of

inevitability. Things would never be the same again. He’d

never look to the past, he’d told himself, only to the future.

The Doctor moved away from the wall, towards his

favourite chair. Wycliff trotted out of his box to join him,

brushing against his legs. He stroked the cat’s head, deciding

that he wouldn’t sit down after all.

The Doctor could feel the key to his TARDIS in his trouser

pocket, warm against his leg. He took it out, held it up.

The first time he had left Gallifrey, it had been for a short

hop across the Constellation, to his parents’ summer house.

He’d stared up into the dark night’s sky, seen all the moving

points of light. ‘Not stars,’ his mother had told him. ‘Ships.

Those ships don’t travel on the sea, those are ships that

travel in space and time: He had wanted to ask where they

were going, and who was in them, but he hadn’t. When he

got back, he’d asked his tutors and looked in books and the

video archive, but the answer remained elusive. He’d read

about the stars and the planets, and all the people that lived

out in the universe, and all about their histories and their

sciences. He thought up a lot of questions, and not all the

answers were in the books that had been written so far or on

the Public Record Video.

To find the answers, he would have to go looking for them.

He’d have to leave Gallifrey, get out there, out into the

universe. Who knew where the future lay? Who wanted to

know?

The Doctor smiled.

Document Outline

Front Cover

Back Cover

Prologue

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

The Past

Chapter Four

Part Two

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

The Past

Chapter Eight

Part Three

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue