"This is where the accident happened, sir," Commander Arnsell announced as he pressed the button to open the door. There was a loud irritated beep as the keypad attached by the security people to the door lock lit up and Arnsell entered his authorisation code. The keypad recognised his code and the door slid open.
"Accident?" Castellan Spandrell snapped the word – like a twig. "I do not think I like the way you use that word, Arnsell. Perhaps you should choose your terms more carefully."
Arnsell gave a weak smile. "Occurrence, Castellan," he said as he stepped into the room.
Spandrell nodded and followed him inside. "Yes," he said. "I find that much more suitable." He looked down at the body in the chair, slumped over the control desk. "This is the technician who was operating the transduction barriers at the time of the occurrence, yes?"
"It was," Arnsell nodded.
Carefully, Spandrell put his hand on the corpse's shoulder and lifted him gently up. The head lolled back lifelessly on a limp, almost boneless neck. The hair was white and falling out and the face was ancient, wizened and wrinkled, dark sunken eyes staring out of an expression locked in horror. "How old was he, Arnsell?"
"She, sir, was twenty-one," Arnsell replied. "And as yet had not regenerated once. She should have had hundreds of years left."
"But she looks as though she has aged to death," Spandrell murmured. He looked up. "Temporal energy," he said. "There must be a leak in here somewhere."
Arnsell almost choked. "But a burst of this magnitude? Inside the tower? That's not possible!"
"It must be, Arnsell," Spandrell barked as he marched back out. "No one dies of old age in the Capitol!"
Doctor Who
Fracture
By R A Henderson
Episode I: Caught Somewhere In Time
BRISBANE, Australasia Major AD5029 A cold sensation coursed like a sudden electric shock through Kara's body as she suddenly regained consciousness and she shuddered instinctively, more from the fear than the cold as she found herself alone in the dark. The nightmare had been long, deep and disturbing, but it had made for a short time a welcome refuge from the true horror of reality. Closing her eyes, even though in the lightless opacity that made no difference whatsoever, Kara wished for a moment that she could go back into the dream forever. But she knew this to be an irrational thought and opened her eyes again. And still she could see nothing. For the first time since she awoke she began to wonder where she was now. She wasn't in the detention cell anymore. Of that she was certain. The security guards had come in and given her the usual kicking, spat on her, pissed on her and then given her the injection that had made her pass out. They'd probably raped her while she was unconscious, but in her numbness and disorientation she couldn't be sure of any signs. It wasn't like they'd never raped her before, and on previous occasions they hadn't even knocked her out. She was bruised and naked and she stank. She wanted to get away from here. Wherever here was. Kara fought to recollect anything that might give her some idea about where she might be. She'd heard a couple of inmates talking in the shower block about the girl a few cells down from her. "Aislin's been taken," Bad Breath Beth had said. "I heard the Ministers had her drugged and dragged off last night. Probably for judgement." Well, she'd had it, then. Poor Aislin. Everybody who went away for judgement never came back, and there were plenty of stories about what happened to them. Kara didn't find it at all surprising that not one of those stories had a happy ending. The Ministers were cardinally sadistic, delighting in cruelty and torture. All the stories involved maiming, murdering or mutating – or all three. It was horrible, and Kara had sat up all night wondering what her poor dear little friend would be suffering. And then the guards had come for her.That was it, then. Kara was in the Supreme Court of Judgement. The place no one ever came out of the way they went in. Slowly, she pulled her bruised knees painfully up to her cracked ribs. She placed a scratched hand flat on the freezing cold metal plate beneath her and pushed herself excruciatingly slowly up into a sitting position. She reached out tentatively and the tips of her fingers brushed against yet more smooth, cold metal. Her fingers closed around the slender pole and then she released it and moved her hand two inches to the left. An identical pole filled the space there. Back across to the right, past the first pole, was a third. It was reasonable, then, to suggest that she was on a circular platform, ringed in – effectively caged – by metal bars. Carefully, making a vain attempt to avoid discomfort and failing miserably, she gripped the bars and pulled herself up to her feet. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness and she could make out a few gaunt black shapes littered around the room that lay beyond the prison bars. "I'm awake," she shouted. "Can you hear me?" There was no reply beyond the resonant echo of her own Australian twang. "Come on you bastards! You think I'm afraid of you? Show yourselves!"
And the lights came on.
Kara screwed up her eyes in the brilliant glare and raised a battered arm to shield them. In the arm's subtle protection, she opened her eyes again and started to readjust before lowering her arm to her side. Still cold, naked, smelly and alone, she stood resolute and courageous, looking out at the room around her. It was a massive vault, like a cathedral nave only made of dark grey metal with no elegance or aesthetic charm whatever. The room was circular and domed, and directly in front of the cage, a few yards away, was a long metal bar with a round podium at each end. Each podium was lit from underneath, the soft white light glowing through the thick polyplexine. Flanking the cage on either side were two metal shutters set into the floor and behind the cage was a large metal bulkhead door. There was an identical door behind the bar, and this door opened. Two figures strode in, dressed in grey robes and each carrying a tall staff with a peculiar stylised emblem at its head. The figures moved silently and ponderously like machines to the centre of the bar and then split up, the man going to Kara's left and the woman to her right, each mounting a podium. As one they faced her. They seemed so synchronous in their ways, but in appearance nothing could set them further apart. The man was tall and skinny, with a thin, saggy face and thick white eyebrows. He looked incredibly old – too old really to be working – and his watery eyes looked weak with defeat, but from behind them somewhere Kara was sure she could detect the faintest trace of compassion. A rare commodity in the world today. Perhaps she could use it and give herself a chance. The woman was short and slim, and even in her robes easily flaunted the sumptuous curves of her hips, breasts and thighs. Her hair was long and black, flowing over her shoulders in a dark cascade, and her face was young and beautiful. And yet the cold, hard viciousness of her expression made her pretty features nothing more than a mask of evil. Kara could tell that this woman was eyeing her with absolute unmitigated contempt. The bulkhead door behind the bar slammed violently down and the woman raised her staff. "Let the jury rise!" she commanded, and the emblem atop her staff glowed brightly. The shutters in the floor rattled back and two curved platforms rose from underneath, locking into place either side of Kara's cage to form an arc of metal seats around her. The twelve seats were occupied by citizens, but every one of them was someone important. Civil servants, governors, administrators, but no farmers or factory workers. No one at all on that jury represented the common people. "You will stand for the Adjudicator," the woman called. Everyone in the jury stood up.
The old man raised his staff. "Let the Adjudicator descend," he croaked. He sounded as though the very essence of his soul had been beaten out of him. It probably had. His staff glowed too, and suddenly the whole dome of the vault split open. The two halves of the hemisphere receded until the roof was a simple circular opening, revealing the polluted red and purple streaked sky. The stifled sun blinked through in a deep pink, but in a moment a dark shape blotted it out. A black circle drifted through the sky and stopped just above the space behind the bar. It hovered for a moment, and then slowly descended into the room. As it came down, the dome leaves rose back up and the roof was resealed. The hoverdisc hung over the bar and Kara instantly recognised the man standing on it. At that moment all hope of reprieve or mercy was dashed from Kara's heart. The man on the floating dais was tall and muscular, with a handsome square-jawed face and a magnificent mane of red hair. He wore a breastplate and a long red cloak, a sword hung on his belt and a huge jewel around his neck. He looked every bit like any little girl might imagine the handsome prince from any fairy tale might look, but Kara knew that beyond the beauty lay a beast. The Adjudicator sat down on the special throne built into the surface of his hoverdisc and his hideous pet hopped up onto his arm. It was a repulsive thing, small and basically humanoid, like a child, but with grotesquely carved artificial features; the face of someone's perverted idea of a doll. It looked the very epitome of evil. The Adjudicator looked down in disgust at the naked figure of Kara. "The proceedings begin," he announced.
"Let the jury be seated in the presence of the Most High Lord Adjudicator, Magnus Greel," the old man creaked softly. The jury sat down.
Greel patted his filthy little pet on the head with a sort of twisted affection. It made Kara want to be sick. "And what is the name of this retrograde, Mr Sin?" he asked.
"This miserable parasite is called Kara Dagan, my Lord," Sin replied in a child's voice, slightly jerking his head. To Kara it seemed surreal, like one of those ancient ventriloquist acts from the history books. Also, there was a swine-like snorting and grunting noise between its words.
"And with what defilement of the Law has it been charged?" Greel went on. He called Kara 'it' rather than acknowledging her as a human being. No chance of a human rights point, then.
Mr Sin gave a snorting laugh. "Capital sedition, Master," he said. "She is a known leader of the rebel consortium that has been attacking our beloved and illustrious Alliance for the past twenty years.
Greel nodded. "Lady Prosecutor," he bellowed. "Present your case on the charge of sedition."
The evil-looking woman bowed her head slightly in acknowledgement and then addressed Kara. "Kara Dagan, you are hereby and in the full sight of a Minister of Justice, charged by the Supreme Court of Judgement under the aegis of the glorious Supreme Alliance with acts innumerable of sedition against the said Alliance. That you did intentionally commit such crimes against the state as instigating the closure of a number of poor camps and liberating the slave workers there, destroying two psychological correction centres and liberating their inmates, and murdering six of our government's Security Marshals. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?"
"Not guilty," Kara replied with a voice like ice.
The jury members audibly gasped in unison. Greel piloted his disc forward and lowered it to hover right in front of Kara. "Do you deny that you carried out these vile acts?" he demanded. "Even though you know that your behaviour was recorded?"
"I deny no such thing," Kara snapped bitterly. "I deny the authority of this court. I deny the right of this system to persecute those who seek only freedom. And I deny the supremacy of your precious corrupt Alliance. I have freed millions of men, women and even children from your tyranny. I have cured the sick and fed the hungry instead of leaving them to die and just getting new slaves. I have helped to create liberty and choice in this world, away from the oppression of the Alliance. That is no crime and this is no justice!"
Greel threw a lever on his throne and in a second his disc shot back up to its position behind the bar. "You pathetic, idealistic fool," he laughed. "Have you any idea how many have come before me and used your very words, or very similar words, as a defence against this charge, or very similar charge? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? And of all of them, how many do you think I have acquitted, pardoned or forgiven?"
Kara knew the answer, but she was silent.
"None!" Greel hollered. "Not one single, solitary individual!" His voice dropped to a low hiss. "Have you been so naïve when you prepared your meaningless speech to think that I had not heard it all before?" He looked at the thing on his arm. "What shall we do with her, Mr Sin?"
Sin put his face to Greel's ear and cupped a hand over it in a disturbing parody of childish whispering and Greel smiled wickedly. He nodded and Sin looked over his shoulder at the old man. "Lord Defender," he squeaked. "Did you hear the admission of treason?"
The old Defender looked sad. "I did," he nodded. And he looked at Kara. "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do for you now."
"The jury is unnecessary and will be dismissed," Sin said. The jury vanished into the floor and the shutters closed.
"Thank you, Sin," said Greel. He hovered back down to Kara. "Of the charge of sedition it is the determination of this court that you, Kara Dagan, are guilty and without remorse," he announced loudly and dramatically. "Have you anything to say before you are sentenced?"
"My death will be avenged," Kara replied simply. "And you will be the one to suffer most."
Greel smiled. "Well then, I need not fear, as we do not intend to permit you the luxury of death. You are hereby sentenced on behalf of the Ministers of Justice to two-thirds physiological malconditionment. You will be transported from this, the Australasian Sector, to Great China, where you will be mutated by genetic modification into a bestial creature, and that creature delivered to the Alliance Citadel in Reykjavik and put to work as its guardian." He turned his head. "Release it, Sin."
Sin threw a lever on the throne and Kara felt the floor come from beneath her feet. She gripped the bars to stop herself falling, but Sin threw another switch and the electrical charge shocked her hands away, and she plunged down the chute to her fate.
OneThere was a strange rumbling noise coming from under the floor. At first Victoria thought that it was thunder, but then she woke up properly and remembered where she was. The white walls with their odd but strangely comforting pattern of circles, the bedside table and dresser and the small chair surrounding the bed in which she slept. The warm, comforting bed she'd just been sleeping in until the noise that was so loud she could barely hear her own thoughts interrupted her. It was so warm, the huge eiderdown and the plush pillow so relaxing and comfortable. The noise was dying down and slowly fading, and Victoria was fading too as she sank down into the morass of feather-stuffed whiteness.
And the noise shocked her awake again.
Frowning, Victoria scrambled out of bed and jammed her feet into the ridiculous fluffy dog slippers that the Doctor had given her. He really did have some peculiar things in this place, she thought as she pulled off her collar-to-ankle nightdress and shuffled into the little bathroom area just off her bedroom. The noise was still grinding away as she showered, fading occasionally into silence but always coming back as loud as ever. Victoria picked up the hair-drying machine thing from the dresser and threw the switch. It exploded. She screamed and dropped it. She looked at her hand. It stung, but there was no burn. Sighing, Victoria rubbed her hair as best she could with a towel and dressed.
The door almost hit Jamie in the face as it flung itself open, but he jumped instinctively back just in time for it to miss his nose by just under half an inch before it banged against the wall of the corridor. Jamie strode into the console room, hands clamped over his ears, and looked around for the Doctor. But the Doctor was nowhere to be seen. Jamie looked around the console and suddenly something caught his eye. A pair of checked trousers protruded from the stem part of the console. Jamie crouched down and tugged at them. There was a thump and a cry of pain, and then the Doctor wriggled out from under the console. He frowned at Jamie, rolled out from under the console and picked himself up off the floor. Jamie stood up too, his hands back on his ears. "What's making all that noise?" he shouted as loudly as he could.
"What?" the Doctor shouted back, unable to comprehend him.
Jamie tried again, giving everything his lungs had. "What's making all that noise?" he bellowed.
And the noise stopped.
The Doctor smiled. "Now, what were you trying to say, Jamie?"
Jamie lowered his hands slowly and carefully, expecting the din to start again at any second. "What's making all that noise?" he asked for the third time. "And can you stop it?"
"It's all right," the Doctor assured him. "I think I have stopped it, at least for the time being." He turned to the console and twisted a few dials. "There was some sort of disturbance in the space-time vortex and we got caught up in it."
"Is that bad?" Jamie asked, not sure of some of the Doctor's meaning.
"Well, it's like a big wave at sea, Jamie," the Doctor said, simplifying his earlier explanation. "And we're, or rather the TARDIS is, a small fishing boat that's been hit by the wave and carried off course a bit."
Jamie snorted. "Och, and how much is a bit?"
"Oh, only about a hundred and thirty million miles," the Doctor said, flicking a couple of switches and deliberately avoiding looking at Jamie.
"Ah, well that's all right the…" Jamie stopped as it sank in. "What?"
The Doctor turned and looked at him sheepishly. "We've been kicked right across the galaxy," he admitted. "But there's nothing to worry about. I think it just knocked us in reverse and put us more-or-less back where we were when we took off."
"We're on the Earth, you mean?" Jamie was, for once, quite happy with the situation.
The Doctor nodded. "Quite close, yes. We're between the Earth and the Moon, so I'm going to land and recharge the TARDIS systems."
Jamie scowled. "Not on the Moon, I hope," he said stuffily. "Remember what happened last time."
"Earth was my first choice anyway, Jamie," the Doctor said, pulling a lever down. He checked the computer. "Oslo, 1967. That's nearest to our orbital position."
"What is?" a female voice asked.
The Doctor and Jamie turned toward the doorway. Victoria was standing by the door with her damp hair tied up in a ponytail and wearing a thick sweater, jeans and hillwalking boots. The Doctor beamed. "Norway," he told her. "Where we're about to land. And you're very suitably dressed for it I must say Victoria. What made you choose those particular clothes?"
Victoria shrugged. "I'm not sure. I was woken up by a noise and I just picked up the first thing I could find. But I did have a strange feeling that it was going to be a cold day."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow slowly. "Really?" He looked at the console. "Well, it looks like we've arrived." He switched on the scanner. Outside it was night and the rain was pouring down. "Raincoats and umbrellas, I think," he said, and trotted off to get them.
OSLO, Norway AD1967The rain was hard and heavy and the wind was savage and cold. The darkness of the night wasn't much help either, and as she pulled up her collar and tugged her heavy mackintosh tight around her, Isgaard couldn't help wondering why the hell she'd let Aleks get her into this. The team had all begged and pleaded with her to take the mission, but it was Aleks who'd convinced her. He'd told her to get out there and make a heroine of herself, that she'd go down in history and be known as the great liberator of the common people. There would be so much honour and prestige coming her way. Not to mention the money. Although money wasn't the biggest deal for Isgaard, because her tastes and needs were simple, the fortune brought by her fame would pay for her special institutions for the poor to be set up. She could carry on being a heroine then, making new chances and new hope for the destitute and the forsaken on the streets of not only Scandinavia Major, but the whole world. The war had been going on for almost a century now, and for the first time in that dark age, hope stood a chance. Since the accident had given Aleks the Sight and he had started making predictions of the near future, everyone in the Faith had been filled with fresh optimism. The Promise, furthest into the future of all of Aleks's prophecies, was the one thing that everyone truly believed in, even if there were nothing else. And the fact that, so far, all of his other predictions had proven accurate very soon after he had made them just made people believe in him more. Since the accident he'd found himself unwittingly made head of a cult. Everyone looked to his predictions for hope, Isgaard included. She sloshed through the flooded streets, knowing that even her heavy boots wouldn't protect her and feeling the biting cold in her toes, until she made it to the source of the sound. The howl of the wind had softened just a little, but the other howling noise could be clearly heard. It started to fade and Isgaard broke into a run, desperate to make it before she lost her only guide. She caught a glimpse of something and hurled herself round a corner just as the sound mingled with the wind and was carried away, lost in it. She stopped dead. Someone was coming. Three figures in the distance, coming up the path and closing in on her. They'd spot her and then the mission would be compromised. Quickly she ducked back around the corner out of sight and then carefully peeped out, keeping undercover as the three raincoated figures holding umbrellas and muttering complaints about the weather shambled past her. Her heart fluttering and her eyes streaming, Isgaard marched on through the battering storm in the direction those three people had just come. She reached the kerb and stopped, staring across the road. It was right in front of her. "Oh my Stars," she whispered. "Aleksander be Praised, it's true!"
Keri pulled her head back inside and turned back to face her friend. "Have you seen it out there?" She half-closed her eyes and sighed as she noticed that, as usual, he was tinkering with the controls and not paying her the slightest attention. Annoyed, she marched past the console and pulled open the interior door.
Then he looked up. "What?" he said absently. And he blinked as her words sank in. "Oh right. Hang on." And he flicked a switch. The scanner came on, showing the image of a poorly lit street at night, streaming with heavy rainfall. He grimaced. "Ugh. No, it's not pleasant, is it?"
Keri groaned. "No, it isn't. And why do you never listen to what I say at the time I say it?"
"I do hear it at the time you say it," Aspirodor replied, "but if I'm concentrating on something else I let your words hover just outside the focus of my mind until it's clear. It's not dreadfully efficient but it helps me to think straight and you always get an answer. Can't complain really." And he switched the scanner off. "Fancy a walk?"
Keri pulled a face. "Not especially."
"Shame," Aspirodor said sadly. "Because you do know we have to."
Keri managed a smile. "I know. But we can't wait until it settles?"
"The rainstorm or the temporal turbulence?"
"Either. Or both."
"There's no guarantee that the temporal turbulence actually will die down. We could be trapped here, unable to re-enter the vortex, unless we can find the source of the disruption and block it." He flicked another few switches. "As for the rainstorm, we have to go out in that because we don't know how long we've got to take action. If we don't act soon, the damage to space-time could become permanent."
"Better get a coat, then," Keri nodded reluctantly.
"And a brolly," Aspirodor added. "And Wellingtons, galoshes or army boots. It's not that nice an evening."
"I noticed," Keri muttered.
Aspirodor finally left the console and walked over to Keri, taking both her hands in his as he reached her. He looked into her eyes and smiled. "Come on, Kerttu," he said softly. "It's only a drop of rain."
"The streets are rivers!" Keri chuckled at the trivialisation.
Aspirodor raised an eyebrow. "So much for optimism," he shrugged. "We've still got to go." He stepped through the interior door and opened the locker in the corridor wall. "What colour d'you fancy today?"
"A nice deep purple," Keri smiled.
Aspirodor grinned back.
OSLO, Norway AD1967"Nice place you've brought us to, Doctor!" Jamie spluttered as he, the Doctor and Victoria waded through the darkened streets. Around them, streetlamps were flickering and dying, beaten into submission by the weather. One lamppost had even been pulled over by the wind and now lay right across the road, blocking the access of any vehicles that might dare to try coming that way. There were no cars or vans moving on the road, and the few parked at the roadsides were immersed almost to their mudguards. Earlier Jamie had even seen one car, unmanned and empty, floating down the road like a fishing boat on the Firth of Forth. The rain was still pounding down all around them and the wind was howling. "Why did you have to land us right in the middle of this?"
"I didn't choose the location, Jamie," the Doctor protested. "And as far as I know this is all wrong. There were no floods this serious in Oslo in 1967. It really shouldn't be raining this heavily."
"Och, you've just got it wrong again," Jamie grunted. "That TARDIS is about as reliable as a horse with a wooden leg!"
"I assure you, Jamie, this is Oslo and this is 1967. When we passed that furniture shop with the broken window I looked inside and the calendar hanging behind the counter said August third, 1967 – in Norwegian."
"It looked very much like English to me," said Victoria.
"Well it will," the Doctor said. "You don't speak Norwegian, do you?"
Victoria gave him an odd look. "Of course not. Why should I?"
"No reason at all," the Doctor explained. "But because you don't, the TARDIS does it for you. In a way it's telepathic – it can speak to your mind – and anything you hear or read in a language that you don't understand will be translated into your first language before it actually reaches your plane of conscious thought. As well as that, it affects everyone you communicate with."
"So if the Norwegians don't speak English," Victoria worked out, "anything we say they'll hear in Norwegian."
"Precisely!" the Doctor said delightedly.
Jamie was just about getting it, and he looked oddly at the Doctor. "So you aren't speaking Gaelic, then?"
The Doctor nodded. "Quite right, Jamie. As long as the TARDIS is nearby you'll hear eighteenth century Scots Gaelic no matter what language we or anyone else speaks, unless of course you already understand the other language, then you don't need help."
"Aye, like Victoria. I understand her. She speaks English, like the Redcoats."
The Doctor was surprised. "You actually speak English?"
"Course I do," Jamie said a little hastily, seeming slightly affronted by the question. "We were taught it when we were hiding, just in case the Redcoats found us. That way we'd at least know what they were going to do with us if we got captured."
"We?" Victoria asked.
"Me and my family," Jamie said.
Victoria smiled. "I didn't know you had family."
Jamie shrugged. "Well, I don't now. Other than you."
"How sweet," Victoria simpered.
Jamie turned his attention to the Doctor. "Hey, Doctor?"
The Doctor looked round at him. "Hm?"
"What language do you speak?"
But the Doctor couldn't answer. And Jamie couldn't hear him. And Victoria couldn't see. And neither of them could breathe. They were on their backs under the water, kicking and writhing and fighting to get back up. It was freezing cold and Victoria thought her heart might stop. Jamie had cried out as he'd fallen and his lungs were full of water.
And the Doctor could feel a hand at his throat.
TwoREYKJAVIK, Iceland, Scandinavia Minor AD5029The sky was different here, strange in a way after one had gotten used to living in the nine tenths of the world that were covered with polluted purple skies, and uncomfortable to look at. Well, during the day. But now the once stark white sky had turned to a murky grey with a few sparse patches of dull white showing through like patches of snow in a thaw that hadn't quite yet turned to slush. The temperature had dropped, as usual, and made 'the Coldest Place on Earth' a fraction colder as it reached about one eighth of a degree above zero. Even the sun had faded away as if hiding from the chill, and tiny snowflakes slowly and gently drifted to the ground. A few bare trees cast jet-black silhouettes against the whiteness surrounded them as the wind fought to sway their dried out, lifeless branches and a few bits of wrecked vehicles lay scattered around, long abandoned and rusting. Chloe Knight activated her sensor-protective forcefield and looked at the weather on the holograph screen of the hovertruck she was driving. It snowed practically every night in Reykjavik these days, but she wasn't usually out in it. As it happened, she was only out this time because the Ministers, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to change her work detail and put her on the supply run, collecting food, technology and other resources for the Citadel. For a while Chloe did wonder why they never built the landing port for the supply shuttle closer to the Citadel, and then she reminded herself of security and the fact that the Alliance had been having a lot of 'insurgent trouble' lately. It was likely that the port was put sixty kilometres outside Reykjavik so that terrorists and rebels would have further to travel and have a better chance of getting lost, exhausted or ambushed. Sensible enough, she thought, and at least she'd been able to get out of the Citadel before nightfall, when the weather was still bearable. Unfortunately there had been a few complications moving a particularly large case of medical supplies from the shuttle to the truck and she'd been late starting the journey back. But the snow wasn't quite a driving hazard yet and she was nearly home, so it wasn't that bad. Or it wouldn't have been if her ThermAd hadn't been packing up. It was her only source of warmth and she feared that if it finally shut down then she'd become a solid block of ice. The heat injectors were melting snow out in front of the vehicle to make sure the scanners didn't get clogged, and as she drew up to the gates of the imposing fortress Chloe let out a deep sigh of relief. A cluster of pink lights, just visible through the snow, blinked on in the distance and two figures in snow fatigues and masks ran toward the truck, brandishing beryllium pulse rifles. Chloe applied the brakes and the truck drew sensibly to a halt. She shut off the forcefield, turned up her ThermAd in the vain hope that it would help, and opened the window.
One of the men stuck a gun in her face. "State name and purpose of visit," he demanded.
Chloe scowled and Craig Heskith, who knew exactly who she was and what she was doing at the Citadel gates at this time of night. She'd partnered him when she was in the Security Detail. But that was it. Security. That was what it was all about, and having worked in the Security Detail, Chloe knew that at least as well as anyone. "Chloe Knight returning from special duties by order of the Administrator Marshal," she announced.
Heskith put out a hand. "Ident patch."
Chloe took a small crystal cylinder from her pocket and handed it to him. He inserted the top of it into a small square gadget on his belt, held the gadget up and peered at its screen through his goggles. Satisfied, he took the crystal out and handed it back, then ran down to the little security gatehouse. A moment later the pink lights turned blue. Chloe closed the window and fired up the engines again as the huge iron gats swung slowly open. As soon as the truck was over the boundary line, the guards reactivated the force shield dome and resealed the gates. Piloting the truck further into the grounds, she veered away from the Citadel itself toward the hovertruck docking area. When she reached it, she activated the shutter by remote control, waited for it to roll up and drove in. With the engine switched off and the gravity field slowly dispersing, the truck floated to the ground like one of the snowflakes outside. The shutter rattled down as Chloe flung open the door, switched off her ThermAd, pulled off her gloves and ran to the air heaters to warm her numb fingers.
"Cold outside?" the man behind her asked.
Chloe whirled round. A moment ago she'd been the only person in the vehicle bay, but now she found herself facing a tall, handsome man wearing a black suit with a white shirt and cravat, black boots, a long black overcoat and black gloves. And pointing a huge gun of no known design right at her. She went for her own weapon to defend herself, but a flash from the intruder's rifle sent the little STP spinning from her hand and wiped the freshly restored feeling back out of her fingers. "Shit," she hissed, wringing her shocked hand with her good one. She felt like she'd just been given an electric shock, which meant that the attachment on top of the gun barrel was probably configured to Sensory Trauma Projector standards. The barrel probably killed, though.
"Quite," the man said smoothly. He was English, and pretty posh by the sound of his voice. It was deep and husky, very manly and – if Chloe were honest with herself – attractive. And he looked pretty good too. He was white, but with a slightly dark complexion. His eyes were grey and watery and his square jaw bore a subtle five o'clock shadow. "Now please don't let's have anymore silliness, Miss Knight. It would be tragic if I should have to resort to measures more extreme than those to which I have already been forced."
Chloe glanced quickly to her left. The alarm panel was fifteen yards away and there was no way she'd reach it without this guy totalling her with that gun first. The path to her right was blocked by the truck. "Who are you," she demanded of him, hoping that if she kept him talking it might distract him long enough for one of the technicians or someone to come in and spot him and raise the alarm. "How did you get in here…"
"And what do I want?" the man concluded for her. "Well, I didn't come for the third degree. I need your help with a little enterprise I'm managing on behalf of the organisation I represent."
"You're an insurgent," Chloe said. "What makes you think I'll help you?"
The man shrugged. "The fact that I'll kill you if you don't. And not with this," he lifted the gun slightly in a gesture, but kept it trained on her. "That would be quick and painless, and we don't want that, now do we Chloe?" And he grinned wickedly.
Magnus Greel took the seat offered to him at the long dining table in the Great Hall of the Citadel and clasped his hands together on the table respectfully, looking around the table to each Minister in turn with a smile and a nod. In turn, the Ministers smiled and nodded graciously back and completed the ritual just in time for the Steward of the Hall to strike the gong. Once the gong had sounded, the Ministers engaged each other in polite conversation while the servants emerged from the kitchens and began to serve the food and drinks. No one ate or, drank, though. They were all still waiting. "Is the Administrator Marshal detained, Karl?" Greel asked of the Minister opposite him, a seat away from the head of the table.
Karl Klass nodded. He was the Marshal's aide and as such aware of all his movements. "There has been another incident in Australasia Major, Magnus. It's caused a lot of unrest."
Greel was annoyed. The Australasian Sector was under his jurisdiction and therefore it was up to him to keep everyone and everything in order there, but in the last decade or so there had been more insurgency in Australasia Major than in any other part of the world, and people were beginning to lose confidence in Greel. "Those insolent sewer-rats cause more chaos with every new day," he spat. "Will these dogs never come to heel?"
"Only if you command them to heel, Magnus," Klass replied firmly. "The Administrator Marshal has noticed that the Citizens of Australasia are out of control – your control. You were appointed to govern that sector, fully aware of the responsibilities of your duties, and now that our grip around it loosens the Alliance looks to blame you."
"Does the Marshal think me weak?" Greel demanded. "Unfit to carry out my duties?"
"As a Minister of Justice, no," Klass assured him, "but he seriously considers replacing you as a Sector Administrator. If you do not take this country you are expected to rule by the throat and shake the rebellion out of it then an investigation by Alliance Official Audit may be called for."
"AOA are welcome to come and kiss my…"
"You'll be suspended, Magnus," Klass whispered urgently but cautiously, making sure that the other Ministers wouldn't hear. "Stripped of all power and confined to the Oubliette. And while you're tucked away in the Ministerial Suite there, AOA won't be kissing anything. They'll be going through every file and record and sticky note you own, looking for flaws and holes and complications. And if they find any they'll tear you down and you'll be declared a Failure of the Alliance. You'll end up chained to the wall outside, a MalCon like all our other guard dogs. Do you want that?"
"Of course not. I want to be able to do my job and keep the System working the way it should, serving the Marshal, the Ministry and the Alliance together. It isn't my fault that those ungrateful bastards in the Civil and Domestic Units see fit to throw back in my face all the work I do to keep them washed, dressed and fed. It's my responsibility to govern them in a way that gives them all the economical stability they need, but it isn't my responsibility to accept their abuse when all I do isn't enough to satisfy their greed."
"And it isn't the Ministry's either. You were given a job to do, so do it. The Administrator Marshal never accepts failure, and neither does he allow the fact of overwhelming odds to excuse a lack of control."
"My control is not lacking!"
"Then don't let the insurgent scum get the better of you."
Greel was seething. "I need time."
Klass shook his head. "If it were up to me, you'd get it, but I'm afraid I'm the only one who's still got any faith in you." He sneakily popped a plum in his mouth from the bowl beside his plate. "Sort it out, Magnus. In the end it'll be you in the Reconditioning Labs if you don't."
The gong sounded again and all the Ministers looked up to where it hung at the top of the grand staircase. The Steward was standing beside it, holding the striker. "His Supremacy, the Administrator Marshal," he announced. Everyone rose from their chairs and stood straight with heads high and hands behind their backs. The main doors on the landing opened and the short, dark man strode in. There was no elegant armour or long cloak; he wore a perfectly ordinary dark blue suit and tie. His black hair was sleeked back with gel and his swarthy features made him look as rich in blood as he was in money. With a sharp-edged little smile, he trotted down the stairs and sat at the head of the table. "You may all be seated," he declared in a heavy South American accent.
Everyone sat down and Klass nodded to the newcomer. "Good evening, Supremacy."
"Thank you, Karl," said the Marshal. "I think it has been for me, but perhaps not so for some among us tonight." He looked accusingly at Greel, who did not speak. "You may begin."
The meal started proper then, with everyone tucking it to meat and vegetables and fruit of every variety from the splendid banqueting table. Rumour had it that this long table had actually once belonged to the Ancient English Royal Family centuries ago. It was certainly a magnificent antique. As they ate, the Ministers continued their discussions. "How are affairs in Australasia?" Klass asked the Marshal.
"Oh, Minor is fine," the Marshal said blithely. "But Australasia Major is slowly becoming an embarrassment that the Alliance can ill afford." He cast another glance at Greel.
Greel stood up. "Do not worry, Supremacy. I will teach those seditious vermin that prosperity comes with a price!" And he shoved the chair out of the way and marched toward the staircase.
"Magnus," Karl Klass called after him. "What about your dinner?"
"Save me some, Karl," he replied. "I have more pressing matters to attend to." On the way out he grabbed a serving girl by the wrist. She squeaked with pain and he softened his grip, but she still allowed him to drag her to his quarters, where he laid her on his large four-poster bed and lifted her skirts. After all, to refuse the request of a Minister was insurgency, and everyone knew what happened to rebels.
OSLO, Norway AD1967"Don't manhandle him like that, you idiot!" Aleks shouted at the massive bear of a man clutching the Doctor's sodden collar and holding him, limp and unconscious by it. "You could kill him, and you know what that would mean."
"Sorry, Aleks," Disciple Schneider replied with a guilty look, altering his hold to grip the back of the collar and holding the inert, dangling Doctor by the scruff of his neck. "You really think he's it?"
"Issy does," Aleks said. "She's seen the Artefact." He looked round in the battering wind and rain to see if he could spot anyone on the team not doing anything. Two figures were sloshing toward him and he smiled. "Kirland, Michinov!" he shouted. "Any sign of Disciple Nystrom?"
"She's coming," Disciple Michinov shouted. "About a hundred yards behind us. Anything we can do?"
Aleks nodded as Kirland and Michinov reached him. "You, Pyotr, can go and help Joel get the rescues onto the ambulance and get them out of here." He looked at Kirland. "Ellie, can you get the ambulance back to Faith One and run the recovery procedure?"
Disciple Kirland nodded. "Sure. When will it arrive?"
"Couple of minutes. Wait for it here. Pyotr, with me." And Aleks strode off.
As they slugged through the drowning street, Pyotr looked at Aleks with concern. "Are you sure it's safe to use the ambulance in this zone?" he asked in a hushed voice. "What if they trace us?"
"They won't. I've arranged a distraction."
"What if it's spotted, then? This is 1967. Trucks still have wheels in this period."
"And every city has its strange phenomena, Pete. Once there was a story of it raining live frogs in Old America somewhere. Then there was that ancient sailing ship they found with a hot meal on the table and everyone missing with no explanation. And as for the so-called Bermuda Triangle…"
Pyotr smirked. "Documented throughout history with one massive secret irony," he said with relish. "The fact that we'd only ever discover the true nature of the Triangle by creating it ourselves."
"You're responsible for the Bermuda Triangle?" a surprised voice said from behind them. Both Pyotr and Aleks whirled round to find themselves facing one of the rescues – the little man with the amazing face. His black hair was soaking wet and sticking to his cheeks and forehead, his clothes were dripping and he looked a mess, but he seemed in perfect health.
Aleks was stunned. "How did you recover so quickly?"
"Respiratory bypass system," the little man replied. "And I'd really rather not explain. I think your remark about the Bermuda Triangle is much more interesting. Did you really create it?"
"Not us personally," Pyotr said. "The Alliance."
The little man raised an eyebrow. "And who are they when they're at home?"
Aleks looked at him with solemn eyes. "Are you a Time Agent?"
"Why do you ask?"
"I thought so. We're from the fifty-first. In our period the Supreme Icelandic Alliance rules over everything, except for Time and they're working on that. They're tyrants and the whole world's been living under a reign of terror for almost a hundred years. The Alliance was once the Democratic Electorate Alliance, a benevolent single government deputising for the world and making everyone healthy, wealthy and wise. In 4912 scientists found evidence of freak timeslips and someone actually came through one of these gaps in Time, materialising at the Alliance Citadel in Iceland. He became a steward to the Administrator General of the Alliance, who wasn't really a leader, more of an organising principle – an executor of the People's desires. The AG came to love the 'castaway' as they called him like a son, and when he died he left orders that his protégé would take over. But the protégé was corrupt and he quickly established a military state all over the world, changing his title to Administrator Marshal and effectively putting the world in chains. The whole human race amounts to masters and slaves now."
"Except for you," said the little man.
"We're outlaws. They call us insurgents, but we prefer the term libertarians."
"Or freedom fighters," Pyotr added. "They execute us for it, or worse."
"Worse?" asked the little man.
Aleks nodded gravely. "My ex-partner, Kara, was arrested on charges of sedition in Australia. They sent her to China and put her in a laboratory. The laboratory where they turn the innocent human beings who dare demand their freedom into horrific creatures…"
"MalCons," Pyotr continued with bile in his throat. "Once human, genetically corrupted and twisted into monsters with huge teeth and slavering jaws. Once created, they're put in chains outside the Citadel to be used as guards. They call them MalCons because of their policy that the malcontent should be malconditioned."
The little man's expression was one of horror. "But that's diabolical! It's the most amoral thing I've ever heard. We must stop this Administrator whoever-he-is!"
Aleks smiled. "We were hoping you'd say that. We want you and your friends to come with us to the fifty-first century and help us to tear the Supreme Alliance down. I know it's a lot to ask, but you're a Time Agent and we need someone with Time on his side."
"You still haven't told me about the Bermuda Triangle," the little man said, deciding caution to be the best option at present. "How did it come to exist?"
"It's the only stable terminal of the Zygma Beam," Pyotr said.
"Don't you mean Sigma?" the little man asked.
Aleks shook his head. "It's not light radiation, my friend. Research into the timeslips I mentioned brought about the discovery of chronozygotes – self-reproducing time cells – and experimentation proved that controlled superlucent emissions could actually adjust and readjust these cells, thus making limited Time travel possible. Zygma is a contraction of Zygote Manipulator."
The little man's jaw dropped. "But that's completely unstable! You can't trust that method!"
"We don't," said Aleks. "We're trying to stop the Alliance, remember?"
"If that's the only form of Time travel, how do you get Time Agents?"
"We thought you'd know. You are one, aren't you?"
"No."
Aleks's face fell. "Oh no. Then we're mistaken."
The little man shook his head. "No. I said I'm not a Time Agent, but I do travel in Time by a means other than Zygote Manipulation. I come from a pla… a culture that has perfected proper Time travelling facilities. This area of history isn't my speciality."
Aleks sighed heavily. "When the Zygma beam was first tested a few specialists were sent through with orders to alter history in favour of the Alliance. They never came back, but now and again one pops up. They seem to contain the necessary energy to conduct themselves from one period to another occasionally. You get good and bad ones. Most are still loyal to the Alliance. Where does your loyalty lie?"
"In justice, Mr…"
Aleks's face lit up. "I'm so glad to hear it." He firmly shook the little man's hand. "Nystrom. Aleksander Nystrom. And this is Pyotr Michinov."
The little man shook Michinov's hand. "How do you do," he smiled. "I'm the Doctor."
Pyotr gasped. "By the Promise…"
The Doctor frowned. "Pardon?"
"Do not concern yourself, Doctor," Aleks said. He was glowing. "All will be revealed. But first we must get you and your friends to our base and make sure you're healthy."
"Your base in the fifty-first century?"
"That's right."
"How do we get there?"
"We have access to the Zygma beam. Stolen. A necessary evil."
The pieces of the puzzle suddenly all came together inside the Doctor's mind. "But the connection is impossible to stabilise, isn't it?" he said confidently. "You haven't been able to disrupt Time without disrupting space and that's why Norway is flooded in 1967."
Aleks nodded. "Tragically, Doctor, that is true."
At that moment a long vehicle appeared around the corner at the end of the street. The Doctor beamed. The truck was hovering in the air, floating right over the waters of the flood. It floated gently to a halt and a side canopy rose up for a couple of men to load Jamie and Victoria inside.
And then the rain stopped.
REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Scandinavia Minor AD5029The lights went out.
The Marshal looked up. "What's happened? Where is the power?"
Someone switched a scanning device on. Its tiny blue light flickered in the blackness. "Life support is still operational, Supremacy, but on Backup Battery Power only."
"Will the backup battery last?" the Marshal demanded.
"Only for sixteen hours," said Minister Airdrie. "After that we can all worry about freezing to death."
"Have you been able to trace the fault?"
Airdrie scanned a little further into the system. "That's odd."
"What is?"
"According to the checker, there is no fault."
"You mean it's been deactivated?"
"It does look that way, Supremacy."
The Marshal was frustrated. "Can you work out who it was from up here?"
The blue light flashed again. "Yes. There's a servo checker containing everybody's individual security code, and you need your code to shut it down." He scanned again. "Codes in this case belong to one C E Knight, one of our members of security staff."
"A member of our staff shutting our power down?" the Marshal spluttered. "Ridiculous!"
"The remote can't be wrong, Supremacy. No disrespect intended." And Airdrie switched the remote checker off. Then suddenly the door at the top of the stairs was blown wide open.
"So where the bloody hell's Paul?" the power room watch officer asked of her second-in-command.
Hartlin shrugged. "Haven't a clue, Lacey. Last I heard he went into main power core. The Marshal's got some crazy idea one of us shut it down."
Lacey raised an eyebrow. "Eh?"
"That's all I was told. The feed signature of one of our security ident patches was the last one saved in the user log, and it does record them all. No exceptions."
Lacey frowned. "Something's funny going on, isn't it?"
"Something always is," Hartlin answered.
"Not exactly an optimist, are you?" Lacey smirked humourlessly.
There was a bang and a flash. Something exploded above their heads. Lacey whirled round. The second flash caught her full in the face. She crumpled to the ground and Hartlin instinctively dropped, crouching beside her dead body. "Can't blame me," he muttered to himself.
The gunman ran across the dimly-lit landing, dodging blaster fire from the security guards called in the moment the Marshal realised there was an intruder and monkeying his way up the banister rails linking the staircases from landing to landing. The Marshal was fuming. He couldn't fathom how an intruder had actually managed to get into the Great Hall, but he knew that the insurgent must have stowed away on the supply shuttle the Marshal himself had also used to sneak to and from Australasia. He would have Magnus Greel's head on a spike for this. He shouted to his security guards. "Stop floundering, you stupid fools! Stop that intruder! Stop him and bring him to me alive. I want to see to it personally that he suffers the very worst tortures our society has to offer for this insult to the Supremacy!" Suddenly there was a blaster flash right next to him and he yelped and jumped back. Looking up to the stairs, he saw a shadow move and he pointed. "Up there, you nincompoops!" But of course, in the dark each guard had a different idea of where he meant. They all fired at once, but there were no hits. The intruder kept moving, occasionally stopping to release a volley of fire. He hauled himself onto the fourth landing, high above anyone else in the hall, and slipped a metal cylinder from his belt, twisting it hard. It clicked and there was a whistle of power-up, then he threw it down onto the landing. He flicked down the protective goggles at exactly the right moment. The flash grenade fired a second later, temporarily blinding everyone except its thrower. While the security guards were disorientated, the intruder took something else from his belt and used it. Once he had finished, he flipped a switch on his belt and, with the force shield dome powerless because Chloe had helped shut it down, the visitor transmatted easily away. A moment later, the lights came back on. There was a guard standing right under the intruder's last position, on the third landing. The Marshal shouted to him. "You, get up there and see what he's done."
The guard ran to the end of the landing, up the stairs and back to the centre of the fourth. "He's painted a message on the wall, Supremacy."
The Marshal was flabbergasted. "What does it say?"
As confused as everyone else, the guard read it out. "This spectacular distraction was brought to you by Valentine," he said, turning to look down at the Marshal. "Enjoy your evening."
The doors of the hovertruck sealed and Disciple Kirland fired up the engine. The Doctor rubbed his hands together as the thermal units inside initialised, feeding warm air into the cab. "Ah, that's much better," he smiled. "How are my companions doing?"
"They'll be fine," Kirland promised him with a caring smile, and he could tell instantly that she was the kind-natured sort who was probably a doctor or nurse – or even a charity worker. "We've put them into cell suspension for a moment, so they'll basically be in a perfectly safe controlled coma. They won't get any better that way, but they won't get any worse either and it'll buy time for us to get them to out hospital and make sure they're both perfectly well." She looked the Doctor up and down. He was still soaking wet. "Are you all right?"
"Perfectly, thank you," the Doctor nodded happily. "Please don't worry about me."
Kirland nodded. "Right." She glanced at Aleks. "We're ready to enter the beam. Issy still hasn't arrived, though. She must've been delayed."
"She'll have to wait until we come back, then," Aleks acknowledged. "Stand by." He touched the tips of his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes.
And a huge crack split in space itself, its brilliant light pouring out into the blackness of the Norwegian night. The Doctor gaped. "Opening a fracture in space-time by the power of thought," he breathed. "That's incredible… not to mention inexcusably dangerous."
"Please forgive us, Doctor," Aleks murmured without opening his eyes. "It is, as I said, a necessary evil."
Kirland navigated the truck into the heat of the fissure. There was a bright flash and then an explosion. The whole vehicle shook. The Doctor nearly banged his head on the dashboard. He dug in and looked at Kirland. "What just happened?"
"Warp field inversion!" Kirland shouted, checking her instruments. "We just crossed the path of another time ship."
And the Doctor realised the truth with horror. "You've collided with my TARDIS on the way here! You're entirely responsible for my being here in the first place. You stupid, idiotic nincompoops! Can you even imagine the paradox you almost created?"
"It's worse than that, Doctor," Aleks said solemnly, opening his eyes. "As your ship departed from the fissure its dematerialisation safety system sealed it automatically – and prematurely."
"Meaning?" the Doctor demanded.
Aleks's eyes were watering. "The back of the ambulance is still outside the fissure, Doctor," he whispered. "I'm afraid we've lost the children."
TO BE CONTINUED…