Chapter 1
In a dusty, neglected barn, the Doctor put down the sack, unwrapped a brass inlaid clockwork box, and inspected it.
"How... how do you work?" He muttered to himself. "Why is there never a big red button?"
A scuffling noise outside made him get up and open the door. "Hello? Is somebody there?"
"It's nothing," a woman said from behind him. "It's just a wolf."
A Bad Wolf.
A pretty blonde was sitting on the box.
"Don't sit on that!" He exclaimed, he rushed over and pulled her up by her elbow.
"Why not?"
He ushered her towards the door. "Because it's not a chair, it's the most dangerous weapon in the universe." He pushed her through the door and closed it behind her.
"Why can't it be both?" She made him jump as he turned from the door and saw her sitting back on the box. "Why did you park so far away? Didn't you want her to see it?"
"Want who to see?"
"The TAR-DIS. You walked for miles, and miles and miles and miles and miles."
"I was thinking."
"I heard you."
"You heard me?"
"No more. No more," she mimicked.
"No more" he echoed in his mind, the decision weighing heavy on his shoulders.
"No more. No more," the blonde taunted.
"Stop it."
"No more," she said teasingly.
"Who are you?" He asked, but before she could answer, the clockwork in the box made a noise.
"It's activating. Get out of here," he warned her. Not that it would have made any difference. You would have to have been halfway across the galaxy to avoid the effects of this box.
He tried to take hold of the box, but it burnt his fingers. "Ow!"
"What's wrong?"
"The interface is hot."
The blonde woman gave him a saucy smile. "Well, I do my best."
The Doctor ignored her, studying the Moment to see if he could activate it. "There's a power source inside." He then remembered what he had heard about the Moment, the Galaxy Eater. The final work of the ancients of Gallifrey. A weapon so powerful, the operating system became sentient. According to legend, it developed a conscience. "You're the interface?" He asked uncertainly.
"They must have told you the Moment had a conscience," she said. She waved her fingers with a smile. "Hello! Oh, look at you, stuck between a girl and a box... Story of your life, eh, Doctor?"
"You know me?"
"I hear you... All of you, jangling around in that dusty old head of yours. I chose this face and form especially for you. It's from your past. Or possibly your future, I always get those two mixed up."
"I don't have a future," he told her. He was about to make sure of that.
"I think I'm called Rose Tyler. No. Yes. No, sorry, no, no, in this form, I'm called Bad Wolf. Are you afraid of the big bad wolf, Doctor?"
"Stop calling me Doctor." He hadn't used that name for a very long time. He didn't deserve to use it.
"That's the name in your head."
"It shouldn't be. I've been fighting this war for a long time. I've lost the right to be the Doctor."
"Then you're the one to save us all."
"Yes." No one else wanted the job, he thought to himself.
"If I ever develop an ego, you've got the job."
"If you have been inside my head, then you know what I've seen. The suffering. Every moment in time and space is burning. It must end, and I intend to end it the only way I can."
"And you're going to use me to end it by killing them all, Daleks and Time Lords alike. I could, but there will be consequences for you."
"I have no desire to survive this," he said sadly.
"Then that's your punishment. If you do this, if you kill them all, then that's the consequence. You live... Gallifrey. You're going to burn it, and all those Daleks with it, but all those children too. How many children on Gallifrey right now?"
"I don't know," he admitted. It was too terrible to contemplate.
"One day you will count them. One terrible night. Do you want to see what that will turn you into? Come on, aren't you curious?" She asked him, bumping shoulders with him. She looked up and a whirling time fissure opened above them.
"I'm opening windows on your future. A tangle in time through the days to come, to the man today will make of you." Or possibly his past… or possibly both, she always did get those two mixed up. It was hardly surprising really, when a sentient weapon of mass destruction is created by a race who see the past, the present, and the future as one and the same. Some individuals who lived in linear time didn't know whether they were coming or going. Most of the time the Moment didn't know whether it was coming, had arrived, or had already left.
While she contemplated that concept, a fez dropped through the portal. "Okay, I wasn't expecting that."
The Doctor walked over and picked up the hat, brushing the dust and straw away with his sleeve.
"Who's he talking to?" He heard a young woman ask from the portal.
"He said himself," another woman answered, as he looked up into the swirling vortex.
He looked down at the blonde woman, and she smiled at him. He raised his eyebrows. "Well, I suppose I had better return this hat to its owner."
She nodded, stood up, and walked over to stand beside him, both looking up into the portal. He bent his knees, and jumped into the air. Instead of falling back down to the ground, he continued to rise into the air, into the portal.
"Yes, yes. I want to know more about this planet. Your technology, you say, reached its peak over two thousand years ago?" The elderly, silver haired Doctor asked Arbitan, the Keeper of the Conscience of Marinus.
His granddaughter Susan, and her school teachers Ian and Barbara were listening with interest.
"Yes, and all our knowledge culminated in the manufacture of this. At the time, it was called the Conscience of Marinus. Marinus, that is the name of our planet. At first, this machine was simply a judge and jury that was never wrong, and unfair. And then we added to it, improved on it, made it more and more sophisticated so that finally it became possible to radiate its power and influence the minds of men throughout the planet. They no longer had to decide what was wrong or right. The machine decided for them," Arbitan explained.
"I see. And in that case it was possible to eliminate evil from the minds of men for all time," the Doctor observed.
Arbitan smiled at the Doctor's insight. "That is exactly what happened. Marinus was unique in the universe. Robbery, fear, hate, violence were unknown among us. Yes, yes, for seven centuries we prospered, and then a man named Yartek found a means of overcoming the power of the machine. He and his followers, the Voords, were able to rob, exploit, kill, cheat. Our people could not resist because violence is alien to them."
Ian could see the flaw in the design. "But surely by this time this machine had become a great danger to you? If it had fallen into the hands of the Voords, they could have controlled Marinus. Why didn't you destroy it?"
Arbitan nodded his head sadly. "We always hoped to find a way of modifying it and making it again irresistible. So instead of destroying it, we removed the five key microcircuits."
"What did you do with them?" Ian asked.
"One of them, I kept... There it is." Arbitan pointed to a small electronic device. "The other four were taken and put in places of safety all over Marinus. Only I know where they are, and now the time has come when they must be recovered."
Barbara, the ever practical teacher, saw a simple solution. "Well why don't you simply make new keys?"
"The keys are very simple, but the microcircuits inside are very complicated," Arbitan told her. "A permutation of numbers and signals that would take a thousand years to unravel. And besides, since the keys were hidden, I have worked on this machine and modified it, so that when they're replaced…"
"... When they're replaced it would mean that your machine is irresistible and you can overcome and control the Voords again," the Doctor reasoned. His Time Lord mind leaping ahead.
Arbitan nodded. "Yes."
"Surely there must be someone you can send for these keys?" Ian asked.
Arbitan had a sad, far away look in his eyes. "Through the years all my friends, all my followers, have gone. They have never returned." He looked down, tears stinging his eyes. "Last year I sent my daughter. She has not come back. All I have now to comfort me is the distant echo of her voice, the imagined sound of her footsteps. But now your coming's brought new hope. Oh yes, yes, you must find the keys for me."
"Ian, wait a minute. The Doctor's miles behind. I don't know about you, but I felt terrible leaving that old man. We seem to be his last hope," Barbara said, referring to the Doctor declining to help Arbitan.
"Yes, I wish there had been something we could have done for him," Ian agreed, but they didn't see time lines like the Doctor did.
"Oh, come on, Grandfather," Susan encouraged as the Doctor caught up with them.
"I'm coming, child. Don't rush, I'm coming." He gave a wry smile. "Well, don't just stand there, come along, come along. Keeping me waiting." He tried to put the key in the TARDIS lock, but something was forming a barrier a couple of inches away from it. "What?"
"What is it?" Barbara asked, sensing that something was wrong.
Ian looked closer. "Well, it's some sort of invisible barrier. What do you make of it, Doctor?"
"I don't know. I don't know. There's no substance here. Have a look round the side, child. Go along," he instructed Barbara.
"It's like an invisible wall," Barbara told him.
"Is it a circular barrier?" the Doctor asked, suspecting that some external force might have been preventing him from putting the key in the lock.
Susan had a closer look. "Goes all the way round. Can't see a cause to it."
"No, of course, there wouldn't be. The molecules would be at their weakest. Ha! It's fascinating, Chesterton." The Doctor had his smug face on. "Yes, I've got it, I've got it. You know, I think a force barrier has been put up around the ship."
"I am sorry you forced me to keep you from your ship, but your refusal to help me left me no alternative," Arbitan said from no discernable direction, causing them to look around them.
"Arbitan, where are you?" Ian asked the sky.
"That is not important. If you help me find the keys of Marinus, I will let you have access to your machine when you have delivered all the keys to me. If not, you will stay on the island without food or water. The choice is yours." It was the best example of Hobson's choice they had heard in a good while.
"Choice?" Ian said to the sky. "What choice?"
In the Conscience of Marinus control room, the group were studying a map supplied by Arbitan.
"Well, at least we know the rough location of the keys. Now all we have to do is get them," Ian said
"As soon as you have started your voyage, I will release the force field. Your ship will be available to you when you return," Arbitan told them.
"IF we return," Barbara said, reminding them that no one else had managed it so far.
"I know we have no choice, but this whole affair is outrageous. Blackmail, pure and simply blackmail," a very irritated Doctor said.
Ian rolled his eyes at the futility of protesting about the situation. "Oh, Doctor, don't lets go through all that again. Let's just get on with the job."
"Perhaps you will bring me news of my daughter," Arbitan said, his eyes taking on that far away look again. "I miss her... Yes, I miss her."
The Doctor was unimpressed by the longing of what he considered to be a blackmailer. "And another thing. If you think I'm going to travel across that acid sea in one of these primitive submersibles, you're very much mistaken," he said sharply.
Arbitan was quite hurt by that. He may have been desperate, but he would afford all the help he could to the group of adventurers. "I wouldn't think of asking you to travel in such an absurd way. No, I'm going to give you a device which will enable you to move from place to place."
"Oh, really," the Doctor said, wondering what other mode of uncomfortable transport was on offer.
Arbitan started to hand out futuristic travel dial bracelets. "The principle is much the same as that of your ship…" he started to explain to the Doctor. "Place that around your wrist, please," he told Barbara, before continuing his explanation. "… You told me about, except this will enable you to cross space, not time."
"What, this little thing?" Ian said sceptically.
"Oh don't be ridiculous, my boy. This is a perfectly acceptable method of travel," the Doctor said as he put the device on his wrist and examined it. "Very compact and very neat, sir, if I may say. Yes."
"They're all programmed to the same destination. You have only to twist the dial once," Arbitan explained.
"Like this?" Barbara said, disappearing as she turned the control dial.
"Barbara!" Susan gasped as she looked at where she had just been standing.
Ian looked at Arbitan menacingly. "What! What have you done to Barbara?"
Arbitan ignored him, his words coming rapidly. "You must not waste time. You must follow, quickly. One final word. If when you return, you find the Voord have taken this building, do not let them get the keys. You understand? Destroy them! Now, now, twist the dials."
Ian, Susan and the Doctor twisted the dials on their bracelets, and the room Arbitan was standing in disappeared. The Doctor seemed to be travelling down a swirling, vortex tunnel. In fact, falling would be a better description. Susan and Barbara's voices sounded different, probably due to the vortex he reasoned.
"Dear God, that man's clever," he thought he heard Barbara say. "Come on."
"Where are we going?" That younger sounding voice must have been Susan.
"My office, otherwise known as the Tower of London." What was Barbara talking about?
THUD.
"Ooof!" The Doctor dropped out of the swirling tunnel onto a hard wooden floor. "Well, that's a fine pickle. Arbitan could have warned us that the travel dials didn't compensate for changes in elevation."
He sat up and rubbed his sore back and bottom as he looked around. He had to be careful these days, a fall like that could send him straight into a regeneration.
"Susan… Ian… Barbara," he called out, but his voice echoed around the empty room. Wherever he was, he was on his own. And the 'wherever' seemed to be a room in an art gallery. He walked over to one of the holographic paintings to examine it, and crunched the broken glass on the floor.
"Hmm," he said, stroking his chin. "The shatter pattern seems to indicate that the glass was shattered outwards… Fascinating."