The
Mind of Death
by
AstroGirl
The Master's laughter echoed through the halls of the Gallifreyan Capitol as his TARDIS vanished from the planet. It was true that he had not gained what he'd hoped, but he'd still made fools of them all, escaping from under their noses again. And it would only be a matter of time before he achieved his ultimate success: an escape from death itself.
For now, however... The evil cackle slowly faded to a wheeze, and the Master leaned against the support of the TARDIS console, cursing. He'd been so close. He'd held the power of the Eye of Harmony in his hand, felt it beginning to stir and build inside him. But thanks to the Doctor it had not been enough, and he would have to bear this disgusting, decaying form a while longer. Grunting, he slammed his deteriorating fist onto the controls, choosing the parameters for his destination coordinates almost at random. He scarcely cared where he was going. What mattered now was that he get away, far from Gallifrey, and give himself time to plan.
He lowered himself to the console room floor, concentrating all his will on maintaining his physical form against its constant, recurring, and highly irritating attempts to die. His TARDIS spun on through the Vortex. On its instrument panel, the warning signal meant to inform him that he was caught in another timeship's wake blinked away unseen.
"Well," said the Doctor as the Time Rotor settled into its landing position. "Here we are! First stop on our random tour of the universe!"
"Are you sure the randomizer is working properly, Doctor?" said Romana. "I still say that turbulence we felt in the Vortex isn't normal."
"And I still say you worry too much. The TARDIS is prone to these little hiccups now and again. Aren't you girl?" He patted the console affectionately. "It was probably just a bit of transdimensional debris caught in our temporal wake. Nothing to worry about... Unless it turns out to be something to worry about, in which case, we can worry about it when it does. Shall we see where we've landed?"
"Oh, I suppose," said Romana, not finding herself quite able to match his enthusiasm. She still had her doubts as to how safe this randomizer strategy would truly keep them from the Black Guardian's pursuit. Not to mention doubts about the whole idea of bouncing randomly around the universe with the Doctor for an indefinite length of time. Although, she had to admit, the hunt for the Key to Time had been interesting, and, even if it were possible, she was perhaps not ready to return to Gallifrey quite yet.
"You don't sound excited, Romana. You ought to be excited! There could be absolutely anything out there. Anything at all!"
"We could activate the scanner and look," she said, but he was already flinging open the TARDIS doors and dashing out, scarf dragging behind him.
She sighed in friendly exasperation and followed.
The TARDIS had landed -- inconspicuously, she hoped -- in a sort of alcove on the outside of a large building of white stone.
"Well," said the Doctor, stepping back to eye the building. "At least the architecture's impressive. All those arches and columns... Reminds me a bit of Rome. Or the Green Period of Telayseus Four. Did I ever tell you about the time I met the Telaysean Matriarch? She served wonderful tea cakes."
Romana ignored the name-dropping, knowing by now that a response would only encourage him. "I don't know," she said, glancing around with a critical eye. "It looks a bit primitive to me."
"Pshaw! Primitive! Well, everywhere's primitive compared to Gallifrey, I suppose. That's part of what makes the rest of the universe so interesting. Come on!" He dashed around the corner of the building as if desperate to see what the next side of it looked like. She followed, holding back a smile.
"Hello! What's this?" The Doctor was peering at the wall with a magnifying glass he'd produced from somewhere. Why he needed it, Romana had no idea. It wasn't as if the mural, which took up the whole side of the building, was difficult to notice.
"Well, it's hard to tell for certain, but at first guess, I'd say it's some sort of mural," she said, earning herself a look of amused irritation as the Doctor slipped the lens back into his pocket.
Satisfied at having got a reaction out of him, she looked closer. Actually, it did seem fairly interesting. The artistic style was unsophisticated, but there was a great deal of vibrancy in the detail. It depicted what she presumed were the planet's native people -- built along the same general lines as Time Lords but, if the pictures were accurately representative, in a much wider array of colors -- engaging in various activities, most of which looked as if they were probably religious.
In the center, dominating the mural, was a scene featuring natives in elaborate jeweled costumes kneeling before a tall, grotesque figure clad in ragged scraps of cloth and hanging flesh. The figure's hands were raised as if blessing the kneeling assembly, or preparing to unleash some sinister punishment upon them. Beneath the picture were words spelled out in small, spiky glyphs.
The Doctor noticed them at the same time she did. "'The God of Death shall return,'" he read, "'and all who kneel to worship him shall never fear death thereafter.' Hmm. Bit of an ambiguous prophesy, that."
Romana trailed a finger across the face of the painted god, examining it carefully. "He looks as if he's been mummified. Osiran influence, do you think?"
"Oh, very possibly. They were all over this portion of the galaxy once, inspiring images like this on a hundred planets. I met one once, you know. Very unpleasant fellow. Of course, that was probably why they locked him up."
"Is there anyone you haven't met, Doctor?"
He scratched his head and looked as if he were seriously thinking about the answer, but Romana decided not to stay and listen to it, choosing to see what was on the next side of the building, instead.
After a moment, the Doctor started to talk to her, suddenly realized she was gone, and followed.
The sound of his TARDIS's landing roused the Master, and he stood, feeling stronger and well-prepared for whatever might await him.
"Excellent," he said. "My escape from Gallifrey is complete. Now, to see where the TARDIS has taken me." He had fallen into the habit of talking to himself increasingly of late. It had occurred to him to wonder if perhaps this might be a symptom of mental deterioration paralleling his physical decay, but he had dismissed the thought. Doubtless it was simply due to having spent far too long with no one of his own mental stature to converse with.
He flipped on the scanner. It panned around slowly, showing him the interior of a room. He did not find it especially impressive: white stone walls and a high ceiling supported by ornately decorated columns, and a low, blocky structure against one wall that might perhaps be some sort of altar. The Master had been inside enough religious structures to recognize their usual features, and this space seemed to fit the type. Yellow sunlight spilled in through narrow arches in the far wall, but it did not penetrate far, leaving most of the interior in shadow. That was well enough. The Master rather preferred shadow. And while he had very little use for religion, it was possible that the superstitious sensibilities of the natives could be used for-- Wait!
He halted the scanner as it came to the leftmost arch. His eyes had not deceived him. He had seen a figure passing outside. Two figures: a woman he did not recognize, followed by... He zoomed in. Yes! It was the Doctor, his lips moving in what was doubtless his usual spate of inane prattle, aimed this time in the woman's direction.
Well. It seemed that fate had handed him an opportunity for revenge sooner than he had anticipated.
He smiled a slow, ghastly smile, and quickly began to plan.
This side of the building faced a broad street of packed earth, lined with more buildings of similar but less ornate design. There were people moving about here and there, clearly the same species depicted on the mural paintings, but no one seemed to have noticed Romana and the Doctor.
Romana stopped before a narrow arched doorway and waited for the Doctor to pause between sentences. "Shall we go and look inside? Since we appear to have nothing better to do?"
"Poor Romana," said the Doctor cheerfully. "Feeling a bit undirected without any pieces of ancient and powerful artifact to search for? Don't worry, you'll get used to it. The trick is to find your own trouble to get into." He stepped forward as if about to enter the building, then swiveled on his heel and took off running down the street. "Like now! Come on!"
"Doctor!" But he was already halfway down the street, heading for a small knot of natives who appeared to be involved in some sort of disturbance. Romana hiked up her dress and ran after him.
The Master opened a hidden panel in the floor of his TARDIS' console room and pulled out a piece of complicated-looking equipment. He stroked the machine's metallic contours gently, almost lovingly. He had encountered some difficulties with this device, but, nonetheless, it held the potential to represent his greatest technological achievement, an advance in mind control capability that would make even his formidable natural talents pale in comparison. He had hoped to employ the mechanism in his attempt to seize the power of the Eye of Harmony, but it had proven both impractical -- its energy emissions being too great for the eyes of Gallifreyan security to overlook -- and unnecessary. Or at least, it would have been unnecessary, had it not been for the Doctor's interference. How fitting, then, that it should be the instrument of his downfall now.
A few adjustments rendered the device ready for use. Now he would only need to find a native or two to bend to his will.
He emerged from his TARDIS into the deserted room. A large, ornately decorated arched doorway stood at the far end, and the Master threw it open and stepped forth into the main area of the temple. All around him, natives, many wearing elaborate costumes of feathers and beads, were engaged in various acts of worship. Almost as one, they turned towards him at his entrance and immediately fell upon their knees.
Cries and murmurs went up from the assembly. "The God of Death! The God of Death has returned at last!" The most ornately clothed among them approached him, trembling, his eyes cast downward. "Truly, truly, it is you! This is a wonderful day! Lead us, lord! Tell us your bidding that we may obey your will and never fear darkness again!"
The Master's fleshless lips curled into a grin. Really, this was going to be almost too easy.
The "disturbance" had turned out to be only a small crowd of excited onlookers gathering around a street musician, who was playing some impressively complicated instrument that appeared to be better suited to a species with several more hands and mouths. The Doctor had stood listening to the music with heartily-expressed enjoyment for a few moments, then gone dashing across the street to break up an argument between two richly-dressed natives, mainly by sowing enough confusion to cause them to forget what they'd been fighting about. He was now strolling along, whistling to himself with every appearance of casual relaxation, but Romana could see his eyes darting back and forth, as if scanning the street for possible spots of trouble to jump into. Romana wondered whether he was always like this when he arrived somewhere without a specific goal.
She was about to ask him when she happened to glance back and notice a large group of very upset-looking people coming towards them from the direction of the temple.
As they came closer, someone in the front -- a large green-skinned man in an elaborate beaded cloak -- pointed at them. "There! There they are! The strangers, as the god has described!"
"Doctor..."
His darting eyes were still focused ahead of him, and he didn't seem to have noticed the crowd at their backs. She tugged on his scarf, and he turned around, his cheerful whistling dying away in a last surprised tweet!
"Seize them," the fellow at the front cried, "as the god commands!" The mob surged faster behind him.
"Romana," said the Doctor slowly. "Have you offended any gods lately?"
Romana thought about that as she watched the dust kicked up by the onrushing feet rise into the air. "The Black Guardian?" she suggested.
"Mmm. True, true. But somehow I don't think angry mobs are quite his style, do you?"
"No, I suppose not." The trampling feet grew closer, the shouting louder. Romana glanced around, noting that everyone else on the street had sensibly disappeared. "Doctor..."
"Yes?"
"I think it might be a good idea to run."
"I've got a better idea," said the Doctor. "Run!" And he was off, in a tiny dust cloud of his own.
Romana rolled her eyes and took off in a different direction, barely raising any dust at all.
The Doctor glanced behind him as he ran. The crowd seemed to have split in two. That was probably a good thing: fewer people chasing smaller targets meant a better chance of escape. Sensible girl, that Romana. Of course, it meant she'd have half a mob to handle on her own, but he reckoned she could probably manage it.
He wasn't quite so sure about himself, though. His pursuers appeared to be... No, they definitely were gaining on him. And they had that religious-fanatic look in their eyes, too. Not much hope of reasoning with people like that.
Drawing on the stored-up oxygen of his respiratory bypass system for a sudden burst of speed, he skidded sharply around a corner, screeched to a halt, and looked around frantically. Blast! No sewer gratings, no convenient bushes to hide in, no mob coming the other way to clash in confusion with the first one, nothing. He ran up to the nearest building and tugged desperately on the door. Locked.
Fortunately, just as the stampeding footsteps of the mob began to turn the corner, he finally remembered the dimension he'd been neglecting and looked up. He was beneath a sort of balcony, supported by wooden struts hidden in shadowed eaves. He grinned and unwound his scarf.
It took a couple of tries to loop the scarf over a beam and haul himself up, but it proved to be entirely worthwhile, as the mob, unlike him, never did remember the existence of the third dimension. He'd have patted himself on the back if he hadn't needed both hands to hold himself in place.
He wished they'd spent less time milling around the street in confusion asking each other where he'd gone, though. He was distressingly heavy in this regeneration.
Romana pelted down a side street, turned a corner into another, ducked into an alley and immediately dodged into a connecting alley, hoping to confuse her pursuers enough to at least slow them down a little. It appeared to be working; their footsteps seemed to fall behind, and she could hear them loudly disagreeing with each other about which way she was most likely to have gone. She slowed down, strolled casually out of her current alley into a broad, still-calm street, and walked into the first shop she came to as if she hadn't a worry in the world.
The interior of the shop consisted of a maze of shelves of various heights. She positioned herself behind one that was just slightly shorter than she was, and peered over it through the high, arched windows facing the street as she pretended a careful, evaluative interest in a jar of blue powder. From what she could make out from the label, it was either a skin-care product or some sort of insecticide.
After a few moments, she saw the mob go charging past. She gave them a few more minutes, then replaced the jar on the shelf and sauntered up to the man she assumed must be the shopkeeper. He was busily rearranging a shelf full of what, as far as Romana could tell, were absolutely identical jars, and hadn't so much as looked up when she'd entered or when the cries of the mob had peaked outside. She wondered if noisy mobs were common around here, or if he were simply that focused on his job. Or possibly he was deaf?
"Excuse me," she said. "But is there another exit here?"
He grunted and pointed towards the back corner of the shop without looking up. Not deaf then. Although possibly mute. "Thank you," she said politely, and headed for the side door.
It opened out into another narrow side street... And right into the face of a tall, purple-skinned man wearing a large amulet that featured a rather striking image of the Death God she'd seen on the mural.
Oh, well, she thought, as the mob behind him bore her to the ground and began tying her up with strips of cloth apparently ripped from their clothing, at least now she'd presumably find out what these people wanted with her. In future, really, it might be better simply to go with surrender as Plan A and avoid all the fuss.
The Master shook his head in disgust. This was the problem with relying on minions. It might be possible, through hypnosis or the manipulation of their superstitious beliefs, to ensure their loyalty, but it was sadly impossible to ensure their competence.
"We are humbly sorry, lord," the high priest was saying. "We tried to do your will, truly, but the man vanished! Clearly, he must have powerful magic, if he is considered the worthy enemy of the Lord of Death. Have pity on us, master, in our mortal inadequacy!"
"Oh, be quiet." The Master considered smiting the tiresome fool in some suitably impressive and godlike fashion, but it hardly seemed worth the effort. And he and his rabble had at least achieved something. Yes, the woman could be useful...
He turned his attention to her, letting his followers slink out of the room before he could change his mind and release his divine wrath on them. "So," he said. "You are the Doctor's latest... companion." He pronounced the word with contempt. He'd never understood the Doctor's penchant for traveling about with pet humans, let alone his ridiculously sentimental attachment to them. Possibly he simply kept them because they made him feel superior.
"Mmph mmm mm mm Mmphmm," said the woman.
He pulled the gag out of her mouth. "Speak," he commanded.
"I said, 'you must be the Master,'" she replied, with every sign of composure. "I must say, you're much less impressive than I'd expected, although I suppose the appearance helps with the Death God impersonation."
"You know of me?" said the Master. "The Doctor has spoken of me?" He felt oddly flattered, an emotion he quickly squashed in annoyance.
"Not at all," she said. "But I've heard stories, back on Gallifrey. None of them complimentary, I might add."
So, not a human after all, but a Time Lord! He attempted not to let his surprise show on his face, which wasn't difficult given how little of his face there was left.
"I wasn't certain it was you, of course," she was continuing, "but it seemed reasonable. That is a TARDIS over there, isn't it?" She jerked her chin -- the only part of her body she could easily move -- towards the extra column the far wall which was, indeed, his TARDIS in disguise. "It was probably you riding our temporal wake in the Vortex. And, well, a Time Lord setting himself up as a god, sending mobs after innocent people, and clearly clinging rather pathetically onto life at the end of his regeneration cycle... It seemed like a reasonable educated guess."
"Very astute," he said dryly. "Clearly, you're more intelligent than the usual run of the Doctor's friends. Although not quite clever enough to avoid capture."
"Yes, well, now that you have me, what are you going to do with me? Hold me for ransom?"
"Nothing so mundane," he said. He turned to the altar and removed his precious device from beneath it. He noticed that the woman's eyes widened slightly when she saw it. Good. She ought to be afraid. "I'm going to become you," he said, and smiled his gruesome smile.
The Doctor stood in the middle of the now-empty street, pondering. He'd lost his pursuers, but he'd also lost Romana. Well, he decided, there were two possibilities. If she'd avoided capture as well, she'd probably come looking for him, and it seemed the sensible course of action would be to meet at a familiar landmark, rather than to wander about chasing each other's tails through the streets. Which meant: back to the TARDIS. Alternatively, she'd been captured, and it was his task to go to the rescue. Judging from the appearance of the mob and the religious slogans they'd been shouting, the logical place to look seemed to be the temple... which was near the TARDIS... where he could find useful rescue-operation backup in the form of K-9.
Satisfied with the solidity of this reasoning, he headed towards the TARDIS. He tried to look casual as he did so, though he was afraid he was rather spoiling the effect by ducking into doorways and alleys every time he heard a group of footsteps approaching, just in case it might be an angry crowd.
Two slender golden circlets hung by thick cables from the Master's machine. They might almost have looked like attractive pieces of headwear, Romana though, if it weren't for the small pieces of ugly electronics affixed here and there around their circumferences. Or the fact that they were attached to some sort of mind-control machine, of course.
The Master positioned one atop his own head, then moved to place the other on Romana. She thrashed about -- there was no point in making it easy for him -- but he grabbed her hair and held her still. He was stronger than he looked, apparently. Not that that was difficult.
"You should consider yourself honored to be the first victim of this device," he said. "It is, if I do say so, a work of purest genius. Ordinary hypnosis merely suppresses the subject's will, leaving them vulnerable to commands. But under the influence of this machine, the personality itself is suppressed. Shrunken and impotent, it lies trapped within the mind as another personality, another will is overlaid on the brain. My will."
"Sounds delightful," said Romana. "I can hardly wait." Her voice strove for a tone of flippancy, but for the first time, she could feel fear churning in her hearts. She struggled once more with her bonds, striving desperately to loosen them... And then it was too late.
The Master flicked a switch. Instantly, she could feel his mind pressing against hers, as slimy and decayed as his body, and utterly insane. She pushed back with all her force of will, and felt a moment of triumph as she felt him losing ground, retreating.
Then the machine sparked, the Master's mind surged laughing into hers, and she found herself somewhere small and dark, far down in the depths of her own mind.
She could feel her head being thrown back, maniacal chuckling rising up in her throat, but it wasn't her doing it.
The Master called for his minions to come and untie her, in two voices coming from two mouths.
It had worked! It had worked perfectly! The Master felt a surge of triumph. Despite his confident bluster, he had almost expected something to go wrong with the machine. After all, it was still largely untested, and he had not had a great deal of success lately with his plans, no matter how brilliant.
He experimentally moved the woman's limbs as her bonds fell loose, tilted her head back and forth. Yes, he had complete control over her physical form. And more than that... He could see through her eyes, hear through her ears, feel everything she might feel. Her body was so strong, so young, so different from the putrefying shell that he had inhabited for so long, that it was a pleasure simply to feel it draw breath. Of course, it was also rather disconcertingly female, but, as this fact was of no import to him for the moment, he dismissed it.
Now for the final test. He raised the woman's hands to her head and slowly removed the activator circlet that connected her to the machine.
Nothing changed. He was still here, still in control. And he could still feel a connection to his own body, where it sat motionless on the altar of the Death God, its eyes closed to avoid confusing him with too many conflicting inputs. Viewed from the outside, it was a truly repulsive sight, and the Master shuddered, both bodies moving in perfect concert. He'd always been a bit vain about his appearances, but there were some things even a neatly-trimmed beard could scarcely improve.
Enough cogitation. He rose carefully to his newly-commandeered feet and regarded his priestly minions, who were gazing at his proper body in a mixture of fear and hope. "Wait here," he said, again from two mouths. "My next triumph is to be mine alone! When it is complete, then I will see to your... reward." He had not yet decided whether their reward was to be death or enslavement. On the one hand, they had proven fairly incompetent, and he rather liked the irony or fulfilling their prophecy of a god who would ensure they need never again fear death by sending them to the fearless safety of their graves. On the other, it was possible this planet might be of some use to him, and control of a religious order could be a useful first step towards conquest.
Well, there would be time enough to decide on that later. After he had killed the Doctor.
Her mind buried deep beneath the merciless press of the Master's, Romana was nevertheless aware. She could sense the Master's every movement, and while she could not quite read his thoughts, the feeling of them flitting across the surface of her brain was strong. Determinedly, she stifled the urge to scream. She knew it would never reach her mouth, and, even in the silence of her own mind, she felt it would be undignified. Instead, she struggled to push the Master out, to regain control of her limbs, or at least to interfere with his control. But it was no good; whatever that machine had done, it had done far too well. She could only watch, a helpless spectator, as he used her hand to retrieve her TARDIS key from her pocket and used her mouth to smile.
The Doctor's resolution to wait and see if Romana made it back on her own lasted all of about a minute and a half. Time Lords had a reputation throughout the universe for being creatures of great patience and careful deliberation, but the Doctor had never believed in playing to stereotypes.
"Right," he said to no one in particular, throwing the TARDIS door control to "open" with a somewhat overdramatic flourish. "That's long enough." With K-9 at his heels and the familiar weight of his sonic screwdriver sitting comfortably in his handiest pocket, he practically ran for the door, intent on finding out precisely what was going on. And rescuing Romana, of course, if she needed it.
So he felt both surprised and rather disappointed when he very nearly collided with Romana on his way out the door. He stopped short, his nose almost close enough to bump against hers, and regarded her with wide eyes. "Romana! You're back."
"Hello, Doctor," she said.
The Doctor blinked. That was a very odd look on Romana's face. Sort of... smug and secretive. "You must've had an interesting time," he said. He didn't add without me, although he was thinking it. Romana had accused him once of being petulant when he felt left out. It had been followed by a long lecture full of pychobabble analyzing his "need for attention," and he hadn't any particular desire to listen to it again.
"Yes. Yes, you could say that." She gave him another odd smile and touched her chin, almost as if stroking a non-existent beard.
"Is your face all right?" he asked, beginning to feel a touch of concern, not necessarily about her face.
"Oh, yes. Quite... satisfactory." She slipped past him into the TARDIS, looking around her as if she hadn't seen it in a very long time. "Aren't you going to close the doors?"
"All right," he said, turning around slowly to operate the door control. Almost as soon as his back was towards her, he heard a zap, followed quickly by a clatter and a thunk.
He turned back, equally slowly, to see Romana lying unconscious on the floor. Against her outstretched hand lay the heavy plasma induction spanner he'd left by the console after installing the randomizer.
"K-9," he said conversationally. "Did you just shoot Romana?"
"Negative, master."
"Really? Because I'm quite sure I heard your stunner go off, and as Romana appears to have been stunned, it seemed like the logical conclusion."
"Incorrect, master. Reasoning is based on inaccurate premise."
"Really?" he said without any actual surprise. "Do tell."
"Voice intonation patterns and analysis of behavior indicate that this is not Romana-mistress."
"Behavior? You mean the fact that she was about to hit me with a spanner?"
"Affirmative. Defensive action appeared to be indicated."
"Good dog." He reached down to pat K-9 on the head while contemplating the unconscious form of probably-not-Romana. "Well," he said. "I suppose we should wake her up and find out who she is."
"Caution would suggest securing her prior to revival, master."
"Mmm. Good idea. I've got nine more skulls, but that's my only plasma injection spanner. I'd hate for her to damage it."
Now, he was fairly certain Jo Grant had left a pair of her escapology-practice handcuffs lying about here somewhere...
As consciousness returned to Romana's brain, so did the Master's control, a fact which relieved him not only because it meant his scheme had not gone for naught, but also because it had been somewhat disconcerting being linked in to a body from which he could sense only blackness.
Nevertheless, he was quite limited by what he could do with his victim's body, seeing as the Doctor had bound it hand and foot. Well, he was still free to talk...
"Doctor," he said, putting on an air of innocent confusion. "What happened? Why am I tied up?"
The Doctor regarded him warily. "Romana? Is that you?"
"Of course it's me, Doctor. Who else would it be?" The Master watched the Doctor's face carefully, and found it hard to suppress a grin. Could it be that the fool was actually going to fall for this?
"Well, that's the question, isn't it?" said the Doctor. "K-9?"
The Master's borrowed eyes flickered over to the robot dog, and he felt a surge of hatred for this creature who had interrupted him just as he was about to triumph over the Doctor at last. Miserable mechanical beast. He would delight in taking it apart piece by piece and using it for spare parts.
"Voice analysis still indicates high probability that this is not the Mistress speaking," said the robot in a voice that was just as annoying as the rest of it.
"Hmm," said the Doctor, reaching out to gently touch Romana's cheek with one finger. "Well, if it's an android, it's an extremely good one. She's warm, breathing... There are pores and blemishes, every last detail of Romana. Now, I've seen some good androids in my time, but that just means I've had experience in being able to spot them. You're not an android, are you?"
"Very perceptive, Doctor."
The Doctor grinned with an annoying show of false modesty. "Well, thank you. I do like to think so. Let's see... Not an android. Some kind of mind control, perhaps? Hmm?" The Master was quite sure he had let Romana's face give away nothing, but the Doctor seemed to conclude, based on nothing at all, that he'd hit upon the answer. "Yes, I see." His face suddenly went hard, all trace of geniality disappearing from it in an instant. "Who are you?" he said, in a voice the Master imagined most people might find intimidating.
"I'm disappointed that you don't recognize me."
"Well, that's one of the hazards, really, if you will go about looking like other people. If you've harmed her..." It was really quite amazing how quickly his voice could go from flippant to dangerous like that in alternating sentences.
"I have not damaged her... yet." The Master attempted what he hoped was a reasonable, even winning smile. "But I see she is of some importance to you. Let me go, and I shall release her."
"If I let you go," said the Doctor, "I imagine you'll attempt to hit me on the head again, and I'm sorry, that that's really not something I enjoy as a recreational activity."
"You could always have your robot stun me again if I attempted it," the Master pointed out.
"Yes, yes, and we could go on like that for decades, I'm sure, but I'd really rather avoid it, if you don't mind. I'd think it would get tedious awfully quickly, all that letting-go and stunning and tying-up again. Don't you?"
The Master shrugged. "As you have so perceptively pointed out, it's not my body."
"And you don't care what happens to it, hmm?"
"Yes. Which I believe puts us at something of an impasse."
The Doctor tilted his head a little and looked at Romana's face more closely. "I can't help feeling that I know you."
The Master grinned. "Oh, but you do, Doctor. I am the one who has sworn your destruction." Not the wisest thing to say, he knew as soon as he'd said it, but he never could resist the urge to taunt the insufferable idiot, and if he were honest, he seemed to have increasingly less self-control over such things of late. In any case, he had always intended to reveal his identity, so that Doctor would know who it was who had beaten him. That was why he'd used a blunt object instead of a TCE: to incapacitate the Doctor rather than to kill him, so that he might gloat a little first. Well, that and the fact that the dress Romana was wearing lacked anywhere to conveniently conceal the weapon.
"Yes, well, I'm afraid that doesn't narrow it down very much," said the Doctor. He leaned forward, his eyes locking with Romana's, as if he were attempting to peer through them into the soul within.
The direct intensity of the eye contact, coupled with the Master's cold hatred and simmering desire for control, combined to trigger an almost instinctual response, and he reached out, for a split second, with the force of his hypnotic gaze. It had never worked on the Doctor, of course -- the man was far too stubbornly strong-minded -- and the fact that his mind was only present here at second hand made it even less likely to have any effect.
Or any desired effect... Because the Doctor had clearly perceived the attempt. His eyes widened. "The Master! I should have known!" The robot dog wagged his head back and forth as if in a state of great confusion, and the Doctor waved an arm at it. "Not your Master, K-9. The Master."
The Master smiled. "I would say 'in the flesh,' but it is, at the moment, only borrowed flesh. Although I rather think I might keep it."
It was meant to be a deliberately provocative statement, but, to the Master's disappointment, the Doctor ignored it. "Well, well," he said. "This does make things interesting..."
The master -- correction, the Doctor-master -- had led K-9 from the console room to discuss, in his words, "a plan for eviction." Information in K-9's memory banks on basic Time Lord psychology, combined with heuristics developed from observation of the Doctor-master, indicated that his choice of Romana's room as a setting for the conversation was psychologically significant. Additional analysis indicated that the Doctor-master's current emotional state involved elements best labeled as "worry" and "concern."
"Here's the thing, K-9," he said. "I think I know how to remove the Master from Romana's mind."
"That would be a desirable outcome," K-9 agreed. Although he would not describe himself as capable of emotion, he was programmed to emulate the loyalty of the dog he resembled, and thus found the thought of harm to his mistress highly unsatisfactory.
"Yes, yes, it would be. The problem is..." The Doctor-master paused, presumably to engage in additional cognitive processing. K-9 waited patiently; he was used to the inefficient communications of organic beings. "The problem is, if I'm not very careful, or if she isn't strong enough to help, it could end up damaging her very badly. Or even killing her."
"Query: odds of success?"
"Well, I'm not as good at calculating that sort of thing as you are -- and, no, I don't want you to calculate them for me, thank you; I'd really rather not know -- but I'd say, oh...reasonable?"
K-9 regarded this as an extremely vague estimate, but he ran the idea through his circuits anyway, cross-referencing it with the statistics he had compiled on the master and mistress. Coefficient of carefulness in the Doctor-master was low, but when analysis was confined only to moments when carefulness was of supreme importance, the figure was acceptably high. As for the mistress Romana... "Compiled data indicates that the mistress has an extremely strong mind, master."
The Doctor smiled. "Yes. Yes, I suppose she does." He straightened up in a manner his body language indicated was decisive. "Right then, come on!"
K-9 wagged his tail.
From the small, dark place inside her own mind to which she was currently confined, Romana could still see and hear everything. It simply seemed... detached from her. Distant, as if seen through the wrong end of a primitive optical telescope. Still, when the Doctor returned from wherever he had gone, she was aware of it, and she felt a surge of hope. The Doctor was flighty, but he was far cleverer than she had given him credit for at first, and she had come to trust him. If it were possible for him to help her recover herself, he would find a way to do it.
It still surprised her, though, when he suddenly whipped a hypodermic needle from his pocket and jammed it into her arm. It apparently surprised the Master, too, as he began to say something -- doubtless something snide -- only to break off in mid-word as he lost control of her muscles. Her head lolled to the side as if she -- or the Master -- had fallen asleep with her eyes open. What in the worlds had the Doctor injected her with?
The Doctor knelt down in front of her. "Romana?" he asked gently. "Are you in there? Can you hear me?"
Yes, she thought, but of course she had no way to say it. Frustration rose in her. This simply would not do. She would have to try harder. With a supreme effort, she reached out with her will. It was like fighting to reach through a wall of glue, but at last she was able to flutter her eyelids.
The Doctor smiled. "Hello, Romana. I knew you were in there!"
She started to try to move again, but he made shushing noises and patted her arm in a way that she assumed was meant to be calming.
"No, no, don't try to do anything else just yet. Listen: I've given you an injection of faxacatascalemene. It induces partial shutdown of the higher-brain functions, the areas where the Master has imposed his neural patterns on yours. In essence, I've sent him to sleep. Well, at least half-asleep."
I know what it does, Doctor, she thought, uselessly. Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?
"I know how dangerous this is," he said. "It should weaken his control enough to allow you to fight him, hopefully to force him out of your brain for good. But if you don't manage to defeat him completely, if his mental patterns are still tangled with yours when the drug wears off, your own mind could be badly damaged. Possibly even destroyed." His voice was very grave. "It's entirely your choice. If you do nothing, make no effort to regain any control, there shouldn't be any risk. He'll just take over again when he wakes up and... Well, we'll think of something else. He wants me, not you, after all. He'll probably be willing to make a deal."
With another supreme effort, Romana managed to roll her eyes a little to convey what she thought of that idea. Admittedly, the possibilities were frightening, but the idea of the Doctor putting himself in the hands of this madman because she'd been too afraid to fight him was simply unacceptable. Besides, she wouldn't trust the Master to keep any bargain he might make. Inaction would probably just doom both of them.
The Doctor grinned. "That's my brave Romana!"
She thought about rolling her eyes again at that, but decided to conserve her strength.
The Doctor's face grew serious again. "Another effect of the drug is to increase the natural telepathic receptivity of Time Lords, just very slightly" -- he held up a finger and thumb, nearly touching, to demonstrate -- "but it might be enough to let me lend something at least a little more useful than moral support." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Can you feel my mind?"
Romana had had very little experience with telepathy. All Time Lords were theoretically capable of it, on very small scales and under very limited conditions, but it was generally considered, well, not the done thing, really. Direct mental contact was considered a bit too messy and intimate for modern Gallifreyan tastes, and most of her people were taught from a fairly young age to politely keep their minds to themselves. Of course, since the Master had refused to play by those rules... Well, one sometimes had to fight fire with fire, to borrow a phrase she'd heard the Doctor use once. She reached out with little-used senses, peering through the darkness of the Master's mind to locate the Doctor's. It felt bright and solid, like a searchlight shining through gloomy fog.
"There you are," he said, clearly perceiving the contact. "Now, if you start to feel yourself getting lost, you can use me as a point of anchorage, mmm?"
She could not actually answer him telepathically, that being far beyond the limits of her ability, but she managed to seize just enough control of her muscles to effect a barely perceptible nod. She hoped that was a good sign.
Whether it was or not, there was no sense in wasting any more time. With the mental equivalent of a slow, calming preparatory breath, she struck.
The Master's mind surrounded hers like a suffocating layer of thick and choking sludge. She attacked it with grim determination, flinging her will against it, pushing with all her might to drive it from her brain. It was a little like having a fist fight with a tar pit. Wherever she pushed, the Master's mind resisted, oozing around her defenses and threatening to engulf her.
Really, it made her very angry. How dare he? She'd always been proud of the tidy orderliness of her mind, and here was this, this insane, pathetic wreck of a renegade barging in here, violating her privacy and her integrity and generally making a horrible mess of the place. It quite simply was not to be endured.
Anger gave her more strength than fear had, and she began hacking at the tendrils of the Master's personality with renewed vigor. He fought back, sluggishly, and his mind -- highly skilled in darker aspects of the telepathic arts, clearly, even in his debilitated state -- whispered half-heard threats and taunts into hers. She ignored them, caught up in a building sense of hope. She was winning! And she hadn't even needed the Doctor's help.
She was so consumed with this feeling of impending triumph that at first she didn't notice when the tide began to turn, but all too soon it was obvious that the Master's counter-struggles were growing stronger and more powerful. Worse still, Romana found herself tiring, become weaker as the Master grew stronger. She began to lose ground instead of gaining it, the Master's control creeping forward to reclaim places she had already driven him out of. Clearly, the drug was beginning to wear off. She would not have much time...
Indeed, she seemed to have less than she'd thought. In one sudden, unguarded instant, the Master's mind surged forward, bearing down on her like a flood, pressing against her from all sides, squeezing and crushing and shrinking her. He was drowning her essence with his, and she was unable to break free! The echo of evil laughter sounded mockingly in her mind's ear.
Desperate, she reached out with what felt like the last of her strength, flailing for a hold on the bright, distant light that was the Doctor. In the end, she could not say whether she grasped it or it grasped her, but she felt it -- him -- holding her fast, steady and solid and full of untapped strength, there for the sharing.
With the Doctor serving as her anchor, she struck out in all directions, pushing against the Master as strongly as he had attacked her... No, more strongly. She could feel him now, writhing in psychic pain, recoiling from her mental blows. "Serves you right for coming in where you're not invited," she said, and was delighted to hear it with her own ears, spoken with her own mouth.
She was a Time Lord, a dignified and proper one, and so she would never consider it at all appropriate to visualize the defeat of an enemy in a mental battle in terms forcibly ejecting him from her brain with a sound kick in the backside. But she didn't let that stop her.
Satisfied, her mental image of herself dusted off its hands, placed them on its hips, and smiled.
Then it suddenly hit her how exhausted she was, and she passed out.
The inner circle of the Congregation of the Death God had been waiting patiently for something to happen. Their lord had been quiet for some long while, sitting there upon his sacred altar with the circlet on his head, doubtless communing with the realm of the spirits. Every so often, his fleshless lips would move, and they would lean in, anticipating some godly command, but no words would emerge.
Frankly, they had become somewhat bored of all the standing around and waiting, and so it actually took them a few moments to notice the wisps of smoke beginning to curl upwards from the magical circlet. It was impossible not to notice, however, when their master threw back his head and started screaming. At first, he cried out strange and incoherent words, something about defeat, and "neural feedback," whatever that was, and "that blasted woman!"
It was at about this point that the machine attached to the circlet burst into flames, and the god's shouts became instead wordless screams of pain. A moment later, he passed out, slumped across the altar like some obscene sacrificial offering.
There was a long silence.
"Correct me if I'm wrong," said a junior priest, at last, "but I'm pretty sure gods aren't supposed to do that."
Romana's eyes slowly flickered open. Somewhat to her puzzlement, she was still bound on the floor. The Doctor stood over her, a look of concern on his face.
"Doctor? You can untie me now. The Master's gone."
"Ah, yes. Well, you see, that's a bit of a problem. Because, while I'm sure that's exactly what Romana would say after defeating the Master, it's also exactly what the Master would say after defeating Romana, in order to make me think he was Romana, having defeated the Master. You see my difficulty."
Romana sighed and shook her head, which she immediately regretted, as a galactic-sized headache promptly began pounding away behind her eyes. She looked past the Doctor to K-9. "Hello, K-9," she said. "Surely you believe I'm me?"
K-9 seemed to consider that for a moment, the antennas that formed his ears swiveling slowly back and forth. "Affirmative, Mistress," he said at last.
Romana let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. The Doctor smiled apologetically, stepped forward, and, after several long seconds of frantically pawing through his pockets in search of the handcuff key, released her.
She stood up, shakily, and the Doctor took her arm to steady her. "There," he said, with a warm, toothy smile. "Feeling yourself again?"
"Yes. Mostly." She smiled back at him, but it was wan and a little forced. Her brain was her own again, and her mind felt healthy and free, but she could not escape a feeling of unease at the memory of how the Master had inhabited her body. She felt... unclean, as if a lingering trace of something noxious lay just below her skin, where no amount of scrubbing or passage of time could remove it. Now, don't be silly, she told herself. It was an irrational thought, and was bound to disappear soon. And if not, well, there was always the option of trading it in for a new body...
"You look terrible," said the Doctor solicitously. "You should get some rest."
"I feel terrible," she said, rubbing her temple. "But what about the Master? Don't we need to find him?"
The Doctor chuckled. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about him. I might not have been able to tell who won, but I could feel the release of psionic energies from here." He tapped the side of his head. "Whatever mechanism the Master was using to impose his control on you, I'd say you burnt it out, and very possibly part of his brain with it. I'd hardly suggest we've seen the last of him, but I sincerely doubt he'll be troubling anyone for the near future." He put a friendly arm around her shoulders. "Come on. What you need is a mug of tea, a nice nap, and then a new adventure to take your mind off things."
"That's your answer to everything, isn't it?"
The Doctor pretended to consider this for a moment. "Well, mostly that last part, really."
She took a moment of consideration in turn, then smiled. "You know, I think you might just have something there."
He laughed and moved to the console to send them on to their next unknown destination.
The Master regained consciousness slowly and painfully. The inside of his head felt as if an army of Daleks had been using his neurons for target practice. His memory of the last few moments of his mental battle were jumbled and hurt somewhat to think about, so it took him some time to realize that he was currently inhabiting only his own body and not Romana's. The fact that he was currently trussed up exactly as Romana had been only added to the confusion.
Eventually, he was able to pull his thought processes together well enough to be aware of his surroundings: the acrid smell of burnt machinery, the hardness of the floor beneath him, the sound of his erstwhile followers' voices as they debated which of several gruesome punishments ought to be inflicted upon a false god.
This last provoked more irritation in him than anything else. He did not fear these people; they were incompetent idiots, and he would deal with them, once the pain and this infernal mental and physical weakness had passed. And then... Well, it seemed unlikely that his machine would ever be operable again. Clearly it had some design flaws. Still... He could not forget the feeling of inhabiting a whole and healthy body once more. He desired to have that again, almost as much as he desired the destruction of the Doctor. Perhaps he had hit upon the correct idea, but had simply not gone far enough with it. There were bodies in untold numbers throughout the universe, after all, and most of their inhabitants were hardly worthy to live in them. What he needed was to seize one, not to overlay himself on an existing personality, not to control it from afar, but to make it his. Yes. That would be his new goal. All he needed was a sufficient source of power. He would remake himself, and then he would unmake the Doctor.
Just as soon as he felt able to move.