Councillor Palash traipsed through the dark corridors of the Presidential Sanctum. She was so lost in dark, turbulent thoughts that she kept zig-zagging without realising. Her legs were so unsteady that her shoes kept snagging on the ground, tripping her repeatedly. She fought to hold herself together. This meant far more than dignity. Anyone who behaved in anyway abnormally was looked on with suspicion. Suspicion could snap into accusation. People were being eliminated all the time now. The fear that gripped the citadel was pushing people to a state of near panic.
It was the legacy of their former president, who had had the audacity to take the name of Rassilon for himself. He had started out as an insult. To think such a vain dolt could match that brilliant man. But as the war dragged on, she'd started to question his very sanity, and soon to fear what it meant for all of them. She'd heard all sorts of rumours about his plans, some whispering that he intended to burn Gallifrey itself to ascend into eternity.
Upon hearing of his death, she'd masked her relief with sadness, which quickly mutated into fear. She'd asked who had been responsible. The only answer she'd gotten had been: 'A madman.' And if a madman could kill their president, who could possibly be next?
She reached her office without incident and sat at her desk for a few minutes, watching her hands until they stopped shaking. She wasn't getting any younger. She was 2,437 years old and on her tenth incarnation. A slim figure with black skin that had wrinkled with every decade of this vampiric war.
Her attention was caught by her hypercube, which had started to glow orange – someone was trying to make contact.
She laid a hand on it and a voice filled her mind: Any developments?
She pursed her mouth as she answered telepathically, transmitting her thoughts through her palm and into the cube, which broadcast it to the other person's, wherever they were. They've found a guilty party.
Some party stooge, no doubt.
No. I think he really did it. He had the face of a psychopath. He enjoyed confessing.
That doesn't prove anything. He may be a psychopath, but he could still just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Would you like me to file a complaint?
Her correspondent would have laughed if they'd been speaking together. Perhaps he was. She could sense the bitter mirth in his thoughts. Another thought filtered through:
Do you think he deserves it?
Although they weren't speaking, Palash had sufficient psychic training to hold in her thoughts. It as the equivalent of a tight-lipped silence. She'd felt nothing but revulsion for the creature. His cockiness and superiority. In another life, he could have turned out just like the former President. She hadn't liked how he'd laughed at Shavek either. She'd never liked Shavek – a bower and scraper to the end. But that cold sneer had turned her stomach nonetheless.
But all the same, his arrogance had no bearing on his fate. As her correspondent had said, he could have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Had he been an innocent civilian it would have made no difference. The Council had to look like they were still on top of things. They needed someone to blame.
He deserves death, she replied finally, but not the death they've planned: the Temporal Accelerator.
She sensed no surprise from the other side. In times as dark as these, a draconian element like the Accelerator was perversely appropriate as a legal apparatus.
When?
Five-tenths of an hour.
We'll handle it.
You're not seriously going to get him out of there?
Why not? If he's as mad as you make him out to be, he may be just the sort of fighter we need.
You haven't seen him. He's no fighter. He's a child who doesn't realise the seriousness of the game he's playing.
How's that any different from your boys in the War Council?
She couldn't answer this, so she tried a different tack: I thought you didn't believe he'd done it.
I don't. But you should never let a good psychopath go to waste.
I wouldn't bother. You and your fighters will die in the attempt. He is not worth the effort.
You can say that while sitting in your cosy office. Here on the ground, things are a little bit different.
Palash felt a twinge of indignation at this. She could have told him that there was nothing cosy about her position, always checking to make sure she wasn't being eyed suspiciously, in constant fear of being escorted to the Inquisitor Chambers. But rather than let her anger leak through, she once again exercised her restraint.
We'll need to know the layout of the building, came the thought.
I still object to this.
You don't exactly have many options left, Councillor. The sneer was unmistakeable. I thought you wanted this regime to topple.
I do but I feel this is the wrong way to go about it.
Tell that to the next patsy they put in that chair.
Palash thought back. She remembered the terror she'd seen in other suspects' faces as they'd been cross-examined with the same lack of empathy. She remembered the cruelty of the Inquisitorial staff as they watched their victims squirm, utterly helpless. And then she saw herself in that chair.
She began to transmit a map of the Sanctum's lower reaches through her mind, as accurately as she could make it.
I could be wrong with this diagram, she thought.
We'll manage.
Do you really think you can get to him in time?
I do. And then the cube became inert again. Palash removed her hand with a strange feeling of pity for her correspondent. He genuinely believed he could reach the accused in time and escape with his life. But then, she supposed, in times like these, people were ready to believe anything.