Chapter Three

A whoosh type noise came from the end of the gun device and the Doctor immediately leapt out of the punt as he felt a burning impact where he was standing just seconds ago. He flattened himself to the moist ground so the punt was between him and his attacker. An audibly squelching noise could be heard as the plastic mannequin walked through the damp soil coming closer and closer to his hiding place.

It was curious, the Doctor considered, Autons were usually controlled by a central Nestine Consciousness. But this world, wherever they were, didn't look like the sort of place where plastics were readily available, or in fact any type of compound, polymer or gases the Nestines could use. There was a road nearby so obviously some civilisation lived here, and maybe there is a Nestine consciousness somewhere on the planet. But why send an Auton out here? There was nothing for miles around.

All these ideas raced through his brain as the Auton came closer and closer to his hiding place and that electric whine it produced slowly grew in volume. The only obstacle stopping the Auton from killing him right away was the punt itself. So if it wanted to kill him it simply had to take the punt out of the equation which meant either going around it or smash it to pieces.

The Doctor began to crawl further along his beached vessel, –he supposed it was technically beached- in case the Auton decided to simply go around the obstacle to get a clear shot. He had to think fast how he could defeat an Auton? There was that device he created in his third incarnation, but he didn't have the time or the equipment to build anything like that. He had in the latter years of his third incarnation dreamt up a particularly toxic cocktail of potent solvents. Solvents dissolved plastic so he assumed solvents would be deadly to an Auton or even a Nestine. His more creative fourth incarnation had given it the nickname 'anti-plastic'. However he didn't have the chemicals readily available to brew such a cocktail.

"Doctor!" Yelled Romanas voice as she came back down a hill she had been climbing, completely oblivious to the danger he was currently in. He could just sense the Auton detecting her voice and would be re-aiming his weapon to destroy her. "We're in terrible danger!" she shouted. She didn't have to tell him that, he already knew.

"Romana!" He shouted back at her. "Get down, take cover!"

She stopped, apparently she had finally spotted the danger threatening him and ducked behind a large boulder as the whoosh noise came from the Auton and the energy beam impacted where Romana had just been standing. A puff of red smoke indicated where it had impacted. She appeared oblivious to the Auton, so why did she say they were in danger? He didn't have time to consider that question. The shot had giving the Doctor a rough idea where the Auton was at this time, and it was far too close for his liking. He edged his way further along the punt being careful not to let his head, or indeed any part of his body become a clear target for the Auton weapon.

Autons were controlled by the Nestines by thought control on a specific psychic wavelength, he suddenly remembered. All he had to do was jam that signal and the Auton would become a useless lump of plastic. He could also use his Sonic Screwdriver as a way of jamming the signal, however there was a drawback. The Sonic Screwdriver was not designed to be used on the psychic wavelengths, so for it to be fully effective he'd have to get very close to the Auton. Too close for his liking. Well it was either try that or die on the ground in the damp, and he had a reputation to consider after all.

He crawled to the front of the punt and slid himself around it quickly and crawled down the other side listening to that loud whining noise the Auton created. If he could just take it by surprise, he thought as he reached into his pocket and produced the Sonic Screwdriver. He adjusted the settings on it so the vibrations it created in the atmosphere would disrupt any psychic signals being sent to it.

Now was a good enough time as any, he supposed. He moved as quickly as he could around the rest of the punt, got to his feet and charged at the Auton. It turned to take aim but couldn't fire fast enough. The Doctor had it in a lock as he pressed the tip of the Sonic Screwdriver into the base of the Autons plastic head. He felt its body start to twitch and its movements became jerky and uncoordinated, but the plastic man wouldn't 'stop, stop'. It still kept moving.

Its gun went off again with a whoosh, and it started firing in any direction it could trying to shoot the Doctor. Whatever the Sonic Screwdriver was doing it seemed to be disorientating it enough so that it's targeting mechanisms were off.

Surely he was cutting off the signal, he thought. Did he have the right frequency? He stopped using the Sonic Screwdriver long enough to check the settings before jamming the screwdriver back onto the Auton as it began to regain better use of its limbs. He did have the right frequency, so why wasn't it working?

Either this was a more advanced Auton then he had met before, or his Sonic Screwdriver was on the blink. Cutting off the psychic signal should cut it off from the Nestine Consciousness, but for whatever reason his Sonic Screwdriver wasn't working as a means of completely disabling this automated mannequin.

He couldn't really go on doing this to the Auton forever, at some point the power cells of the Sonic Screwdriver would drain away. Where was K9 when he needed him?

The automatic mannequin fell forwards suddenly, still struggling for freedom as it pulled the Doctor down to the ground with it. Its gun arm pushed into the moist ground and as the Doctor landed on top of it, its gun barrel became embedded in the soft soil.

The Doctor got up quickly and watched with amusement as the Auton struggled to remove its gun barrel from the soft soil, he laughed at the comical sight but it soon faded away as eventually and unfortunately the Auton managed to free its gun arm, and it swung it around to take aim at the Doctor before he had a chance to blast it with the Sonic Screwdriver again.

An echoing noise suddenly sounded from the sky and a ray of green light erupted from the clouds and impacted somewhere in the distance. It was followed a few seconds later by a loud cracking noise, like a thunderbolt. Then came another light ray out of the sky, and lucky for the Doctor it struck the Auton directly down the centre. He could feel the heat as it shot straight into it and passed within seconds. The automatons plastic body shook as it took the full shock of the laser bolt leaving a great clean hole straight through the top of its torso and exiting through the left leg. The rest of its plastic body had been blackened in places by the extreme heat and the loud whine noise slowly lowered in pitch and stopped completely. The plastic man fell in a crumpled mass of plastic limbs.

The Doctor looked up in time to see another green ray of light shoot down and impact where his feet were. He really felt the heat that time as he jumped backwards out of the way. What did humans say about lightning never striking twice?

"Doctor!" Romana shouted and before she said anything else the Doctor was off, running up towards her as fast as he could as green laser bolts began bombarding the area, each time producing a loud thunder crack.

He joined Romana next to the large rock she had been using for shelter against the Auton and turned back to view the scene before him. Green laser bolts rained down with a loud crack like thunderbolts, they all appeared to be shooting straight out of the sky and impacting the ground with no particular target in mind.

"Unseasonable weather they're having, aren't they" he commented.

"Doctor, we're on Gallifrey!" Romana said at last.

"Gallifrey?" the Doctor asked looking up at the sky, which was grey in colour bordering on blue. Surely he remembered Gallifreyan skies were a burnt orange, he had once lived there long ago but he was sure. "What makes you think that?" he asked.


Romana took the Doctor to the top of the hill where she spotted that strange tall structure in the distance. She pointed it out to the Doctor and he was now observing it with keen eyes through his spyglass.

"Romana!" he said suddenly "That's the Dark Tower of Rassilon!" He exclaimed as if she hadn't noticed, or knew this before. It was the main clue that gave away they were on Gallifrey.

"I told you we were on Gallifrey." She said as the Doctor folded the spyglass back up and put it in his pocket.

"Hmm," he murmured his agreement, "the Death Zone" he said as he looked up at the sky "Explains the difference in sky colour, we're looking at it through a force field, changes the wavelength of light quite considerably as it passes through."

He didn't have to explain this elementary concept to her, but he did like to show off his knowledge, even if it was something everyone knew, even as a Time Tot. He was just so used to travelling with species from planets where such a things were considered marvels.

"Why would the Time Lords send us to the Death Zone?" Romana asked. The Death Zone was a dangerous place on Gallifrey, everyone in the citadel knew of the shameful history of this place. The Time Lords created this place millennia ago when the Time Lords misused their knowledge and power. They kidnapped peoples from other worlds, usually warriors and set them down in the Death Zone to watch them fight. It was only down to Rassilon that the games were finally brought to an end, but some monstrous and dangerous creatures still lurked in the Death Zone left over from the games. They couldn't escape the force field setup by the Time Lords so the rest of Gallifrey was in no danger of them. But what was here that the Time Lords could possibly want them to do?

"I don't know." the Doctor replied. "But I'll tell you one thing." He said taking a few steps forwards towards the tower, which stood impressively in the distance. "I bet it has something to do with the Dark Tower of Rassilon, his final resting place."

"What would the Time Lords want with a dead former Galliferyan leader?" Romana asked as she walked up to where he was now standing.

"Those were only rumours Romana." The Doctor said as he mulled over the situation. "Some say Rassilon still lives"

"What are you talking about Doctor? The Dark Tower is Rassilons' tomb." She said.

The Doctors tone became much graver. "There is a story that Rassilon discovered the secret of immortality."

"Oh don't be silly Doctor, immortality is impossible even for a Timelord, even the elixir of life from the Sisterhood of Karn couldn't sustain a Time Lord indefinitely." It was true that the Sisterhood of Karn had remained the same for generations even centuries since none of them actually died. But the elixir had to be taken regularly to preserve the life force. Which means Rassilon would need plenty of the stuff to remain alive and even if that was the case, why fake his death?

"Rassilon found a way..." the Doctor said turning back to look at the Dark Tower, which was eerily half hidden by the mists of the Death Zone. "'...and he lay sleeping in the Dark Tower, until a time when Gallifrey again needs his wisdom and power..."

"Oh, not that old nursery rhyme again." Romana said.

"How did that go again?" He asked as he started walking towards the Dark Tower, which by the look of it was miles away and would take them hours to get there but the Doctor now seemed determined to get to the bottom of this new mystery and had completely forgotten he wanted to sulk, because the Timelords were interfering in his life again.

Romana hurried to catch him up and could hear him muttering under his breath.

"... 'who goes Rassilons Tower...' no that's not right, '...who go... must choose above, between, below...'" He came to a sudden stop and Romana nearly walked right into him. The Doctors eyes were more wide than usual as if he had just realised something. "You know Romana..." he said pausing for a second as if trying to comprehend himself what he was about to say "...I suddenly have the extraordinary feeling of déjà vu."


To Be Continued...


Authors Notes: The Doctors sense of déjà vu is down to him recalling the same nursery rhyme in the same story while in his second incarnation. If this was part of the television episode I would've had that scene go just after this one. :D

Autons are supposed to be controlled by the Nestine consciousness, but since Auton Rory could operate without one in 'the Big Bang' I assume more advanced ones were completely automated.