Chapter 19: The Letter

Amy stood alone in the dark TARDIS, her foot tapping the metal floor. Her arms were tightly folded across her chest and she faced away from the ice box. The Doctor was outside explaining to Cornelis what he wanted him to do and it seemed to be taking an age. Even so, she jumped slightly when the Doctor came tramping back in.

'All right, Cornelis is on his way to the mayor's house,' said the Doctor. 'So we have less than an hour before the Master gets here.'

He glanced at the ice box as he walked past it.

'How do you know the Master won't kill him?' said Amy.

'Cornelis should be all right as long as he sticks to the guidelines.'

'Guidelines?' Amy was incredulous. 'You perhaps send a man to his death with nothing but guidelines?'

'Can we pretend I already know that?' snapped the Doctor. He ducked under the console computer, trying to look at the wiring through the metal floor grid. Amy got the feeling he was keeping himself busy.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'How can I help?'

'Think of a way to get the Master to switch off his ionic force shield.'

Amy shrugged. 'Say please? Wait, I know! We knock him out and take his screwdriver thing!'

'And at what frequency do we set it? Getting it wrong could be fatal.'

'We make him tell us!'

'Is this before or after we knock him out?'

'I don't know!' said Amy. 'Wait! Can't we use your screwdriver to find out the frequency?'

'I don't have it.'

'You always have it!'

'Not this time. I had to leave it in the TARDIS, otherwise the Master would have been able to track me from his computer here.'

'But where did you hide the TARDIS?'

'Somewhere he couldn't find it.'

Amy remembered with a chill the Master looking for the Doctor's TARDIS. He had scanned the entire planet and found nothing.

'But—'

'We really don't have time for this, Amy.'

The Doctor sprang to his feet and stared at the console. He took the bow tie from his pocket and started tying it around his neck.

'If the Master switches off the force shield, I can pilot his TARDIS out of this century.' Under the Doctor's chin, one end of the tie flipped over the other. 'That would break the signal to the water pumps and they would all go on stand-by. The flooding would stop.'

'But wouldn't that set off the bombs?'

'Probably. Unless…' The Doctor finished tying his bow tie. He gave it a final tweak, then a pat. 'Is it on straight?' he said.

'Unless what?' Amy almost shrieked.

'Unless the Master has been too clever!' The Doctor took out his little screwdriver and waggled it at the screen. 'Any trap set on a computer, no matter how clever, can always be hacked into. There's always that chance.'

'Right…'

'So how can you make that impossible? How can you set a trap that cannot be hacked into, even by a computer genius?'

'By … not putting the trap onto the computer?'

'Exactly!'

Amy was still confused. She had made a guess and getting it right by dumb luck did nothing to enlighten her. The Doctor went around to the other side of the console and held up the screwdriver.

'Watch the screen, Amy,' he said. 'And tell me what you see.'

Amy focused on the screen. The Doctor tapped a control on the console, sending up a fizzing yellow spark.

'The red lights flickered!' said Amy. 'They sort of jumped.'

'I thought they might,' said the Doctor, shaking his head in admiration. 'You can't deactivate the bombs by hacking into the computer because the deactivation command is not in the computer. It's connected to…'

'…the ionic force shield,' said Amy in realisation.

'And that means,' said the Doctor. 'If you switch off the shield, you automatically…'

'…switch off the bombs!' cried Amy.

'Yes!'

The Doctor laughed and Amy jumped into his arms, whooping and clapping. Then, suddenly, she stopped, her face aghast.

'Wait a minute!' she said. 'That means the only possible way to deactivate the bombs and the pumps is if the Master himself does it!'

'Yes! He's quite brilliant, isn't he?'

'But how does that help us?'

'Working on it, Amy!' said the Doctor. 'Working on it…'

In the dining room of the mayor's house, servants cleared away the plates from the main course. The mayor sat at the head of a long table surrounded by rich merchants who drank red wine and patted their bellies. Upon the table were metal plates with hunks of bread and brown ceramic pots of mustard and horseradish sauce. Much of that sauce was on the tablecloth and adorning the waistcoats of the more enthusiastic guests.

The Master sat amid the belching and bragging like a cat in a pig sty. He was easily the thinnest man there and had hardly touched the overcooked lamb the rest of them had stuffed themselves with. What did the Doctor ever see in these primitive, greedy apes?

The head manservant entered and went over to the mayor—one of the few whose waistcoats were still clean, the Master noted. The mayor seemed puzzled and annoyed by what the manservant was saying. Eventually he gave an irritated nod. As the manservant left the room, the mayor saw he was being observed and pointed a podgy finger at the Master.

'This is your fault, you know!' said the mayor.

What now? thought the Master and he stared at a candle flame and fantasized about the torments he would inflict on these morons before he dispatched them. Then Cornelis entered the room and the Master's mood changed completely.

Cornelis stood, awkward but determined, waiting for permission to speak. The diners began to quieten, more from curiosity than politeness. A couple of them thought he was the entertainment and twisted in their chairs to get a good look.

'Lord Mayor,' said Cornelis, nodding. 'Gentlemen. Master.'

The Master stared back, unsmiling, his fingers tapping the tabletop.

'Who is he?' said one of the diners, waving his wine glass at Cornelis.

'He's my secretary,' said the Master.

'Oh.'

Several diners lost interest and began talking amongst themselves. Cornelis looked at the Master and swallowed nervously.

'Out with it, man!' said the mayor to Cornelis. 'What's this message that's so important you have to give it to your master in our presence?'

The Master laughed. The mayor gave him an annoyed look, but the Master ignored him.

'Oh, Cornelis,' said the Master. 'Do you really think this audience of fools would stop me from killing you if I wanted to?'

The talk died down to a near silence. Some were insulted; others wondered what kind of message could provoke such a nasty joke at the expense of the messenger. The mayor became alert and watchful. Cornelis took a letter from his jacket pocket and put it on the table in front of the Master.

'The Doctor has returned,' said Cornelis. 'He asked me to give you this.'

The Master picked up the letter and opened it. It was clearly not a long letter, but by the time he finished reading it, the Master was on his feet, his face a mask of fury.

'All this suspense over a note from his doctor?' said a fat diner to his neighbour. 'I was expecting something more dramatic.'

'Like this?' said the Master.

He drew his laser screwdriver, pointed it at a random guest and fired. The man screamed, bones cracking, as he was crushed into a twisted, dried up doll. The Master ended with a flourish of his silver wand and leapt onto the table, sending plates and glasses tumbling. He kicked off a floral decoration he had been hating all evening and then crouched before the fat diner, drawing slow circles in the air with his laser screwdriver.

'Was that dramatic enough, you disgusting fat pig?'

Everyone in the room was suddenly sober. Nobody moved. Nobody said a word. The Master spent a moment contemplating the dribbling terror of the fat diner, then stood and surveyed the lot of them from his vantage point on the table. Their red-cheeked faces were now white, their eyes wide and pleading, all of their bluster gone. The Master lived for moments like this. Only the mayor seemed to retain some of his character—he looked furious. Go on, thought the Master, say something defiant. Give me an excuse to kill someone else. But the mayor seemed to know this and he kept quiet.

The Master jumped off the table, his boots thumping on the wooden floor. He went to Cornelis and held up the letter.

'You'd better hope the Doctor's end game is up to scratch,' said the Master. 'Because if I win this, I'm coming back for you.'

He tapped Cornelis on the nose with the letter, went to the door, opened it and then turned to the terrified manservant who stood holding a tray.

'You can serve the next course now,' said the Master.

And he left, whistling.

Not a single man moved—the only sounds were the Master's footsteps on the stairs followed by the slam of the front door.