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Chapter 25: Bad Wolf
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What was it with women and shopping? The Doctor had not even been a woman for more than five months- eight if you counted the time on the Valiant- but she was just as bad as Donna. Then again, for all the Master really knew, he might have always been this bad even before the 'accident'. Jenny was a little unsure, having been born to fight, not to appreciate designer clothing, random junk that claims to be ornamental, and exotic food-courts, but she was learning at an alarming rate.
The Master did his best to stay just far enough away from the group so as to avoid being asked to carry anything, but still keep them within sight. It was a much more difficult task than it sounded. The market-place was very crowded.
It was a very colourful street, and since he wasn't paying attention to the items for sale like the girls were, he noticed the detail. Beautiful, really. Although the TARDIS was insistently not translating the banners and signs at all. Hundreds of different languages, all over the place, and only two or three of them were recognisable to the Master. Even those were obscure.
Kirinii script, something he'd only learned by the sheer accident of being stuck on their world for a week. Even the Doctor wouldn't know that one. Very decorative to look at, annoyingly complicated to read. Each symbol was translated to a concept rather than an actual object or verb, and the concepts could mean a dozen different things depending on their context. He'd hated that week, and that planet was lucky it was too primitive for him to bother conquering, or he might have taken it over just to introduce a more intelligible form of writing... and to torture the scribes that used this script.
Devarian calligraphy, another one he'd picked up during the five centuries between leaving the Academy and meeting the Doctor again. Much simpler to read, once you get past the fact it looks like really bad human medics' handwriting. Funny, the Kirinii banner he'd seen could, in the right context, mean exactly the same thing as these Devarian signs.
The third was Makarin, and while he recognised it, he couldn't have translated it if his life depended on it. He would definitely need to suggest to the Doctor the idea of taking a sledgehammer to the TARDIS' translator circuits. Maybe completely re-fit the entire interface. It was dodgy at best, but today it wasn't translating any text at all.
He looked around, and saw the Doctor and Jenny not far ahead, and hurried to catch up, keen to pass on this suggestion right away. This thought was only encouraged by the sight of a stone marker with unreadable runes that somehow looked worryingly like the ancient Skaran language, from way back before the species of that world had discovered anagrams (and in spite of the Master's own liking for anagrams, that had not been his fault!)
"Have you seen Donna?" the Doctor asked, successfully interrupting that train of thought.
"I thought she was with you?" he said, frowning. What had he been about to tell her? Suddenly it seemed irrelevant, it would come back to him eventually.
No, that wasn't his own mind telling him that, that thought came from somewhere else, he was sure. Something powerful, to affect his mind.
What thought? Relax, it'll come back to you later, Master.
He shook his head to dispel the slight moment of confusion, and promptly forgot the entire thing, his full attention focused on the Doctor, and the fact Donna had gotten herself lost.
They didn't need to even begin to search for her, though, because a loud scream drew their attention, then Donna's voice could be heard nearby, demanding, "What the hell is that?"
The Doctor grinned, apparently eager to go and find out what dangerous thing had found Donna, and turned to hurry in that direction. The Master rolled his eyes and followed. He had never gotten into this much trouble without even trying, before he had started travelling with the Doctor like this. And he'd had opportunities to leave her behind, why did he never take them?
A pretty female alien- oh, she could pass for a human to look at, but he could tell that her blood was cold and her eyes did not focus on the physical world- scrambled out of the tent, crying out in horror, "You were so strong. What are you? What will you be? What will you be?"
The Master stepped aside to let her pass, easily able to sense that she was relatively harmless. Not important right now. He followed the Doctor into the tent, where they found Donna, who didn't seem to have been physically hurt, even if she was a bit shocked.
"You alright, Donna?" the Doctor asked, half-smiling, but still showing concern.
The Master was too busy trying not to laugh at the terror the alien had shown to pretend to care about Donna. Okay, so he didn't actively dislike this particular human, but that didn't mean he really cared. In his opinion, the most likely scenario here was that the alien woman had done something to insult Donna's personal pride, and had fled because she'd been on the receiving end of a spectacular rant.
Donna stared at the Doctor for a second, then whimpered something inaudible under her breath and ran over to hug her as if she'd not seen her in years.
"What was that for?" the Doctor asked, bemused.
"I don't know!" Donna said, laughing with what sounded like relief as she hugged the Doctor again.
Jenny appeared behind the Master, now, holding what looked like ice-cream (he wouldn't bet on it, though), "Did I miss something?" she asked, trying to peer into the tent past them.
The Master edged past the Doctor, spotting something moving on the ground. Twitching and dying, to be precise. Some sort of giant beetle. He glanced up at the others, "Ever seen one of these, Doctor?" he asked.
She gently pushed Donna away from the compulsive hugging, and joined him, "I think... it's one of the Trickster's brigade." she said, picking it up and examining it.
The Master had been intelligent enough to leave it alone. Even when dead, many creatures were still potentially dangerous, but no. He idly wondered if she'd be stupid enough to lick it. She seemed to know better, though, and instead, once she set the dead thing down she began poking it with a stick. A stick of incense is still a stick.
As he eyed the creature, the Master could sense an echo in time and reality around it. He wasn't entirely certain what it meant, but it had to have been powerful to linger after the creature's death. By her frown of concentration, the Doctor was also trying to figure out what this was.
"What do you remember?" the Doctor asked, looking up at Donna.
Donna shook her head, sitting down and looking like it hurt to try to think about it, "I'm not sure. You know, like when you try and think of a dream and it just sort of... goes."
"Well, these things are usually relatively harmless." the Doctor explained, "They change a life in tiny little ways. Feed off the potential energy of what should have been. A bit like- oh, wait, you never met those. Nevermind. Anyway, most times, the universe just compensates around it, but with you... great big parallel world!" she grinned at Donna, with what looked somewhat like pride. Well, it did make sense that the Doctor would be pleased with anyone she was friends with thwarting the laws of common sense and temporal-dimensional physics. And this would explain the echo he'd sensed, as well.
"Hold on, you said parallel worlds are sealed off." Donna said, frowning at this contradiction.
"They are. But you had one created around you." the Doctor said, as if this made much difference.
"Hold on a second." the Master said, suddenly, still staring at the creature, "How did it connect to you?"
"It was on my back." Donna said, shifting uncomfortably at the trace of memory left of it.
"'There is something on your back'." he said, frowning.
"What?" Donna asked, looking up at him, "That's what they said! I remember people trying to look behind me."
"That's what Lucius said to you... in Pompeii." the Master noted. He remembered that conversation more clearly than he'd like. It was months ago, for them, now, but he still feared the concept Lucius had suggested to him. He was quite happy with the current volume- or lack thereof- of the drums in his mind, right now. He could tune them out when he felt like it.
"Yes, I remember!" Donna said, staring at him in surprise, as it clicked in her mind, "And he told you-" she turned to look at the Doctor, but was clearly trying to remember the exact wording.
"'She is returning'." the Master supplied.
"That's right!" Donna declared, as if everything was finally starting to make sense, "There was this woman, I can't remember much. But she talked about you like she knew you."
"Well, that never happened, now." the Doctor said, trying to sound dismissive. And failing.
"No, but she said... the stars... she said the stars are going out." Donna persisted.
"But that world's gone." the Doctor insisted.
"No, but she said it was all worlds." Donna countered, "Every world. She said the darkness is coming, even here."
The Doctor was now watching Donna very intently, "Who was she?"
"I don't know." Donna said, shaking her head and looking away, trying to remember.
"What did she look like?" the Doctor asked, not about to let the subject drop.
"She was-" Donna frowned, and then after a moment came up with an answer, "Blonde."
Clearly Donna didn't believe this was helpful, but the Doctor continued to question, "What was her name?"
"I don't know." Donna said, starting to get angry, whether at the relentless questioning, or her own memory, it was unclear. The Doctor closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, trying to dispel her own frustration at this botched interrogation, as well, but then Donna continued, "But she told me... to warn you. She said... two words." concentration was written all over her face, as she tried to recall the two words in question.
"What two words?" the Doctor asked, and suddenly she actually looked afraid, as if she didn't think she wanted to hear the answer. Even the Master would be on the edge of his seat to hear this... if he'd been sitting down, that is.
"'Bad Wolf'."
"What does that mean?" Jenny asked. He'd actually forgotten she'd been standing there. But if she hadn't asked it, he would have. Suddenly, as if a light switch had been turned back on in his brain, he remembered the signs outside, and the two- admittedly rather pathetic- translations he'd worked out. Bad Wolf, that was what they had meant.
But the Doctor didn't seem to hear the question, instead she stood up and left the tent quickly, aiming in the direction of the TARDIS. But she stopped dead as soon as she was outside. The other three followed her, and also stopped to stare.
"Doctor, what the hell is this?" the Master demanded. The words were written in a thousand different languages, happily translated by the TARDIS, who had ignored them until now. And every single sign in the entire marketplace said Bad Wolf. Sneaky little thing, that TARDIS. As if she had planned this, or at least conspired with who-or-whatever had planned it.
The Doctor didn't answer, and instead ran for the TARDIS, not stopping until she was inside. Donna and Jenny followed her, completely confused, but the Master hesitated as he saw the sign on the TARDIS' door. Five different lines of text all now said Bad Wolf. That was particularly weird. Either the chameleon circuit wasn't as broken as he'd thought, or the translation system was more messed up than he'd thought. Either way, he quickly followed the others inside.
The interior was lit in red, and an alarm was sounding. Well, the lighting brought back pleasant memories, but he didn't like the situation enough to waste time getting all nostalgic about world domination. He moved over to where the translation circuits were situated on the underside of the console, and looked at them, ignoring the others.
He heard Donna demanding, "Doctor, what is it? What's Bad Wolf?" but didn't look up. The translation system was working fine, and the chameleon circuit was just as broken as ever. It really was a conspiracy, it had to be. The TARDIS was working with whatever this Bad Wolf was. He just didn't understand how or why.
When the Doctor answered Donna's question, her voice was quiet against the alarms, and sounded genuinely terrified, "It's the end of the universe."
The Master looked up to see she was being perfectly serious. "Bit early for that, isn't it?" he asked irreverently.
She glared at him, and he knew better than to say or do anything more to annoy her at this point. She ran to the TARDIS controls, and began setting a course. "What are you up to, down there, anyway?"
"The words on the TARDIS door." the Master said, shrugging as he quickly moved to claim the couch, so as not to suffer the worst side-effects of her inability to fly in a straight line, "I was checking the chameleon circuit was still broken and the translation system wasn't. Any other explanations for something like that?"
"Ah... maybe." she answered, distractedly.
"And that would be...?" he persisted.
"Rose." the Doctor said, before pressing the button to dematerialise.
"Very informative." the Master snarked, holding onto the back of the couch for the- much quicker than usual- jump through the Vortex. The instant they landed, the Doctor was outside again. "I'll bet you anything, this is Earth." he said to Donna, who was loyally heading towards the door, to follow the Doctor.
"I'm not taking that bet, space-man." she retorted, and then stepped outside. "'Cause you'd have won." she called back.
The Master looked to Jenny, "What do you think?"
"I think there's gonna be some running soon." she said, grinning.
"You are a strange child, you know that, don't you?"
"I'm not a child!" she replied indignantly. He heard the Doctor and Donna talking, but ignored them. "Who's Rose?" Jenny asked, after a moment.
"I'm not sure exactly." he said, shaking his head and frowning, "Beyond the fact she once travelled with the Doctor. And she did something to Captain Jack that made him unable to stay dead." As the Doctor rushed back into the TARDIS, and Donna followed, visibly annoyed at running back and forth, the Master added, "I think the Doctor loved her."
"Wrong tense." the Doctor said bluntly, pressing buttons and turning dials on the console.
"Thing is, Doctor." Donna said, "No matter what's happening, and I'm- I'm sure it's bad, I get that. But... Rose is coming back. Isn't that good?"
It took almost three seconds for the concept to sink in through the Doctor's thick skull, before she finally smiled at Donna, "Yeah."
But the sickeningly happy thoughts were thrown out the metaphorical window, when the ship shook violently, causing Jenny to yell as she was thrown into a wall. The Master was suddenly very happy with the fact he hadn't bothered to leave the couch. "What did you do, try to take off with the handbrake on?" Sure, he'd put it in Earth terms, there wasn't actually a handbrake, but there were other systems vaguely comparable to it that could cause such a reaction... if the Master hadn't really known the Doctor was not the cause of the problem. For once.
"What the hell was that?" Donna demanded, clinging to the console for support.
"It came from outside." the Doctor said, before picking herself up from the floor, and running to the door. Even without leaving the couch, the Master saw the blackness of space when the door was opened.
Donna was next to the Doctor, gaping out at the view before them, "But we're in space. How did that happen? What did you do?"
Jenny was muttering irritably as she rubbed a sore shoulder and walked slowly over to the couch. The Master decided to show the greatest form of selflessness he was really capable of, and moved his legs so that Jenny could sit. Sharing. That was practically unheard of, from him. "You okay?"
She glanced at her shoulder, "Not even a scratch." she smiled brightly at him. He wasn't even sure why he cared about her. There was only one other being in all of creation whom he cared about, and she was also on this ship.
Speaking of which, the Doctor had returned to the console and was doing something with the scanners. "We haven't moved, we're still in the same place... But how? No!"
"Don't tell me you lost the Earth?" the Master asked, really trying very hard not to laugh.
"Fine, I won't tell you." the Doctor hissed angrily.
"I remember a similar conversation in Pompeii." he noted brightly.
Donna glared at him, but then turned to the Doctor, showing her fear, "But if the Earth's been moved, they've lost the sun! What about my Mum? And Granddad? They're dead, aren't they? Are they dead?"
"I don't know, Donna." the Doctor said, still working on the scanners, "I just don't know, I'm sorry." she looked for a moment like she was going to hit the console, she was that upset by the situation, "I don't know."
"That's my family." Donna whispered, horrified, "My whole world." Big deal, join the club.
"There's no readings. Nothing. Not a trace." the Doctor said, "Not even a whisper. Oh, that is fearsome technology!"
"No rubble, then?" the Master asked, "That's a good sign, Donna."
"You're not helping!" Donna shrieked at him, and he actually cringed at the volume and pitch of her voice. Before he could recover, even if he had wanted to retort, she'd turned back to the Doctor, "So what do we do?"
"We've got to get help." the Doctor answered.
"From where?" Donna asked weakly.
"Donna... we're going to the Shadow Proclamation. Hold tight!"
"What about the three hundred and twelve warrants for my head, body optional?" the Master asked pointedly, even though he was too late to stop the Doctor from activating the TARDIS to travel there whether he liked it or not. The Shadow Proclamation had taken offence at most of his attempts to take over the universe, in the past.
"They don't know this face, do they?"
"Not to my knowledge." he muttered. He would need to be careful if he ever tried any evil scheme in this lifetime, so that it wouldn't affect this little field trip.
"So go on then, what is the Shadow Proclamation anyway?" Donna asked.
"Posh name for police." the Doctor answered, "Outer space police. Here we go!"
And finally they landed. That had been a much less pleasant ride than usual. As if the TARDIS didn't think this stop was at all necessary.
The Master stayed behind the three women as the Doctor negotiated with the rather large guards in charge. He didn't actually care what species they were, the point was that they were holding large weapons, and looked physically strong enough that they could probably pound the four time travellers into a fine paste with their bare hands.
It didn't take long for the Doctor to convince the guards that they were friendly, and soon they were taken to meet the Shadow Proclamation. On the way there, the Master hesitated for a half-step, before catching up with the Doctor, "Ever get the feeling of someone tap-dancing on your metaphorical grave?"
"Every time I introduce myself and someone asks 'Doctor who?'" she answered simply, "Why?"
"It's nothing, I'm sure." he said, frowning. He had felt a chill up his spine, and a strong sense of unease, as if someone, somewhere, was laughing at him. "I am sure we shouldn't be here, though."
"You're right." the Doctor said, nodding, "We should be on Earth, but this is the best way to find out what happened to it."
x x x
Unfortunately, when they were introduced to the old crone in charge, it turned out she wasn't very friendly, even towards the Doctor. And the Doctor had that knack of ingratiating him/herself to whomever they needed help from much more quickly than most other sentient beings could ever hope for.
"Time Lords are the stuff of legend." the said coldly, "They belong in the myths and whispers of the Higher Species. You cannot possibly exist."
"Yeah, more to the point, I've got a missing planet!" the Doctor said irritably.
"Then you're not as wise as the stories would say." the crone said coldly. "The picture is far bigger than you imagine. The whole universe is in outrage, Doctor. Twenty-four worlds have been taken from the sky."
"Twenty-four?" the Doctor asked, eyes widening with surprise, "Which ones? Show us!"
The Master shot her a bemused look, which easily held the question, 'Us? You think I'm going to help?' But the Doctor either didn't see it, or didn't care. She was already at the computer terminal in the centre of the room.
"Locations range far and wide. But all disappeared at the exact same moment. Leaving no trace." the crone told them. Until he got a name for her, she would be thought of as the crone. No capital letters, she wasn't important enough for them, in his opinion.
The Doctor examined the information on the computer readout, "Callufrax Minorr. Jahoo. Shallacatop. Woman Wept... Clom? Who'd want Clom?"
"All different sizes, some populated, some not. But all unconnected." the crone explained.
"What about Pyrovillia?" Donna asked, suddenly.
"And who is this?" the crone asked, distaste evident in her tone and demeanour, as if she thought Donna was a mere insect not worthy of her notice, she wasn't even deigning to speak directly to Donna, but rather she directed her question to the Doctor. Bad idea, incoming rant in three, two, one...
"Donna!" she snapped indignantly. "I'm a Human Being." Yes, she pronounced the capital letters. Good for her. "Maybe not the stuff of legend but every bit as important as Time Lords, thank you." The Doctor smiled encouragingly at her, obviously enjoying the sight of Donna Noble putting the old crone in her place every bit as much as the Master did. "Way back when we were in Pompeii, Lucius said Pyrovillia had gone missing."
"Pyrovillia is cold case. Not relevant!" one of the guards said. Its voice sounded like a snarl, but the Master guessed this was just its natural demeanour rather than any genuine ill-intent.
"How d'you mean, cold case?" Donna asked, confused.
"The planet Pyrovillia cannot be part of this." the crone answered, "It disappeared over two thousand years ago."
"Yes, yes, hang on." Donna continued, clearly not finished, "But there's the Adipose breeding planet too, Miss Foster said that was lost, but that must've been a long time ago."
"That's it!" the Doctor shouted, gleefully, "Donna, you're brilliant! Planets are being taken out of time as well as space!" she started doing something to the computer terminal, and then images of the planets in question were thrown up into a 3D display. "Now, if we add Pyrovillia." she said, and a representation of the planet in question appeared, "And Adipose Three." and that appeared as well. "Something missing." she began to mutter to herself, until she realised something, and all-but cheered, "Oh! The Lost Moon of Poosh!"
"Lost moon of where, now?" the Master asked.
"You were pretending to sleep during that conversation." she answered as she entered the relevant data into the computer, and another image appeared. Then the images shifted, until they were aligned with each other, forming a perfect pattern.
"What did you do?" the crone demanded, as the Doctor stepped into the middle of the projected illusion, to get a better view.
"Nothing." she answered, looking around at the illusion, "The planets rearranged themselves into the optimum pattern. Oh, look at that! Twenty-seven planets in perfect balance. Now that is beautiful!"
"Alright, now tell the rest of us, what does it mean?" Donna demanded.
The Doctor left the image, and walked over to her before answering, "All those worlds fit together like pieces of an engine. It's like a powerhouse! What for?"
"Who could design such a thing?" the crone asked. The Master wandered over to the computer terminal, and began pressing buttons. The conversation was getting boring, and he had thought of something.
"Someone tried to move the Earth once before." the Doctor said quietly, "Long time ago... can't be..." the Master looked up from what he had been about to do, and stared at her for a second. He wouldn't be especially surprised if her guess was right- especially after she dared utter the words 'can't be'- but he really really hoped that was not the cause of this.
Quickly, he resumed pressing buttons. "What are you doing?" the crone demanded, when she noticed him.
The information on the screen showed the basic statistics of every planet that had been taken. Size, density, natural location in its star system, life-forms, sentient populations, and energy readings. Suddenly the Doctor's attention was on him as well.
"Donna, you said the stars were going out." the Master asked, "But nothing happened to the Earth in your reality, did it?"
"Besides Sontaran poisons, vanishing hospitals, the Titanic crashing into Buckingham Palace, no, nothing. The Earth didn't up and move, or anything."
"The Titanic?" the Doctor asked her, confused.
"You... didn't know about that one?" Donna asked, surprised.
"No. No, I didn't." the Doctor said, frowning.
"What changed, Donna?" the Master asked, not taking his eyes off the computer terminal, examining the Earth's statistics in particular.
"I never met the Doctor." Donna said slowly, carefully, as if she was speaking only as she managed to dredge up the needed memories, "In that reality, he died fighting the Racnoss empress."
The Master looked right at Donna for a moment, then nodded, "This makes sense, now."
"What do you mean?" the Doctor asked, moving to look at the screen.
"Archangel. It's generating a psyonic empathic field. All these worlds have different global psyonic energy signatures." he pointed to the relevant planets as he read the relevant information, "Pyrovillia, psyonic thermal shielding. Not-So-Lost-Anymore-But-Nevermind Moon of Poosh, psyonic cloaking field."
He began typing in calculations, as the Doctor read out more of the statistics, "Clom, psyonic phase stabilisers. Adipose Three, psyonic growth resonance." she paused, "Why is this important?"
"Without Archangel, Earth wasn't taken." he said simply, as if the knowledge that in Donna's personal little pocket-universe he had probably died of old age as the pitiful Professor Yana really didn't bother him. Oh, it bothered him, but he refused to admit it any more than he would admit that the thought of the Doctor's final death had hurt him. "I don't know why it's important, but it must mean something."
x x x
Twenty minutes had passed. Donna was now sitting near the bottom of a staircase, watching the Doctor and the crone working on the computer terminal. Jenny and the Master were on the floor by the far wall. Jenny was leaning against the wall, with her eyes closed, and was frowning in concentration, "I still can't see anything that looks like it." she said quietly.
The Master was laying on the floor a few feet from her, flat on his back, subconsciously doing his best to impersonate a sleeping vampire, "It's not easy when you're just learning." he said quietly. "Furthest I could ever sense, when I trained at the Academy, was Veridian. That was only half a constellation away. But try to relax, it'll work better."
Only half his mind was on this conversation. He was listening intently to the drumbeat in his head. They were quiet, he had to go looking for them. The beat was faster than average, usually meaning something violent was happening somewhere important. When they got louder, it meant he should join in.
He had instructed Jenny to try to use natural Time Lord temporal perception to try to find the planets shown on the projection. Meanwhile, he was trying something much more crude and dangerous. If you compared it to a particular series of Earth movies for one minute, Jenny was using the Light Side, and he was tapping into the Dark Side, both with the same goal of tracing a disturbance in the Force.
The drums got quieter, when he thought of the Sol system, or any location the other planets had been taken from. So he began a systematic mental sweep of the local galaxies. Sometimes the volume would increase, but not enough to trace. It wasn't working. Maybe what he was sensing wasn't even related to the Earth's disappearance at all? Oh, he was so sick of playing hide-and-seek. Cowardly sneak-thief, come out and play my game instead!
For a brief instant, too brief to pinpoint, he heard the drums tapping in an unfamiliar metallic tone, very quickly, only once, not repeated. Taunting him. Before he could try to focus on it again, his concentration was interrupted by the Doctor's voice, "The bees disappearing!"
He opened one eye to glare at the Doctor, "And that is important enough to disrupt our concentration, why?"
"You were trying to search telepathically?" she asked, surprised, "Thought you were just pretending to sleep again." She was at the computer, now, with Donna lurking over her shoulder in spite of the fact the human had no idea what the Doctor was up to. Neither did the Master, for that matter.
"How is this significant?" the crone asked.
"Answer my question first!" the Master demanded, grinning. He enjoyed messing with people's minds, and it was so much more fun when he didn't need to hypnotise them to do so. He'd asked pretty much the same question as the crone had, so that was why he considered this remark funny. No one else seemed to agree.
Donna pointedly turned to the crone as she began to speak, "On Earth we have these insects. Some people said it was pollution, or mobile phone signals."
"Or..." the Doctor interrupted, too happily, "They were going back home!"
"Back home where?" Donna asked, confused.
"Planet Melissa Majoria!" the Doctor answered.
"Are you saying bees are aliens?" Donna demanded, incredulously.
"Well... not all of them." the Doctor said with a shrug, "But if the migrant bees felt something coming, some sort of danger, and escaped... Tandocca!"
Now the Master sat up and took notice, at about the same instant that the crone figured it out as well, "The Tandocca Scale!" the crone declared.
At Donna's blank look, the Doctor decided to explain, "Tandocca Scale is the series of wavelengths used as a carrier signals by migrant bees. Infinitely small, no wonder we didn't see it! Like looking for a speck of cinnamon in the Sahara, but look! There it is. The Tandocca trail. The transmat that moved the planets was using the same wavelength, we can follow the path!"
"And find the Earth?" Donna asked, brightening up significantly, "Well, stop talking and do it!"
"You can stop, now, Jenny." the Master muttered, only slightly sulking, "Science wins over both good and evil." he looked right at the Doctor, and added, "But I came damned close."
The Doctor and Donna were already running towards the TARDIS, and Jenny all too happily scrambled to her feet and sprinted after them. The Master stood in a much more dignified manner, but using one the Time Lords' many natural advantages over lesser beings, he was able to catch up with the others by the time they reached the TARDIS, and actually beat the Doctor inside.
"Cheater!" she laughed as she ran for the controls and began setting the scanners to the correct frequency. "Took us long enough to figure this out. The signal's scattered. But not too bad."
The Master sat down, and waited impatiently for them to leave. Jenny sat next to him, grinning. "You." he said to her, "Are absolutely loving this, aren't you?"
"Shouldn't I?" Jenny asked, confused by the very idea.
"The resemblance is uncanny." he said, glancing at the Doctor, who ignored him completely.
The Doctor went back to the door, and spoke too-quickly to whoever was out there, "I've got a blip! It's just a blip! But it's definitely there!"
"Then according to the Strictures of the Shadow Proclamation, I will have to seize your transport and your technology." that was the crone's voice.
"This is where we tell her just where she can shove her strictures." the Master said quietly, so only Donna and Jenny could hear.
"Oi, you! No corrupting the younger generation!" Donna sniped playfully. Jenny giggled at this.
"What did he do?" the Doctor asked. He hadn't seen her return from the door, but she was already at the control console once more, and preparing for takeoff.
"How'd you get rid of that lot?" the Master asked, as the TARDIS dematerialised, instead of answering her question.
"Told them I'd comply, just needed to fetch something first." the Doctor answered.
"And that something would be... the Earth?" the Master suggested.
"Of course."
x x x
Author's Note: For reference, seeing as it was pretty damned obscure, when the Master felt the sensation he described as "tap-dancing on your metaphorical grave" the entire Dalek fleet had been chanting at that exact moment, "Daleks are the Masters of Earth!" And when he heard the metallic tone of the drumbeat, Davros had tapped it with his metal hand, I definitely heard it last time I watched the episode.