The interior of the shuttle was sleek and spotless. Corridors of white plastic, narrow with low, curved ceilings, ran in parallel lines through the length of the ship, criss-crossed to divide rooms and sloped down at the tail end to connect the levels. In the heart of the shuttle was a massive engine room which could be reached in minutes from almost anywhere – all around its circumference, like spokes on a wheel, the corridors emerged onto a balcony with an aluminium mesh floor and smooth aluminium railings around the edge. From here, it was possible to climb any one of a number of ladders to reach parts of the complex machine powerhouse that alternately hummed and roared with a whole spectrum of pitches. It sounded, Thes thought, like amplifier feedback at a death metal concert, complete with the shrieking of the audience in the background. And when it wasn't deafening, it was actually quite a fascinating sound. He could spend hours in here, eyes closed and legs swinging over the edge of the balcony, just listening to the distorted dissonance as the shuttle sailed through the vacuum of space.
It was preferable to being with the crew, at any rate. The twenty or so people who had been picked out to venture into space were not astronauts, Thes knew that. In fact, as far as he could tell, they were probably just picked out from the labourers who had been working on the shuttle in its last few months of construction. And every single one seemed to be so deep in whatever hypnotized trance the Master had put on them that it was as if they were drugged. They moved silently around the shuttle, attending their duties with the relentless uniformity of robots, staring with sightless eyes and showing no sign of response when Thes tried to speak to them. Men and women, of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities – but they did have one thing in common. Now that they no longer moved of their own free will, the aversion fields seemed to hold no sway over their actions, and Thes could see clearly the Time Beetles that clung to their backs – which were all gravid females that had not yet been able to find a host for their offspring.
The implications of that had been fairly easy to imagine; less easy to believe. Then again, simply the fact that he was here, sitting in the engine room of a spacecraft that the Master claimed was 5000 years advanced for human technology, heading for stars so distant that Earth's most dedicated astronomers were not even aware of their existence, was suspending disbelief enough. Thes had long since stopped wondering whether he believed, as such.
An atonal purr entered the discordant mash of sound emitting from the engine and the volume dropped. Thes found his mind straying back to the hangar on Earth, when the Master had first informed him that he was to be a passenger on the shuttle. He had protested – he was too young, completely inexperienced, and his physical fitness was a far cry from anything a space traveler would be required to have, surely.
"Oh yes, I forgot – your species still takes three months to get a satellite to Mars, don't they?" the Master had laughed.
Thes still wasn't quite sure what to make of that. It wasn't the first time the Master had spoken as if he considered himself separate from humanity – something superior even. Impossible as the idea may seem, it would explain a lot, Thes reasoned – not least of which, his appearance when Thes had first encountered him, with his face and hands translucent blue, bones showing clearly through his flesh. In fact, if it weren't for that, Thes could perhaps have convinced himself that it was just another delusional belief of a madman. He wondered what exactly the Master was…and with a wry smile, he wondered what his father would say if he knew that Britain had once elected an alien as Prime Minister.
In the end, Thes had been informed that he would be personally responsible if the shuttle disintegrated the moment it left the Earth's atmosphere with the twenty or so crew on board, and he had reluctantly boarded. To his surprise, his fears had turned out to be unfounded. The take-off had been smoother even than an aeroplane, rising smoothly through the atmosphere and out into open space as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and the whole ship sustained artificial gravity throughout the flight. The accessible parts of the ship were not extensive, presumably due to the need for efficiency, and during the past week or so since they had left Earth, Thes had paced the corridors countless times and ventured into every last cupboard – with the exception, of course, of the Master's private quarters.
Some part of the massive engine began to emit a shrill squealing noise that clashed jarringly with the soup of frequencies, and Thes climbed to his feet and departed the engine room. He padded along the corridor in his socks, eyes closed and the fingertips of his right hand trailing along the smooth plastic wall. If one of the crew happened to be coming the other way, they would simply step around him, paying him no more heed than if he had been some inanimate object. Eventually, the sounds of the engine had faded and he opened his eyes to see where his random wanderings had taken him. To his dismay, he found himself at the entrance to the control room, the largest room on the ship apart from the engine room. Six massive screens took up most of the walls, the ceiling and the floor, projecting an image of the exterior of the shuttle from all sides, and in the centre, a square control panel was covered in smaller screens, dials and switches.
The Master stood at the control panel with his back to the door, and Thes took a step back.
"Hello there!" the Master called out without turning his head. "Don't act like you're not pleased to see me!" Thes shuffled into the room, trying to focus on the control panel – he couldn't help feeling dizzy at the sight of the black, star-speckled screens around, above and below him.
"Look at that – see that star, over there?" The Master pointed to a distant, glimmering speck; Thes forced himself to take in the image on the screen and nodded. "That's your sun."
"My sun," Thes said quietly. He drew a deep breath and raised his voice. "Where's yours?" The Master made no reply, and Thes wondered if he had gone too far.
"S-sorry…I-" he stuttered, rubbing his forearm hard with embarrassment and shaking his head hard.
"So, I've already got control of the more-or-less intelligent life around that one," the Master interrupted, tapping the dwindling speck on the screen that was Earth's solar system. "And this is where we're headed next." He strode across the room and jabbed a finger at a brighter, closer star, grinning broadly at Thes. "And after that – well, I'll be able to take whatever ones I want, won't I? Maybe…mmm…that one. And that one – ooh, and I've always wanted to pay them a little visit!" He skipped nimbly around the room pointing to an array of specks of various sizes and colours, and then clapped his hands with delight and laughed. "Won't it be fun? I should take a photo of this – tick them off." While Thes watched wordlessly, he mimed a ticking action over Earth's sun just as it vanished into the distance. It occurred to Thes that he probably ought to feel something, seeing his solar system left behind like that, but in the sea of tiny specks that surrounded him, he found it impossible to convince himself that he was in any way more connected to that one than any of the others.
"Don't you think it's exciting?" the Master persisted, trying to meet Thes's eyes. The young man shrugged noncommittally and rubbed his arm again, and the Master headed back to the control panel and started adjusting dials. "I wonder, Thes," he said without looking around, "what does make you…tic." Thes's cheeks flushed red as he caught the snide pun, and his fingers twitched as he tried to restrain himself from fidgeting self-consciously. A surge of resentment welled up within him – he had to bite his lip to stop himself from attempting to retaliate, especially when the Master continued. "No, really – where did you come from, Thes? What caused you? We both know the Doctor couldn't have done it…"
There it was again – that inexplicable concept, which Thes hadn't brought up again since that day in the hangar. It was beyond him, how the Master could possibly believe that he, a human being of flesh and blood, was just some sort of side-effect. It made no sense whatsoever – after all, hadn't the Master been questioning him about his family at one time? If he wasn't real, where did that leave them?
"I found out something about my great-grandmother, by the way," he remembered suddenly. "You were asking, so I looked on the internet – back when the shuttle was being built."
"Oh, yeah?" said the Master, glancing at Thes and continuing to turn dials, pursing his lips as his eyes followed a series of numbers on a screen embedded in the control panel.
"Found something, too – turns out she was quite well-known once. Best neurochemist of her day – but she was banned from practicing medical research for conducting experiments on people." The Master had stopped watching the numbers on the screen, and Thes could tell he was now listening, although his head was still turned away. "Just before she died, she confessed something to my grandparents, apparently. She said she was a deserter – said she had been working on some sort of biochemical weapon during a war, and she abandoned them. Interference and bureaucracy, she said. Everyone said she was going senile in her old age, though – there isn't any record of her being involved in-" He was cut off abruptly – the Master slammed his fist down on the control panel, eyes blazing.
"Stop it," he hissed. "You're not real – you're not! You can't be! It's impossible!" He took a step towards Thes, who drew back – and then spun around and strode from the room. His footsteps could be heard hurrying down the corridor, and Thes felt a little prickle of pride growing somewhere inside him as he realized that the tables had just been turned, if only for this one instant – somehow, he had unnerved the Master. With a pleased grin, he leaned back against the control panel and watched the veil of stars ahead of him growing as the shuttle hurtled through space.
Inside his private quarters of the shuttle, the Master threw open the door to the TARDIS with such force that the wood splintered around the hinges. Barely pausing for breath, he ripped off his gloves, flinging them to the ground, and began tugging levers on the time capsule's control panel. In the centre of the console, the time rotor remained silent and motionless – the only sign of activity was a winking red light, "DIMENSIONAL INSTABILITY". With increasing desperation, he smacked buttons and flicked switches, sidestepping around the console in a frantic dance. Still, it refused to respond.
"No!" he gasped, wrenching a handle nearly out of its hinge. "No no no no NO! You can't do this to me!" He kicked a panel viciously, and then with a snarl of rage, smashed the little red lightbulb with the heel of his palm and swept the crushed glass to the floor. Tiny cuts stung his hand, but he ignored them and stormed out of the console room into the labyrinthine interior of the TARDIS.
...
The sonic screwdriver glowed, emitting its familiar whistling buzz as the Doctor flicked through the settings. It was more of a nostalgic gesture, really – he knew his TARDIS well enough to know that it would be impossible to escape with the aid of his faithful little gizmo…although he lingered on the "sedate" setting for some time longer than the others, allowing himself to ponder a few possibilities. Any plan now, though, would be futile the instant the Master became aware of anything happening.
A smile crept onto the Doctor's face as he reached a range of culinary settings, some of which he hadn't used for centuries. Capsaicin detector – now surely that would have been useful at least once in the past hundred years, he thought. Suddenly, the wall parted and the Doctor leaped to his feet, shoving the screwdriver deep into his pocket. He opened his mouth in preparation for a cheerful greeting, but stopped short at the sight of his captor, eyes wild with urgency and pinprick beads of blood on one hand.
"What-"
"Make it move!" the Master ordered, striding towards the Doctor.
"What?" The Doctor gritted his teeth in pain as the Master struck him across the face.
"Your TARDIS! It won't enter the time vortex – but it'll listen to you, won't it? Now make it move!"
"Ohh…" The Master moved his hand again, and the Doctor quickly added "It's the dimensional instability, isn't it?"
"Do something!" the Master hissed, gripping the Doctor's shoulders with both hands.
"I can't," replied the Doctor matter-of-factly, calmly meeting the Master's eyes. "It's your reality 'fractal'. The TARDIS is too sentient. If you entered the time vortex, you'd be stuck there for good – the TARDIS wouldn't be able to land anywhere tangible. We're stuck in one time stream as long as everything's in this state, with these parallel dimensions sprouting off in all directions." He held his breath as the Master took in his words, eyes wavering as he realized the sense of it. Abruptly the Master pushed him back and ran his hands through his already dishevelled hair.
"Just calm down," the Doctor pleaded. "Tell me what's happened."
"She was here, Doctor!" the Master burst out, and began agitatedly pacing up and down. "Here! On Earth!"
"She…? Ohh…" The Doctor drew a deep breath as he realized. "No – that's impossible. We were the only survivors. They're all gone."
"And do you think she wouldn't have known what was going to happen?" the Master laughed bitterly. "She was more brilliant than either of us, and we got out. She was here!"
"'Was'?"
"She died a human!" the Master spat. "Can you imagine? Her! I have to-"
"Master, just stop," the Doctor interrupted. "Just for once, stop and think. All this – what you're doing to reality – it has to end now."
"But she would die a human, and we would never know!"
"We can't do anything about that anyway – the TARDIS can't move, not with reality so unstable."
The Master stopped his pacing and leaned back against the wall, burying his head in his hands, the blood on his hand leaving smudged red streaks across his forehead and through his white hair.
"What have I done…?"
"I can end it," said the Doctor quietly, cautiously moving towards the Master. "Let me out – if I regenerate-"
"Then what?" the Master snapped. "All that would leave would be the timeline with no Time Beetles. You dead or regenerated, and me most likely pulled into the Time Lock. This is my universe – you would be destroying my universe! I can control reality here!"
"But can't you see what it's doing to you?" said the Doctor gently, putting a hand on the Master's arm. "At least let me help you."
"Get off me!" The Master pulled away, and the room was plunged into blackness. His voice, hoarse with anger, continued to rise in volume. "You think I can't control it?" Dazzling light forced the Doctor's eyes shut – when he managed to open them again, he was squinting in the light of the open sky. "This is my world!" A howling wind roared around them both, causing the red grass beneath their feet to billow in waves across the hill that reached only as far as the four walls of the room. "Reality is mine now!" Crimson blades of grass around the Doctor shot up out of the ground, growing at a blinding speed and wrapping themselves around his legs, arms, throat, tugging him to his knees. "I am the Master – and I. Have. Control." The blades of grass rocketed upwards, lifting the Doctor off his feet and hurling him back against the white wall. Around him, the nightmarish caricature of once-familiar scenery dissolved, leaving the sterile whiteness of his prison. Breathing hard, both Time Lords met each other's eyes, and without another word, the Master whirled around and headed for the door. The walls shone with an unnatural light, which cleared to leave massive silver mirrors in place of the walls, floor and ceiling – and then the Doctor was alone with countless reflections of himself and his Time Beetle parasite on all sides.
