A/N: Thanks to kittenmommy for pointing out the typo :)
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Mirror Theory
Part Two
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"Not far now," said Turlough, taking another glance back at an increasingly irritated Tegan.
"What's he doing down here, anyway?" she asked, here being the lowest level of the Institute, and an area that Turlough had past through in his search for Tegan. It was mostly offices for the junior staff, but one of the side corridors contained a series of cells. Turlough had decided that the most expedient way of keeping Tegan away from the Doctor was to lock her up.
"I'm not . . ." He paused, and both he and Tegan looked towards one of the locked doors. From behind it, he had definitely heard the muffled cry of someone shouting. It sounded like . . .
"Help!" it said again.
Tegan rushed to the door before Turlough could stop her and tried to open it. She punched the small electronic panel where the handle should have be, causing it to emit an indignant beep.
"We've no idea who's in there," protested Turlough as Tegan tried the panel again.
"Well, we're going to find out," she said, concentrating on the door lock. She didn't notice Turlough slipping quietly back down the corridor.
The door slid open. "Third time's a charm," said Tegan with a satisfied smile.
Out of the cell stumbled a woman wearing a lab coat.
"Thank you," she said looking at her rescuer in some confusion. "Who are you?"
"Tegan Jovanka," she said, noting the look of recognition on the woman's face, "And this is . . ." She paused as she looked around, seeing no sign of Turlough. "Where's he gone now?" she muttered, her hands on her hips.
"Tegan? The Doctor's friend? I don't suppose you know where he is, do you?"
Tegan shook her head. "That's who I was looking for when I came down here. And who are you?"
"Charis. This is supposed to be my Institute, but a . . . an associate of mine seems to disagree." She paused, considering. "Right. Better head for the main lab then and find out what's going on.." She began to march down the corridor, and paused at the intersection. "I suppose you'd better come with me if you want to find your friend."
+++
"I'm terribly sorry, I haven't a clue who you are," said the bearded man, struggling to his feet. "But I'm absolutely delighted to have some company. I would offer you tea, but . . ." He shrugged and indicated the blank whiteness of his surroundings. "We seem to be lacking the facilities."
"I'm the Doctor," said the Doctor, smiling warmly.
Professor Tenvi looked up at the Doctor's face and squinted. He gave his eyes a rub, and shrugged.
"I know I don't have my glasses with me, but you certainly don't look like the Doctor."
"I've regenerated."
"Oh. Oh dear. How dreadful for you." Tenvi sniffed and looked at the ceiling. "Well, I suppose you'd better make yourself comfortable. You're likely to be here for some time."
"How long?" asked the Doctor.
"Oh, forever, I should think."
+++
Turlough dived into another corridor, out of sight of Charis and Tegan as they headed for the main laboratory. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the crystal.
"What do I do now?" he asked, shaking it in his fist as though that would somehow force the Guardian to act.
A spark of light appeared in his hand.
"Find one of the guards. Make sure Denville knows she had escaped."
The light was gone.
+++
"So you know where we are?" asked the Doctor, pacing back and forth across the little room. It was, as far as he could make out, a perfect cube of four metres in each direction.
"Oh yes. We're inside one of the mirrors, and do stop pacing, you're starting to make me giddy."
"The mirrors?" asked the Doctor sitting down by the Professor. Tenvi nodded. "We're actually inside your great discovery?" The Doctor looked momentarily impressed, but there was a definite look of embarrassment on the Professor's face.
"Well, old fellow." He paused and gave a little cough. "It's not exactly my discovery."
"Well, whose is it then?" asked the Doctor, frowning.
"Um . . .the Tarvans, actually."
The Doctor was silent for a moment, as he remembered the unfortunate Tarvan civilisation, and its even more unfortunate end.
"Professor?"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Are you trying to tell me that you've been digging up ancient technology, figuring out how it works and then passing it off as your own?"
"Yes, Doctor."
There was a pause.
"Professor?"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Don't you think that was a bit of a stupid thing to do?" asked the Doctor, very quietly. "Especially with a civilisation that creates a weapon destructive enough to destroy its own planet in a matter of minutes?"
"Umm . . ."
"Well, wasn't it!"
"Look, Doctor I don't think you understand the pressure I was under. These corporate people, they want results!"
Silence reigned for a moment in the white box. Finally, the Doctor realised that a lecture on the morality of ransacking an ancient culture really wasn't the most productive thing he could do right now. Instead, he said:
"Maybe you'd better tell me exactly how these mirrors work."
+++
The first thing Tegan saw in the main laboratory was the motionless body of the Doctor lying in the centre of the room. She checked his hearts and with a sigh of relief heard them both beating.
"He's alive," she said, and then noticed that his eyes were open and staring at he ceiling. His blue eyes that so often sparkled with wit or intelligence or amusement were now staring blankly into space, quite dead. "What's wrong with him?" asked Tegan, closing the Doctor's eyes.
Charis was looking over a console on the other side of the room and then at a monitor over the Doctor's head. "I'm not sure," she said. "His body's alive." She frowned slightly, her eyes moving over the readings more slowly. "Does he really have two hearts?" she asked in surprise.
"Yes! But what's wrong with him?"
"No higher brain functions," she said. "This really is very odd. I'm no doctor, but I'm fairly sure he should be dead."
"There must be something you can do for him!" exclaimed Tegan.
"I'm afraid not," said the cool voice of Francis Denville, standing in the open doorway. "But don't worry. Your friend is helping to pave the way towards a bright new future, for all of us." The meaning of his words was lost on Tegan, but she could see that they meant something to Charis
"You put him in the mirror," she said.
"That's right." Denville took the shining piece of red glass out of its box and held it up. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
+++
"So we're not actually inside the mirror?" asked the Doctor. Tenvi rubbed his forehead, forcing the wrinkles into creases of his rubbery skin.
"No, we're nowhere, actually, but only in a purely mathematical sense. From what I understand, this is a miniature universe, a sort of bubble existing very close to but not actually in our own universe. It's storing the energy that can be used through the mirror. That energy is us, something the Tarvans discovered, you see, the actual process of self-awareness, of sentience, creates a force that they were able to harness."
"So the mirror acts as a focus," said the Doctor, nodding.
"Exactly," said Tenvi. "We have no form in any real sense and yet clearly whatever's left of us is interpreting our environment in a way we can understand. It'd be absolutely fascinating if we weren't trapped here."
"And how did that happen, Professor?" asked the Doctor. Once more Tenvi looked remarkably uncomfortable, shifting his weight and trying to appear interested in the white ceiling.
+++
"Are you insane?" demanded Chalice. "You've put people in those things?"
Denville smiled, and seated himself at the console. He placed the shining red mirror into a slot and pointed to the monitor overhead. "Look at that," he said, pointing. "Look at that and tell me it's not worth it."
Tegan looked at the figures that were being displayed, but it made no sense to her. A long line of numbers interspersed with squiggles as far as she was concerned. She glanced at Charis and watched as the look on her face changed; it was obvious that this meant something to her.
"I don't believe it," she said it a voice that sounded to Tegan as though she was forcing it to stay calm.
+++
"Money, Doctor," muttered Tenvi, his eyes still fixed on the ceiling. "Oh, I know it isn't the best of motives, and I know how one tends to get over fond of the stuff, but...well, it really was such an awful lot of money, you see. One little project for a megacorp and I could fund my own research for the rest of my life."
He paused, and managed to meet the Doctor's gaze. Calm blue eyes, that weren't accusing him of anything, it helped, just a little. Tenvi took a deep breath, and went on. "This chap came to see me, called himself Decvil...no, wasn't that. Umm, Fevil? Denvan?"
"Is this relevant, Professor?" asked the Doctor.
"Names often are, but no, not really. Anyway, he wanted me to take part in some expedition he was putting together to go to one of the outer worlds. You know, real out on the fringes work, frontier of the empire, that sort of thing. It did sound exciting, but I told him I didn't know anything about ancient culture; didn't care much about them either, to be honest: all the dust tends to make me sneeze. Then he mentioned a paper of mine he'd read on advancing beyond cold fusion." The Professor paused, smiling. "Won a few prizes that one," he said proudly, glancing at the Doctor. "Then he told me about this new form of energy that he suspected this old culture had."
"So then you agreed to go?"
"Ah, no. Wasn't really bothered about new forms of energy either, you see. Quite happy with what we've got."
"So what did happen?" asked the Doctor, allowing a hint of exasperation to seep into his voice.
"He named a rather large sum of money."
+++
"One sentient being and enough energy for a planetary grid," Charis murmured.
"Almost. I actually have two in that particular mirror. Still, it is quite impressive."
"You put Tenvi in there?" asked Charis, her eyes finally moving from the screen to look at Denville.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Does it matter?" Denville stood up. "Have you any idea how much this technology is worth? One crystal. Just one, and any sentient being and we enough energy to power an entire world."
"You knew about this before, you knew what the Tarvans had discovered," she accused, crossing to the console and looking at the more detailed readings there. She took the crystal out of the slot, and saw her reflection in the red surface.
"Not enough, I'm afraid. I needed the Professor's help to work out the details."
"And now, you're just willing to share it?" asked Charis suspiciously.
"You did do the translation work. There's only so much money one person can spend in a lifetime."
Tegan was listening to the conversation in increasing disbelief, and was beginning to wish she had never opened that cell.
"What about the Doctor?" she demanded.
"She has a point," said Charis quietly. "You can't keep putting innocent people into these things."
"We don't need to. Earth has an ample supply of criminals. The government will love it," he said passing Charis the black storage box. Tegan watched as Charis put the red mirror inside it, closed it and gave it back to Denville.
"But what about the Doctor?" insisted Tegan. "You can't just leave him trapped in that thing!"
"Actually I can. If for no other reason then I don't know how to release him," Denville said. "I'm going to have to ask you to remain here, young woman. There will be guards outside the door, should you attempt to leave. They will shoot you." He glanced at his watch. "Time we were going," he said, throwing a glance to Charis. "The investors will be at the warehouse within the hour, and we have a demonstration to finalise."
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Professor Tenvi was pacing the room now, rubbing his hands nervously as he spoke. "Then we all packed up and came back here...I mean back to the Institute. I worked on the translation's with a young woman, um...name was...anyway, pretty soon it became clear we needed something living to power the mirrors, which, by the way, all seemed to have vanished apart from the few I was allowed for my experiments. Typical corporation."
"So how did you end up in here?"
"Ah, I solved the puzzle. Found out what you needed a sentient being in order to create the necessary power. Then I found out what Denville wanted that power for. I didn't approve, you see. Bit of an argument, then I went to sleep one night, woke up in here. Of course, it only took me an hour or so to work out what had happened."
+++
It was one-way glass.
Turlough sat looking down into the main lab, his expression unreadable. He watched as Denville and Charis left with the guards. He saw the look of outrage on Tegan's face melt away as she turned and knelt by the Doctor. She took his hand, holding it in both of hers.
She was crying.
Turlough leaned forward, watching the scene intently, and frowned. He had never seen Tegan like this, and if it was up to her, he doubted he ever would. She seemed to be saying something, but too quietly for him to make out. He watched as she brought the Doctor's hand up to her cheek.
Suddenly, he turned away, feeling guilty for watching.
The room around him was dark and black and empty.
+++
"I'd forgotten about you," said Denville as he stepped into the corridor and saw Michael Star flanked by two guards. He gave the young scientist a faint smile, before pulling out a gun and shooting him.
"Was that necessary?" asked Charis as they walked towards the shuttle hangar. She had enough sense to cover the shock she had felt at her employee's murder, but the expression on his face seemed to have imprinted itself on her mind's eye.
Denville shrugged. "Probably not."
"I've been thinking," said Charis carefully.
"Oh?"
"Surely the mirrors have more potential than making sure the cities light up at night," she paused, trying to read Denville's expression. "Wouldn't there be a bigger market if their energy could be used in weapons?"
"I'm glad you said that," he replied, his lips quirking into a smile.
+++
Turlough didn't know what to do. He had taken the crystal from his pocket, demanding that the Guardian speak to him, but there had been no response.
"The Doctor's dead!" he had cried desperately. "I've done what you wanted!"
Still nothing but the dark little room.
He had been abandoned, and not for the first time.
He had so desperately wanted to escape Earth; the planet had revolted him, terrified him. He knew he was a coward, but had always believed it to be a virtue, and one which had saved his life when braver men had died. He was afraid now, because he was alone. This wasn't like Earth, where he could at least feel secure in the fact that he was surrounded by primitives.
He had betrayed the Doctor, and that one undisputable fact was twisting into him as he listened to Tegan sob.
It seemed to take an eternity to reach the main lab doors. He had almost stopped when he saw the guards, but they had ignored him as he walked past, probably too unimportant for them to bother with. And he doubted anyone would have cared, or even noticed if they had shot him.
Self-pity was something else he was used to.
"Turlough!" Tegan jumped back from the Doctor's side as soon as she saw him enter, quickly wiping her eyes. They were still red though, and her mascara had left black streaks. "The Doctor . . ." she waved helplessly at his body, her voice sounding almost normal.
Then he did something that he didn't expect; he stepped forward and hugged Tegan. He had expected her to jump back, or shout. At the very least, he had expected her to pull away. But she didn't, she stood there, letting him hold her.
"That man is a megalomaniac," said an indignant voice.
Tegan and Turlough turned to the door of the laboratory just in time to see Charis storm through the doors, her arms piled high with folders. Tegan looked at her in disbelief as she dumped the folders onto the workbench and started to leaf through them. "Well," said Charis, shooting them a disapproving glance. "Do you want to save your friend or not?"
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"Doctor?"
"Yes, Professor?"
"You're not angry, are you?"
The Doctor gave a long sigh before replying: "No, not really."
"Oh, good."
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"All right, what are you up to?" asked Tegan, hands on hips. Turlough almost smiled as he watched her: this was the Tegan he was used to.
"We haven't go a lot of time," said Charis, not bothering to look up from the papers.
"You'd better explain quickly then, because last time I checked you . .. "
"He's going to destroy the colony," she said. "The spaceport, this Institute, homes, restaurants, lamps, litter bins and every unfortunate person in between. Do you understand? Everyone here is going to die in a very bloody demonstration of exactly what one of these mirrors can do when it's powered up."
"We have to warn them!" exclaimed Tegan.
"No time, I'm afraid. What we have to do is rescue the Doctor." She looked up to see Tegan was about to hit her with another question. "Look," she tossed one of the files to Tegan. "I know that Tenvi continued with the translations after I'd finished, we have to find the completed version."
"Why?" asked Turlough, picking up a file.
"Because it should tell us how to reverse the process."
"You began experiments with completing translation of the procedure?" asked Turlough.
"Denville didn't consider it necessary."
"Conscientious lot, aren't you?" muttered Tegan. She stared down at the pages, most of the lettering and scrawls of handwriting meaning nothing to her. "How do we know what to look for?" she asked.
"Let me know if you see these symbols," replied Charis, passing her a piece of paper blank except for three hastily drawn letters, though they were from no alphabet that Tegan recognised. She felt Turlough peering at it from over her shoulder.
"I'll be right back," said Charis, heading for one of the side doors. Immediately, Tegan jumped up.
"Where are you going exactly?" she asked.
"To check the cryogenic freezers."
+++
"ETA?" snapped Denville.
"Twenty minutes, sir," replied the pilot.
Denville sat back in his seat, watching the barren landscape skimming past. Everything had gone beautifully so far, though if he was honest with himself he hadn't really expected Charis to be so uncaring about the deaths of Tenvi and Star. Perhaps he should have told her about the five other unfortunate inhabitants of the colony who had mysteriously disappeared. He glanced over his shoulder at the precious package secured in the back of the shuttle: five more fully powered crystals.
He could feel paranoia creeping through him; she had been so insistent on collecting some personal belongings when she found out the Institute was going to be destroyed, perhaps he should have sent more than one guard with her.
But even if she did betray him, he quickly checked his watch, even if she did, there was no time left now for her to do anything about it. He took out the slim black box from his inside jacket pocket: this one he would be keeping for himself, a souvenir.
He opened the box, and swore.
It was empty.
+++
"Nothing," muttered Charis. "It must be here, it must. I know he finished the translations. There was simply no where else for them to be except his office."
"And there were no more files in his office?" asked Turlough. Charis shook her head.
"Wait a minute," Tegan stopped reading. Turlough and Charis looked at her expectantly. "Tenvi's office?" she asked.
"Yes."
Tegan frowned, then said, "That's where the Doctor went, just after he arrived. Would be just like him to have taken it." She stood up and crossed to the Doctor. "Sorry about this, Doc," she murmured, and searched his pockets retrieving a 500 year old diary, a small yo-yo, some loose change in an alien currency and three small cubes.
"Data chips," said Charis, jumping up and taking the cubes. She slotted them into the main console and they all watched the monitors as text started to scroll across them. "Brilliant, Tegan," she said. "This is it!"
A few minutes later and Charis was elbow deep inside the machines that flanked the Doctor. Wires and circuit boards were scattered on the floor.
"Do you know what you're doing?" asked Tegan. Charis shot her a look, her brow furrowed in concentration as she continued rearrange the inside of the machine.
"I'll be honest if you like," she muttered. "Engineering really isn't my field, I'm more of an administrator. The white coat's just for show."
"You're joking."
"No, not really," replied Charis. "But the instructions are fairly straight forward. How's it going over there?" she asked.
"Finished," said Turlough, who had been surprised to find himself useful, and able to rewire the lab equipment following the translated Tarvan instructions.
"Well, let's switch on then," said Charis, fishing the red mirror out of a pocket and slotting it into the machine.
+++
"Oh my! Doctor! You've gone all transparent!"
"I have?" asked the Doctor looking done at himself. "Oh, so I have."
+++
"Doctor!"
The Doctor found himself in the main lab, and receiving a warm hug from a delighted Tegan. He stood up, and looked around.
"What's happened?" he asked.
"Denville is going to destroy the colony with one of the mirrors. He's set it up so the investors can watch safely from warehouse where you landed. He's going to use the power from the crystal to activate the old planetary defence system."
"Which he's reprogrammed to fire at the colony?" asked the Doctor, trying to piece the situation together, as he headed for the door. "My friend is still trapped in that mirror," he said.
"Don't worry, Denville put his body in one of the cryo-tubes. I suppose he thought Tenvi might still be useful. I'll get him out, don't worry, but the demonstration is scheduled to begin in less than ten minutes. Your TARDIS is upstairs, third floor, first door on the left."
The Doctor stopped and turned around slowly, fixing his blue eyes on Charis's.
"And how do you know about that?" he asked her.
"Mutual friend," she replied. "Good luck, Doctor."
+++
The Doctor barely set a word as he, Tegan and Turlough ran to the TARDIS. As they stepped through the doors into the bright light of the console room, he moved instantly to the controls, and quickly reset the co- ordinates. A moment late the central piston unit began to move smoothly up and down.
"Who was this 'mutual friend' then?" asked Tegan, unable to listen to the silence any longer.
"I don't know," replied the Doctor. "But we have other things to worry about right now." He opened a cupboard by the inner doors and passed Tegan a black box, taking a second one for himself. "Torches," he said, by way of explanation.
The TARDIS had materialised and the Doctor opened the doors. Tegan and Turlough followed him outside.
"Where are we?" asked Tegan as she switched on the torch. It was pitch black, and the air smelled stale. With the torchlight she managed to pick out ugly metallic walls and the details of operating consoles that lined the walls.
"In the control centre of the orbital platforms. They've been powered down for years and left to rust in space," said the Doctor. "If Charis was right, then I should be able to perform a little counter reprogramming and any energy fired from these can dissipate harmlessly into space."
"Have you got enough time?" asked Turlough.
"We're about to find out."
+++
Denville's shuttle landed fifty metres away from the warehouse, now surrounded by similar shuttles. He switched on the equipment in the shuttle and the monitors flickered to show him the interior of the warehouse. He could hear the low buzz of conversation, and could see his representative moving amongst the knots of people.
He opened the black storage case and took out one of the mirrors, admiring its shimmering red light, but he really had wanted the Tenvi mirror as a souvenir.
He sat back and waited. It would be another few minutes before the speech began.
+++
"There!" exclaimed the Doctor, pulling himself out from under the console where he had been working. "That should do it." He gave Tegan a smile, which she returned with an unconvinced look.
"You're sure?" she asked.
"Reasonably," said the Doctor.
+++
Time for the show.
Denville watched as a real time hologram of the colony was displayed in the centre of the warehouse. Now they were waiting expectantly.
He had given the mirror to one of his guards a few minutes ago, and now it was in the hands of his representative. Here he could watch the demonstration in perfect anonymity.
Carefully, precisely, he operated the controls, sending a pulse of energy into space towards the waiting central platform.
Instantly, he could see that something had gone wrong.
He moved to a second console and activated his remote link up with the platform computer. He tried to retarget the platforms back to the planet surface, back at the colony, but he wasn't reprogramming fast enough: they weren't going to fire at the right target.
The orbital platforms were following the first trajectory they could find: the one that he had used to send up the energy from the mirror. They were aiming for the warehouse.
+++
They were back in the TARDIS, hovering somewhere above Delvan III, with the Doctor insisting that he was not going to miss the demonstration.
"But Tenvi's trapped in that mirror, isn't he?" asked Tegan. The Doctor had shrugged.
"It's all part of the web of time, Tegan. This is a very important day for the Professor. Now if you'll just let me find the right frequency." He was busy at one of the console panels, the one that held the controls for the scanner.
"I though you wanted to see it live," she tried.
"I think we've interfered quite enough for one day," said the Doctor. "Ah, here we are." He switched on the scanner and the whiteness dissolved into a picture dominated by the round features of Professor Tenvi. The Doctor was watching the picture intently, and with a sigh Tegan decided she would try and listen to whatever scientific mumbo-jumbo the Professor was going to talk about.
+++
"Well done, Professor, well done." Charis was smiling for what felt like the first time in days as she congratulated the Professor when he stepped down from the podium. Granted it hadn't been exactly what anyone was expecting, and she seriously doubted any big names would be interested in giving them any money, but in a matter of hours the Professor had managed to put together enough evidence, notes, and holographic projections to effectively prove the existence of pocket universes.
He hadn't told them that he had actually spent sometime in one, which Charis was immensely grateful for. The last thing she wanted was for the galaxy to remember Professor Tenvi as a promising scientist who went quite, quite mad.
"Do you think anyone watched?" he asked, returning the smile.
"Well, considering this was supposed to be a live demo, with only edited highlights for the news vids, I think we did pretty well."
That, she knew, was an understatement. It should have been a disaster: dozens of dead company reps, her liaison with her main investor dead, and the main project destroyed in the explosion. But Tenvi's remarkable ability to survive in the scientific arena had prevailed as he had pulled something out of the mess.
She was going to give the man a pay rise, she decided, as she arrived at her quarters on the third floor.
She switched on the lights, and was greeted by a gun.
"Hello," said Denville, smiling. "I believe I have you to thank for some of my discomfort."
She blinked, refusing to believe for a moment that he was alive. "But the explosion?"
"Fortunately, my shuttle had a very good pilot: me."
"Now what?" she asked, backing away.
He smiled, raising the gun, and said: "I'm glad you asked that."
+++
"Your pawn is dead."
It was a voice in a void. A place empty of form; a vastness where nothing existed. It had been made as a middle ground, a meeting place between eternal foes.
"But yours is beginning to turn," came the reply.
"Not for long."
Crystal light appeared in real space: a bright, shining, twisting flowing of energy.
"This game will end soon," said the darkness that stood by the crystal.
+++
Turlough sat in his room, alone, staring at the crystal in his hands.
Right now, he didn't feel as though he could face either the Doctor or Tegan. He couldn't face putting on his facade of friendliness, of being polite in response to Tegan's barbs.
He could feel his tattered conscience shouting accusations at him inside his head as he cradled what had been his only line of hope since he had been exiled to Earth. He found that he couldn't really convince himself that the Guardian had his best interests had heart, and hadn't been able to for some time.
What had he been thinking?
He had agreed to kill someone. He shuddered at the memory of his own desperation, and willingness to agree to anything, just so long as he could escape Earth. He hadn't even thought about it, not really. He hadn't considered exactly how difficult it would be to end a life; he had seen people killed, his own people killing each other and nearly killing him. It had looked easy, so simple.
But he had had too much time to think about it, and even if he did manage to somehow bring himself to do it, he wasn't entirely convinced that he could live with the guilt.
He was a coward: too afraid not to obey the Guardian, too afraid to kill the Doctor.
+++
End.
+++
Mirror Theory
Part Two
+++
"Not far now," said Turlough, taking another glance back at an increasingly irritated Tegan.
"What's he doing down here, anyway?" she asked, here being the lowest level of the Institute, and an area that Turlough had past through in his search for Tegan. It was mostly offices for the junior staff, but one of the side corridors contained a series of cells. Turlough had decided that the most expedient way of keeping Tegan away from the Doctor was to lock her up.
"I'm not . . ." He paused, and both he and Tegan looked towards one of the locked doors. From behind it, he had definitely heard the muffled cry of someone shouting. It sounded like . . .
"Help!" it said again.
Tegan rushed to the door before Turlough could stop her and tried to open it. She punched the small electronic panel where the handle should have be, causing it to emit an indignant beep.
"We've no idea who's in there," protested Turlough as Tegan tried the panel again.
"Well, we're going to find out," she said, concentrating on the door lock. She didn't notice Turlough slipping quietly back down the corridor.
The door slid open. "Third time's a charm," said Tegan with a satisfied smile.
Out of the cell stumbled a woman wearing a lab coat.
"Thank you," she said looking at her rescuer in some confusion. "Who are you?"
"Tegan Jovanka," she said, noting the look of recognition on the woman's face, "And this is . . ." She paused as she looked around, seeing no sign of Turlough. "Where's he gone now?" she muttered, her hands on her hips.
"Tegan? The Doctor's friend? I don't suppose you know where he is, do you?"
Tegan shook her head. "That's who I was looking for when I came down here. And who are you?"
"Charis. This is supposed to be my Institute, but a . . . an associate of mine seems to disagree." She paused, considering. "Right. Better head for the main lab then and find out what's going on.." She began to march down the corridor, and paused at the intersection. "I suppose you'd better come with me if you want to find your friend."
+++
"I'm terribly sorry, I haven't a clue who you are," said the bearded man, struggling to his feet. "But I'm absolutely delighted to have some company. I would offer you tea, but . . ." He shrugged and indicated the blank whiteness of his surroundings. "We seem to be lacking the facilities."
"I'm the Doctor," said the Doctor, smiling warmly.
Professor Tenvi looked up at the Doctor's face and squinted. He gave his eyes a rub, and shrugged.
"I know I don't have my glasses with me, but you certainly don't look like the Doctor."
"I've regenerated."
"Oh. Oh dear. How dreadful for you." Tenvi sniffed and looked at the ceiling. "Well, I suppose you'd better make yourself comfortable. You're likely to be here for some time."
"How long?" asked the Doctor.
"Oh, forever, I should think."
+++
Turlough dived into another corridor, out of sight of Charis and Tegan as they headed for the main laboratory. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the crystal.
"What do I do now?" he asked, shaking it in his fist as though that would somehow force the Guardian to act.
A spark of light appeared in his hand.
"Find one of the guards. Make sure Denville knows she had escaped."
The light was gone.
+++
"So you know where we are?" asked the Doctor, pacing back and forth across the little room. It was, as far as he could make out, a perfect cube of four metres in each direction.
"Oh yes. We're inside one of the mirrors, and do stop pacing, you're starting to make me giddy."
"The mirrors?" asked the Doctor sitting down by the Professor. Tenvi nodded. "We're actually inside your great discovery?" The Doctor looked momentarily impressed, but there was a definite look of embarrassment on the Professor's face.
"Well, old fellow." He paused and gave a little cough. "It's not exactly my discovery."
"Well, whose is it then?" asked the Doctor, frowning.
"Um . . .the Tarvans, actually."
The Doctor was silent for a moment, as he remembered the unfortunate Tarvan civilisation, and its even more unfortunate end.
"Professor?"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Are you trying to tell me that you've been digging up ancient technology, figuring out how it works and then passing it off as your own?"
"Yes, Doctor."
There was a pause.
"Professor?"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Don't you think that was a bit of a stupid thing to do?" asked the Doctor, very quietly. "Especially with a civilisation that creates a weapon destructive enough to destroy its own planet in a matter of minutes?"
"Umm . . ."
"Well, wasn't it!"
"Look, Doctor I don't think you understand the pressure I was under. These corporate people, they want results!"
Silence reigned for a moment in the white box. Finally, the Doctor realised that a lecture on the morality of ransacking an ancient culture really wasn't the most productive thing he could do right now. Instead, he said:
"Maybe you'd better tell me exactly how these mirrors work."
+++
The first thing Tegan saw in the main laboratory was the motionless body of the Doctor lying in the centre of the room. She checked his hearts and with a sigh of relief heard them both beating.
"He's alive," she said, and then noticed that his eyes were open and staring at he ceiling. His blue eyes that so often sparkled with wit or intelligence or amusement were now staring blankly into space, quite dead. "What's wrong with him?" asked Tegan, closing the Doctor's eyes.
Charis was looking over a console on the other side of the room and then at a monitor over the Doctor's head. "I'm not sure," she said. "His body's alive." She frowned slightly, her eyes moving over the readings more slowly. "Does he really have two hearts?" she asked in surprise.
"Yes! But what's wrong with him?"
"No higher brain functions," she said. "This really is very odd. I'm no doctor, but I'm fairly sure he should be dead."
"There must be something you can do for him!" exclaimed Tegan.
"I'm afraid not," said the cool voice of Francis Denville, standing in the open doorway. "But don't worry. Your friend is helping to pave the way towards a bright new future, for all of us." The meaning of his words was lost on Tegan, but she could see that they meant something to Charis
"You put him in the mirror," she said.
"That's right." Denville took the shining piece of red glass out of its box and held it up. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
+++
"So we're not actually inside the mirror?" asked the Doctor. Tenvi rubbed his forehead, forcing the wrinkles into creases of his rubbery skin.
"No, we're nowhere, actually, but only in a purely mathematical sense. From what I understand, this is a miniature universe, a sort of bubble existing very close to but not actually in our own universe. It's storing the energy that can be used through the mirror. That energy is us, something the Tarvans discovered, you see, the actual process of self-awareness, of sentience, creates a force that they were able to harness."
"So the mirror acts as a focus," said the Doctor, nodding.
"Exactly," said Tenvi. "We have no form in any real sense and yet clearly whatever's left of us is interpreting our environment in a way we can understand. It'd be absolutely fascinating if we weren't trapped here."
"And how did that happen, Professor?" asked the Doctor. Once more Tenvi looked remarkably uncomfortable, shifting his weight and trying to appear interested in the white ceiling.
+++
"Are you insane?" demanded Chalice. "You've put people in those things?"
Denville smiled, and seated himself at the console. He placed the shining red mirror into a slot and pointed to the monitor overhead. "Look at that," he said, pointing. "Look at that and tell me it's not worth it."
Tegan looked at the figures that were being displayed, but it made no sense to her. A long line of numbers interspersed with squiggles as far as she was concerned. She glanced at Charis and watched as the look on her face changed; it was obvious that this meant something to her.
"I don't believe it," she said it a voice that sounded to Tegan as though she was forcing it to stay calm.
+++
"Money, Doctor," muttered Tenvi, his eyes still fixed on the ceiling. "Oh, I know it isn't the best of motives, and I know how one tends to get over fond of the stuff, but...well, it really was such an awful lot of money, you see. One little project for a megacorp and I could fund my own research for the rest of my life."
He paused, and managed to meet the Doctor's gaze. Calm blue eyes, that weren't accusing him of anything, it helped, just a little. Tenvi took a deep breath, and went on. "This chap came to see me, called himself Decvil...no, wasn't that. Umm, Fevil? Denvan?"
"Is this relevant, Professor?" asked the Doctor.
"Names often are, but no, not really. Anyway, he wanted me to take part in some expedition he was putting together to go to one of the outer worlds. You know, real out on the fringes work, frontier of the empire, that sort of thing. It did sound exciting, but I told him I didn't know anything about ancient culture; didn't care much about them either, to be honest: all the dust tends to make me sneeze. Then he mentioned a paper of mine he'd read on advancing beyond cold fusion." The Professor paused, smiling. "Won a few prizes that one," he said proudly, glancing at the Doctor. "Then he told me about this new form of energy that he suspected this old culture had."
"So then you agreed to go?"
"Ah, no. Wasn't really bothered about new forms of energy either, you see. Quite happy with what we've got."
"So what did happen?" asked the Doctor, allowing a hint of exasperation to seep into his voice.
"He named a rather large sum of money."
+++
"One sentient being and enough energy for a planetary grid," Charis murmured.
"Almost. I actually have two in that particular mirror. Still, it is quite impressive."
"You put Tenvi in there?" asked Charis, her eyes finally moving from the screen to look at Denville.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Does it matter?" Denville stood up. "Have you any idea how much this technology is worth? One crystal. Just one, and any sentient being and we enough energy to power an entire world."
"You knew about this before, you knew what the Tarvans had discovered," she accused, crossing to the console and looking at the more detailed readings there. She took the crystal out of the slot, and saw her reflection in the red surface.
"Not enough, I'm afraid. I needed the Professor's help to work out the details."
"And now, you're just willing to share it?" asked Charis suspiciously.
"You did do the translation work. There's only so much money one person can spend in a lifetime."
Tegan was listening to the conversation in increasing disbelief, and was beginning to wish she had never opened that cell.
"What about the Doctor?" she demanded.
"She has a point," said Charis quietly. "You can't keep putting innocent people into these things."
"We don't need to. Earth has an ample supply of criminals. The government will love it," he said passing Charis the black storage box. Tegan watched as Charis put the red mirror inside it, closed it and gave it back to Denville.
"But what about the Doctor?" insisted Tegan. "You can't just leave him trapped in that thing!"
"Actually I can. If for no other reason then I don't know how to release him," Denville said. "I'm going to have to ask you to remain here, young woman. There will be guards outside the door, should you attempt to leave. They will shoot you." He glanced at his watch. "Time we were going," he said, throwing a glance to Charis. "The investors will be at the warehouse within the hour, and we have a demonstration to finalise."
+++
Professor Tenvi was pacing the room now, rubbing his hands nervously as he spoke. "Then we all packed up and came back here...I mean back to the Institute. I worked on the translation's with a young woman, um...name was...anyway, pretty soon it became clear we needed something living to power the mirrors, which, by the way, all seemed to have vanished apart from the few I was allowed for my experiments. Typical corporation."
"So how did you end up in here?"
"Ah, I solved the puzzle. Found out what you needed a sentient being in order to create the necessary power. Then I found out what Denville wanted that power for. I didn't approve, you see. Bit of an argument, then I went to sleep one night, woke up in here. Of course, it only took me an hour or so to work out what had happened."
+++
It was one-way glass.
Turlough sat looking down into the main lab, his expression unreadable. He watched as Denville and Charis left with the guards. He saw the look of outrage on Tegan's face melt away as she turned and knelt by the Doctor. She took his hand, holding it in both of hers.
She was crying.
Turlough leaned forward, watching the scene intently, and frowned. He had never seen Tegan like this, and if it was up to her, he doubted he ever would. She seemed to be saying something, but too quietly for him to make out. He watched as she brought the Doctor's hand up to her cheek.
Suddenly, he turned away, feeling guilty for watching.
The room around him was dark and black and empty.
+++
"I'd forgotten about you," said Denville as he stepped into the corridor and saw Michael Star flanked by two guards. He gave the young scientist a faint smile, before pulling out a gun and shooting him.
"Was that necessary?" asked Charis as they walked towards the shuttle hangar. She had enough sense to cover the shock she had felt at her employee's murder, but the expression on his face seemed to have imprinted itself on her mind's eye.
Denville shrugged. "Probably not."
"I've been thinking," said Charis carefully.
"Oh?"
"Surely the mirrors have more potential than making sure the cities light up at night," she paused, trying to read Denville's expression. "Wouldn't there be a bigger market if their energy could be used in weapons?"
"I'm glad you said that," he replied, his lips quirking into a smile.
+++
Turlough didn't know what to do. He had taken the crystal from his pocket, demanding that the Guardian speak to him, but there had been no response.
"The Doctor's dead!" he had cried desperately. "I've done what you wanted!"
Still nothing but the dark little room.
He had been abandoned, and not for the first time.
He had so desperately wanted to escape Earth; the planet had revolted him, terrified him. He knew he was a coward, but had always believed it to be a virtue, and one which had saved his life when braver men had died. He was afraid now, because he was alone. This wasn't like Earth, where he could at least feel secure in the fact that he was surrounded by primitives.
He had betrayed the Doctor, and that one undisputable fact was twisting into him as he listened to Tegan sob.
It seemed to take an eternity to reach the main lab doors. He had almost stopped when he saw the guards, but they had ignored him as he walked past, probably too unimportant for them to bother with. And he doubted anyone would have cared, or even noticed if they had shot him.
Self-pity was something else he was used to.
"Turlough!" Tegan jumped back from the Doctor's side as soon as she saw him enter, quickly wiping her eyes. They were still red though, and her mascara had left black streaks. "The Doctor . . ." she waved helplessly at his body, her voice sounding almost normal.
Then he did something that he didn't expect; he stepped forward and hugged Tegan. He had expected her to jump back, or shout. At the very least, he had expected her to pull away. But she didn't, she stood there, letting him hold her.
"That man is a megalomaniac," said an indignant voice.
Tegan and Turlough turned to the door of the laboratory just in time to see Charis storm through the doors, her arms piled high with folders. Tegan looked at her in disbelief as she dumped the folders onto the workbench and started to leaf through them. "Well," said Charis, shooting them a disapproving glance. "Do you want to save your friend or not?"
+++
"Doctor?"
"Yes, Professor?"
"You're not angry, are you?"
The Doctor gave a long sigh before replying: "No, not really."
"Oh, good."
+++
"All right, what are you up to?" asked Tegan, hands on hips. Turlough almost smiled as he watched her: this was the Tegan he was used to.
"We haven't go a lot of time," said Charis, not bothering to look up from the papers.
"You'd better explain quickly then, because last time I checked you . .. "
"He's going to destroy the colony," she said. "The spaceport, this Institute, homes, restaurants, lamps, litter bins and every unfortunate person in between. Do you understand? Everyone here is going to die in a very bloody demonstration of exactly what one of these mirrors can do when it's powered up."
"We have to warn them!" exclaimed Tegan.
"No time, I'm afraid. What we have to do is rescue the Doctor." She looked up to see Tegan was about to hit her with another question. "Look," she tossed one of the files to Tegan. "I know that Tenvi continued with the translations after I'd finished, we have to find the completed version."
"Why?" asked Turlough, picking up a file.
"Because it should tell us how to reverse the process."
"You began experiments with completing translation of the procedure?" asked Turlough.
"Denville didn't consider it necessary."
"Conscientious lot, aren't you?" muttered Tegan. She stared down at the pages, most of the lettering and scrawls of handwriting meaning nothing to her. "How do we know what to look for?" she asked.
"Let me know if you see these symbols," replied Charis, passing her a piece of paper blank except for three hastily drawn letters, though they were from no alphabet that Tegan recognised. She felt Turlough peering at it from over her shoulder.
"I'll be right back," said Charis, heading for one of the side doors. Immediately, Tegan jumped up.
"Where are you going exactly?" she asked.
"To check the cryogenic freezers."
+++
"ETA?" snapped Denville.
"Twenty minutes, sir," replied the pilot.
Denville sat back in his seat, watching the barren landscape skimming past. Everything had gone beautifully so far, though if he was honest with himself he hadn't really expected Charis to be so uncaring about the deaths of Tenvi and Star. Perhaps he should have told her about the five other unfortunate inhabitants of the colony who had mysteriously disappeared. He glanced over his shoulder at the precious package secured in the back of the shuttle: five more fully powered crystals.
He could feel paranoia creeping through him; she had been so insistent on collecting some personal belongings when she found out the Institute was going to be destroyed, perhaps he should have sent more than one guard with her.
But even if she did betray him, he quickly checked his watch, even if she did, there was no time left now for her to do anything about it. He took out the slim black box from his inside jacket pocket: this one he would be keeping for himself, a souvenir.
He opened the box, and swore.
It was empty.
+++
"Nothing," muttered Charis. "It must be here, it must. I know he finished the translations. There was simply no where else for them to be except his office."
"And there were no more files in his office?" asked Turlough. Charis shook her head.
"Wait a minute," Tegan stopped reading. Turlough and Charis looked at her expectantly. "Tenvi's office?" she asked.
"Yes."
Tegan frowned, then said, "That's where the Doctor went, just after he arrived. Would be just like him to have taken it." She stood up and crossed to the Doctor. "Sorry about this, Doc," she murmured, and searched his pockets retrieving a 500 year old diary, a small yo-yo, some loose change in an alien currency and three small cubes.
"Data chips," said Charis, jumping up and taking the cubes. She slotted them into the main console and they all watched the monitors as text started to scroll across them. "Brilliant, Tegan," she said. "This is it!"
A few minutes later and Charis was elbow deep inside the machines that flanked the Doctor. Wires and circuit boards were scattered on the floor.
"Do you know what you're doing?" asked Tegan. Charis shot her a look, her brow furrowed in concentration as she continued rearrange the inside of the machine.
"I'll be honest if you like," she muttered. "Engineering really isn't my field, I'm more of an administrator. The white coat's just for show."
"You're joking."
"No, not really," replied Charis. "But the instructions are fairly straight forward. How's it going over there?" she asked.
"Finished," said Turlough, who had been surprised to find himself useful, and able to rewire the lab equipment following the translated Tarvan instructions.
"Well, let's switch on then," said Charis, fishing the red mirror out of a pocket and slotting it into the machine.
+++
"Oh my! Doctor! You've gone all transparent!"
"I have?" asked the Doctor looking done at himself. "Oh, so I have."
+++
"Doctor!"
The Doctor found himself in the main lab, and receiving a warm hug from a delighted Tegan. He stood up, and looked around.
"What's happened?" he asked.
"Denville is going to destroy the colony with one of the mirrors. He's set it up so the investors can watch safely from warehouse where you landed. He's going to use the power from the crystal to activate the old planetary defence system."
"Which he's reprogrammed to fire at the colony?" asked the Doctor, trying to piece the situation together, as he headed for the door. "My friend is still trapped in that mirror," he said.
"Don't worry, Denville put his body in one of the cryo-tubes. I suppose he thought Tenvi might still be useful. I'll get him out, don't worry, but the demonstration is scheduled to begin in less than ten minutes. Your TARDIS is upstairs, third floor, first door on the left."
The Doctor stopped and turned around slowly, fixing his blue eyes on Charis's.
"And how do you know about that?" he asked her.
"Mutual friend," she replied. "Good luck, Doctor."
+++
The Doctor barely set a word as he, Tegan and Turlough ran to the TARDIS. As they stepped through the doors into the bright light of the console room, he moved instantly to the controls, and quickly reset the co- ordinates. A moment late the central piston unit began to move smoothly up and down.
"Who was this 'mutual friend' then?" asked Tegan, unable to listen to the silence any longer.
"I don't know," replied the Doctor. "But we have other things to worry about right now." He opened a cupboard by the inner doors and passed Tegan a black box, taking a second one for himself. "Torches," he said, by way of explanation.
The TARDIS had materialised and the Doctor opened the doors. Tegan and Turlough followed him outside.
"Where are we?" asked Tegan as she switched on the torch. It was pitch black, and the air smelled stale. With the torchlight she managed to pick out ugly metallic walls and the details of operating consoles that lined the walls.
"In the control centre of the orbital platforms. They've been powered down for years and left to rust in space," said the Doctor. "If Charis was right, then I should be able to perform a little counter reprogramming and any energy fired from these can dissipate harmlessly into space."
"Have you got enough time?" asked Turlough.
"We're about to find out."
+++
Denville's shuttle landed fifty metres away from the warehouse, now surrounded by similar shuttles. He switched on the equipment in the shuttle and the monitors flickered to show him the interior of the warehouse. He could hear the low buzz of conversation, and could see his representative moving amongst the knots of people.
He opened the black storage case and took out one of the mirrors, admiring its shimmering red light, but he really had wanted the Tenvi mirror as a souvenir.
He sat back and waited. It would be another few minutes before the speech began.
+++
"There!" exclaimed the Doctor, pulling himself out from under the console where he had been working. "That should do it." He gave Tegan a smile, which she returned with an unconvinced look.
"You're sure?" she asked.
"Reasonably," said the Doctor.
+++
Time for the show.
Denville watched as a real time hologram of the colony was displayed in the centre of the warehouse. Now they were waiting expectantly.
He had given the mirror to one of his guards a few minutes ago, and now it was in the hands of his representative. Here he could watch the demonstration in perfect anonymity.
Carefully, precisely, he operated the controls, sending a pulse of energy into space towards the waiting central platform.
Instantly, he could see that something had gone wrong.
He moved to a second console and activated his remote link up with the platform computer. He tried to retarget the platforms back to the planet surface, back at the colony, but he wasn't reprogramming fast enough: they weren't going to fire at the right target.
The orbital platforms were following the first trajectory they could find: the one that he had used to send up the energy from the mirror. They were aiming for the warehouse.
+++
They were back in the TARDIS, hovering somewhere above Delvan III, with the Doctor insisting that he was not going to miss the demonstration.
"But Tenvi's trapped in that mirror, isn't he?" asked Tegan. The Doctor had shrugged.
"It's all part of the web of time, Tegan. This is a very important day for the Professor. Now if you'll just let me find the right frequency." He was busy at one of the console panels, the one that held the controls for the scanner.
"I though you wanted to see it live," she tried.
"I think we've interfered quite enough for one day," said the Doctor. "Ah, here we are." He switched on the scanner and the whiteness dissolved into a picture dominated by the round features of Professor Tenvi. The Doctor was watching the picture intently, and with a sigh Tegan decided she would try and listen to whatever scientific mumbo-jumbo the Professor was going to talk about.
+++
"Well done, Professor, well done." Charis was smiling for what felt like the first time in days as she congratulated the Professor when he stepped down from the podium. Granted it hadn't been exactly what anyone was expecting, and she seriously doubted any big names would be interested in giving them any money, but in a matter of hours the Professor had managed to put together enough evidence, notes, and holographic projections to effectively prove the existence of pocket universes.
He hadn't told them that he had actually spent sometime in one, which Charis was immensely grateful for. The last thing she wanted was for the galaxy to remember Professor Tenvi as a promising scientist who went quite, quite mad.
"Do you think anyone watched?" he asked, returning the smile.
"Well, considering this was supposed to be a live demo, with only edited highlights for the news vids, I think we did pretty well."
That, she knew, was an understatement. It should have been a disaster: dozens of dead company reps, her liaison with her main investor dead, and the main project destroyed in the explosion. But Tenvi's remarkable ability to survive in the scientific arena had prevailed as he had pulled something out of the mess.
She was going to give the man a pay rise, she decided, as she arrived at her quarters on the third floor.
She switched on the lights, and was greeted by a gun.
"Hello," said Denville, smiling. "I believe I have you to thank for some of my discomfort."
She blinked, refusing to believe for a moment that he was alive. "But the explosion?"
"Fortunately, my shuttle had a very good pilot: me."
"Now what?" she asked, backing away.
He smiled, raising the gun, and said: "I'm glad you asked that."
+++
"Your pawn is dead."
It was a voice in a void. A place empty of form; a vastness where nothing existed. It had been made as a middle ground, a meeting place between eternal foes.
"But yours is beginning to turn," came the reply.
"Not for long."
Crystal light appeared in real space: a bright, shining, twisting flowing of energy.
"This game will end soon," said the darkness that stood by the crystal.
+++
Turlough sat in his room, alone, staring at the crystal in his hands.
Right now, he didn't feel as though he could face either the Doctor or Tegan. He couldn't face putting on his facade of friendliness, of being polite in response to Tegan's barbs.
He could feel his tattered conscience shouting accusations at him inside his head as he cradled what had been his only line of hope since he had been exiled to Earth. He found that he couldn't really convince himself that the Guardian had his best interests had heart, and hadn't been able to for some time.
What had he been thinking?
He had agreed to kill someone. He shuddered at the memory of his own desperation, and willingness to agree to anything, just so long as he could escape Earth. He hadn't even thought about it, not really. He hadn't considered exactly how difficult it would be to end a life; he had seen people killed, his own people killing each other and nearly killing him. It had looked easy, so simple.
But he had had too much time to think about it, and even if he did manage to somehow bring himself to do it, he wasn't entirely convinced that he could live with the guilt.
He was a coward: too afraid not to obey the Guardian, too afraid to kill the Doctor.
+++
End.