CHAPTER TWO
Nothing felt right. Adric fondled his Badge which the Doctor had given him upon returning to consciousness and wished that his shattered thoughts could be so easily mended. He had assume in the first few days that the sense of detachment and dislocation would sort itself out. The Doctor had explained how the Master had gone back in time to engineer Adric's death and how the Doctor had restored the time line by rescuing him.
Travelling with the Doctor always held some element of risk but he had always felt safe and nurtured. The Doctor might bumble and panic but even faced with the end of the world there had always been the deep conviction that everything would turn out all right: things might get hairy and a little too close for comfort but the Doctor would always win through in the end. This time, however, Adric really had been just precious seconds away from an agonising death. Perhaps his sense of detachment was nothing more than a reaction to the nearness of his escape.
Added to that was the erratic behaviour of his companions: Tegan seemed to be making a stupendous effort to like him, spending time with him, asking him never-ending questions about his home planet and its culture and even reading a few mathematical text books. It was rather pleasant, interacting with the woman without it dissolving into a silly quarrel and, ruefully, he admitted that he had underestimated Tegan's intelligence before. He found he liked listening to her practical observations and fanciful stories of life on her father's farm and was beginning to understand her witty put-downs for what they were – a defence mechanism. She was becoming less the bossy interloper whose presence he resented and more the big sister. He had always got along well with Nyssa, debating obscure principles and theorems for hours, but since his rescue she seemed to be shadowing his every move, enquiring after his health and continually telling him to take it easy. As for the Doctor, most of the time the Time Lord treated him as normal but every now and then, in unguarded moments, Adric caught his companion studying him as though he were a particularly knotty problem.
He needed to sort this out but he didn't know how. On the Starliner there had been manuals on everything; there was probably one on what to do if you beat death. He'd like to read it. He needed irrefutable facts like a mathematical equation not thorny emotions. The Doctor was messing with a panel on the Console. He seemed to spend all his time adjusting this or repairing that. A shower of sparks had him rearing back, a slightly offended look on his face. Perhaps the Doctor could help. If it were a case of a Dalek invasion or a Mara coiling in his mind, Adric knew the Doctor would be able to help – he'd trust him implicitly. But with emotions, he wasn't sure – even if he could organise his uneasiness into words. He knelt next to him and the Doctor passed him a sonic cutter, muttering something about reversing the polarity of the neutron flow which sounded like typical Doctor gobbledegook.
"What are you doing anyway?" he asked after a respectful silence. This felt more normal, helping the Doctor, a meeting of minds.
"I thought I detected some sort of temporal anomaly."
The Doctor clicked his fingers and Adric obediently passed him the cutter. "Polyonic energy is all very well but it does tend to need a bit of expert attention every few centuries." He flashed him a boyish grin and prodded at a few strands of fibre-optic cable.
"Doctor? Can I talk to you?" He shifted nervously, still not sure what to say.
"Self expression doesn't appear to be one of your problems, Adric. Magnetic clamp."
"Here. It's just I don't feel … normal." He gazed round the room, at the familiar instrumentations and TARDIS roundels and felt a stranger here where once the TARDIS had welcomed him.
"Mmmm?" The Doctor had his head buried deep in the recessed panel. "Only to be expected. A certain amount of relief and trepidation after such a narrow escape is only to be expected. If I had my sonic screwdriver, this would be so much easier. I really should find time to make a new one; very handy piece of equipment."
"I feel like …" He struggled to find the words – any words – to describe the detachment, the sense of disorientation. "I feel …"
The Doctor however was absorbed in his tinkering. "Can you get your hand in here? No, there. That's it."
Adric twisted onto his stomach, assuming the slight wave of dizziness that assailed him was due to having to shift into such a strange position. He pressed his hand into the required mass of cables. "Are you even listening to me?" he asked impatiently.
The Doctor extracted his head to give him an affronted look then he saw the unusually worried expression on his friend's face. He put down his tools and leaned back against the console. Adric, reassured, sat next to him. "It takes time, Adric, that's all. You had a traumatic experience."
"Are you sure that's all it is?"
"You very nearly died on the freighter. It's never easy to be confronted with death. I can empathise, I assure you. Each time I regenerate, I die, for a moment only, but I am aware of Death's icy grip."
Adric suddenly had to blink back tears. "Everything feels so wrong."
There was a loud bang and the panel they had been working on flew across the floor. "Well, there's definitely something wrong with that," the Doctor stated.
"Where are we anyway?" Tegan asked.
"The Eye of Orion. One of my favourite places. Quiet, uninhabited, no adventures guaranteed."
"Can I have that in writing?" Tegan asked sweetly.
The Doctor chose to ignore that. "I thought we could all do with a change of pace." He hefted the picnic basket he and Adric were carrying. "And what better than a pleasant ramble followed by a picnic?"
Nyssa nodded thoughtfully and then asked, "What's a picnic?"
It should have been pleasant. The river reminded Adric of the Alzar that had flowed by the Starliner on Alzarius. A wave of homesickness hit him as he realised he'd never see his home world again. Everything here was green – indeed most planets' fauna tended to be green - whereas Alzarius' had been red and yellow and blue.
They found a convenient spot and the Doctor and Tegan spread out the blanket. The other two watched bemusedly for it appeared almost like some sort of ritual. Finally Nyssa spoke up.
"Is this picnic some sort of religious rite to appease a god?"
Tegan snorted with laughter. "Yes, Yogi Bear."
The Doctor grinned but waggled his finger at her. "No Nyssa, Earth people just like picnics."
Adric looked over at his friends and again felt that sense of detachment. Not petty like they were excluding them from their conversation, since they certainly weren't, but as though there was a chasm between them. Their voices sounded funny too like voices did when he swam under water.
"Adric? Try this, it's called a sausage roll."
Adric pulled his attention back to the Doctor. He tried to take the offering but his fingers seemed to go through thin air. He gave a frightened gasp. The Doctor grasped his arm and the contact was very welcome.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't know. Dizzy."
"Put your head between your knees," Tegan suggested unhelpfully.
"I can't hear you, you're distorting, fuzzy. I don't feel like I'm here."
The Doctor was checking his pulse. "Your pulse is erratic. Has this happened before?"
"It's been like this since you rescued me. I told you."
"Come on, let's get back to the TARDIS."
Adric was hauled to his feet; he staggered and Nyssa put her arm round him too. She suddenly pulled away with a horrified gasp. "Look Doctor!"
But the Doctor had noticed – Adric was fading, disappearing before their very eyes.
"What the hell is it?" Tegan asked.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Interesting! Some sort of temporal anomaly."
The anomaly seemed to grow worse for a few minutes, until all that remained of Adric was a vague blur of yellow and green then the moment passed and he returned to normal, staggering and falling. "What happened, Adric?" Nyssa asked, kneeling next to him and chafing his hands between her own; they were freezing cold and her friend was trembling, obviously shaken by the experience.
"I don't know," the Alzarian answered, "you were fading away."
"We were?" Tegan asked, managing to sound both worried and offended. "Speak for yourself."
Immediately they reached the sanctuary of the TARDIS, Adric seemed to recover. His colour returned and within just a few minutes his pulse had normalised. "I'm really alright," he told Tegan for the second time when she continued to hover over him. "I'm not made of glass, you know."
"Ha! A few minutes ago I could see right through you." She glanced over at the Doctor who was lost in thought, patting his rolled hat against his chin. "So, what was it anyway?"
"Mmmm? Oh, probably just the time line correcting itself. The Master's meddling with true time will have caused quite a few blips, I imagine. The TARDIS exists outside of the time stream so it will help to nullify the effects until matters stabilise." While the two women fussed over Adric, the Doctor returned to his preoccupation, a worried frown settling on his face.
Adric found he couldn't sleep that night. His dreams were disturbing. He watched himself dying on the freighter, hearing his own screams as his eardrums burst, seeing his own skin blister from the enormous heat and feeling his own tortured gasps for oxygen. And through the nightmare was the sense of someone else observing his death, watching and waiting – a man dressed in black: the Master, he assumed.
Perhaps a walk round the Cloister Room would ease his thoughts and help him to sleep. Shrugging into his dressing gown, he stole past the girls' room and the Doctor's, knowing full well that if any of his companions caught him creeping about at that time of night they'd send him straight back to bed.
When he arrived, he noticed the Doctor sitting at an elaborately carved stone table, apparently setting out a game of chess. For a moment he had to close his eyes for he remembered the last Doctor in this room; and it occurred to him with shocking strength that however much he liked this Doctor, he would never see the toothy grin, the wild eyes and the silly scarf again. "It's even more fun with two," he said.
The Doctor appeared to rouse from deep thought. "Adric! Mmmm? Oh, yes, definitely – do take a seat. You can be white." Then he frowned. "You should be in bed, young man."
Adric flashed his familiar cheeky grin. "So should you."
"Touché." The Doctor returned to his contemplation of the chess board, his vague preoccupation doing nothing to relieve Adric's own feelings of unease. "I needed some peace and quiet."
"There's a piece missing. A white pawn."
"Mmmm?" Again the Doctor appeared to have to wrench his mind back. Then he grinned and, with the air of a conjuror, produced the white pawn from his pocket. Adric forbore from asking how it had ended up in his companion's voluminous pockets. They played a few moves but it was a rather lacklustre game for neither of them appeared able to concentrate. Adric had lost his queen and his king was being harassed by the Doctor's two knights – or should have been but the Time Lord made an ill-thought out move, resulting in the loss of one of them.
While Adric was mapping out his next strategy, the Doctor tweaked at a piece of trailing ivy and smiled round at the decaying arches and worn flagstones. "I've always liked this room."
"I remember. I found you here just before we went to Logopolis." He studied the board and made his move, taking one of the Doctor's pawns and manoeuvring to take his castle (which the Doctor insisted on calling a rook, for some unfathomable reason).
"Tell me, Adric, what do you think of the Master's plot to kill you?"
He frowned; he should have been surprised by the question but discovered he was not. "It's logical. He's sprung complicated traps before – and used me as bait," he added with a touch of guilt. Castrovalva had been a trap within a trap with Adric the helpless bait at the centre, ensnared in a cruel web and forced through excruciating pain to do the Master's bidding.
The Doctor was watching him closely. "But?"
"There's something fish-like about it."
The Doctor's eyes twinkled briefly although the worry didn't leave his face. "Fishy. Tegan's been teaching you Earth expressions, I see. I'll tell you what's fishy too – the Master isn't about logic, he's about passion and hatred. He wants me dead, I'll give you that, but he wants to watch me suffer. He needs to witness my pain."
Adric thought it through. "When he forced me to track the TARDIS to Event One, he sent you a message to gloat – it was awful. I thought I'd killed you."
"Gloat!" The Doctor clicked his fingers in Adric's face. "That's it, you've hit the nail on the head – that's another expression, Adric – he needs to be able to gloat over his supremacy, see me writhe and beg for mercy. He didn't so much as contact me."
"Then if it wasn't the Master who went back in time to change history, who did?"
The Doctor stared at Adric for a moment as if his whole world had caved in then he seemed to pull himself together. "Later. You should go back to bed."
"What about the game?"
"No arguments."
Once his young friend had departed with some mutinous grumbling, the Doctor looked down at the chess board and noticed that in their joint preoccupation, they had missed the fact that the white king was in check.
The Doctor hesitated in opening the door; he looked as if he were going to say something, apparently changed his mind and, cramming his hat on, led the way. That morning he had announced over breakfast his intention of travelling to Gallifrey to seek some answers regarding the Master's meddling. No sooner had the company left the TARDIS than Agent Atropos stepped forward. As a concession to the gravity of the moment, he had adopted a sweeping cape over his sombre suit. Behind him in the reception hall stood the ever-impassive Lachesis and a small number of guards standing to rigid attention.
"Quite the welcoming committee," the Doctor noted, not sounding particularly surprised. "I take it you were expecting us?"
Atropos bowed dryly, a mere formality. His cold stare lingered on Adric and, a little intimidated, he drew closer to the Doctor. "Welcome to Gallifrey, Adric of Alzarius. I am delighted to see you – and in one piece. If you and your companions will follow me, Doctor?"
"And if we refuse?" Tegan asked sweetly but Atropos ignored her, sweeping out of the reception hall with a whirl of his cape. The guards manoeuvred into position, a pair flanking each of the companions.
As they were marched to their destination, the Doctor filled the icy silence with idle chit-chat, spinning tales for his companions and purposefully pausing every now and then to point out some tourist attraction. "And that building over there is the Senate House. I wonder how Leela and Andred are getting on? I'll have to make time to pop over and see them." He grinned at Tegan. "You'll like Leela, she has a forthright nature. And of course I'll have to introduce you to K9 mark 1, Adric." He stopped short, causing the impassive guards to nearly bump into him. He flashed them a disarming grin. "Aren't we going to the Capitol, Atropos? It's that way." When he made an abortive step in that direction, the two guards nearest him closed ranks and fingered their weapons pointedly. "I'll take that as a no."
"Where are you taking us then?" Nyssa asked.
Atropos was showing the first signs of irritation at the Doctor's obvious stalling tactics. "That information is restricted. This way, please."
"Oh certainly, certainly." He'd gone no more than a few feet when he stopped again and grinned impishly. "Dash it all, if my shoelace hasn't come undone."
They were seated in a conference room of some sumptuousness: the chairs were gilded, the floor was laid with a deeply-piled, hand woven carpet, and pompous texts in Old High Gallifreyan hung from the walls. At the head of a table, framing the throne-like chair assumed by Atropos, was a frowning portrait of Rassilon. Adric kept glancing up at it uneasily for its eyes seemed to follow you round the room.
"I assume, Doctor, that we can dispense with the fabrication of the Master's involvement in this matter?" Atropos asked sardonically, evincing no guilt.
"Yes, it was a very neat deception I have to admit. Had me almost convinced."
"A necessary ruse, I assure you. Observe." Atropos opened his ever-present briefcase and tapped keys. An image appeared on the gilt-framed viewscreen, that of a planet slowly revolving against a backdrop of stars.
"Very pretty, Patrick Moore," Tegan said and the Doctor snorted with laughter, having to hide it with a cough.
"This recording was taken by Gallifrey's satellite last month." The camera panned behind the planet, magnifying a section of stars. Everything seemed normal until the stars appeared to wobble and distort.
"Ah," the Doctor said, "a CVE."
Ignoring Tegan's tactless reminder that they already knew, Atropos dryly explained how Logopolis had created the CVEs through Block Transfer to preserve the universe beyond natural heat death. Upon Logopolis' destruction, the computations were transferred to the Pharos Project on Earth.
"We know," Tegan repeated for the third time, "What has this got to do with us?"
The Doctor had borrowed a nearby computer monitor and was checking data. He gave a wry smile. "So that's it," he said quietly. "Your CVE's malfunctioning. Oh dear."
"Precisely, Doctor. Based on the data compiled by the Astrology Department, the CVE will close down completely in 41.2 time units. At that point, tachyon radiation will increase by 69, gamma by 39."
"A planetary eco-system is not capable of resisting that level of radiation," Nyssa said.
Atropos turned his flat gaze on the Doctor. "You remain remarkably composed considering your planet is in imminent danger of destruction."
The Doctor cast a glance at Nyssa whose own home planet had been destroyed by entropy. "Gallifrey hasn't been my home for many years."
Adric suddenly spoke up. "That's why you engineered my rescue, isn't it? To save your planet."
Atropos nodded. "We need your mathematical skill. Understand, the preservation of Time Lord society is the Agency's only concern."
"I thought the Agency's only concern was the preservation of true time," the Doctor said.
The agent's gaze swung to his countryman. "Surely the same thing."
The Doctor raised his eyebrow innocently. "Is it?"
"Why Adric?" Nyssa asked, more to pacify their captors than anything else. "Can't your own mathematicians help?"
"Negative. The knowledge necessary is very specialised; namely Block Transfer."
What about the Monitor of Logopolis?"
"Logopolis is a hive society, the Monitor would not have been able to survive without the presence of his counterparts." Atropos gave a brief, cold smile. "I assure you we calculated the odds most carefully."
The Doctor scraped back his chair noisily, his face flushed with anger. "Come along, you three. We're leaving." He chivvied Nyssa to her feet, Tegan and Adric following obediently, and strode for the door. The guards, to no-one's surprise, blocked their exit. The Doctor held up his hands in surrender and began to back away. He met Tegan's gaze and nodded: as the nearest guard relaxed his vigil, allowing his weapon to lower ever so slightly, the Doctor grabbed it and yanked it from his fingers. Simultaneously, Tegan stamped her 6 inch heel on the second guard's booted foot and, as he doubled over in pain, jammed her elbow into his neck, making him fall to the ground. The Doctor covered the guards and the still silent Lachesis with his requisitioned weapon.
"Gentlemen, I really must insist on your moving away from the door," he said politely. "Thank you so much." He was about to usher his three friends through when the wall two inches from his face exploded. Atropos stepped forward, revealing a small but powerful laser in his hand. He pointed it coldly at Tegan and Nyssa. The Doctor quickly stepped in front of his two friends, shielding them.
"We will not do what you want, Atropos," he said, drawing Atropos's attention away from Adric who had crept up behind the agent. The Alzarian yanked the portrait of Rassilon off the wall and smashed it over the agent's head; he collapsed immediately.
"I didn't like it anyway," Adric stated cheekily. The Doctor stopped outside the closed door, fumbling in his pockets. He produced a paperclip, flipped open the door control and short circuited the mechanism, effectively sealing Atropos and the guards within. As they ran down the corridor, obeying the Time Lord's rather breathless directions, the Doctor bent close to Adric and said with a grin, "You do realise that portrait was painted by the Lord President?"
After they had run down a fair number of identical-looking corridors, they came to a long gallery which looked like a Gothic church with its looming arches, stained glass windows and heavy columns. They heard footsteps scurrying and quickly hid behind the nearest pillar. The Doctor poked his head out, checked the coast was clear, but indicated for his friends to stay concealed. He crept over to the nearby door and depressed the sensor. "As I thought," he muttered half to himself, "Atropos has had all the exits sealed." He fumbled in his pocket for his paperclip but remembered he had left it in the last door's mechanism. Another troop of guards led by the voluble Lachesis had him leaping for cover behind the column with his companions. Eventually the danger passed and he began emptying his pockets, tipping the contents into Nyssa's hands.
"Hurry up, Doc. We're wasting time."
The Time Lord spared Tegan a glare. "Think, what could we use!"
"What about my Badge?" Adric whispered.
"The catch isn't long enough. There's no help for it. Tegan, I'll have to use the wire in your ah undergarment."
"What!" Nyssa exclaimed incredulously.
"Her bra."
"Hey, I'm not stripping off my bra in front of you two."
"Oh, get on with it," the Doctor rapped impatiently. "It's not like I haven't seen it all before."
Adric whirled away, his cheeks flaming and his hand held over his eyes as though he expected to spontaneously combust. The Doctor turned round too. "We promise we won't look, Tegan. Hurry."
After a few minutes of shuffling, Tegan produced the required, rather lacy article, her chin raised defiantly as if daring anyone to laugh. The Doctor, intent on his mission, removed the wire as if asking his friend to remove her lingerie was nothing out of the ordinary, pocketed the bra absently and tripped the lock.
The Doctor now led them round the edge of an impressive columned courtyard that looked familiar.
"This is the Cloister Room," Nyssa accused as they hopped from the shelter of one column to the next. The Doctor had the grace to look sheepish.
"I always rather liked it here, I have to admit. When I ah acquired the TARDIS I programmed the architectural configuration unit with its dimensions." Adric suddenly caught hold of the Doctor's arm, leaning heavily against him. The Doctor was only just in time to prevent him from falling as a dizzy spell assailed him. The Alzarian pressed his hand to his chest, his breath coming out in laboured gasps. He was able to continue in just a few minutes but their progress was severely hampered by further attacks. While they were waiting for him to recover from a particularly alarming seizure where he had faded virtually to nothing, Tegan asked the Doctor something that had been troubling her.
"I don't understand, Doctor," she whispered. "Why can't you allow Adric to repair the CVE? Why can't we help these people?"
The Doctor had leaned against the pillar with Adric supported against him, covered in his coat. He was talking to him quietly, reassuring him. He looked up at Tegan. "You've not thought it through, young Tegan. Why did Atropos fabricate the story of the Master interfering?"
Tegan shifted impatiently; she hated it when the Doctor got obscure – she was sure he did it on purpose. And she hated it even more when he started with the 'young Tegan' thing. "To get us to save Adric. And personally I don't care what his motivation was, I'm just glad we did."
The Doctor waggled his finger at her. "More than that. Can you carry on, Adric? Well done." He moved off, one arm supporting the Alzarian. "To get us to go back in time and rescue Adric. They manipulated us, fed us a believable story and we fell for it – because we wanted to believe it." He threw her a significant look. "By rescuing Adric, we have entered an alternative reality – a false reality if you like."
"You're not suggesting … " Tegan trailed off, looking uncomfortably at Adric. "You don't mean to take him back there." She swallowed hard. "Back to the freighter?"
The Doctor shook his head. "Don't be ridiculous. No use crying over spilt milk."
Nyssa arched an eyebrow snootily. "I am sure Tegan has no intention of emoting over upset dairy produce."
"I'm sorry," Adric said, "I'm being a nuisance."
The Doctor realised how much this matter was affecting his young friend. He lifted his chin, compelling him to make eye contact. "That's enough of that sort of talk, young Adric. What's done is done. I'm very glad to have you back."
They paused at a pair of immense, elaborately constructed gates. "Careful, don't touch them, they're electrified. This is the entrance to the Capitol's Garden. Strictly off-limits to everyone except the High Council but if we go through it we avoid the main thoroughfares." While the Doctor worked on the lock, with a few muttered curses, the three companions shifted nervously in the dusk light. More for something to do to take her mind off pursuit than real interest, Tegan asked, "So what are we going to do now?"
"Damage control. We can't do anything about Adric's presence – and he's only one person anyway - but we can ensure no further breaches occur in the time line. Ah, that's got the lock. Just need to short the power." He carried on fiddling, every now and then waving his arms about to highlight a particular point. "It's imperative the CVE is not repaired."
"So we're going back to the TARDIS?" Adric asked hopefully.
The Doctor flashed him a smile. "Almost there now, Adric. Ah, got it." He pushed against the gates but with the power shorted they wouldn't budge, even when the other three added their weight. Tegan gave an impatient sigh and began to give orders, making the Doctor cup his hands together so that he could boost her over the top.
While the Doctor was scrambling over, more difficult for him since he didn't have a leg-up, Nyssa looked round the Garden. It reminded her in some ways of the Grove on Traken although better tended. Boxed hedges neatly edged the formal beds which were set in a symmetrical pattern round the centre-piece of an enormous water feature. Mythical beasts twined, rising up out of the pool, water spurting from their mouths.
"This way." They skirted the beds, staying as low as possible, their pace much slower now as Adric's strength deserted him. The Doctor squinted in the poor light. Night had fallen now and the garden was unlit; only a pale moon illuminated the way. Adric staggered again, sinking to the floor, unable to go any further. He shimmered as he fought to remain on this plane of reality. The pain was excruciating.
The Doctor gripped his hand. "Concentrate, Adric! You can do it!" With a muttered apology, he slapped his face to keep him conscious. Tegan whimpered an objection but the Doctor ignored her. "Adric, what is the square root of 5603? Good. Stay with me. That's it. What's 67549 ÷ 125?"
The attack seemed to be easing although it had obviously been much stronger than the last ones. The Doctor immediately pulled Adric to his feet, and they continued their nightmare flight, the two women taking it in turns to support Adric's other side. "We're nearly there," the Doctor gasped, sounding on the verge of panic, but just a few moments later Adric began to fight for breath. "I can't breathe properly," he gasped.
The Doctor tipped him onto the floor, pressing his ear to his chest. Adric had lapsed into unconsciousness. His lips were tinged with blue. The Doctor slammed his hand hard on his sternum, tilted his head back and began to breathe for him. There was a crunching of gravel and Tegan looked up from Adric to see the two agents and a detachment of guards marching towards them. She swore quietly and put her hands up.
"So it has begun," Atropos murmured looking down at Adric and then said more loudly, "You are under arrest, Doctor."
"Well obviously." The Doctor didn't pause in his ministrations. "Give me your gun," he demanded of the nearest guard who stared stupidly at him. "The gun, the gun." He snapped his fingers and turned his keen gaze to Atropos. "Look, if I don't do something, your prize is going to die and then where will you be?"
"Of course," Nyssa exclaimed, "the gun can be adjusted to give a very low charge which should stimulate his heart."
"Right, I'll do that then," Tegan announced, taking charge. The Doctor looked across at her obviously unwilling to trust her. She glared at him. "Every moment you hesitate puts Adric in danger. I don't know how to alter the gun, you do. I do know how to resuscitate someone – standard air hostess training."
The Doctor nodded and swiftly swapped positions. While Tegan continued to breathe for Adric, he and Nyssa fumbled with the gun.
"Clear!" he said and Tegan moved away. He pressed the muzzle directly over his heart. He jabbed his fingers under his chin, feeling for a pulse. Another charge and Adric gasped and began to breathe normally. The Doctor slumped next to him, the adrenaline leaving his body all at once. "He's alright," he reassured his friends. "Adric's a fighter if ever I saw one."
"Excellent news," Atropos pronounced, "it would have been unfortunate had he died. This way please."
