Chapter 47
The Search
At that moment, the dear lady was trying to master some rather formidable powers of her own.
After regaining consciousness, the bewildered Shadra had found herself alone in the computer center and wondered what had happened. Had her tormentor returned while she slept to play a cruel trick on her? It would be just like him to do so. She surveyed the room to see if anything had changed and noticed that the energy barrier surrounding the cage had changed color. He must've come back, she thought, looking over to the console. Her gaze fell on the heavy gold collar that her captor had paraded in front of her as he waxed grandiloquent on his plans for total dominance.
"Oh, you hateful thing!" Shadra exclaimed, wishing for all the world that she could hurl it across the room. To her utter astonishment, this is exactly what happened. The ornate collar suddenly rose into the air and sailed across the room, striking the far wall and dropping to the floor in a heap of tangled metal.
"Did I do that?" she marveled. There was only one way to find out and Shadra concentrated on the heap of metal, trying to visualize it returning to the console. After a minute the collar rose, very slowly, into the air. It dropped to the ground only once before returning to its original resting place.
Overjoyed, the imprisoned Baroness realized that the forced realignment of her molecular structure must been completed. She did not feel any different, but obviously something had happened. What was it the Master said? She would be connected into the symbolic resonance of the Cavern Matrix so he could direct the power. Apparently she could direct it, too. Surely this wasn't part of his plan. Or had he overlooked her telepathic abilities? Shadra remembered how arrogantly the Time Lord had pointed out her race's lack of interest in their once formidable telepathic powers. She had not bothered to tell him that Jason had been trying to teach her how to use hers. She had found it a bit of an annoyance and only indulged him at the time as an excuse to be near him. Now she was very glad she had done so.
In the corner of the room stood a workbench littered with the discarded parts and tools the Master had used to connect her into the web. Shadra looked over at them and decided that a little practice was in order. If she could get the hang of this, then the Master was in for a very nasty shock when he came back.
Slowly, the tools began rising into the air, one by one.
"Anywhere in particular you want us to start looking, Doctor?" asked Turlough. He was hoping the Doctor might have some general idea where Shadra was being held, since he seemed to know exactly where the Master's TARDIS had been before they even started looking for it.
Regretfully, the Doctor was forced to admit he did not have a clue, quickly reassuring the panic-stricken Jason that he was certain Shadra was not aboard the Master's TARDIS. He went on to point out how the Master had hinted that she was not far away, and since he had not intended for them to live, there was no reason to doubt this was not the truth.
The four spread out and began methodically searching the walls. The Doctor continued to think out loud, wondering how his enemy planned to control the High Council. The Time Lords would never permit his villainy unless controlled, and proficient as the Master was at mind control, not even he would be capable of dominating so many trained minds without the aid of an external device of immeasurable power. The amplifying properties of the Crystal Cavern seemed made to order.
"He must've planned on harnessing the power generated in here," the Doctor theorized.
"That's ridiculous," Jason countered sharply. "He'd've had to change his—your—entire genetic makeup before he could even think of linking into the symbolic resonance. He could've done it after the transference of my genetic info, but there's no way he could do it now. He's carbon-based like the rest of you, not silicon, like me. Crystalline cell structure, remember?"
Jason's body shimmered and he was suddenly covered with smaller versions of the gleaming crystals covering the walls. He held out his arms in a so-there gesture, which the Doctor did not appreciate.
"I am aware of that, Jason," the Time Lord said acidly. "It's more likely he was trying to channel the power some—"
"But how!" wailed the exasperated aristocrat.
Inside the computer center, all the floating tools crashed to the table when the Prince let out his cry of vexation. Shadra had heard him, or thought she had, and was filled with renewed hope.
The Doctor, on the other hand, was irritated by Jason's cry of vexation and was about to ask his friend why he had suddenly stopped thinking, since he had been doing so well thus far. What would have been a very serious altercation was stopped before it began when, to the astonishment of all present, a female voice suddenly called out, the crystals encrusting the walls pulsing in time with her words. "Is someone there? Can anyone hear me?"
"Yes! We hear you!" the Doctor called back excitedly.
"Help me, please, somebody," she continued plaintively, her pleas echoing throughout the vast room.
"She can't hear me," the Doctor observed sadly.
Jason was spellbound and moved to the center of the room, taking in the rhythmically pulsing crystals with intense fascination. This was something he'd never heard about. "Where's it coming from?" he inquired of no one in particular, his own voice echoing around them.
"Here! I'm here! Can you hear me? Oh, please, say you can here me," the imprisoned Baroness cried imploringly.
The Doctor gave the Alterran Prince a quizzical look. Why had the voice responded only to him? Then he wanted to kick himself for failing to see the answer that was, quite literally, staring him in the face. Jason had already told him he'd linked himself into the Cavern Matrix and had probably reestablished the link when he changed into his current glistening form. It seemed obvious the voice was coming though the Matrix. That would mean the person at the other end was Alterran, too, and very likely the missing Lady Tostine.
Seeing the Prince's body shimmer, the Doctor ordered, "No, Jason, stay as you are. She only seems to be able to hear you."
The young man obediently returned to his jewel-studded form and called back to the pleading voice, "Hello, whoever you are, can you hear me?"
"Yes! Oh, yes!" This excited response was followed by the sound of joyful weeping.
"This is getting very weird," Turlough observed quietly.
"You mean it wasn't up until now?" Tegan replied aridly, watching as the mesmerized Jason slowly turned in place. Was he absorbing the room, or was the room absorbing him?
Jason jumped as realization dawned. "Shadra, is that you? It's me, Jason."
"Jason! Oh, thank goodness you found me!"
"We haven't exactly found you yet. Where are you?"
There was a long pause before Shadra hesitantly replied, "I don't know. Near the Crystal Cavern, I think. But I…I'm in…I'm…" The Baroness stopped, unable to bring herself to describe her deplorable confinement; saying instead, "There's an energy barrier. I'm trapped."
"Don't worry. We'll get you out," the Prince soothed.
"Jason, I'm so scared!"
As Jason tried to calm his frightened fiancée, the others returned to their search for some kind of hidden doorway. The Doctor gave the control console another look, finding the lever he had missed on his initial examination. He gave it a sharp pull, to his delight a panel slid quietly sideways revealing the passageway to the computer center. Without so much as a backward glance, he vanished into the tunnel.