Trial's End

by Ewen Campion-Clarke

based on a script by Eric Saward

Chapter Four: Broken Circle

Mel's voice sounded distant, almost sleepy. 'No beginning. No end. Complete in itself.' She snapped out of it. 'Let's go round the corridor one more time,' she suggested, trying to sound enthusiastic. A bit too enthusiastic.

The Doctor glowered at her. 'Whatever for?' he demanded.

'We may still find the entrance,' Mel said brightly. It was as though all her panic and worry had been switched off. Like a machine.

'But you've already been round three times,' the Doctor snapped.

'Then one more circuit for luck,' said Mel with a shrug as if she didn't have a care in the world.

'Why?' her companion demanded.

'Why not?' Mel demanded back. 'We've nothing else to do!'

'So we go round and round until we collapse?' the Doctor exclaimed, rolling his eyes.

'Or escape,' Mel pointed out, enunciating each word with care. 'You're a pass master at escaping.'

'But how do you find a gap in the most perfect shape ever created?' he asked softly, studying his companion intently. 'Especially when your mind is being conditioned to think in circles.'

'I don't understand,' said Mel, unconcerned.

'I do,' the Doctor muttered. 'And suddenly very clearly.'

Suddenly Mel ran past the Doctor and down the tunnel in the direction he'd come from. 'Come on, Doctor,' she called brightly, like an energetic five year old cajoling a slower parent.

'You go on,' the Doctor replied coldly. 'I want to think.'

Mel strolled onwards, calling over her shoulder. 'Come along, Doctor,' she called, and her voice echoed and re-echoed until it became a meaningless jangle of noise. All the time colour and substance drained from her with every step. As the Time Lord watched, Mel moved into a patch of gloom, and didn't emerge.

The Doctor stood alone in the tunnel, hands in his pockets.

'Dear oh me, sir,' tutted a voice behind him. Calmly, the Doctor glanced over his shoulder. Mr. Popplewick was standing behind him, as if he'd never left. 'You're proving far too clever for us,' he admitted.

'Where am I?' asked the Doctor coldly.

'Inside your own mind, sir,' the clerk replied helpfully. 'Thought that would confuse you good and proper.'

'It almost did,' the Doctor conceded.

Popplewick coughed self-consciously. 'This way, sir,' he said awkwardly, turning on his heel to head further down the tunnel, where there were no more gas lamps. The Doctor followed. For a few moments they were wandering through pitch darkness until the Doctor caught a patch of light through dense, swirling fog. The rotund shape of Popplewick pierced the fog and suddenly they were in the outside air once more.

The Doctor looked around. They were back at the start of the alleyway that the Doctor continually found himself at, first with Glitz, then the Master, now Popplewick. The Time Lord turned to peer into the tunnel they had emerged from but the light from the gas lamp showed it was bricked up a few inches inside. There was no way they could have walked through that. Obviously.

Popplewick was talking again. 'You'd better wait here, sir,' he advised the Doctor. 'I should think Mr. Chambers will want t o have a word with vou.'

The Doctor took a step closer to the clerk. 'You're not by any chance Mr. Chambers, are you?' he asked.

'Me, sir?' Popplewick almost laughed. 'Oh, no, sir!' he choked as he turned and began to waddle down the alleyway once more.

'Are you sure?' asked the Doctor innocently, before lashing out and grabbing the loose sleeve of Popplewick's cloak. He pulled back...

...and the cloak flew into his hands, an empty garment that seemed to have suspended in mid air. There was no trace of Mr. Popplewick, bar his amused voice which seemed to come from somewhere above the top of the alleyway.

I told you, sir, the voice said, placing heavy emphasis on the 'sir'. I'm just a humble servant.

The bell began toll again as the Doctor sighed and let the robe fall the cobblestones below. He had the horrible feeling he was wasting the little time he had left.

'That was a bit of a waste of time,' Glitz sighed as, on the scanner screen the Doctor began to pace that particular part of the alley way, occasionally staring at the empty ground he'd let the cloak fall. At least that spinning circle effect was gone. Glitz turned to see the Valeyard studying a data read-out screen intently.

His captor had been silent so long Glitz's boredom was getting the better of his fear. 'Either your perfect shape theory's wrong, or his control is getting stronger,' he pointed out childishly.

The Valeyard didn't look up from the screen. 'Be silent,' he said coldly.

'Shouting at me won't help,' Glitz protested, waving a hand in the direction of the scanner. 'It's what you'r e

gonna do with him that matters!'

'Why do fools always state the obvious?' the Valeyard wondered, shaking his head.

'So that they can get things in the open and size 'em up,' Glitz replied smugly. 'Something super-brains don't do very often.'

The Valeyard favored him with a cold smile. 'Believe it or not, the suggestion was rhetorical.'

'Nevertheless it still don't answer what you're gonna do about him,' Glitz reminded him.

'He will die,' the Valeyard said firmly, studying the displays once more.

'Yeah, but only if the contract with the High Council proves bona fide. But what if it don't?' Glitz demanded.

The Valeyard's lips twitched into a smile. 'Then everything dies,' he said with such utter certainty that even Glitz - a longer than life skeptic and cynic - believed him.

The Andromedan suddenly felt very cold and very scared. 'Eh?' he croaked, his mouth dry. 'Everything?' he echoed fearfully. 'Bit excessive, innit? I mean, I understand the disappointment when a caper falls apart...'

'I am not engaged in a caper,' the Valeyard said absently, moving to another control panel.

'Call it whatever you like,' Glitz offered generously. 'But you've gotta understand that even in criminal circles there are rules! You can't go round committing genocide and expect to continue earning an honest living as a crook! The public won't put up with it!'

The Valeyard's face was stiff, unyeilding. 'I need the Doctor's remaining lives,' he said softly, without a hint of emotion. 'Without them I shall die. And if am denied them...'

'What you're planning is too... extreme,' Glitz announced, trying not to offend. Someone who was ready to wipe out every living thing was not someone to annoy with hyperbole.

'Then all they have to do is give me what I want,' said the Valeyard with a shrug.

'Even Time Lords can't give other people's lives away,' Glitz protested, feeling ever so slightly hysterical.

'If there is to be a future,' his captor replied with a smile, 'then they will have to start now...'

In the courtroom, Mel was going stir crazy. Indeed, she was considering snatching the Key to the Matrix from the Keeper, opening the Seventh Door and diving inside, just for something to happen. The Time Lords were muttering and arguing and demanding to return to Gallifrey, while the Inquisitor paced back and forth, wringing her hands.

'What is going on in there?' she hissed for the upteenth time.

'Please, madam,' the Keeper hissed to her. 'We must maintain a certain decorum and dignity...'

'Blast decorum and dignity!' the Inquisitor spat back. 'Gallifrey is in turmoil on the brink of war and who knows how much havoc has been done to the Matrix by intruders running around it!'

'You have a right to be concerned, madam,' said a smooth, echoing voice from above.

Mel, the Keeper, the Inquisitor and the rest of the Time Lords turned around to see the Matrix Screen was active once more. The bearded features of the Master were there, superimposed against a myriad of swirling multicoloured geometric shapes. He grinned like a predatory cat. 'Never have I had such an attentive audience,' he mused with a chuckle.

The Keeper stepped forward anxiously. 'What has the Valeyard done to the Matrix? Do you know if the damage is irrepairable?'

'The damage is minor - for now,' the Master replied. 'The Valeyard, however, has yet to learn that his contract with the High Council has been revoked as, after all, the High Council no longer exists.'

'So that's why they quit,' Mel exclaimed over the gasps of the assembled Time Lords, who had not known the truth until now. 'To break the contract without the Valeyard realizing!'

The Master turned his burning eyes onto her. 'Exactly. Without that contract, should the Valeyard kill the Doctor then he will, of course, cease to exist. One cannot exist in the present without a past.'

The Inquisitor gritted her teeth. 'How did you know that the High Council have resigned?' she demanded. 'We've only just learned that ourselves!'

The Master grinned. 'I just happened to overhear you discussing it.'

The Inquisitor glanced nervously at the assembled Time Lords who were giving her highly suspicious looks. 'Then,' she said quickly, 'you will also know that the contract was highly illegal! It should never have been drawn up, let alone lodged in the Matrix!'

'You may find the Valeyard in violent disagreement with you,' the Master sneered.

'The Laws of Time are sacrosanct,' the Keeper said grandly. 'No Time Lord can interfere with their own past as the Valeyard intends to - surely he must understand that? Exception can be made for no-one!'

'The Valeyard believes otherwise,' the Master replied. 'He is dying and will do anything to prevent that.'

'Death comes to us all when we reach the end of our lives,' the Inquisitor said grimly.

'Platitudes are a poor substitute for argument, my dear Inquisitor,' snapped the Master, 'when the person they are aimed at has the power to destroy the known universe!'

'He isn't capable!' the Inquisitor said icily.

'Oh, but he is,' the Master mused. 'I have located the Valeyard's base within the micro-universe - his own TARDIS. And it seems he has been very particular as to where he has materialized his control room.'

'Tell us!' ordered the Inquisitor after the Master finished speaking.

'It has been materialized around the Time Vent,' the renegade replied darkly.

The Time Lords gasped and began to mutter and panic. Several crept towards the doors which the Chancellery Guards were already considering fleeing through. The Keeper of the Matrix gripped the Key of Rassilon tightly, as he trembled. 'It's a bluff!' he shouted at the screen. 'He doesn't mean it! He will not open it!' The old man was almost screaming.

'As far as I can assertain, that is precisely his intention, my dear Keeper!' the Master retorted.

'What's he talking about?' Mel demanded.

'Not now!' snapped the Inquisitor, wringing her hands.

'Please!' Mel cried. 'The Doctor's in there with this time vent thing - what's the danger?'

'The same danger that faces us all,' the Inquisitor growled.

The Keeper was rambling to himself, his voice getting louder and softer. Mel almost thought he had gone mad with terror. 'If the Valeyard does open the Time Vent, a surge of Erratic Time will enter our stabalised continuum.' He stroked his temples with trembling fingers. 'The effect will be devastating... like m-mixing matter and anti-matter...'

'Then you must stop the Valeyard before he can open the vent,' said Mel firmly.

'That could prove very difficult if not impossible, young woman,' the Inquisitor replied. Already her mind was racing as how to combat her one-time co-conspirator. 'We would have to move against him with great care, less we arouse his suspicions...'

The Keeper giggled nervously to himself. 'They say Rassilon calculated, yes, he calculated how much Erratic Time our continuum could withstand before the damage became irrevocable... Seventy-two seconds, that's all we've got once it's open, and time and space fall apart... Forever! Seventy-two seconds and if it isn't closed before seventy-three then it all ends, forever! In fact, it doesn't end, because it never happened and we're all dead because we can't ever have been alive...'

The Inquisitor ignored him. 'How 1ong do you anticpate it will be before the Valeyard realises his contract

has been withdrawn from the Matrix?' she asked the Master.

'Very soon,' was the reply.

The white-clad Time Lady took a deep breath. 'There may still be time to return the contract, if we can get the new High Council to ratify it immediately...'

The Master smiled wisftully. 'And that would almost certainly cost the Doctor his life,' he chuckled.

'No!' Mel exclaimed in horror. 'You can't betray the Doctor after all he's done for us...'

'The Doctor is not worth the universe,' the Inquisitor replied. 'He would have been found guilty anyway.'

The Keeper looked like he was about to start screaming with panic. 'If we do this, not only do we sacrifice the Doctor, we will also create an unacceptable precident. Time Lords returning to their own pasts to extend their life spans, over and over and over...'

'You're not thinking, Keeper,' the Inquisitor cut through his ramblings. 'If the Valeyard opens the Time Vent, there will no longer be any precidents! In fact there will no longer be anything at all!'

Mel swallowed and made up her mind. The moment the way to the Seventh Door was clear she would steal the key and flee after the Doctor. His chances of survival would increase even if he just knew his peers had betrayed him once more.

But would she get a chance in time?

Glitz looked longingly at the double doors that lead out of the Valeyard's TARDIS. He wasn't brave enough to risk operating the controls on the console, and doubted the owner would let him leave. Besides, where would he go? Even if he escaped the TARDIS and the Fantasy Factory of the Matrix, got past the Time Lords on that space station and back to his own time and place, he felt certain that the Valeyard's apocalypse would catch up with him. He had no where to run.

The Valeyard had been staring at the scanner for some time, at what appeared to be circuit diagrams. Suddenly he reached out and touched a control. An image of the Doctor creeping down the alleyway reappeared on the scanner. The Valeyard crossed to a small metal hatch on the console and lifted it to reveal a small handle marked in mauve. Glitz felt a chill up his spine. 'What's wrong?' he asked, worried.

The Valeyard was looking down at the handle. 'It's gone,' he said simply, and then crossed to another panel and snapped down a row of switches. Lights went out across the control console. The Valeyard adjusted another sequence and more lamps extinguished.

'What's gone?' Glitz grimaced.

'The contract has been revoked.'

'Can't have!' Glitz wailed as the Valeyard continued to shut down his time machine.

'The High Council have resigned en masse, and any documents they have agreed to are null and void. The contract will not work. If I kill the Doctor, I will not gain his regenerations, but cease to exist.' The last winking lights on the console went out. 'And if I die, we all die.'

The Valeyard adjusted a dial on the console. The control room began to get darker, the lights spilling from the roundels becoming a dark burnt orange that barely illuminated the control room. The familiar warbling hum of the time drives whined off into silence.

'You sure you looked in the right place?' Glitz wailed desperately as the humming ended.

'Of course I am,' said the Valeyard casually, crossing over to look at the scanner image which now lit most of the silent, dark control chamber. The image of the Doctor pacing began to jump, split and distort. Lines of interference ran through the image and rapidly thickened.

'Another mind has broken into my illusion,' observed the Valeyard icily.

Glitz scurried through the gloom towards the Valeyard. The screen showed nothing but static now. 'Y-you won't do anything silly, now, will you?' he asked lightly.

The Valeyard stared at the roaring swirl on the scanner for a moment and then turned. Through the gloom, Glitz saw his bony hand punch the red button beneath the open hatch on the console. 'Explosive bolts primed,' he announced, and punched the button again.

'No!' Glitz cried, lunging at the console, but it was too late.

Six shockingly loud cracks tore through the silent chamber. Glitz whirled around to see the sealed-off internal exit lined with smoke and crackling blue light which danced over the grooves between doors and walls. The sudden violence ended and Glitz realized he could hear something behind the portal - something that clanked and groaned, as if reality was coiling in pain and despair.

The Valeyard strode over to the doorway. 'All that is necessary now is to ease the door open,' he announced grandly, his eyes gleaming.

Glitz thought about what lay beyond the door and how it could kill every living thing.

Then he wished he hadn't.