Trial's End
by Ewen Campion-Clarke
based on a script by Eric Saward
Chapter 8: The Beginning
Glitz was hiding in the casket as Mel was escorted up to the Doctor's TARDIS by a Time Lord guard who unlocked the door. 'Thank you,' said Mel warmly with a smile, and stepped through the doors. The guard turned and returned to the Trial room. The Inquisitor was by the doorway and they began to speak.
Glitz, Time Travelling Do-Gooder. It was an idea that would have sickened him in his youth, but not many people got the chance to see every possibility their life could have taken. The very idea of him cheating destiny appealed to him enough to do it. And at the back of it all was a strange sense of loss.
Someone had to take the Doctor's place, that was for sure.
And Glitz could do that. He'd already proved his credentials as a philanthropist capable of saving the universe from evil. And if said philanthropist can make a few grozits along the way, then he'd surely have more to be philanthropic with, right? Plus, with the knowledge the Time Lords were on his back, well, it would help keep him in line. If he relaxed too much he had visions of using the TARDIS to fix casinos and monopolize TV stations with genuine archive footage. Well, maybe if he was careful...
He just had to wait for Mel to emerge, dive inside and he was off.
The sight of the Valeyard's TARDIS on the screen had meant that Mel wasn't totally surprised upon entering the police box. Peri's description had taken off some more shock, but the bigger-on-the-inside stuff was not to be underestimated.
The control room was simpler than the Valeyard's, and friendlier with a few items of furniture scattered around the place: a wicker chair, a white hatstand, a chaise longue. The hum in the background was pleasantly threadbare, and Mel could just imagine seeing the Doctor in that bizarre outfit, brooding over the controls of his time machine.
She shook her head.
Why was she so upset over the fate of a man she had known for a few days?
What was so special about the Doctor?
And why was there a manilla envelope sitting on the control panel in front of her with the words For The Attention Of Melanie Jane Bush in copperplate handwriting?
Mel put down the TARDIS key she'd palmed from the police box door's lock on the control panel. Carefully she picked up the envelope and tore it open with her thumb. Who could have known she was going to enter the TARDIS? No one had apparently been near it before her bar the Doctor, and he had had no idea she was about to arrive at court.
She found a thick wadge of papers, all covered in the same handwriting. The first words were Dear Melanie.
Mel began to read with ever-mounting surprise.
Glitz eased the casket open and rose to his feet. The other Time Lords had left and the guard had his back turned. He noticed that Mel had taken the TARDIS key, so the first thing to do was get it off her. He frowned. Staring his career as a Doctor substitute by mugging an innocent woman, what was he thinking? Still, the Doctor had used force when necessary. But half the time he didn't need to, just talked his way out of trouble. So, that's what he'd do. Duck inside, explain the situation to Mel, and she would be bound to help. He'd be happy to give her a lift home - during his association with the Master he'd gathered a basic working knowledge of TARDISes. Stop, start, and setting a specific course were easy enough, and as long as nothing more complicated was needed...
The guard wasn't looking.
Glitz slipped around the corner of the police box and into the time machine.
His time machine.
Mel had finished reading the first page, and still wasn't sure of what to do now. She needed time to think, and with that guard outside under orders to take her home immediately, she'd have to stay inside the TARDIS. Still, there should be enough room inside for a walk to let her collect her thoughts.
She crossed to the internal door. It opened easily onto a corridor, the walls marked with roundels, branching off in several directions. Could the TARDIS really be that big? she wondered. A quick exploration, she decided. In light of her letter, that would be a good idea.
As Mel slipped through the doorway, closing the panel behind her, Glitz sidled into the control room.
It was the first time he'd seen the inside of the Doctor's TARDIS. It was identical to the Master's, except it was a friendly off-white colour and there was some furniture. It was a place people lived and enjoyed themselves, not a bland transporter like the Master used. Glitz rather liked it.
He crossed to the control console. The door control was similar to the ones used in the Master's and Valeyard's TARDIS. The doors whirred closed. Spotting the TARDIS key lying on the console, Glitz automatically pocketed it for further use. As he concentrated on the controls, he forgot all about Mel Bush.
'This would be a lot easier if those Time Lords would just put a red button on this control panel that says 'Push This',' he sighed. He moved around the console looking for the displays he recognized. 'Probably ought to find out if the Time Lords have immobilized us or not. Hopefully they haven't. I wonder how I stop that, anyway...'
He found the panel for coordinate entry. Where to now? 'I'm not sure where I want to go,' he admitted. 'Let me think. Somewhere safe? Deep space. Obviously.' He tapped in the coordinates he knew for the space between the Island Galaxies and prayed the TARDIS would understand them. He crossed to the panel with the door control where the dematerialization lever sat.
'Here we go, 'Doctor',' said Glitz cautiously, and pushed the lever upwards.
To his complete and utter surprise, the time rotor illuminated and began to rise and fall. The hum deepened as the TARDIS began wending its way to the coordinates he had entered. And it was as the ship leveled out into full flight that Glitz remembered Mel.
The Chancellery Guard spun around, drawing his staser as the TARDIS began to dematerialize. Its lamp flashed furiously and after a few seconds it was nothing but a patch of blue light near the empty caskets. Then even that was gone. As the Guard wondered what to do, a hatch on the outer hull of the spacecraft opened light a flower, belching a beam of intense white light out into space. The spinning police box was hurtled up the beam and returned to normal time and space.
The wave washed over the two figures, eating at their links with reality. One of them stopped struggling and went still, then so did the other. Two lifeless shapes continued to fall, then the first withered and melted away into nothingness - leaving a gap, a vacuum that the remaining body could not fill. The disturbance warped, buckled and then vanished.
And then there was noone in the Time Vent.
Oxyvegyramosa was a verdant stellar fragment in the Apus Constellation. The twilight over the wooded hills was a pleasant purple, with tall reedy grass acting like a green see from which tall, mighty trees emerged heavy with lush foliage. A planet far off the oft-used space lanes, there was no contact between the primitive native life forms and the rest of the civilized universe.
The year, by Mel Bush's reckoning was 2489.
A strange seeping glow emerged from nowhere a few feet from a well-trod dirt track. The glow swirled and spun through the spectrum several times before dwindling and contorting into a humanoid shape, which suddenly dropped heavily into the grass, rolled onto its back and lay still. The energy coiled and receded from the body, leaving a patchwork, multicoloured coat, striped yellow trousers, and patterned waistcoat. A mop of pale blonde curls framed a tired, lined face.
A groan emerged from dry lips. 'Twas... a far... far better thing... I did... than... I have ever... done,' it croaked, each word a brittle gasp. 'It's a... far... far... better... rest... that I... go to... than I... have... ever...' A rattling sigh emerged from deep inside the figure's broad chest.
Silence.
The body lay in the grass for a long time, as the sun ducked below the horizon. Then, several hours into the night, a faint luminescence returned to the shape in the reeds. Minute after minute passed as the pale glow became thicker and stronger, causing the leaves and foliage to sway from the body.
The light flashed through the spectrum, the exposed skin of the body beginning to pulsate. A while after that, energy streamed out from the flesh, swirling around thebody, slowly but surely reshaping it. As the night continued the face tightened, the glowing white skin stretching back. As dawn approached, his skin peeled back to reveal brand new tissue underneath. Old flesh melted into the new. Hair receded, straitening. The out-rush of energy ceased. The light faded.
Dawn broke, light beginning to seep back into the glade, bathing the sprawled and still figure. The clothes sagged, loose and long over a shorter, smaller body. The ash blonde curls had been replaced by short, dark, feathery hair. Bar the fact it contained a nose, a mouth and two eyes, the face was completely different.
The sun warmed the cold body for a long time before the eyes popped open, bright and shining with life.
'Ah! That was a nice nap!' the new voice announced, lighter and rougher in tone than the old one. The man in the clothes leapt up onto his feet, slapping his hands together to gather attention. 'Now, down to business - I'm a little worried about the temporal flicker in Sector 13, there's a bicentennial refit of the TARDIS to book in, must just pop over to Centauri Seven, and then, perhaps, a short holdiay.'
The man fought his way through the grass onto the track, absently hoisting up his loose belt to stop his trousers gathering around his knees. 'Right. That's all very clear. Just three small points.' A slightly troubled expression crossed the new face. 'Where am I? When am I? And, very importantly, who am I?'
As he brooded over this conundrum, the figure absently began to stroll down the hillock, unaware that eyes were watching him. Four of them, in fact, and all belonging to the same being. It too was a stranger to this planet, but had not arrived so haphazardly. It could have, if it was inclined, told the new arrival that he was in Oxyvegyramosa in 2489.
But none of the natives called it that of course.
They preferred the name 'Lakertya'.
To Be Continued...