Chapter 11: SHADA

"Beware. This is the prison planet Shada. Unauthorised entry is punishable by matter dispersion."

"What a horrible place," said Rose, shivering against the cold. She was standing on a flat, circular area of ground covered entirely by a large, winding pattern. A force field above held in an artificial atmosphere. It was dark, lit only by starlight. Every surface was covered in a layer of fine dust, as if no one had been there in many years. "Dark, depressing..." Words failed her then. She stared.

In the middle of the area was the Doctor's TARDIS. It was still invisible; but retained its familiar shape. Dust had settled onto the top and into the nooks and crevices of the police box, giving it a ghastly, ghostly outline. Rose shuddered.

She knew it was a vain hope, but she had to try. She ran to the box, her strides turning into long, bounding leaps in the planetoid's reduced gravity. She hammered on it. "Doctor? Are you in there? Doctor!" The dust clouded up into the air and rained down lazily upon her head. The TARDIS was empty. She knew it was empty, it felt empty. It was abandoned, forlorn. She pressed her face against it and closed her eyes. "Doctor…"

"I found him," Chronotis called to her. He was standing at the perimeter of the circular area, in front of a large, stone obelisk. Mauve-coloured light glowed eerily from below it.

Rose was at his side in an instant. "Where? Where is he?" She peered over his shoulder at an index of names engraved in the stone. Her eyes scanned down the list until she saw the one he was pointing to.

The Doctor--Enemy of the State--Chamber T, Cabinet 9

"Ironic," murmured Chronotis, but he didn't elaborate.

The automated voice bleated its warning again. "Unauthorised entry is punishable by matter dispersion. There is no authorised entry."

Rose reached forward and touched the Doctor's name. "How long has he been here?"

"Hard to say. Time is indeterminate in this place. Now, first thing is to get the matter dispersers off." He dragged three of his fingers down the front of the obelisk in a complicated series of passes. The light from below the obelisk turned from mauve to green. "Good. Now for the lift." He pressed a metallic disc set in the middle of the stone; the obelisk groaned and rotated, revealing a small, circular room. He beckoned Rose inside. The floor of the room began to slowly drop.

"Lord President Chronotis--" said Rose, as they descended.

"Save the ceremonial titles for ceremony," he interrupted. "Call me Professor Chronotis, if you must."

"All right...Professor. You said you'd been here before, and you really seem to know your way around. Why--"

"Sometimes, my dear, it's best not to ask too many questions." With a lurch, the floor stopped dropping. He placed his fingers against the wall; it vanished, revealing a doorway. He stepped outside.

She followed, and would have pressed the point further, had the sight of Chamber T not silenced her: row after row of glass-walled cabinets, rising to the ceiling, hundreds of them, glowing blue and covered with frost. Within each one, she could just discern the shadowy outline of a body.

Hesitantly, she approached one of the cabinets. She balled up the sleeve of her jacket and rubbed away the frost. She peered inside. Two unseeing eyes stared back at her; she jerked away, involuntarily. Then she leaned in again for a closer look. The eyes belonged to a woman. Her features were delicate; her face, though pale as marble, seemed kind. On the side of the cabinet were a set of green flickering lights, and one large button labelled "Reanimation." Rose reached for it.

"Better not, my dear," said Chronotis, appearing behind her. "We don't know who she is, or what she may have done. She might be a political prisoner like the Doctor; or a vicious psychopath who'd annihilate your entire timeline as a thank-you for releasing her." He sighed. "We were going to sort this place out, Romana and I. That's why I agreed to return to Gallifrey and assume this ridiculous title."

"What happened?" asked Rose.

"I am an old man; and she is a young upstart. Our ideas were considered dangerous. Public opinion swung hard, egged on by fear-mongering opportunists. We opened the door for Nequamlupus and his ilk; he will surely become Lord President in the next cycle. Alas for Gallifrey."

Rose shook her head. "Let's find the Doctor and get out of here. Do you know where he is?"

Chronotis pointed down the end of the row. Rose hurried ahead, in a loping, low-gravity gait, counting off the numbers. "Cabinet 12, cabinet 11, cabinet 10, cabinet…." She stopped. With trembling hands, she brushed away the frost. Blue eyes stared out of a white, frozen face. It was he. It was the Doctor. "What should we do?" asked Rose, agitatedly. "Is he even alive? He looks dead, he can't be--"

"He is alive; the life-sign lights are green. Press the reanimation button," said Chronotis. "Just as you were about to do for the other one."

Rose pressed it. Nothing happened. "Professor, something's wrong, he's--"

"Patience, my dear, patience. It is a delicate process."

Patience? Rose felt that he was asking the impossible. She watched the cabinet intently, periodically having to remind herself to breathe. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the frost disappeared. The pallor faded from his cheeks. The transformation took well over an hour; then, with a suddenness that made Rose jump, the Doctor blinked and took a breath. "He's awake!" she cried. "Open it, open the cabinet!"

Chronotis leaned forward and pulled the cabinet handle. It didn't budge. He pulled again. "This is very curious. It seems to be stuck. Give me a hand, my dear." The two of them pulled as hard as they could, but it wouldn't yield.

"Must be jammed or something." Rose tapped on the cabinet. The Doctor's hands were pressed against the inside of the glass. He, too, had been trying to push from the inside, albeit weakly. "Doctor," she shouted. "The latch is stuck, it's going to be a few more minutes, but we'll get you out, don't worry."

She glanced up at Chronotis, who was breathing hard from the effort. "Do you have any tools in your TARDIS? A spanner or a crowbar or something just to give us some leverage?"

"Possibly," he said. "I'll go have a look." He loped back to the lift and disappeared.

Rose knocked on the Doctor's cabinet again. "The Professor went to get some tools, we'll have you out in a--Doctor?" She saw that he was gasping. His lips were blue. To her great dismay, she realised that the cabinets were probably air-tight. He didn't need oxygen while he was frozen, but now...

Rose yanked on the latch again, but it was just as unyielding as before. "Doctor," she cried. "Do you know any other way to get this open? Doctor? Doctor!"

He didn't respond. His breathing became shallow and erratic. Then it stopped.

Rose backed away from the cabinet about twenty feet. Then, with a running start, she leapt into the air and threw herself at it, feet-first, hoping to break the glass. But she merely bounced off and fell to the floor. She crawled back to the cabinet and felt along the side of it, trying to see if she could somehow break the air-tight seal. "Don't despair...stay calm..." she said over and over again, repeating the old Doctor's words like a mantra. It was no use; she couldn't work her fingers inside the door.

She kicked at the latch, trying to use the strength in her legs to force it open. Then she grabbed the handle and shook it up-and-down, and side-to-side, trying vainly to work it free.

She pounded the glass with her fist as hard as she could and shrieked "Stupid, stupid, stupid latch!" Then she collapsed against the door, shaking with frustration and exhaustion. Ever since the Doctor had been arrested and taken away, Rose had been utterly consumed with thoughts of finding and rescuing him. And now, to be able to see him, to be inches away from him, but unable to help him...

Rose thought about going to find Chronotis; but knew that by the time she returned, it would be too late. It was already too late. It had been at least half an hour since he stopped breathing. He was dead. She pressed the side of her face and her fingers against the glass. She couldn't bear to look at his lifeless features; but still, she wanted to be close to him. She shut her eyes. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I did what you asked me to. I kept my promise. We stopped Jack and destroyed the ship. Why couldn't I save you? I can't lose you, too...I can't..."

But she had lost him. She had failed. Could he "cheat death" and regenerate? Without any oxygen? Even if he could, wouldn't he just die all over again, trapped in there? She pounded the door again; and then, her despair complete, she wept.