Chapter 45: Day 365
A tiny pinprick of light brightened as the row boat approached land. The boat's lantern flashed the answer to the member of the resistance who was signalling them in, letting him know they were safe.
Martha stood on the bow, anticipation thrumming through her veins as the coast of Britain grew closer. She'd seen too much in the last year to expect things to be like they were when she left, but this was still home.
When the hull of the boat hit soft sand, Martha jumped into the shallow water and jogged up to the shore. She heard a splash behind her as the rowers pushed the boat through the breakers to begin their dangerous trip home, but she ran to the man standing on the beach without looking back.
"What's your name, then?" she asked, wincing when she sounded more like a commander greeting the newest recruit than an average person meeting someone new.
"Tom… Milligan," he said, adding his last name as an afterthought. "No need to ask who you are." He looked Martha up and down. "The famous Martha Jones. How long since you were last in Britain?"
"Three hundred and sixty-five days," Martha told him, skipping the details of the first three weeks of the Master's reign. "It's been a long year."
To his credit, Tom accepted that without offering any platitudes. He nodded towards the beach access road. "I'm parked over here."
A year of travelling, always keeping one step ahead of the Master, had trained Martha to stay alert. She scanned the area while they walked and kept an ear out for anything unnatural, but all she heard was the constant pounding of the surf beside them.
"So what's the plan?" Tom asked.
Martha nearly laughed. If only he knew how crazy the plan was—but she couldn't tell him. "This Professor Docherty," she said, reiterating what the coded message she'd sent earlier had told the British resistance. "I need to see her. Can you get me there?"
Tom cast her a sidelong glance, and she could see the curiosity in his eyes. The resistance knew the names of everyone the Master had blackmailed into his service.
"She works in a repair shed, Nuclear Plant Seven. I can get you inside. What's all this for? What's so important about her?"
Martha refused to meet his gaze. "Sorry, the more you know, the more you're at risk."
"There's a lot of people depending on you. You're a bit of a legend."
With the conversation on safer ground, Martha allowed a small smile to cross her face. "What does the legend say?"
"That you sailed the Atlantic, walked across America. That you were the only person to get out of Japan alive." The litany of her trials wiped the smile off her face. "Martha Jones, they say, she's going to save the world." Tom snorted softly. "Bit late for that."
A lorry was in sight now, and Martha asked the question that had been bothering her since he'd told her he had a vehicle. "How come you can drive? Don't you get stopped?" She hated her suspicions, but Prince Humperdinck's words had become her motto: "I always believe everything could be a trap. It's why I'm still alive."
Tom unlocked the doors. "Medical staff. Used to be in paediatrics back in the old days. But that gives me a licence to travel so I can help out other labour camps."
The irony hit Martha hard. "Great. I'm travelling with a doctor," she muttered as she buckled her seat belt.
Tom gave her a sidelong glance as he started the engine. "Story goes that you're the only person on Earth who can kill him. That you, and you alone, can kill the Master stone dead."
"Let's just drive," Martha said flatly, and without another word, he put the vehicle into gear.
Martha took advantage of the drive and slept. The risk that Tom wasn't who he said he was was lower than the risk of not getting enough rest. She jolted awake when they pulled off the motorway and blinked against the bright morning sun.
Tom handed her a protein bar and a canteen of water. "We're almost there."
"Thanks," she told him, grateful for something to put in her empty stomach.
They reached a quarry twenty minutes later and started picking their way through the rocks. A giant statue of the Master loomed over them, and Martha glared up at it before moving on.
"All over the Earth, those things. He's even carved himself into Mount Rushmore."
"Best to keep down," Tom said in a low voice. He led the way up some rocks, and they peered over the rim of the quarry. The Downs had been stripped to the chalk bed to make room for rocket silos. "Here we go. The entire south coast of England, converted into shipyards. They bring in slave labour every morning. Break up cars, houses, anything, just for the metal. Building a fleet out of scrap."
"You should see Russia," Martha whispered. "That's Shipyard Number One. All the way from the Black Sea to the Bering Strait, there's a hundred thousand rockets getting ready for war."
Tom looked at her. "War? With who?"
"The rest of the universe."
The thought of all the planets she'd seen with the Doctor and Rose being attacked by the Master killed her—and the people! What about Archie, the sweet badger pirate? Or Riley, the bloke she'd shared a kiss with after they'd nearly fallen into a sun together?
Martha swallowed and forced the thoughts back. "I've been out there, Tom, in space, before all this happened, and there's a thousand different civilisations all around us with no idea of what's happening here. The Master can build weapons big enough to devastate them all."
"You've been in space?" Tom repeated.
Martha raised an eyebrow. "Problem with that?"
"No." He shook his head, then huffed out a laugh. "No, just er, wow. Anything else I should know?"
We can travel in time, too. The memory made Martha smile. "I've met Shakespeare."
The too-familiar whooshing noise filled the air, and Martha and Tom looked over their shoulders. When she verified that spheres were coming towards them, Martha turned back to the shipyard and held still.
"Identify, little man," they demanded.
"I've got a licence," Tom stammered, and Martha willed him not to look at her, not to mention her. "Thomas Milligan, Peripatetic Medical Squad. I'm allowed to travel. I was just checking for—"
His explanation was interrupted. "Soon the rockets will fly, and everyone will need medicine. You'll be so busy."
Their insane laughter sent a shiver down Martha's spine. Even after a year, she wasn't used to the derangement of the spheres.
They flew over Martha's head and down to the shipyard below. "But they didn't see you," Tom said, the question evident in his voice.
"How do you think I travelled the world?" Martha pulled her key out from under her coat and held it up.
Tom held out a hand and helped her to her feet. "All right then, explain," he asked as they walked back to the lorry.
Martha gave him the explanation the Doctor had offered, so long ago it felt like it had been a different lifetime. "Because the Master set up Archangel, that mobile network, fifteen satellites around the planet, but really it's transmitting this low level psychic field. That's how everyone got hypnotised into thinking he was Harold Saxon."
"Saxon," Tom muttered as they reached the lorry. "Feels like years ago."
"But the key's tuned in to the same frequency," she continued. "Makes me sort of… not invisible, just unnoticeable."
Tom looked over at her. "Well, I can see you."
Martha stopped walking and looked up at him. "That's because you wanted to." He smirked, and she laughed at the unintentionally flirtatious way those words had come out.
He grinned at her. "Yeah, I suppose I did."
"Is there a Mrs Milligan?" she asked, the normalcy of the question overriding the voice in her head that said it wasn't a good idea to continue this line of conversation.
If she'd surprised him, he recovered quickly. "No. No. What about you?"
"No. My sister keeps pushing me to get a social life, but…" Thinking about Tish brought reality crashing back down on her, and she climbed into the lorry without looking at Tom again. "Come on, I've got to find this Docherty woman."
oOoOoOoOo
The Doctor rubbed at his face. It had been one year since he'd arrived on the Valiant. One year since the Master had captured him. One year since he'd sent Martha to walk the Earth.
One year since he'd held Rose.
His hands clenched into fists at the last thought. Knowing she was alive had assuaged his grief, but he still couldn't feel her in his mind. After Lucy's revelation, he'd tried reaching out for Rose again, thinking that maybe now that he knew she was alive, he could find her. It had been a foolish hope, and he knew it even as the pain pierced his temple.
Even the TARDIS couldn't find her. She had apologised profusely when they'd discovered Rose was alive, and the Doctor had found himself in the unusual position of reassuring his ship. It took work, but he finally convinced her that Rose wouldn't blame her for any ill effects she'd suffered due to their separation.
And that will end tomorrow, he reminded himself.
The door to his cell opened, and Greg walked in. "The Master wants you on the flight deck."
"Well, let's not keep him waiting," the Doctor said with patently false cheer. The two men shared a look, and the Doctor was satisfied that everyone knew their part in the afternoon's drama.
Greg took him by the arm and directed him down the corridor. This had become a pattern over the last month; as the final stage of the Master's paradox drew closer, he'd started to demand the Doctor's presence almost daily, to taunt him about the fate of the Earth and to reminisce over their childhood on Gallifrey.
But he hadn't mentioned Rose in weeks. The Doctor smirked to himself as they approached the flight deck. At the very least, he could take comfort in knowing he hadn't given the Master the response he'd hoped for. The last thing he'd wanted when he pretended to kill the Doctor's bond mate was a complete lack of reaction.
The Doctor could hear music through the doors, so it didn't surprise him when the Master was dancing with his wife when he walked onto the flight deck. Lucy looked at the Doctor over her husband's shoulder, and he wondered how it was that the Master, such a skilled manipulator, couldn't tell he no longer held his wife in the palm of his hand.
Francine was clearing the table from tea. She looked up at the Doctor quickly, and he nodded.
The music trailed off, and the Master spun Lucy away. She tottered a little in her high heels, and the Doctor noticed the glazed look in her eyes. Drugged, he realised, contempt rising in him—contempt and a fear for Rose's state that he tried to push to the back of his mind.
The Master turned and beckoned to him, and the Doctor joined him at the porthole. Clouds obscured their view of the ground below, but the blue sky above was the same as it had been.
"It's ready to rise, Doctor," the Master said. Toclafane flew into view, and the Doctor's stomach turned. "The new Time Lord Empire. It's good, isn't it? Isn't it good?" The Doctor pressed his lips together, and the Master waved his hand in front of his face. "Anything? No? Anything?"
The Master looked out the porthole at his creation. "Have you even figured out what the Toclafane are, Doctor?" he asked, his voice almost sing-song.
The Doctor didn't answer, and the Master chuckled. "You haven't, have you? Well, you'll find out soon enough, but first, I have a question for you." He leaned against the bulkhead. "They say Martha Jones has come back home. Now why would she do that?"
The Doctor glared at him. Even though it was part of the plan for the Master to bring Martha to the Valiant, he didn't have to fake the loathing in his voice when he said, "Leave her alone."
The Master raised an eyebrow. "But you said something to her, didn't you? On the day I took control. What did you tell her?"
"To take the Vortex manipulator and get out," the Doctor said automatically. "To run, to never stay in one place because you would chase her." He smiled at the Master, feeling so proud of Martha Jones. "And she didn't, did she? Your UCF officers never could track her down."
The Master's eyes narrowed, and the Doctor braced himself for the feeling of the other Time Lord pushing into his mind. He honestly didn't know if he could keep him out, so he was relieved when the computer announced their return to zone one airspace.
The Master spun around and started clapping, trying to drum up excitement. "Come on, people! What are we doing? Launch day in twenty-four hours."
The Doctor stayed at the porthole, but he dropped his hands and clasped them behind his back. If anyone had been watching, they might have noticed that he held three fingers up.
oOoOoOoOo
The Doctor had one very big advantage that the Master never considered: he knew his old friend. He knew what he would do, and what he would expect.
The latter was the reason the Doctor had worked hard to put together the fake attempt to stop the Master. It was important that he appear to try, even though he wasn't looking forward to what the end results might be.
They'd used the guards that weren't loyal to the Master to pass messages around the ship, and the time was almost here. The Doctor ignored the Master getting a massage and focused on the countdown.
Come on, Jack, he begged silently. Don't let me down.
"Condition red," the computer announced, right on schedule.
The Master looked up from the massage table. "What the hell?"
Francine grabbed the Master's suit jacket from where he'd draped it over a chair and tossed it to the Doctor. He pulled the laser screwdriver out of the pocket, then pivoted and pointed the device at the Master.
"Oh, I see." The Master held his hands up, though the smirk he barely concealed belied the conciliatory gesture.
"I told you when you killed Rose that you would regret it."
The Master stared down at him for a moment, then started laughing. Despite knowing Rose was actually alive, the thought of someone laughing over her death made the Doctor's hearts race, and he wished he could actually kill the Master, here and now.
He thumbed the controls on the screwdriver and pressed the button, but as he'd expected, nothing happened. The Master plucked it from his fingers and leaned down to whisper in his ear.
"Isomorphic controls." He held the Doctor's gaze, then reared back and punched him in the face.
The Doctor spun and hit the floor, then glared balefully at the Master.
"Which means they only work for me," the Master added for the benefit of the others in the room. "Like this." He pointed the screwdriver at Francine and fired a laser beam just to the right of her shoulder. "Say sorry!"
Francine ducked and stayed down, "Sorry. Sorry. Sorry," to appease the Master.
"Mum!" Tish ran to her side.
"Didn't you learn anything from the blessed Saint Martha?" The Master descended from the bridge, and his wife hurried over to him, picking up his jacket along the way. "Siding with the Doctor is a very dangerous thing to do." Lucy helped him into his jacket, and then the Master looked at the guards. "Take them away."
The Doctor silently apologised to Francine and Tish as guards hustled them out of the room. He knew Rose would tell him this wasn't his fault, but whether it was or not, their lives had still been torn apart, largely due to their family's connection to him.
The Master sat down at the conference table. "Come talk with me, Doctor," he ordered.
The Doctor pushed himself up off the floor and took the chair across from the Master.
"Oh, do you know," the Master said conversationally, "I remember the days when the Doctor, oh, that famous Doctor, was waging a Time War, battling Sea Devils and Axons. He sealed the rift at the Medusa Cascade single handed. And look at him now. Stealing screwdrivers. How did he ever come to this?" He let the question linger in the air for a moment, then grinned. "Oh yeah, me."
The Master's laughter annoyed the Doctor more than his ridiculous speech, and he glared at him. "You could be so much more than this, Master."
"Oh, but why would I want to? You keep trying to pull me into your do-gooding life, Doctor, but you've never understood—this is fun."
His smile disappeared after a moment. "You know, I really can't let your little game go unpunished. I'm afraid, Doctor, that you've brought this upon yourself."
The Master stood and dragged the Doctor by the arm over to the wall. For the first time, the Doctor noticed the two sets of shackles that had been bolted here.
"You're going to chain me up, Master?" he said.
"Like I said"—the Master chained his arms to the wall first, then knelt in front of the Doctor to restrain his ankles—"you've only brought this upon yourself."
He straightened and examined the Doctor critically before nodding once. "I'll just leave you here to consider what you've done," he said, then waved cheerily and left the room.
oOoOoOoOo
Rose woke up when her door slid open, but she didn't sit up. According to her countdown calendar, tomorrow was the day the Doctor would undo the paradox machine and take care of the Master. She'd been trying to sleep more for the last week, so she had as much energy as possible when the day came.
"Your bond mate doesn't seem properly impressed by my plan," the Master said nonchalantly.
She turned her head and looked at the Master for a moment, then stared at the ceiling again. "Plans for world domination rarely impress the Doctor."
Rose's voice felt hoarse and rusty from lack of use. Even Lucy hadn't spoken to her in weeks, whether due to a direct order from the Master, or because she was afraid of looking too friendly, Rose didn't know.
She heard the chair scrape across the floor and glanced over as the Master sat down. He tipped the chair up onto the back legs and stared at the ceiling.
"This is one of my better plans though," he complained. "Tomorrow, the rockets launch. The new Time Lord empire will begin by destroying anyone who stands in my way."
Rose rubbed at her temple. Blimey, he didn't half go on. And she thought the Doctor could talk—maybe all Time Lords were naturally verbose?
"I'm sure it's very impressive," she said, matching the condescension he usually turned on her. "And next year, maybe you can go to the annual conference of psychotic dictators and present your paper on how you destroyed the Earth in five easy steps. Until then, you'll have to live with people's disapproval."
The Master glared at her, and for the first time, Rose felt a little afraid for her life. "I've tolerated your cheek all year," he said, his voice low and hard. "But the year is almost over. The only reason why you are still alive, Miss Tyler, is because I want the Doctor to witness the moment when I kill you for real."
He stood up so quickly that the chair scooted backwards across the floor. "Enjoy your last day." With those parting words, he stalked out of the room.
Rose took a few deep breaths to get her fear under control, then she allowed herself the luxury of imagining her reunion with the Doctor. There were so many things she wanted to do when she saw him again, but the throbbing ache in her head made one thing paramount.
Please, Rose begged the universe. Please let the Doctor be able to undo this collar.
oOoOoOoOo
"I assume you have a reason for wanting to talk to Professor Docherty," Tom asked as they drove around to the other side of the shipyard.
Martha nodded. "I need the Master to know everything we know when we leave her workshop tonight."
At the fence surrounding the main shipyard facility, Martha waited for Tom to use the wire cutters on the chain link fence, then she ducked through the gap and ran towards the building.
Tom's eyes cut over towards her once he caught up. "Everything?"
"Everything," she said firmly.
Remember, this woman is a spy for the Master, she told herself as they entered the building. Sadly, it wasn't the first time in the last year that she'd purposely used one of the Master's collaborators to pass along false information, so she had practice in sticking to the script and not letting anything accurate slip.
"Professor Docherty?" Tom called out.
"Who's asking?" a grumpy voice asked from their left.
Martha and Tom followed the voice and found Professor Docherty wearing a magnifying glass strapped to her head, sitting at a table surrounded by electronic gadgets.
They exchanged glances, and Tom offered their introduction. "They, er, they sent word ahead. I'm Tom Milligan. This is Martha Jones."
A flicker of recognition crossed the woman's face. "You're the one who travelled with the Doctor."
"With the Doctor and Rose," Martha corrected. Out of everything the Master had done during the last year, few things annoyed her more than the way he'd edited Rose out of the Doctor's life. With the exception of the Underground and Resistance, both of whom received information directly from the Valiant, no one had heard of her.
The furrow between Professor Docherty's eyebrows deepened. "I'm sorry, I don't know…"
"Rose is—was—the Doctor's wife," Martha explained. "They always worked as partners. The Doctor might be the one with the idea to get rid of the Master, but you can bet Rose was helping… at least until the Master killed her."
An awkward silence settled over the room for a moment, then Docherty cleared her throat and said, "So the Doctor wants to take down the Master?"
The question was so obviously probing, but Martha pasted a clueless smile over her face and said, "Of course he does. But before we talk about that, I wondered if you knew anything about the Master that might be able to help him."
Treating the collaborators as partners in the goal of defeating the Master was the fastest way to earn their trust.
Professor Docherty pulled a sheet of paper out of her desk. "Obviously the Archangel Network would seem to be the Master's greatest weakness."
Martha looked at the sheet with Tom, even though it wasn't anything new to her.
Professor Docherty walked a few steps away from them. "Fifteen satellites all around the Earth, still transmitting. That's why there's so little resistance. It's broadcasting a telepathic signal that keeps people scared."
"We could just take them out," Tom suggested.
"We could. Fifteen ground-to-air missiles." Professor Docherty looked at him over her shoulder. "You got any on you? Besides, any military action, the Toclafane descend."
Martha heaved a sigh. "They're not called Toclafane. That's a name the Master made up."
Docherty turned back around to face them. "Then what are they, then?" she asked.
"That's why I came to find you. Know your enemy."
Martha saw the fear on the woman's face and kept her own expression as open as possible. Everything would fall apart if Professor Docherty suspected they knew she wasn't loyal to the resistance.
She pulled a disk out of her pack. "I've got this. No one's been able to look at a sphere close up. They can't even be damaged, except once. A lightning strike in South Africa brought one of them down, just by chance. I've got the readings on this."
Surprise and hope shone on the professor's face as she reached for the disk. "Well then," she said, pushing past them to get to her computer. "What are we waiting for?"
She slid the disk into the CD-ROM drive, and the computer made churning noises as it attempted to read the information. The professor banged the top of the monitor. "Oh, whoever thought we'd miss Bill Gates?"
"So is that why you travelled the world?" Tom asked while they waited for the computer to cooperate. "To find a disc?"
"No. Just got lucky."
"I heard stories that you walked the Earth to find a way to build a weapon," Professor Docherty said matter-of-factly.
Martha nodded curtly. That lie had never sat well with her, even though it had been her choice to run with it. The Doctor would never ask her to build a weapon, and she hated that she was giving the entire planet such a false impression of him.
"There!" the professor exclaimed, pulling Martha back to the present, and she looked down at the numbers scrolling across the monitor. "A current of fifty-eight point five kiloamperes transferred charge of five hundred and ten megajoules precisely."
"Can you recreate that?" asked Tom.
"I think so. Easily. Yes." The professor was smiling for the first time since they'd entered her workroom.
Martha grinned at Tom. "Right then, Dr. Milligan, we're going to get us a sphere."
oOoOoOoOo
It took the professor about thirty minutes to get the electric pulse rigged up. When it was ready, Martha gave Tom a handgun and sent him out amongst the rocket silos. A few minutes later, she heard the sharp report of three gunshots.
Martha stood at the intersection of the paths, waiting to catch a glimpse of Tom running towards them. When he turned a corner fifty feet away from her, Martha spun around and ran towards the professor, who was holding the controls for her electric pulse.
"He's coming. You ready?"
"You do your job, I'll do mine!" she retorted.
Tom rounded the corner and raced towards them. "Now!"
The sphere was caught in the electric field they'd set up between two silos. Electric pulses bolted into it, and after a moment, it fell to the ground. The electric field shut off, and Professor Docherty unplugged her controls, to be on the safe side.
The three of them crept up on the sphere, hardly able to believe they could get this close to it safely. "That's only half the job," Professor Docherty said. "Let's find out what's inside."
oOoOoOoOo
The Doctor wiggled his fingers and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Hours had passed since he'd been chained to the wall, and any position that had been moderately comfortable at first had long since ceased to be.
But the boredom of being left alone on the flight deck was almost worse than the ache in his shoulders and numbness in his fingers. When the door slid open, he had to remind himself not to look too excited to see someone. He looked over casually and winced when he saw the vacant expression on Lucy Saxon's face as she held her husband's hand.
"Tomorrow, they launch," the Master declared from the door. He walked slowly towards the Doctor, while Lucy hung onto the back of a chair. "We're opening up a rift in the Braccatolian space. They won't see us coming. It's kind of scary."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Then stop," he suggested.
"Once the Empire is established, and there's a new Gallifrey in the heavens, maybe then it stops."
The Master stood directly in front of the Doctor. The shadow of pain in his eyes caught the Doctor's attention, and he straightened slightly.
"The drumming. The never ending drumbeat. Ever since I was a child. I looked into the Vortex. That's when it chose me. The drumming, the call to war. Can't you hear it? Listen, it's there now. Right now. Tell me you can hear it, Doctor. Tell me."
The Doctor looked at his old friend. He'd sounded tormented when he started talking about the drums, but by the time he was done, the madness always lurking beneath the surface of the Master had seeped out. What had happened to him when he'd looked into the Untempered Schism? Why had it only happened to him?
The Doctor shook his head slightly. "It's only you."
The Master's expression closed off, and took a step back and nodded curtly. "Good."
Behind him, the door opened and a sphere flew in, spinning around in excitement. "Tomorrow, the war. Tomorrow we rise, never to fall."
"You see?" The Master gestured at it. "I'm doing it for them. You should be grateful. After all, you love them so very, very much."
The Doctor had been thinking about the Master's earlier cryptic remark about the Toclafane all afternoon, and seeing the mocking in his eyes now, it finally fell into place. The paradox. The TARDIS that could only go to the end of the universe.
"You didn't," he hissed.
"Oh, but I did."
It took every bit of restraint the Doctor possessed not to lash out at that. What the Master had done was deplorable, and he'd done it in such a way that even after all of this was over, it would be impossible for the Doctor to undo it. The last remnant of humanity, searching for Utopia, only to be foiled by a madman.
oOoOoOoOo
They took the sphere back to the workshop, and Martha and Tom watched anxiously as Professor Docherty worked carefully to open it up.
"There's some sort of magnetic clamp," she said. "Hold on, I'll just trip the—"
The sphere opened with the soft whooshing sound of a latch releasing. Professor Docherty dropped her tool and used her hands to open it the rest of the way, one quarter panel at a time.
"Oh my God!" she exclaimed, and Martha and Tom moved closer to take a look.
Sitting inside the sphere was a tiny, wizened head. For a moment, Martha thought it was dead, but then the eyes opened and they all jumped back a step.
"It's alive," Professor Docherty gasped.
"Martha. Martha Jones," the face said.
Tom glanced over at her. "It knows you."
"Sweet, kind Martha Jones. You helped us to fly."
"What do you mean?" asked Martha, though she was afraid she already knew.
"You led us to salvation."
"Who are you?"
"The skies are made of diamonds."
"No." Martha shook her head. She'd been prepared for the spheres to be the humans from Utopia, but not this—not Creet. "You can't be him."
"We share each other's memories," the former human said. "You sent him to Utopia."
After the year she'd had, Martha hadn't thought it was possible for her heart to break anymore. She was wrong.
"Oh, my God."
It was too much. The whole bloody year had been too much, but she'd managed to push through, even as she lost almost every new friend she made. But this… Those humans at the end of the universe had represented hope that life would keep going. If they were the Master's victims too, then what was left?
"What's it talking about?" Tom asked. "What's it mean?"
Professor Docherty looked down at the sphere-person. "What are they?"
Tom noticed she was almost in shock, and tried to get her attention. "Martha. Martha, tell us. What are they?"
Martha swallowed hard and nodded at the Master's ultimate victory. "They're us. They're humans. The human race from the future."