Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [118]
‘How did you defuse them?’ his earlier self asked. The Doctor had never realized just how youthful he had looked: to human eyes he wasn’t even Benny’s age, and Roz was almost old enough to be his mother. It diffused his authority, making him look petulant rather than stern.
He was happy to explain. ‘I used a technique unknown in the Humanian Era: I reversed the polarity of the neutron flow.’
‘You did what?’ his fifth incarnation scowled. The expression looked out of place on such a pleasant face.
‘You must remember: it’s a tried and trusted method.’
‘I know perfectly well what it entails: I did it myself to those bombs.’
‘You reversed the polarity back?’ the Doctor spluttered.
‘Yes, it rather seems that I did.’
‘Well, didn’t you check?’
‘Did you?’
‘I didn’t need to.’
‘Well, I didn’t think that I did.’
‘So you’ve rearmed all the bombs?’
Tegan leapt at Adam as he turned around, bringing her elbow down on his nose. It was a lesson she’d learnt in a self-defence class, but this was the first time she’d ever put it into practice. Adam stumbled backwards, still keeping hold of the bomb. ‘Drop it!’ she yelled. ‘You’ve lost now you’ll never get away.’ ‘
Adam smiled. ‘Here goes nothing.’ He twisted the cap.
Adric shook his head. ‘Not all of them.’
They both turned to face him. ‘It’s logical enough,’ he explained, ‘you’ - the seventh Doctor - ‘defused all the bombs. You’ - the fifth - ‘found the bombs, and accidentally rearmed them all. Except the one Adam took before you could get to it. Now he is planning to blow up the Scientifica using the only bomb that isn’t working.’
Nothing happened. Adam looked up.
Tegan punched him hard in the face, and almost felt sorry for him as he collapsed to the floor. Almost.
She prised the bomb from his fingers. He’d primed it: she could see that the cap had been twisted over to
‘ACTIVE’. But the bomb hadn’t gone off. After all that, the thing had been a dud. She turned the cap back anyway and slumped to the floor, trying to catch her breath.
The door slid open and an Adjudicator burst through, pressing his blaster to Tegan’s head. ‘Drop the bomb, drop the bomb or I fire.’ His voice was so fast and loud that the helmet speaker distorted it. Tegan hardly heard it. She put the bomb down, too exhausted to argue.
‘You’re under arrest,’ he hissed.
‘How ironic,’ Roz noted dryly.
‘So the Scientifica is safe?’ Whitfield asked.
‘It might well be,’ Adric reminded them, ‘but now there’s a TARDIS loaded full of armed fusion bombs heading back to Gallifrey.’
The fifth Doctor ran over to the Time Control apparatus, but the seventh Doctor merely consulted his pocket watch. ‘It won’t arrive for another six minutes, so there’s still tune to explain.’
‘You know that Gallifrey is safe anyway,’ Whitfield said.
‘The Machine is heading to the past. If your home planet had been destroyed back then you wouldn’t be standing here now.’
‘Time travel doesn’t work like that,’ Adric said disdainfully ‘There are rules that have to be adhered to.’
The seventh Doctor’s expression flickered for a moment. ‘As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, my illustrious counterpart here has forgotten all about the Ferutu.’
‘The what?’
‘The ghosts.’
The laser cannon was having no effect on the forcefield-augmented door to the observation dome. The energy was simply absorbed. Medford doubted whether the Doctor his colleagues who were keeping Whitfield hostage inside even knew that they were trying to get in.
The Adjudicators massed by the door ready to burst in and take out the Doctor and his followers were shifting around. The Provost-General was