Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [124]
‘Ready?’
‘Ready.’
They closed their eyes.
Roz turned to Whitfield and Adric. ‘Does anyone have a clue what’s going on around here? What’s that equipment?’
‘It controls the flight of the Machine. The Doctor sent it back to Gallifrey.’
‘I’d gathered that much,’ Roz snapped. ‘What are they doing it for?’
‘Is that where the Patient has got to?’ Adric asked. ‘I wondered where she was.’
Whitfield ignored him. Forrester looked around. She’d forgotten all about the Patient.
Medford’s wrist communicator buzzed. He took his eyes off the enemy to answer it.
It was the Battle Platform, but it was the Quartermaster-Fiscal, not Dareau.
‘Sir, I–’
Whatever he was about to say wasn’t important. ‘Get the Platform over to the research dome. The enemy are here.’
The ghosts walked straight past him, paying him no attention. Then all twelve passed through the door, into the observation dome.
Adric finished drawing the circle and moved back over to the Time Control apparatus. The Doctors sat facing each other, their eyes closed. Their faces were set in expressions of grim determination, sweat trickled down both their brows. It was odd: they looked almost entirely unlike one another, but he could tell they were the same person.
The fifth Doctor’s eyes opened. ‘We have regained control of the Machine. Gallifrey is safe.’ Adric suspected that the process had been a great deal more complicated than the simple statement suggested.
‘So what have you done with the Machine?’ Whitfield asked.
‘It’s heading back this way,’ the seventh Doctor announced, frantically folding up the piece of paper in his hand. ‘We’re using a shortcut through the Vortex. Now, that isn’t going to please –’
As one, the Ferutu stepped through the wall and strode into the middle of the room.
‘You’re trapped,’ Adric announced triumphantly.
The Ferutu leader looked down. It was standing in the middle of the circle that Adric had just drawn. It moved its foot forward, over the line. ‘Without the rune, this is simply a geometric shape. You fail to understand our ways.’ It flicked its wrist and a bolt of energy shot from it.
Adric was thrown back across the floor, every nerve in his body screaming.
Forrester bent over him. ‘Only stunned,’ she was telling everyone else. Adric shook himself awake, not wanting to miss what happened next. Forrester helped him up.
‘Coo-ee!’ the seventh Doctor called from the other side of the room. For a moment Adric thought that the little man was calling to him, not the ghosts. With a flick of his wrist, the Doctor released the paper dart he had been preparing. It glided over to the Ferutu, one of whom caught it without effort.
‘What is this?’ it asked curiously. ‘Is this the best weapon your universe can deploy?’
‘Open it,’ the fifth Doctor suggested. The Ferutu did as requested.
When it saw the rune it roared. ‘No! This cannot be!’
The leader tried to move, but couldn’t: the foot it had placed over the line was now stuck to the floor as if it had been glued there.
The Doctors scrambled over to the trapped ghosts, disconnecting themselves from the apparatus around their heads.
The fifth Doctor was first over. Adric noticed that Roz was careful to take up position behind him. ‘We’ve averted the destruction of Gallifrey. My people will be the first to master Time, and yours will cease to exist.’
‘You have come to gloat?’ the Ferutu asked. Adric was on his feet. He began hobbling over to the middle of the room.
‘No. We have come to ask you a favour,’ the seventh Doctor said. ‘The Machine will detonate when it rematerializes. It’s en route back here.’
‘It will destroy this galaxy,’ the Ferutu said, licking its lips.
‘Yes,’ the fifth Doctor said, ‘but if the Machine explodes anywhere other than Gallifrey, then your timeline will snap out of existence.’
The other Doctor stepped forward, and when he spoke there was more than a little menace in his voice. ‘We will die, the entire human