Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [125]
‘Why are you doing this?’ There was an expression of anguish on the leader’s face. Adric was the only other person in the room who knew what it was like to be marooned in another universe, far away from everything he’d ever known. He could sense the emptiness, the hollowness in the Ferutu leader’s voice.
‘You can prevent the bombs from exploding,’ the fifth Doctor said. ‘Focus your mind on the Vortex.’ They did as they were asked.
‘Can you see the Machine?’
An image was appearing in the circle, an illusion or hologram. It was now possible to see the vast Machine rotating as it moved through the time spiral. It was huge, but dwarfed by the walls of the Vortex itself. There were patterns there: five-dimensional optical illusions that made it impossible to judge scale, or direction of movement.
‘We see it.’
It was coming closer. The bombs were heading back to the cavern. How long was it now before they would explode? Adric guessed about three minutes.
‘You can stop the Machine,’ the fifth Doctor shouted.
‘Use your magic to halt the flow of time around it. Freeze it in the Vortex.’
The Machine ploughed through the Vortex like a hurricane or a tidal wave, a force of nature. It was unstoppable. ‘That would be difficult,’ the Ferutu leader admitted. ‘It would require great effort and a complex ceremony.’
‘Two minutes, ten seconds before materialization,’ the little Doctor announced. ‘Now, by my calculations, to stop the Machine you’ll need a ritual that takes two minutes and twelve Ferutu. Now, there’s a coincidence. Which is it to be?’
The Ferutu leader stood impassively for a moment.
‘There isn’t a choice.’
‘There is always a choice,’ the fifth Doctor snapped.
‘This one is the most fundamental of all: to be or not to be.
Stop the Machine and the two universes will be able to co-exist. Let those bombs detonate and one of them will be wiped out.’
The Machine was hurtling closer with every second.
‘It’s like flipping a coin,’ the other Doctor said. ‘Until the bombs explode, we don’t know whether it will be heads or tails, your universe or ours. Using your magic you can keep the coin in the air forever, barring accidents.’
The Machine was nearly here.
The Ferutu leader scrutinized them. ‘Agreed,’ it said finally. The Ferutu began their ceremony.
The fifth Doctor leant over his future self. ‘Do they have enough time?’
The little man nodded, but was biting his lip.
The Ferutu were chanting a simple mantra. Those on the edge of the group were making slow, sweeping gestures.
The mantra grew louder, almost hypnotic. Outside the circle, Adric could see both the Ferutu’s ritual and the Machine, one superimposed over the other. The sides of the Vortex were crackling with a new form of energy now, one that Whitfield and her fellow members of the Scientifica could not even acknowledge existed.
‘It is done,’ the Ferutu leader announced, ‘equilibrium has been achieved.’
The Machine hung in the Vortex, flickering slightly. It was so close, Adric felt he could almost reach out and touch it. The other Ferutu were locked in position, their hands twisted into warding signs.
The doors to the observation dome hissed open, and Adjudicators poured in, pulling up their rifles. Adric edged behind one of the tables, ready to pull himself down for cover.
‘Don’t shoot!’ Whitfield ordered. ‘And don’t cross that white line.’
Medford stepped through the door and over to her. ‘Are you safe?’
She nodded and he kissed her forehead. ‘I’m afraid that the explanations will take quite a while.’ She sketched in the broad detail of what had happened.
The Provost-General edged around the circle, looking up at the Ferutu, who