Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [126]
He rested his hand on the younger Doctor’s shoulder. ‘You trapped them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you have saved the planet. It seems that I have misjudged you.’ He turned to Forrester. ‘And that was a nice move. If you ever want a place in the Guild, I’m sure that the Board of Admission on Ponten would accept my reference.’
‘Thank you.’ The praise was honest, although Adric detected more than a note of scorn in Forrester’s reply.
Adric looked back at the Ferutu, who were still frozen in concentration.
There was a tap on his shoulder. The Chief Scientist had been scribbling down something on the sketchpad.
Now she handed it over to Adric. It was a series of formulae, one that took him a couple of seconds’ hard concentration to decode. He took Whitfield’s pen and jotted down a couple of corrections, passing them over for verification. They looked up at the same time.
‘What happened here can’t be stable,’ Adric began.
Both Doctors looked annoyed. ‘And why not?’ the fifth Doctor said haughtily.
‘In effect you’ve created a new universe out of nothing, the Chief Scientist stated. ‘Whatever happened to the Law of the Conservation of Energy?’
The seventh Doctor allowed himself a thin smile ‘It’s about to be enforced. Watch.’
Adric turned back to the image hanging in the circle Another Machine was surging through the Vortex in a straight five-dimensional curve.
‘The Machine’s past is about to catch up with it,’ the fifth Doctor said softly, There was nothing he could do.
‘Have you ever wondered what would happen if an irresistible force met an immovable object Chief Scientist?’
‘No,’ Whitfied said. ‘The problem is one of semantics rather than physics: an immovable object is one that can’t be moved, however great the force. An irresistible force is one that can displace any object. By definition both cannot exist simultaneously.’
‘Besides,’ Forrester noted, ‘one of them is packed to the gunnels with F-Bombs.’
‘This is not what we agreed,’ the fifth Doctor snapped suddenly. The other raised his finger and Adric was surprised to see Roz snap to attention behind his Doctor.
‘You have betrayed us!’ the Ferutu leader howled. It was in anguish, like a caged animal.
The young Doctor whirled around. ‘Try to –’
The two Machines collided. The frozen Machine was dislodged, slamming it out of position. Time started around it.
There was a white flash.
When the light had died down, one of the Machines had vanished, and the remaining half of the other was spinning out of control, ricocheting from the walls of the Vortex tearing chunks from it.
The image faded, leaving just the Ferutu standing there in silence.
The fifth Doctor stared at the image. ‘The damage to space-time...’
‘There isn’t any,’ the seventh Doctor said ‘You repaired it remember? Temporal Fusion. Neat to use the instrument that did the damage to repair it.’
‘Why are they still here?’ Medford asked.
‘Inside the circle they are protected, Whitfield explained. ‘But if they ever managed to break the power of the rune then they would instantly snap out of existence.
They are the only survivors of their universe.’
‘A fitting punishment for what they did,’ Medford said.
He explained about the destroyed Skybase and Fleet, the twenty thousand men they had killed. ‘Once we have left, defence drones will be placed down here and the transmat link will be destroyed. This chamber will be sealed. How long do Ferutu live?’
‘They are immortal,’ the fifth Doctor said automatically.
‘They will still be here when the star that this colony orbit has become a red giant.’ He seemed rooted to the spot, his senses dulled. Adric watched him as everyone else in the room began to relax and draw breath.
Medford was still on edge. ‘They will escape then?’
‘That won’t be our problem,’ Whitfield said. ‘That will be eight billion years from now.’ She was sipping from her tea which was still warm.
The seventh Doctor rested his hands on his umbrella.
‘Humanity is long dead by then, this galaxy has been abandoned by all sentient life, for reasons I had better