Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [82]
there was no one else around. There was just enough scientific equipment lying around to act as cover. Dodging from energy cell to floodlight pylon to a computer the size of a wardrobe she found herself only a couple of metres from the doorway. The technicians were still occupied, and so she crossed the threshold unchallenged.
She was surprised how cramped the antechamber was after the vast dimensions of the exterior. The walls were night-black, but there were glowing powerlines and coloured wires criss-crossing the room. Glass cones (capacitors?) ran along one curved wall. There was a machine in the opposite comer that looked like a random collection of electrical components. A big red lever stood in front of it. Next to that was a glass dome about a metre in diameter, full of twinkling lights. There wasn’t another way out of this chamber, at least not one that Roz could see.
There was an old wooden rocking chair on a rug in the middle of the room. A middle-aged woman in a white tunic was sitting in it consulting a notepad. She was staring at her. Forrester recognized her from the holonews as the Chief Scientist.
‘What are you doing in here, I gave strict instructions –’
Roz drew her stungun. ‘Take me to the control room,’
she ordered.
‘This is all that there is,’ Whitfield replied. ‘It’s disconcerting, isn’t it, that the place is so much smaller on the inside than the outside?’
‘I’m rarely disconcerted.’ Forrester checked the chronometer on her wrist computer, then moved over to the machine in the corner. Before the Chief Scientist could stop her she had pulled the big red lever.
An utterly alien noise came from deep within the Machine, surging out into the cavern where it washed over the cavern walls, echoing and rumbling. It repeated itself over and over, the pitch rising ever so slightly.
A wheezing groaning sound.
* * *
‘– a prototype TARDIS,’ the Doctor concluded. ‘Of course, Tegan, it all begins to fit into place. She fled Gallifrey in a TARDIS – one of the very earliest Types, I would imagine.
Do you remember the turbulence that we encountered on the way here? That was her TARDIS passing ours in the Vortex – the scream was the sound of a mortally wounded TARDIS desperate to make landfall.’
‘Does that explain why we were locked out?’
‘Yes, yes, it must do. My TARDIS is protecting itself.
The local Vortex must have been ripped to shreds.’ The Doctor made a complicated motion with his hands by way of illustration.
‘Angels and ministers of grace defend us!’ Adam exclaimed. ‘And the ghosts?’
‘The disruption caused by a crippled TARDIS would be enough to break down the causal nexus. If someone were to try and operate the TARDIS, who knows what might happen? It might even destroy the Vortex. That’s what they are doing. The Scientifica are trying to build a time machine from the wreckage, but they must not be allowed to succeed. If the damaged TARDIS is activated the consequences would be catastrophic. Time would be knocked out of joint. The ghosts are just the first symptom of that. The entire structure of the universe is at risk. All we can hope is that some madman doesn’t try to activate the TARDIS before we can get there.’
The Doctor took a piece of chalk from his pocket and scratched a pictogram on a flat rock. That done he drew a tight circle around himself and Adric. He replaced the chalk in his waistcoat pocket and consulted his fob watch.
The Doctor stood his ground, his umbrella planted firmly in the rock in front of him. He looked around: they still weren’t here, but it was nearly time. The wheezing groaning din filled the chamber. He could almost feel them around him. The wind was picking up now, whipping at his Jacket. Adric was calling something, but it was lost to the gale. Down on the cavern floor, the research team were desperately trying to stop their equipment from scattering in the wind. Just a few moments more. The Doctor broke into a broad grin and began to raise his hat, turning to face them.
And all around the planet, the ghosts began to appear, growing more solid with