Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Times Crucible - Marc Platt [101]
"Because your thoughts are full of him."
"My thoughts are my own business. And this is not the place or time to debate Gallifreyan history." He turned and walked away up the coiling steps. "And don't pester me about the ship any more. It's as good as dead already. Just a matter of time before it breaks up."
"Where are you going?" called Vael and crawled after the Doctor on hands and knees.
There was a distant rumble. Clouds of dust were billowing up across the Phases of the shrinking sphere City.
The Doctor halted and gave an involuntary shudder.
Vael stared out into the dark. "It's going," he said. "Your ship."
"The Process will destroy it from the Beginning. There's no power to resist."
"You have the power," said Vael. "It's in your mind. You and the ship are in mutual symbiosis."
The Doctor studied him for a moment. "Vael," he said excitedly, "I think I needed someone to remind me about that. Are all the Gallifreyans in your time like you?"
"No. What about you and your time?"
"Thereby hangs a tale," said the Doctor, firmly closing his mind to the young man's prying tendrils of thought. He sat on a step and kicked his legs over the side. Resting his chin in his hands and elbows on his knees, he closed his eyes and concentrated.
The empty ache gnawing in the pit of his stomach opened out into a pool of despair and guilt. His home was dying. Not his nominal home of Gallifrey, but the bizarre, extradimensional entity that he had come to rely on. He had taken his TARDIS for granted for too long. He doubted that, were he not soon to be crushed alive in its final total compaction, he could survive without it.
Its life was drained by the grotesque leech that bled its dimensions. But he still had its instinct for survival. That was why the TARDIS had sustained him. It needed him too. He would never lose their will to survive.
"It's working," said Vael.
The Doctor opened his eyes and saw the ghost of the silver frame hovering in the air before him. His determination grew and the shape of the reality window resolved correspondingly.
Its shape, flickering with geistlicht, hardened from a virtual reality into truth. Menus and manager files darted across its centre.
"Pilot ident," commanded the Doctor.
The window gleeped a response.
"Access Ship Status Report."
Labelled blocks of colour darted across the screen, registering and cross-referencing the TARDIS's functional parameters. Half were dead, the rest on "DANGER."
On the City Phase below, a fire had broken out on the arteries close to the Wall of Clouds.
"Stand by Architectural Configuration," he said without taking his concentration from the window. The screen cleared in readiness.
He pointed in a multitude of directions. Up, down or across. "There's no point in staying here. Which way should we go, Vael? I think we can manage one command function."
"To the Beginning," said the young man. "Before the Beginning reaches us."
The Doctor looked down at the south pole of the City. The tumescent ground was splitting across. Something immense and luminous was slowly forcing its way up. A globular shape like the head of a newborn child. He could see tremors running in ripples out through the buildings on all the Phases.
To the north, diametrically opposed, lay the black presence of the Watch Tower.
"One chance only," said the Doctor. He turned to the window and concentrated his thoughts. "Relocate base of stairway." He paused and tightened his fists. One error and the very dangerous young man standing behind him would simply tip him over the edge.
"Relocate at the Watch Tower!" he snapped.
"No!" shouted Vael.
"Send!"
Vael lunged towards the Doctor, his eyes burning with hatred. Then he gave a sudden cry. He lurched back like a puppet as if another hand had dragged him.
"Leave him!"
"Temper," said the Doctor.
He heard the woman's voice in Vael's head and saw the inner eye, the predatory cat's eye, that controlled the young man.
The Doctor braced himself for the inevitable lurch as his instruction took effect. He could hear