Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Times Crucible - Marc Platt [124]
Isn't it dark
Isn't it cold
Seek out the future
Before you get old
Once there were children
This is their doom
Now all the people
Are born from the loom
Mid-Gallifreyan Nursery Versery.
"Begat . . . Begat . . . Begat!" complained the Doctor. "Useless!" He pulled angrily at the tickertape that spewed from the dusty TARDIS console.
Ace watched him through the tangle of furniture and knickknacks that filled the control room. She was getting frightened. The light flickered. The whine of growing power was grating her nerves.
"Professor," she called.
"Families! No one's had real families since . . ." He was trying to juggle another magnetic card into the console.
Families? thought Ace. She suddenly remembered a sliver of a borrowed dream when she had glimpsed what she thought was his family. Cousins and more cousins in a distant mountainous country. No mothers or fathers — just cousins. But in the TARDIS library, there was a birthday card, old and yellowing, and on it in willowy writing was Happy Birthday Grandfather.
"I must know what happened!" he snapped feverishly.
"Where?"
"On Gallifrey. To the Pythia. I can't remember what happened at the end of the Old Time."
"Who's the Pythia? There's no need to get so worked up."
"It should be here on the records." He ignored the whine of piling energy and squinted at the tape. "The Intuitive Revelation. The sacrifice of Omega. No, no, before all that!"
"Doctor? Turn the power down," she called, starting to clamber over the furniture. "It sounds well out of order. And so do you."
"Aha!" he cried, pulling eagerly at the latest tape. "This is it! 'Then the Pythia cried a great cry and laid her curse upon the world. But the followers of Rassilon rose up and cast her into the abyss. The last of the Pythias perished and her followers fled Gallifrey. Thus Rassilon came to power. But henceforth the world was barren.'"
The Doctor paused in astonishment. He pulled angrily at the tape. "Is that all? Who wrote this stuff?"
The blare of power seethed higher. He yanked out the card and read the inscription. "Typical! The Authorised Version! The legendary Whitewash of Rassilon! Perpetuated by Borusa and Quartinian's interminable, fawning idolatry. No wonder I always slept through history lessons!" He turned to Ace with a look of angry despair. "Now I'm never going to know what really happened!"
"Does it matter?" she shouted above the din. "You've got the TARDIS back. Just cut the turbos, will you?"
The whole ship juddered with the surging power. Ace felt nauseous. She could smell burning. She reached for the controls, but his hand slapped her away.
"My TARDIS," he growled. A new, cold determination was in his eyes. "You're right, Ace. Of course you are. Now we've seen what it can do. I never realized its potential before. There's nothing my ship can't be. It's not just a passe-partout to the universe. The possibilities are infinite! Who cares about the world outside? We can create our own in here!"
"No, Professor!" she shouted, grasping his arms. "That was in crisis!" The power was screaming in her head. It reflected in his eyes. She thought he would burn her.
"Anything we like, Ace. Just name it. Anything! We can make the stars sing. Infinite beauty, infinite mystery. And infinite power in the Process! All here in my TARDIS! We never need go out again!"
Ace hit the Doctor across the face.
There was an extraordinary flash of light.
The lamp that burns on the roof of the police box that spins in the void, explodes like a safety valve.
The power dwindled and settled into a steady familiar hum.
The Doctor, his hat battered, his jumper in shreds, clung to the side of the console. His breath was coming in short gasps. "I shall never know now. I shall never know," he whispered. He clasped his leg and groaned. He was shivering.
Ace fished his discarded jacket out of the jumbled furniture and draped it gently round his shoulders.