Doctor Who_ Companion Piece - Mike Tucker [20]
At the Inquisitor's bidding, the Doctor was thrust forward, out of the corridor and into the chamber beyond. It was a huge, steel cathedral of a place, the granite-grey bulkheads of which stretched high into the workings of the ship. W ith a shock, the Doctor felt the familiar telepathic tingle that accompanied close contact with any of his own people. A trace of a Time Lord mind. A mind already at the point of death.
He looked about him, and closed his eyes in disbelief.
Against one wall was a gigantic machine, the purpose of which the Doctor could not begin to guess at. Twin metal girders, as black as coal and as thick at oak trees, jutted upward from the deck, intersecting with a huge horizontal beam suspended from the ceiling high above.
W hether intentional or not, the device resembled a cross.
There was a figure hanging from it. A Time Lord, already dead. Just an after-sense. A flicker of pain. A jumble of painful regenerations. A stampede towards oblivion.
`W hat did you do to him?'
`Exhausted his usefulness. I shall try to take better care with you.'
Tubes had been clamped onto the Time Lord's gaunt torso. They snaked between cross-struts, through a tangle of holographic cables and out to a squat, black plinth with a goldfish-globe top. Greenish-grey liquids squirted around the tubes and oozed in and out of the bowl, flooding the circuitry within.
It looked to the Doctor like a very crude time rotor.
`Your people are criminals on this world, Doctor,' del Toro said. 'Mass-
murderers. Here, this is justice:
`All this in the name of God.'
All this because it is necessary! The Church is spreading like a bloody rash over these backward systems. There has been no plan — no guidance. Just endless damned monks tramping around the cosmos recruiting souls for Jesus:
`I would have thought that was the point:
`It's causing chaos. These places are too remote from Rome. They are all going their own way doctrinally. Bishops and local rulers are getting involved. Do you know, two worlds are currently at war over the correct thickness of the communion wafer? There are three rival Popes. W e, the Holy Inquisition — '
' — ride around the galactic rim like outlaws, spreading terror and murdering innocents. You are a monster; said the Doctor. 'And all my life I have fought monsters. You're no different from any of them:
`Perhaps I am a monster . . . ' Del Toro suddenly and painfully gripped the Doctor's chin. 'I know a thousand different ways of inflicting pain upon you, Time Lord, a thousand different ways of getting the information I seek; and if you prove to be resilient, then I will take you to the very brink of death and watch you regenerate.'
He released his grip on the Doctor, smiling in satisfaction at the shock on his face.
`So your machine can force a Time Lord to regenerate?'
Del Toro smiled in triumph. 'That is . . . one of its functions:
The Doctor looked del Toro straight in the eye. 'And the other?'
`Enough prattle, Doctor. I have found that the first few hours of a new incarnation is the perfect time for me to conduct my investigations. Post-regenerative trauma is a useful ally. Struggle against me all you wish in this body, Doctor. Your future selves will tell me all that I wish to know.'
snapshots. Funny — she hadn't thought about her Catholic childhood for years. Her favourite childhood cousin had become a priest. W hen had she last seen him? She couldn't remember.
She recalled finding church boring as a child, but always enjoying visits to the big cathedrals — though this was the first time she'd been trapped in one. She tried to clear her mind and think of a plan. She wandered the cloisters, the dark crypt, the many side-chapels, the choir. She even sat through a service.
She wondered about the old man in the black habit. She caught sight of him