Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [62]
‘The Seal of Rassilon,’ Sam whispered.
Compassion nodded, quite casually. ‘It’s a Time Lord warship,’ she said.
‘A… no. No, it can’t be.’ Sam looked at Compassion, simply because she thought she’d be sick if she stared at the disc for much longer. ‘I’ve seen Time Lord warships. In that… that costume drama of yours. Rassilon used them to fight the things from the holes.’
‘The bowships? Oh, that was years ago. This is a modern Time Lord warship. Made for the big war.’
The big war. Everything suddenly clicked.
‘We think they made the prototypes years ago,’ Compassion went on. ‘When they were fighting the things from the outer planes, like you said. Only that war finished before Rassilon could use them. That’s why the Seal’s the shape it is. The pattern has a kind of… I don’t know. A kind of negative effect on some of the species from outside this universe. Something to do with the way their neurosystems work. Just looking at the detail would’ve been enough to make them go into spasm. Must have taken the Time Lords years, designing something like that.’
‘Like a crucifix,’ Sam said, trying to concentrate on several things at once.
‘If you say so. I think they call it an omniscate. Guest knows more about it than I do.’
The war. The big war. That was what Compassion had said. Four years ago – on the same occasion that Sam had first met Faction Paradox, as it happened, although she doubted it was a coincidence – the Doctor had accidentally stumbled into the future of his own species, something that was supposed to be against all the Laws of Time. At some point in the future, he’d learned, the Time Lords would be at war with an enemy too big and nasty to even contemplate. The Doctor had said he didn’t want to know the nature of the enemy, that he had no right to learn too much about the Time Lords’ destiny. That was what he’d said, anyway, although Sam doubted he’d have been able to resist a sneaky peek or two.
Now she’d stumbled right back into that future. She was looking at one of the weapons of the war-to‐come. And it was right here, in –
Hold on.
‘Why’s it here?’ asked Sam. ‘Why in Earth’s solar system?’
Compassion looked thoroughly fed up with having to explain things. ‘So it can destroy Earth. Why else?’
Eek.
Ah.
‘Sorry?’ said Sam.
‘Listen. Earth’s a major historical nexus, all right? And the twentieth century’s the turning point, when the planet starts to turn itself into a serious galactic power. If Earth’s destroyed, the whole casual nexus of the universe – or whatever it’s supposed to be called – falls to pieces.’
Sam found herself nodding like a mad thing. ‘So why would the Time Lords want to send a warship there?’
‘So they can tell the enemy about it, obviously. If Earth goes, the Time Lords would probably get wiped out in the big crunch. But so would the enemy.’
‘Oh God,’ said Sam. ‘Mutually Assured Destruction, they call that. It’s like nuclear weapons. You don’t use them, you just threaten to blow everything up with them.’
‘That’s the idea,’ said Compassion. ‘Besides, the enemy came from Earth to begin with, so there’s probably a kind of grudge thing going on as well. That’s what the Faction said.’
‘I don’t think I wanted to know that,’ said Sam.
‘Whatever. The warship’s on automatic, there’s no crew. It’s just a great big weapons system. It’s all in the Faction’s history. The Time Lords knew they couldn’t put the ship straight into Earth orbit, not without the enemy noticing the glitch and putting a block on it. So they let it get to the planet on auto. They sent it out from one of their bases about three billion years ago, and let it drift towards Earth