Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [30]
Chapter 5
In a Jam
Luckily for Vasid, the Doctor had warned him about the purple thing blocking the doorway to the control room. He peered over its metal shell and saw the Doctor reaching down into the bowels of the control desk by the computer. Seeming to sense Vasid's arrival, the Doctor pulled himself out and stared at him.
'I take it the rebels have little chance of changing things in this system?'
Vasid glanced furtively about as if expecting to see hidden portacams recording his every word. 'All of the Thannos system belongs to the Homeworld. Outer scum, that's what they are, dangerous influences.'
'You don't feel something of an affinity with them then?'
'No!'Vasid bellowed. He tried to calm down.'Why do you care, anyway?'
'Oh, I'm a bit of a buff on rebellion, oppressive regimes, that sort of thing,'
said the Doctor, breezily. 'So, this place - and Temporal Commercial Concerns - is of entirely alien origin?'
'Yes.'
'But which aliens?'
Vasid shook his head. 'I don't know. The Thannos sector of TCC runs this place for them, but doesn't own it.'
'Ah, the caring human face of alien technology.'
'Human?'
'You know what I mean.Well, that at least explains what I've found here.'
The Doctor gestured at the pit in the control desk.'Someone, presumably TCC, has attempted to augment this computer. They're very advanced circuits, but still crude in comparison with the original. And I'll tell you something else. A few things, in fact. First, this machine has developed some kind of personality.'
'What? Do you speak nothing but dross?' Vasid stared insolently at the Doctor, who continued speaking with a pleasant smile on his face.
'No, it's quite true, I assure you. I don't mean personality in the way that you and I - well, in the usual sense. But the components in this machine easily lend themselves to a simulation of something similar - a complicity, if you like, an understanding. But perhaps "developed" was too polite a word.
These circuits have been overcome by something -something else.'
'It's probably just broken,' said Vasid, uneasily. 'It's been acting up for ages.'
'What, giving out strange messages, that sort of thing?'
'Just not making any sense. Piece of rubbish.'
'Hmm.' The Doctor began to pace up and down again, and Vasid rolled his eyes. 'It's probably just finally given up and gone mad. Torn between regulating that mass of time fields down there and trying to hear itself think, it's given up on either. Which leads me to point two.'
'Is point two as boring as point one?'
'Very probably,' beamed the Doctor. 'There's enormous temporal leakage in one part of Hirath, by the look of these readings. It's dangerously unstable.
Chances are it's even responsible for the state the whole planet's in.'
'I can't be bothered to listen to all this.'Vasid turned to go but the Doctor grabbed him and sat him down in the control chair.
"Then don't listen. But talking aloud helps me think, and I always do it best to a sentient audience.' Peering intently at Vasid, he sighed. 'Anyway, suppose that that temporal leakage is like an embolism, or a clot in time, poisoning what's around it. What if that machine was meant to be curing what caused it but instead has been communicating with it?'
'How?'
The Doctor scratched his head.'I honestly don't know. But it's an intriguing theory, isn't it?'
Vasid banged a fat fist on the table. 'Shut up with your theories! What are we going to do?'
The Doctor looked at him gravely. 'We're going to get back poor Sam and Anstaar, and do everything we can to save the lives of everyone else on Hirath. We're going to think of a way to stop that planet tearing itself apart throughout history and wiping out a large portion of this galaxy with it.'
Vasid turned away but the Doctor was relentless. 'We're going to persuade whoever's on