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'Maybe the kil er got to him too.'

'Maybe.'

The Doctor sighed deeply. 'How's your head now?'

'Fine. It's cleared.'

'Good. Then go and take another look at Arkhew.'

There was a sudden burst of light beyond the curtain. The Doctor drew back the heavy material and looked out.

The lamps along the corridor had lit themselves.

'Candleday,' he said. 'And the coast is clear too.'

'What are you going to do?'

'Me?' The Doctor smiled with a grim determination. 'I'm going to talk daggers to Satthralope.'

He sauntered off along the passage, whistling his little two-note tune as he went.

96

Chapter Seventeen

Have You Seen the Muffin Man?

The wordless protest started on the high-benches and quickly spread down through the lower amphicircles to the Panopticon floor.

To any observer on the Public Register network, the silence would appear to mark a time of contemplation or remembrance. In the great drum-shaped Council Hall of the Time Lord Citadel, it was deafening.

Chancel or Theorasdavoramilonithene was delivering her report to the High Council on investigations into the bomb outrage, when the thoughts began to project across the chamber. It was the Arcalian claque, always ready to stir trouble, who started it.

Where is she? Where is she?

The thought chant was taken up by Councillors of the minor Dromeian and Cerulean Chapters on the opposite galleries and on the Patrexean circle lower in.

Theora tried to continue, but she was drowned out. She glared up from the floor around the taciturn ranks of unmoving Time Lords above her. Councillors and Cardinals alike. The weight of their thought-chorus almost floored her. On the Prydonian circle, among those on whose support she had reckoned to count, many sat with lowered heads, neither attacking nor defending. That abstinence was more damning than either active stance.

Gold Usher, the Guardian of the Chamber, who should have been regulating the debate, also lowered his head; so impartial as to take no side at all.

Chancel ery guards gathered on the Panopticon entrance ramp, muttering among themselves about whether to intervene.

The protest continued and Theora sank to her knees under its weight. 'My Lords,' she struggled to call out loud against the uproar in her head. 'My Lords. . . the President is engaged in negotiations of momentous consideration.'

'Who with?' a single voice shouted out.

'Her Tharil astrologer,' shouted another wag.

'Her hair stylist,' cal ed a third.

'She's opening an embassy for the Daleks,' sneered an Arcalian Councillor.

There were shocked cries of 'Never!' and 'Shame!'

'But only,' he added, 'if the Ambassador's the right colour!'

Some laughter from the high-benches.

'My honourable Lords!' protested Theora. 'You insult the President's integrity. She is working tirelessly to further Gallifrey's policy towards the other worlds with whom we share the Universe...'

'Dragging us down,' someone shouted.

'And ... and she will deliver her report to the High Council in the appropriate time.'

There was a moment's silence.

From somewhere on the Patrexean circle, a quiet voice said, 'It's an insult.'

The entire Panopticon erupted in shouting.

97

The Chancellor, focus of the protestations, shut her mind and walked from the Chamber with as much dignity as she could maintain.

***

Lord Ferain, Director of Allegiance to the Celestial Intervention Agency, flicked off the plasma image of today's Panopticon proceedings. He took down a datacore from its rack.

An Alternative History of Skaro: The Daleks without Davros His own study of the most strategically dynamic race in the Cosmos. He inserted the core into an invisible socket between the arms of a compass set on his office wall. He turned it four times.

A new plasma screen appeared in the air. 'Is it time?' said the grey-helmeted guard on the screen.

'Yes, Commander. It is time. We move immediately.'

***

The garden shimmered. Dorothée and Leela were encircled by light. Blues and greens in dabs and strokes