Doctor Who_ Match of the Day - Chris Boucher [7]
Before long he reached the point in the bend where he could see the light at the end of whatever it was, a tunnel perhaps? If it was a tunnel that would make it the light at the end of the tunnel that he could see. It didn’t look like an oncoming train of any sort, it looked a lot like daylight. And he could see what looked like sand in the daylight. What he could not see was any sign of Leela. A tunnel leading to some sort of sandy terrain: surely the TARDIS hadn’t brought them to another storm mine. There were occasions, too many occasions recently, when the old thing went back over new ground, or forward over old ground, constantly round and round as though obsessed. It tended to get diverted into the backwash of minor temporal anomalies far more often than used to be the case. It was getting predictable, unoriginal even: been there, done that, got the hat and scarf... The options analysis switching loops were probably fogged with partially rejected parallels. The opening balances needed resetting: another of the training courses he’d skipped. The way things were going, or rather the way things weren’t going, most of the TARDIS needed an overhaul up to and including the police box paintwork. What a dull prospect, he thought, and how very fortunate it was that he had neglected to learn how to do any of the required procedures, after all who was it who said: show me a perfect house and I’ll show you a wasted life? He smiled to himself and said aloud, ‘So show me a perfect TARDIS, and I’ll show you a wasted incarnation.’
He strode on and, approaching the shadow framed brightness, he could see now that he wasn’t in the open ore-scoop of a storm mine. The TARDIS hadn’t brought them back to a tangle of interrupted universes it was trying to unravel and re ravel. At least it might not have done. This might be somewhere new.
He stepped out into the sunshine to find himself in a big circular arena. The wide floor was sand at the edge and short scrubby grass in the middle and was bordered by a smooth and seamless wooden fence. Beyond this there were seats rising in tiers to just below the high, clear dome that covered the whole amphitheatre.
The Doctor walked a little way across the sand and stood looking around him. To one side of the tunnel entrance Leela was examining the fence.
‘It’s a sports arena by the look of it,’ the Doctor said. ‘Now all we have to do is work out what the sport might be.’
‘I am not certain,’ Leela said, ‘but I think this wall is splashed with blood.’
Jerro Fanson couldn’t quite believe what was happening. It was obviously a scuffle-up, but even so, even by the standards of this bunch of button-pushers, it was shambling scuffwittery. He shifted slightly on the tilted couch.
‘Do you deny you quarrelled with Jon Michaelson?’ The Interrogation Controller looked down at the detector screen as he waited for Fanson’s reply.
‘No.’
‘Again. Do you deny you quarrelled with Jon Michaelson?’
This time Fanson waited until the small, eyelevel screen flashed REPLY at him, indicating that the computer had balanced all the data variables outputting from his body and brain, and was ready to analyse the minutest change in relation to his answer. ‘No I do not deny I quarrelled with Jon Michaelson.’
On the Interrogation Controller’s screen the single word TRUE flashed up.
On Fanson’s screen an abstract pattern of shapes and colours danced and changed, making it difficult to think and plan ahead. He tried not to look at it. He had to concentrate.
The struggle between interrogator and prisoner was the same as it had always been, always would be, whatever advances were made in the state of the art. Some men were better fitted to resist than others, but all men ultimately had a breaking point. The only possible escape was through the truth and the hope that the truth that was told would