Doctor Who_ Psi-Ence Fiction - Chris Boucher [104]
Finer seemed to be an odd mixture of showman and recluse. As they crossed the duckboards the Doctor said, 'Drainage is always a problem with these abandoned excavations. What was it originally? A mine of some sort I imagine?'
'Early attempt at a nuclear bomb shelter,' Josh said. 'Too deep as it turned out.'
'But not as deep as you implied,' the Doctor suggested.
Once more Josh ignored the comment. 'It was the reason Professor Finer had the department sited where it is,' he said. 'He wanted it below ground, and a lot of the tunnels and shafts were already in place.'
They climbed the short flight of steps on to the platform. When they reached the centre of the platform the whole structure began to rise towards the roof. 'Another fairground attraction?' the Doctor asked as a hatch opened in the bottom of the saucer and the platform slotted into place. 'Is there by any chance a coconut shy? I was always rather fond of coconut shies.'
'There you go with that mad act again,' Josh said.
Around them was a chamber, unmanned but stacked with elaborate-looking monitoring and operating equipment. It was presumably the equivalent, the Doctor thought, of one tiny section of the TARDIS's function console and it was about ten times the size of the whole of her control deck. Primitive,' he said briskly. About on a par with the galoshes and the tin hats.'
'It's a really sensitive self-regulating system,' Josh said. 'The powering up is so gradual it's almost unmeasurable.'
Try reversing it,' the Doctor said. I think you'll find unmeasurable will take on a whole new meaning. So where is Professor Finer?'
Josh beckoned him across the chamber and led him into a side gallery.
Twenty yards along it there was a viewing platform, below which was another separate cavern. Set up in this one was the projector and pulse tunnel of Finer's attempt at a time machine.
The Doctor stared down at it as it pulsed, pulling at reality and pushing at non-reality, all the while making a softly deafening sound like like what? he thought.
'Like the sound in my head when I rub my hand over my scalp,' Josh said.
The projector was at least twenty feet high and thirty feet long. The hoops of the pulse tunnel were perhaps twelve feet in diameter, and stretched for what looked to be a hundred yards or more.
'It's huge,' the Doctor murmured. Not that it makes much difference in the end.'
Finer was working at an open panel high on the side of the projector. To reach it he was using a small crane lift. He finished what he was doing and slammed the panel closed with an irritable flourish. Operating the lift with casual ease he rose towards the viewing platform.
In the pulse tunnel the rate of the strobing flicker went up perceptibly.
'It's supposed to be gradual but there's a stepped acceleration effect,' Finer said as he reached the platform. 'I've had to replace the fail-safe with a remote activation autodestruct just to be on the safe side.'
'It's feedback,' the Doctor said. 'You can't compensate for the power gains from the pulse grazing.' He could just glimpse the end of the pulse tunnel. It was a chaos of multiple images of trees and blocks of blanknesses. For the briefest moment he thought he saw the TARDIS in the middle of the multiplying maelstrom, and he missed the old thing terribly. The field effect.
Remember the field effect, he thought.
'My systems are automatically self-regulating,' Finer said, stepping out of the cradle on to the platform. It's one of my areas of expertise.'
It doesn't work like that,' the Doctor said. The man was obstinate to the point of obtuseness. 'You know it doesn't work like that. Why else would you need a psychic?'
'It's nothing to do with controlling the basic systems,' Finer said. He