Doctor Who_ The Gallifrey Chronicles - Lance Parkin [44]
And, responding to the Doctor’s thoughts, a brass lever sprang out of the mouldy remains of the control console in the middle of the chamber. The sound, like a bone breaking, startled both the Doctor and the Grandfather.
The Doctor could feel time, space and gravity fraying around him. The laws of physics, of cause and effect themselves, were unravelling. This was going to be the paradox to end all paradoxes, but it would end the war to end all wars.
A moment later and Grandfather Paradox had leapt for the Doctor, his one arm stretched out like a pike. He grabbed the Doctor’s throat, palm against his 93
Adam’s apple, fingers pressed into the flesh of his neck. This was not simply holding him away from the lever, this was a murder attempt.
‘I don’t want to,’ the Doctor choked. ‘If I do, I lose everything I hold dear.’
Rather than listen to the Grandfather’s reply, he tried to come up with a strategy that would get him over to the lever.
Knowing he was, by definition, as strong as his opponent the Doctor grabbed the stump of the Grandfather’s missing arm in one hand, dug in until he could feel his nails breaking the skin and shoved himself and his opponent back across the room until they slammed into the control console. The Grandfather screamed out, but didn’t loosen his grip. With his free hand the Doctor was searching the console. He found what he was looking for – metal cubes he could pluck out of their control panel. Stabilisers. He took one, turned it in his hand, sliced the Grandfather’s wrist with one of its sharp edges. Finally, he could breathe again as the Grandfather dropped him and withdrew. But before the Doctor could even take that breath, the Grandfather was on him, and he’d been kicked to the ground and in the ribs and stomach.
Time stood still. Not a metaphor, just a moment of discontinuity as the energies swirled out from the heart of the Edifice and into its control room.
It was all a question of inner calm and outer leverage. Finding and taking advantage of the Lagrangian points in a room with a shifting gravity field. Do that, and you could find the centre, the stability, the balance.
The Doctor jumped up, hung in the air, and time stood still long enough for him to perfectly line up his first strike, a flying kick to Grandfather Paradox’s jaw, using all his strength and both his feet.
‘Hai!’ the Doctor shouted.
But the Grandfather brought up his hand to block, deflecting him, and it was the Doctor who found himself crashing to the floor. At the last moment he used his momentum to flip over, and landed facing his opponent.
Time returned to normal, then sped up.
The Doctor launched himself forwards, and made a series of fast, fast strikes. Vertical to the head with the blade of the hand, covered by a feint with the other hand. To the chest, each hand in turn. Grip the sleeve. A stamp on the right ankle, a high kick to the side of the neck. Straight punch.
Vertical to the head with the blade of the hand, no feint. Flat palm to the heart. Flat palm to the other heart. Diagonal to the neck. Straight punch.
Shoulder grip and vertical to the head. Feint a straight punch, then leap over his opponent’s shoulders, land, strike at the back of the neck. Stamp on the ankle. Grip sleeve. Hip throw. Horizontal to the neck.
All deflected or dodged calmly by the Grandfather, who barely needed to move. As the Doctor made his last lunge, time returned to normal. Grandfather Paradox grabbed the Doctor’s wrist and threw him, somersaulting, across 94
the room.
With no time to break his fall, the Doctor crashed into the back wall cracking the brittle material. He paused to take stock. Aikido stresses the concept of being in harmony with one’s enemy, of synchronising, anticipating and defusing, rather than simply defeating. But this was ridiculous.