Doctor Who_ The Gallifrey Chronicles - Lance Parkin [45]
Grandfather Paradox took a step back. ‘I only have to wait and you will be mine.’
It had already happened, from his point of view.
‘You would use Venusian aikido against me, when I am the only one-armed being who has ever mastered it?’ the Grandfather sneered.
‘It seems you can beat me with one arm tied behind your back,’ the Doctor said ruefully.
He could taste his own blood. He’d split his lip at some point. It didn’t matter. He looked up at his opponent. The cube the Doctor had taken from the console hadn’t just been a handy weapon. It was a vital component keeping the forces of this place in check. Now it sounded as though there was a hurricane outside. The walls started to creak and crack like an old galleon caught in that hurricane.
The Grandfather’s confidence faltered for the first time.
‘You wanted the power of the Edifice,’ the Doctor shouted, ‘and you’re going to get it. Just one bolt fired will drain off the last of the binding energy holding the Edifice together.’
He struggled to his feet. Grandfather Paradox swooped across the room, cloak flapping. He cracked his head down on the Doctor’s, but only connected with the frontal part of the skull, one of the better-protected areas of the body.
Still, it was dizzying and the Grandfather was taking the opportunity to grab for the cube.
It was the Doctor’s turn to parry an attack.
He was perfectly calm, perfectly alert.
The Grandfather was at no advantage now that he was on the offensive.
This wasn’t defending against an attack he remembered coming. This was trying to land a blow or make a grip that hadn’t worked. In any event, the Doctor simply had to deflect whatever was thrown at him. He knew his opponent wanted the cube, so it was easy to block a series of clumsy grabs and swipes.
He still couldn’t land a blow of his own, though. Grandfather Paradox was everything he was, with 292 years’ more experience. And he would know what was coming.
Unless the Doctor changed history.
95
The Doctor dived to one side then elbowed his opponent in the solar plexus – just about the most obvious place he could have attacked, so, para-doxically, the last place the Grandfather was ready to defend.
The Grandfather doubled up and collapsed on to the cracked ivory floor.
The Doctor sailed lightfoot over his opponent, hands behind his back, and landed at the console thirty feet away.
‘Gallifrey, Kasterborous. . . this entire sector of space will be torn apart, destroyed,’ the Grandfather managed.
The Doctor realised there were tears in his opponent’s eyes. The Edifice had lurched to one side, the floor was pitched at an angle. He started edging around the console to the right panel. ‘Forever. But your entire fleet will perish along with it.’
‘You will die too.’
‘Just as well, I think. I’d never be able to live with the memory anyway.’
‘You will destroy all Gallifrey – wipe out millions of lives.’
The Doctor had never realised just how persuasive he could be. Committing mass murder – how could that be right?
‘I never thought I’d admit to choosing the lesser of two evils,’ he admitted.
‘You know you can’t bring yourself to do this.’
The more he thought about it, the less the Doctor liked this third option.
He couldn’t walk away, he thought. No. . . But how about the second option?
Gallifrey would fall to Faction Paradox, but lives would be saved. The war would be over, forever. And he had spent so long worried about a future filled with an all-consuming war, fought across infinity and eternity, that it had never once occurred to him that afterwards there would follow a peace.
This way, there would be a short war, barely a skirmish, then peace in heaven, with him able to shape things from the heart of power and influence. Where there’s life, there’s hope.
He looked up at the Grandfather. But there was the denial of his argument: an image of himself utterly without hope. The Ghost of Christmas Cancelled.
An image of the future, unless. . .
‘I must!’ the Doctor cried out. ‘I will be sparing