Doctor Who_ The Gallifrey Chronicles - Lance Parkin [65]
There are insects scurrying around, all larger than he and – despite his fears – oblivious to his presence. As he enters a main passageway it’s like crossing a busy four-lane highway. Worse: the creatures are running in every direction, and swerve abruptly and without warning. They instinctively avoid each other. He has to creep around the edges, take advantages of random lulls to move forwards. He has an objective in sight now, a huge circular opening, like a tunnel mouth, with weird light pouring from it. It takes longer than he would credit to make his way through it.
He finds himself on a gantry, overlooking a shaft that must sink all the way to the core of the planet. He looks over the edge.
What he sees is literally indescribable. He tries: Then he tries to describe it by what it is not. It is not of this universe. It is not something made of, or existing in, space or time. It has a shape, a size and a colour, but none are within his understanding. He can see it. Indeed, he can’t miss it, although he can’t tell if it’s close, like a scar on his eye, or large, so that it more than fills the cathedral-sized chamber.
The textbooks refer to such phenomena as ‘anomalies’, or even just ‘things’.
He decides not to look at it or think too hard about it.
Instead, he looks to see what else is here.
Along the gantry, around a hundred yards away, there is a young woman wearing a collarless scarlet jacket. Her blonde hair is loose, waist length. Her attention is taken by a large computer bank. She is working at it, entering a string of commands. It is impossible that she hasn’t seen the thing, and she doesn’t seem interested in looking at it now. She has then, he concludes, been working here a long time. She has managed this without being killed by the insects that are swarming around this planet, and indeed – he now sees – are thickly spread over the walls of the shaft. Every one of the monsters (there are literally millions of them) is staring straight down into the thing in the centre of the room. The strange non-light that pours from the anomaly glints off every one of their compound eyes. Lucky for him, it has their full attention.
The young woman leaves the chamber through a metal hatch. As she goes 135
she leaves a trail of ghosts, tiny echoes in time. The laws of time are being broken right in front of his eyes. Whatever is at the base of the shaft is twisting time and space. He hurries over to the console, checks the instruments. The woman has just sent a signal to a set of coordinates. He runs the numbers into his wrist computer, but he can tell they describe a point near the centre of the galaxy, and he already has a sinking feeling in his hearts. Sure enough: GALLIFREY
He moves around the control console. He cannot begin to work out its function. Is it monitoring the anomaly or sustaining it? Could it be controlled from here? The technology is far in advance of anything he has seen, and he is a Time Lord of Gallifrey – his understanding was that no other race could match his. Yet these creatures and this woman were here, plotting whatever it was they were plotting against the Time Lords.
He aims his pistol at the computer and fires three times, reducing it to charred panels of metal and melting circuitry.
Immediately, there is a change in the sounds all around him. He has affected the anomaly somehow. The ground starts to shake.
Pursued by the monsters who come pouring out of the shaft, he runs back to his TARDIS. He holds his arm straight out behind him, firing and firing his pistol. There is no chance of a shot missing a creature; nor, though, does it slow the insects down or make any apparent difference to their numbers. It is a long way back to the ship, and by the time he reaches the right chamber boulders are crashing down from the ceiling.
He hurries inside, slams the door shut. Even if the power hasn’t been restored yet, he ought to be able to sit out the explosion. A TARDIS is practically indestructible, after all. That said, he is delighted to find all the power indica-tors back