Doctor Who_ The Gallifrey Chronicles - Lance Parkin [98]
The Doctor snapped his fingers. ‘Of course. It didn’t look like you. You were older, a man with white hair and beakier.’ The Doctor drew a nose in the air.
‘That’s what threw me. But it was you, wasn’t it?’
Marnal backed away. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The Shoal. A Time Lord launched an unprovoked attack on these creatures.
Barely escaped with his life. It was you. And was that my TARDIS you were in?’
Rachel frowned. ‘Wouldn’t an attack like that break the laws of time?’
The Doctor grinned. ‘Yes. That’s a very good point. A little hypocritical of you to paint yourself as an innocent party, let alone as the judge of my actions.’
‘I learnt a lesson,’ Marnal spat.
‘Before or after the Matrix projection?’ the Doctor asked.
‘What do you know about that?’
The Doctor took the slip of plastic from his pocket and passed it to Marnal.
‘It mentions the Vore. And a cicatrix, whatever that is.’
‘I think it’s a type of parrot,’ Rachel guessed. ‘They used to have one on Playschool.’
The Doctor and Marnal ignored her.
‘So. . . what happened next?’ the Doctor asked. ‘You set off an explosion, you barely got away in time. So you headed back to Gallifrey?’
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Marnal hesitated. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘That’s my line,’ the Doctor noted. ‘As Boethius said, though, the history book on the shelf is always repeating itself.’
Marnal took a squelchy step forward, pressed the gun to the side of the Doctor’s head.
‘Marnal!’ Rachel screamed.
The Doctor turned so that the muzzle of the gun was pointing to the dead centre of his forehead.
‘Before you kill me,’ the Doctor said reasonably, ‘would you mind telling me about the Matrix?’
201
Interlude
Marnal’s Error
Marnal’s TARDIS emerged from the Vortex and passed along an authorised flight path through the powerful transduction barriers that enveloped Gallifrey, keeping it safe. From there, it was seconds – relatively speaking – before the ship materialised in its berth. Marnal was still shaking.
He carefully deactivated the time engines, collected up his belongings and opened the door. His hearts hadn’t settled down after his escape from the Shoal. The other two ships in his squadron wouldn’t yet know that he had got clear. If they’d survived, they would be following their orders to head back home. They’d all take different routes and would arrive at different times. Marnal had broken with protocol and come straight here. He needed to make a report to the High Council about the alien threat. What he put in and left out of that would need some consideration, and he had to calm himself. Everything he believed in had been vindicated, but would they see it that way? His squadron had been using cloaking devices, and he’d bribed the duty officer at traffic control, so the facts would be whatever he said they were.
He stepped out of the deserted landing area, and walked through an ancient stone archway and into the corridor.
A powerfully built man with white hair and a clipped beard blocked his way.
‘What the hell have you done?’
Marnal tried to step around him and to disguise his agitation. ‘Out of my way, Ulysses.’
He was one of the Time Lords who had given himself a new name – the latest fad among the independent-minded. Ulysses had called himself after an adventurer from the same primitive planet as his wife Penelope.
Behind him were two of his companions. One was Penelope herself, wearing her strange Earthling clothes: an ankle-length skirt and prim white blouse.
Her red hair hung wild to her waist. The other was Mister Saldaamir, an alien with blue skin, the last survivor of the Time Wars in the ancient past. The three of them surrounded Marnal. They were trying to intimidate him, but they were running more scared than he was. That was obvious in a dozen tiny ways, from posture to nervous glances between themselves.
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Ulysses asked him again.
‘You’ve got blood on your hands, Castellan,’ Penelope said quietly.
Marnal glanced down, but she was speaking metaphorically.
‘The High Council authorised a reconnaissance mission. Close observation,’