Doctor Who_ The Infinity Doctors - Lance Parkin [11]
A grey shape was moving across the face of the Sun. The Doctor relaxed a little, recognising it as an eclipse. The Moon was passing between the Sun and the Earth. But… the sun was larger now, bloated with age, so how could the Moon be blotting it out? The Chinese used to think that eclipses were caused by dragons taking bites from the Sun. It would have to be a vast creature, with eyes the size of the Earth, a tail longer than any comet’s. The Doctor imagined the creature’s mouth opening, the sun in its claw like a fruit. If he could see it, the Doctor realised, then there was nothing he could do. It was in the past. The Sun had died long ago, and now its light was catching up with it.
There were howling winds in the distance, although the air felt warm. The Earth was lost.
Black columns were sweeping the earth like searchlight beams. Pillars made from the opposite of light, angling, snapping on and off, dancing over the sea and the cliff tops.
The Doctor scanned the heavens for their source, but they were like sunbeams poking through the clouds.
Laughter surrounded him, mocking laughter that drowned out every other sound. He could hear it calling his name.
Something from the past and future, something infinitely bigger than him. Everything was at stake. Everything.
There was someone alongside him, staring out to sea. A man his age, his height, but with flowing, shoulder-length hair. All his children were dead, and the seas were dry. The stars were coming out, now. Night was falling.
The Doctor’s eyes snapped open.
It had all been a terrible dream.
Chapter Two
Total Perspective
The Main Temporal Monitoring Chamber appeared larger than it was, but as its central feature was the whole of infinity and eternity this was hardly surprising.
The room was a torus, a ring the size of a stadium, and it encircled an Infinity Chamber, one of the ultimate expressions of Time Lord technological achievement, beyond the dreams of even the founders of Gallifreyan civilisation. It wasn’t simply a device that monitored or observed the known universe, it encapsulated it. To all intents and purposes, the Time Lords gathering here weren’t watching an image of Gallifrey’s moon, Pazithi, they were watching Pazithi itself, in full scale. The Time Lords entered, moved clockwise around the colonnade that marked the perimeter of the room until they found their place and shuffled out onto the floor of the Chamber. In all, a little over five hundred Time Lords were present, all bathed in the holographic moonlight. More than half the total number, which was almost unprecedented, especially as it wasn’t even quite dawn yet. This must have been the first time that some of these people had ventured out of their room for decades. The public galleries weren’t quite so busy, but there was still a respectable turnout. The Chamber hummed with conversation and expectation.
Larna hesitated, removing herself from the shuffling crowd.
Everyone already knew precisely which part of the amphitheatre they should be standing in. They clustered in the usual groups determined by elaborate equations of seniority, office, family ties, college allegiance and personal acquaintance. Everyone knew where to stand except for Larna. Her robes flapped and blocked her feet and hands, the high-backed ceremonial collarpiece was digging down into her shoulders.
‘Are you lost, my dear?’
She turned. It was Lord Hedin. He had a thin face, kindly and shrewd. He was an historian, a mainstay of the High Council, as his father had been before him. Larna had attended some of his lectures about the Old Time. He was usually to be found in the Endless library compiling the bibliography for his life’s work, the three-hundred‐volume Life of Omega.
‘This is the first time I’ve been here, my Lord,’ she explained. ‘On the floor of the Chamber, I mean. I’ve spent most of the last few years in the public galleries or operating the machines.’
Lord Hedin smiled. ‘You’re Larna,