Doctor Who_ The Infinity Doctors - Lance Parkin [47]
‘I thought it might be interference, perhaps using the arrival of the aliens as cover. I tried to find the Doctor to warn him.’
‘So the Doctor knows about this?’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t have time to tell him. He was just about to meet the aliens. He seemed distracted.’
The Magistrate was smiling at something. ‘And didn’t you have time afterwards, in his room?’
But there was gentleness in his words. Larna didn’t answer, knowing that he wouldn’t press the point.
‘What’s it doing now?’ The Magistrate was more interested in the image than her now he’d eliminated her as a suspect.
‘It’s running a program of Lord Savar’s. Trying to locate something, by the look of it.’
The Magistrate nodded. ‘We need to establish the scale of the interference. I need to see the Council. We also need to find whoever killed your friend. You had better leave your statement with Captain Raimor.’
He swept from the room, leaving Larna alone with Waym.
‘You deliberately avoided our fleet to provoke such a response from us.’
‘And was that the reason that you detonated nuclear weapons in the atmospheres of Halran II, Gwel and Kalla?’
Negotiations had been continuing like this for an hour or so when the Doctor slammed his fist down on the table.
Both sides stopped dead.
‘Gentlemen,’ the Doctor said. ‘This is getting us nowhere.
It’s time to change tack.’
The Sontarans and the Rutan both turned their full attention to him. The Rutan had withdrawn some of the tentacles it had been flailing about, all ten of the Sontarans sat on their haunches, nineteen eyes glowering at him.
The Doctor smiled weakly. ‘Er… we can’t change the past, and so we shouldn’t dwell on it. If there is to be any progress… we will have to abandon the old rivalries, and strive towards understanding one another. If the war is to end, we must cast aside some of the bitterness. Both sides have seen casualties and made the most terrible sacri–’ He stopped. The Sontarans and Rutan hadn’t moved.
‘Do you really think that a feeble string of Time Lord clichés will end a war that has lasted since the universe was young?’ Sontar snarled.
The Rutan had screwed itself up small, its green skin was flecked with reds and purples. ‘Your words are as meaningless as Sontaran defences, as empty as a Sontaran head, rivalling only dust for worthlessness.’
‘Well,’ the Doctor said through clenched teeth. ‘At least you agree on something.’
‘Wait,’ Stroc said. ‘You say that you cannot change the past?’
The Doctor was glad that the subject had changed. ‘Well, no.’
Sontar was nodding thoughtfully, a bizarre sight. ‘You are a Time Lord. Surely you can change history?’
‘No, no,’ the Doctor grinned, ‘it doesn’t work like that. It’s difficult to explain to non-Time Lords. It’s something that we know instinctively. Like asking a bird how it flies. Time runs a set course, to a pattern. Or-yes, this is a better analogy – like a song. We can hear the tune, and we notice if any of the notes are wrong.’ Get them off the subject, get them talking about something else.
The Rutan was quivering, eager to join in. ‘How can history not be altered? If you can travel into the past then you must be able to affect it. You would know the gaps in your enemy’s lines and you would have technical capabilities far in advance of those of your enemy. Just having foreknowledge would put you at a forewarned advantage.’
The Doctor leant back, steepling his hands. ‘That’s why you have to be so careful.’
‘So it is possible?’ Stroc insisted, his piggy eyes even narrower than was usual.
He had caught the Doctor off guard. ‘Er, well, yes. In theory. But it’s far, far too dangerous. That’s why Time Lords are sworn to protect established history.’
‘From what?’ General Krax asked. That man was always identifying threats, finding enemies, locating targets. More brutal than Grol, less of a tactician. Grol sat in command centres, co-ordinating fleets. Krax was a front-line troop.
Speak to him in a language he understands. ‘Well, we want to minimise disruptive influences. If, say, the Cybermen