Doctor Who_ The Infinity Doctors - Lance Parkin [51]
‘Er… yes,’ Raimor said, after a moment or so trying to work it out on his fingers.
‘Can I go now?’ she asked.
‘Maybe it’s the same knife, twice over,’ Peltroc said suddenly.
Raimor and Larna broke off to look at him.
‘Time and space are elephantly inflated,’ Peltroc informed them knowledgeably. ‘That’s what the Doctor says.
Remember, Raimor, all that business with the watches.’
Larna stood. ‘I’m leaving,’ she announced. She was halfway down the corridor before she realised that she still had the knife in her hand.
The Rutan could barely contain its anger, excitement and glee. It quivered, colour changes flashing across its skin. Its voice was surprisingly level in comparison. ‘We have many spies within the Sontaran ranks, know that our enemy are developing the most terrible weapons, and that the Sontaran race is not a race dedicated to peace.’
‘What sort of weapons?’ the Doctor asked calmly.
‘The Sontarans have developed a device, a device that infects a star with a self-replicating form of dark matter, a device the purpose of which is clear to all.’
The Doctor was horrified. ‘Baxterium?’ he whispered, turning to General Sontar. ‘The only purpose of a baxteriological device is to kill a star by inhibiting the fusion processes at its heart.’
The Rutan held some sort of computerised report in its tentacle, presumably all the evidence.
General Sontar licked the edges of his lipless mouth. ‘The process is irreversible, a disease with no cure.’
The Doctor was trying to work out the implications of such a weapon. Photons are manufactured in the cores of stars, and because they are light, they travel at the speed of light.
But they don’t pass straight out, they claw and zigzag and spiral their way up the gravity well and they do it forever. The journey from the surface of the sun to the surface of Gallifrey took eight minutes; the photon’s journey from the core of the sun to the surface took six hundred billion times longer. The light hitting Gallifrey was as old as civilisation on the planet.
‘Without the right preparation it would take ten million years at least to snuff out a star.’
‘It is a strategic weapon, not for battlefield use,’ Sontar conceded.
‘Hear the voice of the Sontaran warmonger!’ the Rutan cried shrilly. ‘This is not a creature of peace! This flesh-creature plans to double the warspan, not to end it!’
The Doctor let the monologue die down. ‘I’m afraid I rather agree with the Rutan. You seem ready to fight for millions of years more.’
The old Sontaran snorted and twisted himself to address one of his subordinates. ‘Show him the case,’ he ordered.
General Grol opened up the metal box, pushing it across the negotiating table until it came to a halt in front of the Rutan.
With a hiss of hydraulics, the case opened itself.
‘Unlike the peaceful Rutans, we don’t have cowards whose job it is to skulk amongst the ranks of the enemy,’
Stroc said. ‘We collect our intelligence the honourable way.
One of our most brave agents found this at a Rutan research facility, and – after an heroic and inspiring escape – brought it to Sontar. Its true purpose is so foul that it took our scientists a year to comprehend it.’
‘You recognise the device?’ Sontar grunted.
The Rutan was a neutral shade of green. ‘It is called a Converter and is used to swap electrons for positrons, used to reverse certain other of the fundamental interactions, within a precisely designated area, used as a scientific instrument. The Converter is based on metamorphic technology, technology beyond the understanding of creatures made from replicated meat, and many scientists were killed by the Sontaran butcher-trespasser‐thief that stole it from us.’
‘Gentlemen, if we could keep it civil.’ The Doctor held up the metal cylinder, examining it. It was the size of a flask with a far-too intricate control mechanism at one end. ‘General Sontar, it’s a scientific instrument. A particle accelerator of some kind, by the sound of it.’
Sontar grunted, letting Stroc