Doctor Who_ The Infinity Doctors - Lance Parkin [61]
‘If you could just sign the requisition form, I’ll let you into your TARDIS, but I’m afraid I can’t let you take this in with you.’
The Doctor looked crestfallen, but he nodded. He stepped up to the threshold of the TARDIS, slipping the key from his pocket and into the lock.
‘Are you sure I can’t take that?’ he asked.
‘Quite sure, sir,’ Nifcol said firmly, ‘The regulations are very strict about what one can and can’t take into a time capsule.’
The Doctor opened the door to his TARDIS and stepped inside.
The control room looked the same as always. The Doctor moved up to the console in the centre, pulling the lever that closed the doors pressing the control that locked them. He turned on the scanner. The guard, Nifcol, was examining the toy tafelshrew, prodding its middle. The Doctor chuckled, shaking his head and rested the Time Regulator on one side of the console. Simple psychology: Nifcol hadn’t been remotely interested in the dull-looking carry case tucked under the Doctor’s left arm, not with such an oddity under his right.
The Doctor set to work isolating the recall circuits. The readouts confirmed the new directives that he had programmed in at the Castellan’s office, The displays adjusted to the new instructions. This TARDIS was now completely independent of Citadel Traffic Control but no one in the Citadel would be informed of this – the Doctor had been very careful to make sure that the scanners in the Capitol wouldn’t be watching his activities. He switched on the power circuits let them warm up while he worked.
He bent underneath the console, unfastening a couple of access panels. Then he opened up the case he’d been carrying and took out the Time Regulator. It was straightforward enough to interface one with the other – the Doctor simply clipped a couple of wires together. That done, he moved around the console, adjusting a setting here, flicking a switch there. He reached the navigation panel. He’d never really got the hang of it, but he knew the basics. He operated a slide control, twisted a dial, jabbed at a couple of over-rides. A tiny warning bell was chiming somewhere in the console. The Doctor found the switch that silenced It.
. He crossed back to the Regulator that he had installed.
He fiddled with the scanner controls, using the instruments on the Regulator to adjust the image. The rather baffled Nifcol vanished, replaced by a series of scenes from the Citadel: a triad of students checking each others lecture notes; the kitchen staff in one of the refectories preparing for dinner; two of the Watch at their posts in the Archive.
General Sontar; reclining on a couch. The Doctor tapped the control, keeping that image on the display.
The Sontarans’ room was suffused with red light and high gravity. One of the nameless Sontarans was attending to his leader, checking that the energy cables plugged into the back of the General’s neck were connected correctly. This was how Sontarans fed – electricity was sent directly down the vent at the back of their necks, stored in bioelectric cells in the abdominal cavity. The other senior Sontarans sat in a huddle, awaiting their turn. They all looked so tired. In the privacy of their own loom, they slumped, they sagged. None of the Sontarans were speaking to each other, or doing anything other than wait for their energy feed. The Doctor hadn’t expected to see them singing, or knitting, or watching soap operas, but they weren’t doing anything. They looked like patients in a military hospital, half-exhausted, half-shell‐shocked.
He saved the co-ordinates and then fed a couple of commands into the Regulator. The image refocused to the Rutan chamber.
The screen filled with a picture of blue-grey water that made the Doctor feel cold just looking at it. It was murky, too
– rich in metallic fluid organic compounds. The Rutan sat in the centre, in something very similar to its natural form. It was dormant, inscrutable.
The Doctor repeated the instruction to the Regulator to save the co-ordinates before returning to the TARDIS
console.