Doctor Who_ The Infinity Doctors - Lance Parkin [64]
Hedin was worried. ‘The source of the Effect is out of our reach. No TARDIS can make such a journey.’ He was right, of course. The Time Vortex petered out a little before the universe stopped expanding, marking the point beyond which no TARDIS could travel.
The Magistrate nodded. ‘Our Infinity Chambers are barely able to discern the Source, even with the energies it is pouring out. It is like looking for a distant planet with an optical telescope.’
Lord Norval was rubbing his beard. ‘But we can’t travel there, can we? Even if we found a pathway, a TARDIS can travel – what? – no more than a few billion years between refuelling. It would take a billion such journeys – it would take us a hundred million years to get there.’
The Magistrate nodded. ‘At the very least. Which is why the president has authorised the construction of a timegate.
Essentially this will be a hole in spacetime, powered and controlled from Gallifrey. We will pilot this Station through the timegate, where it will be our base of operations.’
The other Time Lords were looking concerned. The Technicians and Guards had stopped working. They were sworn to protect time, and here they were contemplating punching a hole in it.
‘There is a degree of risk in the journey,’ the Magistrate conceded. ‘There will be damage to spacetime – nothing that we can’t retroactively repair. But we already know the dangers of leaving the Source unguarded.’
‘The fleet will be flying blind,’ Lord Quarduk noted.
‘Indeed. And when we arrive in the far future, we will be all but cut off from Gallifrey. There will be a single link to the Eye of Harmony. Through it we will be able to communicate with the High Council and draw the energy we will need.’
Norval folded his arms. ‘And we are to take control of the Source.’
The Magistrate nodded. ‘Our first priority will be to establish an exclusion zone around the Source, to prevent other races from taking control.’
One of the Time Lords laughed. ‘No other race could reach it, let alone harness it.’
‘We do not know everything about our future,’ Hedin cautioned. ‘Races may well emerge in the interim with the necessary capabilities and technologies.’
‘If another race reaches the Source before we do,’ the Magistrate informed them solemnly, ‘then Gallifrey – our entire universe – will be defenceless. We must make this journey, and we must succeed.’
Wycliff stirred a moment before it arrived.
There was a wheezing, groaning sound and a battered wardrobe materialised in the centre of the Doctor’s room. The floorboards creaked a little under the new weight. After a short pause, the door opened, and Savar stepped out, pulling Larna behind him.
‘Find the key,’ he ordered calmly, releasing her.
Larna brushed her hair back into place with her hand, her eyes adjusting to the light. The control room of Savar’s TARDIS had been dark. ‘I still don’t see what is so important about it.’
‘All will become clear.’
‘Why can’t you just talk to the Council? Or the Doctor? If you know anything at all about the disturbance in spacetime then you should tell them. They might be able to stop it.’
Larna had reached the table and had found the bunch of keys. She held them in her hand, examined them. They were perfectly ordinary.
Savar snatched them from her. ‘There is only one way that I can end this.’
‘I might help you.’ She tried to put a hint in her voice that the help would be psychological in nature.
‘No.’ He turned to her, his expression pained. ‘No. You would try to prevent me from doing what I must.’ He felt the keys, selected the one he wanted and discarded the rest.
He herded her back towards his TARDIS.
Thoughts swirled within the Rutan, formless thoughts, indecipherable to the lesser races. The Sontaran meat-warrior was hunched over the control station of the Doctor’s time machine. It was unable to fathom the instruments, there was nothing in this creature’s crude experience that had prepared him for this. Its animal mentality had become