Doctor Who_ The Infinity Doctors - Lance Parkin [68]
‘The Peace Conference is due to resume at dawn, a few hours from now. No doubt he will resurface then.’ The President leant forwards,
the President and a handful of the Council were authorised to make such changes. The two noblemen monitored his work, as their duties demanded.
Gradually the five-dimensional map of the timegate began sketching itself in on the display screen, tracing a line parallel to the Effect. As each stage of the journey was plotted, the power requirements were calculated. It would take almost all of the energy generated by the Black Hole to keep the timegate open.
There was an industrial-looking piece of machinery hanging from the ceiling. It was hexagonal, With a number of glass arrays and prisms stuck to the underside. As the President blinked in his authority codes and set up new power channels, the machine began humming, lights began fading up from within it. Within seconds, a column of energy began cascading down. The energy glittered and sparkled like a waterfall: golds and silvers and platinums glinting in the dim light of the room. Before this column reached the floor, though, it twisted into another dimension. Human eyes would have seen it abruptly cut off a foot or so from the floor.
Gallifreyans were more sensitive to time, and saw it twist away like a tornado.
‘Ergosphere at full phase,’ the first nobleman announced.
‘Time column stable,’ the other confirmed, The Magistrate came into existence. There was no distortion, no delay in the image despite the fact it was being transmitted from many light years away. It was as if the Magistrate was in the room, to the extent that the air moved around the image, and it radiated heat.
‘Preparations here are complete,’ the Magistrate informed his President. ‘The crew have been briefed, our equipment is ready and the TARDISes have been stowed.’
The President acknowledged the news with a small smile.
‘Good work, old friend.’
The Magistrate Smirked at the expression. ‘Is the Doctor there?’ The President shook his head.
‘Doesn’t he know about this mission?’
‘We can’t find the Doctor anywhere.’
The Magistrate digested the knowledge. ‘If this mission should fail, then the Doctor will be Gallifrey’s only hope.’
‘The Peace Conference is due to resume at dawn, a few hours from now. No doubt he will resurface then.’ The President leant forwards, conspiratorially, ‘The Lady Larna is missing, too.’ He straightened, beaming. ‘Besides, your mission will not fail. Remember, Magistrate, that I have consulted the Matrix. This is to be a momentous time for Gallifrey.’
‘You know the future?’
‘Not all of it,’ the President admitted. ‘The Matrix merely shows me the pattern of what is to come, not the detail. But, Magistrate, soon you won’t just know the future: soon you will walk amongst it.’
The Magistrate made a curt, almost military, nod. ‘Is the timegate ready?’ he asked.
‘See for yourself.’ He indicated the screen.
The Magistrate looked over his shoulder. The display was lurid, and anyone who knew about such things would be able to see that the flight plan was preposterous and the power requirements were absurd.
‘It is,’ the President confirmed.
The Magistrate hesitated, perhaps because he realised that he could see the Station in which he was standing on the display, a tiny mote surrounded by raging energies. The history of the universe was represented by a long, spiralling line running up the screen. The past was marked in blue, the present and known future in green, the unknown in red. At this scale, the blue could hardly be seen, the green didn’t even register, and the red line accounted for over ninety-nine percent of the total length.
‘Time moves in circles,’ the President noted. It was an old Gallifreyan proverb, one that was literally and metaphorically true. The display showed the time spiral, the map of time.
Usually, the Time Lords only concerned themselves with the first few hundred coils of the helix.
The Magistrate raised his head, his teeth bared in