• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 904 0

Of course that had been obvious from the actions of his other self: murder, kidnap, seemingly random destructive acts. This disturbed Larna, not for its violation of the criminal law, but the physical ones. Time Lords felt time flow through them, but more than that, they helped to shape and refine time and space around them. All sentient life did this, of course, their observations helping to resolve quantum events, bring the universe into its current form according to the four anthropic principles. But because of their unique powers and the scope of their technology, Time Lords did more than most races to affect the universe. Their victories in the Time Wars fought in the generations after Rassilon had helped to stabilise the cosmos, they had laid down the foundations of the modern, rationalistic universe. Would a mad Time Lord have the opposite effect? Would his insanity become contagious, affecting the past and the future like a virus?

When he had finished, Savar stood there panting like an animal, exhausted by his rants. The Doctor had glanced across to Larna, who had smiled nervously. The Doctor was an adept telepath, one of the most proficient that Larna had known, but Savar’s powers seemed to be in a league of their own. She could feel his mind snarling at her. A further sign of his mental instability – that he couldn’t even keep his thoughts to himself?

‘The Effect can change the past?’ The Doctor asked.

‘Yes,’ Savar replied calmly.

There was a look in the Doctor’s eyes, an intensity. These two men had a lot in common, Larna realised. Both had left the Capitol, seen the universe and been changed by the experience. Needless to say, the Doctor’s experiences had been a great deal more enriching. Both were explorers, but Savar was dangerous, the things he had seen had been destructive, deathly.

‘Changing the past is impossible,’ Larna interjected. ‘It’s an alchemist’s dream, like being able to reverse entropy or see the future.’

‘The Time Lords of old could see the future,’ the Doctor noted.

‘It’s a fairy story, unscientific rubbish.’

The Doctor looked over to her, flashing a quick smile.

‘That’s exactly what Rassilon said.’

‘What would you do with the power to change the past?’

Savar asked.

The Doctor looked away. ‘We have to see the Council,’ he told Larna quietly. ‘We have to take Savar to them, give him a chance to argue his case.’

Larna couldn’t believe what she had just heard. ‘He killed Waym, he killed those other two Time Lords, kidnapped me and that guard…’

The Doctor nodded, brushing her face with the back of his hand. ‘And he’ll pay for his crimes,’ he promised. ‘But he holds the key to this, literally. This all started because of the damage his TARDIS caused to spacetime.’

‘What are you saying there?’ Savar asked from the other end of the room. All these years it had seemed that everyone bar a handful of people had been unsettled by Savar. All these years Larna had been disgusted by the others’

dismissal of him, their taunts and quiet bullying. All these years, the bullies had been right: Savar was creepy, there was something sinister about him.

‘We have to see the Council,’ Savar agreed. ‘You must convince them that I am right.’

‘No!’ the Doctor said softly. ‘They will not listen. They will try to harness the Effect.’

Savar rubbed his chin. ‘That must not be allowed to happen.’

‘You’ve changed your tune,’ Larna said. ‘You wanted to rescue Omega, or Ohm, or whoever it is down there.’

‘The blind Savar wants that,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘But you don’t, do you?’

‘My other self is a servant of Ohm. I sense that there is an evil at work. I want to seal off the future, prevent access. We can seal the breach in spacetime from here.’

‘You haven’t gone out of your way to persuade them,’

Larna shouted back.

The Doctor stepped between them. ‘No, no, he hasn’t.

Although to be fair, it would certainly take some explaining…

According to his logic, the Council doesn’t matter. The universe is going to end, so individual lives are of infinitesimal importance. That’s not a philosophy that is filling