Doctor Who_ The Twin Dilemma - Eric Saward [30]
Four minutes, it said.
As she returned to the Doctor with this particularly depressing piece of news, he ordered her to enter the revitalising modulator.
'Why?'
'Just get in,' the Doctor insisted.
'But what will happen to me?'
The Doctor paused for thought. He was fairly certain what he had done would work, therefore wasting time explaining the principles of something Peri wouldn't understand seemed unnecessary. On the other hand, if he had been mistaken in any part of his wiring, she would be atomised the moment he pressed the master control.
The Doctor's dilemma was to tell or not to tell.
Under more normal circumstances he would have been more than happy to explain what was about to happen, but with less than four minutes before the self-destruct device exploded, there wasn't really the time.
There was also the possibility that Peri would resist entering the modulator cabinet if she knew the truth. If she stopped to argue, and they ran out of time, she would die anyway.
So what was the point of an explanation? he thought. But what confused him even more was why he was bothering to convince himself when death was almost imminent.
Quickly, the Doctor pushed the complaining Peri into the machine and slammed the door. He then made some rapid calculations, pressed the master switch and watched his panic-stricken friend dematerialise.
What the Doctor had done was really quite simple. As explained, the function of a revitalising modulator is precisely the same as a matter transporter, only it doesn't send you anywhere. To convert the machine into a transporter requires two things: a directional beam locater (i.e. a way of telling the machine where you want to go) and a transmission sequence (i.e. a way of sending - through time and space - what you've reduced to molecular globules).
By cannibalising various bits from the main console, the Doctor had managed to build or, more accurately, cobble together, the necessary components.
Whether they worked remained to be seen. Although Peri had dematerialised, she could in fact have been anywhere, in any condition, and that included being dead. But wherever she was and whatever state she was in, the Doctor would soon be joining her.
As the timer on the self-destruct device entered the last sixty seconds of its countdown, the Time Lord entered the revitalising modulator, set the controls and waited.
Nothing happened.
Frantically he checked the wiring for loose connections but found nothing. He then checked the master control - again nothing.
The countdown was now into its last thirty seconds.
As quickly as his shaking hands and panic-stricken mind would allow, the Doctor carefully rechecked his handywork, but still couldn't find the fault.
Finally, fraught with frustration and anger, he allowed his natural instinct as a trained and experienced scientist to take over. With all the energy and passion of a lecherous stallion he gave the revitalising modulator the heftiest kick the weight and strength of his leg would allow.
If that didn't work, then nothing would.
Again the Doctor clambered into the cabinet, sealed the door and threw the main switch. This time he was reduced to a sea of sparkling light, then he slowly faded.
It had worked!
No sooner had he gone than the timer on the self-destruct mechanism reached zero, made an electrical connection and exploded, causing the building to vaporise.
Gone was the finest library this side of Magna Twenty-eight. Gone was the most complicated cooker ever built in the history of the universe. Gone were the ghosts of the demented souls who had built and originally occupied the dome. Gone was the computer containing their last, tortured literary jottings.
Gone was everything to do with the dome on Titan Three.
It its place appeared a large, deep crater which was soon filled with grey dust.
Meanwhile at the TARDIS, two areas of space were filled by the Doctor and Peri materialising in the console room.
Bemused and a little insulted, as neither of the sudden arrivals even bothered to say hello, Lieutenant Hugo