Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma (6 page)

Azmael collapsed back into his chair, his body rigid and his mind raw. As the pain eased, he slowly opened his eyes and saw the sneering face of Noma. 'You never did understand the Lord Mestor's power,' he said. 'He's everywhere. Can do anything.'

Azmael was reluctant to concede that Mestor had the power of a deity, but he could not deny he had destroyed six fighters with little apparent effort. It also made him wonder how regularly Mestor monitored his thoughts and how much he knew of his plans to destroy the hateful gastropod.

Azmael watched as Noma operated the controls of the ship - he was preparing to land. It seemed that the Time Lord would be allowed to continue his work on Titan Three. This surprised him.

Perhaps Mestor wasn't as all-seeing as Noma thought.

It didn't occur to Azmael that Mestor knew precisely what he was up to and didn't care. He didn't need to. He had the power to kill the Time Lord any time, any place, he wanted.

It is strange how coincidence can seem to conspire. Titan Three has the reputation of being the most desolate and unvisited planet in the universe. Yet all of a sudden, disparate events had caused several parties to arrive more or less simultaneously.

First had been the Doctor and his highly distraught companion, Peri.

Nearby, and as yet unknown to the Doctor, Azmael's ship was making a controlled landing.

Closer still was Hugo Lang. His ship was far from controlled. But the firing of the retro rockets had had far more effect than he had dared hoped for.

On the ground, the Doctor and Peri emerged from the TARDIS and surveyed the bleak horizon. In spite of Peri's gallant attempt to persuade the Doctor to the contrary, he still wanted to be a hermit.

Worse still, he had decided that the TARDIS was too comfortable a place to live and that a dank, draughty cave would be much more suitable.

Like a Victorian explorer, his hand shielding his eyes against the dull, watery sun, the Doctor continued to scan the horizon. A cold wind had started to blow, disturbing the powdery, grey dust that covered the surface of the planet. Peri began to cough as she inhaled the dusty air and then started to shiver. The thought of spending the rest of her life in such an unpleasant environment did not please her at all and she felt as though she wanted to cry and cry.

What the Doctor felt at that particular moment was a mystery, even to himself. Although he still maintained his David Livingstone stance, his hand on his forehead like the peak of a cap, his mind, in fact, had gone blank. Even the deafening sound of screaming engines, like those of a starfighter falling out of control, couldn't penetrate the inner sanctum of his conscious mind.

It wasn't until the fighter crashed and exploded that his mind slipped back into gear.

Picking himself up from where he had been blown, the Doctor looked eagerly around. Some distance away he could see a burning wreck and was puzzled as to how it had got there. Peri, who had thrown herself flat on the ground the instant the fighter had appeared, also scrambled to her feet.

Without a word, the Doctor leapt forward towards the wreck.

Suddenly he wanted to be a hero. A ship had crashed. Lives were in danger. He must go to the rescue. With mightly bounds, he dashed across the rough terrain with Peri in pursuit.

As they approached the fighter, there was a small explosion sending up a column of flame and black smoke. This seemed to delight and excite the Doctor even more. In his mind this was real danger. Peri wished he still wanted to be a hermit.

As they arrived, they saw the body of Hugo lying near the wreck.

Fortunately he had been thrown clear before his ship had burst into flames. Quickly the Doctor felt for the young man's pulse. It was still there, weak, but still pumping.

With effortless ease, and much to Peri's amazement, the Doctor scooped up the unconscious pilot and ran back to the TARDIS.

While Peri searched for the medical kit, the Doctor examined Hugo for broken bones. Apart from the odd cut, a little bruising and a few burns, he seemed otherwise undamaged.

As Peri carried the medical kit into the console room, the TARDIS

shuddered slightly. The wreckage of the fighter had given up and exploded.

Peri noticed that once more the Doctor's expression had changed and wondered who he thought he was now. Christian Barnard?

Pasteur? Alexander Fleming? Madame Curie? Whoever he fancied himself to be, Peri hoped he had stopped being a hero and had forgotten about being a hermit.

As the Doctor dressed Hugo's wounds, the young man started to regain consciousness. The children...' he muttered, 'my ship ... my squadron!'

Suddenly Hugo's eyes were wide open. With unexpected speed, he pulled out a small gun from a holster at his waist. Using both hands to steady it, he pointed it at the Doctor. 'Murderer!' he screamed.

'You destroyed my whole command!'

Quickly, the Doctor snatched the gun and simultaneously chopped Hugo across the side of the neck. Instantly the pilot was rendered unconscious.

'He was going to kill me.' The Doctor's voice was squeaky with a mixture of outrage and fear.

'Poor guy... Think what he must have suffered.'

That is quite beside the point. For all you seem to care, I could be lying dead at your feet this very moment.'

'But you're not. You're safe, Doc.' She stressed the word Doc, knowing how much he hated the diminutive. 'The point is, can you save him?

The Doctor folded his arms and turned away. Such was his petulance that Peri expected him to mince out of the console room.

Instead, he said, 'You never cease to amaze me. You are asking me to revive a man who had every intention of terminating my life.'

'That's right.'

Peri leant forward, tugged at a plastic tag attached to the tunic of Hugo's jacket until it was free and held it up for the Doctor to read: Lieutenant Hugo Long, Intergalactic Task Force, 'A' Squadron.

'Oh ...' said the Doctor at last. 'A policeman.'

'That's right. Now get to work and make him well again!'

Reluctantly the Doctor bent down and continued his ministration.

The Time Lord was puzzled. He was aware that he was having lapses of memory, but couldn't understand why Peri was being so aggressive. Come to that, he couldn't remember why they had come to Titan Three. Perhaps the two things were linked.

In fact, the more the Doctor thought about the general situation, the more confused he became. Why had Hugo accused him of destroying his squadron? And who were the children he seemed so concerned about? Come to that, what was Hugo doing so far from his home planet? He couldn't imagine that Titan Three was part of his normal beat.

The more the Doctor wondered, the more he realised how confused and muddled his mind was. He would have to do something about it.

But what?

Titan Three has always been accused of being the bleakest, most miserable planet in the universe. Scenically, it is no bleaker than any other small planet devoid of vegetation. The real problem with Titan is that its thin atmosphere contains a very rare gas nicknamed Titan Melancholia. It isn't at all poisonous, but prolonged inhalation can cause depression in humanoid life forms.

Azmael had discovered Titan Three while searching for somewhere to live after his self-imposed exile from Gallifrey. At that time he very much wanted to be alone and Titan seemed to offer him precisely that.

He had been surprised when he had discovered buildings on the planet. And even more surprised when he had learnt they had been built by people from a nearby solar system that no longer existed.

It wasn't until he discovered a still functioning computer that he learnt of their sad fate.

Originally the buildings had been erected to house a research unit and monitoring base for the solar system, Maston Viva. Before building the centre, all the usual checks and tests had been made, including a close examination of the atmosphere. Although a gas unknown to the Mastons (Titan Melancholia) had been detected, exhaustive research seemed to indicate it was inert and safe to breathe. So the centre was built.

It wasn't until some time later that it was noticed that people who spent more than six months on the planet became strangely depressed. At first this was dismissed as nothing more than an over-reaction to Titan's bleak environment, so the tour of duty was shortened to three months.

This did little to help.

Scientist, technician and labourer alike started to abandon their work in favour of writing long, introverted, painfully self-critical novels and essays. When summoned home, they refused to go, preferring to stay on Titan to complete their self-imposed tasks.

Such was the all pervading gloom of the place that Mein Kampf and the works of Strindberg were read as light comic relief.

It was during one of these intense periods of introspection that an enormous burst of radiation wiped out the population of Maston Viva. The scientists, whose function it was to warn of such impending disasters, were mortified. On checking their computers, they found that the radiation cloud had been visible for days, and if they had been more attentive to their duties, the danger could have been neutralised.

Suddenly, the pain of life had overtaken the agony of art. There was little left for the scientists to do. After each of them had completed a long, soul-searching autobiography, they committed mass suicide.

They were the first and last victims of Titan Melancholia. Shortly afterwards, it was discovered that a daily glass of Voxnic acted as the perfect antidote to the side effect of the gas. But such were the terrible events that had taken place on the planet that nobody wanted to live there.

Originally Azmael had earmarked the planet as a bolt-hole in case the High Council of Gallifrey had changed its mind and again sent a squad of Seedle Warriors to kill him.

But that was a long time ago.

Nowadays, Seedle Warriors seemed relatively harmless compared with the paranoid ambition displayed by Mestor.

Yet here he was again, this time watching two immature boys struggle with chalk and blackboard to complete equations that had been set for them.

The twins weren't happy, being unused to such primitive implements. Their fingers were sore from holding the chalk and their arms ached from the effort of scratching their calculations on the squeaky blackboard. Although they had complained bitterly, Azmael had shown little sympathy. 'You've brought this on yourself. If you hadn't rigged that silly distress beacon aboard my ship, I would have let you use the computer... Now I can't trust you.'

The twins worked on, but they were running out of patience. The drug which controlled their minds was beginning to weaken, and their stubbornness was returning.

'There's no point to what we're doing,' complained Remus.

That's right,' echoed Romulus. 'Why don't you tell us what this is about? The equations you've set us could be done by an idiot. You don't need us for this sort of work.'

Azmael nodded. Romulus was absolutely right. What they had been given to do was simply to test their cooperation and the accuracy of their work. Mestor had insisted.

'To be honest. I do not know what is intended for you. You must understand that I am also a prisoner. I must do as I am told.'

The twins weren't certain whether to believe him. 'Then tell us who your master is,' they said as one voice.

Cautiously, Azmael looked over his shoulder as though expecting to find Mestor listening. 'His name would mean nothing,' he said quietly. 'But understand that he is a creature of infinite ambition.'

Azmael glanced over his shoulder once more. 'He will use anything and anyone to gain his ends.'

'Including us?' said Romulus.

Azmael nodded. 'He requires the gift of your genius.'

'He shan't have it,' said Remus, cutting in. 'We shall fight him if necessary.'

As the boy spoke, a swirl of red light formed into a hologram of the most repulsive creature the twins had ever seen.

It was Mestor.

'Fight me!' his rasping voice boomed. 'Beware, boy ... So far, I have been prepared to put up with your childish obduracy. But no longer! Fail to obey me and 1 shall have your minds removed from your bodies and use them as I wish... Do you understand?'

Terrified, the twins nodded. As they did, the image of Mestor faded.

‘I did try to warn you,' said Azmael. 'Believe what Mestor says. He does not make idle threats.'

Lieutenant Hugo Lang lay prostrate on the floor of the TARDIS

console room, his wounds dressed, a pillow under his head and a blanket covering his body. He looked cosy and snug, which is more than the Doctor did.

Something was agitating him.

Peri watched, as the restless Time Lord paced up and down like a caged tiger, and feared what he might do next.

'Something's very wrong.' The Doctor's voice had changed slightly, his diction had become more precise. Peri wondered who he thought he was this time. 'As a rule, most deduction is elementary, requiring little more than the application of logic. But to be honest,'he continued, indicating Hugo, 'the current situation has me baffled. Something is very amiss, my dear Peri. I sense evil at work.'

'The lieutenant isn't evil.'

'I'm not talking about him.'

'Then who?'

'The person behind the reason that brought him here.'

Peri was not only becoming confused, but concerned. She didn't want the Doctor to become involved in yet more trouble.

'Can't we just leave?' she said plaintively. 'Whatever may be going on here doesn't concern us.'

'It certainly does.' The Doctor paused in his pacing. 'My very being exists to solve crimes. I have spent a lifetime developing my powers of observation. Married to my unerring sense of logic, I have refined the routine of criminal investigation to that of a science!'

Suddenly Peri knew who the Doctor thought he was: Sherlock Holmes. How long, she wondered, would it be before he was racing across the planet looking for Professor Moriarty?