Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma (9 page)

He grabbed Azmael's hands and pressed them to his chest.

There you are. Two hearts that beat as one! I am a Time Lord - just as you are.'

That, Azmael couldn't deny, as the rhythmic pulsing of the twin hearts confirmed.

'And if you still pretend not to know me, let me remind you of our last meeting. That last night. You drank like twenty giants, and I pushed you in the fountain to sober you up.'

Azmael allowed a tiny smile to flicker across his lips.

He recalled the night only too well. They had laughed, drank and loved as though it had been their last day alive. He also recalled that the Doctor, as always, was without money, and he had had to pay for their joint self-indulgence.

Nodding, Azmael said, 'I must concede, you are who you say.'

The Doctor let out a loud cheer and fondly embraced his friend.

'But...' he added sternly, breaking away from the Doctor's grasp,

'this is not a good time to have met.'

'Whyever not?'

Azmael related the grim details concerning Mestor, the occupation of his planet and how he had kidnapped the twins.

When the story was finished, the Doctor shook his head sadly. 'Let me help you.'

'You can't.'

'Don't be absurd. Think of it-the two of us together. What an infallible combination!'

Azmael didn't agree. 'You were always full of good intentions. But I cannot risk your interference now. The destruction of Mestor is something I must do alone.'

The Doctor looked confused. 'What does that mean?'

'You will remain here... You will have warmth, light, considerable comfort... And something to keep you busy,' he added, indicating the main door.

The Doctor glanced at the portal, uncertain what he meant.

'As we leave, I shall scramble the locks of both the main door and the one to the ducting. Between them, they have twenty million million possible combinations. Even with your agile brain, my dear Doctor, 1 think it will take you more than a little time to sort either of them out.'

Without protest, the Doctor and Peri were secured in a small room while Azmael prepared to leave. As they had been led to their cell, Azmael had called out, 'If it's any comfort, Doctor, I too have fond memories of that evening by the fountain.'

The Doctor had found the statement somewhat ironic. If friendship added up to nothing more than fond memories, the universe didn't stand a chance. Friendship had to be a living, positive force if it were to have any value.

Perhaps Azmael was distressed by his revenge against Mestor.

Perhaps he needed to feel he could handle it alone.

But alone the individual is nothing. It is only with loving friends that there is a positive living future.

Still prostrate on the floor of the TARDIS console room, Lieutenant Hugo Lang woke with a sudden start and looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings.

Gradually, as though not to frighten or shock, the memories of recent events slowly trickled back into his mind, and he felt wretched.

In the space of a few hours, both his squadron and his career had been shot down in flames.

Slowly, Hugo climbed to his feet and made his way to the double doors that should have led to freedom, but they were locked.

Cautiously he looked around him, wondering where the Doctor had gone, if he were a prisoner, or what would happen to him next. The care and skill that had gone into tending his wounds seemed to suggest that the owner of the TARDIS didn't want him dead.

At least not for the time being.

Hugo felt the bruising on his sore neck and suddenly felt very tired. To die, he thought, might not be a bad thing. At least he wouldn't have to face a court martial.

Slowly, he slid down the double doors until he was seated on the floor. The drowsiness that filled his mind was beginning to take the upper hand.

Bewildered and confused, he fell asleep.

Awake, but just as confused, the Doctor examined the lock sealing the main door of the dome. True to his word, Azmael had scrambled the electronic circuitry on his departure.

At first, the Doctor had been confident that he could sort out the jumble fairly quickly, but closer examination had shown otherwise.

The possible combinations to operate the lock were even greater than Azmael had suggested.

Meanwhile, Peri, who had resigned herself to the fact that the dome would be her home for the rest of her natural life, had started to explore.

The first room she had discovered was the kitchen, complete with adjoining storeroom which contained enough food to keep a schoolful of hungry children sated for a millennium.

The delight of discovering that they wouldn't starve to death was somewhat dampened by the sight of the cooker. To say that an honours degree in theoretical engineering was necessary to successfully operate it, would have been an exaggeration. To observe that the controls resembled the flight deck of Concorde would not only have been cliched, but would also have been untrue. But to Peri, who had never even grasped the fundamentals of the microwave oven, learning to fly Concorde would have proved easier than learning how to boil water on such a monster.

Deciding that the Doctor would have to do the cooking, but then remembering how badly he did it, Peri left the kitchen feeling rather depressed.

The sight of the bedrooms, laboratories and greenhouse (the purpose of which was to provide the dome with fresh vegetables) lifted her spirits slightly. The library, considered the best this side of Magna Twenty-eight, lifted her spirits even more.

To die in the dome, she thought, wouldn't be a bad thing after all.

At least she wouldn't die ignorant.

And when she discovered the wine cellar, she also knew she wouldn't die sober.

Peri continued her tour of inspection, passing through the power plant, workshops and a compact cinema equipped to show film, video and many other visual mediums she had never seen before.

It wasn't until she entered the last corridor that her heart really sank. Before her was a door with a purple flashing light above it.

Written on the door was the legend: SELF-DESTRUCT

CHAMBER. NO UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL ALLOWED

ENTRY.

Not stopping to consider whether she was authorised or not, Peri pushed open the unlocked door. Inside the room she was greeted by a massive console, which flashed and winked reminding her whimsically of the last high school prom she had attended.

After examining the console more closely, all humour evaporated from her spirit and she felt sick. The device had been set to explode.

At first the Doctor didn't recognise the sound of Peri calling, being too intent on solving the problem of the lock. But as the calling became more insistent, he abandoned his task and shuffled off.

On arriving at the self-destruct chamber, the Doctor soon confirmed that Peri's panic was fully justified and, if the timer was accurate, it was to explode in the next few minutes.

Quickly, the Time Lord set about trying to deactivate the device, but soon learnt why whoever had set it hadn't bothered to lock the door on leaving. The unit was sealed, safe from interfering fingers, including the Doctor's.

'What do we do now?' said Peri urgently.

'Find another way of getting out of here. And very soon!'

As they entered the main area, the Doctor crossed to the revitalising modulator and started to fiddle with its control unit.

'What are you doing?' demanded Peri.

'You must remain absolutely quiet,' snapped the Doctor. 'I need all my concentration.'

At least he sounded sane. Peri was concerned that the discovery of the self-destruct device might have proved too much and induced another change of personality. So far it hadn't. But how would fiddling with what looked like a glass box help them to escape?

The Doctor continued to work, rapdily reducing the control to a mass of wires and printed circuits. With increased speed, he set about removing several modular units from the main console.

After careful examination of the units, his face lit up. 'I can do it, Peri! I can do it!'

'Do what, though?'

'Get us out of here!'

Quickly he carried the units to the revitalisation chamber and started to connect them to the dismembered control panel, using wire Peri was ordered to steal from anywhere she could.

As he worked, the recurring question constantly came into his mind. Why had Azmael, at one time his greatest friend, set the self-destruct unit to explode?

The more he thought, the less sense it seemed to make.

Putting aside their friendship, Azmael must have known it would have taken weeks to break out of the dome. Whatever Azmael had planned, he would have had plenty of time to carry it out with little fear of the Doctor's interference.

The Time Lord worked on, his old energy and presence of mind having returned. He felt a new man. He only hoped that his fresh inner self would have time to mature and mellow. To be atomised on a barren, miserable planet, whose only claim to fame was that its atmosphere-created feelings of melancholia, was not the way he intended to say farewell to the universe.

When not cannibalising machinery for its wire, Peri constantly flitted back and forwards to the self-destruct chamber to check the timer.

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 Lang watched as the Time Lord and his companion scuttled about the console room, flicking switches, pressing buttons and generally getting in each other's way.

'What are you doing?' he said at last.

The Doctor glanced at the intergalactic policeman and, for a moment, wondered who he was. Seeing Hugo's confused look, Peri piped: 'Going to Jaconda.'

'Why?'

'Do you always ask so many questions?' snapped the Doctor.

T'm a policeman. It's an occupational disease.' Then find a cure for it. We have work to do.' And with that said, the Doctor pressed the dematerialisation switch and the time rotor juddered into motion.