Shada

by Douglas Adams

  The first concerned events on a primitive world called Tara. The Doctor allowed himself to become embroiled in the piffling politics of the planet, siding with one faction against another. The Doctor made a show of acting under duress, but it was clear to Skagra that he was carelessly and irresponsibly enjoying himself. It was not exactly a bad video-text, just a rather bland one.

  The second text told of intrigue on the third moon of Delta Magna, where a future Earth methane-refinery and some natives were being menaced by an enormous swamp creature known as Kroll. Again, the Doctor behaved with unbecoming frivolity throughout.

  Finally Skagra reviewed a text that told of another enormous creature, this one inhabiting a pit on a planet called Chloris. Skagra noted how the Doctor seemed to react to danger and the threat of death with nonchalance, masking his Time Lord wisdom. It was a pathetic ploy that seemed to fool the low-grade antagonists he encountered.

  Skagra found himself bristling. There was something about this Doctor that got under his skin. He was so messy, so silly. He needed to be tidied away. He’d wipe the imbecilic, toothy grin off the man’s stupid face for ever –

  Skagra stilled himself. He was not prey to such instinctive, animal reactions. Looked at objectively, the Doctor was nothing but a shambling fool, a 1 out of 10 Time Lord larking about on 2 out of 10 planets.

  ‘So,’ he said out loud, ‘he is an ordinary Time Lord, albeit with an extraordinary lifestyle. He has no more power than the others.’

  ‘Indeed, my lord,’ said the soothing voice.

  Skagra nodded curtly. ‘Only one has the power I seek. And when I have the book that power shall be mine.’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said the voice.

  ‘Get me the Command Station,’ Skagra ordered.

  The data-window flickered and resolved into a new image. A face.

  ‘All goes well,’ said Skagra. ‘I shall be with you very soon. And then, let the universe prepare itself for me.’

  A voice rumbled sepulchrally from the screen, echoing around the command deck. The words were clear, but they were accompanied by a sound like an exceptionally irritated earthquake. ‘Everything is ready, my lord.’

  Skagra gazed on the face of his most glorious and most terrifying creation. The red eyes glowed like twin furnaces. The roughly hewn features were formed from living rock. Smoke billowed from the creature’s granite skin.

  With the Kraags at his side, and the book in his possession, Skagra would be unstoppable. Shada was in his reach!

  Part Two

  An Uncharitable Deduction

  Chapter 14

  UNAWARE OF THE impending threat to the universe, Clare Keightley checked her hair in one of the porthole windows of the physics lab’s double doors, then knocked.

  ‘Come in,’ called Chris, sounding oddly preoccupied.

  Clare went in. She was puzzled. She was used to Chris being hesitant and nervous where she was concerned. In fact she was used to most people at Cambridge being hesitant and nervous where she was concerned.

  When she’d first arrived at Cambridge five years earlier as an undergraduate, fresh from a sixth-form comp in Manchester, she’d been surprised at how nervous and hesitant everyone in the faculty seemed to be. She formulated a theory that they had stumbled upon some massive discovery that would change the world for ever and were keeping it a closely guarded secret. It had taken her a few weeks to realise that the hushed voices, sweaty palms and nervous glances of her fellow students were actually because she was female. Most of them knew women only as mothers, matrons and chums’ sisters.

  As they’d got to know her, the ice had thawed. All of them had come to relax around her at least a little, apart from Chris, whose face could not hide a micro-expression of terror whenever he first encountered her. And that was, peculiarly, one of the reasons why Clare liked him so much. He was clumsy and gauche. You weren’t supposed to find that sexy. But Clare loved doing things you weren’t supposed to, like coming from a council flat and becoming a top scientist. So she did.

  This time was different. Irritatingly different, given the circumstances. She was leaving in three days, for goodness’ sakes. If Chris was going to make his move, he should be down on one knee, or at least hovering hesitantly and nervously as per. Instead he was sat at a desk, boggling – that was the only word for it – boggling at a small red book, five by seven inches. He didn’t even look up as she came in.

  ‘Chris?’

  ‘Ssh,’ he said, turning the little book over and over in his hands and continuing to boggle.

  ‘What do you mean, “Ssh”?’ said Clare. ‘You told me to drop everything and come running. So I did!’

  Chris turned the pages of the book, shaking his head and tutting to himself.

  ‘I can easily go away again,’ said Clare.

  At last Chris looked up. ‘Then you’ll miss something extraordinary!’

  Clare sighed. ‘What?’

  ‘Something quite extraordinary,’ said Chris.

  Clare had had enough. ‘Why are you being so pompous and odd?’ she asked.

  Chris waved the book at her. ‘This book, Keightley! This book will do to the world of science what the Japanese did to Pearl Harbour!’

  ‘What, dive-bomb it?’ She sat down. ‘I didn’t know you were writing a book.’

  ‘I didn’t write it!’ cried Chris excitedly, as if it were the most obvious thing. ‘I found it.’

  ‘What, just lying about?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. Sort of. This book…’ He weighed it in his hand. ‘It’s… it’s staggering.’

  ‘Right,’ said Clare perfunctorily. ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘Called?’ Chris laughed. ‘Called? How should I know what it’s called?’

  Clare fought down another wave of irritation. ‘Please get to the point, I’ve got lots to do.’

  Chris opened the book and handed it over to her, gently, as if it was a bomb. ‘Feel that paper. Go on, feel it. Feel it! What does it feel like?’

  Clare did as instructed. ‘I’m afraid it feels rather like paper, Chris.’

  ‘Aha!’ cried Chris.

  Clare made an impatient noise. ‘Aha, what?’

  ‘Tear it! Go on. Tear it, try to tear it!’

  ‘That’s no way to treat a book,’ said Clare. ‘A book that isn’t even yours. Who does it belong to?’

  Chris batted her objections aside. ‘Old Chronotis. Professor at St Cedd’s. Barmy. Or senile. Or both. Doesn’t matter. Tear it!’

  Clare decided that the quickest way to stop Chris being so irritating was to let him have his moment. She tried to tear a corner off a page. It resisted.

  Despite herself, she flinched. That was odd.

  Chris nodded at her like a hungry puppy. ‘Aha!’

  ‘All right, so it’s made of strong paper,’ said Clare.

  Chris handed her a knife. ‘Aha! Cut it, then! Go on, cut it!’

  ‘Presumably I won’t be able to,’ said Clare, handing back the knife along with the book. ‘OK, so it’s a wonderful new kind of paper. Hurrah for super-paper. Hardly constitutes a dive-bomb attack on the world of science, or whatever you said.’

  Chris raised a finger and opened his mouth to form a vowel sound.

  ‘Don’t say aha!’ Clare warned him. ‘Really, don’t say aha! I will kill you if you say aha.’

  Chris swallowed. ‘Right then. Tell me what you think it’s made of then, this new kind of paper.’

  Clare shrugged. ‘I dunno. Plastic.’

  Chris raised a finger and opened his mouth to form a vowel sound.

  ‘I will kill you,’ Clare warned again.

  ‘I checked,’ said Chris. ‘Not plastic. Not a polymer in sight.’

  ‘All right then.’ Despite Chris’s incredible irritatingness, Clare was beginning to get intrigued. ‘Is it metal?’

  ‘There’s no crystalline structure,’ said Chris. ‘At all!’

  Clare thought. ‘A single crystal then?’

 
Chris huffed. ‘If it is, our Mr Dalton’s got a lot of explaining to do.’ He hunched forward, getting closer to Clare than he ever had before. That was more like it, thought Clare. ‘That’s the fascinating thing,’ he went on. ‘Yes, I think it is a crystal – but no, it can’t be a crystal. Half of it’s stable all the time, half of it none of the time. There is absolutely no way of telling what it’s made of.’

  Clare coughed and looked meaningfully over at a machine in the corner, which was now covered up by a big tea towel for some reason. ‘Er, spectrographic analysis?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Chris, crossing to the spectrograph with an irritating saunter. ‘Oh yes, I got a positive result from the spectrograph all right. Oh yes, ho-ho.’

  ‘Please, the point!’ Clare insisted.

  Chris whipped off the tea towel with a flourish, revealing a large black stain. ‘It blew up!’

  ‘OK, all right. That is very weird.’ Clare considered for a moment. ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘What’s what about?’

  ‘The book. What’s it about?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, do I?’ Chris flicked the book open and flicked the pages at her. ‘Looks like a cross between Chinese and algebra.’ He put the book into her hands again. ‘Actually – try and read it. Go on.’

  Clare flicked through the book. The contents were gibberish. ‘Not getting anything, sorry.’

  ‘No – flashes?’ prompted Chris, looking slightly disappointed. ‘No – visions?’ He rubbed his hands together, looking almost as hesitant and nervous as normal.

  ‘Flashes and visions?’ Clare frowned.

  Chris took the book from her. ‘No, of course not, that would be ridiculous. I mean, even more ridiculous.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask old Whatsisname?’ suggested Clare. ‘The professor you nicked it from.’

  ‘I didn’t nick it, I accidentally borrowed it,’ blustered Chris. He looked thoughtful. ‘Yes, ask Chronotis, that’s the obvious thing to do, I suppose.’

  Clare sighed. ‘Is that why you haven’t done it yet?’

  Chris picked up his jacket. ‘You’re a genius! Er – look after the book, make yourself at home, I’ll be back in half an hour.’

  ‘I’ve got things to do,’ Clare started to protest – but then she stopped herself and smiled as Chris bustled out.

  He hadn’t thought of doing the obvious thing. He’d made an incredible discovery, and the first thing he’d thought of was getting her over and impressing her. And he’d just failed to do the other obvious thing and take the book with him, instead entrusting it to her. That was almost worth his incredibly irritating excitability.

  Clare tried to make herself at home. A cup of tea would be nice.

  While she waited for the kettle to boil, she wandered over to where the book sat and idly opened it at a random page.

  And then she jumped back. Because for just a second, surging up in her mind’s eye, she’d seen a face. A malignant face. A face made out of rock, with twin furnaces for its eyes.

  Chapter 15

  THE DOCTOR AND Romana had nearly completed their hunt for the Professor’s very special book. Working methodically from either end of the room, they had been through almost every one of the thousands of titles, and the Professor’s quarters looked, if it were possible, even more of a mess than before. Now they were checking off the last few books.

  Romana had the sinking feeling that The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey was not going to be among them. ‘Roget’s Thesaurus,’ she said, stacking yet another book on top of a tottering pile.

  The Doctor did the same on his side. ‘British Book of Wildlife, in colour.’

  ‘Alternative Betelgeuse,’ said Romana, tossing aside the travel guide.

  ‘The Time Machine,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Wuthering Heights,’ said Romana.

  There were now only two books left. The Doctor took a deep breath and reached for one of them. His shoulders slumped. ‘Tandoori Chicken For Starters.’

  Romana flung her last book down in absolute disgust. ‘Chariots of the Gods.’

  ‘So,’ said the Doctor. ‘No sign of The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey.’

  Romana glanced at the open kitchen door. The Professor was inside, making another inevitable round of teas. ‘Do you really think it’s important?’ she whispered.

  ‘Of course!’ exploded the Doctor. ‘It’s one of the Artefacts!’

  Romana chose her next words carefully. ‘Other than for its historical value?’

  The Doctor bit his lip. ‘Each of the Artefacts was imbued with stupendous power. The meanings were lost millennia ago, but those powers remain. And the ancient rituals, of course.’

  Romana cast her mind back. ‘I never really thought about the rituals. I just mouthed along to the words like everyone else.’

  ‘Remind me,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s been a while. Isn’t there one that refers specifically to our missing book?’

  Romana frowned. ‘Oh yes. At the Academy’s induction ceremony. How did it go? “I swear to protect—”’

  The Doctor nodded vigorously. ‘Oh yes, of course. “I swear to protect The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey with all my might and main, and I will, to the end of my days, with justice and with honour, temper my actions and my thoughts.”’

  Romana smiled. ‘Harmless enough words.’

  The Doctor looked as if he might explode again. ‘Pompous enough words. From a pompous lot, all grand intentions but no actions.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ countered Romana. ‘What about you, for instance? Plenty of actions.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m the exception that proves the rule,’ said the Doctor, not entirely unpompously.

  ‘And there’ve been others,’ Romana pointed out. ‘What about Drax?’

  The Doctor smiled. ‘Ha! Drax!’

  Romana thought back to their adventure on the planet Atrios, where she’d encountered her second renegade Time Lord. Drax, a contemporary of the Doctor, had left Gallifrey and spent his time running a slightly shady intergalactic salvage and repair operation.

  ‘And the Corsair,’ said the Doctor. ‘Though he’s one of the good ’uns, really. We must catch up with her sometime.’

  ‘And the Master, of course,’ Romana went on.

  The Doctor gave her a sombre look. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And then there’s the Rani. And Morbius, don’t forget Morbius.’

  ‘How could I?’ spluttered the Doctor. ‘He nearly knocked my block off.’ He gazed into mid-air, looking back into his own past. ‘And there was the Meddling Monk.’

  ‘And the Interfering Nun,’ added Romana. ‘And going back a bit, there was the Heresiarch of Drornid. And Subjatric.’

  ‘Subjatric and Rundgar,’ the Doctor corrected her. ‘They were quite a team, those bad brothers. Terrible tyrants, the stories say. Drowned their own mother in a leaky SIDRAT.’

  ‘And what about Salyavin?’ said Romana.

  The Doctor frowned. ‘Oh yes, him. Awesome psychic powers, they said…’

  ‘Did you ever meet any of them, the ancient outlaws?’ asked Romana. ‘The legends always made them sound so terrifying.’

  The Doctor spluttered, looking insulted at the suggestion. ‘I certainly did not! I’m not that old!’

  ‘Weren’t you ever tempted to see them for yourself?’ asked Romana.

  The Doctor harrumphed. ‘I don’t go running up and down the Gallifreyan timeline, Romana. I have my limits! It could cause the most terrible paradoxes!’

  Romana regretted asking. ‘All right.’

  ‘No, Salyavin was long gone, and long before I was born,’ said the Doctor. ‘Subjatric and Rundgar too, and Lady Scintilla, all of those old ne’er-do-wells.’

  ‘What happened to them?’ asked Romana. Her Gallifreyan history was usually better than the Doctor’s, but on this occasion she couldn’t quite recall the details.

  The Doctor puffed out his cheeks. ‘Do you know, I can’t
remember.’ He called out into the kitchen. ‘Professor?’

  ‘Yes?’ the Professor called back. ‘Nearly done.’

  ‘Lady Scintilla. And Salyavin. And Subjatric and Rundgar, the terrible tyrants. What became of them? We’re regrettably cloudy on the details.’

  The Professor ran suddenly into the room, his face wild with excitement and worry. ‘I’ve just remembered!’

  ‘I only just asked you,’ said the Doctor, reasonably.

  ‘Asked me what?’

  ‘What happened to the Ancient Outlaws,’ said Romana. ‘Lady Scintilla and Salyavin and all the rest.’

  The Professor frowned, obviously not taking in what she was saying at all. ‘Salyavin? Scintilla? I’m not talking about them. Good riddance to them! We must find the book!’

  ‘Professor, what do you think we’ve been doing?’ said the Doctor.

  The Professor waved his arm dismissively. ‘I just remembered! There was a young man here earlier. Came to borrow some books. He might have taken it whilst I was out of the room making tea.’

  The Doctor leapt over to the Professor’s side. ‘What was his name, Professor?’

  The Professor tutted and drummed his fingers against his temples. ‘Oh, I can’t remember. Oh dear, I’ve got a memory like… Oh, what is it I’ve got a memory like? What’s that thing you strain rice with?’

  ‘What was his name, Professor?’ urged Romana. ‘Was he Tall? Short? Young? Old?’

  The Professor jabbed a finger in the air triumphantly. ‘I remember!’ he exclaimed. ‘Yes, I remember!’

  ‘Who was he?’ demanded the Doctor. ‘Tell us!’

  ‘A sieve!’ cried the Professor, exultant. ‘That’s what it is! I’ve got a memory like a sieve!’

  There was a pause.

  ‘What was the young man’s name, Professor?’ asked the Doctor again.

  ‘Oh, I can’t remember that,’ said the Professor airily.

  Romana took the Professor’s hand and gave him her warmest smile. He seemed such a nice old man. ‘Oh, Professor, please try.’

  The Professor squinted. ‘A… A…’ He paused. ‘No, it doesn’t begin with A.’