‘My coming back, you mean? The reversal of time-fade? Now that my selves have been threaded back into time – some of them, at least? But take heart, Doctor: they could be anywhere. Some of me probably didn’t survive the transition through time. Who knows where we came out?’
‘They turned against you, at the end. Is it all going to be forgiven now?’
‘You mean, can I expect to be at war with my other selves, for the rest of time?’ The Master seemed to consider the possibility for the first time. ‘I relish the prospect. I have always been the strongest of them. You saw it yourself. The Sild needed me more than they needed any other of my incarnations.’
‘Only you could feel contempt for yourself!’
‘With justification. I am still here. They were scattered at the mercy of the time ruptures.’
‘Something’s wrong,’ the Doctor said suddenly. ‘Metabolic breakdown’s proceeding too far. It should have started reversing by now, reassembling her.’ Anxiously he tapped controls. ‘No … it’s not meant to do that.’ He looked up. ‘Morphological coherence fading. I’m losing her.’
‘I always said it was futile.’
‘Don’t just stand there!’ The Doctor continued to do his best, but the pattern of lights was dancing beyond his control. The Infinite Cocoon’s humming and gurgling had ratcheted to a new level, like a cement mixer about to shake itself to pieces. ‘If you’ve a shred of decency anywhere left in you, you must assist!’
‘She’s too far gone.’
‘I don’t believe you. When you programmed the Cocoon to work on your own mind, it was like child’s play. You understand these symbols, these controls, far better than I ever did. Now put that genius to good use!’
The Master closed his eyes, sighed. ‘I still maintain that there is nothing we can do for her. But if you will insist on my demonstrating that futility …’ He opened his eyes, walking to the Doctor’s side. ‘For the sake of argument, I shall assign basic regenerative parameters to your side of the control matrix.’ He executed a quick, fluent sequence of commands. ‘I shall take care of the higher functions. You need only follow my lead, and attempt not to make too much of a hash of things.’ The Master made a show of cracking his gloved knuckles. ‘Are we ready?’
‘Get on with it!’
The Master’s hands became a blur of motion. ‘Re-imprinting morphic boundaries. Locking anatomical control parameters. Why did you not do this before?’
‘Because … never mind.’ It was all the Doctor could do now to match the Master’s work.
‘Chemical gradients normalising. Flow rates asymptotic. You’re drifting: stay with me, Doctor.’
‘I’m doing my best.’
‘Yes, and therein lies the tragedy.’ The Master’s fingers were an arpeggiating blur, like a concert pianist navigating the most technically difficult of passages. ‘Neural forms rebranching. Track those growth vectors, Doctor! Track and anticipate – work with the Cocoon, not against it. Yes, good. Good! You’re learning!’
‘She’s coming back.’
‘I hardly dare believe it.’ But it was true. The pattern of lights on the control matrix was slowing, the Cocoon easing its humming and gurgling. ‘Indications show normal human physiology, all biological functions restored and stable.’
‘We did it,’ the Doctor said.
It fell to the Master to sound a cautionary note. ‘Let us not get ahead of ourselves – we have no idea what her mental state has become. The Cocoon may have wiped her clean, left her with a complete absence of memory and personality.’
The machine had stopped. The lid began to slide open. The Doctor and the Master left their positions and moved to the side opposite the opening lid. Both of them seemed to hesitate before looking inside.
‘She’s alive,’ the Doctor said, observing the slow rise and fall of her chest.
‘Not just alive, Doctor!’ The Master shook his head in obvious amazement. ‘She is physiologically much younger than when she went in! How remarkable!’
‘Almost as if she’s been regenerated,’ the Doctor said.
‘The power of this device … complete control over the biology of living forms … in the wrong hands, it could do terrible things!’
‘Don’t start getting ideas, old chap. Here. Help me get her out.’
The two men leaned in and extracted Edwina McCrimmon from the Infinite Cocoon. The machine had digested, and then reconstituted, exactly the clothes she had been wearing when lowered into the interior. But they no longer fitted her very well. Her figure was fuller, that of a healthy middle aged woman rather than an incredibly old and frail woman. The Doctor’s hand brushed through her hair – no longer entirely white, but a coppery red, shot through with fine threads of grey. The broad freckled face was that of the woman he had met on Mike Oscar Six.
‘Bring her throne!’ the Master ordered the waiting Praxilions.
They lowered her into the chair. She was coming round, mumbling incoherently as she surfaced from the profound unconsciousness of the Cocoon. The Doctor produced his sonic screwdriver and swept it back and forth before McCrimmon’s closed eyes. ‘Normal optic nerve function,’ he told the Master. ‘Everything seems ship-shape. She’s just a bit groggy.’ The Doctor pocketed the sonic screwdriver and clicked his fingers loudly. ‘Edwina! It’s me, the Doctor! Can you hear me? Try and open your eyes!’
‘Where am I?’
‘On Praxilion,’ the Master said. ‘Do you remember Praxilion?’
‘Of course I …’ Her eyes were open now. She looked first to the Doctor, then to the Master, then down at her hands, one of them still gloved, but the other unblemished by time. ‘The Sild … What happened to me?’
‘You’ve been through the Infinite Cocoon,’ the Doctor said. ‘It read your genetic structure, restored you to an earlier state of youthfulness. You should also have access to memories that have been locked away for many years.’
‘The Sild are gone,’ the Master said. ‘From here and from Earth. Blasted back into time. You need not fear them now.’
‘What about my people?’
‘I’m afraid Praxilion is no longer inhabitable,’ the Doctor answered. ‘The palace itself won’t last much longer. But we have the TARDIS! The survivors are moving aboard, and I can take them somewhere safer. You’ll come with us.’
‘I remember something,’ McCrimmon said, with an awed fascination entering her voice. ‘It’s always been there, in my head! But it’s been so long. How could I have forgotten?’
‘What?’ the Master asked.
‘Scotland. I remember Scotland.’
‘We’ll take you home,’ the Doctor said. ‘You should never have left. But now you have a life to start living again.’
‘And my people … the Praxilions?’
The Doctor smiled gently. ‘You’ve given them enough guidance. I think it’s about time they started governing themselves, wouldn’t you say?’
The palace shook again. There were only a handful of Praxilions left inside it now.
‘We have to go!’ the Doctor declared. ‘Edwina – can you walk, if the Master and I help you? It’s not very far.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
The two men took her under each arm and assisted her as she hobbled toward the TARDIS. It was not that she was injured, the Doctor knew, just that she would take a little while to get used to this sprightly new version of herself again. He knew that feeling well enough.
But when they were nearly at the TARDIS there came a savage jolt as some part of the palace’s fabric finally gave way, collapsing beneath them, and the floor tilted so sharply that all three of them lost their footing, and then had to scramble for purchase as what had been a level floor became a slowly steepening ramp. The collapse was continuing – the very fabric of the palace finally giving way. The Doctor eyed the TARDIS – it looked fit to topple at any moment.
‘Come on! We only have a few seconds!’
But when he had hit the ground the bum
p had sent something tumbling from his pocket. The Doctor watched it roll away, gathering speed down the steepening incline. It was the Axumillary Orb.
The Master looked at it. He could not tear his eyes from the object, even as it rolled further and further beyond his reach. One of the most devastating destructive devices in the history of invention? A bomb powerful enough to shatter a world, and yet which could be stuffed into a pocket? How could the Master fail to be entranced?
‘Wait!’ he called, beginning to scuttle back down the slope, even as the Orb rolled off the ledge, falling out of sight. ‘I must have it!’
‘Leave it!’ the Doctor shouted. ‘You don’t have time!’
The Master, for an instant, seemed to grasp the sense in the Doctor’s words. He began to creep back up the slope, crouching to keep his centre of gravity low. The palace’s collapse was continuing – cracks and fissures beginning to spread through the floor as the structural stresses took their toll.
‘You are right, Doctor … for once.’
‘Good!’ the Doctor called, his hand on the TARDIS at last, the door still open to admit the last of the Praxilions. ‘I’d like that in writing, if at all possible!’ He urged Edwina McCrimmon aside, trusting she could take care of herself these last few footsteps.
‘Good grief,’ he heard her call, as she slipped through. ‘It’s bigger on the …’
But the Master had stopped again. There was no guessing how far the Axumillary Orb had fallen, when it rolled over the edge. Yet the possibility existed that it might still be in reach, and the Master could not resist that temptation. The slope was steep, getting steeper, but still traversable.
The Master began to creep down the slope.
‘I must have it, Doctor. I must and will. Surely you understand?’
‘You’re a fool! We have to leave now!’
The Master scuttled further down the slope, almost sliding on his back as the angle steepened. ‘This is a power too great to be left lying around, Doctor! Someone must possess it! It may as well be me!’
‘Leave it! I give you my word that I’ll drop you off in time, somewhere other than Earth!’
‘You’d do that for me, Doctor? How very touching.’
But behind the Master, between him and the TARDIS, a crack spread with sudden speed. It deepened and widened. The TARDIS pitched, as the entire structure shifted by degrees. There were only seconds left now: to delay dematerialisation any longer was the height of recklessness.
The Master had reached the end of the ledge. He knelt down, stretching his arms down into the void. The Master grunted with the exertion. The ground tilted, and he had to scramble not to slide over the edge.
Then suddenly he jerked back, holding up the little sphere. ‘I have it! I have the Axumillary Orb!’
The TARDIS leaned again. Outside of its own internal gravity field, the Doctor could only just hold on. In moments it would topple into the abyss.
‘I’m sorry,’ the Doctor called. ‘I can’t wait any longer.’
The Master had reached the widening crack. It was still possible to crawl across it, for the moment. ‘No, Doctor! Wait for me!’
‘I’m sorry.’
The Doctor made to close the door. The Master was halfway across the crack, legs spread like a rooftop thief striding between two buildings. Seeing what was about to transpire, realising that he could not possibly make it back to the TARDIS now, the Master froze. ‘No. You can’t do this. You can’t leave me here.’ But they both knew there was nothing the Doctor could do.
‘You brought this on yourself,’ the Doctor said. ‘Like you always do.’
He slipped through the door, fell into the TARDIS interior. There was no sense that they were on a slope now: McCrimmon and the Praxilions stood at right angles to the floor, as if all was normal. His hearts racing, the Doctor rushed to the central console. He closed the door. He initiated dematerialisation.
Before he changed his mind.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
There were two points of immediate business to be attended to, before the Doctor could consider his work done. Both depended, to an improbable degree, on the reliable functioning of the TARDIS. Not only was it required to get him home, across a greater span of time than he had ever crossed, but it needed to hit two accurate targets. This was, in all frankness, asking rather a lot of the old girl. But she had, it had to be said, seldom let him down when he most needed her.
The first stop required little or no spatial travel, since it was the planet Praxilion, ten million years and a bit of loose change into the past. On the way, the Doctor explained to his passengers what he had in mind. There were, of course, many more Praxilions travelling as refugees in the TARDIS than could easily be accommodated in the control room. The TARDIS could swallow multitudes. But those present would pass the word on to others, and so on.
‘We’ll arrive a century or so before the time when the Red Queen first landed on your planet – back before you’d even begun to have the first stirrings of your industrial revolution,’ the Doctor said.
‘What will we tell the Red Queen, when she arrives?’ asked one of the natives.
‘In all likelihood, she never will arrive. Time is unknotting itself – or making itself into a slightly different knot.’
‘Our industrial activity brought the Consolidator,’ said another. ‘If we don’t have an industrial revolution, all will be well. We will live in peace and harmony with nature.’
The Doctor scratched at the back of his head. ‘Yes. Well you see it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You can still have your industrial revolution: scientific and technological progress has its up sides as well. Unless you were happy with a very short lifespan, no sophisticated medicine, and no way at all with dealing with natural disasters? No, I didn’t think so. But just take it a bit more slowly this time. You only have one planet; you don’t want to burn it up twice.’
‘And the Consolidator?’ the Praxilion persisted. ‘Will it still come?’
‘Hard to tell, old chap. There’s a good chance it will still pop back into the galaxy, since its origin isn’t causally bound to the fate of the Sild. Er, yes.’ The Doctor was looking at a sea of blank faces. ‘What I mean is, everything that went wrong with the Consolidator will probably still go wrong, second time round. But it only homed in on Praxilion because of your runaway industrial activity! If you keep that in check, you shouldn’t attract it. And even if you did … you’d still know better than to go poking around inside it, wouldn’t you?’
‘If we remember,’ a third said.
‘You will,’ McCrimmon said. ‘I have no doubt about that. You never really needed me – you just thought you did. But all I did was make things worse for you.’
‘Your intentions were good,’ the Doctor said.
‘Does that excuse me?’
‘Not really. But it’s about the best most of us can hope for.’
Before long the console signalled their imminent arrival. The Doctor whispered an incantation. Let it be Praxilion, not some airless asteroid or sweltering hot swamp world. He studied the external indicators, none of them giving immediate cause for alarm. It was almost too good. With a degree of apprehension he risked the viewer. He panned the camera around. Blue skies, green grasslands falling away in gentle terraces.
‘Praxilion!’ he announced. ‘All change!’
When the door was opened a lovely fragrance filled the control room. It was early evening, judging by the angle of Praxilion’s sun. The air was cool but not cold. The clouds were flecked with glorious accents of rose and cream.
It was the end of a perfect summer’s day.
‘It’s an old sun,’ the Doctor said. ‘But it still has millions of years of life in it.’
McCrimmon stood by him as the Praxilions filed out. An astonishing number of them had survived the end of the world. Out there somewhere, in hamlets and villages, their pre-industrial ancestors were going to have to adapt to some strange new arrivals, w
ith a funny way of talking and heads full of odd ideas.
‘I almost want to go with them,’ McCrimmon said. ‘It’s such a beautiful place. I’d forgotten quite how lovely it was.’
‘All planets have their moment,’ the Doctor said. ‘Their finest day. This might be Praxilion’s.’
‘I can’t stay, can I? No, of course not. There’s another world for me. And it’s not like I don’t want to go back.’
Outside, the Praxilions were assembling on the gentle green slope. Comical red and white caterpillars, bent into ‘L’ shapes. Some of them were already collecting flowers. They had never seen flowers before. Far in the distance, a coil of smoke rose up from a little thatched cottage.
‘They’ll be fine,’ the Doctor said. ‘But if you’d like a little time with them … I do need to recalibrate the TARDIS, before we set off again. We’ve a much greater crossing ahead of us.’
It was a lie, albeit a white one. He had no need to calibrate. But it was good to allow her time with her people. He watched from within the TARDIS, as she went out onto the cooling hillside. A breeze was picking up, flicking her hair across her face. She went from Praxilion to Praxilion, bending down to speak to them. There was laughter and tears. She had come to have affection for these gentle, brave creatures, and they in turn had come to have affection for this ungainly humanoid.
But all things had to come to an end eventually. That was time’s hardest lesson. One that not even Time Lords ever fully accepted.
The Doctor watched as they said goodbye to one another. Farewell to the Red Queen.
And then it was time to be on their way again, back into history.
‘Will I remember all of it?’ she asked, when the TARDIS was under way, and she had had time to herself, time perhaps to come to some accommodation with what the future now held. ‘Praxilion, travelling in time, all that madness?’
‘Some of it. Maybe not all. It’s probably too much for one head, anyway. Deep down you’ll always have the knowledge, the wisdom, that you acquired during the millions of years you lived on Praxilion. But you may not know where that wisdom comes from. It’ll just be there, when you need it.’
Doctor Who: Harvest of Time Page 31