Deceit

by Peter Darvill-Evans

  Ace clenched her fists. This was it! She was right. ‘You called it the Zero Room. That’s where we are. We’re in a new Zero Room.’

  The Doctor jumped to his feet and lifted his arms above his head. ‘Yes!’ he shouted. ‘Ace, how can I ever thank you? I did it. The plan worked. I knew it would, if only I could stop myself thinking about it.’

  ‘That sounds completely typical. Now would you like to tell me about it?’

  ‘Of course I will, Ace. Where would you like me to start?’

  ‘How am I supposed to know? You never used to tell me what was going on.’

  The Doctor contrived to look shocked, hurt and reproving simultaneously.

  ‘And don’t give me that,’ Ace said. Restoring the Doctor’s memories had stirred forgotten emotions. ‘You were being even more stroppy than normal. I don’t know what was wrong with you. Everything should have been OK. You remember the TARDIS was destroyed? And then there was that business in Turkey and New York and all that. And then we went to that Tir-na-n-Og place, and got the stuff to finish fixing the TARDIS. After that, everything should have been fine.’

  ‘And in fact, Ace, that’s precisely when something else went wrong.’

  ‘You’re not kidding. After that you went moping round the Yorkshire Moors. You know I made sure the TARDIS didn’t have a gas oven, just in case you thought of putting your head in it? I got you out of that mess at the radio telescope, and did I get any thanks? No, I got my heart broken instead. No, I didn’t. But maybe Robin did. And then–’ She paused for breath.

  ‘There’s more?’

  ‘And then you hardly spoke to me at all on Heaven. And I met Jan. And you let him die.’ She couldn’t say any more. She hated herself for sounding like a kid again. She hated him for making her remember.

  ‘And that’s when you left me. Yes, I remember. But I had to do it, Ace, believe me.’ He looked at her with a pleading smile. ‘It was all part of the plan.’

  She froze. She couldn’t bear it. He was doing it all over again. ‘What plan?’ she managed to say.

  ‘You see, the TARDIS was contaminated,’ he said eagerly. ‘There was an impurity in the organic matter I used to refuel the link with the Eye of Harmony. The protoplasm from Tir-na-n-Og must have contained a small fragment of one of Goibhnie’s experiments. Ace, are you listening? It infected the TARDIS, you see. And that meant it was in my mind, too. I couldn’t make any conscious plans to get rid of it, because it always knew everything I knew. You must understand how serious the situation was. I’ve had to shut down the TARDIS and myself. Ace?’

  ‘And what about me, Doctor? I was so young in those days. You needed me, so you stopped me staying with Robin. You needed me, so you let Jan die. And then you made me leave the TARDIS. I thought I was making the decision! But you wanted me out, and so out I went!’

  The Doctor turned away from her. His voice was low and tight. ‘You haven’t changed, have you, Ace. You always do this to me. I’ve only just got my mind back. It wasn’t a game. I’ve made – mistakes, recently. People have died. Now, for the first time since I repaired the link, I am free of the presence that has been riding inside me. Is it any wonder that I was bad-tempered? And all you can do is blame me for your boyfriend problems.’

  Ace opened her mouth to yell at him, and found herself laughing instead. She’d made him angry, and that still gave her a perverse buzz. And he was quite right, of course: she’d long ago consigned both Robin and his bicycle, and Jan and his snake tattoo, to the lucky escape category of old lovers.

  ‘Never mind, Doc. It was all a long time ago.’

  The Doctor looked quizzically over his shoulder. ‘Was it?’ he said.

  ‘Two, probably three Earth years, I guess.’

  ‘Surely not. It doesn’t seem as long as that.’

  ‘This is a time machine, Professor. It can be five minutes for you, fifty years for me. Or the other way round.’

  ‘But the tesseract was programmed to react as soon as I entered the Zero Room.’

  ‘And it did. It just found me three years further on in my time. It’s no big deal.’

  ‘But that isn’t how I set it up. You know, Ace, I feel as though I’m being manipulated again.’

  ‘You feel, like you’re being manipulated! That’s rich, Professor, it really is.’

  The Doctor was listening intently, his head cocked to one side. When he didn’t reply, Ace realized that he was listening to something other than her voice. Then she heard it too: a low rumbling and a high-pitched whine, rising and falling but gradually becoming louder. Within seconds it sounded as if an X-ship was firing up to escape velocity in the neighbouring room.

  ‘Ace! Move away from the wall!’ the Doctor shouted. Ace threw herself behind the bench and watched one of the Zero Room’s white walls vibrate into non-existence while, at the same time, something materialized in its place.

  The wall was now grey, and appeared to be made of stone blocks. Sprouting horizontally from it, and occupying much of the space in the room, was a hexagonal column with a huge, six-sided shield at its end. It was like a hexagonal stone mushroom, growing sideways into the room. Although the shape was familiar, the unusual orientation confused Ace for a moment.

  ‘It’s a control console,’ she said. ‘It’s the console from the tertiary control room, isn’t it? What’s it doing here? And sideways?’

  ‘Oh, it’s all in the plan,’ the Doctor said airily. ‘Using the tesseract triggered a minor reconfiguration. I need a console to filter the TARDIS through.’

  Ace decided that the Doctor’s last remark could wait. ‘But why sideways?’

  ‘Really, Ace. I was working under considerable pressure. I had to input a succession of contingency commands without letting myself think about why I was doing it. It’s hardly surprising that I made a few small errors. But you see,’ he gestured grandly at the horizontal mushroom, ‘I succeeded in fooling myself!’

  Ace laughed again. ‘You don’t half talk some nonsense, Doc. So what happens next?’’

  ‘Next, Ace, I put the TARDIS to rights.’ He stood on the bench, from which position he could with some difficulty reach all of the console controls, and began to flick switches in what looked to Ace like an alarmingly random fashion.

  Ace stepped on to the bench beside him. She was taller than him, she realized; she remembered him as being the taller of them. The black combat gear, with deflector pads on the upper arms, a reinforced comms collar, and long powerboots, made her look much larger than the Doctor. She waited until he became aware of her.

  ‘And what am I supposed to do next?’ she said. She had a nasty feeling she knew the answer.

  ‘Next?’ he said vaguely, as he scribbled a list of numbers in the notebook he’d pulled from one of his pockets. ‘Do? Well, there’s not much left to do, is there. Have a look round. See the old place again.’

  Ace had jumped down from the bench before she remembered. ‘Doctor. There are no doors, are there?’

  ‘What? Oh – no, of course not. Just let me... And then I’ll... ‘ He was lost in his work again.

  Ace made a slow circuit of the small room. She stopped next to the impossible shape of the unfolded tesseract; peering into it she saw that her cabin on the Raistrick was still there, tiny but distinct. It looked miles away, but to get there would take only one step. Would the Doctor even notice if she went?

  She walked to the console and looked up at him.

  ‘Doctor?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘If I know how someone dies, and then I meet him – I mean before he dies – I can’t tell him how he’s going to die, can I?’

  ‘No. Or is it yes? What did you say?’

  Ace repeated the question. With a sigh, the Doctor closed his pencil-stub inside his notebook. ‘You’re quite right, Ace. Knowledge of the probable destiny of individuals is one of the burdens a time traveller has to bear. Whom do you have in mind?’

  ‘Oh – just someone I think I’m going to
have to talk to. I read about him in the TARDIS data files. So I can’t tell him what’s going to happen to him?’

  ‘Of course not, Ace. Particularly if there’s any chance that his future actions might prove to have a significant effect on the time lines. If you give him foreknowledge of his death, he might change his behaviour. And that might alter the course of events. And then I’d have to try to sort it out.’

  ‘And that might make things even worse.’

  ‘That was uncalled for. And you’ve made me forget where I was up to. I’ll have to start again from the beginning.’

  ‘Pardon me for existing, I’m sure.’

  ‘What? Oh, really, Ace, if you can’t make yourself useful then you might as well–’

  ‘What, Doctor?’

  He sighed. ‘I don’t mean to be inhospitable, Ace, but I am attempting to perform an almost impossible task. If, I make the slightest mistake I may destroy some or all of the TARDIS’s circuits. And I’m trying to do it while standing on tip-toe. I need to concentrate.’

  ‘So what’s the big problem? I mean, what exactly are you trying to do?’

  The Doctor pulled a large white handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped his brow. ‘If I tell you,’ he said, ‘will you leave me in peace?’

  ‘No,’ Ace said, ‘but tell me anyway.’

  ‘Although my mind is now free of contamination –’

  ‘Because of the Zero Room, right?’

  ‘Exactly. But the TARDIS’s circuits and data stores are still infected. Therefore there is still a certain random element in any operation that the TARDIS performs. Not only that, if I step outside the Zero Room before the TARDIS is decontaminated, the bug will probably re-infect me.’

  ‘Because of your symbiotic link with the TARDIS.’

  ‘Precisely. Therefore I have to set up a decontamination system through which I can feed every particle of data contained within the TARDIS. And that includes electronic impulses, magnetically stored data, the biochemical synaptic systems, the sub-viral networks that plug into the biochemical systems, and the contents of the solid-state inorganic crystal computers. Among others. The interior of the TARDIS, basically.’

  ‘And you couldn’t do any of this before, because the bug would always know you were going to do it.’

  ‘Just so. It’s not a clever fragment of intelligence. It’s not even really malevolent. But it has a strong sense of self-preservation. It’s used all kinds of tricks to stop me getting rid of it.’

  ‘You mean, just when you were about to enter the commands that would finish it off, it could read your mind and stop you?’

  ‘Yes. It was simply reacting instinctively. Sometimes it would give me a blinding headache; at other times it would cause a localized gravity fluctuation. Anything to disturb my concentration. Now it’s gone from my mind. But I’ve got you instead.’

  ‘Thanks very much. I still don’t see the problem.’

  The Doctor ran his hands through his untidy hair. ‘I’ve got to filter the TARDIS – the whole interior, in coded form – through the decontamination system I have just created on this console. It’s like – well, imagine trying to lift a cauldron that’s too heavy and full to the brim with water and then trying to pour a constant dribble of the liquid through a moving sieve without spilling a drop. That’s what I have to do next. So will you please let me concentrate.’

  Ace thought for a while. Just as the Doctor was about to push a button on the console, she said: ‘I wouldn’t bother.’

  The Doctor was shaking with suppressed impatience. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘I wouldn’t bother trying to lift the cauldron. I’d use a jug, and filter a jugful of water at a time. Now don’t interrupt, Doctor. Hear me out. I know you couldn’t do that normally, because the TARDIS circuits are all integrated. But they’re not integrated at the moment, are they? You told me, they’re all split up and isolated, because you closed everything down when you closed your mind down. So use a jug. Filter the TARDIS a room at a time.’

  The Doctor stood lost in thought for a moment. He leant across the console and touched a few buttons. Lights started flashing in rhythmic sequences.

  The Doctor turned to Ace. ‘The system’s running,’ he said. ‘It’ll take half an hour or so to process all the rooms. I remember why you used to be so helpful on our little trips, Ace. It wasn’t just the blind aggression. Sometimes you can be nothing short of brilliant.’

  ‘Glad to be of help, Doc.’ Ace felt oddly embarrassed.

  A silence developed. She wondered whether she should disappear into the tesseract and leave the Doctor to his newly-restored home.

  ‘So – um – where are you, Ace?’ the Doctor asked suddenly. ‘I mean, what are you up to these days?’

  Ace explained.

  ‘Daleks?’ The Doctor seemed amused. ‘Yes, you always did have a way with our metal-skinned friends. But are you sure you’re going to Arcadia?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure, Doctor. Astro-navigation’s not my specialty, but I can read a star chart. And I’ve been up on the bridge every day since we went into warp. We’re going to Arcadia.’

  ‘Well, you’re going to be disappointed. There are no Daleks in the Arcadia system. Not in the twenty-fifth century, or any other century that I can think of. It’s a backwater system, at least in your time. I can’t remember anything remarkable about it. It’ll be a dull trip. You might as well stay here.’

  Ace looked at him. He was pretending to be engrossed in reading dials and screens. She wasn’t fooled. Something strange was happening on Arcadia, that was for sure. And she was willing to bet that the Doctor was going to set the co-ordinates for Arcadia as soon as the decontamination system had finished its work.

  And then there was Abslom Daak. Escaping on the TARDIS would be an easy way out of a potentially difficult situation. But she hated to leave unfinished business. ‘I’ll tell you what, Doctor,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you there, OK? Last one to Arcadia buys the drinks.’

  The Doctor looked up and smiled mischievously.

  ‘And that reminds me,’ Ace said, as she stepped into the mouth of the tesseract tunnel, ‘what happened to Benny?’

  ‘Benny!’ The Doctor looked very worried for a moment. ‘I’d forgotten – but it’s all right. I told her to stay in her room. She must be safe. I’ll let her stay there until we land on Arcadia, I think.’

  ‘Give her my love,’ Ace said, and disappeared into the crystalline corridor. It started to fold inwards behind her. She was in her cabin on the Raistrick. On her bunk, the last metacubes were folding into each other. The tesseract, restored to its cubic shape, glittered as it disappeared into nothing.

  If it hadn’t all been a dream, she had a rendezvous with the Doctor on Arcadia.

  He stood and watched. He watched until she stopped moving. Then he cut a hole. A big hole.

  He didn’t try to save her. He just stood and watched.

  You never see their faces. Just blackness under the hood. You never see what they look like under those cloaks.

  They sound horrible.

  Everyone says they’re kind to us. They give us things, do things for us.

  So why did he just stand and watch?

  It was better when she stopped moving. She looked peaceful. The cloud disappeared. I don’t know how.

  She was just lying on the bed.

  I didn’t know. I thought it was all over. I wanted to come out of the wardrobe. I started to come out. Then he had something in his hand.

  He cut a hole.

  He cut a big hole in the top of her head.

  Her beautiful hair.

  ‘No improvement, I suppose?’

  ‘She’s had a little warm milk. She won’t look at me. She’s thinking, though, I’m sure of it. Her eyes move.’

  ‘Well, it’s not our problem any more.’

  ‘Gerald?’

  ‘I spoke to the Prince. He spoke to his Counsellor. Apparently the case has caused quite a stir at Land
fall. They think they can do something for her. So in three days a Humble Counsellor will come to take her off our hands.’

  ‘Gerald, I’m not sure...’

  ‘Well, I am. Good riddance, quite frankly. Look at the commotion she’s making now. She’s going frantic. Landfall’s the best place for her.’

  Part Three

  ET IN ARCADIA...

  It was too early. Defries wasn’t even awake, but she knew it was too early. She mumbled ‘Lights’ and rolled over in her bed.

  Yes. It was the comms alarm. Shielding her eyes, she struggled to sit up.

  ‘Alarm off,’ she said. ‘Audio.’

  ‘Good morning, Agent. Rise and shine.’

  ‘Morning, Toko. Don’t sound so bloody cheerful. What’s up?’

  The Captain hesitated. ‘Do you want the good news,’ his voice said from the comms speaker, ‘or the bad news?’

  ‘You’ve just woken me up, Toko. What could be worse?’

  ‘One of the cryo pods in the medical suite has defrosted early. Guess which.’

  ‘Damn. How did–? Forget it. When?’

  ‘Your weapon will be active in about five minutes, Agent. Shall I send in the guards?’

  ‘What? Hell, no. No point in wasting personnel. And I don’t want the DK armed. I don’t want him to pick up so much as a fork from the galley.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Defries was out of bed now, pulling on her combat gear. ‘I’ll be on the bridge in two minutes. Just clear the corridors, and monitor his movements. It’ll be interesting to see where he goes.’

  ‘OK, Belle. You got it. I’m just glad he’s your responsibility.’

  ‘Don’t go, Toko. You mentioned good news?’

  ‘Oh yeah. We made good time in warp. We can drop into the Arcadia system any time, from about thirty minutes on.’

  Defries grinned. Action at last. The DK hadn’t defrosted too early, after all. She tightened the straps of her webbing. Her skin tingled as the cool lining of her tunic moulded itself to her body.

  ‘Belle? Did you get that?’

  ‘Sorry, Toko. Just enjoying the adrenalin rush. Yes, let’s hit the system as soon as we can. I’ll run the muster from the bridge. I’m on my way now. And keep an eye on Daak.’