Doctor Who: The Eight Doctors

by Terrance Dicks

  'Off you go - and hurry! There'll be more guards here soon.'

  The Shobogans disappeared down the corridor.

  'What now?' asked the Sixth Doctor.

  'We wait for the guards.'

  'What makes you so sure they're coming?'

  'Someone will be arriving to discover our bodies.'

  The someone turned out to be Plinoc, who returned with a squad of armed guards. He looked astonished to see the two Doctors, but he made a good recovery.

  'Thank goodness you're both all right. I saw what was happening and went off to get help.'

  'You even went to get help before anything happened,' said the Doctor.

  'Positively prescient!'

  'It's almost as if you knew what was going to happen in advance,' said the Sixth Doctor. He loomed menacingly over the terrified aide. 'Or rather, what was supposed to happen!'

  The Guard Captain marched over and saluted.

  'Are you both all right?'

  'Perfectly, thank you,' said the Doctor.

  'We received a report that a gang of armed Shobogan rebels was roaming the Capitol. We've orders to shoot on sight.'

  'Those orders are countermanded,' said the Sixth Doctor.

  'The Shobogans are not armed.' He nodded to the Doctor who handed the two blasters to the astonished Guard Captain, who passed them over to his sergeant.

  'If you find the Shobogans now, you can recapture them without risking much more than a black eye,' said the Sixth Doctor encouragingly.

  The Doctor said, 'I want you to find the two guards who were escorting the Shobogan prisoners. Arrest them for negligence of duty. Then ask who told them to move the prisoners and exactly what orders they were given.

  I shall expect a full report. Is that clear, Captain...'

  'Captain Vared, sir. May I ask on what authority?'

  'I am conducting a Presidential Inquiry.' He nodded to the aide. "The Presidential aide here will confirm that my orders have the backing of the President.'

  Plinoc nodded reluctantly. 'Obey the Doctor's orders.'

  Captain Vared saluted and marched his men away.

  As he watched them go, the Sixth Doctor said, 'How far do you think the good captain will get with his inquiry?'

  'Nowhere, probably. They'll have cleaned up any evidence already. I doubt if those two guards who conveniently lost their blasters will ever be seen again.'

  'What's the point then?'

  'As long as someone's asking questions, it'll make our opponents uneasy.

  And it lets the enemy know we're on to them.'

  'Well, mustn't keep our own inquiry waiting any longer,' said the Sixth Doctor, turning to Plinoc. 'Lead on!'

  'I must find a corn-unit and send a message to the President,' said the aide hurriedly. 'He heard reports of the trouble and he's been very worried about you.'

  He started to move away, but the Sixth Doctor's hand clamped down on his shoulder.

  'Let's give the President a pleasant surprise, shall we?'

  His voice hardened. 'I said, lead on!'

  Chapter 19

  Inquiry

  The worried aide led them along more corridors, turned off down a smaller side-corridor and paused before a set of double doors.

  'I'll just tell the President you're safe.'

  'No need to announce us,' said the Doctor, brushing him aside.

  The two Doctors entered the conference room. Small and luxuriously-decorated, it contained a large, oval table with high-backed chairs arranged round it. A Matrix screen occupied one wall. President Niroc, Lady Flavia and the five other Time Lords selected for the Presidential Committee of Inquiry were seated. The two chairs between President Niroc and Lady Flavia were empty.

  President Niroc, his back to the door, was addressing the Committee.

  'I scarcely need to say how tragic it is that this vital inquiry, to which the resources of my office were totally committed, should be so sadly ended before it has begun.'

  'You don't need to say it at all, my Lord President,' said the Doctor cheerfully. 'We're here and raring to go!'

  Lady Flavia's face lit up.

  'Doctor - Doctors. You're all right! We heard you'd been killed.'

  'The reports of our death were greatly exaggerated,' said the Sixth Doctor.

  As the Doctors took their places, the Sixth Doctor rapped sharply on the polished machonite surface of the table.

  'Shall we begin?"

  The Doctor looked around the assembled group. As Flavia had warned him, some of the Time Lords were old, some were dim and some were both, but at least they were honest.

  'First let me thank you all for agreeing to take part in this inquiry at such short notice. I assure you that its importance justifies the inconvenience to which you have all been put.'

  'You were always a smooth talker, Doctor,' muttered an incredibly ancient Time Lord at the far end of the table. 'Why not get to the point?'

  'With pleasure, Coordinator Engin,' said the Doctor.

  'Not Coordinator any more. They said I was past it when Lady Flavia here was still President, put in some new young whipper-snapper. Even changed the job title - Coordinator not good enough any more - it's Keeper now!'

  The Doctor bowed his head in acknowledgement. It had been a good idea to put old Engin on the Committee of Enquiry, he thought to himself.

  Ancient as he was, his intelligence burned bright as any laser-beam, and his knowledge of the Matrix was unrivalled.

  The Doctor continued his opening address.

  'We are here, as the Lord President rather wittily put it, to inquire into an inquiry. To be specific, into my trial, which is taking place even as we speak.'

  'I was not aware that the Doctor was again on trial,' said Lady Flavia. 'Nor I think, were any of us. Why was the Council not informed, Lord President?'

  'I must decline to answer that question on the grounds of State security.'

  'Come, come, Lord President,' said the Doctor mockingly. 'By virtue of your position you are Chairman of this inquiry. It speaks with your voice. You can scarcely refuse to answer your own questions.'

  'Very well,' snapped Niroc irritably.

  'The decision to try the Doctor was taken by the SSC.'

  'I'm sorry?' said the Doctor politely.

  'The Secret Security Committee - an inner group of the Inner Council.'

  'Was the Celestial Intervention Agency involved?'

  'The SSC liaises with the Agency on security matters.'

  'So they were involved?'

  'In a sense, yes.'

  'Did the initiative come from them?'

  'I'm not sure what you're getting at...'

  'Was it the Celestial Intervention Agency's idea to put me on trial? '

  Such was the authority in the Doctor's voice that President Niroc was compelled to answer honestly for once.

  'Well, in a way, yes...'

  "Thank you, my Lord President.'The Doctor paused. 'My next question is a very simple one. Why?'

  President Niroc made no reply.

  'Why?' thundered the Doctor. 'I have roamed the cosmos for several regenerations by now. I have done little harm and on occasion, a certain amount of good in the universe. I submitted to a sentence of exile and was freed in recognition of services to Gallifrey. I have done other services since then - I might mention the Vardan/Sontaran invasion, the return of Omega, the Borusa affair... On occasion I have even held, however briefly, the supreme office of President of the High Council.' He paused dramatically. 'I know that my relationship with Gallifrey, and with my fellow Time Lords has been uneven and, at times, tempestuous, but I had hoped that in recent times we had achieved an equilibrium - that my services to Gallifrey balanced, perhaps even outweighed, my sins.'The Doctor looked around the table. 'I appeal to all fair-minded Time Lords here. Is not that a reasonable statement of the position?'

  There was a moment or two of silence.

  Then old Engin muttered, 'You were always a wild and reck
less young fellow, Doctor, but there's no real harm in you. And you saved us all when Goth and the Master murdered the President and tried to take over Gallifrey.'

  'You do yourself less than justice, Doctor,' said Lady Flavia. 'If the record is scanned in full, it will certainly show that your many services to Gallifrey, those to which you have just referred, and many others, and, indeed, your services to the universe, far outweigh any minor -irregularities.'

  There was a murmur of assent.

  The Doctor bowed his head, genuinely moved.

  'Thank you.'

  But not all his audience were with him.

  'I really must protest, Doctor,' said President Niroc acidly.

  'You insisted on calling this inquiry. So far you have used it only to interrogate me, your President, and to make speeches of self-glorification.'

  'With respect, Lord President, my purpose in this inquiry is to discover the truth. I can only do that if I question those I believe to have the answers. As for self-glorification, I deny the charge. Self-justification, yes.' He paused once more. 'After all, what I seek is - justice!'

  There was another murmur of applause. The Doctor hurried on: 'Now, as my first witness, I should like to call - myself!'

  He looked across the table. 'Doctor?'

  The Sixth Doctor roused himself with a start. He tended to lose interest when someone else was doing all the talking - even when that someone was his other self.

  'Yes?'

  'On the whole you would agree with my proposition?'

  'What proposition was that?'

  The Doctor gritted his teeth. 'That although you might not be regarded as Gallifrey's favourite son, you had no reason - and indeed there was no good reason - to suspect that you were seen as some kind of cosmic criminal?'

  'Absolutely - I mean, absolutely not!'

  'Please describe what happened to you?'

  'I was kidnapped - taken out of time - and put on trial.'

  'On what charge?'

  'Conduct unbecoming a Time Lord - in other words, they were raking up the tired old charge of meddling. The one I'd already served time for, when I was exiled to Earth. They weren't getting far with that so they soon trumped up a better one - genocide.'

  'Where did - or rather, where is - this trial taking place?'

  'I'm not sure. Not here on Gallifrey, certainly. On some kind of space station, way out in the void.'

  The Doctor addressed the Matrix screen. 'Please show the venue for the Doctor's trial.'

  The screen remained blank. An inhumanly clear female voice said,

  'Venue classified. Presidential authorisation needed.'

  The Doctor fixed President Niroc with a stern glance.

  'Lord President?'

  'I cannot see that this information is really necessary -'

  'On the contrary, it is the first and most vital point in my enquiry. If you please, Lord President?'

  President Niroc looked around the table and saw that everyone was returning his gaze expectantly.

  'Authorised,' he muttered.

  'Insufficient volume. Please repeat.'

  'Authorised? snarled Niroc.

  There was a brief pause, then the voice said, 'Authorisation by Presidential voiceprint confirmed.'

  The space station that was the venue for the Doctor's trial appeared on the screen in all its unlikely Baroque glory.

  Instantly the Doctor snapped,

  'Confirm installation history and present status.'

  He was hoping that the Presidential authorisation would cover this second question as well - and for a time his hopes were confirmed.

  'Space station Zenobia, now disused,' said the voice. 'Purchased by Celestial Intervention Agency with secret funds and moved to storm belt in the intergalactic void.'

  'Purpose?'

  'To be used as covert HQ for Operation Ravolox -'

  President Niroc was on his feet.

  'Authorisation cancelled!' he screamed.

  The screen went blank.

  President Niroc fell back into his seat.

  The Doctor continued as if there had been no interruption: 'Your visit to Ravolox was produced in evidence during the trial, wasn't it, Doctor?'

  'It was,' said the Sixth Doctor. 'I always wondered why.

  I thought I performed rather well there. I stopped a black light explosion that would have caused a chain reaction that might have ended the universe and helped to free an underground tribe being oppressed by an extremely unfriendly robot.'

  'What was the robot's purpose?'

  'Originally to care for what its helpers called the Three Sleepers from Andromeda. I believe they were astronauts in suspended animation, waiting tot a relief expedition. The expedition never turned up and the sleepers died. The robot just went on ruling through force of habit. Oh, a crook called Sabalom Glitz turned up on the planet as well, after what he called "the stuff".'

  'Which was?'

  The Doctor noticed President Niroc shifting uneasily in his seat at this point.

  The Sixth Doctor shrugged.

  'Something enormously valuable - and top secret. When we got to that bit in the playback, the Valeyard stopped the tape.'

  President Niroc relaxed.

  'Was there anything else significant about Ravolox?'

  'It had an incredible similarity to the planet Earth -extending to a buried underground transportation station called Marble Arch. Of course it couldn't have been Earth, it was light years out of place.'

  'Are you intending to take us through the entire trial, Doctor?' asked President Niroc.

  'Only very briefly, Lord President.' He turned back to the Sixth Doctor. 'I gather that more of your exploits were replayed in an attempt to discredit you?'

  'Yes, but only in a corrupt and twisted form,' said the Sixth Doctor indignantly. 'For example, I was accused of betraying my companion Peri on Thoros-Beta and abandoning her to an alien mind-transplant. When I myself tried to introduce an adventure on the space ship hyperion III in my own defence, I was falsely shown smashing up the ship's communication equipment -something I had no reason to do, and would never have done!

  For destroying the Vervoids, an artificially created race of vegetable parasites that could have wiped out all animal life on earth, I was actually accused of genocide!'

  'You maintain that the evidence of the Matrix was tampered with?'

  'I most certainly do.' The Sixth Doctor's voice rose in both passion and volume. 'Much of it was severely distorted, some was totally false.'

  'This is arrant nonsense, Doctor,' said President Niroc. 'Everyone knows that the integrity of the Matrix is unquestionable. Whatever it replayed at the trial must have happened, whether you admit it or not!'

  A creaking old voice spoke from the end of the table. 'Not necessarily.'

  The Doctor turned quickly to the speaker.

  'Councillor Engin, you know more of the inner workings of the Matrix than any Time Lord on Gallifrey. Is such a falsification as my other self has described a possibility?'

  'No,' said Engin. 'Or it wasn't in my time as Coordinator. However, with the Matrix in the hands of those who controlled it after me, inexperienced and politically corrupt as they were, I should say it was not only possible but probable.' His old voice shook with passion. 'I know that even in President Flavia's time my successor was criminally careless in allowing others access to the Key to the Matrix.'

  The Doctor turned back to his chief witness.

  'All in all Doctor, would you say you have had - are having - a fair trial?'

  'Fair?' exploded the Sixth Doctor.

  'Fair! Anything but. Trumped-up charges, false evidence.... The Valeyard, a prosecutor quite clearly motivated by personal malice, twisting the law to harm me at every opportunity. A judge, the Inquisitor, who allows him to do it - while maintaining a hollow pretence of impartiality just so things will look good in the edited highlights... The whole basis of the trial changed on the Valeyard's whim! New charges dra
gged in without notice... Fair? It was a kangaroo court - a lynch mob, robed in Time Lord respectability!'

  The Sixth Doctor's voice rose to a bellow that shook the conference room.

  He jumped up, waving an angry fist -then froze and faded away into nothingness.