Leela sat cross-legged on the floor beside him munching cubes of food concentrated from a foil container. 'Hello,' said the Doctor weakly.
'Hullo, I was beginning to think you'd never come round.'
The Doctor struggled to a sitting position, and winced as the movement sent a stab of pain through his head. 'I'm beginning to wish I hadn't.'
'We thought it was probably safer not to move you.'
'How long have I been unconscious?'
'Two days.'
'Two days? Two days? I haven't got time to be lying around here for two days!'
'What happened about Xoanon, Doctor?'
'I explained what I was doing. Weren't you listening?'
'I don't know. I don't remember anything.'
'No, I don't suppose you do,' said the Doctor thoughtfully. 'Well, I removed—I hope I removed—half of Xoanon's dual personality. How is he?'
Leela shrugged. 'Silent. There hasn't been a murmur from him since we found you unconscious. Jabel's people don't dare approach the Sacred Chamber.'
'The what?' said the Doctor sternly.
'That's what they call it.'
'And what do you call it?'
Leela frowned in thought. 'The main computer complex?'
'Better. Go on.'
'I've told them as much as I can but they won't listen to me. Jabel says I'm an ignorant Savage. We have what you might call a guarded truce at the moment.' Leela brought him a beaker of water, and he swallowed thirstily. He gave her back the beaker and started to get to his feet. 'Give me one of those cubes will you?' He took it and started chewing. 'As soon as I get my strength back, we'll go and see Xoanon.'
Leela hesitated. 'Can I... come inside with you, this time?' Despite the Doctor's influence she found that the thought of seeing Xoanon filled her with a mixture of curiosity and dread.
'Perhaps, Leela, perhaps.' The Doctor reached for another food-cube.
In an amazingly short time the Doctor's extraordinary constitution, together with the effect of the food cubes, restored him to his old self. Still munching the last of the food cubes, he led Leela along the corridor to the computer complex.
Outside the doors a disruptor cannon lay abandoned. The Doctor looked at the weapon, and at the blistering on the doors. 'Maybe that's why Xoanon lost his grip on Tomas and the others. Someone distracted him. I wonder who it was...'
'They say Neeva went mad. He was threatening to kill Xoanon. And now he's missing. They've searched the ship and he can't be found anywhere.'
'It could have been him... If he really was mad, it would have made it difficult for Xoanon to control him.' They came up to the doors and the Doctor paused, smiling encouragingly at Leela. 'Perhaps Xoanon himself will tell us.'
He touched the control and the door opened. 'Anybody home?'
There was a moment of silence, then a calm voice said, 'Ah, Doctor! I have been waiting for you both. Come in please.' The Doctor led the way into the computer complex.
It was a very different place from the one he had seen on his last visit. The central chamber was bathed in a warm clear glow, and all around complex banks of machinery hummed and whirred contentedly.
The Doctor spoke to the empty air. 'How do you feel?'
'I am—whole,' said the voice. As it spoke the lights pulsed gently in time with the words. The Doctor smiled. The voice was one he had never heard before, calm, resonant, mature. Above all, he noted happily, it was not in the least like his own voice. Xoanon's split personality seemed to have been cured.
'And how are you, Doctor?' asked the voice politely.
'Oh, mustn't complain,' said the Doctor hastily. 'I'm fine now, thanks.'
'Good, good,' said Xoanon. 'I'm glad.'
There was a rather embarrassed pause, like one of those moments at parties when no one can think of anything to say.
It was Leela who broke the silence. She had questions to ask Xoanon, and she couldn't hold them back any longer. 'Why did you do it?'
'Could you be more specific?'
'Keep us ignorant and afraid. Make us hate one another.'
Xoanon paused, considering his words, then said sadly, 'I created a world in my own image. I made your people act out my torment. I made my madness your reality.'
'And told yourself you were creating a race of super-humans?' suggested the Doctor.
'That is so. Independence, strength, and courage in the Sevateem. Self-denial, mind-control, telepathy in the Tesh.'
'And hostility and conflict to speed up development,' concluded the Doctor. 'Until you were ready to combine the best qualities of both Tribes.'
Leela thought back over the long struggle for existence that had been the Tribes' fate for her own life and for generations before that. The wars, the hunger, the deaths... 'That's horrible.'
'Yes, it is,' agreed the Doctor. Gently he raised his voice, addressing Xoanon. 'Isn't it horrible, Xoanon?'
'Yes,' said the voice sadly, 'it was horrible. But now it is over. We are all free, thanks to you, Doctor.'
The Doctor coughed and said modestly, 'Well, it was the least I could do, in the circumstances. After all, I did start the trouble in the first place.'
'Yours was a mistake anyone could have made.'
'I don't think anyone could have made it,' said the Doctor huffily, and Leela laughed.
Xoanon laughed too, and suddenly the Doctor joined in, greatly relieved. Now he knew Xoanon was cured. A sense of humour is the finest proof of sanity.
'Please, sit down,' said Xoanon. Two chairs appeared from nowhere.
Leela jumped back in astonishment, but the Doctor seemed to take Xoanon's powers of teleportation as a matter of course. 'This is nice,' he said cosily, as he settled down.
'Tell me, Doctor,' said Xoanon. 'Where do you think I first started to go wrong?'
After a very long, and to Leela largely incomprehensible conversation with Xoanon, the Doctor finally led the way out of the computer complex and back to the main control room. There they found Jabel, Gentek, Calib and Tomas, who were busily discussing Calib's plan to unite the two tribes.
A furious row was in progress. Jabel's Tesh conditioning was still too powerful for him to show much emotion but he spoke with icily controlled anger. 'The Tesh, my people, would never agree to such a degenerate plan.'
'That plan is necessary, Jabel,' urged Tomas. 'The Tribes must join for mutual survival.'
'I do not agree.'
'We will ask the Doctor's opinion when he returns,' said Tomas.
'Is it wise?' argued Jabel. 'Would Xoanon wish it?'
'An important consideration, Captain,' said Gentek, loyally supporting his leader.
Calib turned away in disgust. 'This discussion is a waste of time.'
Jabel smiled icily at Gentek. 'What can one expect when dealing with Savages?'
Calib glanced at him. 'Watch your tongue, you scrawny mindbender, or I'll break you in two.'
The Doctor cleared his throat loudly and they all turned. 'Ah, gentlemen,' he said cheerfully. 'Democracy in action, I see! '
They all crowded round him. 'What did Xoanon say, Doctor?' asked Tomas eagerly.
'He is anxious to put right the wrong he has done. He has great knowledge and power which he will put at your disposal.'
'Can we trust him?' asked Calib, cynical as ever.
The Doctor held out his hand. In it was a clear plastic box with a red button set in the lid. 'He offers you this, as a sign of good faith. Press this button, and Xoanon's data banks will be erased. He will cease to exist.'
'Another of his promises?'
The Doctor held out the box. 'There's one way to find out.' Calib backed away nervously. The Doctor offered the box around the group. 'Anyone? No? Good! You have to trust someone sometime.' The box vanished from his hand.
Sevateem and Tesh looked uneasily at each other for a moment. Then Gentek said tentatively, 'If the Tribes do merge we must choose a leader...'
The Doctor began moving towards the
door. 'That's not my problem, gentlemen.'
'There's no choice to be made,' shouted Calib. 'I am the leader of the Sevateem and we are the stronger.'
'Perhaps so,' said Jabel coldly. 'But my people of Tesh would never accept the leadership of a mindless Savage.'
Calib's hand went to his knife. 'That is the final insult!'
Hurriedly Leela thrust herself between them. 'I'm a mindless Savage, Jabel, according to you. Yet I have talked with Xoanon.'
Tomas saw a chance of compromise. 'And that makes you the ideal candidate, Leela. You should be our leader.'
'Me?' Leela was astonished. 'But I don't want to be leader. I'm far too unreasonable, aren't I, Doctor?' She turned round. 'Doctor?'
But the Doctor had gone.
15
Departure
The Doctor had just opened the TARDIS door when he heard someone running towards him through the trees. 'Doctor!' called a familiar voice.
The Doctor turned. 'Leela!'
Leela hurried up to the TARDIS, glancing quickly at the open door. 'I thought you might need an escort. The creatures are still out here.'
'You needn't worry about them any more, Leela. The phantoms were merely projections from Xoanon's disturbed subconscious. Now he's himself again, they no longer exist.'
Leela listened. The forest was calm and silent. 'I suppose you're always right about everything?'
'Invariably, invariably,' said the Doctor modestly. 'Well, goodbye, Leela.'
'Doctor—take me with you.'
'Why?'
'Well, you like me, don't you?'
'Yes, I suppose I do like you,' said the Doctor gently. 'I like lots of people, but I don't cart them about the Universe with me. Goodbye, Leela.'
Before he could stop her, Leela darted past him, through the open door and into the TARDIS.
'Come out of there,' shouted the Doctor. 'Out I say! Come out!' He followed her inside.
Leela blinked a little at the sight of the impossibly large control room. but after her brief acquaintance with the Doctor she was used to miracles.
As the Doctor came through the door in pursuit, Leela ducked round the other side of the central control console. 'Out you come,' said the Doctor sternly. 'And don't touch anything.'
Leela saw a large important-looking lever near her hand. She reached out for it...
'Don't touch that,' yelled the Doctor. 'It'll send us off into the space-time continuum...'
Leela grabbed the lever and pulled it over hard. The TARDIS doors closed, the central column began moving up and down...
... and a wheezing, groaning noise shattered the calm of the forest as the square blue shape of the TARDIS faded away.
The Doctor was off on a new adventure—with a new companion!
DOCTOR WHO AND THE FACE OF EVIL Page 9