'That's a weapon an' 'alf and no mistake, guv'nor,'

commented Jessie.

'I left it here so the Queen wouldn't spot it if she looked out of her window,' Dr Who said. 'What do you think, Cruncher?'

Cruncher grinned and smacked a fist into one palm.

'Hey Mister,' shouted the teenager on the tracks, 'is this your tank or what?'

'It certainly is, young fellow.'

'Are you making a film?'

'No. I intend to smash my way into Buckingham Palace.'

'Top! Can me and me mate hitch a ride?'

'The more, the merrier.'

The youth pulled open the tank's lid and ushered a similarly keen friend into its s.p.a.cious interior. Jason watched on proudly, but he deflated as he turned and saw Chris's disapproving expression.

'I think this has gone far enough.'

'What, getting cold feet?' sneered Jason. 'Becoming a cowardly custard?'

'Look, I agree that this place isn't perfect. But Queen Elizabeth II is a respected historical figure where I come from.

You can't just barge in there and . . . and beat her up!'

163.

'She 11 only need beating up,' said Jason, 'if she won't step down and let somebody fairer take over.'

'Forget it!' instructed Chris. 'There are proper channels you can go through. There's no point continuing this farce!'

'Farce?' Jason exploded.

Chris indicated his unlikely army. 'You've spent three hours a.s.sembling this lot!'

Jason felt tears welling again. 'If you're going to be childish,'

he bl.u.s.tered, 'then you can't play. We'll make do without you!

But you just be careful -' He wagged a stern finger '- else you'll end up becoming a villain and getting blown up like the Doctor!' He turned his back on the traitor and strode towards the battletank, fists clenched to suppress his anger.

Dr Who was helping Jessie into the c.o.c.kpit. She hesitated, pointing out the rows of decals which adorned the door. 'What the flippin' 'eck are those?'

Jason's disappointment was forgotten in an instant. 'They were my idea. I saw it on the telly once. It's all the horrid dictators we've sorted out with the tank.' He pointed to a sticker: a silhouette of a multi-tentacled beast. 'That one was the Fifty-Legged Sweet Stealer of Mentraculus IV. This -' He indicated a more regular, three-sided shape was the . . . erm, the . . . I know, the Evil Green Triangle of the planet Trigonometrus. And these are all Trods down here, we're always battering them.'

'This time,' Dr Who observed, 'we won't have to bother getting one of those shapes cut out. We can stick a first cla.s.s stamp on the door instead.'

Jason laughed heartily, but his good humour faded as his eyes met the resolute stare of Chris Cwej. There was no point getting steamed up, he told himself. After all, he still had six freedom fighters, including the kids. And there was only one Queen.

He'd have this country sorted out by tea-time.

Jason hauled himself into the c.o.c.kpit. He failed to register that he'd stepped on a b.u.t.terfly. It crumbled to powder.

164.

18.

Getting There

Almost two hours into the journey, the Doctor was still pacing the empty first cla.s.s carriage at the back of the London to Sheffield express. Mel had woken from a troubled sleep and she rubbed her eyes and groaned as he sat down opposite her again and fidgeted. 'That won't get us there any faster you know,' she said.

He scowled. 'We might not get there in time at all. Over two decades and still this miserable corporation haven't realized my concept for a super-fast train! What have they been doing?'

'Your concept?'

The Doctor looked at Mel as though she was nothing but an unwanted distraction. 'I was going to pop back and suggest it,'

he said. 'I'll still have to, even though it didn't work. At least the timetable amendments I'll make were taken up.'

Mel's head spun. 'You are kidding me, aren't you? You're going to travel back in time to make arrangements so that we can be on this train now? I don't believe you!'

The Doctor looked at her sharply. It's not impossible,' he said. 'Just an intricate and risky operation. And not as successful as I'd wished.' He was up and pacing again. Mel watched him helplessly, unable to see the loveable rogue with whom she had once travelled.

This new Doctor was truly an alien. She didn't know him at all.

The battletank's engine sounded like a pneumatic drill. A small crowd was gathering, watching curiously as the lurid yellow object hove into view around the side of the Victoria Memorial.

Amongst them, Chris stood, his stomach churning with 165 indecision. What would the Doctor do now? Probably whip up some device to stop the thing in its tracks, he thought. Would that he could do likewise - right now, he didn't even have a gun.

The unwieldy war-weapon was turning, inexorably, to orient itself upon the Palace's main gates. Dr Who was really going to do this! There was nothing Chris could do to stop him: even alerting the security forces would be a wasted effort. They would know soon enough, in any case.

Jessie leaned out of the cab window and gave an exhilarated cry of 'Yeee-haaaaa! The battletank surged ahead with unexpected speed, and Chris pushed his way towards its target, desperately hoping that a chance to help might somehow, miraculously arise.

'Then the nun,' Bernice was saying, 'whipped off her habit and said: "Ta-daaa! The bus driver!" ' The bus driver!" '

The punchline was punctuated by an almighty crash and the tortured shriek of rending metal.

'It's happened,' said Roz. She broke into a run.

'You could at least have t.i.ttered,' muttered Benny as she followed.

The train had stopped and the Doctor was arguing with a uniformed conductor, displaying an intensity which made Mel shiver. 'I've told you, I can fix your mechanical failure in two minutes.' Mel shrunk back into her seat and desperately wanted not to be here. 'And don't tell me about your petty regulations.

Your bureaucratic officiousness could cause the destruction of the timelines, not to mention the death of Queen Elizabeth II!'

Mel covered her eyes as the victim of this tirade tried to calm her companion down, addressing him as if he was simple. A few seconds later, the Doctor fell back into his seat with an expression of fury. He spent the next five minutes cursing the inefficiencies of British public transport. Then, to Mel's alarm, he slumped forward across the table.

'Doctor she cried. 'Doctor, get up. You're scaring me, Doctor.'

166.

He sat up slowly, his expression pained. 'It isn't working.'

'What isn't?'

'All the things I've striven for. My mission is falling apart around me. I'm not in control.'

'So what's new?' she said, cajolingly. 'I don't recall Paradise Towers being any bed of roses either, but we got through that one.'

'It's not the same,' he said, his ferocity unnerving. 'It's not nearly the same. This affects Earth, it affects Time, it affects you and me and too many of those I have travelled with.' His eyes misted over and he seemed to be looking far, far away. 'I should never have lied to them.' He put a hand to his forehead, closed his eyes, and now he wasn't even talking to her. His attention had been turned inward.

'No, I won't accept your argument. You would have barged in and made things worse. I have this body now and I will do what's right!'

One gate had been twisted back on its hinges; the other was lying flat beneath Dr Who's battletank. The two boys in the vehicle's rear were levering themselves free and running, panic-stricken, out of the grounds and away from sight. Jason shouted something incomprehensible after them, an expression of abject betrayal on his face. Men in suits and uniforms were streaming towards him and Cruncher emitted a bloodcurdling war-cry as he stepped forward to deal with them. He closed with the first one and took him in a headlock, evacuating the breath from his lungs and dropping him, unconscious, on his back.

Chris moved in, closer than most of the public dared, but faltered behind the tank as bullets started to fly. Cruncher waded into the defenders regardless, laughing raucously and downing at least four with ruthless ferocity, even after the first few slugs had managed to penetrate his body. He pirouetted as a plume of blood erupted from his chest and he fell without grace, landing atop one of his hapless victims.

'Cor, 'struth!' exclaimed Jessie, at the door of the tank. Chris reached to pull her away from the fracas. As they touched, she dispersed into mist; another figment of his erstwhile 167 companions' imagination. The battletank went with her, its usefulness over.

Alone now, Dr Who and Jason were running for the main entrance, but guns covered them from both sides. Someone shouted that they should give themselves up and Chris wanted to add his voice to that cry, to prevent the duo's inevitable fate.

No matter what they had done, they didn't deserve this.

But Jason turned and screamed in defiance and, as Chris started forward but stopped, knowing that to enter the firing zone was futile, two great golden scoops appeared and shovelled the young man's enemies away, upending them into frenzied tangles of arms and legs.

Chris boggled. What were these two? He ran after them instinctively, across the forecourt, unsure what he could do if he caught them. But the security men recovered fast from their unexpected repulsion. A dozen weapons swung to cover him and Chris halted, arms high above his head, being sure not to look as if he posed a threat. Dr Who and Jason disappeared through the archway of Buckingham Palace's princ.i.p.al entrance. Chris was ordered to lie flat on his face and, slowly, carefully, he obeyed.

Someone shouted his name, and the last thing Chris saw as two men in uniforms rushed over to him and buried his raised head in the concrete, was Roz Forrester, standing on the far side of the outer railings.

As his arms were wrenched up behind his back and his wrists connected by uncomfortable manacles, Chris felt a heady surge of relief.

The train was still not moving. And, in the absence of engine noise, a thick silence had enveloped its hindmost carriage, where the Doctor cradled his head in his hands and looked tired and ill.

'So much guilt, so many choices,' he said, after remaining quiet for so long that Mel suspected he had dozed off. 'So many voices in my head.' He looked up and she was alarmed to see red rims about his eyes. 'So many failures before me. Goth, Hedin, the Master, Ruath, even Borusa. Myself, in one possible 168 future. I thought I'd averted that. How could I really have hoped to avoid it?'

Her uncertainty about him was beginning to erode beneath a sympathetic tide. At the same time, Mel felt some measure of fear. Of him; of what he had become. 'What voices?' she asked carefully.

'My past selves,' he grumbled.

'They still exist? I mean, physically? Or is this some sort of . .

.' She groped for the words.

'The body renews itself,' the Doctor said without emotion, 'but too often the mind can't handle the multiplicity of psyches.

It's why the number of regenerations was limited. But still, it's hard to stay in control.'

'How can your past selves exist?' she protested. 'They're you, aren't they?'

'They're part of me.'

'Part of your memories. What you're describing is a . . . a multiple personality disorder!'

He looked at her. His eyes were burning intensely. 'I'm sorry.'

She gave a nervous laugh. 'What for?'

He reached for her hand and she almost withdrew it. But she let him take it, with surprising tenderness. 'I couldn't let it go on. I had my mission and I did what I had to. But I'm sorry I sent you away, Mel, that you were stranded. I should have found a better way.'

'What do you mean?' She tried to laugh again. 'I left of my own volition, Doctor. You can't take the blame for what happened next.'

His expression spoke otherwise. Mel felt confusion, then sadness and frustration - finally, anger, as a long-denied truth was made unmercifully clear.

'Oh no,' she whispered in horror. 'You didn't!'

UNIT jeeps screeched onto the flagged plaza. Khaki-clad soldiers pushed back spectators and erected yellow tape boundaries to discourage their return. Bernice set her sights on the handsome, thirty-something man with Captain's pips at the 169 Palace gates. He seemed to be coordinating the effort. She glanced at Roz and shot an arm out in time to stop her from drawing her gun. 'If you do that, we'll be covered in army grunts in seconds!'

'It's to establish our credentials,' said Roz sullenly. 'We've got to do something. They're sending people into that building and they don't know what they're facing!'

'Unless Chris told them.' Benny nodded towards the truck into which their unprotesting friend had been bundled.

'That's another thing.' Roz scowled and fingered her weapon in its holster.

'There's a better way,' Benny said firmly. 'I know how to handle this lot.' She looked each way, saw that no eyes were on her, and vaulted the makeshift barrier, bearing down on the Captain and smiling as she sensed that Roz had fallen into step behind. Someone shouted as he spotted them, but Benny ignored the booted footsteps of troops hurrying to intercept. By the time they arrived, she had tapped the senior officer's shoulder and pushed a temporary UNIT pa.s.s beneath his nose.

'Sorry about this, Captain Tavistock. We'll get rid of them.'

The officer waved his subordinate aside, his eyes on Benny, his interest engaged. She smiled, reading Roz's impatience from her stance. She needn't think she was taking over here.

Captain Tavistock tore the pa.s.s down the middle and stuffed the two halves into Benny's hand. 'You don't look like a "Jeremy Fitzoliver" to me.'

Well observed,' said Benny, equally cool. 'Now listen up: in about a minute, your two perps will come back out. That'll be your best and only chance to take down the young man in blazer and shorts. If he gets a second, he'll obliterate us with a burst of fictional energy. Shoot to wound if possible, but ignore his friend. He's not important.'

'Orders, sir?' asked a young corporal, bemused by all this.

'All right, Harvie. Tell Sergeant Head to get onto Geneva. We have a Code 4-2-3. The Brigadier will want to be here.' The soldier acknowledged his instructions and hurried off. Tavistock turned back to Benny and gave her a tight smile. 'I am right, 170 aren't I, young lady?' Roz sn.i.g.g.e.red at the term of address.

'You are with the Doctor?' said Tavistock.