Her vision blurred and the sounds of activity from behind were m.u.f.fled. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the tide of sickness which rose in her stomach. She clenched her fists so tight that she thought her palms would bleed. She ignored the vivid impression in her mind that, on the far side of the disturbance, there were Cybermen, Yeti and alien knights waiting in ambush. She controlled that illogical fear, concentrating instead on thoughts of Ancelyn and the twins. Her temples began to ache and her legs were unsteady; her nerves were screaming at her to turn around.

Without conscious thought or action, she was back outside the barrier, in an undignified heap, the world shooting into focus again. She realized she was screaming and she closed her mouth, embarra.s.sed. She picked herself up and glared from one soldier to another as if challenging them to smirk. They remained po-faced and avoided her glare.

Not bad,' said an approving voice. 'That's about as far as I got too.'

'Who are you?' asked Bambera gruffly.

'Forrester, sir. I'm with the Doctor.' Bambera looked the woman over with approval. Her well-toned musculature, her prematurely grey hair with its smart military cut and her general alertness all told the Brigadier that this Forrester was an experienced trooper, and very likely a good one. Not like the accountants and resource managers on fast-track career paths who had infiltrated even UNIT these days.

'We're not sure what's happening in there yet,' Forrester reported. 'We'd only just had the all-clear when the barrier appeared. Chances are, it's something to do with Dr Who and Jason.'

'And who are they?'

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. 'Hey, Miss. .h.i.tler-in-Army-Boots, I think you should look up there.'

On the Palace balcony, more rightly reserved for public appearances by the Royal Family, two men had emerged to survey the crowd of soldiers below. No, Bambera checked 189 herself, make that three men. The third was a stocky, blond-haired lad, who hung back at the balcony entrance and bobbed into view only momentarily.

'It's Chris!' Summerfield exclaimed.

'So that's where he went to,' breathed Forrester.

Bambera's gaze was rooted on the foremost figure: the all too familiar, part-frightening, part-rea.s.suring form of the enigmatic Doctor. 'What's your alien friend doing up there?' she asked Forrester, grumpily.

'That's not him. It's a fictional double, created by the guy in the blazer on the right.'

Bambera grunted an acknowledgement of that information and looked at Tavistock, who seemed as confused as she was.

She stared up at the crazy tableau. The alien freak doffed his hat and waved graciously; she was aware of the explosion of a dozen flash bulbs from the media behind her.

'Shame!' Brigadier Bambera cursed.

Even trapped in her plush underground office, the Superior of Detrios managed to exude an aura of power and majesty. She remained implacable, a shimmering shape of blackness behind her plastic desk, and she coolly eyed Darnak and Merrioc as they flanked the barricaded door, guns ready. 'May I remind you,' she said, 'that it is your responsibility to die to protect me when the moment comes. You first, I think, Darnak.'

Politik Darnak didn't know which he feared most: the approaching sounds of battle without or the steel-willed, haughty dictator within. He felt his hand sweating around the blaster weapon's cold b.u.t.t and, for an absurd moment, he thought it was going to slip out of his grasp.

He was going to die.

That thought was only beginning to seep into his brain. With each crackle of gunfire and each whoop of victory from the cultists, it penetrated a little further.

'I wish you to know, Darnak,' growled the Superior, her composure melting just a little, 'that I hold you personally responsible for all this.'

Darnak gritted his teeth, experiencing the familiar hot flush 190 and helpless misery of humiliation at her hands. It occurred to him that, with death closing in, he didn't have to put up with her jibes this time.

'It was clearly the prison escape you allowed which emboldened these . . . these commoners commoners into thinking they can usurp me!' into thinking they can usurp me!'

'Actually, ma'am,' said Merrioc ingratiatingly, 'it occurs to me that Politik Darnak was also the last representative of the Ruling Family to communicate with the legions of the Undying One. I wonder if perhaps he upset them?'

Darnak glared at him. The Superior was pacing angrily. A few seconds later, she turned and shouted again: If you had had the courage to take on just three cultists in Street 4, I would have been in the battleship Morningstar Morningstar and safely off this planet by now. I swear, if I die today, I will come back to haunt you, Darnak!' and safely off this planet by now. I swear, if I die today, I will come back to haunt you, Darnak!'

Somebody screamed, immediately outside the door. All present knew that it was almost certainly the last of the Superior's personal guard. Darnak's heart quickened and he fumbled with his blaster. It slid from his trembling hands, hit the floor and discharged into the office wall.

'You fool!' the Superior shrilled, marching around the desk to where her presence could more effectively intimidate him. 'A lizard man could be better trained than you, Darnak!' She pointed a perfectly manicured fingernail towards the site of impact. 'And the repair for that is coming out of your pocket!'

Darnak broke. He slapped her across the face and yelled, in barely coherent, staccato tones: 'Shut - up - you - selfish - manipulative - tyrant!'

The Superior's nostrils flared and her lower lip quivered in speechless fury. Darnak felt light-headed. One voice in his head told him he'd just made the biggest mistake of his life. Another crowed: What the h.e.l.l? It's over anyway!

His outburst, unsurprisingly, was met by silence.

Total, absolute, silence.

It took a moment for Darnak to realize what that meant. And even then, he didn't believe it. Not until Merrioc's satisfied 191 proclamation: 'I can't hear anything. The fighting's stopped.'

He paused, enjoying the moment. Then, for no obvious reason other than to rub salt into Darnak's metaphorical wound, he expounded: 'Enros must have given up.'

Darnak's legs went weak as the Superior squared up to him with a look that said she was going to take great s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure from what came next. Terrified, he inadvertently looked into her eyes. It was true: they were like obsidian pools.

Or rather, he thought as his stomach roiled and he dropped to his knees, like black holes, drawing him into their fatal embrace. He opened his mouth, not too proud to abjectly beg for forgiveness.

Then the door exploded, catching Merrioc unawares in a blizzard of wood splinters, and the room was suddenly swarming with cultists.

Darnak thanked the Miracle that he was only going to die after all.

Roz and Bambera crouched side by side at the edge of the barrier, whilst Benny and Captain Tavistock looked on and were disregarded. Roz had prised open her blaster and was prodding at its insides with a length of wire.

'If the energy from this thing can get through the barrier,'

asked the Brigadier attentively, 'then why did your shots bounce of it?'

'Too much too fast,' said Roz. 'The field is set to reflect energy, but without a real physical presence, it can't do that with one hundred per cent efficiency.'

'I see. So we drip it in slowly.'

'That's right, sir. It's a tried and trusted procedure. I did this a hundred times when I was in the Adjudication Service.

Eventually, the field will reach saturation point and the whole thing will blow.'

'Eventually?'

'It could take anything from ten minutes to an hour and a half.'

'Will your power pack last that long?'

If not,' said Roz, 'we can use Benny's.'

192.

'Oh, I exist now, do I?' said Bernice.

Roz pushed the cannibalized weapon into the field area. A short, thin beam whined from its muzzle. 'When it does go down,' she said, 'we'll have to move in fast - before Jason finds out and thinks of something else.'

They stood up and Bambera gave her a congratulatory clap on the back. 'Good work, soldier!'

Bernice and Tavistock exchanged a long-suffering look, united by helplessness.

They waited for the blaster to do its work.

193.

21.

Consternation Day

'Why do you deny me?'

'You don't have a say. Your time is over.'

'That's not true.'

'It has to be!'

'Look where you've got us: our companions jeopardized and the timelines unravelling.'

'You can make all the accusations you like. I won't let you out: 'You're running from the truth.'

'I'm doing what's right.'

'Why don't you face me?'

'. . . He's coming round.'

The Doctor opened his eyes. White ceiling. He was lying on the TARDIS floor. Ace hovered over him. 'Didn't you leave?'

he muttered blearily. He blinked away thoughts of bad dreams.

He stood, rubbing his shoulder. It felt stiff.

Mel came into focus, standing at the console's far side. He peered myopically. 'You too?'

'Ace knocked you out,' she announced distastefully, 'as soon as you walked through the door.'

'I had to be sure you weren't the double,' Ace said apologetically. 'He doesn't have a sensitive nerve cl.u.s.ter in his shoulder.'

'I'm sorry I told you about that now,' he said ruefully. 'We're short of time. How long have I been out?'

'Fifteen minutes,' she said. 'Sorry.'

'Don't worry.' He allowed a hint of sarcasm to enter his voice. 'It's a tried and tested human procedure dating back to Medieval witch hunts. If the victim suffers extreme physical 194 pain and/or death, he's innocent.' He began to op erate the controls.

'Where are we going?' asked Mel.

The Doctor looked at her through misted eyes and teased out memories from his cotton wool brain. 'I don't know yet,' he said. 'But I'm sure it's important.'

Chris stood beneath an elaborate chandelier and swallowed at the sight of the twin thrones, raised up on a three-stepped dais.

They were only wooden chairs, he told himself, albeit gilded and upholstered with fine red silk. But they represented more.

Just being here made him feel dirty and treacherous; like he was rummaging in the Empress's bed chambers. He realized that that simile wasn't far off the mark.

Dr Who and Jason didn't help matters. They capered like children winning a trivial game: sitting down, getting up again and circling the room with wide eyes. They wouldn't tell him what they had done to the Queen. He felt sick at the thought that he might be an accomplice after the fact to regicide.

Chris had been invited to try a throne himself. He'd declined, just as he had held back in the balcony room during that debacle. He wanted no part of this, but he had little choice. His kidnap from Roz's side (Dr Who 'just happened to have' a remote transmat device handy with which to rescue his friend) had left him in no doubt about the duo's powers. He had to be careful about getting on their wrong side.

'What are you going to do now?' he asked, when he could bear their playful antics no longer.

The question seemed to sober them temporarily. Jason dropped into the left-hand throne and nibbled at a fingernail.

'Pa.s.s a few laws, I think. Tax the rich for a squid-zillion pounds each. Sack the Prime Minister. Restore hanging for football hooligans and racists.'

And invading monsters,' put in Dr Who.

Jason nodded eagerly. 'And ban school uniforms.' He turned to his colleague. I could never see the point of them, could you?'

'I thought you were supposed to be making things better,'

195.

said Chris pointedly.

'We will,' said Jason, hurt by that barb. 'We can't do worse than our last ruler.' He jumped to his feet and ushered Dr Who into the vacated chair. 'I've a surprise for you.' He produced it from beneath his blazer: a magnificent tiara of interlocking diamond circles, an emerald slotted into each. Your crown.'

'Oh, Jason,' said the recipient with false modesty.

'I got it from that horde of jewels down the corridor.'

'I remember. But as I said then, that wealth could be better spent on ordinary people.'

'But you must have a crown,' insisted Jason. He lowered it onto Dr Who's head and the older man didn't resist.

'Congratulations!' Jason stepped back and beamed. 'You're now officially the King.' He visibly tingled with pleasure. 'Oh, this is perfect! I just hope the Doctor doesn't come along and spoil it.'

'I thought he was dead!' exclaimed Chris, a desperate hope forming.