'Yes!' Sam shouted.

Major Angela gave a barking laugh.'Let her out!'

The Doctor took great pleasure in gently unstoppering the jar.

The noise that came rushing out - the sound, perhaps, of the very teeth of a tempest, or the endless random cacophony of the sea - made the Scarlet Empress squeal in pain. The golden miasmic light that suffused the throne room blinded her guards until they had all sunk to their knees.

And, in the middle of all of this, quite suddenly, and quite serenely, stood the oldest Empress of all, Ca.s.sandra. She was staring at the current Empress, who cowered inside her own jar.

Eight metres tall stood Ca.s.sandra. She was leering spectacularly at them all. Her legs stood wide as tree trunks, both a luminous gold. The bus came only as high as her waist. She threw back her ma.s.s of yellow hair and laughed at them all.

'And so I am free at last.Who would have believed it? Back in the old palace again.' She shrugged a ma.s.sive fur stole around her shoulders and took in the whole scene.'I can't say it's improved much. Except for all the naked boys around. That's a new touch, honey,' she told the Empress. "That's about the only decent change you've made.'

'Get back into your jar!' commanded the Scarlet Empress tinnily.'Your time has gone! You've no place here.'

'I've every right to be here, sweetheart. I was here before any of you lot.'

'But you should be underground.With all the others. I'm the Empress now.'

'Your time is up,' said Ca.s.sandra.'I know what you're planning, honey.

And it isn't going to work. Your time is running out and you're getting desperate. You want to be Empress for ever and ever. I'm here to stop you.'

The Eldest Empress seemed to be swelling ever further and growing even larger. Her radiance was hurting the audience's eyes. 'Time starts round again this very day,' she cackled, hugely. 'It is countless... oh, hundreds of thousands of years since I kicked it off in the first place, and today is my anniversary. Now I'm back to start it all again. You're finished!'

'Help me!' the Scarlet Empress squawked and the guards cl.u.s.tered haplessly about her.

'She is a charlatan,' Ca.s.sandra thundered. 'She's kept my many daughters and me captive and stoppered up inside our jars for thousands of years, with no one coming down to let us out, even for a second. This is how time is meant to go on - with me coming back!'

'She's good, isn't she?' the Doctor asked Sam, and promptly started dragging her towards the bus. "This reminds me a little of get-togethers with my other selves.'

'Where's Iris?'

'Ah, well. She's...'

The Eldest Empress spread her ma.s.sive, wrinkled hands and sent bolts of sheer lightning that crackled around the throne room. The guards clutched their heads and dropped to the floor.

'Run!' the Doctor yelled.'Everyone - get aboard!'

Major Angela turned to Gila.'Do as he -'

Gila was on the floor. He looked up at her, snapping his tremendous reptilian jaws. His limbs had shrunk and stunted to proper alligator size, his elbows fledging up to support his wide torso. He had completely reverted. His tail lashed furiously. Even without being able to see him, Angela knew what had happened.

She left him and ran across the marble floor to the others as the blue lightning continued to burst around the room.

'Give in, sweetheart,' the Eldest Empress laughed. 'Give up now, daughter. While you still can!'

The Scarlet Empress writhed inside the jar.'Never!'

The gla.s.s exploded then, cracking and falling into thick, greasy shards.

Gallons of pink, lucid glue poured out across the red marble.

'Daughter...' the vast Ca.s.sandra said.

A body slumped out on to the hard floor. She lay in the unguents, ruined, emaciated, almost formless.

'Quickly,' the Doctor yelled, hauling his companions aboard. He slammed the bus doors behind them.

They watched through the windows as the golden radiance flooded the room. They heard the ancient Empress's words: "This is how time begins anew. As it was meant to be.'

They turned their eyes away as the room exploded, quite soundlessly, into gold, and then white.

Then the windows all turned black.

After a moment, Sam asked,'What's out there?'

'Nothing yet,' the Mock Turtle said.'It's all going to start again.'

'Has Hyspero been destroyed?' asked an oddh/ dispa.s.sionate Angela.

'Not destroyed; said the Doctor. 'In the process of being renewed.

Closed for refurbishment, you could say.'

Sam looked around.'Where's Gila?'

'Still out there,' the Bearded Lady told her. 'Something had happened to him. He lost his human self completely.' She sank on to a sofa.

'Iris!' Sam gasped.

The old woman was lying nearby. Untouched by recent developments.

She looked dead.

'Oh yes,' said the Doctor thoughtfully. 'I think the time has come to sort her out. It's time to call in a favour or two.' He gazed out at the blackness for a moment. Then he straightened his green frock coat and marched to the double doors.

'You're not going out there,' Sam told him. She didn't want to lose him again so soon.

'I think it's all right,' he said. 'Just a bit gloomy. And messy.'

'There's nothing out there!' the Bearded Lady protested.

The Doctor turned to them all and grinned. 'Oh, but there's always something out there.'

Then he opened up the doors of the bus and stepped outside.

Chapter Thirty.

Something for Iris

It was true enough. The interior of the palace was gloomy and messy.

Part of the ceiling seemed to be ripped away, revealing the sky. Turrets were cracked. Rubble and bodies were strewn about the floor. Outside, lightning rolled and splintered across the rooftops. The revellers of Hyspero had stopped revelling.

The Doctor tiptoed lightly away from the bus. He let his eyes adjust to the dark.

At the far end of the room he could make out the tall gla.s.s shards of the jar. The Scarlet Empress's body was sprawled across them.

On a step sat a quite average-sized woman in a golden sheath of a dress.

He sat down beside her.

"That's that, then,' he smiled sadly.

'I wish she'd been a bit more sensible,'said the Eldest Empress.'It's so cold in here, isn't it?' She sighed. "There's such a lot to sort out.' She fiddled with the clasps on her shoes. 'I never even wanted to be Empress, really.'

The Doctor looked thoughtful. 'Ca.s.sandra, I need your help.'

'You do?'

'Or Iris does.' He picked up a sloppy handful of the spiUed, pink, life-preserving glue that had kept the former Empress together. 'She needs this stuff.'

Ca.s.sandra shuddered. 'It's filthy stuff.'

'She'll die without it.'

'It's very hard to get a hold of.'

'I'll get it. Just tell me how.'

The Eldest Empress stared at the back of her hands. The Doctor was fascinated to see the liver spots fade before his very eyes, her wrinkles and stresses smoothing out of her skin even as they talked. 'And yet,'

she said, 'you always seem to make out that this Iris person is a complete disaster, every time you b.u.mp into her.Wouldn't you rather she was out of your life for ever?'

He sat back. 'So she couldn't go round any more, telling everyone my secrets? Writing everything down? So she couldn't claim that she'd been off, haring round the cosmos in her clapped-out bus having my adventures? And so she couldn't periodically crop up in my life and claim she was in love with me?' He laughed softly.

'Wouldn't it be easier for you if you just let her die?'

He shook his head.'I don't think so. She's my friend.'

'Really?'

The Doctor stood up.'Now that's a proper Empress talking.You can't afford friends, can you? Can't let anyone in, can't trust anyone. If I was you, I wouldn't either. I would hate to have power like you have now.' He gestured to the spoiled body of the Scarlet Empress.'Or power like she had up until a few minutes ago. Power like that puts you outside of ordinary life. Ordinary life is where everything is a struggle and muddle and you can only do your best. The likes of you only have to click your fingers and it's a matter of life and death. Horrible.'

Ca.s.sandra narrowed her eyes. 'Like I say, I never wanted to be Empress.'

'But there's no one left to do the job, now.'

'I know, even Julia is dead. Her own mother sent the birds to destroy the Kristeva . She was mad. She even killed her own daughter.'

'It's a job that can send you mad,' said the Doctor. 'You be careful.

Remember Catherine the Great.'

Ca.s.sandra appeared to reach a decision. She brushed the debris off her shining frock.'All right, Doctor. I'll grant you your little wish.You can get on with it while I start some clearing up.'

Then she clicked her fingers.

'Thank you,' the Doctor said, and promptly vanished.

Ca.s.sandra watched him go with some satisfaction. She looked up into the ruined ceiling and noted that the dark sky was beginning to brighten.

A blush of blue was spreading through the heavens. Then there was a shout.

Sam came hurtling out of the bus.

'Where have you sent him?'

'Ssh, honey,' said the Empress.'Not far. He'll be all right.'

The Bearded Lady was by Sam's side.'How far?'

'Extreme north,' the old woman said simply. 'A small mission for his friend.' Then she rallied.'Come on now, everyone.We've got work to do.'

They stared at the ruined throne room.

Blearily, the Mock Turtle was emerging from the bus.'I think it's too late for Iris,'he said, quietly.'There's no pulse.no breathing.'Suddenly he froze, his dejected hooves held out in mid-air.'Look!'

They turned to see where he was pointing.

An alligator had scampered out of the shadows. Quite a young, nimble beast, the increasing light sparkling on its shining scales. They stared, appalled, as he made for the body of the dead and fallen Scarlet Empress. And they listened to the clamping and rasping of his powerful jaws. Gila was innocently feasting on her body and the life-preserving gels.

Chapter Thirty-One.