Shaking, Utnapishtim asked: "What can we do?" "Only one thing for it." The Doctor flashed Avram a brief smile as the singer helped him to support Ace. "I've got to get back to my TARDIS immediately. I take it you have some fast transport lying around somewhere?" "Two flitters in the temple precincts," Urshanabi offered.

"Good. Get them both ready. Avram and I will bring Ace. Utnapishtim, you bring that bomb."

"Me?"

The Doctor sighed. "If Ace were in her right mind, I'd have her do it; it's right up her street. But you'll have to do for now. Enkidu!" The Neanderthal rushed over.

"How can I help?" he mumbled.

"You keep things straight here. Stop Gilgamesh from killing everyone while I'm gone. Look after Ninani and King Agga. Hopefully, I'll be back very soon. Right, let's go!" The ride on the flitters was swift, and within five minutes the small party was standing by the incongruous shape of the TARDIS among the date palms. Fishing in his pocket, the Doctor dragged out his key.

"Are we in time?" Utnapishtim asked, holding the cobalt bomb gingerly. The Doctor nodded towards it.

"As long as that thing hasn't gone off, we've got some time left." The door opened, and he and Avram dragged the unconscious Ace inside.

Utnapishtim and Urshanabi followed them. "Kindly refrain from any comments on the size of the interior," the Doctor said. "I've heard them all before, and it's time to get busy." Leaving Avram to bring Ace, he hurried over to the central console and began to power up the systems.

Instinctively he started to set the force field about the ship, but stayed his hand in time. "No, that would be a mistake of explosive proportions..."

Urshanabi and Utnapishtim stared at the controls in fascination. "Interesting technology," the older man commented.

"Very," the Doctor agreed brusquely, pushing him out of the way as he set the controls of the telepathic circuits. "Avram, bring Ace over here, please."

"What are you going to do?" asked Urshanabi.

"Deceive the bomb. It's tuned to Ishtar's brain patterns, so all I have to do is to keep them going even if she dies. We have a link to Ishtar through Ace, so if I can drain her thoughts into the circuits here, it should help."

"Can you do that?" "Oh, yes," the Doctor a.s.sured him, remembering what had happened the last time he had used them, and the effect they had had on Ace. "I think I can guarantee that it will work." He stopped what he was doing for a moment, his fingers hovering indecisively over the b.u.t.tons.

"Well, perhaps I could do with a second opinion," he said, grudgingly. He wasn't at all certain that this was a good idea, but there was little else he could do.

"Mine?" offered Utnapishtim, curiously.

"No, mine," the Doctor replied. "At least, an opinion I used to have." He hesitated over the telepathic circuits for a moment. "I don't like this part,"

he admitted.

"What are you going to do?" Eyeing the contacts nervously, the Doctor explained: "We Time Lords achieve the near-immortality that Ishtar so desired by a process of bodily regeneration. I've undertaken it a few times myself. But each time we do it, our personalities undergo a certain amount of change. We almost develop new personalities, new skills, new methods.

My third self was the one most capable with the technology I really need."

Taking a deep breath, he slammed his hands down on the contact pads.

"So I have to bring him back."

"Physically?" Utnapishtim asked, astounded.

"No. That's impossible. Mentally."

The Doctor's body arced in a spasm of pain. He had to submerge his current personality, and use the TARDIS's capabilities to augment the traits, knowledge and skills that his third self had once possessed. It wasn't going to be an easy task, because the memories were buried deep in the recesses of his mind and his present personality would try to reject the overlays imposed by the TARDIS. But it had to be done. He lacked the certainty that he could do the job as he now was.

The silvery snake-form of Ishtar writhed in agony on the floor of her holy of holies. Gilgamesh had wanted to bury his war axe into her metal form, but Enkidu had convinced him to wait. Grudgingly the king had taken his temper out on the remaining dazed guards, clubbing them into line and setting them to work cleaning the dead bodies out of the room.

Agga and En-Gula were bent over the convulsed form of Ninani. The priestess could see tears of pain and despair in the eyes of her king as he watched his daughter being racked by the spasms. She laid a daring, gentle hand on his hairy arm.

"Trust the Doctor," she said. "He is wise. He will help her."

Agga nodded, but he could not accept it. His daughter, his favourite, seemed to be dying. And perhaps in moments, they would all die if Ishtar perished.

"Well, it's about time."

The Doctor straightened up from the panel, and looked about himself in amazement. Then he looked down at his clothing. "Jumping Jehoshaphat!

Is this what I've become? A scarecrow?" Without waiting for an answer, he looked down at Ace. "Ah, I see the problem. Quite right of me to come to me for help."

Hesitantly, Utnapishtim touched the Doctor's arm. "Doctor? What has happened? You sound different."

"That's because I am different." He rubbed his chin. "Look, we Time Lords have many personalities over the centuries. But they are all linked. Like the different faces of a multi-coloured cube. What he - I -did was to sort of mentally invert the cube to show a different face." He touched his nose.

"Well, the same outward face, but a different inward one. I'm far more capable with the telepathic circuits than he could ever be." A brief shadow pa.s.sed over his face, as his old self seemed to flash back. "Showoff!" he accused himself.

Deeply worried now, Utnapishtim stared at the strange figure. "And you think you can stop Ishtar from destroying this world?"

"If I can't, no one can."

"G.o.d help us," Utnapishtim sighed, convinced he was faced with a maniac.

"Right," the Doctor ordered. "Brigadier, you bring Jo over here, please."

Then, realizing what he had said, he rubbed his brow. "Avram, bring Ace over here, please," he corrected himself.

Urshanabi dragged at his mentor's sleeve. "He's schizophrenic," he breathed. "Dare we trust that he knows what he's doing?"

"What option do we have?" Both of them stared at the bomb, knowing that it could explode at any second.

Avram accepted what was happening with simple trust. This box they were in was no more magical than any of the sights he had witnessed since running into Ace. If this odd Doctor had a new personality, what difference did it make? He helped the Doctor to place Ace on the floor beside the console.

Kneeling, the Doctor gently slapped Ace's face. "Wake up, Sarah Jane," he smiled. "Come on, there's a good girl."

"Ace," prompted Avram.

Glancing up crossly, the Doctor snapped: "I knew that! Ace, Ace, come on."

He slapped her slightly harder.

Ace's eyes flashed open, and she started to struggle and howl again.

"Ishtar's still alive and kicking," the Doctor gasped. "Come on, you two.

Give me a hand to connect Ace to the telepathic circuits." Together they managed to get Ace erect and her hands, clenched into tight fists, into direct contact with the telepathic inputs. Leaving the other three to hold her in place, the Doctor returned to the controls.

"Maybe I should reverse the polarity of the neuron flow?" he mused to himself. Then, with a touch of the seventh Doctor's fire, he shook his head.

"That'll never work! Just get on with it." Blinking, he surveyed the controls again. Utnapishtim and Urshanabi exchanged very worried glances over Ace's writhing body. Trusting that the Doctor really knew what he was doing was getting harder and harder.

It wasn't much easier for him, if he was willing to tell the truth. Dredging up his past self was an incredible strain on both his bodily and mental processes. The personality clashed with the form it was in, and was being held in place only by an almost overwhelming effort on his part.

Concentrating through this fog was difficult. It was hardly surprising that he was making a few minor mistakes. But at least he knew now what he had to do. Plunging down on the controls, the Doctor grimaced. "Here we go!"

The central rotor started to rise and fall, and a terrible grinding sound filled the room. It was all they could do not to let Ace go and jam their fingers into their ears. Ace shook again, but her spasms seemed to be dying down.

"I need a good deal of precision here, Sergeant Benton!" the Doctor yelled at Avram. "Try and keep her steady." He manipulated the controls, and the rotor stopped moving vertically, and started spinning, faster and faster.

"Right, just a touch of the old sleight of hand. . . " Gingerly he moved the controls, all the time watching the telepathic circuits like a hawk. A single slip at this point might doom them all.

In a brief flash of light, the metal probe that had been implanted in Ace's head fell out and lay on the input panel. With a final scream, Ace went limp over the controls.

"You've freed her, Doctor!" Utnapishtim called. "Well done!"

"Not now, Brigadier. It's still very tricky." He bent down, watching the implant intently. Ace was going to recover now, but the link between Ishtar and the bomb was being maintained only through the TARDIS's telepathic circuit and the sliver of metal resting on it. If the link was lost, the cobalt bomb just inside the doors would explode - which might save the Earth, but wouldn't do the interior of the TARDIS the slightest bit of good. Boosting the signal and tapping in command codes, the Doctor began to transfer the mental link into the TARDIS's circuitry. This was the tricky bit. If he lost the mental signal linking the implant to Ishtar for even a nanosecond, it would all be over.

The implant vanished.

For a second the Doctor expected to be dead. Then he realized that the bomb hadn't detonated. Somehow, whatever had happened had not triggered the bomb. Hardly able to believe his luck, the Doctor grinned. The instruments showed that the line to Ishtar was still open. He wasn't sure what had just happened, but there wasn't any need to admit this to the others as long as everything was still working.

"We seem to be doing fine," he said, crossing to his tool chest. Dragging out his electronic pack, he hurried over to the bomb. "Now, all I need to do is disconnect the detonator here, and we should be set." He waved over his shoulder. "I'll need total silence for this, so please don't applaud." Bending to his task he selected one of his instruments, and began to work on opening the outer casing.

Ishtar was still writhing in the throes of agony when her body suddenly went rigid from her platinum hair to the point of her silver tail. With a final scream she slowly faded away, till there was no trace of her left in the room.

Agga looked at Enkidu, unable to comprehend what was happening. "Is it - over?"

The ape-man shrugged. "Who can say? We must do as we were told, and wait for word from the Doctor."

The Doctor was busy rea.s.sembling the casing of the bomb. "Right," he said briskly, getting to his feet. "That should do it." With a smile, he tossed the bomb at Urshanabi, who caught it out of reflex. "We can erase Ishtar from the telepathic circuits now. I've disarmed the mechanism, Sergeant Benton."

"What should I do with it?" the nervous ferryman asked.

"I should think it might come in handy to help repower your wrecked ship,"

the Doctor told him, patting him on the shoulder. "Along with the rest of the circuitry and equipment from Ishtar's inner sanctum, I think you could get your ship ready for lift off again. With my help, of course. That should solve that little problem, too. I do love a tidy solution, don't you?"

With a groan, Ace awoke. "Who kicked my head?" she muttered, rubbing at her temples. Struggling, she was glad to accept Utnapishtim's help to sit up. Then she realized where she was. "What's going on. Professor?"

"Professor?" The Doctor glared down at her in a haughty fashion. "My dear Liz, please call me the Doctor."

"Liz?" Ace stared up at him in bewilderment. "What's happened to you?

You don't sound quite right in the head."

"I'm perfectly fine, thank you, Jo. I've just had to regress to one of my former incarnations to solve the problems we faced, that's all." He rubbed his hands together, studying the odd readings flickering across the console's registers.

"The name's Ace, Professor." Remembering the apparition she had seen at the TARDIS console before all of this nightmare began, she asked: "Are you that bloke we saw who was all hair and teeth?" "That buffoon?

Certainly not." With all the dignity he could muster, the Doctor gripped his coat lapels. "I've reverted to my third incarnation. Which I always thought was the best - I think. Certainly the most competent, at any rate."

Ace's head had stopped spinning now, and she made it fully upright at last.

"So, what did I miss?"

"Just about everything," he replied. "I've managed to defuse the bomb, and I'm about to erase Ishtar's mental patterns from the telepathic circuits."

"You put her in there?" Ace was shocked. "Professor, you know you've been having trouble with them!"

"Nonsense, Sarah Jane. There's nothing wrong with either my memory or my ship." He patted the console, lovingly. "She's a good girl - which is more than I can say about some people."

"You managed to lose my memories in it," she pointed out.

"A slight miscalculation, nothing more." With a sigh, the Doctor turned to the controls. "Look, I'll get rid of her right this - Jumping Jehoshaphat!"

"What's wrong now?" Ace asked, dreading the reply.

"I can't seem to find a trace of her. . . " He bent over the readout, indexing through. "She doesn't seem to be where I put her."

It didn't sound good. "You've screwed up," Ace said, feeling icicles slipping down the inside of her spine. "You've really done it this time."

"Don't be silly. I know exactly what I'm -" There was a sharp burning smell, and an arc of electricity snapped at his fingers from the panel. He sucked at his fingers, staring at the instrument readings. "That shouldn't have happened," he complained. "I'll just -" As soon as he tried to move in again, another huge spark crackled across the controls.

"That doesn't look good, Professor," said Ace, grimly. "What's going on?"

"Probably nothing," the Doctor replied, sounding far from certain about this.

"The old girl is getting on in years, and probably just needs a good overhaul to set her right."

There was the sound of an explosion from deeper within the TARDIS, and the ship shook. Struggling to keep her feet, Ace pointed as the viewer screen came to life.

Ishtar's silver face smiled down at them, triumphantly. "Doctor! I really must thank you. This is an intriguing little device, isn't it!"

"What's happened?" Utnapishtim called out, waving about in an attempt to regain his balance as another spasm seemed to shake the ship about them.

Swallowing, the Doctor stared in horror at the central console. "It looks as if I've made a terrible blunder," he admitted. "Somehow, Ishtar is still with us - a bit too literally. She's inside the TARDIS control circuitry . . .

22: APOTHEOSIS.