Doctor Who_ Logopolis Part 9

'Please remain where you are,' said the Master. 'I have it in my power to bring Logopolis to a complete halt.'

And Tegan's blood froze to hear again the chuckle that had first terrified her in the TARDIS cloister room.

They were still some way away from the Central Register when Nyssa stopped suddenly. 'Listen!'

'I can't hear anything,' said Adric. And then he realised. Logopolis, the city that buzzed with numbers and the clacking of abacus beads . . . was now completely silent.

'Logopolis has stopped!' Nyssa exclaimed.

The Doctor peered into the nearest cel . As they had come to expect, a Logopolitan was sitting in his customary place at the entrance. But this one was completely motionless and silent, his abacus lying unused on his lap.

Adric saw the Doctor reach out to touch the still figure. To his horror the flesh crumbled away to dust as if it were a hollow, fragile sh.e.l.l.

The Doctor straightened up. 'It's started already,' he said grimly. 'The Master's attack. I was vain enough to believe it was me he was after. Logopolis is his target.'

There was nothing Tegan or the Monitor could do. The screen, with the Master's added silver device, was pointing into the aperture of the Monitor's console, pouring its lethal silence into the whole city.

The Monitor's distress was evident in his voice. 'Turn that machine off immediately. You fool! You have no idea what you are doing.'

The Master smiled. 'Merely emitting a sound-cancelling wave. Logopolis is now temporarily suspended, Monitor. The silence gives us an opportunity to discuss its future.'

'No!' The monosyllable was full of pain. 'It won't have a future, and nor will anything else unless you stop now.' The Monitor was pleading. 'You are eroding the structure and generating entropy.'

Tegan had no idea what was happening, but she could see from the Monitor's face that something had gone horribly wrong - something the Master had not antic.i.p.ated.

'An absurd a.s.sertion, Monitor,' said the Master, with an arrogant curl of his lip. 'I know the power of this device down to the last decibel.'

'But you don't know Logopolis!'

The Master stared back with cold, empty eyes. 'But I shal know it, shan't I, Monitor?

Before I allow the fascinating sounds of life here to resume you will have told me all there is to know. Of the secret work you are doing here perhaps . . . I heard rumours of your plagiarism of the Earthling's fruitless Pharos Project. Why have you created a copy here on Logopolis, Monitor? The time has come for you to share your secret with me.'

There was madness in the smooth control ed voice that made the Monitor move back instinctively, shaking his head. 'I cannot tell you. No one must know.

That has been our firm decision.'

So the Monitor had been concealing something! The thought flashed through Tegan's mind as she heard the Master say: 'Then we will wait until you change your decision.

Patience is a particular virtue of mine.'

'If you call killing the Logopolitans a virtue.' Tegan turned at the sound of the familiar voice. His scarf and coat flying, the Doctor strode into the room, followed by Adric and Nyssa.

The Master's laughter fell like a shower of acid rain on the white-walled room. 'Killing them, Doctor? You expect me to believe that?'

The Doctor certainly did. In a few terse sentences he gave an account of what they had seen in the street outside, and added, 'So you see, the Monitor's right, Master. Your spirit of free enterprise is more damaging than even you can imagine.'

'Father! What are you doing?'

There was a note of surprise in Nyssa's voice. She had been slowly walking towards the Master, and now she stood before him, reaching out, her round face a question.

'That's not your father, Nyssa.' The Doctor gently took her arm and drew her back.

'Tremas is dead. Killed by the Master here!'

'Dead!' She saw the truth in the Doctor's eyes, and turned to confront the object of his accusing finger. 'You've killed my father!'

Again the Master's laugh grated on the still air. 'But his body remains useful.'

Adric was astonished to see this small, aristocratic girl so br.i.m.m.i.n.g with icy anger. She tore herself from the Doctor's grasp and rushed at the Master. But as she was almost upon him a curious thing happened. The arm on which she wore her new gold armlet seemed suddenly to be suspended in the air, pulled up by some invisible hook. It jerked Nyssa back: she tugged at it, trying to reach the Master with the other hand. But the mocking face lay just beyond her flailing fingers.

'I'm grateful to Tremas,' the Master sneered. 'Without this body I could not have conquered Logopolis.'

'This isn't conquest - it's devastation,' the Doctor shouted.

'Yes, you will destroy everything.'

It must have been the note of terrible urgency in the Monitor's voice that made the Master hesitate fractionally before he said, 'You exaggerate, Monitor. Logopolis is not the universe.'

'But it is! Logopolis is the keystone.' The Monitor's face was ashen. 'If you destroy Logopolis, you unravel the whole causal nexus!'

'Causal nexus! You insult my intelligence, Monitor.' But the Master was less sure now.

He paused before the Monitor, glowering into those opaque grey eyes, trying to read the purpose behind this preposterous suggestion.

In the silence Tegan whispered to Adric, 'What's he talking about?'

'Something's interfering with the law of cause and effect,' the boy replied. His gaze was fixed on the Master, who seemed about to strike the Monitor. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Doctor rush forward.

'Listen to him! The Monitor's right! We've seen it!'

'Please step back, Doctor. Or . . .' The Master touched a b.u.t.ton on the silver box attached to the screen. Nyssa cried out in pain as her arm swung round threateningly towards the Doctor.

'Let her go,' said the Doctor between gritted teeth. But for safety's sake he took a step back.

Adric was rasher than the Doctor. His anger drove any thought of the consequences out of his mind, and he dived for the screen, sending it flying across the room. At that moment a hand closed around his throat. 'Nyssa! Let go.' Once again the small fingers dug deep into his neck. He screwed his head round to see blank astonishment in her eyes.

'I . . . can't . . .' she cried.

The Master voice was cool. 'That is a demonstration of the causal nexus, Monitor. The electro-muscular constrictor gives me complete control over that hand. Please replace the screen, Doctor. Or one of your young friends will eliminate the other.'

The Doctor had no choice. Seeing him forced to do as the Master demanded, Tegan's anger boiled over. 'You revolting man. I wouldn't take orders from you if you were the last man in the universe.'

'Which he may well be, if he carries on like this,' said the Doctor when the screen was in place again. 'Don't you see what the Monitor is telling us, Master? Logopolis isn't the academic backwater it seems, but somehow crucial to the structure of creation.'

'I have never been susceptible to argument based on abstract nouns, Doctor.' The Master touched the silver box and Nyssa released her grip.

The Doctor pointed to the door. 'Then come out into the streets and see what's happening.'

His adversary stroked his beard with a gloved hand, considering the idea for a moment.

Then he shook his head. 'No need for that, Doctor. I can demonstrate the continued functioning of Logopolis from here.' He reached towards the silver box. 'This device only creates temporary silence. And can be switched off.'

The Master unclipped the box from the screen, and after a moment put his ear to the aperture in front of the console to listen.

The Monitor had said nothing for a while. Now his voice was quiet and clear, with only a hint of a tremble. 'You will hear nothing. Local disruption of structure is already irreversible. Logopolis is dead.'

The Master hesitated on the steps of the Central Register. Below him the street was beginning to silt up with a fine pink sand that cascaded down from the s.h.i.+fting rocks.

Apart from the cracking and hissing of this motion, there was total silence.

He ran down the steps, followed by the others. While the Master inspected cell after cel , ducking the intermittent showers of debris, the Monitor said softly in the Doctor's ear. 'We knew there was this danger. We often speculated on what it might be like.'

The Master clutched at an abandoned abacus; it crumbled in his hands. He turned to the Monitor. 'You've done this deliberately. A ploy to deprive me of my prize.' As he spoke a nearby cell collapsed in a slide of rubble.

'Don't raise your voice,' the Monitor warned. 'Nothing is solid now. Entropy has taken over.'

The Master looked wildly round the street, as if trying to escape the truth of the Monitor's story.

Tegan, who understood very little of this, tugged at Adric's arm. 'But what's he done?'

Everything had begun to waste away when the Master interfered. That much Adric was able to explain. 'The Numbers. Somehow they were holding the whole structure together.'

'The causal nexus broken? I don't believe it.' The note of defiance in the Master's voice was distinctly unconvincing now. But he went on: 'No, Monitor . . . this is some crude defence mechanism, a device to delude an enemy. Come, Nyssa, we'll wring the truth out of them.

He punched a b.u.t.ton on the silver box, drawing Nyssa towards him. But when, with a second b.u.t.ton, he tried to elevate her arm . . . nothing happened! He stabbed at the box with an angry finger. 'It's not working! What have you done, Doctor?'

The Doctor stared him out. 'Not me, Master - you! The entropy you released is eroding your systems too.'

'Entropy? Absurd . . . the power is weak . . . some freak interference. Increase the power.'

'More power will only speed the col apse,' said the Monitor quietly.

The Monitor was right. The ornament on Nyssa's arm suddenly shattered and crumbled to the ground. The Master stopped dead, staring at the remnants of the armlet. When he looked up again, it was at the Monitor, who had begun to speak with slow deliberation.

'The things around us are now no more than husks of themselves. From this point the unravelling will spread out until all the universe is reduced to a uniform, levelled nothingness.'

'So it's true!' the Master cried.

'Don't move. Anybody . . .' The Monitor's voice came as a whisper. Instinctively they all obeyed. Even the Master stood in silence, surrounded by the creak and shuffle of s.h.i.+fting structures. All eyes were on the Monitor as he continued. 'You have already guessed - our Numbers were holding the Second Law of Thermodynamics at bay. The universe is a closed system. In any closed system entropy is bound to grow until it fills everything. The deadly secret, unknown until now beyond the bounds of Logopolis, is this . . .' The Monitor's voice trembled, and they had to strain to hear his next few words. 'The fact is, the universe long ago pa.s.sed the point of total collapse.'

For a moment Adric didn't take it in. The Second Law of Thermodynamics predicted that any system would eventually end in 'heat death', overwhelmed by the entropy it had produced. But how could the universe have pa.s.sed the point?

'We had the means to postpone the time,' the Monitor was saying, as if in reply to the boy's unspoken question. 'The only way was to dispose of entropy. The universe was closed, so we opened the system by creating voids into other universes.'

'The Charged Vacuum Emboitement!' the Doctor exclaimed. 'We pa.s.sed through one of your voids, Monitor.' He glanced at Adric. If it hadn't been for an accidental encounter with a CVE, the Doctor and his TARDIS would never have wandered into the small universe where he had met the boy. 'We thought the CVE was a natural phenomenon.'

'I wish it were,' said the Monitor. 'Then there would be no need for them to be sustained by the energies of Logopolis.'

Suddenly Tegan understood the inhuman dedication of all those rows and rows of Logopolitans. So this was what had been driving them on: the fact that they and they alone were capable of keeping the whole universe going long after it ought to have ground to a halt.

'But without those energies,' the Monitor continued, 'the Charged Vacuum Emboitements will be closing now. It depended on our continual endeavours - a temporary solution while the Advanced Research Unit worked on a more permanent plan. But nothing will come of that now.'

There was silence for a moment. Then the Master, who had been thinking furiously said, 'What Research Unit?'

'A team devoted to discovering a stable solution that did not depend on our own continued efforts. But now the team is destroyed. To think of that work too going to waste . . .'

'There must be something we can do,' Tegan interrupted loudly. She turned to the Master and shouted, 'This will teach you to meddle with things you don't understand.'

And then she wished she hadn't. The rocks above their heads, weakened to the consistency of pink sugar, began to cascade down, thundering into the street. She felt her arm grabbed, and then they were all running - where, she couldn't see for the dust and the Doctor's scarf blowing across her face.

They stopped, and she looked back to where they had been standing. The street was now a flat gully, still filling with silt that hissed down from the mounds of crumbling rock on either side. 'What did I do?' said Tegan.

'Your loud mouth,' Adric whispered.

'We are beyond recriminations now,' sighed the Monitor. 'Beyond everything . . .'

'Almost everything.' The Doctor's voice was even and controlled. He turned to the Master. 'I can see only one possible course. As Time Lords you and I have a special responsibility.'

'No,' the Master replied immediately, as though he had been antic.i.p.ating the suggestion. 'I refuse to contact Gallifrey.'

'I'm not very keen on the idea myself. But I was going to suggest we pool our resources.'

The Master pondered the thought for a moment. 'If we do that there will be no question of your returning to Gallifrey. Perhaps for ever.'

'I'm happy to leave that problem for the future,' said the Doctor. 'If there is one.'

Nyssa's jaw tightened as the Doctor extended his hand to the Master. But it was Tegan who spoke first. 'Doctor! What are you doing?'

'How can you!' Nyssa exclaimed. 'The creature who killed my father . . .'

The Master remained still, savouring the moment. Then he raised his own black-gloved hand and moved towards the Doctor. 'Together, then.'

It was then that the Doctor looked round, very much sensing the hostility of his companions. He began gently at first: 'I can't choose the company I keep. Not in these circ.u.mstances. In fact I have never chosen my own company.' He pointed at Nyssa, his voice a little harsher now. 'You contacted me, you begged me to help you find your father.' Then his eyes s.h.i.+fted to Tegan. 'And you, Tegan, your own curiosity brought you into this . . .' His tone was positively harsh as he turned to Adric. 'As for you, boy, what are you? A stowaway!'

Adric realised that the Doctor was doing this to make their separation from him easier to bear, but it was painful nevertheless to be reminded that he had forced his company upon the man he so admired. And it was even more painful to see the Doctor turn his back on his companions and reach out towards the evil black hand of this being who was his sworn enemy.

'Together,' said the Doctor, looking hard into the Master's face. 'The one last hope.'

'For all of us,' the Master acknowledged.

Solemnly the two Time Lords shook hands.

10.