Doctor Who_ Time Zero Part 34

Not waiting to see what happened to George, Fitz turned and dived across the cavern towards the ice*TARDIS. He twisted as fell he against it, against the cold doors. Saw George looking upwards from the ground, fear frozen in place as a tidal wave of snow and slush crashed down on him, burying him.

The tunnel of light was collapsing around him. Curtis could feel himself being wrenched apart, torn open. The energy was being sucked from him. He had to go on, had to continue, had to get back the beginning.

Through the ruptured wall of light he could see another wall. A wall of ice. He leaped across the abyss, scrabbled to gain a grip on its slippery surface, hammered at the ice until it cracked and crazed and shattered.

He fell through into the tunnel. For a split*second he was confused, unsure. Then he was on his feet again, vaguely aware that they were lost in a mist of blackness and that he was rolling rather than running down the tunnel.

The doors split open under Fitz's weight, showering him with pinp.r.i.c.k splinters and shards, and he felt himself falling into the flickering interior of the ice itself The creatures were silhouettes against the expanding explosion. The blast was white hot, intensely bright.

The rolling Blackness filled the ice tunnel. It billowed along it, ever faster, like smoke. The whole wall of ice was glowing around the blackness, as if the light was being sucked out of it.

But the Darkness was thinning, dissipated by the light. The rumbling of the dark smoke became the roar of a tremendous explosion as the walls and floor and ceiling of the tunnel shattered and exploded.

Then the flames inside the walls erupted outwards, racing towards the Blackness from all directions as they broke free of the ice. The fire tore into the blackness, and threw its shattered remains across Time.

And the whiteness closed over Fitz, blotting out his vision, his hearing, his senses and stopping his heart in mid*beat.

The light was faint, barely noticeable it was stretched so thin. But it was still slower than normal light. The interaction with the sunlight threw a rainbow of vortex*colours over a tiny point on the Siberian landscape.

Somewhen a bird was caught twisting and wheeling in the light, unaware of how its own timeline was compressed and distorted.

Somewhen else, USAF Captain Andrew Jenkins and his crew flew a plane that did not officially exist low over Siberia to avoid being detected by radar. For the briefest moment it was washed with the rainbow colours, its timestream slowed as it pa.s.sed through the escaping energy.

The explosion lit up the evening sky, a huge beam of cold light rutting through the air and strobing upwards. The reality*shattering sound of the blast was heard as far away as Moscow.

As the ice exploded in 1894, the creature within it, the fire from another world, found itself released and free, It splashed out over the collapsing ice and snow, burning into the ground, burrowing down as It sought out another medium that could give form to its energy. And found the magma deep below the frozen surface.

Slowly it suffused and dissipated through the molten rock. Patiently it made its way round the world, testing the crust, seeking out a route back to the surface and a new host that could give it form and life and thought. Something with which it might have an affinity.

Fire and light Heat and substance Possession and death Burning

Reality + 1

They walked slowly and quietly out of the TARDIS and found themselves just outside the main gates of the Castle. The sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly, but without much warmth. The snow seemed even more white in the brilliant evening light.

'You mentioned possible side effects,' Anji said, s.h.i.+elding her eyes from the glare off the snow.

'Yes,' the Doctor said.

They waited, but he did not seem to want to add anything to this.

'I have a question,' Fitz said, more brightly than Anji had expected.

'Just one?' the Doctor asked.

'One in particular.'

'Which is?'

'Well...' They were walking slowly back towards the castle entrance. Fitz hesitated, as if embarra.s.sed. 'Well,' he said again. 'Am I dead?'

Anji laughed. His hurt expression made her laugh even more.

'No, Fitz,' the Doctor said. He was smiling too. 'You're not dead. And we never thought you were, did we, Anji?'

'Not for a second,' she said as she managed to stop the giggles.

'Oh,' Fitz said. 'Good. Though, if I understand it,' he added, 'if you were really certain, then I wouldn't have been in an indeterminate state or whatever.'

The Doctor strode off in front of them. 'I hope that isn't all you've understood,' his voice floated back in the still, crisp air.

'No,' Fitz admitted. 'I understand a few other things now too.' He grinned at Anji. 'Like you can't bear to be without me.'

'Not entirely true,' she told him. 'I was just getting used to having a real job again, a real life.'

'Well, perceptions of what's real or not are pretty warped right now, aren't they?'

She didn't answer. She had already decided that she was going back to London, back to work. She had never intended not to, she realised.

What she had not decided was how to break the news to the Doctor and Fitz.

The Doctor was standing at the top of a shallow rise just in front of the shattered gates, staring out across the landscape below them. As they caught up with him, he raised a hand and waved.

In the distance, Anji could see several dark figures running across the snow. One of them waved back.

'Corporal Lansing,' the Doctor said. 'I wonder what he's looking for.'

'Perhaps he's just taking the air,' Fitz suggested.

The Doctor shook his head. 'Obviously his men are deployed in a search pattern.'

'I wonder what they've lost,' Anji said.

'What,' the Doctor agreed, 'or who.'

'Ah,' said Fitz.

'Yes,' said the Doctor. 'But I rather fancy they're a little late, don't you?' He pointed across towards the horizon, towards the base of the foothills.

As Anji and Fitz turned to look, the sound reached them. It was a harsh sc.r.a.ping, wrenching, tearing sound. As if the fabric of the earth was being torn apart. The soldiers were running towards the sound, towards the shape that was thrusting up through the snow, cracking the frozen ground open like pack ice and jutting up into the daylight. The sun glinted on the bra.s.s deck. If Anji squinted, really screwed up her eyes, she could just make out the stocky figure climbing up the side. Was that someone helping him up, a woman perhaps? Or was it a trick of the harsh light?

Before she could decide, before Fitz or the Doctor could find it in them to comment, the s.h.i.+ning leviathan was dipping back out of sight.

'We camped there a few days ago,' Fitz said. 'Or whenever. I didn't know there was a lake under there.'

'There isn't,' the Doctor said quietly. 'There doesn't need to be.'

He was still staring out across the snow towards the dark crack where the s.h.i.+p had thrust up. But the Jonah Jonah, and Sabbath, were gone.

'I'm sorry, Doctor.' Nesbitt was waiting for them just inside the gates.

'I know, I know,' the Doctor said, waving aside the apology. 'How did he do it?'

'You'd better talk to Miss MacMillan.'

'Before we do that,' Anji said as sweetly as she could manage, 'how about one of you gets this camera thing out of my neck. Hmmm?'

Nesbitt smiled. 'Excuse me. It shouldn't hurt. Well, not much.'

She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. But it didn't hurt. It felt like he was squeezing a spot, though she tried not to think about that. When Anji opened her eyes again, a tiny gla.s.s lenses was nestling in Nesbitt's palm. The back end of it was stained red. She tried not to think about that too, rubbing her hand across her throat. It came away with a thin smear of blood across her middle finger.

'Thanks,' Anji said. 'Thanks a lot.'

They found Trix in the Great Hall. She had changed from the d.u.c.h.ess's dress into a thermal suit that hugged and emphasised her body in a manner which Anji thought was outrageously unnecessary. Though Fitz seemed to appreciate it.

'It was just so sudden,' she told them. 'There were sort overlapping, ghostly images and stuff.'

'Yes,' the Doctor said tightly.

'And one of them was Fitz here.' She paused to flash him a huge wide*eyed smile. 'Opening the secret pa.s.sage by the fireplace. The one you told me you used to get to my room earlier, Doctor.' She raised an eyebrow as if to imply they had been in the habit of meeting clandestinely in her room.

'Really.' The Doctor didn't sound convinced.

'So it wasn't that you told him about it, or anything,' Anji said. 'I just thought I'd ask.'

'Come on Anji,' Fitz said. 'You can tell she's trying to help.'

'You must spend some time', Anji said quietly, 'explaining to us exactly what you have learned.'

Fitz stared at her, his mouth open as if he could not believe that she was not completely convinced by Trix's explanation.

'I learned something, actually.' Trix put in before either Fitz or Anji could say anything more. 'From Mr Sabbath. Though of course,' she went on, 'if you don't think my story is credible...'

'Not at all,' the Doctor said quickly. 'Fitz is quite right. What did you learn?'

'He thinks you've screwed up,' she said to the Doctor. 'Big time.'

'He's a sore loser,' Anji replied.

'Oh he's certainly that. But he seemed to think there was some problem with overlapping realities.' She paused to look round the room. 'Don't see it myself, I have to say. But he had a plan to fix things. Or something.'

'Which was?'

'Sorry?'

'His plan,' the Doctor said slowly.

'Oh, he didn't say.'

The Doctor closed his eyes. He seemed to be muttering some incantation under his breath.

'But he did happen to mention that he needed to get away from this world, if that helps. At all.'

'Possibly.' The Doctor's eyes were open again, alive with inner light as he considered the possibilities. 'We have to get after him.'

Trix stood up and stretched. 'Yes, that's what I thought. I just wish I could remember his exact words, or anything else he said that might help.'

'Yes,' the Doctor agreed enthusiastically, 'it might.'

'It was while we were discussing time travel. And your blue box.'

'You discussed that, did you?' the Doctor said quietly.

She shrugged. 'It cropped up in the conversation. Of course,' she went on, fixing him with her catlike eyes, 'if I came with you, in your box thing, that would give me time to remember those exact words, wouldn't it?'

'No,' the Doctor said.

'Wouldn't it?' She seemed surprised.

'I mean you're not coming. No way.'

'Absolutely not,' Anji agreed. 'Anyway the Doctor has to take me back to London first.'

'Give me a lift home perhaps?'