"Well, that"s not very nice!"
"I"ve got got to make him listen, Jo. It"s our only chance of stopping him!" to make him listen, Jo. It"s our only chance of stopping him!"
"You"re not thinking of going out there, are you?"
"Not if I can possibly help it!"
"What are you going to do then?"
"He"s turned off his sound receiver, so I must make myself heard without it. "If the Thraskin puts his fingers in his ears it"s polite to shout." Old Venusian proverb." The Doctor reached into a storage locker beneath the console and pulled out a tangled ma.s.s of circuitry.
"Ah!" said Jo, wondering, as usual, Doctor was on about. "What"s a Thraskin?"
The Doctor was dismantling the a.s.sembled circuits. "Archaic word," he said absently, "seldom" used since the twenty-fifth dynasty. The modern equivalent is Plinge."
"And what does Plinge mean?"
The Doctor was busily rea.s.sembling the circuits in a different sequence. "Oh for heaven"s sake, Jo, I just told you. It means Thraskin."
Ruth Ingram meanwhile was carrying out a very similar operation on the inner circuitry of the TOMt.i.t machine.
"But why?" Benton was asking. "I mean, when you turned it off, the Brig and Co.
should have speeded up again. Why didn"t they?"
"Well, I"m not sure, but it looks as if TOMt.i.t has made a permanent gap in the structure of time. Our only hope is to close it up again."
"And how are you going to do that?" asked Stuart.
"I"m turning the circuits upside down, so to speak. It"s a bit empirical, but you never know."
Benton looked baffled. "Empirical?"
"That, Sergeant Benton, means I haven"t a clue what I"m doing."
"Join the club," said Stuart cheerfully.
Benton scratched his head. "So, it"s just trial and error? Have a go and see what happens?"
"More or less!" She fitted the circuitry back into TOMt.i.t and switched on. "Right, Stu, you monitor interst.i.tial activity. If it goes over sixty, give us a shout."
"What"s the upper limit?"
"If it goes over seventy, say a prayer and duck."
"What do I do?" asked Benton.
"Just stay out of the way and look pretty. Right, Stu, are you happy?"
"Ecstatic."
"Then let"s have a stab at it." She switched on, and the TOMt.i.t sound began.
"Interst.i.tial activity, nil." reported Stuart.
"Molecular structure, stable. Increasing power."
Stuart began calling out readings. "Three five. Four zero."
"Hows the time wedge?"
"Steady on zero zero four."
"Right. Isolate matrix scanner."
"Check! Four, five, five zero..."
"Interst.i.tial activity?"
Stuart"s voice was tense. "Shooting up. Five five, six zero... It"s running away again."
Ruth worked frantically at the controls. "Decreasing power."
Stuart"s voice went on in a kind of chant. "Seven five, seven zero, six five, six zero..."
Benton was leaning forward over the console trying to make sense of what was going on. Without realising it, he was resting one hand on the transmission platform.
"Five five, five zero, four five, four zero, three five, three zero..."
Benton felt a strange tingle running through him. He tried to s.n.a.t.c.h his hand away and found couldn"t move. . .
Suddenly he felt himself dwindling dwindling...
"Okay, that"s enough," said Ruth. She switched and the power hum faded away. She hurried to window and Stuart joined her.
The Brigadier and his men were still frozen in time. Despairingly Ruth said, "It"s made no difference. They"re still stuck."
Stuart turned back to the console. "There we were the skin of a gnat"s whisker from the big bang and "
"Nothing happened at all," concluded Ruth.
There was a strange wailing cry.
Stuart was staring in astonishment at the side of the console. "Nothing? Come and see!"
Ruth came over to look.
On the floor a baby was squalling indignantly as it tried to free itself from a tangle of army uniform. Benton, like Stuart before him, had been a victim of the TOMt.i.t"s temporal interference, but in opposite chronological direction.
Sergeant Benton was now just over one year old The Master waited patiently, eyes fixed on his monitor screen.
"Master, what is he doing?" asked Krasis.
"Exactly what I would do in his position."
"And what is that?"
"Wait and see, Krasis, wait and see!"
Suddenly the screen lit up, showing the Doctor"s face. The Doctor"s voice rang loud and clear through Master"s control room. "Testing, testing, testing! two, three, four, five!"
The Master laughed. "I thought as much!"
"I"ve boosted my audio and over-ridden your sound circuits," announced the Doctor, cheerfully. "You can"t turn me off now, can you? You"ve got to listen to me!"
"Have I, Doctor? Have I really?"
The Master"s hands flicked over the controls. The Doctor settled down to lecture the Master on the evil of his ways. "Obviously you"ve not been able bring Kronos through yet, or you wouldn"t be going to Atlantis, so there may yet be time to make realise your folly." Suddenly the Doctor"s words became twisted, garbled ...
In his TARDIS, the Doctor listened in amazement to the sound of his own voice.
What he had actually was"Surely you must see the dangers you risk?" But somehow what came out was, "Illursh ooee tsum uth serjnade eeoo ksirr?"
On the screen the Master leaned forward. "I"m so sorry, Doctor. What was that again?"
The Doctor glared indignantly at him and shouted, "I said, surely you must see the dangers you risk?"
But what he heard himself saying was, "Eea dess, ooee tsum ees uth serjnade eeoo ksirr..."
Angrily the Doctor switched off the scanner. "Of all the low underhand tricks!"
"What happened? What language was that?"
"English," said the Doctor indignantly. "Backwards! He"s picking up my words even before I say them, and feeding them back to me through the TARDISes" telepathic circuits, so that they come out backwards."
Jo realised that the Master was reversing not the letters but the actual syllables of the Doctor"s words It was exactly like hearing a tape played backwards but at normal speed.
"Did you say the TARDISes were telepathic telepathic?
"Of course," said the Doctor matter-of-factly. "How else do you suppose they would communicate? Well, that settles it. I have no choice. Now listen Jo, when I go out there -"
"You"re not going out there!"
"What else can I do?"
"You said yourself it would be suicide to go out there without the protection of the TARDlS."
"I"ve got to risk it, Jo. He"s got to be stopped, but that"s no reason to put you into any danger. As soon. as I go through that door you must close it after me."
"But then you"ll be shut out."
"And you"ll be safely shut in. And you mustn"t open up to anybody or anyone until I say."
"I won"t do it," sobbed Jo. "I won"t."
Gently the Doctor touched her cheek. "You"ll do as you"re told, Jo. It"s your job, remember"
"But Doctor, if anything happens to you-"
"I know, Jo, I know. Now, go and open that door."
The Master smiled triumphantly as the door of the police box opened and the Doctor emerged. "There, Krasis! What did I tell you?"
"Won"t you introduce me?" said the Doctor.
The Master nodded to Krasis, who said proudly, "I am Krasis, High Priest of the Temple of Poseidon."
"Greetings to you, Krasis," said the Doctor politely. "Any friend of the Master"s is an enemy of mine."
"Oh come, Doctor," said the Master wearily. "Must we play games? I take it you have something to say to me before I destroy you?"
"Yes, I most certainly have!"
"The usual song of death and disaster? I do wish you"d learn a new tune, Doctor."
The Doctor drew a deep breath. "Now, just you listen to me for once. If you try to take control of the Universe through Kronos, you risk total destruction of the entire cosmos."
"Of course!" said the Master arrogantly. "All or nothing - literally! What a glorious alternative!"
"You"re mad! Paranoid!
"Of course, Doctor," said the Master. "Who isn"t? I"m just a little more honest than the rest, that"s all. Goodbye, Doctor."
The Master threw the switch on the TOMt.i.t machine.
The crystal began to glow.
"No, Master, no!" shrieked Krasis.
But it was too late. The winged form of Kronos was emerging from the fiery heart of the glowing crystal, and the beating of his mighty wings filled the Master"s control room. Holding up the Seal of Atlantis for protection, the Master shouted, Behold, Kronos, a rare, a delicate feast for you. A Time Lord! Devour him! Devour him!" Devour him!"
Kronos swooped down, wrapped his fiery wings about the Doctor and engulfed him.
In the Doctor"s TARDIS, Jo Grant had seen everything on the scanner. She gave an anguished cry of "Doctor!" and fainted dead away.