Doctor Who_ Father Time Part 47

'No,' Miranda said. 'You said yourself they wouldn't. They'll be swept away by your enemies. Without this s.h.i.+p, without you, they'll be wiped out, or enslaved. They need you. But even with you, the Empire's on the verge of collapse.'

'No, I won't accept that.'

'I know you won't, and that's why what you're doing is wrong, and that's why it'll destroy everything you're fighting to preserve.'

It was too bright in here to see anything.

The Doctor could hear something. Violin music, violin music in the heart of a lightning storm. It felt like a memory, but... The Doctor ducked as a large robot arm swung a silver fist at his head. A swarm of wasps surrounded him. 'Time is out of joint!' he heard himself yelling. Mr Saldaamir smiled his disconcerting smile. The Doctor grabbed a s.h.i.+p's wheel, with the stars streaking over his head above him. A man in a bowler hat walked through the mud, checking something from a clipboard. Mather: an old man now, his hair gone grey. A large metal vehicle, something between a tank and a chrome turtle, sat in a forest clearing. A young woman in a scarlet tunic with long blonde hair, smiling at him, as if he should recognise her. There was a crowd of people in what looked like Renaissance clothing. 'The planet's called Albert Albert?' he asked. A conical robot, gunmetal-grey, swung a camera eye at him, the lights on the top of its head flas.h.i.+ng angrily. A man with thin white hair and a mournful expression looked down his nose at him. 'I wondered when I'd put in an appearance.'

The Doctor tried to concentrate on the here and now.

He was in the heart of vast machinery. Great columns plunging up into the heavens, down into the depths, and snaking out in all directions in between.

The sphere wasn't this large on the outside, the Doctor told himself.

And that seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Whatever had made him think that there should be a relations.h.i.+p between interior and exterior dimensions?

There was no obvious cause for the previous damage, the faults that had kept the s.h.i.+p here long enough for him to get here. It was quite a stroke of luck that had happened.

You make your own luck, he realised, telling the engines to shut themselves down for three days, then backdating the order. He felt the engines disable themselves. Don't tell Ferran, he said, just tell him it's a routine repair.

The Doctor felt the power equations enter his mind, and did a quick calculation there was a lot of energy here: as a bare minimum, Earth would be in the blast radius if the engines exploded. The side of Earth facing the s.h.i.+p would be scoured clean: the seas would become gas, every forest would become ash. At least it would be quick for that hemisphere the other half of the world would take several minutes to die, as the tidal waves, blasts of air and superheated debris bombarded them.

He set to work.

Ferran stared up at Miranda.

Her clothing now was frayed, with all the colour leached out as if she'd stolen it from an abandoned museum. But she was still so young. Her skin was pale, smooth. He had thought she'd have started to age by now she must have been exposed to centuries of time.

Ferran's visor display was warning him that his suit wouldn't protect him for many more minutes.

He returned his attention to the couplings. There wasn't a procedure for this destabilising the engines was presumably something that would horrify the original designers, whoever they were.

'Listen to me,' she insisted. 'This is wrong. It doesn't have to end like this.'

'It's destiny. It's our genetic destiny you mustn't be allowed to survive. My mother, my father, they must be avenged.'

Ferran remembered his brother's face staring at him. Zevron was so much older then than he was. With a start, Ferran realised he was older now than his brother had been when he had been killed. It was difficult to imagine.

He remembered how his brother had died, who had killed him, and why.

It had been him or Miranda. And that was still the choice.

'This can only end in one of two ways,' he told her. 'With one of us dead, or with both of us dead.'

Miranda shook her head. 'No one needs to die. I've thought of a better way.'

'A better way?' Ferran parroted, full of contempt. 'Then why not kill me and implement this "better way"? Why not take the Empire for yourself?'

Miranda's lip twisted into a sneer. 'I intend to. But I need your help.'

The Doctor was awake instantly.

Which came as a shock: he didn't remember blacking out.

The time energies swirled and crackled around him.

He felt so old. He glanced down at his hand. It hadn't aged, not at all. He should know, he knew what he was looking at like the back of his hand.

Earth. He had to stop the time engine.

The ebbs in time were starting to affect his perception. They were shuffling his memory around like a deck of cards. He remembered blacking out, now but knew that was still a few minutes in the future.

Earth.

He felt something seeping into his shoes. It brought back a memory he'd never had. He turned to gaze around his surroundings.

He was standing on a beach, with seagulls whirling overhead, and waves lapping at his feet. The light was flame-red, the setting sun was far larger than it should be. Supremacy Supremacy filled the sky, and looked like it was falling to Earth. It eclipsed the dying sun. filled the sky, and looked like it was falling to Earth. It eclipsed the dying sun.

Everything was at stake. Everything.

And as he stared out to sea, there was someone else with him. A man his age, his height, but with closely cropped hair. His lover was dead and the seas were dry. The stars were coming out, now. Night was falling.

The Doctor's eyes snapped open.

Reality. That would be reality in moments, unless he could prevent...

Prevent what? All those memories had slipped away. They must be in his future now. All he had to do was wait for them to reappear. But there was no time.

He laughed at the irony he was working against the clock, but the clock was throwing out random numbers.

Energy crackled around him.

But he understood this place now, knew his mind was shaping it, or at least guiding the software and hardware that shaped it. Ferran was throwing the engine out of phase by introducing areas of instability; he was punching holes in certain sections that led to time spillage, and causing the disruption of all the beautiful equations that ran this place.

The Doctor eased the power conduit into place, replaced the relay and activated it.

The power was flowing freely now. The damaged sections of the system were now isolated, the time energies flowed freely, keeping themselves to themselves.

He stepped from the sphere, on to the metal floor. All was calm now.

Ferran was sitting on the floor, Miranda standing over him.

'You can remove that protective gear, now,' the Doctor told him.

Ferran shook his head. He was subdued, as if he'd just received some bad news.

He should feel angry with this man, the Doctor thought. This man had driven his daughter from him, kidnapped her, tried to kill her. He'd murdered Debbie, simply because he could.

But the Doctor was too tired for revenge. It just seemed so... irrelevant.

Miranda hugged her father. 'You're all right,' she said, smiling at him. 'Sorry about your coat.'

He looked down at her. 'I always seem to lose one fighting these people.'

They looked down at Ferran. 'It won't happen again,' she a.s.sured him. 'We've come to an understanding.'

Chapter Twenty-eight.

The Next Generation Miranda stood before the ma.s.ses in the refectory, her father by her side. They'd improvised a little podium by stacking dining tables.

Behind them, Cate was keeping a suspicious eye on Ferran. Tarvin and Graltor basked in their new celebrity status. Mather and Mordak stood shoulder to shoulder.

Miranda faced the crowd. There was a good proportion of the crew here. She'd expected them to be in groups guards and technicians in one corner, slaves in another, like boys and girls at the start of a school disco. But that wasn't the case at all. The slaves and their former guards mingled, chatted. The uniforms were no longer uniform a lot of the guards had changed into civvies, and most of the slaves were wearing strips of coloured material as bandanas, sashes or armbands, anything to express their individuality.

Ferran seemed subdued, which was hardly surprising. The crowd had booed him as he'd entered, bayed for his blood. Perhaps a few of them had come here expecting to see a lynching.

Miranda stepped forward.

'I am Miranda,' she declared. 'l am the Last One, Empress of the Known Universe, President of the Supreme Council, and Commander-inchief of the Armed Forces of the Known and Unknown Worlds, Custodian of the Artefacts, Master of the Keys to the Four G.o.ds. I am also now Prefect. In the absence of a united Senate, I also decree that I, and I alone, now wield the powers of the Senate, including access to the galactic computer co-ordination networks, trade routes and supply lines. I am also now Head of the Galactic Bank. Oh, and as of ten minutes ago, I'm the commanding officer of this s.h.i.+p. I have the power to do anything now, absolute power over every particle in the universe.'

'Er... Miranda,' her father said, nervously, from behind her.

She turned to look at him. His eyes were wide.

He'd gone very pale.

'Don't worry,' she a.s.sured him, 'this is going somewhere.' She cleared her throat. 'I now, perfectly legitimately, am the Supreme Being of the Universe.'

'The Houses and Factions won't stand for this. There will be anarchy...' someone said, clearly far louder than he had intended.

'Whoever said that, come here,' Miranda commanded.

The culprit trotted forward. 'I meant no disrespect,' he apologised, nervously.

'There will will be anarchy,' Miranda confirmed. 'I give you that pledge.' be anarchy,' Miranda confirmed. 'I give you that pledge.'

The murmurs in the crowd were louder, this time.

'People need rules,' Cate said softly.

Miranda smiled. 'Anarchy doesn't mean the absence of rules,' she declared. 'It means the absence of rulers. I grant myself supreme power to prevent anyone else from having it. From now on, there will be no more dictators, no more tyrants. Now, with the powers invested in me, I declare all slaves freed, and all soldiers free from their military commissions. Not just here, but throughout the known universe. If anyone tells you they are your master, then tell them that there is is no master, that you will not obey them.' no master, that you will not obey them.'

Parts of the crowd started cheering and chanting her name.

Miranda held up her hand. 'No! I want you to work with me, not to follow me. From now on, we'll work to build a better society, not fight to preserve an unfair, violent one. So much of the Empire's economy is spent simply ensuring the survival of the Empire maintaining the intergalactic fleets, paying a vast standing army, s.h.i.+pping goods around that could be made locally. We can do better than that. We can dismantle the old way and use it as the foundations for something better.'

Ferran joined her. 'It will not be easy,' he told them all. 'Not everyone in a position of power will renounce that power. But we will persuade them. If I can change, then so can they. Miranda cannot do this alone. I pledge to fight alongside her. I can no longer command you you are free men and women, now. But I ask ask you to join us.' you to join us.'

'So you can lead us into a war?' someone shouted. 'How's that different from what we have now?'

Ferran shook his head. 'I've spent all my life killing, or planning to kill. I don't want to do that, not any more. We don't have to. I don't have to.'

'There will be opposition,' Miranda said. 'There are vested interests, there are evil men. But we can build our utopia, all our utopias utopias, and we can defend them with this s.h.i.+p. It doesn't have to be like it has been. We are the Children of the Revolution. We're not bound by the past, and the future can be whatever we want it to be.'

The crowds roared their approval.

Miranda eased herself into her seat, nominally the command station, but just one of six facing in towards Computer and the centre of the flight deck.

The chair was high-backed, a little too hard for her liking, but she could always get a cus.h.i.+on.

'Empress?' Graltor asked.

'Prefect?' Cate asked at exactly the same time.

The three of them chuckled.

Miranda shook her head. 'Miranda,' she said firmly. 'Take your positions, please.'

They took the last two chairs.

Miranda understood the controls and displays on the arms of her chair. The symbols and readouts flickering in front of her made perfect instinctive sense. She twisted some of the dials, changed the settings of some of the slide controls.

'Computer, what is the s.h.i.+p's status?'

The pyramid hanging in front of them began crackling with activity. 'All systems at maximum capacity. The time engines are fully repaired.'

She nodded, pleased. 'And Atlantis Atlantis?'

A sphere opened up in the centre of the room, full of an image of the s.p.a.ce shuttle sitting in the hangar.

'The human s.p.a.cecraft is fuelled and ready.'

'Father,' she said quietly.