Doctor Who_ Timewyrm_ Exodus Part 14

There was something oddly compelling, and utterly convincing, in the little man's quiet voice, and Hitler knew he was somehow telling the truth. It wasn't over after all. One day he would rise to supreme power, leading Germany into a glorious future. His destiny was certain.

"I shall always remember you, Doctor," said Adolf Hitler hoa.r.s.ely. "You have given me new hope. If those hopes are fulfilled, you shall have any reward that is in my power." He turned and strode towards the waiting car.

As he reached it the pa.s.senger door opened for him. He paused for a moment, and raised his right hand in salute. "Goodbye, Doctor!"

He got stiffly into the little car, the door closed, and the Fiat trundled away.

Behind him the Doctor heard Ace whisper fiercely, "Goodbye, Adolph!"

A sudden instinct made him turn and he saw Ace's hand emerge from her pocket and her arm go back.

"No!" yelled the Doctor, and grabbed her arm.

He didn't manage to stop her throw, but he spoiled her aim. The gla.s.s capsule of nitro-nine-a landed several feet to the left of the departing car, blasting a huge crater in the road. The Fiat wobbled wildly, and then shot off into the distance.

Alarmed, the dark scuttling figure ducked back out of sight.

The Doctor let go of the struggling Ace. "And just what do you think you're doing?"

"You heard that racist filth he was spouting just now. We've seen the kind of England he'll make if he's not stopped. I thought we were here to change history Professor!"

The Doctor grabbed her arm and began marching her away. "Only as much as we absolutely have to. Changing history is a delicate operation - like brain surgery. You don't start by sawing the patient's head off!"

"I'd like to have blown his head off." muttered Ace.

The dark figure moved closer, un.o.bserved by the man and the girl who were arguing furiously. With rising joy, he saw that he was right. It was the Doctor. The appearance was changed but he recognized the voice, the movements, the very soul of the Time Lord he had hated for so many long years. His old enemy was delivered into his hands. Far quicker than he had hoped the Doctor had taken the bait. What a pity he must die without knowing who had killed him! Carefully the figure adjusted the energy weapon...

"All right, suppose you had killed him," said the Doctor impatiently. "What would have happened then?"

"How do I know? Whatever it was, it would have been an improvement."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Well, it stands to reason..."

"Does it?" said the Doctor furiously. "In history, the real history Hitler's Thousand Year Reich lasted from 1933 to 1945. Twelve years and that was it. Finished."

"So?"

"The main reason was that Hitler was an incompetent madman. You blow him to bits and maybe a competent madman takes charge. Someone who really can make the Reich last for a thousand years."

"All right, Doctor, you win," said Ace wearily.

From somewhere nearby a voice whispered, "No, Doctor, you lose!" A dark figure stepped out from behind a tree further down the street, a long slender cane in its hand. There. was a fierce crackle of power.

The Doctor dodged, not quite quickly enough, and the energy beam singed the top of his ear and the brim of his hat. The beam swept upwards, severing a heavy tree branch which crashed down into the street, missing them by inches.

Ace drew back her arm.

"Down, Ace!" yelled the Doctor, but the nitro-nine-a capsule was already on its way.

The tree behind which the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin was hiding rose high in the air - and so, presumably, did the a.s.sa.s.sin.

"Come on Ace!" yelled the Doctor. "Let's get back to the TARDIS while some of Munich's still standing!"

They sprinted for the alleyway.

Back inside the TARDIS, the Doctor sank wearily into a chair.

"Thank you, Ace - again!"

"It's all right to blow up people who are shooting at you, then?"

"Every time - especially when they try to shoot me with energy weapons in 1923. All the same..." The Doctor held out his hand.

"What?" asked Ace innocently "Hand it over."

"But it's my last one!"

"Hand it over, I said."

Reluctantly Ace produced her last capsule of nitro-nine-a.

The Doctor took it and slipped it into his pocket. "I really can't risk any more of your explosive alterations to history. You could disrupt the whole timestream." He examined the brim of his hat. "Look at that - ruined! And he hasn't done my ear much good either."

Ace was already scrabbling in the storage locker. "You can easily find another hat."

"What about my ear?"

She tossed him the stone jar. "Try this, there's just about enough left. If things keep up like this you'd better think about stocking up again."

Cautiously, the Doctor applied the lotion. "Now my left ear will be younger than the rest of me."

Ace nodded to the centre column. It was rising and falling, but very, very slowly. "Are we going somewhere or not?"

"I think we're just hovering in the Vortex: The Doctor took an electronic toolkit from a locker, removed a panel from the central control console, and set to work.

"What are you up to now?"

"Just a little experiment with the telepathic circuit." said the Doctor mysteriously.

Ace watched him working for a moment. "So what's the plan?"

The Doctor patted the console. "Ask her."

"Are you serious?"

"Absolutely - it's the TARDIS's plan, not mine. All I'm doing is picking up my cues."

"Is that what you were doing out there?"

The Doctor nodded. "That, and trying to change things as little as possible in the process: "But you have changed things. You met Hitler and saved his bacon."

"Not really. According to recorded history, our Adolf really did escape from the Munich disaster with a badly dislocated shoulder. All I did was insert myself into his life-stream as un.o.btrusively as possible. We haven't really altered anything yet. Apart from a couple of chunks of Munich, that is - they'll put that down to a bit of revolutionary bomb-chucking."

"What's going to happen - to him? Did he get arrested?"

"Oh yes, they caught him eventually."

"What happened?"

"He got five years for treason, served six months as a VIP prisoner writing Mein Kampf, got pardoned and came out a hero. Ten more years of dirty politics, and he finally managed to seize power."

And you think he had help?"

"I'm certain of it," said the Doctor thoughtfully. "From someone with an energy-weapon. Someone who knows me - and knew I was coming." He finished whatever he was doing, replaced the panel and put away the toolkit.

"What about the Timewyrm?" asked Ace.

"What indeed?" The Doctor produced his time-path indicator. It was glowing brightly. According to this, she's not far away and the TARDIS has landed again. Shall we go?"

"Must we? I mean, if that was typical of n.a.z.i politics. . ."

"Oh, no, no,- no!" said the Doctor. "Those were the early, innocent days.

After that it got quite nasty." He was staring abstractedly into s.p.a.ce.

"What's the matter, Professor?"

"That was the first time I'd ever met Adolf," said the Doctor thoughtfully.

"But a while back, when he had a sort of minor fit on the way to the square, I felt I already knew him. It was as though someone familiar was looking at me through his eyes. Odd, that, very. . ."

He opened the TARDIS doors, letting in a blaze of light.

Searchlight beams played across the night sky and they heard the roar of an enormous crowd.

PART THREE

1939 WAR.

MEMO TOP SECRET.

The key to the entire Project is the use of the Subject to move and control ever-larger crowds through oratory. It is important to be clear control ever-larger crowds through oratory. It is important to be clear about the basic method, pioneered by human politicians throughout the about the basic method, pioneered by human politicians throughout the ages. It consists of the stimulation of such basic emotions as FEAR, LOVE, ages. It consists of the stimulation of such basic emotions as FEAR, LOVE, HATE, SUSPICION, PRIDE, ANGER, all in regular repeated sequences. HATE, SUSPICION, PRIDE, ANGER, all in regular repeated sequences.

Reason and logic have little or nothing to do with it, and can actually limit the desired effect... the desired effect...

The Subject's performance still tends towards the erratic and we must continue to strive for more effective control. I recommend a steady but continue to strive for more effective control. I recommend a steady but gradual increase in psychic amplification. Above all, we must avoid the gradual increase in psychic amplification. Above all, we must avoid the dangers of overload. dangers of overload.

1: Rally

Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering looked at the upraised faces, the outstretched right hands, the apparently endless sea of humanity radiating out from the speaker's podium.

Searchlights, banners, torches, these Nuremberg rallies were getting weirder every year, more like some mad religious ceremony than a party political meeting. He looked round his fellow party chiefs and reflected, as he always did on these occasions, that they'd all come a very long way since the old days in Munich.

Meetings in shabby beer halls, making speeches to a handful of loyal supporters, wondering if you'd sold enough tickets to pay for the rent of the hall. Battles with tough Communist workers, eager to bash in your skull with their beer mugs. They used to buy lots of rounds of drinks and stock-pile the mugs under the tables, ready to use as missiles when the speeches started. It was a rare meeting that didn't end in bloodshed and broken gla.s.s.

With some surprise, Goering realized how much he actually missed the bad old days, the booze-ups and the punch-ups. It was tiring being a G.o.d. Or rather a demi-G.o.d; there was only one G.o.d in the Party. None of his colleagues seemed to mind their elevation. They enjoyed being wors.h.i.+pped.

Goering looked round the podium with genial contempt. There was would-be suave von Ribbentrop, ratty little Goebbels, Bormann the king of the filing-cabinets. And there, in the background as always, little Heini . . .

Goering's smile faded as he contemplated his only serious rival in the n.a.z.i hierarchy. A weedy little fellow with rimless gla.s.ses and a straggly moustache who looked like an unsuccessful clerk. Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfuehrer SS, head of the dreaded Gestapo and the most feared man in Germany.

Then there's me, thought Goering. What am I doing here? Born a gentleman, which is more than the rest of them can say, a diplomat's son, a war hero, commander of the famous von Richthofen squadron. He thought of his magnificent country estate at Karinhall, his collection, largely looted, of art treasures, and smiled cynically. You're doing very nicely, Hermann, he thought - just like the rest of them.

Above all, always above all, there was the Fuehrer himself, Adolf Hitler, getting up now to pay his ritual tribute to the Party's glorious dead. We are all rising in the tail of the Hitler rocket, thought Goering. Onwards and upwards, higher and higher.

Recently he'd started to wonder how much longer it could go on. Vibrating with energy, charged as always with the adoration of the enormous crowd, Adolf Hitler walked slowly down the steps of the podium.

Inside his mind a trapped alien force writhed helplessly, sensing the vast whirlpool of psychic energy in the adoring crowd but unable to feed upon it.

She must be free, free to manipulate these human p.a.w.ns to her own terrible purpose.

But she was trapped. It was all she could do to survive, to conserve her sanity.

The Fuehrer's steps faltered for a moment as he was shaken by the struggle deep inside his brain. He recovered himself and moved on.

Not far away, Ace and the Doctor were onlookers at the same scene. They were on top of a mound, just outside a vast circle of brilliant light. The mound stood at the edge of an enormous plain, packed with thousands and thousands of people. Although it was night, the plain was brilliantly lit, far more brightly than if it had been day. It was surrounded with searchlights sending columns of light into the air, converging so that a dome of light hovered over the central area. There were blazing torches everywhere, and thousands of flagpoles bearing n.a.z.i banners. But above all there were people, row upon row, rank upon rank, black and brown uniforms at the centre, civilians crowding round at the edge.

In spite of the size of the crowd there was a deathly silence. A wide avenue divided the enormous crowd, its edges defined by stormtroopers with rifles and fixed bayonets. Down it a single uniformed figure marched towards an altar bearing an enormous wreath.

Braziers burned round the altar, and their smoke swirled round the solitary figure. For a moment it stood motionless, then its hand rose in a stiff, almost mechanical salute. A deep throated roar burst from the crowd, as if it came from a single giant voice. "Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!"

It seemed to shake the ground on which they stood. For a moment the figure held the salute, then it turned and strode back down the central avenue, ignoring the hysterical cheering of the crowd.