Doctor Who_ Timewyrm_ Exodus Part 22

"He will come here, to find you. To save you, if he can."

"Where's here?"

"You are in the Castle of Drachensberg, my dear, hundreds of miles from Berlin. This castle was purchased by Himmler in person, for the use of the SS. The Castle Tower, where we are now, is reserved for the members of the Black Coven, an inner elite group, the psychic shock troops of the SS."

Ace looked round the hall. "All this stuff, this hi-tech equipment, it's not from here and now, is it? Are you from another time? Another planet?"

The sneering man swung round. "Both," he said proudly. "We are the War Lords." He went back to his screens.

This meant nothing to Ace, so she ignored it. She glanced at the monitor.

Suddenly the picture fragmented and broke up, the Doctor's face vanished and the screen went black.

The one who called himself a War Lord studied a control console. "He's broken the receiving-unit."

Kriegslieter chuckled. "Ah, the Doctor grows impatient. It won't be long now."

"What are you talking about?" said Ace. "You said we were hundreds of miles from Berlin. The Doctor doesn't know where I am or how to get here.

And even if he did, he's not allowed to leave Berlin."

"The answers to all those questions are in the Berlin office of the Aryan Bureau, where we first met, if you remember?"

"I remember," said Ace grimly. She touched the lump on the back of her head.

"Well, that is where the Doctor is now." Kriegslieter laughed again. "I have great faith in his ingenuity. He will find the way. Of course, we mustn't make it too easy for him. That would spoil all the fun."

The picture-loop of Ace in the dungeon replaced that of the Doctor on the screen. She glanced at it for a moment, and then turned away in disgust. "I don't think much of your idea of fun. Are you telling me you staged all that nasty business in the dungeon, just to make the Doctor think I was in danger?"

"We recorded it to distress him," corrected Kriegslieter, "but I'm afraid you really are in danger. The Choosing is only a preliminary, but it is still an important ceremony in its own right."

"What do you mean, ceremony?" asked Ace nervously.

"Exactly what I say, my dear. The Priest - in this instance, myself -inspects the Chosen One and finds her acceptable. In token of this his knife takes a first taste of her blood."

Ace touched her fingers to her neck. To her horror, she felt a tiny scar.

You said a preliminary ceremony? Preliminary to what?"

"To the Great Sacrifice, of course. A Ceremony of Dedication to the old Teutonic G.o.ds. You, my dear, are to be the traditional Virgin Sacrifice. I do hope you are qualified?"

To her disgust, Ace found herself blus.h.i.+ng a furious red.

Kriegslieter waved dismissively. "It really doesn't matter, we certainly won't let a mere technicality stand in our way. The whole thing is nonsense anyway, to be honest, I made most of the sacred ritual up myself. Still, it impresses Himmler and his cronies, and that's what matters."

The horror of what he was saying was so great that Ace found it hard to take seriously. She could scarcely take it in at all. Kriegslieter glanced at the sky through one of the arrow slits in the wall of the tower. "Time's getting on. I do hope the Doctor won't be too long. I'd hate him to miss your big moment."

10: ARRIVAL.

In the peaceful library, surrounded by volumes of distilled hate and prejudice, the Doctor was thinking hard. They had shown him Ace in a dungeon. A dungeon meant a castle. The castle had to be Himmler's castle, Drachensberg and Drachensberg was hundreds of miles from Berlin. But Ace was already there and so was Kriegslieter.

Ace was in danger, but she wasn't dead yet. If that was all they wanted they could simply have left her body for him to find. If they were using her in some Black Magic ceremony, the traditional hour was midnight. If they were carrying out some Teutonic folk ritual, it could even be dawn. There was still time.

The Doctor rose and began moving around the library, palms flat against the oak-panelled walls. It was a long and painstaking business, but he found what he was looking for at last - a faint hum of energy. He stood looking at the section of wall. There was a knot-hole at eye level. He pressed the knot-hole and a section of the wall slid back, revealing a simple illuminated booth. It was as easy as that. Much too easy. It was, of course, a trap.

The Doctor studied the booth, and its simple control panel. It was a transmat, the crudest, most basic design, a simple link between one place and another. Berlin and Drachensberg. Or, if they'd gimmicked it especially for him, Berlin and a very messy death. Once he got into the transmat and pressed the send b.u.t.ton he'd be utterly helpless. They could disa.s.semble the molecules of his body here and rea.s.semble them anywhere they chose. Anywhere or nowhere.

The risk had to be taken - but it could be modified a little. There was a telephone on the corner table and the Doctor picked it up. It was a long and difficult conversation, which called upon all his considerable powers of persuasion. Finally the Doctor said calmly, "The decision is yours, Herr Reichsmarshal," and slammed down the phone.

He started fis.h.i.+ng through all the junk in his pockets. What had he done with his sonic screwdriver? Eventually, the Doctor came up with a Gallifreyan Army Knife of the kind issued to the Capitol Guard. On it was engraved: " Property of Castellan Spandrell Property of Castellan Spandrell." Must have picked it up without realizing, thought the Doctor. Kneeling by the control panel he set to work.

"The transmat network is activating," called the War Lord.

"Ah!" said Kriegslieter. "Then let us go and welcome the Doctor." Hobbling painfully on his stick, he led the way to the other side of the hall where there stood a simple illuminated booth. At the present moment, it was ringed by SS guards with machine pistols.

The War Lord studied a nearby control panel. "Any moment now."

The guards c.o.c.ked their pistols. The transmat booth lit up. Then it blew up.

Everyone dodged back as fragments of booth rained down.

"It's a malfunction," shouted the War Lord. "He must have been killed."

"It's a trick!" screamed Kriegslieter. "He's tampered with the booth. He's here, somewhere. Search the tower, from roof to cellars. Search the whole castle. The Doctor's here - and I want him alive!"

A squad of guards thundered up the final stretch of stairs, threw open a hatchway, and emerged on to the flat roof of the tower. It was empty.

The antiaircraft gun and its sh.e.l.l rack was in place behind the parapet. The SS banner hung limply against the flagpole in the still air of a windless summer afternoon. They looked over the crenellated parapet to the courtyard below, to the castle gate and the causeway across the moat.

Men marched and drilled, and there were guards everywhere, but there was no sign of any intruder. They climbed through the hatchway and clattered down the stairs to search elsewhere.

There was a moment of silence. Then the Doctor unwrapped himself from within the SS banner and slid down the flagpole. It had been a lucky landing, all things considered. He'd reprogrammed the transmatbeam to resa.s.semble him a foot above the nearest solid surface in an upward direction, and then to selfdestruct. He'd overshot by a number of feet, and the flagpole had saved him from a nasty fall.

The Doctor looked round the parapet, inspecting the antiaircraft gun and getting a good idea of the layout of the castle and the surrounding countryside. His plan was simple - to find and free Ace.

When he'd learned as much as he could on the roof, the Doctor climbed through the hatch and started moving cautiously down the huge spiral staircase that would round the interior of the tower. The tower was divided into a number of floors. The top one held dormitories and storerooms, the one below rather more superior living quarters. Below that was the great hall, one giant, high-ceilinged circular chamber which took up the whole of the bottom half of the tower.

The Doctor crouched at the top of the staircase, studying the busy scene below him. Weapons area, drill and training areas, mind-control section, central command area.

An impressive set-up - and one that was oddly familiar. The Doctor saw a slight, upright figure in a high-collared black uniform moving about the control centre. All at once, a whole stream of vivid memories came flooding back to him.

He saw the mud and barbed wire of a World War I battleground, with weary figures in battledress charging machine guns through a sea of mud. He saw a Roman chariot hurtling incongruously out of the mists, soldiers in the blue and grey of America's Civil War, and a Mexican guerilla brandis.h.i.+ng his revolver. He saw his old companions, Jamie the fighting Highlander, little Zoe with her computer brain...

He saw cycles of meaningless slaughter, endlessly repeated, men wrenched from their own times to replay mankind's unending wars on an alien planet far away. All part of a complex scheme of galactic conquest.

And at the centre of it all, moving about their control rooms, emotionless calculating black-clad figures like the one below. The War Lords. And behind them, aiding them, manipulating them, giving them the time technology they needed, the Time Lord renegade who called himself the War Chief.

Or, in German, der kriegslieter.

"Well, he couldn't have spelled it out for me much more plainly," muttered the Doctor. "It's just not fair. I settled that lot ages ago. And I thought he was dead."

The Doctor had paid a high price for that long-ago victory. So vast had been the temporal interference, so many the soldiers displaced from their own time, that the Doctor had been forced to ask his own people, the Time Lords, for their help.

That help had been given - at a price. Once they had him in their hands, the Time Lords had put him on trial for a wide variety of real and imagined crimes. The Doctor had always felt that his real crime was making them look foolish. In any event, the trial had followed its stately course. There was never any nonsense about justice in a Time Lord trial, thought the Doctor. It was more like a ceremony, a piece of theatre, proceeding on its way to a predetermined conclusion.

All in all, though, they hadn't been too hard on him. His companions, Jamie and Zoe, had been returned to their own lives and their own times. The Doctor himself had been sentenced to a premature regeneration - and a period of exile on Earth. But before that they had punished the War Lord.

For him there had been no mercy. He had been sentenced to temporal dissolution, a negation of his whole existence, the ultimate punishment.

Yet here he was - or someone very like him. And surely the renegade Time Lord, the War Chief as he was calling himself, had been killed by the War Lords themselves in some internal dispute . . .

The Doctor's reminiscences were interrupted by an amplified voice echoing around the great stone chamber. Down below, the ranks of blond, strangely identical SS men stood motionless to listen.

"Doctor!" called the voice. "This is the War Chief. If you are here, Doctor, and I am sure you are, make your way to the main chamber of the North Tower. But hurry, Doctor. Your young companion is here, and she will soon be in some distress. Make haste, if you want to arrive while she is still alive."

The Doctor saw a bustle of activity in the centre of the room. Then he saw Ace. She had been strapped to a wooden trestle table, and the table upended against a stone pillar. Kriegslieter stood before the pillar, his silver-topped cane in his hands. He twisted the k.n.o.b and the tip of the cane glowed red. He slashed it towards the table in a diagonal motion and the top left-hand corner of the table fell away. Kriegslieter sliced off the right-hand corner.

He paused, speaking into some kind of amplifier.

"You see the principle, Doctor? My laser-cane is a precision instrument but the risk to your friend is constantly increasing. If I miscalculate, she may lose an ear or a finger, even a hand or a foot. Don't worry, she won't die.

The wounds will cauterize themselves, and I'll be sure to leave enough of her in one piece for our purposes."

He swung the laser-cane in a high arc, slicing a chunk off the top of the table and a tuft from Ace's hair in the process.

"Doctor!" yelled Ace. "If you're there, don't come out. He's just bluffing!"

Kriegslieter swung the cane in a low sweep cutting a slice off the bottom of the table and removing the toe of Ace's shoe in the process.

The Doctor stood up, cupping his hands. "All right," he shouted. "Show's over, I'm here!"

Every face in the hall turned towards him.

The Doctor strode down the staircase and across the hall. The knife was already in his hands, and he used it to cut the straps that bound Ace to the mangled table.

"Quite an entrance, Professor," she said. "Don't worry, they can't scare me."

She fainted into his arms.

Hermann Goering sat at his desk in the Chancellery. His huge fists clenched and unclenched on the desktop before him and he was glaring into s.p.a.ce. One of the shrewdest political brains in n.a.z.i Germany was calculating the odds.

To act would be risky. But to do nothing might be riskier still. When people were plotting against you, there was a lot to be said for striking first, and striking hard. The Fuehrer himself had proved that back in " 34. He had wiped out the entire leaders.h.i.+p of his own private army, the Browns.h.i.+rts, on the Night of the Long Knives. Two thousand executions in one day.

Goering shuddered, remembering little Heini calmly checking the death lists, ordering up another four Browns.h.i.+rts for the firing squad as the bodies of the last four were dragged away. They had gone on killing till they were sick of slaughter. Even the firing squad had broken down in the end.

Yet, in a way, the memory cheered and encouraged him. The Fuehrer could hardly object when all Goering would be doing would be to follow his leader's own example. Besides - and this motive moved him more than any other - it would be a h.e.l.l of a lot of fun!

He slammed his right fist down on the desk, sending a swastika-decorated desk-set jumping inches into the air. "I'll do it! And G.o.d help the Herr Doktor if he's wrong. I'll shoot the little devil myself?" s.n.a.t.c.hing up a telephone Goering bellowed, "Get me the Bendlerstra.s.se."

"Immediately, Herr Reichsmarshal." As he put through the call, the operator wondered why old Iron Fatty was in such a rush to talk to Regular Army HQ.

It was some time later, and the Doctor and Ace were confined in the luxurious quarters where Ace had awakened for the second time. This time the door was locked and there was an SS guard outside it as well. They'd taken the Doctor's Gallifreyan army knife away but otherwise they were being treated surprisingly well. A simple meal of bread, cold meats, cheese and wine and fruit had been provided.

Ace herself was still disgusted at her own behaviour. "Honest, Professor, me, screaming and fainting."

"You've got to stop clinging to this macho image," said the Doctor, selecting a grape. "In your place, I'd have been screaming the place down ages ago."

"My place isn't too good at the moment," said Ace. She had already told the Doctor of her projected role as sacrificial victim. "I hope you've got something up your sleeves."

"Several somethings." He lowered his voice. "Remember, Ace, whatever you do, react naturally."

The guard opened the door and Kriegslieter hobbled in.

"Come for a good gloat?" asked the Doctor amiably. "It's the usual procedure in these situations."

Kriegslieter studied the Doctor from the doorway. "You've changed, Doctor but not very much. You were an insignificant little man when we met, and you still are."

"Well, I tried tall and dignified, and all teeth and curls, but it didn't really suit me." He studied Kriegslieter curiously. "I may not have changed much, but you have," he said rather tactlessly. "At least, if you really are who you say you are. Used to be tall, dark and handsome didn't you? I heard you'd been killed - though come to think of it, they never found your body."

"I was shot, Doctor, but not killed. Shot several times, at close range with War Lord energy weapons. Would you care to know how I survived?"

"I've a feeling you're going to tell me."

"The War Lords" troopers were about to dispose of my body when they realized I was still alive. Just barely, but alive. You know how amazingly tough we Time Lords are, Doctor."

Ace stared at him. "You're a Time Lord - like the Professor?"

"Not at all like me, I hope," said the Doctor. "We come in all sorts, just like liquorice." He turned back to Kriegslieter. "I'm sorry, do go on."

"They called one of their scientists, and he was so amazed he ordered me sent back to their home planet - they were starting to retreat by then. I was on the last s.h.i.+p to leave."

"Why did they bother with you?" asked the Doctor curiously. "From what I remember of the War Lords, they'd be far more likely to finish you off."

"Oh, there was no thought of curing me, I a.s.sure you, Doctor. They just wanted to see how long it would take me to die. They threw me in the s.h.i.+p's hold and on the journey back to their planet I started to regenerate."

The Doctor nodded. Injury-triggered regenerations were not unknown. His own third regeneration had been caused by a ma.s.sive dose of radiation.

Kriegslieter went grimly on with his story. It was clear to them both that he had to tell it. "Because of my ma.s.sive injuries, the extensive tissue damage, the complete lack of all medical care, the regeneration aborted."

"No," whispered the Doctor, and Ace saw the pain on his face.

Kriegslieter said remorselessly, "Would you like to see what an aborted regeneration looks like, Doctor?" He threw back his cloak for a second and Ace got a brief glimpse of a malformed bandage-swathed torso sprouting twisted limbs-stubby extra limbs.

It was as if two bodies had been clumsily joined together.

She turned her face away in horror.

"I will leave you to imagine the state of the skull," said Kriegslieter, wagging his huge, oddly-shaped head. "As you see, I conceal it as best I can."