Doctor Who_ Timewyrm_ Exodus Part 24

And there'll be no nuclear retaliation, remember, no nuclear war as such."

"What makes you so sure?"

"We shall be the only country with atomic weapons."

He led them towards the door. "Well, Doctor, that concludes what you are pleased to call the tour. I think you should return to your quarters and rest.

A trying time awaits you."

Flanked by the ever-present guards, they began climbing the stairs.

Once they were back in their quarters the Doctor said, "You've made your plans for Ace abundantly clear. What about me?"

Kriegslieter turned in the doorway. "I am glad you asked, Doctor. Firstly, you will attend tomorrow's ceremony, and witness the death of someone you - love? Care for, at least. Then - you remember my SIDRATS, Doctor?"

"Primitive time machines - with a limited shelf life?"

"An unkind but accurate description. After the ceremony, we shall require the location of your TARDIS. Once that is ours, we can reproduce it, conquer time as well as s.p.a.ce."

"Out of the question," said the Doctor indignantly.

"Oh, you will tell us, Doctor. We shall take your mind to pieces like a watch.

Of course, one or two of the parts may get broken in the process - but that really doesn't matter."

"It doesn't?"

"Once I have wrested from it the secret of the TARDIS, your mind will be of no further interest to me. But your body. . ."

"Please," said the Doctor, looking embarra.s.sed. "Ladies present."

"We are both Time Lords, Doctor, our brains and our bodies are compatible. Regeneration therapy is far beyond the War Lord's scientists, but even they can manage a simple brain transplant."

Kriegslieter studied the Doctor with detached, clinical interest. "To be honest, it isn't the body I would have chosen but it's infinitely superior to the one I have. When all this is over, Doctor, I shall be you - and you, or whatever shattered gibbering remnant of you is left, will be me.

Appropriate, don't you think? A crippled mind in a crippled body. . . "

12: CEREMONY.

When they were alone Ace said thoughtfully, "To be perfectly honest with you, Doctor, there are one or two things about our present situation I'm not really crazy about."

"At least you're playing the leading lady," pointed out the Doctor. "How would you like to be condemned to a bit part as Quasimodo, the Hunchback of the Reich?"

"He's certainly got it in for you, hasn't he, Professor? Not only twisted but bitter as well."

"He used to be a devilishly handsome fellow, you see. He resents the change, and thinks it all my fault."

"And is it?"

"Well, I may have spread a bit of dissension between him and his War Lord allies. Still, they seem to have made up now, don't they?"

They were whistling in the dark and they both knew it. The merry chitchat always ran out in the end, thought Ace despairingly. "Are we going to get out of this, Doctor? Alive, in one piece - and in our own bodies, I mean?"

"I hope so," said the Doctor sombrely. "But maybe not until the last minute.

There's a lot more than just us at stake, you see, and I can't leave with the job undone. There may have to be..."

"Sacrifices?" said Ace.

The Doctor didn't reply.

After a moment Ace said, "When old nasty was talking about someone you loved, or at least cared for. . . "

"He was right the first time."

Ace yawned and stretched out on the couch. "Better get some rest. I want to look my best in the morning." She looked seriously at the Doctor. After a moment she said, "Just do whatever it takes to get the job done, Professor.

That's what counts."

Ace closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep. The Doctor sat in a fur-draped chair, gazing out through the arrow slit at the darkening sky.

The Doctor awoke, and found Ace gone. A drug in the food and wine, he thought, or gas under the door. He ran to the door and started to pound on it. Instantly the door swung open. There stood Kriegslieter, SS guards beside him. He was wearing a black robe with a black hood, and carried another on his arm.

"Time to go, Doctor. It will soon be dawn."

"Where's Ace?"

"She is being prepared. Don't worry, you'll see her soon. Put this on, will you Doctor? Formal dress for the ceremony."

The Doctor didn't move. But he stood unresisting while, at a gesture from Kriegslieter, the SS guards put the robe on him, thrusting his arms in the wide sleeves and pulling the hood over his head.

"I hope you'll enjoy the ceremony," said Kriegslieter as they moved off down the staircase. "It's a bit of a hotchpotch, I fear. I cobbled it up myself from the more colourful bits of Teutonic mythology. I trust Himmler appreciates all my trouble."

"Himmler's coming?"

"My dear Doctor, the whole thing is largely for his benefit. Him and some senior SS cronies. I just hope he doesn't faint at the vital moment. He's terribly squeamish, hates the sight of blood. . ."

The main doors of the tower were standing open.

"We a.s.semble in the courtyard," said Kriegslieter. "Then we file in through the main entrance." He might have been a fussy old don at some obscure degree ceremony.

The main courtyard of the castle formed the background to a grim and terrifying scene. It was lined with black-uniformed SS guards bearing blazing torches. Their fiery light revealed a sinister procession forming up in the courtyard. There was something very unpleasant about the double line of black-robed, black-hooded figures in the flickering torchlight. It reminded the Doctor of old, long-ago horrors, the Spanish Inquisition, the evil black magic cults that had flourished in Europe hundreds of years ago. It was peculiarly horrible to see this sort of thing revived, deliberately and cynically, in a century that should have left it far behind. Most horrible of all, they were planning to slaughter Ace in a sacrifice to their own dark G.o.ds.

The Doctor looked round desperately for help, for some way of escape.

Suddenly, at the head of the procession he saw a familiar figure, a diminutive shape almost swallowed up by flowing black robes. Before anyone could stop him the Doctor broke ranks and ran to the front of the procession. "Herr Reichsfuehrer!"

Himmler's rimless gla.s.ses glinted at him from under the hood. "Herr Doktor you are here after all!"

"I decided that you were right, that it was necessary for me to come. I have grave news, news that concerns the Fuehrer himself."

Kriegslieter hobbled up beside the Doctor with surprising speed. "You will come away at once, Doctor," he said furiously. "How dare you annoy the Reichsfuehrer like this?"

Himmler held up his hand. "Let the Herr Doktor speak."

The Doctor pointed accusingly at Kriegslieter. "I am sorry to say that this man cannot be trusted. His ambitions go far beyond anything you would countenance. He plans to remove the Fuehrer - and replace him!"

"Remove the Fuehrer!" Himmler was outraged. "Replace him? With whom?"

"With you, Herr Reichsfuehrer."

Himmler swung round on the astonished Kriegslieter. "Is this true?"

In his confusion, Kriegslieter made a near-fatal error. "It may have been discussed, as a possibility. . ."

"Never!" said Himmler pa.s.sionately. "Never will I subscribe to any action against the Fuehrer. I exist only to serve him." It was quite clear that he meant exactly what he said.

Kriegslieter was stunned. He'd naturally a.s.sumed that Himmler was as corrupt as all the other leaders.

Offer Goering or Goebbels a proposition like that and they'd jump at it, thought the Doctor. But little Heinrich is genuinely devoted to Adolf.

He glanced at Kriegslieter and thought grimly, I scuppered you once by causing trouble with your allies, maybe I can do it again!

Stunned as he was, Kriegslieter soon recovered. "If I have erred, I am sorry, Herr Reichsfuehrer. I submit myself entirely to your guidance. But may I urge that we discuss these matters after the Ceremony? The dawn is approaching, and if the propitious time is lost, the whole course of the ceremony may be endangered. If we are to summon the Ancient Powers to our aid in winning this war. . ."

A fanatical gleam came into Himmler's eyes. "We must not lose the moment. After the ceremony, we will settle this matter once and for all."

The Doctor saw there was no chance of talking him out of it. "Very well, after the ceremony," he said, and took Himmler's arm. "Shall we continue, Herr Reichsfuehrer?"

The procession set off, Himmler and the Doctor at the head. Kriegslieter, baffled at least for the moment, was forced to follow them. They filed into the chapel and took their places, filing up from the rear entrance, filling up the rows of stone seats. The Doctor sat beside Himmler in the very front row. The black-robed, black-hooded figures sat, arms folded, in solemn silence. The light from the blazing torches of the SS guards flickered on the swastika banners, the heraldic s.h.i.+elds and the dreadful bloodstained altar.

The sacrificial victim was brought in.

They'd dressed her in a flowing white robe and her hands were bound. She was staring straight ahead, moving like a sleepwalker. Drugged, thought the Doctor. It's probably just as well.

Kriegslieter stood beside her behind the altar, the shape of his twisted body visible even beneath the robes. On the altar before him lay a hideous goat mask, and a huge ceremonial knife.

The ceremony began.

The Doctor didn't pay much attention. There was a great deal of chanting and intoning, and long rambling prayers from Kriegslieter, addressed to the spirits of the Ancient Masters and a weird variety of Teutonic G.o.ds.

The Doctor's eyes were on a slit in the wall, high in the east side of the chapel. When the sun rose, a beam of light would slant down from that slit and strike the altar. That, surely, would be the moment of sacrifice. It would need very careful timing.

The ceremony droned on.

Through the slit in the wall the sky grew lighter. At a command from Kriegslieter the torches were extinguished. They stood there in smoky darkness, waiting for the dawn.

Kriegslieter gave another signal. Two black-hooded figures stretched Ace on her back on the altar, her head projecting over the edge. Kriegslieter reached for the mask and put it on. He stretched out his hand for the knife .

The Doctor leapt to his feet. "No!" he shouted.

Himmler looked up. "What is the meaning of this, Herr Doktor?"

"I wish to prove my total loyalty to the Reich," said the Doctor pa.s.sionately.

"There on the altar lies my niece, the person I love most in all the world. To Doctor Kriegslieter she is nothing. But if I sacrifice her, that sacrifice will have true meaning. Was it not you, Herr Reichsfuehrer, who said we must lay all that we hold most dear on the altar of the Reich?"

Himmler was deeply moved. "A n.o.ble sentiment, Herr Doktor. Perform the sacrifice!"

Kriegslieter made no objection as the Doctor moved behind the altar. He spoke, his voice m.u.f.fled by the mask. "Will you really go as far as this, Doctor, to save your own skin?"

"Try me."

"It won't work, you know. Even Himmler can't save you now. Still, do go ahead. It's a delicious refinement - I only wish I'd thought of it myself." He handed the Doctor the knife. "Decapitation is the prescribed method, if you hadn't guessed. And do try to get her head off in one stroke, Doctor.

Nothing spoils a Ceremony more than a lot of inelegant hacking about."

The Doctor took the knife and looked down. Ace's eyes gazed up at him, her hair hanging down like a curtain. Incredibly she smiled.

The ray of light struck the altar. The knife flashed down.

13: WAR GAMES.

Hitler's Chancellery was in semi-darkness. The Fuehrer, accompanied by his faithful Bormann, had returned unexpectedly from Poland in the middle of the night and only a few lamps had been lit in the endless corridors. In Hitler's study only the desk lamp burned. The Fuehrer sat, studying doc.u.ments and signing papers, surrounded by a huge pool of swirling shadows.

At his elbow, the faithful Bormann watched his leader with concern. Not that Hitler seemed ill; far from it. That was the trouble. He was, if anything, all too well. To Barman's knowledge Adolf Hitler hadn't slept and had hardly eaten in the time between their sudden departure for Poland and their even more sudden return to Berlin. He had conducted the early stages of the Polish campaign with incredible energy, and had now returned to the Chancellery to oversee the rest of the war.

Hitler handed Bormann the last doc.u.ment and said impatiently, "Is that all?"

"There is one other matter, my Fuehrer, a rather strange and worrying affair."

"Tell me."

Bormann opened a file and produced an official letter on Wehrmacht stationery. "It is a complaint from the duty officer at the Bendlerstra.s.se."