Doctor Who_ Ultimate Treasure Part 28

'Those, then, are the paths of Rovan. Now you must choose one, and only one, to follow. There are no second chances, and you must live with the consequences of your choice for the rest of your life. Take as much time as you wish and decide well.'

An intense silence descended in the chamber, broken only by the slight hum of the DAVEs as they flitted about catching close-ups of their intense faces. Dynes was silent, but his lips moved slightly as he subvocalised his observations to be recorded by his throat microphone.

Despite Alpha's menacing presence, Peri felt herself drawn by the thought of what might be behind the doors. She looked from one to the other. Just suppose she chose the big one. She saw the same look of calculation on the faces of Jaharnus and Falstaff/Loxley.

Then she caught the Doctor's eye and he gently shook his head.

Gribbs looked from one door to the next in an agony indecision.

He knew he'd been given the exact truth by Shalvis, but he didn't know what to make of it. Lies were easier to handle. 'I don't like this,' Drorgon said unhappily.

'Which one do we chose, boss?' Gribbs asked plaintively.

'Let the others make up their minds first,' said Alpha.

He sounded calm and collected, but Gribbs noticed a slight whirring from his locomotor tracks as they jerked forward and backward by tiny fractions.

Thorrin and the Marquis edged forward even as Brockwell and Arnella pleaded with them. Thorrin licked his lips, eyes darting between the blue and red doors.

'Which of them, if any, represents most closely the path Rovan took?' he asked Shalvis.

'I cannot tell you that,' she replied. 'He did not want his choice to influence others.'

'But you promise these choices have been presented to us exactly as Rovan wished?' the Marquis asked.

'Exactly so,' said Shalvis. 'We have kept our trust according to his instructions.'

'The blue door... it has to be,' muttered Thorrin.

'Yes, he had to have provided for the future,' said the Marquis, half to himself.

'Uncle, please no!' Arnella begged. With a shudder she forced herself to add, 'I... don't want to go through with it any more!'

He turned terrible eyes towards her. Not so much angry but shocked and uncomprehending.

'Arnella... you cannot abandon your birthright... your duty! Not after we've survived all these tests to prove we are worthy. Yes, that's what they have been for, you see: to choose a worthy successor when the time came! You are of Rovan's blood and somewhere in there is the proof. You will be the first empress of the Cartovallian line for almost forty-five centuries! Think what that will mean!'

'I am thinking!' said Arnella wretchedly. I'm not sure it will bring so much good. If the old empire was so wonderful, why did it fall so easily? Why is the Terrestrial Empire falling now? Things change. This may not be a step forward but a step back. Listen: in the forest I had a nightmare. I wasn't sure what it meant then, but now I know. I was imprisoned within a bush of thorns, being sucked dry by these flying parasites, but being fed by a vine that was part of the bush. My blood and their wastes fertilised the ground and so the vine which fed me. Day after day. It was a living death. That is what this will mean and I won't do it!'

'If your father could hear you now!'

'Oh, Uncle... this search for the book killed him and has changed you terribly. It must end. If the people want an empress that badly they'll find one, but not simply because she happens to share a handful of genes with Rovan's line.'

She felt Brockwell put a hand on her shoulder and squeeze gently. The Marquis's eyes flashed at him.

'It's you! You've poisoned her against me, against her duty!'

'No, sir. I love your niece, but I've said nothing to her about this. There hasn't been the opportunity. It's her choice... and I think it's the right one.'

Arnella looked up at Brockwell and smiled, though her eyes were wet with tears.

'Then... it is left to me,' the Marquis said brokenly. 'I will keep the succession alive alone. Goodbye, Arnella.'

He walked stiffly towards the blue door. Arnella reached out for him, but Brockwell held her back. 'No. It's his right.'

The door fell open at his touch and he pa.s.sed through. They had a glimpse of a corridor beyond, then the door swung silently shut again.

Thorrin looked at the door, then at Shalvis.

'Can any number use the same door?'

'Any number. One person's choice does not alter the next person's chance of success in any way. So it has been for thousands of years.'

Thorrin licked his lips again, as though weighing every word.

'But only the worthiest ever reach this far?'

'I cannot make any a.s.sessment of their individual worth.'

'Surely not many... only the select few. That has to be what he intended...'

Brockwell was looking at Thorrin in concern. 'Professor, just what is it you think is in there?'

'I told you to think, Will! Why else would somebody like Rovan, who had everything he could possibly desire, come here? For one thing only: the reason I'm here. The ultimate treasure is immortality!'

Suddenly there was silence. Everybody in the chamber looked at him. Thorrin gazed back at them with blazing eyes.

'What else could it be? Can n.o.body else see it but me? Why else did he bring all that treasure? It was the price he paid to them!' He stabbed a finger at Shalvis. 'The treasure's probably all gone now, but that doesn't matter. But which door? The one she said herself was the ultimate or the other?' He glared at Shalvis who looked back impa.s.sively. 'That harpy knows, but she won't tell! One last test, but is it another bluff? That was what those traps were telling us. Rovan would want company over the millennia, but only the best, the most worthy. All this was set up to provide them for him, do you see?'

'Professor... Alex,' Brockwell said gently, 'Just because something is possible or even logical, it doesn't necessarily make it true. She warned us about self-deception... and I think you're deluding yourself.'

Thorrin seemed not to have heard him. 'The possibilities! What I could learn if I could spend ten years, or fifty years studying a single subject. My most productive time is already behind me, but if I had it back again a thousand times over, think what I could accomplish? Come on, Will: help me choose. We shall go in together. Bring your lady. Eternity will he lonely, but it will be worth it!'

'No,' said Brockwell. 'Not this time, Professor. I think you're wrong, and I think it might be dangerous,' He glanced across at the impa.s.sive Shalvis. 'There's more going on here than we know.

You take the chance if you want, but I have too much to lose now.' He took hold of Arnella's hand.

Thorrin spared him one pitying glance, then he returned to his agonised deliberations. 'Am I certain there is no other way? Yes.

Is my need urgent? Yes. Therefore I will find Suddenly, appearing to find his inspiration, he rushed forward through the blue door and vanished.

'Can we wait for them, just in case?' Brockwell asked.

'Certainly,' said Shalvis. 'But you may have to wait a long time.'

Alpha broke the silence. It seemed to Peri that he had reached a decision as well.

'Gribbs, Drorgon. Go through the yellow door. Stay in communicator contact.'

'Boss. Are you sure?' Gribbs asked nervously.

'I have the measure of it now, Gribbs.' He flashed red eyes at Shalvis.

'I really wouldn't send them in there,' the Doctor said quickly.

'If you think about Shalvis's description carefully you'll understand. What she said was the literal truth, not a bluff!'

Gribbs and Drorgon hesitated.

Alpha swung his gun around to point at the Doctor, causing Red to growl again.

'I have heard something of your intellectual acuity, Doctor. But do not try sow the seeds of confusion now. This is a trap for the greedy and obsessed. But my wants are modest. I will be satisfied with the so-called "lesser treasure". Now go.'

Gribbs and Drorgon cautiously pushed open the yellow door and walked through. It swung closed behind them.

Beyond the door the pa.s.sage, lit by glow panels, stretched straight and unbroken for ten metres to another door, similar to the first. It pushed open just as easily.

'Well, Gribbs?' came Alpha's voice over the comm link. 'There's another door, boss... and another. They're very thick, boss, and they keep closing behind us.'

'Just keep going!'

'Yes, boss... more pa.s.sage... another door... uhh'

'What is it, Gribbs? Talk to me!'

The room was dazzling, and it took Gribbs a moment to adjust.

Then what he saw briefly robbed him of the power of speech.

Exquisite jewellery and precious stones were carelessly heaped about like sand dunes. Small pearls and loose gems crunched underfoot. In between them were bars of gold, platiniridium, silver, blue electrium, all stacked into improbable pillars and columns taller than his head. Resting on stands were complex fluted forms of rainbow-hued crystal and paintings of ancient scenes, richly glowing as though they had been finished just yesterday.

'Gribbs... Gribbs!'

'It, it's p-packed floor to ceiling,' he stammered. 'There must be tonnes and tonnes of it!' Drorgon give out a wild howl of delight as the full realisation dawned upon him. 'There's jewels, an'

those old paintings you like, and, and... You were right, boss!

Rovan's treasure! We've found it and it's all ours!'

CHAPTER 23.

DESTINY.

The Marquis pushed open the final door.

The chamber beyond was dimly lit, but filled with myriad subtle sparkles from the piles of jewels that were heaped about the corners. But he hardly gave them a second glance. There was only one thing he wanted to find. His heart beat faster as he saw at the far end of the room a golden lectern bearing Rovan's crest.

He approached it with faltering steps.

On it rested the Book of Lineage of House Cartovall.

Reverently he wiped the dust of ages from its gem-studded cover and turned the broad creaking pages with trembling hands, searching for the right section. Yes, here they were: the genetic files. He pulled out his pocket holo-scanner, ready loaded with his ancestors' DNA pattern, and ran it across the pages of dense lines of tiny genetic code symbols.

There: a sequence illuminated with a flickering interference pattern. A match. It was the final proof!

Carefully he closed the book and lifted it from the lectern, comforted by its weight. And now he noticed a door in the far wall. Hugging the book to him, he cautiously made his way through the door and down a short pa.s.sage.

This opened on to the bottom of a wide vertical shaft with a circle of daylight at its upper end. Resting on the shaft floor was a s.p.a.cecraft of antique design, grimed with dust but apparently sound. On its side he could just make out the Cartovallian crest.

Rovan had left transport for his successor. If it would carry him back it would be further proof of his claim to the throne, even though that honour should have gone to - 'Uncle! Wait.'

It was Arnella's voice. She emerged from the tunnel behind him, and ran to his side, her face wet with tears.

'I'm sorry, Uncle,' she said. 'I was foolish to let that man influence me. But I know my duty now Will you forgive me?'

His heart filled with joy. 'Of course I will, my dear.'

They entered the s.h.i.+p and took their seats. The controls were oddly arranged and slightly clumsy, but he rapidly mastered them. The thrusters were noisy but serviceable, and they carried them up the shaft and away from Gelsandor.

Soon they were out among the stars and on their way home.

Already the Marquis could picture Arnella's coronation. The Cartovallian line would be restored, bringing peace and stability to the new empire. It would happen just as he'd always dreamed...

Thorrin stood in an empty chamber. Just as he had suspected, there was no sign of any treasure. But there was something in the darkness.

Picked out by a single spotlight was a stand bearing a perforated tray, in which were slotted plastic phials of a deep-blue fluid. About half the slots were empty. As he stepped towards it there was a flickering in the air, and the projected image of a man materialised in front of him.

It was unmistakably Rovan himself, but dressed, Thorrin noted, in a more recent style than that of his own era. The recording smiled.

'Welcome to eternity, my friend. By reaching this chamber you have proved yourself worthy to share in something wonderful beyond imagining, and to accompany me on a journey into infinity. The phials you see before you contain the true secret of Gelsandor. A perfected pantropic genetic booster: the elixir of life.