Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani by Pip Baker, Jane Baker Page B

they were. Peri, concentrating on looking for the valerian plants, nevertheless gazed up at the great oak cresting the ridge. It was a prime specimen. The botanist’s routine desire to classify made her speculate on how old it was.
    ‘Best keep moving, Miss.’ Luke was subject to no such diversions.
    ‘Okay, okay. I’m coming.’ What was bugging him?
    She’d conducted many similar expeditions and wasn’t about to be hustled by a rookie! She handed him a sample leaf. ‘Here. You can’t go wrong if you match this.’
    ‘I’m sure I’ve seen likeness further in’t Dell. This way, Miss.’
    Vaguely perplexed, she lingered on the outskirts as Luke resolutely led on.
    A glimpsed movement at the edge of the Dell alerted the Master. In anticipation, he eased forward.
    Delight changed to fury. It was Luke.
    He must get rid of the oaf before the fool spoilt everything! Impulsively, he drew the TCE – a hand chopped it from his grasp!
    Before the Master could collect his wits, the Doctor had recovered the pernicious weapon.
     
    Thorny brambles had snagged the Doctor’s trousers and shredded his sneakers, but the onerous detour had permitted him to circle the ridge, coming up to the rear of the great oak.
    In his frustration, the Master berated the Rani. ‘So much for your arrogant superiority!’
    ‘A trait you both share.’ The Doctor addressed the Rani.
    ‘I got the message. I’m here. Now what obnoxious fate have you conceived?’
    ‘Why me?’ she asked.
    ‘He blames you for the failure.’
    Her silence mocked him.
    ‘Not this –’ The Doctor flourished the TCE. ‘That’s too simple. You’ll have brewed something more malignant.’
    But what? Their attitude bothered him as he watched them for any tell-tale signs.
    If his attention had not been so fixed, he might have seen Luke sauntering into peril. Instead, the Doctor mentally analysed the facts. He started with the black, frisbee-like objects. What had she said about them? They’d change his lifestyle? Then there was the message that had brought him.
    ‘Is it down there? In the Dell? Where I was supposed to go?’
    He glanced down... and saw Luke.
    But his cry of warning was still-born.
    Reaching for a clump of valerian, Luke trod on a disc.
    Instantly, a fountain of bark-like flakes gushed into the air enshrouding him. Mushrooming upwards, they blocked out the sky, cavorting and dancing on the breeze before beginning to settle.
    When they did, two arms were raised in supplication and a brown, corrugated torso was surmounted by swirls and knots that faintly resembled Luke’s face.
    Where the handsome, golden-haired apprentice had stood, there now stood a tree; a tall, lithe sapling, not adorned with autumn leaves but with the burgeoning buds of Spring. Time was out of joint...
     
    16

Life In The Balance
    Rage burned in the Doctor’s hearts. He levelled the TCE at the Master and the Rani.
    ‘No! No! An accident!’ The Master, above all, could recognise murderous intent. ‘It wasn’t meant for him!’
    ‘And you’re so warped, so callous, you think that justifies what you have done!’ Never in all their confrontations had the Doctor experienced such an irresistible surge of hatred. ‘First you turn an innocent young man into your acolyte, betraying his friends! Then you defile him with this monstrous act!’
    ‘Stop being sentimental.’ The Rani felt no remorse.
    ‘What’s happened? Animal life has been metamorphosed into vegetable matter. So what?’
    ‘You’ll be telling me next he’s better off!’
    ‘In essence, he is. A tree has four times the life expectancy of a human being.’
    Her Philistine rationalisation appalled the Doctor. He had always harboured a sneaking admiration for the Rani.
    No more! ‘They should never have exiled you! They should have locked you up in a padded cell! Move! Before I forget my abhorrence of violence and eliminate the pair of you!’
    A scream.
    ‘Peri!’
    Innocent of what had overtaken Luke,