Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord : The Ultimate Foe by Pip Baker, Jane Baker

such a Goliath.’ Studied commonsense took over. ‘So capitulate. Greet the end gracefully.’
    The resentment simmering in the Doctor abated: he could scent a false trail.
    And that was a garden path he had no intention of being led up! The only flowers he’d find there were those destined for his wreath! His protagonist’s verbose goading was meant to divert him.
    Just as the pieces were beginning to fit!
    The Valeyard’s threat of dissemination was tantamount to suicide. Yet the Doctor knew the narcissistic prosecutor would not allow himself to be killed. It was irrational: hadn’t the trial been contrived in order that he – the Valeyard – might plunder the Doctor’s remaining lives?
    Survival for him was an immutable proviso.
    Then for whom was this ultimate weapon meant.. ?
    Realisation dawned.
    Trembling, fumbling, he extracted the document taken from Popplewick’s office.
    ‘A hit list!’ He waved the list of names at Mel. ‘The writing, Mel!’
    ‘Yours, Doctor –’
    ‘Mine – and his! Don’t you see! He’s made a hit list!
    That’s why they’re all crossed through!’
    ‘But they’re all in the Trial Room. And we’re in the Matrix.’
    Again Mel had given him the missing fragment of the puzzle. ‘The Matrix screen!’ That was to be the conveyor of death! ‘Mel, get to the Trial Room! Tell them to disconnect the Matrix and evacuate the Court!’
    ‘How –?’
    ‘Do it! Or there’ll be mass murder!’
    Mel hared for the exit, lampooned by the Valeyard’s taunting laughter.
    Their panic afforded him renewed amusement.
    So did something else.
    Under cover of their absorption, he had succeeded in working loose his tethered wrists...
     
    21

The Price of Vanity
    ‘How do I get out of the Matrix?’
    This was the question Mel would have posed but for the Doctor’s interruption.
    She wished she had persisted. The beam of Astanneus Light had deposited her in an alley... Perhaps if she returned to the alley, she would find an exit there.
    Weaving through the warren of slums, each a decrepit replica of the other, would have confused the average voyager. Mel was above average. At least, her memory was.
    It led her to the exact spot.
    A fruitless mission.
    No shaft descended to spirit her into the world of reality.
    Then her ability for total recall came again to her aid.
    Remembering how the bogus Mel enticed the Doctor back to the Courtroom, she recollected that the exit was effected through the wall of an archway.
    Maybe the Valeyard had been seduced by his own cleverness...
    Maybe he had unwittingly divulged the secret of re-entry to the Trial Room...
    Gentle snores snuffled from the benches in the Court: many of the elderly Guardians of the Law, lulled by the unscheduled interval, were dozing.
    Diligently searching for a precedent, burrowing in a tome of Gallifreyan Law, the Inquisitor, too, was infected by drowsiness.
    Only the guards remained alert and stiffly at attention.
    ‘Why can’t we go?’ Glitz was bored with watching the vegetating Court on the Monitor in the Master’s TARDIS.
    ‘We wait.’
     
    ‘For what?’
    The Master did not condescend to explain. He was anticipating an event: an announcement that would set the seal on his ambitions.
    ‘Well, look, give me my divvi and I’ll vamoosh.’
    ‘Divvi ?’
    ‘Spondooliks! The swag!’ A sigh of resignation at the Master’s cloddish lack of familiarity with his fraternity’s slang. ‘The chest of jewels! I’ve delivered the tape, now I’m entitled to my –’
    The Master clapped his gloved hand over Glitz’s mouth and concentrated on the monitor.
    ‘My Lady! My Lady!’ The plaintive cry of the Keeper rushing into the Court. ‘Oh, My Lady!’
    ‘Ah...’ The Master grinned. ‘Listen, Glitz.
    Remain absolutely quiet!’
    The Keeper’s harassed baying aroused the Time Lords and the Inquisitor from their lethargy.
    ‘An urgent message, My Lady!’ Dismayed by the devastating news he had to impart, he