Doctor Who: Time and the Rani by Pip Baker, Jane Baker Page B
Authors: Pip Baker, Jane Baker
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Doctor.'
'I'd never be as scientifically brilliant as you, Rani.'
'Flattery? Too obvious a ploy.' She was abreast of the crucible and nearer to Mel. . .
'Not flattery. I deliberately said scientific brilliance. When it comes to the less attractive aspects of your nature, you're congenitally unbalanced.'
'You could have it wrong. What you call balance could be chaos.'
'Well, that's the way of the world and nothing can change it.' The pat cliche was merely a subterfuge. He was trying to determine why the Rani was humouring him.
Perhaps she wasn't beyond redemption. At university, in their debates, they had enjoyed many an academic battle of wits. She'd even confessed to a grudging admiration of his own versatility. A whiff of nostalgia maybe? Plus, as Mel had suggested earlier, a smidgen of vanity.
How wrong these assumptions were.
When Beyus released her from the cabinet, the Rani had seen the dead Tetrap guard. Until Urak returned, she alone had to hold the fort!
'Nothing can change it? I think I can negate that fallacy.' She tossed her head. Her scarlet earrings, looking like scarlet droplets of blood, swirled against her brunette tresses. 'The last chapter, Doctor? The denouement?'
She spun the bossed beading and the planet of Lakertya replaced the spent star in the hologram. 'In the aftermath of the Strange Matter explosion, Helium Two will fuse with the upper zones of the Lakertyan atmosphere to form a shell of chronons.'
In concert with the dissertation, an explosion engulfed the cerise gases enveloping Lakertya. When it subsided, a shimmering shell had crystallised.
'I don't have to tell you what chronons are, Doctor.'
'Indeed you don't. Discrete particles of time.'
'In the same millisecond the chronon shell is being formed, the hothouse effect of the gamma rays will cause the primate cortex of this brain to go into chain reaction.' A further spin of the beading. 'Multiplying until the gap between shell and planet is filled.'
In the hologram, the gap between the chronon shell and Lakertya's surface was filling with the primate cortex - the segment of the brain responsible for thought.
A shock of realisation ravaged the Doctor: there was to be an immense conjugation of time particles and the brain cells distilled from the intellectual giants.
'You're going to - turn this planet . . . into a Time Manipulator,' he stammered.
'A cerebral mass capable of dominating and controlling time anywhere in the cosmos!'
Mel had been forgotten by the two Gallifreyans. But the enormity of the revelations reduced her own concern for survival to an irrelevance.
The obscenity of the proposition had even robbed the Doctor of speech.
'All I need to bring it about,' continued the Rani, 'is the material for exploding Strange Matter. And my congress of geniuses here' - lovingly she stroked the railing surrounding the brain - 'will provide me with the means of obtaining that.'
'I've underestimated you.' The Doctor's voice was hoarse with disgust. 'I thought science had blinded you. But it's power.'
'Wrong again.'
'They should never have banished you from Gallifrey. They should have locked you in a padded cell!' It was a sentiment the Doctor had given vent to before.
'If the Time Lords hadn't refused to intervene in the pedestrian evolution of other species, a Time Manipulator wouldn't be necessary!'
Cheeks flushed in the magenta glow, she strolled the circular gantry.
'I still can't believe - a Time Manip -' The Doctor was struggling to marshal his thoughts. 'This - this monstrosity will give you . . .the ability to . . . change the order of Creation!'
'Creation's chaotic. I'll introduce order. An order based on logic not the capricious whims of chance.'
She switched off the hologram.
'Wherever evolution has taken the wrong route, I'll redirect it.'
'Redirect . . .' repeated the Doctor, staring at his arrogant antagonist.
'That planet you're so obsessed with - Earth - I shall return to the Cretaceous Age.
The
'I'd never be as scientifically brilliant as you, Rani.'
'Flattery? Too obvious a ploy.' She was abreast of the crucible and nearer to Mel. . .
'Not flattery. I deliberately said scientific brilliance. When it comes to the less attractive aspects of your nature, you're congenitally unbalanced.'
'You could have it wrong. What you call balance could be chaos.'
'Well, that's the way of the world and nothing can change it.' The pat cliche was merely a subterfuge. He was trying to determine why the Rani was humouring him.
Perhaps she wasn't beyond redemption. At university, in their debates, they had enjoyed many an academic battle of wits. She'd even confessed to a grudging admiration of his own versatility. A whiff of nostalgia maybe? Plus, as Mel had suggested earlier, a smidgen of vanity.
How wrong these assumptions were.
When Beyus released her from the cabinet, the Rani had seen the dead Tetrap guard. Until Urak returned, she alone had to hold the fort!
'Nothing can change it? I think I can negate that fallacy.' She tossed her head. Her scarlet earrings, looking like scarlet droplets of blood, swirled against her brunette tresses. 'The last chapter, Doctor? The denouement?'
She spun the bossed beading and the planet of Lakertya replaced the spent star in the hologram. 'In the aftermath of the Strange Matter explosion, Helium Two will fuse with the upper zones of the Lakertyan atmosphere to form a shell of chronons.'
In concert with the dissertation, an explosion engulfed the cerise gases enveloping Lakertya. When it subsided, a shimmering shell had crystallised.
'I don't have to tell you what chronons are, Doctor.'
'Indeed you don't. Discrete particles of time.'
'In the same millisecond the chronon shell is being formed, the hothouse effect of the gamma rays will cause the primate cortex of this brain to go into chain reaction.' A further spin of the beading. 'Multiplying until the gap between shell and planet is filled.'
In the hologram, the gap between the chronon shell and Lakertya's surface was filling with the primate cortex - the segment of the brain responsible for thought.
A shock of realisation ravaged the Doctor: there was to be an immense conjugation of time particles and the brain cells distilled from the intellectual giants.
'You're going to - turn this planet . . . into a Time Manipulator,' he stammered.
'A cerebral mass capable of dominating and controlling time anywhere in the cosmos!'
Mel had been forgotten by the two Gallifreyans. But the enormity of the revelations reduced her own concern for survival to an irrelevance.
The obscenity of the proposition had even robbed the Doctor of speech.
'All I need to bring it about,' continued the Rani, 'is the material for exploding Strange Matter. And my congress of geniuses here' - lovingly she stroked the railing surrounding the brain - 'will provide me with the means of obtaining that.'
'I've underestimated you.' The Doctor's voice was hoarse with disgust. 'I thought science had blinded you. But it's power.'
'Wrong again.'
'They should never have banished you from Gallifrey. They should have locked you in a padded cell!' It was a sentiment the Doctor had given vent to before.
'If the Time Lords hadn't refused to intervene in the pedestrian evolution of other species, a Time Manipulator wouldn't be necessary!'
Cheeks flushed in the magenta glow, she strolled the circular gantry.
'I still can't believe - a Time Manip -' The Doctor was struggling to marshal his thoughts. 'This - this monstrosity will give you . . .the ability to . . . change the order of Creation!'
'Creation's chaotic. I'll introduce order. An order based on logic not the capricious whims of chance.'
She switched off the hologram.
'Wherever evolution has taken the wrong route, I'll redirect it.'
'Redirect . . .' repeated the Doctor, staring at his arrogant antagonist.
'That planet you're so obsessed with - Earth - I shall return to the Cretaceous Age.
The
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