The Ripple Effect, page 4
‘This universe is already tearing itself apart,’ said the Doctor. ‘I thought it might take decades, possibly even a century or two before it got this bad, but the rate of decay is obviously exponential.’ At Ace’s blank look, he explained, ‘Growing rapidly bigger and faster at an alarming rate.’
As if to underline his words, the ground beneath them began to lurch. Shock waves rocked the TARDIS violently back and forth as if it was being tossed on a stormy sea. And then the waves settled into an eerie stillness.
‘Is it over?’ asked Ace, alarmed.
‘No,’ said the Doctor grimly. ‘It’s only just beginning.’
Without warning, Pytha appeared at the TARDIS door, but he was not alone. Daleks stood beside and behind him for as far as Ace could see.
8
Ace’s heart began to hammer in her chest. For all her talk, the sight of so many Daleks in front of the TARDIS doors made her nervous, to say the least.
‘Professor, we have company,’ said Ace.
‘I know. I see them.’
‘Doctor, we require your assistance.’ That note in Pytha’s voice was the closest Ace had ever come to hearing desperation from a Dalek.
‘I’m a tad busy trying to keep the TARDIS upright,’ said the Doctor, initialising the stabilisers.
‘Our long-range deep-space scans are reporting anomalies.’
The Doctor’s head whipped up. ‘What kind of anomalies?’
‘Distant star systems that have begun to … disappear. This is, of course, impossible, but we have checked our instruments and found no malfunctions. And there has been a worrying increase in solar activity from our own sun. We require your presence in the astrophysics observatory. We seek your insight.’
Just at that moment, the ground heaved again.
‘I’ll be right with you,’ said the Doctor. ‘I need to sort out something first.’
‘We will wait and accompany you to the observatory,’ said the Dalek. ‘Time is of the essence.’
‘No need. I know the way. You all go and I’ll meet you there,’ said the Doctor. ‘Don’t worry, Pytha. I’ll fix this, I promise. Trust me.’
The Daleks turned en masse and rolled away. Moments later the Doctor slammed shut the TARDIS doors. ‘We need to get out of here. Now!’ he hissed.
‘You’re not just going to abandon them, are you?’ said Ace, appalled. ‘You promised to help.’
‘Ace, don’t you get it? The stars in this universe are beginning to blink out. And, believe me, when Skaro’s star bites the dust, we don’t want to be anywhere near here.’
‘But, Professor –’
‘Listen to me,’ the Doctor interrupted. ‘We need to get back to the Plexus before that’s wiped out too, or we’ll blink out of existence just like everything and everyone else.’
9
The Doctor ducked under the console and started recalibrating the quantum synchroniser – at least, that was Ace’s wild guess.
‘Aren’t you going to at least warn the Daleks?’ she asked.
‘No time. Besides, what good would it do?’ said the Doctor. ‘Once I’ve recalibrated our long-range sensors, we’re out of here. We need to get back to the Plexus to reverse all this.’
‘You promised Pytha you’d fix things.’
‘And I will, just not from here.’
‘But wouldn’t it be better to stay and try to sort out the problem alongside the Daleks? Surely working together you could find a solution?’ Ace wasn’t ready to give up on this universe. Not yet.
‘Ace, I know it’s hard, but you have to let go of this timeline. It isn’t right – and it isn’t ours.’
‘If it was, would you work harder to save it?’
The Doctor sighed. ‘I don’t like this any more than you do, but the only way to save the universe is to put it back the way it was.’ The Doctor shook his head, his lips twisting with regret. ‘Ace, you may not believe this but I wanted to be wrong about this universe. I really did.’
Ace activated the viewscreen. Daleks were moving quickly among the other aliens. It looked like they were trying to reassure everyone. Ace squatted down, one question burning its way through her mind. ‘Professor, what happens to Tulana if you reverse everything?’
‘Even a Time Lord can’t know the fate of every person in the universe.’
Ace didn’t miss the way the Doctor couldn’t quite look her in the eye. ‘What do you think will happen?’ she asked.
There was a pause. The Doctor finally sighed. ‘Tulana is a native of the planet Markhan.’
‘So?’
The Doctor shuffled evasively.
‘What aren’t you telling me?’ Ace persisted.
‘About two hundred years ago there was a plague on that planet. It was started by the Daleks as a prelude to an invasion.’
‘How many died?’
‘All of them, Ace. They all died. The Markhan Genocide is one of the Daleks’ greatest atrocities.’
‘So if we put things back to the way they were …?’
‘Tulana won’t exist,’ the Doctor confirmed.
‘No …’ Ace felt sick. She straightened up, immediately followed by the Doctor who lowered the console to its normal position. Ace searched the viewscreen, trying to spot her friend. ‘Doctor, couldn’t I just say goodbye to her? Please? I’ll be quick.’
‘That’s not a good idea,’ said the Doctor gently. ‘For all kinds of reasons.’
Ace watched as anxious students from a vast number of different star systems huddled round the Daleks, seeking answers that only the Doctor could provide. On the entrance ramp to the astrophysics building, Ace saw Tulana and some of her friends having an animated conversation with a Dalek. Ace blinked rapidly to ease the stinging in her eyes and then nodded briefly.
For the first time, travelling with the Doctor was making her eyes leak.
‘Uh-oh!’ The Doctor was scrutinising the console, his expression beyond worried. ‘Time to skedaddle, I think. Hold on!’
Ace only just had time to grab hold of one of the console supports before the TARDIS jolted as it dematerialised. ‘So we’re heading back to the Plexus?’
‘Yes.’
‘To fix things?’
‘Yes.’
‘If what we’re doing is right, why doesn’t it feel that way?’
The Doctor had no answer.
10
‘How do we get back to the Plexus? I thought the whole thing about it was that you couldn’t work out where you were or how to navigate in there?’
‘Normally, yes, but in this case, we’re simply backtracking to where we’ve already been twice before.’
Ace sighed. ‘Doesn’t all this time-travel stuff make your head hurt?’
‘Frequently!’
‘Hold on a second,’ said Ace. ‘If this whole mess was caused by two TARDISes getting tangled up, aren’t we now adding a third TARDIS?’
‘No, because I realise now that we were the other TARDIS that you saw when we were originally stuck in the time vortex. I thought what you saw was just a temporal echo or an image from the Plexus time loop, but I was wrong. That second TARDIS was us re-entering the Plexus, so at least I know we’ll find our way back into it. And, once there, I’m going to have to pick the exact right moment to restore the chrono-dynamic parity. I have to make sure that the other TARDIS gets free without altering the universe to do it.’
‘And how will you do that?’
‘The exact moment the other TARDIS targets the star, I’ll put us in the way and target it with intermittent chrono-dynamic pulses. That should provide them with enough energy to break free without destroying the star.’
‘What about us? Could we get stuck again?’
‘If I time it exactly right, the timeline of the two TARDISes will merge into one and emerge from the Plexus unscathed. But if I miscalculate, I could destroy the TARDIS.’
‘Which one?’
‘Both of them.’
Sorry she’d asked, Ace swallowed hard.
The Doctor ran his hands over the controls and the TARDIS screeched and wheezed and reappeared in the Plexus, the one place in the universe Ace never wanted to see again. The Doctor switched on the viewscreen and the familiar image of a police box appeared briefly.
‘So that’s us, before you blew up the star?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘About one minute before – if my calculations are correct.’
‘And you’re absolutely, totally, for-definite sure that this is the only way?’
‘Yes. And once we’re out of the Plexus, I’ve preset coordinates to our next destination.’
The sixty seconds dragged by. Ace stared at the other TARDIS on the viewscreen, and thought about Tulana and peaceful Daleks and a universe that the Doctor said should never have existed.
‘Here goes!’ the Doctor shouted.
There was the blinding flash, which took Ace by surprise even though she was expecting it. The force lifted her off her feet before slamming her back down again. Forewarned, Ace knew what was going to happen – a wild, crazy, uncontrolled flight followed by a bone-jarring halt. This time the Doctor was prepared too. He brought the TARDIS under control almost at once. They’d escaped the Plexus, but had the Doctor’s plan worked? Had the universe been restored to ‘normal’? Through the viewscreen Ace saw space debris – asteroids, some the size of continents back on Earth, and vast chunks of rock floating before them.
‘Where are we?’ she asked.
But before the Doctor could confirm their exact location, a ship appeared on the screen and swung round in a graceful arc to point head-on at the TARDIS.
‘Aha!’ said the Doctor.
There was burst of static, before a harsh, grating voice filled the control room.
‘YOU HAVE INVADED OUR SPACE. YOU – WILL – BE – EXTERMINATED!’
Ace shuddered as she recognised the voice, and watched as two missiles streaked away from the battle cruiser, heading straight towards the TARDIS. There was no gentleness now – all trace of friendliness gone. There was no attempt at diplomacy or debate. These were the Daleks the Doctor and Ace knew only too well – the merciless killing machines that had burned a thousand planets and enslaved half the galaxy.
‘Ah yes, the Daleks I know and detest, still protecting what they feel is their part of the galaxy, even though there’s nothing here but rock. The universe makes sense again,’ said the Doctor as he set the controls to allow them to slip away into space and time before the missiles could hit their target.
‘Professor, where is this?’
‘Skaro – or what’s left of it. There’s always a Dalek battler cruiser or two in the vicinity.’
‘You set our destination for Skaro?’ Ace asked, astounded.
‘Just to make sure that things were back to normal,’ grinned the Doctor.
Ace watched the missiles approach. The Doctor threw a switch with a flourish and the image of the Dalek ship and the missiles started to fade from view as the TARDIS dematerialised.
Even as they slipped away, a Dalek voice grated on triumphantly. ‘DETONATION IN 10 RELS. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE.’
The viewscreen faded to black, and the echo of the Dalek’s last strident, grating taunt died away. ‘ALL ENEMIES OF THE DALEKS MUST DIE …’
‘So Professor, Tulana never even got a chance to be born,’ said Ace, her eyes glistening. ‘The Daleks are back to being murderous psychos. This is the universe as you know and understand it. But is it really an improvement?’
The Doctor stared at the screen. The view was star-filled now and peaceful. His hands gripped the edges of the console so tightly that his knuckles were white. ‘Ace, we experienced something I thought could never happen, in any timeline. Peaceful Daleks who were a force for good. Maybe, just maybe, in time that will happen in this universe too.’
‘D’you really think so?’ said Ace.
‘A few days ago, I would’ve said no without hesitation,’ the Doctor admitted. ‘But now all we can do is hope. And, when you get right down to it, that’s a good start.’
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, eleven ebook short stories will be available to download and collect throughout 2013.
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FIFTY SPECTACULAR YEARS.
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Malorie Blackman, The Ripple Effect
