The Doctor started at the thought, then smiled weakly. ‘Oh, she’s alive… she must be. She’s just not here. She must be somewhere else.’ He said the words with a child’s certainty. Thank you anyway,’ he added politely. ‘Well, I’m sure you’re a busy man. Good day.’ He strode out, deep in thought.
His standing enhanced no end through his involvement with Barlow, the Doctor was able to commandeer a runabout and a driver without a problem. The cheerful young man gladly drove the Doctor back to where he’d left the TARDIS. The Doctor let him prattle on about all the changes that were happening, and about how great times were coming. The enthusiasm of the young was matched only by their naivety…
Finally, though, the trip was over, and the Doctor could say goodbye. Then he hurried to the TARDIS, and entered it.
‘Hello, old girl,’ he murmured, as he crossed to the console and powered it up again. Time now to rescue Susan and recover that transmuter. Everything else was secondary. He bent to his work, and did what he knew he should’ve done in the first place – he instructed the TARDIS to begin analysing properly.
At least now he had some explanations for it. Susan must have used the Master’s TARDIS to send the signal, distraught at the Master’s actions. All he needed to do now was to narrow down the point of transmission and then go to her rescue. Provided the TARDIS behaved herself and did as she was told.
Long hours passed. The information started to come through, and as he read it, the Doctor paused.
Tersurus…
And then the track of an unshielded TARDIS, which then reshielded itself and left the dismal planet…
His fingers hovered over the controls, and didn’t descend.
Tersurus…
He aborted the sequence, with a mixture of relief and reluctance. Of course… He already knew that the Master had hidden on Tersurus when his final regeneration had been used up. Some devastating force had ravaged his body and left him a crippled wreck.
But his TARDIS had left the world.
That could only mean that Susan had been the one to trigger the Master’s grotesque change. And that she had taken his TARDIS and gone on alone. There was no need for him to go to her aid, then. She had acted swiftly and certainly, and solved the last remaining problem.
She had her freedom back.
Something twinged at the Doctor. Freedom. He tried to place himself in Susan’s shoes. He remembered his exile to Earth, the frustration, the desperation to escape. Then release.
But wherever he went, there were the companions. He seemed to collect people like badges, the good, the brave, the plucky and bold.
The hopeless innocents.
He could leave Sam now. Give up the search. What did it matter? With the evil of the Daleks to contend with, with Susan in danger, Sam had left his thoughts for a while… He’d soon be distracted again, caught up somewhere else, in another age. Look how long he’d left Susan. How soon before he forgot all about Sam, a grain of sand on time’s beach?
He could go now. There’d be only himself to look out for, just as when he’d gone off before, soon after they’d first met – he’d been testing out his new body but got caught up, diverted, held in time’s thrall once again. If he got really bored this time he could always find someone else. Anyone else, really.
TARDIS‐fodder…
He saw his eyes reflected back at him in the glass screen of the monitor. They were dark, cold. He closed them, imagined Susan travelling through the vortex in her stolen TARDIS, free of all responsibility now.
He snapped his eyes back open and looked down at the backs of his hands. No, that was something he would never be free of.
He started to reset the controls. It was almost time to go looking for Sam again…
First Epilogue
‘I’m picking up a TT capsule lock,’ the technician reported from his control seat.
‘Acknowledged,’ Rodan responded from her own control station. She hated monitor duty, but as a very junior Time Lord, she was stuck with it. ‘Somebody’s probably just gone on a joyride,’ she added, ‘but check it out anyway.’
The technician nodded, bending to his task. Rodan examined her own controls. Yes, there was the signal. Some insignificant little planet in the Mutter’s Spiral. If she wanted, she could call up all the data the Matrix had on the place, but it was hardly worth it. As she’d said, this was undoubtedly of no importance.
Then the technician gave a low whistle. ‘It’s an Umber Priority,’ he announced, slightly awed. ‘According to the computers, it’s a stolen capsule piloted by a renegade.’
That made Rodan pay attention. It also meant it was out of her realm of authority. She had to refer this up, and soon. ‘Get a positive lock,’ she ordered, moving for the communications chair. ‘I’ll call the Castellan immediately.’
This was the most exciting thing that had ever happened on her duty shift. She wasn’t going to mess it up. If she did, she’d be sent to some mindless, menial job like watching the transduction barriers, or timing paint drying…
Damn the arrogant old fool! Chancellor Goth strode through the Citadel, furious and humiliated. The meeting with the Lord President he had been anticipating with relish for the past week had turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. The senile old fool was due to resign shortly, and the matter of his successor had naturally been broached. Goth knew that he was the perfect candidate for the post, the one deserving person to become the next Lord President of High Gallifrey.
Only to have his ambitions dashed when the President had informed him that there was no way Goth would be nominated. Goth had stared at him in disbelief as the President muttered something about Goth being too greedy for power, but it had been impossible to listen. To be so close, and have the cup of success dashed from his lips like this!
He had to get away from here. He needed time to think, to plan. There were days yet before the official resignation and the nomination of a successor. Perhaps there was something he could do, some way to change the old President’s mind… But he needed breathing space, a place to think, somewhere to vent his anger and resentment…
Goth suddenly realised that he was being hailed by the Castellan. ‘What is it?’ he snapped. Couldn’t anybody around here act without detailed instructions?
‘A renegade TT capsule has been detected, Chancellor,’ the Castellan said smoothly. ‘I simply need your permission to go after it and arrest the operator.’
‘Don’t bother me with such trifles,’ Goth snapped. ‘Just go and do it.’ Then, as the Castellan started to move away, a sudden decision came to him. ‘No, wait! I need to get out of this place for a while. I’ll do it. Prepare a capsule for me, and I’ll be along in a moment.’ The Castellan nodded and hurried off. Goth moved after him, a little more slowly.
This was what he needed – action. To get out of the Citadel for a while, on to some world that probably had never heard of the Time Lords. His anger and frustration mounting, Goth found that he was hoping that the renegade – whoever it was – would put up a fight.
Goth glared distastefully around the bleak landscape of Tersurus. He clutched his staser and went in search of the spot where the trace had been registered. It had vanished a short while ago, he had been informed. That probably meant the renegade was gone, but he still had to check. At least it gave him something to do.
He caught sight of a slight movement in a nest of rocks. It looked as if some terrible force had twisted and melted the rocks recently. But what had moved? He walked forward cautiously, the staser at the ready. Then he stopped, appalled.