Part 4 (2/2)

Tegan and Turlough, now recovered from their flight, sat in the pews too and waited for the Doctor to come up with some answers. Will Chandler lay flat out at the Doctor's side; exhausted by his experience and bewildered by the Doctor's theories, he had taken refuge in unconsciousness and sprawled on the unyielding seat, fast asleep.

Turlough looked at him, and considered the Doctor's theory. A confusion in time? That left half the problems unanswered. 'What about the apparitions?' he asked.

The Doctor looked at him closely, watching for his reaction to the next part of his theory. 'Psychic projections,' he said.

Tegan drew in her breath. She wasn't keen on that. It was a spooky idea and she preferred rational, practical explanations. But after her experience in the barn, and with twentieth-century men pretending they were in the seventeenth century, and seventeenth-century youths suddenly appearing in the twentieth century, it was no wonder the Doctor called time 'confused'. It wasn't the only one, she reflected. Yet she shuddered at the possibility which the Doctor was suggesting, and tried to find a hole in the argutncnt. 'What about the man we saw when we arrived?' she protested. 'He was real enough.'

'He was still a psychic projection,' the Doctor insisted.

'But with substance'

Tegan frowned. Talking of psychic things was getting close to talking about ghosts, and nothing in that line would really surprise her now, after what she had seen.

Turlough grew more enthusiastic the more he considered the idea. He got up and wandered about, trying to absorb the implications and corning to terms with them.

He rubbed his hands together and said suddenly, 'Matter projected from the past? But that would require enormous energy.'

The Doctor nodded. He had an answer to that one too so simple and so outrageous that it took Tegan's breath away: 'An alien power source.'

In an English country village? Here, at the home of her grandfather? Every instinct Tegan possessed protested against this suggestion and yet she felt in her heart that it might be correct. The Doctor was usually right about things like that.

'What about Will?' she asked, in a quieter tone. The Doctor leaned across to peer at the filthy face, torn clothes and battered hands of the peacefully sleeping youth. He smiled. 'A projection, too. And at the moment, a benign one.'

Turlough, in his wanderings, had reached the crack in the wall. He stopped in front of it and pointed at the now gaping split. 'This crack has got larger!' he announced.

The Doctor had already noticed. 'Yes,' he agreed.

'Ominous, isn't it?' He turned to Tegan, who was looking dismal, and slapped her shoulder encouragingly. 'I know,'

he said, 'so is the fact that your grandfather has disappeared. I think it's time I sought some answers.'

As a first, peculiar step in that direction, he produced a coin and juggled it behind his back, slipping it with great speed from hand to hand. Watched curiously by Tegan, he then held out his two clenched fists in front of him and, with the most intense concentration, weighed one against the other.

'Where will you look?' Tegan asked.

Making a sudden decision, the Doctor flipped open the fingers of his left hand. It was empty. He gave a disappointed sigh and opened his right hand. There was the coin, nestling in his palm. The decision was made.

'The village,' he said.

'You're always so scientific,' Tegan responded, in a voice edged with sarcasm.

Once his mind was made up the Doctor never wasted time, and now he jumped to his feet and tapped the sleeping Will on the shoulder. 'Come on, Will,' he said briskly, 'you're coming with me.'

'What about us?' Tegan stood up, ready to go with them.

The Doctor shook his head. 'You'll be safer in the TARDIS. And don't argue,' he commanded her, as she opened her mouth to protest. Shouting, 'Will!' over his shoulder, he set off down the nave at a smart pace. Will, still heavy with sleep, stumbled down the aisle and followed him out of the church, blearily rubbing his eyes.

Turlough watched them go, with a resigned smile. He could feel Tegan's frustration, but their instructions had been too precise to misinterpret on purpose.

'You heard the Doctor,' he said, pointing the way to the TARDIS.

Tegan knew there was no alternative but to submit, and with a sigh she turned with Turlough towards the steps to the crypt.

When they had gone, a lump of masonry fell away from the edge of the crack in the wall. It made the gap a little wider still, but nothing could be seen in there only a dark void which looked as black and deep as outer s.p.a.ce.

Almost everything about the churchyard was green. Inside the green fringe of willow trees about the perimeter, the green gra.s.s was badly overgrown, tufted and choking the weatherbeaten old gravestones. Many of these were crumbling away, and others were themselves greened over with a growth of moss and lichen. The rest loomed grey-white above the crowding vegetation.

It was peaceful here as the Doctor led Will Chandler towards a row of, gravestones. They stood silent as a row of speechless old men, still and warm in the hot suns.h.i.+ne.

Yet around them the air was restlessly throbbing; there was an incessant cawing of rooks and a constant chattering of smaller birds, moving unseen among the flowering gra.s.ses and cow parsley and about their hiding places in the willow trees.

Will, too, felt restless. He didn't like this place, and what he saw in it he didn't understand. The implications terrified him. He wanted to run away but the Doctor wouldn't allow it even now he was pointing at another worn gravestone for Will to look at. The youth crouched obediently down in the gra.s.s and pushed a clump of red sorrel aside, so that he could look at the stone properly.

Some lettering was still visible beneath the clinging moss. There were figures a number ... Will touched it with his fingers to convince himself that it was real, and the breath sobbed out of him. A date had been carved into the stone: '1850' it said. Yet when Will had shut himself into the priest hole, to escape from the battle that had raged around the church only hours ago, it seemed the year was 1643!

'This ain't possible,' he breathed. He was scared to think what it meant if it was true. His eyes misted over. The Doctor was walking along the other side of the row of gravestones. He watched Will's reactions carefully. 'Look at the others,' he suggested in a gentle, sympathetic voice.

Will stood up. With a last glance at that unbelievable date he moved further down the row, observing the worn, ancient monuments and every one, thrusting as silently out of the gra.s.s as if it was growing there, told a similar story. They were all from the nineteenth century. Will grew more and more agitated; he moved faster and faster until he was running, away from these gravestones and across the path around the church. His feet crunched the gravel. He found another memorial tablet, containing another awesome date, set low down into the wall of the church itself. He crouched down and pretended to examine it.

In reality he was hiding from the Doctor the tears in his eyes. Will wanted to blub like a baby.

Not far away from where he was crouching, the Doctor noticed a small door in the church wall. He tried the handle. The door gave a little. His fingers tightened around the latch, and he pushed harder. With a fall of dust and a creaking noise that echoed hollowly inside, the door opened.

At that moment there was a sound of hooves approaching. A mounted trooper rode around the corner of the church. As soon as the Doctor saw him he pushed the door wide open and hissed, 'Will! Come in here!'

Instantly, as the Doctor disappeared inside, Will left the memorial tablet and ran towards the open door. A second trooper appeared close behind the first; they were walking their horses through the green churchyard. Will's curiosity overcame his fear and he ducked down behind a b.u.t.tress to watch their approach. This was a foolhardy thing to do, because already the troopers were almost upon him, and now he dared not move again. ,Just as he thought he must be discovered, the Doctor's hand reached out of the open doorway and yanked him inside.

The Doctor closed the door without making a sound.

The hors.e.m.e.n rode on by, quite oblivious of the fact that their quarry was only inches away.

As the Doctor and Will Chandler were going through that side door, not far away from them Tegan and Turlough were entering the TARDIS.

Turlough was in front, and he hurried through the console room without looking around him; but as soon as she was inside the TARDIS Tegan held back, feeling instinctively that something was wrong. There was a noise in the console room, a deep, reverberating tone topped by scattered tinkling sounds which exactly repeated the noises which had afflicted her in the barn. Bracing herself, she entered the console room and there, high upon the wall behind the door, she saw lights dancing.

They circled around each other, s.h.i.+mmering and constantly on the move, and the noise which accompanied them grew steadily stronger. Tegan stood rooted to the spot again.

Turlough had heard the noises too. Now he came slowly back into the console room, and stared up at this ghostly manifestation. 'We're too late,' he murmured.

<script>