Part 14 (1/2)

That was one Brigadier accounted for. Now he had only to track down the younger Lethbridge-Stewart.

'Doctor!'

Turlough held his breath.

'Doctor? Tegan? Nyssa?'

The voice came from a nearby corridor. Turlough crept towards his quarry.

All eight mutants were once more connected to the regenerator. So, too, were the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan.

' You You will activate the energy transfer, Brigadier,' will activate the energy transfer, Brigadier,'

instructed Mawdryn. 'It will take several seconds for the charge in the machine to build up. You will read off the countdown to the moment of exchange.'

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart nodded grimly. Tegan and Nyssa glanced nervously at each other.

'Do not be afraid,' said the mutant wired up beside them. 'When the moment comes we will all share in the life-force of the Doctor.'

'Our mutation will end,' said another, his eyes s.h.i.+ning with expectation.'

'And you will no longer be contaminated.'

'And the Doctor won't be a Time Lord any more,' said Nyssa guiltily.

The Doctor, electrodes festooned round his head, stared stoically ahead.

'My brothers in exile.' Mawdryn's voice shook with emotion. 'We approach the ending!' He pointed to the master control. 'Activate, Brigadier!'

There was a low whine as the power began to surge within the regenerator.

'Twenty seconds,' announced Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

'Brigadier!' shouted Turlough, running wildly down the corridor. Somehow he had missed the other man. He felt the fury of the Black Guardian possess him.

'So near the supreme moment!' The voice, thundering in his brain, seemed to vibrate the whole s.h.i.+p. 'The Brigadiers must not converge. Find him! Find the Brigadier at once!'

The younger Brigadier was intrigued by the strange sound coming from the narrow side-pa.s.sage. 'Brigadier!'

Someone was racing towards him down the main corridor. Turlough again! He would deal with that young man later. For the moment, there was something very strange going on in the brightly lit room at the end of the pa.s.sageway.

'Ten, nine, eight...'

He could hear a voice, curiously familiar, but difficult to place.

'Brigadier!' Turlough had almost caught up.

'Stop him!' howled the Black Guardian, 'or I shall destroy you all!'

'Seven,, six...'

'Brigadier, come back!' Turlough grabbed the arm of the man in the blazer, but was pushed roughly aside.

The Brigadier from 1977 entered the laboratory.

'Five, four...' The Brigadier from 1983 read off the final countdown.

The intruder was momentarily hypnotised by the spectacle of eight mutants, conjoined in a ganglion of tubes and wires. Then he caught sight of a young man in a frock-coat, also connected to the apparatus. 'What the devil...!'

'Three...'

The newcomer took a step forward, and, to his disgust and horror, saw Tegan and Nyssa lashed to the same devilish torture machine.

'Two...'

'Brigadier, get out of here!' yelled the young man. The Brigadier took no notice, but advanced towards the swine at the controls.

'One second...'

'What do you think you're doing!'

The operator turned.

For a moment time stood still. Brigadier stared at Brigadier, then, as their hands touched, there was a blinding flash and a tremendous explosion.

8.

All Present and Correct Turlough ran and ran and ran, as if perpetual movement would keep the vengeance of the Black Guardian from him.

He finally stopped from sheer exhaustion, feeling strangely light-headed. He took out the cube; it was cracked. Was this all part of the Blinovitch Limitation Effect? Could he even be... free?

Turlough set off, purposefully, in the direction of the TARDIS.

Tegan and Nyssa regained consciousness as the smoke was clearing in the laboratory. They opened their eyes to see the Doctor unwiring them from the regenerator.

'What happened?' murmured Tegan.

'An immense discharge of energy as the two Brigadiers came together, exactly synchronising with the moment of transfer.' The Doctor walked over to examine the body of a man in a blue blazer, lying beside the regenerator.

'Is the Brigadier dead?'