Part 2 (1/2)

When at last the measurements were done they went over to the console to enter them into the memory management system. The Doctor seemed very pleased with the day's work, although Adric still wasn't sure why they had to go to Logopolis.

'Didn't I explain that?' The Doctor seemed surprised. 'To overlay these dimensions on the TARDIS. The dimensional interference patterns will shake the thing loose.'

Adric nodded slowly. 'And that's block transfer computation?'

'Part of it. It's a way of modelling s.p.a.ce/time events through pure calculation. It's not easy to explain in a word...'

It took a lot of words. Adric gathered that over the centuries the Logopolitans had developed a completely new kind of mathematics that a.n.a.lysed the structure of the physical world - or rather the very nature of structure itself. But as the Doctor continued his explanation, with many diversions into astronomical history, wave theory, and even, at one point, the life cycle of the procyon lotor, it gradually dawned on the young Alzarian that the Doctor wasn't very sure of his ground theoretically.

Block transfer computation! To Adric the idea of a mathematics that could, among other things, bring physical objects into being through pure calculation was immensely exciting. It was infuriating that a man who knew so much about completely useless things should be so woolly about such an important subject.

The Doctor had begun his explanation while he was in the middle of resetting the co-ordinates. But in the course of talking to Adric and waving his arms about to ill.u.s.trate points in his argument he had lost his place, and now he had to go back and start all over again. He would have finished the job with no trouble this time, if Adric hadn't asked, with a measure of deliberate irony, 'If it's all as easy as that, I don't see why we need to go to Logopolis at all. We can do it ourselves, here.'

This brought the Doctor to a thoughtful halt. 'It's not that simple, of course . . . I went into it all when they first offered to do the chameleon conversion for me . . . it's highly specialised...'

'A bit beyond our intellectual capability?' the boy asked innocently.

'Wel , I wouldn't say that. It's not just a matter of understanding distributed cl.u.s.ter algebra. The actual working out's very tedious, lots of fiddly computations. Much better to leave it to the Logopolitans. They can do it standing on their heads.'

Adric was genuinely surprised. 'Not with a computer?'

Doctor had encountered these idiomatic difficulties with Adric before. When you've been brought up in a different universe there are bound to be small cultural barriers, even with the best will in the world.

'Standing on their heads . . . it's an expression.' The Doctor explained what it meant, and then went on: 'But now you come to mention it, they don't use computers. It's all done by word of mouth.'

'Is that another expression?'

The Doctor shook his head and muttered something. He was concentrating on the console, determined to get it right this time.

'They speak it?' Adric exclaimed.

The Doctor shrugged. 'Mutter. Intone.'

'Intone the computations? Why?'

'I wondered that too.' A mouthful of large white teeth beamed down disarmingly. 'Never quite had the nerve to ask them.' Then as he turned back to pull the dematerialisation lever the Doctor's eye was caught by one of the small indicator panels that were dotted about the console.

There were so many k.n.o.bs, levers, read-out displays and switches that Adric had, quite early on in his relations.h.i.+p with the Doctor, abandoned all hope of mastering the technology of flying the TARDIS, although he had managed to do it once, quite by accident. But the doctor knew exactly what he was doing, and silly, woolly or just plain baffling as he could be at other times, when working at the console he took life very seriously.

So Adric knew straight away from the Doctor's expression that something was wrong.

The Doctor tapped the indicator panel. 'You've got a lively enquiring mind, Adric. Explain this.'

The panel was labelled Weak Force Flux Field Indicator Weak Force Flux Field Indicator, and the needle was jammed over to the right-hand side in an area marked in red as Beyond Limits Beyond Limits.

'It couldn't be an instrumentation fault, could it?' Adric suggested. The boy felt obliged to say something intelligent.

'Very easily, knowing the state of the TARDI S.' The Doctor hit the panel again, this time with a certain amount of vindictiveness. On looking again he pumped his cheeks, making the breath whistle between his teeth. 'No, I don't think so. What we've got here is a gravity bubble. And fairly local, too.'

'Is that dangerous?'

'We'd better not dematerialise till we've investigated.' He threw Adric a less convincing replica of the rea.s.suring grin. 'I'm probably overlooking the obvious again. Back in two shakes.'

The Doctor jerked back a lever on the console and strode across to the double doors that swung open in response. Viewer screens and time technology were all very well, but nothing was better than seeing for yourself.

The blue external doors opened a fraction. The Doctor peeped out and looked round.

It was good to be back on Earth again. It was just the right size from the point of view of gravitational pull, and the atmosphere was rich in oxygen, which tended to give the foliage a green colour that was relaxing on the eyes. He stepped out and took a deep breath, forgetting for a moment that the TARDIS was parked beside the noise and the fumes of the pa.s.sing traffic.

Sunspot activity - he squinted up at the sky - seemed to be about normal for the time of century, but in any case the Doctor discounted natural causes: the field was too localised. There was no obvious high technology in the vicinity as far as he could see, and the landscape around him showed none of the secondary effects he would have expected, given the strength of the field. There would surely at least be a high wind.

He remembered the turmoil of darkness that had blown across Traken at the time of the Keeper's pa.s.sing, and how the Master had sought to step into his place. That last battle had certainly drained the Doctor's strength, but at least Traken had been restored to the harmony that had made it famous. Tremas the Councillor and his daughter Nyssa were happy again.

What if the Master had somehow escaped from Traken?

The Doctor pushed the thought out of his mind, and was about to duck back into the TARDIS again when his eye fastened on something on the far side of the road.

A pale figure was watching, its outline humanoid in so far as it was definable. The Doctor stared, and the figure seemed to stare back. The Doctor reached out for support, and leaned against the TARDIS door, almost white-faced, his two hearts beating a little faster.

Something quite extraordinary was happening. He had sensed it, and now - here it was!

3.

Inside the TARDIS the gravity bubble, or whatever it was, had produced a pearly cloud over the viewer screen. Adric wasn't particularly disappointed to have lost sight of the young woman who had given him such strange feelings, because the feelings had gone now, and he knew that the temporary giddiness must have been due to being so high up in the console room.

In any case, there was something much more interesting to think about. In the Doctor's temporary absence, Adric's curiosity had drawn him towards the police box.

The small hatch with the telephone in it wasn't the way in; it was only a sort of cupboard set in the main doors. And they were locked, just like the TARDIS. Adric took a metal coathanger from the hatstand and straightened out the hook so that he could work it into the lock to turn the tumblers.

'Don't touch that!'

Adric jumped at the sound of the Doctor's voice. 'Sorry, Doctor. I just thought it might have something to do with the gravity bubble.'

The Doctor was grim-faced. 'I'm afraid you might be right. And that's a very good reason to leave it alone.'

Adric stepped back from the police box. Then a small, extraordinary thing happened.

One of the blue doors creaked slightly. As they watched it swung open as if of its own accord.

The Doctor approached the police box cautiously, reached out for the second door handle, and began to turn it as if it were made of icing sugar and might break off at any moment.

It was obvious straight away from the size of the interior that this was no ordinary police box. With tremendous care the Doctor stepped through the double doors.

Perhaps it was the yellowish tinge to the light that made the room the Doctor entered so inhospitable: somehow sterile and dangerous territory. The air was cold, too, and as the Doctor looked about him the vapour from his breath hung in the atmosphere like puffs of smoke. Apart from this the Doctor felt at home, because it was home - or something very like it.

'The TARDIS console room!'