Part 4 (1/2)

The banging and yelling had begun again in the corridors of the prison. 'They suddenly started up, Chief,' said Prison Officer Green helplessly. 'Just like the other times.'

'All right. Let's get them quieted down, shall we?'

Powers and Green and all the other warders moved along the corridors, admonis.h.i.+ng, cajoling, threatening.

'All right, now, all right! Quieten down, will you? Quieten down!' But it was no use.

The noise became an angry roar.

The Doctor heard the distant sounds and looked up uneasily from his task. He was working under a sense of increasing strain, though he didn't quite know why.

The Machine began to throb, slowly at first, then louder, and then there came a strange electronic pulsing.

It was unbearably hot.

Loosening his collar, the Doctor went on with his work.

There was something nagging at the back of his mind.

Something about the Keller Machine. No, not about the Machine, but about something like like it... something dangerous and evil. it... something dangerous and evil.

The Doctor's Time Lord superiors had blocked off his memory of Time Travel theory when they exiled him to Earth. Unfortunately, other areas of memory had been affected as well. The information was there, somewhere, but he couldn't reach it.

The Doctor became aware that the electronic pulsing was very much louder.

The Keller Machine caught fire.

Tendrils of flame leaped up from its base, shooting upwards, turning the Machine into a roaring fireball.

Floor and ceiling suddenly burst into flames. Rivers of glowing lava poured down the walls.

The Doctor was trapped in the centre of a blazing inferno...

4.

The Listener Driven back by the unbearable searing heat, the Doctor flailed wildly about him, as if trying to drive back the flames with his bare hands. He was crouched in one corner, about to be engulfed when Jo Grant came into the room, some papers in her hand.

To her astonishment she saw the Doctor las.h.i.+ng out wildly at the empty air. The room was filled with a strange electronic pulsing sound.

'Doctor!' she called. 'What's the matter? What are you doing?'

The strange sound died away.

The Doctor stared wildly at her. 'The fire,' he muttered.

'The fire...' Straightening up, he moved rather shakily over to a chair and collapsed into it.

Jo looked round. The room was perfectly normal. ' What What fire?' fire?'

The Doctor stared dazedly at her. 'What are you doing here, Jo?'

'You wanted that medical report on Kettering. I got it from Doctor Summers.'

'I told you to take it to the Governor's office.'

'But I thought it was important.'

'So are my instructions, Jo. You could have been killed.'

' Me Me killed?' said Jo indignantly. 'It seemed to me you were the one in danger. You looked as if you were fighting something that wasn't there.' killed?' said Jo indignantly. 'It seemed to me you were the one in danger. You looked as if you were fighting something that wasn't there.'

'Oh, it was there, Jo, at least until you came in. Your arrival distracted it, broke its grip on my mind.' The Doctor smiled, making Jo feel she'd managed to do something right after all. 'Now, let me see that report.'

Jo handed him the report. The Doctor studied it thoughtfully.

'You were right about Kettering, Doctor. Death by drowning he had a morbid fear of water.'

'And so he drowned in a perfectly dry room.'

'Doctor what did you you see?' see?'

'Fire, Jo.'

'But why should you '

The Doctor was staring into s.p.a.ce as if re-living scenes of unimaginable horror. 'Some time ago, I saw a terrible catastrophe. A whole world ended in flames.'

The Doctor was silent for a moment, thinking of Project Inferno, of the time when he had seen a parallel Earth, quite real in its own dimension, explode in smoke and flame. 'The Machine plucked that memory out of my mind, and used it to attack me.'

'This fire you saw it wasn't real?'

'The rats weren't real or the water. Yet Linwood died, and so did Kettering. We believe what our minds tell us, Jo.'

'If Keller's Machine is so dangerous, why don't you just blow it up?'

The Doctor rose. 'Because the idiots in authority won't let me. I'm trying to work out a way of controlling it instead. Now, if you've quite finished asking questions...'

The Doctor picked up a screwdriver and set to work.