Part 2 (2/2)

Then if you want somewhere really desolate, I suggest you try the Bronx or downtown New York.

Because while you're enjoying a thousand years of desolation, at least I'll be able to get a train home!'

The Doctor didn't hear the sarcasm. Already he seemed to have entered a trance-like state. 'I have decided on my place of hermitage,' he mutterd. 'It is in the far corner of the Baxus Major galaxy.'

As he spoke he struck the main control on the console and the TARDIS started to lurch and judder towards its destination.

Such was the unexpected movement, Peri was thrown to the floor.

'Why are you doing this?' she screamed. 'Where are you taking me?' The Doctor gazed down at the prostrate Earth woman, indifferent to her confusion and anguish.

'We, my child, are going to t.i.tan Three... That is where I shall repent... In the most desolate place in the universe.'

Peri buried her head in her hands and silently wept. She could only hope the Doctor would have a period of rationality. When he did, she would demand to be taken back to Earth. As far as she was concerned, he could travel the universe alone pretending to be whoever or whatever he wanted. But she no longer wanted to stay and be his terrified audience.

But until the Doctor did take a turn for the better, all she could do was wait... And it was the waiting that terrified Peri most of all.

4.

MESTOR THE MAGNIFICENT.

A shabby bulk carrier ploughed its way slowly through the empty wastes of s.p.a.ce. At first sight there seemed nothing special about the s.h.i.+p. Perhaps it was a little shabbier than the majority of commercial freighters which travelled the s.p.a.ce lanes to Baxus Major. It was possible, if you were familiar with the XV cla.s.s of balk carriers, that you might have queried an irregular line of holes along one side of its hull. But then, on the other hand, you might have dismissed it as meteorite damage. After all, the freighter did look very neglected, as though no-one really cared.

And that was what you were supposed to think. For the reality was that balk carrier XV 773 was a highly efficient battle cruiser.

Seated on the bridge of the s.h.i.+p was Professor Edgeworth. He now looked tired and drawn, his Father Christmas joviality gone. For a moment he sat watching the flickering lights of the flight computer. Even as a child, Edgeworth had found comfort in watching flas.h.i.+ng lights. At times he wished he were a child again.

Professor Bernard Edgeworth didn't really exist as a person. The name was real as was the man who used it, but the person who used it also told lies. Edgeworth's real name was Azmael, and, like the Doctor, was a renegade Time Lord who had tired of life on Gallifrey and decided to make his fortune elsewhere. But unlike the Doctor, the High Council had not so readily accepted Azmael's departure. He was far too knowledgeable and important to be allowed to wander freely about the universe. Too many enemies were waiting to steal his skill, experience and knowledge.

So the High Council had decided to kill him. That was their first mistake.

Of course, they had the order of execution dressed up. In his absence he had been found guilty of all sorts of invented crimes, the evidence against him being about as credible as the integrity of the paid witnesses who presented it.

So, for the first and last time in the history of Gallifrey an execution squad had been despatched. It hadn't proved difficult to find Azmael as he wasn't really hiding. He just wanted to be left in peace. But the second mistake the High Council had made was the choice of a.s.sa.s.sins - Seedle warriors.

There is no such thing as a pleasant Seedle warrior. They are all brutal psychopaths who take enormous pleasure in killing.

Azmael's execution squad was no exception. Arriving on Vitrol Minor, where Azmael was living, the so-called warriors set about eliminating the populace, justifying the genocide as the elimination of witnesses to the destruction of a Time Lord. For the warriors, it was like being on holiday. They had three days of glorious, blood-drenched fun. It wasn't until the fourth day that they noticed their real quarry had escaped.

Azmael immediately returned to Gallifrey and started proceedings to indict the Lord President and High Council. Being professional politicians, they believed they could survive any accusation made by him, but they had too easily forgotten the atrocity committed.

On Gallifrey there is only one inviolate law - Time Lords are forbidden to directly interfere with life forms on other planets.

With the entire population of Vitrol Minor slaughtered, the High Council would require ma.s.sive bribes to buy their innocence.

But buy it they did.

Slowly evidence came to light showing that Azmael had himself employed the Seedle warriors to destroy the populace of Vitrol Minor. His motive was supposedly to gain the mineral rights of the planet. The fact there wasn't a useful gram of any known mineral to be found on the planet seemed to disturb no-one.

Except Azmael, of course.

He was very angry. He knew the High Council would wriggle out of the charges. In fact, he was so angry they could escape judgement that he took a laser rifle and gunned them down in their own council chamber.

It saddened Azmael that he had been forced to adopt the ultimate sanction, but at the end of the day it is sometimes the only method to deal with corrupt politicians.

To some people this is known as revolution. To others it must always remain murder. Poor Azmael was so disgusted with what he had been forced to do that he publicly declared himself an outcast and departed from Gallifrey.

The new High Council, who were just as cynical as the old one, but less corrupt, declared Azmael a hero. After all he had done them a favour. They had been waiting many regenerations for their chance of power. He had made it possible. But the first act of the new council was to set up a committee to learn how Azmael had so easily entered the Council Chamber with a laser rifle. Although they had approved of his magnificent cleansing of a corruption, they weren't over-keen that he, or any other fanatic, should succeed so easily again.

After many years of travel, Azmael arrived at a planet called Jaconda. To him it was the most beautiful place he had ever seen.

It was green and its handsome birdlike inhabitants enjoyed an easy carefree way of life which he readily adopted. Likewise, the Jacondans accepted him and soon he was their elected President.

But the fairy tale didn't last.

Lurking in the history of Jaconda was a legendary race of gastropods known as Sectoms. These were not the small, aggravating creatures of the domestic garden, but slugs the size of men who were capable of devouring forests, destroying meadows and reducing to desert once fertile land. Not only did they support a ma.s.sive appet.i.te, but also a brain and cunning equal to any intelligence in the universe.

Where these creatures had come from was a mystery. Why they had come to Jaconda and conquered the planet, only to disappear again, was another conundrum. As the legends and myths grew about the Sectoms, people began to wonder whether they had ever existed.

That was a mistake ...

One night, not long after Azmael had become President, a terrible thunder storm had occurred. The rain had poured down destroying the harvest, while the lightning, much like a Seedle warrior, had attacked anything that took its fancy.

Deep in an ancient forest, a huge beautiful mustock tree had become one of its victims. In life, the tree had been positioned precariously on the edge of a steep bank and its sudden, violent demise had sent it cras.h.i.+ng down the slope in such a way that its thick, stubby branches had ripped open the surface of the ground to reveal hundreds of round leathery objects.

The rain had continued to batter the scarred soil, at the same time was.h.i.+ng, caressing, cleansing the rubber shapes. When the rain stopped, the Jacondan sun took over and gently warmed the spheres. A few days later, strange noises could be heard from within the sh.e.l.ls. The objects were eggs. And they were about to hatch!

It was some months before Jaconda knew of its fate. One morning it awoke to find an army of gastropods led by a hideous shape calling himself Mestor the Magnificent. Jacondan weapons had proved ineffectual against their slimy targets, so to save life Azmael had ordered his adopted people to surrender.

As though making up for the thousands of years the eggs had lain unnourished in the ground, the gastropods had embarked on a feast so gargantuan that it all but destroyed most of the planet's vegetation. What had been a beautiful, living, green paradise was reduced to a scorched lifeless rock. It was now a matter of time before everyone, including the gastropods, died of starvation!

Azmael turned away from the computer lights - they no longer pleased him. Neither did the fact that he was the slave of Mestor.

The expediency of bowing to his will was one thing, but the thought of spending the rest of his days satisfying the needs of a psychotic wind-bag was more than he could bear.

<script>