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The Trial
of a Time Lord
by Pip and Jane Baker
Part Fourteen
"NoooOOOOOOO!!!"
The Doctor's head and hands sink beneath the surface of the quicksand,
leaving only his feet above surface, kicking and struggling.
Glitz suddenly appears a little up a dune, lagging behind the Doctor as he
did earlier on their first entrance into the Matrix. He shouts for the
Doctor, and then sees his kicking feet sticking out of the quicksand.
He shouts for the Doctor not to give in, and then runs for the quicksand
pit to try and help.
The Doctor's feet are sinking farther in as Glitz reaches the edge of the
pool. He bends over, grabs his ankles and pulls hard. The orange ankle
armor patches over the Doctor's shoes are all he pulls away, and Glitz
falls over backwards. The Doctor's feet disappear beneath the surface.
"What a way to go!" says Glitz, looking at the pool. "All in all he
wasn't a bad old codger. Honest, of course. Still, nobody's perfect."
"And that's the clue. . . " says the gurgling sound of the Doctor's voice.
Glitz's eyes pop open in disbelief. "Nobody is!" says the Doctor's voice
again from the quicksand. Glitz throws the ankle armor down in shock and
the patches each sink into the mud instantly.
"Not even the Valeyard!" concludes the Doctor.
Glitz clasps his hands together in desperate prayer, and he calls to the
now-clouding skies above for the Great Cosmic Protector of grafters and
disemblers to save him as he's just heard a voice from the grave.
"No, a grave voice," gurgles the Doctor one more time before he starts
to rise, dry and standing, from the quicksand as though lifted out by a
mental elevator.
"Bad joke," he apologizes to Glitz, and then goes on to say how everything
around here is a bad joke.
Glitz can't believe his eyes, and wants to know how the Doctor's ankle
armor got back in place on his shoes as well as how he got out of the mud.
The Doctor tells Glitz to start concentrating. "How often must I tell you?
We're not dealing with reality!"
"Why waste your breath on that simple-minded oaf" asks the Valeyard. He
seems to have suddenly popped into existence beside them both before he
asks the question. He then instantly pops away again and reappears
behind Glitz, looking at the Doctor. He is still in his black, white-trimmed
robes, but his skull cap is gone, revealing slicked back, dark hair with
touches of gray that make him look like a predatory bird.
"You cannot speak as though reality is a one-dimensional concept."
He then appears next to the Doctor.
"Fortunately, there is a reality you and I can agree on. The ultimate reality."
"Death?" asks the Doctor.
"'The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns,'" quotes
the Valeyard.
He appears behind the Doctor. The Doctor turns and completes the quotation.
"'Puzzles the will,' _Hamlet_ Act Three, Scene One."
"I really must curb these urges," says the Valeyard with disdain.
"I've no wish to become contaminated by _your_ whims and idiosyncracies."
"Quite so," answers the Doctor, "But what I don't comprehend. . ."
The Valeyard flits out of existence again. The Doctor looks for him.
Glitz points out his new location.
The Doctor turns to his side and talks to his other self again.
"What I don't comprehend is why you want me dead. No, no, let me rephrase
that." He puts it in a way he's sure that even his darker self of the future
will understand. "It would satisfy my curiosity to know why you should go to
such extraordinary lengths to kill me!"
The Valeyard disappears again, and reappears much farther away, at the top
of the sand dune. Wind flaps his robes.
"Come now, Doctor, how else can I obtain my freedom?"
He reappears nearer the midpoint of the slope.
"Operate as a complete entity?"
He appears towards the right, and then the left.
"Unfettered by _your_ side of my existence."
He appears closer, now on clear sand, and then closer yet, to the left.
"Only by ridding myself of you and your misplaced morality."
He appears much closer, filling the view.
"Your constant _crusading! Your. . ."
"Idiotic honesty?" suggests Glitz from his kneeling position near the pit.
The Valeyard appears behind him, and looks down at him huring insults.
"Oaf! Microbe!"
Glitz answers, "Pardon me for trying to help! I'm neutral in this set-up
you know!"
The Valeyard now walks towards the Doctor slowly.
"Only by releasing myself from the misguided maxims that you nurture can
I be free."
He disappears.
Glitz tells the Doctor he thinks Armageddon is beckoning him.
The Valeyard appears once again.
"With you destroyed, and no longer able to constrain me, and with
unlimited access to the Matrix, there will be nothing beyond my reach!"
He appears to fade away slowly, leaving only blank empty beach behind.
The Doctor sets his face and starts walking swiftly down the beach. Glitz
hurries to his feat and catches up to him, asking where he's off to now.
The Doctor says he's out to trace the Valeyard. Glitz insists that he was
just here.
"Illusion, Glitz!" shouts the Doctor in frustration. "The shadow, not
the substance! But if you don't want to come, you can stay here and build
sand castles. I'm sure if you think hard enough you can conjure up a bucket
and spade!"
Glitz stops him and tells him that if the Doctor and the Valeyard ever do
meet face to face, he'd give grotzis that the Valeyard would be first past
the checkered flag.
The two suddenly spot a white mist rolling in from the sea in their
direction. Glitz asks what it is, and the Doctor shouts that they should
start back-pedalling.
Glitz and the Doctor start to run away, still keeping eyes on the rapidly
approaching cloud. Glitz asks if its another illusion, and the Doctor says,
that alas, it isn't.
Glitz asks if it could be sea mist or fog, and the Doctor shouts,
"Asphyxiating nerve gas! This is in deadly earnest!"
Glitz shouts something back at the Doctor, who doesn't want to hear it
and pushes Glitz on to "RUN!"
The scene is being viewed as it happens on the Matrix screen in the Trial
room. The Inquisitor, the jurists, and the Chancellery guards are in their
normal positions. Melanie stands in the Doctor's docket, and the Keeper
of the Matrix watches from near the door to the reception area.
Melanie protests that they can't just sit here and do nothing. She insists
they help the Doctor.
"The Doctor chose to enter the Matrix," answers the Inquisitor. "We are
not empowered to interfere."
The Keeper asks if he may help explain the situation to Mel. He tells her
she is trying to apply logical thought to a situation which recognizes no
logic.
Mel takes her coat off and asks that he give her the key to the Matrix,
as she's going in after him. She runs for the Keeper and the door,
and when she reaches to take the key, the Keeper sticks his foot out and
trips her to the floor.
The Doctor and Glitz continue running away from the sea, but the mist is
catching up to them, and Glitz stumbles as the gas begins to overcome him.
The Doctor picks him up though he is having difficulty on his own now,
and pulls him towards a small ramshackle beach house ahead of them in
the distance.
They collapse against the door, and the Doctor opens it, pushing Glitz in
ahead of him and then following.
With an industrial groan and a snake-like hiss, the beach house fades away
leaving the gassed beach empty. . . .
"Welcome, Doctor!" smiles the Master.
The Doctor and Glitz find themselves inside the Master's TARDIS, looking
the same as it did on Sarn, which is to say like the Doctor's except that
only the roundels and the main part of the console are white. Everything
else is a deep, painted black.
The Doctor and Glitz recover from their coughing, and the Doctor looks up
at the grinning Master. "Well, I thought I'd never welcome the sight of you,"
he tells him.
"It will not happen again," promises the Master.
The Doctor asks him why its happening now.
The Master tells him the explanation is simple. "I want the Valeyard
eliminated, and you're the most likely candidate to achieve that."
Glitz tells the Master to hang on, and points out that he told him earlier
that it was this flashy, fair-haired personage that the Master wanted to
croak. The Doctor puts his fists on his waist as though to say, Thanks
for that warning you didn't give me.
The Master explains, "With the Doctor as my enemy, I always have the
advantage!"
The Doctor laughs with derision.
"But the Valeyard," continues the Master, "a distillation of all that's
evil in you, untainted by virtue? A composite of your every dark thought
is a different proposition."
He turns to the skeptical-looking Doctor and adds, "Additionally, he's
infuriated me by threatening to deny me the pleasure of personally bringing
about your destruction! And so he must pay the price."
He turns to the main console and presses a single button. A pulsing
electronic sound starts to build in volume. The Master puts his arm
around Glitz's shoulder and walks him to the door to the interior of the
TARDIS. "And you, Glitz," he continues, "shall help me to collect."
He opens the door, both move through, and then he closes the door behind him.
The Doctor watches them leave from near the console, lost in thought, and
then his attention is drawn by the pulsing noise from the console that
is growing quickly now in volume, and also by some flashing yellow lights
that seem to be shining on him from the ceiling.
He looks up for the source of the light, and suddenly it brightens ten times
and the sounds seem to grow to an assaulting amplitude. He puts his hands
to his ears and tries to close his eyes and get out of the way, but he
seems to be rooted to the spot. He shakes back and forth as the
kaleidoscopic lights and pounding pulses grow worse.
In the adjoining room, Glitz asks the Master if he would be correct in
thinking that the Doctor will soon need a machonite overcoat.
The Master says that its nothing as crude as that, and that the Doctor is
instead being reduced to a catatonic state.
"Cata-what?" asks Glitz.
The Master explains, "A violent assault on his senses will trip a
defensive mechanism, and his brain will switch off."
"He'll become a zombie?" asks Glitz.
"Temporarily," answers the Master. He looks towards the console room with
a satisfied grin. "Long enough for my purposes."
The Doctor's shakins seems to die away, as does any expression on his face.
His eyes seem to stare into nothing, oblivious now to the continuing
blast of light and sound, which is more than slightly reminiscent of
something similar he once encountered on the planet Peladon. . .
The bright sign for Mr J.J. Chambers' Fantasy Factory continues to light
in carnival-like patterns. It creates much of the little light that
slightly brightens the open street courtyard below.
A large marble statue of Queen Victoria begins to materialize in a shadow
to the accompanyment of the sound of a relative dimensional stabilizer in
the materialization phase.
The statue takes full shape, and the sound ceases. Two large stone doors
open up in the base of the statue, and the Master walks proudly out.
He stops near the center of the courtyard, and shouts "Walk!" without
turning.
From his TARDIS steps the Doctor like an automaton. Glitz follows him
closely, possibly to help him along, but he doesn't seem to require it.
The Doctor nears the Master, and the Master calls out, "Stop!"
With a final lock-step, the Doctor stops and stands perfectly straight
and still.
The Master smiles at Glitz and says this should prove to be an irresistable
bait for the Valeyard.
Glitz tells him that Time Lords take the cake. He used to think he was
devious himself, but compared to their lot, he's as transparent as crystal.
The Master walks past the two of them towards the dark shadow cast by a
nearby building. Glitz muses on the unfortunate situation the poor, old
Doc is in, until the Master calls to him to stop slobbering and get over
here with him. Glitz turns and follows the Master.
As Glitz and the Master hide beneath a wooden staircase beside the
building, the statue-shaped TARDIS dematerializes on its own.
Glitz and the Master peer around the corner of the building carefully
and watch as the senior Mister Popplewick opens the door of the Fantasy
Factory offices up on the second floor and then steps out onto the
staircase to survey the inanimate Doctor standing below.
He turns and goes back inside the office.
Glitz and the Master kneel a little further as the door opens again and
the Valeyard steps out onto the staircase, carrying a quill pen in his hand.
He leans against the guardrail and looks at the Doctor below.
The Master produces his tissue compression eliminator and fires a shot
at the Valeyard. The red beam of light slices across the courtyard and
strikes the Valeyard on his right chest, but the beam bends upwards
and into the sky above as though deflected when it strikes him.
The Master fires again, and this shot strikes his left chest, but is too
deflected up to the sky.
The Valeyard sneers down at him. "You really are a second-rate adversary!
Did you imagine I'd be lured by such a transparent ploy?"
He throws the quill pen down at them both, and it lands just beside them.
It explodes like a grenade. The Master and Glitz make a run for it
across the courtyard.
The Valeyard's jeering laughter follows them, and he throws another pen
at them. It explodes at their heels. He does this tree more times
until they have run out of sight. He throws his head back with joy and
turns back into the factory office, closing the door behind him.
During all this, the Doctor continues to stare into the distance,
disconnected from everything around him, be it reality or fantasy.
The Master and Glitz run up the street, and Glitz stops him near the
water barrel. He protests that this could all be an illusion.
The Master takes him by the lapels and angrily tells him to stay here and
find out. He shoves him to the ground and runs away on his own.
Glitz looks up and sees a quill pen land on the street just in front of
him. It explodes.
The Doctor suddenly blinks a little as he hears a voice echoing strangely
to him from the dark street to his right. It sounds like Mel, calling
to him and asking where he is.
He seems to wake and he looks down the street. He can see her silhouette.
He calls to her, and she starts waving for him to follow her.
He asks what she's doing in the Matrix. She tells him to forget the
questions, as he's alive and that's all that matters.
He slowly and still a little dazedly moves to join her in the dark alley.
He asks where they are going as though he were sleepwalking, and she tells
him she's here to get him out of this unholy mess.
Mel seems to move towards a wall, and the sound of a door opening can be
heard. It sounds like the Seventh Door did when it opened earlier. . .
Mel steps confidently out of the Seventh Door and into the reception area
of the space station. The Doctor follows her, then realizes where they
are and asks her why she's taking him back to the Trial room.
She turns from the stairs and tells him that he's got to clear his name,
as until he does he's no better than the Valeyard, a renegade on the run.
The Doctor tells her she's quite a pragmatist, and then agrees with her.
He climbs the stairs and enters the Court, saying, "Let's get it over with."
The Doctor and Mel enter the Court. The Doctor moves to the defendant's
docket and Mel stands near the door.
The Inquisitor looks at him sternly and tells him he owes the Court an
apology. The Doctor offers it unreservedly.
She brings up the charge of genocide, and tells him it is based on his
own evidence. Mel protests that the charge was refuted by the Doctor.
The Inquisitor notes how the Doctor has a champion in Mel.
"I was there, remember?" says Mel.
The Doctor looks at her with a little smile.
The Inquisitor asks the Doctor if he would accept her as an impartial
witness. The Doctor answers, "I would trust Mel with my life."
The Inquisitor turns to the Keeper of the Matrix. He is standing near a
console at the clerk's position. He operates some controls on the console
and a scene replays itself on the Matrix.
The scene in question is from the defence evidence, of the Doctor, Mel,
and the crew of the Hyperion III using the vianesium to destroy the
Vervoids. As the last of the Vervoids begins to die, the Inquisitor asks
Mel if what they've juse seen is a true record of what occurred.
Mel turns to the Doctor and asks what she should say.
"Just tell the truth," he tells her quietly.
"Yes, but I don't want her to twist it, like the Valeyard did," answers Mel.
"The _truth_ can't harm me," says the Doctor.
Mel turns and tells the Inquisitor that this is indeed what happened.
The Inquisitor goes on to ask if it is Mel's contention that the Doctor
was solely responsible for devising the scheme they are presently
reviewing on the Matrix.
Mel enthusiastically tells her that without the Doctor they would all have
ended up onthe Vervoids' compost heap.
"A unique solution," comments the Inquisitor.
"Out of this world," adds Melanie.
"An appropriate expression, wouldn't you say, my Lords?" asks the Inquisitor
of the jury. The jury members all mutter whispers of agreement.
Mel looks at them warily, and tells the Doctor that she feels something
wrong here. "You said the truth couldn't harm you, yet I've a feeling I'm
attending a lynching. Tell them you had no choice, Doctor!"
"There's always a choice," answers the Doctor.
The Inquisitor stands and fixes a granite expression on the Doctor.
"Doctor, you stand accused of genocide! The evidence is incontrovertible.
The verdict is guilty."
"No!" cries Melanie.
"Your life is therefore forfeit!" concludes the Inquisitor.
She points the Chancellery guards towards the door.
"Take him from this Court!"
Mel turns to the guards and demands that they leave the Doctor alone. The
guards stand back from her a little. The Doctor turns to her with a face
of surrender. He tells her, "Unless we are prepared to sacrifice our lives
for the good of all, then evil and anarchy will spread like the plague!
The rule of law must prevail."
He turns towards the Inquisitor with a noble, somber face, and tells her,
"Madam, I accept your verdict."
He turns, and with the guards as escort, leaves the Court for the reception
area. . .
. . time seems to slow. . .
The Trial room itself is on the true Trial room's Matrix screen. The jurists,
the Keeper, the Inquisitor, and Mel all watch as the Doctor is led out of
the Court on the screen.
Mel demands that they switch it off, and the picture is shut off.
The jurists turn to her, and she tells them that the Doctor has been tricked
into believing that that was the real Trial room.
"The Valeyard's illusion is deliberately taking advantage of the Doctor's
romantic nature! He's convinced he must sacrifice himself! And you're
content to let him!"
The Inquisitor tells Mel again, "We cannot interfere!"
Mel answers, "But I can!"
She runs for the door to the reception area. She runs into the Keeper, who
tries to trip her up again. She easily dodges his foot, grabs the Key of
Rassilon, and heads for the door.
The Doctor stands on a wooden cart being drawn by two dark colored horses.
Walking in formation around it are the Chancellery guards.
The cart proceeds slowly down the street towards the courtyard in front
of the Fantasy Factory. The Doctor appears to be staring into space with
an expression of nobility set on his face.
A clock chimes. . .
Back along the street, the beam of light activates and deposits Mel on the
sidewalk. She looks up for the unseen source of women's laughter she
hears from above.
She runs down the street in search of the Doctor. Unseen children sing,
"London's burning. . . . London's burning. . . "
A woman laughs down at her again.
A clock chimes. . .
A clock chimes. . .
A piano plays a bar tune. . .
A clock chimes. . .
Beside a water barrel lies a con man from Andromeda. He hears the voice of
his Master calling his name. He stands up and leaves, following the voice.
A clock chimes. . .
"Death"
A clock chimes. . .
Voices whisper, "Death"
"Death" "Death"
"Death"
"Death" "Death"
"Death"
The death march stops.
A clock chimes. . .
"Death" "Death"
The Doctor looks into the night and quotes from Dickens. . .
"'It is a far, far better thing that I do. . . '"
A clock chimes. . .
"'. . . than I have ever done.'"
A clock chimes. . .
"'It is a far, far better rest that I go. . . '"
A clock chimes. . .
"'than I have ever known.'"
From down the street, a small woman runs up to the cart.
A clock chimes. . .
"Nevermind the Sidney Carton heroics!" shouts Mel. "You're not signing on as a
martyr yet!"
"Go away, Mel," mutters the Doctor, eyes nervously darting about, "Go away!"
"That Trial was an illusion!" she shouts.
Suddenly the cart, the horses, the voices, the clock chimes, and the
Chancellery guards all disappear.
The Doctor falls to the ground with a grumble of, "You've ruined everything!"
Mel helps him to his feet and asks what he meant. He says she's just kept
him from a confrontation with the Valeyard.
Mel protests, "But you were on your way. . . "
". . . to a death chamber," interrupts the Doctor, "as the result of a bogus
Trial, and my _noble_ act of self-sacrifice!"
Mel asks how he knew it was an illusion.
He tells her that during the bogus Trial, she testified that she had heard
him deny the genocide charge, but this was impossible as she wasn't there
at that time, and with her extraordinary total recall she would never have
made such an elementary mistake.
He starts circling her like a caged lion. She says, "OK, OK, I'm not deaf!"
to protest his growing vocal volume.
He takes it up a few more notches and shouts at the surroundings.
"The Valeyard overestimates his own cleverness! Like all _megalomaniacs_,
he is CONSUMED with his OWN *VANITY*!"
He turns and tells Mel quietly that this should have inflated his bloated
ego satisfactorily.
He then turns towards the Fantasy Factory, and Mel follows him as he begins
to ascend the stairs to the second floor offices. She asks him where he's
going.
"To find Mister J.J. Chambers."
The Master and Glitz watch the Doctor and Mel enter the Fantasy Factory from
the scanner screen of the Master's TARDIS.
The Master tells Glitz that he wants him to rejoin the Doctor and lead him
to the Valeyard.
Glitz turns with a smile and says there's no chance of him going near any
quill pens again.
The Master comes closer to Glitz, holding a brightly sparking circular
silver pendant out in front of Glitz's eyes which he swings rapidly back
and forth.
Glitz's speech slows. "I'm just gonna stay here until I can get back to
my own kind. . . and some honest. . . thieving."
The Master sees Glitz going under and says this is splendid. He asks if
Glitz is listening to him.
Glitz says he isn't, and was in fact wondering how many grotzis this little
bauble cost him. He grabs the medallion with glee, and the Master reteats
back to the console with frustration. He leans over and pushes out a large
chest from beneath the console and suggests that its contents will perhaps
appeal better to Glitz's crass soul.
He opens it to reveal it chock full of jewellery, pearls, gold, and precious
stones of all types.
Glitz looks at the chest with a new, greedy smile, and realizes that there
isn't a civilized creature in the Universe he couldn't bribe with this lot.
He begins to take a pearl necklace in his hand, when suddenly the Master
slams the lid on him, saying they'll be his if he follows his orders.
The Doctor and Mel are searching one of the offices of the Popplewick's.
Mel suggests again that they would be better off outside the Matrix.
The Doctor continues his search and only passingly answers her.
Mel goes on to say that she thinks it would be better to lure the Valeyard
out to somewhere where the odds would be more even.
The Doctor tosses some documents aside from the desk and asks her how they
do that.
Mel answers that they should use the Doctor as bait.
The Doctor looks up suddenly.
"Assuming that its me he's after."
Mel laughs and follows as he enters the adjoining office.
Mel laughs again, saying that its obvious he's after the Doctor, if one only
considers the elaborate lengths he's gone to so far.
The Doctor notes that they were indeed elaborate. "Perhaps _too_ elaborate."
Mel tells him there are times in their relationship when she feels an
intrepreter wouldn't come amiss.
She walks to the door marked WAITING ROOM and begins to open it.
The Doctor sees her and shouts, "Don't go through that. . . . "
Mel opens the door and some sort of large monster breathes fire at her.
She shuts the door hurriedly.
". . . door," concludes the Doctor.
Glitz enters the office of the junior Mister Popplewick and heads immediately
for the desk. He opens its cover and finds a large, brown cassette inside,
which he removes with glee.
The senior Mister Popplewick enters suddenly and asks, "Sticky fingers,
Mister Glitz?"
Glitz shows off the tape and notes that it is the Matrix Memory Tape that
he thought had been destroyed on Ravolox.
Popplewick tells him that the one on Ravolox was a duplicate of this, the
master tape.
Glitz looks at the tape and realizes he's holding tapes three, four, five,
and six, containing all the secrets of the Matrix.
"Not all," completes Popplewick. "The primitive phases, one and two,
have been relegated to the Archives."
As he says this, he nears Glitz, and then tells Glitz to kindly put the
tape back.
Glitz tells him that he'd give his soul for this tape.
"Would you?" asks Popplewick. He produces a nineteenth-century ball pistol
from his pockets and trains it on Glitz. "Would you, indeed?"
Glitz asks if they can negotiate this.
The Doctor has found a valuable document in the senior Mr. Popplewick's
office that he tells Mel she should see.
She comes over and looks over the hand-written list of about fifteen or
twenty names. The Doctor says that they are all Time Lords who were
attending his Trial.
"Every member of the Ultimate Court of Appeal. The Supreme Guardians of
Gallifreyan Law."
Mel asks why they're all crossed through.
The Doctor asks her to notice something else about the handwriting.
"Its yours!" she realizes.
Popplewick suddenly enters at gunpoint from Glitz, protesting vociferously
that this unseemly behavior of theirs is contravening all known procedure.
He is carrying the Matrix Memory Tape.
Glitz smiles and tells them that due to his not inconsiderable powers
of persuasion (Mel has to push his gun arm back towards Popplewick as he's
let it stray), this minion has agreed to take them to his boss, the
mysterious Mr. J.J. Chambers.
The Doctor starts to lead Popplewick towards the waiting room door, and
Popplewick is alarmed to be going that way. He says that Mr. Chambers is across
the courtyard.
Glitz gets him to start to leave the room, saying that if Chambers isn't there,
there'll be one less bureaucrat in the Matrix.
The Doctor stops them both and removes the quill pen from behind Popplewick's
ear, saying he won't be needing it. He places it over a hat which he rests
on the desk.
Glitz says, "Very astute of you, Doc. You should live a long time."
"I already have," answers the Doctor. "Over nine hundred years."
He waves for Popplewick to lead the way, and hangs back as Glitz follows him.
Mel turns and asks the Doctor what the secret is.
"Secret, Mel?" asks the Doctor innocently. "What secret?"
He heads for the door.
Popplewick and Glitz have reached the base of the stairs outside as the
Doctor and Melanie begin to climb down themselves.
The Doctor says loudly that he believes he's been misjudging Mr. J.J. Chambers,
alias the Valeyard.
Mel says this wouldn't be the first time, and wonders how he's managed
to survive nine hundred-odd years.
The Doctor and Mel walk between Glitz and Popplewick who stand opposite
each other in the center of the courtyard.
After they pass, Glitz tells Popplewick that they had an agreement, and now
that he's delivered the Doctor, he wants the Matrix Memory Tape.
Popplewick begins to reach for the gun, but Glitz waves him back, saying
he wants the tape first.
Popplewick agrees reluctantly, and the two exchange their possessions
simultaneously.
Glitz, with tape in hand, smiles and tells Popplewick to tell the Doctor
for him that he didn't sell him down the Milky Way for nothing.
Glitz begins walking down the street, when Popplewick raises the gun and
shouts, "I'm sure that'll be a consolation for him in his final moments!"
He pulls the trigger of the gun, and the powder explodes.
Glitz smiles back at him and holds the ball ammunition up between his
finger and thumb for Popplewick to smile.
From behind Popplewick steps the Master, holding his tissue compression
eliminator on Glitz.
"Very asture, Sabalom Glitz," smiles the Master, "But _this_ is loaded."
Glitz asks the Master what he's using that for, as he thought they
trusted each other. He says he was on his way to see him.
The Master looks at Glitz with a grin from behind his black eliminator.
"My trust of you is in equal proportion to your trust of me," answers
the Master. He waves to his left. "The TARDIS is over there!"
The Doctor looks in utter admiration at the very large gears and belts
that power a 19th century generator. He and Mel stand looking at the largest
such apparatus in a fully functional generator and workshop.
The Doctor marvels loudly about the craftsmanship and how there is
pride in every cog and piston.
Mel reminds the Doctor that they have another priority at the moment
named the Valeyard.
The Doctor asks her how he can forget. They both turn and see Mister
Popplewick entering the way they came in, and Mel worriedly asks where
Glitz is.
The Doctor suggests loudly and skepticaly that perhaps Glitz decided to
stay outside on guard.
Popplewick stops and answers, just as skeptically, yes. He also tells
them that he perceives Mr. Chambers to not be present, and that he will
go and find him.
"Yes," says the Doctor with an accusing tone. "Yes, you do that,
Mister Popplewick!"
Popplewick frowns at him, then turns and walks around the main apparatus
towards a door to another part of the factory.
The Doctor watches him go and then urgently turns to a workbench, scrabbling
in the scattered tools for something. Mel suggests she could help if he'd
tell her what he was searching for, when he turns with a length of thin,
strong-looking rope. He runs for the door Popplewick used and Mel follows him.
Popplewick is closing a pair of large wooden doors on which the word DANGER
is painted in large, black lettering. He turns and sees the Doctor
jogging in, though as soon as he does, he and Mel do their best to make it
look like they were just walking in.
Popplewick tries to sound casual and says he's sorry, but he can't seem
to find Mister Chambers.
The Doctor smiles and says he thought he'd have trouble. He seems to see
something over Popplewick's shoulder, and suddenly asks, "Who's that?!"
Popplewick turns to look, and the Doctor suddenly grabs his arms and
calls for Mel's help. Popplewick struggles and shouts protests, but
the Doctor and Mel succeed in using the rope to tie Popplewick to a metal
guardrail.
"You will regret this!" protests Popplewick.
"Mister Chambers will demand an explanation for this iniquitous, this
wicked behavior!"
"Well, then, let's ask him, shall we?" asks the Doctor.
He reaches behind Popplewick's ear, takes the skin, and tugs. The skin
turns out to be part of a mask, which peels away from its owners easily.
Beneath the fat face of Popplewick is the thinner, hawklike blue-steel eyed
Valeyard.
The Doctor similarly removes the Popplewick clothing to find the Valeyard's
normal courtroom robes underneath.
Mel asks him how he knew it was the Valeyard, and the Doctor answers that
it was the performance that tipped him off. It was too grotesque to be real.
"I have never been able to resist a touch of the Grand Guignol," says the
Doctor to his other self. "Have we?"
The Valeyard returns the stare and sarcastically tells his other self that
he will soon have ample scope to indulge in melodrama.
As he does, Mel walks to the door marked DANGER. The Doctor asks the
Valeyard why this is, when Mel opens the doors to reveal some complex
machinery behind.
Prominent in the working are two rotating lights, one blue and one red, like
those on police cars. They are mounted on the side of wooden panelled
equipment that seems tailored to fit in with its Victorian surroundings.
Inside the panels, however, are complex pieces of microcircuitry more
suited to Gallifrey.
Mel recognizes one component as a megabyte modem.
The Doctor leaves the Valeyard where he's tied up and joins Mel in
examining the device. He recognizes another component as a maser. He
defines the acronym for Mel as microwave amplification and stimulated
emission of radiation.
He walks back to the Valeyard as Mel asks what this thing does.
"Yes, Doctor," chides the Valeyard. "Enlighten us. _Diseminate_ the news."
The Doctor repeats the word "diseminate," and then realizes with a look of
dangerous surprise that the device is "a Particle Diseminator?"
The Valeyard confirms it, and while he works at untying himself, he boasts
that the device can unravel even subatomic particles, from gravitons,
to quarks, to tau mesons. All will completely diseminated.
Mel reminds the Valeyard that if he destroys them, he'll destroy himself as
well. He seems very unconcerned with this, and in fact laughs heartily
at her.
The Doctor voices a realization with a start, and he produces the list of
names from his pockets that they found earlier in his handwriting.
"A hit list."
Mel asks how this relates, as these Time Lords, or Supreme Guardians of
the Law as the Doctor called them, are all in the Trial room, and they
and the device are in the Matrix.
The Doctor realizes aloud. "The Matrix screen!"
He runs to the device, checks its settings quickly, then turns and tells
Mel to get back to the Trial room and tell them to disconnect the Matrix
and evacuate the Court.
Mel begins to protest that she can't leave the Doctor on his own, but
the Doctor shouts her down, ordering her to do it or else there will be
mass murder.
Mel turns and runs, while the Valeyard throws his head back with insane
laughter.
The Keeper of the Matrix rushes into the Trial room from the doors near
the prosecution docket. He hurries to the Inquisitor and tells her
urgently and with shock that he was an urgent message from Gallifrey
that says that the High Council has been deposed, and that insurrectionists
are running amok on Gallifrey.
The Matrix screen suddenly activates, showing the Master's face beaming
down on them all. He turns and thanks the Keeper for the news that he
has been awaiting.
"Listen carefully! I have an edict to deliver!"
Everyone in the Court turns and listens carefully to the Master.
"Somewhere the Valeyard and the Doctor are engaged in their squallid duel.
With luck, they'll kill each other, but that is a mere coincidental occurrence.
What I have to impart is of vital importance to all of you! Now that Gallifrey
is collapsing into chaos, none of you will be needed. Your office will be
abolished. Only _I_ can impose order!"
He holds the Matrix Memory Tape for all to see.
"I have control of the Matrix!
To disregard my commands will be to invite summary execution!"
The Master seems to stand and leave the Matrix screen's view. The Time
Lords start muttering nervously amongst themselves, and the Inquisitor and
the Keeper exchange worried glances.
Glitz leans against the console of the Master's TARDIS and tells him that
he should load the cassette now that he's purged his boasting from his system.
The Master smiles at Glitz and calls him the archetypal Philistine.
He kneels beside the console and connects the tape cassette. He smiles
at Glitz and tells him that moments such as these should be savored.
He presses a switch.
Suddenly an odd form of force field presses the Master away from the console.
Another forms on Glitz, forcing him back near the wall as well. The
air in front of both of them seems to shimmer, making the color appear to
disappear from things behind the shimmering. When the Master and Glitz
speak, their voices are slurred as though speaking at low rpms.
Glitz asks what's happening.
"A limbo atrophier!" exclaims the Master with shock.
Glitz is pressed farther back. He asks for a definition of this, when the
field begins to hum louder and he is suddenly pressed right against the
wall of the console room. The Master is similarly imprisoned.
The Valeyard casually chides the Doctor even as he works on freeing himself
from the rope. He tells his other self that he's elevating futility to a
high art.
"There's nothing you can do to prevent the catharsis of spurious moraliy!"
The Doctor turns and argues to his prosecutor that if he could compile this
monstrosity, it therefore follows that he, the defendant, should be able
to unravel it.
He turns and starts fiddling with the circuitry. One component erupts in
a shower of sparks.
Mel runs into the Trial room and shouts, "Disconnect the Matrix!"
The Inquisitor informs her that they cannot switch it off without the
Keeper, and he isn't present.
Mel warns everyone to get out of the room in that case, adding that their
lives depend on it.
First out a door are the Chancellery guards. The Time Lord jurists all
stand and head for the doors near the prosecution docket. It is clear,
however, that none of them are very athletic, and that their robes aren't
aiding their speed.
Above them all is an image of the Master frozen against the walls of his
TARDIS, his face contorted in shock.
The ropes holding the Valeyard loosen, and he starts looking towards the
Doctor as though ready to pounce, and also as though he were concerned
his prey were about to get away.
The Doctor pulls a switch, and suddenly the entire Particle Diseminator
erupts in a shower of yellow sparks.
The Master's image on the screen is shattered as the screen itself explodes,
and a number of energy patterns begin rocketing out the hole. Each looks
like a large, triangular-shaped, glowing blue snowflake.
They start to ricochet around the room, but as yet, over the heads of the
assembled Time Lords who are cowering on the floor for cover.
The generator gears suffe an explosion, and the entire system begins
to decelerate to a grinding halt.
The Doctor stands in triumph next to the dying diseminator, and proclaims,
"Eureka! And you said it couldn't be immobilized!"
He joins the Valeyard where he is still "tied up," and the Valeyard asks
what the Doctor has done. He answers that he introduced an anti-phase
signal into the telemetry unit, meaning that the entire system is going
to self-destruct.
The Valeyard's face falls into rage.
"You blundering imbecile!" he spits. "You've triggered a ray phase shift!
There'll be a massive feedback into here!"
He gives up his pretense at still being tied up, and reaches forward to shove
the Doctor violently to the floor. The Doctor's head slams into a metal
guardrail near the floor, and he is dazed.
There are further explosions from the diseminator, and the blue energy
snowflakes begin to swarm around the device.
The Valeyard runs to the device, looks at it, and then turns in horror.
"No!" he shouts. "Its too late!"
The Doctor regains his feet and runs out the nearest door as the snowflakes
begin to swarm more thickly in the room. . .
The Doctor runs out the door of the generator complex and into the street
outside, where there are no signs of the disemination other than the
rising noise from inside the building. He rubs his aching head and
shakes it as though to clear it, then sets off.
Inside the building, energy snowflakes seem to zoom straight through the
Valeyard's head. He crawls as though in pain, then seems to collapse to
the floor. His hand is still raised, until it finally too succumbs and falls
to his side.
The Doctor runs down the street and into the dark area beneath a bridge
where he first entered the Matrix. . .
Behind him, the main smokestack of the generator factory seems to glow
a hot blue, and then erupt in a tremendous explosion of energy.
The Trial room is still now, and Melanie looks up, apparantly safe, as are
all the assembled Time Lords. The Inquisitor stands and looks at her
and around the room.
The Doctor suddenly runs into the Court with a look of urgency. He sees
that all is becoming well and relaxes.
He then steps over to the Inquisitor.
"Now, let me see," he says, "Where were we? I was about to be sentenced,
I believe!"
The Inquisitor smiles down at him from her stand. "All charges against
you are dismissed, Doctor. We owe you an immense debt of gratitude, which
I _can_ partly repay by telling you that the young woman, Miss Perpugilliam
Brown, is alive and well and living as a warrior queen with King Yrcanos!"
The Doctor's face brightens up with relief, and he turns and thinks about
the Peri and Yrcanos together.
. . . an image of Peri and Yrcanos comes to mind. . .
"Varoominik," says the Doctor with a smile.
The Inquisitor smiles and sighs, and then tells the Doctor that once
law and order have been restored, a new High Council will need to be elected.
She asks if there is any way she can persuade him to stand for Lord President
again.
The Doctor's face looks frightened by the idea, but then he gets a better idea.
Mel anticipates him, and tells the Inquisitor, "He's going to suggest _you_
stand."
The Doctor answers that he is indeed going to do just that. He then starts
for the door to the reception room, and stops to tell the Inquisitor that
if there were such a thing as an intergalactic postal vote, she'd have his.
Mel advises her not to broadcast that.
The Doctor remembers something, and then asks the Inquisitor to do her one
small favor for him. She tells him to simply name it.
"When the Matrix is restored," begins the Doctor, "You can do what you like
with the Master, but exercise leniency with Sabalom Glitz? He's not
beyond redemption."
"Just don't let him anywhere near the crown jewels," adds Mel.
The Doctor looks at Mel, raises an eyebrow, then turns and heads out the
door to the reception area. She follows him.
The Doctor strides down the stairs happily, and tells Mel that Gallifrey
doesn't have any crown jewels.
The two reach the TARDIS door. The Doctor uses his key to open it,
and Mel promises him that first she'll give him a bracing glass of carrot
juice. . .
"Carrot juice?!?" demands the Doctor.
"And then we'll get you back on the exerciser!" promises Mel.
The Doctor seems to reconsider and head back towards the Trial room, telling
Mel that he thinks he was rash in turning down that offer of the Presidency.
Mel tugs at his sleeve, and he turns back into the TARDIS door.
"Carrot juice?" asks the Doctor with a grimace.
He enters the TARDIS, and Mel follows.
The Doctor's voice seems to echo from inside. . .
"Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice?"
With her customary groans of industrial protest, the police box Type 40
Time And Relative Dimensions In Space machine of the Doctor's dematerializes.
The Inquisitor stands listening to the takeoff, and then sighs, lifts her
robes, and turns for the door to the rest of the space station to leave
as all the other jurists are doing.
As she leaves, she tells the nearby Keeper of the Matrix to repair the
Matrix, and to requisition anything he needs to do so.
"My Lady," bows the Keeper quietly.
. . . the Keeper of the Matrix's robes turn, and it can be seen that this
not the Keeper at all inside them. . .
. . . but rather the hawklike face of the Valeyard, who smiles, and
laughs darkly. .. .
The Doctor
COLIN BAKER
Melanie
BONNIE LANGFORD
The Valeyard
MICHAEL JAYSTON
The Inquisitor
LYNDA BELLINGHAM
The Master
ANTHONY AINLEY
Glitz
TONY SELBY
Popplewick
GEOFFREY HUGHES
Keeper of the Matrix
JAMES BREE
Title Music composed by Incidental Music Special Sound
RON GRAINER DOMINIC GLYNN DICK MILLS
Production Manager Production Associate Production Assistant
IAN FRASER ANJI SMITH JANE WELLESLEY
Assistant Floor Manager O.B. Lighting O.B. Sound
KAREN LITTLE JOHN MASON VIC GODRICH
Visual Effects Designer Video Effects Vision Mixers
KEVIN MOLLOY DAVE CHAPMAN SHIRLEY COWARD
DANNY POPKIN JIM STEPHENS
Technical Co-Ordinator Camera Supervisor Videotape Editor
ALAN ARBUTHNOTT ALEC WHEAL HUGH PARSON
Studio Lighting Studio Sound
DON BABBAGE BRIAN CLARK
Costume Designer Make-Up Designer
ANDREW ROSE SHAUNNA HARRISON
Designer
MICHAEL TREVOR
Producer
JOHN NATHAN-TURNER
Director
CHRIS CLOUGH
(C) BBC MCMLXXXVI
First transmitted on 5 December, 1986.
This synopsis by Steven K. Manfred
Synopsis copyright Aug. 8, 1994.
Permission is given to all to copy this synopsis as long as it is not for
reasons of profit.