Now they had landed, he felt able to activate the scanner again. One whole wall of the TARDIS disappeared to reveal a view of the outside. Nivet was relieved to see the familiar sight of the TARDIS berths, containing several dozen time machines in their undisguised state tall white cylinders which seemed to radiate a soft inner light. Because there were so many of them clustered in one space, Nivet knew from his work with them in the past, he could let his mind wander freely and allow their reassuring telepathic background hum to calm him. Many times, when working late in the berthing cradles, he had allowed the subconscious signals to wash over his mind, like soft surf on a warm beach. Now, he closed his eyes and opened his mind.

So it was a jolt to sense something quite different, more disturbing, much more unsettling. He opened his eyes again to study the scanner view, almost expecting the TARDIS shapes to twist and turn and rear like scared animals. Instead of the usual, soothing telepathic chorus, there was a babble of jittery thoughts and ... feelings? Yes, it was more than his own reaction to the telepathic contact: the ships seemed to be experiencing emotions.

But ships don't have emotions, he told himself.

And in the background, there was a stronger telepathic voice, a stark contrast to the peaceful subconscious murmurings with which he was familiar. With a jolt, he realised it was the Type 102 TARDIS. The ship he was currently travelling in.

It was Compassion.

Mali could sense something too. 'What is it, Nivet?'

'Shhh. He closed his eyes again.

What was Compassion sensing? No, more precisely, what was she feeling?

It was a kind of horror. He could see it through her scanners, through her observations.

Through her eyes. She was considering the ships in the berthing bay. They were all her inferiors. Their telepathic voices were growing louder in her mind, whinnying like horses frightened by a nearby bear.

She knew that she frightened them. She knew that she would find no companionship here.

That she was the first, unalike, unique.

Compassion was confused and angry. She knew she was alone.

Nivet felt a hand on his arm, and opened his eyes to see Mali standing by him. She was looking worried. 'Are you OK?'

He was surprised to find his cheeks were wet with tears.

He cleared his throat before trying to speak. 'We should secure the Type 102 in the berthing cradles and report to the High Council.'

But the TARDIS doors remained resolutely closed.

'Very inventive,' he shouted up at the ceiling. 'I'm quite impressed.'

'Please don't leave,' said Compassion.

Nivet manipulated the controls with growing confidence. 'She's rerouting the excitonic circuitry to prevent access from this console.'

'She?' asked Mali.

Nivet flashed her a swift look. 'The Type 102 is more sentient than our current generation of TARDISes. That's the whole point of capturing her, remember.' He continued to twist at a variety of controls. 'Aha, now we're getting somewhere.'

The view of the berthing cradles abruptly vanished to be replaced by another. This showed Vice President Timon in his office. As usual, he looked as if he hadn't slept for a week.

Currently, he appeared to be putting on formal clothing, which threatened to swamp his slight frame. 'What is it, Nivet? Can't this wait until after the Ceremony.'

Nivet tried not to smile as Timon struggled into his heavy orange cloak. 'Sir, we have captured the Type 102, though she is resisting our attempts to berth her.'

'She?' said Timon. 'Well, have the Chancellery Guard assist. Better yet, use the TARDIS fleet to corral the device into position. Or do you simply not want to damage her? he added with heavy sarcasm. He appeared to have a side conversation with someone else in his office, out of sight. 'All right, I have authorised the release of the TARDIS fleet, and raised the transduction barriers. We'll also establish an osmosis dampener on the 102 's time signature.

So your new TARDIS cannot leave Gallifrey or its environs.'

'Very well, sir. Thank you.'

The image of the Vice President started to fracture. 'Get on ... it ... not interrupt ...

Reaffirma ... mony.'

Then he was gone.

Nivet thumped the console. 'Compassion, stop interfering.'

The familiar sound of dematerialisation began. Nivet threw his hands in the air. 'Compassion, come on now. You heard the Vice President.You can't escape Gallifrey. And even if you try to hide, the other TARDISes are authorised for pursuit.'

Compassion remained grimly silent as she vanished from the berthing bay.

'Very well,' sighed Nivet, dropping below the console.

Mali watched him. 'What is it doing? What are you doing?'

'Working on another override,' grunted Nivet, heaving a panel out of place. 'She's far in advance of so much of our current technology, and yet there are some odd familiarities. This access system, for example, could have come straight out of an old Type 40.'

Compassion could feel the osmosis dampener cutting into her like cramp.

She took a deep, cleansing psychic breath and plunged into the spacetime vortex. As she had suspected, most routes were blocked to her. The reassuring warmth of the swirling grey vortex no longer comforted her. She used to love its wild churnings, the unpredictable eddies and twists in its multidimensional depths, the way she could make discovery after discovery while forging new paths for herself. Now, though, the only surprises were where the transduction barriers cut across the misty region like crude bars, preventing her from escaping.

Behind her she could sense, rather than see, the TARDIS fleet at her heels. Again, she felt the wave of despair that had washed over her in the berthing cradles, just as she had realised that the other TARDISes were technically and genetically far below her. Once she had teased the Doctor that he treated his human companions as though they were unruly chimpanzees trying to take tea at a royal garden party. If that had ever been true, she now knew how he must have felt.

The first two TARDISes were upon her. They buffeted against her in the vortex, swooping closer like hounds pursuing a fox.

Another three arrived. They were clumsy, energised, overenthusiastic. They would timeram her. They could kill her.

Perhaps, she reflected, that was the only escape.

Four more TARDISes slammed into her, and the posse began to crush her between them. She would not go back to the berthing cradles, she had decided. She prepared to surrender to her own destruction. But she would take the other TARDISes with her. It was a pity that Nivet would not survive.

Compassion reached deep inside her own systems, knowing that she had the hidden power of a Type 102, and was capable of a devastating riposte.When she unleashed the strike, it was as though she were pouring out everything that she ever was in a primal scream into the vortex.

The effect on the pursuing TARDISes was devastating. The single psychic blast switched them off abruptly. And like a tidal wave in an ocean, the effect rippled through them and the vortex and struck at every other TARDIS on Gallifrey. Every single one of them ceased to function.

She waited for the blast to rebound around the vortex and consume her, too.

Yes, she could have quite liked Nivet, she decided. He was an unusually inventive man.

This turned out to be exactly the moment at which Nivet did his most inventive thing yet.

Compassion grimaced. He was going to materialise her back on the Edifice, where she would be shielded from the effects of her own psychic blast. Back to the Edifice, back to the shattered remnants of the TARDIS that had created her and now threatened to trap her for ever in a living death.

She would survive, she realised. But at what cost?

Chapter Twenty-nine.

Standing on ceremony

The collar pinched the back of Romana's neck. Really, she thought, who could have designed this dreadful thing? She studied herself critically in the fulllength gilt mirror, and heaved a perfect little sigh of exasperation. She hefted the heavy gown, but it still looked like she was wearing a dusty old curtain over her perfectly gorgeous new dress.

Her own preference was for something more chinois, but personal preference had little influence on ceremonial. Maybe she would change the ritual after this ceremony. She was sure she'd seen just the ideal thing in a film once with the Doctor, The Last Emperor.

Perhaps not, under the circumstances. If anyone found out, they might start thinking of her as the 'Last Empress', and she'd much prefer to remain the Mistress of the Six Gallifreys.

At least she could afford some of her favourite jewellery. She couldn't put on her headband that would get in the way of the formal coronet during the ceremony. She settled for two ropes of pearls and her favourite tjakelian earrings, each with a chip of pure drublix in the dangling teardrop of precious metal. Both contained a small communications device, through which a flunky would relay appropriate instructions about where she should stand and what she should say. Romana had decided she couldn't be bothered to learn the entire tedious ceremony.

Soon the hovercar was sweeping the Lady President and her retinue high around the perimeter of the Panopticon. The weather had cleared, and so the slidingglass hood could remain open throughout the journey. Despite her feigned indifference, she was secretly amazed, as always, at the scale of the building, set out in a basic pentagram. Far, far below was the presentation stand, atop a building the size of an office block which had been constructed from nothing since first thing that morning. The High Council and the five colleges had premier spots by the stand.

For everyone else, the entire ceremony would be broadcast on the massive display screens which covered the sides of the stand, and which were visible from any ground position elsewhere in the Capitol. A milling crowd surged around the base of the building already, perhaps seventy thousand people, looking a little lost on the Panopticon floor since it had been cleared of most commercial activity earlier in the day.

With a final adjustment of her awkward collar, Romana stepped out on to the Presidential podium and started her fiveminute walk to the heart of the ceremonial structure.

She knew the importance of the ceremonial, the significance of this sesquicentennial recognition. This was just the latest of the things she'd had to do to strengthen her personal authority starting way back when she'd challenged that Presidential lush Flavia. Today's ceremony confirmed her power and prestige, placed her further above the petty squabbiings of her High Council.

Her people loved her. Which was exactly how it should be.

The unfortunate recent death of the previous Chancellor Present had been less of a blow than she had admitted. Ironically, for a woman in power, the Lady President Romana tolerated women High Councillors less than men. In her present incarnation, Romana had discovered, she was more easily able to convince, manipulate, or bully her male colleagues, particularly those who had staggered on to the dogend days of their current incarnation rather than risk being declared unfit for office after an unhappy regeneration. She had born this in mind when using her emergency powers to directly appoint the new Chancellor of Time Present, the doddery Santas, whose lecherous looks at her in his previous role had long been an amusement to her.

After an hour and a half, though, even these reassuring thoughts failed to enliven her. The dead note in the voice of her flunky, transmitting details through her earring, told her that she wasn't the only one bored to tears by the whole thing.

The Chancellors of Time Past, Parallel and Present had all sworn their renewed fealty in the ancient language of Old High Gallifrey, and now the boring Patrexian Djarshar was droning on.

'... in perpetual and continued obeisance to the will of the Time Lord elite ...' Djarshar's in perpetual and continued obeisance to the will of the Time Lord elite ...' Djarshar's sterile monologue filtered out across the whole Panopticon. It would be a wonder if there weren't extensive outbreaks of sleepwalking far below on the Capitol floor. At least she was spared that dull youngster Vozarti, whose unfortunate absence meant she didn't have to sit through his pledge of continued allegiance as Castellan. So next, Romana thought, perhaps the faithful Vice President Timon could bring some sparkle to the events.

There was another sparkle, she admitted, though only in the form of some ugly formal jewellery. She studied the display case in front of her, which held the Presidential coronet.

The climax of the ceremony would be when the Dromeain Archibaptrix placed the coronet on her head, and she reconnected with the Matrix, final confirmation of her Reaffirmation as President. Then she could hightail it back to her office and have a muchneeded long bath with lots of soothing unguents.

'... and thus do I confirm my unfailing devotion and subservient role to thee, oh Lady and thus do I confirm my unfailing devotion and subservient role to thee, oh Lady President Romana, oh Head of State, oh Queen of the Five Gallifreys.'

Well, Djarshar had stopped at last. The huge crowds muttered their response, which echoed around the vast enclosure, strangely distorted and disconcerting because of the time it took for the sound to reach up from the Panopticon floor. The traditional chants of the Reaffirmation Ceremony resumed, filling the enormous building as the crowd sang the familiar roundelay.

Now all Djarshar had to do was shuffle backwards, bowing all the way to his seat, and hope he didn't meander off course and plunge over the side of the stand to his death quarter of a mile below.

The transmitter in her left earring buzzed, and her flunky started to advise her what was happening next. In the absence of the boy Castellan, Vice President Timon had started weaving his way to the main podium. But he got no further than the bottom of the third flight of steps before there was a sudden commotion in the crowd of officials.

A lanky, dishevelled figure with long, lank, dark hair sprouting from beneath a grubby hat with a crumpled brim had burst out on to the fourth flight of steps. His dirty blue check shirt was worn over another check shirt, this one green, and the tails of both flapped about his worn corduroy trousers. His patchy stubble suggested that he'd forgotten to shave for several days. He was now gesticulating his arms wildly, windmilling them around his wiry, slightly stooped form.

The crowds must have seen this on the huge display monitors, because the rhythms of the roundelay faltered, and then died away in a background hiss of echoing mutters. Even Romans's flunky was lost for words. She could hear him shuffling his paperwork, trying to work out if this interruption was a scripted part of the Reaffirmation.

'Stop the ceremony!' yelled the scruffy newcomer, his words carrying across to Romana in the evening breeze.

The Chancellery Guard stepped in front of Romana protectively. Vice President Timon hared up the steps and stood beside her. 'What is this?' he blustered.

'Well, really, Timon,' responded Romana tersely. 'How should I know? This whole thing is boring me to tears, but credit me with more creativity if I were to arrange a modest distraction.'

A slight wind started to ruffle the robes of everyone on the podium. She could hear something in the air, and looked up, expecting rain. Bright clouds seemed to have formed high in the Panopticon dome.

'I'm with the Doctor,' the wild man was shouting. He eyed the stasers pointed at him with some concern, and made no further attempt to approach Romana. 'My name is Fitz Kreiner, and I came to warn you -'

'Enough!' shouted Timon. 'This is outrageous. Take him away at once.'

Fitz Kreiner disappeared behind a wall of burly guards. 'They want to interrupt the ceremony.'

'You seem,' murmured Romana to herself, 'to have managed that quite well on your own.'

She watched a rather yummy guard captain supervise the removal of the man. The captain trotted back up the steps, belying the weight and discomfort of his own heavy ceremonial clothes. The advantage of youth, she thought.

'Lady President,' he said, dropping to one knee and bowing his head, 'I apologise most profoundly for this -'

'Yes, yes,' she said quietly so that the broadcast equipment would not hear her. She made a languid gesture of her hand signifying dismissal. 'Do get on with things, Guard Captain, or we shall all die of sedentary collapse.'

The captain blushed to the roots of his hair.

Romana had a tremendously wicked idea at this point. It was a further way of reinforcing her position in the ceremony. She stepped forward, to ensure the microphones would carry her words to the tens of thousands in the Panopticon and the millions around the planet. "The challenge is rebuffed. Stand now any who would challenge the Lady President Romana, Mistress of the Five Gallifreys.'

So it was rather a shock when someone replied.

'I do,' said a man in a lazy, mocking tone.

She whirled around to see a man dressed in the white ceremonial robes of a Gallifreyan President. As he was further upstage than she was, she had to crane her neck up and stare into the light behind him. Damn this collar!

And then it started to rain flowers. Tiny yellow blooms, each with six splayed petals, were spiralling down from the sky. They began to pile up around her, carpeting the top of the ceremonial podium in a vivid wash of bright colour.

The blooms were falling elsewhere in the Panopticon too. A swirling yellow rain, Gallifreyan Flowers of Remembrance which tumbled slowly down on to the spectators far below. A wave of astonished chatter rippled through the crowd.

Romana stared at the man who dared to present himself in the Presidential robes. 'Who are you, sir?' she demanded in her most imperious tone.

The man stepped forward, and held out his hands in a placating expression. Not a submissive gesture, she noticed, but a controlling one. He was accompanied by a young woman, who was wearing the ceremonial shawl of a Gallifreyan supporter to the President and the traditional face mask that covered most of her head.

'Who are you?' she demanded. 'What is this affront?'