Guns were starting to fire and bombs were dropping, yet Mother Mathara was suddenly soothed by the presence of the Grandfather in her mind.

'Go to your ship. Coordinate the fleet. Prepare them for entry to their new home.'

'But the battle ...' Mathara felt her breath catch in anticipation.

'The battle is ending. The Matrix has fallen. The Time Lord dead are ours to play with. Their ancient power has been given to us that it may be utilised to its full potential.'

The voice faded, and with it the sounds of battle seemed to grow fainter as well. As Mathara watched, the ragged splendour of the parliament building came into sharper focus. Aspects of the Council Chamber actually grew into the gaps in the ruins as reality around her warped into obedience. The shadowy figures lining the benches grew more substantial: she saw skeletal faces under oncesplendid cowls, caught whispered chatter and excited gestures. As the vision grew more splendid and more solid, Mathara imagined she was glimpsing the blur of loa in the air, glorying in this bold manifestation.

She turned to Kristeva, teeth beaming bright. 'We have them,' she said. 'Gallifrey falls.'

Kristeva nodded slowly, raising his arms as if preparing to summon some elemental force.

'Now to destroy those who would challenge our supremacy once and for all.'

Kreiner was rolled clear by the Doctor just as the razorsharp point of the monster's leg burst through the heavy oak. He'd been pressed up against the door, squinting through a knot in the wood, scrabbling to hold his guts in with his only hand. Now he realised the ancient nanites in his selfrepair circuits were simply too old and tired to be bothered this time. Just like him.

He ought to be really angry right now, but instead he just felt a bit numb.

'So which side were you on, Fitz?' the Doctor murmured, cradling his head, studying the wound.

'The right side of the door, it would seem,' Kreiner answered. He felt a surprising rush of warmth when the Doctor smiled at his joke; then realised it was blood soaking his armour.

' "A butterfly pinned down ..."' Kreiner looked up at the sound of the warm, rich voice. He saw the image of the oldlooking, greyhaired Doctor appear like an uncertain angel above him, picked out in motes of light. '

"If I'd only a spider coming ..."' the dust Doctor went on. 'That really was an awful pun, old chap. I thought you were going to give the whole game away.'

Typical melodramatic Time Lord style, thought Kreiner. Your life could come round to call even as it came crashing round your ears. 'Your old self is right,' he muttered, and tapped the crusty edge of his stomach wound. '

"Espied 'er coming", indeed. As lines go, that was more painful than this is.'

'Maybe so,' the Doctor said ruefully. 'But I only had the one chance to get through to you.'

'Think I'm past it, do you?' the old face said, frowning.

'Of course not,' the Doctor said hurriedly.

'I think I am,' Kreiner said simply. 'Passed away.'

'Hold on, Fitz,' the Doctor whispered encouragingly.

'For what? Christmas?' Kreiner laughed weakly, and a spurt of blood ran iron over his tongue and teeth.

'Where there's life, there's hope,' the Doctor said. Kreiner saw the old Doctor mouth the words along with him.

Just then, the evil spike of the spider's leg started to twitch, trying to pull itself back through the splintered door. Kreiner flinched automatically, then wished he hadn't as the pain tore through him. He coughed, felt bile dribble into his mouth, knew he didn't have long.

'Call off that thing,' the Doctor instructed, as if he were referring to an overenthusiastic hound dog.

'I thought you wanted it here,' the dust Doctor replied sulkily. 'I do wish you'd make your mind up. I've so little control, you know.'

The spider continued its experimental legflexes. The Doctor gently pulled Kreiner to one side of the door, deeper into the shadows.

'Is there hope, Doctor?' Kreiner whispered. The pain was sharpening his senses now, and with it came a new determination that he would not die in this place.

The Doctor smiled and his lip split again. 'Always. There's always something.'

'Promise?'

'I promise.'

Kreiner realised, as the Doctor gave his solemn word, that he actually believed him.

Perhaps he really had never forgotten what it meant to be Fitz Kreiner.

'So you've saved him,' he heard the dust Doctor say. 'A single person. What are you going to do now?'

Kreiner closed his eyes, let his gauntlet trace the gaping hole in his stomach again. He wanted to hear what the Doctor would say, but it was so warm here in the shadows, so comfortingly dark, he just wanted to sleep.

Then his eyes snapped open, compelled by some premonition.

Hovering over him, face huge and bright, centimetres from his own, was Grandfather Paradox.

Chapter Fortythree.

The choice

'Back behind the TARDIS!' Romana yelled, lobbing a grenade into the advancing Faction troops.

'No!' yelled Fitz. 'You'll hit Compassion!'

The grenade went off, obliterating the men who were hiding behind her. Compassion dropped to the ground, her eyes tightly closed, but she was picked up again by more scurrying soldiers.

'She's a TARDIS, you idiot,' Romana snapped. 'Indestructible. So let's use my TARDIS in the same way!'

Fitz remembered the ships he'd seen torn apart in the Fjiemy's first attack, and discovered a moment later he could squeeze the trigger on his proton gun with crossed fingers.

Suddenly, a dark shadow fell across Fitz and the others, as if the ravens from the transfigured Council Chamber were flying overhead as one.

'What's happening?' Mali yelled.

Fitz blinked. The light had changed: it was murkier, a sickly yellow. Then the corridor started pouring with blood around him, and the floor started giving way. He turned round in shock, saw something grab the guard beside him and haul him into the blackness that was closing in.

He backed away, into something cold, gasped, turned and found that the crystal of Romana's TARDIS was looking more like an ice cube, smooth surfaces dribbling and melting. The marble floor dissolved as if acid were flooding it, revealing rusting grilles beneath. Through the mesh Fitz saw hundreds of people crushed in together, the blood flowing from the walls soaking them stickily. They pressed their hands up against the grating, screaming for help.

He felt thousands of eyes burning into him, but was still too shocked, too bewildered by the onslaught, to react.

A tiny voice inside him was telling him that was probably the idea, when he felt something squeeze his arm. He cried out, pictured the vanishing guard, snatched his arm away, opened his eyes ...

'Jesus, Mali," he said. 'What's happened? Who are these people? How did we get here?'

'We still have Fitz, Madam President,' Mali reported. 'He's real.'

'Real confused, you mean,' he said. 'What's going ...?'

Romana was suddenly beside him, a pale spectre. 'The Matrix has restabilised ...' Her voice was hollow. 'The Faction influence has been woven into its databanks.'

Fitz shut his eyes from the terrible sights around him, but could still feel the blood pooling at his feet. 'Bad, right?'

'Grandfather Paradox is using the Matrix to project his preferred reality on to ours.'

'But I -'

Fitz could see now that tears were welling in Romana's eyes. 'You were right, you stupid idiot primitive, you were right.'

'I was?'

'Ripples back through time from this moment the moment of capitulation. Rewriting history, diminishing us, weakening us ...' She grabbed hold of Fitz's shirt with both hands, a broken nail scratching into his chest. 'How many sides does the Panopticon have?' she said quietly, mouth twisting as she fought back tears.

'Six,' whispered Fitz.

'It's circular!' Romana screamed at him. 'One great wall capturing the unity of the one great Gallifrey!'

'There are nine Gallifreys!' Fitz yelled back into her face, bumping her little snub nose with his own. She jerked her head back, and the hot tears cascaded down both china cheeks.

'Nine!'

'No,' Mali said, her voice unnervingly calm. "There isn't even one.'

Romana slumped to the ground. The people trapped under the grille jostled and shouted beneath her feet, reaching out for her, begging her to deliver them from evil. She held her head in both hands, snivelling like a child.

'Look,' breathed Mali. 'Look there.'

He knew it was a bad idea, but he couldn't stop himself. Fitz opened one eye, and saw the image of a small boy in a spotlight ahead of them. He was screaming as dark figures held him down. By their feet were big black medicine bags, bulging open with strange, angular instruments. The figures held what looked like blowtorches to his face, ignoring his cries of pain, searing away the flesh and boiling the blood until the hard, white bone poked through beneath.

Behind the boy, a long, long line of shivering, terrified people waited their turn.

'Why?' Mali whispered in outrage. 'Why do this?'

'It's an illusion, right?' Fitz said desperately. 'Just to scare us. Right?'

'No,' Romana said, her voice husky and flat. 'It's what they're going to do to us, now that the Grandfather and Faction Paradox have finally won.'

Fitz stared at her, stunned. Then he felt something pulling at his leg. Pulling him in. He screamed at Romana and Mali, first for help, then for mercy, but his cries meant nothing with so many already echoing in the bloody darkness.

His body was being eaten away by the shadows. At least it was painless, he thought. At least it was quick.

Mali blasted away at the shadowy form that had taken Fitz, but it was no good. He vanished from view, still struggling.

More gunfire sounded in the confusion. An intense white light lit up their surroundings, and another guard screamed as the sound of a detonation echoed round the nightmare.

'It's no good,' Mali whispered. "They're toying with us, enjoying themselves. They know we can't fight them. Not now.'

Romana turned to her, and Mali that saw the fierce determination in her green eyes was boiling away into tears.

'We can't have lost,' Romana said, lip trembling, utterly crushed. 'Everything I ever did was to stop this from happening.'

Mali took hold of her.

'I can't have failed,' Romana snivelled, resting her head against Mali's shoulder. 'I can't let this happen to my people!'

'There's nothing we can do,' she said. 'There never was.'

Together they waded into the cold water of the dissolving TARDIS. As the screaming and the madness went on outside, its buckling doors washed open and closed suddenly around them.

'There's always something. I promise.'

The Doctor spun round at the sound of his own voice. 'No!' he bellowed. Grandfather Paradox was standing with one foot on Father Kreiner's chest, nudging his boot heel into the wound.

'What do you mean, no?' the Grandfather asked. 'I'm really something.'

'You're a projection,' insisted the Doctor. 'You can't hurt us.'

Grandfather Paradox tutted. 'I have corporeal form, now! So saying, he pressed his boot down against Kreiner's chest. There was a thick sound like eggshells crushing. Kreiner howled and writhed.

'Fitz!' The Doctor sprinted over to tackle Grandfather Paradox, but the ghost of his future self swatted him away as if he were one of the tiny buzzing cameras. He tumbled helplessly against the writhing leg of the bone spider, and gasped as it pressed down hard against his own ribs.

He heard the boot crunch through to a solid floor, a high gurgle, and then nothing.

'Why?' the Doctor cried, struggling to be free of the spider's thick white leg. 'Why this senseless, evil killing?'

'Father Kreiner had become a renegade. Turned his back on his own people.' He heard the Grandfather tut. 'Where could he have got an idea like that?'

'He trusted me again!' The Doctor was shouting now, his fury pouring out. 'He'd have forgiven me.'