He arrived in the large stone crypt that housed that power source. The blast had rushed into it, wiping away the decoration and leaving only the structure.

The iron sphere in the centre was immense. It wasn't really iron, any more than the TARDIS was really a police box, but that was how it appeared: a pockmarked globe of dark metal, around thirty feet in diameter, set into the floor. It had always reminded the Doctor a little of a closed eye.

The procedure, when there was an explosion or other energy release on board the TARDIS, was to channel the energy here, and send it down the link to the distant power source. An atomic bomb could go off on the surface of the sun without anyone noticing; the power needed to move one time machine, let alone a fleet of them, was many orders more than a mere star could muster.

The forces at the other end of the link must be beyond comprehension. So the fusion explosion would be sucked safely down the link, a drop in the ocean of what was at the other end.

But this only worked if there was a link, and the TARDIS no longer had any such link.

The emergency procedures hadn't ever been changed. The energy had been channelled down here, right to the power source, but there was nowhere for it to go from there.

The iron sphere had cracked open.

An immense black eye was staring straight at him and through him, the message clear: I know you.

The Doctor did not understand what he was looking at, though, couldn't even decide if it was a superma.s.sive something or a perfect absence. He could think of nothing to do other than stare back and try to decipher what it was.

He knew he had to get closer. As he moved towards the great eye he could see the room flickering. He held his hand up in front of him and saw a double, then a triple image. Radiation sickness? It made people nauseous, but that wasn't it there wouldn't be any radiation. Time and s.p.a.ce were being made 128 to move in ways that weren't possible outside this room.

The Doctor walked around, inspected the damage carefully. The sphere wasn't fully open, he was surprised to see. Even after taking the full blast of an atomic explosion, there were only pinholes in it. But this wasn't a question of degree. Either the immense forces were sealed from the rest of the universe or they weren't. It was right that they were. Even pinhole views of what was inside the sphere filled the room.

He stepped away from the sphere and went over to the small control panel on the back wall. He reached for the lever that would seal the breaches.

The Doctor hesitated.

I can show you what you need to know.

The Doctor shook his head. It sounded like a man's voice. He looked back over his shoulder to the sphere, watched time twisting around the breaches like swirls of smoke. It was beautiful, a little hypnotic, like staring into a fire.

He turned to get a better look, reached out his hand.

I know, should I tell?

This time there was no hesitation.

'Yes.'

Come closer, then.

The Doctor walked over to the sphere. He felt so small next to it. He placed his eye over one of the pinholes, stared right into the heart of the TARDIS.

Time shifted.

129.

Interlude Intervention The Shoal.

The charts describe it simply as an asteroid plain clinging to 1 per cent of the galactic rim, but this gives no sense of its scale. It is about two thousand light years long, three hundred deep, thirty high. Or, to put it another way, it has about eighteen million times the volume of a typical solar system.

The asteroid density varies enormously from place to place, with some areas almost void, some a swirling ma.s.s of boulders and icebergs. The size of individual asteroids ranges from chips to worlds larger than Earth with their own rings and moons. There are nebulae, but they are gossamer, not the great stellar nurseries to be found in the galaxy itself. There are no suns here, but the Shoal is close enough to the galaxy for there to be light. A crisp night's sky on one side, a black void on the other.

Scientists rarely studied the Shoal, and hadn't given much thought to its origins either it was a remnant of the galaxy's formation, like the sh.e.l.ls of comets found around most solar systems, or it was bits of cosmic debris pulled here from intergalactic s.p.a.ce by the galaxy's gravity. There were more pressing matters to investigate than determining which was the oase.

The long-held a.s.sumption is that there is no life in the Shoal, and no reason for life to come here. The long-held a.s.sumption has recently been disproved.

Three craft emerge soundless from the Vortex.

They have arrived in one of the Concentrations, sunless parodies of solar systems. A particularly large body would attract clouds and belts of rock and ice into orbit around it, and the larger asteroids would coalesce to become moons and attract their own satellites in turn. These were inert places, with nothing like the energy or elements needed to ignite a new star. The orbits were weak, p.r.o.ne to disturbance. Rogue planets would drift in or out of the systems with little incentive to stay. There were many hundreds of thousands of such places in the Shoal, all unchartable, let alone uncharted.

The ships' chameleon circuits start kicking in, adopting battle configuration.

As they speed towards the second planet of the system they sprout long fins and weapons modules. The exact design is left to each ship, with one coming 131 to resemble a snowflake, another a simple pyramid, the third a more chimeri-cal, organic form. All are bone-white, perfectly smooth, with no portholes or vents. They adopt a loose formation, the flagship at the front, and start growing vworp drives and picking up speed. Navigation here is easy enough, although it occasionally requires suddenly changing course at a right angle, or barrelling evasive manoeuvres. The squadron pa.s.ses through the Concentration as effortlessly as fish negotiating a coral reef.

Their detector beams are already sweeping the system. One catches an outpost, a small colony in the outlying asteroid cloud. The squadron pitches up and round towards it, bringing its weapons to bear.

The asteroid bears distinctive marks needle-like towers of dirt, giving off a strong thermal signal. The squadron quickens its pace, taking advantage of some of the more obscure, unrepealed by-laws of physics, until it is travelling a little faster than lightspeed.

There is no way, then, that the asteroid could know what hits it. As they pa.s.s the three ships release pulses of white light, which shatter the spires, find fault lines in the rock, continue to pound away. A third of the asteroid breaks off under the bombardment, blown clear by the pulverising explosions. As one, the squadron swoops around and performs a second attack run, pa.s.sing through the light left behind by their first approach, reducing what remains of the asteroid to rubble.

The pilot of the flagship stands at his console, surrounded by two overlaid realities: amplified representations of the s.p.a.ce around the ship, and the control deck itself.

'Target destroyed, my lord,' one of the other ships is reporting.

'Reset detector beams, lock on to the next energy sign.'

The spoken command is a mere formality. The ships and their crews are already working together as one, doing just that. Command, communication and control all so fast that the ships outpacing their own photons seem almost too sluggish to respond.

'Aye.'

The squadron dives towards the next target, the outer planet.

There are small lakes of methane ice, and a rift valley system that probably marks out where a number of rocks jammed together to form the planet. The detectors are finding spires again, and there are even a few pinp.r.i.c.ks of light.

Below the surface the planetoid is squirming with mindless life.

The squadron breaks formation just above the surface, each ship independently seeking targets. Each one rains energy bolts down, felling the towers, 132 obliterating each source of light, darting to avoid the devastation before regrouping to cause some more. Then they pull away as one, forming up again.

Behind them, the planetoid explodes, the brightest light this area of s.p.a.ce has ever seen, the shock wave racing through the system and perturbing the delicate status quo.

The ships are already far away, locked on course for the central ma.s.s, the 'sun' of this Concentration, the axis around which everything turned. The main nest of the monsters. All three ships are scanning the planet, compiling data. There is nothing alive on the surface, but there are countless life forms under it. More than even they could count.

He had seen a dead cobblemouse once, turned it over to find it wasn't a mouse any longer, but a ma.s.s of maggots packing out the animal's pelt. That was what this planet was, a husk containing mindless, aggressive life forms who would make every planet in the galaxy like this if they weren't stopped.

There is an enormous energy trace coming from the planet.

'What is it?' he hears over the communications system. He has no idea.

Amplified, it looks like many hundreds of beams, coming from the surface and moving like searchlights through five dimensions.

'They're looking for us,' he concludes.

'Their technology is more advanced than we thought.'

'Should we take evasive action, my lord?'

'They can't harm us, even if they do see us.'

His ship is shuddering even as he finishes the sentence.

The lights in the control room flicker.

What is going on?

'Focus detector beam at the following point.'

A stream of numbers runs across his vision. He inputs the numbers, and his ship's detector beam swings to point deep under the planet's surface.

The amplified reality crashes for a moment, before rea.s.serting itself. There is an energy source down there, something so exotic the databanks are having trouble finding a match. It is large, and the 'searchlight beams' are radiating from it.

The ship is being tugged down.

'I'm trapped in one of the beams,' he shouts, in the hope that someone can hear him. But the communications links are all down, as far as he can tell.

'I'm losing power,' he reports. 'Attempting a landing on the surface. You regroup and take full scans of this area. Then activate cloaking devices, return to Home Constellation. The High Council will need to '

The planet is looming up in front of him.

133.

The ship crashes into the crust at several hundred times the speed of sound, then skips out of the impact crater, cartwheeling up and then crashing down through the loose gravel and dust of the surface, plummeting into a subterranean chamber. It quickly comes to rest.

The inside has barely shuddered, but the ship has been heavily damaged.

Lucky for him this is the latest model. Now all available energy is being channelled into the self-repair circuits and defences.

There isn't enough power left to operate the scanner.

It will still be possible to investigate the energy source, if he goes outside.

He heads to a number of storage lockers and removes items he thinks might be useful, like a torch and gloves.

After a little consideration he removes his robes and collar, deciding they would be too c.u.mbersome. The instruments have enough power left to tell him the atmosphere outside is breathable, then just enough to get the door open.

The thin air is hotter than he had expected, heavy with carbon dioxide.

He moves out of the TARDIS, torch in one hand, pistol in the other.

A blizzard of dust motes pa.s.ses through the torch beam. The light runs across the far wall of the rock chamber. This seems to be a natural formation, not part of a hive. There are no monsters here, not yet. His arrival has hardly been discreet, however, and they will be heading this way.

The ship had been pulled in by a beam from the energy source, but had come to rest several miles away from it. He soon finds himself in hollowed-out tubes in the rock, which are high enough to allow him to stand up.

The creatures have tunnelled these. Examining the rock, he finds marks and gouges made by insect jaws. There is a breeze, heading upwards. A ventilation system, he realises. The insects are warm-bodied. Their hives would become too hot and suffocating without some way of circulating the hot air out and fresh air in.

A leg lashes out towards him, embedding itself in the rock like a pickaxe.

He whirls round and finds himself staring into an insect's face. It hisses at him. Its breath smells like bleach, its mandibles are gnashing.

His pistol is already up at the creature's thorax. He fires, killing it in a burst of red light. It slumps right in front of him. Its foot is stuck firm in the rock.

He continues on his way, checking his wrist computer. It hadn't warned him about the monster. The warm air moving around, the exotic energy source and the sheer number of insects on the planet are all conspiring to jam his detector's effectiveness. No doubt he could have done something about that back in the TARDIS. Out here in the field, he'll have to rely on his own senses instead.

134.

These tunnels aren't populated. The monster he met must have been one of very few maintenance drones. The floor twists underfoot. The insects are able to walk up sheerer surfaces than he can. The gouges and teeth marks must make pretty good footholds for them.

He continues on his way, sticking to the ventilation tubes. He doesn't seem to have attracted any attention. This is not easy going. He is used to life in the Capitol, where the most treacherous surface is an age-worn step, each one of which is utterly familiar. His ankles and calves are already in a little pain from the effort.

There are insects scurrying around, all larger than he and despite his fears oblivious to his presence. As he enters a main pa.s.sageway it's like crossing a busy four-lane highway. Worse: the creatures are running in every direction, and swerve abruptly and without warning. They instinctively avoid each other. He has to creep around the edges, take advantages of random lulls to move forwards. He has an objective in sight now, a huge circular opening, like a tunnel mouth, with weird light pouring from it. It takes longer than he would credit to make his way through it.

He finds himself on a gantry, overlooking a shaft that must sink all the way to the core of the planet. He looks over the edge.

What he sees is literally indescribable. He tries: Then he tries to describe it by what it is not. It is not of this universe. It is not something made of, or existing in, s.p.a.ce or time. It has a shape, a size and a colour, but none are within his understanding. He can see it. Indeed, he can't miss it, although he can't tell if it's close, like a scar on his eye, or large, so that it more than fills the cathedral-sized chamber.

The textbooks refer to such phenomena as 'anomalies', or even just 'things'.

He decides not to look at it or think too hard about it.

Instead, he looks to see what else is here.

Along the gantry, around a hundred yards away, there is a young woman wearing a collarless scarlet jacket. Her blonde hair is loose, waist length. Her attention is taken by a large computer bank. She is working at it, entering a string of commands. It is impossible that she hasn't seen the thing, and she doesn't seem interested in looking at it now. She has then, he concludes, been working here a long time. She has managed this without being killed by the insects that are swarming around this planet, and indeed he now sees are thickly spread over the walls of the shaft. Every one of the monsters (there are literally millions of them) is staring straight down into the thing in the centre of the room. The strange non-light that pours from the anomaly glints off every one of their compound eyes. Lucky for him, it has their full attention.

The young woman leaves the chamber through a metal hatch. As she goes 135 she leaves a trail of ghosts, tiny echoes in time. The laws of time are being broken right in front of his eyes. Whatever is at the base of the shaft is twisting time and s.p.a.ce. He hurries over to the console, checks the instruments. The woman has just sent a signal to a set of coordinates. He runs the numbers into his wrist computer, but he can tell they describe a point near the centre of the galaxy, and he already has a sinking feeling in his hearts. Sure enough: GALLIFREY He moves around the control console. He cannot begin to work out its function. Is it monitoring the anomaly or sustaining it? Could it be controlled from here? The technology is far in advance of anything he has seen, and he is a Time Lord of Gallifrey his understanding was that no other race could match his. Yet these creatures and this woman were here, plotting whatever it was they were plotting against the Time Lords.

He aims his pistol at the computer and fires three times, reducing it to charred panels of metal and melting circuitry.

Immediately, there is a change in the sounds all around him. He has affected the anomaly somehow. The ground starts to shake.

Pursued by the monsters who come pouring out of the shaft, he runs back to his TARDIS. He holds his arm straight out behind him, firing and firing his pistol. There is no chance of a shot missing a creature; nor, though, does it slow the insects down or make any apparent difference to their numbers. It is a long way back to the ship, and by the time he reaches the right chamber boulders are crashing down from the ceiling.

He hurries inside, slams the door shut. Even if the power hasn't been restored yet, he ought to be able to sit out the explosion. A TARDIS is practically indestructible, after all. That said, he is delighted to find all the power indica-tors back at normal.

He throws the emergency dematerialisation control, and the TARDIS doesn't need telling twice. It powers away from the planet.

Moments later, the pressures in the core of the planet prove too much and the world explodes, hurling fragments out into the Shoal in every direction at nearly the speed of light. The energy released is, for the first time in this region of s.p.a.ce, equivalent to that of a star and it burns for several days.

136.