dangerous and sad but also disgusting.
A single narrow bridge, just wide enough for a car, spanned the distance from the meadows and fields of Jonestown’s farms to this other place delineated by the house. Mr Heidt was standing on the front steps.
He was definitely not the monster, or at least, not at the moment. He was short, barrel-chested and broad-shouldered, and he had a vast, bristling beard.
‘Ms de Souza,’ he said, very politely, and his voice was a deep, elegant bass, ‘a pleasure.’ He turned. ‘And you, Doctor. Thank you for coming.’
Somewhere beneath their feet, the world shrugged, just a little.
Pah pah POM.
He felt a twinge near one of his hearts, and knew the TARDIS was in real pain now. He looked at Heidt.
‘I tell you what,’ he said abruptly, ‘let’s toss a coin.’
Heidt peered up at him. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Let’s toss a coin. Not that I don’t appreciate the drama. Impossible village, impossible house, giant monster inside the TARDIS. It’s masterful. And I have a high standard of evil plots. When I use the word “masterful”, it means something. But if you want to be really different, let’s skip the banter and games of chess and ridiculous methods of execution and get right to it. You toss a coin, I’ll call. If I get it wrong, you win. I die, you leave everyone else alive, because – well, they’re not exactly Time Lords or Daleks, are they? They’re humans. Or nearly humans. They’re small potatoes and you know it. Everyone lives except me. Buuuuut If I get it right, you leave. Everyone lives, even you. No exterminations. No xenocide. Just peace. How about that?’
Not-Christina stared at him.
Heidt nodded slowly. ‘It’s a very good deal, Doctor. Unfortunately, I can’t take it.’
‘Of course you can.’
‘I really can’t. Because I didn’t ask you here to play cat and mouse. I need your help. If you don’t help me, I’ll die, the temporal mine will fulfil its function, and you and the TARDIS and quite a lot of time and space will cease to exist.’
‘But you are the mine!’
Heidt shook his head. ‘Not any more,’ he said.
*
Once upon a time, there was a terrifying weapon of high technology and fury. It was one of thousands. It was alive, after a fashion, given intelligence to make it more dangerous. It was adaptive, cunning, and hungry. It thought of itself as Son 11-21.
Son 11-21 was seeded in a remote part of time and space, the littoral plain of a rift, and there it waited and waited for its moment. Opportunities came and went, but they were wasteful, incomplete. It was programmed to optimize its impact, and these small chances were not enough. It was there to strike a decisive blow, to turn the tide of a battle, to immobilise a vital convoy, to capture a crucial messenger.
That was fine. Waiting was something it did well, part of its core identity. It settled into a tiny trapdoor universe spun off from the real one, and it waited.
And then suddenly it had waited too long.
The Time War ended, and was won, was lost. The little trapdoor universe was sucked along with everything else into the lock.
But the enemy was not contained. There were loopholes: fabulously arcane and difficult to create, dangerous to the greater fabric of existence in ways which were painful to think about, but they were possible – just. They could be forced, if one were mad enough, dedicated enough. In consequence, these eruptions when they did happen were always the action of the worst or the best, always the consequence of schemes whose scope and ambition were dauntingly vast. Arks; helix tunnels; alternate realities and paradox engines: the lock was incomplete.
That was intolerable. Son 11-21 watched single entities whisper away into the originating universe. And realised it could follow.
Its position was unique. Creating its trapdoor universe where it had done, it had woven rift energies into the web, and those energies had made the trapdoor less
A single narrow bridge, just wide enough for a car, spanned the distance from the meadows and fields of Jonestown’s farms to this other place delineated by the house. Mr Heidt was standing on the front steps.
He was definitely not the monster, or at least, not at the moment. He was short, barrel-chested and broad-shouldered, and he had a vast, bristling beard.
‘Ms de Souza,’ he said, very politely, and his voice was a deep, elegant bass, ‘a pleasure.’ He turned. ‘And you, Doctor. Thank you for coming.’
Somewhere beneath their feet, the world shrugged, just a little.
Pah pah POM.
He felt a twinge near one of his hearts, and knew the TARDIS was in real pain now. He looked at Heidt.
‘I tell you what,’ he said abruptly, ‘let’s toss a coin.’
Heidt peered up at him. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Let’s toss a coin. Not that I don’t appreciate the drama. Impossible village, impossible house, giant monster inside the TARDIS. It’s masterful. And I have a high standard of evil plots. When I use the word “masterful”, it means something. But if you want to be really different, let’s skip the banter and games of chess and ridiculous methods of execution and get right to it. You toss a coin, I’ll call. If I get it wrong, you win. I die, you leave everyone else alive, because – well, they’re not exactly Time Lords or Daleks, are they? They’re humans. Or nearly humans. They’re small potatoes and you know it. Everyone lives except me. Buuuuut If I get it right, you leave. Everyone lives, even you. No exterminations. No xenocide. Just peace. How about that?’
Not-Christina stared at him.
Heidt nodded slowly. ‘It’s a very good deal, Doctor. Unfortunately, I can’t take it.’
‘Of course you can.’
‘I really can’t. Because I didn’t ask you here to play cat and mouse. I need your help. If you don’t help me, I’ll die, the temporal mine will fulfil its function, and you and the TARDIS and quite a lot of time and space will cease to exist.’
‘But you are the mine!’
Heidt shook his head. ‘Not any more,’ he said.
*
Once upon a time, there was a terrifying weapon of high technology and fury. It was one of thousands. It was alive, after a fashion, given intelligence to make it more dangerous. It was adaptive, cunning, and hungry. It thought of itself as Son 11-21.
Son 11-21 was seeded in a remote part of time and space, the littoral plain of a rift, and there it waited and waited for its moment. Opportunities came and went, but they were wasteful, incomplete. It was programmed to optimize its impact, and these small chances were not enough. It was there to strike a decisive blow, to turn the tide of a battle, to immobilise a vital convoy, to capture a crucial messenger.
That was fine. Waiting was something it did well, part of its core identity. It settled into a tiny trapdoor universe spun off from the real one, and it waited.
And then suddenly it had waited too long.
The Time War ended, and was won, was lost. The little trapdoor universe was sucked along with everything else into the lock.
But the enemy was not contained. There were loopholes: fabulously arcane and difficult to create, dangerous to the greater fabric of existence in ways which were painful to think about, but they were possible – just. They could be forced, if one were mad enough, dedicated enough. In consequence, these eruptions when they did happen were always the action of the worst or the best, always the consequence of schemes whose scope and ambition were dauntingly vast. Arks; helix tunnels; alternate realities and paradox engines: the lock was incomplete.
That was intolerable. Son 11-21 watched single entities whisper away into the originating universe. And realised it could follow.
Its position was unique. Creating its trapdoor universe where it had done, it had woven rift energies into the web, and those energies had made the trapdoor less
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