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with overlapping visions of only two possible futures: holocaust
or survival. It was rare to be given such a clear-cut choice; the
range of possible tomorrows was usually endless, with the least
probable versions being the most difficult to perceive which
made Biroc s achievement as he d lain in the shackles on the
privateer s bridge even more remarkable... As the Doctor had
only just realised, Biroc had managed to glimpse as a unity the
events that would follow if the privateer and the TARDIS were
to be brought together at the gateway. There had been no
randomness in his actions, and no indecision in his failures to
act. When Biroc watched and did nothing, it was because he
already knew what was ahead. As a piece of complex
visualisation, it was bound to become a Tharil legend; it wasn t
for nothing they called Biroc their leader.
Now even the older Tharils were shaking off the effects of
the drugs and coming round. All were fit and clear-headed the
slavers had picked only the best as they d walked in their armour
and respirators across the alien plain as the nerve gases drifted
around them. The last Tharil slipped into safety as the build-up
in the warp motors reached overload; they exploded.
Adric watched the instruments on the TARDIS console,
searching in them for clues on what might be happening
outside. He saw masses move and change, energies flow, bursts
of radiation; he observed the consequences of Rorvik s
bullheaded and uninformed decision. It was much more than a
simple back-blast; it was the total collapse of the small universe
that had been formed in the void.
They d known that it was unstable, that the masses of the
privateer and the gateway and the TARDIS had been drawing
themselves together towards an eventual collapse. Even the
privateer s computer had sensed the compression of mass that
had made the ship measurably smaller, but Rorvik wasn t in the
habit of paying much attention to his computer. Nor had he
paid any attention to the even clearer signals that he should have
picked up when the distance from the gateway to the privateer
appeared to diminish each time it was crossed; Rorvik s habit
was to go for what he wanted, and let others clean themselves off
as he passed.
Matter is only energy locked down tight; energy is matter set
free. As the privateer s warp motors released vast amounts of
energy to be bounced back into the void, the collapse began to
accelerate.
So far the TARDIS was holding, but only just. Adric was
hanging on as long as he dared, but now he had to force himself
to admit it: the Doctor and Romana were somewhere out there,
unprotected in the middle of the destruction. They didn t have a
chance, and he would have to dematerialise before it was too
late.
K9 couldn t help him. The robot s charging line had been
linked to a wall socket, but, apart from a weak glow of his
operational lights to indicate that power was making its way
through, there had been no response from him.
Adric looked again at the console read-outs. The matter of
the void was being squeezed down a whirlpool. From the
impromptu temporal mechanics lectures that the Doctor often
gave usually at the least appropriate times Adric knew that
reality, though infinitely flexible, was ultimately indestructible.
The privateer would be spewed out somewhere, mangled and
vapourised and beyond recognition.
He just didn t have the choice. With a hand that somehow
wasn t as steady as he might wish, he activated the
dematerialisation control and felt the TARDIS beginning to slide
away from danger.
He felt like a coward, running from the battle where his best
friends had died. Perhaps one day he d understand the
pointlessness of dying alongside them; but that day was far away.
The control room was suddenly flooded with a blinding
light, so bright that he had to cover his eyes before he d had a
chance to see why. But he knew why; the doors were opening
again.
Adric managed to peep out between his fingers. Everything
outside was moving with dragging slowness, a sign that the
TARDIS was still in transit; it seemed that the void itself was on
fire, and pieces of the slaver ship were aflame as they were
blasted around. Even the huge stones of the gateway castle were
burning, and one of the great wooden doors went spinning by
and narrowly missed slamming its way through into the control
room.
And then Adric forgot the pain of the light and emerged
from behind the console. He d seen that the Doctor and Romana
were running for the TARDIS.
Their hands were linked with Biroc s, and he was holding
them out of phase as they rode out the worst of the explosion. It
was no easy run; the whirlpool forces dragged at them and for
some of the way they were actually losing more ground than
they made. It was Biroc s strength that decided the matter, for
when the Doctor was momentarily lifted off his feet and drawn
back, it was Biroc who stood his ground and anchored him.
The second gateway door passed overhead, an airborne raft
of fire. The three of them ducked before making the effort to
sprint the final distance to the waiting TARDIS.
Biroc didn t cross the threshold; he handed the Doctor and
Romana in, and then they parted. They quickly began to
stabilise as the doors closed behind them.
Screen! the Doctor called to a delighted Adric as they lost
their view of the disintegrating world outside. He held his
shouder as he and Romana moved across to the console; for
some of the distance he d bobbed like a puppet with only Biroc s
iron grip on his wrist to keep him down. His arm would ache for
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