Dr. Who Target 082 Mawdryn Undead # Peter Grimwade

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regenerator. So, too, were the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan.
‘You will activate the energy transfer, Brigadier,’
instructed Mawdryn. ‘It will take several seconds for the
charge in the machine to build up. You will read off the
countdown to the moment of exchange.’
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart nodded grimly. Tegan
and Nyssa glanced nervously at each other.
‘Do not be afraid,’ said the mutant wired up beside
them. ‘When the moment comes we will all share in the
life-force of the Doctor.’
‘Our mutation will end,’ said another, his eyes shining
with expectation.’
‘And you will no longer be contaminated.’
‘And the Doctor won’t be a Time Lord any more,’ said
Nyssa guiltily.
The Doctor, electrodes festooned round his head, stared
stoically ahead.
‘My brothers in exile.’ Mawdryn’s voice shook with
emotion. ‘We approach the ending!’ He pointed to the
master control. ‘Activate, Brigadier!’
There was a low whine as the power began to surge
within the regenerator.
‘Twenty seconds,’ announced Brigadier Lethbridge-
Stewart.
‘Brigadier!’ shouted Turlough, running wildly down the
corridor. Somehow he had missed the other man. He felt
the fury of the Black Guardian possess him.
‘So near the supreme moment!’ The voice, thundering
in his brain, seemed to vibrate the whole ship. ‘The
Brigadiers must not converge. Find him! Find the
Brigadier at once!’
The younger Brigadier was intrigued by the strange sound
coming from the narrow side-passage. ‘Brigadier!’
Someone was racing towards him down the main
corridor. Turlough again! He would deal with that young
man later. For the moment, there was something very
strange going on in the brightly lit room at the end of the
passageway.
‘Ten, nine, eight...’
He could hear a voice, curiously familiar, but difficult to
place.
‘Brigadier!’ Turlough had almost caught up.
‘Stop him!’ howled the Black Guardian, ‘or I shall
destroy you all!’
‘Seven,, six...’
‘Brigadier, come back!’ Turlough grabbed the arm of
the man in the blazer, but was pushed roughly aside.
The Brigadier from 1977 entered the laboratory.
‘Five, four...’ The Brigadier from 1983 read off the final
countdown.
The intruder was momentarily hypnotised by the
spectacle of eight mutants, conjoined in a ganglion of tubes
and wires. Then he caught sight of a young man in a frock-
coat, also connected to the apparatus. ‘What the devil...!’
‘Three...’
The newcomer took a step forward, and, to his disgust
and horror, saw Tegan and Nyssa lashed to the same
devilish torture machine.
‘Two...’
‘Brigadier, get out of here!’ yelled the young man. The
Brigadier took no notice, but advanced towards the swine
at the controls.
‘One second...’
‘What do you think you’re doing!’
The operator turned.
For a moment time stood still. Brigadier stared at
Brigadier, then, as their hands touched, there was a
blinding flash and a tremendous explosion.
8
All Present and Correct
Turlough ran and ran and ran, as if perpetual movement
would keep the vengeance of the Black Guardian from
him.
He finally stopped from sheer exhaustion, feeling
strangely light-headed. He took out the cube; it was
cracked. Was this all part of the Blinovitch Limitation
Effect? Could he even be... free?
Turlough set off, purposefully, in the direction of the
TARDIS.
Tegan and Nyssa regained consciousness as the smoke was
clearing in the laboratory. They opened their eyes to see
the Doctor unwiring them from the regenerator.
‘What happened?’ murmured Tegan.
‘An immense discharge of energy as the two Brigadiers
came together, exactly synchronising with the moment of
transfer.’ The Doctor walked over to examine the body of a
man in a blue blazer, lying beside the regenerator.
‘Is the Brigadier dead?’
‘No,’ said the Doctor, in the certain knowledge that the
unconscious Lethbridge-Stewart had at least another six
years of life ahead of him. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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