Chapter Text
“I’m not sure exactly what killed this man, Castellan,” said Surgeon General Gomer, “but it wasn’t a staser bolt.”
“Well, it certainly looks like the result of a staser bolt,” Kelner replied.
“I was unaware you were a medical man, you vulgar little yoik.” Gomer gave the Co-ordinator a glance of pure contempt. “I was talking to the organ-grinder, anyway, not his trained tafelshrew.”
“So what did kill him?” Spandrell asked, trying to ignore Kelner’s expression of barely-contained rage.
They were standing in the dimly-lit crypt far beneath the Panopticon, where Time Lords were laid out for the funerary rites. Gilbas’s mortal remains had been filed away in the public necropolis for later recycling; what was left of Jelpax, by contrast, had been reverently placed here upon a basalt slab, ready for the Surgeon General’s attention.
“That’s an excellent question,” Gomer noted, bending over the blackened corpse in his long yellow gown. “It does closely resemble a staser death,” he conceded, with another deliberate glance in Kelner’s direction, “to somebody with no medical knowledge, but a full examination shows no burn-mark where the bolt could have entered the body, which when taken with the apparent lack of zygma particles detected at the scene pretty much rules stasers out entirely. Plus, when you’ve seen a staser death before, as we both have Castellan, and know what to look for, this really isn’t all that similar.”
“I’ll take your expert opinion on that, my Lord,” Spandrell assured him.
Gomer frowned in thought as he continued: “As far as I can see, Academician Jelpax died after entering a regenerative state, which was then aborted before his mind and body could reconstruct themselves. Very unpleasant indeed. I’ve seen something like this once before; old Lord Salagon who died of Spincex Syndrome, a very rare and incurable condition caused by a biodata defect. This is something similar to that. Not exactly the same, but similar.”
“And would this account for the fact that his mind print was not uploaded to the APC Net after death?” Spandrell asked.
Gomer nodded. “I would say so. The APC Net would automatically reject corrupted biodata in order to avoid infecting the whole Matrix.”
Spandrell thought about that very carefully.
I deal in biodata, you see…
“And how would this have been done to the victim?” he asked.
“Some sort of tailor-made biodata virus,” Gomer answered. “You could inject it, or maybe even introduce it in food or drink. No way of verifying that, unfortunately; any injection marks or stomach contents were destroyed when the body broke down. And it might not show up on any other tests, because a real biodata expert could set it to erase itself from the timeline once its work was done. If you’re willing to commit murder, why stint on creating a little paradox while you’re at it?”
I deal in biodata…
“Thank you, Surgeon General,” said Spandrell. “That will be all.”
“Good luck, Castellan,” Gomer replied. “This was…it wasn’t just murder. There isn’t a word for what this is. Whoever did this didn’t just want to kill Jelpax, they wanted to destroy him utterly, to destroy everything he was and had been, everything he knew. This monster needs to be caught.”
“He already has been,” Kelner said bitterly when Gomer had left. “And nobody speaks to me like that, Surgeon General or not.”
Spandrell looked at him. “You mean the Shobogan Gilbas?”
“It was a staser,” Kelner insisted, glancing at Jelpax’s corpse as the mortuary attendants came to minister to it. “You only need to look at it to see that, whatever nonsense Gomer may invent.”
“He is the Surgeon General, Co-ordinator.”
“It was the Shobogan,” said Kelner, “and I said as much to the Lord Chancellor.”
“You did what?” Spandrell was as stunned as he had been when Gilbas punched him.
“He called asking for an update while you were running around Low Town. I told him we had the murderer in hand.”
“You had no authority to do that,” Spandrell told him. “What were you thinking?”
“In some ways it is the simplest solution,” said Kelner, “as well as being the right one.” Spandrell could not tell whether he believed what he was saying or not. He was only just starting to understand Kelner fully. The man would do or say whatever was best for Kelner, without compunction.
“We will have a very long conversation in the next timeband,” Spandrell decided, unsmilingly. “And when we have had it, you may wish to reconsider your career options, Co-ordinator.”
Kelner’s face fell, his natural cowardice and sense of self-preservation asserting themselves: “Castellan, please, I meant no…”
“Later, Kelner. Now I need to report to the Lord Chancellor myself. According to the last PR bulletin, half of Low Town is currently in flames. The Guards had to repel an attempt by rioters to breach the Arcadian Gate! Who knows, though; Lord Borusa may even agree with your theory. He likes to keep things simple.”
* * *
Borusa finished reading Spandrell’s report and carefully closed his computer terminal. He got up to look out of the window just as he had at their last meeting, remaining silent for what seemed an age before finally speaking:
“So you disagree with Co-ordinator Kelner as to the most likely culprit for Jelpax’s murder?”
“I do, my Lord.” Spandrell remained where he was, standing on the other side of the Chancellor’s desk.
“Co-ordinator Kelner is…very efficient, isn’t he?” Borusa observed.
“I have heard him called that, my Lord.”
Borusa turned to face him. “Hedin?” He sounded as if he were having some trouble believing it.
Spandrell decided that, as far as this case was concerned, the time for diplomacy was past: “I believe that Academician Hedin murdered Academician Jelpax, yes sir.”
Borusa considered that statement before replying. He did not appear to be enjoying the idea. “As I used to say when debating with my acolytes, you may well believe it but where is your evidence?”
“I have the clothing decoration recovered from the man Gilbas; it matches the ones I saw on Academician Hedin’s gown. Gilbas must have picked it up at the murder scene.”
“Not necessarily,” Borusa countered. “He worked in the Academy gardens; Hedin passes through there every day. He could have lost the item in question at any time. He could even have lost it in Jelpax’s rooms before the murder took place; they were colleagues, after all.”
“I also have the Surgeon General’s report stating that Academician Jelpax’s murderer must have been an expert in biodata applications.”
“And so are half the scientists in the Academy,” was Borusa's riposte.
“It’s enough evidence for you to order Academician Hedin be put to the Mind Probe,” Spandrell said. “There is legal precedent; I can cite cases if necessary.”
“The Mind Probe?” Borusa slowly returned to his seat and sat down heavily. “I don’t think you quite realise, Castellan, how serious a suggestion that is.”
Spandrell knew perfectly well how serious it was. “If more proof is needed, there is the fact that Academician Hedin lied to me in an official statement. He stated that he had received a call from Jelpax before his death asking him to come to his rooms, but we can prove that Jelpax made no such call.”
Borusa’s forehead furrowed unhappily. “And why would a brilliant scholar like Hedin, having decided to murder his colleague and presumably put considerable planning into it…why would he engage in such an easily disproven lie? Whatever else he may be, he certainly isn’t stupid.”
“Arrogance?” Spandrell suggested. “Fear? Loss of composure? He has almost certainly never committed a murder before, after all. Underestimation of our investigative abilities or ignorance of our forensic techniques? These are quite specialised fields and also ones that many Academicians would consider unworthy of their time and effort. Perhaps he has the self-confidence to lie to my face because he believes my office would never be allowed to prosecute such a highly-regarded Academician and Prydonian.” Spandrell took a deep breath: “Is that in fact what is happening here, my Lord?”
“Don’t test me, Castellan,” Borusa warned him. “What I said about Gallifrey needing you, I meant that, but nobody is indispensable.”
Nobody except you, evidently.
“You also said that you wanted me to cause trouble,” Spandrell reminded him.
Borusa gave a bitter laugh. “I did, rather unwisely with hindsight, and you certainly have excelled yourself.”
Spandrell tried a different approach: “You told me that it would be to your advantage to be seen antagonising your own Chapter, that it would disarm your enemies on the High Council. Hedin is a Prydonian.”
“Yes,” Borusa allowed, “but when I said that I was talking about having a public spat with that dolt Zorac, which I have now had. And it has indeed bought me some more time. However, putting a highly-respected and well-connected Academician to the Mind Probe… It wouldn’t matter what Chapter he is from, it would unite the whole Council against me, and against you too. Whatever his indiscretions in his youth, Hedin is a renowned man of learning, widely spoken of as future Councillor material. There are some things that the noble Lords and Ladies simply will not stand for. Not until I’m a sight more secure in my office, anyway.” He frowned again. “Kelner’s a lickspittle, but he did get one thing right. It would be, as he told you, much simpler if the Shobogan had done it. He’s already dead for one thing, and he was…well, a Shobogan.”
“My Lord,” said Spandrell, “Low Town is burning as we speak. If my office blames a Shobogan for this murder, one who was killed by the Chancellery Guard, it is only going to exacerbate that situation…”
“Whereas the High Council and the Chapters would be willing to accept it without question. It is the kind of thing they are inclined to believe Shobogans do. It would just be a senseless tragedy with no sinister implications or political dimension.” Borusa adopted a more conciliatory tone: “Castellan, the Shobogans are going to riot whatever happens, until I manage to sort out the accommodation problem and food shortages. And that isn’t going to happen if the Arcalians manage to oust me by getting a Scendle elected Lord President. If the Council can be persuaded a Shobogan was the culprit, they might even be persuaded to vote through an authorisation for you to recruit more Guards. Appeals to law and order always win them over.”
“My Lord Chancellor-elect,” said Spandrell, very precisely. “I want to be very clear about this. Are you ordering me to discontinue the investigation of Academician Hedin?”
Borusa actually smiled. “Of course not, Castellan. I would never give such an order. I know you are a man of integrity…and yet also a man of wisdom. I find the two do not go together as often as one might imagine. You will do what is best for Gallifrey, I am sure, whatever orders I may or may not issue.”
Spandrell found himself unable to suppress a weary sigh, even as he inclined his head in acknowledgment: “I see, my Lord.”
“As to the investigation,” Borusa went on, “I’m not telling you it can’t continue. One day, when the political climate is more favourable, it may be that new evidence comes to light, that a grave miscarriage of justice can finally be overturned. Do you understand?”
“I think I do, my Lord.”
“Have you ever tried to catch a gumblejack, Castellan? You can’t just reel them in, you have to give them their head, play them a while. So it is with criminals like Hedin. I did manage to get a glimpse at those sealed High Council records you mentioned. No detail, unfortunately, but it seems that you were correct. Academicians Jelpax and Hedin’s expedition to the Death Zone was indeed sponsored by the Intervention Agency. Criminal justice aside, I would very much like to know why. Wouldn’t you?”
Spandrell remained noncommittal: “I confine myself to criminal justice, my Lord.”
“It goes towards motive,” Borusa insisted. “Maybe you can prove Hedin killed his colleague of many years, but why did he do it? You can’t tell me that, can you?”
“Professional rivalry?” Spandrell speculated.
“If that were grounds for murder,” Borusa retorted, “the Academies and the Capitol would be littered with corpses. I don’t know about you, but the way Jelpax’s computer files were so thoroughly destroyed, the fact that a murder weapon was used that would be sure to prevent his knowledge from uploading to the Matrix after death… I have a feeling this murder was motivated by something he knew, something somebody – the Interventionists, perhaps? – needed suppressed.”
“I think you may be right, my Lord,” Spandrell agreed. “And I think that knowledge may have been something he learned in the Death Zone.”
“And of course, if I could demonstrate to the Interventionists that I had incontestable evidence of their culpability in such a serious crime, then they might find it very hard to deny me anything I asked of them.” Borusa seemed pleased by this notion.
Spandrell held his tongue. So that is why you’re really interested in Hedin’s motive, my Lord.
“Then we are agreed,” Borusa announced, contentedly. “I will expect an official announcement of the Shobogan’s responsibility for the Jelpax murder to be promulgated in the next timeband.”
“His name was Gilbas,” Spandrell said.
“Of course it was. And then, Castellan, go and find out what really happened and why. Serve me up Hedin, and the Intervention Agency too if you can. Serve them up to me on a silver paten and you can have a place at the feast as well.”
“My Lord.” Spandrell bowed and hastily retreated from Borusa’s presence. He did not trust himself to keep his composure or his temper a moment longer.
He was still standing in the antechamber, watching the flickering red glow over Low Town from the windows and trying to swallow his rage and disgust, when his comm-ring buzzed unexpectedly. He groaned, expecting it to be Kelner, but a quite different face appeared upon the screen when he activated it.
“My Lord Castellan,” said the Lady Romanadvoratrelundar, anxiously. “I got your comm co-ordinates from the Capitol directory. I can’t explain why, but I need you to meet me in Low Town at once.”
* * *
There were even Guards at the Low Postern. All gates were still in lockdown, and since the rioting had begun all sentry details had been doubled. There were at least twenty men in red, armoured and armed with staser rifles, standing watch as Spandrell approached. Even with the rough labourer’s clothing he had obtained before venturing out tonight, their leader recognised him at once.
“Castellan, we’re not letting anybody in or out. It’s madness out there.”
“I am well aware of that,” he replied. “I am on official business. Stand aside and I’ll take my chances.”
The man hesitated: “Castellan…”
“That was an order, Guard leader. Stand aside!”
The Guards obeyed, but the way they looked at him as he passed out of the gate and into the Outland suggested that they thought he had lost his mind. He was not even completely sure that they were wrong. He had no idea how, or why, Romanadvoratrelundar had managed to get out of the Citadel under current conditions, and he had no idea whether he would manage to find her and return alive, but there had been something about her tone, her worried expression. He knew that she must have had a very good reason for calling him, one relevant to the truth behind Jelpax’s death. The chances of him refusing her summons had been precisely nil.
Fortunately, the main disturbances were concentrated in the entertainments district, some distance from the location the Time Lady had specified. Even Low Town had a less affluent quarter, where the houses were little better than plank shacks scattered along a series of dirt tracks, about as far from the Citadel as it was possible to get without straying into the Dry-Lands proper. It was a long walk, but he saw few people given the excitement on the other side of town. The ones who did encounter him on his journey seemed thoroughly convinced by his disguise.
Eventually, he came to it; a shack just like the others, faint lamplight shining dimly through the gaps between its boards. Hardly the sort of place he ever would have imagined finding somebody like the Lady Romanadvoratrelundar. He cautiously drew his staser and faced the rough door for a moment before knocking. Three times, a pause, and then twice, just as she had instructed.
The door opened a crack. “Castellan?” He saw one of her eyes, half her face, and lowered his weapon. She confirmed that it was him and then opened the door wide, all but bundling him inside and then bolting it firmly behind him.
The shack’s cramped interior was scarcely more prepossessing than its exterior. There had been some effort made to render it homely; a rustic rug thrown on the packed dirt floor, a pile of furs and blankets in one corner to serve as a bed, four plain chairs arranged around a simple table where a bottle of wine and some cups stood ready for use. The lamp hung from a hook mounted on one of the low roof beams, its wick sputtering as the door opened and closed, making their shadows leap and dance wildly across the wooden walls. Opposite the entrance, above the makeshift bed, there was a wall-mounted cupboard, its doors closed.
“My Lady,” said Spandrell, “what are you doing here? It isn’t safe out tonight. How did you even get out of the Citadel? Even the Low Postern is guarded.”
“The Low Postern is just the way out people like you know about,” she replied. “You’d be surprised at some of the things acolytes know that you don’t.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” he agreed. He looked around again at the furniture, the bed, the wine.
“And in any case I’m a lot more resourceful than you might think,” she claimed.
There was something about her, he thought, that suggested this was also likely the case. “What is this place?”
“What does it look like?” She was not wearing any cosmetics, and was wearing not a fine gown but instead a ragged dress secured with a rope belt, rough-hewn wooden clogs upon her feet. Her hair hung in an unfussy braid rather than being arranged in some elaborate coiffure. If he had been somebody who noticed such things, he would have conceded that she did not look any less beautiful than she had in her finery. “Jelpax kept this place,” she said. “He liked to get out of the Academy, out of the Citadel, sometimes. He could meet here with his friends, away from prying eyes and gossip. Friends from the inside…and friends from the Outside too.”
“These friends he supposedly didn’t have,” Spandrell observed.
She gave him a sardonic half-smile: “Exactly. Jelpax was a man with a lot of secrets. A brilliant one too.”
“Did he work for the Intervention Agency?” Spandrell decided to throw the question at her, hoping it would throw her off balance. If it did, she showed no sign.
“I don’t know,” she said, “but if he did, I don’t think I’d be in the least bit surprised. That’s the sort of man he was.” When she spoke of the dead man without the guardedness she had affected during their earlier interview, she seemed almost in awe of him, or certainly full of affection. There was a light in her eyes that conveyed more than her words could.
“And you were one of his friends,” he said. It was not a question. He did indeed know exactly what sort of place this was. He looked at the bed yet again, at the wine. “Why did you ask me to come here?”
“Castellan,” she said as she sat on one of the chairs around the table, “I need to explain something to you first.”
He seated himself opposite her, placed the staser very carefully upon the table between them with the grip towards him. “What, that you lied to me about your movements leading to the discovery of Jelpax’s body?”
She did not answer the question directly, instead staring at the lamp for a moment and then beginning to speak. Now, he heard a sadness in her tone: “You’ve been in office so long you don’t remember what it’s like, in the Academy, in the Houses. It’s why Jelpax needed a place like this. And for somebody my age, it’s even worse. The competitiveness between the newly graduated acolytes; by itself, a triple First isn’t enough to get ahead, not the way people watch each other for weakness. All of that spite and envy; any whiff of scandal …”
“I would think that finding a murdered Academician within the bounds of the Academy would be quite scandalous enough,” Spandrell answered, “without making yourself a suspect by giving false evidence to my office.”
Romanadvoratrelundar arched one eyebrow, still perfectly shaped even without makeup. “A suspect? Now really…”
Spandrell shrugged. “What other conclusion am I to draw from your conduct? You were in close proximity to the victim both before and after his death. You were clearly involved in some form of…irregular relationship with him…”
“Castellan, I think that you have a wholly erroneous conception of my relationship with Academician Jelpax.”
“No doubt I do, my lady. As I said to you before, my duties rarely bring me into professional contact with the more elevated social strata. Nevertheless, you were taking wine with him in his private study shortly before his murder, a fact which you concealed from me when I interviewed you at the scene.”
“And how do you know that?” she asked, frowning, curious in spite of herself.
“The glass fragments on the study floor,” he replied. “One retained a pink waxy residue. The same exact shade as your lips were painted earlier today, unless I am very much mistaken.”
“Oh.” She actually smiled unreservedly at that, seeming to relax somehow. “For a moment, I thought you’d done something clever, but it was just simple observation and deduction. They teach you that in the first decade at Prydon.”
“I’m sure they teach you all kinds of things,” said Spandrell. “Now, will you tell me what you really did before you found Academician Jelpax’s body?”
She became very serious again, lowering her eyes as she looked somewhere deep inside herself. “You’re right, Castellan. Jelpax…while I was helping him with his research before I graduated, we became…we became very close. Very close friends. I…I used to visit him regularly, either in his rooms, or more often out here. We’d drink wine and talk. That’s all. That’s what we were doing at the Annexe before he died.”
Drink wine and talk. Spandrell thought of the pair of gloves discarded beside the wine decanter in the study, about the bare hand Romanadvoratrelundar had tried to conceal in their earlier interview. You bared yourselves to each other. Bared your flesh, your minds… He found his attention drawn back to the bed, imagining bodies entwined there, warm lamplight on skin…
“And how did Academician Jelpax seem the last time you met?” he asked, managing to force himself back into an investigator’s mind-set. “Did he seem worried?”
“Yes.” She nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Yes, he did now that you mention it. He was talking to me but not really listening, and that wasn’t how he normally was. He was usually a very attentive host. His eyes kept wandering to the chronometer or to his comm-ring. I think he was expecting something to happen; a message, or maybe a visitor.”
“Did he mention anything he was working on? The archaeological expedition he had recently taken part in, for instance?”
She shook her head adamantly. “The last thing Jelpax ever wanted to talk about when he was socialising was his current work. We were there to forget our cares, not wallow in them.”
“And did you witness his death?” Spandrell asked, bluntly.
“N-no.” He heard the crack in her voice. “No. At…oh, just before five point nine, he suddenly said that he had some work that required his urgent attention, but that we should meet later. He more or less pushed me out of the door, but he was very clear; he was going to be out here tonight, and I should come and meet with him, that we would finish our conversation then.”
“Did you leave the Annexe?”
“Yes.”
“Then how did you come to find his body?”
She gave a rueful shrug. “I saw you looking at me before,” she said. “I didn’t do a very good job, did I, of hiding the fact I’d lost my glove?”
Spandrell allowed himself a thin smile. “No, you didn’t.”
“I’d…” She squirmed. “I’d taken it off, when we were…talking…and he rushed me out of the room so quickly that I was halfway to the transmat booths before I realised I didn’t have it. So I went back to get it. It had only been a few increments, after all. But when I…” She breathed deeply, falling silent for a few moments as the memory came back to her. He saw her eyes glistening in the lamplight. “Well, the rest is exactly as I told you before. I didn’t lie about any of that.”
Spandrell felt a strange sense of relief and disappointment combined. He had not wanted to think that she had played a role in the killing, even when he’d realised she was lying to him. “So, you have no idea who killed Jelpax or why?”
“No,” she admitted. “I wish I did. It wasn’t really the Shobogan everyone in the Capitol is saying did it, was it?”
“No,” he replied. “No, it was not.”
“So yes, I lied to you, Castellan,” she concluded, “but only because I was worried that my…my friendship with Jelpax would come to light, and be thought of as improper. I have a certain…that is, there’s a certain image and reputation one has to maintain. It was cowardly of me, I suppose.”
“Not at all,” he said. “I understand why you did it. You’re absolutely right about the Citadel, the Chapters. Do you know what a carrion-bush is, my Lady?”
She frowned. “No.”
“Well, the Citadel is overgrown with them.”
Romanadvoratrelundar suddenly rose from the table, her expression very grave. “As to why I came out here tonight, well, there was something about the way Jelpax spoke to me when I left him. I knew he was hiding something, but the way he insisted that I should come here, it was obviously very important to him. He was counting on me to do it. I think now that whatever he said about meeting me here, really he knew he didn’t have long left. I thought he wanted me to find something…and when I finally managed to get past your Guards and arrived here this evening, I did.”
Spandrell resisted the automatic impulse to remind her that they were, strictly speaking, not his Guards. Instead he watched as she crossed to the cupboard on the far wall and threw its doors open. Inside was a small collection of the same sorts of antique storage media and electronic devices as had been on display in Jelpax’s study, as well as a small desktop transmat unit.
…the desktop transmat had been activated at some point shortly before being destroyed…
Spandrell rose too, quickly moving over to see the device in more detail. It was the twin of the one that had stood on Jelpax’s desk, except intact. And lying upon its circular pad was a finely tailored leather glove, shimmering white in colour.
“I couldn’t find it anywhere,” Romanadvoratrelundar almost whispered. “He sent it to me here. And look!” She pointed to a slight bulge in the palm of the glove. “There’s something inside it.”
Almost quivering with apprehension, she picked up the glove and poured its contents out into her palm. A long, plain silver chain spilled out first, then something like a twisted wreath fashioned from a tangle of bright, hair-thin metal filaments, a shining brilliance hanging suspended at its centre.
“He sent it back to me,” she murmured, looking down at the exquisitely crafted pendant in her hand. Her voice wavered: “Oh, Jelpax…”
Spandrell could picture it now, the way it must have happened. Whatever it was Jelpax had learned in the Death Zone, he had known he was a marked man. He’d sent his pupil (his lover?) out of harm’s way, and then destroyed his files and the dangerous knowledge with them, even hammering his computer to smithereens with the statuette to be doubly sure. And then his good colleague Hedin had arrived on his mission of death, perhaps on Intervention Agency orders, perhaps on his own account.
Why transmat the glove, though, with the pendant inside? He had got rid of the glove, perhaps, to conceal that the Time Lady had ever been in his rooms, to shield her from the same fate as himself. Spandrell could see the rationale behind that. And the pendant was a token of affection, sent purely out of sentiment. Or…?
“There’s something wrong with it,” Romanadvoratrelundar said, balancing the trinket in her hand. “It’s too light.” She breathed upon it and it drifted almost weightlessly off her palm, eventually coming to rest with feather-slowness at the end of its chain. She held it dangling before her face: “What is that in the centre?”
And then Spandrell remembered the flagstone in the study.
…cracked from side to side, as neatly as if struck by a mason’s chisel…
Or by a tiny bead of dwarf star alloy, discarded carelessly, hitting with the force of several hammers…
“Let me see.” Spandrell leaned close, carefully examining the stasis field at the pendant’s centre. Something glittered there, something white and crystalline like an oversized grain of sugar. He delicately inserted a fingertip into the gap where the thing floated, pushing it out of the field so that it fell into his waiting hand. They both peered at it in fascination. Spandrell immediately recognised it for what it was, and from her expression the Time Lady did as well. A sparkling micromonolithic holo-crystal. An ancient form of recording media used in the Old Time, the age of Rassilon the First and Last.
“Jelpax replaced the dwarf star bead with the holo-crystal,” she surmised. “Then he transmatted it here before destroying his transmat so that whoever he knew was coming to kill him couldn’t trace where it had gone.” She looked up at Spandrell, suddenly animated, some strange mixture of anger and excitement written on her face: “This is it; the thing he was killed for, something he desperately wanted to safeguard and preserve.”
He nodded. “To entrust this to you…he must have known he could rely on you to do anything for him.”
She bowed her head, eyes glistening again, but her voice was like iron: “He could.”
“You should go now,” Spandrell told her, closing his hand upon the crystal and placing the hand inside his pocket.
She looked up at him, bristling with indignation: “Castellan, Jelpax sent that to me… Give it to me at once!”
“He sent it to you because he must have felt he had no choice, but if he had…and if he…loved you, then I don’t think he would have, even though he knew he could rely on you more than anyone.” Spandrell looked down at the crystal. Deadly little thing… “Whatever is recorded on that,” he said, “Jelpax was killed just for knowing it. Worse than that; erased entirely in order to keep it secret.”
“Don’t say that,” she murmured, with something like dread in her voice. “Please don’t say that.”
“If you looked at this,” he continued, “if you learned whatever Jelpax knew, whoever killed him would not hesitate to kill you too, and not only to kill you but to sunder you forever from the Matrix. A fate worse than death for a Time Lady.”
“I’ll find out,” she assured him. “One day I’ll find out who killed him, and then…then they’ll pay, whoever they are.”
“There will be a day of reckoning,” he agreed. “And until that day I will keep the crystal safe. It is evidence in an official murder investigation. Even somebody like Jelpax’s killer would think twice about coming after the Lord Castellan. I urge you; take the pendant, treasure it and whatever you and Jelpax enjoyed together, but go. Leave this place. Be careful on your way to the Citadel, but if you made it out here I think you’ll make it back. And for now, until I contact you again, forget you ever came here. Whatever Jelpax died for, believe me, until I can prove who killed him you’re better off not knowing about it.”
She looked down at the pendant, appearing to be about to argue with him. Then, however, she nodded slowly again before dropping it into the pocket of her dress. “Thank you, Castellan.”
“I’m merely doing my duty.”
“And believe me, Castellan, I will hold you to it.” She looked around the room, fondly and sadly at the same time. “I might forget this place, but I’ll never forget him as long as I live. He was wonderful, you know. Wonderful and wise and dangerous, fizzing over with ideas and opinions and jokes, and just…silliness and seriousness, so old and so young at the same time. And so funny, but he could be so melancholy too, and sometimes so angry at injustice or small-mindedness whenever he encountered it…” She smiled, but it was a melancholy smile. “The best friend or the worst enemy you could ever hope to make. I’ll miss him so much.”
“You never know, you might find somebody else like that,” he suggested. “One day.”
“Do you really think so, Castellan?” She snorted with sceptical amusement as she made for the door. “Almost certainly not on this planet!”
When he was sure that she was gone, Spandrell carefully searched the cupboard until he found what he was looking for and then he took both it and the micromonolithic crystal over to the table. He pushed his staser to one side to set down the bulky, antique holo-reader and brushed the dust from it until he found the tiny port into which the crystal slotted perfectly.
And then he hesitated, sitting with his finger poised over the “play” button, torn between the desire to know, to understand, to solve the mystery, and the knowledge that the last person to know what the crystal could tell him had been annihilated for it, and had considered it so dangerous that he was willing to destroy his own work to avoid having it fall into the wrong hands.
You’ve come this far, Spandrell. You may as well go all the way to the end…
Steeling himself, he pressed the button. The holo-reader began to hum, a nimbus of ghostly pale light slowly coalescing in the air above it. Data began to stream through it, like one of Kelner’s extracts but in three dimensions, exponentially more complex. Spandrell concentrated, trying to see the patterns.
Eventually, he did.
And immediately wished that he had never heard of Academician Jelpax.
* * *
The knock on the door made Spandrell jump halfway out of his seat, reaching instinctively for the staser. He managed to collect himself with considerable effort, setting the weapon down again as he rose to admit the new arrival. The knock repeated before he could get there, heavy and impatient, and again as he drew back the rusted iron bolt with a scream of tortured metal.
Borusa had opted to disguise himself in a weather-stained traveller’s cloak and slouch hat. He could easily have passed for an Outsider, or one of the Shobogan merchants who plied their trade along the long road from Arcadia to the Citadel and back.
“Did you make it here safely, my Lord?” Spandrell asked, hesitantly.
Borusa eyed him, unimpressed: “Evidently, Castellan. Now what is so important that I needed to come here in person to see it?”
“Y-you know, my Lord,” Spandrell stammered, running a hand through his thinning hair. “You must know.”
“I must?” Borusa asked, allowing himself to be guided inside and watching Spandrell close and lock the door again.
“You did come, after all,” said Spandrell. “Something I said when I called you…something I said must have convinced you.”
“Not so much what you said as how you said it.” Borusa looked Spandrell up and down: “I say, are you quite all right, Castellan?”
“No,” he answered, truthfully. “I don’t think I will ever be all right again. I warn you, neither will you if you watch it.”
“Watch what?”
“The thing that killed Jelpax. Hedin may have been the one who struck the blow, but it was…was…that thing that killed him. He must have found it in the Death Zone, in the remains of some primeval library. As soon as he watched it, understood it, he was a dead man. One way or another.” Spandrell sank back onto one of the chairs, reaching compulsively for the “play” button again. “You can still leave, my Lord,” he told Borusa. “There’s still time.”
Even Borusa, perhaps the greatest Time Lord of his Looming, flinched for a moment, seeming to debate with himself as to whether he should watch or flee, such was the earnestness and insanity he must have heard in Spandrell’s voice. Eventually, predictably, he sat down at the table, eyes fixed on the holo-reader:
“Play it.”
“My Lord…”
“Play it, spack you!”
Spandrell pressed the button, starting the hum, the glow once more…the nimbus…
On a second viewing, although Spandrell could no longer be sure how many viewings there had been, the patterns were even easier to see, prompting vivid auditory and visual manifestations. He could not tear his eyes away:
War. War across the heavens, across all space and time… Worse than Rassilon’s war with the Great Vampires. A billion worlds razed, a billion more erased…
Metal voices screaming hymns of hate, noble Time Lords falling and rising and falling again… The greatest of them all, the renegade, the Lonely God, sinking into bleakness and despair…
“Omega’s wounds!” Borusa cursed, somewhere far away. “The Black Scrolls…”
The Iron Hand rising from its tomb in the Dark Tower… Hell follows with him…
Arcadia falling…and falling…and falling… Its golden spires tumbled in ruin, its people fled into the wastes…
No…
No…
“No!” Spandrell screamed, jumping from his seat, fleeing the table. He found himself leaning on the far wall, back turned to the terrible data, breathing hard, sucking in air in a desperate urge not to vomit.
When the hum finally faded and Borusa finally spoke, his voice was low and hoarse, the merest ghost of a whisper: “Is this…is this real?”
“My Lord,” said Spandrell, “I fear it is.”
“Gallifrey’s future...” The Chancellor-elect sounded shocked, as well he might. “And this comes from the Death Zone, you say?”
Spandrell still could not force himself to turn around. “I believe so. I…I think there may be more to find out there.”
“I think you are correct,” said Borusa. Spandrell heard the chair scrape across the floor as he rose from the table. “I think further expeditions are needed as soon as possible. I will look into the matter.” He sounded as if he were a billion miles away, voice faint and weak, his mind struggling to focus upon that to which it had just been exposed. “If this came out,” he said. “If this became public knowledge… Rioting Shobogans and Arcalian plots would be the least of our worries.”
“The people must know,” Spandrell murmured, to himself more than to Borusa. “How can we conceal it, something of this magnitude? How can we?”
“Gallifrey is balancing on a knife’s edge as it is,” Borusa asserted, his voice growing louder, clearer. “I told you; we live in dangerous times. I told you, it would not take very much at all to spark off something…something terrible. I was not exaggerating. If the populace learned of this…” He paused. Spandrell could hear his rapid breathing.
And then Borusa asked: “Have you told anybody else about this, Spandrell?”
“No, my Lord,” he replied, clinging to the wall like a life preserver. “I thought that in light of the sensitive nature of…” Words failed him. “I came straight to you.”
“Very wise,” said Borusa. Spandrell heard metal clunking against the wooden table top. He heard Borusa’s traveller’s boots faintly padding across the rustic rug, coming towards him. “Very wise.”
Spandrell turned and saw Borusa looking him over, with palpable regret. The Lord Cardinal held the staser Spandrell had left upon the table. As he aimed it at the Castellan, his hand was as steady as the Citadel itself:
“I’m sorry, Castellan.”
Spandrell closed his eyes.
* * *
Commander Andred faced Castellan-elect Kelner across the large hexagonal table in the operations room conference chamber. Rodan, who might ordinarily have been invited to a meeting such as this, was nowhere to be seen. Her reassignment to space traffic control had come through early this timeband.
“And that is it,” said Kelner, turning off his comm-ring. “The last person to see Spandrell alive was the Guard leader at the Low Postern. He warned Spandrell against the dangers of venturing outside the Citadel, given the rioting in Low Town, but was brushed aside. The next report we have is that of the Shobogans who saw this…shed, shack, however you’d describe it, burning and ran to get help. The Surgeon General is saying that the cause of death was a staser bolt. The fire, presumably, was set merely to cover the killer’s tracks, to destroy any evidence that he might have left at the scene.”
Andred pounded a hand against the table, then saw Kelner’s disapproving stare. “I’m sorry, Castellan-elect, but… Spandrell, dead? It makes no sense. Who killed him? We need to launch an investigation immediately!”
“I don’t see that there is much to investigate, Commander.” Kelner affected a certain bland helplessness, as if it were nothing to do with him. “He told Lord Borusa when he left his office that he had a lead he needed to follow up on the Jelpax case, a loose end to resolve. No doubt this…shack he was found in was some sort of hideout for the killer Gilbas or his confederates. Spandrell, venturing unwisely into Low Town without backup, ran into one or more of these criminals and the Shobogan scum shot him down in cold blood. It seems obvious to me that that is how it must have happened.”
“Still,” Andred protested, “we need to be sure that that really is what took place, rather than simply assuming. What about the Castellan’s data extract, his Matrix ghost?”
“I am the Castellan,” said Kelner, “and I’ve already checked them. They had nothing to tell us.” His icy expression seemed to defy Andred to try and claim differently. “It can be that way sometimes; likely it all took place so quickly that even Spandrell had no conscious knowledge of what happened to him. In some ways, that’s almost a relief. I wouldn’t like to think he had suffered.”
“No, sir.” Andred tried to tell himself that Kelner was probably right, but something still bothered him. He could not quite put it into conscious thought, but… “At least permit me to take a technical team down there, sir. Order has been restored for the most part, so it wouldn’t be prohibitively dangerous. Just to look at the scene, to see if there was anything…”
Kelner cut him off with a wave of his black-gloved hand and a cold rictus smile: “I know, Commander, I know. It’s hard to accept that somebody like Spandrell, a veteran servant of Gallifrey, of such…sagacity and brilliance, could die in such meaningless circumstances, but it happens all the time down there. At least be glad that you got that thug Gilbas before he killed again. His accomplices, the ones who killed Spandrell; we’ll get them too, in time.”
“Yes, sir, but…”
Kelner's smile only widened: “Forget it, Commander. It’s Low Town.”
END