Out of Time

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

 The Doctor turned round and saw the ridiculously diminutive and boyish figure of Professor Raynor who looked twenty years younger than when the Doctor last saw him half an hour ago. The Professor was leaning nonchalantly by the once concealed entrance which had until this moment been a secret refuge for his colleague.

 “So you have turned against me as well Ida? After everything we have been through together…” Raynor proclaimed bitterly and pointed, his finger trembling with barely contained outrage at his colleague’s betrayal but then he paused as though the offence was forgotten and smiled cruelly at his colleague, surveying Ida intently. “You know Ida I do believe you’re the exception to the rule, you actually look better as an old girl…”

 Ida did not flinch, this was nothing to her, over the years she had put up with so much personal abuse. The only thing which made Ida angry was the fact they had once been lovers though she hoped their history would give her some kind of chance to reason with him.

 “Zan this has got to stop, it’s morally wrong, wrong on so many levels. We should never have started this…You can’t control it.” Ida dashed over to the screen and pointed desperately to the Silva system. “Look at one of our neighbouring planets; Sinda Callesta…It’s gone and we’re responsible.”

  Raynor nodded and raised his hand in acknowledgement, he already knew.

 “It’s nothing which can’t be reversed…” He replied with callous arrogance and placed his hand affectionately to his former lover’s face and began to scrutinize her further. Ida pulled away with disgust; the Doctor who was fed up of being a gooseberry cleared his throat. “Doctor…” Raynor nodded, turning his full attention to the Time Lord. 

 “Professor Raynor…Changed your mind about killing me then?” The Doctor folded his arms and beamed expectantly.    

 “Well that depends very much on your cooperation Doctor… Although unfortunately my associate would not take no for an answer and we now appear to have a missing and vengeful assassin on the loose…These things happen…” Raynor shrugged with all the insincerity he could muster. “I hope you’re not too offended Doctor but I needed to keep you distracted and could not have you running around and interfering with my preliminary experiments but now things have changed. And of course I can offer you protection in this city. So now you know everything Time Lord. Will you help us?”

 “To reverse the effects of your entropic wave, including time acceleration on a scale I’ve never seen before and not forgetting the stalled time progression of your planet trapped within a twenty year loop by perchance?…Not as easy as you would think and because of your tampering a whole planet and its inhabitants have been destroyed. By slowing and twisting the effects of time on Verdopolis, you’ve inadvertently speeded it up elsewhere in the Universe. I fear that to reverse the effects would involve a great sacrifice.” The Doctor frowned, his cutting words of severity aimed directly at the Professor, anger was simmering below the surface. “None of us here are Gods Raynor.”

 “Really you do surprise me Doctor.” Raynor sneered. “When I’ve heard so much about your God-like feats…Well speak for yourself Doctor. No, all we need to do is simply refine this seemingly unstoppable force of time and fine tune the effects to the benefit of Verdopolis and any other planets that are deemed suitable to join in an alliance of an ageless and unchanging Universe. And those who would oppose me…”

 “You know domination of the entire Universe doesn’t make you any taller…And only a fool believes they could be the master of time.” The Doctor interrupted rudely with a mischievous look in his eyes. “Oh but this is too much of a cliché.” The Doctor clutched his stomach as though he was about to start laughing hysterically. “The brilliant and once moral scientist with God delusions…You do know you’re completely bonkers…Well no in all fairness the completely bonkers don’t know they’re completely bonkers. Join you?” The Doctor took a deep breath and smiled, aware that the two Verdopolitan’s were hanging on his every word, not entirely sure where his loyalties lay.  “Absolutely…” The Doctor raised an eyebrow.  “And categorically NO.” The Doctor calmly straightened his cuffs on his tweed jacket. “Though I’ll tell you what I’m going to do…”