In one movement, they turned their backs.
'Goodbye, Lungbarrovians,' he called. 'Don't worry. I don't ask for your forgiveness. Time runs in circles. I have other families!'
He looked away across the slope to his companions. Close by, the Director of Allegiance was standing with several of his agents.
'If I keep my job,' Romana said, 'I'll have Lord Ferain suspended on a charge of misdirection of power. I'm going to have the Agency doors thrown open to Public Register Video for a full investigation.'
'What it is to have power,' said the Doctor.
'You'd know.' She grabbed his arm and tried to steer him away as Ferain started towards them.
The elderly man caught up with the Doctor. 'Has she told you why she summoned you yet?'
Romana scowled. 'Go away, Ferain.'
'Has she told you about the mission she's arranged?'
'I changed my mind,'Romana said. 'The Doctor's not involved.'
'What mission?'said the Doctor.
'To Skaro,'Ferain said.
'Cairo?'
'No, Skaro.'
The Doctor shook his head. 'Is this some new Skaro? Or the one that I destroyed with the Hand of Omega?'
Romana flailed her arms. 'I said it doesn't matter!'
Leela and Chris and Dorothée were drawn in by the sound of the argument.
Ferain stood smugly back while the Doctor and Romana argued.
'No, Doctor. I'll get someone else to go.'
'If it's the Master's remains, then I should be the one to fetch them.'
'It's too dangerous!'
'What could be worse than facing my miserable Cousins! Filling in forms with Lethbridge-Stewart? Lunch with the terrible Zodin. . .?'
Ferain said, 'But it's true. The Matrix predicts a ninety-six percent chance of fatal injury.'
The Doctor closed his eyes and said quietly, 'Then that leaves me with a clear four per cent margin.'
'Don't be so Otheringly flippant!'snapped Romana.
The Doctor laughed. 'You should see yourselves. The President and the CIA locked in your eternal skirmishes. One side always tilting at the other.'
'That's how the balance of order is maintained,' said Romana.
The Director of Allegiance smiled grimly. 'It has been that way on Gallifrey ever since the Intuitive Revelation.'
'But you must be so bored,'said the Doctor. 'Buried in a state of perpetual Harmony, no wonder you play these games.'
'And what will you teach us with your manifold wisdom?'said Ferain. 'Whoever you are or were?'
The Doctor met the old man's eye. The wind stilled.
'What do you want, Ferain? What do you want me to be? Shall I reveal my blazing power? Might that not fry you to a crisp? Shall I sweep away evil and chaos? Reorder the stars in their courses?
Banish burnt toast forever?'
He paused.
'Well, I won't. I wouldn't if I could. Who do you think I am?' He thumbed his chest. 'I'm me. The Doctor. What I have been, someone might have imagined. What I will be, how can I tell? I'm not immortal. I shall go to this Skaro, collect the Master's remains and bring them back to President Romanadvoratrelundar.'
'With such backing,' said Ferain, 'how can she fail?'
The Doctor's eyes flashed. 'Be quiet, my lord. And remember your place!'
The birds had stopped singing.
Ferain was silent.
Romana cleared her throat. 'Please be careful.'
The Doctor eyed her sternly. 'The Daleks. The Master. Romana, who have you been talking to?'
***
They stood in a line beside the TARDIS.
'Please,' the Doctor said,'I didn't ask to be seen off.'
'Tough,' said Dorothée. 'You'd better have these.' She fished her last battered box of teabags out of her pocket. He took them and hugged her tight.
He looked fondly at Leela for a long time, peering into her eyes as if he recognized something there.
'This love thing,' he mused. 'Interesting. A father from Gallifrey and a mother of Earth stock. That's an unusual pedigree.'
She pushed back her hair and said awkwardly, 'I don't have anything for you, Doctor.'
'Just call him after me.'
She looked startled and then nodded.
'Who exactly is the terrible Zodin?' butted in Chris. 'Some sort of Galactic megalomaniac emperor?'
The Doctor's eyes went misty. 'Zodin was a celebrated sword-swallower at the Grand Festival of Zymymys Midamor. She had an amazing trick with a scimitar.'
Chris grabbed the Doctor, lifting him off his feet in a monstrous bear hug.
'Roz bet me that I'd never dare do this,' he said. Eventually he put the Doctor down again and picked up his hat for him.
'Give my love to Bernice,' said the Doctor, squeezing Chris's hand.
'And ask her if she wants to lecture at the Academy here,' said Romana.
She turned to the Doctor.
'I know. I'll be careful,' he said.
'I want you to have this.' She slipped a metallic object into his hand. 'It's my sonic screwdriver.'
He smiled. 'Thank you, Madam President. I shall see you soon. Back at the Capitol.' He walked to the TARDIS, a small figure clutching his presents. He turned his key and went inside.
One by one they moved away.
'Will he come back?' said Leela.'
'Dorothee!' The Doctor's head re-emerged from the door. 'I just remembered. I haven't been Merlin yet!'
He vanished and the door closed.
'What?' chorused the others, as Dorothée began to laugh.
The light on the TARDIS flashed like a bright idea.
A flock of startled birds rose from the trees as the TARDIS grated out of existence.
Then they were alone on the sunny mountainside.
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