******************************************************************************* ** The All-Singing All-Dancing Five Doctors Pro-Am Cabaret Extravaganza ** ** part eight ** ** (c) Matt Clifton 1994 ** ******************************************************************************* Rassilon looked terrible. Not only had he neglected to shave, but his eyes were bloodshot and baggy, his hair stuck out at informal angles, and the droop of his lower jaw revealed an inordinate amount of tonguefuzz. The only other piece of evidence pointing to his having been to a party in the recent past was the crumpled, torn paper hat, jauntily positioned above his furrowed face. He breathed out heavily, blinked several times, and focused with rather more than a reasonable amount of malice on the troupe of figures waiting before the tomb in the Great Hall. "Haaaaaa", he attempted. "Haaa." He stopped. They waited. Moments passed, during which the various linking thought processes sluggishly flowing through Rassilon's brain could be easily seen mirrored in his features. They went something like this: "Ummm. Tomb, right. People, right. Man with hat on. Familiar. (frown) Oh, yes. Coronet whatsit. Er - (swallow) ...Ring, yeah. Oh, immortality. Shit." At long last he emerged from his torpor and spoke, but in an extremely quiet voice, so that the others had to strain to hear. "...game of Rassilon-that's me-er, and why are you here and all that? ummm, ring of immortality, is it?" "YEEESSSS!!!!", shouted everyone as loud as humanly possible, if not louder. They erupted into sadistic, malicious laughter as the hologram dissolved in a haze of static and a small message appeared, saying 'PLEASE HOLD'. "Was that Rassilon?", the Brigadier enquired of no-one in particular, lucky really, since no-one bothered to answer him. The first and third Doctors began a hushed conversation. "Why was he wearing that dumb goatee?" "Um...disguise?" "Who is he fooling?" "Dunno." "What do you reckon then - plan A?" "B." "Okay, plan B." They turned to the others. "What were you saying?", asked the second Doctor. "Nothing. Nothing. Piss off." A second fanfare, no more impressive than the first, heralded the return of a marginally better-looking Rassilon, minus the hat and moustache. He cleared his throat and started again. "WELCOME! WELCOME! ONE AND ALL! ALL AND ONE! ER! THIS IS THE GAME OF RASSILON! SO! HAH! NER! SO - WHAT DO YOU WANT OF ME? AUTOGRAPH? HAIRCUT? IMMORTALITY?" "Um, what was the middle one again?" Borusa asked. "Never mind. I can see you are here for the immortality." "Yup. That's us", twanged Tegan nasally, who wouldn't have minded a bit. "Hush", advised the First Doctor disapprovingly. "This is Rassilon the Mighty, the First and Greatest of all Time Lords. 'Twas he who first discovered the secret of Time Travel upon which all Gallifreyan society is based. 'Twas he who lifted our people from the foetid muck of primordial slime to the greatest race in existence! 'Tis not wise to annoy him, for 'tis better to impale yourself on a poisoned spike! Better by far to chew off your own feet and marinade them in a hollandaise sauce! Better -" Tiresome old git, thought Tegan as she reached under the old man's coat to switch off his speech unit. Immediately the Doctor's tirade degenerated into a lot of chimpanzee noises. She realised she had missed most of Rassilon's conversation with Borusa. "...and these others?", enquired the hologram, nodding at the Doctors and their companions. Borusa dismissed them with a gesture. "These are my slaves." Rassilon turned to the Doctors. "Is this so?" "Absolutely not!" "Balderdash!" "Don't listen to him!" "A-hee-hee-hee-my boy..." The greatest Time Lord ever paused and stared in befuddlement at the First Doctor. "I didn't quite catch that", he rumbled. The old man clutched his lapels and threw back his head. "Hmm? Hmm? M'Boy -ho,ho- you see, intelligent? Ah, not clear, is it? If x equals 2.5 percent, therefore, would it be *reasonable*, Chepstow, would it be *unreasonable* to suppose there might be someone in that cabinet? Hmm? Would that satisfy you?" "Nope", returned Rassilon. "I had a hope that you might have said something vitally significant there, but apparently I'm wrong." He turned again to the power-crazed President. "Approach my person." With understandable nervousness, Borusa stepped up to the tomb and gazed down upon the long-dead, but pretty well preserved, corpse of the greatest Gallifreyan ever. There was a small piece of spinach stuck on the top row of teeth. Borusa considered telling Rassilon's eternal spirit about this, but then decided not. Do not meddle in the affairs of demigods, the old legend ran, for they are wise and quick to turn you into a smouldering pile of ashes. He awaited the next instruction with baited breath. "Take the ring from my hand", commanded the hologram. Borusa reached for the finger and tugged at the ring to remove it. This gentle coercion produced no results ; the object would not budge. He tried again, pulling harder and twisting the ornament around the digit in an attempt to loosen it. "I said...*take* the *ring*", boomed the hologram menacingly. The President smiled thinly. "Yes. Uh...hang on..um." With strength born of desperation, he heaved at the offending finger and with a sickening plop, the whole digit tore away from the hand, leaving a vaguely green stump in its place. Evidently the corpse was not as well-preserved as one would have liked. Swiftly Borusa pulled the ring from the knuckle-end of the finger and patted it back into place. It didn't quite fit, so he arranged it reverently on the dead Time Lord's chest. He turned back to face the hologram, which was lucky really because if he had stayed to see the finger roll down Rassilon's body and end up sticking suggestively out between his legs, he would have had a violent seizure there and then. The hologram seemed to glow from within. "You seek immortality. You will not turn back." Borusa breathed in deeply. "Never!" "That's never for the turning back bit, or for the seeking immortality?" "Uh - never turn back." "Right." Pause. "So you don't want the immortality then?" "Yes!", screamed the President, momentarily forgetting who it was that he was screaming at. "Yes you *do* want immortality, or yes you *don't*?" "I do want immortality.", breathed Borusa heavily. "*Please*. Please. Pleasepleaseplease." "Heh, heh" Rassilon's jowls shook with tumultuous laughter. "I always like to play that little one on my visitors. It's funny, isn't it." It was not a question. "Yes, Lord Rassilon. It was by far and away and without a shadow of a doubt the most hilarious piece of jest ever created under the seventeen Gods. The only reason I denied myself the pure orgasmic pleasure of laughing was that I knew for sure that my entire body would have been utterly decimated by the sheer force of hilarity thus induced." "Very well", agreed Rassilon. "Put on the ring." The jewellery fitted snugly onto Borusa's finger. As he slipped it on, several things happened at once. The four sculptured niches along the base of the tomb glowed into activity and the faces behind three of them slowly returned to life. Rassilon's hologram appeared to grow in stature and loom over the President. "Others have come to claim immortality through the ages. I told *them* to bog off, and now I'm telling *you*. Bog off." "Touchy", remarked Borusa concisely, and vanished. His face re-appeared, striking a somewhat bemused pose, in the final stone niche. Immediately, all four Doctors ran over to the new sculpture and proceeded to boot it viciously in the nose. "And what of you others?" boomed the hologram. "Do you claim immortality too?" "Yup." replied the Master, but no-one listened to him. The Doctors considered the offer for a few minutes, then reluctantly turned it down. The fifth Doctor approached. "One of us is trapped in a technician's strike..." "I know", yawned Rassilon. "No doubt they'll show a bit of film from Shada that is completely at odds with the previous section, but purports to show the two travellers being returned from the Vortex." "Right", said the Doctor, not having a clue what he was on about, but not really wanting to say so, as he hadn't yet lost his will to live. "What about the Master?" croaked Bill Filer, who suddenly appeared in the hall and was almost immediately set upon by a gang of roving minstrels with whaling harpoons. The Doctors gazed down at the bound renegade on the ground, who was occupying his time making shadow figures on the wall with his feet. "I suggest - " began Rassilon " - that the earthling Turlough remove the tissue compressor from his trousers, because, frankly, it's not funny and it certainly isn't impressing Tegan, and thirdly..." ZZZZZAAPPPP!!!!!!! "...too late. That'll teach him. I shall return the Master to his proper place in time and space. His sins shall find their punishment in..." - he thought - "...a few episodes time." So saying, the black-clad Time Lord vanished, leaving only the ropes that had bound him and a vaguely ammoniacal smell that hung around for some minutes. "It is time for your other selves to depart. Let them make a few tiresome, cliched jokes and sod off. And if I never see you again it'll be too soon." With a sound that closely resembled a trombonist being trampled to death in jelly, the hologram faded away for the last time. The residual static gave a "Woooop" noise and shrank into a small dot which blinked off like a late-night TV station. A short, embarrassed pause followed. The Doctors looked around at one another as if daring each other to say anything about ancestors being frightfully tedious, and weren't the Time Lords awful in those days, and what did he mean by cliched? The fifth incarnation looked askance at his senior alter ego. "Did you know that would happen?", he demanded, switching on the old man's translator. "Well, I suddenly remembered the old proverb. 'Wait upon ye zimmerinja twice a rumpus by the wassalings, and yay, three blue frogs shall dance the Charleston.' It all became clear to me." "Well, quite, you mad bastard." The fifth Doctor herded Tegan and Turlough towards the waiting TARDIS, and turned to the other Doctors. "Well, see ya..." he declared jovially, giving his Second and Third personas a friendly punch in the stomach. He refrained from doing the same to the Brigadier for fear of losing his fist. The Doctors exchanged a glance and simutaneously booted the Fifth in the goolies. A violent bar brawl then ensued, and was only halted when Lethbridge-Stewart stopped playing fair and started to reduce the opposition with the aid of his trusty service revolver. At least, this was the idea, but since the Brigadier had proved time and again that he was a worse shot than even Dodo, the only things he managed to hit were the lights, which went out, bringing the melee to an abrupt and disappointing conclusion. The disappointing conclusion being, of course, that Turlough was still alive. "Family," sighed the first Doctor, heading for the TARDIS, Susan in tow. "Always embarrassing." One by one, the Doctors and their companions entered the time machine, until finally only the fifth with Tegan and Turlough remained in the hall. "Are we all going home together?" sniffed Tegan. "Only my room's a bit of a mess, and I hadn't really budgeted for sixteen for dinner, and where's the old man going to sleep? Not in *my* room ,that's for -" "Watch," instructed the Doctor, and silenced her with a...er...silencer of some sort. There was a pause. "I am watching," replied the girl. "What's supposed to happen?" There was a silence. It lengthened - if, that is, a total absence of sound can be said to possess spatial dimensions upon which a lengthening quality can be conferred - and then what appeared to be an explosion at the entrance to the TARDIS as each Doctor and companion tried to exit simultaneously. With a greasy plop the third incarnation fell through the mass of flesh onto the hall floor. He rose and dusted himself down. The others untangled themselves and followed him out. "Would someone," huffed the first Doctor, "please tell us what *exactly* is going on?" "I think I can," came the voice. All turned to the side of the hall. Out of the shadows stepped a man clothed in the tatty remnants of the lower half of a Yeti costume. The second man held the creature's head under one arm and his colleague's raincoat in the other. "Who the hell are you?" exclaimed the fifth and second Doctors in astonishment. "My name," said Morse, "is Morse. But you can call me Morse." "Morse?" demanded Tegan. "Bit of a stupid name, that." "Look who's throwing stones, Miss Jovanka. Jovanka? Jo-wanker, I call it. However, enough of that. What I have to say is of interest to you all. Even the red-haired git at the back in the school blazer flicking through that copy of Water-Buffalo Weekly. You see, this whole setup was just that - a set-up. Borusa got you here with the Timescoop, admittedly, and achieved the immortality he desired. But someone set Borusa up to gain his seat in the Presidium and rule Gallifrey. The Lord President was framed." "Who by?" chorused the Welsh Male Voice Choir, who had wandered into the hall in the mistaken belief that a)they had been invited, and b)anybody ever found their music even slightly interesting or stimulating. Eliciting no response, save a hail of leisurely-aimed machine-gun bullets, they wandered out again. Morse winced at this grammatic faux pas. "By whom," he corrected automatically. "Hoom?" screamed the first Doctor. "That bastard! We should have finished him off when we had the chance! Right. Here's the plan - Scarecrow, you assemble a crack squad of mercenaries -" "...no, no..." protested Morse, unheeded. The third Doctor joined in. "Yes, and I'll buy in the armaments. Harmony Hairspray here can train the humans in hand-to-hand combat." The fifth Doctor nodded vigorously. "Wait till I get my hands on that slimeball Hoom. He'll wish his father had never had that spare tenner that night in King's Cross. In fact -" "Will you shut up!" raged the Chief Inspector, his face turning purple. He turned to his Sergeant. "Lewis, please explain." The Geordie stepped forward, ignoring the whistled rendition of 'Auf Wiederschein, Pet' from Tegan and Sarah Jane. "As I understand it, sir, the Doctor(s) here currently exist in five incarnations. Four of them were brought here to let the President into the tomb." Morse nodded encouragement. "The other embodiment, one - ," he referred to his notes, " - curly-haired, toothy gentleman with a scarf - was trapped in the -", another check, " - spacetime continuum. Am I right?" "Quite right, Lewis. Now, the question is - why him? My first theory speculated that the villain, whoever he is, wanted the fourth Doctor out of the way in case he attempted to foil the scheme. But then I had a new idea. What if the Doctor never entered the Vortex at all? What if he never left Oxford? We must strongly consider the possibility - what if the fourth Doctor is behind this whole devilish scheme? The Doctors gaped. "Our search begins, gentlemen - in Oxford!" END OF BOOK ONE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Book Two continues the thrilling escapades of the dashing Doctor as he battles with monsters and runs down the cardboard corridors of Oxford. You'll need your special 3D reading glasses as some of the words have been specially treated so that they literally jump out of the screen at you! You have been WaRnEd!!! That's all in part 2 - due out some time in the 21st century. Bye. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EPILOGUE -------- The Hall was deserted. Only disturbed dust bore witness to the events that had occurred some hours previously. The quiet click of footsteps heralded the entrance of the Fifth Doctor, who strode slowly in, hands in pockets, thoughts in a muddle. Someone (he thought), *someone* is fiddling with time. Those events above didn't happen as he remembered it. Wasn't there a bit where Flavia stepped in and offered him the Presidency? or a post as a caretaker? or some- thing of that kind, he was sure. He sighed, and peered at the stone features of Borusa, who even in death was watching him, it seemed, with a beady eye. The Doctor perused the options open to him. Retire to Cambridge and write his memoirs? Grow begonias? No, no, that was somebody else. Carry on adventuring, perhaps? Continue to thwart evil plans of villains and monsters? Deliberately go on the run...in a rackety old TARDIS? "Why not?" grinned the Doctor, suddenly free of his angst. "After all, that's how it all star...uurrgh." Having rid the story of the final cliche by means of a cleverly-positioned rake in the face, the Doctor Who fan who had been skulking in the shadows emerged. He flicked his hand in the air a few times, just like he had seen Sylvester McCoy do in 'Remembrance of the Daleks'. Nothing happened. Scowling, he fished a scrap of paper from his jacket pocket and used a pen selected at random from the dozen or so in an inside pocket to write a single word on the card. Gazing one last time at the scene, he laid the scrap on the Doctor's prone, silent form. Then he left, perhaps for good. The word read...'Grouch'. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ With thanks to Nat (for laughing in all the wrong places), Hayli, Danny, The New Schmoo, The Old Schmoo, Fiona, Michael Palin, all those who offered help and suggestions, and finally 'The Five Doctors' for being simply the *best* Doctor Who story from which to derive a parody. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------