You're much too kind, I smiled with murder on my mind...
Yesterday, when I was mad
And quite prepared to give up everything
Admitting I don't believe in anyone's sincerity
And that's what's really got to me...
          --The Pet Shop Boys



Chapter 11:  YESTERDAY WHEN I WAS MAD



          The Doctor rushed up the platform, knocking the Master roughly
out of his way, and seized the edge of the control console.  Icy panic
doused him from head to toe and his limbs felt paralyzed and insensible. 
The Master's laughter rang in his ears and bounced around inside his skull.
          Romana made a strangled sound in her throat as the collector
zoomed skyward.  Byron stood.  "Oh no..." he breathed.  Romana got to her
feet and ran from the room as fast as she could.  "Romana!" Byron called
after her, puzzled.  She was out the door and gone.  With a downward pained
glance at Garner's body lying there in stasis, he joined the Doctor on the
platform.  The Time Lord was visibly shaking and Byron's heart went out to
him.  He knew how he'd feel if it were...if it were someone he cared for in
that collector.  
          The Doctor's hands flew over the console.  "There must be a way
to stop it," he was muttering.  
          Byron examined the status readouts.  "Look for a launch
abort...the guidance system could be reprogrammed to bring the collector
back to the colony."
          The Master, still laughing, came up next to them.  "Don't bother,
there's no way to stop it.  Three minutes flight time and the collector
will enter the corona, incinerating anything organic inside the cockpit and
finally self-destructing," he said, wiping tears from his streaming eyes. 
"But you never give up, do you, Doctor?"  The Doctor pushed him roughly out
of the way, never taking his eyes off the console, searching still for some
way, any long shot would do...anything he could try that might save Ace's
life.  "Here, let me help you," the Master said, reaching over to key in a
command.  The main viewscreen on the console displayed a magnified view of
the collector in transit, flying through the space between Ceres Beta and
its sun.  The Doctor stared at it for a moment, his breath coming faster
and faster.  Byron feared he'd start to hyperventilate.  
          A low buzzer sounded and the message "COLLECTION IGNITION
COMMENCING" appeared on the status screen.  The Master rubbed his hands
together in childlike glee.  "Ah...the collector is preparing to fulfill
its destiny...and mine."  He flicked a switch on one of the many monitors
in the console.  The basement biogeneration lab came into view.  "Avery?"
the Master called.  "The pulse will be transmitted in..." he glanced at the
readouts..."one minute thirty seconds.  Is the storage cell ready?" he
asked.  The Doctor ignored him, focusing entirely on the collector's
controls.  No answer from the biogeneration lab.  "Avery!" the Master
repeated.  "Are you there?  Is the biomatrix ready?"
          Felix came into the monitor's field of vision, an anachronistic
grin on his granite face.  "You mean this biomatrix?" he said, grasping the
camera and pointing it towards the generation tank.  It was engulfed in
flames.  Felix's men had Avery and her assistants grouped in a corner under
armed guard.
          The Master made a choked, furious sound.  A grim smile creased
the Doctor's lips...but this small victory was a bitter consolation at
best.  He turned back to the console.  The digital launch timer kept
careful track of how long the collector had been in flight...one minute 40
seconds and counting.  The Doctor gripped the edge of the console, his
knuckles white, completely paralyzed.  The Master was right, there was
nothing he could do to stop the collector or save the only woman he'd ever
loved.  Tremors wracking his body, he stared fixedly at the monitor which
showed the collector nearing the Cerean sun.  He was vaguely aware of the
Master leaning close to him.
          "It seems you have managed to ruin my plans for a new existence
again, Doctor," he hissed with barely controlled fury.  "But I still have
the satisfaction of seeing your face as she incinerates!"  The Doctor
barely heard him.  He watched, helpless, as the collector drew nearer and
nearer to the sun.  The collection pores opened in preparation for coronal
interface, though the pulse would now never be used for its intended
purpose...scant comfort though that was.  His life was flashing before his
eyes, especially the last torturous month.  He realized, far too late now,
that he could have spent that month *with* her, telling her all the things
she would now never hear and showing her things he'd always meant for her
to see.  They could never have that month back now...because of his
inexcusable actions, she would die estranged from him.  At that moment, if
he could have joined her in the collector and died with her he would have
done so, gratefully.
          He felt Byron grasp his arm...probably afraid that he'd pass out
or get hysterical.  If only he could, it would be a great relief.  A
rattling moan escaped his throat as the collector passed into the sun's
corona.  The Master was muttering under his breath and grinding his jaw,
transfixed by the collector's suicide plunge.  
          For the Doctor, the next few moments stretched out to infinity. 
Time slowed down to a crawl and seemed even to stop.  The interface phase
complete, the collector transmitted the blinding energy pulse down to the
colony.  The pulse burst from the portal at the rear of the collector and
flashed down to the colony to be absorbed by the storage cell on the ground
floor.  The Doctor did not care.  He watched the collector continue on its
kamikaze run towards the star, flying further and further into the corona
towards the burning core.  He stood there and watched, oblivious to the
short sobs that were gasping in and out of him with each breath...the
collector began to disappear into the burning gases.  "ACE!" he cried in
anguish, and then the collector plunged into the surface of the sun and
exploded in a lick of fire that was almost immediately swallowed by the
sun's fury.
          Later, he would have difficulty recalling or describing that
moment.  It didn't seem real, it couldn't possibly be real.  There had
never been pain like this in the universe, never.  He felt as if a gash had
been ripped in his chest by some unfeeling person's fingernails and both
his hearts torn out, bleeding and crushed.  She was dead.  His brain
refused to process it...but it was true.  His Ace, whom he'd taught and
shaped and hurt and suffered for and suffered *from* and loved and married
and *needed,* she was gone.  Shock wiped his mind clean of most conscious
thought...but something else was rising to replace it:  rage.
          He turned his head slowly to look into the eyes of his longtime
nemesis, who was watching him with a mixture of satisfaction, curiosity and
sheer exultation.
          "I have my pound of flesh," the Master whispered simply.
          At the sound of his voice, black fury boiled into the Doctor's
stunned mind blotting out everything else.  "You," he growled.  Byron let
go of the Doctor's arm and stepped forward to stand at his side.  "You
killed her."
          "You've no one but yourself to blame," the Master said, taking a
step back.
          "You killed her," he repeated.
          The Master's eyes flicked to the doorway, gauging the distance. 
Perhaps he was just now realizing that he was alone in this room without
support or backup.  He'd planned to have transferred himself into his new
body by now...a new body that was now a pile of smoldering, stinking ashes.
          The Doctor's anger flowed through him, his very cells thrilling
to it and embracing it.  There was only one thing to do, and *this* time he
*would* do it.  He exchanged a knowing glance with Byron and held out his
hand.  Byron wordlessly put his blaster into it and positioned himself
between the Master and the door.  The Doctor contemplated the weapon lying
on his open palm, holding it up for the Master to see.
          "I hate violence," he said, his voice flat.  "Guns and death and
killing...they are not part of my nature.  They go against everything I
am."  The Master started inching towards the edge of the platform but Byron
blocked his path.  "You think you have defeated me.  You might be right." 
He flipped the safety catch off the blaster and looked up into the Master's
face.  "Ace is dead, and you have killed her."  Slowly, deliberately, he
grasped the blaster and raised it, stepping forward.  The Master
backpedaled but the console was behind him and he didn't get far.  The
Doctor pressed the muzzle of the blaster to the center of the Master's
forehead, a grimace touching his lips.  The cold fingers of fear caressed
the Master's heart as he looked into the Doctor's stony face.  "Now...*I*
will kill *you.*"


          A rumbling roar that filled the whole world jolted Ace out of
unconsciousness.  She sat up, rubbing her jaw and looking around...and then
stiffened with a gasp as she realized where she was.  She pulled herself up
to the control panel and looked out the small cockpit window.  Her blood
went cold...she was hurtling through space towards the Cerean Sun, which
was getting larger in the window.  She clenched her teeth and tried to
block out her imminent doom so she could concentrate on the collector's
controls.  She tried to alter her course but nothing happened.  None of the
controls responded.  She slammed a fist against the panel, frustrated. 
You're about to die, Ace, her mind whispered.  There's got to be a way out
of this!  Well, there isn't.  She looked frantically around the
closet-sized cockpit for anything that might be of use...a pressure suit,
perhaps, some tools to knock out the rockets and slow the
collector...although by now inertia would have sealed her fate.  Even if
there were a pressure suit here, which there wasn't, there was no hatch she
could open from the inside.  
          The coppery taste of panic filled her mouth...looks like this is
really it for me, she thought.  Death.  She could almost feel Daniel
looking over her shoulder, ready to carry her to whatever afterlife she had
spent her days earning...but there was something she had to do first.  She
clawed at the neck of her combat suit and drew out a slender
chain...threaded onto the chain was her wedding ring.  She snapped the
chain and drew the ring off, fumbling it back onto its proper place.  She
watched the sun grow larger in the window.  By her estimate she had less
than two minutes to live.  She shut her eyes tight and pressed one hand to
her abdomen.  I'm sorry, Kathleen...she thought, clenching her teeth
against a sob.  You don't deserve this...and neither do I.  "Oh Doctor,"
she whispered.  "I don't know if I can face this alone..."
          "Ace!" a voice called.  She jumped and whirled around...her first
thought was that it was Daniel, calling out to her.  But...there was a door
in the back of the cockpit that hadn't been there before.  It took Ace a
second to realize that yes, she was *really* seeing Romana leaning out of
it, holding out her hand.  The opening was small, only as large as the free
space in the bulkhead would allow, but Ace could see the interior of
Romana's TARDIS beyond it.  She released her held breath and leapt for the
opening...only to be jerked back two-thirds of the way there.  She looked
down and only then did she notice that her ankle was chained to the
underside of the control panel.
          "I can't reach!  I'm chained!" she cried, reaching down to tug at
the chain.  It was firmly anchored.
          Romana vanished for a moment and reappeared holding her toolbox. 
She handed Ace a sonic screwdriver.  "Hurry!  It'll be too hot in here in a
moment!"
          "Thanks for the tip," Ace muttered, bending to the lock.  There
were no moving parts to it, it was solid.  The screwdriver wouldn't help. 
She threw it back at Romana.  "Gimme a metal cutter!"
          "You'll cut your leg off!"
          "You think I care?  GIVE IT TO ME!" she yelled.  Romana handed
her the tool.  She activated it and slashed at the chain, panic making her
hands shake.  She missed the chain on the first pass.  Romana was tugging
at her other arm, urging her to hurry.  The Cerean sun was drawing closer
and closer...a buzzer went off and they both let out startled shrieks. 
"The pores are opening!" Ace cried, noticing that it was getting warmer in
the cockpit.  She bent closer to the chain and forced herself to
concentrate.  She swiped the cutting arc over the chain, severing it near
the ankle.  She jumped at the TARDIS doorway as the temperature inside the
cockpit spiked again.  Romana grabbed her and hauled her through the small
opening, slamming the door.
          The cool air of the TARDIS felt wonderful.  Romana scrambled for
the console and hit the dematerialization circuit and they were away.  They
watched on the viewscreen as the collector disappeared into the sun...then
exploded.  Ace let her breath out in a whoosh and threw her arms around
Romana.  "Thanks," she sighed, trembling.  "That was a little *too* close."
          Romana smiled and set the controls for the return trip.  "Back to
the colony."
          Ace gasped.  "The Doctor thinks I'm dead!"
          "Probably.  You're not, though.  He'll get over it.  Let's just
get back to the colony."
          "What about the Master?"
          "If all went as planned, he's stuck.  Felix was supposed to
destroy the new biomatrix so he couldn't transfer himself.  Hopefully, at
this very moment he's stranded in the lab with no support."  The Time Lady
smiled.  "We'll take care of him," she said under her breath as her hand
moved quickly over the communications circuits.
          The TARDIS landed in the same spot as before.  Ace and Romana
rushed into the lab, then drew up short, shocked.
          The Master was indeed still there.  The Doctor had him backed up
against the console with Byron flanking him to prevent his escape.  Worst
of all, the Doctor had a blaster pressed up against the Master's forehead.
          Ace strode forward.  They both heard the Doctor say in a low,
flat voice, "Now...*I* will kill *you.*"  A shudder ran through Romana at
his dead tone...like a barren desert.
          "No!" Ace called, stopping a few feet shy of the platform and
putting her hand out in a "stop" gesture.
          The Doctor blinked, once, and his head slowly turned to look at
her.  As soon as his eyes met hers he shut them tight with a sharp intake
of breath, his face that of a man certain he must be dreaming.  Byron and
the Master stared at her, their mouth hanging open in comically identical
expressions of astonishment.
          "Doctor!" Ace called again.  "Look at me!"
          He opened his eyes, carefully...but the blaster did not budge. 
"Ace?" he whispered.  His face was devoid of color...and if Ace didn't know
better, she would have thought that one more shock would send him screaming
into the streets.
          "Yes, it's me," she said gently.  She pulled Romana forward. 
"Romana pulled me out of the collector just before it exploded."  Her face
hardened as her gaze turned to the Master.  "So he hasn't beaten us...not
this time."
          The Doctor's eyes fell closed again, this time in relief, and his
shoulders sagged.  Ace saw one crystalline tear escape the corner of his
eye and trickle down his cheek...but he did not lower the weapon.  Ace
stepped forward, carefully.  "Oh Ace..." he breathed.  "Are you really
real?"
          She smiled softly.  "As real as you are."  She held out her hand. 
"Give me the gun."
          "No," he said, the snarl in his voice startling her...for she'd
never heard it there before.  He looked back at the Master.  "Your rescue
does not change the fact that he *would* have killed you.  You would be
dead right now if he had his way...how can I let him get away with it?"
          "No," Ace said firmly.  "This isn't you, Doctor.  *You* do not
kill...not even bastards like him," she said, tossing a hard glance at the
Master.  "If you kill him, you kill part of yourself...a big part, and a
part that I've always loved even if I didn't understand it."
          The Doctor looked a little uncertain but no less angry.  "But...I
feel..."
          "Tell me.  What do you feel?"
          His jaw ground.  "I feel I *must* kill him...for what he did to
you and to me and to countless others!  I've spared so many who deserved
death because it wasn't my way!  *This* time I will make him pay!" he
cried.
          Ace nodded sadly.  "Oh yes.  That's how it starts.  There's
always a good reason at first...then the reasons get worse and worse. 
Finally there are no more real reasons, but you find that you don't know
any other way to express yourself than through violence.  You rationalize
it, you learn to live with it...but a part of your soul dies with each
excuse and each moment you tell yourself it isn't really so bad.  Finally
you realize that violence has become part of you, that there's no going
back, that death will follow you until you can no longer outrun it."  The
Doctor turned towards her, an odd, lost look in his eyes.  "Don't you see? 
I've been down this road before, Doctor.  You've never felt this way before
and you don't know how to handle it.  I'm telling you:  nothing good can
come of it.  That's why you've never embraced violence."  She stepped onto
the platform and grasped his arm.  "Put the gun down.  Don't let your anger
rule you...the way I let mine rule me for so long."
          He looked into her eyes...then slowly lowered the blaster.  Ace
reached forward and took it from him, sliding it into one of her holsters. 
His shoulders sagged and the anger left his face, leaving it looking merely
bone-tired.  Without looking at her, he took Ace's hand and squeezed his
fingers around it...after a brief hesitation she squeezed back, letting her
other hand rest on his shoulder, more relieved than she could say.
          After a long moment of silence he stepped away from her and
turned to the Master.  "But don't think you'll get away scot-free just
because my wife has wisdom beyond her years," he said.
          The Master crossed his arms and raised one eyebrow questioningly. 
"I never concede defeat, Doctor...but I'm sure it hasn't escaped your
attention that not one of my plans for you have worked out.  I don't know
what more you can do to me now."
          The Doctor stood once again nose to nose with his former comrade. 
"Leave," he said, his commanding gaze pinning the Master to the spot.  "Get
in your TARDIS, leave and never return.  You will never show your face to
me or Ace ever again as long as you live...if you do that, then your life
will run its course unimpeded by me."
          The Master swallowed.  "I did not come here by TARDIS," he said
with a haughty harrumph.
          Romana stepped forward, reaching into her pocket for an
instrument.  "Oh.  Well then, this must belong to some other renegade Time
Lord," she said, and pointed the instrument at a storage cabinet near
Garner's still form.  The cabinet wavered and then melted into the natural
boxy shape of a TARDIS.  The Master cleared his throat and seemed,
incredibly, a bit embarrassed.  "No matter," she continued.  "Any moment
troops from Gallifrey will be here to collect you...and this time you will
not escape us!" she said.  Ace felt like cheering.  She led the Doctor, who
still seemed a bit stunned, off the platform to stand near Romana.  Byron
grasped the Master's upper arm and led him away from the console.
          The Master looked down at Garner's still form.  "You will want to
get him to a medical facility," he said thoughtfully.  "I injected him with
batrachatoxin."
          "He's in stasis, he's all right for the moment," Romana said,
puzzled.  "Why do you care?"
          He shrugged.  "He served me well...and I have to give him credit
as a spy.  I never suspected him until this morning, when it was already
too late."
          The sound of a time rotor filled the room and another TARDIS
appeared behind the Master's.  A Gallifreyan guard commander came out,
followed by ten or so guards.  He cast a quick glance about the room then
approached Romana, snapping a smart salute.
          "Lady President, reporting as ordered."
          "Commander, good.  Take the Master back to Gallifrey and secure
him, taking extreme precautions.   He's very clever."
          "So I've been told, Lady President.  We'll be careful."  He
grasped the Master's other arm.
          The Master shook his head, chuckling under his breath.  "Oh,
Doctor," he said.  "Always a chess game with us, isn't it?"
          The Doctor took one step forward, his hands clasped behind his
back.  "I think this time, it's check and mate."
          "Impossible."
          "How so?"
          "Two opponents of equal skill, neither of us playing to win? 
Theoretically we should be able to challenge each other indefinitely."
          "Why do we play, if not to win?" the Doctor asked, though he knew
the answer.
          The Master smiled.  "To continue the game, of course."  His smile
dropped away.  "You may checkmate my king, Doctor, but I still have a few
moves left in my endgame."
          The Doctor sighed wearily.  "But as it happens, I'm not
interested in your games any longer.  It's over...you just don't know it."
          "If it is over for me...then it will be over for you, too," he
said, a sudden growl coming into his voice on the last word.  The Doctor
observed, too late, that while he distracted them with his talk about chess
games the Master's hand had crept to the commander's holster.  He whipped
the weapon out and before either Byron or the commander knew what was
happening he had the Doctor in his sights...but Ace had not been listening
to the Master's words, for she was familiar with the tactic.  She spun
Byron's blaster out of her holster and aimed it at the Master.
          They fired simultaneously...but the shots never reached their targets.


          All this happened in the space of half a second and no one really
had time to react.  As the two shots rang out, Romana ducked, the
Gallifreyan troops darted forward and both Byron and the commander lunged
for the gun in the Master's hand.  Both the Doctor and the Master flinched
backwards, expecting to feel the impact any second. 
          Nothing happened.  Ace stared towards the center of the lab, as
did everyone else...at the two shots hanging motionless in the air, defying
all laws of physics.
          She exchanged a puzzled glance with the Doctor, who was casting
his eyes all around the glass dome as if looking for something.
          Romana stepped forward cautiously.  "This is
certainly...unusual," she commented.  Two shots had been fired and
had...stopped in midair, held in place by a diffuse green force field that
seemed to have no source.  Both were still active, glowing their plasma red
and pulsing in a mimicry of the life they had been meant to extinguish. 
The guards were standing there like idiots, their mouths hanging open in
amazement.  Even the Master seemed taken aback, scarcely noticing when the
commander, who seemed to be the only one not impressed, reclaimed his gun
and secured it.
          The Doctor grabbed Ace's arm and drew her back.  "What's going
on?" she hissed at him.
          "If it is what I think it is, we'd like to be somewhere else."
          The force field holding back the shots began to bleed away
towards a point in empty space about five feet off the ground.  The energy
spiraled towards nothing...but it wasn't nothing.  Suddenly there was a
hand there, held out in a "come here" gesture.  An arm grew from the hand,
building itself out of nothing like water flowing into a container...the
arm became a shoulder, then a man's chest and a body and finally a face. 
The force field was draining into his palm.  Soon it was gone and the shots
dissipated.  The man lowered his arm and slowly looked around the
room...his eyes were glowing.
          The Doctor nodded at the newcomer.  "Come for your little science
project?" he asked, glancing in the Master's direction.  
          The man smiled.  "If it were my science project I could hardly
expect a ribbon," he said.  "Not when it's gotten so out of hand."  The
Master looked thoroughly confused.  The Doctor almost felt sorry for him. 
"Doctor, I'd suggest you stand back and keep out of the way.  I've come to
salvage what I could of my investment.  I might not have had to interfere
had your wife not fired on him," he said, casting a neutral glance at Ace.
          "If he hadn't tried to shoot the Doctor I wouldn't have had to!"
she pointed out, starting forward.  The Doctor put out an arm to stop her.
          The Master broke away from Byron and the commander and stepped up
to the stranger.  "Just who do you think you are?" he demanded.  "And how
dare you suggest I'm some kind of experiment!  All that I am I have made
possible through my own genius!"
          The man turned a cold eye on the Master, who fell back a step. 
"That's incorrect.  All that you are, *I* have made possible."  He
advanced.  "I am Seth, Time Lord.  That is all you need concern yourself
with at the moment.  I took an interest in you because you showed
potential.  Clearly you can't utilize it efficiently here, so you'll come
with me and I will instruct you."
          The Doctor and Ace exchanged an alarmed glance.  The Master by
himself was bad enough...but the Master *with* the power of Legion behind
him was something else.  The Doctor strode forward to face Seth, some part
of his brain wondering what he thought he was doing.  "Seth," he said, "the
Master is hardly worth your time."
          Seth shrugged.  "That's for me to decide, Doctor.  And I have
nothing but time."  He put his hands on his hips.  "Besides, what are you
going to do about it?  Remember who you're talking to.  No one interferes
with me," he said.
          The Doctor stepped back.  That's your cue, he thought, scarcely
daring to hope she might be here.  As Seth stood there, a smug smile on his
face as the seconds ticked by, the Doctor began to think she wasn't...but
then the air behind Seth's left shoulder shimmered and all at once she was
there, not bothering with a dramatic entrance as Seth had.  She reached
forward and tapped him on the shoulder.  He turned and his eyes widened. 
"You were saying?" Theo said with a sweet smile, then hauled back and
punched him.  Seth, completely unprepared, flew across the room to crash
into the control console. 
          The Doctor grasped Ace's arm in one hand and Romana's in the
other and drew them back against the dome, motioning the guards and Byron
to do the same.  "Here we go," he muttered, as Seth picked himself up and
launched himself at her.