The Crystal Bucephalus (novel): Difference between revisions
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As soon as the Doctor’s temporal monitors detect the presence of a servitor from the Bucephalus, he passes on ownership of the restaurant to his loyal apprentice and activates his recall rod… only to end up in the Exemplar instead. | As soon as the Doctor’s temporal monitors detect the presence of a servitor from the Bucephalus, he passes on ownership of the restaurant to his loyal apprentice and activates his recall rod… only to end up in the Exemplar instead. | ||
There, he is reunited with Tegan and Tornqvist, and discovers that in her haste Matisse made an error while shutting down her equipment, causing the power to feed back to its source -- a singularity which will wipe out this entire solar system if it explodes. | There, he is reunited with Tegan and Tornqvist, and discovers that in her haste Matisse made an error while shutting down her equipment, causing the power to feed back to its source -- a singularity which will wipe out this entire solar system if it explodes. | ||
Unable to contain the damage, the Doctor decides to close off the power grid and transport it into the Vortex, where it will explode out of harm’s way. However, Garrett presses the wrong button at the wrong time, trapping himself, the Doctor, Tornqvist and Tegan in the control room when it dematerialises… | |||
Matisse arrives in the Bucephalus and locates the TARDIS, but presses the wrong controls and accidentally dematerialises. The turbulence generated by the link between the Bucephalus and the Exemplar causes the TARDIS to stall in the Vortex, and when Matisse tries to use the telepathic circuits to find out how to put things right, the sheer amount of information flooding through them knocks her out. Meanwhile, the Doctor opens a gateway to the Bucephalus, and urges the others through ahead -- but the gateway intersects the path of the TARDIS, and they end up there instead. | |||
There is still no sign of the Doctor when the Exemplar explodes, releasing a shock wave of indescribable power -- and the TARDIS, caught in the wave front of the Vortex rupture, begins to absorb more energy than it can safely contain… | |||
As a loyal follower of the Lazarus Intent, Monroe seems to have no choice but to pledge obedience to Arrestis. She therefore offers to use the Bucephalus to open a time gate to Hexdane, the capital of the Lazarus Intent, but is unable to do so due to the turbulence of the Vortex rupture. | |||
The buffers in the Bucephalus are flooded with more time spillage than they can handle, and Arrestis therefore takes Monroe and Turlough back to his ship, leaving Kamelion to guard Lassiter while the scientist ensures that the time buffers do not overload. Once Arrestis has gone, however, Kamelion submits to Lassiter’s will, and Lassiter orders him to kill Arrestis. | |||
The Doctor, meanwhile, survives his trip through the Vortex and arrives back in the Bucephalus, where he and Lassiter discover that the situation is worse than they’d thought. The TARDIS is absorbing most of the energy released by the Vortex rupture, and when it reaches its capacity, it will explode -- flooding the Bucephalus’ buffers with a massive blast of time spillage, and causing a chain reaction which could wipe out most of the inhabited galaxy. | |||
As the TARDIS begins to disintegrate, the childlike Garrett hears it speaking to him and guides the others to a place of safety. Their route takes them through the library, where Matisse lags behind collecting the books which will reveal the secrets of the Time Lords -- and is swept away into the Vortex when the library disintegrates around her. Garrett guides the others to a platform overlooking a set of interconnected domes and pillars -- a representation of the TARDIS itself, which is blowing to bits as they watch. | |||
Knowing that he will soon be dead, Tornqvist confesses to Tegan that he has suspected for some time that Arrestis was Lazarus -- suspicions which were confirmed in the Exemplar when he found Lazarus’ personal Inf in Arrestis’ quarters. | |||
He now believes that Arrestis had him kidnapped to find out how close he was to the truth. His faith has been shaken by the shock of learning the truth about his saviour, but Tegan reminds him that, whatever the reasons for its creation; the Lazarus Intent has brought hope to the galaxy; the faith is stronger than its founder. | |||
Arrestis survives Kamelion’s attack and returns to Grid Control to collect Lassiter, but once there Kamelion again submits to the Doctor’s will. The Doctor sends Kamelion to destroy the Bucephalus statue, hoping that the sudden release of energy from the time buffers will jar the TARDIS out of place and cause it to materialise. As soon as Kamelion has gone, Arrestis orders the Doctor to add his expertise to Monroe’s and generate a stable time gate to Hexdane. | |||
The Doctor reluctantly does so, but as soon as Arrestis has gone, Monroe admits that she knows the difference between the faith and its founder, and that she changed the gate’s co-ordinates. Meanwhile, Kamelion destroys the statue, and as the Doctor had hoped, the TARDIS is blasted free of the Vortex and materialises in the mezzanine. As the energy from the Vortex rupture floods into the Bucephalus’ time buffers, the Doctor uses the restaurant’s temporal projector to send it back in Time with a reduced reality quotient, ensuring that it dissipates harmlessly. | |||
Lassiter and Monroe are reconciled, and Lassiter finally meets Garrett, his son. Tornqvist, his faith restored, promises to ensure that the Lazarus Intent will carry on helping the people of the galaxy through the dark ages which the Doctor tells him are to come. Kamelion, realising that he cannot be trusted, decides to remain in the TARDIS from now on while the Doctor and his companions venture outside. | |||
The Doctor decides to take his companions to the Eye of Orion to relax while the TARDIS repairs itself. And elsewhere in time and space, Arrestis emerges from the time gate, expecting to find himself on Hexdane -- only to realise, too late, that Monroe has sent him back in time to Sontar at the exact moment of his death… | |||
== Characters == | == Characters == | ||
