NOTHING AND NOBODY can survive unprotected in the space-time vortex, that mysterious region where space and time are one. So there was nobody and nothing to observe the TARDIS as it spun through the howling maelstrom, the fragile wooden police box exterior tossed hither and thither by the shrieking time winds.
Inside, Romana – a Kraag standing close guard on either side of her – watched as Skagra turned the later pages of the book. ‘The key turns slowly in the lock,’ he whispered, his face lit by the eerie green glow from the central column. ‘The door to Shada opens!’
He started to turn the pages more quickly.
Suddenly the TARDIS jerked to one side, the engines grinding in protest. Emergency alarms blared, red lights blazed across the console. The illuminated circular panels on the walls dimmed and then flared back up, but instead of their usual warm yellow glow they too flickered a murky dark green, casting misshapen shadows as if the ship were being plunged deep underwater.
Romana felt a sickening plunging sensation in the pit of her stomach. She guessed the TARDIS was passing through a time-lock placed around Shada who knew how many thousands of years before. A time-lock was the usual way Gallifreyans kept the universe in general ignorant of their secrets. Or their misdeeds.
They were leaving the universe behind altogether, moving into a forbidden zone sealed safely away from the rest of reality. But this time Romana knew the Doctor was still alive. He would find some way to stop this, despite his less than impressive attempt at a rescue mission.
The TARDIS bucked and roared as Skagra turned the last few pages of The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey.
That book had taken Romana back to her childhood nightmares, now it was literally taking her to meet them, face to face. All that Romana could think of, blotting out even the terrifying scene around her, was one image from Our Planet Story, the wild, screaming insanity on the face of the Great Mind Outlaw Salyavin.
She was jolted back to the present as the TARDIS suddenly settled. The green glow brightened, the time column began to rise and fall, smoothly and silently, without its usual protesting squeaks and clanks. There was utter stillness and calm. A perfect harmony of technology. A TARDIS at the peak of its efficiency. And at the centre of it all stood Skagra, supremely calm and assured, as he turned the final page.
And Romana felt sick. It was as if the time ship had simply stopped fighting and surrendered itself to Skagra. As if the soul of the TARDIS was gone.