THE MASSIVE INNER doorway of Chamber T slid slowly upwards. Skagra pushed Romana through, then followed her inside with the sphere and the Kraag Commander.
Romana looked around. The chamber was roughly circular, and consisted of hundreds of sealed black cabinets that resembled upright coffins. They were arranged regularly around the curving walls. Each cabinet was marked with an identifying sequence of numbers and letters in Gallifreyan notation. A connecting ramp led to higher levels, the cabinets stretching upwards into the darkness.
‘The prisoners of Shada,’ said Skagra. ‘Each in their own separate cryogenic cell. Alive, but frozen in time, in perpetual imprisonment.’ He turned to Romana with a slight smirk. ‘A very humane solution, don’t you think?’
Romana shrugged. ‘Don’t look at me. I’m not answerable for the Time Lords.’
‘Soon no one will be,’ said Skagra, ‘as the Time Lords, like every other race, will become irrelevant!’
Romana coughed. ‘You’re starting to get that mad gleam in your eye that the Doctor was talking about,’ she said, with a small sigh. ‘I knew you would. This is, after all, quite insane.’
Skagra walked slowly closer to her. ‘You are afraid.’
Romana tried to keep her gaze level. The longer she kept him talking, the greater the chance that something – anything – might stop him. ‘Of course. I’d be insane if I wasn’t afraid,’ she said.
‘There will be no fear in the Universal Mind,’ said Skagra. ‘But perhaps, just one last time, I should like to see that primitive animal emotion. I should like to see your fear, your terror. The terror of a Time Lord.’
‘You are seeing it,’ said Romana. ‘Is it worth it?’
Skagra smiled, a broad, terrible smile, and strode to the nearest cabinet. He read the nameplate. ‘Subjatric the tyrant!’ Then he punched out a command sequence into a tiny panel built into the side of the cabinet.
Immediately there was a scrape and a clank from somewhere deep in the dormant machinery. The door of the cabinet shuddered. Icy vapour began to swirl from within, the chemical tang catching at Romana’s throat.
Skagra moved to the next cabinet and read off its nameplate. ‘Rundgar, brother to Subjatric. Together, they dragged Gallifrey down into a second Dark Age!’ He punched at the cabinet’s panel and there was another clanking noise and more freezing cryogenic gas swirled.
‘What are you doing, Skagra?’ demanded Romana. ‘You came here for Salyavin. These others can’t possibly mean anything to you.’
Skagra moved to another cabinet. ‘But they mean something to you,’ he said. ‘It is a rare honour to bring a Time Lord’s nightmares to life.’ He entered the release code. Again the vapour poured out. ‘Lady Scintilla!’ he read from the nameplate. ‘And my actions have a practical purpose, as ever. They, along with you, of course, can become the first to participate in the Universal Mind!’
Romana watched appalled as the doors of the cabinets, each one containing a forgotten horror of Gallifreyan civilisation, began slowly to creak open.