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voices from the past page 2

The Doctor's figure was far from inert. His two fists pounded angrily on a heavy metal door and he shouted out for some attention as he stood lonely in a small dark cell with no bed or chairs and no clue as to where we was or why.

The awful images from his past were still vividly engraved on his memory but he now began to see that they had not been real. Yet, he'd felt the pressure on his throat...after that he could remember nothing, except waking up here and wondering where the TARDIS was. He continued to shout through the door but either no-one could hear him or no-one wanted to.

~~~

Jeannie and Caroline had managed to usher everyone out of the console room and back into the open air, but now Jeannie was having trouble with her girlfriend.

'Hey look, Jeannie, I've got as much right to be here as you,' she argued angrily, 'and let go of my arm!' Jeannie let go and turned away. Caroline feasted her eyes in comprehendingly on the console and then turned to her friend. 'Well, come on then, who's this Perpugilliam girl? You seemed to know a lot about her.'

'She's changed,' said Jeannie, 'Did you see those clothes she was wearing? Looked, I'd better go and see if she's alright.'

Caroline watched her disappear through the inner door, then darted to the open double doors. 'Come on then!' she hissed. Ted appeared cautiously then grinned at Caroline and then crossed to the console.

'What does this do?' he said, pulling the large dematerialisation lever. The doors began to close.

'Hey! Don't touch anything!' Caroline warned.

Ted sighed. 'For heaven's sake, Caroline, it's only the door knob.' The doors closed shut and the Time Rotor began to move slowly up and down.

'What have you done?' Caroline screamed, running to the exit but finding no comfort in their unmovable seal.

'Go and get that girl,' said Ted quietly, staring at the controls and trying to remember everything his driving instructor had told him. 'My dad used to have an automatic car...'

Caroline began to pull at her hair. 'Oh, Ted, what have you done?'

'Get the girl!' he shouted.

Caroline ran from the room but when greeted by three different corridors as options of getting to that room where the girl was, she realised she hadn't been paying attention to directions on the previous occasion and ultimately chose the wrong one to run down.

~~~

The door to the cell suddenly opened and the Doctor's beating hands fell on a uniformed chest. He looked up into the black raven-eyes of a young soldier. 'Look, where am I?'

The soldier looked at the Doctor with evident disgust. 'You are here for your punishment, as well as you know.' He produced a revolver in one hand and grasped the Doctor's arm with the other. 'Come with me, it is time for stage one of your punishment to begin.'

In the darkened room with apparently no-one inside, all was quiet. A door opened and the Doctor was thrust inside, the soldier then stepped back outside closing the door. The Doctor stood still for a moment and tried to affix his eyes to the light, but the darkness seemed impenetrable. A voice suddenly broke the silence, it was old and withered yet distinctly female.

'Doctor...I hope you will face your punishment like a man...'

This remark seemed to be made with a certain degree of mocking sarcasm. 'This time, I'm afraid, there will be no-one to dazzle with your show of heroics. Just you and me in this room...'

The Doctor noticed that the air had become warmer. 'Who are you?'

A patch of brilliant white light suddenly illuminated a far corner of the room, and in the centre sat an ancient old woman who sat huddled amongst a black shawl in a huge armchair. Beneath layers of clothing a white face stared at the Doctor's partially-lit figure with accusing eyes.

'People who worship me, people who think as I do, call me the Strength of Life. My servants called me Mistress. Yet by men such as yourself the names have been many and varied, none of them complimentary. No doubt you will think me such a name when you learn of my intent and purpose. But for now, you need not address me. You need not speak. Just suffer.'

The light seemed to grow a long arm, and snake out across the room towards the Doctor. It grasped him by the neck and began to burn his skin away. The Doctor tried to move but another light, this one green and enveloping, had swept over the entire body and now held him in a paralysing grip. All he could feel was from his waist upwards, that terrible pain which threatened to burn his entire soul away.

~~~

Peri stumbled into the console room. 'What did you do?' she demanded to Ted, who just stood guiltily and baffled as she went around the console checking the systems one by one. She reached the navigational panel. 'Did you lay in any co-ordinates?'

Ted just looked at her.

'We're heading somewhere, but there's no name.'

The Time Rotor suddenly stopped and the room jolted slightly. On the scanner screen a sector of deep space was all that was shown, a few stars dotted between various planets and suns.

Peri stared at the screen and then at Ted and Jeannie. 'We're stuck!'

~~~

The light snaked back onto the old woman and the Doctor winced at the pain as the feeling returned to his reddened neck. The old woman was smiling, 'Ah, your craft has arrived, Doctor. At last your friend, the one you 'got rid of' earlier, will be able to see, that beneath that manly exterior there is a weakness such as that you always told her lay in yourself, a mere woman.'

The Doctor managed to speak. 'Why are you doing this? What...what do you mean?'

The old woman began to laugh. 'You really don't know, do you? Well, perhaps when Peri is watching I'll begin to explain.'

~~~

'Where's Caroline?' asked Jeannie suddenly, as the three figures stood motionless in the console room.

Ted frowned. 'I sent her to get you two! Didn't you see her?'

'No. We came to see what was going on. She must have got lost. Come and help me find her, Ted.'

They left Peri to stare abstractly at the scanner screen. She went over recent events and still found she couldn't quite believe it. In such a short time she'd severed her relationship with the Doctor and then had been reunited with New York and her old friend Jeannie, and then had found the Doctor dead, for what reason she knew not and what was happening to the TARDIS was another mystery...

The Doctor's face appeared on the scanner screen and Peri screamed. But when the image remained on the screen, Peri was silenced and simply looked on in wonderment. Then the look of agony on his face became noticeable, and she called his name cautiously.

An old woman, the old woman in the armchair, replaced the Doctor's face and her manifestation seemed a hideous misrepresentation of all that was good about grandmothers and that evil smile on her face leered hungrily at Peri.

'Girl...it is good to see you here. I have your enemy, the Doctor. At last you can see him for what he is. Stand and watch, my girl, as he suffers. Stand, and think of all the misery he has caused you. Stand and watch and be grateful!'

The whole room could now be seen on the screen. The green light still held the Doctor. 'Who are you?' he asked again, unaware of Peri.

The old woman's smile faded, and so did the light with bathed her. The room was once more black and even though the green light had vanished there was still a force which held him and his will. There was silence for a moment, but then laughter returned. Not the old woman's laughter but a younger laughter...

'Doctor...Doctor...I am the voice from the past. I am here to haunt you and to repay you for all you did to me...Doctor, hear me now and recognise me!'

The Doctor caught his breath. 'Sarah...what...' his voice was drowned by the laughter.

'Beware of me Doctor. I shall kill you soon...' The voice faded away and another appeared in its place.

'Doctor...I am here. Do you remember me, Doctor? You always hated me, Romana, yes? Now I'll haunt you too...I am the voice from your past...'

All the voices returned to him, all his companions, all his friends now murderous enemies intent upon inflicting the pain on him which he had apparently done to them over the years. And they were going to kill him...

In the TARDIS, Peri tried to see into the room. She fiddled anxiously with the control, and suddenly when she zoomed in on the darkness she saw the outline of an old woman's face. Peri realised that the old woman was saying everything, but with the different voices each time, imitating all the people the Doctor had known.

Suddenly, the face turned to look at Peri. 'Now, girl. Say it now! Say everything you've always wanted to say, tell the Doctor how you hate him!'

Peri shook her head desperately. 'No...please, no. Stop it, you're hurting him!'

The old woman continued impatiently, insisting that Peri unleash all her pent-up anger now. 'Say it girl, say it now! You remember all the times when the Doctor hit you...when the Doctor tried to kill you!'

The old woman gazed at her malevolently and she remembered all too clearly the time when the Doctor had tried to strangle her...did she really hate him? Perhaps she did...but no! She wanted to save him!

The old woman returned to the Doctor: 'Now do you see why I have you here? All your past companions hate you. I brought you here so that they might tell you what they thought of you, and maybe kill you! Peri is watching, and soon she will realise the truth about you. We women will be victorious!'

The Doctor managed a grin. 'So...this is a strike for Women's Lib, is it?' He was terrified by the past experiences, but also fascinated by the old woman. She turned back to Peri.

'You must speak now, Peri. Speak now!'

A beam of light shot from the old woman through the scanner screen and into Peri. She stood transfixed and began to mumble:

'Doctor...I hate...you... No! No, Doctor listen!' Her own consciousness fought through to stop the old woman and she remembered all she had seen. 'Doctor, there's only the old woman there...she was saying all those things...she was speaking...the voices!'

The old woman stared in amazement, and then let out a howl. 'No, girl, no! You mustn't say that! Nooo!'

Peri continued. 'Doctor, you must break free. She's just an old woman, that's all. A woman and...and you’re a man...you're a Time Lord. You're stronger than her...'

The old woman screamed, 'No, Peri! Do you not understand? We are the stronger race, the woman shall beat the man! Tell him that! Tell him what I have said!'

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