True was alone with the Master. "H- How did you make the others disappear?" she asked.

"I can program my TARDIS to purge any object upon dematerialization," he answered.

"Why didn't you let me go, too?"

"Just a precaution. Until my power is absolutely secure you still might be useful as a hostage. Now be quiet, I have work to do. And don't even think of running. All my work in the Matrix will take but a fraction of a second." Once again, he attached the circuitry to his head and entered the Matrix.

As soon as he was in, he instructed the Matrix to scan local space and update him with the status of the Dalek fleet. So smooth was the interface, he almost felt as if it was he himself who was doing the scanning. The power was exhilarating. He checked to see if the Doctor's TARDIS had been destroyed, and he felt a little hollow inside when he saw that it had been. The Dalek fleet had breached the defenses of the Doctor's TARDIS and blown open its ridiculous plasmic shell, causing the fourth-dimensional folding inside to blossom outward in a spectacular fireball.

So. The Doctor was dead at last, after all their duels. He'd known it would happen eventually, but he was astonished to find that he'd actually miss the old duffer. No one else had given him such a challenge over the years, and the actual fact of his destruction paled in comparison to the anticipation of it. He guessed the old saying had some truth to it: having really wasn't so pleasing as wanting, at least in some things.

But in other things, he thought with a triumph, having was much more pleasing than wanting.

Scanning for the Dalek fleet, he realized with admiration that the Doctor had destroyed it. Well, well. He knew the Doctor was more than a match for the Daleks, but even so, to have taken care of the entire fleet so quickly was impressive, even for him. But the Daleks had managed to destroy his ship just before the transduction barriers had achieved full power, locking them in. Mutual annihilation. The Master laughed. Perfect!

He canceled all access to the Matrix for both the Doctor and Romana, and indeed, for anyone but himself, and took care of the back door which the Doctor had built. It took a little longer than he'd thought it would, but the fact that he'd been inside the Matrix several times already helped. He augmented his DNA profile to accept him as the President of the Time Lords.

He took off the interface and seemed entirely relaxed. "Good news," he said, smiling at True. "Everything, absolutely everything, has gone the way I planned it."

She backed up against the wall. "What does that mean?"

"It means that I now control all of Gallifrey, the Doctor and Romana are dead, and I don't need you any more." He raised his Tissue Compression Eliminator and shot her.

She screamed in purest agony, but not for long. Her body quickly shrank, and within seconds all that was left of True Danziger was a little doll, six inches long, lying twisted and broken on the floor.

The Master smirked. He reached beneath the console to a small storage compartment and pulled out a hand-held piece of advanced equipment. He then materialized his TARDIS and walked out to greet his subjects.

Gallifrey was a ruin. Crumbled buildings, fires, the dead and the smoking remains of Daleks littered the landscape. The Master walked through it all for a while, gathering survivors together, telling them to follow him to a place of safety. Eventually, as it grew lighter, he found the leader of the Gallifreyan forces.

"You're Harrigan, Captain of the Guard, aren't you?" the Master asked.

Harrigan nodded. "Yes. Who might you be?"

"I am the Master. It was I who released the weapons with which you were able to defend Gallifrey."

"No, sir," Harrigan said. "That was the work of our Lady President."

"No," the Master shook his head, looking concerned. "It wasn't. The President and all of her friends and advisors left Gallifrey the moment the attack took place. They turned tail and ran, leaving you to your fate."

"I can't believe that, sir," Harrigan answered.

"Believe it," the Master said. "They left the rest of you to die, used their position of power to save themselves and let you take the fall. I am the one who found a way into the Matrix and released the weapons, and it was I who destroyed the Dalek fleet surrounding Gallifrey."

"You, sir?" Harrigan asked in wonder.

"Indeed. None other."

"But...the Lady Romana..."

The Master shook his head. "Sadly, the President was corrupted by the off-worlders, I'm afraid."

Harrigan grew angry. "I never did like off-worlders, sir. I knew they were nothing but trouble the moment they arrived."

"I agree, completely. Tell me, where is the Castellan?"

"Oh, he's dead sir," Harrigan said with a deep sigh. "My boys and I were trapped in Central Control for the whole fight. But we defended it!" Harrigan puffed out his chest proudly. "The Castellan and all his troops managed to fight their way back across the city all the way to Central Control, but the Daleks had some massive weaponry of their own. It was a bloody fight, sir. We won, but the Castellan and almost everyone with him was killed."

"I see," the Master said. "Such a pity. We shall need a new Castellan, of course. You'd be the natural person for the job."

"Me, sir?" Harrigan asked. "Surely it's too soon to be thinking of all that."

"Not at all," the Master replied. "Gallifrey is now leaderless, and she's never needed a strong leader more than she does now." The Master held up the device he'd brought with him from his TARDIS. "And I believe I have the answer."

He trudged to the top of a crumbled wall (it would make for a good effect, he thought), and shouted to the people around him. "Good citizens of Gallifrey, listen to me. You have all been betrayed by your President. She brought this attack upon herself by trying to establish diplomatic relations with the Daleks months ago, an act which not even a primate would have considered doing!"

The gathering crowd murmured its assent and growing anger.

"She left you to die the moment the attack started. She and her rogue friend, the Doctor, and the off-worlders she cavorted with. She is the one responsible for bringing upon us the destruction you see around you." The Master extended his hand dramatically. "It was I, the Master, who went into the Matrix, at great risk to my own life, and released the weapons we needed for our defense. Ask yourself, why did it take so long for the weapons to be released? Why didn't your esteemed President do so before now?" He shook his head sadly. "It was because she was gone."

Angry cries erupted from the crowd.

"But wait!" the Master shouted. "That's not all. You know as well as I do that some time in the future, perhaps millennia from now, perhaps-" he looked around alarmingly, his eyes wide, "-perhaps even tomorrow, another war will come. You know the war of which I speak, the Great War of our destruction. We don't know who the enemy will be. All we know is that they will be another time-active race, like us. And if the Daleks, of all species, can breach our defenses," the Master shook his head, "then there may be no normal defense for us against our future foe."

"What can we do?" Harrigan asked worriedly.

"We look, as always, to Rassilon," the Master announced with quiet dignity. At the mention of that name the crowd's fears eased somewhat. "Rassilon, even as he was setting up the basis for our entire way of life, was preparing for this eventuality. He had a plan. He had a prophecy! And this, fellow Time Lords, is our new home." He raised the device in his hand and pressed a button. A portal opened next to him, through which shone dazzling colors and mysterious shadows.

"Behold, the time vortex!" the Master shouted. "The Time Lords of Gallifrey have not reached the end of our evolutionary path! We have but one more step to take, and the time has come for us to do so. Within my body is a genetic template which, when shared with all Time Lords everywhere, will eventually enable us, or the generations which come after us, to leave this universe and ascend to a higher plane of existence, and become, truly, the Lords of Time. Such as it was foretold and planned for by Rassilon, eons ago."

Harrigan stepped forward and bowed down. "Truly, you are a genius," he said. "In the absence of any ruler on Gallifrey, I call for the Master to be made President! He saved us from the Daleks."

A massive cheer erupted from the crowd and the Master smiled as he soaked up the adulation, which he knew he deserved and had been a long time coming. Then his smile faded as he looked around at all the people gathered before him, cheering for him, then down at Harrigan, still bowing and looking up at him with pleading in his eyes.

"No," the Master whispered. "This is too easy." He suddenly whirled and screamed at the sky. "I reject this! It's too easy! Do you hear me, Doctor? I won't be fooled so easily!" With an angry snarl, the Master concentrated all of his willpower, forcing his real hands to move to his head and rip off the headset connecting him to the Matrix.

He found himself lying on the floor of his TARDIS's console room.

He gripped the circle of connecting leads, shaking with a rage. One last trick from the Doctor. A virtual illusion, uploaded into the Matrix and designed to activate the moment he entered it a second time.

He looked around. True was gone, of course, and the double doors were open. There was no corpse, for her death had been part of the simulation. With a smile of admiration, he realized that the Doctor had even thought to build a time-lapse simulator into the illusion. Since several cycles had passed in the virtual environment, at least two cycles must have passed in real time since he'd been connected to the Matrix.

He stood up, grabbed the TCE and the device which activated the portal to the time vortex. The Doctor was just stalling for time, but he would still win. He was the Master, and he was destined to do so.

He had been assured of it.

 

True had stood silently while the Master had connected himself to the Matrix again. As before, she had expected him to return instantly, not giving her time to do anything. But the Master had slowly stumbled to the ground, as if drugged, and had ended up lying on the floor.

Shaking, True hesitantly made her way forward, but the Master remained still. She didn't know if this was a trick, nor did she care. All she knew was that she wanted out of there. She quickly started activating switches again, as she had before, and again she found the one which opened the double-doors behind her.

She ran out into the cool night air and found herself standing on the roof of the Presidential Palace. Around her lay the city of Gallifrey, burning brightly in several places. She could hear a fierce battle raging in one area of the city.

She looked behind her. The Master's TARDIS was still in the shape of a plain white cube. She could see its massive interior through the small door she had just came through.

She ran into the palace, beginning to cry with the shock of all that had happened and the news of her father's death. She ran back to the suite she and her father had chosen in the east wing, for she couldn't think of anywhere else to go. The corridors were deserted, their silence somehow deepened by the far-off, muted rumblings of battle.

She made it to her room and lay on the bed, sobbing good and hard. It lasted for a few minutes, but, strangely, she began to feel better. Somehow, the fact that she had been through so much already while on G889 helped her. And she knew that her dad loved her more than life itself and would want her to keep going, to take some action. She was a Danziger. She didn't break easily.

Still sniffling, she sat down at the room's computer terminal. She fiddled with it for a few moments until she found a communicator. "Hello?" she spoke into it. "This is True Danziger, and I've just escaped from the Master. Please help me!"

 

As soon as the two main transduction barriers had finished forming, the barrage from the Dalek fleet stopped. Danziger helped Devon off the floor, where they had both fallen as the blasts from the Daleks had shaken the TARDIS, and stood next to the Doctor and Romana. Along with Ulysses, Morgan, K9, Reilly, Oleander and the survivors from the escape pods, they watched the ceiling. Upon it was projected a massive picture of the two transduction barriers closing on the Dalek fleet. Two great orbs of energy, one of them collapsing, one of them ballooning outward. The ships scrambled for safety as they realized what was happening, but there was no escape.

The explosions came only a few at a time, at first, as the barriers caught the ships on the edges. Then more and more of the ships exploded as the barriers allowed nothing to get in their way. Suddenly, the sky all around Gallifrey was filled with the bright panorama of exploding Dalek ships, a massive sphere of pyrotechnics, fires blossoming everywhere – fires which were snuffed out completely moments later as the two transduction barriers came together as one, crushing everything between them. The outer barrier disappeared and the inner barrier remained, reforming the defense around Gallifrey.

Devon looked at the Doctor. He was the only one who hadn't watched the spectacle. Instead, he had simply stared at the floor in sadness. "Such a waste," he whispered.

"So it's over?" Devon asked.

"Not quite," Romana answered. "There's still a Dalek army on the surface which Andred and his guards have to deal with. Daleks are programmed never to give up. They'll have to be destroyed face to face."

"And the Master still has True!" Danziger said, glaring at Reilly.

"But by this time he should have walked into the little trap I set for him," the Doctor announced, bustling himself back to the console and peering at it intently.

"What trap?" Danziger asked.

"Romana and I tricked the Master," the Doctor said. "It wasn't Romana who created new protocols to further lock off the Eye of Harmony. K9 was doing that while we kept the Master occupied with small talk."

"That's right," Romana said. "We knew the Master would be watching our every move. He doesn't have the right reversal codes, he just thinks he does."

A light smile touched the Doctor's face as he worked. "That's not all. I used Morgan's gear set to construct an illusion, one which shows the Master an image of Gallifrey as he'd like to see it. It's also designed to slow down the speed of interfacing with the Matrix, so it will be many minutes before he discovers the deception. And on top of that, it's designed to force his TARDIS to make an emergency materialization the moment it starts." The Doctor looked up with a mischievous grin. "He can fool with my TARDIS. I can fool with his."

"Is there any way of tracking his TARDIS once it's materialized?" Danziger asked.

"Of course," Romana said with a smile. "He's still got his TARDIS linked to the Matrix. We'll go back into the Matrix and retrieve his location." She turned to the Doctor. "I wonder how Andred and his forces are getting on."

"Perhaps we should ask them," the Doctor said, activating a communicator. But what they heard almost immediately was True's voice. "Hello?" she said. "This is True Danziger, and I've just escaped from the Master. Please help me!"

Danziger lunged for the console. The Doctor quickly showed him how to use the communicator. "True honey, are you all right?" he asked.

True's eyes grew wide, hardly daring to hope that it really was her father's voice. "Dad?" she asked, trembling.

"It's me, sweetheart," Danziger said, tears streaming down his face. "Just tell us where you are and we'll come get you." The Doctor was already tracing the source of the signal.

"I'm in our room in the palace," she said, crying also. Almost immediately, the Doctor's TARDIS materialized behind her. The doors opened. John Danziger ran out and embraced his daughter in a hug so strong it almost took her breath away.

"Oh, God, sweetie, you're all right," he said. True embraced him with all her might. Devon, Ulysses and Morgan stepped out of the TARDIS also.

The Doctor stuck his head out the door and coughed politely. "According to the Matrix, the Master's TARDIS is up on the roof."

True let go of her father, brushing tears out of her eyes, and looked up at the Doctor with a expression of quiet strength and anger. "I'll show you where he is," she said. "Come on!" She ran out of the room. Danziger hurried after her, eager to meet the man who had dared capture his daughter. Uly took off after them before Devon could say a thing. "Uly!" she called, chasing him. "I want you to stay here!"

"It's all right, mom," Uly answered as he ran on. She followed him, exasperated, limping along as quickly as she could. Morgan, the Doctor, Romana and Oleander followed. They rushed through the palace at full speed, heading for the lifts which would take them to the roof.

The lift doors opened to reveal two Daleks inside. "Exterminate!" they yelled.

"Back!" the Doctor shouted, madly skidding on his heels and trying to stop the people behind him. A blast from the first Dalek passed right in front of him, hitting the opposite wall.

The Doctor popped out his sonic screwdriver and activated it at full strength. Everyone clutched their ears as the sonic vibrations swept the corridor, but the lift control panel blew off the wall and the doors closed again, sealing the Daleks inside.

"I don't believe it!" Morgan wailed. "I left that gun back in the TARDIS!"

"We don't have time to go get it!" the Doctor yelled, and the Daleks in the lift blasted the doors out into the corridor. "The stairs! Now!" He kicked open the stairwell door and they all piled inside.

"Now we're cut off from the TARDIS!" Romana gasped.

"I don't get it!" Uly said. "Why are the Daleks still protecting the Master?"

"They're not!" the Doctor replied as they ran down the stairs. "They're just left over. Fighting is all they know how to do."

They emerged onto a lower level and ran across a long ball room, down highly decorative hallways and past parlors and historical meeting rooms. From behind them came the metallic shouting of more Daleks on this level, and shots burned into the wall just as they turned a corner into the palace's central atrium.

"Are we going anywhere in particular or are we just running?" Danziger asked, trying to protect True.

"Yes," the Doctor replied. "If we can get to the opposite wing and make our way back up, we should be all right. The Daleks will be expecting us to go down. They won't know about the Master's presence on the roof."

"Maybe we should tell them," Devon said, panting from the exertion. "Then they could go after him."

"They still wouldn't leave us alone," the Doctor said. "Besides," he added darkly, "I want to have a little chat with him."

They ran through more rooms and along more corridors than Devon could count, haunted always by the sound of pursuing Daleks. She dragged herself on wearily. She didn't know if she could take much more. Her sides were beginning to cramp up from all the running.

The Doctor led them along another corridor and turned into still another one, and suddenly Devon recognized where she was: it was the Hall of Time. The time vortex swirled all around them.

"What is this place?" Morgan asked, and his voice would have been a whisper if it weren't for the fact that he was wheezing. He was about to drop. Devon knew how he felt.

"Never mind about that," the Doctor said. "We're nearly there." They made their way through the Hall of Time and exited onto a dimly lit balcony. They began circling it when Morgan collapsed.

"Come on," Danziger said, helping him up, but he was also breathing hard and Morgan was in a really bad way. "We've got to keep going." He tried to help Morgan, but his feet just didn't seem able to move. With the sudden stop, Devon leaned over, also. Her leg injury was on fire again, as was her entire left side. Even the Doctor and Romana, with their Time Lord physiologies, seemed a bit spent. Uly and True were breathing hard, but they seemed fit enough for a little more. Only Oleander seemed unperturbed. He helped Danziger to support Morgan.

The Dalek voices were suddenly very near, echoing within the Hall of Time itself.

"Come on, Morgan," Danziger said. "We've got to go!"

Ulysses took one look at the situation and said, "Mom, we'll never make it!" Before she could stop him he rushed back into the Hall of Time, his little staff buzzing with energy.

"Uly!" she shouted, and suddenly her injuries were nothing. She ran after him.

Uly turned to look at her. "Trust me!" he insisted and shut the doors, sealing himself inside.

With horror on her face, all she could do was watch as her son turned to face the entire Dalek squad and yelled, "Eat this!" He bowed his head and let loose a blast of energy at the glass walls of the Hall of Time.

The Daleks looked around in alarm as the glass exploded over them in a flurry of shards, wondering what to make of the vast time vortex portals beyond. Then Uly let loose another blast at the machinery by the door.

"Uly!" Devon shouted, her entire world exploding along with the portals as the time vortex flooded into the Hall and took everything with it – the Daleks, and her son. She was left staring at the blinding, swirling colors of the vortex. It seeped through the door and touched her hands and her face, burning them with a searing pain. She never noticed.

The Doctor pulled her away, and she still didn't notice. She'd just seen her son swept into the vortex. Nothing mattered to her, now. Nothing.

"Devon," the Doctor said. "He will be all right. Trust me."

Trust me. The two words Ulysses had said before sealing himself inside. She looked at the Doctor, into his eyes, and suddenly realized that she needed to believe. If she didn't now, she never would.

She nodded. "Okay," she whispered.

He pulled her upright again and set off. "Come on! We may not have much time left!"

They staggered on and found a way up to the roof, the Doctor urging them to hurry every step of the way.

"You know," Danziger said as they ran, "I sure hope we don't have to fight him when we get there, because we're all beat."

They emerged onto the roof and saw the Master's TARDIS in the distance, standing with the doors still open. They raced for it, their hearts beating more and more strongly as they neared it in anticipation of what they would find. But just as they reached it, the Master appeared in the doorway, holding his Tissue Compression Eliminator in one hand and the vortex interface with the other.

The group came to a halt, breathing hard, facing the Master. He just smiled.

"That was a cute trick you pulled with the virtual environment," he said. "It actually had me fooled for several cycles."

"Not long enough," the Doctor said. "Another few seconds was all we needed."

"You would never have had them, no matter how hard you tried," the Master said. "Don't you understand, Doctor? Don't you get it, even now? I'm destined to become the new leader of the Time Lords. And you can't stop a man who has a destiny."

He activated the interface, creating a portal which opened onto the time vortex. "This is our future, Doctor! From within the safety of this dimension, we can truly be Gods. Why do you fight me in that ambition? Don't you want to share in it? Even a little bit?"

"No," the Doctor said. "I only want to know one thing: what makes you think you're the chosen leader of the Time Lords?"

"Natural talent," the Master said with a smile. "Power belongs to those with the stamina and the means to take it."

"No," the Doctor shook his head. "I'm being more specific. Something put the notion into your head that you were the one prophesied by Rassilon. What was it?"

"It was me," a low voice boomed all around them.

With the sound of rolling thunder, a figure began to take shape beside the Master. Silhouetted as he was against the shifting colors of the vortex, his entire being consisted of blackest night. Somehow, though, everyone knew that he would be pure darkness anyway, no matter where he showed up, for he radiated an aura of intense evil. Even the natural charisma of the Master evaporated in comparison to this figure, a being who instilled in everyone present the knowledge that he was evil incarnate.

The figure solidified and looked down at the Doctor with a sneer. The Doctor could only look up in terror. He didn't back down, not one inch, but the Doctor knew enough to know when he was up against a force beyond his reckoning, and he was looking at one now.

"Who- Who is that?" Morgan squeaked, looking at any moment as if he was about to run as far and as fast as he could, no matter how tired he was.

The Doctor's shoulders slumped. "The entity standing before us is the Black Guardian," he said tiredly. "He is the immortal, absolute, supreme representation of all evil in the entire cosmos. He once promised to destroy me because I denied him the Key to Time." His voice was full of sadness. "The Black Guardian wants my head on a platter. But there is only one other as powerful as he, and I am not him."

"It was I who told the Master about Rassilon's great prophecy," the Black Guardian bellowed. His voice was all around them, inside them, everywhere. It echoed inside their heads. He turned to the Master. "But even with all the information I gave to you, you still could not carry out the simple task of destroying the Doctor."

"But I can destroy him!" the Master said, brandishing his weapon. "I was just toying with him. The situation's in hand. I've won!"

The Black Guardian reared his head back and laughed. Doubt crossed the Master's face for the first time. "You've won nothing, Time Lord. You have disappointed me with the way you fouled up the entire operation. For there is something about the group standing before you which you do not yet realize."

Everyone, including the Master, looked puzzled at this remark. Everyone but the Doctor, whose face began to clear as the realization hit him full force. "Of course," he said. "The Guardians of the universe are equal and opposite. They never interfere directly, they only influence events." He looked up at the Black Guardian. "But by contacting the Master and giving him information so directly, you broke your own rule. You interfered. Therefore, to maintain the balance, your opposite would also have interfered."

The Doctor slowly turned to face Oleander. "That's why I thought I recognized you the moment we met," he said. "I've been such a fool."

Oleander just smiled kindly. "You always were a bit slow on the uptake, Doctor."

Devon and Danziger were looking back and forth between Oleander and the Doctor. "I don't understand," Danziger said.

"It's perfectly simple," the Doctor said, as Oleander discarded his mortal form and grew larger, shining forth with a brilliant radiance. "Oleander is the White Guardian."

The White Guardian stepped forward to face his opposite. "You will never destroy the light," he said.

"Others shall do it for me," the Black Guardian responded.

"Destroy the light, and you destroy yourself," the White Guardian said. "Dark cannot exist without knowledge of light."

"Nor light without dark," the Black Guardian answered. "Your powers are waning."

"Others will recharge them for me," the White Guardian said.

They stepped away from each other again, their ritual complete.

"If you're the White Guardian, why haven't you been helping us all along?" Danziger asked.

"He has," the Doctor answered. "But only to an extent which would equal the involvement of the Black Guardian. His enemy gave a little bit of help directly to the Master, so the White Guardian appeared to give a little bit of help directly to us. When my TARDIS materialized around the three of you on the Dalek prison ship, it wasn't because it had homed in on your brain patterns – it was because the White Guardian directed it there. And he could reassure Devon that there were no more prisoners on board the other Dalek ships because he's omniscient."

"Indeed, Doctor," the White Guardian said.

"This changes nothing!" the Master shouted. "You Guardians can play your games all you want, but I'm still the chosen leader of Gallifrey's future!"

The Black Guardian laughed again. "You still do not comprehend, do you, you so-called 'Master?' You do not carry the genetic template. You never have. I just told you that so you would carry out my plan."

The Master could only stare at the Black Guardian in amazement.

"How does it feel to have a taste of your own medicine?" the Doctor asked him.

"But...but I have to be!" the Master exclaimed. "I am the Master! I am-"

"You are nothing," said a new voice. It emanated from the portal leading into the time vortex. The Master turned to face it and found himself looking at Kronos the Chronovore.

"I've been listening to this conversation with some interest," Kronos said. "And you and I have unfinished business."

"You can't harm me," the Master insisted. "I'm the one who was foretold to lead the Gallifreyans to victory."

The Doctor spoke up. "Kronos, unless I'm much mistaken, there is no part of the prophecy which mentions anything about a great leader, is there?"

"No, Doctor," Kronos answered. "There is not."

"What are you talking about?" the Master asked. "The prophecy states that the one carrying the genetic template will lead the Time Lords to victory!"

"No," the Doctor said. "I'm going over in my mind what Kronos told us in the vortex, and knowing how exact Chronovores are with their thoughts and actions, I realized that we've all made an assumption.

"Kronos said, and I quote, 'The gene will be passed to the Gallifreyans, and it will subsequently lead them to victory.'" The Doctor smiled at the Master, but it was a smile of sadness and irony. "Not, 'that person' will lead them to victory, but 'it' will lead them to victory. It, as in the genetic template itself. The prophecy says nothing about the person who brings it becoming the leader of the Time Lords. It never did."

"No," the Master whispered.

"Yes," Kronos said. "You deceived yourself all along. And what is more, you are not the one who carries the template, anyway. Which means you are mine." Kronos reached out to the Master and gripped him with claws that the others could barely see. The air around the Master rippled. He tried to shoot Kronos with the TCE, but he couldn't move his hand. He dropped it, as well as the vortex interface, and Kronos lifted him through the portal.

"I will take him," Kronos said. "I've long needed an amusement and there are certain injustices the Master performed against me that I have yet to repay. If he is not the one foretold, then I have no reason to spare him." Both Guardians looked on impassively, neither able to interfere.

"Kronos," the Doctor stepped forward. "Please, you don't have to do this. Revenge is a hollow pleasure. Believe me, I know. Give us the Master, let us take him into custody."

"I know perfectly well how you feel about mercy, Doctor," Kronos said, "although I will never understand it. You pleaded for the Master's release once and I granted your request because I owed you something. I owe you nothing now, so I will keep him."

"No! Please!" the Master shouted. "Nooooooooooooooo!" His voice receded into the distance as Kronos sent him flying deep into the vortex.

"However, I will grant you one boon, Doctor," Kronos continued. "I found someone drifting in the vortex, and I think he belongs to you. He is unharmed, but he did not know how to find his way back home."

Ulysses Adair slowly drifted forward through the colored shadows to stand within the portal. He stepped through it, onto the palace roof, looking around curiously. Her lip trembling, Devon sank to her knees and held him.

"I'm okay, Mom," he said. "I told you to trust me." She simply smiled at him and smoothed back his hair. Shielding her eyes, she looked back into the vortex, but Kronos was gone.

"Our work here is finished," the White Guardian said.

"Only for the moment," the Black Guardian retorted. "Watch what you do very carefully, Doctor. I shall be waiting, and one day, there shall be a reckoning." He faded away.

The White Guardian turned to him. "I'm afraid there's little I can do to dissuade him. You have defeated him more times than any other mortal, Doctor. He will never forget that."

"I know," the Doctor said.

"One final thing," the White Guardian said. "The chosen one, the being who carries the genetic template."

"Yes?" the Doctor asked.

"All I will tell you," the White Guardian said, "is that you should ask yourself how the Terrians knew that you would be brought to trial, and how they knew that these events were destined to occur."

The Doctor shook his head in puzzlement, then slowly turned to stare at Devon, still holding her son. "It's Ulysses," he whispered. "He's a time-sensitive, he's not a Time Lord, and he appeared to us in the midst of a crisis."

"Yes, Doctor," the White Guardian said. "The genetic template is that of G889 itself. That planet will provide the eventual salvation of the Time Lords. Farewell." Then he, too, simply disappeared.

The Doctor sighed and shook his head. Then he sadly picked up the vortex interface and switched it off. The portal to the time vortex disappeared, leaving himself, Romana, Devon, Danziger, Morgan, True and Ulysses alone on the palace roof. The only sound they heard was the wind and the distant sounds of battle as the last of the Daleks around the capital were disposed of.

In the east, the sun began to rise.