Heart of Darkness«
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»Heart of Darkness« Eine A-Little-More-Sonic- Doctor Who- Audiogeschichte – Prod. 5/8 – Final »e« – Buch: Elmar Vogt Nach der Novelle von J. Conrad 28. Juli 2016 »Heart of Darkness, Final ‘e’« – Version: 28. Juli 2016 Elmar Vogt, Fürth – http://littlemoresonic.com Personen (1 ~, 1 |) Szene 1: Summoned by the High Council 1.1 When the High Council of Gallifrey summons you, you don’t dally – you obey. Even more so when the message reaches you with the seal of both the Lord Chancellor, and Castellan Kelner. 1.2 I thus aborted my current mission the very hour the subspace call reached me. My original task – to see how a civil war was developing in the Trimaris constellation – had never been high-priority, and I could just as well leave a robotic probe to record the events until I’d return, which wouldn’t take long – or at least so I thought. 1.3 (surprised) I arrived at Gallifrey in my Tardis and had a welcome committee expecting me, consisting not only of the Castellan, but also of a sizable number of guards, which lead me to the Lord Chancellor himself. 1.4 It was the first time I got to meet Borusa in person. He sat behind his huge desk, all respectability and authority. But there was a taint in the atmosphere, as if all the insignia of his station which surrounded him had lost their lustre. His right-hand aide, the Castellan Kelner, was obviously nervous. I still had no idea what all that was about – the message calling me back to Gallifrey had been as terse as one could imagine. 1.5 »We have lost a Time Lord«, Borusa finally revealed. What was that supposed to mean? – Losing a Time Lord. Someone had died? Or they had lost track of him? 1.6 »There was an experiment a short while ago«, Kelner continued. »An attempt to link the Matrix to a Tardis’ cloister bell, and from there to the operator of the Tardis.« 1.7 »Let’s get to the point«, Borusa demanded. 1.8 The Castellan skipped the technical part: »Let’s say, the experiment was not exactly a spectacular success. The pilot performing the link was found barely alive.« – »Of course, he was immediately brought to a hospital«, Borusa took over from him. »And for the first two days or so, he seemed to make good progress.« 1.9 »But that didn’t last?«, I surmised. The Castellan shook his head. »No, it didn’t. Probably he only faked his sanity while pretending to recuperate.« Faking one’s sanity, I thought, an interesting concept. »He then vanished from the hospital,« Kelner said, »and only hours later we found that he had stolen a Tardis.« 1.10 It was Borusa’s turn again: »He sent us a message before he disappeared in deep space. It was his new name.« I understood the signifiance of this gesture: When Time Lords turned their back on Gallifrey, they most often did so by renouncing their birth name and assuming a moniker of their own. I involuntarily held my breath. 2 »Heart of Darkness, Final ‘e’« – Version: 28. Juli 2016 Elmar Vogt, Fürth – http://littlemoresonic.com 1.11 »It seems he is calling himself the Vector now – whatever that is supposed to mean.« I exhaled. I had been worried that the refugee’s new name would have been that of a friend of mine – the Doctor. But this was not the case. The Vector – an entity that consists of a magnitude and a direction, that was the mathematical definition. Something heading somewhere would be the more informal explanation. But where would this hapless test pilot head for? 1.12 »I presume you want me to find him?«, I then asked the logical question, and both Borusa and Kelner nodded. »How?« 1.13 Kelner first answered a different question – ‘Why?’: »We have reason to assume that he is actively interfering in the business of another race. And not with the most benevolent intent, to put it mildly.« As for the ‘How’, he produced a little device from the folds of his tunic. 1.14 »This is a muon1 tracer. It will allow you to follow the muon trail of his Tardis«, he said. 1.15 I summoned my courage before I went on. I don’t usually question the High Council. »Your Excellency, but why did you chose me? Why not simply sending a regiment of council guards after him?«, I queried. 1.16 Borusa slowly shook his head. »Non-interference. We have all reason to believe that the Vector has entered a system inhabited by sentient creatures.« I understood. This pretty much ruled out any brute-force approach to dislodge him from his chosen sanctuary. 1.17 I accepted the muon tracer from the Castellan. »And if I find the Vector, what am I supposed to do with him?« The Castellan and the Chancellor exchanged a quick glance. 1.18 »We need to be honest with you«, Borusa muttered. »The Vector is dangerous. When he fled from the hospital, there were casualties. Several casualties.« 1.19 »We don’t want him dead«, the Castellan cautioned. »That should only be the last resort. But his threat needs to be neutralized.« He showed an uneasy smile when he realized that these instructions were of little use to me. »To this end, here’s another item for you.« 1.20 He passed me a device which was the size of an apple, made of ultrablack material, reflecting no light whatsoever – literally, only a shadow I was holding in my hand, a massive hole of nothingness which seemed to float in my palm. 1.21 »It’s a fractal bomb«, the Castellan explained. »If you activate it, it will throw whatever is in a three-meter radius around it into the Schrödinger folds.« I drew my breath in, understanding the consequences. Schrödinger folds were the fringe regions at the borders of the universe, where the dimensions became fractal in nature and got entangled in an ever finer mesh of knots and loops, loosing themselves in an infinite maze. Whatever was trapped there, there was no way back for it into our universe, not in an eternity of lifetimes. 1[mju:6n] 3 »Heart of Darkness, Final ‘e’« – Version: 28. Juli 2016 Elmar Vogt, Fürth – http://littlemoresonic.com 1.22 »If you manage to catch the Vector, subdue him and render him harmless, then do so by all means. If not, use the fractal bomb.« The Chancellor’s instructions were succinct. 1.23 A few minutes later I found myself back on my way to my Tardis, still a bit dazzled. 1.24 Kelner was accompanying me. »You haven’t told me:«, I wanted to know from him, »These experiments – were they sanctioned by the council, or did the Vector perform them on his own initiative?«. The Castellan avoided my glance. »He knew what he was doing«, was all he said. 1.25 When we had arrived at the Tardis, the Castellan hesitated, and then said: »There is another thing I need to tell you. Borusa wasn’t completely candid with you.« I waited for him to complete his sentence. »These deaths at the hospital – that wasn’t murder committed by the Vector. These were suicides.« Szene 2: Encounter in Deep Space 2.1 The Castellan had shaken my hand before I left Gallifrey in a gesture which expressed he wished me success, but didn’t expect it. I wondered what they would do if I didn’t return – send another one-man mission? Drop the non-interference and go »big guns«? Or simply hush up the issue, hoping the Vector could be forgotten about? 2.2 In my briefing I had received more questions than answers: What had been at the heart of the experiments that drove the Vector off? What were Borusa and Kelner so obviously afraid of? Why had they chosen me, a space traffic and development controller, for this mission? Did they even know themselves, or had I merely been a suggestion of the matrix? 2.3 At least, the muon tracer worked nicely. It was a slow and laborious process, but every time the Vector’s Tardis had dropped from the time vortex into N-space, I was able to pick up his track again and follow it. 2.4 I travelled through a respectable amount of time and space. The Vector had, it seemed, visited the Sontaran homeworld before the Sontarans appeared as a civilized race, and he had even ventured out to Skaro, Vel Consadine and as far as Utopia. At first I thought he wanted to shake his pursuers off his trail, but then I realized: He made no efforts to hide his muon track at the turning points of his route. It dawned on me: He was simply undecided where to go next. 2.5 When my Tardis reached the next stop of the Vector, I was surprised: I found myself in the middle of nowhere, in deep space between the star systems. Why had the muon tracer brought me here? 2.6 Then I noticed a tiny little blip on the scanners: It was a small spaceship. Obviously the Vector had decided to pay them a visit. 4 »Heart of Darkness, Final ‘e’« – Version: 28. Juli 2016 Elmar Vogt, Fürth – http://littlemoresonic.com 2.7 Upon closer examination I found out why the scanners hadn’t registered the ship immedia- tely: It had all its systems shut down and showed virtually no energy signature.