Because, in the Doctor Who universe, Rassilon's got a hand in everything, there's even an insult named after him. Well, an insulting gesture, anyway.
This revelation might be the highest point in the novelized Shada's wrap-up. That's not to say the ending is disappointing, it's just a little generic.
Clare's role ends up being quite interesting, though. Throughout the novel she's aware of herself taking subservient roles when with the Doctor or the Professor, though she can never really explain why. Ultimately, though, she winds up as a kind of human Romana, a circumstance which undercuts the kind of variety having so many companions about brings. All the more so because Clare gets close to being what Liz Shaw was: as near the Doctor's scientific equal as a human can be.
Jumping to the book's actual ending, once more the afterword would have made a better foreword. In it, Roberts puts his version of Shada into the context of contemporary Doctor Who and Douglas Adams own body of work. This context brings the whole story into perspective, particularly the fact that Adams wasn't pleased with it.
In fact, when asked to do the six episode season seventeen finale, Adams wanted to write a story about the Doctor going into retirement, re-discovering himself, and then going back to planet saving by serial's end. That such a story is almost what we've recently seen play out with the eleventh Doctor shows just how much of a visionary Adams could be.
As per Gareth Roberts' novelization of Shada, it is a thumping 70s sci-fi read.
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