prologue
The little girl looked up at the man. He didn’t know. How could he not know?
“Saffie, darling, are you okay?” the man picked her up and placed her on his knee. He was young, too young to be her father himself, but to the girl he might as well have been.
She nodded, “Have you not seen the news, uncle?”
He wasn’t her uncle either, but - again - he might as well have been.
“What news?” His was still cheery, obliviously so.
“About the space station, the one aunty is on.”
“What are you talking about?” His smile faded, “Look, why don’t you go to your room.” With some more encouragement, the girl scuttled out of the room.
He picked up a discarded newspaper dated today. It didn’t take much searching to find what Saffie was referring to.
‘57 HOURS WITHOUT CONTACT FROM SPECILLUM-15 SPACE STATION. TOP SCIENTISTS FEAR WORST.’
“Oh, Ludie,” he sighed, “Where are you?”
“Saffie, darling, are you okay?” the man picked her up and placed her on his knee. He was young, too young to be her father himself, but to the girl he might as well have been.
She nodded, “Have you not seen the news, uncle?”
He wasn’t her uncle either, but - again - he might as well have been.
“What news?” His was still cheery, obliviously so.
“About the space station, the one aunty is on.”
“What are you talking about?” His smile faded, “Look, why don’t you go to your room.” With some more encouragement, the girl scuttled out of the room.
He picked up a discarded newspaper dated today. It didn’t take much searching to find what Saffie was referring to.
‘57 HOURS WITHOUT CONTACT FROM SPECILLUM-15 SPACE STATION. TOP SCIENTISTS FEAR WORST.’
“Oh, Ludie,” he sighed, “Where are you?”
A SMALL MEASURE OF TIME
written by james oswald
part 1
The man turned to see a woman standing at the door. “Not gone yet?” He returned to his notebook.
She entered the classroom, the door shutting firmly behind her. “Obviously not.” The words came out harsher than she intended. This, however, did not deter the man’s smile.
“Ask a silly question…”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s alright, I’ll forgive you this time.”
She joined him at the desk cluttered with science apparatus - test tubes stood in topped beakers, some suspended by clamp and stands, others lying discarded. The remnants of a final period Chemistry lesson.
“Oh, I had a terrible day. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“What’s the trouble? Can I help?” He didn’t look up from his notebook but there was something in his tone - this proffer of acquaintance was not simply politeness. He really did care.
“Oh, it’s one of the girls, Susan Foreman.”
The man looked up from his notebook, “Susan Foreman?” he chuckled, “she’s your problem too?”
***
Barbara Wright looked at the man opposite. She was very glad Susan Foreman had been her problem. Otherwise, all this wouldn’t have happened. All this discovery, all this broadening of her horizons, all this adventure. The word hung in the air. Because that’s what it was. Adventure. And now the adventure was over.
“It’s exactly the same as when we left,” Barbara exclaimed. It seemed not a moment had passed. Where they had stood, in that junkyard - not an object was out of place. Columns and columns of interesting junk was piled around the TARDIS. Clocks, old television sets, radios, weathered settees, a mannequin. All was as she remembered it, exactly to the minutest of details. Barbara noticed a bucket lying discarded on the floor, the same one Ian had tripped over when they first arrived. “We’re home!”
“So we are!” he embraced Barbara in a hug, “We did it! We finally did it!”
A cough.
“The Doctor did it, rather,” Ian pulled away from the embrace and faced the elderly gentleman at the TARDIS doors.
“That is better! I tried very hard to get you back here, you know!” he was beaming, “yes, it was quite a round trip, don’t you think?”
Ian shook his hand gratefully, “Quite so, Doctor. A marvelous one too!”
Vicki seemed less pleased at the revelation. She bowed her head, not daring to look up. Ian speculated that there was a very good reason for this - he thought he had heard her sniffle before.
“Now, Vicki, my dear, you mustn't be sad.” the Doctor reassured, “they are returning to their lives. This is a joyous occasion! I didn’t do a bad job of it either - only fifteen hours after we left! Quite a feat! Yes! I doubt anyone would have realised you were gone,” he shared a laugh with the two schoolteachers.
Vicki remained quiet. Barbara’s smile dropped when she noticed this, “You mustn't be sad, Vicki. We all know what it is like to leave someone behind on our travels - the Doctor especially - we have to move on. All of us. The travelling, the adventuring, it couldn’t go on forever. But we enjoyed it while it lasted, didn’t we?”
“I suppose,” Vicki’s eyes glistened in the light of the new day.
Barbara pulled the girl aside, “He needs you. The Doctor, I mean.”
Vicki nodded, “I know, it’s just-” she was inarticulate. No words could express how much they meant to hear, no more than a hug could. She leant forward and embraced the woman.
“I won’t forget you,” Vicki sobbed.
“And we will never forget you.”
Barbara realised her words. We. It felt right. She looked over at Ian and smiled. She could get used to ‘we’.
***
Vicki had found herself entering the time machine a lot happier than she did leaving it. The Doctor however, had gone quiet. He was tinkering at the controls. Vicki suspected there was no real reason for it - he was trying to keep himself busy.
“Doctor,” Vicki piped up, “Do you think we could explore a bit? I’ve always been interested in the the twentieth century.”
He did not reply, not until the time rotor began to pulse, up and down. The TARDIS was in flight. “I don’t think that is necessary, my child,” the Doctor let out a nervous cough, “Onwards and upwards.”
Vicki could see the two school teachers had meant a lot more to him than he had let on.
Onwards and upwards.
***
Totter’s Lane was exactly the same as it had been all that time ago. Yesterday. It would be tough to get used to. Nevertheless, she released a contented sigh.
“Isn’t it marvelous, Ian? We’re home!”
“Yes,” her excitement was contagious, “Where shall we go first?”
“Ooh, I don’t know!” she sighed, “There is just so much I’ve been wanting to do! You never realise how much you miss something until you can never go back.”
“No,” Ian mused, “You really don’t.”
***
The TARDIS hum was a sound Vicki had grown accustomed to. It was constant, never prevailing. Sometimes it was comforting. Other times it was protruding. This was one of those times.
She clasped her hand at her forehead, and cried out.
“What is it, child?” the Doctor interrogated.
“It’s nothing, just a headache.” She seemed to have improved quickly. She gave him a smile. He returned one. At least, his lips parted and the corners of his mouth turned up, but his eyes. His eyes… They were sad.
Vicki yelled out again, and before the Doctor could rush forward a terrifying crack whiplashed the passengers forward onto the console and subsequently, the floor. When they both clambered to their feet they realised the time rotor had stopped.
“Doctor, the lights…” They had been plunged into near-darkness, “What happened?”
The Doctor moved to the console and pressed various buttons to no effect. “The power’s out. How intriguing…”
“We’ve landed,” Vicki noted. The humming had stopped.
“Yes…” the Doctor rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “I would have thought we wouldn’t have taken off - it was too soon after the machine was set into motion, you see. We shall have to see.”
The Doctor pressed a button - “The doors still work,” - and the pair moved to the doors. Intrepidly, Vicki placed her hand on the handle and pulled. She recoiled, shielding her eyes. It was too bright. Once her eyes had adjusted, she stepped out of the TARDIS. The Doctor followed, locking the door behind him. They were certainly no longer in 1963. At least not in Shoreditch.
They were in the middle of a meadow.
***
“Two coffees please. Thanks.” Ian handed the woman a handful of change and moved back to the booth and sat down opposite Barbara, “I’ve been waiting to use that money for so long.”
She was eying the menu intently, “What do you fancy? A full English?”
“Sounds good to me.”
A waitress appeared and placed the coffees on the table. She quickly produced a notepad and pen and took their order. It wasn’t until after she had left Barbara looked at Ian and said: “Do we just go back to our jobs?”
“I suppose so. We don’t really have anywhere else to go…”
“We could go travelling.”
“We?”
“Well, there isn’t anyone else I’d rather go with,” she smiled, “We’ve been through everything together, all the adventure - why not extend it just a little bit?”
“I’d like that,” Ian said, “But, I - er - don’t suppose you have a stash of money hidden away somewhere?”
“No, do you?”
He patted his pockets comically and produced a single penny.
Barbara laughed, “Is that really all you have on you?”
“At the moment, yes.”
She looked at him quizzically, “We best cancel our order then.”
Ian laughed, “Oh yes. Shame, all that alien food made me hungry for the real thing,” They drained the last of their coffee and stood up from their booth.
“I’m going to use the loo,” Barbara explained, “You go and cancel our order.” Ian nodded and left in the direction of the counter.
When Barbara returned from the bathroom Ian was still at the counter, explaining. He seemed very expressive, brandishing his singular penny as if to prove his point. She chuckled.
And then all sound drained away, and she could hear nothing but her own breathing. It was no longer like she was in the room, but detached, simply an on-looker. She scanned the room: the cafe was bustling at this time of the morning, especially so since it was Saturday. But there was something not quite right… She couldn’t place her finger on it. People were passing her, going to and from the bathroom, but none - not one - seemed to catch eye of the woman stood still in the middle of the crowd. The world seemed to slow around her, even she seemed to be stuck in a perpetual state of slow motion.
She blinked. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly. And when she opened her eyes again, she wasn’t in the cafe. She wasn’t even in Shoreditch. She slowly turned her head. Metal struts soared up alongside the pentagonal walls around her. She was in a corridor - stretching far on either side of her. And slowly, slowly, slowly she blinked again.
And she was back in the cafe.
“Are you ready to go?”
It was Ian, standing in front of her, indifferent.
Barbara felt her legs buckle and she fell forward. Ian caught her. But no one stared.
“Woah, woah, what is it? Are you alright?”
Barbara gasped for air, “Ian, I don’t think we’re in Shoreditch.”
***
“We may have not moved in time, just in space,” the Doctor theorised, “technically if a fault occurred when the TARDIS was taking off, it should have stayed put.”
Vicki wasn’t listening. She was looking around the meadow. It was on a steep incline and it ended at the crest of the hill, where a wooden fence partitioned it off from the surrounding meadows. The bottom end of the field was dimmed under the shade of trees - the very first saplings of a forest progressed from that point onwards to towering oak trees at the heart of the forest. The sun was shining brightly overhead - maybe a little too brightly. The whole place seemed doused in glare - it didn’t feel real.
She turned to the Doctor, “I’ve been here before.”
“What was that, my dear?”
“I came here as a child…” Vicki was looking around, “With my parents.”
“I suppose we are no longer in 1963 then. Unless you are mistaken.”
Vicki shook her head, “It’s just as I remembered it… It’s like a memory that’s come to life...,” she stopped. And then-
“Vicki, come back!” But she was running, fast, up the incline.
The Doctor set off after her, grumbling something about the youth and their apparent need to race about everywhere.
***
“What do you mean?” Ian asked, still clutching Barbara’s arms.
“For a second, it’s like I wasn’t here, and the world stopped around me…” she looked at Ian, “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” Ian said, “this has to be Earth! I recognise these streets, this cafe. To every last detail, it’s exactly the same!”
“And isn’t that weird?” Barbara started.
“What do you mean?”
“To every last detail, like you said. Look at their faces.”
And for the first time Ian really looked at the bustling crowds. There were families, mum, dads, children, women sitting alone, men sitting alone, waitresses relaying orders to cookers, a cleaner mopping the floor, but their faces… Ian was taken aback. They didn’t have faces. The basic shape was there, but there was no detail to it.
“We do not remember the faces of everyone we meet,” Barbara said, “Especially not those we just pass by…”
Ian was stunned, “I don’t understand… What is this?”
Barbara was silent.
“Why is someone recreating our memories?”
The world faded around them-
And then everything went black.
***
The Doctor held his hand in the air, turned it slightly, turned it in the other direction and frowned.
“What is it, Doctor?”
“The hairs on the back of my hand - look!”
She inspected them closely. They were standing on end.
They now were positioned at the crest of the hill. On all sides it dipped into the valley below, one side becoming a country road - they really were at the top of the hill.
“I didn’t know many places existed like this in your time,” the Doctor changed the subject.
“No,” Vicki replied, “But this place was protected by the National Trust - a natural reserve.”
The Doctor nodded.
Vicki continued, “I remember it very well - we parked off the road and we had a picnic.”
“You and your parents?”
Vicki nodded, “One of my fondest memories. It was before my mother… before she…” Vicki was distracted, “What’s that?” She pointed into the horizon.
“What’s what?”
“That!”
The Doctor looked closer. It was too bright - he couldn’t see. He rubbed his eyes.
“It’s like… the edge of the world,” Vicki noted. And she wasn’t wrong. The fields spread out past the road and then... they just sort of disintegrated, disappearing into an all-consuming whiteness. “It’s like fog…” She trailed off. There was something in the fog… Figures… Silhouettes...
It was only then she realised the fog was moving ever so slightly towards them. As were the figures.
***
Ian flinched at the sound of another bomb dropping. He snuggled closer into his mother’s grasp.
He dared not open his eyes. There was nothing more frightening than the concrete walls around him. To close his eyes was like to deny the reality. The reality of living through the war.
He was eight when it started, but in moments like these, when all measure of time other than how many breaths he had left was impotent, it seemed like he had lived this way all his life. He flinched. Another bomb.
“It’s alright, my dear,” a warm voice whispered into his ear, “We will be alright, we will be alright, we will be alright.” Another bomb dropped overhead. “We will be alright.” This time it wasn’t as assuring - Ian knew she was lying.
Reality set in. And Ian was on his feet, in a corridor. Barbara stood close by.
“Where are we?” Ian rubbed his head.
Barbara shrugged, “A space station of some sort.” Ian looked around - cavernous metal ceilings - metal struts - metal floor. She was right.
White block letters were printed on the left side wall. “Eastern Sector.” Ian read. “is this… We were in London.”
Barbara shook her head, “I don’t think so. I don’t think we ever were.”
“An illusion?” Ian bit his lip, “that means…”
It was only then the realisation hit her.
To date, there had only been three instances in which Barbara discovered she was to leave her life behind.
The first occurred when she had left Bedfordshire to become a teacher in London. However many years had passed - it must have been ten, twelve maybe - the image of her mother standing on the train platform as the vessel pulled out of the station remained poignant in her mind. The wind had blown strands of her greying hair into her face; she clutched her coat tightly around her frail frame in defense of the biting cold; and her eyes… A forced smile did nothing to hide the wistful welling of tears, the dignified attempt to hide her sorrow. She was now alone. And Barbara was following her passion, leaving her for a new city, a new life.
The second happened on the night Barbara discovered aliens existed. The night she had been kidnapped. The night she had taken her final steps in Shoreditch 1963, and took her first in an alien spacecraft. The night that led her to this very moment, standing in the darkened space station.
For on that space station Barbara, for the third time ever, realised her life was never going to be the same. The Doctor had thought he had returned them to Earth. He was wrong.
The TARDIS had taken off and left them behind.
She entered the classroom, the door shutting firmly behind her. “Obviously not.” The words came out harsher than she intended. This, however, did not deter the man’s smile.
“Ask a silly question…”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s alright, I’ll forgive you this time.”
She joined him at the desk cluttered with science apparatus - test tubes stood in topped beakers, some suspended by clamp and stands, others lying discarded. The remnants of a final period Chemistry lesson.
“Oh, I had a terrible day. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“What’s the trouble? Can I help?” He didn’t look up from his notebook but there was something in his tone - this proffer of acquaintance was not simply politeness. He really did care.
“Oh, it’s one of the girls, Susan Foreman.”
The man looked up from his notebook, “Susan Foreman?” he chuckled, “she’s your problem too?”
***
Barbara Wright looked at the man opposite. She was very glad Susan Foreman had been her problem. Otherwise, all this wouldn’t have happened. All this discovery, all this broadening of her horizons, all this adventure. The word hung in the air. Because that’s what it was. Adventure. And now the adventure was over.
“It’s exactly the same as when we left,” Barbara exclaimed. It seemed not a moment had passed. Where they had stood, in that junkyard - not an object was out of place. Columns and columns of interesting junk was piled around the TARDIS. Clocks, old television sets, radios, weathered settees, a mannequin. All was as she remembered it, exactly to the minutest of details. Barbara noticed a bucket lying discarded on the floor, the same one Ian had tripped over when they first arrived. “We’re home!”
“So we are!” he embraced Barbara in a hug, “We did it! We finally did it!”
A cough.
“The Doctor did it, rather,” Ian pulled away from the embrace and faced the elderly gentleman at the TARDIS doors.
“That is better! I tried very hard to get you back here, you know!” he was beaming, “yes, it was quite a round trip, don’t you think?”
Ian shook his hand gratefully, “Quite so, Doctor. A marvelous one too!”
Vicki seemed less pleased at the revelation. She bowed her head, not daring to look up. Ian speculated that there was a very good reason for this - he thought he had heard her sniffle before.
“Now, Vicki, my dear, you mustn't be sad.” the Doctor reassured, “they are returning to their lives. This is a joyous occasion! I didn’t do a bad job of it either - only fifteen hours after we left! Quite a feat! Yes! I doubt anyone would have realised you were gone,” he shared a laugh with the two schoolteachers.
Vicki remained quiet. Barbara’s smile dropped when she noticed this, “You mustn't be sad, Vicki. We all know what it is like to leave someone behind on our travels - the Doctor especially - we have to move on. All of us. The travelling, the adventuring, it couldn’t go on forever. But we enjoyed it while it lasted, didn’t we?”
“I suppose,” Vicki’s eyes glistened in the light of the new day.
Barbara pulled the girl aside, “He needs you. The Doctor, I mean.”
Vicki nodded, “I know, it’s just-” she was inarticulate. No words could express how much they meant to hear, no more than a hug could. She leant forward and embraced the woman.
“I won’t forget you,” Vicki sobbed.
“And we will never forget you.”
Barbara realised her words. We. It felt right. She looked over at Ian and smiled. She could get used to ‘we’.
***
Vicki had found herself entering the time machine a lot happier than she did leaving it. The Doctor however, had gone quiet. He was tinkering at the controls. Vicki suspected there was no real reason for it - he was trying to keep himself busy.
“Doctor,” Vicki piped up, “Do you think we could explore a bit? I’ve always been interested in the the twentieth century.”
He did not reply, not until the time rotor began to pulse, up and down. The TARDIS was in flight. “I don’t think that is necessary, my child,” the Doctor let out a nervous cough, “Onwards and upwards.”
Vicki could see the two school teachers had meant a lot more to him than he had let on.
Onwards and upwards.
***
Totter’s Lane was exactly the same as it had been all that time ago. Yesterday. It would be tough to get used to. Nevertheless, she released a contented sigh.
“Isn’t it marvelous, Ian? We’re home!”
“Yes,” her excitement was contagious, “Where shall we go first?”
“Ooh, I don’t know!” she sighed, “There is just so much I’ve been wanting to do! You never realise how much you miss something until you can never go back.”
“No,” Ian mused, “You really don’t.”
***
The TARDIS hum was a sound Vicki had grown accustomed to. It was constant, never prevailing. Sometimes it was comforting. Other times it was protruding. This was one of those times.
She clasped her hand at her forehead, and cried out.
“What is it, child?” the Doctor interrogated.
“It’s nothing, just a headache.” She seemed to have improved quickly. She gave him a smile. He returned one. At least, his lips parted and the corners of his mouth turned up, but his eyes. His eyes… They were sad.
Vicki yelled out again, and before the Doctor could rush forward a terrifying crack whiplashed the passengers forward onto the console and subsequently, the floor. When they both clambered to their feet they realised the time rotor had stopped.
“Doctor, the lights…” They had been plunged into near-darkness, “What happened?”
The Doctor moved to the console and pressed various buttons to no effect. “The power’s out. How intriguing…”
“We’ve landed,” Vicki noted. The humming had stopped.
“Yes…” the Doctor rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “I would have thought we wouldn’t have taken off - it was too soon after the machine was set into motion, you see. We shall have to see.”
The Doctor pressed a button - “The doors still work,” - and the pair moved to the doors. Intrepidly, Vicki placed her hand on the handle and pulled. She recoiled, shielding her eyes. It was too bright. Once her eyes had adjusted, she stepped out of the TARDIS. The Doctor followed, locking the door behind him. They were certainly no longer in 1963. At least not in Shoreditch.
They were in the middle of a meadow.
***
“Two coffees please. Thanks.” Ian handed the woman a handful of change and moved back to the booth and sat down opposite Barbara, “I’ve been waiting to use that money for so long.”
She was eying the menu intently, “What do you fancy? A full English?”
“Sounds good to me.”
A waitress appeared and placed the coffees on the table. She quickly produced a notepad and pen and took their order. It wasn’t until after she had left Barbara looked at Ian and said: “Do we just go back to our jobs?”
“I suppose so. We don’t really have anywhere else to go…”
“We could go travelling.”
“We?”
“Well, there isn’t anyone else I’d rather go with,” she smiled, “We’ve been through everything together, all the adventure - why not extend it just a little bit?”
“I’d like that,” Ian said, “But, I - er - don’t suppose you have a stash of money hidden away somewhere?”
“No, do you?”
He patted his pockets comically and produced a single penny.
Barbara laughed, “Is that really all you have on you?”
“At the moment, yes.”
She looked at him quizzically, “We best cancel our order then.”
Ian laughed, “Oh yes. Shame, all that alien food made me hungry for the real thing,” They drained the last of their coffee and stood up from their booth.
“I’m going to use the loo,” Barbara explained, “You go and cancel our order.” Ian nodded and left in the direction of the counter.
When Barbara returned from the bathroom Ian was still at the counter, explaining. He seemed very expressive, brandishing his singular penny as if to prove his point. She chuckled.
And then all sound drained away, and she could hear nothing but her own breathing. It was no longer like she was in the room, but detached, simply an on-looker. She scanned the room: the cafe was bustling at this time of the morning, especially so since it was Saturday. But there was something not quite right… She couldn’t place her finger on it. People were passing her, going to and from the bathroom, but none - not one - seemed to catch eye of the woman stood still in the middle of the crowd. The world seemed to slow around her, even she seemed to be stuck in a perpetual state of slow motion.
She blinked. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly. And when she opened her eyes again, she wasn’t in the cafe. She wasn’t even in Shoreditch. She slowly turned her head. Metal struts soared up alongside the pentagonal walls around her. She was in a corridor - stretching far on either side of her. And slowly, slowly, slowly she blinked again.
And she was back in the cafe.
“Are you ready to go?”
It was Ian, standing in front of her, indifferent.
Barbara felt her legs buckle and she fell forward. Ian caught her. But no one stared.
“Woah, woah, what is it? Are you alright?”
Barbara gasped for air, “Ian, I don’t think we’re in Shoreditch.”
***
“We may have not moved in time, just in space,” the Doctor theorised, “technically if a fault occurred when the TARDIS was taking off, it should have stayed put.”
Vicki wasn’t listening. She was looking around the meadow. It was on a steep incline and it ended at the crest of the hill, where a wooden fence partitioned it off from the surrounding meadows. The bottom end of the field was dimmed under the shade of trees - the very first saplings of a forest progressed from that point onwards to towering oak trees at the heart of the forest. The sun was shining brightly overhead - maybe a little too brightly. The whole place seemed doused in glare - it didn’t feel real.
She turned to the Doctor, “I’ve been here before.”
“What was that, my dear?”
“I came here as a child…” Vicki was looking around, “With my parents.”
“I suppose we are no longer in 1963 then. Unless you are mistaken.”
Vicki shook her head, “It’s just as I remembered it… It’s like a memory that’s come to life...,” she stopped. And then-
“Vicki, come back!” But she was running, fast, up the incline.
The Doctor set off after her, grumbling something about the youth and their apparent need to race about everywhere.
***
“What do you mean?” Ian asked, still clutching Barbara’s arms.
“For a second, it’s like I wasn’t here, and the world stopped around me…” she looked at Ian, “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” Ian said, “this has to be Earth! I recognise these streets, this cafe. To every last detail, it’s exactly the same!”
“And isn’t that weird?” Barbara started.
“What do you mean?”
“To every last detail, like you said. Look at their faces.”
And for the first time Ian really looked at the bustling crowds. There were families, mum, dads, children, women sitting alone, men sitting alone, waitresses relaying orders to cookers, a cleaner mopping the floor, but their faces… Ian was taken aback. They didn’t have faces. The basic shape was there, but there was no detail to it.
“We do not remember the faces of everyone we meet,” Barbara said, “Especially not those we just pass by…”
Ian was stunned, “I don’t understand… What is this?”
Barbara was silent.
“Why is someone recreating our memories?”
The world faded around them-
And then everything went black.
***
The Doctor held his hand in the air, turned it slightly, turned it in the other direction and frowned.
“What is it, Doctor?”
“The hairs on the back of my hand - look!”
She inspected them closely. They were standing on end.
They now were positioned at the crest of the hill. On all sides it dipped into the valley below, one side becoming a country road - they really were at the top of the hill.
“I didn’t know many places existed like this in your time,” the Doctor changed the subject.
“No,” Vicki replied, “But this place was protected by the National Trust - a natural reserve.”
The Doctor nodded.
Vicki continued, “I remember it very well - we parked off the road and we had a picnic.”
“You and your parents?”
Vicki nodded, “One of my fondest memories. It was before my mother… before she…” Vicki was distracted, “What’s that?” She pointed into the horizon.
“What’s what?”
“That!”
The Doctor looked closer. It was too bright - he couldn’t see. He rubbed his eyes.
“It’s like… the edge of the world,” Vicki noted. And she wasn’t wrong. The fields spread out past the road and then... they just sort of disintegrated, disappearing into an all-consuming whiteness. “It’s like fog…” She trailed off. There was something in the fog… Figures… Silhouettes...
It was only then she realised the fog was moving ever so slightly towards them. As were the figures.
***
Ian flinched at the sound of another bomb dropping. He snuggled closer into his mother’s grasp.
He dared not open his eyes. There was nothing more frightening than the concrete walls around him. To close his eyes was like to deny the reality. The reality of living through the war.
He was eight when it started, but in moments like these, when all measure of time other than how many breaths he had left was impotent, it seemed like he had lived this way all his life. He flinched. Another bomb.
“It’s alright, my dear,” a warm voice whispered into his ear, “We will be alright, we will be alright, we will be alright.” Another bomb dropped overhead. “We will be alright.” This time it wasn’t as assuring - Ian knew she was lying.
Reality set in. And Ian was on his feet, in a corridor. Barbara stood close by.
“Where are we?” Ian rubbed his head.
Barbara shrugged, “A space station of some sort.” Ian looked around - cavernous metal ceilings - metal struts - metal floor. She was right.
White block letters were printed on the left side wall. “Eastern Sector.” Ian read. “is this… We were in London.”
Barbara shook her head, “I don’t think so. I don’t think we ever were.”
“An illusion?” Ian bit his lip, “that means…”
It was only then the realisation hit her.
To date, there had only been three instances in which Barbara discovered she was to leave her life behind.
The first occurred when she had left Bedfordshire to become a teacher in London. However many years had passed - it must have been ten, twelve maybe - the image of her mother standing on the train platform as the vessel pulled out of the station remained poignant in her mind. The wind had blown strands of her greying hair into her face; she clutched her coat tightly around her frail frame in defense of the biting cold; and her eyes… A forced smile did nothing to hide the wistful welling of tears, the dignified attempt to hide her sorrow. She was now alone. And Barbara was following her passion, leaving her for a new city, a new life.
The second happened on the night Barbara discovered aliens existed. The night she had been kidnapped. The night she had taken her final steps in Shoreditch 1963, and took her first in an alien spacecraft. The night that led her to this very moment, standing in the darkened space station.
For on that space station Barbara, for the third time ever, realised her life was never going to be the same. The Doctor had thought he had returned them to Earth. He was wrong.
The TARDIS had taken off and left them behind.
PART 2
Day 32
Ludie’s pen rose from the paper. She paused, studying the words. Thirty-two days. It didn’t seem right. The whole thing felt wrong. She should be home. Why was rescue taking so long? This wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. She put these thoughts to the back of her mind and continued writing.
Dear Henry
I dreamt of you last night. Like I always do.
She remembered how he had appeared to her in the dream, on her doorstep, a baggy suit, hair amateurly swept back. She preferred a jeans and t-shirt if she was honest, but she appreciated the effort. He was like that, romantic, possibly overly so, but there was nothing wrong with that. He liked to show his love in a different way than she did: big romantic gestures. She was more down for the small gestures, the ones that seem insignificant at the time but when removed from it, they seem the most important moments in the world.
‘We didn’t go on a date - there was no restaurant, no cinema - nor any illegally downloaded films with microwave popcorn - you just stood there. For the rest of my dream. Funny how dreams work. How the passage of time can vary from the lightning-fast speed of one’s thought process to a small measure of time that seems to last forever.
I think that is the moment I fell in love with you, when I opened my door and there you were. Not when you took me out on our first date - I can’t even remember what we did - just in that instant. It was an instant but it seemed to last a lifetime. If that is the only lifetime I get to spend with you, so be it. I may never be rescued from this metal prison and I may die here, but I don’t care. For a life knowing you - even for the briefest of times - is a life fully lived.’
She read this over and was tempted to scribble over the last few lines, but she thought it sounded nice and poetic. He would like it. It was very romantic, but it wasn’t her. She decided not to scribble it out, but to add more.
That sounded a bit pretentious, didn’t it? You can blame the one Jane Austen book I have to read. Honestly, I can’t count how many times I’ve read it. I don’t have much else to do., other than write overly soppy letters - haha! They’re quite good fun though. Keeps me occupied; let’s me process my thoughts. I’ve found it hard to that here, thinking. It’s like they’re trying to get into my head at all times.
I am going to sleep now. Maybe I will wake to rescue.
Ludie xxx
She folded up the letter, placed it in a yellowed envelope and threw it to her side. There, it joined a pile of numerous other letters. She hadn’t remembered writing so many, but that’s what they did. They got into your head and made things foggy.
She furrowed her brow as she tried to remember what Henry looked like.
***
Vicki leapt into the air, jumping across a mud puddle. When her feet connected with the ground, she felt herself skid, having not quite cleared the mud, but she regained her balance and continued to run.
“Vicki, my dear, wait!” the Doctor panted.
Vicki skidded to a stop and darted back to the Doctor side. She was smaller than him but her arm around him was support enough. They slowly but surely made progress across the field.
“Doctor, look!” Vicki pointed in the far distance. The all-consuming white fog was enveloping more and more - getting closer and closer. It had made quick work of the surrounding fields and now it was closing in on them.
“We don’t have much time! We must be quick!” They darted across a mound of soil and made a beeline for the TARDIS. The Doctor was growing tired but Vicki was determined.
“C’mon, Doctor!”
“Yes, yes, my dear! It’s just-” pant “-running was never a specialty of mine!”
They were close now; a few more seconds would be all it would take. She made the mistake of checking the progress of the fog - it had progressed faster than expected. They were mere inches from the TARDIS, but the fog was mere feet. And then Vicki saw the figures, thriving in the fog, getting ever closer.
And then it stopped.
The fog hung in mid-air consuming all but a small circle around the TARDIS. It was no longer folding over itself in pursuit, just hanging there, like time had been stopped. And the figures - they seemed to have dissipated as easily as they appeared. Vicki, unaware, scrambled for the door, pushing herself against the wooden panels. It was locked.
“Doctor, it’s locked!”
“It’s alright, my dear! Look!” The Doctor examined it closely,“It hasn’t stopped. It’s just slowed down. But why?”
“The figures - they’ve disappeared as well.” Vicki leant forward, the tip of her nose almost touching the farthest-reaching tendril of fog.
“Vicki, stay back! It is still dangerous!”
“Wha-AHH!”
A hand grabbed her neck. No - not a hand - the fog. It lifted her in the air.
***
Ian looked down the corridor, “Must be abandoned…”
Barbara looked at him, “Don’t you realise what this means?”
“Yes.” But his words were shallow, unmeaning.
“Ian, we can’t get home.
“I know,” he said. Barbara waited for some sort of reaction, but his expression did not change. “I find it’s best not to dwell on certain things.”
“Are you just going to not dwell on it for the rest of your life then?”
“That’s the plan,” he shot Barbara a charming smile and the tension was gone.
“I suppose we better look for food, and then-”
“Let’s take it one step at a time, yes?” Ian simpered, “For now, we’ll just explore. See if we can map this place out.” He placed his hands to his mouth and called out: “Anyone home?”
Barbara shivered. She didn’t often find herself stranded a space station, but there was a familiarity to it. She was no stranger to spooky abandoned space stations.
“Something wrong?”
“Apart from being trapped here for the rest of our lives?” she said without conviction. She smiled and Ian smiled back. “...Yes, actually, there is. Can you hear that, it’s like a distant ringing?” They stood in silence for a while, listening.
“Yes, it’s almost too quiet, but I can hear it. Very slightly. And there’s that strange chill, making your hair stand on end?” Any remnant of a joke was gone, ”
Barbara nodded gravely, “Yes.”
“Are we really alone on this space station?”
Barbara didn’t flinch - she had been thinking the same thing.
***
“It was slowing down to calculate its next move!” the Doctor cried, brandishing his walking stick in front of himself, now addressing the fog: “Put the girl down!”
Vicki could feel the grip around her neck tighten, the breath forced out of her. Her fingers scrambled at whatever held her there. It was fleshy. Like a hand. A human hand, but when she looked down it was just fog. It began to take shape, and soon a man stood in front of her.
“Put the girl down!” the Doctor was angry now - really angry. But it did not reply. Its grip simply tightened.
“D-doctor!” Vicki managed to shout, “It’s- it’s- my dad!”
This came to the Doctor as a surprise, “Of course! It all makes sense. It’s studying us and it’s worked its way in. Vicki, close your eyes!”
“What?” the grip seemed to loosen somewhat.
“Don’t look at it - think about the ground beneath your feet! Think about the grip around your neck-” it tightened, “-it’s not really there!” She closed her eyes and the grip began to fade away, until it was nothing but a cloying coldness of fog around her neck. It dissipated and she did not fall, but when her eyes were open again her feet were on the ground.
“It was never really there, and you were never really lifted up into the air. It was an illusion. This world, you see,” he paused, “we must get back into the TARDIS, come quick!”
Vicki, still uneasy, nodded and they turned to the TARDIS. The Doctor pressed against the door before cursing under his breath.
“It is locked, and my key-”
He held in his hand the string that the key was attached to - what is should have been attached to. There was nothing there.
“The key, Doctor!” Vicki exclaimed. “Did you drop it?”
“Of course not!
“Then where could it be?”
“I do not know, child! But I am most certain that I did not drop it.”
“Oh!” Vicki began to comprehend, “What if the key is there?”
The Doctor’s face lightened, “Quite right! Another illusion!”
He closed his eyes and he fumbled the string between his bony fingers. It was light, as it should be. It had nothing on it. Of course it was light. No. There was something on it. He just had to visualise it. He thought about the way the string would weigh on his fingers, the key lolling at its lowest point. He thought about how it would swing like a pendulum if he were to pass the string from one hand to the next, or move his arm back and forth. He thought about that weight on the end of the string. And then, it felt weightier than before. There was something there; it had worked. He opened his eyes. The key glistened in the sunlight.
“We are in grave danger, my dear.” the Doctor mulled once the TARDIS door was firmly shut behind him.
***
The station appeared to be circular, Barbara had noted, or so they worked out of the shape of the corridor walls, every eighty feet or so the walls refracted little more than - to Ian’s estimation - fifteen degrees. He also pointed out that made it polygonal, not circular. The outer running corridor was segmented into different direction sectors. They shortly came to a door that led them into the Eastern sector and subsequently a door leading to the Northern sector, all of which had no opening mechanism was opened as soon as approached. (Ian pointed out a small motion sensor above the door.)
This series of corridors seemed followed around a room of some sort but the three doors they passed along the route leading into the heart of the ship were non-functional. Ian suggested perhaps the opening mechanism - which required them to place their hand on a sensor - was tailored to ship crew only, but the screen on the door read an affirming ‘Human detected’ before an error message appeared: ‘All access denied.’ What did that mean? Was there someone - something? - inside, locking the outside world out, hiding? But hiding from what exactly? They pressed on.
Eventually they found a door. This one didn’t lead inwards, into the heart of the ship, but outwards, to a room that stuck out of the ship’s circularity. Barbara placed her hand onto the opening mechanism and the door slid soundlessly open.
A darkened control room: on one side various screens and panels of controls sitting beneath a large window looking out into a nebula of punctuating purples, bottomless blues, stars that Ian would probably say were millions and trillions of lightyears away. Except it didn't seem like it. Not to Barbara. She felt like she could reach out and grab them. Nothing felt out of reach anymore, nothing impossible. Not when her life was just that.
Since that fateful meeting in the junkyard, everything had changed. The impossible became possible. Every new day brought a new planet, a new life, new civilisations, new wonders, new sights. The galaxy was hers for taking. And it was the best feeling in the world. Except when she was fighting alien moth-people. Or Daleks. In that moment the thought of the wonders of the universe outweighed the horrors, and in that moment the universe was stripped back to its natural brilliance.
“Dead, all of them dead,” Ian muttered.
And it all came flooding back. She forgot about the brilliance and the horrors took its place. Every planet brought another race of conspirators, conquerors, and rulers. Nothing good lasted long. The complications were as much tangled in the structure of the universe as the stars and the galaxies.
“Who? The crew?” Barbara stifled a reply. Ian was studying the room with a much more professional interest than herself. He was always like that. Logical. Taking things head on. Never taking a step back to admire the ludicrosity of their life.
“No - well, perhaps - but I meant the screens. Nothing but blackness. No power. Or at least limited power.” He gestured to the overhead lighting: it was dim, just enough to see by, but tinted an urgent red. “Some sort of emergency power mode, perhaps?”
“Perhaps,” Barbara repeated, “I feel like we say ‘perhaps’ all too often. Why can nothing ever be straightforward with the Doctor? Why can’t London 1963 just be London 1963? Why can’t he bring us home?”
But Ian was not listening. He was looking behind her, at the window.
Because there were no stars, no galaxies, no wonders left in the universe. There was nothing. Nothing at all.
“What happened?”
“That is what is really out there,” Ian turned to her gravely, “We can’t trust anything we see.”
“How can there be nothing out there?” Barbara pressed her hand against the window, “There has to be something…”
Ian shook his head, “It’s impossible, unless…” he tapped the keyboards dotted across the panel randomly in hope the screen would light up. Alas, nothing. “We have to try to restore full power - maybe these computers can tell us. Or..”
“Or?”
“Maybe we aren’t alone. Maybe,” Ian said, “we can simply ask.”
“Well, where do we begin?”
Ian shrugged, “Perhaps there is a schematic of the ship somewhere in this room.”
Perhaps, Barbara noted, there it was again.
He crossed to one corner in which drawers were stacked. He opened each in turn. Files. Lots of them. He browsed labels. Data log. Coordinates. Passenger data. He glanced through these - they were out of date. Very out of date. Although they did give him some information. The station was called the Specillum-15.
“Probe,” Barbara muttered.
“What?”
“Specillum is Latin for probe.”
Ian nodded. He had forgotten most of his Latin. Barbara, however, was a History teacher. It was practically essential. Probe. Presumably this station’s function lay in science, but probing what exactly was anyone’s guess. The files didn’t help at all. He mentioned this to Barbara. She nodded in agreement. He continued to search through the files.
The ship was home to 600 passengers, 100 of which were maintenance crew. So where did they all go? All of the new data seemed to be stored on the computer system. Finally he stumbled upon a blueprint.
Ludie’s pen rose from the paper. She paused, studying the words. Thirty-two days. It didn’t seem right. The whole thing felt wrong. She should be home. Why was rescue taking so long? This wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. She put these thoughts to the back of her mind and continued writing.
Dear Henry
I dreamt of you last night. Like I always do.
She remembered how he had appeared to her in the dream, on her doorstep, a baggy suit, hair amateurly swept back. She preferred a jeans and t-shirt if she was honest, but she appreciated the effort. He was like that, romantic, possibly overly so, but there was nothing wrong with that. He liked to show his love in a different way than she did: big romantic gestures. She was more down for the small gestures, the ones that seem insignificant at the time but when removed from it, they seem the most important moments in the world.
‘We didn’t go on a date - there was no restaurant, no cinema - nor any illegally downloaded films with microwave popcorn - you just stood there. For the rest of my dream. Funny how dreams work. How the passage of time can vary from the lightning-fast speed of one’s thought process to a small measure of time that seems to last forever.
I think that is the moment I fell in love with you, when I opened my door and there you were. Not when you took me out on our first date - I can’t even remember what we did - just in that instant. It was an instant but it seemed to last a lifetime. If that is the only lifetime I get to spend with you, so be it. I may never be rescued from this metal prison and I may die here, but I don’t care. For a life knowing you - even for the briefest of times - is a life fully lived.’
She read this over and was tempted to scribble over the last few lines, but she thought it sounded nice and poetic. He would like it. It was very romantic, but it wasn’t her. She decided not to scribble it out, but to add more.
That sounded a bit pretentious, didn’t it? You can blame the one Jane Austen book I have to read. Honestly, I can’t count how many times I’ve read it. I don’t have much else to do., other than write overly soppy letters - haha! They’re quite good fun though. Keeps me occupied; let’s me process my thoughts. I’ve found it hard to that here, thinking. It’s like they’re trying to get into my head at all times.
I am going to sleep now. Maybe I will wake to rescue.
Ludie xxx
She folded up the letter, placed it in a yellowed envelope and threw it to her side. There, it joined a pile of numerous other letters. She hadn’t remembered writing so many, but that’s what they did. They got into your head and made things foggy.
She furrowed her brow as she tried to remember what Henry looked like.
***
Vicki leapt into the air, jumping across a mud puddle. When her feet connected with the ground, she felt herself skid, having not quite cleared the mud, but she regained her balance and continued to run.
“Vicki, my dear, wait!” the Doctor panted.
Vicki skidded to a stop and darted back to the Doctor side. She was smaller than him but her arm around him was support enough. They slowly but surely made progress across the field.
“Doctor, look!” Vicki pointed in the far distance. The all-consuming white fog was enveloping more and more - getting closer and closer. It had made quick work of the surrounding fields and now it was closing in on them.
“We don’t have much time! We must be quick!” They darted across a mound of soil and made a beeline for the TARDIS. The Doctor was growing tired but Vicki was determined.
“C’mon, Doctor!”
“Yes, yes, my dear! It’s just-” pant “-running was never a specialty of mine!”
They were close now; a few more seconds would be all it would take. She made the mistake of checking the progress of the fog - it had progressed faster than expected. They were mere inches from the TARDIS, but the fog was mere feet. And then Vicki saw the figures, thriving in the fog, getting ever closer.
And then it stopped.
The fog hung in mid-air consuming all but a small circle around the TARDIS. It was no longer folding over itself in pursuit, just hanging there, like time had been stopped. And the figures - they seemed to have dissipated as easily as they appeared. Vicki, unaware, scrambled for the door, pushing herself against the wooden panels. It was locked.
“Doctor, it’s locked!”
“It’s alright, my dear! Look!” The Doctor examined it closely,“It hasn’t stopped. It’s just slowed down. But why?”
“The figures - they’ve disappeared as well.” Vicki leant forward, the tip of her nose almost touching the farthest-reaching tendril of fog.
“Vicki, stay back! It is still dangerous!”
“Wha-AHH!”
A hand grabbed her neck. No - not a hand - the fog. It lifted her in the air.
***
Ian looked down the corridor, “Must be abandoned…”
Barbara looked at him, “Don’t you realise what this means?”
“Yes.” But his words were shallow, unmeaning.
“Ian, we can’t get home.
“I know,” he said. Barbara waited for some sort of reaction, but his expression did not change. “I find it’s best not to dwell on certain things.”
“Are you just going to not dwell on it for the rest of your life then?”
“That’s the plan,” he shot Barbara a charming smile and the tension was gone.
“I suppose we better look for food, and then-”
“Let’s take it one step at a time, yes?” Ian simpered, “For now, we’ll just explore. See if we can map this place out.” He placed his hands to his mouth and called out: “Anyone home?”
Barbara shivered. She didn’t often find herself stranded a space station, but there was a familiarity to it. She was no stranger to spooky abandoned space stations.
“Something wrong?”
“Apart from being trapped here for the rest of our lives?” she said without conviction. She smiled and Ian smiled back. “...Yes, actually, there is. Can you hear that, it’s like a distant ringing?” They stood in silence for a while, listening.
“Yes, it’s almost too quiet, but I can hear it. Very slightly. And there’s that strange chill, making your hair stand on end?” Any remnant of a joke was gone, ”
Barbara nodded gravely, “Yes.”
“Are we really alone on this space station?”
Barbara didn’t flinch - she had been thinking the same thing.
***
“It was slowing down to calculate its next move!” the Doctor cried, brandishing his walking stick in front of himself, now addressing the fog: “Put the girl down!”
Vicki could feel the grip around her neck tighten, the breath forced out of her. Her fingers scrambled at whatever held her there. It was fleshy. Like a hand. A human hand, but when she looked down it was just fog. It began to take shape, and soon a man stood in front of her.
“Put the girl down!” the Doctor was angry now - really angry. But it did not reply. Its grip simply tightened.
“D-doctor!” Vicki managed to shout, “It’s- it’s- my dad!”
This came to the Doctor as a surprise, “Of course! It all makes sense. It’s studying us and it’s worked its way in. Vicki, close your eyes!”
“What?” the grip seemed to loosen somewhat.
“Don’t look at it - think about the ground beneath your feet! Think about the grip around your neck-” it tightened, “-it’s not really there!” She closed her eyes and the grip began to fade away, until it was nothing but a cloying coldness of fog around her neck. It dissipated and she did not fall, but when her eyes were open again her feet were on the ground.
“It was never really there, and you were never really lifted up into the air. It was an illusion. This world, you see,” he paused, “we must get back into the TARDIS, come quick!”
Vicki, still uneasy, nodded and they turned to the TARDIS. The Doctor pressed against the door before cursing under his breath.
“It is locked, and my key-”
He held in his hand the string that the key was attached to - what is should have been attached to. There was nothing there.
“The key, Doctor!” Vicki exclaimed. “Did you drop it?”
“Of course not!
“Then where could it be?”
“I do not know, child! But I am most certain that I did not drop it.”
“Oh!” Vicki began to comprehend, “What if the key is there?”
The Doctor’s face lightened, “Quite right! Another illusion!”
He closed his eyes and he fumbled the string between his bony fingers. It was light, as it should be. It had nothing on it. Of course it was light. No. There was something on it. He just had to visualise it. He thought about the way the string would weigh on his fingers, the key lolling at its lowest point. He thought about how it would swing like a pendulum if he were to pass the string from one hand to the next, or move his arm back and forth. He thought about that weight on the end of the string. And then, it felt weightier than before. There was something there; it had worked. He opened his eyes. The key glistened in the sunlight.
“We are in grave danger, my dear.” the Doctor mulled once the TARDIS door was firmly shut behind him.
***
The station appeared to be circular, Barbara had noted, or so they worked out of the shape of the corridor walls, every eighty feet or so the walls refracted little more than - to Ian’s estimation - fifteen degrees. He also pointed out that made it polygonal, not circular. The outer running corridor was segmented into different direction sectors. They shortly came to a door that led them into the Eastern sector and subsequently a door leading to the Northern sector, all of which had no opening mechanism was opened as soon as approached. (Ian pointed out a small motion sensor above the door.)
This series of corridors seemed followed around a room of some sort but the three doors they passed along the route leading into the heart of the ship were non-functional. Ian suggested perhaps the opening mechanism - which required them to place their hand on a sensor - was tailored to ship crew only, but the screen on the door read an affirming ‘Human detected’ before an error message appeared: ‘All access denied.’ What did that mean? Was there someone - something? - inside, locking the outside world out, hiding? But hiding from what exactly? They pressed on.
Eventually they found a door. This one didn’t lead inwards, into the heart of the ship, but outwards, to a room that stuck out of the ship’s circularity. Barbara placed her hand onto the opening mechanism and the door slid soundlessly open.
A darkened control room: on one side various screens and panels of controls sitting beneath a large window looking out into a nebula of punctuating purples, bottomless blues, stars that Ian would probably say were millions and trillions of lightyears away. Except it didn't seem like it. Not to Barbara. She felt like she could reach out and grab them. Nothing felt out of reach anymore, nothing impossible. Not when her life was just that.
Since that fateful meeting in the junkyard, everything had changed. The impossible became possible. Every new day brought a new planet, a new life, new civilisations, new wonders, new sights. The galaxy was hers for taking. And it was the best feeling in the world. Except when she was fighting alien moth-people. Or Daleks. In that moment the thought of the wonders of the universe outweighed the horrors, and in that moment the universe was stripped back to its natural brilliance.
“Dead, all of them dead,” Ian muttered.
And it all came flooding back. She forgot about the brilliance and the horrors took its place. Every planet brought another race of conspirators, conquerors, and rulers. Nothing good lasted long. The complications were as much tangled in the structure of the universe as the stars and the galaxies.
“Who? The crew?” Barbara stifled a reply. Ian was studying the room with a much more professional interest than herself. He was always like that. Logical. Taking things head on. Never taking a step back to admire the ludicrosity of their life.
“No - well, perhaps - but I meant the screens. Nothing but blackness. No power. Or at least limited power.” He gestured to the overhead lighting: it was dim, just enough to see by, but tinted an urgent red. “Some sort of emergency power mode, perhaps?”
“Perhaps,” Barbara repeated, “I feel like we say ‘perhaps’ all too often. Why can nothing ever be straightforward with the Doctor? Why can’t London 1963 just be London 1963? Why can’t he bring us home?”
But Ian was not listening. He was looking behind her, at the window.
Because there were no stars, no galaxies, no wonders left in the universe. There was nothing. Nothing at all.
“What happened?”
“That is what is really out there,” Ian turned to her gravely, “We can’t trust anything we see.”
“How can there be nothing out there?” Barbara pressed her hand against the window, “There has to be something…”
Ian shook his head, “It’s impossible, unless…” he tapped the keyboards dotted across the panel randomly in hope the screen would light up. Alas, nothing. “We have to try to restore full power - maybe these computers can tell us. Or..”
“Or?”
“Maybe we aren’t alone. Maybe,” Ian said, “we can simply ask.”
“Well, where do we begin?”
Ian shrugged, “Perhaps there is a schematic of the ship somewhere in this room.”
Perhaps, Barbara noted, there it was again.
He crossed to one corner in which drawers were stacked. He opened each in turn. Files. Lots of them. He browsed labels. Data log. Coordinates. Passenger data. He glanced through these - they were out of date. Very out of date. Although they did give him some information. The station was called the Specillum-15.
“Probe,” Barbara muttered.
“What?”
“Specillum is Latin for probe.”
Ian nodded. He had forgotten most of his Latin. Barbara, however, was a History teacher. It was practically essential. Probe. Presumably this station’s function lay in science, but probing what exactly was anyone’s guess. The files didn’t help at all. He mentioned this to Barbara. She nodded in agreement. He continued to search through the files.
The ship was home to 600 passengers, 100 of which were maintenance crew. So where did they all go? All of the new data seemed to be stored on the computer system. Finally he stumbled upon a blueprint.
“Aha!” he spread it out across the panel. Barbara peered over his shoulder. “This should help!” The station consisted of the outer ring (“We must have been travelling through the outer corridors along here,”) which was split into eight sections (categorised by their placement, e.g. Eastern sector, North-Eastern Sector, Northern Sector). Each section had a strut - a corridor - that led to the centre room.
The centre room had three floors - the engine room was at the bottom, the living quarters in the middle and laboratory on the top. To navigate the floors, it seemed the centre room moved vertically, but the struts and the other ring stayed in place.
“We are here… at the far North,” Barbara pointed to a small room jutting out of the outer ring, “And we must have started there,” she pointed to the Eastern Section, “I reckon the power would be controlled from the engine room, on the bottom floor of the central room.”
Ian nodded, “In that case, we head there.”
***
“You said ‘this world’ - where are we?” Vicki asked.
The Doctor paused to consider this, but an answer was not given.
“That creature - that thing. What was it?”
Again, he did not answer. Not for a while. He was thinking.
He looked at her. “You said you visited the place when you were younger?”
Vicki nodded.
“Was it how you remembered it? Detail for detail?”
“Well, yes. Except for the fog… and the figures.”
“Hmmm… How intriguing…” the Doctor rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “It is like someone -something - is recreating your memory but surely that means…” he paused and looked at the young girl peculiarly, “You said you had a headache before?”
She nodded.
“I think the fog - the figures - whatever they were, they were feeding off your memories.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know… Perhaps that is how they feed.”
Vicki nodded and tried to ignore that throbbing at the back of her mind. The Doctor was silent for a while. He sat broodingly, thinking, mulling. And then - as it always did - an idea sprung upon him like a cat, and - as it always was - the effect was imminently clear.
“My dear, what did you say just before you saw the fog?”
“Ummm...” Vicki wracked her memory, “I can’t remember.”
“No, child. You must! Try again! Think about it - place yourself in that moment. We were standing at the top of the hill - what were we talking about?”
Vicki closed her eyes and tried to remember. What were they talking about? Think. Think Think... They were at the top of the hill, and… Think! What did they see? They were looking out onto the horizon and there was the road, and-
She recoiled in surprise. The pictures seemed to flash in front of her eyes. It was like, for a moment, she was there.
“What is it?” the Doctor asked.
She recounted what she has seen.
“I suppose the fog still must have a hold on your memories. Trying to remember the scene for every detail must have triggered an illusion.” The Doctor considered this. “Perhaps we could use this to our advantage.”
Vicki frowned. This sounded dangerous.
The Doctor continued, “This time do not jump out of the illusion - put yourself in the scene. You must remember!”
Vicki nodded. She closed her eyes and tried to repeat the circumstances. She thought about looking out along the meadows, she thought about the road, but the images did not come.
“It’s not working, I can’t seem to focus.”
“The illusion must need full belief to work… Ah! That must be it!”
“What is it, Doctor?”
“It does not matter - now we need to focus!”
Vicki glimpsed a determination in his eye, a scientific interest - nay - determination. “What do I have to do?”
The Doctor eyed the girl, “You see, this time around you were aware of what was going to happen. You need to be unaware. You need not to think you were going to see this memory in front of your eyes - you need to put yourself in the shoes of your past self - put all other thoughts to the back of your mind and focus.”
Vicki closed her eyes and did just that. She thought about the grass under her feet, the distant buzzing of insects, the warm radiance of the sun. No longer was she just thinking about these things; she was feeling them.
The Doctor watched the young girl, careful to make a sound, not to ‘wake’ her. Her lips moved slightly - in this dream state she was sleep talking. He tried to listen but she was mumbling barely audibly. He moved closer - he worried his footsteps would wake her, but she seemed deeply embedded in the memory. The Doctor bit his lip. She would not be easy to wake.
“...off the road… picnic…”
The Doctor strained his ears.
“...one of my fondest memories…”
That was it! Satisfied with his experiment he turned to the girl, “Vicki! Vicki!” But she did not stir. He frowned. She would not be easy to wake. He took her arms and shook, calling her name but she was so entranced by the illusion. What was he thinking? He had essentially handed Vicki over on a silver platter and now it was free to feed off her.
“My dear! You must wake up! Vicki! Vicki!” No response. “Chesterfield! Get some water quickly!”
And then he remembered. He would have to do it himself.
He rushed past the console to the ‘kitchen’ as Ian referred to it. Used to refer to it. The Doctor preferred less domestic titles on board his spaceship. Nevertheless, in that moment the Doctor wished he were there - he hadn’t realised how useful he was in situations like these. He was an old man now, he couldn’t rush about any longer; no - that was a young man’s job. He could reach the kitchen (no - eating quarters) and return much faster than he could. And then there was Barbara. Oh, Barbara. If she were here she wouldn’t have let this happen in the first place; she would tell him to not be so stupid, and selfish and oh god, how we wished they were here.
He returned to Vicki’s side a moment later, a glass of water in his hand. He then emptied the glass over her head. Vicki gasped for air, and fell forward onto her knees. The icy cold water had done the trick!
She was soaked, cold and confused but very much alive.
***
“Aha!”
“What is it?”
“These may be useful!” Ian produced two slender cylinders of metal from another drawer. Barbara was at a loss as to what they were. “They’re torches!” He handed one to her.
“Oh.” She turned it over in her hands, studying each smooth metallic side, “Where’s the button?”
“It should be on the side somewhere… Hmm…” He experimented by tapping on the smooth edge. When it proved to no effect, he rotated it slightly and tried on a different spot. When he tried tapping the bottom side, a beam of light shot out. He cried in triumph.
Barbara waved her hand in front of the door sensor and the exited into the gloomy corridor beyond. “Left or right?”
They were in the northern sector now, so… he remembered how the three doors - which led inwards - were non-functional, “We started off in the eastern sector, yes?”
Barbara confirmed this with a curt nod.
“And we travelled through the north-eastern sector and through to here?”
“Yes.”
“And none of those doors worked, so… right!” He set off in said direction.
The corridor curved slowly around for a few minutes before they reached a door leading to the North-Western sector. (“These door mechanisms must be running off an emergency supply.”) They entered and continued.
“I suppose we’re in the future then,” he noted.
“Oh?”
“Well, no one makes torches like that in 1963.”
Barbara cracked a smile, “I assumed the fact we’re floating in space somewhere would be proof enough.”
The two had stopped talking long before they reached the western sector - there was something very scary about such a large man-made vessel empty of any life at all. And there it was again. That ringing in their ears. Louder than before. The door opened and Ian started forward, but Barbara placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him in his place.
“Ian, look!” He looked ahead. This sector was devoid of any light at all.
“Good thing we have torches!” Events repeated themselves: he started forward once again and once again, Barbara’s arm shot out. He turned to her - she didn’t say anything, she just stared ahead and lifted her torch. Its beam cut the darkness up ahead.
The first thing Ian noticed was the fog (for the want of a better word) - the grey gas drifted airily around the room, densest on the floor. The second thing he noticed was the rogue fog that was drifting alarmingly fast through his legs, rolling across the floor of the northwestern sector. The third thing he noticed was the cold hands reaching out of the fog, wrapping around his legs, pulling him forward. He collapsed over the threshold, as did Barbara. The door slid shut behind them. The final thing he noticed was a figure, pacing toward them up ahead.
***
Vicki sat up.
The Doctor quickly rushed out of the console room and fetched a towel which he handed to her guiltily.
“What just happened?” she dabbed at her limp-hanging hair.
“You admitted yourself to it - it got a strong hold of you and I couldn’t wake you up,” he paused.
“Hence the glass of water chucked over my head?”
The Doctor nodded, “It was the only suitable course of action.” He flinched. She was bound to be annoyed by this - he often found himself waiting for her to finish brushing her hair before they were allowed to explore whatever planet they’d landed on - but she was… laughing. It was contagious.
Still beaming, she continued her line of questioning: “Was it a success then?”
The Doctor hesitated, “I got the information I needed if that is what you mean. Still…”
She smiled, “It’s fine, Doctor! I’m awake! I'm alive!”
He was still frowning, “I should not have put your life at risk like that.” He left her side and set about starting the time rotor. Soon the wheezing, the groaning encapsulated them and the TARDIS took off.
“Are we leaving? Doctor? I thought you wanted to study… whatever that thing was. Surely there is more to know?”
The Doctor shook his head, “I’m afraid I’ve caused enough damage as it is.”
Vicki wondered what he meant by that. And as it always did, the pounding, the sharp pain in her head ebbed its way into Vicki’s thoughts. She doubled over. This time it was different. It was so much more powerful. So much more painful. And there was that ringing in her ears. It was very slight, but it was there. She could hear it. She could feel it. This wasn’t an ordinary headache. Something was wrong with her.
***
It was pitch black.
Barbara reached out, clambering forward, staggering, feeling the fog around her ankles, breathing in the dense air. She couldn’t hear anything. Where was Ian? Wasn’t he right next to her?
“Ian? Ian?” Her voices echoed off the walls.
“I’m here!” A voice called from behind her. Ian’s.
“Ian, I’m frightened.”
“Hold my hand - come here.” She turned around and felt for his touch, “Here!” The voice was closer this time. She put one foot in front of the other, never sure exactly where she was going. It was hopeless trying to figure out which direction she was facing. She just needed to follow his voice. Her feet began to drag - it was like she was being pulled down but she pressed on, intent on moving forward. How they had become so separated - she had no idea. With each step, the fog was denser and denser, until she could not lift her feet, but it was too late because she had become too confident and bit off more she could chew when it came to taking that next step - she fell forward. Hands grabbed at her. She screamed.
“It’s alright! It’s alright! I’ve got you!” Ian lifted her to her feet.
And all the while there was that thought at the back of her mind. The ringing. It was like it was seeding its way into her mind. And the hands. The hands.
Barbara kept thinking about the fog and what was in it.
***
“I think I'm due an explanation,” Vicki said, not unkindly, once she had recovered.
“Yes, my dear, quite right! I am very glad you asked me that, for I have worked it out!” He puffed out his chest, proudly.
“Are you going to tell me what you worked out, or…?”
“Yes, of course, my dear!” His smile faded away and he began, his voice taking an air of authority, “Have you ever heard of Huon particles?”
***
“We have to get out here,” Barbara said, still clutching his arms.
“I know,” Ian broke away from her grasp, “The trick is,” - he took a few heavy steps forward - “find a wall, and then,” - a metallic wall rung out as Ian collided with it - “ow! And then you follow it around,” - Barbara could hear his feet shuffling along the ground, his hand following the wall, never leaving its smooth surface, “Until… aha! A door! Now, Barbara, come to me!”
A room completely closed off from the outside world - no windows at all - with no source of light should have been indefinitely dark. It wasn’t like walking home from work down the street with no streetlamps where the moonlight or even the distant light of houses helped you make out vague shapes. It was unbelievably dark. And yet, Barbara made out a shape. At first, she had thought it was Ian but it didn’t move. It was right in front of her - it was a figure… A uniformed soldier. No - he was just a man. She looked closer - it was both. And that wasn’t it. The fog… it seemed to be drawn to him, surrounding him. It was only when Barbara’s eyes adjusted she realised it wasn’t just drawn to him, he was the source of it.
***
“Huon particles,” Vicki repeated, “Yes, I've heard of them. Something to do with… teleportation?” she hazarded a guess. Physics was never her favourite subject.
“Yes, they were studying them at your time, developing them for consumer use, I understand.”
“Yes…” Vicki had air of vague remembrance, “Particles with the ability to… link up with other particles due to an electromagnetic field tuned to a molecular….frequency of some sort.”
The Doctor nodded, “Someone paid attention in physics lessons.”
“One of my least favourite subjects actually…”
“For this reason they can be used in teleportation - you pair two sets of Huon particles,” he held out his two fists in demonstration, “the particles intertwine with their respective environments, information is passed along the bond and the two sets of particles-” he moved his fists toward each other until his arms were crossed over, his left fist on his right and vice versa, “switch places.”
Vicki considered this, “So, what does that have to do with the fog?”
He seemed somewhat offended by this, “Only absolutely everything, my dear! In fact, they are the key to solving this perplexing mystery!”
***
Every bone in her body was ready to run, kick, scream but the briefest glimpses of that unbreaking stare, the deep eye sockets… His face…. A face so familiar and yet she had not seen it for so long…
“Barbara!”
She looked around for Ian’s voice and when she looked back-
The figure was gone.
“Barbara!”
She lurched forward toward his voice and grabbed hold of his wrist.
“Ian! There’s something in the fog!”
“Let’s just get out of here,” he turned to the door. The opening mechanism should have just been to the left of the door, he reached out and his hand touched a cool glass surface. He flattened his palm against it and waited. No response. He removed his hand and tried again.
“Let me try!” Ian retreated and Barbara took his place. No response.
Ian swore under his breath, “It’s been cut off - from the inside!”
“There has to be someone onboard.”
“What do we do?”
“Ian, the figure!”
He turned and in the darkness there was movement. A slow shuffle. Walking towards him.
They were trapped.
***
“The environment outside the TARDIS is swarming with Huon particles - I could sense it, the electromagnetic energy, it made my hair stand on end!”
“And something is controlling it?”
“Exactly!” he said triumphantly. It was as if he didn’t realise their lives were in danger. Didn’t realise or didn’t care? “You see, Huon particles can be used for more purposes than teleportation. The molecular bonding over distances can be very, very useful for other purposes.”
“Like what?”
“Like creating illusions.”
***
Barbara hammered her fists against the door. There was someone else on this ship - she knew it. Maybe, maybe, if she was loud enough they'd hear her.
“Help! Help!”
She looked back at the figure, ever approaching. Closer. And closer. And closer. And closer. She turned to Ian. He was perplexed by it - entranced. But why? It was just a figure? Of course it was frightening and it seemed to be clawing its way into their heads, implanting the saplings of fear, through… through…
Memories! It had showed her a face she had not seen in a long time - someone who she knew so well, but would never see again. And yet there he was, eyes void of any life, and yet he walked towards her. As if he was alive. But he wasn’t. She knew that. He was dead. Long dead. Nothing but a memory now. Nothing but… a memory...
She could not see, but she could feel Ian at her side. He stood still, unmoving, mesmerised... She wondered what he saw.
But she could not wonder for long.
Because the wall fell away and Barbara fell backwards into complete darkness.
***
“Vision is simply our eyes receiving light, and light can be diverted. Things can be made to not appear to be there just by the transporting, swapping the light each particle pair receives, using the same concept of teleportation. The light is diverted, manipulated, controlled to make us see things that aren't really there, or make us not see things that are there!
“You remember, back on the hill. The illusion didn't break apart until you said 'one of my fondest memories.’ Of course you had no idea it was feeding off your memories and outputting it onto these Huon particles, but that was enough. It made your brain stutter, just for a second. But that was all that was required. Enough for your brain to begin to realise none of it was real. And the world began to break apart. The same thing happened with my key. I knew it was there, I just had to admit it! You understand, child?”
“But I felt it - I didn’t just see it - it grabbed me-”
“Yes…” the Doctor mused, “I suppose it must have some influence over our other receptors… In the air! Yes! We breathe it in! You see, it has gotten into our brains and its controlling our nervous system - sending tiny electrical impulses throughout our body, making us feel what’s not really there.”
“What does it want?”
He paused, “I am afraid I cannot put an answer to that question,.” He paused again, “Perhaps what is most worrying is that these particles, they only existed during the dark time of the universe, before any planets were born - long before your planet. Which begs the question: where were we?”
“The beginning of the universe?” Vicki suggested.
“Perhaps,” the Doctor said, “or the end."
The centre room had three floors - the engine room was at the bottom, the living quarters in the middle and laboratory on the top. To navigate the floors, it seemed the centre room moved vertically, but the struts and the other ring stayed in place.
“We are here… at the far North,” Barbara pointed to a small room jutting out of the outer ring, “And we must have started there,” she pointed to the Eastern Section, “I reckon the power would be controlled from the engine room, on the bottom floor of the central room.”
Ian nodded, “In that case, we head there.”
***
“You said ‘this world’ - where are we?” Vicki asked.
The Doctor paused to consider this, but an answer was not given.
“That creature - that thing. What was it?”
Again, he did not answer. Not for a while. He was thinking.
He looked at her. “You said you visited the place when you were younger?”
Vicki nodded.
“Was it how you remembered it? Detail for detail?”
“Well, yes. Except for the fog… and the figures.”
“Hmmm… How intriguing…” the Doctor rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “It is like someone -something - is recreating your memory but surely that means…” he paused and looked at the young girl peculiarly, “You said you had a headache before?”
She nodded.
“I think the fog - the figures - whatever they were, they were feeding off your memories.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know… Perhaps that is how they feed.”
Vicki nodded and tried to ignore that throbbing at the back of her mind. The Doctor was silent for a while. He sat broodingly, thinking, mulling. And then - as it always did - an idea sprung upon him like a cat, and - as it always was - the effect was imminently clear.
“My dear, what did you say just before you saw the fog?”
“Ummm...” Vicki wracked her memory, “I can’t remember.”
“No, child. You must! Try again! Think about it - place yourself in that moment. We were standing at the top of the hill - what were we talking about?”
Vicki closed her eyes and tried to remember. What were they talking about? Think. Think Think... They were at the top of the hill, and… Think! What did they see? They were looking out onto the horizon and there was the road, and-
She recoiled in surprise. The pictures seemed to flash in front of her eyes. It was like, for a moment, she was there.
“What is it?” the Doctor asked.
She recounted what she has seen.
“I suppose the fog still must have a hold on your memories. Trying to remember the scene for every detail must have triggered an illusion.” The Doctor considered this. “Perhaps we could use this to our advantage.”
Vicki frowned. This sounded dangerous.
The Doctor continued, “This time do not jump out of the illusion - put yourself in the scene. You must remember!”
Vicki nodded. She closed her eyes and tried to repeat the circumstances. She thought about looking out along the meadows, she thought about the road, but the images did not come.
“It’s not working, I can’t seem to focus.”
“The illusion must need full belief to work… Ah! That must be it!”
“What is it, Doctor?”
“It does not matter - now we need to focus!”
Vicki glimpsed a determination in his eye, a scientific interest - nay - determination. “What do I have to do?”
The Doctor eyed the girl, “You see, this time around you were aware of what was going to happen. You need to be unaware. You need not to think you were going to see this memory in front of your eyes - you need to put yourself in the shoes of your past self - put all other thoughts to the back of your mind and focus.”
Vicki closed her eyes and did just that. She thought about the grass under her feet, the distant buzzing of insects, the warm radiance of the sun. No longer was she just thinking about these things; she was feeling them.
The Doctor watched the young girl, careful to make a sound, not to ‘wake’ her. Her lips moved slightly - in this dream state she was sleep talking. He tried to listen but she was mumbling barely audibly. He moved closer - he worried his footsteps would wake her, but she seemed deeply embedded in the memory. The Doctor bit his lip. She would not be easy to wake.
“...off the road… picnic…”
The Doctor strained his ears.
“...one of my fondest memories…”
That was it! Satisfied with his experiment he turned to the girl, “Vicki! Vicki!” But she did not stir. He frowned. She would not be easy to wake. He took her arms and shook, calling her name but she was so entranced by the illusion. What was he thinking? He had essentially handed Vicki over on a silver platter and now it was free to feed off her.
“My dear! You must wake up! Vicki! Vicki!” No response. “Chesterfield! Get some water quickly!”
And then he remembered. He would have to do it himself.
He rushed past the console to the ‘kitchen’ as Ian referred to it. Used to refer to it. The Doctor preferred less domestic titles on board his spaceship. Nevertheless, in that moment the Doctor wished he were there - he hadn’t realised how useful he was in situations like these. He was an old man now, he couldn’t rush about any longer; no - that was a young man’s job. He could reach the kitchen (no - eating quarters) and return much faster than he could. And then there was Barbara. Oh, Barbara. If she were here she wouldn’t have let this happen in the first place; she would tell him to not be so stupid, and selfish and oh god, how we wished they were here.
He returned to Vicki’s side a moment later, a glass of water in his hand. He then emptied the glass over her head. Vicki gasped for air, and fell forward onto her knees. The icy cold water had done the trick!
She was soaked, cold and confused but very much alive.
***
“Aha!”
“What is it?”
“These may be useful!” Ian produced two slender cylinders of metal from another drawer. Barbara was at a loss as to what they were. “They’re torches!” He handed one to her.
“Oh.” She turned it over in her hands, studying each smooth metallic side, “Where’s the button?”
“It should be on the side somewhere… Hmm…” He experimented by tapping on the smooth edge. When it proved to no effect, he rotated it slightly and tried on a different spot. When he tried tapping the bottom side, a beam of light shot out. He cried in triumph.
Barbara waved her hand in front of the door sensor and the exited into the gloomy corridor beyond. “Left or right?”
They were in the northern sector now, so… he remembered how the three doors - which led inwards - were non-functional, “We started off in the eastern sector, yes?”
Barbara confirmed this with a curt nod.
“And we travelled through the north-eastern sector and through to here?”
“Yes.”
“And none of those doors worked, so… right!” He set off in said direction.
The corridor curved slowly around for a few minutes before they reached a door leading to the North-Western sector. (“These door mechanisms must be running off an emergency supply.”) They entered and continued.
“I suppose we’re in the future then,” he noted.
“Oh?”
“Well, no one makes torches like that in 1963.”
Barbara cracked a smile, “I assumed the fact we’re floating in space somewhere would be proof enough.”
The two had stopped talking long before they reached the western sector - there was something very scary about such a large man-made vessel empty of any life at all. And there it was again. That ringing in their ears. Louder than before. The door opened and Ian started forward, but Barbara placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him in his place.
“Ian, look!” He looked ahead. This sector was devoid of any light at all.
“Good thing we have torches!” Events repeated themselves: he started forward once again and once again, Barbara’s arm shot out. He turned to her - she didn’t say anything, she just stared ahead and lifted her torch. Its beam cut the darkness up ahead.
The first thing Ian noticed was the fog (for the want of a better word) - the grey gas drifted airily around the room, densest on the floor. The second thing he noticed was the rogue fog that was drifting alarmingly fast through his legs, rolling across the floor of the northwestern sector. The third thing he noticed was the cold hands reaching out of the fog, wrapping around his legs, pulling him forward. He collapsed over the threshold, as did Barbara. The door slid shut behind them. The final thing he noticed was a figure, pacing toward them up ahead.
***
Vicki sat up.
The Doctor quickly rushed out of the console room and fetched a towel which he handed to her guiltily.
“What just happened?” she dabbed at her limp-hanging hair.
“You admitted yourself to it - it got a strong hold of you and I couldn’t wake you up,” he paused.
“Hence the glass of water chucked over my head?”
The Doctor nodded, “It was the only suitable course of action.” He flinched. She was bound to be annoyed by this - he often found himself waiting for her to finish brushing her hair before they were allowed to explore whatever planet they’d landed on - but she was… laughing. It was contagious.
Still beaming, she continued her line of questioning: “Was it a success then?”
The Doctor hesitated, “I got the information I needed if that is what you mean. Still…”
She smiled, “It’s fine, Doctor! I’m awake! I'm alive!”
He was still frowning, “I should not have put your life at risk like that.” He left her side and set about starting the time rotor. Soon the wheezing, the groaning encapsulated them and the TARDIS took off.
“Are we leaving? Doctor? I thought you wanted to study… whatever that thing was. Surely there is more to know?”
The Doctor shook his head, “I’m afraid I’ve caused enough damage as it is.”
Vicki wondered what he meant by that. And as it always did, the pounding, the sharp pain in her head ebbed its way into Vicki’s thoughts. She doubled over. This time it was different. It was so much more powerful. So much more painful. And there was that ringing in her ears. It was very slight, but it was there. She could hear it. She could feel it. This wasn’t an ordinary headache. Something was wrong with her.
***
It was pitch black.
Barbara reached out, clambering forward, staggering, feeling the fog around her ankles, breathing in the dense air. She couldn’t hear anything. Where was Ian? Wasn’t he right next to her?
“Ian? Ian?” Her voices echoed off the walls.
“I’m here!” A voice called from behind her. Ian’s.
“Ian, I’m frightened.”
“Hold my hand - come here.” She turned around and felt for his touch, “Here!” The voice was closer this time. She put one foot in front of the other, never sure exactly where she was going. It was hopeless trying to figure out which direction she was facing. She just needed to follow his voice. Her feet began to drag - it was like she was being pulled down but she pressed on, intent on moving forward. How they had become so separated - she had no idea. With each step, the fog was denser and denser, until she could not lift her feet, but it was too late because she had become too confident and bit off more she could chew when it came to taking that next step - she fell forward. Hands grabbed at her. She screamed.
“It’s alright! It’s alright! I’ve got you!” Ian lifted her to her feet.
And all the while there was that thought at the back of her mind. The ringing. It was like it was seeding its way into her mind. And the hands. The hands.
Barbara kept thinking about the fog and what was in it.
***
“I think I'm due an explanation,” Vicki said, not unkindly, once she had recovered.
“Yes, my dear, quite right! I am very glad you asked me that, for I have worked it out!” He puffed out his chest, proudly.
“Are you going to tell me what you worked out, or…?”
“Yes, of course, my dear!” His smile faded away and he began, his voice taking an air of authority, “Have you ever heard of Huon particles?”
***
“We have to get out here,” Barbara said, still clutching his arms.
“I know,” Ian broke away from her grasp, “The trick is,” - he took a few heavy steps forward - “find a wall, and then,” - a metallic wall rung out as Ian collided with it - “ow! And then you follow it around,” - Barbara could hear his feet shuffling along the ground, his hand following the wall, never leaving its smooth surface, “Until… aha! A door! Now, Barbara, come to me!”
A room completely closed off from the outside world - no windows at all - with no source of light should have been indefinitely dark. It wasn’t like walking home from work down the street with no streetlamps where the moonlight or even the distant light of houses helped you make out vague shapes. It was unbelievably dark. And yet, Barbara made out a shape. At first, she had thought it was Ian but it didn’t move. It was right in front of her - it was a figure… A uniformed soldier. No - he was just a man. She looked closer - it was both. And that wasn’t it. The fog… it seemed to be drawn to him, surrounding him. It was only when Barbara’s eyes adjusted she realised it wasn’t just drawn to him, he was the source of it.
***
“Huon particles,” Vicki repeated, “Yes, I've heard of them. Something to do with… teleportation?” she hazarded a guess. Physics was never her favourite subject.
“Yes, they were studying them at your time, developing them for consumer use, I understand.”
“Yes…” Vicki had air of vague remembrance, “Particles with the ability to… link up with other particles due to an electromagnetic field tuned to a molecular….frequency of some sort.”
The Doctor nodded, “Someone paid attention in physics lessons.”
“One of my least favourite subjects actually…”
“For this reason they can be used in teleportation - you pair two sets of Huon particles,” he held out his two fists in demonstration, “the particles intertwine with their respective environments, information is passed along the bond and the two sets of particles-” he moved his fists toward each other until his arms were crossed over, his left fist on his right and vice versa, “switch places.”
Vicki considered this, “So, what does that have to do with the fog?”
He seemed somewhat offended by this, “Only absolutely everything, my dear! In fact, they are the key to solving this perplexing mystery!”
***
Every bone in her body was ready to run, kick, scream but the briefest glimpses of that unbreaking stare, the deep eye sockets… His face…. A face so familiar and yet she had not seen it for so long…
“Barbara!”
She looked around for Ian’s voice and when she looked back-
The figure was gone.
“Barbara!”
She lurched forward toward his voice and grabbed hold of his wrist.
“Ian! There’s something in the fog!”
“Let’s just get out of here,” he turned to the door. The opening mechanism should have just been to the left of the door, he reached out and his hand touched a cool glass surface. He flattened his palm against it and waited. No response. He removed his hand and tried again.
“Let me try!” Ian retreated and Barbara took his place. No response.
Ian swore under his breath, “It’s been cut off - from the inside!”
“There has to be someone onboard.”
“What do we do?”
“Ian, the figure!”
He turned and in the darkness there was movement. A slow shuffle. Walking towards him.
They were trapped.
***
“The environment outside the TARDIS is swarming with Huon particles - I could sense it, the electromagnetic energy, it made my hair stand on end!”
“And something is controlling it?”
“Exactly!” he said triumphantly. It was as if he didn’t realise their lives were in danger. Didn’t realise or didn’t care? “You see, Huon particles can be used for more purposes than teleportation. The molecular bonding over distances can be very, very useful for other purposes.”
“Like what?”
“Like creating illusions.”
***
Barbara hammered her fists against the door. There was someone else on this ship - she knew it. Maybe, maybe, if she was loud enough they'd hear her.
“Help! Help!”
She looked back at the figure, ever approaching. Closer. And closer. And closer. And closer. She turned to Ian. He was perplexed by it - entranced. But why? It was just a figure? Of course it was frightening and it seemed to be clawing its way into their heads, implanting the saplings of fear, through… through…
Memories! It had showed her a face she had not seen in a long time - someone who she knew so well, but would never see again. And yet there he was, eyes void of any life, and yet he walked towards her. As if he was alive. But he wasn’t. She knew that. He was dead. Long dead. Nothing but a memory now. Nothing but… a memory...
She could not see, but she could feel Ian at her side. He stood still, unmoving, mesmerised... She wondered what he saw.
But she could not wonder for long.
Because the wall fell away and Barbara fell backwards into complete darkness.
***
“Vision is simply our eyes receiving light, and light can be diverted. Things can be made to not appear to be there just by the transporting, swapping the light each particle pair receives, using the same concept of teleportation. The light is diverted, manipulated, controlled to make us see things that aren't really there, or make us not see things that are there!
“You remember, back on the hill. The illusion didn't break apart until you said 'one of my fondest memories.’ Of course you had no idea it was feeding off your memories and outputting it onto these Huon particles, but that was enough. It made your brain stutter, just for a second. But that was all that was required. Enough for your brain to begin to realise none of it was real. And the world began to break apart. The same thing happened with my key. I knew it was there, I just had to admit it! You understand, child?”
“But I felt it - I didn’t just see it - it grabbed me-”
“Yes…” the Doctor mused, “I suppose it must have some influence over our other receptors… In the air! Yes! We breathe it in! You see, it has gotten into our brains and its controlling our nervous system - sending tiny electrical impulses throughout our body, making us feel what’s not really there.”
“What does it want?”
He paused, “I am afraid I cannot put an answer to that question,.” He paused again, “Perhaps what is most worrying is that these particles, they only existed during the dark time of the universe, before any planets were born - long before your planet. Which begs the question: where were we?”
“The beginning of the universe?” Vicki suggested.
“Perhaps,” the Doctor said, “or the end."