It was a quiet day; in retrospect, Alex Jones should have realized that the very peacefulness of it all should have been warning enough to send him into hiding behind the sofa.
As it was, though, he had gone through all the important papers that had required his attention as the plenipotentiary of the planet Toka, and he had surreptitiously pulled out his writing notebook to pursue the muse of lyrical poetry for a while. He was just in the act of applying a bit of polish to the line and faery fates do addlepate us all, when he heard a noise.
Perhaps the hearing of a noise would not bother the plenipotentiaries of the other sub-civilized cultures of the many planets of the Interbeing League. But the other plenipotentiaries were not dealing with Hokas, and Alexander Jones was. Many a time he had seen the uncanny depths to which a Hoka would immerse itself in the mythos found within the covers of a book, usually sucking every other Hoka within a five kilometer radius into the fantasy world as well - and all too often Alex himself had been pulled in as well, whether he liked it or not. The Hokas, of course, would dive headfirst into the new realm with unmitigated glee, unlike Alex, who was generally hauled into the wonderland kicking and screaming.
But there was a noise emanating from the outer office, a whooshing and groaning sound which grew louder and louder until it abruptly terminated in a loud, echoing SHTUNK.
Frowning, Alex put away his poetry and stood up. Euterpe would just have to wait.
Before he could round the desk, the door flew open and his secretary came wobbling in as fast as her little legs could carry her. She was a Hoka, naturally, which is to say she was roughly three feet tall and looked for all this world or any other like a teddy bear. Her bright black button eyes in her short-muzzled ursinoid face were rounder than Alex had ever seen them before. "Mr Jones!" she squeaked. "Mr Jones, I, I, I…!" Words failed her and she mutely pointed through the doorway into the office beyond.
"What's the matter, Ella?" he asked as he crossed to her. Her shaking finger continued to point and he glanced out the door to see what had nonplused her so.
His jaw dropped. "Heavens to Betsy!" he exclaimed, though not in precisely those words. "What off Earth?" he continued. "Where did that come from?"
Ella, her voice shaking every bit as much as her hand, wavered, "It wasn't there, and then it was! It just kind of… faded in and out and in!"
Alex shot her a fishy look. After all, Hokas did have the prize-winning imaginations of the universe, and he'd long since learned to take any explanation from any Hoka with not just a grain but an entire shaker full of salt. He gave his brain a brief racking, trying to think what Ella had been reading lately that might have precipitated… well, anything to explain the presence of that tall blue box bearing the legend of POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX unaccountably standing there in the middle of his office.
"Holy cow!" he euphemized as the door of the box opened and a stranger came out.
Ah, the stranger! He was dressed rather like a university professor, with braces holding up his trousers, a bow tie at his throat, and a tweed jacket with patches at the elbows completing the ensemble. A shock of brown hair tumbled forward over his brow to shadow half his ursinoid face.
Yes, ursinoid. The natty little stranger was a Hoka.
Except he wasn't a stranger after all. His eyebrows knitting, Alex stared at the little bear and said, "Tannu?"
"No no no!" the Hoka exclaimed merrily. "I'm the Doctor. And these are my companions!" He waved at the box behind him and three more Hokas tumbled out. One was sporting a red wig, along with a exceptionally short skirt and cowboy boots. The second, the sole male of the trio, had the uniform of a Roman soldier along with a dazed look. And the third was in an extraordinarily slinky dress and tottered on extremely high-heeled shoes. "Hullo, Sweetie!" she chirped as she blew Alex a kiss.
Alexander Jones, plenipotentiary of Toka, could only gape.
"You're sure? No Raxacoricofallapatorians?"
"No."
"No Sycorax?"
Alex sighed. "No."
"Weeping Angels? Daleks? Cybermen?"
"No, no, and no!"
The Hoka Doctor peered up at Alex with a woebegone look upon his face "Not even an Adipose?"
"No! I'm telling you, Tannu, there are no scary aliens or monsters here!"
The little Hoka gave his head a jerk to flip the forelock back out of his eyes. "Pity. Oh, and it's the Doctor. Not sure who this Tannu chap you keep mentioning is…"
"Tannu is your real name," Alex put in.
"…but at any rate, I'm sure there must be some reason the TARDIS brought us here."
"TARDIS?"
"Why yes, this beautiful sexy creature!" beaming the Hoka Doctor. He ran a loving hand over the side of the blue box. "Long ago I stole her and set off to see the universe," he said in proud reminiscence. "I and my TARDIS against all the villains in time and space, helped out of course by various companions." He glanced about and tipped his head in puzzlement. "Why, where have my companions gotten off to?"
Alex looked around as well. None of the three strange bears were in sight, and neither was his secretary. "Ella?" he called. "Ella, where are you?"
The main double doors of the outer office crashed open dramatically. "Aha! There you are!" came a new voice speaking in as low and rumbling a tone as the naturally squeaky Hokan voice could contrive. "I've found you at last, Doctor!"
Alex stared in dismay at the little fellow in the doorway. The other Hokas he'd seen today had all been of the northern variety with golden-brown fur, but this newcomer was jet black. In fact, he was black all over, being dressed in a black tunic and trousers along with black gloves and boots, the whole of it surmounted by a sweeping black cloak. He even had a well-trimmed black goatee on his muzzle, no doubt glued into place.
The Hoka at Alex' side let out a cry of, "My best enemy!"
The black-clad Hoka gave a nod of greeting. "Yes, it is I, the Master!" he intoned.
Alex closed his eyes and pinched at his nose. "…the Master…" he said weakly.
"Indeed, yes!" said the newcomer, turning a piercing gaze at the human. "And you will obey me!"
"I will what?" exclaimed Alex.
"Oh no, you don't, Master!" cried the Doctor. Whipping a small silvery rod out of his jacket pocket, he pointed it at the Master. "Quickly, Mr Jones - into the TARDIS!" the Doctor urged as he pressed a button on the side of the rod. Green light appeared from the tip of the rod, and an eerie whistling sound filled the air.
"Ha!" exclaimed the Master. "Two can play at that game!" and he too produced a small rod and aimed it back at the Doctor. This one gave forth a reddish light, accompanied by a harsher, more grating sound.
What off Earth was going on, Alex wondered, dueling penlights? "What are you doing?" he added aloud. "The two of you are just…"
The whistling broke off as the Doctor gave Alex a shove in the direction of the tall blue box. "Go, man, run!" he said. Being a Hoka and therefore far stronger than his size suggested, the Doctor with that shove sent Alex reeling inside the box to sprawl on the floor within. With a renewal of the whistling, the Doctor jumped inside as well and slammed the door.
He pressed the button of the rod and the light winked out. The whistling ceased as well. "There!" he sighed with relief. "Safe for the moment while we deduce the Master's plan." He climbed the stairs to the six-sided console in the middle of the vast room and craned up on his tiptoes to look at the controls.
"What was all that about?" hollered Alex, scrambling to his feet and striding after the Hoka Doctor.
"That's the Master," said the Doctor, "as I already told you. He's my best enemy. Any time he shows up, he has some dastardly plot to take over the world, if not the universe. And it's my duty, of course, to stop him."
"Take… take over the universe!"
"Oh yes. He's quite the megalomaniac." The Doctor gave a little tsk. "And to think that we were such great friends when we were boys together on Gallifrey!"
"When you were…" Alex covered his face with his hands for a moment. "Wait a minute, I know who that Hoka was. That's Meedo. And the two of you were boys together - or young Hokas together, at least." Uncovering his face again, he added, "But that was right here in the capital city of Mixumaxu and… Holy Hannah!" he bowdlerized. "Where are we?"
"Why, inside the TARDIS, of course," said the Doctor matter-of-factly. "It is bigger on the inside, you know."
"But… but…" Alex looked around at the impossible room lit in shades of blue and orange. "This… this is the inside of that blue box in my office?"
"Yes! Very good! We'll make a decent companion of you yet. Speaking of companions, where are… Oh, here they come."
From the top of the stairs came tumbling the trio of costumed Hokas, calling out, "Doctor! Doctor! We're in danger!"
"Why yes, I know we're in danger." He nodded toward the door. "The Master is just outside, and we must find out what he's up to."
The ginger-wigged she-Hoka grabbed his arm. "No, Doctor, you don't understand. We're in danger right here in the TARDIS! Look!"
She pointed back up the stairs. To Alex' bewilderment, here came Ella rolling along perched on an office chair. In her hand held out stiffly in front of her was, of all things, a plumber's helper. Speaking in a scratchy and unnatural voice, she intoned, "EX-TER-MINATE! EX-TER-MINATE!"
"Ahhhhh!" cried the little companion Hokas and they took off running for cover in all directions.
"A Dalek!" cried the Doctor incredulously. "But how could a Dalek have gotten inside my TARDIS?"
"That's Ella, my secretary," said Alex morosely. "She's in here no doubt because your friends must have…"
"My companions, you mean," the Doctor interjected.
"All right, your companions must have invited her inside to initiate her into this new reality you're all inhabiting."
The Doctor shot Alex a mournful look. "My condolences, poor fellow. If, as you say, that was once your secretary, I fear she has now been converted into a Dalek and shall do her utmost to kill us all."
"EX-TER-MINATE!" Ella chanted. She was still at the top of the stairs waving her plunger, plainly at a loss to figure out how to descend the stairs without getting out of the chair.
"And what is a Dalek?" Alex challenged.
"Only the scourge of the universe and my worst enemies."
"Worst enemies? I thought you said the Master out there was your worst enemy."
"No," said the Doctor with great patience, his hands moving confidently over the controls on the console, "I said that he was my best enemy. Really, Mr Jones, if you're going to be one of my companions, you simply must learn to listen better than that."
"If I'm going to…! I didn't ask to be your companion!"
"Well no, of course not!" chuckled the Doctor. "I'm the one doing the asking. I am the Doctor, after all."
"Aha! There you are!" came a new voice as the TARDIS door sprang open. Gripping the little Hoka Master firmly by the collar and dragging him along into the room, a tall man strode in and glared at the Hoka at the console. "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "Get your paws off my controls!"
Alex stared at the man, then glanced back at the Hoka Doctor. They were dressed exactly alike!
The Hoka Doctor gaped for a moment, then yanked the silvery rod out of his pocket again and pointed it at the man. The green light flicked to life and the whistling sound split the air again.
"Oh, give me that!" said the man in annoyance. Dropping the Master, he strode forward and snatched the rod away from the Hoka Doctor. The whistling stopped and the light died. With a snort of exasperation, the man said, "This is just an ordinary mini torch!"
"No, it isn't!" squeaked the Hoka Doctor in protest. "It's my sonic screwdriver!"
"Sonic…! It is not. How is it sonic? And don't bash it against something and try to claim the fact that it made a sound makes it sonic either!"
"It… well, when you turn it on, it makes a sound like this." And the little Hoka whistled.
Alex peered at him. "No," he said. "Every time you've turned it on, you've made that whistling sound. He's right; it's just a penlight."
"Of course I'm right. I'm the Doctor," said the man with the bow tie, handing back the mini torch. He gave a twitch of his head to flick his forelock back out of his eyes, then held out a hand to Alex. "And you are…?"
"Alexander Jones, plenipotentiary of Toka."
"Ah! It's been quite some time since I've made the acquaintance of a plenipotentiary. Couple of hundred years or so, I think. And these creatures are… no, don't tell me; I'll remember it in a second. Ah, yes! The Hokas!"
One of the phrases the Doctor had just said was going spinning about inside Alex' head. "A… a couple of… hundred years?" he faltered.
"Mm. Give or take a decade or two, yes. But I've never met the Hokas before. Heard of them, of course. They really do deserve their reputation then as having the strongest imaginations going, eh? This little fellow has become me, and this one…" He glanced at the one in black he'd hauled into the TARDIS with him. "He's the Master, obviously. And those…" Now he looked at the trio who had gradually emerged from hiding. "Oh, come on!" he exclaimed. "Amy, Rory, and River Song do not look like that!"
Sheepishly, the she-Hokas took off their wigs and slipped out of their cowboy boots and high-heels.
"But what's wrong with that one?" the Doctor went on, pointing at Ella, who was still at the top of the stairs, slowly revolving on her office chair. As he looked at her, the Doctor began to grin. "Oh, don't tell me. You're a Dalek?"
"Ex-ter-minate?" she said tentatively.
His grin broadened and he shook his head. "Oh, that's fantastic! An old-school Dalek, defeated by a flight of stairs!" He chuckled, then clapped his hands together. "All right then. Everybody out of costume and back to your usual brand of alternate lifestyles, hmm? Come along then!"
Alex stood by and gaped in amazement as the Doctor actually talked a half-dozen Hokas out of their latest fantasy and back into their previous ones. He collected the black outfit and beard - "Lovely rubbish beard!" - from the Hoka Master, the Roman costume from the Hoka Rory, the dresses, shoes and wigs from the Hoka Amy and River, and even went up the stairs to gently confiscate the plunger from the hand of Ella and convince her that she could indeed stand up and walk down the steps.
That left the Hoka Doctor himself. He clung to the console, insisting that he was, in fact, the Doctor: "The definite article, you might say!"
Slowly the Doctor shook his head. "No. Sorry, old fellow, but there's only one of me, and that's me. I'm wonderfully flattered that you want to be me, and if I thought it was safe to leave you the costume to cosplay in, I would. But you Hokas take things far too much to heart." He held out his hand. "It's time to turn in the sonic screwdriver and go back to being Tannu."
"No…" said the Hoka Doctor, his big black button eyes pleading.
"It's time. And if anyone knows time, that would be me also," said the Doctor.
A tear slipped down Tannu's muzzle as he grudgingly removed the jacket, gradually relinquishing the entire outfit to his double. As he held out the final two items, he abruptly drew them back. "May I… May I at least keep these?"
The Doctor laughed. "Well, I suppose you may. After all, it's not like that's an authentic sonic screwdriver. And as for the other," and he gave the Hoka a conspiratorial wink, "bow ties are cool!"
Shooing the Hokas out the door of the TARDIS, the Doctor shook hands with them all around, ending with Alex. "Good-bye, Mr Jones. It was nice meeting the lot of you. Lovely little planet you have here. Good day then!"
"Good-bye, Doctor." With a shake of his head, Alex added, "I wish you'd teach me how to back them out of a fantasy like that! I've never seen anyone be able to talk them back down once they've got a story in their heads."
"Oh well," said the Doctor with the closest thing to modesty that he could muster. "It does help if you're mildly telepathic." He smiled.
"Oh," said Alex. One thing the plenipotentiary was emphatically not was telepathic!
"Good day," said the Doctor again, nodding at the four little Hokas standing all around. He hopped inside his TARDIS, waved one last time, and shut the door. Moments later the noise that Alex had heard earlier started up again, and the tall blue box faded out, and in, and out again.
And was gone.
"Well," said Alex, his mind completely blank of both imprecations and euphemisms for the moment. And again he said it: "Well." Slowly he shook his head, then turned and wandered back into his inner office. "I need to think about this," he told his secretary. "I'd prefer not to be disturbed for a while."
"Yes, Mr Jones," said Ella as he quietly closed the door. She turned and looked at the other three Hokas. "Well, you heard the plenipotentiary!" she told them. "He prefers not to be disturbed. Go on! Get out!"
Moments later the door to the inner office slammed open again and Alex came racing out. Pointing an unsteady hand at each Hoka in the office in turn, he counted them. "Four!" he gabbled. "Four! But there were six before! Where…" He stared around wildly. "Where are Tannu and Meedo?"
In the TARDIS, the Doctor roamed about the console, lovingly adjusting this control and that as the time rotor rose smoothly and hypnotically up and down, up and down. "But what were you up to, you sexy thing you?" he said. "Normally when you land me on a planet, it's because there's some danger there, or some wrong to be righted. All that happened on Toka was that I met a few Hokas. Oh, and I met the earthman burdened with teaching them the ways of civilization. Nothing happened there other than that. It was, well… a little anticlimactic, you know. Why did you take us there?"
He paused as if waiting for an answer, but none was forthcoming. "Hmm. Well, if you don't mind then, I believe I'll head off to the lab and check on a couple of experiments I have going." He trotted up the stairs, then looked around, puzzled. "Why, where did that rolling chair go? And the plumber's helper too; I left them both right here to put away later. I wonder what became of them?"
Somewhere deep within the TARDIS an office chair went rolling along, its black-furred occupant waving a plunger and intoning, "EX-TER-MINATE!" as a little way in front of him, running - always running - a Hoka with a flop of brown hair in his eyes adjusted his bow tie, pointed a penlight at his playmate, and cheerfully imitated the whistle of a sonic screwdriver.
~~~ THE END ~~~
(or not…)