In the midst of the time capsule's control room, the old man in his worn leather coat and red and white herring bone scarf rotated a dial and stepped back from the mushroom-shaped control console beneath the great glass central column. The light from the honeycombed roundels in the chamber cast deep shadows on his craggy face. He stroked his bushy, white beard as he peered upon the flat screen monitor mounted on the console. On it was the image of a great temple perched upon a rocky cliff beneath a brooding grey sky.
"What secrets do you hold?" asked the old man in a gravely voice. "The only artificial structure on an uninhabited world in the midst of the most densely populated sector of Earth's Empire. You're the twenty-ninth century"s greatest enigma, but there isn't an archeologist or explorer that'll come near you."
With a shrug of his shoulders, he passed through the exterior doors and emerged from the battered, blue box that has been the form of his capsule's exterior for the better part of a millennium. The capsule materialized on a narrow path up the mountain close to the ledge. The old man desperately grabbed the handle on the door as he nearly tumbled off the mountainside.
"My God!" cried the old man. "Of all the spots on this planet, did you have to materialize here? It'll have to do. I'm not going to risk a micro-jump considering the trouble we had getting here in the first place."
The old man carefully swung around his capsule and climbed the narrow path up to the sprawling temple above. It was enormous, with cyclopean pillars brightly painted dominating the edifice of the temple.
"Not even Karnak at its height was this splendid!" exclaimed the old man with awe. "But the Matrix file said that this was a monastery. It's neither Christian nor Buddhist. Perhaps there was a neo-Egyptian revival in the 29th century? My history is terribly rusty. I've been to busy fighting this damned War."
The column filled atrium was enormous, and it took the old man a long time before he reached the sanctuary. The holy place was filled with gold lamp stands, incense altars, and sacred tools. The walls were covered in brightly painted hieroglyphs. But the most elaborate thing in that place was a massive statue of a beautiful woman with feathered wings entwined about with two serpents like a caduceus.
"Could be Isis," muttered the old man to himself. "Oh, God, I hope this isn't an Osirian temple. I don't think I could deal with the lot of them today. What's this?"
The old man's brilliant, green eyes caught sight of a door seam in the wall behind the idol. There was no doorhandle on it, nor was a visible keypad to be found. The old man produced a metal wand with a red dial from the bandolier beneath his leather coat. He waved it in front of the concealed door, which slid open with a soft whir.
Inside was a much smaller room with similar door across the way. The room's only feature was a massive set of machinery with a large crystal mounted to the top. The door slid closed behind the old man as he approached the device.
"That's a Transmission Of Matter Through Interstitial Time machine," gasped the old man, "and that's a vortex crystal. That could only mean that Isis is a Chronovore, and some idiot is trying to bring her into the Normal-space Universe. But who?"
The old man heard something, and he quickly dived under the machinery. Being a small man, he was able to conceal himself completely under the bulk of the machine.
He was able to position himself so he could see the other door. It opened and in rolled three man-sized machines not very dissimilar in shape to an Earth pepperpot. One of them excitedly waved its toilet plunger-like arm as it cried out in an mechanical voice, "All is assembled! Soon we shall summon the Chronovore and use its power to finally defeat the Time Lords. Then the Daleks shall be the undisputed Lords of Time and Space!"