AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY HOURS
by ardavenport
"Doctor, come down! Please!"
The Doctor turned to look down at his companion. She seemed frantic with worry. He turned back to a magnificent view of a sunrise in the Himalayas. The still shadowed village, dirt roads and fields faded far below in the stray morning mists. The new sunlight made the tremendous height of his perch all the more apparent. He turned back to Sarah.
"Doctor, it's alright, you can come down." Monks and workers shuffled and murmured around her.
He could detect real panic in her voice. But then, Sarah was like that sometimes. Especially when it came to heights.
His face puckered in worry. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten up on the wall he was sitting on. He concentrated harder but he couldn't even think of why he was in Tibet in the first place. He kicked his feet on the wall. Tibetan architecture had notably few balconies and tiny windows, at least when the buildings were finished. But the wall he was sitting on belonged to a partially constructed temple. He eyed the landmarks and decided that he must be in Lhasa itself, 14th or maybe 15th century.
He shifted his weight on the well and dislodged a few pebbles. Sarah panicked anew.
"Doctor!"
The Doctor winced. Sarah's voice was approaching unpleasant frequencies.
"Would you like me to come down?" he inquired in an innocent voice.
"Yes, I would," she answered, just a bit exasperated.
"Hmm," he swung his legs over to her side of the wall. "All you had to do was ask," he mumbled.
Sarah, the monks and workers pressed forward. Many hands reached up to help him down. Their mutterings rose in volume all around him, rather like the sound of water. . . . .
. . . . . The crowds on the shore watched and a few of them cheered from the observation platforms. Men and women with parasols in white and pastel turn-of-the-century dress pointed at him and gossiped amongst themselves. Many of them were, no doubt, on their traditional honeymoon at Niagra Falls.
The rapids suddenly jostled him more violently, sending his barrel spinning. He forlornly tried throwing his weight around to try and stop it but with no success. He hadn't thought to bring any oars with him. He wondered if he shouldn't have gone with the top of his barrel sealed like the other fellow. It certainly would have saved him the disorientation that his unwanted rotation was causing. But then, it wouldn't have been interesting at all if he couldn't see anything.
The Doctor watched the drop-off rush forward with each revolution of his barrel.
The roar of water increased . . . . .
. . . . . Waves broke on the white sand.
The beach was untouched by sentient habitation, save for the TARDIS, the Time Lord and his footprints. He sat down. The sand felt warm and soft. Pine trees edged the strip of perfect beach. The blue-green Gulf of Mexico gently wetted the fine white sand twenty feet from him. He became absorbed with picking up handfuls of it and watching it run through his fingers.
After a while he got bored with this activity and he laid down and looked up at the sun and sky. The door to the TARDIS opened.
"D-Doctor?" He heard Sarah wander out. He was pleased that she was finally up.
"Doctor?" She had probably seen him, he reasoned. He pulled his hat down over his eyes and smiled . . . . .
. . . . . He opened his eyes. The ceiling to his room was very plain and white. He lifted his head and looked around. The room seemed messier than usual.
"Doctor?" Sarah sat in a chair next to his bed. She leaned closer to him. "How do you feel?"
"You know you've been saying that a lot?"
She drew back. "What?"
"'Doctor'." He risked rising, groaning to a sitting position. His ribs, upper arms and legs ached.
"You shouldn't be getting up," Sarah warned.
"Why not?" he snapped. "I'm not too badly off. Considering."
"Considering that was the stupidist thing I've ever seen you do. You're lucky to be alive!"
"Oh no. I've done much stupider things than that." He eased his feet to the floor. "What did I do?"
"You went over Niagara Falls in a barrel!" she almost yelled back at him. Then in a softer voice, "Don't you remember?"
"Oh yes, I think I remember that part. It's the rest of it that I'm not sure of." He looked down at his feet. The floor was cold. "Where are my shoes? Did you take my shoes?"
Sarah got up and retrieved them for him. "Here." She plopped them down on the bed next to him.
"These aren't the socks I was wearing."
"That's because the other ones had holes in them."
"Oh."
A moment of silence followed while he fumbled with the tubes of fabric. Sarah fidgeted.
"Doctor, maybe you shouldn't be getting up so soon."
"Why not? I'm perfectly alright. That's the second time you've said that. Are you feeling alright?"
"Me? I don't believe this! You've got the nerve to ask me that after what I've been through?" Sarah's temper rose. "Now I've seen everything!"
"It couldn't have been that bad." he mumbled. Something had upset her and he had a feeling that it truly was his fault, whatever it was. He tried to concentrate on trying to recall what he'd been doing while she ranted.
"You're not even listening to me. I don't know why I even bother," Sarah finished.
"You know, I'm not experiencing this in the right order."
"What?"
"Kurt Vonnegut wrote about something like this happening to someone."
"What are you talking about?" Sarah demanded.
"My time sense has been thrown off!"
She jumped back.
"I'm not living this in the right order. Have I been acting strangely lately?
"Only for the past three days."
"Really? I wonder what could have caused it?" He began to rise and nearly tripped on his socks.
Sarah caught him and they both bounced back onto the bed. She pried herself loose and looked down at him. "Don't you remember anything?"
He shook his head. "No, at least not yet. I suppose I'll get around to it eventually. I don't think anything like this has ever happened to me. Have you ever read Slaughterhouse Five?"
"You're not making any sense, Doctor." She got off the bed. He sat up and hopped off . . . . .
. . . . . the stone he'd been sitting on.
Sarah pressed close to him and once again demanded what they were doing there. The crowd around them scattered, unsure of what to do about the two intruders. They stood on a barren, icy plain surrounded by a flock (herd?) of Aptenodytes Forsteri, or otherwise known as emperor penguins. The birds honked and flapped their wings (flippers?). The Doctor recalled that he'd never been very good with penguins.
Sarah wandered too close to a downy chick and a protective parent pecked her.
She yelped and jumped in the direction of another chick and was promptly attacked again. The Doctor grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the angry birds. His foot turned on a loose rock and they bath tumbled to the ground . . . . .
. . . . . The Doctor hit the floor and rolled away from the console.
After a moment he dared peek back at it. It loomed overhead and he doubted he could climb back up to it. Sarah sat with her back to the wall. She hunched herself in a tight package with her knees drawn up to her chest and her eyes staring at him over her folded arms. Apparently she was unaffected by the slope of the floor and the Doctor wondered where she had found the extra gravity to keep her place.
This thought didn't make any sense at all to him. Nothing had been making sense lately, which, of course, was preventing him from finding out why nothing was making sense . . . . .
. . . . . "I say, bloody hot today, eh Doctor?" Major Collier cast a glance in the Time Lord's direction.
"Oh really, Edward." His wife scolded, appalled by the army man's language. "Roger's hardly sixteen and you're already setting a bad example."
"Hrumph. About time to make a man out of him. A man can't get by on just pretty manners, Mildred." He lifted his nose to the wind to display his quite manly profile. The son in question merely looked down at his lemonade and scratched his pimples.
"Oh, are you comfortable dear?" an elderly woman on his left inquired. She looked like a long-faced Queen Victoria in gray lace. "Would you like to borrow my parasol? It's really such a warm day and the sun does get so hot out here on the patio."
"Oh, stop fussing over him, Mother. You'd think he was an invalid the way you're going on." The Major saluted the Doctor with his drink. "Sure you won't have any gin with that tonic, Doctor?"
The Doctor loathed gin and politely declined.
The conversation dragged on. The Colliers were incredibly boring. Their range of interests didn't seem to go beyond the weather, the new 'season', what was happening back home in England and the Major's well embellished stories about what was happening in the Regiment.
"Can't take care of themselves y'know. India needs the Empire here to keep things going smoothly." the Major stated.
"Hello dear!" Ellen, the Major's niece jumped up from her seat to greet Sarah, who had just come out of the house. An Indian maid in a blue and yellow sari escorted her. "Did you have a nice nap?"
Sarah seemed a bit wary but otherwise alright. She brightened noticeably when she saw the Doctor sitting with the rest of the family. She stepped forward, past tall potted plants . . . . .
. . . . . the tropical plants brushed past her as she emerged from the jungle. He pointed to the city.
"See?" He pointed to the white sandstone temples of Ankor Wat; People came and went from the magnificently ornate buildings. Sarah was only momentarily distracted by its beauty.
"Doctor, it's not safe here!"
"Nonsense! This is the height of their civilization. They won't start all that fighting around here for centuries."
She knelt beside him where he was hiding and took his arm. "We could still get bitten by some poisonous snakes or things. Let's go."
"Oh, we shouldn't . . . " He lowered his head. Sarah felt his arm tremble and his hands and face twitched.
"Doctor, . . . " Before she could say anything else, the attack passed and he sprang to his feet.
"Time to go," he announced over his shoulder.
"What? . . . Wait!" Taken by surprise, Sarah had to hurry to catch up.
The Time Lord strode purposefully toward the TARDIS. He could always find the TARDIS . . . most of the time . . . . .
. . . . . the tourists of Machu Picchu crowded around the Police Box. Most of this bunch seemed to be Japanese and they were all armed with clicking cameras. Massive stone terrace rose above them in the thin Andean air and they continued to photograph the police box.A tour guide appeared and chased the marauding vacationers back to their bus. She paused momentarily to wonder what the TARDIS was but a quick look at her watch convinced her that it wasn't nearly as important as her schedule. She hurried after her charges.
The Doctor inched Sarah toward the TARDIS. Eyes wide and wary for unseen dangers, she clung to him like a last hope. He took the key chain from around his neck and put the key in the lock . . . . .
. . . . . The Doctor peered over his shoulder. 500 Zulu warriors prepared to attack. On the other side of the TARDIS a similar number of Sotho did the same. This was no time to be stuck in the middle of somebody else's argument. And the shock value of having his TARDIS appear in the midst of it only seemed to have delayed the hostilities by a few minutes. The Doctor decided not to stay for any sightseeing. He opened the door. . . . .
. . . . . and stepped out and peaked around a canvas flap. Dozens of people ignored him. They were too intent on either buying or selling. Booths filled with tempting delicacies, expensive clothes, silks, oriental rugs, jewelry, brass, perfumes and uncounted other luxuries lined the corridor. Veiled and shrouded Arab women admired gold bracelets displayed by a bearded merchant nearby. He might have placed the time 200 years too early until he spotted the digital watch on the merchant's arm. He grinned, spotting some finery that Sarah might like. She needed cheering up. He stepped out and was jostled by the crowd . . . . .
. . . . . A tall, ebony woman turned and looked at him disdainfully when he bumped past her. He smiled apologetically and excused himself, wary of spilling the drinks he was carrying. He carefully navigated through the party crowd without any mishaps until he reached the 'window seat' where Sarah was sitting.
He handed her a glass of asparagus juice. She accepted it without sampling it and looked back at the round Earth below them. She could see parts of Europe amid the swirling clouds. A hairy, pot-bellied man in bright orange shorts and flippers walked by behind them.
"Doctor, what are we doing here?"
"Stopping for a rest mostly. And this is where the old girl landed us."
Nearby, a laughing crowd of people with rolls of double-sticky tape engaged in the the sport of 'Who could find the end of the roll first?'
Next to them, a man wearing an enormous set of headphones gyrated to his own beat, oblivious to the generic electronic background music played for the rest of the room.
"This isn't what I'd call 'restful'."
"It's a bit noisy, but otherwise it seems to be safe enough. We've been here for an hour and nothing's happened yet."
A woman with a three headed snake danced erotically in a spherical cage above their heads. A phosphorous glow fig-leafed strategic parts of her body while several men and women in balconies around her swooned to her rhythm.
"Nothing! This is nothing!"
"I mean nothing's happened to us."
On the far side of the room, two men practicing magic tricks by pulling flowers out of each others mohawk, entertained a group of teenagers playing bridge.
"I wouldn't be so sure of that around here."
The Doctor scanned the party. "I must admit it doesn't look safe, but I think it's best we stay in one place for a little while - - -"
They both ducked a perfume wielding sultan and his floating cat. The scent of roses descended on them with no other ill effects.
" - - - I haven't really been myself lately - - "
"You're telling me!"
"- - and I'd like to be sure of myself before we go anywhere else. You haven't been yourself lately either." he added critically.
"I wasn't flying the TARDIS."
"Yes, well, I think we'll just have to be more careful about whose hospitality we accept in the future."
Sarah nodded and looked down at her drink. She looked for a convenient place to dump it. With nothing suitable nearby she settled for putting it on the floor next to her. Then she took the Doctor's glass away from him and put it down next to hers.
They admired the scenery (the planet below them) while the partiers celebrated their space station's version of New Year's Eve. A pixie zoomed by dusting people with stardust in it's wake. Sarah and the Doctor dove for the floor as if it were a bomber.
"Doctor! Can't we go yet? We're both going to lose what little sanity we've got if we stay around here."
The Doctor spotted a woman in a pink frilly dress and a feathered hat vigorously shaking an old-fashioned can of spray paint next to the TARDIS. He jumped up and, grabbing Sarah, rushed off to cut off this newest threat.
"I think we're both back to normal, now," he told her.
They neared their target just in time to disarm the would-be graffiti artist. She left in a huff and the Doctor neatly disposed of the can in a wandering automatic trash can. It hummed and whirred as it accepted his offering . . . . .
. . . . . he blinked when the light caught him unawares. A woman in jeans and T-shirt took the fat book off the glass, turned the page and repositioned it on the copy machine. This time he looked away before the flash caught him.
'"I'm not living this in the right order,"' he heard himself say. But had he already said it or was he going to say it?
'I must be hallucinating,' he decided. Humans, when they hallucinated, only had to worry about seeing and hearing and thinking strange things. Time Lords had to worry about distortions in time as well.
'How had it all started?' he asked himself. He suspected he wouldn't be totally free of the effect until he was able to remember the cause.
Sarah stood next to him.
"What are we doing here?" she asked.
He looked around. Copy machines lined the wall. Each one bore a plastic name plate, 'Gertrude', 'Myrna', 'Oscar', etc. A sign in the window proclaimed that it was '3 cents-a-copy Happy Hour' and hordes of young people crowded the machines. Most of them ignored the two travelers, but a man behind the counter looked like he might come over and ask what they wanted.
"We're leaving," he said and headed for the door with Sarah in tow. Time to go back to the TARDIS. He could always find the TARDIS. Well, usually, at least . . . . .
. . . . . at least she didn't seem too badly off,' he thought. The Doctor carried Sarah down the TARDIS corridor toward her room. 'She just isn't feeling well.' He wasn't feeling too well himself . . . . .
. . . . . "I've seen enough cases of malaria to know one when I see one. Help me get him up, Vayas."
The two men each took an arm and helped the Doctor up to a chair. The Indian servant then rushed to fetch a drink. It was a gin and tonic. The Doctor gagged, unable to explain that Time Lords didn't get malaria.
Major Collier slapped him on the back. The women in the room stood back and fanned themselves nervously. The servants had already attended to Sarah and they just weren't prepared for the Doctor falling ill as well. Finally Mrs. Collier, a fat woman in a light blue dress and pearls poured a cup of tea and came over with it.
"Really, Mildred. That's not what he needs." He once again tried to give him a sip of the drink. The Doctor decided it was perhaps better if they did think he had malaria, but he wasn't going to take any more gin. He reached for the teacup . . . . .
. . . . . he accepted the tea and bowed.
Yuniko continued with the ceremony and attended Shinji next to him. The Samurai performed the protocol flawlessly. So far, the Doctor had not embarrassed himself or his host, but he had not participated in the tea ceremony in ages and was a bit hazy about the procedure. When did he bow? When did he sip? Was he sitting correctly?
He had come to his old friend, Shinji, for advice, but wasn't sure about what he needed advising on. It had something to do with Kurt Vonnegut and time streams. Shinji's suggestion of the tea ceremony had seemed like a good one at the time, but now the Time Lord found himself growing impatient. Shinto mysticism did not seem to be a likely solution to his problem.
Yuniko bowed and poured more tea . . . . .
. . . . . sugar?" the woman asked. She dropped one cube in and handed him the cup. He helped himself to more granulated sugar from the sugar bowl. Sarah frowned at him and sipped her own tea.
"You'll get fat," she told the Doctor. He ignored her.
A man in a nehru jacket and beads helped himself to some fortune cookies on the table. Behind them the sun was just setting over the forested hills. It was a beautiful sunset. Moonbeam, their hostess stood and lit some candles on the mantlepiece under a framed picture of the Beatles. The firelight glinted on the peace symbol hanging around her neck. Several people in the room relaxed on pillows and rugs. Moonbeam finished lighting a stick of cinnamon incense next to the candles and returned to her seat at the low table where Sarah and the Doctor sat on their cushions.
"Nice place you have here," Sarah said conversationally about the commune's shared cabin.
"We are at the Center of the Universe." Moonbeam was nice, but not very informative.
"Oh no, we're not even close," the Doctor denied. "We're light years away from there. The Milky Way is really in a backward part of space."
"Then we'll all go there together." Moonbeam smiled serenely and brushed a strand of long blonde hair from her eyes.
"Oh, I don't think that would be possible right, now." The Doctor had no intention of picking up any new companions.
"Well, you said you were travelers."
"Yes," the Doctor answered.
"We all are," she told them cryptically and leaned back on her pillows. Sarah and the Doctor looked at her and then each other and wondered what she meant.
*o***o* END *o***o*
Note: This story was written by me and first appeared under the name 'Anne Davenport' in the print fanzine 'Traveling Companion' #4 in 1989.
Disclaimer: All Who characters and their universe belong to the BBC; I m just playing in that sandbox.