The Legend of Gallifrey Part Four: Immortality Syndrome
The TARDIS hummed to the Doctor's touch. His scarf twirled as he ran around the console, trying for once to achieve a textbook landing. The wood console was lighting up on top whenever he touched it. It wasn't used to this.
Slowly but steadily, the TARDIS materialized, and the Doctor watched the central column move up and down, then it came to a stop, and the Doctor turned around and held up his hand, waiting for someone to high-five him. Then he remembered that he'd left Sarah Jane to explore the markets of Akhaten.
He opened the TARDIS door slowly. He was in some sort of barn, with several cows in a pen on the opposite side of the room and four horses with ropes around their muzzles and the ropes tied to a fence. The architecture and the use of horses put the Doctor somewhere in medieval times. This was likely the house of a wealthy nobleman.
The Doctor walked across the room and opened the door, and was immediately greeted by a fresh spring breeze. In front of him was a mansion, definitely belonging to a nobleman. To his left and right were hills and valleys filled with green grass and multicolored flowers.
There was a path leading up to the castle from where the Doctor stood. He pulled a jelly baby from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth, then began the walk up to the mansion. The door was wooden and old, but the hinges were bright. This was probably a door for the servants that was avoided by the family in the house.
The Doctor gripped the handle. As he began to turn it, he heard something rustle in the woods that appeared to be behind the barn. He turned around and saw only trees.
Something flashed in the trees. Something tall, white and metal, something oddly familiar. Then it vanished.
The Doctor stood there for a moment, confused, then he decided to look into it later and turned around towards the door, turning the handle. On the other side of the door was a kitchen filled with servants, who all turned to look at him with curious expressions, which struck the Doctor as a little odd. When a stranger walks into your house, the first thought that usually crosses your mind is self-preservation. These people didn't seem scared at all.
"Hello, everyone. I'm the Doctor," he said, waving. He pulled his bag of jelly babies out of his pocket and held it towards the servants. "Would anyone like a jelly baby?" He asked, very nonchalantly.
A few servants grabbed one and thanked him, then one walked over to him and asked if he wanted to see the lord of the manor, which he said he absolutely would, so they walked him upstairs to the lounging room.
There were three people there: a man, a woman, and a boy, apparently a family. The man, who introduced himself as Lord Byrd, had reddish hair and a long nose. He was very tall and seemed to look down on the Doctor even when he sat down. The lady was indeed his wife, Lady Byrd, and she had long blonde hair and a bulbous nose. Neither of them were very good-looking and they gave off a very stuck-up look, but their little boy, named Ryan Byrd, was a lot more normal-looking, with a medium length nose and dirty blonde hair. He was apparently ten years old.
"It's nice to meet you, Doctor, though I am a little curious as to why you were snooping around my house," said Lord Byrd. "These… jelly babies of yours, they are quite divine. You must give my servants the recipe when you have the chance."
"What were you doing in our house?" the Lady asked.
"Oh, you needn't worry about anything being stolen. And I'm not going to murder you, either," the Doctor laughed. "I'm just a traveller, taking a look-see."
The Lord and Lady laughed. "We stopped worrying about murderers and thieves a long time ago, Doctor," said the Lady. Then they laughed at his confused expression.
"You wouldn't know, I think," said the Lord. "This household has been blessed by the gods. Death itself cannot enter our grounds. All wounds heal, all those whom have died since it began live again. I shall demonstrate."
He snapped his fingers and one of the servants placed a knife in his hand, then he held it to his exposed forearm and dragged it across his skin, causing a line of red to appear, and blood began to stream off his skin. Then a servant handed him a cloth. He wiped the blood away, showing unbroken skin. The Doctor stared, dumbfounded, and the Lord looked smugly at the Doctor's face.
"It began about a month ago," the Lord said. "Everyone in the house began coughing uncontrollably for a day, then another day of the flu. After that, we couldn't have been better. We discovered quickly that nobody within this house can die, when one of the horses went mad and stampeded over one of my servants. When she returned from the dead, we were afraid at first, but after a week we came to see it as a blessing from the gods themselves!"
This was not good in any way. The Doctor was worried about the effects this could have on the future, but he put on a smile and nodded. "Yes, indeed a blessing. If you don't mind, Lord Byrd, I'd very much like to have a little of your blood to study and find out just how far this… blessing extends."
The Lord cut his arm again and dripped a little into a test tube the Doctor handed him. The Lord then insisted that he and his son see the Doctor's testing facilities, and the Doctor saw no reason to disagree, so he brought the two of them out back to the barn.
The Lord refused to allow his son into the 'dirty old barn' so the Doctor decided to go inside and bring the TARDIS out. He opened the TARDIS door and walked in, then stopped there.
Standing over the console, leaned down and facing the door, was a tall creature, about 8 feet tall, in a big white robotis suit. The helmet was rounded and domed with two rectangles for eyes. The Doctor recognized it immediately: it was a Viyran.
Viyrans were known throughout the universe for their extraordinary bio-engineering abilities that focused mainly on the creation of viruses. They'd stored all their viruses on the Amethyst Viral Containment Station, but a yet unidentified event had caused them to be spread across the universe. Now, one was apparently studying his console.
It heard him walk in and looked up from the console, a feat achieved through the eyeholes mechanically moving up onto the top of its head. It stood up, as much as it could, and stared at the Doctor.
"This craft," it said, in a monotone robotic voice. "It can return me to my homeworld. I will not need the virus."
Clearly, this Viyran had acquired a voice from some nearby villager.
"The virus?" the Doctor asked. "What have you released on these poor people?"
"I was stranded in this time by the paradox, with my time travel equipment damaged beyond repair," it said. "I used the skills that I acquired from my species to create a virus that would allow me to live until they could retrieve me. I tested it on humans, designation: Lord and Lady Byrd. It spread through all the humans in the house, then mutated. Now they are stuck with it, and I have no way to get home. Now I do. You will bring me to my homeworld in this craft."
"No, no, no, You're not getting off scot-free after granting immortality to a bunch of shady power-hungry humans," the Doctor wagged his finger. "You're going right back out that door and fixing up a cure for the virus."
"It was designed to be incurable. It cannot be removed."
"Use this," the Doctor held out the vial of Lord Byrd's blood. The Viyran reached out and took it from the Doctor's hand and brought it into its robotic hazmat suit. The suit whirred.
"Sample insufficient," it said. "Virus levels too low. Only possible solution: this craft can return me to my home."
The Doctor wasn't letting the Viyran go without making it clean up its mess, but he walked over to the console and pressed a button.
The TARDIS lurched, but didn't take off. Instead, a little blue light flashed on the console.
"What is that?" asked the Viyran.
"A 'no-go' light," said the Doctor. "That… did you say paradox? It did more than send you back in time, it kept you here. It turned you into a temporal anchor, so you can only travel in time the long way. I'm afraid you're stuck here."
The Viyran looked at him for a second. "You are a Time Lord. You are versed in temporal mechanics. You can repair me."
"Temporal anchors are fixed points in time, it's like the vortex just bends around them. You now exist both in and out of time. I'm afraid fixing you is impossible."
"Then the virus is my only option. I must salvage it from the humans."
The Viyran turned and walked towards the door, taking loud, cracking steps. It opened the door and stomped out into the barn, scaring the horses.
The Doctor closed the door and shifted the TARDIS back 30 seconds, and outside to where the Lord and Ryan were waiting. They were both very excited to see the Doctor's 'magic trick' but the Doctor quickly pulled them inside and took off.
"Doctor, what is the meaning of this?" Lord Byrd demanded. Ryan was amazed by the inside of the TARDIS, and it was all the Doctor could do to keep him from accidentally shutting down the interior TARDIS dimensions.
"This blessing of yours. It wasn't from the gods, but it was from the sky. Imagine another Earth, floating in the night. There is a metal giant, from one of those other Earths, in the future, who was trapped in this time. It created a virus to make itself immortal so it could live to see its own kind again, but after it found out that my craft wouldn't be able to return it to its people, it decided to salvage the virus from your household."
"Which would mean?"
"Sucking their bodies of the virus, removing their immortality, and probably killing them."
Lord Byrd looked very shocked at this. "Can we save them?" he asked.
"From a rampaging Viyron? No way."
"We must try, Doctor. My wife and servants are at risk."
He had genuine worry in his voice. Maybe the Doctor had been wrong to judge him so quickly when they'd first met.
"Maybe there's something that I can do," said the Doctor. He ran into the back of the TARDIS and grabbed some equipment, then ran back out into the console and began building a small gadget.
The TARDIS rematerialized in the lounge room, with a little surprise from the Lady and the servants. The Doctor, the Lord, and Ryan all stepped out, and the Lady almost had a heart attack. Not that it would have done anything, with the immortality virus in her bloodstream.
The Lord explained everything to the Lady, while Ryan clung to the Doctor's scarf and the Doctor walked forward towards the stairs, waiting for the Viyran to appear and listening to the stomping coming closer.
The domed head of the Viyran hazmat suit appeared on the stairwell, and after several more stomps it was standing a few feet in front of them. Ryan continued clinging, scared, to the Doctor's scarf.
"You will stand aside," said the Viyran. "I will drain the virus from the inhabitants of the household, and I will live to see my race again."
"They'll die," said the Doctor. "I can't allow you to kill them, unless they've broken one of the Viyran laws, which I haven't seen them do."
"They have stolen my creation. It was one of their servants that broke into my craft and stole the vial."
"That's a lie!" One of the servants, a girl, stepped forward. "That's not how it went and you know it! You kidnapped me and stuck that needle into my flesh!"
"I reclaim my rightful property." The Viyran stepped forward and raised its hand. Surgical needles extended from its fingertips, levitating towards the Lord and Lady.
The servants all stepped in front of the couple, and each was hit with one of the needles. The needles all turned from white to black, and the servants collapsed. The needles retracted into the Viyran's hand.
"Sample sufficient," it said. "Immortality virus stored in banks. Immortality achieved."
The Lord and Lady looked down at their unconscious servants, shocked as to what had just happened. Ryan let go of the Doctor's scarf and ran to his parents, giving them a huge hug.
"Will they live, Doctor?" the Lord asked.
He nodded. "They sacrificed their immortality for you. I'm afraid that when I first met you, I misjudged you. You seemed very high and mighty and, to be frank, stuck-up. But to see that you've treated your servants well enough that they'd be willing to sacrifice eternal life… well, to be honest, it's refreshing."
The Lord smiled. "Thank you, Doctor. I used to be as you described, as did my wife, but we like to think that Ryan has changed us for the better." He rubbed his son's hair, and Ryan laughed.
The Viyran stood there, taking it all in. After watching the exchange between the Lord and Ryan, he turned to the Doctor.
"I did not kill the servants, Doctor, but I'm afraid loneliness overtook me," it said. "I was overeager to see my own people again, but I think that staying here will be a better experience for me. My people will come for me one day, but until then, I wish to remain here with the Byrd family."
The Doctor nodded. "Just do me a favor and stay out of the way of history. And to be honest, I don't think you have much choice."
The Byrd family thanked the Doctor for his help. The Doctor promised to check in on them one day, then he stepped into the TARDIS and took off.
He reached for a lever, then he doubled over coughing. The virus had made its way into his system, and it wasn't calibrated for Time Lords. The monitor showed an incoming transmission. The Doctor accepted it, still coughing, and the Viyran appeared on the screen.
"Doctor, I see you have the virus. It will kill you, but I have transmitted a counteragent into your craft's databanks," it said.
Between coughs, the Doctor managed a "how?"
"Doctor, I'm sending this transmission almost ten years after you left us, but I believe it has been only seconds for you. My suit has been working all that time, because I knew the virus would make its way into your system."
The Doctor pressed a button. A needle popped out of the console, and after using it on himself, the coughing slowed to a stop.
"I would warn you, Doctor, that the agent does not cure you, it will only neutralize the virus indefinitely. It still exists in your bloodstream, but it will not affect you."
"Thank you…" the Doctor began. "I never asked your name," he realized.
"I have been designated Kaliz by my species," it told him.
The Doctor nodded in thanks.
"Doctor, there is one thing I would ask of you, " Kaliz said. "The paradox that anchored me to this time. I can send your TARDIS the coordinates, and I would ask that you investigate it."
"Of course," the Doctor said. Kaliz gave him a salute and vanished from the screen, then a set of coordinates appeared on the monitor. The Doctor entered them into the guidance system, and pulled a lever.
And the TARDIS spiraled off into the abyss.