"You're telling me," a slightly nervous sounding male voice said, "that these guys...MADE planets?"
The Doctor grins and nods. "Yep. Back, ooooh..." He scrunches his forehead and looks up, at a figure in the air, that only he can see, "five billion years ago, there was a sprawling empire. Very...very very very rich. Very. People bought planets like...well, people buying planets. Custom planets, you see. Huge industry. They even made Earth. Mice! Mice made the Earth! Wonderful little buggers." A quick look at the confused expressions. "Mice. The...second smartest creatures on your planet? Doing all those little experiments on scientists?" He slaps his forehead. "Of course, they wouldn't know. Bloody Plural Zone. Anyways. Mice commissioned the Magratheans to build Earth. Quite complicated, wanted an organic computer for them to...calculate stuff. Life, the Universe, everything. Curious things, mice. Worse than cats. Trouble was, they had to keep it - the Earth - running for quite some time. A really long time, actually. A really, very, extra really long time. Five billion years of long time."
"So..." Amy says, looking at the glacier they were standing in front of. "That's what explains the face, then."
All three stand back and crane their necks, looking into the glacier. A trick of light, the sun at the right position, shows a a warm, leathery face, careworn but not unkind. Across the top, in a semi-circle of ancient Magrathean, was the word "Slartibartfast." Around the bottom, in a mirrored semi-circle of ancient Magrathean: "Employee of the Year; Best Fjords."
The Doctor nods. "That's him. Very peculiar. Wanted fjords in Africa, of all places."
The two humans awkwardly stare at the glacier for a bit, as the light shifts and the face disappears. Rory sighs and slides his hands into his pockets. "So...what are we doing here again?"
The Doctor ahs, and pulls out his sonic screwdriver, which had been humming for quite some time, gaining in intensity. "The TARDIS brought me here. Eddies in the space-time continuum popping up all about the place."
"Ah," says Rory. "Is he?"
"Is who?"
"Eddie. Stuck in the space-time continuum. We're trying to rescue him, right?"
The Doctor looks at Rory with a blank look on his face. "What are you..." He looks to Amy. She shrugs. "Who's Eddie?" the Doctor asks Amy. She holds the shrug.
"I don't know. You were the one going on about Eddie, who for some reason is in the space-time continuum."
The Doctor holds the blank look, shifting his gaze between the both of them. "Eddie...is in the space time continuum." he mutters. "Eddie's...in the space time continuum." He smacks his forehead. "OH! No. We're not trying to rescue someone named Eddie. Eddies...alternate meaning. Like in a stream. Small-ish whirlpools. Only...not. Imagine a stream, a free flowing stream. You put a finger in the stream, and watch as the stream bends...around your finger. Some of it might flow backward, in a circle. That's an eddie. But, you see, time isn't a stream at all, doesn't even resemble a stream...it's more like a big...wibbly-ish ball of..." His hands sculpt the idea of time with imaginary clay. "Time."
Rory nods, almost understanding. "Time's a ball, then," he says.
"Not at all. It's...complicated." His hands give up on sculpting time, dropping to his side.
"So," Amy says, hoping to steer the conversation to the now. "we're investigating an eddie."
The Doctor points at her with two fingers. "Precisely. It's supposed to be in this area, somewhere." He holds his sonic screwdriver out, turning in a slight circle, ending up with it away from the glacier." Off in that direction, somewhere."
The companions look in that direction. Rory says, "You mean, behind that sofa?"
The Doctor steps in that general direction. "Yes, I believe so."
"The Chesterfield sofa..." Rory continues, "on prehistoric Earth."
"Exactly." The Doctor takes off on a trot, towards the sofa. The sofa looks as startled as a sofa can (which is to say, not at all) and disappears, re-appearing a split second later about 20 yards further away. "Catch it!
Rory and Amy fan out and run off at an angle towards the couch, all three shouting instructions at each other, to head it off at that tree or this hill. They eventually have it surrounded.
"OK, on three," the Doctor instructs, "We pounce on the couch." He sighs a bit, and shouts, "THREE!" All of them leap towards the couch, landing on it. In just another instant, though, they land roughly on turf, the buzz of the surrounding crowd rising to a cheer.
The three stand up and brush themselves off and look around, extremely confused.
Rory and Amy, at the same time: "Where are we?"
The Doctor holds up his screwdriver, and says, "Lords Cricket Ground. Early 21st century. Deep Square Leg, if I'm guessing correctly."
Rory looks at him. "You follow cricket?"
"Of course I do. Cricket's cool. The customs I can't claim to understand, though."
"Like what?"
"Why did the entire crowd just randomly decide to shout 'whop'?"
