Chapter 2: Dodgy Escape (Day 1, Part 2)

Day 1 (cont.)

Of course, I had been working under the assumption that the High Council of Gallifrey would take a way out. After finishing I checked all my calculations, three times. Everything lined up. With these calculations and a skilled pilot, you could take a TARDIS back along its own time-stream following its course through the Time War exit the time War and then veer off into the vastness of Time and Space. We wouldn't be able to get Gallifrey out. But those that wanted could leave. The Time Lords could once again police the space-time continuum. We might be able to finally catch the Master who apparently managed to get out of Gallifrey. We might be able to thank the Doctor for saving us from death by Dalek.

Assumptions are problematic things of course. They're, by definition, built on less than substantial evidence. As a scientist, I am trained to never make hasty assumptions. But as a person, it is my nature to hope for the best.

And, if we're being honest, the idea that the High Council of Gallifrey would be anything but thrilled to learn of a way off Gallifrey never quite occurred to me.

The first few administrators I talked to seemed excited, each of them bumping me up a level on Gallifrey's ever-unwieldy bureaucracy. But when I spoke to someone of some importance his reaction was…somewhat muted.

He told me that what I had discovered was an exciting possibility (as I recall, he said this without so much as cracking a smile), but that the High Council wasn't interested in experimental methods of leaving Gallifrey at this time.

I asked him if there were any non-experimental methods. Whether that would even make sense. He didn't answer my question. Of course he didn't. The man probably didn't even know why he was saying what he was saying.

He advised me not to tell anyone what I had discovered.

I complied.

I went back to class the next day. My substitute had filled in admirably for me. The students had learned four equations, all of them complicated, in the last four days. I taught the next class without enthusiasm. Hescallion sniggered at me. Even he knew that something had gone wrong for me, and he was reveling in it.

I went home. I had grading to do, which normally relaxes me, but halfway through the grading I found myself unable to continue.

I grabbed my journal with my notes on how to escape Gallifrey in it and ran for the museum.

My university pass grants me after-hours access to the TARDISes in the museum. I even had a good excuse. As a professor of temporal physics, some of the museum pieces are ideal for study. My excuse would be that I was looking into the difference of the effects of remaining in the bubble universe were, as compared to a TARDIS that had been out in the universe.

It needed to be one grown before the Time War. That was crucial.

And indeed, there it was. A TT Timecapsule, which had been grown just 3 years before the Time War began. It would be able to exit Gallifrey, get past the Time War, and get someone into the universe.

Now I'd just have to find a willing pilot. Because there was no way that I was going to be able to pilot the TARDIS out of Gallifrey.

Have you ever had one of those moments, imaginary reader, where you can see every possibility? Where your choice seems so clear to you?

I had never piloted a TARDIS before. Not even once. I knew the theory of it of course, but the practice was another matter.

But there was no guarantee of finding a TARDIS pilot (let alone the standard 6) willing to risk everything just to get out into the universe. In fact, it was almost guaranteed, I told myself, that nobody would pilot the TARDIS for me. At the time I thought it was about proving my theory could work, having the satisfaction of knowing that I was right.

Now, I don't know.

So I locked the door behind me. And I began to operate the controls.

I don't think I can properly describe to you, fictional human reader, how difficult the next few minutes were. Following the time stream was more difficult than even I'd guessed. And if I got off it for a second, I'd be stuck wherever I ended up. I knew that. There were no second chances on this one. And there was a not unreasonable chance that I would end up in middle of the Time War.

I was hardly the ideal pilot. I knew the theory of what I was doing, not the practice. The control panel was white and hexagonal. Switches were unlabeled. Buttons were randomly placed along the panel. The food dispenser button was, for some reason next to the temporal thrusters.

The trickiest part was getting off the established time stream of the TARDIS, which was necessary, or else we'd end up with two versions of the same TARDIS in the same spot. As a professor of temporal physics, I do not recommend that.

And yet somehow, probably with some help from the TARDIS, I landed. I half expected that we'd just continue falling through time, until the beginning of the universe, and then keep falling to a point where time had no meaning, and then we'd just keep on falling in a place where the word "forever" has no meaning. But we landed.

I opened the door of the TARDIS.

I saw blackness and pinpricks of light. The universe and the stars. I was nowhere near any of them. But it didn't matter. I had made it. I was in the universe.

I grabbed my journal, and began to write.

And here I am. I sit on the edge of the TARDIS, the doors open, looking out at the beauty of the universe, having never thought I'd see any of this for real. And I realize, in this very moment, that I didn't travel out here to prove myself right. I traveled out here because I had to see this.

Now if only I knew why the High Council refused to pursue this line of research any further.