"Press the wibbly!"

"The what?"

"The. . . the wibbly! The blinky thing going ding!"

"You mean this purple-ish thing here?"

"It's mauve, it's the universal color of distress, and yes, press it!"

Crystal struggled up to press the blinky mauve bulb on the TARDIS's engine console, but another bump in the time vortex sent Crystal back to the ground. The Doctor had explained how the TARDIS flew from place to place, time to time, like going through a hallway and through various doors. Except sometimes there were rough parts in the hallway or the doors had, as the Doctor put it, "squeaky hinges."

"Why don't you press the 'wibbly'?" Crystal said, trying to get up for the fifth time.

"I'm holding down the external temporal particle compressor and the photon manipulation and configuration buttons, thank you very much!" the Doctor said.

"The what?"

"Trust me, if those names are confusing, you should hear the mauve wibbly's name!"

Crystal managed to get off of the engine room floor and smack her hand into the button. Immediately another bump rocketed Crystal to the floor, and she fell back, narrowly avoiding bumping her head on the engine console.

The engine died down, and the bumping ceased. The Doctor and Crystal started laughing at the exhilaration of the experience. "Oh my," Crystal said, getting up and steadying herself on a railing. "Wow. I've never gone through anything quite like that before."

"Yeah," the Doctor said, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye. "There's nothing like it—at least that I know of."

"So, where are we, anyway?" Crystal asked, starting towards the TARDIS door.

"Take a look," the Doctor said excitedly.

Crystal eyed the Doctor with a look of both playful suspicion and wonder. She opened the door, expecting to just see the power plant that they'd started in. . .

And saw stars.

She stepped out of the TARDIS and into a huge room, twice the size of Crystal's house. The walls appeared to be lined with steel or some other gray metal. The room looked to be in disuse, as the blue carpet that lined the floor was covered in dust, which flew up with every step Crystal took and floated down like snowflakes. But Crystal wasn't looking at the dust.

No, she was looking at the humongous window in one wall of the room. It had to be almost half the size of a football field. And through the window shone tens of thousands of blinking stars, shining against a blanket of deep blackness.

"Oh my gosh," Crystal said, flabbergasted. "That. . . Is that really a time machine?"

The Doctor nodded, going to stand next to Crystal. "Certainly is. And that," he added, pointing, "is the edge of the universe."

Crystal grinned wildly. "Wow," she said, laughing. "What is this place?"

"USS Eagle," the Doctor replied. "December 31st, in the year nine-hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-nine. It's about, say, 10 o'clock, on the brink of not only a new millennia but the year and day that the universe expands to six trillion light-years across."

"Wow," Crystal repeated. "And what's this room here?"

"Disused ballroom, probably. You know, this used to be the capital of America after they got off of earth. This was a ballroom of the president's quarters. The White Rooms, if you will. I forget who the president is now. . ."

Crystal, however, was beginning to wander off. "Where are you going?" the Doctor called, though his tone wasn't worried at all.

Crystal looked around the room, up at the chandelier of glass shards hanging by super-thin wire from the ceiling. A single glowing orb hovered in midair between the shards, but had a dim glow, as if it had just given up on being quite as bright as it used to be. "So," she said, "It's New Year's eve."

"Yep," the Doctor said. "There's a huge celebration going on in the more used decks. Would you like to see?"

Crystal nodded enthusiastically. "Why didn't we go there first?" she asked.

Without answering, the Doctor simply walked away, decidedly in the direction of a metal door. Crystal followed after him.

As they got closer to the door, Crystal heard music and laughter, as if a massive party was being held on the other side of the steel wall. With one smooth motion, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and used it on the door. It slid open, and Crystal walked into the room.

It was bright and lively, compared to the silent elegance of the previous room. Half a dozen tables lined with various delicious-looking foods were stretched around the perimeter of the room, while people danced in the middle. The room was just as big, but had silver and gold metallic streamers hanging from the ceiling, which, as Crystal looked at it, didn't appear to be there.

"The ceiling's a bubble of sorts," the Doctor said when she looked at him in confusion. "It's about, hmm, ten or so feet thick. But almost completely invisible. If light shines on it just the right way, it glints like glass."

Satisfied with the explanation, she continued to observe the partygoers—most of which appeared human. Some were definitely not human, though—she caught glimpses of scaly skin, mandible mouths, catlike claws.

"15 SECONDS!" someone yelled.

The laughter and boisterous conversation paused for a brief moment before everyone chanted in unison, "Thirteen. . . Twelve. . . Eleven. . . Ten. . ."

"I thought you said we had a couple hours," Crystal said, feigning offense. "Not fifteen seconds!"

The Doctor simply raised his eyebrows.

"Three. . . Two. . . One. . . TWO HOURS UNTIL ONE MILLION!" Everyone threw something into the air—confetti, hats, food, cutlery. Crystal laughed out loud at the silliness of it all.

"I've never been to a New Year's Eve party this crazy before," she said.

There was a raised podium at one end of the room. A man in a deep-violet tuxedo went up onto the podium and tapped some microphone out of sight on the podium. "May I have your attention, please?"

The cheering and whooping and hollering stopped.

"Thank you. Now, in honor of it being two hours until the year one million, I would like to introduce Admiral Deniten Tetrifax, current president of the Karyim race."

The man stepped off of the podium and shook hands with another person. This creature, non-human but dressed in human clothes, had a head like a combination between a spire of rock and the head of a lizard. His slanted eyes blinked sideways in response and gratitude.

"Thank you," Admiral Deniten Tetrifax said, in a deep, booming voice. "Hasn't this been a wonderful night?"

A few scattered cheers sounded in agreement. Deniten nodded. "It was my ancestors that built this ship. In order to keep the United States of America a great power in the human race, they would not allow themselves to be landlocked forever. It was my great-great-great-great grandfather who accidentally crash-landed on Earth during World War V. He and his comrades agreed to give the Americans the proper technology to create a new interplanetary armada."

Deniten spread his hands out wide, and Crystal noted that he had four of them—stubby little four-fingered appendages, made of the same scaly/rocky material as his head. "My great-great-great-great grandfather created the blueprints for this station, and his son, my great-great-great grandfather, helped to build it. And look at it now!"

Almost everyone in the hall cheered, while the rest of them had their mouths too full of food to say anything at all. Deniten walked off of the podium and started to talk to another Karyim being—more elegant in the face, and wearing what looked to be a dress.

Crystal was about to go towards one of the food tables, but a human in a security guard's uniform stopped them. "Who are you two?" he said, "and why aren't you dressed for the party?"

Crystal could almost hear the gears in the Doctor's head turning. "Well," he began, "we've traveled a long way. It was sort of last-minute, deciding to come to this party. We needed to be in comfortable clothes."

He gestured to Crystal, who was still wearing her pajamas. Crystal hoped that her face wasn't red from embarrassment.

"Anyway, I have here my identification." He fished a wallet out of his pocket and flipped it open, revealing a piece of plain white paper. The security guard examined it carefully, then his eyes widened in surprise.

"Oh my—" He straightened his hat. "Well, excuse me, your majesties, I didn't mean to intrude. I-I'm so very sorry. I. . . I'll get a dress for the Queen immediately."

He bowed so low his hat almost came off, before he hurried off through the party. "Queen?" Crystal said pompously.

The Doctor looked at the piece of paper in his wallet. "Hmm," he said. "Apparently we're the King and Queen of Space Scandinavia. Hm. Maybe we're lookalikes?"

Crystal looked away, towards the food. She didn't want to think about unblemished paper appearing to be the identification of royalty. She just hoped she wasn't getting even redder. She knew what being the King and Queen of a country entailed. . . She definitely didn't think of the Doctor in that way.

"I'm going to get something to eat," she said, hurrying away before the Doctor could say anything.

Crystal examined the long rows of food. There were meats and vegetables and fruits and breads of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Crystal looked around at the people who were cutting in line, picking up food with their bare hands, and pretty much doing whatever they wanted. Crystal picked up a roll in an odd purple-ish color, and turned it over, revealing "HAPPY 1,000,000!" in gold lettering. Hesitating, Crystal took a bite and realized that it was sweet—not sugary sweet, but sweet nonetheless.

"Why, hello, your majesty!"

Crystal turned around, not responding to the title as much as she was realizing that the words were directed at her. A Karyim was standing next to her—not Deniten, but similar-looking.

"Um, hi," Crystal said, before clearing her throat and saying, "Hello."

"I just had to notice that you are the only person here not wearing such fancy dress. It's rather stifling how elegant everyone is here."

Crystal disagreed entirely, but before she could say anything, the Karyim's milky-green eyes widened sideways. "Oh! Where are my manners? I am Kirraqim Vorati."

Crystal nodded. "Ah. I am. . . Crystal Dean. . . in. . . ov. . . doboff." Crystal didn't know any Scandinavian surnames, so she made one up.

Kirraqim just nodded. "Well, my Lady Deaninovdoboff, I—er, may I call you My Lady?"

Crystal nodded, trying to mask her confusion and amusement at Kirraqim's blustering. "My Lady," he continued, "I would love to introduce you to my friends. I hope you don't mind leaving your husband for a moment?"

"Husb—" Crystal suddenly realized who Kirraqim was talking about. "Oh. Ah. Y-yes, my husband won't mind at all, and neither do I."

Kirraqim smiled—or, rather, his reptilian lips spread wide, revealing rows of pointed teeth. "This way, My Lady."

Crystal was too wrapped up in the spirit of the celebration and the thrill of being millennia in the future to notice that Kirraqim was pulling her just a little too roughly. She was also too wrapped up to notice that Kirraqim had a different accent and way of speaking from Deniten. And she was also too wrapped up to notice that, as he guided her along, he was getting something out of his pocket—a small device that would inject anesthetic poison into her neck.

The last thing she heard before she fell and blacked out was Kirraqim saying, "Oh, My Lady has had a bit too much to drink. Let's get her to our private party room for a rest."


The Doctor was beginning to get suspicious.

It had been ten minutes. Maybe. The Doctor was never good with keeping track of time, even though he traveled through it almost constantly. He just wasn't used to traveling forwards at the mundane rate of one second per second. But he knew that it didn't take ten minutes for someone to get food.

When he looked around, it was difficult to see over the heads of the various peoples, and Crystal was already shorter than most of the guests. As he walked around, people stopped him every yard or so to ask him how Space Scandinavia was doing, or if the Queen was around, or if he would like to dance. He was entirely capable of dancing. But they were playing "classics" from across the eras, and they'd just gotten to the 2000's and the Cha-Cha Slide. He had no idea how to do that dance. And besides, how fun was it when the directions to the dance were in the song?

No, he told himself. Stay focused. His priority was finding Crystal, not criticizing "great art." He finally made his way to the food tables, where things were a bit clearer. The Doctor realized that Crystal was nowhere in sight.

The Doctor turned around to see that security guard, gingerly holding up a piece of paper and a pen. "I'm sorry to trouble you, sir," he said tentatively, "but, you see, my wife's always wanted to go to Space Scandinavia, and we've never had the money or the time, so could you please—?"

"What's your name?" the Doctor interrupted.

The security guard looked shocked for a moment before finally saying, "G-Gary."

"Well, Gary, the Queen is missing. I need you to check every security camera, every room, every door, every nook and cranny of this ship. If you find her, you will be very greatly rewarded."

Gary nodded and saluted. "Y-yes sir!"

While Gary ran off, the Doctor went back to the TARDIS. Looking around, he opened the door and went inside. In his haste to find Crystal, he didn't notice that the door from the party room opened just as he stepped into the TARDIS, and Kirraqim stepped into the room. He had known immediately what the blue box was. All he had to do was get it. . .

The Doctor, meanwhile, was tapping into the security system. That had been his plan all along. The only reason he'd told Gary that he needed help was because he needed Gary out of the way.

The Doctor pressed a button on the engine console. It was the "wibbly" from earlier. It was difficult for even him to remember the name—what was it? Temporal fractal dimension fabrication and interelectronic culmination—he'd given up trying to remember it ages ago. He pulled a few levers and twirled a few knobs before the screen on the console began to rapidly cycle through security camera images. Every time a new image appeared, the number in the upper-right-hand corner went up.

The screen rested on the last image. The number said 492,761. The Doctor sighed and rubbed his temples. It would take forever to find Crystal.

The Doctor cranked a few cranks, flipped a switch or two, slowly moved a few more dials. On what would have looked like a calculator to any untrained eye, he typed a long and complicated code written in about half a dozen different languages. The code that would find Crystal's face. The screen began to cycle through again, more slowly this time.

Before it could find Crystal, something rocked the TARDIS violently. The Doctor fell to the floor. He felt like his brain was being compressed—not a pleasant feeling when your brain is full of stuff. He also felt suddenly nauseous. "What was that?" he wondered aloud, getting up and pressing the wibbly again.

The screen immediately changed to show what was happening outside. A Karyim was walking towards the TARDIS, which appeared to be somewhat. . . sunken into the ground? The view of the camera seemed to have gone down about six feet, so it appeared as if the TARDIS were ten times smaller.

A Karyim could be seen on the screen, though he seemed big—much bigger than even the TARDIS itself.

"A compression field," the Doctor murmured. "Of course. He must have put it on the TARDIS while I was inside."

The TARDIS shook again as the Karyim picked it up. Judging by the size of the Karyim's face as he turned it over to look at, it was now maybe a foot tall. The Doctor hung on for his life as the Karyim put the TARDIS in something dark.

When the TARDIS was done tumbling around, the Doctor was gripping the engine console and balancing precariously on the railing near him. If he looked sideways he could see the ceiling. At the sound of water rushing, he bit back a long string of curses in pretty much every language he knew. The pool must have emptied out into the greenhouse. That would be a huge mess to clean up.

THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD. The rhythmic sounds of the Karyim's footsteps paired with the motion of walking sent the Doctor falling again. He managed to grab a hold of the railing and hang on for dear life. "What is going on?" he cried. How was he going to find Crystal now?

The Doctor pushed himself up onto the railing and managed to seize a lever on the console. It pulled down, turning the screen from fuzzy black to cycling through security images again. Every time a human woman was seen, a little grid appeared on her face and head, scanning the image for the proper facial code.

The screen just cycled through the images over and over, never finding Crystal. The Doctor sighed. He needed to get out of the TARDIS to find Crystal on foot. Technology couldn't help him here, especially not primitive, 10,000 th century technology. He needed advancements at least from the 12,043rd century.

The Doctor simply clung to the engine console, hopefully scanning the security images, hoping desperately to find Crystal but knowing in his soul that he couldn't.


When Crystal came to, she couldn't move her hands or even see.

It was as if Crystal's hands were paralyzed around her wrists. She couldn't feel a thing. Of course, she couldn't see a thing either. She had something over her eyes. She was also sitting in something—a chair, maybe?

Crystal muttered a groan of pain. She couldn't feel anything around her hands, but her head hurt like the dickens. She would have rubbed her head, but her hands. . . well. . .

"She's come to," a hushed voice said. Moments later, whatever was over her head was removed. The lights were so blinding that Crystal still couldn't see for a moment. But as her eyesight adjusted, she saw a masked Karyim standing in front of her with. . . a cake box.

"Why do you have a cake?" Crystal asked, looking around. She was in a room a quarter the size of the party room she'd been in before. There were no furnishings aside from the chair she was in. Looking down at her hands, she saw that there was some kind of device around her wrists that sent electrical arcs into her arms. There was the same kind of device around her legs.

"Come to think of it," she added, "where am I?"

"Private party room," a vaguely familiar voice said. Crystal faced forward again to see Kirraqim walk up next to the cake-box-carrying alien. "And this is no cake."

Kirraqim opened the box and took out a foot-tall miniature of the TARDIS. He held it out in front of Crystal, who cocked her head to one side, staring at the little blue box.

"What—" she began. She looked at it closely. "Is that—"

Kirraqim nodded.

It didn't surprise Crystal now that the TARDIS had been shrunken down to tiny-size. She'd figured there would be some pretty crazy futurist technology on the brink of the 10001st century. It did, however, surprise her when the TARDIS door opened and the Doctor appeared, looking out of breath and a bit tumbled up.

"Crystal!" he called in relief. As he looked at her, his eyebrows furrowed. "You're big."

Crystal looked up at Kirraqim. "Explain this," she said.

Kirraqim placed the tip of his finger on the top of the TARDIS. "I need this," he said. "We all need this." He gestured to his comrades, the other Karyim in the room. As Crystal looked around, she didn't see Deniten among them. "Where's the speaker from earlier?" she asked.

Kirraqim made a high squeak, which Crystal later learned was the Karyim version of an indignant snort. "Deniten? The primitive? He does not even know who we are. He probably believes the lie we tell him—that we are a very large family, with many adopted ones. Do you not see our differences?"

Kirraqim gestured to the other Karyim. The Doctor hung his head out of the TARDIS door and widened his eyes. "Ah, yes, you definitely look different," he said in an assuring tone. Crystal nodded just to keep her head.

"We come from a very different time from Deniten," Kirraqim went on. Noticing Crystal's look, he added, "Ah, you thought that your precious Doctor was the only time traveler, eh?"

Crystal tried to stand up, but couldn't. She'd forgotten the electric manacles. "How did you know the Doctor's name?"

Kirraqim eyed Crystal strangely. "There are stories. Rumors. The Doctor's name is feared by some of the greatest scourges of the universe. We were to become the greatest scourge of all, and yet . . ."

Kirraqim walked in a slow circle around Crystal, holding the TARDIS and looking at it strangely. "Our kind calls them the Farya. The Winged Ones. You would call them . . . angels."

The Doctor held onto the doorway of the TARDIS for dear life. "Oh," he said. "The weeping angels. I've encountered them before."

Crystal leaned forward in her chair, trying to look behind her at Kirraqim and the Doctor. "Weeping what?" she asked.

"Weeping angels," the Doctor explained. His voice barely carried to her ears. "They turn to stone when you look at them, but if you so much as blink, they can get to you and touch you and send you back in time. They feed on potential energy, so to speak."

"Meaning," Kirraqim finished, "they seek out those with great futures and give them the Farya's Kiss. Those innocents will never have those futures, and the angels feed off of what you could have become."

"What made you so great?" Crystal asked. "What made them want to seek you out?"

Kirraqim stopped, standing off to Crystal's left. "Doctor," he said, "you would know. Does the name Kirraqim Vorati sound familiar?"

"Vorati," the Doctor repeated slowly. "Yes," he said finally, "I have heard the name. You were the leader, the elder brother, of the Vorati Brotherhood. You could have taken over the whole Karyim race. . . ." The Doctor trailed off.

"In the year two million," Kirraqim said coldly.

One million years. They had been sent back one million years because they could have been something, someone great. Crystal looked at Kirraqim sympathetically. "I'm sorry," she said. "But . . . why did you need to kidnap me?"

The Doctor remained silent for a time. "The Vorati Brotherhood were not . . . innocent," he said. "They would overthrow the Karyim government. In another time stream, they would have propaganda up to their waists in order to keep the public from realizing that the Karyim were not the reigning race, that the lower classes were being oppressed horribly. The angels—though I wouldn't say it under any other circumstance—have actually saved history from, as Kirraqim has said, one of its greatest scourges."

Kirraqim laughed out loud, a rasp in his throat that made Crystal cringe. "Really? I rather like the sound of that. One of history's greatest scourges. . . ."

Crystal leaned forward in her chair, looking at Kirraqim. "I still don't understand why you kidnapped me."

"The Vorati Brotherhood would be able to be an even greater scourge of the universe with the TARDIS in its grasp," the Doctor said. "Technology like that . . . they would be able to transport their entire race across time in one, maybe two trips. They would be able to wipe out their enemies during the times when they were at their weakest."

Crystal looked back at Kirraqim. "Why. Did. They. Kidnap. Me. You guys have not answered my question."

"You're my companion now," the Doctor said, the edges of his voice tinged with sadness. "I knew it could be dangerous the moment I agreed to take you on board."

"So here come the terms," Kirraqim added. "Doctor . . . Miss Crystal's life for the TARDIS. Look into her eyes and tell her that you can't give the TARDIS up. See the look of pain."

Crystal's heart skipped a beat. "D-Doctor . . . ?"

The Doctor looked resolutely at Crystal. "Crystal," he said, his voice steady and calming, "I am not going to have to give up either today. It's not just your life I am bartering with; it's the lives of everyone on board. And I am going to find a way to both keep the TARDIS and save lives."

Kirraqim laughed again. "Oh, Doctor, you're always the same. You think you can hatch a plan to save everyone just in time. I'll leave you and your friend here to discuss your choice. It's the girl or the TARDIS, Doctor."

At a gesture from Kirraqim, one of the other Karyim brought out a sizable cardboard box and set it in front of Crystal. Kirraqim set the TARDIS on top and motioned for his brethren to follow him out of the room. When the steel door had shut with an ominous KA-THUNK, Crystal looked at the Doctor's tiny face.

"Crystal," the Doctor said, "I am going to get you out of here, no matter what."

Crystal shifted in her seat. "I hate to break it to you, Doctor," Crystal said, "but you're currently inside a time machine the size of a shoebox, on top of a cardboard box about a billion times bigger than you. How. On earth. Do you plan. To get. Me out."

The Doctor walked outside of the TARDIS and crouched down next to the edge of the box. "You were wrong," he said helpfully. "This box is approximately 420 times bigger than me, and eleven-point-oh-oh-six times bigger than the TARDIS itself."

He stood up, pulling something out of his coat pocket. It lit up bright blue, and the barely audible whirr emitted by the sonic screwdriver sounded. He walked up to the side of the TARDIS and pointed his sonic at a small black device on its side. After a moment, the Doctor examined the device and his sonic screwdriver.

"It's deactivated," the Doctor said. "But it'll take about . . . hmm, forty minutes to wear off. I'll be back to my regular size in no time!"

Crystal stared back at him. "Forty minutes?" she said. "I don't think we have that long. . . ."

The Doctor looked up at Crystal. "Oh, and I didn't know that?" he said, his voice filled with anger and sarcasm. "We have five minutes at best before Kirraqim returns, and fifteen minutes at best after that and before the Vorati Brotherhood destroy the entire ship and crashes one of the biggest parties in history. Not that the latter is that important, but lives are at stake. And you're treating me like I don't know."

Crystal remained frozen in place, staring at the Doctor. "Doctor," she said shakily, "how are we going to get out of here?"

The full weight of the situation had only just now hit her. The Doctor's eyes, still visible though his face was so much smaller, glinted at Crystal. "Don't worry," he said. His tone was now much quieter. "I promise to protect you, no matter what. I will personally see to it that you do not die on December 31st, 999,999." A wry smile spread across his little face. "Trust me. I'm the Doctor."

Crystal had to smile herself. "All right. Tell me what to do."

The Doctor put his sonic screwdriver back into his coat pocket, grinning like a madman. "All right, this is the plan I've come up with. . . ."


Kirraqim walked back into his private party room after a bit of socialization. He thought it was interesting how much these post-Earth women liked aliens, especially when drunk. He wiped a bit of—what do you call it—lipstick off of his cheek as he looked at the little girl that the Doctor had been traveling with. What was her name? Crystal. Crystal Dean, most likely.

Her head was bowed, and she was sobbing quietly. Kirraqim waited for his brothers to come in and for the door to close before he allowed himself a smirk. "Well, well, well. Crystal Dean. And what was your precious Doctor's choice?"

Crystal looked up, her grey eyes now suffused with tears. "He. . . ." Her voice cracked, and she looked away. "He . . . he decided to give me up. For the sake of the universe."

Kirraqim, he had to say, was surprised. He'd fully expected the Doctor to give up the TARDIS for his companion. He'd been known throughout history by his enemies as a thing to be feared, but by his allies as merciful and loyal.

"All right," Kirraqim said. "I am fully astounded. But, Crystal Dean, the Doctor was probably expecting me to bluff. I am of the Vorati Brotherhood." He took a small, concealable gun out of his pocket. "We never go back on our promises."

He raised it slowly, a shout of victory preparing to come to his lips, but there was a strange grinding and whooshing sound. Before Kirraqim could look, something slammed him in the side of his head. He landed sideways, already starting to black out, but his brothers came immediately to his aid. One looked up, the closest to Kirraqim in age, and saw the small blue box that had knocked out his brother.

Crystal grinned, standing up. The electric handcuffs that Kirraqim had put on her simply fell around her, and she said, "The Doctor doesn't go back on his promises, either."

Kirraqim's brother looked up at Crystal. "How. . . . How. . . ."

The TARDIS landed carefully on the ground and stopped, and the little Doctor came out. He looked up at Kirraqim's brother, his fists on his hips in a gesture of self-satisfaction. "That compression device was also designed to keep me from using it," the Doctor said. "I managed to disable the device with this." He held up his sonic screwdriver. "Next time you have a plan to stop a Time Lord, make sure it's sonic-proof."

Kirraqim's brother stood up slowly. "As if incapacitating my brother would make it impossible for us to succeed," he said condescendingly. "I am Dorya Vorati. Kirraqim may be the leader, the face of the Vorati Brotherhood, but I am its true head."

Dorya took his own gun out of his pocket and raised it quickly, pointing it at Crystal. "Hand over the TARDIS," he said. "I really will shoot her."

The Doctor held up his hands to his mouth and leaned backward, as if doing so would give his voice extra leverage. "No-one is going to die today," he said. "You are not going to shoot Crystal because, guess what?"

Annoyed, Dorya moved his aim to the Doctor and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, just a little fizz of electricity. He swore under his breath.

"This ship has disabled guns!" The Doctor laughed victoriously. "The security system, I have discovered, pinpoints the mechanical and/or technological devices that activate the launching system of the bullet or, in this case, the potentially fatal electrical pulse."

Crystal looked blankly at the Doctor for a moment. "Is that technobabble for 'You can't shoot us?'"

Dorya swore again, throwing his gun aside. "This does not mean that we are defeated. A few broken guns and a passed-out leader will not destroy us. We can still bring you down with brute force."

The Doctor regarded the other Karyim, who were just ten yards away and advancing. "Ah, but that's the issue, isn't it?"

The brothers paused. "What?" Dorya said.

"I read up on your brotherhood. Your strength isn't organic, is it?"

Dorya turned on his brothers, those who had paused. But they hadn't done it willingly; no, they were stopped mid-stride, still preparing to put their weight on their outstretched foot. "The Karyim are not a very robust race," the Doctor went on. "They are thick-skinned, yes, but do not have a lot of strength. So, when the Vorati Brotherhood intended to take over the whole race and even the universe with, as you said, brute force, you needed to add on some mechanical . . . stuff.

"But you have forgotten one thing, Dorya." The Doctor spread his little hands. "You've gone back in time. It's been, what, five years since you came back? Any anomalies in the system couldn't have been detected. And now that they all are corrupt, the security system has jammed them up beyond repair."

Dorya looked absolutely furious. He shoved past his brothers, knocking them over, but before he could get to the TARDIS and the Doctor, the door opened, revealing the security guards with electric handcuffs.

The Doctor put his hands into his pockets. "Checkmate," he said triumphantly.

Dorya, his expression full of disbelief, didn't even fight against the security guards as they arrested the entire Vorati Brotherhood, even taking Kirraqim on a stretcher to attend to his head. He didn't seem to listen as Gary the security guard told him to do exactly as they said and to not try anything clever. He just stared at the Doctor and Crystal, looking like he'd had the worst defeat in his entire life.


The Doctor could have flown his TARDIS to the room they'd landed in, the old ballroom, but one, it would take too much work, and two, what was the fun in that?

Instead, the Doctor told Crystal to put the TARDIS back into the cake box. She carried it carefully to the old ballroom and made sure that there was absolutely no-one in the room before she opened the box and set the TARDIS down.

"How much longer?" she asked the Doctor as he came out.

The Doctor smoothed down his suit. "If my calculations are correct, it will be another . . . hmm, thirty minutes before I return to normal size. We've got plenty of time."

The Doctor and Crystal stood in silence for a while. Eventually, Crystal sat down, cross-legged, on the dusty floor. "Hey, Doctor," she said, "earlier you said something about a Time Lord. You said something like if you try to stop a Time Lord. What's that all about?"

There was another silence. "I . . ." The Doctor sighed. "I'm . . . not human."

Crystal waited expectantly.

"I'm part of a race called the Time Lords. We used to be humans, yes. But exposure to time travel has left us changed. We have two hearts, for one thing. Inhuman stamina. We can withstand amazing amounts of radiation. It's very hard for us to die."

"How old are you, then?" Crystal caught herself. "If it's not too rude to ask."

The Doctor smiled vacantly, not meeting Crystal's eyes. "I don't even know myself. 900 to 950, maybe? I'm old. Very old."

Crystal laughed. "You don't look it."

The Doctor finally managed to look up at Crystal. "I take good care of myself," he said. "It helps if you don't fight aliens every other holiday."

They shared another laugh. Crystal suddenly realized that the Doctor wasn't joking. He had a sort of ageless, timeless quality to him. His eyes looked like they'd seen so much, like they had seen too many adventures. He was amazingly brilliant, which Crystal had earlier credited to his overall nerdiness, but that didn't account for his ability to run all the way from Crystal's house through the woods and still lead the Amithenes away. She hoped she never had to be in an incident where his radiation-proof attribute had to be shown.

"Where do the Time Lords come from?" Crystal prompted. "Are they some kind of future race, not to be seen for another billion years? Or do they have their own home planet or something?"

The Doctor's eyes almost seemed to glaze over with sadness. He looked away. "We have our own planet. Gallifrey. It . . . it was so beautiful."

Crystal's imagination screamed for a more in-depth description that it was so beautiful, but the Doctor's tone and the way he avoided the topic told her that she shouldn't press further. She just remained quiet.

At one point, the TARDIS suddenly started to shake. The Doctor ran away as fast as he could while Crystal merely strolled a few feet back. The TARDIS grew back to its original size in a matter of seconds.

The Doctor explained that the TARDIS had self-regenerating and self-healing properties that helped it to grow back sooner that the Doctor himself. He promptly began to go off on a tangent about the TARDIS, talking about all of the different rooms it had. Crystal tried to keep up, but a lot of it sounded like random technobabble and frequent use of the word "stuff."

Eventually the Doctor grew back to his normal size. He clutched his stomach, twisting up his face a bit.

"Are you all right?" Crystal asked worriedly.

"I'm fine," the Doctor said. "Just fine. The compression field is not good for your stomach."

The noise in the other room stopped for a brief moment. The partygoers started to chant: "Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . ONE HOUR UNTIL ONE MILLION!"

There was a lot of cheering. Crystal looked back at the door. "Should we go join the party?" she asked. "We have one hour."

The Doctor smiled. "Sure. Let's have some fun for a change."

As they went to join the party, Crystal laughed. "I'm not that boring, am I? Or is it you that's boring?"

They shared a laugh and went into the room, where a cloud of confetti was still falling. Everyone—humans, Karyim, weird dog-people, and overgrown insects alike—had the same expression of happiness and excitement. Crystal thought it interesting that, even though they were all very different, an event such as this could bring them all together.

It was a fun rest of the night. The Doctor showed that he actually was able to dance—even if it was in a manner very embarrassing to Crystal. She declined all offers to dance. At first she was confused by them, but then she remembered that she was supposed to be the Queen of Space Scandinavia.

The final countdown came just an hour later, but it felt like minutes to Crystal and the Doctor. They chanted along with the rest of the crowd. "Three . . . two . . . one . . . HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

There was an even more massive veil of floating bits of paper and streamers as people found kissing partners and gave them a big one right on the lips. The Doctor and Crystal stood awkwardly next to each other, not looking at each other while people cheered and kissed and cheered again.

"Do they still sing Auld Lang Syne in the year one million?" Crystal asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "I've never been to the new year before. I don't even know."

Then everyone became quiet. All was almost completely still for a few brief moments before a beautiful chorus sounded. "Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind . . ."

Crystal grinned at the Doctor as they both joined in. "Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of Auld Lang Syne. . . ."

The Doctor raised his cup of some kind of gold-ish punch. "To the new year."

Crystal tapped his cup with hers. "To the new year!"


"And where's the wardrobe room?" Crystal asked, putting her novelty 1,000,000 glasses on the TARDIS console.

"Down that hall and after three turns," the Doctor said, pointing. "You can't miss it. It has a huge sign."

Crystal smiled. "Thanks!" She ran off.

The Doctor sighed. "Oh, that Crystal." He tapped the screen on the console, still showing a frozen security camera image of the party room. It showed Crystal's face. She was beaming widely, about to take a sip of her drink. There was a bar at the bottom of the screen, saying "CRYSTAL DEAN FOUND."

The Doctor pressed a button, and the bar grew to fill the whole screen. Her information came up with the picture of her almost-laughing face. Her gender was correct, her residence, and location. But still under her age was that one word: "UNKNOWN."

The Doctor shook his head slowly. There were many things he couldn't tell Crystal. This little bit of information was one of them.

And another was the real reason he'd decided to take her aboard the TARDIS. . . .