My dear Doctor poked his head back outside, scanning the air around him with his screwdriver. That was good, but I didn't like the way his enjoyment was drooping and distracted.
The screwdriver blinked and my unhappy Doctor looked at it almost without seeing it. If I had a voice, I would have told him to go outside, into the outside. But I couldn't. Silly to wonder about things that cannot happen.
"D'you know something?" I never could tell if he was talking out loud to himself or to me. "I've got the funniest feeling." A rustle came from the place where the Yoda was standing. My Doctor froze in a melancholy way, not going out or back in. Just waiting and watching. "It's like I'm being watched."
The Yoda waited. I waited. My Doctor waited.
I don't like waiting.
I firmly shut my door, pushing my Doctor out onto the planet.
"Oi! What was that all about?" He was annoyed and intrigued, but still empty. He sniffed the air again. "Of course, it makes sense to feel like you're being watched," he said pulling his casualness on like his coat, "when you are." I was thrilled when he knelt by the bushes where the Yoda was. "So who's watching, is the question."
A grunt was the answer.
"Oh, hell-oh there." A new species would always interest my Doctor. "Sorry about dropping in unannounced, but my ship gets these ideas, I dunno. Of course, it could just be broken." I ignored the insult. "But, um, d'you think you could tell me where I am?" The Yoda let out a coughing bark of laughter.
"Where you are, ask you. Here you are, say I!" Oh yes, the Yoda was very like my Doctor, particularly back the way he was when I stole him.
"Well, yeah, that makes sense, but, uh, in a broader idea of the world, where am I?" my Doctor asked. The Yoda was grave, and worried too, I could feel. The air was full of his worry before he answered.
"Dagobah this planet is called."
"Dagobah! Right! I've never been to Dagobah." The Yoda coughed another laugh.
"Heard of this planet, have you? A planet that isn't on any start charts, hmmm? And you know of it, you do? Hmmmm?"
"No, I haven't. But that makes sense, if I've never been here before. I mean, I could have been here without hearing about it, or I could have heard about it without being here, but I haven't."
I could feel the Yoda relax a little. Whatever he was expecting that had him so worried tight, apprehensive, there's the idea! Whatever it was, my dear Doctor was not.
"So, Da-go-bah." This version of my Doctor had a funny way of rolling planet names around in the air. Well, if he was willing to be silly, maybe things were going the right way. Although, maybe the left way was the way for him to go…
"Erm, wait, didn't you just say it's not on any star charts? How is that? I mean, sure your local charts, that's an easy hack. But any chart?"
The Yoda tensed again, but only for a moment. He relaxed in a sad way, like a surrender.
"Changed the charts, I did. Hid the planet, I had to."
"Right, OK," my Doctor said slowly. "You're hiding from something. Something big." The air bounced out after the g, the way it did when this version was concentrating hard. "Something powerful."
"Something dangerous," the Yoda corrected firmly, then surrendered again. "What do you know…of the Sith?"
