Chapter 7: A Most Important Man

The Doctor quickly circled the console, trying different levers and switches. "The controls are not responding…" He pulled the monitor to him. "…And there is an energy buildup. If this continues, it will trigger a discharge to prevent permanent damage to the TARDIS."

"Do you mean like a safety valve venting an over-pressurized tank?" Vasili asked as he turned in place looking around the TARDIS.

"A good analogy!" replied the Doctor as he continued testing different controls on the console without success. "Except the TARDIS will release a burst of energy."

Rory frowned. He had sat down beside Amy and held her hand, hoping some part of her would remember who she was and fight against the Dalek influence. For the moment Amy was simply lying there, staring straight up at the ceiling, making no attempt to communicate. He reached out and experimentally wiggled the blue glowing Dalek eyestalk. That simply caused her unresisting head to turn back and forth. It had a solid feel. He tried pulling on it, and Amy's head lifted off the floor.

That, more than anything else, drove home to Rory just how bad things were. The eyestalk was embedded in her head, and that had to mean a large part of her frontal lobe had been sacrificed to make room for the damned thing. Then there were the bullet wounds. That guy with the gun knew what he was doing. Rory could well imagine Amy's heart had been shattered, never mind damage to other organs. Was she really just an animated corpse now? A grotesque parody of herself? It didn't bear thinking about.

With considerable effort, Rory clamped down on his emotions, and focused on the Doctor's last comment. "A burst of energy. Is that bad?" he asked.

"Not bad for the TARDIS," replied the Doctor. "But it would be bad for anything in the immediate area."

Vasili stopped looking around and turned to the Doctor. "Do you mean K-19?"

"K-19, the Atlantic ocean, Earth…." The Doctor paused for a moment, doing a quick calculation in his head. "Actually, it would be bad for most of the inner planets of the Solar System."

Rory glanced up, a look of alarm on his face. "Okay, so it's bad," he replied. "What can we do to stop it?"

The Doctor threw up his arms in frustration. "At the very least, we need to get these controls unlocked. Then I can fly the TARDIS away from here, where an energy burst won't harm anyone. Not very far in the grand scheme of things. A flea-hop really." He banged the console. "A fraction of a light-year would be more than enough."

"Right," said Vasili. "I think I understood this could be a time machine – not that I believe it yet – but I have read a few stories. Now you're saying this is a space ship?"

The Doctor grinned and pointed at Vasili. "You're catching on. It's both, actually, but what it is right now is a great big disaster if we can't stop the power buildup! Vasili, come here! I've got a job for you."

As Vasili came up to the console, the Doctor swung the monitor around. "Now you see that?" he said, pointing at the monitor. "That circle shows the power buildup. The more the power builds up, the bigger that red pie slice in the circle becomes. When the entire circle goes red, boom! An energy release. I need you to call out how much of the circle is red while we work. Do you understand?"

"Got it!" replied Vasili. "Right now it's a little more than 25% of the circle, right?"

"Good man!" The Doctor gave Vasili a pat on the shoulder, and got down on his knees, examining the underside of the console. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and began to loosen an access panel. "Rory! Go swap thermocoupler cables two and seven under the floor. Do you remember how?"

"Yes Doctor." Rory reluctantly left Amy's side and went below the console under the glass floor. "Doctor!" he shouted out. "There's another one of those disk thingies under here attached to the core."

"Don't touch it!" the Doctor shouted back. "I'm coming down for a look." He quickly scooted out from under the panel, ran down the steps and under the glass floor.

"Careful now!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Until it's deactivated, it's not safe to touch. It could potentially electrocute you, although that would be crude for a Dalek device. It could vaporize you, or it could simply contaminate you with nanites, turning you into another Dalek agent."

"Got it. No touching the disk," said Rory as he watched the Doctor work.

The Doctor began to scan the disk. "No… no… no…" he muttered to himself as he tried different settings on his sonic screwdriver.

"Doctor?" It was Vasili hanging down from the glass floor above. "The circle is almost half full! What's the delay?"

"This disk can't be touched with bare hands!" the Doctor said as he worked. "Touching it even with gloves on will trigger a response. This one seems to be a bit more sophisticated than the disk I found in K-19."

"The circle is half full now!" called out Vasili. "I'll be back." He ran down the steps and out the TARDIS door.

"What?" said the Doctor, astonished. "Not a good time to leave. Rory, go watch the circle please."

"Yes Doctor." Rory climbed up to the console floor. "Doctor! The circle is about 65% full!"

"Now then," the Doctor said as he peered around the edge of the disk. "If I could just get this thing loose, that would buy some us time to figure out how to deactivate it." It resembled a miniature version of the classic Dalek flying saucer. The edge of the disk was not flat against the console core. That made it very tempting to try pulling it loose – a deadly mistake. He placed his sonic screwdriver as close as he dared, aiming for the small gap between disk edge and panel.

"75%!" shouted Rory. "No pressure."

"Arrrrg!" shouted the Doctor. He swept his hair back in frustration. "It's deadlocked! The sonic screwdriver won't work! I'm going to try touching it with a thermocoupler cable. Zapping the disk with an energy discharge might do the trick."

"I hope so!" Rory shouted back. "Because the circle is a good 85% full!"

As the Doctor scooted around to disconnect a cable, Vasili came running in a crouch under the console floor. "My turn!" he shouted.

Before the Doctor could stop him, Vasili stuck a large iron crowbar under the edge of the disk, and with a distinctive "pop!" the disk fell to the floor. He began beating the disk with the crowbar. Bam! Bam! Bam!

"Or, there's the direct approach," commented the Doctor as he watched, slightly amused.

"Hey Doctor!" shouted Rory. "Whatever you did worked! The red area is shrinking fast. 75%... 60%... 50%."

The cloister bell stopped ringing and the TARDIS lighting returned to normal.

Vasili finally slowed and stopped, sweat dripping from his brow, his arm aching. The disk was in several pieces.

"Congratulations Vasili," said the Doctor as he held out his hand. "You just saved planet Earth."

Vasili looked relieved, with a big grin on his face. He shook hands with the Doctor. "Well, I'm glad that's over," he said.

"Look out!" shouted Rory. A bolt of light flashed past Vasili, barely missing him.

Dalek-Amy was on her feet. "You will be exterminated! Ex-ter-mi-nate! Ex-ter-mi-nate!" She fired again at Vasili, who ducked behind the center core for shelter.

The Doctor had his sonic screwdriver out and aimed at Dalek-Amy. "It's no good!" he shouted as another shot was fired. "She's reinforced her synapses! I can't stop her like I did before, but so far just she seems to be after Vasili."

"You think?" Vasili shouted as another bolt of light barely missed. He was trying very hard to keep the core column between himself and Dalek-Amy.

"Vasili! Get up here!" shouted Rory. He held out his hand. Vasili reached up, grasped Rory's hand, and with Rory's help climbed up to the console. As Rory and Vasili caught their breath, they saw Dalek-Amy peering up at them through the console floor, expressionless, the Dalek eyestalk in her forehead glowing a bright blue. She utterly ignored the Doctor as he stood beside her, scanning, until he attempted to physically restrain her. She backhanded the Doctor, knocking him to the floor.

Rory and Vasili quickly realized there was no safe place to stand, and they couldn't climb up on the console. Dalek-Amy aimed at Vasili through the console floor.

There was a flash of light.

Vasili was very much surprised to find he was still alive.

"Ha!" shouted the Doctor in triumph as he scrambled out from under the floor. "It might look like glass, but it's much better than that! You won't be able to shoot through it."

Dalek-Amy ignored the Doctor's taunt. She turned, walked out from under the floor, and began slowly walking up the front console steps. Rory and Vasili moved to keep the TARDIS console between Dalek-Amy and themselves. As Rory and Vasili tried to maneuver to the side stairs to escape, Dalek-Amy fired a shot to keep them pinned behind the console.

Rory slowly straightened up and raised his hands. "Amy?" he said. "You don't want to do this. I know you don't want to exterminate me."

Dalek-Amy looked at Rory without emotion, her eyes dead. "Correct. I want to assimilate you, but you forget: assimilation can happen after death." Rory ducked as Dalek-Amy fired another shot, this one hitting the TARDIS console. Sparks flew, some spraying on Rory and Vasili. A small curl of smoke rose from the console.

Observing the results, Dalek-Amy began rapid-firing directly at the console in an attempt to drive out Rory and Vasili. A shower of sparks flew up from the console with loud pops. The cloister bell began to peal again.

"No!" shouted the Doctor. He ran to the steps, crowbar held high, ready to defend his TARDIS. Dalek-Amy turned to face this new threat and fired.

The Doctor stopped midway on the steps, surprised he wasn't dead. The bolt fired by Dalek-Amy had stopped in mid-air just beyond the weapon stalk. Dalek-Amy herself appeared to be frozen in place. A glow from the console enveloped her.

"Doctor? What's happening?" Rory asked as he and Vasili slowly stood up again.

"Don't move!" shouted the Doctor. "It's the TARDIS. It has Amy time-locked." A panel on the console slowly opened, admitting a dazzling bright light. "It's the heart of the TARDIS!" called out the Doctor. "Come on girl! You can do it!" he said with the beginning of a smile on his face.

The bolt fired by Dalek-Amy abruptly reversed, traveling back into the hand weapon stalk. "Yes!" said the Doctor, who leapt for joy and did an imaginary high-five in the air. "The TARDIS is rewinding Amy's personal timeline. That will undo any damage caused by the nanocloud!"

Rory stuck a questioning finger up in the air. "The TARDIS can do that?" he asked, his concern etched on his face.

"Oh yes!" exclaimed the Doctor. "The TARDIS has done it before, you know. She once did it to a nasty individual from the Slitheen crime family. Slitheens hail from a planet called Raxacoricofallapatorius. Anyway, this Slitheen tried to take over the TARDIS, and the old girl rewound her all the way back to an egg!"

Rory looked panic-stricken. "What? I don't want Amy rewound back to an egg! Or a baby, I suppose! How do I explain I'm married to a baby? Talk about robbing the cradle!"

At that moment, the TARDIS released Amy. She collapsed to the floor.

"Amy!" Rory shouted. He ran around the console and fell to the floor beside her. Rory pulled Amy up and cradled her head in his lap. The Dalek eyestalk was gone. "Amy? Can you hear me?"

The Doctor scanned Amy with his sonic screwdriver and looked at the results. He breathed a sigh of relief. "This time, I can guarantee Amy is completely clean. No nanites in her anywhere."

Amy's eyes fluttered open. "Doctor?" she said, and began to look around. "Rory? What happened? Did I fall down or something?"

"Something like that," Rory quietly replied as he brushed her hair back.

Amy sat up and frowned. "What are we doing in the TARDIS?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" the Doctor asked.

Amy thought for a second. "You had dropped us back home after the visit to Mercy. That was, what? Two or three days ago?" She turned to Rory. "Oh! I forgot to tell you. The upstairs loo has been leaking. Do you think your dad could fix it?"

Rory laughed, tears in his eyes. "Yes, but I'd like to give it a go first," he said, replaying in his mind this same conversation he had had with Amy three weeks ago. He leaned forward and gripped Amy in a bear hug.

"Oh!" said Amy, the wind slightly knocked out of her. "What brought that on?" She noticed a stranger in some sort of uniform looking at both her and Rory, a smile on his face. "Rory!" she hissed. "Someone is watching us!"

"Right!" said Rory. He released Amy and they both stood up. "Amy? I'd like you to meet Vasili Arkhipov. He's the executive officer of a Russian submarine in 1961."

Amy shook hands with Vasili. "Are you a new companion of the Doctor's?" she asked, wondering what was going on.

Vasili laughed. "Oh no, I have enough on my plate already without becoming involved in the Doctor's adventures." He looked to the Doctor. "I should go. My crew needs me."

The Doctor clapped Vasili on the shoulder, and together they walked down the steps to the TARDIS door. "It's more than just the crew who needs you, Vasili," he said. "Apparently, the whole world needs you as well!"

Vasili paused at the door and looked back at the Doctor. "Yes, but why?" he asked.

The Doctor smiled. "I expect when the moment comes, you will understand what you need to do."

Vasili hesitated. "I am curious about one thing. Have you ever met an English author by the name of H. G. Wells?"

"I have, yes," replied the Doctor, a bit surprised at the question. "Why do you ask?"

"I find it interesting," said Vasili. "That you don't go by a name. In Wells' story 'The Time Machine,' the main character is never identified by name either. He is simply known as 'the Time Traveler.' Coincidence?"

The Doctor's smile broadened. "I'm sorry I couldn't do anything more about the reactor; I'm afraid the fix was temporary."

Vasili smiled at the Doctor's artful dodge. "That's all right," he replied. "You've given us a fighting chance." He gave the Doctor a salute and stepped out of the TARDIS.

The alarm klaxon was sounding.

"Sir!" shouted an out of breath Lieutenant Korchilov as he ran up to Vasili. "The pressure in the starboard reactor has failed again!"

"How's the temperature?" Vasili asked.

"Rising, but at an expected rate. I estimate we have about four or five hours before the temperature is critical."

"So," said Vasili, thinking. "We need to find a way to get coolant circulating again."

Lieutenant Korchilov grinned and held up a set of plans. "I have an idea. We have over eight thousand liters of drinking water available. If we can route that to the reactor, we can keep it cool long enough for the SCRAM rods to do their job."

Vasili smiled. "Good work, Lieutenant! Take it to the captain. I'll be along shortly."

As the Lieutenant ran forward, Vasili turned back to the TARDIS. He found himself looking at a bare wall with pipes. "Good luck to us all," he said to the wall, and went forward to the bridge.

The TARDIS completed its landing and quietly hummed. The Doctor walked around the console, tweaking settings here and there.

"Here we are," said the Doctor, "back safe and sound once again. Your house should be just across the street." He looked at Amy. "Now Amy, I'm afraid you've lost about three weeks of your memory, but I'm sure Rory will fill you in. On the plus side, you are also about three weeks younger than you were before."

"Hmm," said Amy. "I suppose there is that. Come on Rory! I want to go home." She ran down the steps to the TARDIS doors.

"Wait!" cried Rory, just as Amy opened the doors. He ran down the steps after her.

Amy turned back, curious. "Is something wrong?"

The TARDIS was sitting in a small park across the street from Amy and Rory's house. It was a clear day. Children could be heard playing nearby. A jogger ran past, oblivious, ear buds in, listening to her iPod.

Rory heaved a sigh of relief. "No," he said. "Nothing is wrong." He gave Amy a hug.

"Come along Ponds!" said the Doctor as he pushed past. "I want to do a little research." Amy and Rory looked at each other, and went after the Doctor. They all entered the house together. The Doctor went down the hall to the living room where a small desk was set up in the corner with a laptop computer. He started busily typing away.

Amy, meanwhile, scooped up the day's mail from the floor. "Oh look!" she said. "Here's a flyer for a new restaurant. American style barbecue. What do you think?"

Rory shuddered. "How about Indian takeaway instead?"

"Ah ha!" proclaimed the Doctor. "Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov. It's all right here. He served on board K-19, and witnessed firsthand the deaths of several crewmembers from radiation poisoning, including, I'm afraid, Lieutenant Boris Korchilov, the reactor officer. Vasili received a rather large dose of radiation himself."

The Doctor trailed off as he read ahead. "Ah, now this is interesting indeed. After K-19, Vasili was assigned to another sub called B-59, which was equipped with a nuclear torpedo. He was commander of a four-sub fleet, which sailed to Cuba in October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. B-59 was detected by American forces. On 27 October 1962, they attempted to force B-59 to surface by dropping 'practice' depth charges."

He looked at Amy and Rory. "Problem was, B-59 had been out of touch with Moscow for several days. The captain was afraid a war had already started and believed they were under attack. Both he and the political officer agreed to launch the nuclear torpedo, but they also needed the agreement of the fleet commander, Vasili Arkhipov. Vasili vetoed the launch, and convinced the captain to surface instead. Vasili quite literally saved the world from a nuclear Armageddon that day. A most important man indeed."

"Wow," said Amy. "It's amazing how world events can hinge on the actions of a single person."

The Doctor stood and walked over to the Ponds. He put his arms around them both. "Not just the world you know. As humans begin to explore the galaxy, they will encounter and battle the Daleks. The actions of all those people will keep the Daleks from overrunning the galaxy; people who would not exist were it not for Vasili."

The Doctor squeezed and released the Ponds. "That butterfly effect is why we steer clear of fixed points in time."

"Well," said Rory. "I'm just glad to be here." He grabbed Amy and gave her a big kiss.

Amy smiled. "I could do with another kiss," she said. Her smile grew bigger. "For medicinal purposes only, you understand."

Rory grinned back. "I think I can help there," he replied as he gathered Amy in his arms. "I am a qualified nurse, you know." The next kiss was unhurried and passionate.

"Right!" the Doctor said awkwardly. To his horror, Amy and Rory began to tug at each other's clothes. He pointed to the front door. "I'll just let myself out then, shall I?" He turned and fled.

Amy and Rory stopped kissing to watch the front door as the Doctor closed it behind him.

Amy smiled. "Works every time," she said, and looked up at Rory while holding him tight, a gleam in her eye. "Shall we go upstairs?"

"Race you to the top!" Giggling, they made a mad dash up the stairs.

Afterword

Few people today realize just how close the world came to ending in October 1962. I had some inkling, but didn't realize how bad things actually were until I ran across an article about the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This is a work of fiction, and the words and actions of all characters are fiction. However, several characters are drawn from actual historical figures.

Captain Second Rank Nikolai Zateyev – The real captain of K-19. Some accounts refer to his rank as Captain First Rank, but as far as I could determine, his rank at the time of the reactor accident on 4 July 1961 was Second Rank. Doctors told Zateyev he received three times the lethal dose of radiation, but he managed to survive due to bone marrow treatments. Concerning the K-19 accident, Zateyev was quoted as saying this about the severely exposed crewmembers.

Right on the spot their appearances began changing. Skin not protected by clothing began to redden, face and hands began to swell. Dots of blood began to appear on their foreheads, under their hair. Within two hours we couldn't recognize them. People died fully conscious, in terrible pain. They couldn't speak, but they could whisper. They begged us to kill them.

Lieutenant Boris Korchilov – According to one account, the real Boris Korchilov was indeed handsome with blue eyes and popular with the ladies. He received an extremely high dose of radiation while repairing the starboard reactor. He was the first crewman to die. Korchilov was so radioactive everything he came into contact with had to be destroyed.

Captain Third Rank Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, Executive Officer – The real Vasili Arkhipov was the Executive Officer of K-19, although the rank I gave him in this story is a bit of guesswork. Arkhipov was exposed to radiation himself, as well as having witnessed the effects of severe radiation exposure as described by Captain Zateyev.

By October of 1962, Arkhipov's rank was Captain Second Rank, and he was assigned as fleet commander of four diesel submarines, each equipped with a nuclear torpedo, whose orders were to go to Cuba. Unlike the practice drill in this story, the sub captains were pre-authorized to use nuclear weapons without confirmation from Moscow as long as three people were in agreement: the captain, the political officer, and Vasili Arkhipov. I have no doubt Vasili's experience on K-19 factored in his decision to refuse authorization in the use of a nuclear torpedo on 27 October 1962.

Vasili Arkhipov is considered a hero today, but that was not the case in 1962. When B-59 and the other submarines returned to port, an admiral told them they would have been better off lost at sea than to return home. In spite of that setback, Vasili Arkhipov retired in the mid 1980's at the rank of Vice Admiral.

For more information about the real Vasili Arkhipov, check out the PBS documentary called, "The Man Who Saved the World".

Lyndon Johnson was, of course, the Vice President of the United States in 1961. On the LBJ Ranch, there was an original barn not far from the main house called the Martin barn. Lady Bird Johnson won the battle of the barns. In 1966, the old Martin barn was torn down, and a new Show Barn was built at the north end of the airstrip, well away from the main house.

The LBJ Ranch is now the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park. The Park service holds a barbecue every year in May. Both Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson are buried in a family plot in the park.

Gus Grissom and Gordon Cooper were both Mercury Seven astronauts. I have no idea what they really did on the 4th of July 1961, but later that same month, Gus Grissom became the second American to go into space in a Redstone rocket on 21 July 1961. Like Alan Shepard's flight, it too was sub-orbital. Grissom finally got to orbit the Earth on the Gemini 3 mission on 23 March 1965. He was tragically killed in the Apollo I fire on 27 January 1967.

Gordon Cooper flew the last Mercury mission on 15 May 1963, orbiting the Earth 22 times, logging more time in space than all the previous Mercury astronauts combined. He later flew the Gemini 5 mission as command pilot. The Gemini 5 flight lasted 8 days, proving people could survive in space for the time needed by the Apollo missions. He retired from NASA in 1970.