"But it's not the Master!" Nyssa declared, almost shouting. "The Master has nothing to do with any of this. But the Doctor has been led to believe that."
"How odd," Adric replied. "I'm not sure the Master even survived when Castrovalva collapsed on itself."
"Oh he did," said a passing bird. "And he will live to bedevil the Doctor for a long time to come. But he has nothing to do with the Doctor's current plight."
The Maze
Meanwhile, all the Plasmatons that had threatened Tegan and Madhabi had vanished. Unfortunately the way ahead of them also vanished, leaving just a wall. And so they went back the way they came. As it happened, June was sulkily walking back and forth in her section of the maze, when an entrance appeared. She quickly dashed through it and tried to find the others. She turned a corner running toward Tegan the same instant that Tegan was running back towards her. The two crashed into each other, falling to the floor.
"Ow! What are you doing here!" June yelled.
"I was running back to meet you!" Tegan replied.
The two got up and found that the wall had closed behind June. Madhabi looked behind herself and found they were also cut off from where they had just come from.
"Did you learn anything useful from running around?"
"Actually we did! Whatever is going on in this maze is causing intense illusions. But we think we can find a way through them, if we concentrate hard enough."
"I'm not sure about that."
The three young women turned towards the voice, just behind Madhabi. It was, in fact, Nyssa speaking to them.
"How did you get here?" Tegan asked. "The walls are all closed."
"Am I here?" Nyssa wondered, staring out into the distance, or as best one could in the narrow space she was in.
"Oh great, she's spaced out again," June muttered.
"Back on the TARDIS, there was a book of stories, by an Earthling named Borges…" Nyssa said, returning to her normal thoughtful self. "One short story told of two labyrinths. It was about two kings, and one day the first king hosted the second, and showed him the most gloriously complicated labyrinth, a symbol of his wealth and power. The second king thanked him, went back to his kingdom, raised an army, conquered the first kingdom, and then dragged the first king bound, and blindfolded, into a desert. This, he said, is my labyrinth. And then he left him there. We've been trapped in the obvious cunning labyrinth. And we were beginning to make our way out. Now I think it is time for the second, simpler but deadlier labyrinth."
"So what do we do?"
"What you three should do is stay here. Meanwhile I'm going to go back to the Doctor and tell him my ideas. I think the best thing to do is close your eyes and count to ten."
"I don't see how that helps us," Tegan countered, but she, June and Madhabi did so anyways. When they opened their eyes, Nyssa was gone.
Meanwhile Captain Stapley, First Officer Bilton and Science Officer Scobie, having taken things back to Alpha Charlie Concorde, had re-entered the building and had now entered the maze.
"I can't say I like the look of this," Bilton said.
"Steady on men, we have to find them," replied Captain Stapley.
"Doctor? Where are you?" Scobie yelled. But then there was another turn and the three saw three passengers from Victor Foxtrot. They were well dressed, as one might expect of Concorde passengers, but they were otherwise relaxed. In fact they were all sitting on the ground, and appeared to be looking at something up above them.
"Ooh!" one of them, a youngish man, said.
Another one, a younger woman, muttered something to herself. She seemed to be moving her fingers in a short, back and forth motion. Then she threw nothing at all at nothing in particular.
"What are they doing?' Bilton wondered. But the third passenger, a slightly older man, told him to be quiet.
"Ah!" the first passenger declared, with some frustration.
"I think they think they're watching a rugby match." Captain Stapley realized. And when the third passenger took a swig from an imaginary glass, the three crew members realized that the passengers though they were in a pub.
"Of course, the passengers are still trapped in the illusion they're back in London." Stapley announced. But Bilton was staring very intently at the imaginary television. Stapley realized what the problem was and slapped him.
"Sir!"
"Damn it, Bilton! We can't risk falling under the illusion as well. Remember we're the only hope of these people."
"Will you be quiet?" the woman passenger announced.
"Sorry sir," Bilton replied, as the three crew members passed the bewitched passengers. "Anyway it was only Bristol."
As it happened, the Doctor found himself in a particularly intense position. "What is going on? What is it? Is it a new level of illusion? I have to fight this. I have to fight this! I HAVE TO FIGHT THIS!" But the Doctor's pain was forcing him to his knees. With desperation he managed to crawl his way to the TARDIS. Slowly he was able to rise enough to reach the door. With some desperation he got his TARDIS key from one of his pockets and slowly, painfully managed to open the lock. With a sudden gasp he collapsed into the TARDIS. He was still not strong enough to rise, but was able to reach the TARDIS console and close the door.
"I can't say I like the look of this," Bilton said.
"Steady on men, we have to find them," replied Captain Stapley.
"Doctor? Where are you?" Scobie yelled. But then there was another turn and the three saw three passengers from Victor Foxtrot. They were well dressed, as one might expect of Concorde passengers, but they were otherwise relaxed….
"I think they think they're watching a rugby match." Captain Stapley realized. And when the third passenger took a swig from an imaginary glass, the three crew members realized that the passengers though they were in a pub… But Bilton was staring very intently at the imaginary television. Stapley realized what the problem was and slapped him.
"Sir!"
"Damn it, Bilton! We can't risk falling under the illusion as well. Remember we're the only hope of these people."
"Will you be quiet?' the woman passenger announced.
"Sorry sir," Bilton replied, as the three crew members passed the bewitched passengers. "Anyway it was only Bristol."
"Is something very odd happening?' Scobie asked, mostly to himself.
The Garden
Adric was still at the rotunda. But instead of using the abacus he was sitting on a chair staring at it. Suddenly a strange coin, shaped like an octagon, dropped on the table he was using.
It was "Debbie," flying above. "A penny for your thoughts?"
Adric picked up the coin. "This is considerably more than a penny."
"A minor detail. How goes your work?'
"There's a bit of an impasse, I think." Adric took another look at the abacus. He then slowly moved a bead on the bottom row to the right. "Hold on. I think I have an idea."
Adric resumed his calculations. "You're very interested in math," "Debbie" noted.
"Well, I am very good at it," Adric replied smugly.
"Is that the only reason you care about it?"
Adric paused slightly. "Now that you mention it, no. Because I'm an elite. I'm quite good at a number of things."
"Then again, why do you care?'
"On the one hand, you can learn so much from it. There are mathematical patterns everywhere in nature, and in everything you do."
"And what else?'
"There is one thing…."
"Go on."
"It's harder to lie with it."
"Explain."
"You see, I was born in a society that was based on a lie, a lie so deep and held so long that everyone had forgotten it wasn't true."
"Ah, the Alzarians who thought they were Terradonians."
"Precisely. And the more you try to understand how people live, or at least how these humans live, you realize that much of their sciences can be so easily corrupted."
"Could you give an example?'
"Take history for instance. I mean one can go in the TARDIS and you can find out that some king directly ordered the murder of someone everyone thought had died of natural causes. But that's just one man. You can't even assume that he's worse than his enemies, because who knows what kind of secrets they have. And many of the documents of the time are lost, and even those that survive, don't tell everything. There are workers, there are serfs, there are slaves, and all of them usually don't get to say anything. And then there are wars, famines, all sorts of catastrophes. The survivors can see all sorts of things with hindsight. But the dead can't say anything.
"And so it goes with all the 'soft' sciences. Aesthetics, philosophy, economics, sociology. You can always rig things. You can do the same with biology, astronomy or chemistry, Not as easy, but you can always shuffle the deck, try to make some things appear more real than is actually the case. But if you try that with mathematics, you get nonsense. Things just fall apart."
"I didn't know you cared so much for the truth. But isn't there more to the truth than mathematics?"
"I suppose so. But I don't know if it can be helped."
"But what about love?"
"I'm not sure I believe in love."
"Do you not believe that people can be unselfish? What about the Doctor?"
"Ah, that's altruism, not the same thing. There are some scientists on Earth who argue the altruism is a relationship that grows out of genetic kinship." Adric then paused. "But then the Doctor goes out of his way to help everyone, even species he's never seen before. So that can't be right."
"What about your parents? Didn't they love you?'
"They may have. They died when I was young."
"What about your brother?"
"Yes… I think so." Adric almost gasped. But he regained his composure. "Before Varsh died, there was this girl Keara. She said she loved him, but that it was a lie, a way to get more from him in their society of Outcasts."
"You think it was a trick? Or a genetic imperative?"
"It's more than that. Love is an ideology. Many civilizations have a gender division of labor, and love is an ideology designed to deal with it."
"Really?"
"There was this Earth philosopher, who said 'ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real relationship of existence.'"
"An interesting theory."
"Then he went mad and strangled his wife. Anyway, Humans are only just beginning to grasp what equality between the sexes is like. Boy, are they going to be in for a big surprise."
"What if I were to show you that love was real…"
The Maze
Tegan was sitting with June and Madhabi in their section of the maze when the Doctor appeared.
"You have to understand now Tegan. The illusion is very sophisticated now. You need to keep still and calm, don't make any sudden moves. I think I'm getting close to a solution."
"I got it Doctor, I understand now. I'm not going to let the Master beat us."
The Doctor could not repress his impatience. "Oh no no no. How many times?' He grabbed Tegan's right hand an opened it. Written on the palm was "Don't think it's the Master." Then he showed Tegan her left hand: "It's not the Master." "The Master isn't running things." "Still not the Master."
"I can't say I like the look of this," Bilton said.
"Steady on men, we have to find them," replied Captain Stapley….
"I think they think they're watching a rugby match." Captain Stapley realized. And when the third passenger took a swig from an imaginary glass, the three crew members realized that the passengers thought they were in a pub...
"Sir!"
"Damn it Bilton! We can't risk falling under the illusion as well. Remember we're the only hope of these people."
Just then Scobie grabbed Stapley and Bilton. "We keep repeating this strange incident over and over again. It must be some kind of illusion."
"Then how do we break it?' Stapley wondered.
Bilton had an idea, or an intuition. Do something radically unpredictable, or at least as unpredictable one could while in a maze. He dashed past the three passengers and ran as far as he could. Captain Stapley and Bilton has no choice but to follow.
"Those three people were very rude," the female passenger muttered.
Bilton made another turn, and found Tegan, Madhabi and June. "What are you all doing here?"
"The Doctor told us to sit still and not get lost," Tegan replied. Just then Scobie reached them.
"But where is the Doctor?"
"I'm not sure. But he said he was close to finding something."
Captain Stapley wasn't quite in their leg of the maze. But they could all see him. "Look, you five all stay put. And that's an order, Bilton and Scobie. I'm going to try to find the Doctor. At the very least, you can all wait for half an hour."
As it happened, Nyssa found the Doctor again. "Doctor… you do in fact realize we're not facing the Master."
"Yes, well it's good you know. I've been having a devil of a time trying to get Tegan to remember it." The Doctor rubbed his temples. "What is going on is a very nasty temporal anomaly. And because I'm a Time Lord, it's given me the most dreadful headache."
"Do you have any idea what to do now?"
"Actually yes, I'm going to take a nap. Very short. Fifteen minutes should be enough." And the Doctor laid down on the ground.
Nyssa smiled. She went off to rejoin them when something occurred to her. "Doctor, are there any sentient avian species?"
"Oh there are some feathered, vaguely humanoid species."
"No, I meant sentient species that not only look like birds, but fly like them."
"Oh, there aren't that many. You see sentient species often need hands to make tools. That's a key step in fostering intelligence, and it's hard for a bird's hands to both grasp things and fly." The Doctor was now on the ground preparing to nap. "Mind you, more than thirty species have legends about flying sentient birds—the Draconians, the Ood, the Voord, the Sensorites, the Solonians, oddly enough even the Daleks of all creatures claim to have encountered them. The Time Lords have never found any proof of this, but there is a legend that the very last Time Lord, just before he or she dies, will meet them."
The Garden
And then she found herself back in the garden. Adric was walking towards her. They were not at the rotunda, though it was nearby. Nyssa noticed something different about Adric. There was a distinct lack of smugness or arrogance about him.
"I… I… it's awkward. I wanted to say I'm sorry."
"For what?'
"For being snippy and vain, and generally snotty."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that you were that."
"Also, I tend to gorge myself with food whenever I have the chance. It's a very bad habit."
"Is it? I wouldn't know how much Alzarians are supposed to eat."
"And I've been particularly condescending to Tegan. And she is your friend."
"She is actually our friend."
"Yes… I suppose… it's very strange… I just remembered something… very strange… because I'm remembering something from when I was too small to remember… there was a butterfly… well not a butterfly, but something on Alzarius that was like a butterfly, only stranger and much more beautiful… and my mother was there… it was so striking, so beautiful, and I was not only happy, but much more…it's so strange… I don't understand, I don't understand…."
The Maze
Captain Stapley was trying to make his way through the maze when he almost tripped over the Doctor lying on the ground.
"Ah, that was a good nap!" the Doctor declared as he leapt to his feet
"Doctor, what are you doing? I trusted you to help me, not to mention the passengers of Victor Foxtrot."
"I understand completely. But that nap made everything right as rain, and I have a much better idea of what needs to be done. Oh, did you find what you were looking for at Victor Foxtrot?"
"Indeed we did. I think with a little work we can get it up in the air again. But…"
"That's marvelous. Now I have to just check my TARDIS for a few things. If we're really lucky we can actually get everyone back to Heathrow."
"But where is your TARDIS? This maze is a bloody nuisance." But just then Stapley saw the Doctor walk through the wall. He tried to follow and immediately walked smack into the wall.
"Doctor!"
"Just a few minutes, Captain!" replied the Doctor. He quickly unlocked the TARDIS door. He then strode to the console and turned on the motor. Nothing happened.
"Of course it would be the complicated way." The Doctor could not repress some frustration.
"Doctor, did you say something?"
"The good news is that soon we'll able to get rid of the maze and find all the passengers." As the Doctor said this he rummaged through a box full of strange devices. One looked like a Geiger counter, except that when the Doctor ran it over the console it made noises like a wind chime. There were some other objects as well, as the Doctor made some quick tests. One looked like a metronome, and while the pendulum swung back and forth, the Doctor juggled four objects that looked like eggs but were blue and made of alabaster. Finally he took out an abacus and started making some calculations. And at that very instant (to the extent this was possible given the unimaginable distance in time and space), Adric was furiously working on his own abacus. And at the same instant they realized: "Topology!"
Captain Stapley was getting a bit impatient when the Doctor walked through the wall to rejoin him. "How do you do that?" he wondered.
"Where are Bilton and Scobie?"
"They're with the girls."
"Oh good, we should all be together. I would prefer not to repeat myself more than necessary. If you could close your eyes…"
"Close my eyes?"
"Yes, it's the simplest way of getting through these walls." Stapley was not confident about this, but he did as he was told and the two walked through another wall.
Meanwhile, Bilton and Scobie had found a pack of cards and were playing at a distance from the others. June was lying on the ground. "Reunited—and it sucks so bad," she sang softly, but bitterly. Tegan was also lying on the ground, idly knocking back and forth a Weeble she had found.
June stopped singing. "I gotta say, I never thought I would be in a desperate science fiction adventure. And I definitely never thought it would be so crushingly dull."
Madhabi was sitting nearby. "The Chinese have a saying, may you be cursed to live in interesting times."
Tegan wasn't that interested in what the others had to say. "I keep thinking about a boy. It was back when I was in Brisbane. He was about my age. He was—how should I put it—his family was clearly more working class. I think longshoreman/construction. I first saw him on the beach, which definitely showed certain virtues. He was funny, I'm not saying he was nice. That's not the right word. But he wasn't rude or thoughtless or selfish. He didn't read much, but he cared about the news. What he really liked to do was surf. He was very good at it. He taught me to try it some times."
"I'd like to see that," June muttered.
"You wouldn't really. I was actually fairly competent at it. But as time went on, he thought he could make a living at it. And as time went on, I told him he was being silly. I mean no one pays you to surf. And ultimately we broke up. He just didn't have any ambition. And about six months later, when I was in England, I heard that he had died in a car crash. Not his fault, he was a passenger. And after I got over the shock, I basically thought, Well he just wasn't going to be the one. And then a year later, I was walking around, and I heard 'Fox on the Run' being played somewhere. You know that song by Sweet?"
"No. I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about," Nyssa replied. She had been there all the time Tegan was speaking.
"She wasn't talking to you," June replied. "Go on."
"And then for an instant, I loved him more than anything I had ever imagined, and I would have done anything to save his life."
Just then the Doctor and Captain Stapley appeared. "Doctor! You just walked through a solid wall!" Tegan gasped.
"Yes, I supposed that it would look like that." The girls got to their feet, while Bilton and Scobie quickly rejoined them. "I have some good news. We can all solve the maze, find the passengers, and get everyone on to Alpha Charlie and prepare it for takeoff. But then things get a little more complicated.
"When I arranged for Alpha Charlie to arrive here, I thought that an induction loop had captured Victor Foxtrot and brought it back 140 million years into the past. For some reason, someone in the past had kidnapped the passengers, presumably involving this maze. If we could work through the maze I could discover who was behind it and why. But I now realize the nature of the temporal anomaly is very different. The problem is one of topology."
"Topology?" Madhabi asked.
"Yes, topology is the mathematics of shapes. It's a fascinating science, and directly relevant to our situation. Allow me to demonstrate it." He looked around and saw Bilton, who was the only one whose clothes fit for what he was about to ask. "Bilton, using topology you could remove your vest without removing the jacket you have over it."
'Really?"
"Yes. First unbutton your vest. Now you need to pull your left arm under the left hole of the vest. Yes I can imagine it's a bit difficult. Please don't do it if you're likely to tear anything. Alright now move the left half over your arm. Pull it over your left shoulder. Now bring it around your right shoulder. You put your right arm through the hole so it's now under your jacket." Bilton, with some difficulty, managed to follow these instructions. "Now push the right half of the vest, starting with the shoulder, down your sleeve. You're going to have move your right hand within your sleeve so you can slip the right half off it. Good man! Now you've got both parts off, and you can simply pull it off." Bilton did so and smiled.
"Now we're dealing with a not dissimilar problem, except we're also dealing with time as well, which makes it more complicated. So complicated that most of you can't really help me. But I can explain the basic problem using an analogy. Did anyone leave a newspaper around here?"
"There's a copy of yesterday's Sun." Scobie pointed.
"Oh good, that would be perfect." The Doctor picked it up, turned to the editorial page, and tore it vertically. "See this sheet of paper? If I linked it together, I would have a loop, an otherwise ordinary three-dimensional object. But if I twist this end before I tape it to the other…"
"You'd have a Mobius strip!" Madhabi realized.
"Correct. Now I have an object with just one side and one edge. And if I cut in two it would have more interesting properties. But what has basically happened is that two time zones have been linked together. This has produced a number of anomalous effects, of which three are most important for you all to understand. First, it creates something similar to an induction loop that takes planes flying over Heathrow and transports them 140 million years into the past. Second, while it's here, the TARDIS can't actually leave this time zone, or at least not easily. Third, the people who are currently brought here are suffering from a strange sense of déjà vu, which has been confusing everything we see."
"What? What do you mean by déjà vu?" Tegan asked.
"When we arrived all of us, except for Nyssa, thought we were at Heathrow. Almost all the Victor Foxtrot people think they're in London. We managed to break that illusion. But another form of déjà vu occurred. I'm sorry about this, Captain, but realizing that we were in a temporal anomaly, the effect of the time zone made me think we were using elements from the last time I and my companions were in one. I briefly thought an old enemy was behind this, but there isn't actually an old enemy here at all." The Doctor paused before he made his next statement. "In fact, this maze isn't real at all."
"What, do you mean none of this is real?" June gasped.
"Oh no, we definitely are 140 million years in the past. We are all real. Both Concordes are real. The passengers we will see shortly are all real. And I imagine the dinosaurs that ran away when the two large metal birds landed are also very real."
"But if there's no one here, why did the passengers take the TARDIS?" Captain Stapley objected.
"Ah. The TARDIS has telepathic circuits, which are used to help understand the local language. In the midst of the déjà vu, it must have somehow connected with our illusion of the trap and influenced the passengers to take it. But what we have to do now is make a sustained effort. Try to concentrate on the Concordes, the only things you know here are real. Count by sevens, or run the list of squares, or prime numbers. You have to concentrate!"
And so the six humans and one Trakenian closed their eyes and concentrated very hard, and suddenly everything around them vanished. In an area roughly the size of two American football fields were the Victor Foxtrot passengers wandering around, most of them thinking they were in London.
"So if you can disconnect the two time zones, we'll be able to leave?" Tegan queried.
"Ah, this is where the limits of my analogy to the Mobius strip come up." He took out a scissors and cut the Mobius strip in half along the diameter within the strip. This created a larger, strange looking strip which he cut in half leaving two intertangled loops. "So you can see it's rather tricky dissecting a simple Mobius strip. We're dealing with two separate time zones. We're in the first one. If the other one was in Jurassic era Islington a few days from now I could run a number of tests and find a way of disconnecting them. But the other zone could be anywhere and anywhen in the entire universe. I have to find what connects the two, but they are almost…"
Just then, a rather posh Concorde traveler, thinking he was in his suite in London, waltzed in, singing somewhat off tune: "When you get caught between the moon and New York City/ I know it's crazy, but it's true/ If you get caught between the moon and New York City…" Madhabi walked up to him, stamped on his foot, and slapped him. "Shut up, calm down, breathe in for the next 60 seconds, and don't interrupt the Doctor."
"Thank you," replied the Doctor. "As I was saying, before I can find a way of disconnecting the two time zones, I have to figure out what links them in the first place."
Then Nyssa spoke up. "Doctor, I believe I am what connects them."
"I thought that it might be you. The rest of you need to gather all the passengers and get them to Alpha Charlie and prepare it for takeoff. Me and Nyssa will go to the TARDIS and see what can be done. This will involve some very sophisticated mathematics."
"Hey, what about me?" Tegan interrupted. "I got an A+ in my final maths course."
Everyone, including the posh Concorde traveler, looked at her in disbelief. "All right, I got a B- and I had to wash my teacher's car for a month."
Nyssa and the Doctor began their journey. "This time zone thing isn't a natural occurrence is it?" Nyssa asked softly, so the others wouldn't hear.
"Almost certainly not." the Doctor admitted with some trepidation.
"Who could be behind this? The Time Lords?"
"Conceivably. And I mean, it is conceivable, but there is no reason to think they actually have this power."
"What about the Logopolitans? I mean they're all dead, but perhaps they did this before that happened."
"Bit out of character for them. What do you know about the other time zone?"
"I can barely remember it. When I am there, I am aware of the problem the Concorde has. But I can't tell whether it's in my past or future. I'm also not sure if that is the result of this pseudo-mobius strip or of the place itself."
"Can you say more about this place?" The two had approached the TARDIS.
"I remember music."
The Garden
Adric was working furiously at the abacus, only to be frustrated again.
"Unhappy?" asked "Debbie."
"There are all these problems, but I can't solve them because I only have half of them. And I know if I could solve them I could save the Doctor, even though I don't know where the Doctor is, and what problem he's facing."
"Perhaps we could help." And then other birds joined "Debbie" and started a special magical song.
"Yes, this is much better. I'm not so much closer on figuring out what to do. But I am learning something. I'm learning to wait."
"And are you learning how to save yourself?" "Debbie" asked herself quietly.
The Tardis
"Ow!' the Doctor yelled, after receiving an electrical shock. He and Nyssa were under the TARDIS console, seeing if they could find some shortcut to the TARDIS' problems.
"Doctor, what's this circuit here?" Nyssa asked, pointing to the bottom of the console.
"That's a Malachi circuit."
"But what is it?"
"Never you mind, it doesn't concern you." The Doctor checked himself. "I'm sorry, but the circuit is genuinely not germane to our problem." The two stood up, and the Doctor started typing in some numbers. "Let's see what some imaginary numbers can do to this puzzle... ah, nothing apparently."
"Doctor, it occurred to me that a Mobius strip has a Euler characteristic of zero."
"It does."
"There must be some zeros that the TARDIS needs as coordinates."
"There are a number of them."
"Before you regenerated, the Watcher briefly took the TARDIS out of time and space."
The Doctor pondered that for a moment. "That does match a temporal Euler characteristic of zero." He started typing in some numbers, and for the first time since they arrived at Heathrow, the column started to move. "Progress, of a sort."
The TARDIS was in flight, if "flight" was the right word for such a strange voyage. It did not last very long. The Doctor opened the door and the two walked out. The only thing they could see was an endless expanse of white.
"Come along," the Doctor requested, as he started walking with a clear stride. Nyssa followed.
"But what are we looking for?'
"Oh we'll soon see."
Meanwhile June and Tegan were now shepherding the passengers. They were near Victor Foxtrot since they had to help move all the luggage. "Excuse me," asked a fairly comfortable woman in her fifties. "But is it true that we've all been exposed to some strange hallucinogenic gas, and while it's possible that it may be the Soviets, it would be unwise to speculate?"
Tegan, who had borrowed a spare stewardess uniform, realized that Captain Stapley and Captain Urquhart must have come up with a cover story, but hadn't told them yet in all the chaos. "Yes. Yes exactly. That's precisely what happened, especially the part about not speculating. But we'll soon have everything under control."
The middle-aged woman walked off happily, while June rolled her eyes. "I forgot how busy this could all be," Tegan admitted.
"If we get out of this in one piece, I'll never complain again," June replied.
Tegan gave June a skeptical look. "All right, that's probably too much to ask for. Still we do seem to work well together…"
But just then there was a horrifying shriek from a female passenger about thirty yards away. They could see a dinosaur, not exactly a Tyrannosaurus, but clearly a large and deadly predator.
"Oh, bloody hell," Tegan muttered.
The Doctor and Nyssa had been walking for several minutes, when the Doctor saw the object his intuition had suggested was here. He strode a bit farther from Nyssa and bent down to look at it. It was a wind-up toy, a clothed cat playing a drum, exactly the same as the toy Nyssa noticed several hours earlier back in Heathrow.
"Oh no…"
And then there was a man, dressed in Chinese Mandarin robes, like an engraving from an orientalist imaginary. But the voice that came from it was not only English, but possessed a power and sophistication no human could ever have. He spoke with a condescension so complete it was almost sublime.
"Ah Doctor. I thought you would never arrive," declared the Celestial Toymaker.