TELOS
The doors opened onto the grey, unforgiving terrain of Telos, home of the Cybermen. Wherever they had materialised, it was swathed in a cold, enveloping mist. What light there was, gave it an eerie translucent glow, that came and went, as the mists swirled and changed direction around them. They had stepped out into this intimidating atmosphere. It seemed to cling to them, chilling them to their marrow. Those that had it, of course.
Sarah stepped closer to the Doctor, feeling the need to his closeness. "There's something here. I can feel it, out there . . . somewhere . . . "
"There's certainly something not quite right here," agreed the Doctor, in that way that only he could convey, giving re-assurance of his presence but at the same time warning you that he just might not be able to sort it out. The Master, or what was a representation of him, had been silent, but he too was aware of something.
"It would appear there is something stalking us, wouldn't you say, Doctor?" he said, having closed his mouth that had previously been open as a doorway.
The Doctor turned to look at the Master whose face was unexpectedly cheerful. "Good luck, Doctor."
The was a wheezing groaning sound as the Master, just like the Doctor's old TARDIS, dematerialised in front of the Doctor and Sarah's faces. A few last words carried on the wind before he finally disappeared. "I'll be back when you have found the missing component that has landed on this planet."
The Doctor and Sarah looked at each other as they realised that they were now stranded on this planet until such time as the Master decided to return and retrieve them.
"What are we going to do now, Doctor?" asked Sarah.
"Look for the missing component and wait 'till that bearded oaf returns to help us find the next one," answered the Doctor.
The two travellers turned around and looked at what little of the landscape they could see through the mist. "How on earth are we going to find a TARDIS component here when we don't even know what or where it is?" Sarah moaned.
The Doctor shrugged his shoulders and taking Sarah's hand led her off into the mists of Telos.
*****
As quietly as they could manage the two friends tentatively made their way across the cold deserts, lost and unsure what they were looking for or where they were going. They were both still aware of something following them from just beyond their perception. Then suddenly and without warning a familiar and horrifying noise echoed across the desert.
"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE ALL CYBER LIFE FORMS!"
The Doctor and Sarah ran for cover, finding shelter behind a rocky outcrop. "Daleks? On Telos?" The Doctor was stunned. "This isn't how it was before, unless . . . "
"Unless the Web of Time has begun to change already," Sarah completed the terrifying thought.
"And creating an alternative reality."
They watched as a group of Daleks glided past them. "Cause and effect, huh?" whispered Sarah. "Okay, Doctor. Where to?"
The Doctor pointed upwards. "Onwards and upwards, Sarah."
Sarah looked up and could clearly see a metal opening halfway up the cliff face. "Up there? You know I get vertigo."
"Well, you can either climb up there, or stay down here with the Daleks."
She sighed. "Oh, come on then."
The Doctor smiled as she marched on ahead of him. The grin was immediately replaced with a frown as he looked up at their target. "The ice tombs of Telos. Not a welcoming prospect." He quickly followed Sarah up the rough, jagged path.
Surprisingly, the journey relatively trouble-free, encountering no other Dalek patrols on their way. Soon they were standing outside the open double doors of the Cybermen's control area. Sarah noted the Doctor's troubled look. "I suppose we'd better go in," she suggested.
"Yes, and be careful," he warned. "We must avoid contact with anyone here."
"You got that right, buddy! Now turn around." They did so, hands raised. Facing them was an American the Doctor recognised as Captain Hopper. "Now, just what are you two jokers doing here?"
***** Hopper had little time to waste on the two new arrivals and marched them through the big doors and the main hall of what the Doctor called the Cybermen's Tomb, locking them in a side room. "Not the most comfortable of places," Sarah remarked.
"Well, the Cybermen would hardly be concerned with comfort," the Doctor reminded her. "Everything here has a function. No room for aesthetics."
The Doctor and Sarah examined the room they now found themselves in. A huge silver box that looked like some form of sarcophagus stood in the centre of the room opposite a bank of controls. The Doctor remembered the room very well, it was where Victoria had been trapped. Slowly the Doctor examined every corner of the room, looking for something out of place that he did not remember.
There was a commotion outside where the others were. Sarah could hear screams and the sound of the exterior doors slamming shut. "What's going on out there?" she asked.
"I should imagine the Daleks are trying to pay the Cybermen a visit," replied the Doctor.
"But all those people, they'll be killed."
"Yes." The reply was curt, but the Doctor could only view the situation in terms of certainties, not probabilities.
Sarah was at her wit's end. "Well, can't we do something?"
"Listen, Sarah. This is only happening because of the ripples in time created by the destruction of the TARDIS. If I can find all the elements of my ship and reassemble it then all this will be undone and they will be safe again."
"And if you can't?"
"Then they and probably we will die here, probably right now."
Sarah gulped and the Doctor returned to searching the room. Outside the sound of commotion increased and blaster fire could be heard. The grating chants of the Daleks also seemed to be getting louder.
"Ah ha!" shouted the Doctor.
"Ah ha what?" asked Sarah.
"Look over there, you see that?"
She looked to where the Doctor was pointing. Sitting on it's own was a Cyberman's head. Sarah began to puzzle what was so important about it. She looked back to the Doctor and he could read the bemusement on her face.
"Sarah, remember what I said about everything here having a function? So why would Cybermen just leave an empty head lying around? It doesn't make sense, and I certainly don't remember it being here the last time I was in this room."
The Doctor moved over and touched the head. Slowly it began to hum and then in a sudden puff of smoke it turned into a sophisticated looking piece of equipment. "There it is, the temporal wave amplifier from the TARDIS," he announced with a smile.
Sarah tried to ignore the sound of fighting from outside as the screams and Dalek chants got ever closer. The Doctor looked at Sarah again and felt a little bit of explanation might distract her from the threat of imminent death.
"Obviously the emergency chameleon field of the TARDIS is protecting all the individual components of the ship by disguising them in a form appropriate to the location where they have landed. When I touched it, it recognised my symbiotic print and reverted to its normal state."
Sarah tried to look interested but she was becoming increasingly aware that this was possibly the final minute of her life. She could hear the Daleks outside chanting and firing at the entrance to the room.
Suddenly the small room was filled by a wheezing groaning sound and the Master/TARDIS materialised in the corner. "Congratulations, Doctor. Now I suggest we move quickly to find the next item before you become a Dalek barbecue."
"Where is the next element?" asked the Doctor.
"On Vestigualamavundar. I was tracking it while I was in the vortex," replied the Master.
"I don't know of it."
"No, neither do I," the Master admitted. "Beyond its name, it is a planet entirely unknown to our race. Now hurry up and get inside."
The Master opened his mouth and the Doctor and Sarah could see the safety of the console room inside him. With a sudden rush they hurled themselves inside. The Master closed his mouth and dematerialised just as the door to the room exploded and the Daleks rushed in to find the room empty.
"THERE WERE PEOPLE HERE!" intoned one. "WHERE ARE THEY? FIND THEM. THEY MUST BE EXTER." A sound like the rushing of a great wind swept through the room, and the rest of the ice tombs. The Daleks were still, their movements frozen within a moment of time, as their shapes became translucent, intangible. In a matter of seconds, the Dalek task force was wiped from the surface of Telos as though they had never existed.
Which they never had. Time was set back on its correct path.
*****
"Well, that's one piece recovered." Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. "How many more are left?"
The Doctor looked up from his examination of the temporal wave amplifier. "There are three more to find, Sarah. The time vector generator is missing, and the spatial anomoliser."
"That's two. What about the third?" The Doctor fell silent. "Come on, Doctor. Don't hold out on me."
It was left to the Master to explain. "The final component, Miss Smith, is the most important."
"Isn't it always?" she remarked. "Okay, so tell me."
"It is what the Doctor would refer to as the heart of the TARDIS. Put simply, it is the power source which guides the TARDIS through the vortex. Without it, the Doctor would be stranded."
"I thought the dematerialisation circuit would do the same thing."
"True," the Master acknowledged, "however, a circuit can be replaced. But a power source . . . ? Well, I'll leave it to your imagination."
The Doctor rounded on the Master. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
"I assure you, I am not." The Master returned to the central console, as the sound of materialisation echoed around them. "Doctor, Miss Smith, it seems we have arrived. Vestigualamavundar awaits you."
The TARDIS doors opened. Outside, the dark, foreboding surface of Vestigualamavundar stretched out before them. The Doctor stared in shock. "Oh, no."
Sarah was at his side. "Doctor, what is it?"
He continued to stare, as though hypnotised. "How could I have forgotten so easily?"
"You know this place?" The Master was intrigued.
"Yes." And now he looked down at Sarah. "Vestigualamavundar is its Gallifreyan name. Loosely translated, it means 'the blue planet.' Sarah, this is Metabelis III."
The doors opened onto the grey, unforgiving terrain of Telos, home of the Cybermen. Wherever they had materialised, it was swathed in a cold, enveloping mist. What light there was, gave it an eerie translucent glow, that came and went, as the mists swirled and changed direction around them. They had stepped out into this intimidating atmosphere. It seemed to cling to them, chilling them to their marrow. Those that had it, of course.
Sarah stepped closer to the Doctor, feeling the need to his closeness. "There's something here. I can feel it, out there . . . somewhere . . . "
"There's certainly something not quite right here," agreed the Doctor, in that way that only he could convey, giving re-assurance of his presence but at the same time warning you that he just might not be able to sort it out. The Master, or what was a representation of him, had been silent, but he too was aware of something.
"It would appear there is something stalking us, wouldn't you say, Doctor?" he said, having closed his mouth that had previously been open as a doorway.
The Doctor turned to look at the Master whose face was unexpectedly cheerful. "Good luck, Doctor."
The was a wheezing groaning sound as the Master, just like the Doctor's old TARDIS, dematerialised in front of the Doctor and Sarah's faces. A few last words carried on the wind before he finally disappeared. "I'll be back when you have found the missing component that has landed on this planet."
The Doctor and Sarah looked at each other as they realised that they were now stranded on this planet until such time as the Master decided to return and retrieve them.
"What are we going to do now, Doctor?" asked Sarah.
"Look for the missing component and wait 'till that bearded oaf returns to help us find the next one," answered the Doctor.
The two travellers turned around and looked at what little of the landscape they could see through the mist. "How on earth are we going to find a TARDIS component here when we don't even know what or where it is?" Sarah moaned.
The Doctor shrugged his shoulders and taking Sarah's hand led her off into the mists of Telos.
*****
As quietly as they could manage the two friends tentatively made their way across the cold deserts, lost and unsure what they were looking for or where they were going. They were both still aware of something following them from just beyond their perception. Then suddenly and without warning a familiar and horrifying noise echoed across the desert.
"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE ALL CYBER LIFE FORMS!"
The Doctor and Sarah ran for cover, finding shelter behind a rocky outcrop. "Daleks? On Telos?" The Doctor was stunned. "This isn't how it was before, unless . . . "
"Unless the Web of Time has begun to change already," Sarah completed the terrifying thought.
"And creating an alternative reality."
They watched as a group of Daleks glided past them. "Cause and effect, huh?" whispered Sarah. "Okay, Doctor. Where to?"
The Doctor pointed upwards. "Onwards and upwards, Sarah."
Sarah looked up and could clearly see a metal opening halfway up the cliff face. "Up there? You know I get vertigo."
"Well, you can either climb up there, or stay down here with the Daleks."
She sighed. "Oh, come on then."
The Doctor smiled as she marched on ahead of him. The grin was immediately replaced with a frown as he looked up at their target. "The ice tombs of Telos. Not a welcoming prospect." He quickly followed Sarah up the rough, jagged path.
Surprisingly, the journey relatively trouble-free, encountering no other Dalek patrols on their way. Soon they were standing outside the open double doors of the Cybermen's control area. Sarah noted the Doctor's troubled look. "I suppose we'd better go in," she suggested.
"Yes, and be careful," he warned. "We must avoid contact with anyone here."
"You got that right, buddy! Now turn around." They did so, hands raised. Facing them was an American the Doctor recognised as Captain Hopper. "Now, just what are you two jokers doing here?"
***** Hopper had little time to waste on the two new arrivals and marched them through the big doors and the main hall of what the Doctor called the Cybermen's Tomb, locking them in a side room. "Not the most comfortable of places," Sarah remarked.
"Well, the Cybermen would hardly be concerned with comfort," the Doctor reminded her. "Everything here has a function. No room for aesthetics."
The Doctor and Sarah examined the room they now found themselves in. A huge silver box that looked like some form of sarcophagus stood in the centre of the room opposite a bank of controls. The Doctor remembered the room very well, it was where Victoria had been trapped. Slowly the Doctor examined every corner of the room, looking for something out of place that he did not remember.
There was a commotion outside where the others were. Sarah could hear screams and the sound of the exterior doors slamming shut. "What's going on out there?" she asked.
"I should imagine the Daleks are trying to pay the Cybermen a visit," replied the Doctor.
"But all those people, they'll be killed."
"Yes." The reply was curt, but the Doctor could only view the situation in terms of certainties, not probabilities.
Sarah was at her wit's end. "Well, can't we do something?"
"Listen, Sarah. This is only happening because of the ripples in time created by the destruction of the TARDIS. If I can find all the elements of my ship and reassemble it then all this will be undone and they will be safe again."
"And if you can't?"
"Then they and probably we will die here, probably right now."
Sarah gulped and the Doctor returned to searching the room. Outside the sound of commotion increased and blaster fire could be heard. The grating chants of the Daleks also seemed to be getting louder.
"Ah ha!" shouted the Doctor.
"Ah ha what?" asked Sarah.
"Look over there, you see that?"
She looked to where the Doctor was pointing. Sitting on it's own was a Cyberman's head. Sarah began to puzzle what was so important about it. She looked back to the Doctor and he could read the bemusement on her face.
"Sarah, remember what I said about everything here having a function? So why would Cybermen just leave an empty head lying around? It doesn't make sense, and I certainly don't remember it being here the last time I was in this room."
The Doctor moved over and touched the head. Slowly it began to hum and then in a sudden puff of smoke it turned into a sophisticated looking piece of equipment. "There it is, the temporal wave amplifier from the TARDIS," he announced with a smile.
Sarah tried to ignore the sound of fighting from outside as the screams and Dalek chants got ever closer. The Doctor looked at Sarah again and felt a little bit of explanation might distract her from the threat of imminent death.
"Obviously the emergency chameleon field of the TARDIS is protecting all the individual components of the ship by disguising them in a form appropriate to the location where they have landed. When I touched it, it recognised my symbiotic print and reverted to its normal state."
Sarah tried to look interested but she was becoming increasingly aware that this was possibly the final minute of her life. She could hear the Daleks outside chanting and firing at the entrance to the room.
Suddenly the small room was filled by a wheezing groaning sound and the Master/TARDIS materialised in the corner. "Congratulations, Doctor. Now I suggest we move quickly to find the next item before you become a Dalek barbecue."
"Where is the next element?" asked the Doctor.
"On Vestigualamavundar. I was tracking it while I was in the vortex," replied the Master.
"I don't know of it."
"No, neither do I," the Master admitted. "Beyond its name, it is a planet entirely unknown to our race. Now hurry up and get inside."
The Master opened his mouth and the Doctor and Sarah could see the safety of the console room inside him. With a sudden rush they hurled themselves inside. The Master closed his mouth and dematerialised just as the door to the room exploded and the Daleks rushed in to find the room empty.
"THERE WERE PEOPLE HERE!" intoned one. "WHERE ARE THEY? FIND THEM. THEY MUST BE EXTER." A sound like the rushing of a great wind swept through the room, and the rest of the ice tombs. The Daleks were still, their movements frozen within a moment of time, as their shapes became translucent, intangible. In a matter of seconds, the Dalek task force was wiped from the surface of Telos as though they had never existed.
Which they never had. Time was set back on its correct path.
*****
"Well, that's one piece recovered." Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. "How many more are left?"
The Doctor looked up from his examination of the temporal wave amplifier. "There are three more to find, Sarah. The time vector generator is missing, and the spatial anomoliser."
"That's two. What about the third?" The Doctor fell silent. "Come on, Doctor. Don't hold out on me."
It was left to the Master to explain. "The final component, Miss Smith, is the most important."
"Isn't it always?" she remarked. "Okay, so tell me."
"It is what the Doctor would refer to as the heart of the TARDIS. Put simply, it is the power source which guides the TARDIS through the vortex. Without it, the Doctor would be stranded."
"I thought the dematerialisation circuit would do the same thing."
"True," the Master acknowledged, "however, a circuit can be replaced. But a power source . . . ? Well, I'll leave it to your imagination."
The Doctor rounded on the Master. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
"I assure you, I am not." The Master returned to the central console, as the sound of materialisation echoed around them. "Doctor, Miss Smith, it seems we have arrived. Vestigualamavundar awaits you."
The TARDIS doors opened. Outside, the dark, foreboding surface of Vestigualamavundar stretched out before them. The Doctor stared in shock. "Oh, no."
Sarah was at his side. "Doctor, what is it?"
He continued to stare, as though hypnotised. "How could I have forgotten so easily?"
"You know this place?" The Master was intrigued.
"Yes." And now he looked down at Sarah. "Vestigualamavundar is its Gallifreyan name. Loosely translated, it means 'the blue planet.' Sarah, this is Metabelis III."