"Doctor!" Her eyes brightened at the sight of him, only to widen in horror on recognising the Skypig for what it was. "Doctor, look out, it has a self-destruct mechanism!"
Sonic screwdriver in one hand, the Doctor held up a chunk of unrecognisable gadgetry in the other.
"You mean this thing?"
She stooped with relief, her smile lighting up her face, and ran out to join him. While Anna and Jeff hastened towards the open Tardis door, the Doctor threw the self-destruct device away, pocketed the sonic screwdriver, and placed his hands firmly behind his back to ensure that she halted three feet from him. Quickly he ran his eyes over her from head to toe.
"Undamaged and in high spirits, I see," he remarked. "Been having an exciting time?"
Jasmine nodded quickly.
"We..."
She had enough awareness and self control to hold on to the story for later when she saw the Doctor's eyes sliding from her face and looking over her shoulder. Quietly she turned to watch as he moved past her.
Anna and Jeff were blocking the view, clustered around the Tardis door, busy with their own reunion, but they fell back and stood aside as the elder Doctor, stick clutched tightly in one knobbly hand, shuffled his way through. The two Doctors faced one another, six feet apart at the centre of the clearing. The younger, the taller, leaned forward to bring himself more to the elder's level and glimpse his pale old eyes under the brim of his battered black hat. They eyed each other in fascination, bobbing their heads this way and that to shift angles, like people admiring themselves in distorting mirrors at a fairground. The same smile spread across the features of each of them, widening into the irrepressible laughter of pure, childlike delight.
--------------------
Many introductions and explanations followed, and once they were settled, Jeff, Anna, and the elder Doctor perched on the carcass of the Skypig, Jasmine and the younger Doctor on a fallen branch opposite, there was little laughter left.
"So there's our situation," the elder summarised. "We have an ignorant misguided scientist meddling with time. We have a cosmic distortion leading to an unstable timeline. By my own future self's calculations, we inhabit a reality teetering on the edge of total collapse. And we have a mysterious, unidentified stranger, described simply as a 'dark man', who can apparently invade another's dreams, who has total knowledge of temporal physics, and who is ultimately responsible for this entire affair. Now, I would suggest that our primary task is to trace this mysterious individual, because when we know his identity, I believe we'll have the key to the whole problem."
"It's Krongeist."
The younger Doctor spoke quietly and looked up, as if surprised by the silence his words had brought.
"It's actually quite obvious once you have all the facts."
"Which is good news," the elder Doctor remarked drily, "For those of us who have them."
"Krongeist," repeated Jasmine. "Inchel mentioned him. You..." She looked from one Doctor to the other. "... I mean you, are supposed to have saved the world from him."
"I did. You see when I..." He glanced up at the elder. "... I mean you, first came to this world, there were no Skypigs, no fortified towns, just a little tower on the hillside and a scattering of peaceful nomads. But things weren't as idyllic as they seemed. While Anna was going for a swim in the river and Jeff was setting up his old brass telescope to map the stars, you discovered that the people here were living in terror of a strange, powerful spirit they were calling a god. It demanded prayer and sacrifice, it took their children and killed all those who spoke a word of protest. To cut a long story short, eventually you realised it was a time sprite."
"A time sprite?" Jeff looked unimpressed. "Sounds like some kind of elf that comes down the chimney and fixes all your clocks for you."
"Not exactly," the elder Doctor said, his eyes never leaving his younger self. "A time sprite is a creature whose existence has been posited by Gallifreyan theorists, but which has never been seen. An intelligence of pure temporal energy, which would exist simultaneously at all points in time from the big bang to the end of the universe. It would be immortal, it would have the power to shape reality to its will, and it would be, if for some reason one should come into conflict with such a creature, absolutely invincible."
The younger nodded.
"All excellent reasons for steering well clear of it. Unfortunately this one had conceived the ambition to make something more of its existence, and to that end it was gathering psychic energy from the people's minds, to increase its own power. Left unchecked, it would have not only annihilated the entire population of this planet, but in doing so it would have gained the ability to project itself across deep space to other worlds, and do the same to them."
"Not a happy situation," the elder remarked quietly.
"Quite. As you said, it couldn't be killed. Its mode of existence was so different from our own that from our perspective it could barely be said to be real at all, except when it chose to manifest its powers. In the end you hit on the idea of reconfiguring the Tardis dimensional control array to warp Krongeist's own energy, so when he tried to attack he ended up shifting himself outside of our reality, where he couldn't do any more harm."
"Oh." The elder Doctor considered this with interest. "That was clever of me."
"I thought so too at the time. I'd calculated that he might just have the strength to pierce the barrier he was trapped behind, and project some of his power back into our reality, but I didn't think it would be enough power to achieve any meaningful effect. I hadn't considered that he might give a malcontented scientist the secrets of his own nature, and persuade him to undertake a dangerous attempt to change history."
"Ahh." The elder leaned back and closed his eyes. "Of course, I've been slow. I'd imagined this creature was trying to subvert the timeline and overwrite past events so that its original defeat would never have occurred. But it's not as simple as that."
"That was the simple version?" asked Jasmine with trepidation.
"Indeed. You see, Krongeist is trapped outside reality, so changing that reality by sending the Skypigs back through time has no effect on him. To escape, he must tear a hole in reality itself."
"And that," the younger added, "Is exactly what he will achieve as a result of the massive temporal paradox the Skypigs have caused. A giant rift in the fabric of the universe. This planet will be annihilated and Krongeist will be free, lying in wait for unwary travellers so he can build up his power anew. Unless we can stop him."
He looked around at the assembled company, as if challenging anyone to fail to take the situation seriously.
"So how do we stop him?" spoke up Jeff.
In silence the two Doctors looked at one another. Their expressions didn't inspire confidence.
"I don't know," the younger said at last.
"No," said the elder. "Our problem is not to defeat the Skypigs, or even Krongeist. This entire artificially created timeline is unstable and... heh... really needs to be thrown away and replaced with... um... hmm."
He fell quiet and rocked back on his seat, casting his eyes up at the sky. The other Doctor looked away to the side, fingers at his chin. Then as if some unseen signal had been given they both leaned forward, eyes locked together and started to talk:
"We could..."
"A cataclysmic event..."
"On the..."
"With the..."
"We'd have to..."
"I think..."
"The best thing..."
"Part of the anomaly..."
"A bonus..."
"A little patching here..."
"A little needle and thread there..."
"Not much time..."
"But we have..."
"And anyway..."
"On automatic..."
"Simple program..."
"Then you and I..."
"Diversion..."
"Flip back..."
"And..."
"But..."
"Then..."
"Still..."
"With a little luck..."
"Exactly..."
"Good."
"Good."
They settled back and relaxed, each still meeting the other's gaze. The three companions looked from one to the other in bewilderment.
"What the hell was all that about?" asked Anna in annoyance.
The elder Doctor gave her a reassuring smile.
"It's all right. We have a plan."
"We're going to repair the Skypig," said the younger.
"And we're going to use it," the elder went on, "To destroy the universe."
The younger looked upset.
"I wanted to say that."