CHAPTER 60

TESTING A THEORY

"You're going to need l'X'el again." This was Jason, who had listened in silence as the Doctor carefully laid out his plan to straighten out his companions' tangled timelines.

"It might be a good idea to tell Grant what we're up to as well," the Time Lord replied, adding quietly to himself, "Although I've no idea how we're going to recreate the chronon readings."

"I'll get Grant. You'll probably have better luck finding l'X'el out there," Jason said as he turned toward the inner door. He glanced at the scanner and stopped. "Now that's what I call timing." The Doctor followed his gaze, seeing the young man in question peeking through the doors of the manipulator room, the others in tow. "Indeed," he agreed.

"I'll see if I can find Grant while you deal with your small but loyal following."

"I think their loyalties lay elsewhere, Mr. Ambassador," the Doctor said knowingly, causing the Alterran to stop dead and turn, a puzzled look on his face.

"I thought you were the folk hero around here," Jason remarked, struggling to keep the accusing edge from his voice.

"My dear Jason, they're worried about you. That's probably why they came back," the Doctor informed knowingly. "They watched you save K'ell'k's life, their families, their planet, and then me, very nearly dying in the process. I may be a folk hero, but you are their champion." He received a stunned look in reply. "Is that acknowledgment enough for you?" he asked before turning and vanishing through the exterior doors.

l'X'el had entered first and was surprised and delighted to see the TARDIS still standing in the far corner of the room. He was surprised again when the Doctor suddenly appeared at the door and called to him. "l'X'el, just in time. I need your expertise on the manipulator one last time. Now that we have the Gres-Fa-Raayn sorted out, I need to get my companions sorted out."

l'X'el exchanged glances with his brother and Pr'Ce'el before nodding. "Whatever you say, Doctor. What do you want me to do?"

The Time Lord waved a hand at the manipulator. "You can get this contraption up and run ning again for a start."

"Doctor," Pr'Ce'el injected hesitantly, "how is Jason?"

"He tells me he's better. And for once, I agree with him."

Several minutes later the fully recovered Jason came out of the TARDIS dragging the sleeping mat behind him. "Hey gang," he said happily, waving a hand at the astonished trio.

"Did you find Grant?" the Doctor inquired practically.

"He's in the console room awaiting instructions." Jason dumped the mat near the door, greeting his loyal followers at the same time. He pulled a box seemingly from nowhere and tossed it to the Doctor. "I brought that, too. I think you'll find the last scan of interest."

The Doctor caught the box that turned out to be the scanner he had used to detect the chronon particles. His eyes widened when he saw the reading. "What did you scan that had a reading this high?" he asked in amazement.

"Me."

The Doctor looked up sharply. "You?"

The Alterran nodded. "We're both saturated with chronons again. Looks like something good came out of our lengthy stay in the time fissure after all."

A quick scan confirmed what Jason already knew to be a fact and the Doctor gave a satisfied grunt. "That will make things considerably easier…I hope."

"Just what are you hoping to accomplish with this thing anyway?" Jason asked, indicating the manipulator.

"Just testing a theory."

"Improvising, you mean."

"You might say that."

"I did say that."

The Doctor looked up sharply and turned, seeing his friend's eyes sparkling above an amused smile. Jason had started to banter with him again, a good indication that he had truly forgiven him and possibly that he was willing to trust him.

The Time Lord grinned back before explaining that he hoped the manipulator would be able to show where the timelines had been altered. After that, he would try to reverse the affects, returning Grant to his proper place in time and retrieving Mel from the limbo she had very likely been consigned to. His feeling was that when the TARDIS bumped into the temporal rift emanating from the manipulator, it had overlapped with itself somewhere along his own timeline. Everyone in the TARDIS who had been exposed to the chronons were shifted to the time machine's alternate self, which was why Grant and the others did not think anything out of the ordinary had occurred.

"So why didn't we run into your past self?" Jason asked logically.

The Doctor opened his mouth only to close it again, a puzzled look coming to his face. "I don't know. Perhaps I cancelled out the affect on myself. None of the companions who popped up were from a past self. That's why I think it's my current timeline that's been affected and not theirs."

The Alterran nodded sagely. "You know, I can't help wondering if any time on the other end has actually passed. From what you told me, Grant didn't notice any difference in his quick switch. Is it possible the exchanges have, well…frozen the past?"

The Doctor gave him a stunned look, having never considered this possibility. "That's a very nasty thought if we can't get this to work," he remarked. He was almost relieved when l'X'el announced, "Doctor, I think I've found it!"

The Time Lord looked up and pointed at what looked like a band of ribbon folded over and over on itself. "Yes. There!" There were streaks of light connecting some of the folds that he explained were where the exchanges had taken place.

"Which is the first exchange?" Jason asked, studying the image with the same intensity as the Doctor. "I can't make it out."

"Neither can I, now that you mention it." The Doctor moved alongside l'X'el, his fingers flying over the keys. He looked from computer to globe and back as he made his entries. A minute later the image moved in closer, isolating the folds. "Let's have the system analyze the readings. Then we'll be able to tell the order the connections were made."

"But they were just random encounters in space/time," Jason objected.

The Doctor laughed. "Like all our most recent random encounters courtesy of l'X'el," he pointed out. The lines between the folds started to flash. "Aha! There you are." He pointed triumphantly at the image. "The brightest lines are the newest. Give me another minute and I should be able to come up with the exact position we're looking for."

Jason nodded, throwing a glance at the TARDIS. "And you're sure can you duplicate it?"

The Doctor held up a hand and crossed his fingers. "I can but try."

The Doctor entered the space/time coordinates into the TARDIS's navigation system, checking and rechecking them to make certain nothing went wrong. Jason and Grant had taken up a position by the inner door for no other reason than to simply stay out of the way.

Finally Grant could stand it no longer and asked the question that had been worrying him since he learned of the temporal bump. "If this works, what happens to me?"

Jason gave him a puzzled look. "What do you mean? Nothing happens to you."

"Doesn't it?" the young man retorted forcefully. "You've both been so worried about this… Mel and what happened to her. What about me? Do I get consigned to limbo?"

The Doctor exchanged a baffled look with Jason, completely thrown by this unexpected outburst. "I thought we'd gone over this the last time around."

"I was too afraid to say anything then," Grant confessed finally.

"You didn't come to any harm before, did you?"

"Before what?"

"When you swapped places with—" The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "You weren't even aware of it, were you? You've swapped places with someone else once already. When we went to the tunnels on Heladin Alpha."

Too stunned to answer, Grant turned a questioning look in Jason's direction.

The Alterran shrugged. "Don't look at me. I wasn't there. I only know what the Doctor told me. But if his theory is right, you'll just go back to where you were before all this happened." Glancing across the room, he added, "And with the Doctor you had before all this happened, too. He won't be aware of any of this, either. If he had been, he'd've remembered by now."

"That's quite true," the Doctor said in a startled tone. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Of course you hadn't," Jason snorted.

"I can't think of everything! Why else do you think I have companions?"

Jason gave him a devilish look. "To listen to your unintelligible theories and stand in awe your brilliance."

The Doctor shot him a sideways glance before breaking into a broad smile. "Well, there's that too," he agreed self-consciously. "I must keep my ego inflated."

"Don't I know it."

Grant was having enough trouble getting his head around the previous explanation and groaned when the two started their verbal fencing. "I think I liked it better when you two were fighting. At least I could keep up with that."

"Sorry," Jason grinned. "What's bothering you now?"

"Well, if I say anything about what happened when I get back, the Doctor will think I'm crazy."

"Ah, the joys of time travel," the Alterran sighed knowingly.

"I don't know if I can handle that. What if I make a mistake and mention you? How do I explain knowing who you are?"

The Doctor looked up expectantly. "Now that is a very intelligent question," he observed proudly. "Do you have an intelligent answer, Jason?"

The Alterran gave him a dark look, choosing not to rise to the bait. "Doctor, your theory is that this is the TARDIS Grant was in and that we're the ones who shifted into it. Right?"

"Yes…"

A smile spread across Jason's face. "Then I have an idea." Turning to Grant, he said, "But you're going to have to help me. I can't touch anything or I'll shield it with chronons." He nodded to the inner door and Grant held it open allowing Jason to pass. The bewildered young man looked at the Doctor, who shrugged and waved him to follow.

As his friends went to do whatever it was they were going to do, the Doctor went back into the manipulator room to give his final instructions to l'X'el.

After checking and rechecking everything, the Doctor closed the exterior doors and stood with his hand hovering over the dematerialization switch. He gave his companions a reassuring smile. "Well, here goes," he said with far more confidence than he felt. The time rotor lit up and started to rise and fall sluggishly. "Come on, old girl," the Time Lord encouraged, giving the console a gentle pat. "You can do it. Just one last time…for me."

Grant gave Jason a nervous sideways glance. He was standing at the interior door trying to decide if he should return to his original position. He opened his mouth to say something just as the console room started to distort, throwing him back, through the inner door and into the corridor beyond.

Jason had taken up a position where he had been when the distortion struck the first time. This time he was thrown back against the exterior doors. The room continued its dizzying contortions as before, finally returning to normal. "I hope that's the last time I have to go through that," he said as he hesitantly released his grip on the wall and shook his head to clear it. He saw the Doctor grinning like the Cheshire cat and followed his gaze, seeing Mel's exercise equipment back where it belonged. "That's one," the Doctor observed brightly.

Jason turned sharply back to the corner beside him, seeing his cartload of belongings exactly where it had been before.

"That's two," the Time Lord went on.

A split second later a breathless Mel burst through the inner door, looking from one to the other. With a grin of mutual delight, the Doctor and Jason said in unison, "And that's three."