The Final Season of Doctor Who
Episode Twelve "Eclipse" Part Two of Two
Act Three
"How did you get here?" the Ice wondered looking at the extremely familiar woman. "TARDISes can't travel in the Void." The Black Assassin was about the aim its weapon at the Intruder, but the Ice motioned it to wait. "When both of you finished your business in Xanadu, the Vasari sent you back. Did they send you here first?"
"Interesting question! But if you don't mind, I'll take the Doctor and we'll leave the Void."
"And why should I not simply kill him?"
"Ah. Good question." But just then a small metallic creature crawled near the apparent thirteenth Doctor. "Oh, do you see this? It looks like a Cybermat, but it's actually more of a Cybermole, helps burrow through things." Just then the Assassin destroyed it.
"I presume it belonged to the dead Cybermen here. Now if we could get back to killing the Doctor…"
"Just one moment! When I first arrived you had already shot the Doctor. I was able to find that little creature and program it."
"To do what? It could hardly hurt me even if it directly attacked me."
"Oh, I know, I know. But it was able to place a mine right under where you're standing."
And with that the top of the hill exploded, hurling the Ice backwards hundreds of feet in the air. The Assassin vanished and the Intruder raced over to the prostrate Doctor. With some difficulty she managed to get him to his feet.
"That won't stop the Ice," the Doctor wheezed.
"No, nothing can. But it gives us some time. Now listen carefully. You are going to regenerate, but you must resist this regeneration as long as you can."
"Fenric said I had only had a few hours left…"
"Well I'm not expecting you to resist more than that. Come on. Allons-y, one more time!"
Jack Harkness was looking over extra information about Vashti while Coitissia lay on the bed. "That's not good," he said
"What's not good?"
"These." and Harkness showed her a picture of clearly intimidating guards, bare-armed and partly bare-chested, who looked like simian warthogs. "The planet itself is run by a Kroton/Usurian conglomerate who use these guys as guards. And they have something extra dangerous. The Martian water virus. It may not actually come from Mars, but the Ice Warriors were the first ones to encounter it. Its effect on the Warriors is kind of like cancer, very painful and difficult to treat. But survivable, which I presume is how the Warriors were able to trap the virus in a glacier. The Krotons and the Usurians have their own immunity. But for almost every other sentient species the virus is not only fatal, it turns them into zombies."
"Zombies? You're kidding."
"Definitely not. It not only uses the water in a body to take control of them, but it can generate more water and infect anyone by splashing a single drop on them." Jack rifled through a small closet and pulled out a very large coat. "Here, wear this."
"That is the ugliest Mackintosh I've ever seen. I'd rather die."
"Seriously Tish, you've got to. And wear those extremely unattractive boots."
"What will you be doing?" Coitissia asked as Jack put something in his mouth.
"Cyanide capsules in the back molars. The shock of death and resurrection gives me immunity. But only for twelve minutes and thirty-six seconds." Jack pressed some cockpit buttons. "OK, the ship is now cloaked with an electrical field around it. Remember, a single drop can get you. Be prepared to leave at a moment's notice."
Jack's invisible ship was in a garden of glass trees. Jack went out with his head wrapped. Soon he was in the nearby city, an enclosed space with prominent green marble Corinthian pillars everywhere. Kroton dignitaries walked around in pompous robes, except for the Kroton gardeners who carefully pruned the glass flowers. Riding around in machines not entirely unlike the one the late Davros used were Usurian executives. Actually a race of poisonous sentient fungi, they used the machines to project a humanoid form. About every twenty feet stood one of the Simian Warthog guards. Their eyes were empty, and once a minute, a drop of water flowed from their lips.
"Romana! Where are you?" Jack whispered.
"I'm about a kilometer from you. Have you heard from the Doctor since you left Stuart England?"
"No. We didn't leave on the best of terms."
"Sorry to hear that. And thank you for not telling the Doctor that you knew me before."
"What are we looking for exactly?"
"In a hundred meters you're going to turn right and soon you'll see a giant staircase. It leads to a special library/museum. The Usurians have recently acquired ancient artifacts from the Osiran civilization, the one civilization the Time Lords feared in the old days. There are scarab amethysts among the loot. According to legend, which the Usurians don't know, they're older than time. And that's what we need to get."
"Any special security tricks I should know?"
"Well, you're going to be walking up a three-hundred foot staircase in the Vashti equivalent of broad daylight in a city where you are clearly not one of the three life forms allowed, so that's a fairly big one. But there's more. Listen to me carefully. Spencer wants the amethysts as well."
"Terrific."
"There's a lot I've kept close to my chest, and you need to learn it now, while we still have time. I've been playing a double game. The Master found me on Neptunia and he forced me to obey his will. Only now have I been able to break free of him."
"What does that have to do with Spencer?" Jack whispered.
"Shh! Quite a bloody lot, because the Master is Spencer!"
"What? That's impossible. He's dead!"
"Again, shhh! What do you know about the no-boundary theory of the Big Bang?"
"Nothing, really. There were thousands of years of theories of the universe from Newton to when I joined the Time Agency. I couldn't remember them at all."
"Well, listen very carefully. Stephen Hawking and his colleagues discussed a theory of the Big Bang in which the universe exploded from a singularity. But the singularity didn't have a cause, because causality and time itself originated from the Big Bang. So basically the universe popped out of nothing. Not a perfect analogy, but we're not in a Cambridge seminar. The vital point is that I think the Master found a way of repeating this. It wouldn't matter that he died, because he could come back again. But it wouldn't just be him. Mastering causality like that, the consequences for the entire universe, for all of existence, would be… let's say apocalyptic."
By now the giant staircase was in sight. Watching him approach was another figure in the shadows. That figure wore a combination of a space suit and a very cumbersome diving suit. Inside the otherwise translucent helmet, one could briefly see Greenman's face. "I'm here at the bottom."
"And I'm at the top," replied a female voice. "Once he starts climbing the stairs he'll be trapped."
It is not easy to see things in the windswept wilds of the Void. Certainly, one could only see glimpses of what appeared to be two incarnations of the Doctor desperately making their way. The current Doctor was stumbling erratically while his comrade supported and guided him. His regeneration energies were alarmingly anemic. The contrast of his fingers with his silver ring was particularly striking.
"I feel like I've been walking for hours," he wheezed.
"You have been walking for hours."
"It's so much harder than in the past. I'm tired."
"You need a rest." And the dying Doctor was slowly laid down, behind a small ridge.
"I've never slept during a regeneration. You told me to hold on."
"To do that, you have to rest. Take a nap." The current Doctor nodded off, while his protector stood guard. And in the distance the Ice and the Assassin saw them. The Assassin could not get a good shot at the sleeping Doctor. But his Guardian in her overcoat and navy blue shirt was a perfect target. The Assassin aimed, only for the Ice to prevent a shot. The winds picked up and the opportunity was lost. But the Ice did not particularly care. With a gesture, the Ice threw off Petronella's hair. Then the Ice clawed at the skin on the head that was left, revealing solid ice underneath.
Jack noticed Usurians in their special chairs make their way to a nearby elevator. Then he saw some Krotons approach and noticed that their crystalline forms were not really suited for walking up stairs. One particularly large and pompous Kroton blew a whistle that made a strange noise. Two virus-infected simian-warthog guards quickly appeared. Each one lifted one of the Kroton's legs and together they started walking up the staircase. "I've got an idea on how to get up the stairs," he told Romana.
"Really?"
"I'm just going to dash up it," and so he did. "If neither Krotons and Usurians can't walk up stairs, why do they bother with them?"
"Usurians often associate with humanoids and adapt humanoid architecture. And because Krotons can't see very well, they have little choice but to defer to their Usurian colleagues."
At the bottom of the stairs Greenman was very annoyed. But he quickly reacted. Bounding as fast as he could in his very awkward diving/spacesuit, he too dashed up the stairs. Not making as much progress as he would wish, he called out. "Jack! Jack!"
Jack turned around, and Greenman adjusted his helmet visor so his face could be seen. "Jack, so good to see you! When did we last meet? Wasn't it a millennium ago? But now we're here in the same place trying to carry out a robbery in front of these ruthless despotic species!"
Jack was obviously not pleased to see Greenman approach him. "Will you keep your voice down? You're going to get us noticed!"
And the Kroton dignitary did indeed notice the two. In his monotone voice, a couple of octaves lower than the Daleks, he complained: "What are you doing here? You have no right to be here."
"Oh, do you think I'll be noticed?" Greenman said. He pulled out a weapon and with a single tellurium shot killed the Kroton dignitary, blasting most of his head off. "You mean like that?"
The dead Kroton's bearers placed his corpse down with no emotion. Then they fired a burst of infected water at the two. Greenman's awkward suit kept him completely dry, but Jack barely escaped it.
He quickly dashed to the top of the staircase, noticing there a woman in a Usurian chair. He tried to run past her, only to fall on the floor. Jack realized that he had been tripped. The woman burst out of the collapsing chair. She wasn't a Usurian at all, but a non-human woman with silver skin. Jack pulled out a weapon, but the woman quickly crushed it under her foot.
"Jack, I know who that it is!" Romana yelled from her communicator. "That's the Cessair of Diplos. Not only is she working for Spencer, she's really pissed with me for helping imprison her for 1,341 years."
Jack got to his feet, only for the Cessair to kick him hard in the jaw. Jack rolled with the punch, but had to spit out something. "Oh crap!"
"What's wrong?" Romana asked.
"I just spat out my cyanide capsules, and my only defense against the water virus." Jack and the Cessair traded and avoided several blows as he saw the soaking wet bearers walk up the stairs. But then he was able to kick the Cessair down the staircase where she crashed into the bearers.
"Oh no!" she cried. "I've crashed into the infected bearers." She paused, she stiffened, she shook alarmingly. Then she resumed her normal stance, and dried herself off. "It's a good thing my species is completely immune to the virus."
Jack dashed away into the library. He heard the audio system. "A Kroton dignitary has just been murdered! However the perpetrators have just paid us and, for the next twenty-seven minutes and 12 seconds, have not only bought complete legal immunity, but also the full cooperation of all Vashti security forces."
"Oh, come on!" Jack yelled.
"Yeah, Usurians sell immunity from their laws to the highest bidder," Romana explained. "Jack, you've got to go right!" Jack dashed down a hallway, but suddenly a metal door slid down, sealing the right path, and he had to go left. Further progress was complicated by another metal door coming down, as well as gas filling the room.
"I don't think this gas is lethal," he shouted, coughing. "But I'm going to have to double-back." As he did so he noticed more simian-warthog guards, and was barely able to avoid another blast of water. He dashed down another corridor, and then another one, and then ran through another room, and just managed to roll under another falling metal door before it could seal him in. "Romana, where are you?" he yelled as he opened a door to another room.
This room resembled a proper museum library, with books, metallic books, chairs and tables for guests, even a pair of tasteful rugs. At the other end of the room, near a door, Jack saw Romana.
"Jack…" she said. Jack saw the Cessair holding a gun at her head. "I have so many reasons to kill this traitor to our Master," she said. "But before I do so, tell me where your ship is."
"Hey, that isn't even a real gun, it looks like a water pist… oh right."
"Talk. You have ten seconds."
"Let's act like reasonable people," Jack said, slowly approaching the rug both women were standing on.
"Jack, save yourself, find the amethyst," Romana pleaded.
"Harkness, you have nothing to bargain with," the Cessair noted. "You don't have any weapons left."
"Now why don't we all just chill and…" With a sudden gesture, Jack used his foot to jerk the rug back. He caught Romana before she hit the ground, quickly yanked her away from the flow of the Cessair's water pistol, and dashed out the door.
Looking behind her, Romana noticed something upsetting. "It turns out these water zombies also know how to run." The two were barely able to turn a corridor to escape another water blast, but then they saw more water zombies running from the other end. The two quickly dashed into another room, and Jack slammed the door shut before another blast could hit.
They then discovered a very serious problem. The room was empty, and there were no other exits. "There's nothing to stand on," Romana pointed out, as water started to flow into the room. They had no choice but to retreat into the farthest corner.
"Jack, now would be a really good time for a Vortex Time Manipulator."
Jack checked his pockets. "Damn! The Cessair broke it during our fight."
The tide of water was approaching fast. "Jack, if you have any device that could get us out of here, now would really be the time to use it!"
"Yeah, I was about to ask you the same thing."
They had only a few seconds left. "Jack, one more thing. Although we haven't known each other for long, you're a good friend." She then agilely removed a small wand from her right sleeve and touched Jack with it. He instantly vanished and in Romana's hand landed a crystal tetrahedron.
Just then the door opened, the water receded, and Greenman and the Cessair entered. Romana looked at them calmly.
"Five down, one to go."
Act Four
Coitissia was nervously and unfashionably pacing in her awkward Macintosh when she saw Romana approach the ship.
"Ascension Sunday. Coitissia, help me get Jack into the ship." Coitissia quickly got out, and immediately felt Greenman's weapon at the back of her neck. The Cessair quickly dashed into the ship, then dashed out. "I've found them," she declared, showing her accomplices two other crystal tetrahedrons.
"What do we do with her?" Greenman asked about Coitissia, whose ears squeaked nervously.
Romana stepped towards the quivering woman and eyed her carefully. Then she abruptly knocked her unconscious. "Leave her. She can't do anything to us now." She handed the Cessair her tetrahedron. "You two go to the rendezvous point. I'll be with you shortly."
"And then we will all finally meet Spencer," Greenman said. He was looking at his cell phone. On it was an image of a man: clean shaven, in late middle age and projecting not only dignity, but considerable intelligence and power. One might think he was quintessentially English, except that he was dressed in a Chinese Mandarin costume.
The Doctor abruptly awoke as the winds still howled around him. He found himself in his protector's arms. "Oh, you're awake."
The Doctor got up, and managed to stand. Very unsteadily. "You carried me here?"
"There was a sandstorm, and I'm sure I saw the Ice coming."
Before the Doctor could reply, his body was wracked with agony. "Easy, easy," his confederate cajoled him. "Work through the pain."
"Do we have a plan?"
"We do. You worked on the figures that Dalek gave you, and I've been doing more. The Gate is somewhere near here, 'near' in the Void meaning that you can walk a hundred meters in one direction, then a thousand kilometers back here to the exact same spot. The good news is that the Ice isn't used to the Void, and it, or more accurately (Not) It, is even more confused. The bad news is that the Ice isn't stupid and (Not) It will come to the Gate as the one fixed point in the Void. Which means we have to find a way of sneaking around (Not) It."
The two found a small ridge they could hide behind. As they did so, the Doctor noticed something about fifteen feet away. It was Petronella's shoes. Then, a little beyond it, were her socks. A few steps further was her skirt, then beyond that the shirts she had been wearing that day. And then beyond that were not her undergarments, but repulsively large patches of skin. And as the wind let up and visibility improved, there was the Ice (Not) Itself, a literal ice-humanoid, but with a completely blank face. A step or two behind, the Black Assassin stood watch faithfully.
The Doctor's rescuer winced. "Not to panic, but right now I think we need a few miracles."
Then both of them heard a strange noise above them. "Is that a crow?" the Doctor asked.
"I hear something marching." She tried to see farther. "Several somethings actually."
Notwithstanding the Void's lack of water, there was fog. And from it emerged four armed warriors. They were of different species, but all were clearly part cyborg. Three of them had dead eyes and rotting flesh, while the fourth was missing the top half of its head altogether.
"Is that Tim Shaw?" the Doctor's ally wondered, noting that the second from the left was clearly a Stenza warrior. The four warriors drew their weapons and starting firing at the Ice and the Assassin. The Assassin quickly shot back, and each warrior fell to the ground. But then, very oddly, they got up again and continued advancing.
"Now's our chance!" the Doctor's friend yelled. The two crawled on the ground.
"Why aren't they dying?" the Ice wondered in a deep dark dominating voice which had no sign of Petronella Osgood within, as the warriors approached them. Just then the "crow" the Doctor had noticed earlier appeared. It was actually a sophisticated drone, and it fired at the Ice and Assassin, forcing them off their feet.
The Doctor saw his helper getting ahead of him. "I'll try to draw their fire," he heard. "I just got this device that could come in very…" But just then the Ice and the Assassin were on their feet. "Of course," the Ice realized. "They're not dying, because they're not alive in the first place." And with that realization the Assassin shot the warrior's vital machinery links, instead of their organs. The undead warriors all fell to the ground again, and this time they did not get up. However, one of them had a suicide bomb, and it went off. The two Time Lords protected themselves as best they could as the "air" filled with smoke and debris.
The "air" cleared. And the Ice strode out completely unharmed, and then advanced to the apparent Thirteenth Doctor. "Oh dear," she replied. "Well, now you see me. Now you don't." And she vanished.
"You're not important anyway," the Ice replied, who quickly marched over to the Doctor. The Doctor struggled to his feet.
"You have to listen to me."
"Again, pronouns really aren't applicable."
"Look, before your Assassin shot me, I was in a graveyard of Cybermen. And I found something very important."
"They were dead. I already know that."
"But you don't know why they were dead. They hadn't died from old age. They weren't killed by the Daleks or by anything else trapped in the Void. Less than a fortnight ago, Cybermen trapped me in Spencer's Array…"
"I know that. Petronella was there."
"Then you know that the Array purged the Cyberman from any possible way of crossing my timeline. And that's what killed them when I entered the Void. Don't you see? Spencer's machine affected the Void, a special place beyond any conventional notion of time and space. And if Spencer can do that, they can hurt and kill you as well."
"I'm not alive, Doctor. And since I'm not alive, I can't die."
"Look, Spencer went out of its way to take you off Midnight. They must have done that for a very special purpose. They didn't do so simply to have you ravage the universe. We have to work together and…" But just then the Ice grabbed the Doctor by the throat and effortlessly throttled him.
"Solidarity. Such an anodyne concept." The Ice said. (Not) It was not alive, but (Not) It could still sneer.
But before the Ice could kill the Doctor, the Drone returned and shot at (Not) It. Another drone also appeared and fired. The Ice dropped the Doctor, who desperately gasped for air. He managed to return to normal, but just then regeneration energy caused his body to spasm. Lying on the ground, he lost consciousness.
Now four drones were attacking the Ice and the Assassin. The Assassin's attempts to shoot them down were hampered by their annoying habit of vanishing and reappearing at the most inconvenient moments. The Ice looked around and then at the prostrate Doctor. (Not) It marched over to the Doctor, ignoring the drones' shots, planning to kill the Doctor regardless. Then a power beam appeared, almost literally out of left field, forcing the Ice back more than a dozen feet. Two more power beams appeared, from different angles forcing the Ice further back still.
As this was going on, the Doctor was still unconscious. But in his unconsciousness he saw someone.
"Hello! Oh good, you can hear me. Let's clarify things. There's OutsideMaybeMe, who is right now trying not to be hit by everything attacking the Ice. And I'm InsideMaybeMe who's talking to you right now. And who am I exactly? I could simply be your subconscious taking this form to talk to you and taking this form because it's encouraging. Another theory is that all of your previous forms still have some kind of mental existence and in certain situations, certain really desperate situations like this one, are talking to you. And I'm the one chosen to talk to you. Oh! There's a third theory! OutsideMaybeMe is trying to talk to you telepathically and InsideMaybeMe is actually OutsideMaybeMe. Maybe it's a combination of all three theories.
"Listen, the good news is that you are only a few feet from the Gate. All you have to do is roll over a few feet and you'll be back in the universe. The bad news is that there is really no other good news. You can't move now, because you're unconscious and even if you wake up, you'll still be too weak to actually do it. But there are two other, vital things about the regeneration I have to tell you.
"The first thing involves OutsideMaybeMe. If you leave OutsideMaybeMe and the Ice kills her, you will still die. You're not strong enough to successfully regenerate on your own."
"I wasn't planning to leave her."
"No. You never do. The second thing is that the effort to take on a new form involves too much energy. And if you try it, it will kill you. You have to assume an older form."
Meanwhile the Ice and the Assassin were still undergoing a barrage from the drones and the unknown power beams. But just then the Ice stood straight up. None of the drones could be seen. But at a motion from the Ice, the Assassin shot into the "sky" four times. Four ruined husks of metal fell to the ground. Now the three power beams shot again. But this time they had no effect on the Ice. (Not) It had somehow taken their measure and was not forced back. One of the beams stopped. The Assassin quickly fired at the source of the two remaining beams. The invisible sources exploded in flames, revealing two burning Daleks.
"So it was you," the Ice declared, though to whom was not clear. "You have been following the two of us, watching for hours, trying to take our measure, using your own technology to revive the dead cyborgs and activate the drones against us. And those two soldiers must have been the last Daleks alive in the Void. All this so that the Doctor could escape. You've had invisibility technology before and you've given it to the supposed Thirteenth Doctor. And now you're wondering…" But just then the Assassin shot at an apparently random spot nearby. But it was not obviously not random at all, because the ruined casing of the Dalek General appeared.
Rather oddly, though it was dying, it was not dead. Even more oddly, the Dalek General, exposed to the "air," was laughing. It continued to do so as the Assassin quickly walked over and killed it with a shot at point blank range.
And then the oddest thing of all happened. The Assassin turned to the Ice. Then it shook briefly. Then, at the edge of its helmet, a small trickle of blood appeared. And then the Assassin fell to the ground.
The Ice marched over and crushed the black visor with (Not) It's right foot. This revealed a dead humanoid, with blood slowly trickling from it. The Ice clenched (Not) It's fist, the sole way of showing (Not) It's rage. Then the Ice abruptly turned and leapt to a few feet from the helpless Doctor, who slowly opened his eyes.
"The Dalek General was very clever. I've been using Osgood's concepts to project my powers. My Assassins were, of course, supposed to be invincible. But working with Osgood's mind made them organic. The Nashta Verada could attack them briefly, but not before I realized their purpose and stopped them. But a virus designed to attack humans, though not Daleks nor Time Lords. It entered my Assassin hours ago, and it wouldn't notice. So when my Assassin killed the Dalek General, the General inflicted the coup de grace on him.
"But it's pointless now. Other Doctor, I know you're close. Very close. But invisibility is a waning asset. I had a couple of opportunities to shoot you down. Did I not take them because of poor Petronella, somehow working behind the scenes in my mind? Not at all. Petronella is quite trapped, I assure you, in her jail waiting for Who comes after the end of Eternity. Her influence is not like a conscience at all, more like a language. And words will never hurt me. You see, I thought, or perhaps more accurately Petronella thought, that if I killed you, Doctor, it would create a temporal anomaly, like what happened in Xanadu. But now I know the truth. You are the Doctor. To be precise, you are a Doctor. But you're not the thirteenth Doctor. You're the Watcher, designed to help the Doctor in his most important of all regenerations." A knife of pure blackness appeared in the Ice's right hand. "And if's that so…" and with a sharp gesture the Ice stabbed at apparent nothingness, only to reveal the gasping, shocked Watcher, "…I can stab you to death without any consequences."
The Watcher fell to the ground, as death overwhelmed her, and the Ice turned to the Doctor. "And now for you, Doctor. Do you remember The Trial, Doctor? Only a short parable from it was published in Kafka's lifetime. A petitioner seeking the law arrived at a door, but was blocked by the doorkeeper. Even if the petitioner had brushed past him, there would be further doors to go, with each doorkeeper exponentially more powerful than the one before. So the petitioner wasted the rest of his life trying to cajole the first doorkeeper to let him pass. The most pathetic detail of the story, to my mind, is that the petitioner forgot that this was only the first gate, that if he could pass it, he would win. You have forgotten that even if you entered your universe, you have no way of finding Spencer, no way of travelling to them, and no way of defeating them. This gate was made only for you, and now I am going to shut it."
All this time the Doctor was lying on the ground, desperately trying to ward off the Ice. Then a flash of the light, or of darkness visible, showed the silver ring he had been wearing all during his regeneration. The ring. Fenric mentioned it. When I regenerated I used a machine to control my regeneration energy so I could save Petronella and Organia from the Poffenian tadpoles Lytton had infected us with. I saved Petronella, but Organia wasn't there, because she regenerated into Romana. So the energy formed into that ring. And Petronella wasn't there when I put the ring on. The Ice is indestructible and adapts to the force of weapons. But (Not) It doesn't know the power of this weapon, which means…
And then the Doctor directed the ring's energy at the Ice, forcing (Not) It back twenty meters. As he did so, the Doctor's ring dissolved into nothingness.
The Watcher, just as close to death as the Doctor, managed to crawl to him. "I'm sorry… I should have been closer."
"Close enough now," the Doctor replied and grabbed her hand. The two of them merged, and in his final action, the Doctor rolled over through the gate and entered our universe.
Coda
The regenerated Doctor was barely able to see his surroundings. He was not on a planet, or a satellite, or a spaceship. Somehow he was in the vastness of space, though there were stars all around him. He could barely grasp that there was air, and that he was on something glass-like, a floor transparent to the point of being invisible.
He was still helpless when the Ice, recovering from the final shock, entered our Universe. The Ice looked at the new Doctor, who now resembled the Fifth Doctor. But he was the Fifth Doctor if his human form had aged forty years. And unable to help himself.
The Ice halted. There was a sound in the gateway area, and the Ice remembered the music of the Spheres that Petronella had heard last Christmas. And then twenty feet further on the glass slab, a bright light shone:
All that you touch
And all that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
And all that you love
And all that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
And all that you give
And all that you deal
And all that you buy
Beg, borrow or steal
And all you create
And all you destroy
And all that you do
And all that you say
And all that you eat
And everyone you meet (everyone you meet)
And all that you slight
And everyone you fight
And all that is now
And all that is gone
And all that's to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon
And out of the light appeared Romana. "Hello, Petronella. I told you I'd save you from the Gates of Hell."
The Ice lunged at Romana, and found (Not) Itself grabbing empty air. The real Romana, who was exactly twenty inches to the Ice's left, appeared and playfully tapped (Not) It with her wand. The Ice vanished, and a crystal tetrahedron dropped into Romana's hand. "And you're the sixth piece of the Key of Time."
She placed the tetrahedron in her purse and looked at the barely conscious Doctor. "Now what shall we do with you?" But just then the Doctor's TARDIS appeared. It materialized around the Doctor. Then it dematerialized, taking him with it.
Despite this very unwanted turn of events, Romana could not help but smile with admiration at this last ploy. "How very clever of you."
TV Guide preview Episode #13 Unglucklich das Land, das Helden notig hat
The Doctor, with no TARDIS, no Time Lords, no companions, no weapons, and with less than an hour to live, must find a way to defeat Spencer's plan to destroy the universe, and everything else. But which Doctor is the one to do it? And who can he call on for aid?