4. Follow that Spaceship.
The boy who climbed aboard the spaceship closes the door.
Earlier that day he had got up as normal, ready for a normal day. He had gone down to the river to wash and he had seen a glint of something metallic in the river.
As he moved the metallic thing, he cleared the mud from it and found it was a ring. He'd never seen or imagined anything like this before. Then, as he lifted it from the water, it had glowed and suddenly his body had bucked as if he had had an electric shock. A yellow cloud streamed from the ring to his arm and he found he couldn't let go of the ring, instead, it popped itself neatly on his finger and gripped there. He thought he would lose consciousness, but his body started to move by itself without his wanting it to. Nightmare!
After a fruitless trek up to a ridge above the waterfall, the boy, who had never made an electrical circuit in his life before, made something that appeared to transmit a distress signal.
He had watched amazed as a spaceship had landed. He had never seen such a thing before and never imagined it either. He found himself walking right up to the spaceship, and carrying a box, too. Then he was horrified as he had challenged the crew man at the spaceship door, and appalled as his own boot had connected with the crew man, toppling him off to land below. What was happening today? It was worse than his worst nightmare.
After closing the spaceship door, the boy steps into the room with the crew. They don't know him at all.
"Where's Bob?" Angela asks. She is the captain of the spaceship.
"Delivery!" the boy claims. He produces the box he had been carrying and deftly opens it. "Drinks all round!" He rapidly pours a cup of something for each crew member. Then the boy leans forwards towards them and alarmingly says, "drink it!"
Suddenly, the crew members comply. They would have protocols that would have prevented them from participating, but somehow these are just overridden. Each crew member sits down groggily. The boy lies them down on their take-off seat and straps them in. He doesn't want their body fluids circulating in there and contaminating him.
Then the boy straps himself in and performs pre-flight checks before taking off.
You suspected it. The boy's lack of care for the man who fell, and also, we fear, for the crew, indicate that the boy has been taken over by the Master. He is using one of his powers of persuasion to make the crew comply.
Celeron.
The Master expects his Tardis to be on Celeron, near the intergalactic café. If Zeela had taken it from Petza, it would be just where they had set out from on their previous journey as she doesn't know how to really fly a Tardis. He takes his hi-jacked spaceship there. Of course, it is a thousand years later, and he finds everything is very different. He asks around for a grey box, but no-one has seen it. Unlikely!
A spaceship crew have landed to refuel and relax. The Master doesn't care where they are going to. He waits until the spaceship is refuelled before approaching the crew. "Where are you going to?"
It's none of his business, but he has to start somewhere.
"We're taking supplies to Parcjak," one of them says. They see a boy whose clothes have seen a hard day.
"Oh, I'm going there. Could you give me a lift?" The Master says this to appear to go along with them until he springs his hi-jack.
Giving a lift is a big ask for a small spaceship. The Master must dream up a very good reason why they should take him, and it must be verifiable. Instead, the Master leans forward and says, "you must take me to Parcjak."
The same power that he used before makes the crew compliant.
From behind a group of trees, the Doctor is watching and listening. "Bother, yet another poor innocent crew hijacked!" He winces. He still plans to revive the previous hijacked crew. Then he wishes he had a more advanced Tardis that can disguise itself as a door in a wall so he might listen in to the conversations on the journey or rescue the crew. But that is not to be.
Zantec Two.
The Master diverts the spaceship and heads for his favourite thinking hut on Zantec Two. Although he lands the spaceship fairly hard (a crash), it isn't so hard that he or the crew would expire. The Doctor has tracked them and is able to land his Tardis nearby. After the Master has left the spaceship, the Doctor removes all of the crew back to his Tardis so that he can revive them and return them successfully. There are two sick spaceship crews to cope with in the sick bay, it has needed to be extended to cope with the volume of casualties! The Tardis just easily takes this in its stride.
What else will the Master do? His Tardis is visibly missing when the Doctor returns from the sick bay. Watching the monitor screen footage from that time shows just when the Master departed.
The Doctor tracks the Master's Tardis. "Back to Petza! Why is he going there?" As the Doctor homes in on the Master's Tardis he sees why. Back to just before the Master fell from the top of the cliff. The Doctor can see difficulties with timelines if the Master succeeds.
"Oh, no you don't!" the Doctor yells as he presses buttons and yanks controls on his Tardis Console.
The Master's Tardis judders and fails to catch the Master's earlier body as he falls from the cliff top.
But the Master is already trying again to catch his earlier body further down as he falls.
What can the Doctor do? The Master is blocking his doing the same manoeuvre tactic again.
The Doctor applies a singular fine tractor beam to the Master's ring of regeneration. It parts from his finger and falls to the bottom of the waterfall while the Master manages to catch his earlier falling body using his Tardis.
The Doctor knows better than to wait around for the Master to see him. He departs immediately.
In the Master's Tardis, the Master, still in the boy's body, focusses on his earlier, Gallifreyan, body and enters it. No harm has befallen his earlier body, so he is very pleased.
The boy collapses on the floor of the Master's Tardis.
The Master looks at the boy. What should he do with him?
Ah. The Master is short of a companion. Hmm.
The poor boy!
THE END
The previous episode in this series is called "The Plight of Slint" (ref. 21).
The next episode in this series is called "The Master's Apprentice."
I hope to add further episodes soon.
Sparse References.
Reference 1. Episode Maintenance Mission starts this series.
Reference 9. Episode Gallifrey Exhumed in this series.
Reference 12. Episode Crystelle Growth in this series.
Reference 21. Episode The Plight of Slint in this series.
ANOTHER END
