The silence dragged on uncomfortably for a few seconds. Tris looked at Peri. She was sitting slumped against the wall of the odd little chamber they were currently locked in. It was a sort of metallic grey with odd round impressions over the walls. There was no windows, no furniture and, slightly more worryingly, no visible door. Contrasting it was the brightly coloured American who seemed to have mistaken him for this 'doctor' she' mentioned earlier. And so had the…the Master? Rather an egotistical title there! Peri was scowling at the floor, obviously highly irritated by the entire situation. Tristan sighed inwardly and shrugged.

"Well, I guess I should probably introduce myself properly. I'm Tristan Farnon; I work as a vet in Darrowby." Peri glanced up at him.

"Tristan? That's an odd name."

"Coming from you?" He laughed, "My father was a lover of Wagner, Siegfried and I suffered the consequences."

"Oh, right." Peri was smiling again now, Tris was pleased to see. He liked her smile. "Well, I'm Peri Brown, I'm a…a traveller I guess you could say. Me and the Doctor, we travel everywhere, exploring."

"And I look like this doctor?"

"The Doctor, that's actually his name. Yeah, uncannily like him." Peri cocked her head to one side thoughtfully. "Actually…"

"And who was that…Master guy then?"

"He's the Doctors 'best enemy'." You could hear the quotation marks as she spoke. "Far as I can work out they went to school together but now the Master spends his time trying to conquer planets and kill the Doctor while the Doctor runs after him trying to save lives."

"Planets?"

"Yeah. Look, this might be a bit hard to believe…"

"Planets?" Tris felt like giggling hysterically. "Am I still asleep? This can't be real. It's too ridiculous."

"Sorry Pretty Boy, but I think you need to know everything if we're going to have a chance of getting out of here."

"Pretty Boy?" Tris considered being offended but decided to take it as a compliment. He smiled at his odd companion. "Fine, tell me. Honestly, I doubt anything could throw me right now."

"How are you on aliens?"

"…" His expression must have said it all. Peri stifled a grin and continued.

"The Doctor's an alien, called a Time Lord. So's the Master. We're right now inside the Master's TARDIS, it's his space ship, it can travel anywhere in space and time."

"You're joking. You must be joking. You're not joking are you?"

"'Fraid not."

"Oh. Right. Aliens. Space ships. Right." Tris breathed in deeply and considered the problem logically. This was unlikely to be an elaborate prank, Siegfried wouldn't go to this much trouble and James didn't have the imagination. The Master had knocked them out with some sort of weapon he'd never seen the likes of before. It could have been alien. This room too, it was like nothing on Earth! Therefore it could be alien. Therefore the whole story could be true. And seeing as Peri was the only person who both seemed to know what was going on and didn't want to kill him, he'd better just trust to her judgment.

"You okay Tristan?"

"Call me Tris, please. Yes, I think I've got a grip now. Right. So we're in the Master's alien space ship. Fine. Now, what does he want with us and how do we get out

Peri smiled at him, this was where it was going to get slightly complicated, she only hoped Tris would see things the way she did. "Well, you see…"

Meanwhile the Doctor, unaware of his companion's whereabouts, was whistling cheerfully to himself as he strolled back to the TARDIS, reflecting on the day's events. He and Peri had been on their way to get some well needed rest in, what he considered one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in the galaxy, the Eye of Orion, when a loud beeping had attracted their attention. It seemed to be nothing though he had thought it would be better to make doubly sure and plotted a course for the small town of Darrowby, in England, mid 1930's. He hadn't told Peri any of this of course, no reason to worry her or give her another reason to complain about not ever being able to have a holiday after all.

Once they had landed, he had told her to stay inside the TARDIS while he sorted everything out, it wouldn't do to have her be captured or injured after all, and then that was that, he had ran across the village, ignoring the protests of the frankly charming people who lived there and to an empty field behind a barn. Immediately he had known he had come to the right place, even if it hadn't been for the eerie green glow that the clearly alien seed pods had been giving out, the pair of thuggish Ogrons would've given it away. He had groaned and hidden himself from their sight, he had dealt with Ogrons before, quite some time ago actually, when he had still been exiled to Earth, but back then he had had the back up of UNIT and the Brigadier, and the invaluable help of Josephine Grant. As it was he would have to come up with a plan to defeat them on his own because he would not risk Peri's life against them. So recalling what he knew about Ogrons he had formulated a simple yet very efficient plan, which had ended up with the two guards being knocked cold. He had then dragged them to the barn and laid them against the wall, slamming the door shut and locking it.

All his attention had then been on the deactivation of the seeds, he hadn't a clue what they were or which planet they came from, or even what they did for that matter, but he had known that they must be stopped, for the sake of all the people in Darrowby. He had only hoped it wasn't too late.

And so for the next hour and a half, the Doctor had stared at the plants, studying them in every direction. Then it had hit him, he had taken out a very complicated looking piece of scientific equipment from his pocket, that was strangely shaped like a cricket ball, and had waved it about a bit, occasionally pressing hidden buttons on its surface. Slowly, the glow had faded and the plants wilted, pathetically falling to the ground. Then it was all a matter of getting back to the TARDIS.

'And there we have it' he thought, 'a simple matter of having the right equipment at the right time, and I've barely been gone two hours.'

Ahead of him he could see the familiar dark blue of the TARDIS, but even from far away he could tell something was wrong. The grin slid off his face, one of the doors was open slightly, and he could just see inside the console room. His eyes widened in a barely concealed panic and he ran as fast as he could towards the TARDIS.

The Doctor wrenched the door open, his head darting left and right, trying desperately to find his companion. He forced himself to breathe, making full use of his respiratory bypass system, as he counted to ten in his head. He had to think about this logically, after all Peri may simply be having a bath, or relaxing in her bedroom and soon she would come out looking refreshed and happy and beau- No, he would not go down that road, not with Peri, she saw him as a father figure, a replacement for that poor excuse of a step father. He shook his head, and waited, ten, twenty, thirty minutes after forty however, his panic returned. He ran down the corridor to her room, that too was empty, as was the bathroom and any of her other haunts.

Desperately he called out "Peri?" and predictably he received no answer.

He sighed, she must've gone out to look for him, why could his companions never understand that when he told them to stay in the TARDIS, he meant for them to do so. So, grabbing her a coat from the coat rack in one hand, and placing his hat on his head with the other, the Doctor stepped out to look for her, reassured in the knowledge that in this sleepy little pre-wartime town nothing too bad could happen to her.

Back in the Master's TARDIS Peri had just finished explaining her plan to the bewildered Tristan.

"So, if I understand rightly," he began. "You want me to pretend to be this Doctor, in order to trick the Master into letting us go and therefore getting the two of us back home."

Peri nodded for what felt like the thousandth time, it really wasn't easy to explain something like that to a guy from the 1930's, but she had finally got the general idea through to him. "That's right Tris, you see he already thinks that you're the Doctor, but in some kind of disguise, so it'll be easy to convince him to let us go. Just let me do the talking and it'll be a piece of cake. All you have to do is stand there and look really annoyed at him, you know like this is the thousandth time this has happened to you or whatever."

Tristan looked thoughtful for a moment, before smiling. "Alright then Peri, I'll do it."

She grinned triumphantly, oh he was brilliant, she could honestly kiss him right now, but she restrained herself, after all it wouldn't do to assault him, he might not like being kissed by strange Americans from the future.

Her musing was cut short by the sound of footsteps coming towards them, and she and Tris exchanged looks. 'Well, here it goes,' she thought grimly 'time to see if I really am as good as the Doctor says.'

The door slid open to reveal the black clad figure of the Master who was smirking down at them, looking incredibly smug. Clearly he thought he had won.