Hello.

About a year ago, I started writing a Dr. Who novel called The Laughing Elders. It was to be a story in three parts; I completed the first part. Then, I tried to interest BBC Books, the publishers of Dr. Who, in publishing it, but they only accept submission from writers approved by the producers of the TV series. Makes sense. So, I contacted the agent of Russell T. Davies to see if I could interest him in it, but she politely informed me that he was too busy. Okey doke.

I've decided to put the complete first third of the novel on my Web site, Les Pages aux Folles (.ca), in September to celebrate its seventh anniversary. Until then, I've decided to give those interested on this site a taste of the story: I will publish a chapter every second week of July and August.

I started writing the other two parts of the novel, but moved on to other projects when I hit the BBC wall. If there is any interest, I may take them up again.

Enjoy,

Ira Nayman

Dr. Who:

The Laughing Elders

PART ONE: Harlequin's Toy

Chapter Five:

The Place Imagination Goes To Die

Imagine the largest hangar in the galaxy – 100 football fields long and at least 20 high. Spaceships of all descriptions – from the tiniest little two-seater to vast starships that transported thousands of people – were in various stages of being ferried to a dock, letting passengers off, letting passengers board and being ferried to the exits. The heat would have been incredible, had the hangar not had the most sophisticated cooling system in the galaxy. And the sound! The sound would have been deafening without dampers built into the walls that detected a sound and reflected the same frequency sound back at it. People and machines worked around the ships, like ants working around a hill.

Now, imagine the TARDIS landing not quite in the middle – actually somewhat off to one side – but still in the thick of all of this. Martha, holding the baby, a pack on her back containing extra nappies, a plastic bottle full of milk and various toys, and the Doctor emerged from the TARDIS. The baby, holding a rattle, took the scene in wide-eyed.

"If nothing else, this will be a great experience for her – something to tell the grandkids, eh? Eh?" the Doctor practically cooed.

A valet on an upright two-wheeled vehicle sped up to them. He had a young face and an old uniform – impeccably clean, mind, but dark with gold trim on the shoulders. "Park your vehicle?" the valet asked.

"Best not, I think," the Doctor demurred. "She's fussy who she lets drive her."

"Well, we can't leave it here," the valet insisted. "Too much traffic. May I have your permission to move it against the wall?"

"Good thinking," the Doctor agreed.

The valet put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. A forklift immediately appeared. The valet gestured at the TARDIS, then at the nearest wall. Four arms appeared out of the sides of the forklift and gently rocked the TARDIS to get it mounted.

"There's no driver," Martha noted.

"Amazing what you can do with artificial intelligence these days," the Doctor told her. Then, turning to the valet, he asked, "When's the next shuttle to the Ministry of Forbidden Weapons?"

The valet consulted a screen on his scooter. "Twenty minutes," he said.

"Just enough time to get to the waiting platform," the Doctor announced. "If we hurry."

"One moment, sir," the valet said, running his fingers over a screen built into the handlebars of his vehicle. After a few moments, paper was spit out from a slit next to it. The valet tore the paper off and handed it to the Doctor. "Your receipt. Show this to the valet on duty to reclaim your vehicle."

* * *

To Martha's surprise, the shuttle was actually a rickety old bus. As far as she could tell, the planet was made up of huge buildings between which dirt roads ran. Everything else was desert. After half an hour on the bus, she could still make out the hangars where the TARDIS had landed, and could see several buildings at various distances all around them, all of which gave the impression of being at least as big.

"How long will it take us to get to this Ministry?" Martha asked.

"We're making good time," the Doctor said. "Shouldn't be more than…two hours?"

"Two hours!" Martha protested. "Why didn't you just materialize inside the Ministry?"

The Doctor looked chagrined. "Erm, yes, well, they frown on that," he told her. "Forbidden weapons and all – can't just have people materializing willy nilly all over the place…"

Martha looked at the Doctor penetratingly. "Is that all?" she asked.

The Doctor was spared having to answer because the baby started to cry. Martha figured it was hungry, and asked the Doctor to pull the bottle out of her knapsack. One of a pair of identical twins sitting two rows up turned to give her a dirty look, making it clear that, as far as he was concerned, the child's presence was unwelcome. The other twin hit him in the chest and they began to argue. Martha thought it was like looking at somebody fighting with himself in a mirror.

The shuttle was practically empty. Aside from the twins, there was an attractive woman (except for the clams where her hands should have been), a tiger-like creature in a military uniform and a three foot tall couple with bulges on their backs that looked suspiciously like shells. Martha was grateful that there weren't more…beings on the shuttle, partially because the baby – happy guzzling the milk from the bottle – wouldn't be disturbing anybody, but mostly because she would never get used to seeing too many aliens all in one place.

"Not exactly a popular hot spot, this Ministry, is it?" Martha asked the Doctor as the baby fed.

"Well, this is the hub of galactic government," the Doctor replied. "Much more important things for important people to do than visit a museum of weapons – monitor trade, argue about whose government has the right to rule a planet they fought a war over several hundred years ago, that sort of thing. Still, I daresay things will be hopping when we get there."

"When we get there," Martha said under her breath.

* * *

The top of the Ministry of Forbidden Weapons was obscured by clouds. It was flanked on either side by two buildings which, although perhaps 70 or 80 stories tall, only grazed the underside of the clouds. The buildings were close enough that there were walkways between them. As they walked into the building, Martha felt very small.

At the security desk, the Doctor flashed his psychic paper and they were given visitors' badges, even the baby. As they started walking down a corridor towards the elevators, the Doctor explained that the badges contained chips that told security where they were in the building at every moment. Before she could point out the obvious flaw, he added that they were keyed to the DNA of the people who wore them, and if a person tried to put their badge on somebody else, or a moving machine, it would sound an alarm. Since she wasn't planning any mischief, Martha thought that this was clever.

Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at a bank of elevators. The took one up to the 37th floor. Then, they walked down another corridor. Up a flight of stairs. Down another corridor. Down another flight of stairs. And they arrived at another bank of elevators. The elevator lurched sideways, moving them across for four or five minutes before making another lurch and going down 12 stories. The baby was getting restless, so Martha gave her a rattle. Then, they set out down another corridor.

"If I had known it was going to be this long," Martha commented, "I would have packed a lunch."

"That would have cost us another couple of hours," the Doctor told her. "Security does tests on all food brought into the building. Best to stick to the machines."

"And, am I mistaken," Martha continued, "or did we cross over into one of the other buildings when we were in the second elevator?"

The Doctor was impressed: "A lot of people miss that."

"Why not just enter this building?"

The Doctor shrugged pleasantly. "Security," he said.

Before Martha could pursue the subject, they reached a door that opened onto a huge waiting room with at least a hundred beings of various sizes, shapes and species sitting in chairs. The Doctor strode up to a large desk. To Martha, it looked like two women were seated practically on top of each other. They were both middle-aged, a little on the plump side. One had purple hair; the other, orange. The purple haired woman was talking on a small communication device, sort of like a cellphone. The orange haired woman was working at a computer.

"Hallo," the Doctor cheerfully said. "I'd like to see the Minister, please."

The orange haired woman looked up at him. "Do you have an appointment?" she asked in a tone of voice that conveyed that she would rather be skinned alive than having this conversation.

"Actually –" the Doctor began, but was immediately cut off.

"Take a number," the orange haired woman advised, and went back to her typing. Next to the desk was a number dispenser. The Doctor took a number from it: 347. Looking at the LED display above the secretary's desk, he saw the message: "Now serving: 12."

"I don't think you understand," the Doctor, still cheerful, stated. "I once did a little business for the Minister."

The orange haired woman looked at him. "I don't recognize you," she said, her voice dripping with contempt.

"Time changes us," the Doctor explained simply.

The orange haired woman sniffed at him, thought for a moment, then hit the other woman in the shoulder lightly with the back of her hand. "Guess who we got here?" the orange haired woman asked.

"I gotta go," the purple haired woman said, and put down the communications device. She sniffed the air and, with even more contempt in her voice, if such a thing is possible, she said, "Could that be…the Doctor?"

"Quite right," the Doctor answered.

"Take a number," the purple haired woman curtly told him, then turned her attention to her own computer.

The baby chose that moment to become bored with its rattle, which it promptly threw onto the ground. Martha bent down to pick it up. As she did, she couldn't help but notice that there was only one set of legs under the desk. Looking further, she saw that there was only one pair of hips seated in a single chair. That's why the two women looked to be so close: they were actually one woman with two heads and four arms.

Martha quickly got up. She would have told the Doctor about her disturbing discovery, but he was shouting, "Oh, come on! Anybody in my situation would have done exactly the same thing!"

"Do you know how much it cost to rebuild those three floors?" the orange haired…head shouted back at him.

"Do you know how much it would have cost to have to rebuild the whole Ministry?" the Doctor hotly asked.

Sensing that the baby was about to burst into tears over the tension in the room, Martha grabbed the Doctor by the elbow and pulled him over to chairs away from the secretary's desk. "That's the problem with people these days!" the Doctor fumed. "Can't see the big picture!"

"Doctor!" Martha whispered urgently to him. "This isn't helping!"

The baby started crying. Martha took out a piece of paper similar to the Doctor's psychic ID. She had no idea what the baby saw in it, but it almost immediately stopped crying and started gurgling and cooing contentedly.

"Aww, this is no good!" the Doctor groused as he watched the number being served change from 14 to 15. "We'll be here days waiting our turn!" Before Martha could respond, the Doctor got a mischievous look in his eye. He stood up.

"Doctor…?" Martha said in that tone of voice reserved for when she assumed he was about to do something that better sense should have told him was a bad idea.

"Won't be a tick," the Doctor assured her, and rushed out the door.

Before Martha could be troubled, the Doctor cheerfully bounced back in the door. Oh, good, she thought, he couldn't possibly have gotten into trouble in such a short time. "I'm glad you decided not to –" Martha started.

"Problem solved," the Doctor interrupted. He showed her a piece of paper that had the number 16 on it. "We're next."

Martha stared at it, her mouth wide open. "How –?" she started.

"You know," the Doctor told her, "I pulled the rudest face on myself on the shuttle into the Ministry as I was on the shuttle leaving the Ministry. I can be so immature at times! I have to say, though, it was a lot of fun. I should lighten up more!"

"You went back to the TARDIS," Martha marveled, "and traveled back in time to get a lower numbered ticket?" The Doctor nodded, pleased with himself. "That's cheating!"

"Well, everybody else goes one turn later," the Doctor rationalized, "but we don't have to wait here for days. All in all, not a bad solution."

Martha laughed. "It's bloody brilliant!" Before they could say anything further, their number came up on the board. The Doctor could barely contain his glee as he handed the number to the secretary. The orange haired woman stared at it in disbelief, but, finding it in order, sourly waved them into the next room.

The room was at least four stories tall and almost as wide. The walls were lined with shelves of books. At the far end was a desk, solid wood, old-fashioned. It took Martha and the Doctor over two minutes to walk across the room to the desk.

A short, non-descript man with a pencil-thin moustache was talking to a screen that they couldn't see. "Yes. Yes. I see. Thank you," he said. Then, with a wave of his hand over the screen, he turned his attention to them. "Doctor," he beamed, "good to see you again. The new look suits you."

"It's my pleasure, Minister," the Doctor matched him for charm.

"I don't get it," Martha, confused, said. "Your secretary would have been quite happy if we died of old age in the waiting room."

"Well, she's paid to make sure the niceties are observed," the Minister expansively explained to her. "I, on the other hand, am paid to make sure that the weapons in this museum are secure. And, you may be…?"

"Martha. Martha Jones."

"Delighted, Martha Jones." Martha was sure he would have taken her hand and kissed it if she had been within hand-taking-and-kissing range. "And, the child?" the Minister continued.

"Erm," Martha replied.

"Rose," the Doctor blurted. Martha shot him a "What did you have to go and use her name for?" look. The Doctor responded with a "Sorry about that, but it was the first thing that came into my head" look. It's amazing how much you can say with just a look.

The Minister tactfully ignored this exchange, and asked, "So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"We're here to help with the investigation," the Doctor told him. "Anything I can do to help –"

The Minister looked puzzled. "What investigation would that be?"

"The investigation into the theft of the Quantum Gun."

"Aah." The Minister pressed some buttons on the keypad on the desk in front of him. "Your offer of assistance would be most appreciated," the Minister stated, "except the Quantum Gun hasn't been stolen."

The man turned the screen to face them. On it were half a dozen small images of glass cases with strange looking objects. One of the objects was a white crescent with buttons on it. "Could that be a fake?" Martha asked the Doctor, who was frowning.

"I wouldn't think so," the Minister responded. "If any of the cases are in any way tampered with, alarms would go off. Not only that, but the cases are built with sensors that measure the mass of the objects within them. If the case had somehow been broken into – bypassing the alarms – and a fake was put in the place of the original, we would know. I assure you, the Quantum Gun could not have been stolen."

NEXT: Chapter Six: The Quantum Doctor

Look for the conclusion of Harlequin's Toy on the Les Pages aux Folles Web site.