-Chapter Five-
Say one thing for Alfalfa-Matraxis, Canton thought to himself as he stepped off of the ship and onto the red beaches of the capital city – Canton hadn't caught the name though he was getting good at cherry-picking the general sounds of proper nouns out of the gibberish that the Captain and the one-less crew spoke – it was not a humid planet. Water seemed almost snub the atmosphere. It made the heat more bearable, Canton thought, idly, but also most likely had other, disastrous environmental effects. Unless the blue fauna that populated this planet had an entirely different relationship with water than their green, Earth counterparts; which, Canton admitted, was more than likely.
The crew of the boat that had sailed Canton through the mauve sea were more than happy to see him off. Something about that religious encounter with the floating, angelic shrine had left a shroud upon the crew's demeanor and Canton had never again felt he was just another hand on deck. He was a burden at best, at worst the subject of an unspeakable – well, maybe, Canton didn't have a grasp on the language – blame that permeated his every interaction.
They were so glad to be rid of Canton that they didn't even stick around to aquatint him with the bustling harbor where they made port. Canton had barely stepped onto the rough, wooden planks which made up the pier and hefted his trunk, lighter with his newly built muscles, over his shoulder before the boat swung out and proceeded to disappear into the setting sun. West, Canton thought for a moment before realizing that the Sun could be setting in any direction it liked, this being a new planet. It might not even be called the sun.
"Aliens," Canton muttered, bewildered, under his breath, and wondered what exactly what he was supposed to be doing in this port. Besides killing a king, that was.
"You're here," boomed a magnanimously proud voice which had haunted all of Canton's dreams which hadn't featured the Doctor. Or Charles. Or the second head of that one crewman. Canton groaned and turned to see the wizened old git who had given him a trunk, clothes, and a ceremonial dagger and pitched him across the sea weeks earlier. Canton's annoyance drowned out his relief to hear what sounded like English for the first time in what seemed like a life time. Also the question of how the alien had gotten here before Canton. Why wouldn't he send Canton the quickest way possible?
"You," Canton said, mostly to himself as he knew the alien couldn't understand him, though Canton could understand anything he said. Talking in Big, the alien had said.
"My friend," the alien's right-head began, holding out his arms as if he was a prophet, "my acolyte. Welcome to – Canton couldn't understand the next word. It seemed that proper names didn't always translate into "Big" – city of a thousand ships. Jewel of the Purple Sea. Seat of the dreaded Half-King. Or, as I like to call it, Home."
Canton nodded and wondered why facial expressions always seemed to convey the same meaning in this disparate culture. It seemed like it should be more complicated than that. He shook it off in light of present circumstances. Canton often looked gift horses in their mouth, but he hadn't turned one down on account of teeth yet.
"I must be brief," the alien said. Canton thought something snarky it would have done no good to say and rolled his eyes, "the eyes of the Half-King are always upon his most trusted friend, myself. Why, this very shirking of duties will take five years to assuage. But fear not, my friend. We play the long game. Ours is reverence served cold with a hint of -"
There was more but Canton stopped listening. Even relief at hearing English only went so far. Had it always been such a guttural language? Canton considered learning French briefly while the old alien got the point.
"And of course, there is also my friend the Doctor," the old alien said as Canton balked and a thin, tall, black man with short hair and a long green coat stepped out from behind Gittly, the name Canton had given the old alien while he hadn't been paying attention.
"Um, Hi," Canton said to this one-headed newcomer who clearly was not the Doctor.
"Hello, Canton," the not-Doctor replied calmly and smiled. He nodded his head a bit as he turned to Gittly. "Excuse me," he said as he steered the alien away from Canton and himself. "Canton is an old friend of mine and we have so much to catch up on."
"Oh well, we have very important -" Gittly began as he was being shown off gently.
"I can assure you that I am versed on all the relevant details of the operation. I can easily pass them along to your operative," he said and gave Gittly a little push into the crowd. "Thank you for being so understanding," he said softly. This other Doctor didn't seem one to get excited. Perhaps he was the one that UNIT had been so interested in.
"Sorry about that," the not-Doctor said, keeping serious for a moment. Then he broke into a toothy, blindingly white smile. He laughed and hugged Canton fiercely. He smelled of sage, Canton realized, shocked by this sudden affection. "I love seeing old faces," he said as he broke the hug. "Especially like this. It adds a little more, well, completeness to things. It's like doing a close re-read of a particularly complex tome. You give yourself more time to absorb the details, make sense of plot points which may have previously mystified," he looked around the busy port, breathed in deep, sighed, and made eye contact with Canton. Then he waited, almost excitedly, for Canton to say something.
"Who?" Canton tried at last, trying not to notice just how high and pronounced this new Doctor's cheekbones were.
"Oh," the new-Doctor looked down at his long, slender fingers, "this. I go through them so fast these days I forgot."
"Fingers?" Canton tried, trying to stand up straight. Wondering if it hair, which he hadn't minded in weeks, had noticeably receded on his sea voyage. Stop that, you stop it, I am stopping it, bounced around his brain.
"Bodies," the man said, and then looked embarrassed, "ah, this is a new model for you. I must be all chins and bowties at the moment. Sorry. You would think the timelines would be easier to get straight but it's about to get pretty timey-wimey from here on out. You should take some time to enjoy causality before you go to that gaudy temple."
"Um," Canton said. And thought. What was causality. What was "timey-wimey" for that matter. What temple. And who was this...
"Doctor?" Canton hazarded.
"Yes?" the maybe-almost-Doctor perked up and swung his arms, bouncing on his toes.
"Why are you black?" Canton asked instead of one of the fifty million questions bouncing around his prefrontal lobe.
"Because I'm from the future, obviously," the Doctor replied as tilted his head and studied Canton as if trying to remember something. Then it hit him and a sly smile formed on his lips. "Canton you devil. I'm a married man, remember. Plenty of time for all that in the past," the Doctor said and shook his finger at Canton as if fending off inquiries that Canton hadn't been making. Well, maybe thinking them a little. Those cheekbones. And those eyes. Canton had never seen yellow irises before. He shook his head.
"I mean why are you -" Canton began and then remembered the rooftop in 1970. "You regenerated," he said.
"Twice," the Doctor said proudly, "you're looking at lucky number thirteen. I'm having fun breaking it in."
"You're the Doctor," Canton made the mistake of mouthing his disbelief.
"Of course I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said as his yellow eyes widened in shock, "go on, ask me anything. Well, you know, nothing that would – you know – violate causality. Or embarrassing," he added.
"What did you tell me before the TARDIS crashed," Canton asked, immediately. The Doctor chuckled.
"Nice try," he said, "but I happen to know that you don't know yet."
"Well, if you can't answer," Canton tried to look disinterested as he leaned against the pier railing and pretended to enjoy the sea air, slightly violate as mist sublimed off the sea. From behind him a warm breeze blew. The Doctor rolled his magnificent yellow eyes into the back of his refined skull. Much less chin on this one, Canton noticed, appreciatively. The Doctor himself reclined back on the opposite railing, letting his deep green coat part. A canary yellow waistcoat came into view over a burnt orange dress shirt. Hanging from the pocket was a black iron pocket watch which probably should have been stuffed into a pocket but instead swung like a pendulum down near the Doctor's belt. Despite his thick, formal attire, the Doctor seemed immune to the heat. Canton, wiped his brow, still trying to look casual.
Then, suddenly, the Doctor thrust back his head and laughed. His white teeth making another appearance.
"Fine," the Doctor relented, as if this was all one big game. Perhaps it was to him, Canton considered, "but you have to look surprised later and ask me quite urgently."
"I will," Canton said and cursed himself for sounding too eager.
"I know," the Doctor sighed, "I said: 'Canton, this is very important. You need to just go with the flow. We're experiencing a four-dimensional crash and I can't lock our timelines like I can Melody's. If you see a boat, jump on it. If you find a door, go through it. These things have a way of working out, I find. But if you stay in one place, you'll become part of the sequence of events and I won't be able to find you. Every step you take will bring you one step closer to me. Don't wallow, press onward.'" The disturbing part was that he delivered this quote in the older Doctor's voice. Perfectly. Mannerisms and all. He even did got the frantic expressions right. It was something to see. Again.
"So that was you then," Canton said after a stunned pause.
"I believe I was just telling you," the Doctor said, seeming quite proud of his impression of himself.
"So then what exactly are you -" Canton began
"Doing here?" the Doctor finished, "breaking the sequence of events? Plotting regicide on an alien world?" Canton shrugged and eyed his heavy wooden chest in the bottom of which lay a ceremonial dagger. Then he nodded. The Doctor clasped his hands together and grinned eagerly.
"Well," the Doctor began, "that's the very best part."
–
"I really hate the Daleks," the Master began as he turned the latch of his secret glowing door. "People think the Doctor and I don't agree on anything and, yes, I suppose that's a fair observation. We don't much care for one another. Well, I got along well enough with the original article, before he got all silver, but something about all the Regenerations made him cross towards me. Then again, I became a tad more homicidal. So it goes." They stepped inside.
The corridor that awaited them was hard for human – well, Alfalfa-Matraxian – well, mortal – eyes to interpret. To them, the Master supposed, it would look like a black void defined by white lines as if tripping through the negatives of an Earth 1930s cartoon. To the Master, one who could see in several new and interesting dimensions, it radiated golden light. Even if it was shoddy, Dalek technology, this was something holy. Walking into the Time Corridor was like a pilgrimage into a second rate Mecca constructed of tin cans and string. Breathtaking yet with a slimy film that make you feel like a shower or a dip in the sun.
"The bowl-cut version was still somewhat adequate. In fact, there was this one time in Montreal, 2015, well let's just say he was an expert flutist," the Master almost blushed as he proceeded through the glowing expanse. Absently, he wondered what this must look like to the Daleks who constructed it. Something boring perhaps. It was a short tangent but it helped dull the throbbing memory of someone he should be more intent on murdering. Yes, murder. That would be better.
"But the Daleks are something else," the Master looked back. The old git was cowering at what must, to him, have seemed a wall of black void. Some people. It was if he had never walked free of 4th dimensional restraints before. "We don't see eye to eye. I don't want you to think this is some sort of inextricable difference betweens species. That's ridiculous. There were hundreds of Dalek sympathizers back on Gallifrey. Hundreds. How do you think I made my first fortune? Blackmail is a game for amateurs, but as an amateur I played it to win."
The Master looked back to more of the same. He sighed. This was why he never took on sidekicks.
"But, personally, the Dalek sense of order never appealed to me as much as it did some of the austere members of Time Lord society. They buzz about, blast, Exterrrrrrminate," the Master did a perfect impression which had someone struck through countless regenerations, "but in the end, it's like they're just killing so they can do away with stairs or something and sit in their world with only Daleks. No fun." The Master spun around almost dancing but not quite. There was some respect due to this temple of time, decrepit as it was, "Me, I kill for fun."
He let out a laugh and opened the final door at the end of the corridor. It didn't glow or radiate any kind of energy. Quite the opposite. It absorbed any ambient temporal power which happened to drift towards its surface. Ghastly design too, thought that was to be expected from Daleks.
Inside would be the Corridor, the real one. The one which went back twenty years and would allow the Master to complete his unfinished business for the morning, smothering two aids, who had gotten his tea wrong, in their crib. Harsh but fair.
But within the room, the Master did not find the familiar cobblestone floor and the radiating arc of the Time Corridor.
Instead, the Master found a man. He tilted his head and studied this new arrival. Short. Balding. Black suit. Earth 1970s by the cut. A gun in one hand. A gun. Well, that was new.
"Hello," the Master said, slightly worried but also just pleased to see someone new and unexpected, "are you an assassin."
"Yes," the man said.
"You forgot your dagger," the Master noticed, remembering the seventeen previous attempts. Stuffing Soloists. He should just kill the god, really.
"A friend told me to ditch it," the man shrugged and raised his firearm, "so I tossed it in the sea."
"That was stupid," the Master drolled, not looking forward to being killed again. This body had such nice eyes. Also hands.
"I'm fine with the development," the man cocked his gun.
"Finally!" the old wizened alien shouted in a high pitched voice behind the Master. "Today is the day! Twenty years! Twenty years ago I found a second Half-King. His shameful lack of head was enough for me to being this treasonous plot against you, oh Master. Now it is I who will rule, I who will -" the alien's ranting betrayal was cut short by the blaring of the newcomer's gun. Straight between the eyes on the rightmost head.
"Huh," the Master said, looking at the bleeding remains of his betrayer.
"Do I need to shoot the other head?" the assassin asked.
"No," the Master cocked his head even further, "they die with just the one."
"Good," the man said and holstered his gun, "I've only been on planet for -"
"Twenty years?" asked the Master.
"Actually a few weeks," the man answered and looked back. "I did step through a weird doorway a minute ago."
"Ah," the Master said and closed the distance between them. The newcomer smelled like sage and the Ocean. Also gunpowder. "The Time Corridor will do that."
"I assume you were sent here to kill -" the Master started.
"He was annoying," the newcomer interrupted and looked into the Master's rather startling new blue eyes as if trying to puzzle something out.
"I noticed that too," the Master said and leaned down and towards his would-be-assassin's ear. There was something interesting about this anachronistic interloper. "I seem to have an opening for a new assistant," the Master whispered.
"I seem to be not interested," the man replied and cocked his gun, now pressed towards the Master's throat. Well, that was what the Master got for thinking with his third brain.
"Then why -" the Master started to ask, truly puzzled. How had anyone found his Time Corridor?
"My name is Canton Everett Delaware the Third," the stranger whispered in the Master's ear.
"The Doctor says 'Hello'"