4. The First Unknown Portal.
They group around the Unknown portal.
"Whatever it does, they haven't come back," the Doctor says. "That might mean it's inherently dangerous through there, or it might mean they just haven't had enough time. There was a tale that some of these portals affected the passage of time for those who went through."
Ben takes his wristwatch off and puts it around the mirror on the selfie-stick he is holding. "Let's see what happens to time through here," he says. He puts the selfie-stick part way through the portal and is delighted to see the time race forwards on his watch. He retrieves the watch and replaces it on his wrist.
"What would happen if we went through this portal in the other direction?" Ben asks.
"We just don't know," the Doctor says. "In one direction it might speed time up and the other direction it might drag time out."
"Which room in the house might have been treated to this sort of door," Zoe asks, "and which way around would it have been?"
Chloe thinks. The Doctor can see her thinking. He knows Chloe will come up with a good solution.
"Maybe the bedroom door?" she conjectures. "They might rush their sleep through quickly, according to the outside world, and return fully rested moments later."
Ben whistles. "Wow," he says. "What lateral thinking there!"
The Doctor shares his experience, "I've come across places where they want to skip sleep and would do so entirely if they could."
"Where's that then?" Ben asks.
The Doctor recognises he's said a little too much. .
"The land of nod," Chloe says quickly. "He doesn't sleep very well.".
This distracts the present company, and they laugh briefly.
"So, which way should we go through this portal to avoid taking forever?" Zoe asks.
"We could go through the faster direction first?" Ben suggests.
"We could," the Doctor says cautiously, "but where are they now? Whichever way they went through this portal, they must still be somewhere. No, we can only experiment with this portal and check it has no other side effects. They may have gone on to another portal."
The Second Unknown Portal.
They scour the ground near other portals and find another similar sub-fingernail-sized portal sign.
"I bet it says Unknown," Chloe says.
"Yes, that's likely," the Doctor says, "but I will check." He steps around to the other side of the earlier portal and re-appears a moment later. "Yes, it says Unknown," he says.
"Did you just short-cut time and nip to the Tardis just then," Chloe asks incredulously. .
"Of course," the Doctor says, grinning. "Let's use these portals to our benefit!" .
"Why don't we all step through that portal in that direction?" Zoe suggests.
"Normally I might say that was a good idea," the Doctor says. "But here, one person might step through and when the second person goes to step through, the first person will have completely disappeared. They'd get bored having to stay and wait. Time might be thousands of times faster through that portal. But all we would gain would be time, and we have time. Let's search for another portal sign."
"There's only one other portal we can see that we don't know about," Zoe says. "That one over there." She points to a portal nearby.
They walk over to it.
"What does this one do?" Ben asks.
"It looks dark on the other side," Chloe says. "There's only light around on the other side where the portal is shedding it from this side."
"Let's try it with a selfie-stick," the Doctor says. He pushes his selfie-stick through the portal, and they look at the mirror.
The mirror reflects poorly. When he retracts the selfie-stick it is alright, though.
The Doctor wants them all to go through together. "I propose that we all hold hands and go through the portal, then we can look for the previous team. I have a light here." He holds up his sonic screwdriver. It isn't emitting any light right now, but they all just believe him.
Since the doorway is only one person wide, they file through holding hands. Chloe is the last one through.
Once through, Chloe puts her hand to go back through the portal. It won't go. "Doctor, it's a one-way portal, we can't get back!" she says. .
The Doctor looks at his sonic screwdriver. "We're in the distant past, too. By a few millennia. It must have malfunctioned at some point!"
They all shiver. This is really chilling news.
"We were hoping only to be away for a short time, maybe a few hours," Zoe says disappointedly. Millennia seems just too long to wait. . "Now it looks like we're stuck here for good."
"Well, now we're here, let's set about finding the previous team," the Doctor says. Positive distraction might divert from the negative thinking that is just starting. He presses on the sonic screwdriver and an insignificant amount of light is emitted.
Ben's very disappointed. "Can't it do any better? It's only as much as the light from one distant star!"
"Oh, yes," the Doctor says, defending his screwdriver. "But it starts off dim and gets brighter gradually."
Zoe looks down. "Oh, look," she gasps, "is that the previous team?"
Some ant sized people step out from close to the portal frame where light is entering through the portal.
The Doctor steps forwards, and grins. "Yes, it is, I guess. Well, they are tiny people, and we are looking for tiny people."
He fossicks in his coat and finds a small container. "This is better than nothing and you will be able to shelter in there until we can figure out a way to enlarge you again."
He puts the small box down near the tiny people. They seem to understand and clamber into it. Once they are all in, the Doctor returns the box to his pocket gently.
"How are we going to get out of here?" Chloe asks. "We have no idea where we are, it's dark and cold, and we can't just go back through the portal."
Zoe presses her hand against the portal to check that Chloe is right. "It's no good," she says.
Ben starts to panic. "We're stuck here. Why did we all just blindly follow each other through the doorway?"
The Doctor tuts him. "It really is no problem at all," he says. "That's right, isn't it Chloe?" He wants to test Chloe's recall to see if she can either remember how to get out of this, or to work out how to do it.
This puts Chloe on the spot. She had given their return journey no thought before going through the portal. She finds she's panicking, and her mind is empty! Now, what is the Doctor meaning? She racks her brains. She's left her wristwatch at home today! .
How can they escape from this dead-end?