7. What Does this Button Do?
The Doctor takes the Tardis back to the surface.
"Where are we?" Chloe asks. She examines the Console screen without joy.
"We're on a small rogue planet floating in deep space, nowhere near any galaxy. It's travelling fast, though!"
The Doctor presses a few buttons.
"There was a supernova ten aeons ago..."
Simeon can see this isn't helping to find Alyssa. He interrupts.
"But how can we tell anything about where she's been taken?"
"I so wish my mother was here!" Chloe says. "She was great at sorting out the Master!" (Ref. 26.) .
The Doctor's quick with his warning. "We mustn't go grabbing her back every time the Master's involved. No, we must sort this out ourselves. It might be tricky, but we can do it!"
Alyssa's Problem.
Alyssa is trying to snooze, propped up by an uncomfortable wall.
The Master taps some buttons on the Console. A few moments later there's a Ping presumably denoting their arrival at some new destination.
Alyssa's brain wants to recover from the stress of the last few hours, she's unsure just how long they were stuck in that cave. Yet when she hears the ping, she glances up at the Console monitor screen and sees her own house!
She tenses. Is the Master taking her home? Surely not! That's not like him!
Her brief thought train is cut short.
"Hah! The rebuild!" The Master's not surprised they rebuilt it, just peeved that his previous plan to eradicate the family had failed.
Alyssa's guessing what the Master knows of her family's difficulties since he flattened their house with an induced tornado, a while ago (ref. 48).
"I should destroy it again!" It's not long since he last visited the place to abduct Chloe, only a matter of hours ... But now he has choices - destroy the house; or use it as a bait for the Doctor!
Alyssa also knows how he is said to have destroyed her family home. Some sort of whirlwind! She almost bites her tongue stopping herself from asking if he was going to send another!
She decides she must act laid-back and pretend to be unconnected to it.
"Destroy? Why would you do that?" she says as casually as she can. She desperately hopes he will do no such thing.
The Master looks at his Console. Something about her response indicates an issue; some straining in her voice? Since he knows nothing about her, should he discover what there is to know?
Should he waste time scanning her? He has other questions about her sudden appearance on a rogue planet...
The more he thinks about it, the more he thinks he must waste time asking her.
No! He has the demise of the Doctor in his sights. He can do this task! This insignificant deviant humanoid companion can't bother him now. . She's probably just some robot that got lucky! .
He sets his Tardis up to check for any other Tardis activity in the area.
"You watch this screen and press this button if it changes!"
Alyssa thinks fast. She must appear nonchalant yet ask a probing question.
"What does the button do?" she asks.
"Never you mind!" .
Maybe if the Doctor dies at the hand of another being, it might decrease his own feeling of culpability? Hardly, he would still be fully culpable! Just as dastardly!
"I have many other things to attend to!"
With that, he leaves the Console room along the corridor. He feels that the dice have been rolled and the outcome is certain. The Doctor's death is now certain. Elimination at the touch of a button. Any fool can press that button! .
Alyssa is left with a burdensome task and an onerous choice.
What will she do when the Console display changes? She has an uneasy feeling that pressing the button won't be a good thing for the Doctor!
On the other hand, here she is, outside her own home. Surely, she could simply walk out of the Master's, doubtless cloaked, Tardis and arrive home?
Then Alyssa thinks of the others in the cave. Might she be able to rescue them?
She contemplates the many controls on the Tardis Console. She recognises the dematerialisation lever, but that's about it!
The more she looks at that lever the more she feels she must pull that lever. She knows that without further destination programming it simply takes the Tardis back to its previous location, and that's precisely where, and when, she wants to go to rescue Chloe and Simeon!
On the other hand, operating that lever might bring the Master back along the corridor quickly, and she might be in deep trouble with him then - and - she wouldn't be right outside her own home! .
She tries the Tardis door. It stays closed. She returns to stand by the Console.
How she longs to just open the Tardis door and walk the short distance to her house. Her heart aches!
So near but so far!
How long Alyssa has stood there, contemplating these things, she has no idea.
Suddenly, the display changes.
She firmly clasps her hands together, as if preventing herself from even possibly pressing that button.
She reads from the screen, Tardis present.
She's so glad! Someone's home, and maybe they can help with rescuing Chloe and Simeon from the cave.
She leaps up and runs to the Tardis door. She tries to open it, but it still won't. .
If only it would open, she could run to whoever happens to be home, and ask them how to help Chloe!
She looks despairingly at the closed door.
Then she makes her way back to the Console. Surely, everything is controlled from here, even the door!
Alyssa glances at the corridor. No sign of the Master!
She starts looking for any control that might open the door, but none seem likely. Maybe it only opens for the Master's hand? She sighs and retreats to sit on the floor, still able to keep an eye on the monitor.
As she sits down, a hard thing adjusts its position against her leg. She reaches into a pocket and finds her messaging device.
Brilliant! She messages the Doctor, I'm in the Master's Tardis outside my house.
Within a few seconds, Chloe and the Doctor race out through the house front door, and start looking around for the Master's Tardis, but they can't see it!
She sees Chloe focus and activate her personal transport, but nothing happens.
Chloe turns to the Doctor. "My transport's still blocked!"
Alyssa messages again, It's cloaked. Chloe's nearer. It feels like a game of Hot or cold!
Shortly, Chloe is touching the cloaked Tardis. "Doctor, it's just here! What can we do?"
The Doctor retrieves his sonic screwdriver from a pocket and zaps the Tardis. It's cloaking defeated, the bare concrete block stands like a plinth with no decoration or statue on the grass.
He adjusts the screwdriver settings and approaches the Tardis. It stands, defying entry, securing its contents. Certainly, the Doctor can't get in and Alyssa can't get out!
"How has the Master arranged the door entry?" the Doctor asks. He applies his sonic screwdriver to the door lock.
He recalls school lessons on Tardis settings. One last adjustment, and as it pings, the sonic screwdriver lights up.
Chloe has an urgent question. "Is the Master using this as a lure to catch you out?"
"Undoubtedly," the Doctor says, looking at his screwdriver. "The door will only open to his touch. Let's use my Tardis!"
He grabs Chloe's hand. "Run!"
They run to the house and straight into the Doctor's Tardis.
Chloe's father, Devyon, has arranged cups of tea ready for them on the table. "Not stopping then?" he asks. .
He's seen their rushed-ness before and knows when they're busy.
"It's hot now!" he calls after them as they enter the Tardis. Maybe they might return to just then for their cuppa? .
"What's the plan, Doctor?" Chloe asks, before she recollects that the Doctor doesn't work with any plan at all, only what might fit the current situation best, and even then, he's got so many ideas she can't keep up. .
The Doctor ignores her momentary lapse of focus and forges ahead but gives her time to choose.
"We might encapsulate the Master's Tardis, or..."
But his sentence is cut short. The Tardis screen goes red and shows the word Encapsulated! .
"Bother!" the Doctor says. "He acted first!" .
"What can we do?"
"You said your personal transport didn't work?" the Doctor asks. "Was it blocked?"
"I don't know," Chloe says. "I just know I couldn't simply go into the Master's Tardis."
The Doctor looks at her seriously. "It seems that the Master's beginning to learn how your transport works! You'd better beware!"
Inwardly, Chloe recoils from such a revelation. Her personal wristwatch transport has felt as if it's been her own triumph, her own domain. She's been able to come and go as she pleases, but now she can't, not everywhere anyway. Her wings feel clipped.
She sits down on a bench in the Doctor's Tardis Console room. She feels drained ... drained of energy. Weak and helpless. Worried and defeated!
The Doctor turns to Meran and Simeon, who are still standing near the Console.
"Could you two please go to the rest room. We'll handle this," the Doctor says. Then, when neither move, he pulls rank and adds, "That's an order from your captain!" He wants to minimise the problems, particularly for Meran as he can't regenerate, but also as the Master has encountered him plenty of times before and will definitely recognise him!
The Tardis door opens and the Master strides in.
"Got you! Got you ... both!"
He's surprised to see Chloe, again, but there are other explanations, including time travel loops.
He walks to the middle of the space beside the Console and folds his arms triumphantly.
"Now! What to do with you both?"
As Chloe looks up from her brown study, she sees a face at the Tardis door.
Alyssa peeps around the door and holds a finger to her lips to signify keeping quiet.
A tiny ray of hope flickers for Chloe as the Master ties her hands up.
"You first," he says.
Chloe is marched out of the Doctor's encapsulated Tardis and finds it parked inside the Master's Tardis.
Alyssa steps quietly into the Doctor's Tardis.
"Doctor," she whispers, "what can I do? What control might I use in his Tardis?"
The Doctor immediately knows that she must have tried the Voice Control and failed. He points out two controls on his Tardis that might be similar in the Master's Tardis.
Alyssa immediately steps back into the Master's Tardis and slowly makes her way to the Console there.
The Master feels he has total control and taps a few buttons on his console.
An image of a star appears on the Console screen and zooms in until the screen is totally white.
"Yes, I'm depositing you inside a star!" He rubs his hands in glee.
Chloe has a fleeting thought - that'll dry out my wristwatch quickly! .
But not before she's burnt up, unfortunately!
"Don't you want to know how I escaped from your concrete?" Chloe asks, to try to gain some time and distract the Master.
She sees Alyssa touch two controls. How can Alyssa know what does what? Chloe thinks.
The Master pauses. He is mystified how this Chloe might have died and now apparently risen from her death.
But then a thought comes to him.
"Huh! You and your mother and your cloning machine! I suppose I've got thousands of clones of you to rid the Universe of?"
"No, there's only one of me. I have no cloning machine." Chloe speaks evenly while looking directly at the Master to try to convince him of her truthfulness.
The Master snaps out of his initial trance.
"Enough!" he roars. He's aware that Chloe has some powers that have rubbed off on her, doubtless from some contact with a Ring of Confidence at some stage.
"Your days are at an end!" he says, and laughs a deep resonant laugh, as he pulls the dematerialisation lever.
What will Chloe find in that star?