Chapter 7: A Most Important Man
The Doctor quickly circled the console, trying different levers and switches.
"The controls are not responding…"
He pulled the monitor to him.
"…And there is an energy buildup. If this continues, it will trigger a discharge to prevent permanent damage to the TARDIS."
"Do you mean like a safety valve venting an over-pressurized tank?" Vasili asked as he turned in place looking around the TARDIS.
"A good analogy!" replied the Doctor as he tried different settings on the console without success.
"Except the TARDIS will release a burst of energy," he finished.
Rory frowned. He had sat down beside Amy and held her hand, hoping some part of her would remember who she was and fight against the Dalek influence. For the moment Amy was simply lying there, staring straight up at the ceiling, making no attempt to communicate. He reached out and experimentally wiggled the blue glowing Dalek eyestalk. That simply caused her unresisting head to turn back and forth. It had a solid feel. He tried pulling on it, and Amy's head lifted off the floor.
That, more than anything else, drove home to Rory just how bad things were. The eyestalk was embedded in her head, and that had to mean a large part of her frontal lobe had been sacrificed to make room for the damned thing. Then there were the bullet wounds. That guy with the gun knew what he was doing. Rory could well imagine Amy's heart had been shattered, never mind damage to other organs. Was she really just an animated corpse now? A grotesque parody of herself? It didn't bear thinking about.
With considerable effort, Rory clamped down on his emotions, and focused on the Doctor's last comment.
"A burst of energy. Is that bad?" he asked.
"Not bad for the TARDIS," replied the Doctor. "But it will be bad for anything in the immediate area."
Vasili stopped looking around and turned to stare at the Doctor. "Do you mean K-19?"
"K-19, the Atlantic ocean, Earth…." The Doctor paused for a moment, doing a quick calculation in his head. "Actually, it will be bad for most of the inner planets of the Solar System, depending on their current locations."
Rory glanced up, a look of alarm on his face. "Okay, so it's bad," he replied. "What can we do to stop it?"
The Doctor threw up his arms in frustration. "At the very least, we need to get these controls unlocked. Then I can fly the TARDIS away from here, where an energy burst won't harm anyone. Not very far in the grand scheme of things. A flea-hop really."
He banged the console. "A light-year would be plenty, a distance not even a quarter of the way to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth."
"Right," said Vasili. "I think I understood this could be a time machine – not that I believe it yet – but I have read a few stories. Now you're saying this is a space ship?"
The Doctor grinned and pointed at Vasili. "You're catching on. It's both, actually, but what it is right now is a great big disaster if we can't stop the power buildup! Vasili, come here! I've got a job for you."
As Vasili came up to the console, the Doctor swung the monitor around. "Now you see that?" he said, pointing at the monitor. "That circle shows the power buildup. The more the power builds up, the bigger that red pie slice in the circle becomes. When the entire circle goes red, boom! An energy release. I need you to call out how much of the circle is red while we work. Do you understand?"
"Got it!" replied Vasili. "Right now it's about a quarter of the circle, right?"
"Good man!" The Doctor gave Vasili a pat on the shoulder, and got down on his knees, examining the underside of the console. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and began to loosen an access panel.
"Rory! Go swap thermocoupler cables two and seven under the floor. Do you remember how?"
"Yes Doctor." Rory reluctantly left Amy's side and went below the console under the glass floor.
"Doctor!" he shouted out. "There's another one of those disk thingies under here attached to the core."
"Don't touch it!" the Doctor shouted back. "I'm coming down for a look."
He quickly scooted out from under the panel, ran down the steps and under the glass floor.
"Careful now!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Until it's deactivated, it's not safe to touch. It could potentially electrocute you, although that would be crude for a Dalek device. It could vaporize you, or it could simply contaminate you with nanites, turning you into another Dalek agent."
"Got it. No touching the disk," said Rory as he watched the Doctor work.
The Doctor began to scan the disk. "No… no… no…" he muttered to himself as he tried different settings on his sonic screwdriver.
"Doctor?" It was Vasili hanging down from the glass floor above. "The circle is almost half full! What's the delay?"
"This disk can't be touched with bare hands!" the Doctor said as he worked. "Even touching it with gloves on will likely trigger a response. This one seems to be a bit more sophisticated than the disk I found in K-19."
"The circle is half full now!" called out Vasili. "I'll be back." He ran down the steps and out the TARDIS door.
"What?" said the Doctor, astonished. "Not a good time to leave. Rory, go watch the circle please."
"Yes Doctor." Rory climbed up to the console floor. "Doctor! The circle is about, oh, sixty, sixty-five percent full!"
"Now then," the Doctor said as he peered around the edge of the disk. "If I can just get this thing loose, that will buy us some time to figure out how to deactivate it."
It resembled a miniature version of the classic Dalek flying saucer. The edge of the disk was not flat against the console core. That made it very tempting to try pulling it loose – a deadly mistake. He placed his sonic screwdriver as close as he dared, aiming for the small gap between disk edge and panel.
"Three quarters full!" shouted Rory. "No pressure."
"Arrrrg!" shouted the Doctor. He swept his hair back in frustration.
"It's deadlocked! The sonic screwdriver won't work! I'm going to try touching it with a thermocoupler cable. Zapping the disk with an energy discharge might do the trick."
"I hope so!" Rory shouted back. "Because the circle is a good eighty-five percent full!"
As the Doctor scooted around to disconnect a cable, Vasili came running in a crouch under the console floor.
"My turn!" he shouted.
Before the Doctor could stop him, Vasili stuck a large iron crowbar under the edge of the disk, and with a distinctive "pop!" the disk fell to the floor. He began beating the disk with the crowbar, the banging loud under the floor.
"Or there's the direct approach," commented the Doctor as he watched, slightly amused.
"Hey Doctor!" shouted Rory. "Whatever you did worked! The red area is shrinking fast. Seventy-five percent full. Sixty-five. Fifty percent."
The cloister bell stopped and the TARDIS lighting returned to normal.
Vasili finally slowed and stopped, sweat dripping from his brow, his arm aching. The disk was in several pieces.
"Congratulations Vasili," said the Doctor as he held out his hand. "You just saved planet Earth."
Vasili looked relieved, with a big grin on his face. He shook hands with the Doctor. "Well, I'm glad that's over," he said.
"Look out!" shouted Rory.
A bolt of light flashed past Vasili, barely missing him.
Dalek-Amy was on her feet. "You will be exterminated! Ex-ter-mi-nate! Ex-ter-mi-nate!"
She fired again at Vasili as he ducked behind the central core for shelter.
The Doctor had his sonic screwdriver out and aimed at Dalek-Amy.
"It's no good!" he shouted as she fired another shot. "She's reinforced her synapses! I can't stop her like I did before, but so far just she seems to be after Vasili."
"You think?" Vasili shouted as another bolt of light barely missed. He was trying very hard to keep the core column between himself and Dalek-Amy.
"Vasili! Get up here!" shouted Rory.
He held out his hand. Vasili reached up, grasped Rory's hand, and with Rory's help climbed up to the console. As Rory and Vasili caught their breath, they saw Dalek-Amy peering up at them through the transparent console floor, expressionless, the Dalek eyestalk in her forehead glowing a bright blue. She utterly ignored the Doctor as he stood beside her, scanning, until he attempted to physically restrain her. She backhanded the Doctor, knocking him to the floor.
Rory and Vasili quickly realized there was no safe place to stand, and they couldn't climb up on the console. Dalek-Amy aimed at Vasili through the console floor.
There was a flash of light.
Vasili was very much surprised to find he was still alive.
"Ha!" shouted the Doctor in triumph as he scrambled out from under the floor. "It might look like glass, but it's much better than that! You can't shoot through it."
Dalek-Amy ignored the Doctor's taunt. She turned, walked out from under the floor, and began slowly walking up the front console steps. Rory and Vasili moved to keep the TARDIS console between Dalek-Amy and themselves. As Rory and Vasili tried to maneuver to the side stairs to escape, Dalek-Amy fired a shot to keep them pinned behind the console.
Rory slowly straightened up and raised his hands.
"Amy?" he said. "You don't want to do this. I know you don't want to exterminate me."
Dalek-Amy looked at Rory without emotion, her eyes dead. "Correct. I want to assimilate you, but you forget: assimilation can happen after death."
Rory ducked as Dalek-Amy fired another shot, this one hitting the TARDIS console. Sparks flew, some spraying on Rory and Vasili. A small curl of smoke rose from the console.
Observing the results, Dalek-Amy began rapid-firing directly at the console in an attempt to drive out Rory and Vasili. A shower of sparks flew up from the console with loud pops. The cloister bell began to peal again.
"No!" shouted the Doctor. He ran to the steps, crowbar held high, ready to defend his TARDIS. Dalek-Amy turned to face this new threat and fired.
The Doctor stopped midway on the steps, surprised he wasn't dead. The bolt fired by Dalek-Amy had stopped in mid-air just beyond the weapon stalk muzzle. Dalek-Amy was frozen in place. A glow from the console enveloped her.
"Doctor? What's happening?" Rory asked as he and Vasili slowly stood up again.
The Doctor held up his hand. "Don't move!" he shouted. "It's the TARDIS. It has Amy time-locked."
A panel on the console slowly opened, admitting a dazzling bright light.
"It's the heart of the TARDIS!" called out the Doctor. "Come on girl! You can do it!" he said with the beginning of a smile on his face.
The bolt fired by Dalek-Amy abruptly reversed, traveling back into the hand weapon stalk.
"Yes!" said the Doctor, who leapt for joy and did an imaginary high-five in the air. "The TARDIS is rewinding Amy's personal timeline. That will undo the damage caused by the nanocloud, being shot—everything!"
Rory stuck a questioning finger up in the air.
"The TARDIS can do that?" he asked, his concern etched on his face.
"Oh yes!" exclaimed the Doctor. "The TARDIS has done it before, you know. She once did it to a nasty individual from the Slitheen crime family. Slitheens hail from a planet called Raxacoricofallapatorius. Anyway, this Slitheen tried to take over the TARDIS, and the old girl rewound her all the way back to an egg!"
Rory looked panic-stricken. "What? I don't want Amy rewound back to an egg! Or a baby, I suppose! How do I explain I'm married to a baby? Talk about robbing the cradle!"
At that moment, the TARDIS released Amy. She collapsed to the floor.
"Amy!" Rory shouted.
He ran around the console and fell on his knees beside her. Rory pulled Amy up and cradled her head. The Dalek eyestalk was gone.
"Amy? Can you hear me?"
The Doctor scanned Amy with his sonic screwdriver and looked at the results. He breathed a sigh of relief.
"This time, I can guarantee Amy is completely clean. No nanites in her anywhere."
Amy's eyes fluttered open.
"Doctor?" she said, and began to look around. "Rory? What happened? Did I fall down or something?"
"Something like that," Rory quietly replied as he brushed her hair away from her face.
Amy sat up and frowned. "What are we doing in the TARDIS?"
"What's the last thing you remember?" the Doctor asked.
Amy thought for a second. "You had dropped us back home after the visit to Mercy. That was, what? Two or three days ago?"
She turned to Rory. "Oh! I forgot to tell you. The upstairs loo is leaking. Do you think your dad could fix it?"
Rory laughed, tears in his eyes. "Yes, but I'd like to give it a go first," he said, replaying in his mind this same conversation he'd had with Amy three weeks ago. He leaned forward and gripped Amy in a bear hug.
"Oh!" said Amy, the wind slightly knocked out of her. "What brought that on?"
She noticed a stranger in some sort of uniform looking at both her and Rory, a smile on his face.
"Rory!" she hissed. "Someone is watching us!"
"Right!" said Rory. He released Amy and they both stood up.
"Amy? I'd like you to meet Vasili Arkhipov. He's the executive officer of a Russian submarine in 1961."
Amy shook hands with Vasili. "Are you a new companion of the Doctor's?" she asked, still feeling disoriented.
Vasili laughed. "Oh no, I have enough on my plate already without becoming involved in the Doctor's adventures." He looked at the Doctor. "I should go. My crew needs me."
The Doctor clapped Vasili on the shoulder, and together they walked down the steps to the TARDIS door.
"It's more than just the crew who needs you, Vasili," he said. "Apparently, the whole world needs you as well!"
Vasili paused at the door and looked back at the Doctor. "Yes, but why?" he asked.
The Doctor smiled. "I expect when the moment comes, you will know what you need to do."
Vasili hesitated. "I am curious about one thing. Have you ever met an English author by the name of H. G. Wells?"
"I have, yes," replied the Doctor, a bit surprised at the question. "Why do you ask?"
"I find it interesting," said Vasili. "That you don't go by a name. In Wells' story 'The Time Machine,' the main character is never identified by name either. He is simply known as the 'Time Traveler.' Coincidence?"
The Doctor's smile broadened. "I'm sorry I couldn't do anything more about the reactor; I'm afraid the fix was temporary."
Vasili smiled at the Doctor's deflection. "That's all right," he replied. "You've given us a fighting chance."
He gave the Doctor a salute and stepped out of the TARDIS.
The alarm klaxon was sounding.
"Sir!" shouted an out of breath Lieutenant Korchilov as he ran up to Vasili. "The starboard reactor pressurization has failed again!"
"How's the temperature?" Vasili asked.
"Rising, but at an expected rate. I estimate we have four to six hours before the temperature becomes critical."
"So," said Vasili, thinking hard. "We need to find a way to get coolant circulating again."
Lieutenant Korchilov grinned and held up a set of plans. "I have an idea. We have over eight thousand liters of drinking water available. If we can route that to the reactor, we can keep it cool long enough for the scram rods to do their job."
Vasili smiled. "Good work, Lieutenant! Take it to the captain. I'll be along shortly."
As the Lieutenant ran forward, Vasili turned back to the TARDIS. He found himself looking at a bare wall with pipes.
"Good luck to us all," he said to the wall, and went forward to the bridge.
The TARDIS completed its landing and quietly hummed. The Doctor walked around the console, tweaking settings here and there.
"Here we are," said the Doctor, "back safe and sound once again. Your house is just across the street."
He looked at Amy. "Now Amy, I'm afraid you've lost about three weeks of your memory, but I'm sure Rory will fill you in. On the plus side, you are also about three weeks younger than you were before."
"You aged like Merlin," Rory said with a smile.
Amy smiled back. "Good one! Yeah, there is that. Come along, Rory! I want to go home."
"You go ahead," Rory said with a wave. "I want a word with the Doctor."
Amy ran down the steps and out the TARDIS doors. Rory watched her go until she was out of sight. He abruptly spun around and gave the Doctor a determined look.
"Scan me for nanites," he flatly said.
"You're not a Dalek sleeper agent, Rory. If you were, we'd already know."
"Scan me anyway, Doctor. I'm not leaving here until you do. Amy was a sleeper agent, and I was sleeping with her. Think about it."
"Oh?" said the Doctor, momentarily perplexed. Comprehension dawned. "Oh! Right! Yes, of course!"
"You don't have anything to worry about," the Doctor said as he scanned Rory. "To be sure, nanites can be passed on that way, but more likely any 'intimate activities' you may have had were simply to allay suspicion."
Rory sighed. "We're married, Doctor. Of course we had intimate activities. Several times, in fact." Rory paused and shuttered. "Horrifying, knowing what I know now."
The Doctor glanced at his sonic screwdriver. "You're clean—no nanites. Best thing now is to do what they say about horses: if you fall off, get right back on."
The Doctor paused and rocked awkwardly. "Ah. That came out wrong. Here's the thing to remember: Amy—the funny, affectionate, caring person who loves you, the person she is now, didn't forget she was once a Dalek agent—she was never a Dalek agent in the first place. It's not in her past. It never happened in Amy's new timeline. That is the Amy who is waiting for you to walk out of the TARDIS and go be with her."
The Doctor clapped an arm around Rory's shoulder. "Now let's go be with her, all right?"
As they walked outside, Rory stopped to look around. "Good to see London is back to normal."
The TARDIS sat in a small park across the street from Amy and Rory's house. It was a clear day. Children laughed and played nearby. A jogger ran past, oblivious, ear buds in, listening to music.
"Come along!" said the Doctor as he urged Rory on. "Much to do."
Amy had left the door ajar for them. Without slowing down, the Doctor pushed through and practically ran down the hall to the living room, to where a small desk sat in a corner with a laptop computer. He sat and began busily typing away.
Amy was still near the entrance looking through the day's mail.
"Oh look!" she said to Rory. "Here's a flyer for a new restaurant. American style barbecue. What do you think?"
Rory shuddered. "How about Indian takeaway instead?"
"Ah ha!" the Doctor called out and waved. "Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov. It's all right here. He served on board K-19, and witnessed firsthand the deaths of several crewmembers from radiation poisoning, including, I'm afraid, Lieutenant Boris Korchilov, the reactor officer. Vasili received a rather large dose of radiation himself."
The Doctor trailed off as he read ahead. "Ah, now this is interesting indeed. After K-19, Vasili was assigned to another sub called B-59, which was equipped with a nuclear torpedo. He was fleet commander of a four-sub fleet, which sailed to Cuba in October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. B-59 was detected by American forces. On 27 October 1962, they tried forcing B-59 to surface by dropping 'practice' depth charges."
He looked at Amy and Rory. "Problem was, B-59 had been out of touch with Moscow for several days. The captain was afraid a war had already started and believed they were under attack. Both the captain and the political officer voted to launch the nuclear torpedo, but they needed the vote of a third man—the fleet commander, Vasili Arkhipov. Vasili vetoed the launch, and convinced the captain to surface instead. Vasili quite literally saved the world from a nuclear Armageddon that day. A most important man indeed."
"Wow," said Amy. "That was the man I briefly met? It's amazing how world events can hinge on the actions of a single person."
The Doctor stood and walked over to the Ponds. He put his arms around them both.
"Not just the world you know. As humans begin to explore the galaxy, they will encounter and battle the Daleks. The actions of all those people will keep the Daleks from overrunning the galaxy; people who would not exist were it not for Vasili."
The Doctor squeezed and released the Ponds. "That butterfly effect is why we steer clear of fixed points in time."
"Well," said Rory. "I'm just glad to be here." He grabbed Amy and gave her a big kiss.
Amy smiled. "I could do with another kiss," she said. Her smile grew bigger. "For medicinal purposes only, you understand."
Rory grinned back. "I think I can help there," he replied as he gathered Amy in his arms. "I am a qualified nurse, you know."
The next kiss was unhurried and passionate.
"Right!" the Doctor said awkwardly.
To his horror, Amy and Rory began to tug at each other's clothes.
He pointed to the front door. "I'll just let myself out then, shall I?" He turned and fled.
Amy and Rory stopped kissing to watch the front door as the Doctor closed it behind him.
Amy smiled. "Works every time," she said, and looked at Rory while holding him tight, a gleam in her eye.
"Shall we go upstairs?"
"Race you to the top!"
Giggling, they made a mad dash up the stairs.