KORDA
Chapter Eleven
"Do you need a lift back?" I asked Selena, back at Carson's place.
"No," she smiled, "I think I'll stay for a while. Carson and I need to catch up a bit and I need to catch my breath. You, sir, are a walking adventure!"
"Too right!" declared Tegan.
"Walking and flying," I said. "Which reminds me: why is there no air travel here? I know these are islands so there's an awful lot of marine activity, of which, by the way, I have had quite enough lately, thank you very much. But wouldn't light aircraft suit as well?"
Carson answered: "We had all that, generations ago. We decided – we all decided – that it made war too easy. No more airplanes of any kind. No more bombings, not from the air anyway, and no more hit and run."
"The balloons of Ingram represent peace," said Selena.
We all decided that we liked that. "Balloons of peace," Nyssa tried. "Yes, that sounds good!"
"So you won't have the van anymore when you do go back," I continued. "Oh, the scooter is still in the back!"
"Our bicycles," remembered Nyssa. "We never returned our bicycles!"
"Don't worry," said Selena. "They'll be found. When I get back I'll sneak them over to the station. I think it's unlikely that anyone will track you down through space and time for the fee."
I am not good with tears so I waited outside while Nyssa and Tegan shed a few with Selena. The TARDIS was in the Malleson University quad, not drawing as much attention to itself as you might imagine. Carson lived just off campus so we walked in the early evening coolness through the entrance gate and past some dormitories from which emanated the new music of the day (not flamenco), and a brightly lit cafeteria noisy with young voices. We could see the quad, and the lonely TARDIS. I saw my friends smile, felt myself smile, at the sight of her.
We had not quite reached the quad when I felt myself thrown face-down into the grass, turned over onto my back and, as I struggled, subdued with an intoxicating cloth over my mouth and nose. I was aware of Nyssa and Tegan screaming words I couldn't catch, and then I was aware of nothing at all.
"Doctor, wake up!" I didn't want to open my eyes. I'd been dreaming about jammy dodgers and Darjeeling with lemon, not right at all: I demanded Earl Gray with two sugars and in response heard, "You're all right! Wake up!"
"Not fair," I mumbled, opening my eyes to see how relieved Tegan was. Nyssa was talking to what appeared to be a uniformed policeman, a few feet away. A policewoman had an angry young man struggling in her grip, and a third cop was shoving an equally angry older woman into a police van. A crowd had gathered. I sat up. "What happened?"
To my surprise, I was still on campus, just shy of the quad, the TARDIS still standing in its center. "These ratbags tried to take you," said Tegan, "and we stopped them! Nyssa and me. We pulled 'em off you and Nyssa clocked one and I clocked the other! Shortest dust-up in history. I didn't think they had coppers here but they do, and these fine students called 'em right away. But by the time they got here, it was all over red rover."
I stood up and took Tegan by the shoulders. not to steady myself but in gratitude. Then I actually did, briefly, need them to support myself. "Thank you! And… one day perhaps you can tell me all that again, but in English."
Nyssa finished her discussion with the policeman, my attackers were driven away and we wearily entered the TARDIS. "Those people were going to take you on the liner back to Powell!" Nyssa informed me, breathlessly.
"I think I have had enough boat rides for a lifetime," I said. "Let's get out of here."
"Doctor…" Tegan began.
"Hmm?" I was setting coordinates, half listening.
"It wasn't all bad." I looked up and saw her and Nyssa smiling.
"It was pretty rough…."
"But," Nyssa reminded me, "you got to dance!"
THE END