TURLOUGH'S TALE
Chapter Five
I go to the interior door and open it: it's dark all over, not just in the console room. The scanner is our only source of light: it's stuck open and there is still daylight. Night will fall, though, and the scanner is not the only thing that's stuck: we are.
The Doctor sits crosslegged on the floor between the scanner and the console, his back to the scanner so that his face is still in shadow. Tegan, who left the room almost immediately, comes back with torches. She hands one to the Doctor and he shines it under the console, but makes no move to inspect anything closely. He sets it on the floor and its beam is refracted oddly, giving the console room a spooky quality. The Doctor himself is a chiarascuro figure – you see, as hard as I tried not to pay attention in class I did pick up a smattering of actual education – his eyes deep pockets, part of one cheekbone lit and the other barely an outline, the stripes on one knee also clear in the fading light of the scanner and the other knee only suggested. Tegan has handed me a torch too but I don't turn it on; it dangles loosely from my hand as I try to figure out what, if anything, is going on in the Doctor's mind.
Tegan says, "I think he's trying to communicate with her." I am pretty sure she means the TARDIS, and that almost makes sense to me. "What were you doing out there?"
"We met the Doctor, one of his former selves. It was strange."
"Oh, I wish I'd been there!"
"When did the lights go out? Was there a slow power-down or did it all just suddenly… die?"
"It was slow but I thought I smelled smoke so I shut it down."
"You know how to do that?" I am astonished.
"Well, yes and no, but it worked, didn't it? Only it won't come back on. I think I broke it. The Doctor will kill me."
"Trust me," I say, "he won't. Look at him."
"Oh," says Tegan, "you haven't seen him mad. He can get mad. He'll be good and mad."
"Don't tell him."
Tegan looks at me as if I am a worm, which of course I am. "What do you mean 'don't tell him'? Of course I'll have to tell him. It might make the difference between fixing it and being stranded here forever. Sometimes, Turlough, you just make me sick." I don't bother telling her that I make myself sick. "I'm going to keep an eye on him." She sits down next to the Doctor. He doesn't move.
I know the Doctor has already tried everything but I have my torch so I examine every dial, knob and switch on the console that he tried to examine without a torch. It makes no difference. Nothing responds to my touch, not even the door, and I briefly wonder how Tegan was able to open it and come out, as well as how it closed, for it is closed now. We rushed in so fast, I don't know whether Tegan or the Doctor closed it; I didn't. Perhaps closing the door used up the last moments of the TARDIS' power. I will probably never know. Finally I give up, switch off the torch and quickly switch it back on, as night has now fallen and the scanner affords us no light. Then I decide that the refracted light from the Doctor's torch, still lying on the floor, is enough, and I switch mine back off again. I sit a few feet from him and Tegan, not only in order not to disturb them but because I feel unwelcome. The silence is eerie, broken only by the Doctor's slow, rhythmic breathing and Tegan's, which I suppose is normal. I mean, she's not panting or anything. I am. I close my eyes, slow my breathing deliberately and the three of us sit quietly on the console room floor, in the darkness of uninhabited Earth.
Suddenly the lights go on, the TARDIS whirs into life, the rotor starts pumping away, and both Tegan and I open our eyes in time to see the Doctor fall to the side that had been unlit before night fell. Tegan is on the other side of him and has no chance to catch him; with a thump his shoulder, then his cheek, hit the floor. Tegan has to jump aside as his legs loosen up and stretch out in her direction. "Doctor!" she cries, and has his head in her lap in an instant. I crawl to them and press my fingers against his neck, behind the ear that wasn't in Tegan's lap. His pulse is what you'd expect, I guess, from a guy with two hearts, but the main thing is that he has one at all. It gets stronger even in the few moments it takes me to check, and then he opens his eyes and smiles at us. He stands up with his usual grace, albeit grabbing the console with both hands once he's up, turns and smiles at us again.
"She's back!" is all he says before straightening up and adding, "What are you staring at? She's back and we're on the move!"
"To where?" I ask.
"I have no idea," declares the Doctor. "You didn't set coordinates?"
"How?" He turns to Tegan. She shakes her head.
"Surely not another recalll!" He squints at the console as he negotiates a half-circuit, and then his eyes widen. "Oh, you'll never guess where we're going!"
"Heathrow?" jokes Tegan.
"Brendon Public." I am only half-joking.
"She's a clever girl! We're going to an Ice Age. What a perfect place to chill out!"
Neither Tegan nor I laugh at this and the Doctor looks irked.
"That was funny!"
"Okay," says Tegan, "why an Ice Age? And whose? Earth's? You said an Ice Age."
"Oh…" The Doctor checks again and smiles sunnily. "Carbalexina's."
"Where," I begin, "is Caba… um, that place?"
"On the other side of that door." Tegan pulls the lever but makes no move toward the now-open door. The Doctor goes to it and steps outside. "Come on!"