The Planet of Paraxenophobes--Chapter Twelve

Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure on
The Planet of the Paraxenophobes
Starring:
PAUL MCGANN as the Doctor
VAL KILMER (oh dear) as Jadi Morok
LILI TAYLOR as Angela Ferris
and
NEMO BLANC as Wil Young

 Episode 12
All Bad Things...

 Oh dear, thought the Doctor.

 Oh crap, thought Jadi.

 Oh shit, thought Angela.

 

Wil was beginning to feel more than a little panic-stricken. The TARDIS was stuck in a Temporal Orbit (whatever the home - er, hell - that was), and the TARDIS had just started playing a big gong.

 "Okay, I'm now much more confident - no more angst, not a little kid anymore. I have the perceptions of - I have increased perceptions, and for some reason an increased knowledge of temporal mechanics. There is no need to panic." He thought for a moment. "Except that I still have no idea what to do and the cloister bell is a sign of near certain doom."

 After careful consideration of all the available facts, Wil decided that there was, in fact, good reason for panic.

 Arrgh, thought Wil.

 

The Doctor was on his knees, staring into Angela's eyes. Angela, for her part, was curled up into a ball and trying to convince herself that she was a figment of her own imagination.

 Jadi stood and watched the Doctor try to comfort Angela. He felt like a fifth wheel, and like a complete jerk for not knowing what the hell he should be doing.

 "Doc-"

 "Not now," The Doctor interrupted. "I'm sorry, Jadi, but there's nothing you can do at the moment. Actually - " He hesitated, and Jadi could see indecision on his face. Then the Doctor sighed. "Actually, there is something you can do for me, Jadi. I need you to go to the library and find me a book."

 "But what about Ang-"

 The Doctor cut him off with a look. "Angela will be - " He paused. "I will look after Angela. Jadi, unless we act very quickly we shall all be compressed into a singularity, thus dead. The book I need you to find is on the third shelf down on the second row from the left hand door. It's called 'The Knowledge of Three'."

 With that, he turned back to Angela, the aspect of a stern lecturer transformed suddenly into that of concern for a friend. Jadi stored that up to think about later, then ran off to find the library.

 

I can't do this.

 If I don't, everyone will die.

 There has to be another way! Something else I can do that won't make me violate every moral that I have.

 If this violates every moral that I have, then why am I so ready to consider it? After all, none of this has to be permanent. After the crisis is over, when there's time to deal with this, I can put things back the way they should be.

 They should never be changed in the first place! I can't do this!

 I must.

 Must I?

 The Doctor looked deep into Angela's eyes. "Angela Ferris, listen to me very carefully. I need you to concentrate on the sound of my voice, thinking only of the sound of my voice, forgetting everything else, forgetting, forgetting, forgetting about your child, forgetting about the death, forg -- for a while."

 Angela sat up and shook her head. "What was that?"

 The Doctor looked at her, a confused expression on his face.

 "I thought you said something about a (my) child." For a moment Angela's face went blank, then she shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Doctor, this - *thing* inside me is going to implode in a very short period of time, and I have no way to control it whatsoever. I hope you've got something up your sleeve. I'm sure Jadi would hate to lose his bounty."

 Nodding silently, the Doctor helped Angela to her feet. She noticed for almost a moment that his eyes -

 "Angela." It was as if he didn't know what to say - no, he definitely knew what to say next. He just couldn't say it.

 "Doctor, I've been thinking." She hesitated, unwilling herself to take the final step. "The only way that we're going to get back to our universe is by using this bomb, isn't it?"

 There was a long pause before the Doctor nodded, not looking at her.

 "So we'd better get on with this, hadn't we. I suppose the place to be is the cloisters?"

 He nodded again, almost vocalizing a "Yes."

 Angela Ferris squared her shoulders, straightened her clothes, and went out the door towards what she hoped wasn't her destiny. They met a surprised and relieved Jadi on the way. Angela wondered what had upset him so much.

 

The three of them stood in the cloister room. Jadi kept looking at Angela with concern, which was beginning to irritate her. She had a bomb inside her, yes, but she wasn't going to fall over and blow up. What was she, a porcelain doll?

 The Doctor let out a breath in a rush. Things were moving a bit too fast here, and what with the various changes (and deceptions he'd instigated *BUT I'LL DEAL WITH THAT LATER*) in the ship's crew lately, what he was planning was possible, but extremely dangerous.

 "Jadi. When you see the mirror on this scepter begin to shine brightly, pull it from its post and look into the light beam. It won't hurt you, no matter how bright it is." He turned and looked directly at Angela, yet somehow still avoiding her eyes. "Angela, when the Eye begins to open, I need you to step into its center. It'll be very dangerous, but if everything goes according to plan, you'll be able to escape the pull at the right time."

 Jadi coughed. "Er, Doctor - when exactly will the right time be?"

 Angela shrugged. "I'll know, right, Doctor?"

 The Doctor nodded. "I have to go now and help Wil. Good luck, both of you." Taking the book from Jadi, the Doctor wheeled and left the shadowed cloisters at a run.

 

Wil was relieved to see the Doctor. "What's going on? Is everyone all right? What happened to the Vicar?"

 "Angela has a singularity implanted in her womb, other than that /everyone is fine/, the Vicar has ceased to exist in any sense of the word, and yes."

 Wil looked up sharply. The lie had been quite plain, and he was sure that the Doctor knew he knew, and so on. Plus, he'd only asked three questions.

 The Doctor flew at the console, striking buttons and shifting levers like an insane organist on a caffeine high. "No time to explain in detail; we only have about three minutes before the TARDIS becomes the center of a physical impossibility, destroying this planet and one or two others."

 There were thousands of other questions Wil needed an answer to, but he just couldn't find the words. So he nodded and started to help the Doctor.

 "We need to find a way to create a temporal shield around the Eye. That way the TARDIS will be able to harness the energy from the singularity without killing Angela."

 "Right," said Wil decisively. "How?" He added.

 With a sigh of exasperation (which Wil felt was totally uncalled for) the Doctor pointed to a button on the far side of the console. "Press that button for three seconds at a time until I tell you to stop. I'm going over here to read this book."

 With that, the Doctor opened 'The Knowledge of Three', and in an ancient tongue that was powerful enough to manipulate the physical laws of the TARDIS, he began to read.

 

Angela was staring directly at the center of the eye. Jadi tried to cough to attract her attention, but all he was doing was irritating his throat. Her eyes were only for the circle in front of her.

 Suddenly, the reflector at the top of the rightmost scepter began to shine. With a look at Angela, Jadi stepped closer to the scepter and pulled it free with surprising ease. A shaft of pure light rose up from the hole he'd uncovered.

 "Angela, I - "

 I love her? Oh my god. I'm doomed.

 " - hope everything turns out okay."

 She turned and smiled tightly at him, then turned back to her study of the stone Eye. With a mental sigh, Jadi leaned forward, cringing just a little, and stared into the center of the beam.

 With an abrupt crack, the eye began to open.

 

Wil knew even before the Doctor told him. As soon as the console room's 'lighting' (he didn't know how else to explain it) began to change shape, he stopped pressing the button and began to dance around the console, his hands flying across controls he had thought he'd never understand.

 The Doctor kept reading, the words rolling off his tongue almost as a chant in time with the cloister bell.

 

The eye fully opened and

 

Wil's hands poised delicately over the final switch in the sequence and

 

Jadi broke his gaze away from the light and

 

The Doctor turned the page and

 

Angela stepped into the beam and

 

abruptly, all the sounds ceased.

 

"All done," said the Doctor with a tired sigh. "We should be safe here for a short time. Everything should be - " With a startled jump, he threw the book to the floor.

 "Angela!" Wil and the Doctor shouted almost simultaneously. They set out for the cloisters at a run.

 

Angela was sinking quickly into the white hole of unreality when the two of them raced into the stone room. Jadi hadn't been sure of what to do, not knowing whether trying to help her would be alright, but when he saw the Doctor's expression, he threw himself at Angela with a yell of alarm.

 "Quick, grab my hand!" He stretched out as far as he could safely go, then stretched out a few centimeters more. It still wasn't enough. Suddenly he felt his ankles being grabbed in a strong grip and turned to see both Wil and the Doctor holding on to him. Without the necessity for leverage, he was able to stretch just far enough to grab her wrist.

 "Pull!" He yelled, and was immensely relieved to feel them pulling him back out of the Eye. Finally, after what seemed like eternity, Jadi and Angela lay panting on the ground.

 Angela turned a look of venom and loss on the Doctor. "The Vicar killed my child. You tried to kill its memory. WHY?"

 "Wha - Is that why you were so desperate to get me out of the room?" Jadi glared fiercely at the Doctor, but was at least partly mollified by the guilt and mortification he saw on the Doctor's face.

 Wil rubbed his eyes in exhaustion and exasperation. "Would anybody mind telling me what exactly in the name of Santa's demonic reindeer is going on?"

 The Doctor sighed and sat on the staircase. "I'm sorry. I didn'twant to do it, but there was no other way of using the energy from the singularity and saving Angela at the same time." He turned to Angela. "If you hadn't been completely rational at the time, you would have died in the Eye. Your memory was unbalancing you, so for a short while I had to - to block it off. If the singularity implosion hadn't been centered on the Eye, we all would have died. I'm so sorry, Angela. I would have given you back your memories."

 She smiled at him tightly. "Luckily, there was no need. The TARDIS very kindly did that for me on its own. Are we back home now?"

 He shook his head. "This is the place between universes. A - a kind of gateway, you could call it. We should get back to the console room before we return to our universe. It's going to be a bit bumpy, I'm afraid."

 Jadi shook his head and stormed out. Angela just looked at the Doctor. "This is far from over. When we've got a spare year or two, I'm going to want to have a little chat about this." Then she left the room, leaving the Doctor alone with Wil.

 "There should have been another way."

 "Yes, there should have. Unfortunately there wasn't. In the end, nobody died, though, did they? Nobody was injured?"

 "No."

 "No."

 "Not physically."

 After a minute, Wil shook his head and walked out, leaving the Doctor alone with his thoughts.

 After a while, the Doctor stood, picked up 'The Knowledge of Three', and started back to the console room. On the way, he passed the room where he'd once buried a sword of great power in a stone block, waiting for the day he hoped would never come.

 As he passed it, he thought he heard laughter.

 

And back at the university, Gui woke up and it had all been a dream.
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