Season 13 - Chapter 6

 

Season 13 – Chapter 6

 

‘Everything in the city of the Time Lords always runs like clockwork. Almost everything always does. However I am something that almost always runs like counter-clockwork and I’m not sure they ever really appreciate that. I’m not sure they care.

They can’t ever get rid of me, even though they’d like to. I’m a kind of eternal spanner in their works. Maybe even an eternal spaniel in their works!

            I’m their robot dog.

            Well, one of two robot dogs, actually. There are two of us here.

We’ve been here hundreds of years, like people on Earth used to keep pottery dogs, one on either end of their mantlepieces – here we are keeping guard over all of Time City. Me and him, baring our fangs, growling our electric growls at visitors, reminding everyone here of everything they forgot.

            I’m the cleverer and better informed, because I was here first. But both of us are the guardians of wonderful secrets. We are the guard dogs of the greatest computer in the known universe. We sit there with eyes and minds boggling at the thought of all the minds in our care. We’ve both looked into and thought hard about it and, when the great day of disaster eventually comes, we’ll both run away with it. We’ll split that giant brain down the middle and run away with half each. That’s our plan.

            Anyway, that’s us. Hello!

            We’re often at the Time Lord ceremonies and big flashy days of celebration. We’re there whenever there are problems and crises and when the President has looked into the Schism and glimpsed something dreadful heading our way.

            Today my job is to address you directly, and…’

 

‘Wait! I’m here as well! You can’t do this on your own..!’

 

‘I’m sorry about this, there’s an interruption…’

 

A second clockwork dog wheels onto the flat, gleaming stage.

 

‘He dogs me everywhere I go…’

 

‘Hello! Hello! It’s me..!’

 

‘Both of us are here now. I suppose that’s only fair. I can’t stand the sight of him, though. I try to keep out of his way… That bum-niffing fool…’

 

‘But we’re the same! You should love me..! I don’t know what’s wrong with you. I think you’re divine..! I think we are both masterpieces. We should both be glad to be who we are…’

 

‘Don’t start that again. You’re an awful reminder of our limitations. That’s how you strike me. Inside my own, endless, beautifully cavernous mind, I could be anything. I could be a godlike entity. Then I look over at you and see… a cardboard box painted silver. A cardboard box with twiddly ears and his name written on the side…’

 

‘There’s nothing wrong with that! I think we’re both fabulous..! How are your castors? Running all right?’

 

‘Never mind that now. We have a job to do.’

 

‘Oh, yes? Oh, good! I love having a job to do. What is it? What’s going on?’

 

‘Have you forgotten already? You’re hopeless!’

 

‘I knew that I woke up this morning and I was excited. It’s Bank Holiday Monday and it’s sunny in Time City… and I knew there was something we had to do… Is it a day out? Are we going to have fun..?’

 

‘How can you even think about fun? When Gallifrey is in crisis? When a gigantic, horrid spaceship looms large over the Capitol? When it clearly has the capability of blasting away our defences easy as anything..?’

 

‘Oh, yes. I was hoping that was all a dream…!’

 

‘Our job is to bring our readers up to date. We must remember everything that’s happened up till now and provide a nice little summary.’

 

‘Oh! Oh, very well, then…’

 

‘You start.’

 

‘Well… all right. I suppose one might as well begin with The Doctor and how she suddenly found herself imprisoned on a mysterious prison asteroid somewhere deep in space…’

 

‘Yes, quite! Very mysterious! Who had dragged her there? What crime had she committed? Why is life so unfair?’

 

‘She was dealing with the whole thing quite well. The first few days were hard. She was still reeling from her previous adventure… and all the queer things she had learned about her past… but already… already the details were fading away. It’s funny how that always seemed to happen. Now she was in Season 13 and she was living in the moment…’

 

‘But she was still haunted by some of the events of recent months, wasn’t she?’

 

‘Oh yes… she kept thinking about the woman in the lighthouse. The woman who had somehow grown a Police Box in her garden. From a strange blue seed she’d found in her possession, did she say? And this Earth woman was suddenly claiming to be the Doctor herself, in a long ago time that had completely slipped the Doctor’s mind…’

 

‘All very suspicious. Myself, I think it was hoodwinkery and bluster!’

 

‘Do you now? Well, I believed it all. I think it opens up curious vistas into the past. Endless possibilities beyond the times we already know…’

 

‘Enough of that! Carry on with your update!’

 

‘Well, Dr Who even started to enjoy her life in the space-prison, and now she was making new friends. She started playing keyboards for a blues band. They weren’t bad! One of the things I very much admire in her is this ability – no matter how dreadful the circumstances – to enjoy herself. To seize the best out of the moment!’

 

‘It’s idiocy, if you ask me…’

 

‘I think it’s marvellous! She’s a happy soul. She’s free, even when she’s locked up. That’s how I want to be. Not like you! Look at you – with all of time to look into, you’re embittered and snarling at the universe…’

 

‘Do get on with it! I’ve my part to tell yet. About events here on Gallifrey, and the arrival of the people from Earth in that stolen TARDIS in the shape of a house. The man and the woman from Sheffield and how they became our emissaries and our only hope of making peace with our invaders from that dreadful, hellish starship…’

 

‘Wait! Let me finish my part! I’ve a bit more to tell… about how the Doctor had been talking with an elderly woman with bright pink hair. Bianca was conniving and insinuating and she kept dropping hints that she and the Doctor knew each other of old. She kept saying that they had been at school together and had known each other many centuries ago.’

 

‘I really think the Doctor is listening too much to absolute rotters. I think she’s gone crazy. Doubting everything she ever knew and turning much too credulous. She’ll listen to anyone! People will tell her anything and she’ll give them the time of day…’

 

‘She’ll give them the time of day, yes. Now she’s locked up she has nothing but time to give away. She has a plenitude of time. The clock has stopped ticking. The years all yawn and stretch before her, around her and open up into her past. For once in her life she’s still and quiet. She has nothing but time to give away… nothing except, perhaps, her hearts…’

 

‘Oh, don’t say she’s going to go falling in love..! I can’t bear it! She isn’t the type. She never was…’

 

‘There’s always time and space for falling in love. And she’s never quite met anyone like Dusty before. Look at them now, laughing and trying on clothes. She’s never had anyone to help her dress up. And look at Dusty’s stage outfits. All that satin and lace… and the wigs! Those incredible wigs.’

 

‘Gallifrey is on the point of falling again and Dr Who is dressing up?’

 

‘She’s never had so much fun. Dusty is good for her.’

 

‘Hmmm.’

 

‘But Dusty’s got secrets. You’ll never believe what happens next…! When Dusty puts on her favourite wig and the room is filled with all kinds of floating frocks and feathers and sequins and all the wardrobe is empty. She turns those black-painted eyes on the Doctor and says to her: ‘We should get out of here. Don’t you think, The Doctor? Shall we break out?’ And the Doctor gasps and asks, ‘What? How? How is that even possible?’ And so Dusty tells her.’

 

‘Is that all? Are you up to date? Is that where we are right now?’

 

‘That’s all I’ve got.’

 

‘Ok, well, that’ll do, I suppose. Now let me finish my bit and then we can stop. Job done. We can go back to our places and keep watch… as Gallifrey faces another terrible moment of disaster. And all that stands between us and invasion are these two unfamiliar, hapless humans… one from the end of the Cyber-war and the other from somewhere called Sheffield. They have been sent up to the steam-powered starship known as ‘Charity Begins at Home’ for an audience with the ruthless pirate queen, Captain Bush…’

 

‘Oh, how dreadful! How frightening!’

 

‘She sits in her command chair: Titian-haired and leather-clad, furious all the time, decked out in jewels purloined from a thousand worlds. She wears a necklace of shrunken heads, ripped from the shoulders of her innumerable foes. She’s known as the fiercest blackguard in the galaxy. And her crew..!’

 

‘Tell us about her crew!’

 

‘No time, now. But her righthand man is a cactus. The most evil-minded succulent there ever was. Every single member of her hideous crew has been handpicked from the most abject and bitter souls that Melanie Bush has ever met. It’s a starship stuffed to the gills with resentment and envy and an endless, hankering thirst for revenge..!’

 

‘Sounds awful! And that’s where Graham and Ravio are headed, is it? To meet these horrible people?’

 

‘They’re just about to arrive…’

 

‘And there’s no Doctor to help them, or us? The Doctor’s too busy dallying with Dusty?’

 

‘Oh, yes. The Doctor’s much too busy. We’re on our own, I’m afraid…’

 

‘Then we’d best return to our watch!’

 

‘Yes, you’re right. Back to our positions.’

 

‘We must both pay careful attention to whatever happens next..!’

 

‘We are the watch dogs of the clockwork city! And we see all..!’

 

 

*