With a wheeze and a groan, the battered old police box reappeared in that corner of the Doctor's UNIT laboratory that it had called home for the past few years. A moment later, the doors opened to admit the Doctor back into his home-in-exile. His clothes were torn, muddy and scorched, stained frills hanging at odd angles amidst charred velvet. With a little help from Jo, he was able to drag his dirty ragged form into a creaky wooden chair. Jo sat down opposite him, her hair matted and her clothes wrinkled. In desperate need of a hot bath, she silently tried to assimilate all that had happened in the past day: a trip to the future, an up-close and personal encounter with a storm demon and a rather unusual follow-up visit from the Master... A heavy sigh from the Doctor brought her back to the present. `Doctor, what's wrong?' `I've failed again, Jo. Just as I did two hundred years ago.' She smiled at him, but she was too tired and weak and hungry, so it was tempered by fatigue. `No, you haven't, Doctor. You've saved the Earth. Again.' `The Earth, but not the Universe. Every time I run into Achmael, he slips away in the end. Next time, I must be ready for him. I can't let this happen again.' `Doctor, you can't blame yourself.' `Can't I, Jo? If not for me, thousands might never have suffered his wrath. Who knows what all he's capable of? He might even find his way back here someday. Is that what you want?' `Well, no, but I--' `Sooner or later, Jo, that time bubble is going to burst and on that day, he'll be free again. Free to kill for the sheer pleasure of it, free to cause pain and suffering on some world or other, free to expand his reign of terror where he might never have traveled without my help. The Time Lords were right. How many more people must die before I stop interfering with the natural course of the Universe?' `Doctor, you're a good man. I've seen the good you've done. You've sacrificed yourself time and again to help people, even the Master, but you're only one man. Achmael isn't your responsibility.' `Isn't he?' the Doctor asked, suddenly animated. `You haven't seen the future, Jo. I have. Compared to Achmael, the Master is practically an amateur. `My people created that monstrosity and sooner or later, I am going to have to destroy him.' His voice diminished as he fought to keep himself awake. `Perhaps if I can find out how he was summoned into being, I could even prevent all this from having happened in the first place.' He looked forlornly at his grounded TARDIS. `Maybe. One of these decades.' Jo tried to find words to ease his pain, but could find none. Her contemplation was broken by an extraordinary sound. She looked up to find the Doctor's eyes closed. For the first time she could ever remember, she believed she could hear him snoring!
Sloan sat cross-legged on a dusty ridge, looking out over a dark desert valley lit only by a quarter moon and the dim glow provided by the starry curtain above. The air was dry, but far easier on the nose -- and the lungs -- than that found on any city street. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howled. The crunch of gravel alerted him to the presence of another person. He turned to find Martinez standing next to him. `Damn, you're good.' `Stealth is the key to survival,' Martinez smiled as he dropped his pack and took a seat beside him. `Wouldn't you say, Colonel?' `Yes...' Sloan's voice trailed off as his eyes returned to the stars and his thoughts to departed friends, some of whose bodies might still be lying somewhere in that faraway jungle. A brief streak of light overhead signaled the end of another micron-sized piece of space dust. `Colonel?' `Hmm?' `Cybermen, Axons, Daleks, storm demons... When do you think it's all going to end? Do you think there will ever come a day when the Universe can just leave us alone in peace?' Sloan scanned the skies again as he tried to put some confidence behind his voice. There was none to be found. `Honestly, Javi? I don't know.' He slapped his friend on the back and stood to head back down the hillside. `I just hope the Doctor's there when we need him.'
Somewhere beyond the Oort cloud, a three meter wide sphere of trans- lucent energy soared outward, its single occupant frozen in an eerie silent scream as her temporal prison carried her unaging earthly form beyond the reaches of the solar system into the depths of interstellar space...
Copyright © 1994 Michael "The Admiral" Zecca