by Gary Russell
But the Doctor took no notice. He was standing staring at the TARDIS door, frowning hard. Then he shoved his hands disgruntledly into his pockets, turned around suddenly and stared at the commander.
‘Time for the truth I’m afraid, Commander.’
‘That is rather what I have been asking for,’ retorted the older man.
‘And who spoke?’ asked Nyssa aside to Adric, but he just shook his head.
‘Tell me when you lost contact with Dymok exactly. And why you haven’t reported it to Earth yet, hmmm?’
The commander frowned and brought his gun up again, but this time the Doctor eased it back down with a finger, fixing the commander with... with that stare. The one Tegan knew so well. The one that said, ‘I am a very old, impatient alien who is really fed up with having to lower himself to the level of mere humans but I will because you need to be humoured. And pitied.’ That stare.
The commander clearly sensed something along those lines himself because he answered the Doctor’s question, saying that the station had lost contact about fifteen minutes earlier.
How the Doctor knew anything of the sort had happened confused Tegan, but whatever his ploy was, it worked. As the Commander led them away from the TARDIS he was telling him everything, as if they were old friends. The Doctor had a way about him like that.
She glanced back to the TARDIS and then reached out to touch it.
To touch home.
The only home she had right now, lost in space and time until the Doctor fulfilled his promise and got her back to Earth. 1981. Real home.
And her hand pressed against the invisible force field that had kept the Doctor out.
She was dimly aware of the voice - from somewhere else entirely, she was sure.
‘Hello, Tegan!’
And then she was somewhere else entirely.
5
Mysterreality
Everywhere Tegan Jovanka went she saw the same things.
Vast skyscrapers around the harbour area, shopping centres and business districts, cafes and parks.
Tall, gleaming glass structures mixed favourably with smaller, traditional brick buildings, each one nestling against the other, bisected occasionally by small streets dotted with the frontages of smaller businesses.
A typical city in fact. Brisbane. The nearest ‘town’ to the family’s farm - and scene of many a Saturday afternoon escapade with Susannah, Hiss, Dave and Richard. Taking a ferry to the shops. Buying clothes and John Lennon and Abba records. Make-up and purses. All the things that thirteen-year-olds buy to tell their friends, parents and, more importantly, themselves that they are grown up. Have entered the world of the adults.
Hopping in and out of the larger stores, trying on ten different tops and skirts. Meanwhile the boys impatiently joking about tits and bums, completely ignorant of how their own bodies were changing in more subtle but, to the girls, equally obvious and far less attractive ways. God, their skin, their hair. Their breath!
Dashing into McDonald’s, then down to the market, trying to find jewellery to shock everyone back at their respective homes. Richard getting his ear pierced because he’d seen someone from Britain on a pop show with a pierced ear and back-sprayed hair.
Tegan Jovanka knew central Brisbane backwards.
So why wasn’t anything quite where it should be now?
She glanced over at her reflection in one of the eighteen-storey glass-fronted banks, the darkened glass reflecting back rather than enabling her to see in. But instead of her reflection staring at her, it seemed to be laughing at her. Pointing. And it was about twelve storeys taller than it ought to have been.
Oh, and Brisbane was completely deserted. Cars parked on the streets. Buses waiting at stops. But no one in them. No one in the streets. In the shops. In the cafés.
No birds in the air. No sounds of water even from the harbour.
Nothing. It was as though she was walking through a three-dimensional photograph of Brisbane.
Suddenly there was a sound. Something was falling from above her and she jumped aside just as a huge black bin-liner thwumped to the tarmac in front of her. Immediately it burst open, and scraps of paper were scattered in every direction, moved by a soundless, apparent gust of wind that Tegan couldn’t feel. But one piece of paper didn’t move. It lay there, curled at the edges on the dry street.
Tegan picked it up.
Hello Tegan it read.
There was another.
Or is it a dream.
And another. But there had only been two a second ago. Or a nightmare.
She scrunched the papers up and threw them aside.
‘Hello?’ Her voice sounded small amidst the vastness of the buildings. But it didn’t echo back as she thought it might. It was almost as if the city was swallowing her voice. Most probably, she could only have been heard by someone standing right beside her.
‘Hello?’ she shouted, but still her voice came out barely louder than a sotto voce whisper.
‘Oh rabbits - this is ridiculous.’ She started to walk in the direction taken by the scraps of paper she hadn’t caught.
Towards the harbour - she could see the water glistening in the bright sunlight.
‘Doctor? Nyssa?’
If anyone knew what was going on, they would. Nothing. In desperation, and against her better judgement, she tried again.
‘Adric?’
She thought she heard something behind her, but there was nothing there.
But as she wheeled back towards the harbour, the road ahead was blocked.
By a skyscraper.
‘That wasn’t there just now,’ she said. With a shrug, she turned away and headed down a small side street that she remembered would take her towards the main open-air shopping precinct with its covered top.
Yes, that was still there. Except that the way was blocked by a wire-mesh gate with five... no six, huge padlocks keeping it closed. As she looked up she saw tiny slivers of jagged glass grow from the top of the gate until they were about seven inches high.
‘Now I know I’m dreaming,’ she muttered. Still, it meant that she wasn’t supposed to go that way. A quick glance to the left confirmed the skyscraper still blocked off the harbour.
Tegan
continued
walking,
periodically
encountering obstacles that hadn’t been there last time she looked, and suddenly it hit her. ‘Of course!’ she yelled. ‘It’s a maze!’
‘At last,’ came a voice from all around Brisbane and also close to her right ear.
‘Hey, I’ve coped with worse dreams than this,’ she said loudly, her voice again swallowed by the lack of reality. ‘I fought off the Mara. I can deal with you.’
‘Really?’ came the voice. ‘Bored with my little maze, are you? Well, let’s see if I can jazz it up a bit for you, my friend.’
That hadn’t been the response Tegan wanted. She had hoped that by bringing up her recent mental battle against the Mara, the disembodied entity that had tried to re-enter the real world by manipulating her dreams, her foe would realise that she was stronger than he anticipated. All that was going to happen, by the sound of it, was an upping of the ante.
Which was exactly what followed.
‘Adric!’
There in front of her was her travelling companion, hands in pockets, staring at her. No, staring past her. Tegan turned and was greeted by the sight of Nyssa, hands behind her back.
‘It’s very simple, my dear,’ said the disembodied voice. ‘You must escape from my maze. I imagine the rules are fairly obvious. You can’t cheat.’ Tegan wondered if she knew the voice. It wasn’t harsh, like the Mara’s had been. It was older, almost relaxed and kindly. This voice reminded her of her English grandfather - it had those same cultured tones, an easy but educated way of speaking. However, it also had a smugness that suggested to Tegan that it liked hearing itself. She, on the other hand, was already rather naffed off with it.
‘Anythin
g else I need to know?’ she called out, and was pleasantly surprised that for the first time her voice carried.
Indeed, she felt a rush of air around her. Like the slight breeze from the surface of Brisbane harbour on a September morning.
As if to answer her, a third figure materialised at the far end of the street. It was a robot - a real 1950s idea of a robot. Tegan immediately thought of an old game she had owned as a child, a spelling game called Magic Robot. To spell a word out, the robot would walk towards the correct letters on a board. This robot was in the same mould - dull grey metal, square head and body, stubby jointed legs and arms, and a screen on its chest. On the screen, LEDs flashed, reading 1800.
‘Oh yes,’ the voice finally replied. ‘My robot is there to help you find your way out. I suggest you listen to him when he bothers to give you aid. And you have thirty minutes. Oh, and one last thing. Your young friends here are not your friends. At all. In any way whatsoever. I shouldn’t trust them if I were you.’
As if to confirm this, Nyssa brought out from behind her a small rectangular box with a nozzle on it. The ion bonder she had used to help the Doctor on Castrovalva. But Tegan knew it could also be used as a weapon and realised that, here, that was exactly what it was.
Adric meanwhile undid the rope belt around his waist and started making a lasso of it, wheeling it expertly around his head.
Tegan knew then these were not her real friends from the TARDIS. Nyssa was never that cold, and Adric never had that degree of hand-eye co-ordination!
The robot held up a big sign - a wooden arrow with the words THIS WAY on it, pointing to the left.
‘When do I start?’ asked Tegan, tense and ready.
As an answer, the LEDs began counting down on the robot’s chest. 1799, 1798, 1796...
And Tegan ran for her life.
The man atop the pyramid on Dymok was grimacing.
His eyes screwed tightly shut, he was concentrating. His...
their... last hope was being... abused.
‘No,’ he said to no one, his voice cracked and weary, his vocal cords dry through lack of use. ‘No, this cannot be right.
She is our salvation. She is our future. She is our destiny.’
His eyes snapped open, blazing with something new.
Something unbidden.
‘Do not interfere,’ screeched a new voice through his mouth
- harsh and bitter. ‘Leave us, old one. Your time is over.’
But, clearly struggling with whatever demon was within him, the old man managed to screw his eyes shut again, took a deep breath and hissed in his own voice ‘We shall meet our saviour. We shall meet our saviour. She is coming and there is nothing you can do about it. Nothing!’
Tegan dashed around a corner, expecting to find a way towards the harbour, but instead the robot was there, the countdown clicking away on its chest.
‘Who are you?’ she yelled out angrily. ‘I’m fed up with this!’
She was tired, rather grubby and knew full well that what was happening wasn’t right. She stopped. ‘All right, you win. I’m not running any more. You know why? Because this isn’t real. I know a dreamscape when I see one. My mind has been plucked by experts, you know!’
The robot began striding towards her, emitting a hydraulic hiss every time it curled a knee joint or an arm joggled.
Taking a deep breath, Tegan closed her eyes and turned her back on it. She opened her eyes again, preparing to march forward.
Before her stood a man. In his mid-thirties, his dark, almost olive skin gave him a Mediterranean look. He wore a long burgundy robe and on his head a small burgundy skullcap covered most of his black hair.
‘Help me,’ he was mouthing silently. ‘Help me!’
‘Who are you?’
He seemed to frown at her, as if noticing her for the first time.
And then, to her right, another figure walked out of the shadows. He looked like a traditional stage magician she’d seen in countless television shows and on circus posters. A Caucasian man dressed like a Chinese mandarin, and lacking nothing except the fake moustache and badly made-up Chinese eyes.
The man was tall and somewhat imposing. He wore a circular black hat embossed with many interweaving gold and silver threads. Upon his silken robe were coiled Chinese dragons, their eyes and scales picked out in rubies, emeralds, diamonds and even pearls.
‘This really is not good enough,’ he said to the mouthing figure. Tegan recognised his voice as the one that had started her on this foolish errand in the first place.
‘Hey, what do you think -’
The mandarin held a hand up towards her and Tegan felt an invisible grip around her throat - she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t utter a sound. ‘Be silent,’ he said rather pointlessly. Tegan didn’t have much choice.
The mandarin continued walking towards the mouthing man, who clearly hadn’t noticed him. The two figures collided but neither fell over. Instead, Tegan watched as the silent man seemed to fade away, almost as if the mandarin had absorbed him.
‘Some trick,’ she said, her mouth vocalising what she thought as the mandarin’s spell relaxed.
The mandarin turned to her. ‘You are no fun, Tegan Jovanka. You lack what I need. Be gone from my realm.’
‘Now wait a minute,’ she said. ‘You can’t just chase me around and then -’
The mandarin was suddenly face to face with her, as if by magic.
‘A Toymaker may do exactly what he desires in this universe, child. Remember that. Now. Go.’
Tegan found herself sitting on the floor outside the TARDIS.
Her companions and the crew members were grouped around her, concerned.
‘Are you all right?’ asked the Doctor.
Tegan nodded, allowing him and Oakwood to ease her up. She took a deep breath and snapped her eyes shut as she tried to regain her balance.
And two faces flashed through her subconscious. Firstly, the silent, mouthing man in purple. Secondly, what seemed to be a very old, frail man standing impossibly atop a pyramid.
Both were saying, ‘Tegan Jovanka. Help me!’
And they were gone.
‘What happened, Tegan?’
‘I… I don’t know...,’ she said, trying to hold on to a memory, a fragment of whatever had just gone through her mind. But whatever it was had gone. ‘I can’t remember a thing...’
The Doctor put an arm around her shoulders. ‘I think you’ve been overdoing it,’ he said.
‘I think you’re right,’ she mumbled back.
As the whole group left the cargo bay, Tegan took a last look back.
Standing in front of the TARDIS was the mandarin, a smug smile on his face, his hands enveloped in his sleeves.
So she screwed her eyes tight shut, took a deep breath and wished he would go away. When she looked again he was indeed gone, along with the last fragments of Tegan’s memory of him.
Tegan took a last look back.
Standing there, serene as ever, was the TARDIS.
Alone.
As it should be, surely?
With a shrug, she followed everyone else back down the corridor.
6
The Lights Are Going Out
She didn’t like this, whatever and wherever ‘this’ was, but she wasn’t going to let anyone else know that. ‘This isn’t Kent?’ she asked.
‘No, madam. This is my master’s realm.’
‘My toy room,’ explained the Toymaker, materialising from behind a dark velvet curtain. ‘Who do we have here, LeFevre?’
‘A true gambler, Lord,’ LeFevre replied.
‘The stakes?’ The Toymaker stared at the young woman and smiled. ‘Somewhat high, I should imagine’
‘Oh aye, and just why d’you imagine that, Mr Mandarin?’
The Toymaker bowed, arms folded within the large sleeves of his robe. ‘Because, madam, you have an air about you. A certain ambience that suggests you live life to its fullest and, mayhaps, a bit beyond.’
The woman shrugged and slipped off her leather jacket, slinging it over her shoulder casually. ‘Aye, perhaps I do, sir.
Care to tell me why I am here?’
‘I am the Toymaker, madam. Monsieur LeFevre here is one of my most devoted acquisitions. We play games. For the highest stakes.’
The woman looked around the vast room she was in. Many life-sized statues were placed there haphazardly, facing different directions, in strange poses. It was as if someone had just dumped them and no one had got around to arranging the display area properly.
She walked up to one, a Roman legionary. Next to him was a woman in Edwardian dress - she even held a party invitation, intricately carved so that the words were readable, and wore a beautiful necklace. ‘These are true works of art, I must say. Not that I’m an expert, mind, but the detail is amazing. Who’s this fellow?’
She was looking at a tall man with a moustache. The cut of his suit seemed a bit... unusual and he was standing proud and erect. He was holding a wallet and she peered closely at it -
it contained bank notes but it wasn’t the king’s face on them: it was a woman. A queen she didn’t recognise.
‘Oh that’s ―Lucky‖ Bingham. Except he wasn’t. Not one of the more pleasant members of your species and a quite dreadful sportsman. I picked him up out of the water on a rainy night in 1974. If he’d beaten me at backgammon, I’d have sorted out a spot of bother he’d got himself into. But I won.
I usually do.’
Of course it could all be tomfoolery, but something about those bank notes sent a shiver down her spine. And the look on the faces of some of the statues ranged from calm to terror, resignation to... bewilderment or surprise. These were not ordinary statues.
‘I don’t like to be rude, but I’d rather be on my way. I do have an aeroplane to deliver, you see.’
‘A flyer? Is that what you do?’ The Toymaker closed his eyes, and she noticed LeFevre did the same. She went rigid. It was as if someone was rifling through her mind, her memories. So many long-forgotten thoughts and feelings rushed into her mind’s eye.
