Chapter 8 (Stealing Time)
Lilly and Holly had been escorted up the steps to the upper level, their hands tied behind their backs. Eleanor and Reginald had locked them in the smaller of the bedrooms and then headed back downstairs. They couldn’t make out what they were talking about, but their voices were calm and precise.
Holly was sat on the hard bed looking glum.
“I’m sorry about what she said back there,” said Lilly.
“Why are you?” asked Holly.
“Well she sure said some outlandish stuff,” said Lilly, sheepishly.
“Yeah, Time Vampires? What’s that about?”
“I didn’t meant the bit about Time Vampires,” said Lilly, looking to the ground.
Holly slipped off the bed and crouched in front of Lilly. “Lilly, I-”
“The Doctor’s told me about Time Vampires before,” said Lilly, quickly changing the subject. “Apparently their natural habitat is the time vortex. They prey on lost time ships but hardly ever visit planets.”
“Okay,” said Holly, sitting down on the floor rather than crouching.
Lilly spoke faster. “He said they’re always hungry so that’s why they don’t leave the vortex. Why would you leave the food buffet if you were always hungry?”
“Lilly-”
“But what the hell are they doing here? They’ve gotta have a plan. Maybe it’s something to do with that Fieldgate bloke. We’ve gotta tell the Doctor.”
“Lilly!” said Holly, quickly.
“What?” said Lilly, her eyes worriedly flashing towards Holly.
“It’s alright, you know?”
“What is?”
“About what Eleanor said down there. It’s okay.”
“It’s not true,” said Lilly. “She’s trying to cause a rift between us. If you get the emotions running high then it rattles up the particles. The chronon energy.”
“It doesn’t matter if it is true, Lilly.”
“And what she said about you. About what you think?”
Holly looked at Lilly. She felt a little sick. She felt that this was being pushed onto her before she was ready. She was exactly sure what she felt yet. She wasn’t able to put a definition or a label on it.
“You don’t have to say,” said Lilly, looking a little upset.
“But if you said that what Eleanor said was a lie…”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” said Lilly, looking away. There was that petulant child look again.
“Lilly-”
They heard footsteps coming up the wooden steps and both girls got to their feet. The door opened and Reginald walked in. He looked at both of them in turn and then approached Holly.
“Stay away from her,” said Lilly.
“Silence,” said Reginald, holding a finger up to her.
“Do you know what I am?” asked Lilly.
He turned to her and smiled. “Of course I do. You’re Gallifreyan. Which is why you’re staying here and your girlfriend is bringing the Doctor to me.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” said Holly.
“If you don’t then she dies,” he said, pointing towards Lilly.
“You’re going to kill us anyway,” said Holly. “That’s right, isn’t it? You’re going to drain us of any kind of time energy that’s flowing through us.”
Reginald frowned. “No.”
“And we’re expected to believe you?” asked Lilly, edging away from the big man.
“We have been trapped on this planet in this one time for six years. We were happily swimming in the vortex when we slipped through time and ended up here. It happens from time to time.”
“Then just go back,” said Holly.
“You can’t, can you?” said Lilly. “You can’t just jump back in.”
“No.”
“So you’re like a beached whale?”
“That’s right, young lady,” said Eleanor, getting to the top of the stairs. “We don’t want to drain you at all, as tasty as your Doctor friend looks. We just want to get back to our natural habitat.”
“But how have you survived for six years without eating?”
“With great difficulty,” said Eleanor. “We can live, but we are very weak.”
“So you want the Doctor to take your back to the vortex?” said Lilly.
“The Doctor won’t take us back. If he gets us in his TARDIS he’ll take us somewhere to lock us away.” Reginald looked away.
“The Doctor isn’t like that,” said Holly. “He’s sympathetic.”
“Not to our kind. Despite the fact that we just do what comes natural to us, the Doctor still sees our praying on time travellers as a crime. He’ll make sure we’re locked away.”
Holly felt a little sorry for Eleanor and Reginald, despite everything they were capable of doing.
“The only reason I took the job at the orphanage,” said Eleanor, sitting on the bed, “was so we could be close to Sydney Rook.”
“Professor Rook?” said Lilly.
“Yes. He’s building his own time machine - nearly finished in fact. We want him to activate his machine. It will punch a hole through time - like a corridor - which my father and I can then travel through and escape back into the vortex.”
“And you need us to convince the Doctor to leave or let Rook carry on making it?”
“Exactly,” said Reginald. He edged a little closer to Holly. “He won’t want Rook to complete it, because Fieldgate wants to use it to travel forwards to find his lost love. The Doctor will do everything in his power to stop that.”
Holly sighed and sat back down on the bed.
“You can’t trust them, Dangerfield,” said Lilly.
“I’ll do it on one condition,” said Holly.
Lilly shook her head.
“And what’s that?”
“That we both go.”
“We need a bargaining chip,” said Eleanor.
“You have a bargaining chip.” Holly went pocket and pulled out the TARDIS key. “You know where the TARDIS is. You can sense it.”
“Holly, no!” said Lilly.
“Quiet, Lilly,” said Holly. She held out the key. “You can have the TARDIS as your bargaining chip.”
“What’s to stop us flying away in the TARDIS?” said Reginald.
“Not a chance,” said Lilly. “The TARDIS won’t let you operate her.”
“Which is why I’m giving you the key. You can keep the TARDIS and squat in it if you like. You won’t be able to go anywhere, but it may convince the Doctor to let Rook activate his machine.”
“Why are you doing this?” said Eleanor, as she took the key from Holly.
“Because I don’t believe you’re both as bad as you’re made out to be. You need to survive, I get that.”
“But why would you leave such a prized possession as your TARDIS and not your friend?”
“Because,” said Holly, turning to Lilly, “my friend is important to me. Far more important than a time machine.”
The Doctor had been led to the back of the house, past the kitchens and through a large, lounge room that in turn led out through French doors into a huge conservatory that overlooked the sprawling back gardens.
Sat in the middle of the conservatory was a structure that was smaller than the Doctor had been expecting. It was sat atop a brass frame, about 2 feet up from the floor. The device itself looked like some kind of ornate, brass box with what looked like a camera lens fixed to the end. At the top of the contraption was a slot, which Rook was examining closely.
He looked up as the Doctor and Fieldgate entered the room.
“What do you think?” asked Rook, looking proud.
“I was expecting something…bigger,” said the Doctor.
Rook looked disappointed. “The majority of the wreckage from the time craft was useless. All that I needed was this one thing.” He went into his pockets and took out a small, glass, cylindrical container which held a glowing shard. “And of course a few of the other bits and piece. But this piece - this is the heart. This will give my machine life.”
“Do you know what it is, Doctor?” asked William.
“I do. It’s a part of the crystals that make up a time rotor. It channels the power from through the time ship and helps it to move.”
Rook nodded. “I thought as much.” He chuckled, opened the container and popped the shard into the opening at the top of the machine. It hummed into life. “I went to London to have in refined.”
“But you can’t use it to move the machine. You can’t travel anywhere with that.”
“No, of course not,” said Rook. He drew the Doctors attention to a large blackboard containing all manner of equations and drawings. “I haven’t built a travelling time machine, per se,” said Rook. “No, in fact this will instead punch a hole through the space/time continuum.”
The Doctor looked at the figures and detail on the board. “You’re creating a time corridor.” The Doctor’s eyes closed. “The time corridor that caused the scar at Gallows Inn.”
“I beg your pardon?” said William.
“Yes, a time corridor if you like,” smiled Rook. “We simply switch the device on and it sends a focused beam of energy from the aperture at the end and opens a hole which William can then travel through.”
“Absolutely not,” said the Doctor. Crossing over to the device. He looked won at it. On the top were brass knobs. One for the date, one for the month and another, larger knob, with years around its circumference which could be pointed to any year from 1907 to 2017.
“I’m afraid this is my device, young man,” said Rook, crossing over and pushing in front of the Doctor. “I will do as I please.”
“Sydney, perhaps-” started William.
“Fieldgate, old boy, you’ve already said your goodbyes to your mother and I’ve not spent the past few years building this contraption just to now not switch it on. I built it for us. For you!”
“I know, but-”
“William has had a change of heart,” said the Doctor. “He knows that he can’t meddle with the future now.”
Rook stepped over to William and looked at him. “You want to see your Miss Parker again, don’t you?”
“It’s too dangerous,” said William.
“We spent long, sleepless nights working on this. You told me all about her. How you longed to be with her. You can’t simply forget all of that now.”
William looked from Rook, to the Doctor, and to the machine and closed his eyes. “I have to forget.”
“It’s all academic anyway,” said the Doctor, going into his pocket, “because I know what I have to do.”
“And what is that, sir?” said Rook, rounding on the Doctor, angrily.
“Something that started a long time ago for me.”
He pulled out his sonic screwdriver, aimed it into the air and pressed down. The device began emitting a high-pitched beeping sound and William and Rook clasped their hands over their ears in pain.
“Sonic, you see!” shouted the Doctor, over the din. He then switched the device off, but the two men were disorientated long enough for him to grab the contraption, put it under his arm and run for the exit.
Holly was keeping a little ahead of Lilly and Lilly was struggling to keep up with her. She had handed the key over to Eleanor and the Wragby’s had released them from their bonds on the understanding that they head straight for the house.
Holly turned back. She could see Eleanor and Reginald watching from the tree-line.
“Wait, Dangerfield!” said Lilly, almost jogging to keep up with her.
“We need to get to the Doctor, Lilly. We don’t have time to wait.”
“No, you will wait!” said Lilly, grabbing Holly’s hand and spinning her around.
“What?” said Holly.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing giving them the key?”
“I wasn’t going to let them keep you hostage. They’re bloody vampires, Lilly!” said Holly.
“They weren’t going to kill me, but instead they’ve got a powerful time machine.”
“They can’t fly it,” said Holly.
“No, but they could feed off it.”
Holly shook her head. “They just want to get back to their natural habitat.”
“They kill.”
“Lions kill bison in Africa, don’t they?” said Holly.
“That’s different. That’s the circle of life.”
“Oh, don’t give me that Lion King crap,” said Holly, turning away to walk again.
Lilly snatched her hand out again. “No, you’ll wait and you’ll listen.”
“We don’t have time,” growled Holly. “What do you want me to say to you? Would you have left me there if the roles were reversed?”
Lilly didn’t answer.
“That’s all I need to know.”
The two woman’s attentions were drawn back to the house when the Doctor burst out the front door, a strange, brass-made device under his arms.
“Run!” shouted the Doctor, as he ran for the gates.
“Back to the TARDIS?!” shouted Holly.
“No, back to Gallows Inn!”
Holly looked at Lilly, frowned and then the two girls ran for the gates. The three of them arrived at the gates just as Rook appeared at the front door with William stood next to him, holding a hand to his ears.
Rook pointed towards Norman, who was near one of the small greenhouses. “Hunter, get them.”
Hunter frowned, looked at the three fugitives and then headed towards the gates.
Eleanor and Reginald were watching from the trees.
“He’s leaving with the device,” said Reginald.
“He said Gallows Inn,” said Eleanor. “Why would he be going there?”
“I don’t know,” said Reginald, “but we have his TARDIS.”
“He doesn’t know that yet,” said Eleanor. “We need to follow him.”
The Doctor, Holly and Lilly were running as fast as they could down the country lane. They had managed to put some distance between themselves and the pursuing Norman, but they couldn’t stop.
“Remind me again,” said Holly, out of breath and trying not to trample on her skirt, “why aren’t we going back to the TARDIS? This is the second time we’ve run away from the obvious safety of it.”
“Because this has to end at Gallows Inn,” said the Doctor, skipping over a small boulder.
“Why?” said Lilly. “Has this got something to do with what happened to you in the past?”
“Yes,” said the Doctor. “Remember I said I had been here many years ago in my personal history?”
The both of them nodded.
The Doctor continued. “Well I remember what it all was now. My friend, Hex, was trapped in a separate dimension, cut off from the real world. It was created by a scar running through time from the early Edwardian days to some time in the future.”
“A scar? Created by that time machine?” said Holly, as they slowed to a jog.
“That’s right. At first I thought Rook had built a time machine, but what he’s actually built is a time corridor generator.”
“Question mark,” said Holly.
“It punches a hole through the space/time continuum and allows you to travel from one point in time to another.”
“So this thing caused the scar that ran through Gallows Inn?” said Lilly, almost tripping over the hem of her skirt.
“Exactly. The dimension collapsed in 2006, but it all came back to me when I realised what it was.” The Doctor stopped, out of breath and sat down on a large boulder next to a wooden fence. “Eleanor was trapped in that dimension with my friend.”
“What?”
“When I was in my Seventh incarnation I freed my friend and her. She then told me that we’d meet again, in both of our futures, and I let her go back to the vortex.”
“This is giving me a headache,” said Holly. “But can’t we stop her now?”
“Absolutely not. That’s why we’re heading for Gallows Inn. This has all happened before and has to happen again.”
“But you’re going to destroy the machine, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but first I need to switch it on and let Eleanor escape into the corridor.”
“But you can stop her now?”
“Time has to happen like this,” said the Doctor, pinching the bridge of his nose. “The corridor was created in Gallows Inn because I remember it being in Gallows Inn.”
“A predestination paradox?” suggested Lilly.
“Yep. My least favourite of the paradox family.”
“Well we better get a move on,” said Holly, nodding back up the hill as Norman, Rook, William and a little behind them the Wragby’s closed in on them.
To be concluded...
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