The Doctor Begins

The Doctor Begins

By Todd Dias

I watched the column rise and fall countless times. I could barely take it all in. I had left my home and now I had no idea where I was going. I had a million thoughts running through my mind but they were interrupted by lights flashing on the console. I was coming to wherever and whenever I was going to arrive and it was time to start the materialization sequence. Things were beginning to match up and I realized to my horror where I was….I was still on Gallifrey.

I looked intently at my instruments which told me that I had traveled backwards in time to the genesis of the Time Lords. I had come right as my people began to gain their awesome power: The Age of Omega. There was supposed to be a temporal boundary around this particular period in my people’s history But I seemed to have transgressed it.

It seemed as though I had been pulled here by someone…or something. I tried to shake that thought out of my head. I may be nervous, I thought, but I must not exceed to paranoia. Still, I had to be prepared for anything as I emerged from the TARDIS.

I looked around. The orange Gallifreyan sky was still the same only younger. The rocky hills were also as they were in my time. Some things I suppose do not change. I noticed too that it was getting close to the setting of the suns.. The Great City would not yet be completely built, I thought, but there would be some settlements close by. What would I do there, I asked myself. Why don’t I just take off? Because I want to know how it is I came to be here. By all rights this point in time should not have been so easily accessed. Besides, I thought, it’s not everyday you get to see your own planet a millennium before you were born…even for a Time Lord.

I was just finishing this thought when I realized that I was not alone. A young girl came into view.

“Is this your ship,” she asked curiously as young children are wont to be.

. “Why, yes,” I replied cautiously. I had neglected to activate the chameleon circuit. My ship was as conspicuous as a Dalek.

“It’s a TARDIS, isn’t it?”

“Pardon?”

“You know Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. I came up with the name TARDIS myself, you know?” She said this proudly.

So is that where the name came from, I thought, this young girl?

“My father is a genius, you know.”

“Must be, my child, must be….Who is he?” My instincts told me that the answer to this question would in turn begin to answer others that were begging to be answered.

“You can follow me if you like. He says he’s been expecting you.”

“Expecting me?”

Good grief, I thought. I followed her to a sort of cottage in the rocks where a man was sitting studying some sort of temporal-spatial map. He looked to be both young and old. What I mean to say is that while he was easily much younger than I, he had about him an age beyond his years. I cleared my throat and he got up somewhat startled.

“I found the stranger for you,” the girl said

“Ah, good, Susan…Now run along, my dear. This gentleman and I have much to discuss.

We do indeed, I thought. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage…” I began.

“Yes, of course, where are my manners. I am known as Kranos. I assisted the great Omega in founding the Eye of Harmony. He took all the credit of course but when he disappeared into the void, I received all the blame. I’ve been living in exile in these mountains since I invented what Susan calls TARDIS.”

I was speechless. I really had no idea what to respond to this but then came my way a direct question meant to break my silence.

“And what do they call you?”

“A number of things,” I responded cryptically. I never liked being interrogated. “They called me Theta Sigma in school.”

“A learned man, are you?”

“You might say so, yes.”

“A ‘Doctor’, perhaps?

Again I was speechless. How could he possibly know that ‘Doctor’ was the name I assumed upon graduation from the Academy?

He laughed at the confusion and surprise on my face.

“I’m sorry, Doctor. You must forgive an insolent young man but in my time aiding Omega I have gain access to things once thought impossible.

“Yes free travel through Time and Space is quite a feat” I replied with a small hint of facetiousness.

“But that is only the beginning, Doctor,” he took on an ominous tone. “I have seen into the time-stream itself and I know of some many things to come.”

“The time-stream itself?!” No wonder this young man could seem so old and so knowledgeable.

“You see it was I who brought you here.”

“You brought me here?!”

“Not me all by myself. I will show you. In the morning when we have both rested.”

I would have insisted on an immediate explanation had I not seen the expression of severe exhaustion on my host’s face. I acquiesced. Being a Time Lord meant that time was more often than not on my side. I was rejoined by Susan who showed me to my room. Once there I expected her to run along but there was something else she wanted from me.

“Do you know how to play Rekop?”

“My dear child, when I was your age, I could win hands like no one else. My friends were never tired of complaining of my luck...Luck? Pphh…It was skill!”

She laughed at this but suddenly looked sad.

“I don’t really have any friends of my own. When we were sent away I had to say goodbye to everyone.”

My hearts went out to her. I too had to give up friends and family to a life of exile. Only mine was by choice.

“Will you be my friend, Doctor?”

“On one condition…”

She looked worried

So I smiled and said “’Doctor’ is such a formal name…”

“Can I call you ‘Grandfather’, then?

Grandfather?! I thought. Well I was 280 but I was still in my prime I thought. Susan looked at me with big brown eyes and I thought ‘Well Grandfather is a term of endearment. “Of course you can, my child.”

“Talking of names, how do you come by a name from Sol 3 of Mutter’s Spiral or Earth as it is called?”

“One of father’s first experiments took him there. He liked the name. I would so love to go on an adventure and see Earth and all its people.

“I’ve been numerous times. Always on chaperoned tours of course but I quite enjoyed it”

This made Susan awestruck and she demanded that I tell her every detail.

I told her or the marvels and follies of Mankind; the pyramids, Stonehenge, Easter Island. I told her many of the fables from Ancient Greece and Arabia. I told her of the backwardness of 21^st Century custom in North America. Never before had I such a captive audience.

“Now it is getting late. Your father would not be pleased with me if I kept you up telling stories till morning.”

She gave a slight protest but gave in to sensibility and said “Goodnight… Grandfather.”

In the morning I woke and came to the spot where I had met Kranos. He looked as though he hadn’t left and had been there the whole night. He looked up and bid me a good morning. “Now that you’ve rested, it is time to explain everything. To do so there is something I must show you.”

He led me to a hut. He opened the doors to reveal what looked like a casket. In the casket was not so much an object but a glowing essence. “This,” he explained “is the Hand of Omega. With it many things are possible.” He said this with much giddiness but the giddiness soon gave way to something far more malign.

He started to shake and sweat profusely. I helped him to a seat on the rocks.

“Power of this kind is dangerous, Kranos. Particularly to one’s health.”

“You understand now why I need you, Doctor. This must be taken where no one can get to it.”

“Why do you need me when you could use it to send itself away. Or could it be that you cannot force yourself to part with it?”

“Very perceptive, Doctor. The Hand of Omega is killing me from the inside out, but I cannot be rid of it as it is paradoxically the only thing keeping me alive. Without it I would surely die a slow painful death.. I beg of you to take it away…and I ask another favour. Take my daughter with you.

“Kranos, I don’t know where I am going. I am bound to encounter many unknown dangers.”

“Doctor, I understand your reservations, but I cannot bear for her to see me die in this way…eaten alive by temporal radiation. She needs someone who will look after her. Please, Doctor.”

“We’ll let her decide,” I said noticing that Susan had been there the whole time, hiding behind the rocks.

She came to her father now in tears saying she could never leave him. Kranos told he to consider all the places she’d see and all the adventure to be had. But more seriously he told her that she must go and remember her father as he was and not stay and witness what he would become. He knew in her hearts that she wanted to stay but also that she could never deny him what would be his dying wish. Reluctantly and with much sadness, she agreed.

“I will look after you,” I said. “You will be loved as my own.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I am forever in your debt.”

Susan helped me carry the Hand into the TARDIS. After a long tearful goodbye we entered the TARDIS. As I closed the door, I heard Kranos exclaim, “Your journeys begin, Doctor!”

I began the dematerialization sequence and was off again. This time with company.