Doctor Who: Introducing the Master.

Doctor Who: Introducing the Master.

by Todd Dias

Part One: Encounter

So it began, a life of drifting through Time and Space, never staying in one place for long before returning to the vortex…

The TARDIS brought Susan and I to many exotic worlds, each with their own unique adaptations, customs, and, of course, problems. In this those early ramblings I tended not to openly defy the Laws of Gallifrey. My freedom to me was still at issue…that is to say that I was still young and insecure of my alternative lifestyle, and I was still somewhat afraid of it being cut short. Also I was still in the mindset of being a mere tourist, just passing by. However, I would offer help where it was prudent to do so.

For instance on the planet Zedilion I assisted in its people’s ritual of Medalsohn, in which an elixir is drunk which purportedly allows them to form communion with their gods. The mountain’s sprng which produces this elixir had dried up and their alternative was sacrificing virgins! I arrived in the TARDIS in the middle of their sacrificial ceremonies, which seemed naturally to excite them and they implored my help as their deity’s messenger. Seeing what they were about to do, I bade them stop and explain things to me. They took it as a test and told me of the elixir that failed to form. I quickly went to work restoring the spring. It was more a problem of plumbing than mysticism.

Along the way of traveling and helping out in small ways where I could I tried to make myself more acquainted with the TARDIS navigational controls. I made notes on coordinates took readings of constellations, sedimentation, so I could be able to make informed attempts to make more deliberate journeys. My aim was to show Susan a bit of Earth’s history. By luck as well as some growing skill, the TARDIS was able to respond to some of my coaxing and we found ourselves on Earth often though the point of arrival would scarcely be further from the intended destination. Once I attempted to show Susan the building of the pyramids and we found ourselves in Canada witnessing the War Of 1812!

The TARDIS seemed to like Earth as much as Susan and, judging by how often we were able to arrive their but given the vastness of the universe and my…inexperience with the controls, we naturally found ourselves more often on numerous other worlds.

But it was on the planet Argonos that the first real challenge to my almost innocent travels with Susan emerged. It held in store for us an encounter with one of our own people. Worse still, it was one who knew very well.

The TARDIS was prone to deciding where to land and then requiring maintenance upon arrival. On the occasion of which I am speaking, I was taking preemptive measures.

“Dear me… this won’t do at all.”

“What is it, Grandfather?”

“This series is liable to play up again. I have made note that it comes into fault every 3 materializations. The chromeloop feed is out of sync.”

“I expect we’ll have to land to repair it then.”

“Quite so. Let’s initiate the materialization sequence.”

I often wished I had “borrowed” a properly functioning TARDIS but my desire to leave was pressing and my window of opportunity narrow. Upon arrival we went straight to work.

"Pass me my sonic screwdriver, my child… Ah yes… here is the problem it is stuck. Some lubricant, Susan my dear. Now to re-coordinate the control. Ah, splendid,”

Susan ever curious, wanted to know where we had arrived. Truth be told I was every bit as curious. As a rule I always checked and rechecked my instruments and make note of them to record codes. So I was astonished to find upon inspecting my instruments that we had arrived for the first time on a world I had already been on (with the exception of Earth) and in roughly the same period. Argonos, when I last saw it was a small, quiet, and peaceful planet with a simple agricultural society. Its people were not unlike Earth’s Neanderthal or rather Neanderthal if they had been allowed to advance. Idyllic would have been the word I’d use to describe the world on my first visit. What lay before us as we departed the TARDIS was something altogether different…a nearly barren wasteland.

“Something’s amiss here, Susan.” My readings indicated that we had arrived after our previous visit but not by more than 50 years.

“Perhaps they simply over-farmed, Grandfather.”

“No, I sense something malevolent at work, here.” I was suddenly very interested to know what had happened. Since leaving Gallifrey, I was slowly breaking out of conformity with merely observing and the philosophy of detachment. Curiosity overrode these. Curiosity…and something else. Justice maybe. I doubt if my initial intention was to interfere but something told me that this needed looking into.

Susan and I walked closer to the settlements. First contact with an alien race is complicated in the best of circumstances. But I recognized a special need for discretion in this case. The settlements themselves were deserted. These were huts made of thatched straw. But a large metal structure, roughly cylindrical lay at the centre. Instinct told me that this would give some kind of answer. Getting closer to it we saw a congregation of some kind. A man in robes was speaking of a Lord and Master who was displeased with the tardiness of production. Heads were low as they are wont to be at a lecture of this sort, with murmured less-than-enthusiastic agreement. I burned with desire to know who this “Master” was, for it was clear that whoever he was, he must be responsible for all this. But my curiosity led me to forget the need for discretion and soon my presence became known to the leader of the congregation.

“You!! Who are you?!?! Bring him here!”

In these younger and less experienced times I was not yet used to being manhandled and had not yet learned to weather this treatment with grace, patience and mirth,

“Take your hands off me, young man!!”

“Silence! Who are you people?

“None of your business!”

“Take them to the Preator, he will know what to do.”

We were led inside the structure. Susan was naturally frightened being so young and unused to such violence. I did my best to reassure her through the psychic rapport we shared. We were brought to a door guarded by to Argonians with laser rifles. It seemed rather anachronistic but by attention was not able to dwell on this as we were thrust in the door. A man with an official air was staring into a blank screen.

“Yes, Master,” he said in a trance. “Production will be up as you command.”

He turned around, was startled and regained angry composure in one fluid motion.

“What is the meaning of this? Who are these people?”

“Sorry, Praetor, Deacon Gallon orders. He said to bring them to you.”

“Very well, then.” He said gruffly. “Dismissed!”

He turned to us: “Now who are you? Speak!!”

“You’ll get nowhere by shouting, young man. Why don’t you calm down?”

I fixed him in the eyes looking for telltale signs of hypnotism. I was not disappointed. I forced my mind upon him. Where one person has hypnotized, another with skill can just as easily as well.

“Now then you will answer my questions. Who is this ‘master’ of yours?”

“He came from the stars. He bade us tear down our trees and fields and drill into the ground.”

“For what?”

“He called it ‘raw energy’”

“What does he want it for?”

“I ...I don’t know.

“This is what you are going to do. You will form a picture in your mind of this Master and concentrate.”

“Yes, master.”

I closed my eyes to concentrate on the mental picture in the Argonian’s mind. The face I saw and the presence I felt startled me. “Koschei,” I gasped.

A voice from behind me laughed and in a sinister yet boastful tone said: “No, my dear Doctor. That name no longer has any meaning for me. Here, as in all places, I am the Master.”

So intent was I that I did not hear him enter. And suddenly my life up to then came crashing together…

PART TWO: Flashback

As far as I know, growing up is never easy for any sentient race on any world, but my own transition from childhood to adulthood was particularly difficult. I spent much of it in the Prydonian Academy learning from teachers who were cold and impersonal for the most part. I found little solace in my peers either. They would laugh at my outlandish curiosity and imagination. I was nicknamed Theta Sigma for my fascination with Earth and its people, customs, and scholarly traditions. All of this was relatively innocuous as all children tease their peers. My greatest obstacle was one peer in particular: Koschei.

Koschei was a fellow from the Prydonian Chapter. He was talented at all the things that I struggled to master; athletics, mathematics, and, so it seemed, charm. And he would go out of his way to rub my nose in my failures.

The Academies held mandatory competitions in sports, to maintain, I imagine, our self-delusion of superiority. I lagging behind in a zero gravity race. Koschei lapped me a second time, looked at me and laughed, “Why, Sigma, can’t you keep up? Even those hairless monkeys you love so much could do better!” Everyone laughed including the presiding masters. It was as they say on Earth the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was a barb meant to make me angry but I didn’t lash out at anybody but myself. I wanted to run away, to become a hermit so I’d never have to see Koschei or anybody else again. Then I remembered hearing tales of an old hermit who lived behind the hills on which the Academy was built. I made up my mind to seek him out.

Truth be told I didn’t know where exactly this hermit lived but my determination was such that I would have searched my entire life cycle if that was how long it took. Fortunately, it only took me half a day. I climbed gingerly down the foothill and came upon a hut. I knew it was the right place by the fact of it being the habitation. That and the old man sitting in a lotus posture, clearly meditating.

At my arrival he calmly opened his eyes, unfazed by my sudden presence.

“Ah, you are here,” He said simply yet strangely prophetically.

“You were expecting me” I asked in awe.

“Naturally,” he said, again simply, without explanation.

“What troubles you,” he asked at my puzzlement.

I let go of the business of being expected and told him the ridicule and ostracism I felt by my peers.

“Ah,” he said.

“Is that all you can say?”

“There is little else to say in matters of fact…but much to be shown.” He beckoned me to follow him into a little garden behind his hut. I was awestruck by the beauty of one flower in particular: a single golden-purple ciel lilac. The hermit seemed to read my sense of awe.

“This flower is brilliant you might say. Yet it does not consider what other beings think of it, but simply allows its brilliance to shine out.”

I didn’t know what to say, but after some time pondering, I asked how I could be like the flower. The old man seemed pleased at this, no doubt believing that the average person would think it a preposterous question. “Learn to quiet your mind.”

He bid me sit with him in the same posture I found him in. He told me to breathe deeply and concentrate for a minute on my breath. “The mind seldom stops speaking, he explained. “Allow it to listen instead. But not by ordering it to be quiet. Be aware of when you are thinking. Be open to whatever comes.”

At first I struggle to stop thinking, but the thoughts came despite my efforts, Then I realized what the old man meant. I listened to my mind, made my thoughts the object of my awareness, and kept that awareness open, and the silence came of its own accord.

After a long while I opened my eyes. Calmness filled me, as well as a strange confidence. My newfound mentor did not need to tell me that I could do this anytime and anywhere I needed.

I decided it was time to return to the Academy. I asked my mentor if I could return again to learn from him. “When the time of telling is over, you may return for the time of showing.”

I didn’t know quite what this meant but I gathered it was an affirmative. I said my goodbyes and returned to the Academy where my Masters were ready with disciplinary measures. To their surprise (and mine) I did not mind. Koschei tried to goad me in his usual way. “So where did Sigma the dreamer go run and hide this time?”

I said nothing "I’m talking to you, Sigma, you little monkey-lover!” I waited upon the silence as my mentor showed me and stared at him. He got flustered and and walked away muttering. My first victory.

He would from then on try to humiliate me in various ways but the result was always the same. In our later years at the academy he would try to sabotage my experiments in class but things would usually backfire on him. Eventually I graduated where he was expelled and I didn’t see him again…

PART THREE: Challenge

But now here he was. He had clearly regenerated, but lacked none of his sinister arrogance. He stood tall with glaring brown eyes, dark hair slicked back, and a goatee.

“So Doctor, we meet again at last.” His words drew me out of my daze.

“Who is this person, Grandfather,” Susan asked.

Not taking my eyes off of him I told her: “Someone I grew up with, my dear. He is evidently calling himself The Master now”

“Correct, Doctor. And what more suitable a name would there be when I am finished here.”

“Enslaving a race is hardly grounds for such self-righteousness,” Susan exclaimed. Inside I smiled with pride but I turned my attention to what the Master said next.

“My dear, both you and your ‘Grandfather’ lack vision! These chattel merely provide me with the raw energy needed for a battery to power this!”

He flicked switches on a nearby consol to reveal on a screen what he was referring to: a Nova Device. Such an aptly named device when launched into a Star would cause it to go Supernova. With it the Master could threaten any civilization in the history of the Universe and extort from them anything he desired. Knowing him it would likely be the means of more power.

“Beautiful is it not, Doctor?”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say on Earth. Though I can hardly believe that wanton destruction could be beautiful in the eyes of any one but a maniac like you!”

“Mockery, doesn’t become a Time Lord, Doctor. I’ve watched you since my…unfortunate departure from the Academy. A soft-hearted fool with wanderlust is all you’ve ever been. Courageous but ultimately ineffectual. You cannot stop me, nor would you dare call upon the Time Lords for help.”

He was right about one thing. I’d come this far. I did not want my freedom to come to such an abrupt stop because this fellow was up to his usual tricks. I saw now a challenge that I could not run away from but must face head on.

“A Nova device can be deactivated like any other bomb.”

“Indeed, Doctor but you would have to get to it to do it.” With a shout one of his guards entered the room. He had the look of a charmed snake. “Take these two to detention cells.”

“Yes, Master.” He intoned this lifelessly. So he must be keeping his closest guard under hypnosis, I thought. That would be his insurance to keep them loyal in light of the weapons he armed them with. This could prove to be useful.

We were put in a very small room with a rough bench to sit on. The door which was solid and opaque slammed as we got in.

“A pity,” I said upon inspecting it.

“It’s more than a pity, Grandfather. We’re helpless.”

“No one is ever completely helpless, my child.” I thought back to the hermit and the lessons he taught me. “Even in a cage a person can be free,” he had said once. I waited upon the silence and the answer struck me. All I needed was to do was get of the officers in here and I could exploit the Master’s hypnotism. But how, my mind countered, we are almost certainly in an oubliette, to be forgotten. But that was not the Master’s way. He would want to gloat of his success once the Nova Device was put into use. So he would certainly want to keep us alive till then. Therefore he would provide us with sustenance. To be brought by a trusted officer. The Master would not stoop to being a servant and he could trust no one but the officers within his structure. In he would come and then I’d have him. I laughed. The pitfalls of vanity.

Sure enough our fellow came with a tray of food. Susan and I stood at opposite sides of the cell waiting for him. He came inside with two guards. He put the tray down but his eye caught the glint of my mother’s old watch. I swung the chain slowly reaching out with my mind, and spoke in the Master’s voice commanding that we be released and taken to the heart of the device. His confused companions kept their confusion to themselves. I surmised that to question orders was tantamount to a very uncomfortable fate. We came to the device and I went to work dismantling the important components and rendering them useless. Susan meanwhile with the help of the tray-bearing guard rounded up the guards for me to reverse the spell the Master had them under. This was easier to do with these people than say Earth humans as they seemed to have a slight lower resistance to external influence. This was probably the reason the Master chose them.

The Master was no fool and he learned quickly via his Praetor who escaped our round up. But he was not quick enough to stop us and with a small group of armed Argonians there was little he could do. He abandoned his Praetor and other followers that remained loyal to him and took off in his TARDIS. I managed to convince the Argonians to show mercy these loyalists.

Meanwhile I was asked how to make the land fertile again. Technology is technology, I thought. Where it takes away it can give as well so I went to work showing them ways they could use the Masters machinery for good. After many months of teaching and guiding, Susan and I left the plant in peace.

EPILOGUE: A New Beginning

“Well then that business is behind us,” I said to Susan as the TARDIS dematerialized.

“Yes, Grandfather that man, The Master was so evil…will we see him again?”

“I expect so, but don’t worry my child. He’s nothing but a bully…cheer up my dear. I have a treat in store for you. I took numerous calculations while on Argonos and I believe I can set accurate coordinates for Earth. I know how much you enjoyed Renaissance Italy, how does Ancien Regime France sound?”

“I’d so love to see Versailles in its prime, but are you sure you can be so accurate?”

“Of course I’m sure, my child.” I lied and she knew it but neither of us admitted it but rather we both hoped that the TARDIS would take us somewhere civilized.

We materialized in a junkyard.

“Good grief,” I exclaimed. We had arrived in 1960s London, England. So much for civilized I thought. But my attention soon took me to a major instrumental failure.

“Confound it all, this will take some time to repair.”

“Could I take a look around grandfather?”

I hesitated. Gallifreyans do resemble humans, but even so, Susan might well stand out and any attention drawn upon us could spell trouble. But I knew she was keen to explore.

“As long as you are very careful and do not wander to far from the ship.”

She hugged me and went to the TARDIS wardrobe for suitable clothing. How long she was gone I confess I do not know as I was occupied with repairs It came down to a faulty circuit that needed to be replaced. I was just about to curse my luck at discovering I had no spares for it when Susan returned. She seemed to have a gleam in her eyes tempered by the kind of nervousness one has when asking for permission. She told me of a place where young people go to learn. Coal Hill School she said it was called. I listened as she went on about how it would be the perfect place to be while we were waylaid on Earth. At first I was very reluctant. After all being involved in such a way was bound to bring trouble to our doorstep. She could possibly pass for a human for very long. The locals were bound to be curious and curiosity in this case would not be the innocent kind. But I could see that this was something she really wanted. More to the point the purpose of coming to Earth was educational in nature. After lengthy debate I gave in. “But I am warning you, if we are discovered we shall have to leave. Again she gave the child’s hug of thanks and got ready to go to school.

Meanwhile there was something I needed to do while on in a busy yet mostly harmless century and country. The Hand of Omega. After the business with the Master

I realized that I couldn’t afford to have it in my possession lest it fall into the wrong hands. I would have to find a place here to hide it. I convinced myself that this century was sufficiently complicated yet underdeveloped to be suitable for concealing it. No one would know how to use it and anyone looking for it would not expect to find such high technology here. If they did, I could see that they would have to do a lot of searching. Earth is a particularly complicated and busy planet.

I went for a walk around the city. Just a few blocks from Totter’s Lane where we had arrived, there was a funeral parlor. I noted that the box containing the Hand of Omega was similar to a casket. I enquired about burial services with a somewhat forced expression of grief over the loss of a loved one. I was almost at a loss when they asked me how I was going to pay but them, but then I remembered reading about pawn shops last time I was in this period, and I knew that I had a few items that would fetch the amount they were asking for. I surprised them when I said that I already had a casket but I seemed to give them the impression that I was some rich eccentric. I arranged for them to pick it up at the abandoned house on Totter’s Lane. Had I waited just a week all would be lost as the house was then bought and renovated. I waited anxiously through the services and was relieved once the Hand was finally interred in the ground, under the name John Smith.

Now that that was over I set out to find something that would replace the faulty circuit. This would prove difficult but not impossible. Susan seemed to enjoy her studies but all too soon her teachers began to wonder about her. It was this curiosity that began a new lease on life for me, one that lead me permanently away from the Gallifreyan ideals to ones of involvement and compassion.