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Traveling with the Doctor was all very well, thought Leela to herself, but she wasn't too sure about this "education" that he insisted on. Ever since the tall, curly-haired Time Lord had taken the young savage from her planet to journey with him in the TARDIS, he had been very keen on providing her with some basic (his term) but very difficult (her term) intellectual tools and concepts. Today it was something he called "geometry," which he said meant "measuring the Earth," and he had gotten very snarky when she pointed out that they were nowhere near Earth. She had placated him, however, by offering to set up her studying area in the console room itself so that she could keep him company while they were traveling.
This had improved his temper considerably, and he had spent the morning happily fiddling around under the console, with an impressive array of mysterious tools. Every now and then something would spark or fizz or flare, and Leela was quite proud of herself for remembering that it was not magic, but some mistake of the Doctor's, although he didn't seem as proud of her as she expected when she mentioned it.
In the early afternoon, about an hour after lunch, the Doctor emerged from under the console with a satisfied sigh, and began punching in coordinates for a new destination. "Where are we going now, Doctor?" asked Leela. She stood in a corner of the control room copying triangles onto a blackboard. Beside the blackboard stood an Earth globe on a carved wooden stand.
"We're going to see some more of your ancestors," said the Doctor, watching the central column begin its steady rise and fall.
Leela sighed. "Like Bent-face, you mean?" Her recent visit to Victorian England had had its moments, but their terrifying encounter with the twisted villain from Earth's future had put the damper on her enjoyment.
"No, we're going to Ancient Egypt," the Doctor replied. "I want to show you the pyramids." He turned and scrutinized the blackboard. "Yes, very good. The Egyptians buried their kings in tombs shaped like what you're drawing." Leela eyed the wobbly chalk figures dubiously. The Doctor fished around in his pockets for a moment and pulled out a small golden pyramid used for money in the Rigellian colonies. "Like this, only huge." He tossed it to Leela and added crossly, "And Bent-face - I mean, Magnus Greel - wasn't one of your ancestors anyway. He was born years after your expedition left the planet."
"That did not stop him from trying to kill me," Leela groused. Seeing the Doctor's annoyance, she changed the subject. "Would you show me this Ee-jip on the round map?"
The Doctor smiled, placated, and moved over to the globe, spinning it nimbly under his fingers. "Let me see. . . Europe, Asia, Africa, it should be right about here--" The TARDIS interrupted him by shuddering suddenly. Leela kept her feet, steadied the blackboard and caught the globe; the Doctor was thrown back against the console and hung on for dear life until the brief disturbance passed. He punched buttons hurriedly and the TARDIS slowly righted itself.
"What was that?" Leela demanded, righting the blackboard.
"We hit a time snag," said the Doctor, still adjusting dials and studying readouts. "Someone's trying to alter the course of history--Earth history. I think we can intercept it. . . . Ah." The center column of the TARDIS had stopped moving. "We've landed."
Leela picked up the Doctor's hatstand and replaced his hat and scarf on it. Stooping again to pick up his coat, she asked, "But we are not in Ancient Ee-jip, are we?"
"No, that will have to wait, Leela. We Time Lords are sworn to protect the integrity of history; I've got to stop whoever's fiddling with time." He checked the readouts once more. "I think we've landed about a thousand years earlier than we planned, somewhere in Europe."
"Then we are two thousand years later, and somewhere in Asia," retorted Leela.
"Don't you trust my readouts?"
"I do not."
"Don't listen to her, old girl," said the Doctor, patting the TARDIS console. "You and I know better, eh?" Before Leela could protest his faith in the TARDIS again the Doctor changed the subject. "Now who is it that's trying to change history?"
"Why would anyone want to do that?"
"Think, Leela. Suppose, back on your home planet, the Tesh found a time machine and used it to go back and kill whoever it was in your tribe that invented the crossbow. Wouldn't that give them an advantage in battle, when they got back to the present?"
"But someone else might have invented it anyway."
"You can't be too sure of that, Leela. You should never underestimate the ability of an individual to affect history. Suppose it wasn't the crossbow, but some other weapon that was so unusual it took a stroke of genius to invent it. Then it might never be invented, at least not quite the way it was originally."
"So you think it is an enemy who is trying to keep the humans from inventing some weapon?" asked Leela, helping the Doctor on with his coat.
"Something of the sort, yes. Or a misguided group who consider themselves friends of humanity may be trying to fix something they see as wrong in history. I had to stop such a group once, back when I worked for U.N.I.T.; they were trying to prevent a Dalek takeover of Earth before it happened, and instead they nearly caused it themselves." The Doctor finished winding his scarf around his neck and threw the last end of it over his shoulder with an imperious flourish. "People who don't understand Time shouldn't muck about with it. Might cause a temporal paradox."
"I thought this was a paradox," Leela said, holding up the Rigellian coin.
"No, Leela, that's a pyra--" the Doctor broke off and stared at Leela, his eyes getting wider and wider. He broke into a sudden marvelous grin and said, "Leela, you made a pun."
"I did?" asked Leela. Her brow furrowed. "How can I make it when I don't know what it is?"
The Doctor bent down slightly and tapped her nose with his finger. "It's a humorous instance of paronomasia." Leela glared at him. He clapped his hat on his head. "Ready? Let's go!"
They stepped out of the TARDIS into a wooded area bordering on cultivated fields and pastures. The air was springlike: fresh, damp, and almost warm. The Doctor picked a leaf off a tree and studied it minutely. "Er. . . lucky guess, Leela. We're somewhere in Asia Minor. Very good--for a savage."
"I was right?" Leela asked delightedly. "And you were wrong?"
The Doctor cleared his throat. "Ah, well, you were right about the location but I'm sure of the time. Um, yes. Well."
Leela tactfully changed the subject. "What tribe lives here?"
"If I'm not mistaken, the Ionians. This area was always a trading center, though, so we should meet people from all over." The Doctor moved to the edge of the woods, gesturing Leela to follow, and stepped out into a meadow. Drawing an instrument from his pocket, he began moving it around in a circle.
"What is that, Doctor?"
"Shh. Time Disturbance Locator. Doesn't work from inside the TARDIS' temporal fields. It should tell us exactly where the snag is coming from--where, for example, their time machine is operation--Shhh."
Leela hadn't said any more, but she knew better than to tell the Doctor so now. Soon she heard a faint whining sound which grew as the Doctor moved a tiny dial set into the instrument and changed its position slightly. "It's coming from over there somewhere. From the pattern of energy I think it's a Dysligian device--they're distinctively inharmonious."
Leela picked out what she considered to be the important point in the Doctor's statement. "That device tells you where our enemies are?"
"Yes."
"Then let us go to them and defeat them!" She drew her knife and stepped in the direction indicated by the Locator.
"No, no! Put that away, you silly girl. You might hurt somebody." Leela pouted, but replaced her knife in its sheath. The Doctor sighed and sat down on a large rock; Leela sank fluidly to a sitting position on the ground. "Now, listen," the Doctor said, "we know where they are, more or less, but nothing else about them. I'm going to go into that town--" he gestured toward some buildings visible in the distance-- "and try to gather what I can. The townspeople will be more likely to talk to one traveler than a party, so I want you to stay here. When I have learned what I need I will come back and we can take whatever action is necessary."
Leela considered this. "You need to know more about our enemy before we can fight; and so you will talk to the dwellers in the city."
"Right," the Doctor agreed. "And they're not likely to talk to me if you kill any of them."
"It sounds boring. Very well, then, I shall wait for you here."
"There's a good savage," said the Doctor with a smile. He clapped her on the shoulder and set off.
First and foremost, thought the Doctor as he walked to the town, he had to know just what the history-changers were up to. The Dysligians, a nasty nation of neoreptiles from Beta Scorpionis, were likely candidates, not only because of the peculiar patterns of energy sent out by their devices, but also because they liked to have an unfair advantage in battle and preceded most of their attacks by undermining the enemy in secret. If they were attacking Earth sometime in the future they might very well come back to Earth's past to try to weaken humanity.
It was not a long walk to the town and he soon found himself in it. In a previous incarnation he had had a keen eye for fashion, and while he didn't pay it much mind this time around he was able to use the leftover knowledge to pinpoint the era with ease. "About 600 B.C. Leela was right after all." He walked through a major street where most of the bustling crowd seemed to be engaged in buying and selling. He kept his ear attuned to the conversations.
"Manes isn't playing tonight, can you believe it? And the show was sold out! They say he's spooked or something, I don't know, if I owned him I'd make him play--"
"Is this fish really fresh? It smells funny?"
"Of course it's fresh, what do you expect? That's just the, uh, tang of the sea."
"Poor old guy walked right into the fish counter yesterday, I saw him myself. I swear he's got his head in the clouds--"
"And that dress she was wearing! Simply scandalous is what I call it--"
"Hey, what about that concert tonight? Is it sold out?"
"Didn't you hear? He's not playing. Gone off the deep end, they say!"
"Yeah, I heard he was babbling about anti-harmony or something-hey!"
The Doctor had grabbed the man who had mentioned anti-harmony. "Who was babbling about anti-harmony? Where can I find him?"
It was a day for loonies, the man decided, glancing up and down at the oddly dressed stranger. Shrugging, he said, "Musician slave named Manes. Belongs to a guy named Philemon, lives up that-a-way over by the harbor." The Doctor let go of the man and headed quickly in the direction he had pointed.
He found himself on a quieter side street where the houses were becoming more elegant. He did not even have to look for his quarry; as he got within sight of the end of the street he came to a house in front of which sat a well-dressed slave clinging to his lyre and rocking back and forth.
The Doctor knelt beside the man. "What is wrong? Tell me," he said as gently as if to a child. The slave just shook his shaven head. Suddenly he raised his lyre and strummed a hideously dissonant chord on it.
"The Dysligians, all right. This man must be a sensitive," said the Doctor to himself. "Look at me," he commanded sharply. The slave turned his head unwillingly and found himself unable to draw his eyes back. The Doctor made his own eyes very wide and held Manes' gaze. "It's going to be all right, there is something wrong but I'm here to fight it. If you help me we can win." He rattled on soothingly. "It's nothing supernatural, there's no demon after you. There's been an invasion by mortal beings who use machines that operate on a strange principle of selective perturbation of energy wavelengths and you're reacting to an accidental side effect." The Doctor realized that most of this was unintelligible to his subject, but he was relying more on his tone of voice to calm him. "If you can just resist the effects enough to function normally, you can be a great help to me in finding them. . . ." The panic was gone from the hypnotized man's face. The Doctor snapped his fingers and he came to full consciousness.
"What's going on?" he asked. Before the Doctor could answer, a tall, richly-dressed man came out of the house.
"Manes, are you better?" he asked, coming quickly down to the street level.
"Yes, master, much better." Thanks to him." Manes gestured toward the Doctor.
Philemon turned to him, looking him up and down with a dubious and haughty air. "Who are you?"
"I'm the Doctor," said the Doctor. "You're this man's employer?"
"I'm his owner, yes. I'm grateful to you for curing him. He has not been well for some time and he underwent a complete collapse this afternoon. Manes, can you play the concert tonight?"
"I--"
"No, he can't," interjected the Doctor. "Philemon, this musician of yours has detected the presence of aliens who have come to destroy your people. It is essential that he come with me to help prevent them."
"Barbarians?"
"No, aliens--they come from another planet."
"You're mad!"
"All right, then you tell me why your slave was so ill--and why, if I'm wrong, I was able to cure him."
Philemon didn't seem to have an answer for that. Finally he grumbled reluctantly, "If he's not back in time for the concert tonight, I'll be the laughingstock of the city."
"If we're not successful," the Doctor replied grimly, "there won't be a concert tonight, and there may not be a city, either."
Philemon sighed. "Well then, go on. But be careful with my slave, Doctor--he's worth a lot of money."
"No man's worth can be measured in money, Philemon," said the Doctor angrily. "Come on, Manes." Puzzled, Philemon watched them go.
As the Doctor and Manes walked along, the Doctor explained how the Dysligians must have come to change history, and asked Manes what he thought might be an important factor they wanted to alter.
"I don't know, Doctor." He named some local politicians, but the Doctor waved them aside.
"It's got to be something so important that changing it could change the world three thousand years from now." They walked through the market street in silence.
"Look, Doctor," said Manes, trying to make conversation, "there's the fish counter Thales knocked over yesterday."
"Thales?"
"Yes, he's sort of the town loony. We're all kind of proud of him, though--"
"Thales? Is this town Miletus?"
"Yes, of course it is. You didn't know?"
"Thales of Miletus! Of course! The search for the common element, the quest for a deeper reality--the origin of Western philosophy! Rassilon only knows how the Dysligians would profit from eliminating him. Somehow, he must be the focal point. . . . " Manes was staring at him, bewildered. "Run, man! We've got to fetch my assistant, and then find Thales!" The Doctor began running back the way he had first come into the city, coattails and scarf ends flying wildly. Manes puffing along behind him.
Left to herself, Leela gazed around the calm fields and at the distant city. They had visited too many huts of metal; it was good to be in the open. There was a well some distance away, and a man drawing water. She could see him clearly in the bright sun, but at that distance her sharp ears picked up only the faintest creaking of the ropes. He finished, picked up the pail and set out across the fields toward where she stood hidden. As she watched him, she heard a strange sound and turned to see an unusual, varicolored bird crossing the sky. The man saw it too; in fact, he walked along with his head tilted up to watch it, looking after it over his shoulder when it passed him. He was about half a field away from Leela when he tripped over a hillock and sprawled flat, the water from his overturned bucket pouring away into the grass. He sat up and watched it sadly.
This clumsy man didn't seem dangerous. Leela strode from her cover and went straight to him. "I am Leela. Do you need help?"
He looked up. He did not seem surprised to see her. "Thank you, I'm not hurt," he said, accepting her outstretched hand to pull him to his feet. He was a short, darkish man with a funny little beard and untidy garments. "I'm afraid I'll have to go back for more water, though."
Leela took the bucket from him as he picked it up. "I do not think you should carry this. I shall carry it for you."
He did not seem inclined to argue with her--of course, she was a good foot taller than he was--and walked beside her. "Did you see that bird? I never saw one like it. I cannot think why it might have come here."
"My friend the Doctor said this was a city where many different kinds of men come to trade. Perhaps it is a meeting-place of birds as well."
The little man looked up at Leela in some surprise. "That's a good thought. I shall have to discuss this with that new fellow from Parthia, or maybe what's-his-name, from Egypt. Wonder what he'd say? Hmm. . . . Oh, I'm sorry, I'm talking to myself." Leela smiled. He reminded her of the Doctor. As you say, this is a town of many peoples, and I like to talk with men of other lands. My name is Thales, by the way, and I live in that city." He pointed to the buildings she had seen earlier. "Where do you come from?"
"I am a warrior of the Sevateem. My home is far away. It is a hard place to live, not rich, like these lands." She gestured with her free hand at the planted fields nearby. "Where I come from, if someone should stop and look up to wonder at a bird, it would eat him."
They reached the well, and Leela watched him draw water. Space-age equipment, where the touch of a button caused magic, no, energy, rays to shoot out, was merely incomprehensible, but the simple mechanism that drew up the bucket caught her attention. He noticed her fascination as he reached for the newly filled bucket and sat it on the rim of the well. That's something, isn't it? But look, this is more wonderful." He pointed to the water in the bucket. "Without this there is not life. Even seeds must have water to grow, inside them. . . ." Leela was not listening. Her eyes fixed on the dark water in the bucket, every other sense was alert to the sound and sensation of danger, of someone in the woods just to the side. "There are so many kinds of men, but all men. In all their different thoughts there are common ideas, something always the same. . . . " Leela could tell now that there was more than one in the woods, and they were circling behind her and approaching. Thales looked up from the bucket at Leela, then down again. "What about the whole world? Is there something, some principle, that is the same everywhere? What--"
Leela spun a split second before a man with a knife reached her. She kicked his weapon from his hand and struck him to the ground. She turned quickly to deal with another. There were four in all, dressed in rough tunics and loose pants with leggings. Thales stood aghast as one of them approached him, circling around the well. Leela was keeping the other two busy with ease, but failed to notice that the first one she had knocked out was coming around. The attacker approaching the helpless, puzzled little Thales raised his weapon---and got a bucketful of water in the face. While he was still sputtering and cursing, Thales clubbed him with the bucket. Leela had finished off one of the others, but now the man on the ground deliberately tripped her up and the other one knocked her out, and they both headed toward Thales.
A knife whizzed through the air and the closest attacker to Thales fell. The other one turned to run and found himself entangled with a tall man wearing a very long scarf. The Doctor quickly overpowered him and tied him up with a Chinese jumprope from one of his pockets. Manes retrieved his knife from the dead man, wiped it on the grass and replaced it in its hidden sheath, in the bag of lyre picks slung over his shoulder. The Doctor followed him over with his eyes, then knelt beside Leela, took her pulse, raised an eyelid, touched her temple lightly. She opened her eyes. "Doctor!" He helped her to sit up. "Did you find out what our enemies are trying to change?"
"Yes, Leela," said the Doctor, keeping his voice down so as not to be overheard by Thales, who was becoming acquainted with Manes. "That man over there--what's his name?"
"Thales," said Leela.
"I thought so," said the Doctor. "He is the crucial point. They are trying to kill him."
Leela's eyes went wide with alarm. "And I failed to protect him!"
"Nonsense," said the Doctor. "You kept off those assassins long enough for us to save him."
"I do not think he knows he is so important. Why do they want to kill him?"
"He introduced a new way of thinking that become philosophy." The Doctor produced a large handkerchief from his pocket and tied it around Leela's head, covering the bruise and scrape on her forehead. "There, that better? I still don't know why they consider that a threat, but they do."
"Didn't you tell me once that science came from--what did you call it--syllophesy?"
"Philosophy. Yes, it did, though somewhat later. The modern scientific method was based on philosophical principles and in fact, even a great deal of Greek 'science' was found to be less off-the-mark than it was originally thought to be. No-one laughed at Pythagoras anymore after the Logopolitan breakthrough in block transfer computation." Leela wondered if the blow on her head made the Doctor's words incomprehensible, or if he was just talking nonsense as usual. The latter, she decided. "But I didn't think they'd come so early unless. . . . of course! They must have a Temporal Extrapolator--oh, Thales, how are you?" The Doctor changed the subject quickly as he saw Manes bring Thales over to introduce him. "I'm the Doctor. I don't know how much Manes has told you. . . ."
"I explained to him that we are looking for these aliens, and that they seem to have sent mercenaries to attack your assistant." Manes seemed to have understood the Doctor's reluctance to let Thales know just how important he was to history. The Doctor shot him a look, but said only, "Very good, very good. They didn't hurt you, did they?"
"No, not at all," said Thales. "I"m just a little shook up."
"Well, I think we may be able to persuade this gentleman here," he gestured to the tied-up attacker, "to give us some information on his employers. Manes, do you know a quiet place in town where we could talk and let Leela rest awhile?"
"What about my house?"
"No, Thales, I'm afraid when they find out Leela got away they may find out she was with you and look for her there." The Doctor didn't want to tell Thales that they probably had his house staked out for the purpose of catching Thales himself.
"I can take you to a safe house in town, Doctor," said Manes confidently. "My master has many friends, and they know that by treating me well they win favor with Philemon."
No one stared at the very tall man supporting a beautiful savage or the elegant slave prodding a bound-up Celt as they walked with Thales through town. Thales was known for having odd friends. "Left at the next corner, Thales," called Manes.
"Up there?" Thales pointed to the nearest large street.
"No, no, up here--" Manes left the Celt for an instant to point out the correct turning to Thales and the barbarian gave a sudden twist and went running down the street, his hands still bound behind him. Only Leela had seen the slave give the barbarian a warning tap just before he left his side, and when she tried to tell the Doctor he shushed her.
"But, Doctor--"
"It's all right, Leela, I know. There's nothing we can do just now."
"But he's leading us into a trap!" she hissed.
"What's she trying to say?" asked Thales.
"She needs rest, I think she's running a fever," said the Doctor, tapping his temple to indicate she was out of her head. Manes relaxed visibly.
They turned the corner he had indicated and saw, not a row of houses, but an alley and a gray-green scaly creature about the size and shape of a man. Another stepped from the shadows beside them and trained a weapon on them. "Well done, Manes," growled the Dysligian. "You have brought the one we needed. Who are these others?"
"Well, I'm the Doctor, and this here is--"
"Silence!"
"Time travelers, my lord," said Manes. "They sought to thwart your plans."
"Good. You will be well rewarded."
"I see now why you pretended to save our lives, Manes," said the Doctor. "You didn't want those barbarians getting all the credit--or all the money. And that whole anti-harmony sensitive act was just that, an act, to draw off anyone who might come investigating, since that cheap time-machine of theirs leaves a chronoid trail that any half-breed bloodhound--"
"Silence!" hissed the Dysligian again, hefting his weapon.
Thales stared at Manes, horrified. "Traitor!"
"Be silent, human! You will come with us to our base. Any more such outbursts will be met with death!"
Leela gave a faint cry and reeled away from the Doctor, her hand to her bandaged head. Her eyes rolled up and she fell, right into the Dysligian with the weapon. When she was too close for him to fire she shifted her balance so that instead of catching her he fell under her weight to the ground. The Doctor wrestled the weapon from the pinned monster's outstretched hand and fired at the other creature, blasting from his hand the gun he had just drawn.
"Doctor, look out!" cried Leela. The gun, still smoking from the blast, had skittered across them around to a point near Manes, who had scooped it up and was pointing it at the Doctor's back. Even as the Doctor turned around the traitor's finger closed on the trigger.
The damaged weapon blew up before he could fire. The Doctor and Thales threw themselves to the ground, joining Leela and the Dysligian she had overpowered. When they looked up, Manes was pretty much gone and the other Dysligian lay dead.
"Come on," said the Doctor, prodding Leela's monster with his toe. "Up. Take us to your leader."
"No," the creature said. "Kill me if you like."
"It is not necessary, Doctor," said Leela, coming forward. "Their base is that way." She pointed in the direction the Time Disturbance Locator had originally indicated, her phenomenal sense of direction having kept it clear through all the twists and turns of the city. "You can verify it with your device. Kill him."
"No, no!" cried the Dysligian.
"Why not? We don't need you," said the Doctor carelessly.
"I--I can show you an easier way to get there." The Doctor, who hated unnecessary killing, studied the creature's reptilian face for a moment and nodded. Leela watched suspiciously. The creature's sudden desire to live after all was not logical, unless it planned to double-cross them somehow. She resolved to keep a close eye on him.
"What is your name?" the Doctor asked.
"Grix."
"Well then, Grix, lead on!"
Grix led them back to the main street and through the city. The Doctor's mind was whirling. He did not want to lead his friends into danger. Leela was hurt, and Thales too precious to the future to risk, but he could not think of a safe place to leave them. The TARDIS, perhaps, but they might not reach it safely from here; Thales' home and any of his friends' houses were surely watched by the Dysligians' agents. They would have to come with him.
Once inside the base, the Doctor planned to locate the main control of the Dysligian time machine and use it to send them back to whenever they had come from. If they had rented the standard unit available from the Metachronians, activating the return now, ahead of schedule, would drain so much energy from their supplies in the future that the Dysligian fleet would be in no shape to ward off a healthy Earth force, much less invade Earth. (Metachronian Time Units were astonishing cheap and ridiculously energy-inefficient. It was typical of the blustery, short-sighted Dysligians to save money up front and wind up spending far more energy than necessary.)
As they moved through the suburbs Leela edged round Grix to come to the Doctor's side. "Doctor!" she whispered. "Do they really think that killing that funny little man will alter the course of history?"
"Well, Leela," said the Doctor, "there are those who hold that a tiny change in time a long way back will be corrected by the generations following: that Time heals itself, so to speak. And there are also those who hold that the further back you go, the more havoc even a tiny change's consequences will wreak. Then there are those who carry Temporal Extrapolators with them, to tell them history's weak points. Points where something so unusual has happened, subsequent events can't make up for it. And this is one of them. That silly little man, Leela, is unique. Eliminate him, and you've either delayed or radically altered the whole philosophic enterprise."
Leela nodded slowly. "There is something about him. . . something going on inside that he hasn't found the bravery yet to tell."
The Doctor smiled, acknowledging Leela's instincts. "Exactly. It's not just the time or the situation--he's a very remarkable individual. Certainly philosophy would have developed anyway, and science, too. But you would have lost your head start." The Doctor glanced at Grix, who looked as if he might take advantage of Leela's preoccupation to bolt from Thales' side any minute. "I think you'd better keep a closer eye on that creature, Leela," he said, raising his voice to normal, and added softly, "the origin of western philosophy over there is looking awfully nervous!"
After some more walking, they passed from the suburbs and through the cultivated land around the other side of the city. Grix led them up a big hill, moved a large stone hidden behind a copse of trees, and said,
"Down there."
"You first."
Grix shrugged and went down the tunnel ahead of them. The Doctor felt a faint tingling in his Time sense and realized that they were entering a stasis area. That meant the time machine that they were using was of the sort that he had hoped; it not only got them there but kept them there. Any Dysligians running around the city were consuming tremendous amounts of energy in stasis-extension, and when he used the time-unit to send back the ones on the base it would pull any other Dysligian outside the base back with it.
They emerged from the tunnel into a corridor of the base, stark, gray, and high-tech. The Doctor pulled the Temporal Disturbance Locator from his pocket and began scanning around for the time unit. It responded almost immediately, pointing in a diagonal direction.
“Doctor, there is danger,” said Leela abruptly. “Someone coming from that way.” She pointed.
“Here! This way!” shouted Grix. “Intruders--” Leela stuck her knife into his side. He fell to the floor, oozing thick bluish blood. She retrieved the knife, frowned when she realized there was nothing to wipe it on, and they all ran, following the Doctor’s lead. He led them through a couple of cross-corridors and then turned quickly and headed into a room full of white consoles and beeps and flashes. Thales stared around himself at the wonders. Leela, accustomed by now to technology, ignored the machines and threw her knife across the room at a Dysligian technician who was about to call for help on the intercom. It struck his neck and sliced it neatly just before he hit the call button. He fell dead to the floor. She swung around and kicked a weapon out of another technician’s hand who was about to shoot the still-marveling Thales. Remembering the Doctor’s ban on unnecessary killing, she simply knocked the technician out. The Doctor had already knocked out the only other Dysligian in the room and was frantically punching buttons on the main computer. His first command to it was to lock the door.
“Take a gun, Leela, and guard the door. If they’re following us they’ll be here in a minute. Thales, stay near Leela, but out of range.” The two obeyed. The Doctor worked quickly to find the information he needed from the computer. “Just as I feared,” he murmured to himself. “The return time is set from the other end; I’ll need a triplet code to countermand it. Dimensional chronoid function zed-ex over four-ought six, I rather think. . . .” His voice died away in a series of equations.
A party of guards reached the corridor while he was still working. Leela heard them call and, when they got no friendly answer, try to open the door. “Come out or we’ll blast you out!” they roared.
“Go ahead and try!” Leela shouted, and ducked as a heat beam struck the door from without. “Hurry, Doctor! I think their weapons can destroy this door!”
He muttered something unintelligible from his console and added “Keep them off as long as you can!”
The Dysligian weapons gradually seared a hold through the door. Leela motioned Thales back to the side, crouched near the door and fired through the opening. She was rewarded by a scream from one of the guards, but the firing continued. The Doctor, meanwhile, got the codes he needed to use the time unit to send the Dysligians back to the time they had come from. He moved to the next console. His fingers flashed over the controls.
By now the door was nearly gone, and the attacking party outside was joined by reinforcements. Leela was almost struck by a heat beam and reeled. Thales was struggling with a knocked-out technician who had come to and who was trying to push him into the line of fire. The Doctor pressed a final button on the time unit.
The attackers vanished. The technicians on the floor vanished. The computer and the time unit itself vanished. The Doctor could almost glimpse them fading into the timestream. He was left with Leela and Thales in an empty room.
“Come on, we’ve got to go. If they built supports to keep the roof from falling in, they’ll return to the future too; we don’t want to be buried alive.” He hustled Leela to her feet and the three of them moved quickly out of the base. “Can you take us back to the well where we met you, Thales?”
“Certainly, Doctor. It’s just this way.” Dusk was falling as they walked slowly back through fields of grass and grain. “Doctor, Leela, you saved my life. I hardly know what has happened. Were those creatures trying to kill me for some special reason?”
In the half-light the Doctor’s smile was just visible. “No, Thales. I think they were just after your water.” They reached the well. “Goodbye, Thales,” said the Doctor abruptly, shaking his hand.
Leela hugged him. “Take care, little man. Do not stop wondering, but try to see what’s before your feet.”
“Goodbye, Doctor. Goodbye, Leela.” The Doctor turned and Leela with him. Leela peeked behind her without turning around completely, and saw Thales picking up his bucket, now slightly battered, and beginning to draw water again.
The Doctor fished out his keys and let himself and Leela back into the TARDIS. “Shall we follow our enemies back to their own time, Doctor, and destroy them in combat?” asked Leela eagerly.
“No, I don’t think we’ll need to. They expended a lot of money and energy on this project. Since it didn’t work, they have neither the unfair advantage they hoped for, nor the necessary resources to manage a regular attack.”
“Oh.” Leela was disappointed. The Doctor began to punch new coordinates into the TARDIS. “Where are we going, then?”
“Oh, we’ll have another go at Ancient Egypt, don’t you think?” He pointed to the little golden pyramid she had left on the console.
“Oh, yes!” Leela laughed. “Two thousand years ago, and we leave now from Asia, right?”
“Yes, right,” the Doctor reluctantly admitted. Then he grinned. “See, that education is working after all, isn’t it?” He put a fond arm around her shoulders and grinned down at her. “You’re right--savage!”