 was
sitting on a high wooden stool in one corner of the control room of the
TARDIS-machine, gazing into the ship's scanner screen, which was alive
with incandescent 'blobs' and squiggles: expanding; exploding; dazzling.
On occasion, these glowing forms would appear flame-like, and once they
almost moved themselves into the outline of a diamond - only to break
apart and resume their amoeboid exhibition. In short, they illustrated
that we were not in real time and space, and it frightened me to wonder
at the weird essence outside our TARDIS that could interfere in this way
with the selenium cells, and the cathode-ray tube of the screen in
front of me.
My brilliant
Uncle - the 'navigator' or 'polet' of the TARDIS, and often known as
'the Doctor' - stood in the centre of the room before, what he called
the 'Time-Column'. This was a tall transparent cylinder which would
alternately rise, and then drop into the 'core' of the TARDIS. Thus
could the Doctor divine our 'flight-path'.
My Uncle began to tell me about his first experiments in time-travel, and of how he had 'built' the TARDIS.
'I constructed
the 'core' of the ship by alighting a number of permanent magnets of
peculiar hardness in a precise geometric configuration,' he recalled,
'This resulted in a 'field' or space around the 'core' in which time
began to slow down - nearly, but not exactly, to the point at which it
did not elapse at all. So, as the time-factor was compressed, space was
expanded: hence the TARDIS is larger inside than out!'
I was my Uncle's
favourite niece, but no scientist, and it puzzled me that I could not
therefore witness things about me moving very slowly.
'My dear.' said
the Doctor, 'Perception of the progression of time differs from one
animal to another, and is quite independent of mechanical measurements.
But I can assure you that in relation to the reality you left behind you
when you stepped through the TARDIS doors, time is progressing much
more slowly in here!'
I wondered if,
herein lay the key to my uncle's great age. He did not appear to be over
seventy in years, but we all knew, somehow, that he was much, much
older than anyone else. Older than Methuselah was the general opinion.
Indeed, my uncle very probably numbered Noah's grandfather amongst his
life in the TARDIS, and shielded from the
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normal motions of time by
which he lives of we ordinary mortals are governed, that he was probably
very nearly immortal.
I did not like
to think of the many questions which followed my uncle like a shadow.
None of us could say just how - or when - he had entered our lives. From
what age had I known my uncle? To even question his identity was to be
confronted with a picture as dazzling, as confusing, and as abstract as
that on the TARDIS scanner.
The Doctor
appeared beside me and looked over my shoulder into the scanner. The
floor began to shake; the movement of the time-column became slower;
there was a harsh screeching sound, as though a spanner had been thrown
between the two huge gear-wheels of a great machine: one wheel being the
continuum of real space and time; the other that of the unreality in
which we journeyed; and both running smoothly together in the machinery
of the Universe until our troublesome TARDIS chose its moment of
transition from one to the other.
The sound faded away as the dots and blobs on the screen vanished to reveal a more real, yet nonetheless daunting picture...
I did not rise
from my seat as my uncle poured tea and tucked into the sandwiches I had
made the evening before our journey. I think I felt a little ill.
Nothing much was said.
After tea, Dr.
Who left the control-room for a moment, and returned with two
space-suits. he removed his coat and climbed into the legs, and then the
body and then the arms of the thing and zipped it up. It looked very
home-made, and not as bulky as the ones I had been the Americans wearing
on the moon. I followed suit (forgive the expression), and then my
uncle produced two space helmets the very likeness of goldfish bowls… |
