The Buccaneer Chronicles:
City of Gold
By Tony Gallichan (despite interference by Keith Dunn and Adam J Purcell)
Part One - Your shadow falls on me revealing a silhouette reality.
Chapter Four - Say Hello, Wave Goodbye
Macfadyan stared in disbelief. his jaw hung open and, if you observed closely, a small piece of drool slowly oozed from the side of his mouth.
* It is the TARDIS console. *
Macfadyan didn't respond.
* It has been captured, altered and slaved to the other machinery *
Slowly Macfadyan started to move towards the desecrated console. With wild eyes he scanned the ripped open panels, the scorching, the bio - organic cables attached to the time column.
"How could this have happened?" he said very quietly. His voice had a slight shake to it. Then he noticed something.
"This isn't my TARDIS. Well. it is, but it isn't. " He pulled the Stattenhiem from his waistcoat pocket and fiddled with the controls for a minute, muttering under his breath the whole time. Whilst he did this, Cre'at decided to have a look around outside. He followed the cables back outside noticing that the technology, though not Human, still contained only materials that were found on Earth.
Back at the console, Macfadyan had started to investigate the additions. At first he was dismissive of them, but as he continued to explore, he slowly developed a grudging appreciation of the work that had been done. He caressed the control surfaces, obviously in pain. Seeing the old girl like this was tearing him apart.
"Hello, old thing. Its ok. I'll stop this. I'll destroy those responsible. Let the word go out, little one, they will not exist to do this to you. The suffering you must have endured..." His voice shook..
He jumped as a metallic voice echoed around him as Cre'at returned
* The cables disappear inside this large edifice. Have you ascertained the cause of this? Are you sure it is not your TARDIS? *
"Oh, it is, Cre'at. Just not at the moment. This is my TARDIS console, but from the future. Somehow, this happens to it. It is removed from within the outer plasmic shell and placed here. And these additions, though primitive, are still quite impressive. Remember what it was like trying to come here? That was the Ship, here. She is generating a field to keep out unwelcome visitors. Someone has taken an awful lot of time to study her technology and adapt it. Come on." and with that he strode out into the warm sunshine, pausing only to say goodbye to the console. Cre'at watched him do this. Another jolt to Macfadyan's mind, he thought...
* Where are you going? Do you not wish to disengage the Ship from the external apparatus? *
"Come on, Sot'm. We have work to do." came the reply.
The journey back to the TARDIS was longer then the journey from it. Macfadyan insisted on taking a roundabout route, stopping every five minutes to take readings with the Stattenhiem, always muttering under his breath. Eventually the reassuring, if rather out of place shape of a Coca-Cola dispensing machine became visible. Macfadyan unlocked the door at the back and squeezed into the console room. he strode to the console, muttering, then stopped suddenly. He slowly turned three hundred and sixty degrees looking around the room. A look of annoyance flashed across his face as he took in the twenty candles flickering in various positions around the room, some on the arches, a couple free standing on large candelabra. Cre'at watched as Macfadyan opened his mouth, forming the first letter of the word Blanche. Then Macfadyan stopped himself and strode abruptly into the main corridor, heading for the girl's room.
Blanche was not well. She had spent the whole time since getting back to the Ship being sick and lying in her room. her headache. The door to her room suddenly burst open and in strode Macfadyan.
"What have you done to my console room? I have warned you before not to change things there. just because the Ship has a fire suppression system doesn't mean you can go around placing your stupid, Earthling fancies around the place. "The tirade continued for a few minutes, Macfadyan too self absorbed to notice her suffering.
He only stopped when she vomited over his shoes.
After cleaning both of them up, Macfadyan slowly accepted that she hadn't been responsible for the candles. Which left him with a mystery. Blanche obviously had not been well enough to do all that. In fact, though she claimed she felt better, it was becoming apparent that she was getting worse. And Macfadyan was getting a sneaking suspicion he knew why. He conferred with Cre'at in the console room.
"The Human race has never existed. Time has been changed. That's why our little brat has been feeling so ill. She's slowly ceasing to exist. The Ship is shielding her from the worst of it, but it can't hold her here forever. We have to get to the root of this and stop it from happening. The Ship seems to have settled after her unfortunate meeting in the Vortex. So I suggest we make a start."
He pulled the main power switch. With a slightly strained bellow, the time column began it's stately rise and fall.
It took three hours. Three hours of materialisations and hovering in the Vortex. Three hours of frantic mutterings, cursings and the occasional thump on the console. Deciding it was best to keep out of the way, Cre'at stayed in the garden and practiced his gurning. The sounds of straining metal echoed around the room.
"Got it! Hah!"
* You have ascertained the nexus? *
" Yes. Of course I have. What did you think I meant? That I had managed to complete two sides of that wretched Rubic's Cube?"
* Then where are we heading? And when? *
"Well, Earth, of course. Back a couple of centuries. The interference goes all the way back to Earth pre history, but the nexus point was rather close to when we were. Hmm. An interesting time period. One of exploration when the primitives were discovering their new worlds. Same geographical location, just a couple of centuries back. Here we go..."
And with that he pulled the materialisation switch, bringing the TARDIS back into the real world and setting himself, unwittingly on a path that would aid his self-destruction...
