Doctor Who_ Empire of Death - BBC Worldwide [4]
There was a third reason that prompted the beginning of this journal, an event earlier today that I must record and try to make sense of. Today is a relative term while travelling in the TARDIS. When you journey through time and space, the passing of a day is notional at best. That is not to say time stands still within these walls. All the passengers continue to age at whatever rate is normal for their kind. If I were still on Traken, today would be what Tegan called my birthday - the anniversary of the day I was born. For her people such events were to be celebrated, often with the giving of gifts.
Before her abrupt departure, she had even talked about organising an event for me.
Instead, today simply marks the passage of more time with just the Doctor for company. He reminds me in some small ways of my father, but our relationship is very different. It is hard to imagine the Doctor spontaneously embracing me as a gesture of affection. He is too self-conscious for that, too aware of the role he feels he must play. He keeps me at arm's length, more so since the loss of Adric, almost as if he were afraid of becoming too emotionally attached to me.
How many others have travelled with him in the TARDIS, I wonder? How many times has he had to say goodbye or to grieve for the loss of a friend? The Doctor's kind are able to regenerate their bodies, taking on a new physical form and personality while retaining all their memories and experience.
In effect, he can live for hundreds, even thousands of years as we measured them on Traken. By comparison the lifespan of his companions must seem terribly brief and ephemeral to him. Perhaps it is no wonder he finds it difficult to become close. The loss of a loved one can be emotionally shattering.
What must it be like to spend your lives with people, knowing they are doomed to die long before you? Perhaps even to know the manner and moment of their death? Such knowledge must be a terrible burden. I wonder if the Doctor has such knowledge about my future life? Would he share it with me if I asked? I doubt it.
If my father were here, he would suggest that all of this speculation was a form of emotional transference - a rationalisation for my reluctance to become emotionally involved. And perhaps he would be right. I must admit to myself I am lonely and take steps to do something about that loneliness. Unlike Tegan, I cannot go home again. Traken was destroyed by a dark field of entropy unleashed by the same individual who took my father's life. I suppose I could ask the Doctor to take me back to the planet at a time before its destruction, but there seems little point now. Traken is as dead to me now as my father. With Adric dead and Tegan gone, I have never been more alone. At least that was what I believed - until the ghost appeared...
It was John who first noticed the disappearance of James.
'Where did he go? Where is he?' John called to his elder brother. Both lads had seen the younger boy swimming back to where their clothes were discarded on the riverbank. All three shirts were still there. So where was their brother?
'James, if you're hiding in the bushes, come out now and I won't tan your hide myself!' Josiah called out. 'James?'
'Josiah, you don't think he...' John's words trailed off, worried that if he gave voice to what he was thinking it might come true.
The eldest brother was biting his bottom lip, concern etched into his expression. 'There are strong undercurrents, even in this stretch. Sometimes the stones get shifted. He could be trapped underwater, unable to get back to the surface...’
John could feel a wave of panic rising in his stomach, a sickening hollowness. 'Dad will kill us if anything happens to James!'
Josiah had already reached the same conclusion. 'Come on!' He began swimming as fast as he could towards the riverbank, his arms thrashing through the water. John followed. Once near the edge, they began diving down to the bottom of the river, straining