Doctor Who_ The Romans - Donald Cotton [2]
Indeed, we would then have no choice but to believe that, during this doom-encumbered year, Rome was visited by intruders from another time, space, or similar unwelcome dimension; and that the possibly comet-like vehicle in which they travelled was known to them as the ‘TARDIS’.
You think, perhaps, that age has at last unseated my reason, and wobbled my laurels in the process? I can only suggest that you reserve judgement until you have read the items in question; at which time it will be my dubious pleasure to receive your inept comments upon them. For the moment I will only remind you that there are more things in Olympus and Earth than are dreamed of by an urban district employee of lowly grade and status; and remain,
With marked lack of respect,
Your best-selling author of this or any other year, Tacitus.
Post Scriptum: I have arranged these documents in what I assume to be their chronological order. You will be sensible to share this assumption.
T.
DOCUMENT I
First Extract from the Journal of Ian Chesterton
Well, we are still here, Headmaster – and, in my opinion, likely to remain so: marooned, that is to say, on an island in Time which, from all the evidence, appears to be somewhere within the dominion of Ancient Rome -
though at which period in its history I am as yet unable to say. A fine thing!
Today, having nothing else to do, I returned to the wreck of the TARDIS; and, of course, found the damnable contraption much as we had left it two months ago, toppled horizontally at the bottom of a rocky ravine, and looking even more cracked and dilapidated than when Barbara and I first had the misfortune to encounter it in I. M.
Foreman’s junk yard.
However, I was alarmed to see that yet another tree had fallen across it, and that much of its battered exterior is now obscured by a grasping growth of brambles and other hardy perennials, making it difficult for me to believe that the machine can ever be extricated from its present predicament; or indeed, that if restored to the vertical, it will ever again be functional, even in its habitual haphazard fashion.
I was nevertheless making a lonely and hopeless attempt at defoliation when a restraining hand was placed on my shoulder, causing me to leap into a nettle-bed, and a petulant voice demanded that I desist...
‘My dear Chesterton,’ exclaimed the Doctor, ‘whatever are you about? That vegetation provides a valuable camouflage against the prying eyes of the curious! Would you wish the TARDIS to be discovered and our secret revealed?’
‘I can’t see that it really makes much odds,’ I told him.
‘As far as I’m concerned, anyone can find it and welcome for all the good it’s likely to do them. Can you seriously believe that God’s gift to industrial archeology will ever get off the ground again?’
He chuckled, in that irritating way of his. ‘In N-dimensional space, dear boy, the ground, as you call it, is an out-dated concept with no relevance whatever to our momentary mechanical malfunction, or our temporary temporal predicament...’
‘And what about our human predicament? How are we going to get out of here?’
‘Please! There is no cause for alarm. The TARDIS
would function just as well as always...’
‘That is simply not good enough!’
‘ I am speaking, Chesterton. Just as well as always, I say, were it to be inverted in an erupting volcanic crater or rotating at the centre of a cyclone. Its environment is in no sense germane to its interior.’
‘A great comfort! So how do you suggest we penetrate its interior to find out if you’re right or not? There’s a hulking great tree trunk blocking the door! Here – give me a hand, can’t you?’
‘All in good time, my dear Chesterton. For one thing, I am invariably right... and, in any case, there is surely no hurry, is there? For once, I advise you to relax, and enjoy a short holiday. Personally I’m having a marvellous time...’
And do you know, Headmaster, I really believe he meant