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By Root 555 0

first thing to emerge from the shadows was a strangely formed limb like a length of bamboo terminating in something like the claw of a crab but with four opposable sections of different sizes. A second claw followed, and then the creature's body. Albrellian was an arthropod the size of a human, but much broader and shorter. He had three pairs of powerful walking legs and two pairs of the more delicate crab-like manipulatory appendages that Vicki had first seen. His hard shell was dark red in colour, covered in irregular maroon blotches, with a ruff of maroon hair sprouting from the top. Four stalked eyes emerged from the hair - two of which were fixed upon the Doctor and two upon Vicki. As Vicki watched, entranced, a pair of leathery wings folded themselves up and slid beneath a section of shell that hinged back to cover them.

"Thank you," the Doctor said. He slipped his thumbs beneath the lapels of his coat. "It seems that introductions are in order. As I have said, I am the Doctor. My companion, with whom I believe you have already-talked, is Vicki. And you are...?"

"Albrellian, of the Greld, am I."

"The Greld?" The Doctor frowned. "Forgive me: I am unfamiliar with your race."

"Dealers in ... technology are we. Home around the star that humans call Canopus make we."

"Then you are a long way from that home." There was a querulous, aggressive tone to the Doctor's voice. "I hope that you do not intend extending the Greld commonwealth in this direction."

"Home is indeed far away my," Albrellian said, maintaining eye-contact with the Doctor, "but further away still from your home, lord of time, are you."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "You know of me?"

Albrellian bowed its great shell until the rim was touching the carpet. "Deeds the stuff of legend are your."

The Doctor glanced over at Vicki and raised his eyebrows. She shrugged helplessly. There was a definite subtext to the conversation, but she was at a loss to know what it was.

"What did you mean," the Doctor asked, "when you recognized Vicki as one of my companions and started to draw a conclusion from that fact?"

"Thoughts were bewildered my," Albrellian admitted, straightening itself up. "Arrival with awe and trepidation awaiting have been your we. Only this evening informed that on the mainland and taken to Laputa you and your travelling companions were met was I.

Surprised was I, for when last night to Vicki talked I, convinced that with you she was was I, and both in Venice here were you.

Somewhere along the line, a message has been garbled."

"I don't understand what you are talking about," the Doctor snapped. "Your grammar could do with some practice. What or where is Laputa?"

"The island." Albrellian turned to Vicki. "Surely understand you?"

Vicki shook her head. "All I know is that we were invited here for some reason, but we don't know why."

"Laputa," the Doctor murmured to Vicki, "was a fictional island in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, but that book won't be written for another hundred years. Is something happening here that Swift will write about, or does someone else here have knowledge before its time?"

"Show Albrellian the invitation, Doctor," Vicki urged. "Perhaps he might be able to tell us who sent it."

The Doctor slipped his hand into his coat and pulled out the impossibly white slip of material. "This was given to me under mysterious circumstances," he said. "Perhaps you can shed some light on its meaning."

Albrellian reached a claw into a crevice in its shell and drew out a similar white slip. "All have them do we," it said simply. "That is why here are we."

The Doctor reached out and took the invitation from Albrellian's claw. He turned it over and looked at it, then wordlessly held it out to Vicki. The words were the same as the ones she remembered from the invitation that the Doctor had bought back with him from...

from wherever it was that he had been taken.

INVITATION

Formal dress required.

R.S.V.P.

"An invitation to what?" she asked helplessly.

"Games do not play