Doctor Who in the Land of the Lost - The Complete Saga!

 

Chapter I.

The TARDIS came wheezing to a stop. The Eighth Doctor slowly opened the door and walked out into a lush jungle landscape accented by two moons hovering over the terrain. “Fascinating,” he noted to himself, uncertain where his ship had manifested. He pulled out a fob watch and checked the date; there was none. Instead, the dial reading upon it was inconclusive. Apparently he’d landed in no particular time at all. Suddenly, in the distance, he could hear the roar of a large creature. The ground began to shake as it lumbered closer and closer. Even from far off he could determine that he was about to be trampled by what could be nothing less than a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a dinosaur from ancient Earth.

The Doctor made a hasty return to his TARDIS and shut the door, making certain that its protective defenses were operating at the fullest. He flipped on a view screen and watched, intrigued, as the dinosaur lumbered toward the TARDIS, sniffing at its exterior. It made an attempt to touch it with its snout, and an electrical spark sent it on its way, uncertain of what had just happened, but fearful at the prospect of even more intense pain.

“Well, well,” the Doctor mumbled to no one in particular. “That seems to have done the trick.” He manipulated some knobs on the control panel of the TARDIS, and tried to figure out where he was, what might have sent him there, and how he might escape these mysteriously familiar surroundings. He missed the company of other sentient beings, and longed for someone to talk to, and just as he began to reflect on some of his past companions, he noticed movement on the viewing console out of the corner of his eye. He was surprised to note that there were humans outside, investigating what had sent the large dinosaur away, and they were accompanied by a bipedal creature with an extremely large cranium, covered completely with dense brown fur.

“This isn’t a Pylon, Will,” the female of the group remarked. “It’s not shaped like one at all, and it seems to be made of wood. It’s also humming,”

“Pylons hum, Holly,” Will replied. “But they don’t have English writing on them. Look at this sign. It says, ‘Police Call Box. For Public Use Only.’ What do you think it means? If it’s for public use, why does it have to be designated as being for public use? Back home, stuff like this usually says ‘Private,’ or ‘Not for Public Use.’ I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like this, but we’ve seen stranger things, I guess.”

The bipedal creature spoke, and as the Doctor listened to the conversation from within his craft, his face broke into an unexpected smile. “What you think this is?” It said. “It scare Grumpy away.”

“No idea, Chaka,” Will answered. He reached out and touched the Doctor’s spacecraft, and when its front door opened, he stepped back very quickly. “Woah! Who goes there?”

“Exactly,” replied the Doctor. “I am the Doctor. I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.” He extended his hand, and Will carefully shook it.

“My name’s Will Marshall, and this is my sister, Holly.”

The Doctor shook their hands, and then reached into his waistcoat. He pulled out a small wax bag, reached inside, and handed Chaka a small piece of colored candy. “Jelly baby?” He asked.

Chaka reached out and slowly took the treat, sniffing it cautiously before he put in his mouth. His delight upon tasting it was obvious.

“That’s Chaka,” Holly noted. “His people are called the Pakuni, and I guess they’re, like, the missing link or something. Of course, I don’t know that for sure. We don’t know anything for sure in this place.”

“And what,” the Doctor asked, “is this place, exactly?”

Neither Will nor Holly had an easy answer. Instead, they did their best to explain how they and their father had been shipwrecked there after experiencing an earthquake while whitewater rafting. They led the Doctor to their encampment in the Lost City, and told him of the many adventures they’d had in the Land of the Lost, and of the many beings they’d encountered over the decades.

Will was in his fifties, and Holly wasn’t much younger. At one point in time, Will explained, he and Holly lived with their father, Rick, but he’d been lost in time after experimenting with one of the Pylons in the jungle. Then, they told him, their Uncle Jack had found them for a time, but he later was killed in a rock slide after they had been attacked by a nocturnal reptilian race known as the Sleestak, who sported large orbs for eyes, were covered in scales, and had a tendency to amble around hissing, which typically alerted Will and Holly of their impending approach.

Over the years, the Marshalls had encountered a wide variety of strange beings. Aliens, mythological characters, historical figures, dinosaurs, and even the mysterious sailor known throughout history as the Flying Dutchman. Will and Holly were quite surprised that the Doctor didn’t react to all they told him. Instead, he just took everything in, carefully analyzing their accounting of past events, and seemingly comparing what they’d seen with things he had seen and experienced as well.

Upon reaching their humble cave dwelling, the Doctor was anxious to meet the lone Sleestack who could communicate verbally, Enik, also known as ‘The Altriusian.” Will and Holly agreed to send word by Chaka that they wanted to speak with him, and as they tried to wind down for the night, they prepared a delicious meal crafted from some of the local fruits and vegetables that were tremendously large in size. The Doctor ate his fill, and after the meal expressed his thoughts.

“I believe this world is a stasis point in the center of a wormhole that exists between worlds where a tear in the fabric of time and space was created. And when it comes to wormholes, getting in is typically the easy part, while getting out is the next thing to impossible.”

“So we’re never going to get out?” Holly asked.

“Oh, you’re going to get out,” the Doctor answered. “Remember, you told me that when you were a little girl, you met your future self, and if my calculations are correct, you couldn’t have been much older than you are right now, my dear.”

Holly’s face lit up, and Will asked if the Doctor had any idea how they were going to be returned to their home world; he and his sister had both long given up on the idea of being returned to the time in which they’d been displaced in time and space. They just wanted to get back to earth, even if it was contemporary earth, and they reappeared there in their current respective ages. They were curious to know what had become of their father, and while they knew full well they couldn’t take Chaka back to the earth they once knew, they were more than willing to do whatever it took to live lives of reasonable normalcy.

II.

Early the next morning, Will and Holly commissioned Chaka with the task of informing Enik of the Doctor’s arrival, and setting up a meeting time with him. Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to venture into what they’d always referred to as the Lost City to see him, and Enik would be able to steal away under the cover of darkness to meet them in their stone lodgings. As they waited for the Pakuni to return, they told the Doctor of the many Pylons they’d discovered all over the mysterious terrain of the Land of the Lost, and when the Doctor heard of the configuration of the standing control platform in the center of each structure, his face took on a look of both surprise and seeming recognition.

“How soon can you show me the interior of one of these Pylons?” the Doctor asked, forming the word ‘Pylon’ in such a way that implied he seemed to recall the word..

“Why are you so curious about them, Doctor?” Holly wondered aloud.

“Well, let me take you into my TARDIS, and I think you’ll understand.”

The Doctor, Will, and Holly calculated how long it would take Chaka to return from his jaunt to see Enik, and decided they had just enough time to make a dash to the Doctor’s craft and back before Chaka arrived with his news.

Upon arriving, the Doctor unlocked the big blue box and extended his arm with a welcoming gesture that assured the siblings that they were being allowed to enter. Once they crossed the threshold of the ship, their wide-eyed wonder reminded the Doctor of the many companions he’d introduced the ship to, and Will and Holly made the same exact comment that all the others had: “It’s…bigger on the inside than on the outside!”

The Doctor laughed softly to himself, and smiled as he led the brother and sister to the main console of his time machine. Their reaction to the set-up, he felt certain, would be the same as his would be once he finally saw the interior of a Pylon.

“Doctor,” Will remarked with shock on his face, “there aren’t any crystals here, but the way your dials and switches are placed -- this is like a more advanced version of what you’ll see in the Pylon!” He walked around the configuration and added, “Do you think there’s a relationship between the two? Could the Pylons be some kind of a primitive form of TARDIS?”

”I’m not sure,” the Doctor replied, “But from what you tell me, one Pylon was used to transport your father back in time, and another may have allowed Holly to see a future version of herself. The only thing is…” he trailed off, looking into the distance.

“What, Doctor?” Holly asked.

The Doctor turned and looked at her. “Well, I don’t recall ever being aware of a TARDIS that could manipulate the weather, or alter the alignment of moons or stars. Then again, if a TARDIS could be reprogrammed to extend its energy outward, instead of inward…” He trailed off again, deep in thought.

A large growl in the distant jungle rattled everyone’s minds back to the time restraints they were under, and they opted to head back to the cave. Hopefully, Chaka would be waiting for them with good news.

Dusk settled in, and as the Doctor, Will, and Holly sat around a fire warming away the chill, Chaka entered their compound.

“Enik come tonight. Later” Chaka replied, nearly out of breath. “Sleestaks in uproar, holding council. Something upset them. Something bad.”

“What do you think it is, Chaka?” Holly asked.

“Don’t know,” said Chaka, shrugging his shoulders. “But Sleestaks meeting in Library of the Skulls. Enik want hear what they say. Then he come.”

Chaka sat down in front of the fire, too, and an awkward silence fell over the room. A short time passed, and outside the cave walls a commotion could be heard, its sounds rising in volume. The Doctor, Will, and Holly could hear what sounded like limbs cracking, and brush being tossed aside. Then their hearts began to thump as they heard the sound of the stone entrance to their enclosure being slowly but surely removed from its moorings…

III.

Outside the interior of their cave, the stone doorway to the Marshall enclosure slammed to the ground with a vicious thud. Dust swirled into the faces of Will, Holly, the Doctor, and Chaka as they coughed and sheltered their eyes. When the air cleared, everyone was shocked to see a small robotic dog roll into view, scanning each of them in turn. It was very similar to the Fourth Doctor’s K-9 unit, but it was a glossy black, and sported an angular head with short ears that spiked backward in a devilish fashion. Its eye port looked something like black cyclopean sunglasses with a dark red lens, and on its side was emblazoned the name XR-6 in bold letters. The robots’ back was also angular, and instead of being boxy, like K-9, it was more angular and curved; everything about it, even its arched, metallic tail, smacked of something sinister, and when it rolled over to the Doctor and spoke, its scratchy, electronic tone made everyone’s skin crawl.

“Scans indicate that you are a fellow Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. The Master requires your presence. There will be no hesitation. You shall follow me immediately.”

The Doctor looked at Will and Holly with a grave expression on his face. “I’m going with him,” he said. “Stay put. I’ll be back when I can. Try not to worry.”

Will and Holly didn’t know what to say or do, so they simply watched as the robotic dog led the Doctor out into the jungle. As they disappeared from view, Enik made his approach.

“Greetings, Marshall siblings. I have come as you have requested. How may I be of assistance to you?”

Will and Holly led Enik inside their now compromised home and informed him of all they had recently witnessed. As they talked, the Doctor and XR-6 continued their journey in the distance, walking ever deeper into the forest.

---

“XR-6, did you say that your master required my presence, or the Master required my presence?” the Doctor inquired as they made their way through the darkness.

“My master is known as the Master, among other titles. How are you known, Gallifreyan?”

“Is that as important as my home world of origin?” asked the Doctor.

“Negative,” responded XR-6. “The Master is in trouble, and only a being with Gallifreyan DNA can assist him. Personal monikers and affectations are inconsequential.”

“Assist him in accomplishing what, exactly?” asked the Doctor.

“You shall see when we arrive at his TARDIS,” responded XR-6.

Moments later, they approached what seemed to be a stone column, as out of place in the Land of the Lost as a giant ape would be in Times Square.

A beam of light shot from the snout of the XR-6 unit, and a portal opened in the middle of the column. “Enter,” a voice called out from inside. “Enter. Quickly, please.”

The Doctor could discern that whoever was inside the TARDIS was in physical pain, and based on where the voice was coming from, they were, in all likelihood, pinned underneath something rather large. He dashed inside, and was surprised to see his old arch-nemesis, the Master, trapped underneath a large and weighty mound of rocks. Even more shocking was the fact that this incarnation of the Master was not the one the Doctor had last encountered. Instead, it was the second incarnation of the bearded Master, complete with lacy collar, black uniform, and black hair and goatee.

“Help me, please,” groaned the Master, who watched with surprise as the Doctor reached into a pocket and withdrew his sonic screwdriver. After adjusting its settings, he carefully aimed it at the center of the rock mound, and with a loud screech, blasted it to pieces with a wave of sonic energy. The Doctor then adjusted its settings once more, and did a quick scan of the Master’s body.

“You’ve probably bruised a rib or two,” the Doctor reported, “but you should be alright over time.” He looked around the interior of the Master’s time machine. “How did you wind up in this predicament, and what led you to this particular location in space and time?”

“It’s a long story,” the Master responded as he carefully stood to his feet with the Doctor’s help. “But the fact of the matter is, I was performing some experiments on this slab of stone I materialized into my ship here, and I apparently did something it didn’t like.”

“Fascinating,” the Doctor noted, placing a hand to his chin.”So the rock cried out, did it?”

“Quite,” said the Master.

“So,” said the Doctor. “Sentient rock, then, or is it possibly an unstable amalgamation of matter and antimatter?”

“I’m not sure,” said the Master. “But I won’t experiment on it again. At least, not up close and personal.” He extended a hand for the Doctor to shake. “I am known as the Master. And to whom do I have the honor of thanking for my rescue? I programmed my K-9 unit, XR-6, to alert any Time Lords it might have noted on its scanners, and it seems to have more than done its job. After encountering all the many life-forms this place has become a haven to, I assumed it was only a matter of time before another Gallifreyan arrived.”

The Doctor smiled, and noted that he had become known of late as “John Smith,” and the Master seemed to find this acceptable without question. The Doctor was curious about this fact, but hoped he wasn’t being paranoid.

The Master led the Doctor into a parlor where the two of them were able to sit in comfortable chairs and discuss the events that led them to their current location, and the Doctor was rather taken aback by the friendly demeanor the Master conveyed; it made it difficult for him to consider the man an enemy. Still, he wanted to be cautious about revealing his identity to the Master. It was impossible to say what might transpire if the Master figured out that he was sharing quality time with the one man he hated most in any and every place and time one could possibly conceive of.

“In case you’re wondering,” the Master mentioned midway through their conversation, “I’ve activated a safety protocol in my TARDIS that only allows someone from Gallifrey to cross its threshold. I’ve had difficulties, shall we say, with aliens of late, and felt it a necessary failsafe. Unlike our Time Lord brethren, I opt to travel without companions. And you?”

The Doctor smiled, wholly certain the Master was unaware of who he was. “I, too, have been travelling alone for some time now.” And he offered nothing more. The Master raised an eyebrow, as if to note that the Doctor seemed to be withholding information, but said nothing.

The Master leaned forward where he sat. “The larger question, now,” he intoned, “Is this: How shall we escape this…land…of the lost?”

“What has failed?” asked the Doctor. “Perhaps, if we try other approaches, we’ll find the success we need.”

The Master rattled off a series of attempts he’d made since he’d first arrived, and the Doctor made note of them. Then he made his leave, and headed back toward Will and Holly’s base camp.

When the Doctor arrived, Enik was waiting with the Marshalls, and Chaka had fallen asleep by the fire. The Doctor was startled by Enik’s appearance, but not because it was strange to him. The smile that fell on the Doctor’s face spoke volumes, and even before they could be properly introduced, Enik asked the Doctor why he seemed to recognize him.

“Enik,” the Doctor blurted out with a grin that he tried to hide behind his fingers. “If you’re not somehow related to the Silurian race, then I’m not from Gallifrey.”

IV.

As Enik and the Doctor discussed their theories about the origins of the Altrusian race, they were wholly unaware that they were being observed from afar on the viewscreen of a certain TARDIS..

“Ah, Doctor,” the Master spoke to the monitor. “You are trusting to a fault. Clearly, you had no idea that my little ruse allowed me to scan your DNA to confirm your identity. You are new wine in an old wineskin, yes, and I could smell your aroma from across the cosmos, even as my TARDIS captured yours with its tractor beam. Now you shall unwittingly help me escape this wretched place and, too, you shall enable me to acquire a new body. Namely, YOURS, my old enemy!” He laughed long and hard, and the cacophony of his vocal eruption echoed throughout the chambers of his ship. His private merriment was short-lived, however, when he looked down at his wrist and noted that his worn flesh was oozing from his body, and dripping to the floor in a puddle of translucent goo. He had used up all of his lives, and it was not the rock that was in stasis - it was his physical form. Unless he could find another host body, his existence would be cut short. He scuttled off into the darkness in an effort to stabilize his condition. XR-6 rolled off after him and out of view.

“No, Enik.” The Doctor told the Altrusian. “I do not believe the Sleestaks are your descendants. Nor do I believe they are the devolution of your race. I have met others of your kind, and they all vary in shape to certain degrees. They are called Silurians.”

Enik, who appeared emotionless, was nonetheless fascinated and inwardly excited by this news. “I have heard of such a race,” he responded. “but only in the Library of the Skulls.”

“What do you know of them, Enik?” the Doctor asked, equally curious.

“Very little, Doctor. They have been spoken of only in whispers, yet I am certain that they were once associated with what I have heard called the Creators. Who the Creators are, however, is unknown to me, and to inquire about them is not allowed. It is regarded as blasphemy.”

“You and I have a lot in common, Enik.” The Doctor said, stroking his chin. “We are solitary individuals who have been forced to walk our own path. I believe we shall become great friends.” He smiled, and Enik nodded. The Doctor smacked his hands together. “I’m sure you’ve become quite fond of Will and Holly here,” he said. “But I do believe they have been in this place far too long. Do you think you could help me figure out a way to get them home, and reunite them with their father?”

“Rick Marshall was a good man,” Enik offered. “It would be my honor. However, we are in a place where the Pylons control many things, and yet no one knows how to manipulate the crystals upon them properly. We have tried many combinations over the years, but have only met with limited success.”

“So what we need,” the Doctor thought out loud, “is to find the Instruction Manual. It’s been lost, somewhere, but since the Pylons are clearly patterned after Gallifreyan technology -- or maybe it’s the other way around -- there’s got to be a backup somewhere. And where better to look than in, say, a library?”

Enik stepped one pace closer to the Doctor than he’d been a moment ago. “Surely you do not wish to meddle in the Library of the Skulls.”

“Well,” said the Doctor. “It won’t be the first time I got into a Silurian’s head.” He smiled, and headed over to Will and Holly, who’d given Enik and the Doctor time to get acquainted.

“Will, Holly - I need you to compare notes with Enik so you can tell me everything you know about the Library of the Skulls and the Lost City.”

Will, Holly, and Enik compared notes long into the night, and after everyone rested, they arose in the morning with a plan. Before they would venture into the Lost City, however, everyone was in agreement that the Doctor should probably investigate a Pylon before anyone had to skulk around the labyrinths of the Sleestaks.

When they reached the nearest Pylon, a large dinosaur loped by, and Holly was delighted to see her old friend Dopey, accompanied by his mate and offspring. She watched in delight as they devoured large strawberries in the distance.

“Odd hum,” the Doctor noted as they neared the Pylon. “Sounds very much like a sensor to me.” He felt around the Pylon and noted how cool it was to the touch. Then, as Will had instructed him, he twisted the knob that allowed the Pylon to open, and he stepped inside.

“I wonder“ the Doctor said aloud, “if there’s a Chameleon Circuit in here somewhere.” He felt around the stone console, but had no luck. He pondered the layout of the Pylon, and then remarked, “Or maybe, just maybe, there’s a control panel in here, hiding in plain sight.” He ran his hand along the walls of the Pylon, and at a certain point, realized there was what appeared to be a hole in the wall, although it didn’t appear to be there when gazing upon it with the naked eye.

“How are you doing that, Doctor?” Will asked, wide-eyed.

“The more important circuitry here is masked by a hologram, Will.”

“What? You mean to tell me we’ve been here all these years, and there were aspects to the Pylons that we hadn’t considered? I feel so…stupid!”

“Will,” the Doctor posed. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You arrived here in the 1970’s, and holograms were essentially in their infancy during that time-period on Earth. This place, however, is not of Earthly design. I suspect it’s a progenitor to my ship, and if my hunch is right, the Time Lords of old had everything to do with the creation of this place.” He stuffed his arm inside the opening he’d discovered and pulled out what appeared to be metal clipboard of sorts. He opened it and grimaced; the notations on it were unfamiliar to him. “This,” he said, “is going to take some time to decipher. But, fortunately, I am a Time Lord.” He smiled, and the small entourage headed back to the compound where they assembled a new enclosure to ensure their safety during the night hours.

In another sector of the Land of the Lost, someone else was keeping track of the Doctor’s coming and goings. A certain alien whose form was entirely composed of light. He’d been in hibernation for countless years by his reckoning, but now he was coming to life again, and this time -- this time -- he would make the Marshalls pay for their perfidy. After all, no one dares get the best of a Zarn.

Later that night, over a campfire, the Doctor and Holly were sharing a quiet conversation. “Tell me about your secret name,” the Doctor calmly requested. “The name you call yourself that no one knows about.”

“How do you know about that?” Holly asked, wide-eyed.

“Oh, we Gallifreyans have been around, and we pick up on certain things quite easily. We’re not necessarily psychic by any means, but we do tend to piece things together when we analyze details of the big pictures that unfold before us as we traverse through time and space.”

“What does that mean?” Holly asked, clearly puzzled.

“Well,” the Doctor expounded. “It’s similar to what happens when someone familiarizes you with a family album, and you comb through the pictures and hear the family stories, and then you begin to realize who’s who, and what’s what.”

“So, how did you know I had a secret name for myself.”

“Just a hunch,” the Doctor said with a smile. He looked into the fire, away from Holly’s gaze.

“Well,” she said. “I don’t know why, but I’ve always felt like Holly wasn’t my real name. I’ve always felt like my real name was meant to be…Rani.”

As the Doctor looked into the flames, a cold chill went through his spine.

V.

As everyone in the group rested, the Doctor’s mind raced. He took a tally of all the potential dangers he faced: angry Sleestaks, the Library of the Skulls, the Master (he always brought an element of uncertainty whenever he appeared) and his new robotic canine, carnivorous dinosaurs of multiple varieties, historic and mythological personas from a wild variety of eras and locales, and - the most dangerous thing of all - a singular stasis point between what seemed to be uncountable rifts in time and space that seemed to have no clear point of origin. HOW could he get himself, Will, and Holly out when he had so many other things to contend with?

His mind snapped back to what he’d last discussed with Holly: her secret name for herself, and the fact that she was convinced that she’d met a future version of herself, despite the fact that it was nearly impossible for such a thing to occur without incident: from what he’d been taught from childhood, if one interacts with ones’ future self and impacts the future, there was a very real possibility that the universe would instantaneously explode…

“Rani,” he whispered to himself, his mind reflecting back to his years at the Academy, and his experiences with a female classmate of his acquaintance that referred to herself as The Rani; it had always troubled him that she referred to herself in the plural sense. He thought back to the many ways in which she’d gotten herself into trouble as a youth, back in her first Gallifreyan incarnation when, interestingly enough, she sometimes sported a blonde hairdo. Had she not been reprimanded by the Gallifreyan High Council for manipulating susceptible youth with lies and innuendo that had the dangerous potential of affecting the outcomes of time-space variables? He was unclear, but this seemed familiar to him. His mind was a little jumbled about The Rani since his last regeneration, when she’d brought him so much misfortune. Suddenly, in the dim light of the room, Enik strode over to the Doctor and spoke quietly to him.

“Doctor,” Enik murmured. “I have yet to relate to you the concerns of the Sleestaks. They have been in quite an uproar since you first arrived. It seems they had been anticipating the appearance of what the Library of the Skulls refers to as the Blue Pylon since antiquity.”

“That’s odd,” the Doctor replied quietly. “Have they been expecting anything else?”

“A stone Pylon,” Enik responded. “As you have seen, the Pylons are all primarily metal; they believe yours to be the wooden Pylon of ancient prophecy, but they also expect to see a stone 

Pylon, and yet another Pylon made of a substance that is unclear to them.”

“Have there been attempts at describing this substance?” the Doctor asked.

“They say it is a Pylon of Smoke and Darkness,” and that is all.

“Hmmm,” the Doctor puzzled, thinking back to his and Holly’s conversation; she’d described her future self, Rani, as appearing and disappearing from a smoky opening in the Lost City. Of course, to her, such sights went unquestioned, since mysterious smoke often manifested in certain places in the Land of the Lost. Could it be, he wondered to himself, that The Rani had a history with this place that dated as far back as her first incarnation? If so, had she singled Holly out as a future Time Lady and a ranking member of a dark entourage of her creation? Could the “The” in The Rani mean that there actually was more than one Rani, and this had slipped right past everyone’s noses without question? He pushed the thought aside for now, and asked Enik if he was aware that the Master, whom he’d helped when in distress, earlier, was in a TARDIS that appeared to be made of stone.

“It has not yet been sighted by the Sleestak scouts,” Enik informed him.

“Probably because he’s fond of utilizing a cloaking device unless he wants to be seen,” the Doctor mused. “And he clearly wanted me to be aware of his arrival. I don’t believe he was certain who I was but, at the same time, I’ve dealt enough with him to know that I can’t put anything past him. In all likelihood, his misfortune was a ruse to discern my identity, and I wouldn’t doubt that he had cohorts here that he was manipulating to achieve a nefarious end of some kind. But what? What could the Master possibly want from such a place as this.” He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it!”

Enik waited for the Doctor to expound on his theory, and when no explanation was offered as the Doctor looked off into the darkness at nothing in particular, he couldn’t resist the urge to ask him what his revelation might be.

“I suspect,” the Doctor pondered. “That the Master believes that this location is a starting point for the known universe and, if he can find a way to control the events of the future, he can set himself up as the dark ruler uncountable worlds.”

Enik was intrigued. “Is such a thing possible, Doctor?”

“No,” the Doctor almost laughed. “There are doorways to and from here, but I believe this is a pocket universe, a loop in the time stream that exists parallel with it without affecting the time stream directly. If I’m right, this place co-exists with the time-stream, which would explain why Will and Holly have aged appropriately. By the way, Enik, I wanted to ask you a question about them.”

“You may ask me anything, Doctor. I discern that you are pure in heart.”

“Well, hearts actually,” the Doctor chuckled. Enik didn’t inquire as to what he meant. “How is it that Will and Holly have clothes and such that still fit them? I would have thought they’d outgrown everything by now but, from what they tell me, they’re dressed now as they were when they first arrived.”

Enik spoke quietly so as not to disturb the sleeping Will, Holly, and Chaka: “I provided them with Altrusian fabric many decades ago, and it is a specialized type of cloth that does not wear out and cannot be damaged; it is of specialized material that modifies itself based on the psychic memories of the wearer.”

It was the Doctor’s turn to be fascinated. “So, because of unstable molecules or the like, the fabric reads the minds of the wearer, and it becomes what they’re most comfortable with? Ingenius! And yet you thought your brilliant people had devolved into the Sleestaks? Impossible! Your people’s psychic cloth is very much akin to my people’s psychic paper!”

The Doctor and Enik compared notes about their cultures and people, and continued their discussion for quite some time as the others slept. Meanwhile, in another part of the jungle, three conspirators were also speaking at length.

---

“Master,” the Rani began. “I have been grooming Holly Marshall since childhood; she has been a pawn in this game for far longer than either you or the Doctor know. “I have manipulated her mind, and the mind of her family, since my first incarnation. There’s no way our scheme can’t work.”

The Zarn interrupted before the Master could comment. “Do not put anything past the Marshalls. They may seem simple, but they have a knack for escaping danger. All of them, that is, except for their father and his foolish brother.”

The Rani didn’t even look over at the Zarn, but addressed him nonetheless. “What did you do with Jack Marshall, by the way?”

The Zarn spoke without emotion. “He has been in cryo-sleep aboard my ship since I captured him, lo these many years. I have been probing his mind in search of knowledge, but have yet to discover any information worth sharing…”

The Master listened to The Rani and the Zarn compare notes, all the while calculating his chances of tricking the two into scenarios that would cut them entirely out of any and every equation.

“Master, do you know whatever became of Rick Marshall?” asked The Rani.

The Master turned around to face her. “No,” he said. “I don’t believe you ever told me, actually.”

“Well,” The Rani purred. “The Marshalls have long thought their father returned to their time-point of origin. Nothing was ever further from the truth. You see, I visited him on occasion in the past, just as I visited Holly on that day she regarded as being so momentous. Our visits were of a different nature and, shall we say, were much more personal. Eventually, I persuaded him to commit to being my consort, baited by the promise of bringing his children into our arrangement, provided they never learned of our relationship.” She looked off into the distance, smiling. “He was afraid they’d be ashamed of him if they ever found out about us.” She looked at the Master and grinned with a sinister expression on her face. “I told him to meet me at a certain Pylon, and ply his children with mangos and fruit I’d provided that were of normal size; they never even questioned why the mangos weren’t overly large like all the other plant life. Regardless, the distraction worked, and as they ate outside the Pylon, I lured Rick Marshall into manipulating certain crystals on the Pylon matrix table, and  - spit-spat - I pulled him into my trap, where he’s been ever since. Rick Marshall, Master, is my mindless prisoner. He thinks he’s been living a peaceful existence back on earth, but he’s really in a holding chamber aboard my TARDIS, kept alive by machinery of my own creation, and every muscle and tendon in his body is regularly exercised so as to avoid atrophy. When the time is right, he will be the pawn we need to accomplish our task here.”

The Master smiled. The Rani smiled. The Zarn had no expression at all.

VI.

Something was bothering Enik. “Doctor,” he asked softly, “May I speak with you about a matter of a somewhat delicate nature?”

“Certainly, Enik.” The Doctor responded, checking to see if Will and Holly were nearby. Since they weren’t, he felt it would be okay to continue the discussion.

“We Altrusians are gifted with limited telepathic senses. I can easily read the mind of humans such as the Marshalls, but I am unable to discern your thoughts and, especially, your emotional responses to certain stimuli. However, I am occasionally aware of glimmers of certain past memories you have reflected upon since we first met, and my instincts tell me that this is because, somehow, in some unknown way, you were once…human…”

The Doctor was astonished to hear this. He had encountered many telepathic entities over the years, but none had ever discerned this truth. Perhaps Enik was more sensitive to human memories than they had been because he had only ever been exposed to humans.

“Enik,” the Doctor replied, “We Time Lords are sometimes forced to mask our alien physiognomy and even our psyches when we become endangered by a serious threat. We rarely do it, but we have Gallifreyan technology that allows us to temporarily hide our true natures and physicality, and hide our - well, souls, for lack of a better term, but also our consciousness - in an object, say a time piece, like this pocket watch you see me sporting.” He looked into the distance, lost in thought and memories of what occurred after he first used the Chameleon Arch. “In my first life, I was forced to make this transformation, and I became so entrenched in my new human identity that, when I discovered my TARDIS, I thought I was a human scientist who had discovered the secrets of unlocking time and space. I married, fathered a child, even had a granddaughter, and accidentally opened up a rift in time that resulted in the creation of a pocket, parallel universe and a time-line in which the Daleks, our most dreaded enemies, were ultimately able to overtake a version of earth in the year 2150 A.D.”

The Doctor found himself pacing the room as he talked about what Enik had so clearly discerned, because it was a source of embarrassment to him, and a period of his life he wish he could simply erase from his memory forever. But he could not. The results of his decision to temporarily become human in that ill-fated period of his first existence had long-lasting repercussions that affected him from the time he became a full-fledged Time Lord again to this very day. Even after he first regenerated into his current form, it caused mental confusion within him, and he told his first human companion, a lovely female physician he became enraptured with for a time, that his mother had been human, when this was most certainly not the truth.

The fact of the matter was, when coming to his senses after his body’s transformation from his seventh form, the Doctor found himself watching an American television program in which an alien had a mother from earth, and he so identified with the character at that moment that it became fixed in his mind that this was also his back history, but it absolutely was not. He was quite mortified when he figured out the truth.

Most Time Lords, the Doctor mused in his mind, didn’t undergo the extreme confusion he underwent each time he’d freshly regenerated; it was almost as if he wanted to remain human. He’d never made the transformation again, and hoped he’d never be faced with a situation where he might even consider it, because he knew in his hearts that he simply might not want to become a Time Lord again. His affection for humans was simply that strong. But he wouldn’t undo what he’d done, either, he knew, because the positives so greatly outweighed the negatives. His granddaughter, Susan, after all, was someone he took extreme delight in, despite the fact that he’d long ago made the decision to live out his remaining lives without interacting with her -- if he could help it. Every now and then, though, he checked in with her, and soon he would make it a point to see how her son was getting along.

Enik remained intrigued by all the Doctor told him. “Doctor,” he asked, “have other Time Lords experienced this transformation you have described?”

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor responded. “I know of two others: The Master, who is here, as you well know, in the Stone Pylon of prophecy, perhaps. But he didn’t utilize the Chameleon Arch due to a threat as I did. He used it to deceive, and to literally steal the lives of others to lengthen his own.”

“And who is the other,” Enik asked.

“The other,” the Doctor responded, “was someone who has been heavily on my mind since speaking with Holly recently. She calls herself ‘The Rani,’ and no one has ever understood why. Upon reflection, I’m beginning to wonder if she’s ever been to this plane because, in my seventh regeneration, she had the embryo of a Tyrannosaurus Rex on her TARDIS…” His eyes glazed over.

“Does something disturb you, Doctor?” Enik asked.

“Indeed. When I discovered that dinosaur embryo, she was in league with none other than The Master himself.” He snapped his fingers. “It’s all beginning to come together now. Everything I’m pondering is forming a larger picture and, Enik, The Rani may well have a much richer history with your land and your people than either of us can even begin to imagine!”

Unbeknownst to the Doctor and Enik, Holly had been eavesdropping around the corner for quite some time. Enik had not detected her because he was so preoccupied with all the Time Lord was relating to him.

“How dare the Doctor speak of Rani in such a way?” Holly growled to herself. “Rani saved us. Rani saved me. Rani is me. She and I are one, and WE are The Rani!” She fled the compound, and headed out into the jungle, unconcerned with the darkness that was overtaking her.

VII.

Holly’s mind was in turmoil as she ran. She was extremely confused, and couldn’t figure out what the Doctor had said that was so offensive. It was almost as if she had reacted instinctively and instantaneously instead of rationally and logically. She stopped and took a deep breath, puzzled by a glowing red light in the near distance.

It was the Zarn.

“Holly Marshall,” he said in a cold, flat tone. “Your emotional state is causing me distress.”

Holly’s mind flashed back to an instance in the past when she and the Zarn had a similar encounter. She was much younger, and the two had a discussion she had never told her brother, or Uncle Jack, or even her father about. The Zarn had expressed anger at the male Marshalls, but he was clearly less severe with her. Once the experience of Déjà vu washed over her, she walked over to the Zarn and addressed him.

“I don’t know that I’d like to discuss it.” She said.

“Regardless,” said the Zarn. “It is affecting me in a negative manner, and I am uncomfortable with the thought of your emotional unease.”

Like the mood ring she’d once had long before her family had fallen through the time hole in the waterfall, she watched in fascination as the Zarn’s physical color scheme shifted from red into its more familiar neutral shade. She was calming down. Still, she felt awkward standing in the presence of the alien being who’d sworn vengeance on her brother and father so long ago.

“Where have you been?” she asked him. “We haven’t seen you in decades.”

“I have been in temporal hibernation while my ship repaired itself and cloaked our whereabouts with a shield of invisibility.”

“I see,” she responded. Nothing surprised her in the Land of the Lost.

Holly’s mind was reverting back to normal, and she had a slight headache. “I need to get home. Was there something you wanted to discuss with me?”

The Zarn and Holly spoke at length in the shadows, and Holly was curious as to why he spoke in so low a tone that she alone, and no one else, would be able to hear him relate all the information he was conveying. What he told her changed her perspective about a lot of things, but she opted to keep it private until the right opportunity arose.

---

“Well, Enik,” the Doctor grinned. “I have a cursory translation of this instruction manual programmed into my scanning device; we should have a more thorough explanation of how the Pylons work before too long. When shall we make headway toward our Library of the Skulls expedition?”

“Let us inform the Marshall siblings of our intentions, and then I shall attempt to obtain for you the mercy of Altrusian Grace, despite the fact that you are only partly human.”

“Well, in spirit, anyway,” the Doctor smiled.

“Since you are attempting to accomplish a task that will be of ultimate benefit to me, and I am an extension of the Sleestaks by genetic association, you should qualify for Altrusian Grace. But, as is our custom, you may only ask the Skull of Primacy one question, and no more. It may be a question broken into parts and segments, but I would advise you to avoid pressing for more answers than the Skull of Primacy is willing to present to you. He is a being of limited patience.”

“He won’t be the first of that sort I’ve had to deal with,” the Doctor replied, thinking of Davros, and the Sontarans, and the Cybermen, and all the other villains who dared cross intellectual swords with him over the course of his multiple lives. “And he certainly won’t be the last.”

Holly entered the primary chamber of the Marshall encampment just as the Doctor and Enik were about to being their journey. She acted as if nothing were wrong, but her head swirled with all the Zarn had told her, and a part of her brain ached pained her as she resisted the fierce anger she felt at that moment toward the Doctor. These emotions were wrong, she knew, but she wasn’t sure what to do about them.

Enik immediately sensed something was wrong, but resisted the temptation to read Holly’s mind; she had always been a highly emotional human, and as Rick Marshall once worded it to him, it was very obvious that Holly was “high strung,” whatever that meant. Rick never did tell Enik what a “strung” was, and he’d been wondering about it for decades, forgetting to ask every single time he had an opportunity to.

Several Sleestaks were waiting for the arrival of the Doctor and Enik. Enik stood before them and, with a formal wave of his hand, said, “We are here under the covenant of Altrusian Grace. This human seeks audience with the Skull of Primacy on a matter of great benefit for the Sleestak race.”

The Sleestaks let them pass without question, and after a winding journey through the chambers of the Great Hall, the Doctor and Enik made their way to the Skull of Primacy, which immediately turned blue when the Time Lord approached it. This fascinated Enik, almost as much as the new layout of the Lost City’s interior did; it had been severely damaged after the earthquake that occurred when Rick Marshall was thought to be returned to his own time, and many of the underground corridors had collapsed in on themselves.

The blue skull began to speak, and the Doctor blanched; it sounded incredibly like the voice of Davros, and the voices that emanated from the other skulls  in the chamber sounded every bit like the voices of Dalek drones. How was this even possible?

The Doctor barely grasped what was being said to him as the effects of the mysterious smoke of the Library of the Skulls was impacting him in a way that it did not impact either humans or Sleestaks. Finally, he steeled himself and listened as the Skull of Primacy intoned, “The Book! The Book! The Ritual of the Book!” But by this point, it was too late. The Doctor had passed out cold on the stone floor.

Down below, in a chamber hidden by a deep, misty cloud, an unseen beast growled with such a horrific rumbling tone that it seemed as though the entire Lost City might collapse in on itself.

VIII.

“Leela!” the Doctor cried out to the smoky nothingness that surrounded him. He could see nothing except what his mind could produce, and he was painfully aware that he was being overtaken by strange images and thoughts that swirled in and out of his unconscious mind. He kept seeing Leela, a former companion, rushing through the jungle of the Land of the Lost, knife unsheathed. He also saw the shaded images of several other former companions, both living and dead: Adric, Tegan, Turlough, and each one in turn seemed to be in some sort of emotional crisis. They needed his help, but he was unable to attend to their needs. Every time he thought he could move, he felt like he was moving in slow motion, or that he was glued to the floor where he lay, wrestling to reclaim the ability to control his own thoughts and actions.

Other images came into his mind. He saw Vikings, soldiers from Earth’s past wars, a cowboy and an Indian, a Cro-Magnon giant, and even images of alternate versions of Rick, Holly, and Will Marshall from past Earth eras: cave-man versions of them, younger versions of them, older versions of them. It was all very confusing, especially when he saw another family in the Land of the Lost interacting with a cave-girl and talking Sleestaks that looked entirely different from those he’d already encountered. He even saw a group of humans who seemed somewhat similar to the Marshall family, but were clearly incompetent in every way imaginable, and absolutely the type of people he didn’t like to spend time with if he had any say in the matter.

The guttural howling began once again, and the Doctor lay perfectly still, this time listening and allowing the images to come without resistance. He didn’t want to suffer even one minute longer of the last images he’d seen - they were simply that impalatable.

In his mind’s eye the Doctor saw a rock wall with the words “BEWARE OF SLEESTAK.” He saw a very nice painting of a Sleestak from a past era standing beside a dinosaur with tufts of spikes that jutted out of its neck. This Sleestak was more humanoid than those he’d encountered, aside from Enik, and its stance smacked of pride, arrogance, and perhaps a portion of vanity. It was almost as if he were being given a silent tour of the ancient history of the Land of the Lost, mixed with a few glimmers of things to come.

He saw another wall with images of his original incarnation, and all previous regenerations. Standing beside him in the depiction were three other versions of himself, he assumed, but he chose not to study them too closely so as to avoid what he had come to call “spoilers” after being introduced to the term after meeting a strange, beautiful woman with long curly hair on one of his outer space romps of many decades earlier.

The growling began anew, and the Doctor felt himself coming to his senses. His eyes opened, and he looked about, uncertain of his location. Then he looked up, and he realized that he was in the bottom of a pit, swallowed in a massive cloud of the strange smoke that somehow tried to probe his mind and, when it wasn’t allowed, it tried a little too aggressively, forcing him - against his will - to assent to a cursory inspection of his mind’s contents. He only gave away so much about himself, though, and felt confident that whoever, or whatever, had searched his thoughts hadn’t uncovered anything that he needed to be concerned about. While being mind-probed, though, he returned the favor as best he could, and the ancient mental consciousness that combed through his mental archives was definitely of Gallifreyan origin. The Doctor was convinced: the Land of the Lost was created by Time Lords of the past, and was most likely the result of their initial experiments with time travel. The growl grew louder, and the Doctor could tell that whatever was producing the sound wasn’t moving, as if it was stuck in place.

“Hello?” the Doctor asked, shuffling through the smoke in search of the sound he knew was echoing all over the upper chambers. “Anyone there?”

He carefully made his way along the stones he could barely see by keeping track of the closest rock wall  to him with his extended hands, tapping two steps ahead in advance of every single step he was about to make. The growl grew even louder, and he began to realize that whatever was making such a commotion was just ahead in the fog. He squinted to his left and his right and saw the skeletal remains of Sleestaks and other creatures that had, presumably, been tossed down into this pit, and despite this, he steeled his resolve and moved closer to the source of the sound. :”Hello?” he asked once more.

The shape in the fog was becoming clearer and clearer, and when the Doctor realized what he was encountering, he was completely astonished.

“I am the God of the Pit,” said the strange voice that suddenly echoed into the Doctor’s mind. It broadcast thoughts into the Time Lord’s head that revealed its history to him, and everything about the creature before him began to make perfect sense.

“But - you’re so small!” smiled the Doctor. And, indeed, the beast was not much larger than a miniature pony from planet Earth. It looked something like a frog with a single, cyclopean eye, and was definitely reptilian. Atop its head was a long, extended proboscis that, whenever it exhaled, made a deep, echoing sound that wouldn’t seem strange coming from a large woodwind instrument. Periodically, the sound it emitted presented itself as a horrific growl that, very quickly, the Doctor began to ignore as he shared its telepathic exchange.

“Size means nothing,” the creature intoned in the Doctor’s mind. “as I’m sure you well know. But at times it can be advantageous. Fortunately for me, although I am of small size, my mind is quite large compared to most creatures in this place, and to protect myself from the Sleestaks, I hid within this pit when my craft was sucked into the spacial anomaly that has entrapped so many others here in this accursed place, and emitted loud bellows to persuade them to believe that I was much larger than I actually am. I have been here for untold eons…” and as it revealed this information to the Doctor, it also shared with him what it knew of the portals that led into the Land of the Lost.

---

Enik was extremely concerned about the Doctor’s well-being, and addressed the Skull of Primacy one last time. “Why was the Time Lord thrown into the pit below?”

The Skull blinked with preternatural light, and finally answered. “The human was to interact with the God of the Pit. It was foretold that this must be; the human has brought to the Land of the Lost the Pylon of Wood. It must be relocated. It must be conjoined with the Pylon of Stone, and the Pylon of Metal. When all three travel through the portals of water, smoke, and soil, the Great Happening will then occur. We must ensure the Great Happening. The Great Happening has been spoken of since time immemorial. The Great Happening will soon be upon us.”

It was when these final words were spoken that the Doctor walked into the room. He had found his way out of the pit, and pondered what he’d just heard. He silently took Enik by the arm and led him out of the Library of the Skulls, and they walked through the caverns and out of the Lost City as if they had been there countless times before.

“Enik,” the Doctor said with no particular emotion at all. “I think you need to see the interior of my TARDIS.” And they set out to do exactly that.

---

Will Marshall and Chaka were gathering fruit in the jungle, and Chaka was listening as Will grumbled about the same things he’d always grumbled about. “Chaka,” Will said. “No offense to you, but I will be so happy when I return to my appropriate time period. I miss my house, I miss my bed, and I miss watching television.” Will was especially fond of YOUNG DOCTOR KILDARE, and wondered if the program was still on the air, or if it had unceremoniously ended with no warning like his past life had when his family had fallen over that accursed waterfall. 

“Where’s Holly?” he asked.

Chaka had no idea, and merely shrugged his shoulders. “No Hahrry,” he muttered, content to continue with the gathering process.

“Well, I’m going looking for her,” Will groused, dumping what was in his arms to the ground.

He had no idea what he was about to walk into, and by the time he caught the familiar scent of one of Grumpy’s more rambunctious T-Rex offspring directly behind him, it was far too late to run.

IX.

The Rani and the Master were growing ever wearier of each other’s company the longer they were together, but their unspoken mutual distrust prevented them from parting ways. The Zarn, nearly made ill by the negative emotions the twosome regularly emitted, seldom lingered very long within the Rani’s TARDIS, and his absence generally never bothered them whenever he ventured back to his starship for rest or maintenance. This time, however, it seemed to them that something was off, but they weren’t sure what. They pushed the thought from their minds and made a rather weak attempt at conversation.

“Rani,” the Master asked. “Tell me again how you first began to manipulate the mind of the Marshall girl.”

The Rani told him how she had persuaded certain Sleestaks to use her once blonde image to mentally confuse not only Holly, but also Will, into believing she was a spectral incarnation of their mother. Rick Marshall had nearly blown the entire operation with his strong will when he realized she looked nothing like his late wife, but once the Rani had placed a mental image into someone’s psyche, it was practically impossible for her subjects to shake it, and this was especially true of Holly.

With Holly, the Rani not only implanted a mental image of her mother, she placed a very particular thought in her young mind - that her secret name should be Rani, and when she encountered Holly a second time, she boldly revealed her true physical form, and completely convinced the gullible child to believe she was the future Holly Marshall come back in time to inspire her to rescue her father and brother. Not only that, but she gave Holly Marshall three Gallifreyan implements that looked like jeweled necklaces, but were actually spying devices that both surveyed things for the wearers and broadcast to the Rani the information she’d need to carefully plant more suggestive thoughts into Holly’s easily persuaded head.

The Rani made many more covert visits with Holly over the decades, and with uncountable other easily influenced young girls throughout the known worlds that she convinced were also members of her Rani horde, and one day she would gather them all together and rule all galaxies like a futuristic legion of super-intelligent Amazons. She would be their queen. “Rani,” of course, meant “queen.” This plan, of course, she kept from the Master. She regarded him as a complete idiot, and enjoyed manipulating him. He served useful in other ways at times, but he was quickly growing more and more annoying with each passing moment.

The Master kept his emotions in check at all times, but he had an infatuation with the Rani that almost equaled his intense hatred of the Doctor and all of his incarnations. He wasn’t certain how the Doctor had regenerated into his present Gothic form, and he didn’t really care. All he knew was that he wanted to steal the Time Lord’s physical form and claim it as his own. His body was in a constant state of stasis as the result of his last misadventure, and he was more ectoplasmic at times than fleshly. Occasionally, the Master’s skin oozed from him into pools, but he was able to reformulate himself and hold his form together by scientific means, and with the help of his robotic creation, XR-6, which he’d designed as a mockery and evil version of the Doctor’s K-9..

The Master’s primary mental concern, however, was that he would get to a point where he would be unable to stabilize himself for once and for all, so he needed the Doctor’s body, and by hook or by crook he would obtain it. But he did have a few back-up plans up his sleeve, just in case, the chief one being overtaking the Zarn’s alien form if he could simply figure out how it was structured and organized on the molecular level. He cast the thought aside and spied around the Rani’s TARDIS control room. The first time he’d seen it, she had T-Rex embryos on pedestals, but they had since been replaced by skulls she’d obtained from the Lost City’s Library of Skulls.

The Rani disposed of all of her spoiled T-Rex embryos after the Sixth Doctor sped up time in her TARDIS, which resulted in the creation of the first “Grumpy.” They eventually relocated it to the Land of the Lost, and it was then that he hit upon the idea of figuring out how the Rani could come and go from her little hideaway with no one ever being the wiser. Oh, yes, she had an untold number of tricks up her pretty little sleeves, and that was another reason she fascinated him so. She also had, despite her seeming immoral nature, a reverence for some things that was simply beyond his ken.

The Rani left the Skull of Primacy alone when she spirited the other skulls away, for example, because she revered it as a relic from the earliest days of the Time Lords. This was a tactical measure on her part, he was certain, since it allowed her replacement skulls to be regarded as authentic while allowing her to spy on all that transpired within that most sacred chamber of the Silurians - no, the Sleestaks. He had great difficulty calling them “Sleestaks,” since he knew they were nothing more than genetically altered mutations of the Silurians, created by the Rani herself in her Academy days when she, he, and the Doctor were oh, so very young.

The Rani and the Master discovered the Land of the Lost by accident in those days. They were very young students then, and they often stole away in private to investigate the secret laboratories of the Gallifreyan elders. Back then they often flirted with one another, even shared a stolen kiss on several occasions, but those times were long, long past. Ultimately, the Rani learned of the first time travel experiments of the ancient elders, and when she found out that they had figured out how to merge the uncountable holes they’d accidentally torn in the fabric of time into one bubble universe that, theoretically, had “in” doors but no “out” doors, she determined that she’d outsmart the elders by discovering how to travel back and forth through this plane of the damned. That would be her claim to fame, but when she actually made her discovery, she instead opted to make the Land of the Lost her own personal play land, where no one in the known galaxies would ever even think to look for her.

It was in the Land of the Lost that the Rani first began dabbling with genetically altering what she regarded as lower life forms. Discovering that beings capable of communicating with her on a somewhat intellectual level only proved to be a perk to her since it helped preserve her sanity during periods of isolation, and since the time portals in the Land of the Lost literally sucked multiple life-forms from different times and places from all over the universes into its bubble universe, she was never at a loss for company, or victims. Either was always a matter of opinion, depending on how one looked at it. Sometimes her occasional company ended up her victims, but all was fair in love and war to the Rani.

A loud racket was heard clanging and banging in the back of the Rani’s TARDIS, and the Master and the Rani darted to the source of the noise. Within an electrically enclosed cell appeared Will Marshall, shaken and shocked to have been transported into such an unfamiliar situation.

“Ah,” said the Rani, smirking. “I see you were just ‘eaten’ by one of my pets. It’s been many years, Will, but I’ve been waiting for this day.”

The Rani walked over to a console on a side wall and pulled out a laser gun. She modified its setting, took aim, and shot Will Marshall directly in the chest. He passed out immediately, and slumped to the floor, unconscious.

“Your games never cease to fascinate me,” the Master grinned. “To what end have you sedated this young man, and for whatever reason did you create a faux dinosaur?”

“I created the faux Grumpy as the result of, for lack of a better term, a bet,” she beamed.

“With whom?” the Master asked, extremely curious.

“With our friend the Zarn, of course,” She laughed. “He created a bio-skeleton of a dinosaur at one point, and he named it ‘Fred,’ but young Will here, with the assistance of his father, saw to it that it was defeated. I told the Zarn I could produce a better and more practical dinosaur creation, and one with false flesh and a teleportation device within its maw, and now you see that my operation was a complete success.”

“And what of Will Marshall?” the Master asked.

“I intend to place him in a cell by his father, and keep him under control in the very same fashion. I have a use for both of them, and very soon the Zarn will be turning the beloved ‘Uncle Jack’ over to me as well.”

An alien voice quietly entered the minds of the Doctor and the Rani. It was the Zarn. “And what of Holly Marshall?” he asked.

The Rani glared at him, and his form took on the color of her emotional state. “She shall be - and already is - one of the Rani. All else is none of your concern. If you want to return home, you will continue to do as I command. Despite what you may think, I always keep my promises, one way or another. My word is my bond.”

The Zarn spun on his heel and exited the craft.

“Well,” the Rani whispered to the Master. “Good riddance to bad rubbish - for now. Our time here is almost at an end. Please excuse me while I retire to my chamber to dress more appropriately for the celebration we will both revel in this day: the death of the Doctor.” She adjusted the setting of her laser rifle, and placed it carefully upon the main console of her ship.

The Master and the Rani laughed, and when she left the room, the Master sent out an encoded command to XR-6, who was in position at his TARDIS. It took several minutes for him to compose the proper wording, and by the time the message had been sent, the Rani returned, dressed in her favorite uniform, her hair coiffed in the style she knew he liked best.

“Off we go, Master,” she grinned. He nodded silently, smiling knowingly.

And they walked off together in search of the Doctor’s TARDIS. The laser rifle was in the crook of the Rani’s arm, and she fully intended to use it, and soon.

X.

The Doctor and Enik were inside the TARDIS for mere seconds when Enik nearly staggered at the sight of the primary console of the ship. “Doctor,” the Altrusian gasped, “the undulating crystals that move up and down horizontally...”

“Yes, Enik?” asked the Doctor, as he checked the Time Machine’s many consoles.

“They look remarkably like the crystal I utilized to traverse the planes of reality many years ago. My people call it the Mageti. Rick and Will Marshall inadvertently shorted it out soon after our first encounter with one another.”

“Fascinating,” the Doctor replied, equally fascinated by the fact that the crystal around the Altrusian’s neck started glowing as soon as Enik approached the Time Rotor he had been referring to, almost as if the two objects were communicating with each other. He walked over to where he’d left the Pylon Instruction Manual and disconnected it from the wiring that had been translating it. It was ready for his perusal, but after he and Enik could attempt to figure out the connection between the Mageti and the TARDIS Time Rotor, he needed to speak with Holly about the crystals that “Rani” had given her so many years ago.

---

Holly was all alone in the Marshall compound, doing her best to sort out what the Zarn had expressed to her. He’d explained to her that, upon his awakening, his first thought was vengeance against her father and brother, but when he’d become fully conscious, the emotion was fleeting. He told her how he’d captured her Uncle Jack and kept him in stasis on his ship and how, over the decades, the two had formed a psychic link of sorts, and now her Uncle Jack’s mind and psyche had conjoined with his own. He was in constant emotional turmoil because of the shocking duality of his inner mind, and while his primary thought was no longer on revenge, it was most certainly fixed on figuring out how to separate himself from the consciousness of Jack Marshall. And the sooner, the better.

The Zarn also told her that, once he’d figured out how to relieve himself of her Uncle Jack’s mind, he would be setting the man free if the Marshalls and the Doctor could assist him in doing the final repair work on his ship, and then he’d dropped an even bigger bomb: he told her that her father had never really left the Land of the Lost, but had instead been imprisoned on the Rani’s spacecraft.

Holly felt utterly betrayed and she, too, was in a state of conflict within her heart and mind. She had cherished her memories of the future Rani and their many clandestine meetings. The very thought that her father was aboard Rani’s ship made her sick to her stomach, first at the thought that her future self could betray her past self, and secondly at the thought that this hope she’d preserved within her heart had been a lie all along, and Rani wasn’t her future self. She was so very confused.

The Doctor and Enik entered the compound and Holly was seated with her head in her hands. 

“Is something wrong, Holly?” the Doctor asked.

“Everything,” she replied. And she told him all the Zarn had related in such a rush she felt as if she were emotionally vomiting. The Doctor and Enik listened intently, and the Doctor asked her to tell him everything she could recall about Rani.

“So Rani gave you three crystal necklaces,” the Doctor mused. “May I see them?”

Holly fished them out of their holding place in the cave, and the Doctor examined them with his Sonic Screwdriver.

“Interesting,” the Doctor noted. “This is a multi-channel transmitter and receiver. They’re interconnected, but in more ways than you know. Apparently, they’re sending signals to the Rani so she can keep track of your every move.” He tweaked the settings on his screwdriver and waved it over the necklaces once more. “There. Now we’ll be able to see what Rani is up to…”

“But Doctor,” Enik asked. “Is this not dangerous? Is the Rani not aware of what you have done to these devices?”

“I seriously doubt it,” the Doctor responded. “After all, the Marshalls have never had much more than knives and skins all these years. They’ve never actually had any futuristic technology. I doubt she suspects a thing.”

The Rani and the Master’s images appeared in the viewport of the crystal necklaces. They were a safe distance away, but the gun under the Rani’s arm gave the Doctor pause. Clearly, she meant to go hunting and, in all likelihood, she was on the prowl for him. He tweaked the necklaces with his Sonic Screwdriver once more and was able to tap into the security cameras within her TARDIS. He spotted the unconscious Will Marshall lying prone on a slab near his father, whose curly hair had turned a pale white in the years since he’d first been captured.

“Holly,” the Doctor asked. “Is this your father?”

Holly looked into the necklaces and began to shake. Tears streamed from her suddenly reddened eyes. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “So the Zarn was telling the truth. Rani betrayed me. She wasn’t me after all.” Suddenly she steeled herself. “Doctor,” she said with determination. “We’ve got to get them out of there. Will can’t possibly have been in there for too long. I only saw him a short time ago. But what about my father? He’s been there for decades. Have his muscles atrophied?”

The Doctor scrutinized the imagery he saw. “Considering the technology the Rani has on her ship, I’m confident your father’s muscle tissue hasn’t been damaged. In all probability, she’s got him patched into machinery that stimulates the muscles in the event that he would need to be awakened and moved to another location. Who knows, she may well have awakened him from time to time and utilized him as a plaything of sorts.”

Holly pushed the thought from her mind and gritted her teeth. “We need to get my father and brother out of there so we can get back to Earth.”

“Indeed,” said the Doctor.

“And if we help the Zarn, we can collect Uncle Jack, too.” She smiled at the thought, but underneath it all, she was slightly concerned that something was going to go wrong. What, though, she had no idea whatsoever.

---

The Zarn removed the devices that held Jack Marshall in place. He, too, had technology that stimulated the man’s musculature as he was held in a constant state of hibernation. For all Jack knew, he’d been dreaming for the last few decades. His mind was cloudy for a time after the Zarn removed the psychic constraints, and when his eyes opened, Jack Marshall became aware that there was another mind in his skull.

”What’s going on here?” Jack asked, totally confused.

“Jack Marshall, I apologize for the intrusion. Our conjoined minds are the result of an accident that I am responsible for. I take full responsibility, and will do my utmost to separate our consciousnesses. In the past I proved to be arrogant and self-centered, but your humanity has shown me the error of my ways. At one time I wanted nothing more than to avenge myself upon your family, but those days are no more…”

Jack could not only hear what was being conveyed to his mind, he could feel it, and he knew the words to be true. “Very well,” Jack responded to the alien voice. “We’ll deal with the hand we were dealt, but I would really like to see my family.”

“All in due time, Jack Marshall,” the Zarn replied in an assuring tone. “But first we must stop the Rani and the Master from accomplishing the mission they have planned.”

Jack suddenly had full awareness of all that had been plotted, without explanation. It was the primary benefit of sharing a joint mind with an alien being. They knew exactly what they needed to do…

---

The Doctor, Holly, and Enik stealthily approached the Pylon and slipped quickly inside once they were certain the coast was clear. The Doctor removed the instruction manual, and made note of the crystal configuration he needed to stall his enemies’ approach.

Once the Doctor manipulated the crystals, the sky outside grew black, and gale force winds began to blow. Holly looked into her crystal necklace and saw that the Rani and the Master were being forced backward, and was delighted when they retreated into a nearby grove of trees to wait out the effects of the storm.

The Doctor looked at the instruction manual and not at Holly Enik, whom he began to address in the same way a teacher does a student. “Unlike a TARDIS,” he said dryly, “these Pylons don’t modify their outward appearance unless they were to be veiled by an invisibility cloak. They, instead, modify the environment around them. A primitive version of our TARDIS technology, true, only inverted. I guess you could say that my TARDIS is the perfected version of the Pylon, and I suspect the ancient Time Lords devised the Pylons to preserve the life-forms that might wander into the time holes that lead here.”

“I don’t fully understand,” Holly remarked, her face a mask of confusion.

“The ancient Time Lords were a benevolent people,” the Doctor droned on, still not looking up from the manual. “They didn’t want anyone or anything harmed here, if that was not the natural order of things. Have you never wondered why no one has ever really died here in the Land of the Lost? In a way, this stasis point between the ruptures in time we’ve discovered serve as a, for lack of a better word, sanctuary for the creatures that become residents here. Have you not noted that nearly every life-form here, aside from yourselves of course, are prime examples of extinct creatures?”

“But what about Medusa, and the Flying Dutchman, and all the others who seemed to step out of Fairy Tales?” Holly inquired.

“In some worlds what you consider fantasy is regarded as fact. And where your people regard some things as sorcery, others regard it as science.”

Enik was slightly perturbed by this line of reasoning. “But what does this say of me? Am I a relic from a lost time, Doctor?”

“Oh, no,” said the Doctor. “I suspect your being here, along with the Marshalls, is nothing more than an anomaly, perhaps the result of the Rani’s search for intelligent beings she might entrap to occupy her mind. I seriously doubt she would enjoy the company of Pakuni for too long.”

“And what of the Pakuni?” Holly asked. “We haven’t seen any since the earthquake, the day my father was abducted.”

The Doctor smiled, finally looking her full in the face. “They fled, and relocated, and as they say, they multiplied. There’s a thriving Pakuni community that I would be delighted to introduce Chaka to once we resolve this conflict with the Master and the Rani.”

For the first time in a long time, Holly had hope that things would work out. The Doctor tweaked the Pylon a few more times, and informed Holly and Enik that they now needed to return to his TARDIS, where he needed to pick up an item or two.

---

The sky outside lightened, and the Master and the Rani strode out into open view. “Surely this was the doing of the Doctor,” the Master snarled.

The Rani grinned with malevolence. “It will avail him nothing,” she laughed. “For this is the day I kill him, and you claim his body for your own.”

The Master laughed along with her, and they quickly made their way to the Doctor’s TARDIS, where they instinctively knew he’d be waiting. They were completely right in their assumption, and completely shocked when he opened the TARDIS door with both arms in the air.

“Alright,” the Doctor said. “I’ve been aware of your presence here for quite some time, Rani.” His words triggered an emotional reaction that immediately registered on her face.

“Is that so, Doctor?” she replied.

“Indeed, and I’m wondering when you’ll ever tire of visiting people over the course of decades just to fill their minds with false hopes and empty dreams.”

“False hopes and empty dreams,” the Rani spat back at him. “Bah! Who are you to lecture me on such things, Doctor, when this is precisely what you have given all those you’ve intended to help over the last several hundred years? Without your assistance, those whom you’ve aided would have destroyed themselves if left to their own devices, and where do you leave them once you’ve done your good deeds? Alone again, just as you found them, with no chance of making things right once they’ve fouled them up again. Your meddling is an offense to me because you have no grand plan, as I do. You go where the solar winds that push your TARDIS take you, and nowhere else. You do nothing less than stumble about in time, wholly unaware of where you’ll go next, or what you’ll next encounter. As for me, I know what I’m doing because I plot it out in advance. You’re a traveler with no set agenda, but I know precisely what I want, and precisely where I’m going.”

The Master watched and listened, but said nothing. He wondered where he fit in her grand scheme of things, and couldn’t quite discern whether or not she’d incorporate them into her ultimate plan.

“It’s all about faith, Rani” the Doctor answered coolly. “I have faith that I’m being led where and when I need to go. Let’s leave it at that.”

“I don’t want to hear your personal philosophy, Doctor,” the Rani barked. “Come along, let’s get this over with. The Master has plans for you.” She pointed her laser rifle at him, and he walked slowly ahead of the two villains. As they moved along, he noted out of the corner of his eye that there were words carved into the nearby trees; they were subtle, but he spotted them right away. To his amazement, he realized they were clearly in his very own hand-writing style, a constant which never changed from regeneration to regeneration.

When they reached the clearing nearest to the Rani’s TARDIS, which looked remarkably like a metallic pink, malformed Pylon, he saw the following words on a tree:

“Duck NOW, Doctor!” - The marking was signed merely #10.

The Doctor did as the engraving instructed and, when he did, a bright light filled the air, and the Rani and the Master both lay unconscious on the ground. Someone had knocked them out cold with a stun ray of some sort, but he couldn’t discern who it was. Enik and Holly darted over to the scene as quickly as they could, and the Doctor carried the Rani into her ship, and instructed Enik to take the Master to his ship.

After carefully removing the Rani’s wristbands, and any other object that might conceal weapons or tools of any sort, the Doctor configured her TARDIS for eminent takeoff. He set her ship for automatic pilot, and did the same within the Master’s TARDIS after figuring out how to deactivate XR-6.

When Holly saw her father for the first time, they both wept so deeply that they shook with emotional convulsions, and the Doctor reminded them that time was of the essence. Will also shed a few tears when he regained consciousness, and the Marshalls and Enik then set out for the Doctor’s TARDIS, which he’d also programmed to leave at the same exact time as the Rani’s and the Master’s ships.

The Zarn was most pleased when the Doctor made the needed repairs to his ship that would allow him to return to his own spacial dimension, and the Zarn also set his ship to leave at the same time as the other spacecrafts. Jack Marshall was delighted to be reunited with his brother and family, said his goodbyes to the Zarn, and yet knew full well that the two of them would always remain conjoined; this didn’t bother either of them, however, as it seemed to somehow balance them out as both an alien and a human. No more would the Zarn fend only for himself. When he returned to his people, he would make a positive impact on his world.

After the Doctor escorted Chaka to the Pakuni colony he’d discovered and the Marshalls said their tearful farewells, they laughed when they saw Chaka and a young female immediately embrace. They knew full well he’d be okay if they left him, and so would they.

“Well, then,” said the Doctor as he prepared his TARDIS for final departure. “I suppose you’re all wondering how this is going to work.” He looked down once more at the Pylon instruction manual, and didn’t lock eyes with anyone in particular. “It seems that, aside from the secret entry point that the Rani discovered, the only way out of the Land of the Lost is by simultaneously manipulating the spatial tumblers within the four wormholes that lead here. The Master’s TARDIS, which seems to be of stone, will exit via the selfsame entryway that, once upon a time, tossed a Frisbee to you, Will and Holly, within a mountain. The Rani’s TARDIS, which is presently of metal, will exit via a portal within a metal Pylon. The Zarn’s ship, which appears invisible to the Sleestaks, will exit through space, leaving behind it what seems to be nothing more than blackness and smoke - which explains the prophecy of the Skull of Primacy, Enik. And my own TARDIS, made of wood, will exit via the selfsame waterfall that entrapped the Marshalls here. We’ll all be leaving this place at the exact same instant, and when we leave, there will be no more human life-forms in the Land of the Lost, at least as far as my sensors can detect.”

Holly was curious. “But what about the Repairman I met when I was a young girl?” And she told the Doctor about her encounter with him.

“According to the manual here,” the Doctor noted, “He was nothing more than a hologram designed to take on the appearance of a Time Lord attired in the clothing that was most familiar to the sentient life-forms that might encounter him.”

---

The familiar wheezing of the Doctor’s TARDIS began anew. The Marshalls and Enik braced themselves and looked with apprehension at the main viewscreen console. What first appeared to look like water took on the appearance of smoke and clouds and then, finally, all they could make out were stars and planetoids.

“Holly and gentlemen,” the Doctor smiled. “Are you ready to go home now?”

The Marshalls were more than ready, but Enik was not.

“Doctor,” the Altrusian said coldly. “I have been alone for so many years that I feel I am in no rush to return to my people. That is, if you are aware of where they exist in time and space.”

“I admit that I do not - as of yet,” said the Doctor. “You’re still something of a mystery to me, my friend.”

“Then I humbly request that you allow me to accompany you for a time,” said Enik. The Doctor almost thought he could detect a smile, but knew full well that it was impossible. Enik wanted to learn as much as he could about the Time Lords, and the Doctor wanted to learn as much as he could about the Altrusians, and how they related to the Silurians, so the arrangement was more than acceptable to him. After all, he’d become quite bored travelling alone, and he knew the perfect location for Enik to take temporary residence aboard the TARDIS.

A loud “PING!” emanated from the TARDIS console, and the Doctor checked to see where they now were in time and space.

“All ashore for Earth, 2011,” the Doctor smiled.

Rick Marshall approached the Doctor with a certain amount of apprehension. His mind was still slightly muddled after the psychic manipulations of the Rani, but his primary concern was how he and his family would live. The Doctor assured him that the money he had in the bank account they’d left so many decades earlier had grown into a small fortune thanks to his wise investments, and he and his children would be more than comfortable. Also, Jack’s wife had never given up that he would return to her one day, she’d never remarried, and had been maintaining the family property while making wise financial investments of their own.

Holly and Will wept as the TARDIS door opened. While part of them would miss the Land of the Lost, and especially Chaka, their hearts mourned over the many years they’d been deprived of, and at the prospect of having to learn how to adapt to a strange new world all over again. Still, it would be a wonderful experience to sleep in real beds again. They were so glad to be home.

As the Doctor said his farewells to the Marshalls, he opted not to linger and to allow their family reunions to be done in private. He and Enik has places to go, and things to discover. The TARDIS began to wheeze, and it vanished from sight as the Marshalls waved goodbye to the Doctor and Enik.

“Well now, my new friend,” asked the Doctor. “Where shall we go next?”

“Where ever the solar tides take us, Doctor.” Enik stoically responded. And so they were off, destination unknown.

THE END