The antique red leather chair was comfortable enough, he preferred comfort wherever possible and this chair was much the best that this room, probably the entire house had to offer.  He had apprehended the young man while he tried to follow him, thinking that he may be a spy or some sort of agent sent to effect his capture.  Now however he had learned the truth, the man was a writer and he had wanted to write his life story, for he thought he was one of the most interesting people he had ever met.  He suspected that he was quite the most interesting person the young man had or indeed would ever meet.

He looked at the other man and paused for a second, as if he was composing a thousand different sentences in his mind before speaking one of them  “Where to start?  Should I tell you about what drew you to me?  What about if I tell you a story about a young man who lived a long, long time ago?”  He looked across the lavishly decorated room, with its gold ornaments and mahogany wall panelling, at the plain looking writer.

He held a fat Cuban cigar in one hand and a fine glass of Napoleon brandy in the other.  “Life has always had its ups and downs, nothing is constant in this ever-shifting world of facts and numbers and opinions.  Chaos and confusion are the norm, an ever-surging tide against which not even the sturdiest foundation can support reason and order and principles.”

He took another draw of his cigar; it really was excellent even though he knew it was bad for him.  “Who can say why things ebb and why things flow?  Everything has its time and place but never for long and never is always upon you before you realise it.  The world turns, the air blows around and above you yet it is always around us because we breathe it and fly through it in things of steel and oil.”

He paused again, this time to take a sip of the brandy.  “You know, this really is a most remarkable year, I must procure a bottle for myself some time.  Now where was I?  Oh yes, the very Earth you stand upon is a thin skin that floats upon a flowing sea of solid rock.  It flows not like lava for the pressure is too great; rather the individual crystals within the silicon matrix behave as liquid while remaining steadfast on the whole.

He looked at the writer and rolled his eyes.  The fellow was trying his best but he simply wasn’t writing it all down fast enough.  “The seas, rolling green oceans brimming with plankton and algae boil with nature’s raw energy.  The waves crash upon the shore, pounding away at cliffs and beaches, ever sculpting the landscape anew every hour upon hour upon hour.  Even the tranquil dead blue seas that are as clear as Metabelis crystals are in constant flux as warm tropical seas mix with cold polar oceans and El Nino, the woefully misnamed Christ Child, will bring forth its inverted climatic chaos.”

“On the land, on the seas and in the skies dwells the paragon of animals.  That creature, which is unlike any other animal ever seen before on this world or others too.  It does not live in balance with its surroundings, rather it seeks to change and improve its habitats on a whim to take more than it needs and leave others of its kind starving.  Such a raw power here to be tapped, a human resource to be exploited by one gifted enough to seize the potential.  I’m not boring you am I?”

He had had enough of the fellow’s incapability.  He stood up, took the fellow’s jaw in his hand and looked down deeply into the man’s eyes.  “I am the Master and you will obey me.”

The writer nodded.  “Yes Master, what do you want?”

“What do I want?”  The Master sneered momentarily.  “From you?  Nothing, save your time but as it’s no longer your own to give I don’t see why it should concern you any longer.  I am going to tell you a story, about a young man born on a world far away from here.”

“What’s his name?”

“Whose name?  What are you on about for goodness sake?”

“The character’s name of course?  We must have a name for our hero.”

The Master nodded slightly, you could take a Yattok to water but you couldn’t make the stupid thing think.  Hero indeed.  The only heroes he’d ever met   were fools and idiots who got lucky by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Oh, of course.  It’s not important; names become meaningless after a while.  Only what you do matters in the greater truth.  You can call him William; it’s much more noble sounding than the common-sounding John, don’t you think?  No of course you don’t think for yourself anymore, how silly of me to ask.  Our story begins when William left the Academy.  He was well educated, taught by some of the best and dullest teachers of his age.  Now it was expected that William would go into the service of one of the major research departments.”

He paused for a second to reflect on a long ago matter.  “However William’s friend, lets call him John, was a very unruly influence on William and he convinced William that there was more to life than research.”  So long ago, and yet it almost seemed like yesterday.

The top of the tower was so old that the dust of ages had been turned into a carpet of jade grasses.  If you looked down you could see the Capitol spreading out below you.  It was a vast sprawling Megalopolis of buildings, roads, parks, meeting halls and a thousand other architectural curios from the Old Times.  This tower was not the oldest but it was the tallest.  Long ago it had stopped being used for its original forgotten purpose and now it was preserved because it had always been here and so it must always remain here.

Two figures stood on top of this tower, they were the only people who ever came up here anymore so they knew that they would not be disturbed.  One of them had just arrived through a trap door in the roof, he was in the fine vigour of youth; he was slender but muscular underneath his white shirt and orange cloak.  The second was a gaunt figure; his eyes darted around like magpie’s eyes, forever watchful for a trinket to steal.  They shook hands in greeting, for the handsome and vigorous William had just made it to the top of the tower a few seconds ago.

John looked at William, hoping that he could persuade his unadventurous friend to help him with his plan.  He raised an eyebrow when he saw something about his friend had changed.  “What is that on your chin?”

William rubbed stubbly his chin on reflex.  “I thought I might cultivate a beard” he replied with a smile.  “I thought it might give me a more noble bearing.”

“You’re trying to look like Cardinal Borusa aren’t you?  You idolise that buffoon don’t you?  Come on William, there has to be something better than this mediocrity out there.  I cannot manage it alone; I need someone to help me steal a TT Capsule.  Will you help me, for the sake of our friendship?”

William was unsure of their success however.  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea John, what if we get caught?  You’re asking a great deal of me.  I’m not sure I want to risk a dozen years in a cell if they catch us.”

John scoffed at the idea of getting caught.  “I’ve got it all worked out, when the guards change shift at ten chimes there’s a fifteen minute window of opportunity.  That’s plenty of time to go and return without getting caught.”

William thought things over.  “Fifteen minutes?  Do you think we can break into a capsule, hack into its operating system, go somewhere then return and return everything back the way we found it in fifteen minutes?  You’re mad John, totally insane.”

“Don’t you see William?  That’s why it’ll work; it’s too insane for anyone to attempt it.  We can’t fail, we’ll be gone and be back again in the wink of an eye.”  John grinned at his friend and pointed at the high spires of the Capitol.  “They’re all old men with old ideas and no imagination.  If you stay here you’ll become one of them, old and grey before your time.  They’re not the future of Gallifrey, we are.  I say that we seize our destiny with both hands and take all that we can.”

William frowned.  “I know that they’re set in their ways but we can change them, introduce new ideas to find progress.  Surely it’s better than being locked up isn’t it?  Or worse, they could cast us out into the Universe on a planet of savages with no means of survival.”

John put his arm on William’s shoulder “You’re thinking of Nira aren’t you?”

William nodded and inside his chest his hearts fluttered madly with unspoken love.  “Her hair was like the darkest of rare silks, her voice like a thousand birds singing, and her eyes were like two shining jewels set in a face of purest unblemished silver.”

“This is Nira we’re talking about isn’t it?”  John joked mildly at poor lovesick William’s expense.

William’s hearts fluttered at the thought of her once more.  “She was my first love, a love so pure and innocent.  Well the President should have been more careful shouldn’t he?  Besides, it was only a flesh wound.”

John laughed.  “I think it was the way she laughed loudly as the old fool screamed and writhed about in agony.  Serves that decrepit dotard right too, she wasn’t the only one laughing, I can tell you.”  John’s lips twisted into a cruel sneer.

William was appalled by John’s comments.  “The President is our beloved leader, it is wrong to make fun of him at any time.  Never mind when he’s the victim of a savage assault.  There was blood everywhere, he would have lost the use of his hand had it not been for the Medicians.”

“It was funny though.”  John replied, nodding to try and get his friend to agree with him.  William always saw his point of view sooner or later.

“No it was not, Nira should never have laughed.  You were too much of a bad influence on her.  I’m surprised that she even listened to me on some occasions when you said otherwise.”

He would try a different tack, what was up with his best friend today?  “She was trying to impress you William, she wished to show you how her expertise had developed.  It was just unfortunate that the President tried to stroke the thing.  The look on his face when it sank its fangs into his hand.  I never thought I’d stop laughing.”

This was a genuine surprise to him and he was forced to think about what John had just said.  “Why didn’t she say something?”  William asked his closest friend.

“Her?  Admit that she has any feelings?  She just couldn’t, her pride could never allow such a thing.  You know how stubborn she was at times.  All that is immaterial now though my friend, she’s gone and I don’t think that even your love could have stopped her leaving.  It’s in the past now, better to forget her and look to the future William.  It’s like a silver fruit on the Tox tree, we can grasp it and make ours if we have the will to do so.”

William gasped in shock at John’s statement. “The High Council would never allow such a thing.  We’d be vaporised for sure, you do recall what they did to Morbius don’t you?”

“Morbius was just as much as fool as the High Council is, he couldn’t think of something else than the High Council.  He was doomed to failure from the start, we on the other hand can see for ourselves new ideas on other worlds.  The younger races thrive while we grow decadent.”

William started back towards the trapdoor in the roof.  “I’m still not sure.  I’ll have to think about it ok?”

“You won’t speak of this to anyone will you?”  John asked.

“I have never betrayed a friend or a confidence, no matter how mad either of them sounds.”  William chuckled softly before returning back to his rooms below.

The Master paused his recount of the story.  “In those days you might almost of thought of us as bothers, we were that close.  I looked up to him in many ways, his boldness, his sense of adventure and his passion, what a waste of his abilities I can tell you.”  He took the opportunity to refill his glass and take another sip of the beverage.  “Such a delicate texture, I can see why it is so expensive.  I would offer you a glass my dear chap but in your current condition I rather doubt that you’d appreciate much of anything.”  He settled back down onto the chair and continued with his strange tale.