There was a noise, sharp, piercing and very loud. Vislor Turlough held his hands over his ears as the painful sound
filled all of the white walled TARDIS console room. He felt, rather than heard, the ship's owner enter though the single internal
door. "Doctor, the TARDIS is making the most peculiar sound." He hoped the Doctor could turn the sound off, quickly. Turlough
watched the Doctor as he went to work, examining every last dial and readout on the mushroom-shaped console. The Doctor was
not dressed in his usual Edwardian cream and beige outfit, rather he was dressed in the modern England one-day blue outfit.
The
Doctor had finished looking at the strange readings and looked sharply at his companion. "What did you press?" he asked over
the howling buzz and bleep.
"Nothing," Turlough replied quickly. "I was only reading the databank's entry for Trent
Bridge, when suddenly it started making this racket." Turlough was sure he hadn't pressed anything
else, well quite sure.
The
Doctor pressed a button and the noise stopped immediately. "There we are, peace and quiet at last."
Turlough
smiled with relief. "Thank you. What was the problem?"
The
Doctor pointed to a readout. "Internal fault it would seem."
"What
kind of fault?" Turlough was curious, it was very rare for anything to go wrong with the TARDIS. Well not exactly rare, more
commonplace if he was honest about it, but it was always something serious and life threatening. It piqued his curiosity to
hear that they were not about to be destroyed, blown up or disintegrated.
"Why
don't we go and look? It's not too far from here." The Doctor opened the door that led to the rest of the TARDIS and beckoned
his reluctant companion onwards.
Five
hours later they finally made it to the room with the fault. Turlough, an expert at feigning injury to get out of PE, was
totally out of breath.
The
Doctor stopped and shoved his hands into his pockets. "See, just a short walk." He looked more closely at Turlough. "Are you
all right?"
"Paper,
pen, write my will." Turlough sat down on the floor of the corridor and took deep breaths in.
"Come
on you're not that bad."
"Oh
very well." He pulled himself to his knees and hoped not to fall over.
"You
see." The Doctor turned to face the door they were standing next to. "Now lets find this fault." The Doctor opened the door
and gasped when he saw who was standing inside of the room. "Tegan? How did you get in here?"
Turlough
entered. "Tegan? How did you get in here?"
The
Doctor gave Turlough a stern look. "Thank you Turlough but I already asked that."
Turlough
shrugged his shoulders and apologised. "Sorry, I didn't mean to steal your thunder Doctor."
The
Doctor kept talking to his friend while he turned his attention to another figure in the room. "That's quite all right, I
have a good question for you Turlough. If you're standing next to me, then who's that over there?"
Turlough
turned to look at an identical copy of himself. For a second his mind was clouded by puzzlement and confusion, but like curtains
being opened on a morning, they past and the stark realisation of understanding came to him like sunlight. "It's another clone
of Tegan and myself. But how can the Daleks get them in here though?"
"That's
simple Turlough," the clone Turlough said. "Time Ram. The Daleks have Time Corridor technology; they punched a hole in the
TARDIS and boarded her."
"They
did what?" the Doctor demanded. "No wonder the old girl was in so much pain, poor thing." He patted the nearest wall reassuringly.
Three
Dalek troopers appeared, the last of Gustav Lytton's elite forces. "Stay there Doctor," the squad leader commanded.
The
Doctor slowly lent his head over towards Turlough and whispered. "When I say run, we run for the console room."
Turlough
whispered back his readiness. "Okay, but let me go first."
"Ah
hello would you all like a cup of tea? Speak up now I'd hate to...RUN!" He turned and ran. Turlough quickly overtook him.
"I
thought I said let me go first!" Turlough said as he raced off down the corridor.
They
made it all the way back to the console room, where the Doctor locked the connecting door. "I thought you were dying or something
before," he said casually to his weary companion.
Turlough
tried a cheeky grin but his mouth muscles were in too much pain to manage anything more than a wince. "Yes, but my life wasn't
being threatened by people with large guns on the way there." The Doctor handed him a large rope. "What are those for?"
The
Doctor rolled his eyes. "There's no time, now quickly tie yourself to the console. The anchor points are marked."
Turlough
examined them closely. "Yes in Braille, Gallifreyan Braille at that." Turlough managed to clamp the carabinas in place. "It's
a good job I have a gift for language. The Brigadier used to hate it when I answered his maths questions in Vietnamese."
Ready
for action, the Doctor held a control lever in each hand. "Right when I say now operate the main door control. I will be opening
the door when our friends arrive." There was a thumping at the door. "Here they are now. On three. One, two, three."
Both
doors opened at the same time. The cloned Tegan tried grabbing onto the Doctor but the real Turlough helped the cloned Turlough
on his way out the front door into the vortex. The Dalek troopers were also sucked out. The clone Tegan was finally expelled
and Turlough managed to close the doors.
"That
was a close one. Plenty of time for the match though." The Doctor checked that the controls were still correct and their destination
co-ordinates hadn't been altered in the melee.
Turlough
muttered darkly about the Doctors off-spin being obvious even to a Rutan, much to the Doctor's chagrin.
They
returned to the TARDIS after the match and Turlough tried his very best not to upset the Doctor, too much. "I'm sure it was
the stress of dealing with the clones Doctor. It must have thrown your concentration."
"A
duck?" the Doctor was traumatised. "I've never gotten a duck before. How could I get a duck?" He input the dematerialisation
codes and they were off, heading towards their next destination.
"Maybe
the Daleks cloned that nice Curtly Ambrose?" Turlough jibed at his friend.
The
Doctor gave Turlough his number 2 stare, really upset and not at all amused. "That's not funny Turlough. I'm going for a cup
of tea, I may be some time." He stalked off into the internal corridors of the TARDIS.
Turlough
examined the autographs the Doctor had acquired on his bat before putting it down on the single oddly shaped chair in the
console room and returning to his room to read up on human customs and behaviour.