CLARE WAS FEELING a little better. Her watch had stopped, and the domed clock on the mantelpiece was, for some reason, running backwards and forwards and going up and down. But generally the world was beginning to look more real and solid and sensible again.
She accepted the teacup from the now solid and liver-spotted hand of Professor Chronotis as he sat down on the old settee across from her.
‘You said that you will be Professor Chronotis?’ she asked.
‘Did I?’ said the Professor. ‘Oh yes I wouldst have been going to have said that, I suppose.’ He sighed. ‘Goodness me, we Gallifreyans have never managed to come up with a satisfactory form of grammar to cover these situations.’
Clare sipped her tea. It was sweet and milky. ‘And what kind of a situation is it exactly?’ she ventured. She assumed that Gallifrey was a Greek island or somewhere similar. Chronotis sounded like a Greek name, after all, though his accent was definitely English.
The Professor supped at his own tea and waved his hand about the room as if the answer was obvious. ‘Timelessness,’ he said.
‘Timelessness?’ asked Clare. Much as she had taken to this nice old man, she was starting to worry for his sanity. She recalled Chris’s description of him – ‘barmy, senile’.
The Professor nodded. ‘Quite. Timelessness, as in standing obliquely to the time fields.’
‘Oh,’ said Clare. ‘That’s what we’re doing, is it?’
‘Oh yes,’ said the Professor. ‘Or sitting anyway.’ He leaned forward and patted her hand. ‘And I’m very grateful to you for arranging it, young lady.’
Clare shrugged. ‘Least I could do. Though all I did do was press a button.’
‘And by pressing that button, you activated the emergency program,’ said the Professor. ‘After a little gentle nudging in your perception field by my TARDIS.’
‘Tardis?’ asked Clare, looking past him to the outer door that led to sanity.
‘Yes, I know, barely call it a TARDIS, can you?’ said the Professor, looking around the room. ‘A Type 12 in fact, very ancient. I rescued it literally from the scrap heaps. I’m not officially allowed to have one, you know.’
‘Really, are you not?’ said Clare.
‘Still, it’s just as well I did,’ said the Professor, ‘or I’d still be dead.’
‘Still be dead?’ Clare had a jolting memory of how he had transformed from a ghost into a solid person. She dismissed it. She must have imagined it after that knock on the head. Then she looked at that upright bookcase. What knock on the head?
‘Yes, I’ve been killed,’ the Professor went on. ‘But the emergency program, which is a very naughty thing I’m not allowed to have either, means that you tangled with my time fields at the critical moment. You sent us into a temporal orbit, back through last Thursday night and into the vortex, I think. That’s why I’m dressed like this, you see, excuse the impropriety.’
Clare stared at him, amazed at the garbage he was coming out with. It must sound so real to him, she thought sadly.
‘You’re not following me, are you?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Clare.
The Professor nodded. ‘Good. You just think of me as a paradox in an anomaly and get on with your tea.’
Clare finished her tea and put the cup down. ‘I think I’d better be going, actually, Professor.’
‘Oh, I’m afraid there’s absolutely no chance of that,’ said the Professor casually. ‘Not now, anyway.’
Clare made her way to the door. ‘I’d better find Chris, and the Doctor.’
‘Yes, we’d better had,’ said the Professor, ‘but you won’t find them out there, my dear.’
Clare turned the knob of the door that led into the little vestibule. It was firmly locked. ‘Please, Professor,’ she said, ‘open this door.’
‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘And you certainly can’t.’
Clare squared her shoulders. ‘Come on, Professor, the joke is over.’
The Professor stood up and crossed to the nearest windows. ‘The joke is far from over, young lady,’ he said. ‘Would you care to see the punchline?’
He threw back the curtains dramatically.
Beyond them, Clare saw the twisting, howling blue maelstrom of the space-time vortex.