FAR AWAY FROM Cambridge, in the mysterious region known as the vortex, where space and time are one, sped a police box that was not a police box at all.
Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor, Romana and K-9 were gathered around the central console, all three feeling rather pleased with the way things had turned out.
‘Don’t you think it seems strange now?’ mused Romana.
‘You’ll have to be a bit more specific than that,’ the Doctor replied, fiddling with the controls of his beloved machine. ‘I can think of at least 137 strange things that have happened in the last 48 hours.’
‘Kindly clarify query, Mistress,’ urged K-9.
‘Thank you,’ said Romana, crouching down to pat him affectionately. ‘I was just about to.’
She stood up and started again. ‘It seems strange now, that I was so terrified by those legends of Salyavin when I was younger, and yet he turned out to be such a nice old man.’ She sighed. ‘Makes me wonder just how much else in Gallifreyan history has been distorted and exaggerated.’
The Doctor laughed. ‘A whopping great load of it, I imagine. The Time Lords overreact to everything. Just look at the way they’ve treated me.’
Romana patted his hand sympathetically.
‘Yes,’ the Doctor said, lost in thought. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, one day, in a few hundred years’ time, someone will meet me and say, “Is that really the Doctor? How strange. He seems such a nice old man.”’
He gave the Randomiser a hefty thump, and the TARDIS jolted on to a new and completely unpredictable course.
Which was just how the Doctor liked it.