Free Doctor Whom or ET Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Parodication by Adam Roberts

bugging the TARDY via a device lodged in its Hyperspatial Scanner. I overheard the whole of that last conversation with the Doctor. Right now I’ve rechannelled a viral subroutine through to the intercom located by the door. I can’t talk for long: the TARDY’S own antiviral programmes will locate this link soon enough and wipe it out.’
    I sat up. My heart was fierce with rage. ‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked. ‘Understand: I’m not saying that I will do this thing . . . whatever it may be. But I am only asking. What do you want of me?’
    ‘I just need to know what the Time Gentlemen Convenance told you.’
    ‘That’s all?’
    ‘That’s all.’
    ‘What’s in it for you?’
    ‘That’s my business,’ said the tinny little voice. Then there was a tinny little laugh. ‘But after all, I am a Time Gentleman. It’s hardly my fault that they’ve barred me from their meetings.’
    ‘Weren’t you banned for acts of unspeakable evil, or something?’ I said.
    ‘Or something,’ he agreed. ‘But if the Convenance has agreed something, then I need to know about it.’
    ‘I don’t see how it could do any harm to tell you,’ I said, a little uncertainly. ‘They announced they’d discovered a TGV.’
    ‘A Time Gentleman Violator!’ exclaimed the Master Debater’s suave voice. ‘How shocking. Did they say whom had obtained this device?’
    ‘They said something about Stavros.’
    ‘Oo, how terrible. If he arms his cyborg army with such weapons,’ the Master Debater said, thoughtfully, ‘then the entire race of Time Gentlemen is doomed!’
    ‘That was pretty much the gist of the meeting.’
    ‘That means me too, you know. That doomed encompasses me as well.’
    ‘I suppose so.’
    ‘Well, don’t you think it was pretty unsporting of the Convenance to keep me in the dark about this news?’
    ‘Look,’ I said, feeling uneasy. ‘I’m not sure I should even be talking to you . . . I mean, aren’t you the Doctor’s arch enemy?’
    ‘Well, yes I am. But it’s only a small arch. If I were the Convenance,’ he went on, ‘I’d send the Doctor back on a mission to before Stavros was able to create his robots, and prevent them ever coming about!’
    ‘I don’t think I can say—’ I said.
    ‘You don’t need to say anything! Don’t worry, my dear fellow,’ said the Master Debater’s voice, growing fainter. ‘I wouldn’t want you to feel that you had in any way betrayed your Doctor . . .’
    And with that he was gone.
     
I made my way back to the control room of the TARDY with a slow and rather shuffling step. My mind was undecided. Could I truly betray the Dr? He had never intended to cause me the hurt that had come my way. But on the other hand . . . my mind kept returning to the last time I had seen her face.
    Inside the control room, the Dr was at the console. ‘Ah!’ he said, cheerily. ‘Feeling better.’
    ‘Yes,’ I said, in a weak voice. Now that I was with him again, I felt guilty about my conversation with the Master Debater. Had I said more than I ought? Should I tell the Dr about it? ‘I’m,’ I hazarded. ‘I’m sorry for my behaviour earlier.’
    ‘Don’t mention it. We’ve just had new orders from the Time Gentleman’s Convenance. We’re to abandon this mission and zoop on back to the Planet Skary.’
    ‘The Planet Skary?’ I queried.
    ‘Zoop?’ Linn queried.
    ‘Yep. We’re to stop Stavros before he can create an entire race of merciless cyborgs and arm them with the only weapon capable of destroying the Time Gentlemen!’

Chapter Five
    THE NEAR MAGICAL DISAPPEARANCE OF THE WATER INTO THE TARDY TOWELS
    It took the Dr a while to recover enough clean towels so that we could dry ourselves properly. Linn and I stood there as he rummaged through the cupboard in the central console, icy water from the North Atlantic of 1912 dripping off our bodies onto the floor of the TARDY’S control room.
    ‘Here you both are,’ he said finally, bringing out two