Ian's Tale, Part 1

Come in! Sit yourself down. You'll have to forgive the mess, I'm in the middle of marking papers.

Marking. If anyone had told me when I entered teaching that I'd still be doing that all these years later, I'd either have laughed in their face or run a mile! Nowadays, I actually enjoy it. I'm happy to be helping new generations of students, and there's something quite calming about the process. It's the opposite of tutorials, really, which serve to keep me on my toes. No matter how the fashions, slang and politics change, people are just the same underneath; and they can always surprise you.

To be honest, I'm just grateful to the college for not trying to get rid of me - I don't produce many papers of my own any more! But I suppose I've become something of a fixture. In fact, there was a joke going around some years ago that I never changed, never aged. That was back when Barbara -

But you didn't come to hear an old man rambling on about his quiet life here in Cambridge, did you? You're here for a story from my travelling days. A story about the Doctor.

Well. I remember one occasion, when we landed in a valley in the middle of a vast tropical rainforest, or "jungle" as we'd say back then. At first we thought we were in a town, but the "streets" turned out to be the remains of tunnels created by some creature. This was when Susan - the Doctor's granddaughter - was still travelling with us. The two of them had gone off a little way to explore, while I went back to the ship with Barbara. It was hot - hot and sticky, because it was so very humid. I still had my jacket and tie on, and was sweating hard. It all seems a bit silly now, but at the time I felt that, unless there was a really compelling reason not to, dressing in clothes appropriate for a teacher from Coal Hill school was important, almost an act of defiance. I was making a statement about where I was from, that I would maintain my standards until we got back home. Sometimes, though, I took it a little too far; and Barbara had persuaded me that this was one of those times.

As we stepped through the door cool air hit me, and I felt a sudden wave of relief. I shrugged out of my jacket and hung it on the hatstand; my shirt was stained with sweat, dark patches under my arms and (from the feel of it) on my back as well. I looked at Barbara apologetically. "Sorry," I said, "I should have listened to you earlier."

"Oh, I don't know," she replied, "It looks quite manly."

She had that little smile she used when she was teasing me. Or half-teasing - I could never quite tell how much was a joke, and it always threw me off-balance. She was still doing it years later, but I grew wise to her ways: after a few decades of married life she'd only catch me out, oh, two-thirds of the time?

Anyway, I muttered something about changing my shirt and she said she'd start getting a hamper together. I forgot to mention, our main reason for returning to the TARDIS had been to prepare a picnic. We should have known that something so normal just wasn't going to happen! I'd barely stepped through the inner door of the control room when the whole ship started to shake. I braced myself against the wall; Barbara, just behind me, held on to the doorframe. It only lasted a moment and wouldn't have done anything worse than rattle a few ornaments, but we both knew the picnic was off.

"Come on," I said, "let's fetch the others and get out of here."

We stepped back out into the oppressive heat and headed after the Doctor and Susan, walking quickly but carefully so that we wouldn't trip on the rubble scattered about, the remains of the papery tunnel roof whose collapse had opened this alley to the sky.

"At least we know why this place is in the state it is," I observed. "Trust the Doctor to land us in an earthquake zone!" As if on cue the ground shook again, no mere warning this time but a full-fledged quake. Memories of the Richter Scale came to mind, unbidden, and I found myself thinking that this must be a 6 or 7 when the last one hadn't even made a 4.

Barbara grabbed hold of me, but I wasn't any more stable myself. "Get down!" I shouted, and we lowered ourselves to the ground - again, quickly but carefully. No sooner had we done so than the air was filled with a huge roaring, cracking sound, and a cloud of dust appeared at the end of the alley - from around the corner where the others had gone.

"Susan!" yelled Barbara, and she staggered to her feet, stumbling forward. I had no choice but to follow. Fortunately the quake was subsiding already, and we managed to avoid injuring ourselves.

The scene as we rounded the corner took me back to my teenage years, growing up during the Blitz. As the dust cleared and I could make out the full extent of the damage a sense of dread filled me: I was sure we'd lost them this time. Still, we moved forward, searching and calling, until - joy of joys - Barbara heard an answering cry.

"Susan! Are you alright? Is the Doctor with you?" I could just make out the hole through which they'd fallen.

"What did she say, Barbara? I couldn't hear."

She turned, and I could tell from her expression that she felt the same sense of relief as I. "Susan says they're both fine. Ian, they're okay!"

"Well! They've certainly had a lucky escape. If they'd still been up here when that roof came down they'd have been flattened."

"I don't suppose they'll be feeling too lucky right now," she replied. "They are stuck down there, after all."

I sighed, theatrically. "Some people just don't know when they're well off. I'd better fetch some rope from the ship."

"And be quick about it, my man," added Barbara in her best Lady Muck voice, arching one eyebrow.

I started happily back towards the TARDIS as Barbara called out to reassure the others; but almost immediately there was another tremor. It wasn't too severe, but everything was still shaken up from the main event. I turned, and saw a pile starting to slide just behind Barbara, who was still squatting by the hole.

"Look out!" I cried, and she threw herself to the side. I grabbed her, pulled her away, and we both dived for the ground and covered our heads with our arms as the world fell away behind us.

"Well, well," said a gruff voice. "What have we here? Runaways?"

I looked up into the business end of a high-tech rifle, held by a tall figure in grey armour. A second armoured figure stepped up beside him, prodded me in the leg with a boot, and made a swift gesture to his colleague.

"Kill them," he said.

Next Time:
A glimpse of Iananbarbara's past in The Splintered Gate.