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**TIME AND THE CAMPIONS** *Episode Six: More Work for the Undertaker* >Albert and Lady Amanda Campion embraced in the misty rain; and >Carrie slipped her arm through the Trader's, and led him firmly >back towards the Hoedown TARDIS. "But..." the author-avatar >protested in weak bewilderment. "Carrie, the *timelines*..!" > >She stopped, bent his head down, and whispered a few words in his >ear. And when he took her arm again, his expression was much like >hers, and his step was jaunty as they marched up to the TARDIS door >in the happy knowledge of a transaction well settled. > >"I'll be expropriated!" Trader Grey swore admiringly. "So *that's* >how they managed it..." and, outside the Hoedown (in Episode 2): >"Wait!" Seventh snapped, looking up. "I'm not finished! What have >you done to me --?!" >But of Doctors and TARDISes, the cul-de-sac was already suffering >an acute haemorrhage. In a trice, there was only one. >Who, perforce, hurried to his own TARDIS to catch up with them at >the Boozer Beyond Continuity. >And then there were none. === A complete practice of Doctors bustled through the doors of TTR, led by a harrowed-looking Fifth. Francois took one look at that sharp, set face, and instantly engaged in urgent discussions with Mr Moggie as to the likely logistics of supplying such a guy with sufficient juice, formaldehyde, and panther piss to attain his desiderated state of being. The Doctors were further accompanied by an ethereally beautiful thirtysomething blonde in a celestial-blue dress, and a dashing space-piratical type packing a Doc Smith blaster and a wicked-looking shortsword at his side. Polly, spotting persons clearly belonging to no well-recognised continuity, immediately breezed over for an officious spokesmodelly greeting. The strangers greeted her with what, at some distance, passed for cool cordiality; but it was generally observed in the Bar Beyond Continuity that its reigning fashion-queen grew fetchingly pale thereat, and retreated in disorder apropos of some sympathetic comment of the Second Doctor's. Ben, by similarly common consent TTR's established top-gallant, immediately guided the stricken Polly upstairs, to show her some running hitches he kept for such social emergencies[1]. <footnotes> [1] A shocked world scribbled disgusted letters to its MP. The MPs were unable for immediate comment, being busily engaged in snorting psychoactive chemicals from the privy parts of sundry professional companions of both sexes and several of the other ones, whilst floating in baths of ruthlessly-extorted tax-money -- as cruel fate dictated they must, in order to maintain parity of respect with their corporate counterparts. They will get back to the world in due course, probably with a form letter explaining the urgent need to invade the Central African Republic[2]. [2] Namely that every other bugger has, and it would make a mockery of our diplomacy should we be seen to be behindhand. And have you heard about all those diamonds still reputed to be cached in ex- Imperial cellars in Bangui, eh? </footnotes> The invading phalanx falanged forward for the bar. During this movement the newcomers were propelled towards the spearhead, or as it were the paypoint, of the formation. Bibulous demands from the Doctors, and relaying attempts by the pirate and his moll, were the order of the day. The Seventh Doctor was now seen bringing up the rear, sharing with Fifth that certain indefinable air of one who come Karaoke Nite is apt to be found singing along to Meatloaf's seminal existential complaint yclept _Life Is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back_. "Cheerful Charlie's back," observed Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Kazakh Rocket Fuel of Doom, who had personally seen him once or _N_ce in no very dissimiliar humour. "Well, hell-*o* there!" Fitz observed to Anji, anent the stunning blonde on the Fancy Dan space-pirate's arm. He lowered his voice confidentially. "If that bloke isn't a villain, I've never seen one. Can you smell the fear on her, or what?" He eyeballed the Eighth Doctor sideways and shiftily. "If you distract the pirate, I reckon I can get her upst--- out of here..." "Fitz, you're disgusting," said Anji, with automatic non-listening weariness. "Pay attention! If that girl isn't a Femme Fatale, I've never seen one. He's so pupped up, I can smell it, innit?" She eyeballed the dashing leather-clad merchant-adventurer with abstract, public-house longing. "If you distract her attention a moment, I ought to -- *oh my God!*" "Yeah, I was thinking she looked familiar myself," Fitz leered. "I think she's from _Demontage_. Told you that bird had a thing for me -- " "*Carrie?!*" Anji cried, trotting over to give the surprised Muse a good sound girly hug, and thereby confirming the ridiculous mirage of Carrie's embodiment for certain sure. "I can't believe it, you're real! What did you *do* to Prince Charming here -- make him kiss Edith Cresson????" Carrie registered polite confusion. "Think Simone Saône[3]," her Author advised fondly. Anji noticed for the first time what her eyes had been telling her for some while: that the Dynamic Duopoly's hands were not only clasped tight, but had their fingers so tightly and actively intertwined as to suggest their owners would not be seeking disentanglement any time soon. The prospect of Prince Charming in the discreet penthouse was receding faster than a bureaucrat from a boatload of blame, alas, by Mammon! <footnotes> [3] Carrie's first public appearance, during her residence in Swevyn the City of Dreams, occurred in my non-Who story _The Simone Saône Affair_ (http://www.quilpole.demon.co.uk/upriver/simone.htm). Whilst a quick download of this opus will surely pique your tastes, provoke your mind, and pervasively enrich your life, the Management feels obliged to warn you that it is unlikely to shed much light upon the meaning of Anji's charming _bon mot_. Ribbit ribbit! </footnotes> "The possibilities of Artificial Intelligence Embodiment raise many important questions, Doctor Master!" K-9 noted, and he ought to know! "Hot bi-curious interracial action," supplemented the Bradleyard optimistically, "and if the delectable Psycho Nyssa cannot wefwain fwom nokhing all my deedh ouhh, ill is showah to befaww her!" "Woooargh! He said befaww her!" came the cry from the united chorus-boys of WANKER, who might not know what it meant but knew their duty when it came up. (Woooargh!) "Let us all naff off and lie down until the Special Feeling passes away..." But no-one was disposed to pay them great attention, this commodity being cornered for the duration by the myth-making triple marvel even then progressing at the bar. Not just a radical and ideologically incorrect change in author-avatars; not merely the miraculous incarnation of everybody's favourite cyber-Muse; but even this, that the former Grey Steward stood in broad barlight and with his bare face hanging out, buying drinks for his whole party! It was all too clear that the Pro-Fun Troll Hoedown had, yet again, indeed shaken the stablish'd foundations of Being itself! Let it not be said that the gentle regulars of TTR stooped to earwigging on the conversation that shortly thereafter took place among the new arrivals, congregated as they were around a block of four tables hastily brought together for the purpose before disappearing as *they* did under a forest of glasses great and small. The tables, not the new arrivals, that is. Well, so far at any rate! Anyway, the abovementioned slur on the manners of the clientele shall in no case be made, since it would be kind of redundant and this author is, in all manners and in every way really feasibly achievable, utterly and unswervably committed to the laconic extreme of the eschewing of surplus verbiage! [4] <footnotes> [4] Oooh, you *story*! </footnotes> But toasts having been drunk and whistles having been wetted, this is how it was: ==== "*Are we here?*" Seventh demanded of his younger self, swigging heartily at his Scottish Tea [5]. "If you've paradoxed us, I'd appreciate some time to salvage the situation!" <footnotes> [5] Like ordinary tea, but with White Horse whisky instead of milk. Blends with less of the Islay in them are not acceptable. (Nor is Scottish Tea, really, but we digress.) If you have the sensory acuity of a deaf bat, and the taste of Mr & Mrs David Beckham on a bad day after they have just exterminated all their gustatory papillae with a triple-phal curry, you may also see fit to prove your superior discrimination by insisting on an appropriate single malt instead, such as the Laphroaig. At this point you will, according to ancient clan legend, be unexpectedly run through a humorous part of your anatomy by the great big dirk of the Phantom Piper of the McCrimmons, and serve you bloody well right too! [6] We'll shut up now. </footnotes> "The timelines are safe," Fifth told Seventh shortly. He inhaled a passing double Boodles without blinking, and continued, "I *am* from your line, and it *was* the original me who got coshed at the Talbots and ended up as Albert Campion. "It was my post-Campion self who finished the adventure of the Black Orchid, by which time he'd forgotten Amanda and all that went with her -- for good and sufficient reason." He inhaled deeply, smiled lopsidedly at the assembled company, and concluded, "Actually, on the strength of that little adventure, I think it's time to rekindle my old acquaintance with this fine establishment's cellars. I may be gone some time. Toodle-pip!" With a satirical (and inherently self-mocking, given the nature of his audience) bow, he drained the cocktailly mess nearest him; strode off to flaunt his Nobelium American Express Card before the Proprietor's astonished eyes; and set about his lonely spirituous, er, -al quest, within two shakes of a donkey's wotsit. "WELL?" Sixth demanded explosively, into the sudden vacancy. "I thought the amnesia was rather self-explanatory, didn't you?" Fourth shook his head and leered sympathetically. "Having to desert a little charmer like that for Fairy Princess, Dingo Bitch, and Bananas in Pyjamas isn't anything *I'd* want to keep dwelling on. Hardly fair to the children, either." Seventh scowled meaningfully at Eighth. "Twenty-odd years is a bit much for voluntary conditioning. That level of suppression sounds more like grand trauma to me." He rounded on Carrie and the Trader. "You were there! I can smell the Spam on the very air you exhale! What -- did -- you -- do -- to -- us -- ALL?" "No need for umbrellas at dawn," the Trader assured the grimly rising Time Lord. "We did, ah, nothing of any real importance at all..." "It wasn't twenty-anything years," said Carrie. "It was more like sixty-something. "He never left her." "Have. You. Any. Idea. What. This. Means. For. *History*???" The terrible little man stalked menacingly around the table, dreadful cosmic gambits in his darkly-glittering eyes, and conveyed the ultimate gravity of the situation in his usual fashion. "Keep your brolly to yourself!" The Trader smashed its accusing point away from his Muse indignantly. "It means everything, and it changes a jot of a percent of a fraction of a thought less than bog- all. He lost *everything* from Campion when he went back to the Talbots'. He couldn't have remembered it for the best of reasons, until I jogged him with the one phrase that would *always* bring that life back to him. Not that I had any way of knowing that, at the time..." "Stop blathering, man," snapped Third. "If it wasn't grand trauma, what was it?" "It *was* grand trauma," said Carrie, exasperated at this seemingly wilful denseness. "*He never left her.* Why can't you remember Elissa, Doctor? Why don't you remember Patience?" "Liz Shaw? Alice Who? Ellis Island? Whose patients? Elicit *what* with patience?" and so on, the assorted Time Lordly incarnations proceeded to babble excitedly, in a manner much proving of Carrie's point but scarcely enlightening to themselves. Realising that little good purpose could be served by prolonging such a discussion, or by picking up any future extensions of its bar tab, Muse and Trader took advantage of the brief confusion discreetly to slip away. "So," said Sixth complacently. "That's settled, then!" "Though I can't quite put my finger on *how*..." Second fretted briefly, before shaking his head. "Happily," Seventh asserted, affecting his most inscrutable expression. "All's well that ends obscurely well. Best not to prrry too curiously into Time's darrker corners." He brightened. "There's a humorous little ditty I composed for voice and spoons upon this very subject. Let me see now: how did it go...?" Of Seventh Doctors, the Boozer Beyond Continuity suffered an acute haemorrhage, as a frenzied tide of idolatrous fans bore him shoulder-high at express speed to the saloon doors, and projected him with a mighty heave in the direction of his TARDIS across the car-park, evidently under the curious impression that their idol's mighty instruments of musical ecstasy resided there rather than anywhere about his person. Ah, unhappy victims of Life's tragic irony! Seventh picked himself up, one of his more saturnine smiles spreading unreassuringly across his face. He tossed his umbrella gaily in the air and strolled back to his own box, singing softly. The advertised spoons remained mercifully absent; and the crooning sounded more nostalgically sentimental, and -- could this thing be? -- *country*? "_Amanda... the light of my life..._ _Fate should have made you a gentleman's wife --_" The closing of Old Blue's welcoming door behind him, and the arising of her trademark Wheezing 'N' Groaning sound-effects, cut him off. Somewhere there was danger, somewhere there was injustice, somewhere there was egregiously bad plotting and an ill-chosen celebrity guest-star. And it was to these grave matters of the living that Time's Champion now turned his face, for how could he ever do other? ==== Somewhere else, the tea was getting cold. " -- *Albert!*" The low, rapturous voice barely made it downstairs into the recently-deserted sitting-room, where lurked the half- drained mugs. Upstairs, a door snicked shut. And the Campions' time began again. =========== THE END =========== *Copyright Information:* Doctor Who and his motley crew are, of course, the property of the BBC. The Pro-Fun Troll Hoedown is the invention of, and is hosted by, Eloise's Author Ann Magill. Albert and Amanda Campion are taken from the long-running series of detective stories by the late Margery Allingham. All the episode titles are lifted therefrom. The Bradleyard, the WANKERs, and Francois the Ogron bartender belong to BK Willis. This Time Round, the Pub Outside Continuity, was invented by Tyler Dion. Trader Grey sometimes seems incapable of taking two breaths without ripping off the late E E 'Doc' Smith, author of the seminal _Lensman_ series. The Trader himself and Carrie, however, are mine, all mine! Mwahahahahahah!!! Nyarlathotep the Crawling Chaos belongs to Abdul Alhazred, author of the unspeakable _Necronomicon_, who is more than welcome to him. We must also acknowledge our debt to Mr Alhazred's modern translators and continuators, chief among them the late H P Lovecraft in his tales of the Cthul--- _My God! *The shadow at the door!! IT IS AAAAAAAAAARGGHfft---*_ [No further copyright information is available at this time. -- Ed.'s executors.] === *Archivist Notes:* Probably doesn't make much sense to archive without at least a link to its parent Hoedown (see Part 0/6, upthread, for details); or at all, for that matter, without the Part 0 recap. The salient details are: Doctors: All of them. Companions: Nyssa, Adric, Tegan, Benny, Fitz, Anji (bit parts, all). Other Recurring Characters and Creatures: Francois the Ogron bartender; Trader Grey; Carrie; Spamites (just about). Category: Pro-Fun; spinoff from the Third Hoedown, _Goodnight, Sweetheart_. Crossovers: Campion and the Cthulhu Mythos, explicitly. If we are also counting the crossovers that occurred in the larger Hoedown, then pretty much everything else and the kitchen sink... Intro - Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five
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