N.B. What follows is a prose narration of the events that took place in the game session. If you like, it can be regarded as a kind of Doctor Who fan-fiction, except that all the events are driven by occurrences in-game and is presented in first-draft quality. It is not intended to fully recreate any events or characters from any previous Doctor Who episode, book, radio series or comic, with the exception of some iconic villains. Even The Doctor is a reinvention. Perhaps how the Doctor may appear in a different reality. It cannot, therefore, be wrong on any canonical continuity. It exists within itself and is presented purely for reading pleasure and to inform role-playing experiences. Thank you :)
Prologue: Murder in the Museum
Sam Willets simply stared at the block of ice.
He thought he probably wasn't supposed to be in here at all, let alone eating his sandwiches. But, he figured that - being a security guard - it was his job to ensure that ALL the rooms were safe, not just the ones that the parochial museum administrator would rather he kept himself restricted to.
He wasn't normally interested in the exhibits. When he'd first come to the British Museum the galleries of glass cabinets had entertained him through the first few weeks of shifts. Rows upon rows of gold, metal and stone trinkets had given him an insight into far off and historical places for which he'd never really given much thought.
But the block of ice was different. Many of the exhibits arrived to the museum already prepared, carefully preserved and treated at source. Even the ones which were dealt with here had been mostly revealed in their identity. But the contents of the block of ice were still a mystery.
For reasons Sam couldn't think, the entire section of Nordic sheet ice had been shipped to the UK and placed into this specially prepared room at the British Museum. It stood, an almost perfect cube, 10 feet high. Four pillars stood, one on each corner of the cube, lazily blowing chilled air against the ice, just enough to stave off any further thaw. Whatever was inside this cube, they must think it valuable enough to keep it on ice until they can be sure of removing it without damage during defrosting.
It was chilly in the room, but Sam thought it felt more welcoming than the rest of the museum. He'd have preferred a night shift, away from the clamour of tourists and their offspring. He was honestly a bit fed up of telling off children for touching exhibits which they shouldn't, only to find himself at the wrong end of an irate parent who didn't seem to think it was his place to talk to their kids. He could only use the phrase, "bring em up, don't drag em up" so many times. At least the public couldn't get in here.
He cursed as he dropped crumbs on the floor. Picking as many up as he could, he pictured Alsop's impish fury at discovering a stray crumb, demanding an apology from the owner. Carter Alsop cared for the exhibits alone and the niceties of human comforts were something he grudgingly tolerated, rather than accepted.
Then Sam remembered with a smile that tomorrow would be Sunday. The research team weren't due back in until Monday and all kinds of other staff would be in and out over the weekend. Even if Alsop spotted any stray leftovers, he couldn't POSSIBLY pin it on a single shift.
There was a sudden clatter of metal which made Sam turn around. He couldn't see anything. A shadow passed across the block of ice.
He realised that the shadow was a shape moving behind the ice. He got out his torch, more for the comfort of a weighty shape in his hand rather than to add illumination to the bright lab. He crept along the edge of the cube to look around the corner.
He gasped as his torch beam fell upon ... what the hell WAS that?
A scream stuck in Sam's throat but he had enough presence of mind to turn and run for the door. He hit the green button on the wall, pulled the door open and launched himself through it. Ahead he could see the door into the main museum, where the alarms were. He ran.
The last thing he heard was the clatter of the door behind him as it slammed open. For a split second he felt as though every nerve in his body was aflame, then he felt nothing anymore.
He thought he probably wasn't supposed to be in here at all, let alone eating his sandwiches. But, he figured that - being a security guard - it was his job to ensure that ALL the rooms were safe, not just the ones that the parochial museum administrator would rather he kept himself restricted to.
He wasn't normally interested in the exhibits. When he'd first come to the British Museum the galleries of glass cabinets had entertained him through the first few weeks of shifts. Rows upon rows of gold, metal and stone trinkets had given him an insight into far off and historical places for which he'd never really given much thought.
But the block of ice was different. Many of the exhibits arrived to the museum already prepared, carefully preserved and treated at source. Even the ones which were dealt with here had been mostly revealed in their identity. But the contents of the block of ice were still a mystery.
For reasons Sam couldn't think, the entire section of Nordic sheet ice had been shipped to the UK and placed into this specially prepared room at the British Museum. It stood, an almost perfect cube, 10 feet high. Four pillars stood, one on each corner of the cube, lazily blowing chilled air against the ice, just enough to stave off any further thaw. Whatever was inside this cube, they must think it valuable enough to keep it on ice until they can be sure of removing it without damage during defrosting.
It was chilly in the room, but Sam thought it felt more welcoming than the rest of the museum. He'd have preferred a night shift, away from the clamour of tourists and their offspring. He was honestly a bit fed up of telling off children for touching exhibits which they shouldn't, only to find himself at the wrong end of an irate parent who didn't seem to think it was his place to talk to their kids. He could only use the phrase, "bring em up, don't drag em up" so many times. At least the public couldn't get in here.
He cursed as he dropped crumbs on the floor. Picking as many up as he could, he pictured Alsop's impish fury at discovering a stray crumb, demanding an apology from the owner. Carter Alsop cared for the exhibits alone and the niceties of human comforts were something he grudgingly tolerated, rather than accepted.
Then Sam remembered with a smile that tomorrow would be Sunday. The research team weren't due back in until Monday and all kinds of other staff would be in and out over the weekend. Even if Alsop spotted any stray leftovers, he couldn't POSSIBLY pin it on a single shift.
There was a sudden clatter of metal which made Sam turn around. He couldn't see anything. A shadow passed across the block of ice.
He realised that the shadow was a shape moving behind the ice. He got out his torch, more for the comfort of a weighty shape in his hand rather than to add illumination to the bright lab. He crept along the edge of the cube to look around the corner.
He gasped as his torch beam fell upon ... what the hell WAS that?
A scream stuck in Sam's throat but he had enough presence of mind to turn and run for the door. He hit the green button on the wall, pulled the door open and launched himself through it. Ahead he could see the door into the main museum, where the alarms were. He ran.
The last thing he heard was the clatter of the door behind him as it slammed open. For a split second he felt as though every nerve in his body was aflame, then he felt nothing anymore.
Chapter One: The Mystery in the Ice
The British Museum was alive with weekend visitors from all over the Earth. The different clothing, skin colours, gadgets and cameras demonstrated the huge diversity of life and culture on this planet, turning the busy tourist attraction into a living kaleidoscope of dancing fragments.
One visitor considered that she had probably come a lot further than most of the others to see the exhibits today. Her slightly flamboyant, yet gracious attire would cause her to stand out in many other places on this planet, despite her human-like appearance. Yet here she could be assured of some anonymity. At least she could browse the relics in peace.
Her peaceful contemplation was broken by a scream of terror. Somewhere in the museum a woman was screaming.
A crowd quickly moved, like a group consciousness, towards the source of the scream. A squat, red-faced chubby man was standing in a doorway and attempting to address the crowd. The alien visitor watched only for a moment, until the internal drive which always seemed to impel her toward danger kicked in and she began pushing her way through the crowd to the red-faced man.
The alien realised she wasn't the only person here with the gumption to stroll straight up in a circumstance like this. There was a girl bounding up to the man. For some reason, she was dressed in the manner of the the Enlightened Psychic Sisters of Tau Ceti IV and ...
The alien corrected herself. That wouldn't exist for several hundred years yet. This was humanity's 21st Century. Two-thousand and a few years, though probably not many. She acknowledged to herself that she hadn't looked too closely upon arrival. Anyway, what did they call girls like that in this era? She struggled for the word, then it came to her: Goths.
The girl bore down upon the red-faced man, boots striking on the floor as she moved, black hair bobbing around her pretty face.
The alien watched her speak animatedly with the man. She couldn't hear what was being said, but whatever it was it was clearly convincing enough. At first she seemed to be trying some feminine allure, but the middle-aged man wasn't responding – probably past caring about that sort of thing. Then the girl changed tack and got quite shirty with the man. He man stepped aside and let her through with a slightly suspicious stare, but seemed to accept it.
Having watched this exchange with great interest, the alien was impressed by the way the girl had thrown herself into the situation and sweet-talked the stuffy little man into letting her through. Now she had to get through, herself.
She walked up to the man and gained his attention.
"Yes," he asked, impatiently, "who are you?"
The alien drew herself up, impressively, the sunlight glinting off her intense stare. "I am The ... um ... I am A Doctor," she told him and fished for a small leather wallet.
"Well I'm Carter Alsop, the museum curator," the man told her as she flashed the wallet at him. While the paper identification itself was blank, the psychic energy imbued within it should convince this little man that this figure was indeed a qualified medical practitioner.
"Oh, yes," Carter mumbled after a moment's thought, "you must be with the other girl. Go on through."
The Doctor flashed him a unsettling smile and made her way through the door.
A fact unrecognised by The Doctor was the presence of a second alien visitor to the British museum that day.
Like most of the other visitors, Lim was on her holidays and was very pleased to be in the possession of an Earth permit. It had been a wonderful few days' vacation so far and she was revelling in the freedom of mingling among the humans without attracting undue stares.
Her one-piece bodysuit did seem to have attracted some attention, but she really didn't feel she had any choice. Human clothes were so rigid and inflexible. They would tear as soon as she moved about freely.
Lim wasn't clear what was normal behaviour on this world, but she was fairly sure that the scream she had heard wasn't an Earth tradition. Judging from the mob that had gathered near the sound it was very uncommon. She had come here to enjoy as much of Earth's culture as possible and she knew that this was definitely something she had to see.
It was easy for her to pass through the crowd and reach the doorway. There was a man standing in the doorway. For some reason, she thought, the man had left his shape set on short and rotund, which was very curious at not at all the fashion on her world. First he spoke with a fast-talking girl with black hair and then with a lady in possession of a particularly commanding aura who had opted to be very tall. Both of these were let through.
She was wondering how she would talk her way through when the man turned his attention to another questioning visitor. He seemed fairly distracted, so she slipped between him and the door frame silently. Had she stepped through normally she would have brushed against him and alerted him, but Lim simply flattened her arms and legs slightly and gave her torso a little stretch around the edge of the door frame and she was through quickly, without the man being any the wiser.
Lim found herself in a dim corridor, faced with the two women who had passed through the door already. They were kneeling over a third figure, who was lying on the floor completely still.
Ah, Lim thought, that'd be a dead body, then.
The Doctor had noticed Lim's approach. In the back of her mind, The Doctor had registered the slight voluntary distortion of the torso and arms which Lim had exercised, but with other things on her mind, The Doctor hadn't consciously acknowledged that this was uncommon among human inhabitants.
Esther - which the Doctor had established was the name of the Goth girl - was kneeling over the body in fascination. The Doctor couldn't see that there was any obvious physical evidence of the cause of death.
There was a cleaner sitting in the corner of the corridor, sobbing. The Doctor went over to her.
"Are you okay?" The Doctor asked, courteously.
The cleaner looked up and sniffed, then nodded.
"Did you see anything?"
The sad figure shook her head, "I saw nothing. I went in cupboard to get trolley. I hear noises from the corridor and when I come out ... he ... "
The Doctor shushed her to keep her from getting upset again. "You didn't see anyone else?"
The frightened domestic shook her head.
Esther looked up, "The body is still warm. Whoever did this can't have come out through the museum, everybody would have seen them."
"That," the Doctor mused, "is a very good point. I think we should see what is through THAT door."
All heads turned to the locked metal door at the end of the corridor. Esther bounded up to it and inspected the locking panel.
"It needs a staff pass," Esther reported, "I don't think we can get in."
"Let me try mine," The Doctor suggested, stepping up. She removed a small metal baton from her purse. She pointed it in the direction of the door and pressed a switch on the side. There was a wavy buzzing sound and the tip glowed. The door lock switched immediately to green and The Doctor pulled the door open.
"Sonic Screwdriver," she said, "never leave home without it."
Cold water vapour drifted out from the other side of the door, pooling in clouds around The Doctor's ankles. She held the door open for Esther to step through. Then, she turn to Lim.
"Are you coming?"
On the other side of the door was a brightly lit lab. In the centre of this lab was a highly conspicuous ice cube, measuring nearly all the way to the ceiling and being cooled by four devices.
"That is impressive," said The Doctor, noting the metal loading gate in the back wall, "I wonder what is in the ice?"
"Only one way to find out," chirped Esther, "we defrost it and see what is inside."
The Doctor smiled. She liked this girl's direct approach.
The assembled company peered into the cloudy ice. The others simply frowned, quizzically, unable to see much of significance, but The Doctor could make out a number of dark shapes.
Esther flounced over to the nearby control panel and switched it off. The blowers immediately stopped venting cold air onto the ice and fell silent.
They each looked at the cube, expectantly. After a few seconds there was a single solitary drip.
Lim spoke up, finally. "I could try hugging it. I could wrap myself around it."
Esther wasn't really sure what to make of this comment, but it seemed to trigger something in the The Doctor's mind. "Yes, sorry," The Doctor said, "who exactly are you and where are you from?"
Lim was from a very honest race of people. If there were dangers in confessing her true nature to complete strangers on an alien world, she was totally unaware of them. "You can call me Lim," she said, proudly, "and I'm from Elastica Fantastica."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Well, I've never been there," she commented.
"Anyway," Lim continued, "I can stretch very far. I could probably wrap myself around the cube and help it to defrost."
Esther wasn't making much of this conversation. What Lim seemed to be saying sounded ridiculous. She would have said something, but this person called The Doctor seemed to take what Lim was saying at face value. Must be a performance art thing, Esther thought.
The Doctor fiddled around with the Sonic Screwdriver for a moment and began working it against the corner of the cube, near one of the dark shapes.
They were interrupted as the the door behind them burst open and Carter Alsop flounced in, red-faced and furious. The Doctor managed to stop cutting the ice and look sufficiently innocent before Alsop could see anything amiss.
"What the hell are you people doing in here?" he demanded.
The Doctor flashed him her most reassuring smile, "We walked past you, don't you remember?"
Alsop continued, "This area is restricted! It's off limits to everyone apart from a very specific group of staff."
"Well, I'm one of those specific staff," The Doctor informed him. "Here," she said, authoritatively flashing him her paper identification again.
"Oh, I see," Alsop paused, clearly thrown by this unexpected evidence, "I thought you were dealing with the body outside?"
"We can't move the body."
"Ah, yes, I understand of course," Alsop coughed. "What is it you are doing in here, then?"
"This is where the perpetrator must have come," The Doctor explained, "we're trying to track them."
"Ah!" Alsop seemed relieved, "jolly good show. Well, do carry on."
Alsop suddenly noticed that the cold blowers weren't on. "Why, someone has switched the machine off!" He switched them back on and the jets resumed their chilly preservation of the ice.
He muttered to himself for a moment and then said, "that could have been disastrous! We're not totally sure what these specimens are inside. They could have been completely ruined if the ice isn't melted carefully!"
Nobody responded to him. He coughed again, a little displaced by this group of strangers' combined confidence. "Well, er, is there anything you need me for?"
"Not really." The Doctor's broad smile returned, superficially pleasant but somehow reminding Alsop of the broad grins of reptile predators.
Alsop gave a hearty cheerio and left through the security door. Lim instinctively leaned over and switched the machine off again and The Doctor returned to cutting through the ice with the Sonic Screwdriver.
Esther puffed her cheeks out, impatiently. "I'm going to have another look at that body," she said, morbidly, to nobody in particular. She hit the green release switch and left into the corridor.
Back in the museum, another figure was watching the door into the staff area intently. Stephen Donahue had been invited to take a look at some sample or other for nearly half an hour but some brouhaha was getting in his way. He'd witnessed all kinds of riff-raff being allowed through, so he was darned if he was going to be kept out any further.
He was about to challenge Carter Alsop – the museum's administrator and senior curator – some moments before when suddenly the infuriating man had disappeared behind the door.
However, now that he had reappeared and resumed his placed guarding the door, Stephen wasn't going to waste any more time.
The crowd had thinned out, allowing him to march up to Alsop easily. "Look here, my good man," he told him in a crisp, gentlemanly tone, "I'm meant to be here on a research trip and I have the full privileges of the museum, so please let me through."
Alsop took in the sight of this bookish figure and considered that with a lab full of weird strangers, this man at least looked like he was meant to fit. "Please," he said, "join the others. Just don't touch anything. I'm off to check that the police are coming." He drifted away into the crowd.
Stephen stepped into the maintenance corridor and discovered a young Goth girl kneeling over a dead body.
Slightly unaware of how to deal with this awkward scenario, Stephen decided the best thing was to apply his knowledge to the situation at hand. He joined her in looking at the body and suggested, helpfully, "there's no visible cause of death that I can see."
A voice called out from an ajar door at the far end of the corridor. "Can we have some help in here?"
Esther got up and trotted over to the door, then turned to face Stephen. She gave him a little smile and disappeared into the room. Stephen looked again at the body, saw that there was little he could do and decided to follow this strange girl into the lab areas.
Inside, Stephen was immediately struck by the huge block of ice in the centre of the room. Surely this is what he had been invited to study?
As well as the young Goth, Stephen saw a tall, graceful woman bedecked in flashing antiquated jewellery and a small wiry woman in a very odd one-piece bodysuit.
The tall woman (who introduced curtly as "The Doctor") was staring in exasperation at the massive ice cube. She was melting it with some sort of tool which Stephen didn't recognise, but seemed to be struggling to cut more than 8 inches into the surface.
Looking into the cube, Stephen's keen eyesight allowed him to make out some definition to the shapes. He could see a four-legged shape, a large dark mass and what looked distinctly like the outline of a man.
The Doctor saw him looking and straightened up. "What can you see?" she asked Stephen, who told her. The Doctor considered for a moment, "I think we need a way to defrost this more efficiently."
She moved over to study the control panel properly. She quickly spotted a 'Rapid Defrost control.' Without a moment's pause, she pressed it.
A warning light came on with a message, reading, "Accelerated thaw may damage artefacts - are you sure you wish to continue?"
"That's all very well," The Doctor said, to herself more than anybody, "but we haven't got all day."
"I really don't think we should be damaging anything," Stephen offered.
"Why don't we point it at the four legged animal shape?" Esther suggested. "That way we can see if its safe to use on the frozen person and if it goes wrong it won't matter because it's just an animal."
Stephen visibly bristled. "Just an animal?" he challenged, "I'll have you know I hold animals in great esteem."
"We'll try it on the animal," The Doctor insisted, seeing a disagreement brewing and trying to circumvent it.
"Fine," Stephen muttered.
Esther gave him a sarcastic smile, "don't worry," she said, "we'll let you look after it if it comes out retarded."
The Doctor fiddled around with the controls and satisfied herself that the defrost mechanism could be used directionally. She aimed the device at the location of the four-legged shape and set the machine going.
The ice melted rapidly, water running down in rivulets into drainage channels beneath the ice. The onlookers stared as, after a few moments, the four-legged shape of a deer plopped out of the ice and dropped on the floor.
[It's outside of the story, but at this point one of the players made a joke about Bambi on Ice. I didn't think it fitted very well into the narrative, but it was funny enough to be worth mentioning...]
"Anybody know anything about animals?" asked The Doctor.
"It's a deer!", Stephen explained, "it's a Norwegian Roe Deer, Capreolus Capreolus, to be precise!" He rushed over to inspect the creature further.
"Let's defrost the big box," The Doctor decided and reset the machine to defrost more.
She suddenly became aware of footsteps down the corridor. "The curator!" The Doctor yelped, "quick!"
She ran over to the door and held it, just as Alsop tried to push it open.
Taken aback by the door being held against him, Alsop asked, "is everything alright in there?"
"Yes," replied The Doctor, sweetly, "everything is fine."
"Righto," Alsop replied, not entirely mollified. "It's just that we have some rather delicate specimens in there and we'd hate them to be damaged."
Lim leaned close to Esther and whispered, "he knows more than he's letting on." Esther nodded in acknowledgement.
The Doctor heard their quiet exchange and asked Alsop, "what sort of specimens?"
"Well," said Alsop, always keen to have a chance to discuss his precious artefacts, "we had to pull a lot of strings to bring this ice here from Norway, but we have specialist equipment which allows us to extract the artefacts carefully. A delicate sonar sounding has revealed a quite unprecedented find. Nowhere else in the Scandinavian regions have we ever come across a burial sarcophagus of this nature and it could open up a whole new area of research! We're obviously keen to examine the block of ice very carefully before releasing anything from within it."
The Doctor flashed another smile at Alsop. "Good plan!" she encouraged him and then closed the door on him.
They could hear Alsop outside the door, saying, "Well, carry on... I suppose." Then they heard his footsteps departing.
Lim coughed, politely. "Suddenly I'm not sure this is such a good idea..."
The Doctor was about to reply, when there was a splash from the block of ice as the person shape slipped free from the encasing and crashed to the floor.
"It's a person!" Stephen declared, "you must be able to do something for him?"
"He's still frozen inside," The Doctor told them.
"Oh," Esther said, disappointed.
There was silence between them.
"I could try hugging around him?" Lim offered again and elongated her arms and torso and began to wrap and envelope the body, like a giant human slug engulfing a food source.
Esther and Stephen watched this display in horror.
"Who the hell are you!" Esther blurted out in shock, "I thought I was messed up!"
"Leave her alone," The Doctor said, "she's doing a very good job."
Esther turned on The Doctor, eyes flashing, "how on Earth are you so okay with this?"
The Doctor smiled kindly, "she's just trying to help."
Lim looked hurt and confused. "I just have very stretchy skin," she explained.
Stephen chipped in, "I've never seen anybody do anything like that before. I do think we need an explanation!"
Lim was about to explain herself when the Doctor cut across, addressing Esther and Stephen. "Look, she's an Alien. Live with it."
Esther opened and closed her mouth, unable to figure out how to respond to this. Eventually she gave up struggling and returned her attention to the body. "Shall I try CPR?" she offered.
"Yes," The Doctor agreed, "that'll help, but we'll need a Defibrillator to attempt to start his heart again."
Lim retracted from around the body to allow Esther to begin CPR. She said, "I read in my guide book for this planet that if you call the number Nine-hundred and Ninety-Nine from a telephone, they will tell you where your nearest Defibrillator device is located."
Esther had begun pumping the chest of the icy corpse. "There's a phone in my bag," she told them.
The Doctor called 9-9-9 and it took a few moments to identify the location of the De-fib Kit, conveniently located next door in the cleaning supplies cupboard.
When activated, the De-fib Kit began broadcasting instructions for its use. The assembled company carefully followed the instructions and after a few minutes work, the figure on the floor coughed and spluttered into life.
One visitor considered that she had probably come a lot further than most of the others to see the exhibits today. Her slightly flamboyant, yet gracious attire would cause her to stand out in many other places on this planet, despite her human-like appearance. Yet here she could be assured of some anonymity. At least she could browse the relics in peace.
Her peaceful contemplation was broken by a scream of terror. Somewhere in the museum a woman was screaming.
A crowd quickly moved, like a group consciousness, towards the source of the scream. A squat, red-faced chubby man was standing in a doorway and attempting to address the crowd. The alien visitor watched only for a moment, until the internal drive which always seemed to impel her toward danger kicked in and she began pushing her way through the crowd to the red-faced man.
The alien realised she wasn't the only person here with the gumption to stroll straight up in a circumstance like this. There was a girl bounding up to the man. For some reason, she was dressed in the manner of the the Enlightened Psychic Sisters of Tau Ceti IV and ...
The alien corrected herself. That wouldn't exist for several hundred years yet. This was humanity's 21st Century. Two-thousand and a few years, though probably not many. She acknowledged to herself that she hadn't looked too closely upon arrival. Anyway, what did they call girls like that in this era? She struggled for the word, then it came to her: Goths.
The girl bore down upon the red-faced man, boots striking on the floor as she moved, black hair bobbing around her pretty face.
The alien watched her speak animatedly with the man. She couldn't hear what was being said, but whatever it was it was clearly convincing enough. At first she seemed to be trying some feminine allure, but the middle-aged man wasn't responding – probably past caring about that sort of thing. Then the girl changed tack and got quite shirty with the man. He man stepped aside and let her through with a slightly suspicious stare, but seemed to accept it.
Having watched this exchange with great interest, the alien was impressed by the way the girl had thrown herself into the situation and sweet-talked the stuffy little man into letting her through. Now she had to get through, herself.
She walked up to the man and gained his attention.
"Yes," he asked, impatiently, "who are you?"
The alien drew herself up, impressively, the sunlight glinting off her intense stare. "I am The ... um ... I am A Doctor," she told him and fished for a small leather wallet.
"Well I'm Carter Alsop, the museum curator," the man told her as she flashed the wallet at him. While the paper identification itself was blank, the psychic energy imbued within it should convince this little man that this figure was indeed a qualified medical practitioner.
"Oh, yes," Carter mumbled after a moment's thought, "you must be with the other girl. Go on through."
The Doctor flashed him a unsettling smile and made her way through the door.
A fact unrecognised by The Doctor was the presence of a second alien visitor to the British museum that day.
Like most of the other visitors, Lim was on her holidays and was very pleased to be in the possession of an Earth permit. It had been a wonderful few days' vacation so far and she was revelling in the freedom of mingling among the humans without attracting undue stares.
Her one-piece bodysuit did seem to have attracted some attention, but she really didn't feel she had any choice. Human clothes were so rigid and inflexible. They would tear as soon as she moved about freely.
Lim wasn't clear what was normal behaviour on this world, but she was fairly sure that the scream she had heard wasn't an Earth tradition. Judging from the mob that had gathered near the sound it was very uncommon. She had come here to enjoy as much of Earth's culture as possible and she knew that this was definitely something she had to see.
It was easy for her to pass through the crowd and reach the doorway. There was a man standing in the doorway. For some reason, she thought, the man had left his shape set on short and rotund, which was very curious at not at all the fashion on her world. First he spoke with a fast-talking girl with black hair and then with a lady in possession of a particularly commanding aura who had opted to be very tall. Both of these were let through.
She was wondering how she would talk her way through when the man turned his attention to another questioning visitor. He seemed fairly distracted, so she slipped between him and the door frame silently. Had she stepped through normally she would have brushed against him and alerted him, but Lim simply flattened her arms and legs slightly and gave her torso a little stretch around the edge of the door frame and she was through quickly, without the man being any the wiser.
Lim found herself in a dim corridor, faced with the two women who had passed through the door already. They were kneeling over a third figure, who was lying on the floor completely still.
Ah, Lim thought, that'd be a dead body, then.
The Doctor had noticed Lim's approach. In the back of her mind, The Doctor had registered the slight voluntary distortion of the torso and arms which Lim had exercised, but with other things on her mind, The Doctor hadn't consciously acknowledged that this was uncommon among human inhabitants.
Esther - which the Doctor had established was the name of the Goth girl - was kneeling over the body in fascination. The Doctor couldn't see that there was any obvious physical evidence of the cause of death.
There was a cleaner sitting in the corner of the corridor, sobbing. The Doctor went over to her.
"Are you okay?" The Doctor asked, courteously.
The cleaner looked up and sniffed, then nodded.
"Did you see anything?"
The sad figure shook her head, "I saw nothing. I went in cupboard to get trolley. I hear noises from the corridor and when I come out ... he ... "
The Doctor shushed her to keep her from getting upset again. "You didn't see anyone else?"
The frightened domestic shook her head.
Esther looked up, "The body is still warm. Whoever did this can't have come out through the museum, everybody would have seen them."
"That," the Doctor mused, "is a very good point. I think we should see what is through THAT door."
All heads turned to the locked metal door at the end of the corridor. Esther bounded up to it and inspected the locking panel.
"It needs a staff pass," Esther reported, "I don't think we can get in."
"Let me try mine," The Doctor suggested, stepping up. She removed a small metal baton from her purse. She pointed it in the direction of the door and pressed a switch on the side. There was a wavy buzzing sound and the tip glowed. The door lock switched immediately to green and The Doctor pulled the door open.
"Sonic Screwdriver," she said, "never leave home without it."
Cold water vapour drifted out from the other side of the door, pooling in clouds around The Doctor's ankles. She held the door open for Esther to step through. Then, she turn to Lim.
"Are you coming?"
On the other side of the door was a brightly lit lab. In the centre of this lab was a highly conspicuous ice cube, measuring nearly all the way to the ceiling and being cooled by four devices.
"That is impressive," said The Doctor, noting the metal loading gate in the back wall, "I wonder what is in the ice?"
"Only one way to find out," chirped Esther, "we defrost it and see what is inside."
The Doctor smiled. She liked this girl's direct approach.
The assembled company peered into the cloudy ice. The others simply frowned, quizzically, unable to see much of significance, but The Doctor could make out a number of dark shapes.
Esther flounced over to the nearby control panel and switched it off. The blowers immediately stopped venting cold air onto the ice and fell silent.
They each looked at the cube, expectantly. After a few seconds there was a single solitary drip.
Lim spoke up, finally. "I could try hugging it. I could wrap myself around it."
Esther wasn't really sure what to make of this comment, but it seemed to trigger something in the The Doctor's mind. "Yes, sorry," The Doctor said, "who exactly are you and where are you from?"
Lim was from a very honest race of people. If there were dangers in confessing her true nature to complete strangers on an alien world, she was totally unaware of them. "You can call me Lim," she said, proudly, "and I'm from Elastica Fantastica."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Well, I've never been there," she commented.
"Anyway," Lim continued, "I can stretch very far. I could probably wrap myself around the cube and help it to defrost."
Esther wasn't making much of this conversation. What Lim seemed to be saying sounded ridiculous. She would have said something, but this person called The Doctor seemed to take what Lim was saying at face value. Must be a performance art thing, Esther thought.
The Doctor fiddled around with the Sonic Screwdriver for a moment and began working it against the corner of the cube, near one of the dark shapes.
They were interrupted as the the door behind them burst open and Carter Alsop flounced in, red-faced and furious. The Doctor managed to stop cutting the ice and look sufficiently innocent before Alsop could see anything amiss.
"What the hell are you people doing in here?" he demanded.
The Doctor flashed him her most reassuring smile, "We walked past you, don't you remember?"
Alsop continued, "This area is restricted! It's off limits to everyone apart from a very specific group of staff."
"Well, I'm one of those specific staff," The Doctor informed him. "Here," she said, authoritatively flashing him her paper identification again.
"Oh, I see," Alsop paused, clearly thrown by this unexpected evidence, "I thought you were dealing with the body outside?"
"We can't move the body."
"Ah, yes, I understand of course," Alsop coughed. "What is it you are doing in here, then?"
"This is where the perpetrator must have come," The Doctor explained, "we're trying to track them."
"Ah!" Alsop seemed relieved, "jolly good show. Well, do carry on."
Alsop suddenly noticed that the cold blowers weren't on. "Why, someone has switched the machine off!" He switched them back on and the jets resumed their chilly preservation of the ice.
He muttered to himself for a moment and then said, "that could have been disastrous! We're not totally sure what these specimens are inside. They could have been completely ruined if the ice isn't melted carefully!"
Nobody responded to him. He coughed again, a little displaced by this group of strangers' combined confidence. "Well, er, is there anything you need me for?"
"Not really." The Doctor's broad smile returned, superficially pleasant but somehow reminding Alsop of the broad grins of reptile predators.
Alsop gave a hearty cheerio and left through the security door. Lim instinctively leaned over and switched the machine off again and The Doctor returned to cutting through the ice with the Sonic Screwdriver.
Esther puffed her cheeks out, impatiently. "I'm going to have another look at that body," she said, morbidly, to nobody in particular. She hit the green release switch and left into the corridor.
Back in the museum, another figure was watching the door into the staff area intently. Stephen Donahue had been invited to take a look at some sample or other for nearly half an hour but some brouhaha was getting in his way. He'd witnessed all kinds of riff-raff being allowed through, so he was darned if he was going to be kept out any further.
He was about to challenge Carter Alsop – the museum's administrator and senior curator – some moments before when suddenly the infuriating man had disappeared behind the door.
However, now that he had reappeared and resumed his placed guarding the door, Stephen wasn't going to waste any more time.
The crowd had thinned out, allowing him to march up to Alsop easily. "Look here, my good man," he told him in a crisp, gentlemanly tone, "I'm meant to be here on a research trip and I have the full privileges of the museum, so please let me through."
Alsop took in the sight of this bookish figure and considered that with a lab full of weird strangers, this man at least looked like he was meant to fit. "Please," he said, "join the others. Just don't touch anything. I'm off to check that the police are coming." He drifted away into the crowd.
Stephen stepped into the maintenance corridor and discovered a young Goth girl kneeling over a dead body.
Slightly unaware of how to deal with this awkward scenario, Stephen decided the best thing was to apply his knowledge to the situation at hand. He joined her in looking at the body and suggested, helpfully, "there's no visible cause of death that I can see."
A voice called out from an ajar door at the far end of the corridor. "Can we have some help in here?"
Esther got up and trotted over to the door, then turned to face Stephen. She gave him a little smile and disappeared into the room. Stephen looked again at the body, saw that there was little he could do and decided to follow this strange girl into the lab areas.
Inside, Stephen was immediately struck by the huge block of ice in the centre of the room. Surely this is what he had been invited to study?
As well as the young Goth, Stephen saw a tall, graceful woman bedecked in flashing antiquated jewellery and a small wiry woman in a very odd one-piece bodysuit.
The tall woman (who introduced curtly as "The Doctor") was staring in exasperation at the massive ice cube. She was melting it with some sort of tool which Stephen didn't recognise, but seemed to be struggling to cut more than 8 inches into the surface.
Looking into the cube, Stephen's keen eyesight allowed him to make out some definition to the shapes. He could see a four-legged shape, a large dark mass and what looked distinctly like the outline of a man.
The Doctor saw him looking and straightened up. "What can you see?" she asked Stephen, who told her. The Doctor considered for a moment, "I think we need a way to defrost this more efficiently."
She moved over to study the control panel properly. She quickly spotted a 'Rapid Defrost control.' Without a moment's pause, she pressed it.
A warning light came on with a message, reading, "Accelerated thaw may damage artefacts - are you sure you wish to continue?"
"That's all very well," The Doctor said, to herself more than anybody, "but we haven't got all day."
"I really don't think we should be damaging anything," Stephen offered.
"Why don't we point it at the four legged animal shape?" Esther suggested. "That way we can see if its safe to use on the frozen person and if it goes wrong it won't matter because it's just an animal."
Stephen visibly bristled. "Just an animal?" he challenged, "I'll have you know I hold animals in great esteem."
"We'll try it on the animal," The Doctor insisted, seeing a disagreement brewing and trying to circumvent it.
"Fine," Stephen muttered.
Esther gave him a sarcastic smile, "don't worry," she said, "we'll let you look after it if it comes out retarded."
The Doctor fiddled around with the controls and satisfied herself that the defrost mechanism could be used directionally. She aimed the device at the location of the four-legged shape and set the machine going.
The ice melted rapidly, water running down in rivulets into drainage channels beneath the ice. The onlookers stared as, after a few moments, the four-legged shape of a deer plopped out of the ice and dropped on the floor.
[It's outside of the story, but at this point one of the players made a joke about Bambi on Ice. I didn't think it fitted very well into the narrative, but it was funny enough to be worth mentioning...]
"Anybody know anything about animals?" asked The Doctor.
"It's a deer!", Stephen explained, "it's a Norwegian Roe Deer, Capreolus Capreolus, to be precise!" He rushed over to inspect the creature further.
"Let's defrost the big box," The Doctor decided and reset the machine to defrost more.
She suddenly became aware of footsteps down the corridor. "The curator!" The Doctor yelped, "quick!"
She ran over to the door and held it, just as Alsop tried to push it open.
Taken aback by the door being held against him, Alsop asked, "is everything alright in there?"
"Yes," replied The Doctor, sweetly, "everything is fine."
"Righto," Alsop replied, not entirely mollified. "It's just that we have some rather delicate specimens in there and we'd hate them to be damaged."
Lim leaned close to Esther and whispered, "he knows more than he's letting on." Esther nodded in acknowledgement.
The Doctor heard their quiet exchange and asked Alsop, "what sort of specimens?"
"Well," said Alsop, always keen to have a chance to discuss his precious artefacts, "we had to pull a lot of strings to bring this ice here from Norway, but we have specialist equipment which allows us to extract the artefacts carefully. A delicate sonar sounding has revealed a quite unprecedented find. Nowhere else in the Scandinavian regions have we ever come across a burial sarcophagus of this nature and it could open up a whole new area of research! We're obviously keen to examine the block of ice very carefully before releasing anything from within it."
The Doctor flashed another smile at Alsop. "Good plan!" she encouraged him and then closed the door on him.
They could hear Alsop outside the door, saying, "Well, carry on... I suppose." Then they heard his footsteps departing.
Lim coughed, politely. "Suddenly I'm not sure this is such a good idea..."
The Doctor was about to reply, when there was a splash from the block of ice as the person shape slipped free from the encasing and crashed to the floor.
"It's a person!" Stephen declared, "you must be able to do something for him?"
"He's still frozen inside," The Doctor told them.
"Oh," Esther said, disappointed.
There was silence between them.
"I could try hugging around him?" Lim offered again and elongated her arms and torso and began to wrap and envelope the body, like a giant human slug engulfing a food source.
Esther and Stephen watched this display in horror.
"Who the hell are you!" Esther blurted out in shock, "I thought I was messed up!"
"Leave her alone," The Doctor said, "she's doing a very good job."
Esther turned on The Doctor, eyes flashing, "how on Earth are you so okay with this?"
The Doctor smiled kindly, "she's just trying to help."
Lim looked hurt and confused. "I just have very stretchy skin," she explained.
Stephen chipped in, "I've never seen anybody do anything like that before. I do think we need an explanation!"
Lim was about to explain herself when the Doctor cut across, addressing Esther and Stephen. "Look, she's an Alien. Live with it."
Esther opened and closed her mouth, unable to figure out how to respond to this. Eventually she gave up struggling and returned her attention to the body. "Shall I try CPR?" she offered.
"Yes," The Doctor agreed, "that'll help, but we'll need a Defibrillator to attempt to start his heart again."
Lim retracted from around the body to allow Esther to begin CPR. She said, "I read in my guide book for this planet that if you call the number Nine-hundred and Ninety-Nine from a telephone, they will tell you where your nearest Defibrillator device is located."
Esther had begun pumping the chest of the icy corpse. "There's a phone in my bag," she told them.
The Doctor called 9-9-9 and it took a few moments to identify the location of the De-fib Kit, conveniently located next door in the cleaning supplies cupboard.
When activated, the De-fib Kit began broadcasting instructions for its use. The assembled company carefully followed the instructions and after a few minutes work, the figure on the floor coughed and spluttered into life.
Chapter Two – The World's Oldest Football Pro
Knute "Newt" Rockne stood still and breathed in the cold mountain air. He sighed contentedly.
It was good to be back in his home country. He enjoyed playing Football in the United States very much, but home was always missed. It was easier to cross the Atlantic since the Great War had ended and he was making the most of it.
His reverie was shaken by a deep booming from underground. Knute felt his stomach lurch as he realised he was falling, although his eyes were confused as the ground seemed to be moving with him.
Suddenly the snow and ice beneath his feet lurched and crumbled inward and he found himself falling between two walls of snow. He tried to cry out.
The last thing Knute remembered for a long time was a very heavy blow to the head.
He coughed and spluttered awake and found himself surrounded by curiously dressed strangers. He felt freezing cold, as though his veins were running with ice water. Even having grown up in Norway, he had never known cold like this.
The people started talking about strange matters, in English, but Knute couldn't make any of it out. Then he heard the voice of the lady nearest his head saying they needed a way to keep him warm.
Knute's eyes bulged as a second lady leaned over him and began to distort and undulate. It seemed as though her limbs were growing into tentacles and ensnaring him, while her body stretched and warped, settling around him like a fleshy blanket.
His head swam. It was too much to take in. He passed out.
Stephen broke the moment. "As keen as I am to congratulate you on bringing this ice man back to life, I'm keen to save this deer, if I can."
The others looked at him strangely, but no-one objected to Stephen applying the de-fib kit to the deer and attempting to bring it back.
For a moment it seemed he had been successful. The deer tottered around, unsteady with its four hooves on the wet and icy floor. Then it fell to the ground and died once again.
"Well, it was worth a try!" Stephen declared.
"We'd better get his guy properly warm," Esther declared, "can't we use the defrost machine to warm him up?"
The Doctor looked impressed, "that is a very good idea!"
A few moments tinkering later, the body was looking much more recognisably human. Free from ice, his Nordic features and muscular frame were distinctive. His eyes fluttered open as he regained consciousness and looked fuzzily at The Doctor.
"Hello, I'm The Doctor," she introduced herself.
"I'm Knute ... Rockne," the man murmured, his eyes flicking around trying to take in all the people that were surrounding him. One of the women he had a vague memory that he'd seen in a terrible dream, bending and distorting in front of his eyes. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind.
"That's a stupid name, isn't it?" Esther commented.
"I think that would be ... foreign," Stephen told her.
The Doctor frowned, "where are you from?"
Knute blinked. "I'm from Norway."
"And what year do you think it is?"
Knute was taken aback, "what do you mean? It's 1921, of course."
The Doctor smiled kindly, "I think we need to have a little chat." She looked at the others and said, "We've just woken up somebody from 1921."
Stephen leapt in, "Well I would quite like to take him somewhere I can do some research. This is advanced cryogenics! This is just the sort of thing I've been looking for to advance my reputation." He turned to Knute, "so how did you get here?"
“I was out walking,” Knute explained, “Everything ... started moving. I remember falling into a crevasse and then something hit me on the head."
"What did you do for a living?" Lim asked, excitedly.
"I'm a football player," Knute told her.
"Excellent!", said Lim. This really was turning into the kind of unexpected insight into Earth goings-on she'd hoped to get from her holiday. "Were you any good?" she asked.
"I earn a living," Knute replied, modestly.
The Doctor looked into his eyes, reassuringly. "I'm afraid you'd been in the ice a rather long time."
"Really?" Knute asked, concerned. "How long was I out? A week? A month? Not a year?!"
"It's twenty-twelve," Esther told him, impatient for him to grasp the situation.
"Twelve minutes past eight?" Knute asked, confused.
"No!" Esther sighed, "it's the year two-thousand and twelve.” At this, the Doctor made a little "Ahhh" of recognition under her breath.
"It can't be!" Knute cried out, "That can't have happened!"
"Well it has," Stephen said, "and I'd like to know how."
The Doctor cut in, "you're probably hungry. We should find you something to eat."
"Where am I?" Knute asked, noticing his strange surroundings for the first time.
"You're in the British Museum."
"How did I get here?"
"You were brought here in a block of ice," The Doctor explained, "we got you out."
The pained look of confusion on Knute face was overlooked as the door burst open and Carter Alsop strode in, flanked by two police officers.
Alsop's face turned to one of thunderous rage as he saw the block of ice, pooling water on the floor next to the dead deer carcass. He was about to begin raging at the assembled company when he suddenly noticed Knute sitting up, talking with them. He was so confused he didn't know what to say.
Eventually he broke the silence himself, quietly saying, "Oh, if you're alive then I don't suppose we'll be able to exhibit you." He sounded disappointed.
The policemen swept in, taking charge. "What the hell are you doing here? This is a crime scene!" one of them shouted at the Doctor.
"I think you'll find that the crime scene is out in the corridor," The Doctor offered, factually.
"Don't be clever with me," said the officer, "That corridor and all the entrances and exits are an active crime scene. We need this area clear until the SOCO gets here. Now get out before I process you all for contaminating the site."
Having decided that discretion was the better part of valour in this case, The Doctor led Knute gently out into the museum, the other companions instinctively following closely behind.
One of the officers had offered help with Knute, but they had politely refused saying that they just wanted to get him warm and find him some food.
They found their way to a compact little café within the museum and sat Knute down. For some reason Esther insisted on referring to the humourless girl behind the counter as "serving wench," but she managed to acquire a cup of tea and a slice of cake, which Knute set into hungrily.
He was still shivering, though and dripping cold water onto the floor in regular intervals. His filthy state and dishevelled hair was attracting curious looks from the other visitors, but The Doctor didn't pay this any heed, so neither did the rest of the group.
The Doctor was very keen to find Knute some warmer wrappings. The girl behind the counter wasn't the keenest mind that The Doctor had encountered, but eventually she found a very large fire blanket.
"I'm not sure if I'm supposed to take this out for any reason other than fires but..." she began.
"It'll do fine," The Doctor told her and wrapped the blanket around Knute's shoulders.
In spite of the onlookers, Knute began to strip his wet clothes off him and wrapped himself further into the blanket. A few of the visitors who had brought children started to leave the café, quickly.
Stephen sat, staring at this group he had found himself with, clutching his briefcase on his chest. He decided he wanted some answers.
"Okay," he said, before pointing at Knute, "you're some kind of refugee from 1920's Norway." He pointed at Esther, "you I get, on some kind of school trip or other. You I've had an explanation of some sort for, however unsatisfying," he said in the direction of Lim. Then he turned to The Doctor, "but who the hell are you, exactly?"
The Doctor's darkly sweet smile returned. "I'm The Doctor," she said, simply. "I think we should have a look around? It's terribly interesting here. What are you interested in?"
"Well," said Stephen, completely unaware that his important question had been deftly deflected, "I'm a scientist, I'm interested in all sorts of things. Animals, natural history."
"Knute looks really cold," Esther suggested, "we should find him some more clothes." She looked around, "I can't imagine where we'll get any though."
"The cleaning store?" Stephen suggested.
Esther shook her head, "police everywhere."
A mischievous look flashed across The Doctor's face. She nodded toward the girl serving behind the counter and said to the group, "she's wearing a work uniform. I wonder if she has a change of clothes in that staff area next to the toilet? Perhaps if I engage her in conversation, one of you could take a look?"
A big grin spread across Esther's face. This was exactly the sort of misbehaviour she enjoyed. "Go on, then!" she said, excitedly.
The Doctor got up and casually crossed to the counter. She quickly caught the serving girl up in an animated discussion. Esther moved towards the staff area, trying to look like she was heading for the toilet. At the last moment she slipped aside and into the little back room.
Inside, there was a mop and a bucket, next to a single locker which hung open, displaying a small pile of clothes, stacked untidily in a pile. She snatched these up quickly and shoved them into the folds of her own clothing. She peered around the corner and saw that The Doctor was keeping the checkout girl very busy. Esther took a deep breath and stepped back out into the café.
She handed the pile of clothes discreetly to Knute. "I hope these fit," she said with a rueful smile.
Knute accepted the clothes gratefully and carried them into the toilets to put them on. When he returned, Esther realised with some relief that there was no way the serving girl would stand a chance of recognising her own clothes on this comparative giant.
They were a pair of baggy hip-hop trousers and and a short-ish vest. On the checkout girl they would have lent a stylish swing to her walk and exposed an attractive few inches of toned midriff.
On Knute, the trousers were tightly fitted around his Football-player's thighs. The ankles were a little more free. Instead of a finely-toned female navel, Knute was exposing several inches of hard, white Nordic stomach. Esther thought he looked like a genie.
Esther had a huge smile on her face and Stephen simply sat, shaking his head. Lim watched all this with curiosity. She couldn't see what they were finding so odd. Knute, who didn't recognise any of the clothes he saw passers-by wearing, simply thought that this was the fashion in this strange place.
The Doctor returned, seeing Knute still shivering slightly. "Come on," she said, "it's warm outside. We should get him out into the sun."
It was a very pleasant day outside. Knute was stunned by the cars and the traffic. In his time, if he saw ten cars in a day it was a notable occasion.
In this place, the cars were queued back-to-back. All kinds of colours and sizes, they beeped at each other angrily with their horns and engines growled like snarling animals.
The group sat and recuperated on a bench next to the museum railings. The Doctor offered the party each a Jellybean. Lim and Knute both looked at these with fascination.
"What do we do?" Esther asked.
The Doctor considered. The officer she had spoken to briefly revealed that the victim was a fairly healthy young man and they couldn't account for any obvious reason why he might have died. "I'd really like to look at that dead body again to see what it could tell us."
As if on cue, a side door opened and the party watched as a trolley stretcher, human contents covered over with a white sheet was wheeled out of the museum and loaded into the back of a coroner's car. The car angled off the pavement and disappeared down the street.
"Or," said Stephen, "we could investigate what else is going on with that block of ice in the museum."
The Doctor concurred.
The sun was beginning to set and crowds were streaming out of the museum, now. Closing time was clearly due and The Doctor suggested it might be a good idea to find another way into the museum.
Lim perked up, "there was an exterior loading bay for that lab, wasn't there?"
"Well remembered!" the Doctor exclaimed and they set about walking the perimeter of the museum boundary to find this other external entrance.
Eventually they found a service road which, when they followed it to its end, lead to a large metal loading door. Surprisingly, the door wasn't locked or padlocked down and between Lim and Knute it was the work of a moment to slide the panel up and allow the group inside.
They found themselves back in the familiar lab. The floor was still awash with water and the machine had been switched back on to keeping the ice solid. The police seemed to have cleared out, presumably having collected all the evidence they needed.
"I assume we're switching this thing back to defrost?" Esther asked, crossing over to the panel.
"Go for it," The Doctor told her.
They stood and watched the sad remains of the once mighty ice begin to give up the last of its form and melt away.
The door to the museum swung open suddenly and the group found themselves being accosted by a very irritated security guard.
"What are you people doing here?" he demanded.
The Doctor turned on him, sighing at yet another intrusion into their attempts to investigate this room. "I assure you that what we are doing is essential."
"Well I assure you," began the guard, "that when I see a suspicious group on the cameras, making an entry into the facility from a loading door when I have no knowledge of their permission to be here, I have to check it out and ask questions."
Knute walked over in a friendly and casual manner. "Have you told anybody else that you have seen us?" he asked, cheerfully, his English lilting with his Norwegian inflections.
The guard look confused. "No," he replied, "why?"
Unexpectedly, Knute's massive fist came up from his side and swung toward the guard. Both Knute and the guard seem suddenly confused for a moment. The guard froze, in pure shock at this sudden attack, while Knute blinked at the fact that his first swipe had fallen short by several inches.
However, Knute recovered from his surprise first, took a single step forward and swung with his other arm. His fist connected with the guard's jaw with a sickening crunch and the man dropped to the floor from a single punch.
The Doctor looked on, disapprovingly. "That was rather aggressive," she said to Knute, raising an eyebrow.
"He's not going to tell anyone else about us, is he?" Knute defended.
"We probably shouldn't do that again," The Doctor insisted, firmly.
Seeing this powerful stand off between two strong wills, Stephen interrupted: "hopefully we won't have to." He gave a cheerful smile and hoped that the conflict was, for now, abated.
Knute looked proudly at the unconscious figure on the floor, "I won't be needing to hit him again, anyway."
They waited in uncomfortable silence. The shape in the ice was clearly a sarcophagus. It would be free any time soon.
In the end it was the scream that broke their attention.
It was good to be back in his home country. He enjoyed playing Football in the United States very much, but home was always missed. It was easier to cross the Atlantic since the Great War had ended and he was making the most of it.
His reverie was shaken by a deep booming from underground. Knute felt his stomach lurch as he realised he was falling, although his eyes were confused as the ground seemed to be moving with him.
Suddenly the snow and ice beneath his feet lurched and crumbled inward and he found himself falling between two walls of snow. He tried to cry out.
The last thing Knute remembered for a long time was a very heavy blow to the head.
He coughed and spluttered awake and found himself surrounded by curiously dressed strangers. He felt freezing cold, as though his veins were running with ice water. Even having grown up in Norway, he had never known cold like this.
The people started talking about strange matters, in English, but Knute couldn't make any of it out. Then he heard the voice of the lady nearest his head saying they needed a way to keep him warm.
Knute's eyes bulged as a second lady leaned over him and began to distort and undulate. It seemed as though her limbs were growing into tentacles and ensnaring him, while her body stretched and warped, settling around him like a fleshy blanket.
His head swam. It was too much to take in. He passed out.
Stephen broke the moment. "As keen as I am to congratulate you on bringing this ice man back to life, I'm keen to save this deer, if I can."
The others looked at him strangely, but no-one objected to Stephen applying the de-fib kit to the deer and attempting to bring it back.
For a moment it seemed he had been successful. The deer tottered around, unsteady with its four hooves on the wet and icy floor. Then it fell to the ground and died once again.
"Well, it was worth a try!" Stephen declared.
"We'd better get his guy properly warm," Esther declared, "can't we use the defrost machine to warm him up?"
The Doctor looked impressed, "that is a very good idea!"
A few moments tinkering later, the body was looking much more recognisably human. Free from ice, his Nordic features and muscular frame were distinctive. His eyes fluttered open as he regained consciousness and looked fuzzily at The Doctor.
"Hello, I'm The Doctor," she introduced herself.
"I'm Knute ... Rockne," the man murmured, his eyes flicking around trying to take in all the people that were surrounding him. One of the women he had a vague memory that he'd seen in a terrible dream, bending and distorting in front of his eyes. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind.
"That's a stupid name, isn't it?" Esther commented.
"I think that would be ... foreign," Stephen told her.
The Doctor frowned, "where are you from?"
Knute blinked. "I'm from Norway."
"And what year do you think it is?"
Knute was taken aback, "what do you mean? It's 1921, of course."
The Doctor smiled kindly, "I think we need to have a little chat." She looked at the others and said, "We've just woken up somebody from 1921."
Stephen leapt in, "Well I would quite like to take him somewhere I can do some research. This is advanced cryogenics! This is just the sort of thing I've been looking for to advance my reputation." He turned to Knute, "so how did you get here?"
“I was out walking,” Knute explained, “Everything ... started moving. I remember falling into a crevasse and then something hit me on the head."
"What did you do for a living?" Lim asked, excitedly.
"I'm a football player," Knute told her.
"Excellent!", said Lim. This really was turning into the kind of unexpected insight into Earth goings-on she'd hoped to get from her holiday. "Were you any good?" she asked.
"I earn a living," Knute replied, modestly.
The Doctor looked into his eyes, reassuringly. "I'm afraid you'd been in the ice a rather long time."
"Really?" Knute asked, concerned. "How long was I out? A week? A month? Not a year?!"
"It's twenty-twelve," Esther told him, impatient for him to grasp the situation.
"Twelve minutes past eight?" Knute asked, confused.
"No!" Esther sighed, "it's the year two-thousand and twelve.” At this, the Doctor made a little "Ahhh" of recognition under her breath.
"It can't be!" Knute cried out, "That can't have happened!"
"Well it has," Stephen said, "and I'd like to know how."
The Doctor cut in, "you're probably hungry. We should find you something to eat."
"Where am I?" Knute asked, noticing his strange surroundings for the first time.
"You're in the British Museum."
"How did I get here?"
"You were brought here in a block of ice," The Doctor explained, "we got you out."
The pained look of confusion on Knute face was overlooked as the door burst open and Carter Alsop strode in, flanked by two police officers.
Alsop's face turned to one of thunderous rage as he saw the block of ice, pooling water on the floor next to the dead deer carcass. He was about to begin raging at the assembled company when he suddenly noticed Knute sitting up, talking with them. He was so confused he didn't know what to say.
Eventually he broke the silence himself, quietly saying, "Oh, if you're alive then I don't suppose we'll be able to exhibit you." He sounded disappointed.
The policemen swept in, taking charge. "What the hell are you doing here? This is a crime scene!" one of them shouted at the Doctor.
"I think you'll find that the crime scene is out in the corridor," The Doctor offered, factually.
"Don't be clever with me," said the officer, "That corridor and all the entrances and exits are an active crime scene. We need this area clear until the SOCO gets here. Now get out before I process you all for contaminating the site."
Having decided that discretion was the better part of valour in this case, The Doctor led Knute gently out into the museum, the other companions instinctively following closely behind.
One of the officers had offered help with Knute, but they had politely refused saying that they just wanted to get him warm and find him some food.
They found their way to a compact little café within the museum and sat Knute down. For some reason Esther insisted on referring to the humourless girl behind the counter as "serving wench," but she managed to acquire a cup of tea and a slice of cake, which Knute set into hungrily.
He was still shivering, though and dripping cold water onto the floor in regular intervals. His filthy state and dishevelled hair was attracting curious looks from the other visitors, but The Doctor didn't pay this any heed, so neither did the rest of the group.
The Doctor was very keen to find Knute some warmer wrappings. The girl behind the counter wasn't the keenest mind that The Doctor had encountered, but eventually she found a very large fire blanket.
"I'm not sure if I'm supposed to take this out for any reason other than fires but..." she began.
"It'll do fine," The Doctor told her and wrapped the blanket around Knute's shoulders.
In spite of the onlookers, Knute began to strip his wet clothes off him and wrapped himself further into the blanket. A few of the visitors who had brought children started to leave the café, quickly.
Stephen sat, staring at this group he had found himself with, clutching his briefcase on his chest. He decided he wanted some answers.
"Okay," he said, before pointing at Knute, "you're some kind of refugee from 1920's Norway." He pointed at Esther, "you I get, on some kind of school trip or other. You I've had an explanation of some sort for, however unsatisfying," he said in the direction of Lim. Then he turned to The Doctor, "but who the hell are you, exactly?"
The Doctor's darkly sweet smile returned. "I'm The Doctor," she said, simply. "I think we should have a look around? It's terribly interesting here. What are you interested in?"
"Well," said Stephen, completely unaware that his important question had been deftly deflected, "I'm a scientist, I'm interested in all sorts of things. Animals, natural history."
"Knute looks really cold," Esther suggested, "we should find him some more clothes." She looked around, "I can't imagine where we'll get any though."
"The cleaning store?" Stephen suggested.
Esther shook her head, "police everywhere."
A mischievous look flashed across The Doctor's face. She nodded toward the girl serving behind the counter and said to the group, "she's wearing a work uniform. I wonder if she has a change of clothes in that staff area next to the toilet? Perhaps if I engage her in conversation, one of you could take a look?"
A big grin spread across Esther's face. This was exactly the sort of misbehaviour she enjoyed. "Go on, then!" she said, excitedly.
The Doctor got up and casually crossed to the counter. She quickly caught the serving girl up in an animated discussion. Esther moved towards the staff area, trying to look like she was heading for the toilet. At the last moment she slipped aside and into the little back room.
Inside, there was a mop and a bucket, next to a single locker which hung open, displaying a small pile of clothes, stacked untidily in a pile. She snatched these up quickly and shoved them into the folds of her own clothing. She peered around the corner and saw that The Doctor was keeping the checkout girl very busy. Esther took a deep breath and stepped back out into the café.
She handed the pile of clothes discreetly to Knute. "I hope these fit," she said with a rueful smile.
Knute accepted the clothes gratefully and carried them into the toilets to put them on. When he returned, Esther realised with some relief that there was no way the serving girl would stand a chance of recognising her own clothes on this comparative giant.
They were a pair of baggy hip-hop trousers and and a short-ish vest. On the checkout girl they would have lent a stylish swing to her walk and exposed an attractive few inches of toned midriff.
On Knute, the trousers were tightly fitted around his Football-player's thighs. The ankles were a little more free. Instead of a finely-toned female navel, Knute was exposing several inches of hard, white Nordic stomach. Esther thought he looked like a genie.
Esther had a huge smile on her face and Stephen simply sat, shaking his head. Lim watched all this with curiosity. She couldn't see what they were finding so odd. Knute, who didn't recognise any of the clothes he saw passers-by wearing, simply thought that this was the fashion in this strange place.
The Doctor returned, seeing Knute still shivering slightly. "Come on," she said, "it's warm outside. We should get him out into the sun."
It was a very pleasant day outside. Knute was stunned by the cars and the traffic. In his time, if he saw ten cars in a day it was a notable occasion.
In this place, the cars were queued back-to-back. All kinds of colours and sizes, they beeped at each other angrily with their horns and engines growled like snarling animals.
The group sat and recuperated on a bench next to the museum railings. The Doctor offered the party each a Jellybean. Lim and Knute both looked at these with fascination.
"What do we do?" Esther asked.
The Doctor considered. The officer she had spoken to briefly revealed that the victim was a fairly healthy young man and they couldn't account for any obvious reason why he might have died. "I'd really like to look at that dead body again to see what it could tell us."
As if on cue, a side door opened and the party watched as a trolley stretcher, human contents covered over with a white sheet was wheeled out of the museum and loaded into the back of a coroner's car. The car angled off the pavement and disappeared down the street.
"Or," said Stephen, "we could investigate what else is going on with that block of ice in the museum."
The Doctor concurred.
The sun was beginning to set and crowds were streaming out of the museum, now. Closing time was clearly due and The Doctor suggested it might be a good idea to find another way into the museum.
Lim perked up, "there was an exterior loading bay for that lab, wasn't there?"
"Well remembered!" the Doctor exclaimed and they set about walking the perimeter of the museum boundary to find this other external entrance.
Eventually they found a service road which, when they followed it to its end, lead to a large metal loading door. Surprisingly, the door wasn't locked or padlocked down and between Lim and Knute it was the work of a moment to slide the panel up and allow the group inside.
They found themselves back in the familiar lab. The floor was still awash with water and the machine had been switched back on to keeping the ice solid. The police seemed to have cleared out, presumably having collected all the evidence they needed.
"I assume we're switching this thing back to defrost?" Esther asked, crossing over to the panel.
"Go for it," The Doctor told her.
They stood and watched the sad remains of the once mighty ice begin to give up the last of its form and melt away.
The door to the museum swung open suddenly and the group found themselves being accosted by a very irritated security guard.
"What are you people doing here?" he demanded.
The Doctor turned on him, sighing at yet another intrusion into their attempts to investigate this room. "I assure you that what we are doing is essential."
"Well I assure you," began the guard, "that when I see a suspicious group on the cameras, making an entry into the facility from a loading door when I have no knowledge of their permission to be here, I have to check it out and ask questions."
Knute walked over in a friendly and casual manner. "Have you told anybody else that you have seen us?" he asked, cheerfully, his English lilting with his Norwegian inflections.
The guard look confused. "No," he replied, "why?"
Unexpectedly, Knute's massive fist came up from his side and swung toward the guard. Both Knute and the guard seem suddenly confused for a moment. The guard froze, in pure shock at this sudden attack, while Knute blinked at the fact that his first swipe had fallen short by several inches.
However, Knute recovered from his surprise first, took a single step forward and swung with his other arm. His fist connected with the guard's jaw with a sickening crunch and the man dropped to the floor from a single punch.
The Doctor looked on, disapprovingly. "That was rather aggressive," she said to Knute, raising an eyebrow.
"He's not going to tell anyone else about us, is he?" Knute defended.
"We probably shouldn't do that again," The Doctor insisted, firmly.
Seeing this powerful stand off between two strong wills, Stephen interrupted: "hopefully we won't have to." He gave a cheerful smile and hoped that the conflict was, for now, abated.
Knute looked proudly at the unconscious figure on the floor, "I won't be needing to hit him again, anyway."
They waited in uncomfortable silence. The shape in the ice was clearly a sarcophagus. It would be free any time soon.
In the end it was the scream that broke their attention.
Chapter Three – The Night Chase
It was a man's scream, coming from the museum.
The Doctor looked around immediately and made for the door. Knute and Lim followed quickly. To everybody's surprise, Stephen came with them.
On the way out, Stephen turned to look at Esther, "are you coming?"
Esther shook her head. "I want to stay with the Sarcophagus. I should see what this is."
Stephen nodded and turned back to catch up with the group.
When he found them, they were in the central hall of the British Library. The covered glass roof above let moonlight into the dark room and he could see the clear curve of the reading room in the centre.
The Doctor, Lim and Knute were huddled around another body. Another, different security guard.
"The killer can't have gone far," the Doctor was saying.
In this dim moonlit room, faced with the fresh corpse and the dark shadows, Stephen had a rethink regarding his bravado in following them in here.
"I've had a thought," he announced, although none of the group looked up from the body, "that my skills are best used with the thawing Sarcophagus." No reply. "Oh and I can keep an eye on Esther," he added.
He slunk away into the shadows.
Knute and Lim were arguing about the body, when The Doctor shushed them. "Listen!" she whispered. They were all silent, listening.
They heard the scuffling sound of something or somebody moving about in the far corner of the hall. Looking round, each of them was just able to make out a door swinging shut in the darkness.
Without a word, Lim turned and raced off in the direction of the sound. Knute set off after her at a run.
Lim moved with incredible speed and grace. It seemed to Knute that her legs shifted around obstacles and uneven surfaces, allowing her to power through the room with unnatural speed.
She reached the door within seconds and saw a dark shape in the next room disappearing through an alcove. Lim continued the chase and began making up ground to the target. Knute was falling slightly behind.
Lim crashed into something in the darkness and cursed. It slowed her slightly, allowing Knute to catch up with her, despite her incredible pace. They reached a stairwell together and listened carefully for a moment. They could hear the patter of footsteps racing upward.
Lim took off quickly once again and bounded up the stairs, leaping rail over rail to catch up with the escaping figure. Knute followed her, trying to keep up as best as he could via the conventional route of the stairs.
On the next floor, Lim could see her quarry shortly ahead of her. She put on an extra burst of speed to try to catch up.
That was when the escaping figure stopped, turned on their heel and raised the weapon they were carrying. The figure pointed it directly at Lim.
Stephen tapped on the glass of the security door and Esther let him in.
"How are we doing?" he asked her.
"It's nearly free," Esther told him, watching the readings on the control panel.
The Sarcophagus was now much more visible. Stephen could make out deep blue panelling with gold edges all around the box. There was some sort of writing, but Stephen couldn't see whether this was a foreign language or some form of hieroglyph.
Curiously, the ice immediately around the box already seemed to be melted. Stephen reached out a hand and touched it. It was warm already.
"I wonder," Stephen murmured, reaching for his briefcase.
Esther watched as Stephen withdrew a Geiger counter from his case and began measuring the box.
"You carry a Geiger counter around with you all the time?" she asked him.
Stephen returned her question with a quizzical look. "Of course," he stated, reasonably, as though a device for measuring radiation was a standard item that any person would carry with them.
The counter crackled lightly as he moved the meter over the surface of the box. "Well," Stephen announced, "it is giving off radiation, but not enough to cause concern." He began sliding the sarcophagus out of the ice. Once it was sufficiently free, the far end clattered to the ground. Exposing the intricate detail on the lid, which appeared to be glowing slightly.
Esther looked worried, "what to you mean, 'not enough to cause concern'? Is it radioactive or not?!"
"Oh it's radioactive," Stephen reported, cheerfully, "but not enough to do us damage." He paused, before adding, "I wonder how we open it."
Esther came over to join him and they examined the box carefully, looking for any catches, clasps or clues as to how it may open.
For the time being, however, the box refused to give up its mystery to them.
The weapon in the stranger's hands fired in a blaze of light.
Lim managed to morph her body quickly aside and the shot missed, melting the glass of a cabinet behind her and causing the golden artifact inside to bubble, horribly.
Seeing her chance, Lim leapt forward and tackled her assailant to the ground, squarely catching them around the waist.
They pair grappled on the ground as Knute caught up. "Hold still," he said calmly before striking a punch into the figure's facial area.
His fist hit hard metal, which bit into his knuckles. Knute frowned and delivered another almighty punch. The hard surface he had hit cracked under the blow and Knute felt the satisfying connection of fist upon face. The figure stopped moving under Lim.
The Doctor strolled up, having finally caught up with Lim and Knute at a more leisurely pace. She flicked on a light from a nearby panel of switches.
The figure on the floor was wearing a full body armour outfit which extended all the way up to an exposed green neck. In the light, Knute could see that his punch had broken through a metal face mask.
Lim stood up, freeing herself from around the unconscious figure.
"Let's see who is behind the mask, shall we?" The Doctor suggested, leaning down to grab at the cracked metal face-covering.
Knute's heart froze. Expecting to see a normal person behind the metal, he was horrified to bear witness to the rictus grin of a lizard face.
The Doctor looked around immediately and made for the door. Knute and Lim followed quickly. To everybody's surprise, Stephen came with them.
On the way out, Stephen turned to look at Esther, "are you coming?"
Esther shook her head. "I want to stay with the Sarcophagus. I should see what this is."
Stephen nodded and turned back to catch up with the group.
When he found them, they were in the central hall of the British Library. The covered glass roof above let moonlight into the dark room and he could see the clear curve of the reading room in the centre.
The Doctor, Lim and Knute were huddled around another body. Another, different security guard.
"The killer can't have gone far," the Doctor was saying.
In this dim moonlit room, faced with the fresh corpse and the dark shadows, Stephen had a rethink regarding his bravado in following them in here.
"I've had a thought," he announced, although none of the group looked up from the body, "that my skills are best used with the thawing Sarcophagus." No reply. "Oh and I can keep an eye on Esther," he added.
He slunk away into the shadows.
Knute and Lim were arguing about the body, when The Doctor shushed them. "Listen!" she whispered. They were all silent, listening.
They heard the scuffling sound of something or somebody moving about in the far corner of the hall. Looking round, each of them was just able to make out a door swinging shut in the darkness.
Without a word, Lim turned and raced off in the direction of the sound. Knute set off after her at a run.
Lim moved with incredible speed and grace. It seemed to Knute that her legs shifted around obstacles and uneven surfaces, allowing her to power through the room with unnatural speed.
She reached the door within seconds and saw a dark shape in the next room disappearing through an alcove. Lim continued the chase and began making up ground to the target. Knute was falling slightly behind.
Lim crashed into something in the darkness and cursed. It slowed her slightly, allowing Knute to catch up with her, despite her incredible pace. They reached a stairwell together and listened carefully for a moment. They could hear the patter of footsteps racing upward.
Lim took off quickly once again and bounded up the stairs, leaping rail over rail to catch up with the escaping figure. Knute followed her, trying to keep up as best as he could via the conventional route of the stairs.
On the next floor, Lim could see her quarry shortly ahead of her. She put on an extra burst of speed to try to catch up.
That was when the escaping figure stopped, turned on their heel and raised the weapon they were carrying. The figure pointed it directly at Lim.
Stephen tapped on the glass of the security door and Esther let him in.
"How are we doing?" he asked her.
"It's nearly free," Esther told him, watching the readings on the control panel.
The Sarcophagus was now much more visible. Stephen could make out deep blue panelling with gold edges all around the box. There was some sort of writing, but Stephen couldn't see whether this was a foreign language or some form of hieroglyph.
Curiously, the ice immediately around the box already seemed to be melted. Stephen reached out a hand and touched it. It was warm already.
"I wonder," Stephen murmured, reaching for his briefcase.
Esther watched as Stephen withdrew a Geiger counter from his case and began measuring the box.
"You carry a Geiger counter around with you all the time?" she asked him.
Stephen returned her question with a quizzical look. "Of course," he stated, reasonably, as though a device for measuring radiation was a standard item that any person would carry with them.
The counter crackled lightly as he moved the meter over the surface of the box. "Well," Stephen announced, "it is giving off radiation, but not enough to cause concern." He began sliding the sarcophagus out of the ice. Once it was sufficiently free, the far end clattered to the ground. Exposing the intricate detail on the lid, which appeared to be glowing slightly.
Esther looked worried, "what to you mean, 'not enough to cause concern'? Is it radioactive or not?!"
"Oh it's radioactive," Stephen reported, cheerfully, "but not enough to do us damage." He paused, before adding, "I wonder how we open it."
Esther came over to join him and they examined the box carefully, looking for any catches, clasps or clues as to how it may open.
For the time being, however, the box refused to give up its mystery to them.
The weapon in the stranger's hands fired in a blaze of light.
Lim managed to morph her body quickly aside and the shot missed, melting the glass of a cabinet behind her and causing the golden artifact inside to bubble, horribly.
Seeing her chance, Lim leapt forward and tackled her assailant to the ground, squarely catching them around the waist.
They pair grappled on the ground as Knute caught up. "Hold still," he said calmly before striking a punch into the figure's facial area.
His fist hit hard metal, which bit into his knuckles. Knute frowned and delivered another almighty punch. The hard surface he had hit cracked under the blow and Knute felt the satisfying connection of fist upon face. The figure stopped moving under Lim.
The Doctor strolled up, having finally caught up with Lim and Knute at a more leisurely pace. She flicked on a light from a nearby panel of switches.
The figure on the floor was wearing a full body armour outfit which extended all the way up to an exposed green neck. In the light, Knute could see that his punch had broken through a metal face mask.
Lim stood up, freeing herself from around the unconscious figure.
"Let's see who is behind the mask, shall we?" The Doctor suggested, leaning down to grab at the cracked metal face-covering.
Knute's heart froze. Expecting to see a normal person behind the metal, he was horrified to bear witness to the rictus grin of a lizard face.
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