“The Future in the Past”
A.k.a.
“If Paradise is half as Nice as Babybearsporridge.”
Cast: Nomad, The Professor, Pirx the pilot, Theodora and introducing Mme. Bouviour.
Summary (Previously ….)
The Professor and Nomad decide to take in the delights of Victorian London, Pirx and Theodora have better things to do in their (respective) rooms. Theodora is meddling again with time flux inverters and carrier temporal chronoton particle decelerators when she accidentally manages to ram Nomads Tardis into the Professors, and succeeds in nesting Nomads Tardis with the Professor’s Tardis, and her own room. A number of circuits overload and burn out, including Photon-emitting life support (the light bulb blows) it is about this time that they have a mysterious visitor who wanders in quite by chance, and quite by curiosity.
Nomad and the Professor return to find their Tardises in complete chaos (and dark) and a funny little lady standing in their console rooms. Deciding that the best way to fix a problem is to go away and think about it, they set the co-ordinates to the Eye-of-Orion, hoping the positive ions will do them and their tempers some good.
[Roll credits]
The Tardises and newly nested room alight on a warm temperate summer’s evening in a little glade surrounded by trees. The crews set the chameleon circuit to emulate a magnificent spreading tree and step out from their magnificent spreading portaloo. They decide that a potaloo is a blight on the landscape, and decide to change the Tardis’ appearance back to a tree (and kick the recalcitrant circuit in the meantime) they then step out of a magnificent spreading phone-booth, resplendent with lurid alien calling cards inviting other aliens to call up and have a good time.
The crew are having a good time without aliens meantime, and wander through the glade to find themselves looking down a valley to a circle of stone huts with thatched roofs. Pirx tries to get an idea as to where they are by the stars, but can only remember a few details: They’ve landed on the planet Arkangelsk, which has a reputation for two important things. One Pirx remembers is “the sweetest smelling air this side of event one” the other escapes his memory. The party are then devoured by a marauding Hound Of Tindalos- who’d just called by to see if any other pan-dimensional beings would like to come up for a good time. Pirx lets out a final “Hmm….check-Tardis-databank…..Doh!” Before the party get eaten.
Meanwhile in the other timestream, the party wander down to the primitive village and are given a warm welcome. They are invited to sit by the fire in the centre of the village, and eat fresh stewed and roasted meats, nuts, berries and fruit. The villagers sing songs, tell tales, and generally try to outdo each other in their hospitality.
The crew are invited to stay for the night, and as night falls, they can hear the melodic sound of the native wildlife. The planet is famed for the ‘Arkangelsk singing tree frog’ – the third thing in Pirx’s memory. They drift of into a relaxing sleep…..
Next morning Pirx is confused by some anomalous readings, as a local magnetic field is playing hell with his compass. He discounts the stray magnetic field of two nested Tardises, and decides to explore. AV8 and K9 also go on a scouting mission.
The rest of the crew wander about the village, and are surprised to find an air of friendly rivalry among the villagers. They all seem to be competing with one another, for some kind of prize or reward.
Nomad is curious, and when he digs a little deeper, he finds out that a dozen generations ago, a prophet came to the village and told them of a paradise that was theirs. They were to select six people form this and other neighbouring villages to go once a month to a holy place, called “The Well of the Prophet.” The prophet’s son and descendants have been arbiters from that day onward, and each month select six of the most talented to be led away and step into paradise.
The Tardis crew are curious enough to find out what has been going on, no doubt reminded of the sacrifice to the Minotaur in ancient Greece. They track the well of the prophets down to the very spot where Pirx is standing. He’d set off previously to find the source of his anomalous compass reading, and had discovered a cairn of lodestones disguising a pit, or well, black inside but with a kaleidoscopic pattern of squirly-whirly lights in it.
Are you sure this is the right pit?
The more learned of the company recognise this as a time tunnel, and after a few calculations Theodora discovers that it extends many thousands of years into the future, and emerges somewhere in the Arkangelsk system.
They go back to the village where the villagers are being groomed for the journey into the Well of the Prophets.
The crew are in two minds. They want to investigate the well, as it is an obvious time tunnel, but they cannot be certain that they’ll survive the journey, or that they will be able to get back (It doesn’t seem to be two-way) The Professor and Theodora decide to step through. Nomad and the others follow the time signature in the Tardises.
The Professor and Theodora emerge in a scrubby run down park, in the middle of a polluted industrial landscape. The city seems to consist of either powerplants or grubby run-down tenements. The local militia are rather apathetic, and there is a general air of doom and despair. A few investigations later, they discover that the city is all the habitable space left on Arkangelsk. It is protected from the elements by a force dome, and this is sapping nearly all their power resources. The rest of the power generators keep the time-tunnel fixed at both ends. Their other problem is manpower. Hence the Prophet going back in time to recruit new labour. The pollutant atmosphere makes the population sterile, and they cannot repopulate. It’s a bit of a catch-22 situation. The force dome contracts slowly but surely, and the things that keep them alive are slowly killing them…..
The crew deliberate on the problem for quite some time, and decide that it would be best if they found a planet in a nearby system to evacuate the population to. They leave Theodora to play around with the time-tunnel and Mme Bouvior to round up and organise the population. They need little persuasion, and start gathering up personal belongings, and the basic building materials needed to start afresh. Theodora calculates the power output required to extend the time-tunnel onto a new planet, using this end as an anchor point in the middle. The population throw everything they have into the powerplants, and Theodora reduces the size of the force dome to provide more power. It is touch and go for a minute when the first test is run, and Theodora manages to blow up most of the lab, and send half a warehouse off into the unknown.
Meanwhile Nomad, the Professor and Pirx are looking at possible planets suitable for colonisation. They find a moon that is too hot to support life of any kind, and then a planet in the next system which is very cold, but survivable. They reckon that the evacuees have enough problems as it is without having to deal with arctic temperatures, and so in a last ditch attempt to find somewhere habitable, they settle on a verdant green world with lots of mangrove swamps and plenty of reptilian life-forms. The three planets, one too hot, one too cold and one just right reminds them of the story of Goldilocks, and so they christen the planet “Babybearsporridge”
On the way back they snigger at their little joke, thinking of a time when the planet’s population sets off into space “We claim this planet in the name of Babybearsporridge!”
Meanwhile, Theodora has managed to stabilise the time tunnel, and projects it forward to the newly conquered world of Babybearsporridge, and now needs Nomad to go back to the Arkangelsk of the past to warn the population. He manages to use the timestreaming effects of the corridor to extricate his Tardis from the Nesting of the room and the Professor’s Tardis. In the operation he has to delete a number of rooms, and manages to separate Theodora’s room and materialise it half in his Tardis, and half in the Professors’ He and the Professor can now communicate through the room, and with a little manipulation can travel between the two Tardises too.
Nomad manages to speak to the headman, and reassure him that everything was going to be OK. He doesn’t mention that the time tunnel will only last for a few months more.
Mme Bouvior has rounded up the population with a stirring speech, and lined everyone up in height order. They then begin the process of saying their farewells to the doomed planet, and stepping off to paradise on Babybearsporridge.
Theodora lets the anchor point run down of its own accord, and the villagers from the past will sail past their ruined future to paradise, taking their singing tree frogs with them.
The Professor sighs a big sigh of relief for having got rid of Nomad, Nomad sighs a big sigh of relief for having got rid of the Professor and a load more Twiglets, and sets off for Pherenostos to meet an old friend.