Psi-Broadcast

‘A little older, probably no wiser, but certainly the same Time Lord,’ pronounced the Mandarin, the thin smile becoming more contented, more final. ‘It’s good to see you again,’ he leaned forward slightly as he breathed in the same deep whisper as before, ‘Doctor...’

‘Yes?’ asked the Doctor.

‘Yes what?’ replied Peri.

‘You did it again!’ protested the Doctor.

‘Did what?’

‘Called my name.’

‘I did no such thing!’

A rip-snorter of an argument could have started between them there and then, but the Doctor spun his head round to another direction as he heard the call again. He searched through what passed for the crowd outside the entrance to the rollercoaster ride, looking for the person who was so obviously trying to engage his attention. The direction kept changing, though, and for several moments he was confused and disorientated, swinging this way and that. To anyone not privy to his private call-line, such as Peri, his behaviour was odd even by his own highly individual standards.

(...)

The Doctor swung on Peri sharply. ‘You didn’t hear that?’ he demanded, a very direct question, as though he was conducting an experiment in a laboratory.

‘Hear what?’ asked Peri, helplessly.

‘Someone calling my name.’

‘No, nothing.’

‘Right, not a loudspeaker then,’ he announced with quiet satisfaction. ‘A psi broadcast?’ he asked, in a reasonable tone of voice, and answered himself just as reasonably, ‘No, impossibly narrow band... Old-fashioned telepathy then. But so clear, so direct, so... expert –’

***

The Nightmare Fair, Chapter 2