Nature

‘... I don’t know who he is,’ he answered Peri’s question as simply as he could. ‘Nobody knows. He existed before the start of Time Lord records. There was an attempt to track him back through his own continuum – trace his path through the fabric of time, but the researchers got bored with all the games, which was possibly what they were there for. As they do so often,’ he sighed, ‘my erstwhile colleagues met something they didn’t understand, and they ran away from it. If they’d been able to control him, they would have investigated further, I’m sure. But they couldn’t, so they didn’t.’

‘A being the Time Lords couldn’t handle?’ asked Peri with a worried frown.

‘Oh, there are plenty of them,’ the Doctor reassured her.

‘Time Lords generally aren’t very good at handling things, especially themselves. I’m just the exception to the rule.’

‘Right,’ answered Peri. She wasn’t going to argue with that last remark under any circumstances.

On a more positive note, the Doctor continued: ‘We know he’s telepathic, up to a point. We know he’s telekinetic, up to a point. We know he can stand the most violent physical forces in our experience – he was once observed playing with a supernova as though it was a kiddies’ paddling pool... and we know he’s old beyond imagining...’ The comment seemed to distract him for a moment, but then he shook himself and continued. ‘Most of all, we know he likes games, all sorts of games, any sort of games, and the nastier the better. And that’s what I’m going to do something about.’ He was as quietly determined as Peri had ever seen him. It was left to Kevin to voice the sceptical question.

‘You’re going to beat him, then?’

‘I’m going to escape from him,’ answered the Doctor, coldly, ‘and count myself very lucky if I do even that.’

***

The Nightmare Fair, Chapter 7