Eternity (short story): Difference between revisions

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* Sarah Jane notes that it did not take long for the TARDIS to travel 30,000 years into the future. ([[TV]]: ''[[Planet of Evil (TV story)|Planet of Evil]]'')
* Sarah Jane notes that it did not take long for the TARDIS to travel 30,000 years into the future. ([[TV]]: ''[[Planet of Evil (TV story)|Planet of Evil]]'')
* The Doctor tells Sarah Jane that he was involved with the events surrounding [[Grigori Rasputin]]'s death in [[St. Petersburg]] in [[December]] [[1916]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Wages of Sin (novel)|The Wages of Sin]]'')
* The Doctor tells Sarah Jane that he was involved with the events surrounding [[Grigori Rasputin]]'s death in [[St. Petersburg]] in [[December]] [[1916]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Wages of Sin (novel)|The Wages of Sin]]'')
* The Doctor and Sarah drink in the TARDIS pub ([[PROSE]]: ''[[House (short story)]]'')
* The Doctor is using the Secondary Console Room ([[TV]]: ''[[The Masque of Mandragora]]'')
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[[Category:Fourth Doctor short stories]]
[[Category:Fourth Doctor short stories]]
[[Category:Sarah Jane Smith short stories]]
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[[Category:2003 short stories]]
[[Category:2003 short stories]]
[[Category:ST short stories]]
[[Category:ST short stories]]

Revision as of 10:38, 15 June 2013

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Eternity was the sixteenth short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: Steel Skies. It was written by Jonathan Blum. It featured the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith.

Summary

The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith are travelling to Geshtinanna, a world of historical importance; however, Sarah is astonished to learn that their journey will take nine weeks.

At first she and the Doctor amuse themselves exploring the limitless confines of the TARDIS, looking through its countless rooms and contents. But after forty-three days of travelling the ship’s corridors, planning her science-fiction book and listening to the Doctor’s stories, Sarah becomes bored to the point of tears, and even the Doctor has grown tired and listless.

It seems that the journey will never end, until they notice that the clocks aboard the ship have all stopped; the Doctor then detects the remains of another TARDIS adrift in the Vortex. It has become trapped there because its original owner made a mistake in locking in his course. The Doctor now fears that the same thing has happened to his TARDIS, and that he and Sarah are trapped in the Vortex for eternity. Unable to change the TARDIS’s set course, the two travellers have no option but to wait out the nine weeks until their intended point of dematerialisation.

After weeks of doing nothing, Sarah snaps and yells at the Doctor. He comforts her. The day of materialisation arrives, and they cross their fingers. With relief, they materialise, and the Doctor realises that the clocks in the TARDIS stopped as a mark of their ship’s respect to a fallen comrade. Ironically, when the TARDIS finally materialises on a jungle planet, the Doctor and Sarah discover that they are light years off course, and nowhere near Geshtinanna at all.

Characters

References

  • Sarah Jane tells the Doctor that she intends to write a science fiction novel.

Notes

  • The stories in Short Trips: Steel Skies are divided into four sections dealing with different types of confinement. This story deals with isolation, that is, "the loneliness and despair of being cut off from the world outside".

Continuity