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Buying Time (comic story) was a Doctor Who Adventures comic strip published in 2012.
Summary
The Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory Williams arrive on the commercial asteroid of Primo Temp, a trading world at the centre of the Amron Ho galaxy. The Doctor is on a quest to buy some Time. Two Gnaa traders, Jakrit and Praal, are trying to sell a tachyon-drive unit from a Horologic-class history cruiser – the last one in existence, found in a time pocket on the edge of the Skrawn Inheritance.
The Doctor rubbishes their claims that it has been refurbished and fitted with a brand new Zeiton-7 crystal. When Praal offers to demonstrate it with a trip twenty minutes back in time, they discover that the Zeiton 7 crystal is cracked: a crack that appears to be centuries old! The Doctor suddenly appears, his absence only just being noticed and explains that when the machine was being demonstrated he used it to go back further in time
Returning to the point when the ship first crashed, the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to shatter the crystal and return to the present failed demonstration, finding the last tachyon-drive unit now properly decommissioned. On the way back to the TARDIS, Amy poses the question “how could the Doctor have taken the TARDIS back with him when he used the travel unit in order to return?” to which the Doctor replies that he doesn’t intend revealing all his secrets!
Named characters
References
- The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver is used when the Doctor travels back in time to shatter the Zeiton-7 crystal rendering it useless.
- Among the items for sale at Primo Temp were blue crystals from Metebelis III, oils from Halalala 7, apples from Eden and a Taran wood beast fang.
Notes
- Amy’s question in the final frame and the Doctor’s reply gives a kind of resolution in this time travel paradox tale.
Original print details
- Publication with page count and closing captions
- DWA 266 (4 pages) DON’T MISS ANOTHER NEW ADVENTURE NEXT TIME!
- No reprints to date.
Continuity
- Several of the items for sale reference earlier stories. Metebelis Crystals were first introduced in TV: The Green Death, Eden is likely a reference to the titular planet of TV: Nightmare of Eden and the Taran wood beast briefly appeared in TV: The Androids of Tara.
- The tachyon-drive unit uses a Zeiton-7 crystal, introduced in TV: Vengeance on Varos.
- The ship was recovered at the edge of the Skrawn Inheritance, a reference to COMIC: The Skrawn Inheritance
