From Eternity (short story)
{{Infobox Short Story name = From Eternity series=ST short stories| doctor = The Doctor (From Eternity) companions = None year=| writer=Jim Mortimore| anthology=Short Trips: Monsters| prev=Best Seller (short story)| next=Last Rites (short story)| |}} From Eternity was the second short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: Monsters. It was written by Jim Mortimore. It featured an unspecified Doctor.
Summary
On behalf of the Time Lords, the Doctor interrogates a being responsible for deaths beyond counting. The entity believes itself to have been the first intelligence born into the Universe, and it spent aeons of darkness alone until it saw the first speck of physical matter come into existence. As further aeons passed, it saw the first stars blossom, and eventually it made contact with an intelligent species, only to see the species devolve into savagery, gradually becoming less sentient until all that was left was primordial ooze. When the same happened to the next Minds that the entity encountered, it concluded that this bizarre infection was built into the nature of the Universe, and, fearing that it would be alone for all of eternity, it tried to warn species of the danger they faced. When they failed to respond to the threat, the desperate entity tried to force them to do so by presenting them more immediate dangers. The first species it destroyed was the Iarcho, and many more followed until it finally learned the truth from the Time Lords: it perceives Time backwards, and has been witnessing evolution and progress in reverse. Unable to correct its past (or rather future) mistakes, the entity accepts that it has performed monstrous acts for which it can never atone, and accepts that it will spend the rest of its long life alone until it dies at the beginning of the Universe. But when this finally occurs, the entity discovers that this Universe is just one of many, separated by dimensional membranes that occasionally collide and interact, creating new Universes and new Minds whenever they touch. The entity is at peace, knowing that its long periods of loneliness are merely a phase that will be interspersed with moments of brief and intimate contact with other Minds.
Characters
References
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Notes
- The Doctor, in an unspecified incarnation, is working with the Time Lords as they interview a creature that goes through time backwards. This is either the First Doctor (before the events of An Unearthly Child), the Second Doctor (following the events of The War Games) or a future incarnation of the Doctor back on Gallifrey.
Continuity
- The Doctor would later meet another entity which experiences time in reverse in COMIC: Room with a Deja View. The Doctor, along with his grandchildren, would experience time in reverse himself in COMIC: Time in Reverse.
- From Eternity occurs before PROSE: Lungbarrow (flashback).
- From Eternity (not counting flashbacks) occurs before PROSE: The Longest Story in the World.
External links
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