The Tip of the Mind (short story)
The Tip of the Mind was the first short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: Companions. It was written by Peter Anghelides. It featured the Third Doctor and Zoe Heriot.
Summary
Dr Sandra Urtiman is the team leader of the UrtiCorp Project at station XZ49. She is very proud of her team and her accomplishments. None of her staff has been poached for the last six years.
One of her team members, Zoe Heriot, has been having strange dreams. She also has been unable to finish any of her projects or turn her ideas into finished work. One day Sandra is upset to find a visiting academic named Dr John Smith has been talking to Zoe. Sandra is worried that he is trying to steal ideas from Zoe. She tries to keep him from Zoe but he goes over her head and talks to Director Sheerstock.
The Doctor thinks the Time Lords have sent him here as a way of apologising for taking his memory of the TARDIS' controls away while still saving face. He thinks she can help him regain his knowledge of the dematerialisation codes, despite her memories of him being taken away by the Time Lords.
Sheerstock has told the Doctor to offer Zoe a job, and Sandra follows the Doctor in a panic to his TARDIS. There he explains that he just wants her help, but he has to be careful because the sudden return of her memories could cause her to lose them completely.
Sandra, still not trusting the Doctor, brings Zoe to him at the TARDIS. When Zoe sees the TARDIS, she collapses, and what's left of her memories of the Doctor are gone.
The Doctor realises that the Time Lords sent him here, not to get the codes from Zoe, but to make sure she forgets them.
Characters
- Third Doctor
- Zoe Heriot
- Professor Akermore
- Ansum
- Assistant Director Bosmial
- Markalow
- Dr Sandra Urtiman
- Director Benedict Sheerstock
- Tobik
- Xafta
Worldbuilding
- The Doctor uses the alias John Smith.
- The Doctor tells Sandra that he was sent by the Gallifrey Institute.
- Zoe and the Doctor discuss the Hostile Action Displacement System.
Notes
to be added
Continuity
- Dr Smith reminds Zoe of a doctor she met on the Wheel. (TV: The Wheel in Space)
- Zoe tells Sandra that "logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority." (TV: The Wheel in Space)
