the unreal upon plarrion

Plarrion: A small, unassuming planet that spent ninety-nine percent of its year in a blooming equivalent of the Earth's spring, early summer. If anyone had a list of planets they wanted to holiday, live or rent out seaside villas on, Plarrion would be top of the list. The most interesting fact was that it was ( or seemed ) totally deserted. The only inhabitants were the tall Bayybol trees and the small blue Dainave birds - although on this particular day, three other 'objects' had mysteriously appeared.

Two of the objects were humanoid, one a tall man with a mass of seething curly hair, a jacket that looked like a mad creation of the Seven Planets Tailors Assoc. ( est. 2032 ). A pair of yellow and black stripped trousers completed this parody of good clothes, along with a large, multi-coloured umbrella, under which this figure sat, enticing Dainave birds with small crumbs from a large chocolate cake.

The second figure was a young girl, possibly in her early twenties. She wore a psychedelic stained top and a pair of cyan shorts. Her body was laid back on the green rug deposited on the orange grass. She was asleep.

The third 'object' stood as thou forgotten - a tall battered Police Box from twentieth century Earth, a facade that held the key to the unlocked powers of time travel and unlimited wealth of knowledge. The TARDIS.

The enormous sun suddenly made a run for it and dived behind a fortress of clouds. Peri ( that was the small girl's name ) sat bolt upright and stared accusingly at the sky.

'Thanks a bunch!' she shouted at the clouds and reached for the cake. All she got was a slap on the hand from the Doctor, ( the curly haired gent with the foul trousers ). 'What was that for?' she asked as politely as possible, obviously peeved.

'Reason number one,' the Doctor said, 'is you'll get fat...sorry, fatter and secondly, this is not fit for human consumption. Or Time Lord consumption come to that. It's been in the fridge since our slap-up binge on Tralavioss and it's starting to get hard.' He rapped his knuckles on the hardening cake to show his point. 'Anyway,' he continued, 'those little blue birds seem to like it.' He threw a handful of crumbs down to show a second point.

Peri wasn't listening. 'Doctor,' she whispered and pointed in the direction at which she waslooking at for the Doctor's benefit.

About half a mile away, cruising steadily over the flat surface of the Plain was a small two man hover-car and it was coming towards them. Peri's look of concern changed to a look of amazement as the Doctor jumped up and started a brisk jog down towards the car. Peri breathed a deep sigh and started off after the Doctor.

~~~

The planet Earth: Some of its year would be considered very much like Plarrion's although the Earth had one major drawback - People. Millions and millions of people - some unbelievably rich, some disgustingly poor, some starving, some trying to kill each other. Apart form that, it wasn't a bad place to live except in a small town in Surrey on one particular night.

The small village was cut off from everywhere- hidden in a maze of twisting turning country lanes. One house was even cut off more than the actual village. The large house was situated on the far side of the Dunns Wood, thus making the house a good two miles from known civilisation. The Wood you see, was a thick mass of trees - almost in passable for any living creature, except the odd rabbit ( but no Dainave birds ).

The large house in the woods was occupied by three people. One was a man around forty to forty-five years old. His name was Harry Solem and his profession was as a model-maker. Cigarette packets built ten times their actual size for adverts, small and delicate spacecraft and towns and, of course, the work in which Harry prided himself - figures.

He had had to make several full size human figures for a film once - when the main actor was killed and the body was seen for a lot of the film, one of Harry's figures was used - it seemed a good way to help the film companies save their limited budgets. Harry's work of art  were always returned to him and he would display them in his workshop that was situated at the bottom of his house, near Dunns Wood.

This was where Harry sat now. There was very little work to be done at the moment and like his friends, he too was beginning to feel the pinch. His wife had died two years since and he had to struggle through life with his two children. Both would be starting secondary school soon - both would need new uniforms.

Resignedly, he walked over to the small window and a glow of light caught his eye. 'Probably just a car,' he thought until all hell broke loose. Small pieces of light were actually falling to the ground with unearthly noises accompanying them. After the tenth had hit the ground the noises finished as abruptly as it had started.

Harry walked to the door and ventured out.

The pitch dark night was illuminated by ten football-sized lumps of glowing mass. He glanced at the house and noticed that all seemed quiet. 'Good,' he thought, 'It didn't wake John or Rachel.' Cautiously, he edged towards the meteors ( for that was what he had established they were ). He reached out to touch one and withdrew his hand with a yelp of searing pain. They were red hot! They all were! He turned and ran back to the workshop and ran straight back out again in double quick time carrying an old coal shovel and a steel bucket.

Carefully, he lifted the meteor with the spade and deposited it in the bucket. He then went back inside. The ball sat and glowed at Harry as he prodded it with an old stick. Without warning, the stick vaporised with a loud 'vrooood!' Harry sat back to contemplate his find - and he found himself mesmerised by the sphere

His body stiffened, any trace of fear now gone. He grasped the sphere in both hands, without the slightest trace of pain registering on his now blank face. He cocked his head, as though straining to hear something. He then put the sphere on a piece of old  fire wood, and uttered, almost inaudibly 'I understand your orders.' and walked over to his figures in the dark glass display cases.

~~~

The hover car stopped and two men stepped out: one, a tall man, wearing standard Galac-Fed uniform, had a name tag clipped to his top. The name 'Kleinarr' was punched into the plastic as was several alien figures as well as the Galac-Fed symbol. The second man, also tall but slightly podgier wore a similar uniform, but a name tag was not in evidence.

Both of them gave Peri the creeps as she and the Doctor slowed their mid-morning jog and stood by the car. The Doctor smiled and broke the silence:

'Good morning, gentlemen, can I be of any service to you?' The Doctor looked hopefully from one to the other and said, 'Oh do forgive me - I'm the Doctor and this is my assistant, Peri.'

Peri noticed that on the mention of the Doctor's name, the one called Kleinarr stiffened and what may be described as a smile spread over his face.

'We monitored your arrival,' Kleinarr said, 'and yes, we would be grateful for your help. My name is Kleinarr and this is my assistant, Garrisonne. As you can tell from our uniforms, we are Galactic Federal Officers. Our ship crashed several days ago and all we have is this hovercar. We are on the trail of a war criminal, an escapee from the Napos penal colony. Our instruments went hay-wire and we got thrown forwards in time and crashed here. As far as we can make out, we are in the eighty-fifth century.'

The Doctor nodded vigorously. 'Yes,' he replied, 'that sounds about right. Where do you want to go and in what period?'

Garrisonne replied as Kleinarr vanished into the hover car. 'Twentieth century - on the planet Earth.'

The Doctor stood still as a wave of shock washed over him. 'A war criminal? On twentieth century Earth? These men obviously want a lift to Earth,' thought the Doctor, 'and the sooner the better. Can't have war criminals running around on ones second favourite planet, can one?'

The Doctor turned back to Garrisonne and said, 'I presume you want a lift?'

Kleinarr emerged and replied, 'Yes please, Doctor. Our instruments told us you were in possession of a TARDIS. Your help will be a great help to the Galac-Fed.'

The Doctor turned and started walking back to up the TARDIS. 'If you want a lift, the TARDIS is waiting.' he called over his shoulder. Peri, until then ignored, ran up to the Doctor.

'Are you crazy?' she said, 'There is something spooky about those two!' The Doctor turned to her.

'I can't take the risk, especially not when the Earth maybe in danger.' He entered the TARDIS, Peri on his heels.

Meanwhile, at the hover car, Kleinarr and Garrisonne's actions would have been enough to confirm Peri's fears. Kleinarr was putting a thermo detonator in his pocket and Garrisonne was loading a small, yet powerful gun. Their mission would not fail.

~~~

Harry Solem's hand bled. It bled a lot. But then, wouldn't yours if you had just punched your fist through a glass display case? The pain didn't register in Harry's mind as his hand pushed away shards of glass from the inert figures he had made. He lifted the light weight figures from the remnants of his case and propped them up against his work bench.

All four of them had blank faces and wore rudimentary clothes and each one of them was slightly moving. Harry was working with his fibreglass resin - he had another two figures to make before the night was out.

~~~

Rather surprisingly Peri thought, Kleinarr and Garrisonne hadn't commented on the size of the TARDIS on the inside. But who cared? She hadn't managed to dissuade the Doctor from giving these two weirdoes a lift, so she just had to grin and bear it.

'Has either of you two gents got the necessary co-ordinates?' the Doctor queried as he set the TARDIS in hover mode over Plarrion. Garrisonne reached into his tunic and produced a plastic wallet, from which he withdrew a sheet of crumpled paper.

The Doctor then punched in the co-ordinates for Earth, followed by the co-ordinates the Galac-Fed Officer had given him. Five minutes later, the TARDIS materialised in the middle of Dunne Wood.

The TARDIS doors swung open inwards and the Doctor strode out, followed by Peri and the two Officers. Peri saw her chance and walked up to the Doctor. Keeping her voice to a minimum she whispered, 'Look at Garrisonne's face!'