The Doctor is In

Work is going well on the ETC, I had checked on the chaps and chapesses around the Guvnahs mansion (leaving a cunningly transformed Terry with a close eye on group of rather 'enthusiastic' weasels), and I decided to take a break onto a small personal project.

I was ensconced in the Mayfair Studio until the wee small hours, changing my Panoptikon to a Eidoloscope. This is a simple but delicate task, adding a basic intermittent mechanism to keep the two-inch film moved continuously during showing and improve the reliability of frame rate.

Being a glass house (for the excellent coastal light it provides), the studio affords a splendid outlook. Eventually, my attention was unavoidably drawn to the road outside where Miss Kelley had been walking backward and forwards for sometime, seemingly reciting dialogue and practising a cough. Having my hands full I allowed her to continue a while, I have no desire to become embroiled in amateur dramatics, and eventually she approached the door.

It's always nice to see her. She is a ray of sunshine. But this evening she came with grave news.

For sometime now Zealot has referred to me as Doctor Sputnik. I have no idea why. I do hold several doctorates, and a professorship or two, but they are from the Academy on Gallifrey and if Zealot knew about them I'd be worried indeed. Not that Zealot doesn't worry me I hasten to add.

Young Miss Kelly had taken this title to be literal, and was in search of a medical practitioner. It appears 'our mutual friend' is not fairing well by her treatment under capture.

I wasn't the sharpest tool in the old woodshed when at The Academy, not by the standards of my peers, but a distinction in Micro Cellular Biology I did mange to scrape and I can slap on a trauma bandage with the best of them. When we first arrived here I resolved to keep myself and Terry healthy with a regular dose of panacea to keep out the diseases of the Victorian age. Nothing is infallible, I have heard of some nasty viral stuff called 'grey goo' on the mainland that I have yet to examine, but it's a start. Typhoid, tuberculosis, smallpox, cholera, the sniffles, hayfever, even syphilis (god forbid) are all simple stuff to remedy with the power of a time travellers hindsight.

We nipped into the Cabinet and I added some base vitamins, a general restorative of future extraction, some peppermint essence and a slow release food supplement.

Within a few minutes she was on her way over the fences, back across Mayfair to Bardhaven. In the name of the First President I prey nothing bad befalls that girl. She is taking a terrible risk and we are so very powerless to interfere.

I tried to get some sleep but couldn't meditate. Even the Zero Room seemed full of psychic static. Next time I see her, I really must give her a transmat bracelet just in case.