'His telepathy!' Peri exclaimed. 'He can order someone outside to destroy the relay.' Kevin looked nervously at the cylinder, and just as nervously at his companions. Fortunately for the Doctor, Peri had provided a point upon which he could vent his feelings. He turned on the poor girl savagely.
'You know nothing about time, Peri. Nothing. I've just told you — he's trapped in an endless loop. The eternal circle. No beginning, no end. The Law which applies to all Universes. His thoughts will just go round and round, trapping him, holding him, echoing all around him for the rest of time... it's... loath-some...' he sagged against the wall, overcome by the dreadful fate he'd condemned the Toymaker to, a fate which the Doctor, the Time Lord, could appreciate only too well. Peri touched his arm gently.
'When I screamed, I saw a bright picture in my head—a picture of a burning giant, a monster, an unstoppable monster. Wouldn't that have gone on forever too?'
'When you screamed, you flooded his mind,' explained the Doctor almost absently. 'The Mechanic rigged up a mental broadcast transmitter on the same wavelength as the holo-field he used for our prison — it reversed the flow of his thoughts for a split second, and you must have caught the backwash.'
'And the monster I saw would have rampaged over the whole Earth?'
'It certainly would. That and thousands like it, all generated by anyone losing at the Toymaker's latest game. That was his Great Work,' he finished, bitterly.
'Then you had no choice,' she said, gently.
'But don't you see, Peri? I know exactly what it would be like, the endless unbroken stream of time... nothing but time...' The Time Lord seemed to sink into melancholia, into his own cosmic angst.
Peri decided a practical problem needed a practical solution. 'Well,' she started, brightly, 'we can't just leave him where he is, cluttering up Blackpool for the rest of eternity. We'll get back to the TARDIS and you can use the transdimensional stabilizer to whisk him off to somewhere he won't be noticed. Then you can ferry our friends downstairs back to where they came from.'
'What d'you think I am,' he spluttered, 'a cosmic taxi service?'
Before she could form a suitable reply, the breath caught in her throat. Along the gloomy corridor a figure shambled towards them, not quite humanoid, not quite alien, its face seemingly composed of a single, gaping, cavernous hole.
'There's a helluva racket goin' on,' the figure yawned. 'I'm trying to get some kip in —'
'Geoff!' exclaimed Kevin.
'Hello, Kev,' said the missing brother amiably. 'What are you doing here? D'you know the time?' By way of a reply, Kevin caught him in a gigantic bear-hug, which, from the look on Geoff's face, was not the usual reaction he provoked in his elder brother.
'Shall we leave Romulus and Remus to sort things out?' muttered the Doctor to Peri. She nodded her agreement, and they both made their way to the door at the far end of the corridor.
'Kevin,' he called back as he was about to go through the door, 'somewhere in here you'll find the patents for all those machines — except one, that is — they're yours as much as anyone's. Should be worth quite a bit of money. Why don't you use it to close down the Toymaker's factory? The term "takeover" seems very apt under the circumstances..
'I've always fancied setting up on me own, like,' replied Kevin, suddenly transformed into a pillar of the commercial establishment.
'Take my tip,' grinned the Doctor, 'always start at the top if you can.'
'Ta,' said Kevin, 'See you —' But the Doctor and his companion were gone.
'You know,' said Geoff to his brother, confidentially, 'in the couple of days I've been here, I've seen more oddballs —'
'Coupla days?' asked Kevin.
'Yeah.' Geoff continued in the same confidential tone of voice. 'You get so you don't ask any daft questions, Kev. Know what I mean?'
The Doctor, the spring back in his step, strode down the corridor, Peri struggling to keep up. He made straight for a door off to the right, half hidden by a curtain. Peri stopped at another corridor leading off the the left.
'Where are you going?' she called. 'This is the way out.'
The mischievous gleam in his eye matched the smile as he replied, 'But this is the way back to the funfair... coming?'
Peri hesitated for only a moment and then, with a grin, hurried after him.
DOCTOR WHO - THE NIGHTMARE FAIR Page 13