The Inquisitor's Story (short story)

The Inquisitor's Story was the sixth short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: Repercussions. It was written by Shaun Lyon. It featured the Sixth Doctor.

Summary
The Doctor wakes up in a cell. He had been minding his own business in a café on Baspral when he was shot by two Basprali security guards.

In his cell, the Inquisitor questions him, hoping to draw him into admitting his crime. The Doctor states that he had visited Baspral two times previously. The first time was during the Great Cleansing, a time of war and mass executions. The second time he visited Baspral, the planet was beautiful and peaceful. However, he realised that this was before the Great Cleansing, which was still to come in Baspral's history. The Doctor then saw a woman trying to drown a young boy. The Doctor stopped her, and she called him a meddler.

The Doctor realises that this is his "crime" and wonders why saving a child from drowning is an executable offence. He suddenly understands that the boy he saved grew up to be the dictator of the Great Cleansing. The Inquisitor tells the Doctor that the woman, Galena, was a seer and was trying to prevent Baspral's horrible future. He then admits that he was also present at the attempted drowning, and stood by, watching.

The Doctor and the Inquisitor argue for a bit about whether it was right or wrong to save the boy's life. The Doctor even tells the Inquisitor that Baspral under the Great Cleansing had become strong enough that it will eventually be able to withstand a Dalek assault. Finally the Doctor gets the Inquisitor to admit that he feels responsible for his actions during the Great Cleansing, and that he wishes to be executed in the Doctor's place. He gives the Doctor the key to the cell, and the Doctor leaves.

The Doctor does not, however, leave the Inquisitor behind. He rescues him from the cell. Because a guard overheard what the Doctor said about Baspral's future, and because that guard would lead Baspral to a new age, the Doctor must maintain the fiction that the Inquisitor was executed, and takes him to the Time Vortex along with several others who have been removed from their own times.

Characters

 * Sixth Doctor
 * The Inquisitor

Continuity
to be added