The Steward's Story (short story)

The Steward's Story was the fifteenth short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: Repercussions. It was written by Mark Michalowski. It featured the Second Doctor.

Summary
Nehra, a magician for a maharaja, feels threatened when another magician shows up with his blue box. Nehra tries to find out what he can about the magician. He uses spells to examine the blue box and is shocked to see the Earth surrounded by threads. He deduces that the magician is trying to destroy the Earth with these threads. Nehra calls up an "asura", or demon. However, the demon he calls up, Vishathra, isn't very bright.

After Nehra explains to the demon what he will do, the magician, who calls himself "the Doctor", enters and tricks Vishathra into cutting his own thread. Vishathra disappears. The Doctor then explains to Nehra that the threads are part of the Web of time. Snipping even one or two threads will unravel all of causality.

Nehra wants to make amends, so the Doctor places him in charge of the airship that takes certain people to the time vortex.

Characters

 * Second Doctor
 * Nehra
 * Vishathra
 * Third Doctor
 * Charley Pollard

Worldbuilding

 * The story leads directly from The Diplomat's Story, and into The Tramp's Story

Continuity

 * The Doctor claims Albert Einstein was a work colleague and that he was wrong about many things. He later meets Einstein again in his seventh (TV: Time and the Rani) and eleventh incarnations. (TV: A Christmas Carol, "Death Is the Only Answer")