Eternity (short story)

Eternity was the sixteenth short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: Steel Skies. It was written by Jonathan Blum. It featured the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith.

Summary
The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith are travelling to Geshtinanna, a world of historical importance; however, Sarah is astonished to learn that their journey will take nine weeks.

At first she and the Doctor amuse themselves exploring the limitless confines of the TARDIS, looking through its countless rooms and contents. But after forty-three days of travelling the ship’s corridors, planning her science-fiction book and listening to the Doctor’s stories, Sarah becomes bored to the point of tears, and even the Doctor has grown tired and listless.

It seems that the journey will never end, until they notice that the clocks aboard the ship have all stopped; the Doctor then detects the remains of another TARDIS adrift in the Vortex. It has become trapped there because its original owner made a mistake in locking in his course. The Doctor now fears that the same thing has happened to his TARDIS, and that he and Sarah are trapped in the Vortex for eternity. Unable to change the TARDIS’s set course, the two travellers have no option but to wait out the nine weeks until their intended point of dematerialisation.

After weeks of doing nothing, Sarah snaps and yells at the Doctor. He comforts her. The day of materialisation arrives, and they cross their fingers. With relief, they materialise, and the Doctor realises that the clocks in the TARDIS stopped as a mark of their ship’s respect to a fallen comrade. Ironically, when the TARDIS finally materialises on a jungle planet, the Doctor and Sarah discover that they are light years off course, and nowhere near Geshtinanna at all.

Characters

 * Fourth Doctor
 * Sarah Jane Smith

Continuity

 * The Doctor tells Sarah Jane that he was involved with the events surrounding Grigori Rasputin's death in St. Petersburg in December 1916. (PROSE: The Wages of Sin)
 * The Doctor and Sarah drink in the TARDIS pub. (PROSE: House)