Jo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when the package was finally unwrapped. Sergeant Benton had drawn the short straw when the huge package had arrived at UNIT reception – all the porters had mysteriously vanished and an attached note had declared “For the URGENT attention of the Doctor”. Jo had arrived for duty as Benton had heaved the evidently heavy package in the direction of the Doctor’s laboratory. An offer to help had been politely declined. For all his build and the fact that he could look quite menacing, Benton was a perfect gentleman. All that had remained was for Jo to open the doors en route.
As usual, the Doctor was intent on some experiment in his laboratory and didn’t notice Benton’s struggle until long after the package had been placed on a workbench. It wasn’t until Jo started making a pot of tea, as a reward for Benton’s efforts, that the Doctor even began to take interest in his surroundings.
‘Thank you very much, Jo,’ the Doctor reached for the mug of tea just as she was about to hand it over to Benton. A resigned sigh from Benton finally prompted the Doctor to note the sergeant’s presence.
‘A package arrived for you, Doctor, all the way from America.’
Taking a deep gulp of the tea, the Doctor looked at over the large package and thanked Benton for bringing it up. Benton was about to leave but Jo quickly stopped him, ‘You deserve a cup of tea, sergeant, don’t you agree, Doctor?’
If the Doctor detected any admonition in Jo’s voice he gave no indication. All his attention seemed to be on the delivery notice that had been attached to the package.
‘Its from the office of Bill Filer.’
Jo recalled the FBI agent who had come over to England a few months back to find out more about the latest addition to the FBI’s list of most wanted international criminals. Was this package some weapon left behind by the Master, some device that would threaten the world, leaving the Earth a wasted cinder drifting through space?
‘You mean I’ve been lugging a window around?’ Benton moaned with resigned annoyance.
The Doctor had put the letter down and had then opened the package using his sonic screwdriver. A panel had fallen away, giving a preview of the contents. Sure enough, it seemed to be nothing more than a window. An ordinary pane of glass in a frame, all it needed was a room.
‘It could be a work of art,’ quipped Jo just as the Brigadier entered the laboratory.
‘Ah, there you are Benton, Captain Yates needs you down in the ordinance section.’
No cup of tea concluded Benton and he returned Jo’s sympathetic smile.
By now, the window had been completely freed from its package. The Brigadier, predictably remarked on its presence, ‘What are you doing with a window, Doctor?’
‘The FBI sent it over, Bill Filer and August Boorman came across a case about a haunted house, except that the occupants and a paranormal investigator all declared that it was just this one window.’
‘A haunted window?’ Jo had long ago ceased to be surprised by anything that happened around the Doctor, but even this seemed far-fetched.
As usual, the Brigadier was having none of this nonsense; ‘I’ve never heard such rubbish in all my life, probably a trick of the light.’
‘Therein lies the mystery; the image could only be seen at certain times of day. Luckily the owner of the house chose not to destroy the window and instead asked a friend of a friend to investigate. According to this letter, they were able to determine that light of a particular wavelength triggered the image. Unfortunately they could not commit their resources for a fuller study.’
‘So they sent it here, remind me to advise our liaisons about what we do here exactly,’ it was evident that the Brigadier was none too pleased, ‘In the meantime, Doctor, I need to speak to you about this other matter.’
As the Doctor and the Brigadier began their discussion, Jo stared at the window. Filer’s note had been left on the Doctor’s workbench; Jo picked it up and read through it. There was no other information, at least nothing that made sense to Jo, contained in the letter other than that imparted by the Doctor. The window itself simply sat on the workbench, balanced carefully on the base of its container, looking like any other window. If Jo had walked down to one of those DIY stores in the high street she would have found windows just like it.
A mundane morning passed followed by a mundane afternoon. The Doctor carried out various tasks simultaneously, an experiment bubbled away in one corner, a device analysed various objects in another. The TARDIS dematerialisation circuit occupied the bulk of the Doctor’s attention, the window seemed to have been forgotten. Even Jo began to accept its presence and carried out her usual duties: contacting supply depots on behalf of the Doctor; liasing with the bursar’s office; discussing administrative matters with Captain Yates; and occasionally talking to the Doctor about anything and everything.
Finally it was time for Jo to return to her flat, the Doctor still sat at his workbench making minor adjustments to the dematerialisation circuit and it was only then, as she bid goodbye that she recalled the window.
‘Watch out for the ghosts, Doctor.’
If she had expected a half-hearted acknowledgement from the Doctor, Jo was in for a surprise.
‘There are no such things as ghosts, Jo. Surely your must have learnt enough from me to know that everything has a scientific explanation. My first impression from this letter is that the window is acting like a holograph – somehow an image has been stored in the glass and under certain lighting conditions the image can be seen. I’m surprised that the FBI even bothered to send it to us, current holographic technology probably produces better, more durable images.’
‘I see,’ it was the end of the day and Jo did not want a lecture on holographic principles or lighting conditions. She was tired and just wanted a drink of tea from her own cup, sitting on her own sofa in her own home. Simply adding another good night, Jo left the Doctor’s laboratory and it was not long before she was sitting on her sofa enjoying a cup of tea and a biscuit.
Above her the sky was a deep blue, around her there were hills banded with varied colours from deep reds through purples to a dull yellow. The air was hot and the soil beneath Jo’s feet was like dust. A short cry sounded but she could not place the direction. Looking around her, Jo saw more of this strange desert. As she put her foot forward the desert vanished and now she stood upon a path, which wound down into some vast canyon. Walls of rock rose up around her, some parts of the rock glinted like gold but she knew that it was simply the way the sun caught those rocks.
Further down the trail a group of people could be seen moving deeper into the canyon. Jo called out and her voice echoed around her. If the people below heard her there was nothing to show that they were responding. A minute passed and it was clear that the group were continuing their journey. Once again, as she put her foot forward simply to walk along the path, Jo found herself instantly relocated to a different setting. Now she stood among a grove of trees surrounded by a small group of people going about their lives as if her sudden appearance had never happened.
Some of the people talked among one another; others sorted through tools and articles of clothing lying on the ground; children played and there was laughter in the air. A woman nodded at Jo and walked past her to a stream. As she knelt down to fill the skins she was carrying with water everything changed. The stream became a trickle and the sky above darkened. The woman was now standing, looking at Jo. Again the landscape had changed and they were standing on the shore of some great lake, the people all sitting in boats. The woman stood in front of Jo and held out her fist. Jo responded by holding out her own hand, palm up, under the first. Now the woman opened her fist and let a smooth thumb sized stone drop into Jo’s hand.
‘Bring us home,’ she said and moved past Jo towards the boat. A strange ringing sound could be heard and then Jo woke up in her bed. Seven in the morning, she groaned, time to get up. All memory of the dream was beginning to fade but Jo was left with the impression that she needed to do something. The thought continued to nag at her as she prepared her breakfast. For a minute she stared at a slice of toast as if it held the answer to a question she could not even remember.
Only when Jo picked up her keys did she spot an object sitting on her living room table. It was a simple, polished stone and she recalled the stopover in Arizona nearly a year before when she had been given it as a gift. It had sat on her table for so long that she had forgotten about it, but now she felt the urge to bring it with her. Popping it into her purse, Jo quickly exited the flat and began what she always told her friends was another day at the office. Had she told them some of the things that had actually happened to her they would either politely laugh at her or recommend a good psychiatrist.
As per usual, the Doctor was working away in his laboratory as if he had been there the whole night. The window was still sitting on the workbench but now a jumble of various pieces of equipment had been set up around it.
‘Did you see the ghost last night then?’ Jo nodded at the window. The Doctor looked up from the small device he had been studying and glanced at the window.
‘Good morning, Jo, no I didn’t see anything last night, but then I wasn’t looking for anything. I’ve bombarded this window with different spectral wavelengths to see what would happen. I deliberately chose not to use the wavelength which allegedly triggers the image.’
‘Any particular reason?’ Jo shook off her coat and hung it on the coat stand by the door.
‘Partly to confirm my own theories, partly because I knew you would want to be here when I tried to see the image.’ The Doctor put down the device he had been holding and walked towards his workbench. Under Jo’s watchful gaze, the Doctor adjusted settings on the dials around the equipment. A narrow beam of light shot out from the equipment to the window. Nothing happened and Jo sighed, ‘Wrong frequency?’
‘It takes time, Jo; the molecules have to absorb sufficient energy before they can replay the image that seems to be recorded on them. What amazes me is that the image has been retained at all. You know what the prime component of glass is, don’t you?’
‘Sand? Are you trying to say that somehow sand recorded an image and when the sand was made into glass the glass kept the recorded image?’
Nodding, the Doctor took a reading from a panel and made a fine adjustment to one of the controls. There was no noticeable change in the strength of the beam but Jo noticed that the window now seemed to be changing. Rather than a view of the laboratory she was now seeing something that looked like a reflection, but a reflection of something that was not there. She wanted to turn her head to look at the image being reflected but knew that what she was seeing was only appearing in the glass.
‘The silicon molecule is very versatile, I’ve encountered the odd silicon based life form that is able to recreate itself as a result of those memory properties. So much sand on Earth and the human race fails to comprehend its full value.’
Jo could tell that the Doctor was about to start on a lecture so she quickly drew his attention back to the window, ‘Is it a single image?’
The image was much clearer now but still had the appearance of a reflection. In alerting the Doctor to the image, Jo was now drawn to it herself but for an entirely different reason. Curiosity had given way to puzzlement, the image reminded her of something but what?
This time she gave way to instinct and looked behind her but all she saw was the laboratory, there certainly wasn’t anything resembling the image in the window. Turning back to look at the window Jo felt frustrated as the feeling intensified that this meant something. A group of people, perhaps around fifty or so were walking along a dusty path. Although she could not make out any facial detail, Jo imagined that she could see their weariness. As the group continued their journey the numbers seemed to diminish but she could not see what happened to those who left the group. Finally only three people remained, clearly a small family – a man, a woman and a child.
A tear welled up in Jo’s eye as she watched the woman fade from sight, only the man and the child remained and they continued walking along the trail that never seemed to end. The two walkers stopped and the man knelt down so that he stood face to face with the child. The image seemed to close in on the duo and Jo could see that the man was passing something to the child, and then the man vanished. Alone, the child stood for a few seconds and then continued to walk along the path. As he walked, the child became a man, the man grew older and the image seemed to focus on the old face. Ancient eyes stared sadly out of the window and the mouth uttered a silent word. With that one word the image faded and the window seemed liked an ordinary window again.
‘Are you all right, Jo?’ The Doctor had noticed the tears in Jo’s eyes, he had found the image quite moving himself realising that it was a representation of a people’s extinction. The Native American features of the old man implied that it was probably one of those tribes that had died out. Following that line of reasoning the representation told of a people who had travelled around and had died out. Perhaps their food and water had run out, perhaps it had been disease, perhaps a combination of these factors.
‘I’m fine, thank you, really I’m fine. It reminded me of something, a dream I had a last night.’ Jo could now recall vague details of her dream, specifically the notion of people on a journey. She explained what she could remember and even as the Doctor listened, Jo began to recall other details. With a burst of enthusiasm she reminded the Doctor of their visit to Arizona.
‘We watched a stone dance, that was something similar – somehow an image was recorded in the stones and the old man could play them back!’
Jo located her purse, opened it and produced the stone the old man had given her all those months ago. Intrigued, the Doctor took it from her and then searched around for something to place it on. As Jo watched, the Doctor picked up a stand and a piece of gauze. He placed them together in front of the window and then popped the stone on top. Once again he activated the device and a narrow beam of light shot out onto the stone.
Nothing happened, the Doctor and Jo waited for about five minutes but there was no image. Turning off the device the Doctor theorised, ‘Somehow the Diné found a way to store images in stone, to record events which they could replay during special dances. They knew how to make the molecules store or show the recorded information. I can only imagine that during some disaster one tribe died out or their stones became lost. Along the line some of these stones have been ground into sand and used in glass making. Once transformed into glass the means by which the image can be played back changes. There could be other windows out there.’
‘What we saw in the window, was that something that actually happened? It was terrible, whatever it was.’
The Doctor made a quick check of the equipment and told Jo that the image had been recorded, ‘I want to see if I can find out what the man was saying at the end. It shouldn’t be too difficult, but I don’t want to upset you – I’m sure that Mike Yates would appreciate your company for an hour or two.’
Jo appreciated the Doctor’s sensitivity and for a moment she was tempted to do as he advised. She liked Mike Yates and sometimes it was nice to talk to another human being about the mundane things of the world, about what was climbing the charts, the price of beer and that nice new club that had opened on Barton Road. Except, she could do that any time, this was something else entirely – a once in a lifetime opportunity.
‘I’ll stay, thank you.’
For the next hour or so, Jo watched the image again and again. Each time it was just as moving, each time the Doctor would halt the final image for a minute or so and loop it. Finally he had managed to find out what the man was saying and translate it.
‘According to the TARDIS translation systems he utters a single phrase. It can mean two things – continue the circle or,’ he paused, trying to imagine the thoughts that had passed through the mind of the man who had stored that final image.
‘Or?’ Jo prompted the Doctor.
‘Remember.’
Although a 3rd Part, entitled Memorial, was written it was withdrawn for various reasons. The hope is that a revised and improved 3rd part will appear soon.