The Broken Link

The Tardis is still bucking, and Martha is hanging on to the console, "But how do you travel in time? What makes it go?"

"Oh, let's take the fun and mystery out of everything. Martha, you don't want to know. It just does. Hold on tight."

The Tardis comes to a halt, and Martha falls to the floor, "Blimey. Do you have to pass a test to fly this thing?"

The Doctor rushed to the door, grabbing his coat, "Yes, and I failed it. Now, make the most of it. I promised you one trip, and one trip only. Outside this door, brave new world."

"Where are we?"

"Take a look. After you." He held the door out and Thema ran out first, still disguised as a 10 year old.

She looked at the washing hanging on lines below the overhanging eaves, scruffy urchins running around. She took a deep breath, and gagged.

Martha quickly joined her outside, "Oh, you are kidding me. You are so kidding me. Oh, my God, we did it. We travelled in time. Where are we? No, sorry. I got to get used to this whole new language. When are we?"

"Mind out." He pulls the girls back as a man empties his slop bucket from an upstairs window. "Somewhere before the invention of the toilet. Sorry about that."

"I've seen worse. I've worked the late night shift A+E." Martha then seemed to have a revelation, "But are we safe? I mean, can we move around and stuff?"

"Of course we can. Why do you ask?"

"It's like in the films. You step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race."

"I don't know what a film is," Thema looked over at her, "but to avoid that, don't step on any butterflies. What have butterflies ever done to you?"

"What if, I don't know, what if I kill my grandfather?"

"Why would you?" Thema asked and the Doctor nodded along.

"And this is London?"

"I think so. Round about 1599." The Doctor shrugged.

Martha hugged herself, "Oh, but hold on. Am I all right? I'm not going to get carted off as a slave, am I?"

Thema tilted her head, "Why would they do that?"

"Not exactly white, in case you haven't noticed."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

The Doctor stated his anwser slightly louder than needed, as he didn't want to explain that to Thema, "I'm not even human. Just walk about like you own the place. Works for me. Besides, you'd be surprised. Elizabethan England, not so different from your time. Look over there. They've got recycling." A man shovels horse manure into a bucket.

"Water cooler moment." Two men talking at a water barrel.

"And the world will be consumed by flame." A man seemed to yell at the most convenient time.

"Global warming. Oh, yes, and entertainment. Popular entertainment for the masses. If I'm right, we're just down the river by Southwark, right next to-" The Doctor gets Martha to run along from the south end of old London Bridge, past St Mary Ovarie - Southwark Cathedral - to a view of- "Oh, yes, the Globe Theater! Brand new. Just opened. Through, strictly speaking, it's not a globe, it's a tetra-decagon. Fourteen sides. Containing the man himself."

"Whoa, you don't mean. Is Shakespeare in there?"

Thema jumped up and down, "My mum told me about him, his stories travelled across the stars when the humans did."