Three: The TARDIS, somewhere in time

[Colonel Blood]

The door slams shut and the Doctor Drops sideways through the air in a maelstrom of sound and fury as the massive jet engines of the Boeing roar past the TARDIS's door. He hits the ground as the TARDIS's gravity takes hold, and slides into the main console with a bump. "Ow." In a jiffy he's up and gazing around, a slightly blurry look on his pinched features. "Push that lever! Not that one, that one! No the other one!" He's fiddling with his sonic screwdriver and jabbing it at a display which fizzes and sparks.

[GarrettPLC]

"This is amazing!" The Collector, lying on his back and gazing up at the glowing, shifting temporal vortex of the TARDIS, seemed to have suddenly lost all memory of his near-death experience. "It's just like I remember hearing it last time! Only, it's easier to see, without that bag over my head." A thoughtful tone entered his voice, and he was drawn fully back to the moment when the Doctor began shouting orders.

"Push that lever!"

Scrambling to his feet, the Collector reached for the nearest lev---

"Not that one, that one!"

Yanking his hand back, he went for the next neares---

"No, the OTHER one!"

Stopping, the Collector did a quick look-around to make sure there were only three levers nearby. Then, re-assured, he pushed the last lever.

[Colonel Blood]

The TARDIS makes an electronic 'squelchy' noise. "No no that one!" Screams the Doctor. "I hope you can swim! Get the life jackets! No, no time! Brace brace brace brace!" He squats down on the floor and throws his elegant mac over his head.

[Sarah Jane]

Sarah Jane leaned against a wall, hands on knees, trying to catch her breath. She turned her head away as the Tardis door slammed shut. When she’d finally got her face under control again she straightened up, but the Doctor was already yelling to brace. She grabbed hold of the nearest internal strut, and looked appalled at the bloody smear her hands made across across it.

[Colonel Blood]

The Collector throws himself into one of the pits between the TARDIS walkways and cowers, trembling like a runt kitten. "Only joking," says the Doctor, straightening up and approaching his console.

"We're not about to crash into the ocean as we are in fact in the nexus and able to suffer no worse a fate than being swallowed by a Qart Shark. Although that would be quite bad. But it's never happened yet."

[GarrettPLC]

After a moment, the Collector slowly unfolded himself from his cowering posture (already coming to be a familiar one to Sarah Jane) and clambered back up onto the walkway.

His fascination with the TARDIS having hardly faded, he looked around and cautiously cleared his throat. "Ah---so, uh, Doctor---I like what you've done with the old TARDIS, though I suppose I can't really say if it's changed much...you know, considering. Considering. Uh..."

Still craning his neck to try and take in everything, the Collector backed up a step to get a good look at the Temporal Vortex. "...well, I suppose my thanks are in order---rather neat trick, that, managing to target the airplane so well." The gangly man straightened his shirt before approaching the Doctor and offering his hand to shake, oblivious to the Doctor's current busyness with the TARDIS controls. "Thanks."

[Sarah Jane]

Sarah Jane managed a wry smile at the Doctor’s antics, but it quickly faded.

“Doctor, we… I have to go back� she said sombrely. “I left K9 in the cargo hold. Also, I need to find out why both this gentleman and someone remarkably like the Master are so desperate to obtain the Koh-I-Noor diamond. Desperate enough to kill for it.�

[Colonel Blood]

"Oh K9 can look after himself," muses the Doctor as he continues to make minute and, some might say, unnecessary adjustments to various slides and switches. He pointedly ignores the Collector's hand.

"Why did you steal the Crown Jewels, then?" He asks, though it is more of a muse, and he hardly seems interested in the answer. "Sorry did you say the Master?"

[Sarah Jane]

“I think so,� Sarah Jane replied, “I don’t know any other suave psychopaths who can escape in a Tardis. He wanted the diamond, and described it as ‘unique’. So I’m guessing it’s not just a lump of pretty carbon.�

She wandered up to the console and cornered their univited guest between herself and the Doctor.

“I made a bad mistake today. Over 700 people died for that mistake. I need some answers so that I don’t make any more, and I bet the ‘Collector’ here can help.

“So mister what, exactly, is the Koh-I-Noor and who tipped you off that I might be carrying it?�

[Colonel Blood]

"Oh, only he calls himself the Collector," says the Doctor. "And he'd better stop it because only myself and Madonna are allowed to be mononominous in this particular TARDIS."

[Sarah Jane]

Her eyebrows rose at that throwaway line.

"So...  you guys have met."

[Colonel Blood]

"We certainly have!" Says the Doctor haughtily. "But I'll let our collector tell the tale. Your mother would be ashamed!"

He pauses. "She doesn't know does she?" He sounds a bit nervous himself at this last.

[GarrettPLC]

Trapped between the two apparently old friends, the Collector seems to shrink a little, but surprisingly manages to hold his ground.

"Ah---no, certainly not! Not that she doesn't spend half her time poking her nose into my business." The Collector's expression actually achieves a small amount of determination. "After your little fun, dropping me off on Draconis IV, I told her I'd keep my own adventures private, thank you very much!" The Collector turned to Sarah Jane and added, resignedly, "I had, so to speak, absconded with a number of Torchwood's artifacts, one of which turned out to be some kind of time-space-destroying-virus-containment-thingy---" he fluttered a hand dismissively---"and the Doctor just whooshed right in, grabbed me up and left me on the planet of the man-eating dragons!" The Collector turned back to the Doctor. "And I was stuck there for two weeks before I managed to locate their fabled Temple of Chronus, get past the fire-pits, and lay my hands on the Scepter of Flame. Beautiful thing, priceless, they found it thousands of years ago when a god fell to the ground and died---'course it was really just a spaceship, and the Scepter was little more than an electronic inter-temporal hitchhiker's thumb, but once I had it they made me their chief until some bloke came along and gave me a lift back home." He shrugged, finally taking a pause from his rather rapid tirade. "And the I'm afraid the only other name I have to give is Jeremiah, since that's what Mother calls me---the 'little more' that the Scepter was turned out to be a psychic link that backfired and shorted half my personal memories. So really, to me, I'm just the Collector."

This time the pause was longer, and Jeremiah/the Collector actually looked concerned about something. "And---well, that's likely the problem, isn't it? I've heard of the Koh-i-Noor, but I can't remember why it's important. But it is." He frowned, and glanced between his interrogators. "I think that other gentleman---I don't see how he could have had a TARDIS, if the rumors about the War are true---I think that other gentleman is much more of a problem right now, and most likely knows a lot more than I do."

[Colonel Blood]

"Yes well that's part of the story," says the Doctor enigmatically, before apparently dropping the subject for now. "But I've got both my eyes on you, Jimmy."

He turns to Sarah Jane. "Righto so here I am tracking you through time, expecting to pop up no further from the Greenwhich Meridian than Bournemouth and find you plummeting to certain doom over the Pacific. What gives? Why have you been going around with a diamond in your handbag? And why do you think the Master is back? Which I must say I harbour grave doubts about but you have been out of the loop for a while..."

[Sarah Jane]

Sarah Jane stared back, perplexed.

“For Pete’s sake! Why does everyone assume it’s in my handbag? Of course it wasn’t in my handbag. What is it? And please, do tell me about any other psychopaths with a Tardis.�

She glared at the Collector, “And how did you know that it might be on that plane?�