'Oh nothing very much. I'd like my own TARDIS back for a start. These new machines are soulless, there's no real rapport.'
'Very well. We'll even give her a complete overhaul. We may install a teleport control, but you won't mind that.'
'I shall mind it very much, but I can hardly stop you.'
'We'll give you a Stattenheim remote control as well,'
promised Sardon. 'You've earned the privilege. Anything else?'
'I'd like to choose my own companion this time.'
'After what happened, I can scarcely deny you that. Who would you like?'
'Jamie, I think. He's very good at handling the rough stuff.'
'Oh there won't be any rough stuff on your next mission, Doctor. Purely diplomatic. Still, Jamie by all means if we can find him. We'll have to adjust his memory.'
'And account for whoever he thinks is missing. Let him believe we've dropped off Victoria somewhere for some reason. She wants to learn, oh I don't know...Graphology!
That sounds like Victoria.'
'Very well.'
The Doctor clapped his hands together, beginning to enjoy himself. 'Now, what's this nice peaceful diplomatic mission you've got for me?'
Sardon went over to a monitor screen and punched up a picture of a complex multi-levered structure hanging in space.
'You remember Space Station Camera, Doctor?'
The Doctor came over to join him. 'Good Lord yes. I went to their inauguration ceremony, bearing fraternal greetings from the High Council. That was in my more respectable days, of course. Is old Dastari still their head of projects?'
'Yes indeed, very much so.'
'Brilliant scientist, totally mad.'
'It's the work of two of his scientists we're worried about,'
said Sardon. 'Professors Kartz and Reimer.'
'What are they up to?'
'They've been carrying out some rather dangerous experiments in time travel. We've already registered readings of point four on the Bocker scale.'
'And what do you want me to do about it?'
'Persuade them to stop, if you can. Or, at least, to suspend the experiments while we evaluate their work. We can't be seen to intervene formally, of course. Officially, you'll be an unofficial ambassador. You should enjoy a visit to Camera, Doctor, I hear they've got an excellent chef...'
As Sardon droned on, the Doctor sat down again, feeling reasonably content with the way things were going. There was a painful interview with Serena's family to get through, of course. But his account of her death would make them proud of her. And he'd see that the High Council issued a glowing tribute. It was the least he could do.
For a moment the Doctor was saddened by the memory of Serena.
Then he rallied, trying to cheer himself up. After all, his next mission didn't sound too difficult. Old Dastari would huff and puff, but he'd probably be able to talk him round in the end.
And it would be nice to see Jamie again...
HISTORICAL NOTES.
Napoleon Bonaparte Once he knew that the Battle of Waterloo was lost, Napoleon abandoned the field. A brigade of the Old Guard sacrificed themselves to cover his escape.
He returned to Paris and began telling everyone who would listen that the defeat was not his fault. He had been betrayed by his allies, let down by the incompetence of his marshals. The Chamber of Deputies and Senate were unimpressed and demanded his abdication. On 21st June 1815, Napoleon abdicated for the second time.
He lingered for a while at Malmaison, his country house.
From there he sent a plan to the Provisional Government. If they would give him command of the Army, he would guarantee to defeat the approaching Allied and Prussian forces and save Paris. The offer was turned down.
Napoleon stayed at Malmaison until he heard that a troop of Prussian soldiers was approaching with the firm intention of seizing and shooting him. He decided his future lay in America and set off for the port of Rochefort. But the British Navy was ahead of him, and he decided the best course was to surrender. On 15th July he surrendered to Captain Maitland of HMS Bellepheron Bellepheron, ironically a captured French battleship. (English sailors called her the Billy Ruffian Billy Ruffian.) Napoleon was transferred to HMS Northumberland Northumberland and taken to the prison island of St Helena, a volcanic island 28 and taken to the prison island of St Helena, a volcanic island 28 miles wide, in the South Atlantic. He was allowed a small court and staff who spent most of the time squabbling and later wrote their memoirs. He remained on St Helena, closely guarded until his death from stomach cancer in 1821, six years later. There were rumours that the British had poisoned him. Arsenic in the wallpaper has also been blamed.
The Duke of Wellington The Duke of Wellington stayed on in France for a while and was appointed commander-in-chief of the Allied army of occupation. He was also appointed, somewhat tactlessly, British Ambassador to France.
He took over the enormous house of Pauline, the Princess Borghese, who was Napoleon's sister. He also took over, in succession, two of Napoleon's mistresses.
Wellington returned to London at the end of 1818, loaded with rewards and honours by a grateful Government and a grateful Europe. The Prince Regent gave him a gigantic nude statue of Napoleon by Canova just what he wanted, no doubt.
Eventually, Wellington entered politics, and in 1828 he became Prime Minister. Politics didn't really suit him, however. He was an old-fashioned aristocrat by nature and had no sympathy for growing demands for parliamentary and social reform.
After a lifetime of military command, democratic methods didn't come easily to him. After his first Cabinet meeting as Prime Minister he complained about the odd behaviour of his ministers: 'I gave them their orders, and they wanted to stay and discuss them!'
He resigned two years later in 1830.
In later life Wellington left politics. Though always a powerful and influential figure, he settled down into becoming a national hero and a grand old man.
He lived on into his eighties, dying in 1852, full of years and honours, in the reign of the young Queen Victoria.
Talleyrand Just as you might expect, Talleyrand served in the Provisional Government, which ruled briefly after Napoleon's downfall. At Wellington's suggestion, Talleyrand and Fouche were appointed 'advisers' to Louis XVIII, also known as Louis the Fat, the Bourbon monarch, now restored for the second time. Both were soon ousted, however angry royalists couldn't stomach the wily duo's revolutionary pasts.
Talleyrand assumed that he would soon return to politics.
After all he had helped restore the Bourbons to the throne of France, not once but twice. Surely they couldn't be so ungrateful as to dismiss him entirely? But they could, and they did Talleyrand was forced into unwilling retirement.
He made a comeback some fifteen years later in 1830 during the reign of the new king, Louis-Philippe, and became, of all things, Ambassador to England, where he had a friendly reunion with the Duke of Wellington.
In 1834 he resigned and went into retirement at the age of eighty-two.
Talleyrand lived on for another three years, in the comfort and luxury he had known all his life. He still enjoyed good food and wine and the company of friends, especially beautiful women, and gave fashionable dinners at his house in Paris.
He also took the precaution of becoming reconciled with the Church no easy task, with a record like his he had to write a letter of penitence to the Pope. He was accepted back into the Church in the nick of time, just before his death in 1838.
As one of his biographers said, the great diplomat left for his last journey with his credentials in order and his passport signed.
France After Waterloo, the Bourbons were restored in 1815 in the substantial form of Louis XVIII. He refused to change his reactionary and repressive ways and only lasted fifteen years. As someone said, the Bourbons had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
In 1830, fat Louis' successor Charles X was ousted by the Duke of Orleans, who became King Louis-Philippe.
In 1848 he was ousted and abdicated, and France was a republic again. Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew returned from exile and was elected President.
In 1852 the Second Empire was proclaimed, and Louis-Napoleon became Napoleon III. He was ousted in 1870, after leading France to disastrous defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. The Third Republic was proclaimed, and France has been a republic ever since.
Which is where we came in.
About the Author.
Terrance Dicks joined Doctor Who as junior assistant trainee script editor in 1968 when they were making the story The The Web of Fear Web of Fear, and desperately trying to make a roaring Yeti sound less like a flushing lavatory. He worked on the show during the end of the Troughton years, and co-wrote The War The War Games Games, Patrick Troughton's last show, with Malcolm Hulke.
He stayed on as script editor for the whole of the Jon Pertwee period and left to write Robot Robot the first Tom Baker story. (This was in accordance with an ancient Who tradition, which he'd just invented, that the departing script editor writes the first show of the next season.) In the years that followed he wrote a handful of Doctor Who scripts, finishing in 1983 with the first Tom Baker story. (This was in accordance with an ancient Who tradition, which he'd just invented, that the departing script editor writes the first show of the next season.) In the years that followed he wrote a handful of Doctor Who scripts, finishing in 1983 with The Five Doctors The Five Doctors, the programme's twentieth-anniversary special.
In the early seventies he was in at the beginning of the Doctor Who novelisation programme and ended up, more by luck than judgement, writing most of them seventy-something in all. He has since written a number of Doctor Who 'originals' including Exodus Exodus, part of the opening Timewyrm Timewyrm sequence published by Virgin, and sequence published by Virgin, and The Eight The Eight Doctors Doctors, the first original novel published by BBC Worldwide.
He has written two Doctor Who stage plays, one a flop d'estime, (great reviews, poor audiences), the other a bit of a pantomime but a modest touring success.
He has also written about a hundred non-Who books, fiction and non-fiction, for young adults. But nobody ever asks about them.
In over thirty-five years with the Doctor he has grown older, fatter, greyer and grumpier. But not noticeably wiser.
1 For a full account of the Doctor's adventures in 1915, see Doctor Who: Players Doctor Who: Players by Terrance Dicks. by Terrance Dicks.