NAME: AVAN TARKLU
ALIAS: FROBISHER SPECIES: WHIFFERDILL ORIGIN TIME-ZONE: 82nd-CENTURY ORIGIN WORLD: PLANET XENON LISTED OCCUPATION: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR DISTINGUISHING TRAITS: "AS TRUE OF HIS SPECIES, CAN SHAPE-SHIFT INTO A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT FORMS. HOWEVER, FROBISHER SEEMS MOST COMFORTABLE IN THE FORM OF THE EXTINCT EARTH-STOCK ANIMAL, THE KING PENGUIN. REASON UNKNOWN." From the private tapes of the Save the Zyglot Trust. A quiet moment. In another time, another place... > RECORDING START INTERVIEWER: "This is Doctor Ivan Asimoff of the Zyglot Trust—" FROBISHER: "How 'bout now?" INTERVIEWER: "Speaking with Frobisher on the aforementioned subject of auditorial interest." FROBISHER: "Hence the dictaphone." INTERVIEWER: "No, auditorial, as in—Never mind. For the record, let's start with your good character—" FROBISHER: "If you want an optimistic picture, you'll have to find another painter, ace." INTERVIEWER: "Oh, uh, your meaning?" FROBISHER: "Are we getting into this? Alright, well—" INTERVIEWER: "Frobisher—" FROBISHER: "From the top. A lot of my childhood was spent in the Xenon slums, jack. Options were limited. I couldn't work in the IntraVenus traxis mines. I was too... erm... What's the word...? It'll come to me... A coward. That's it. Too much a coward." INTERVIEWER: "It's... dangerous work, so I'm told." FROBISHER: "No less than living hand-to-mouth as a street urchin. You find bolt-holes, sure. Little patches of dirt and permacrete to call your own, but nothing that'll keep your mind warm." INTERVIEWER: "You didn't have any friends, Frobisher? Any family?" FROBISHER: "Ain't we getting sidetracked?" INTERVIEWER: "Please." FROBISHER: "I had no one. Not a one. The city was big and it was easy to lose people. In every sense, there. The Doc and Peri are probably the closest thing to both, these days." INTERVIEWER: "Let's—er, erm—move on. Yes. You—You left Xenon, I take it?" FROBISHER: "Escaped, let's say. Got myself out into the Universe, sure enough. I've had a few jobs. Private investigator is probably my calling, though belts were worn tighter in the winter." INTERVIEWER: "Your file mentions you were married." FROBISHER: "Long time ago." INTERVIEWER: "Yes. Yes, erm, let's talk about your connection to IntraVenus." FROBISHER: "I knew I should've gone for milkshakes—This is about the Doc, isn't it?" INTERVIEWER: "The trust's auditors have queries about your donation. They seem to think it was awfully convenient for us to come into so much money when our former President, Professor Astro Labus, disappears." FROBISHER: "What? They think we offed him, so you could become President of the trust?" INTERVIEWER: "Erm..." FROBISHER: "Oh, nuts. That is what they think, isn't it?" INTERVIEWER: "They... ah... have unusually vivid imaginations for accountants." FROBISHER: "That money went into the trust. Not out of it. What? Do they think we're laundering money through you guys, too?" INTERVIEWER: "I know it came from IntraVenus Inc, but—" FROBISHER: "We didn't steal it. The Doc and I scored it from their Venus headquarters. Fair and square. Yeah... We made quite the team." INTERVIEWER: "How?" FROBISHER: "From his bounty. Josiah W. Dogbolter's massive bounty on the Doc's head. Just a little switcheroo, between the Doc and me, and voila! We got the mazumas and the old frog got egg all over his face. It was personal for the Doc. Humbling Dogbolter went a long way in his books." INTERVIEWER: "And this Peri, you mentioned?" FROBISHER: "A good friend of the Doc's from before my time. He picked her back up after a sabbatical on Earth. Longer than she expected, but it helped sort out some of the feelings around her Mom. She'd passed away recently." INTERVIEWER: "I'm sorry. And since then, Frobisher? Aboard the TARDIS?" FROBISHER: "Your auditors... You know what we've been up to? The Skeletoid Crisis was all over the GBC, we put paid to it. The Six Champions, they've been calling us. Stopped a generation ship's crew, aboard the Mayflower, from being sold into slavery, too. On Zazz, we relocated all those Servatron robots to the planet's moon on an old-fashioned rocket. And... And! We even dealt with the Cybermen on Sylvaniar and—" INTERVIEWER: "Good gracious, though! You've been busy!" FROBISHER: "Busy? Yeah. Yeah, I suppose we have." INTERVIEWER: "I'm not sure if I'll be able to find records for all of that." FROBISHER: "Does it matter?" INTERVIEWER: "Somehow, I don't think so. 'And'...?" FROBISHER: "'And' what?" INTERVIEWER: "You said 'on Sylvaniar and', what else have you been up to?" THE DOCTOR: "You may as well say, Frobisher. He has that writer's gleam." INTERVIEWER: "Doctor! Doctor, your face..." THE DOCTOR: "Hello again, Doctor Asimoff. Thought I'd indulge in a meeting of the clans. This is my young friend, Peri. She's been travelling with me a while now." INTERVIEWER: "Charmed. B-But your face..." PERI: "I know... Frobisher was just about to mention that." FROBISHER: "Ah, you say that, perp, but I'm not sure. I... Well... It ain't my place to..." THE DOCTOR: "Never you mind, my penguin chum. Never you mind. I'll tell you what, Ivan. Stop the dictaphone and I'll talk about Mandusus Chi myself. All the sordid details." INTERVIEWER: "Oh, yes? Oh! Yes. Fine. Let me just fiddle with that... H'rrm..." THE DOCTOR: "A few weeks ago, Ivan, in another time, another place—" > RECORDING STOP COMING SOON in MARCH 2024 Written Excerpt from the Novel The chemical constitution of the TARDIS galley’s ceiling was an excitonic marvel. Composed entirely of a material alien to most periodic tables, it held itself as stainless, dustless and virtually impervious to harm. Somehow, in the course of a standard hour, the Doctor had managed to perform the extraordinary. Its constituent components consisted of a culinary creole. Pancakes, strips of marinated tofu, a custard Danish pastry and tomatoes from the Ship’s Falloean Gardens. All carefully prepared in a non-stick pan. Exquisite. And all presently stuck to the ceiling. In a cobweb of char to rival the London smokestacks of Conan Doyle’s time. “Very well, old girl. Very well.” He placed the pan back on the stove. “I concede you may have a point. Just this once, mark you.” An opprobrious scuffle outside the main double doors brought his attention to his two travelling companions. One donned in a cork hat. The other carrying a ceramic milk jug. Both went flying. The first was a young American botanist called Perpugilliam Brown. Peri to her friends and enemies. She had joined the Doctor what seemed like a lifetime ago. At the present, she was falling on the second. A whifferdill gumshoe. Monomorphic, on occasion, but nevertheless pleasant. Before the TARDIS, he was known as Avan Tarklu. On their travels, he was called Frobisher. In a vain effort at chivalry, Frobisher had asked Peri into the galley first. Not to be outdone, she’d returned the gesture and beckoned the whifferdill to enter instead. In the ensuing disagreement, both had tumbled through the doorway. Abashed and feeling more than a little conspicuous. The Doctor’s mouth flicked a cat-like smirk. “Certainly one way to work up an appetite.” The rover picked up the cork hat, dropping the milk jug into its inner lining, and placed it next to the stove. “Good morning.” “Hi…” greeted Peri, painfully, climbing up to her feet. “The study was getting cramped.” “With ripe expectations, yeah.” Frobisher righted himself. “Still no go, Doc?” The Doctor placed a hand in his pocket and flourished the other arm at the disaster site around him. “At my best, I could give you the finest delights of Billions Major and Billions Minor. A beautific bonhomie breakfast to salivate the senses. From their native creamberry cakes to imported Gethen beer.” He slapped the counter. “Alas…” “How—?” Peri stopped, cleared her throat and started again. “How long has that been up there?” The Doctor followed her gaze to the ceiling. Small embers of flame, like molten rock, ebbed on the edges of the vulcanised ceiling crêpe. “Oh, quite some time now,” he smiled, sounding quite accomplished. “Ooh…” Peri winced. “Now would be a really good time to move, Doctor.” “Mmn?” asked the time-traveller. Peri and Frobisher pulled him beneath the relative safety of the doorway. From a stand just outside the door, Frobisher handed the Doctor a sky-blue umbrella which the latter deployed with casual disinterest. In the span of half-a-minute, the veritable feast for the travelling trio rained down to the galley floor. String-like eggs, tomatoes with a kinship to gravel and cured custard peelings all embraced the sweet release of gravity. “You’ve got egg on your face,” observed Peri. “That’s an understatement…” the Doctor admitted. “No, no… Frobisher, you’ve actual egg. On your beak.” “What?” The whifferdill looked down at the end of his face. “Where?” Although, it smelt how it looked, he couldn’t quite find it. Peri knelt down onto her haunches and sponged the offending material away with her thumb. Typical of the Doctor’s cavalier piloting, the TARDIS materialised with a floor-shuddering hiccup. Arms clutched at nearby fittings. Shouts were uttered. A chime resounded from the console room to signal the danger had passed. “Ah, splendid.” The Doctor released the umbrella with happy aplomb. “We’ve arrived. Come along.” Hooking it over a forearm, he departed the scene with a breezy rendition of what sounded to Peri like Patsy Ann Noble’s Accidents Will Happen. Peri and Frobisher studied the tableau in silence. Still clutching the umbrella stand, Frobisher dusted himself down and followed. Peri opened her mouth to say something, shook her head and let her legs carry her after the boys. COMING SOON... Early details about Doctor Who - The Alchemists of Fear here
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