Cirrus@Austlit

'Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec empire, 1480. The Doctor visits a feather shop owned by Tochtli the merchant. Tochtli invites the Doctor to his home but is unsure whether he must kill him. On the way they encounter four warriors who taunt the pair. Tochtli shrinks from them in fear while the Doctor persuades them that there is no need for violence and the two carry on their journey. At the merchant's house there is a brief conversation. His father died before Tochtli was born, killed by the 'bonepuppets', an alien race that were planting the seeds of a weed that would have covered half the Earth and driven out the human race. Tochtli's (pregnant) mother helped the Doctor (in a previous incarnation) to destroy the weed and then he delivered her child. She had a psychic gift, an ability to read people's intentions from any object that they had touched. She had previously used this gift to keep her husband alive in dangerous times, and aided him in some spying for the Emperor. For the Doctor she had 'read' a piece of discarded bonepuppet plastic and understood the true nature of the weed. In return the Doctor had buried her son's umbilical cord on a battlefield, as his mother requested, in order to allow him to achieve the status of warrior. The Doctor chose a muddy battlefield on the other side of the galaxy. Tochtli is aggrieved. He blames the Doctor for delivering him a month early on a Nothing Day (one of five days in the Aztec calendar that do not belong to a specific month). Because of this he has become a merchant like his father. The Doctor gives him an object to hold. It looks like a jewel but Tochtli 'reads' it as a seed. At first it seems benign but then he detects a lie in the intentions of the bonepuppets who made it, it is another weapon to be used to kill another world. As soon as he has imparted this knowledge the merchant tries to kill the Doctor but loses the fight. The Doctor says that he knows the merchant has inherited his mother's psychic gift and is using it to spy for the Emperor, his life always in danger but with none of the honour accorded to soldiers. Tochtli reads the Doctor's intentions and sees that he is no threat. The Doctor tells Tochtli that he is not merely a merchant but a warrior in his own way, and that his actions that night will have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands on another world.'

[The Doctor is the Seventh Doctor.]

Source: drwhoguide.com (http://www.drwhoguide.com/whotrip18.htm). Sighted: 20/5/11

'The Doctor arrives on Christmas Eve in an Australian suburb threatened by bush fires. He enlists the help of a cynical and bitter man, disillusioned for a number of reasons: his house has just been burnt to the ground by the approaching fire; his wife, Sarah, has recently left him; he is at the home of Sarah's sister Lucy and her husband Jim with whom he has fallen out. The Doctor contrives to build a complicated machine, powered by the TARDIS, which puts out the fire as Christmas Day dawns. Most of the water comes from the leaky TARDIS swimming pool. As he builds the machine the Doctor seems preoccupied with helping reconcile his helper with his in-laws, but more than this with his own people who allowed a firestorm to destroy a whole world. After the Doctor mysteriously vanishes it transpires that no one knew who he was or where he came from.'

[The Doctor is the Sixth Doctor.]

Source: drwhoguide.com (http://www.drwhoguide.com/whotrip18.htm). Sighted 20/5/11

'It is 23 December 1861. A group of deserters from the American Civil War are attacking a farmhouse near the Potomac. They have killed William Watkins, the farmer, but his daughter is alone in the farmhouse. She has killed at least one attacker due to the rifle skills she was taught by her husband who is fighting alongside General Stuart in Centreville. While defending the back of the house she shoots another man who emerges from the darkness. It is Turlough, and he is wounded in the leg. The Doctor appears too and implores her not to shoot. He calls her by her name, Mrs Elkins, and tells her she must leave the farm. He adds that he has been sent by her husband, Samuel. Charlotte refuses and the Doctor and Turlough return to the TARDIS. Turlough is keen to leave her to her fate but the Doctor insists that they have made a promise to her husband. Lucius Casler, the leader of the attackers, orders his men to roll a burning cart into the farmhouse. When one of his men objects, thinking they have come to loot the house, Casler shoots him dead. Before Casler has time to carry out his attack Samuel Elkins appears and Casler stumbles into the flaming cart. His uniform catches fire and he is killed when his cartridge belt explodes. The rest of his men disappear into the night. Later, Turlough and the Doctor watch the reunion between Samuel and Charlotte. Turlough suggests that the Doctor ought to take Elkins back but the Doctor admits that any damage has already been done when he took Elkins out of his own time and he says that he will give the couple a night together as an early Christmas present. The next morning the Doctor, Turlough and Elkins leave after placing Watkins and the three dead deserters ready for the undertaker. Charlotte is not initially alarmed when the undertaker arrives with a single coffin. Four days earlier Casler murders Elkins on the battlefield and takes a photograph of Charlotte from the dying officer. As Casler looks at the portrait — his Christmas gift, he thinks — he sees, but does not heed, the Doctor emerging onto the battlefield and listening to the last words of the dying Elkins.'

[The Doctor is the Fifth Doctor.]

Source: drwhoguide.com (http://www.drwhoguide.com/whotrip18.htm). Sighted 27/5/11