Slipgate 2E (Hex)

In the safety of the TARDIS, Josh asked the Lava Man how they knew where to find him in his brush with Death.

The lavaman reclined on a cermaic bench, and replied, "You have to have the right tools. Yo and I have something called 'The Search Engine.' Sometimes it takes a while, but there was no doubt that we would find you."

"Great! But what if you hadn't found me in time?"

"Then Death would have claimed you. But we need you for a mission."

"What about Yo? Can she escape Death? And what was that about googles of lives?"

"Yo's fight with Death will buy you some time. You and I would just get in the way, and make her task harder. As for the googles of lives, there is a device - a sort of key, to slipgate 2E-hex."

"Slipgate 2E-hex?"

"Yes. They are numbered in base 16 - it was the 46th one discovered. Therefore the odd name. A slipgate allows one to travel between widely separated parts of the universe, or even out of the universe altogether. To use a metaphor that you might understand, to a Time Lord, they function like major airports in your world."

"And so you need the key to open the slipgate."

"Just the opposite. We need to key to make sure Slipgate 2E-hex remains sealed. Officially, it is an inoperable ruin - destroyed before we found it. In reality, it does function, but unreliably and unsafely. Anyone trying to use it would cause a catastrophe beyond human understanding."

"I know that I don't understand."

"You won't. You can't. All you need to know is what the 'key' looks like, and who is after it."

"Why me? Surely it would have been easier to get Yo, or a Time Lord, to look for the key."

"I am not allowed to tell you."

"OK. What does the key look like?"

1. "It could fit in the palm of your hand...
2. "The key is not a physical object. It is a sort of code....
3. "We don't know what the key is. That is part of the problem."

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