"Would That Be Cavorite, I Wonder?"

We - that's the Doctor (aka Dr Who), my mate Sigin 2, Aeryn Pip, B'Elanna, Elrondir, and myself - know Artizza and Fertal, of course, but we hadn't expected to see them here. They've brought Trilling Blackfeather, the griffin, with them to tell us about a prophetic vision which he has had. Apparently the substance needed to cure my analog, Chi, of the condition that prevents her from functioning fully as a dragon can be found on a certain analog Earth. It's decided that Aeryn Pip and Trilling should stay behind on Xanth to look after Chi, who has just been put under a "statis" spell for her own protection. The rest of us - myself, the Doctor, Sigin, B'Elanna, Elrondir, Fertal and Artizza - will go to the Earth in question to obtain some of this rare substance. From what Trilling has told of his dream, it appears that it's meant to be capable of blocking gravity, which sounds quite as outlandish to me as anything that I've ever come across.

"Hmm," the Doctor muses. "It sounds rather similar to the substance Cavorite, as used as a plot device by HG Wells in his novel 'The First Men in the Moon'. If it turns out to be real in the Earth that we're going to, I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised. We've had enough instances of one reality's fiction being another reality's fact. The co-ordinates that Trilling has supplied, for this Earth's London in the 1890s, are certainly consistent with that."

I and the others who are going troop into the TARDIS.

1. The Doctor sets the controls for a certain reality's London, 1898. (A reality which will be familiar to those who have read that fine comic: "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".)

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