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 Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:20 am
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Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:21 am
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Jo's transistor radio had definitely taken on a tinny sound by the time she reached the second floor west wing doors to check them. The doors were secured. She turned the transistor low for a moment to call in the all-safe.
"I'm going to the science lab to do some paper work," she said into the hand-held, two-way radio that she also carried. She received the all clear and returned the two way to its belt holster. Then she turned to the transistor and tried vainly to get the reception better. It was the last thing between her and despair.
Outside, cold and heavy winter rain slapped the windows. As though satisfied, the wind gave them a rattle and shake just to assure her that yes, she was trapped inside UNIT HQ on Christmas Eve as the unwilling duty officer.
At home now, the family would be sitting down at the long table to roast goose and home made bread pudding. The candles on the long table and sideboard would be lit, and the entire, enormous, wood paneled house would wear that sacred, hushed mantle of sights and scents that were distinctively reserved for Christmas.
She had never been away from home for Christmas, and she had not expected to miss it this year. But UNIT's own peculiar practices dictated that Christmas Eve and Christmas day rosters must go by lottery. And in spite of her indignant protests about being a civilian attache to the military organization, her name had gone in with everybody else's. And she had drawn duty.
Worse, nobody had been particularly sympathetic. Worried about Chin Lee, the Doctor had simply brushed off Jo's complaints and then simply disappeared on December first, much to the annoyance of the Brigadier. But Captain Chin Lee's arrest and imprisonment in China seemed almost a sure thing unless the Doctor intervened for her. He was determined to persuade the Chinese government that the Master--in the guise of Emil Keller--had exercised a secret technology on the poor woman to bend her to his will. But he had sneaked off without Jo. And there was no word on when he would be back.
Second, Mike Yates had actually burst out laughing when Jo had drawn the Duty Officer role for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Jo and Mike both came from decidedly wealthy families, but her own family's history of service to the crown and country so overshadowed his that he tended to view her, as he himself said, as a "poor little rich girl." He had left December 20th for a week in Scotland with distant cousins very keen on hunting and the outdoors.
Sgt. Benton had stunned everybody by announcing a week at Lake Tahoe, a trip for which he and Mavis had been saving for three years. They were keen to try skiing, and there was to be a grand ball room competition as part of the Christmas fete over there. He and his sister had left just that morning, vacating headquarters with nearly the entire staff. UNIT was down to a skeleton crew assigned simply to keep the place secure, with a backup team on call. No serious evil loomed on the horizon. There had been the Auton thing in the late summer, her initiation into UNIT and the Doctor, and then the battle at Stangmoor prison a couple months later. And now the Master was gone, presumably to galaxies unknown, where he could plunder and kill to his hearts' delight while the Doctor remained in exile on Earth.
But peace is a poor post script of war. She had been bored and restless in the quiet weeks since Stangmoor, and now she was bored and restless and lonely. She pushed open the lab door, shot a resentful glance at the TARDIS, and went to the workbench to find some batteries for the transistor radio, from which "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" was fading in and out.
She let out a great sigh, shot a glance at the dark and gloomy lab window, and pulled open a drawer to find batteries. But in spite of her efforts to be adult about spending Christmas alone and away from home, a stubborn tear splashed on the rim of the drawer. She knew she was younger than the rest of them, but she had shown her meddle in Stangmoor, and they could have treated her with more respect and consideration. Mike Yates did not have to laugh at her initial protests over staying, and the Doctor could at least have said goodbye instead of just leaving a note. And he might have called.
"Hello, Jo! What are you doing here?"
She almost jumped out of her skin at the light touch on her shoulder. She spun around.
"Doctor!" she exclaimed. He was in his familiar black jacket and white shirt, the tie knotted loosely at his throat.
"Why Jo!" and his smile of welcome and surprise faded in concern. "Are you crying?"
"No," she retorted, then bit her lip as two or three more tears rolled down her face. He pulled out his handkerchief and without thinking wiped her eyes. She sputtered in surprise and backed up. The echoes of insisting on being treated as an adult were still in her mind.
"It was I, wasn't it?" he asked her gravely. "I hurt your feelings."
"No you didn't," she insisted. "But how did you get back here?"
"I got in at Heatherow this morning," he told her. "Dreadfully long trip from China when the TARDIS isn't working, you know," he added. "Hours and hours on aeroplanes. Well, days and days, actually. Especially at Christmas time. Look, what are you doing here?" he asked. "Why aren't you with your family? Last you told me, you were going home for the hols and I wouldn't see you until after the New Year."
"Am I in your way here?" she asked defensively.
"Of course not. I'm delighted to see you," he said with warmth and gentleness. "I've missed you, Jo. It's so good to see you."
His voice was always persuasive, and when he wanted to be, the Doctor could be very warm and welcoming.
"I did hurt your feelings," he said quietly. "I'm sorry, Jo. I just could not take you, and I could not wait. Chin Lee's life was hanging in the balance. I had to go and go quickly before she went to a military trial."
"Did you save her?" Jo asked instantly.
He nodded, and his eyes flickered with a slight satisfaction that she recognized. It pleased him to see her attention to duty and honor. "I hypnotized the military tribunal's judge," he told her. "It proved to the military court that there are hypnosis techniques that no human training can break."
He scratched the back of his head. "It got a bit dicey, though, to be honest with you. I really had to put one over on them, so I hypnotized the judge to think he was a cat. I don't know what kind of cat he thought he was, but he suddenly took off running, and we couldn't catch him. Then he must have gone up into the trees, and we completely lost sight of him."
She had to smile in spite of herself. She had been working with him for only six months, but she already knew how little patience the Doctor had with pompous government officials. "I think you did it on purpose," she said.
"So did they," he told her emphatically. "I actually spent ten days sitting in a dark little prison cell in order to "clear my thoughts," as they say."
"Oh dear. You do look thin."
"Well, the food's not very good in prison," he agreed. "And there's not much of it, but I was holding the trump card, and they knew it. They finally caught their tribunal judge and absolutely could not restore his mind to him. So at last I had a go, and I got him back, and then I convinced them to release Chin Lee and reassign her back here. She's back at Stangmoor as an observer."
"Oh, well done," she said, pleased in spite of herself that he had rescued Chin Lee. He hesitated, then stepped closer and used the handkerchief to defetly take up the one remaining tear on her face.
"Will you forgive me, Jo?" he asked her.
"But why wouldn't you take me?" she asked at last. "I did well enough at Stangmoor, didn't I?"
"Of course you did," he told her. "But it was a Chinese military trial, Jo. I went in illegally. I couldn't risk it for you. Do you know how unpleasant Chinese prisons are, especially for people accused of spying? The East and West are very paranoid with each other right now."
He crossed from her to the TARDIS and fished in his pocket for the key. "You still haven't told me what you're doing here," he said.
"I'm on assignment," she told him. "It's not like you can go away when you like and I get the time off too. I'm still attached to UNIT, you know, and they must have their pound of flesh." With the key in the lock, he stopped and turned to her. He had never invited her into his TARDIS, and she already knew that if he got interested in anything inside, he might stay inside for days. But he looked eager to get in and get back to whatever it was he did in that cramped, narrow thing.
However, he hesitated. The cold rain slapped against the window, and she did her best to look not too obviously forlorn. But just forlorn enough.
"Look here," he said as though he had just thought of it. "I am a bit thin after ten days in a Chinese prison. Maybe we could find a bite to eat somewhere around here."Intro 1b
When Jo returned from the cafeteria with the borrowed plates and silverware, she beheld a marvelous sight. A series of disposable lab aprons had been overlaid with each other on the workbench to form a table cloth, and the bunsen burners were set out and lit on either end of the bench. Between them, was spread an imposing array of tinned and wrapped goods--some of them not indentifiable.
"Ah! Just in time!" he exclaimed. He picked up an open tin. "Have some reindeer balls."
"Some what?" she gasped.
"You know, Jo. Like Swedish meatballs but made with reindeer instead of pork or beef."
She set the plates and forks down. "Doctor, that's absolutely ghastly on Christmas Eve."
He looked regretfully at the open tin.
"Please go ahead," she said. "But I'll pass. Where did you get all this?"
"From the stores in the TARDIS, of course," he told her. "Would you like wine, my dear? Got this bottle from Henry VIII. Always wanted a chance to knock its head off."
In spite of some of the unidentifiable foods, there were plenty of good things that he had set out. Eager to make up for having left her for so many weeks, he was charming and convivial. When they had finished their impromptu meal and had drawn up lab stools over instant coffe, he refilled the bunsen burners, looked over at her in the flickering light, and said, "When I was a boy--and it was nothing like being a boy here on your world, Jo, I lived in a great big house, but it was nothing like what you would think of when you think of a house." He re-lit one of the burners and shook out the match.
"Was it pleasant?" she asked.
"No," he told her. "It was not even meant to be pleasant. For I was not brought into the world to enjoy it, but to serve it as my masters thought best, to rule it perhaps, certainly to observe it and record it. But the idea of taking pleasure in it was never suggested to me, and any inclination towards such ideas were pretty thoroughly squelched if I came up with them."
"And your parents let you live like that?" she asked.
"I had no real parents, Jo," he said softly. "I was not conceived as you think of conception. I was engineered. Actually, if you count my DNA types, I am the product of too many parents to count--all their DNA synethized into a unique matrix."
"That's horrible," she whispered before she thought to keep silent.
He took a sip of his coffee, pulled a horrible face, and after a moment's thought reached for the brandy and poured a generous slug into the mug. Then he said, "I would not wish it on any other creature. I was--and felt like--a motherless child. Most of my early life I spent adrift in my heart and mind. The Masters would call us failed experiments if we would not conform, and I was probably the worst of all of us."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because here and there along the way, Jo, I would see the things that my fellows were trained to miss--the splash of color on the flowers, the way a parented Gallifreyen mother looked down at her parented Gallifreyen child. And I honestly concluded very young that those things were much better than what I was being turned into." He set his empty cup aside and considered. "It's better without the coffee." And he reached for the brandy again.
"Was the Master raised that way?" she asked.
He let out a brief and humorless laugh. "Yes. He was a scholarly and unimaginative plodder, Jo. I don't know. He envied me in some ways. I think the same spark was in him, but buried a bit more deeply. But when the rest of the lads who were my peers would have nothing to do with me, he befriended me."
"He did?" she exclaimed, shocked. "The Master?"
"Well, he wasn't always the worst villain of the universe, you know. I mean, it took time for him to fall, Jo. And I can honestly say he came from the best of breeding. Quite literally."
She reached over for the brandy and sloshed some into her coffee. "Is this going to be a story, Doctor?"
"What's the matter? Don't you like my stories?"
"I love your stories. But I want you to tell it properly and in order," she insisted. "And don't leave anything out."
He nodded.
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Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:23 am
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The large structure that dominated the ancient estate still retained the outward architecture favored by Gallifreyen tastes of the previous era. Overall, the impression that it gave was of a big, old rambling house: austere and cultured, but familiar and even reassuring to Gallifreyen citizenry.
But inside, any indications of domestic warmth had been carefully removed. Gleaming, undecorated walls were laid out with perfect and unadorned symmetry. The upper chambers housed the students, the middle floors were for the doctors and masters, and the main rooms below were reserved for instruction. One small room in the very back of the structure had been reserved for discipline. In this room, the Master of Tertiary Level Instruction was conducting his interview with the student designated only as Forty-two.
Forty-Two wore the grey pull-over tunic with sleeves down to the wrist to indicate his standing as a Tertiary level student. Underneath, visible only at the throat, was the white, collarless silk shirt that gave evidence of scholastic superiority, even among his academically elevated peers.
"I want their pickles and their wines and such," the Master repeated to the tall, lanky boy who stood before him. Forty-two bowed his head. "Do you even know what it means?"
"It is an expression of desire for contraband items, Master," he replied, head down.
"Where did you find this expression?"
The boy did not answer.
"Tell me what pickles and wines are. Do you know?"
Again, the student did not answer, but the Master of Tertiary Level Instruction judged from the bowed head that the boy did not know. Well, that was something to be relieved about. The corruption was only in his mind. He stood up and came around the desk.
"Where did you find the expression?" he repeated.
Forty two did not answer.
The Master of the Students paced in front of him. "Creatures of appetite; creatures of appetite!" he exclaimed. He turned and glared at the boy. "Look at me, you miserable failed experiment!"
Eyes stinging under such a personal attack, the boy looked up at him.
"Yes, failed experiment!" the Master thundered. "We programmed everything carefully, but something was wrong somewhere. A flawed gene: a protease that over ran its design limits and made a change. You must have been bad right from the mouth of the tube!"
In spite of his resolve to be dignified, a single tear forced itself from one eye.
"Yes, you hate that, don't you," the Master observed. "That you were engineered, not born. Ugh!" he shuddered. "All the world is at your feet. All the universe! All knowledge! And what do I find! Pickles and wine! Pickles and wine!" he shouted. He stabbed a finger into the boy's face. "Where did you find that expression!" he roared. But the boy, though his face had gone pale, still did not answer.
The Master stood right over him. "That's what you want, Forty-two, you miserable failed experiment! It's not just pickles and wine! No, not just pickles and wine! It's some mother's arms, some father's craft you want. Voices and dinners at the table. and the low, crude jokes of the people. Tell me this, you anomaly: what is a kiss? Do you know?"
"Yes," he quavered.
"Keep your feet right where they are. Put your hands on that desk!" the Master ordered. The boy obeyed. He had to lean forward to comply. In spite of his discomfort, he looked questioningly up at the Master. Just then, the another of the instructors entered through the doorless doorway. He stopped at sight of the student who was awkwardly leaning forward with his hands on the desk.
"Stay where you are!" the Master of the Students ordered the boy, who would have stood up again. The second person walked further into the room so that Forty-two could see him.
"Doctor of Non-Linear Engineering Sciences," the Master said. "This is your prize student from the Tertiary Level. He refuses the correction that will realign him to his design."
The Doctor of Non-Linear Engineering Sciences was less stern than the Master. "Forty-two," he said gravely. "Your design was for the good of both you and the people of Gallifrey. Your skills in Math and logic show great promise. For the good of the universe, comply with the Master's instructions."
"I cannot, Doctor," the boy said respectfully. "I gave my word."
"He longs to be Gallifreyen," the Master said with contempt. He went behind the desk and drew out a flexible rod. "And he shall learn what it means to be Gallifreyen. Stand there, Doctor of Non-Linear Engineering Sciences, and be a witness to this. For the student had better learn now the shame that comes along with being a creature of appetite." He held up the rod. "Shame, student Forty-two, is another facet of being a born Gallifreyen. And you will learn it today, for I intend to teach it to you."
Even the Doctor of Non-Linear Engineering Sciences went pale, but he did not interfere.
"Keep your hands on that desk until I give you leave to stand up straight," the Master said. He swung the rod briskly into the backside of Forty-two.
The sudden, sharp pain created an even sharper, more unbearable emotion that the boy had never felt.
"No!" he shouted, and would have stood.
"On the desk!" the Master ordered, and the boy instantly put his hands back in place. The Master struck again in the same place, and the boy yelled again and stood, but the next crack of the rod against him reminded him to put his hands back on the desk. The Master continued in grim silence, until tears--which Forty-two had only experienced one at a time up until then--came out his eyes in small streams and he sobbed out loud.
"This!" the Master exclaimed as he swung and struck again. "Is shame, Student Forty-two! The Gallifreyens and all creatures of appetite and passion eat it and drink it with their pickles and their wines! Shame and regret and misery and bitterness of heart!"
He finally stopped. The boy trembled as he wept, the long thin fingers now dug into the edge of the desk, the long arms bracing him up lest he fall.
"Yes," the Master said as he returned to his place on the other side of the desk. "The knees tremble, don't they, Forty-Two? Shame is a terrible thing. Stand up straight."
The boy instantly obeyed.
"Look at me if you can."
The student did, though the tears ran unchecked down his face. If he had glanced at the Doctor of Non-Linear Engineering Sciences, he would have seen evident compassion on the instructor's face.
"Who showed you that expression?" the Master asked again. "How did you find out aboutu pickles and wine?"
"I may not tell you, Master," he said faintly. "I would never subject another student to the Shame. Now that it is my fate, I will bear it."
The Doctor of Non-Linear Engineering Sciences stepped forward, distressed. "Shame passes, Forty-Two," he said quickly. "It does not--"
"Doctor, if you please," the Master said sharply, and the young student realized in an instant another new emotion that he had never felt. One glance at the Doctor showed him the sudden, evident respect for him newly born in his favorite teacher. But it was all too new for the student. The consolation of the instructor's words was new. The words and the evident sympathy strengthened him. The student looked at his Master.
"Return to your studies," the Master said sharply. "This matter is not yet closed."
Forty-two walked out, his legs still quivering.
The Doctor of Non-Linear Engineering Sciences spoke. "Master, you are eminent in your insight into adolescent development," he began, racing through the necessary preamble. "But are you mad? Do you know what suffering does?"
"It would have conquered him, except for your intervention," the Master retorted. "We could have stamped out this alarming fad towards individualism in a moment."
"You mean for a moment," the Doctor corrected. "Yes, he might have given in under the impression that shame is permanent. But suffering in the long run will only strengthen him. You have made him more individualistic than ever. Before he is ready for it."
"You interfered out of sheer pity. You have no experience in dealing with these students--"
"And you beat him out of sheer anger! What did you and the other masters think would happen when you programmed a generation to be more intelligent than ourselves?" he asked.
"Only a sample was programmed. A small sample," the Master said. "And Forty-two is the only radical behavior that has resulted."
The Doctor of Non-Linear Engineering Sciences shook his head. "How complacent you are!" he exclaimed. "The others are simply too smart to be caught, Master. They--or at least some of them--are already more adept at the system than we ourselves are. It is by sheer bad luck on Forty-Two's part that you found the pickles and wine expression. But you know he did not find that expression on his own. We can safely conclude that he has a partner. And that means that at least two of the sample batch are conducting their own studies." He turned and glared at the Master. "If you make him suffer, whoever is joining him will experience only solidarity with him. You may provoke a full scale revolt."
****
Forty-two's legs obstinately refused to stop quivering after the thrashing. He had experienced hard knocks before; The previous year he had undertaken the study of Venusian martial skills and was considered quite adept. But this was the first time he had been made helpless and then struck; humiliated by the blows. Physical pain and emotional pain had joined somehow--each feeding the other. Even while he staggered unevenly up the hall, his mind trying to steady his legs, some part of him continually analyzed what had happened and why it had affected him so. But it was too new to his experience, too overwhelming. Eighteen would know.
A long arm shot out of another doorless room, got him around the neck, and dragged him out of the gleaming corridor and into an empty classroom.
"Eighteen!" Forty-two gasped, relieved. "I was going to the fourth floor to meet you!"
His fellow student was slightly shorter than Forty-two, but carried himself with a tad more presence and less openess. But at sight of his friend's paleness, Eighteen's dark eyes became anxious and concerned. "They'll be watching to see who you go to find," Eighteen told him. "What's happened? You look so strange, like the day you dissected the lobe worm."
"The Master did something new," Forty-two told him. "In front of the Doctor of Non-Linear."
"New? What?" Eighteen asked.
"I can't say it all, yet, Eighteen. He taught me shame."
"What is shame?"
"I thought you would know from the books."
Eighteen shook his head. "We can find out, though. If you think it's safe to go up." But he hesitated and scanned his friend's face, worried. "Did he make you--"
Forty two shook his head. "I didn't tell. I didn't tell. If he finds out about you, he'll teach you shame, too. I won't let it happen to you." He had been nearly ready to cry again, but a sudden reslove hardened his voice and face. "I won't let him find out. Nobody will teach you that, if I can help it."
To his surprise, he saw that same look of respect that he had seen in the face of the Doctor of Non-Linear Engineering Sciences now pass across Eighteen's face. "Come on, then," Eighteen said. "I've found a new way up there. They won't catch us."
He led Forty-two back through the classroom and into one of the labs. "See that?" he asked. "The Fifth Level have started on dimensionally transcendent travel." He pointed to a large, very sloppy conglomeration of machinery and electronic circuits. "They stand on this small platform here and transport just across the room." And he showed Forty-two the receiving platform in the far corner of the lab. "What do you think?"
Forty-two stepped up on the platform and then walked over to the complex and unwieldy machine. The youthful, innnocent expression on his face gave way to a look far more analytical and thoughtful than one would find in a human boy. "Bit sloppy, isn't it?" Forty-two asked. "But at least it's easy to read the circuit logic with it all hanging out like that."
"We're only Third Level, but we could build a better one now if we had the complete plans," Eighteen agreed. "But I rewired it. I boosted the signal broadcast. We can go where we want in the building. Come on. I'll show you."
He led Forty-two to the platform. "We're going to transmit ourselves?" Forty two asked, both horrified and delighted. He knew that Eighteen could do anything that a Fifth Level could do, but the raw confidence of attempting it delighted him, even as the raw contempt for senior students horrified him. Eighteen grinned. They stepped onto the platform together, and Eighteen pulled a transmitter from the pocket of his tunic.
"This will activate the one-off switching," he said, and pressed the button.
Forty-two laughed out loud as they saw the cluttered lab turn into the crawlspace over the cubicles of the students. The walls in the crawl space were made of the same gleaming material as down below, and so their hideout was not dark.
"You did it!" Forty-two exclaimed, heedless of the danger that if Eighteen had been mistaken in the least, both their body parts would have been spread out all over the walls of the school.
"Shhh," Eighteen whispered. "The Masters are still around down below. Probably looking for you to see where you'll go."
Forty-two nodded, and led the way along the rafters to a small platform where they had stored a treasure of stacked books of antique vintage--most of them mere fragments with the bindings broken. Eighteen eagerly dug out the one completely intact volume: Treasure Island. It was an aged and excellent volume, with four-color illustrations by Andrew Wyeth that depicted the the glories of the Hispaniola and all aboard her. Both boys settled down, and Eighteen read their favorite passage out loud:
`Oh, I know'd d**k was square,' returned the voice of the coxswain, Israel Hands. `He's no fool, is d**k.' And he turned his quid and spat. `But, look here,' he went on, here's what I want to know, Barbecue: how long are we a-going to stand off and on like a blessed bumboat? I've had a' most enough o Cap'n Smollett; he's hazed me long enough, by thunder! I want to go into that cabin, I do. I want their pickles and wines, and that.'
`Israel,' said Silver, `your head aint much account, nor ever was. But you're able to hear, I reckon; leastways, your ears is big enough. Now, here's what I say: you'll berth forward, and you'll live hard, and you'll speak soft, and you'll keep sober, till I give the word; and you may lay to that, my son.'
`Well, I don't say no, do I?' growled the coxswain. `What I say is, when? That's what I say.'
`When! by the powers!' cried Silver. `Well, now, if you want to know, I'll tell you when. The last moment I can manage; and that's when. Here's a first-rate seaman, Cap'n Smollett, sails the blessed ship for us. Here's this squire and doctor with a map and such - I don't know where it is, do I? No more do you, says you. Well, then, I mean this squire and doctor shall find the stuff, and help us to get it aboard, by the powers. Then we'll see. If was sure of you all, sons of double Dutchmen, I'd have Cap'n Smollett navigate us half-way back again before we struck.'
"A quid is something pirates carry in their mouths," Eighteen at last concluded. "But they never swallow it."
"I thought it was a unit of money," Forty-two ventured.
"Well they fight and kill for money and treasure, so maybe they like to suck on it, too," Eighteen said.
"Would you suck a quid if they told you to?" Forty-two asked.
"Yes. How about you?"
Forty-two suddenly looked up, startled. "I think the shame is going away," he suddenly ventured. "The Doctor of Non-Linear Engineering Sciences said it would. And it is."
Eighteen leaned with his back against the wall and looked at his friend. Where he was dark of eye and hair, Forty-two was fair and blue eyed. Both boys were lanky and slim, but Forty-two was the taller of them.
"Tell me what shame is," Eighteen said. And Forty-two told him about the thrashing. When he had finished, Eighteen exclaimed, "Curse him for a yellow-livered land lubber!" He had no idea what the words meant, but he knew that they were insulting and vile to somebody.
He also had no idea of how to comfort his friend, so he promised, "I'll be Master here someday, Forty-two. And I'll let the students read and tell stories, and we'll have quids for breakfast every day if we like."
Forty-two burst out with a laugh and then covered his mouth with his hand, mindful of the need to be quiet. "You're going to be the Master of the students?' he asked. "That dried out old stick? You can do better than that!"
"I shall be the Master and I will thank you to address me as such," Eighteen intoned, mimicking the feared head of their school. Forty-two laughed again.
"Then if you must be the Master, I shall be the first student," Forty-two said.
"Don't be stupid. You shall be the Doctor of-- let's see, Doctor of--"
"Piracy!" Forty-two exclaimed. "No wait. I'll be the Doctor of all things. Or, just Doctor for short!"
* * * *
Forty-two's notes about pickles and wine had been the cause of the latest furor over his radical development. Neither he nor Eighteen could ever be sure of what led to their next interview with the Master of the Students.
The call to visit the Master's office came the next day after the evening meal. As the two boys walked down the corridor, Forty-two could feel the quivering starting in his legs, even before the thrashing had begun.
"Shame works backwards through time," he whispered. "I can feel it already--"
Don't be so post hoc," Eighteen told him. "That's plain ordinary fear. It doesn't follow that you'll get another thrashing."
"Fear has never been like this."
"Only because you have never felt it to any great degree before. Listen." And he stopped and looked at Forty-two. Forty-two stopped as well. "It's all in those books," Eighteen said. "There's a way to get a thrashing and still resist the shame and the fear and all the rest."
"How?"
"Believing in what you did offsets the shame."
Forty-two looked helpless. "I don't know what that means."
Eighteen considered briefly. "Then let me take the lead with the Master," he said.
"Take the lead?"
"I'll talk more than you," Eighteen told him. And I'll get the Master to do whatever he's going to do to me, first. And then you do what I do. Follow my example."
They walked down the corridor and entered the Master's office. The Master sat behind the desk. One of the younger doctors stood against the wall, ill at ease. Forty two saw that the rod lay across the desk top, and his knees went weak, but he stayed as resolute as he could. Eighteen smiled at the rod and looked at the Master.
"Do you find something amusing, student Eighteen?" the Master asked coldly.
"I do, sir," Eighteen told him.
"And what is that?"
"That you should try to conquer me with a stick," he replied. "you ought to have picked a more substantial weapon."
The Master leaped to his feet. "Put your hands on the edge of the desk!" he ordered.
"With a good will, my Master." And Eighteen did so. The Master came around the desk and took up the rod.
"Did your accomplice here tell you what shame is?" he demanded.
"He did, sir," Eighteen said coolly. "And then I took away his shame. It is a momentary thing; beneath the notice of those who shall one day rule Gallifrey."
"Please, sir," Forty-two interjected. "Don't hit him. It's been my fault all along."
Eighteen, who was bent over awkwardly with his hands on the desk, turned coolly to his friend. "Don't plead for me, Doctor," he said. "And don't indict yourself. I don't mind this lesson."
The Master of the students froze and then turned, and the instructor on the other side of the room turned startled eyes onto Eighteen.
"What did you call him?" the Master asked with dreadful slowness.
"I called him Doctor," Eighteen said. "For I know that already he understands more of the Equations than this excuse for an instructor here." And he tossed a careless nod at the young doctor, who stood speechless.
The crack of the rod of his backside was loud and sharp. Forty-two took in a sobbing breath and then steadied himself as Eighteen neither cried out nor reacted except for a slight quiver down his legs from the pain. The Master struck three more times, and Eighteen never bothered to wince. Both boys, of course, had learned to control pain from their Venusian martial skills classes. Typical of him, Eighteen had been the only one to realize its benefits and apply it outside of the classroom. He sighed and looked at the ceiling.
"You truly are a Master," Forty-two said softly, and without being told he leaned forward and put his hands on the desk.
"Look! We have founded the first school of hard knocks here on Gallifrey," Eighteen told him, and grinned.
Abruptly, the thrashing stopped.
"Stand up!" the Master snapped. Both of them straightened. The Master jabbed a finger at Forty-two but spoke to Eighteen. "Tell me his name."
"He is the Doctor," Eighteen told him.
"The Doctor of what?"
"Does it matter?" Eighteen asked. "He is more adept than any of the Doctors here. As am I."
"Call in the Doctor of Philosophies," the Master of students ordered, and the young instructor hurried out.
"There has not been an expulsion in hundreds of years," the Master of students told him. "But there is one today. You are expelled."
"That is good news indeed!" Eighteen snapped, and turned to go. "Come Doctor, we shall make our own way."
"Stop!" the Master ordered. Eighteen turned to look at him. "Do you think I'm such a fool as to let an uncontrolled meteor loose upon Gallifrey?" he asked. "You are expelled from the school, but you may never be expelled from being among the time lords. You shall be taken by transport beam to the other side of the planet, and then by land you shall go to a remote observation post in the mountains. There you shall serve the observers who chart the progress of the galaxies as they wheel through the universe. And surely even you know how slowly the galaxies move, Eighteen. It is time consuming, tedious work. But I shall be sure to let them know to treat you as a master."
Forty-two and he exchanged glances.
"Spare Forty-two," Eighteen said suddenly.
"No!" Forty-two exclaimed.
"Silence!" the Master thundered. "You twp trouble makers shall be separated forever," he told them. "And from this moment. I shall see to Eighteen myself." He pressed a button on the panel and punched up a code.
"No!" Eighteen exclaimed. Forty-two echoed him, but before they cry was even out of his mouth, Eighteen was gone, transmitted across the planet to a distant receiving station. "Eighteen!" Forty-two cried.
Just then the Doctor of Philosophies entered. He was a gentle looking Doctor, bearded, and an onlooker would have seen a slight similarity between him and the two students.
"Ah!" he exclaimed as he saw Forty-two. "Our best--"
"Doctor of Philosophies!" the Master of Students exclaimed.
The Doctor of Philosophies looked at him enquiringly. "This student," and the Master gestured at Forty-two. "Has reveled in forbidden pleasures--"
"Oh, dear me," the Doctor of Philosophies said. "Which ones?"
"Frivolous knowledge, stories and legends, tales from other, lesser worlds that he esteems superior to us and our ways--"
"Oh, those pleasures--" the Doctor began, relieved.
The Master slammed the rod onto the desk, and the Doctor broke off. "Show him his errors," he ordered grimly. "Take him away from here. Deprive him of the scholarship he has been accustomed to. Give him a new scholarship in the school of sorrows."
The Doctor's face fell, as though unhappy with this assignment. The Master looked at Forty-two. "Eighteen has been banished to the remotest reaches of this planet," he said. "But perhaps we can save you, Forty-two. You shall learn indeed of pirates and soldiers--all that the stories never told you: death and disease and starvation: all the suffering that humans bring upon themselves with their pickles and their wines and their greed and prejudice and everything else." He looked at the Doctor of philosophies. "Take him to Terra and show him one of the European wars. Let him talk to the people and let him watch them die at each other's hands. Do not bring him back until he has learned that our ways are the superior ways, and until he has acknowledged the same." The Doctor bowed his head in silent assent.
"Come, poor student," the Doctor of Philosophies said gravely. He gripped Forty-two's shoulder with a surprising strength and led him quickly away.
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Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:25 am
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Forty-two was too numb from the quick overthrow of events to even ask questions. He could not even analyze the wealth of new emotions in him: dread, grief, horror, worry, and a new form of loneliness. He had never pictured being alone or separated from his fellow scholars. They had incubated together, been nursed together, studied their courses together. The concept of being cut out from them had never even occurred to him. And losing Eighteen to that same horror of separation wrung him with fear for his friend.
The Doctor of Philosophies kept a firm hand on his shoulder, directing Forty-two ahead of him, down several corridors and then down a long flight of steps. They were in a section of the great old estate house reserved only for the Doctors and Masters. Neither Eighteen nor Forty-two had ever been permitted to venture here.
When the Doctor of Philosophies spoke, his tone was not unkind. "If you can clear your mind, student," he said, "You may find enough of interest down these halls to distract you from your tears."
"Where are you taking me?" Forty-two asked.
"Into hardship and sorrows as the Master of the Students directed. But I shall go with you. You will not see them alone."
Just then the lighted walls dimmed, flickered, and then brightened again.
"The technicians must not know what they are about," the teacher mused. "They are preparing a TARDIS, but I see I will need to check their work."
He guided the boy into a large, brilliantly lit chamber. Forty-two would have hung back, but the Doctor of Philosophies guided him forward with the same firm hand. They crossed the room to an oblong booth, very faintly similar in dimensions to the transmaterializer that Eighteen had jury rigged in the lab.
"Go inside, boy. Nothing in there will hurt you."
As though in answer to the teacher's will, a door opened before them, and they entered into a large control room dominated by a hexagonal console in the centre. The room was larger inside than outside, but Forty-two did not find this remarkable. He already understood the implications of entering the booth.
"My name, as far as you are concerned" the Doctor of Philosphies said, releasing his shoulder and walking to the console, "Is K'An Po. Outside of the halls of Gallifrey I am content to be known as a student rather than a teacher. Please call me K'An Po, or sir, as you please."
He studied the console for a moment and then activated it. The doors to the TARDIS closed. His long, thin. boney hands skimmed over the controls. But he shot a look at Forty-two. "You must be exhausted from all your troubles," he said. He nodded at a hatch in one of the walls. "Through that door are many rooms, but the first few are serviceable. Select one of them for your quarters."
"Alone?" Forty-two asked.
"Alone. Nothing will hurt you. If you choose to live as an individual, you must rest as an individual."
Forty-two nodded and suddenly became resolute. Up until then he had been driven before the crisis, but K'An Po was right. He had chosen to be an individual; now he must truly become one, though it seemed like an arduous task. He strode to the hatch. It opened, and he passed through into a hallway, selected a cubbyhole of a room that was equipped with a bunk, and lay down on it. It had no covers and was made of a flexible, inorganic material. The room darkened automtaically as he lay down, but he did not mind this. It was not darkness that frightened him, but solitude. Previously, he had snatched at moments of privacy, yet all around him had been the sense of the others, his peers. But to be alone in time and space with only a stern Doctor of Philosophy under instruction to punish him-- His resolution nearly wavered.
"You'll sleep better with blankets, matey!" said a familiar voice. Forty-two bolted to a sitting position as the lights came up, and a bundle of blankets struck him in the chest. He clawed them away and exclaimed in a whisper, "Eighteen!" And without thinking or analysis he flung himself off the bed and threw his arms around his friend, no more self conscious than a puppy would be over leaping up and down in welcome.
Eighteen did not mind, though neither of them ever remembered being embraced. Their instinctive joy and relief were new to them. "How did you get here?" Forty-two gasped. "The Master sent you halfway across Gallifrey-"
"Of course he did, the pompous old windbag," Eighteen said, releasing him. "And when I got there I promptly rewired the booth to send me back. It's the exact same principle as the booth in the lab. It just uses more power and has a better guidance system."
"You've got to get out of here-"
"No, never!" and Eighteen's eyes flashed. "I got you into trouble. I'll go with you into it. Whatever the Master intends for you to see, it will be better if we see it together."
For the first time, a longing flickered up in Forty-two. He forgot his grief and fear. "Do you suppose we might see pirates?"
"I think it's going to be worse than that," Eighteen said quietly. "But maybe somehow that will make it better. We ought to know, Doctor. We know so many things; we ought to know what's really out there. Even if it is only appetite and misery and all the rest. If I'm going to spend the rest of my lives serving Gallifrey among a bunch of doddering old ignorant fools, I want to know that there was nothing better for me out there."
"What will we do about K'An Po?" Forty-two asked. "That's what he wants me to call him now."
"Oh, we'll wait until we're through the Vortex and landed on Earth," Eighteen said. "Then I'll announce my presence if you like. He won't turn back then. I think he wants to get this over with quickly."
He paced away from Forty-two, thoughtful.
"He's not a bad soul," Forty-two ventured. "He's not like the Master of Students."
"Nobody's like the Master of Students." Eighteen glanced at him.
"What I mean," Forty-two said cautiously. "Is that deep down I think K'An Po might--approve of what we've done. Maybe not approve, but have an insight--"
"Sympathize," Eighteen said.
"Yes. Funny, I never really knew what that word meant until today."
"Neither did I." Eighteen stopped, his hands behind his back. "I never knew many things until today. They told us that disobedience was bad, but I think it's good."
"No!" Forty-two exclaimed instantly. He strode up to his friend. "Disobedience is bad. It creates disorder--and shame, and tears that just keep on going."
"But now we have knowledge," Eighteen pointed out.
"Because we've obeyed higher things than what the Masters have told us," Forty-two told him. "Don't you see that they've created a system to enclose us away from doing any real good? Of course it went awry. They made us smarter, Eighteen, and then tried to raise us as though we were like them. We have to get out of that system. There are higher and better things than the Masters and Doctors of Gallifrey. It's--it's all in TREASURE ISLAND, but I can't understand it yet."
Mouth slightly open, Eighteen looked at him in some astonishment. "I--I can't follow your reasoning," he said at last.
"What if there were Jim and pirates and the Hispaniola, and they were in trouble?" Forty-two asked. "The Master of Students would punish us if we went to help them. But maybe some greater Master or power or teacher wants us to go help them. Maybe we ought to go because the Master of Students has been disobeying whatever is Master over him."
Eighteen shook his head. "I will study more," he said, an expression that the students used to show that they did not understand something.
But his eyes followed Forty-two as the fair haired boy strode back to the bank and gazed absently at the wall. "It isn't right to be smarter and faster and more efficient and then be made to serve those who are already smart and fast and efficient." Forty-two said. "It isn't right."
"Right?" Eighteen gasped. "Who are we to say what's right? How do we know what balances the universe? The Masters and Doctors--" He stopped as understanding dawned.
"Exactly. They don't know; or if they did, they've forgotten. I tell you, it's in those books!" Forty-two insisted.
Outside, they heard the hatch from the control room open and close.
Eighteen whisked under the bunk, rolling out of sight, and Forty-two flung himself on top of the mattress and pulled the covers up in an awkward lump over his chest and head. The door to the cubbyhole opened. "Are you asleep, pupil?" K'An Po asked.
"No, sir," Forty-two said. He got up on his elbows. The teacher entered.
With an efficient flick of his wrist, K'An Po snatched the corner of the covers and jerked them out straight, covering the boy. "Well, it is about time you did sleep. We are on earth, but we will not emerge into the environment until you have rested and their day has dawned. Here are clothes for you." He dropped a bundle of clothes onto the floor. "We must blend in."
"Yes, sir." Forty-two lay back down. K'An Po surprised him by resting a long hand on his shoulder. "It is never wise to anticipate trouble, boy. I will protect you. You may see grief and hardship, but it will not touch you."
"May I ask a question, sir?" Forty-two asked. He was amazed at the insights that the experiences of the last day had given him. Suddenly he knew that K'An Po had always liked him, admired his scholarship, indulged his questions out of a respect for his determination to grasp and understand.
"Yes, one question, and then you must sleep."
"What if it were better to be touched by the hardship?" he asked, not turning to look at his teacher. He ketp his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
The question silenced the old time lord, and the hand that rested on Forty-two's shoulder seemed to become cold and tense for a moment. Then it relaxed. "You have asked the question that has plagued us for centuries," he said. "But no answer to it has ever been found." He hesitated, and then he said gently, "I think, my boy, that when you do see what humans do to each other--no matter what doubts you feel now--you will hope that their hardships do not touch you. You will be glad to be protected."
He walked out, and the door closed. "Maybe that's the very reason I should be touched by them," Forty-two whispered.
* * * *
After K'Anpo walked out, the room dimmed again and remained dark for so long that Forty-two nearly dozed off. But finally Eighteen pulled himself out from under the bunk. The lights came up, and Forty-two sat up.
Eighteen picked up the bundle, shook it apart, and held up the items of clothing, one at a time. "Very different," he said. "We'll have to find something for me. You'd better get changed."
Forty-two remained pensive for a moment and then said, "We could just run away. Is that what you want?"
"Of course. I have no intention of being led around on a leash. He only wants us to see the suffering. That's not a valid exposure, is it?" Eighteen glanced at him. "I wouldn't go all the way to TREASURE ISLAND just to see the pirates, would you? I want to meet Jim and the Captain and all the rest."
Forty-two dropped to the floor and hurriedly changed into the unfamiliar clothes. It was a respectable pair of trousers, a button-down shirt, and a sweater such as a school boy might wear. He got everything on correctly and looked down at himself. "It is awfully scratchy," he said.
"Come on, the old Doctor must be asleep by now," Eighteen said. "Or else he's locked away somewhere brushing up on his history. There must be store rooms further in the back."
It took a good deal of searching, but after a couple hours they turned up dark trousers and a dark turtleneck for Eighteen.
"Now what?" Forty-two asked. "There may be an alarm on the doors out front."
"Oh, we ought to inspect the control console anyway," Eighteen told him. "We should see what we're getting into."
They found their route through the passageways of the TARDIS back to the control room, which lighted up as they entered. It seemed very big and eerily silent.
"I know," Forty-two said. "Remember that trick we played on the Seventh Years? We locked them out of their program with a puzzle. We could do that with the doors--configure the re-set sequence to let us out but to prevent the doors from opening again until the calculation circuits of the console solve an equation. A repeating decimal. That way the Doctor of Philosophies won't be able to get out until he figures out what we did and overwrites the program or manually removes the connection to the calculation circuits."
Eighteen grinned. "How long will it take you to rig up?"
"I don't know. I'll have to trace the circuitry, but it shouldn't take as long as it took us to find your clothes."
"While you're doing that, I'm going to look at the intergalactic atlas and find out where we are in time and space. Maybe it will help us to know our environment."
Forty-two nodded. At home with electronic equipment, he quickly stripped a cover plate from the console and began searching the boards and wires. Eighteen went to a different panel and activated the small viewer that served as a reader into the copious electronic atlas.
"London, 1941," he said out loud as Forty-two pulled off another plate on the underside of the console and got down under it. "There is war being made against London. Do you know what a bomb is?"
"It's a weapon," Forty-two said.
"It doesn't say much else. But if a bomb falls on you, then you have to go down into the underground--I think. I wonder what that means."
"It must be like going to prison."
"Or a grave. They bury their dead. No, that can't be right. It said people went down into the underground at night and came up again in the mornings."
"They don't regenerate, do they?" Forty-two asked. "Not even from bleeding wounds. Anything kills them. I suppose they hide underground to be safe."
"They must be terribly frightened creatures," Eighteen said. "What did you think of Jim? He didn't seem very brave, did he?"
"Well, he got into the coracle and paddled out to the Hispaniola all alone," Forty-two ventured.
"Well, he did do that, but he said afterward it was a foolish thing to do. Say, how is it coming?"
Forty-two was silent a moment, and then his voice came up from under the console. "You know, Eighteen--"
"Call me Master, Doctor."
Forty-two laughed out loud. "All right, Master. I was just going to say that the circuitry in this thing isn't all that different from that set-up in the lab that we used to get into the attic."
Eighteen, or Master as he preferred to be called, heard the panel clap into place as his friend finished up. In another moment the tall, fair haired boy got to his feet. "I've configured the re-set lockout. This machine is old," he added.
"Does that matter?"
"Yes. I think it does." But he did not pursue the idea. His dark haired friend came around the console. "Come on, then. It's early morning out there. We look like them, and we can talk like them, and we understand their culture--a little. Let's try it."
Forty-two let out his breath and suddenly ran his fingers through his thick, fair hair. Then suddenly he grinned. "All right. What's the worst that could happen?" He activated the doors. They slowly and silently swung open, and for a moment both boys watched in a silence of their own as a portrait of the Earth opened before them. It was a plain, empty street lined with very small tobacco shops, news stands, and doors that opened into narrow buildings.
"It's so ugly," Eighteen whispered in awe.
"I smell them," Forty-two said, and slowly smiled. "Do you smell them? They have a scent. They perspire more than we do."
"Yes, but it's like a maze out there. Don't they have any sense of order?"
"And smoke--" Forty-two added, not listening. He moved towards the doorway as though being slowly pulled. "And that's food like the Gallifreyens eat. They're just like us--and nothing like us! What wonderful creatures. Come on!"
And so, without money or map or weapon, they plunged from the security of their last link with Gallifrey into the heart of some urban corner of London.
* * * *
The first few moments on Earth were spent very conventionally, though neither boy knew it. They stopped and stared for a long time at the ribboned boxes in a confectionary shop's window. Then they moved up to the next shop window and stared inside at an assortment of second hand clothing. Both of them had been trained from infancy to be orderly and methodical in gathering information, and so this piece by piece inspection of their world lasted for an hour as they worked their way up the street. They had gone about five blocks and had just discovered a booksellers, when they were interrupted by a terrifying sound.
It was nothing more spectacular than the shifting of gears and loud engine groan of a London bus coming in the early morning to pick up the day shift. It ambled toward them with what they thought was a slow and loud roar of an overburdened diesal engine. Insticntively, they both flattened against the glass window.
"It's a bomb!" Eighteen exclaimed. "Look at the smoke coming from it!"
"No, Master. Bombs come from the sky at night," Forty-two hissed. "Stay very still. It may pass us by. It may be programmed to stay in the street. It may not be a weapon."
"What could that hideous thing be but a weapon?"
The bus stopped and disgorged one or two people, who quickly hurried down the street. The enormous doors closed. It moved again and passed the boys. Nothing happened. They stared up at it, open mouthed, as it went by. They both coughed at the unexpected gas fumes in its wake.
"It was carrying people!" FOrty-two exclaimed as soon as he could.
"I tell you, it had to be a bomb. It's spewing out those poisonous fumes!"
Forty-two stepped closer to the street and looked after the monstrosity. "It pours out those poisonous fumes, and nobody stops it," he mused. "And nobody's afraid of it." But just then his eye glimpsed somethign int he window of the booksellers. "Master!" he hissed.
Eighteen turned to the window, and then he saw it too. Both boys peered closer. It was a huge volume of TREASURE ISLAND, with color plates illustrated by Andrew Wyeth.
"The whole, intact volume," Eighteen whispered. "We could read all the parts that are missing from our book."
"And look how the artist painted the cover." Forty-two's eyes were nearly reverent. "Somebody here saw what we saw in the book. The humans can't all be fools like the Master of Students said. SOmebody else had to love that book to paint a picture of the pirates like that."
"Well, well, well. If it isn't Lord Fauntleroy and his entourage!"
Interrupted by this loud, unpleasant voice, both students turned around. They found themselves facing four slightly shorter but much stockier young men. Forty-two sniffed. "I think that's the smell of aggression," he said. His knees trembled at the idea of this first meeting of two worlds, but he bravely smiled. "Hello, humans--" he began.
But Eighteen had already grasped the seriousness of the situation. He held up a hand in Dr. Livesy fashion. "Were you addressing me, sir?" he asked. Forty-two recognized the allusion to their favorite book, and realized that this was much more a confrontation than he had first thought.
"What are you two doing on our street?" one of them asked.
"Where'd you get them clothes?" another asked. "Out of the mission barrel? Going to sing a hymn for us?"
The others laughed at this. Forty-two joined in. He turned to his companion. "See? They want to be friendly. Maybe we frightened them."
But suddenly he found himself pulled face to face with the leader of this group, gripped by his shirt front. "Nothing scares me, Lord Fauntleroy." He was a red headed, heavily freckled youth, sporting a cap and a shirt several sizes too big for him. He shoved Forty-two back against the store front. "It costs money to walk on our street. You got any money?"
"No, and if we had, we wouldn't give it to you," Eighteen said sharply. Then he added, "Don't appease them, Doctor. This is their fight ritual. Let's make it short."
Forty-two's eyes lit up. "A fight? A real one?"
"Oh, you like that?" the red haired boy asked. "Let's see how much." He reached for Forty-two again, but Forty-two sidestepped and slapped the hand away. His attacker pursued and made to grab him again but again found his hands plunging into empty air.
"Behind you," Forty-two said helpfully from behind him. One of the other boys made to tackle him as the red haired leader swung round. Forty-two dodged down very low and slipped away, and the two boys found themselves grabbing each other. The two other boys leaped for Eighteen, who also nimbly ducked away. For several attempts, the entire fight was almost a pantomime, with the two students simply ducking out and pushing their attacker's arms back into them. BUt at last Eighteen--with the carelessness of a person who has learned fighting but never really fought, stepped right into a left hook that snapped his head back. The other boy on him caught him from behind and tried to hold him.
Forty-two exploded into action. Before Eighteen's attacker could land a second punch, Forty-two had put both of his down onto the sidewalk. He caught the boy just in the act of throwing the second punch, spun with him in a headlock, and knocked him into the corner lamp post.
Furious, Eighteen bowed forward, bringing the boy holding him onto his shoulders. With the superior strength of his race, Eighteen gripped the boy's ankle in one hand, wrist in the other, spun in a short circle, and then threw him off his shoulders in a classic flying eagle throw.
"No!" Forty-two shouted. He got under the hapless human and let the boy crash into him. They both fell to the sidewalk, but Forty-two caught the young street fighter's head, saving him from a cracked skull.
"Scarper!" One of them shouted.
"Get the red haired one!" Forty-two shouted at Eighteen, and EIghteen obliged by tackling the leader of the small gang as they all took to their heels.
Forty-two set the boy he had saved onto his feet. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"I didn't mean you no harm, mate. I just did what I was told." The street boy's eyes were big. The throw from Eighteen might very well have killed him, and they both knew it.
Forty-two firmly took him by the shoulder and turned him to face EIghteen. Eighteen's face clouded with rage at sight of him, but Forty-two shook his head. "You--you primitive!" Eighteen shouted. "How dare you lay hands on me--"
"It's over. He said he was sorry," Forty-two said.
"Say it to me then! Say it!" Eighteen shouted." He still had the red haired boy in a very efficient arm lock, but he ignored him.
"I'm sorry."
"You will call me Master. Say it!"
"I'm sorry, Master," the boy repeated.
"Let him go, Doctor," the Master said, and the rage slowly passed from his face.
"Go on," the Doctor said to the boy. "We don't want to hurt people."
The boy took two steps away, stopped, looked back, and then said to the Doctor, "Thanks."
It took the Doctor back, but he suddenly smiled a half-smile and quickly pushed out his hand. "Quite all right." They shook hands.
"Eddy, clear out of it!" Red yelled, and the smaller boy edged away and then ran off.
"What about this one?" the Master asked. He was still angry. The DOctor would have spoken in milder tones to calm his friend, but a shrill sound interrupted him. He looked around.
"It's cops. Get out of it or we're all in the stew!" Red exclaimed, struggling to get away. A big, bluff man with a red face and a heavy blue tunic suddenly barged between them. "Now then, now then, what sawll this?" he bawled. He expertly took Red by the collar with the expertise of one who is used to such a task. "More trouble, Red? And 'oo are you two pikes then? What are you doin' on mah roun's at this time ahter morning?"
The Master looked at the Doctor in complete bewilderment. "What did he say?"
The Doctor looked at the constable and understanding passed across his face. "He and his companions wanted our money," he said.
"What's two educated lads doin' down here?" the PC asked. "School closed from the bombin' then? You'll do better closer to home. These rogues is all over the streets nowadays." He shook the red haired boy. "Holding up lads for money is it?" he asked. "Lucky for you there's too much afoot for me to run you in."
"You mean your shift is up and you wants a bit of bed," Red snapped.
"I say, could you make him give us our money back?" the Doctor asked.
The Red haired boy's jaw dropped. The Master was taken off guard for a moment, and then played along. "Yes, they took all our money."
"Right you are then young masters." The PC shook his prisoner until the poor boy's teeth rattled. "'and it over."
"I didn't take no--"
"'and it over I said, or you'll be spending the day in the nick whilst we decided whether you're a juvenile or not."
Protesting and whining, the red-haired boy emptied his pockets and turned out a mass of silver and copper coins.
"That's not all of it, not at all," the Master said. "But it will have to do."
"You just wait, Fauntleroy--"
Off with you then!" and the policeman added a clip on the ear as the final insult to the young street boy's injuries, "Good day, young gents. I would get back to your own neighborhood if I were you." And the policeman ambled off while the red haired boy raced down the street in fury, frustration, and shame.
"Things happen so quickly on this planet!" Forty-two exclaimed as he watched the figure of their would-be tormentor turn, shake a fist at them, and then run off again.
"I can't make anything of this coinage, Doctor," the Master said, looking down at the small pile of coins in his hand.
"Are you young gentlemen here to buy a book?" a voice said. Both of them looked up. For a moment, neither of them said anything. A woman, tall and fortyish, a little angular but with very rich, dark eyes, stood in the doorway of the booksellers, a broom in her hand. Neither boy had ever spoken with a female before. Part of their training process required keeping the genders separate until the need for mothering had been thoroughly outgrown, and any latent desires to mate not already genetically removed had been cooled by conditioning.
Eyes almost shining, the Doctor edged closer, his hand out, as though he were offering grain to a very beautiful deer.
"Is this enough," he said in a very small, gentle voice. "Is this enough to buy that book in the window?"
"No, my lad. That book there is out of your means, I would say," she told him. She pushed a whisp of graying hair out of her eyes. "But since you've done me the favor of chasing off that disreputable gang that's been ruining my business, perhaps you would like a cup of tea?"
The Doctor shot a swift glance at the Master, who was also completely subdued, his own dark eyes also shining. The Doctor turned back to her and bowed. "Madam, we would be very grateful for a cup of tea."
"Well come inside then." And she held the door open for them. "No need to put on airs. Plain tea and plain breakfast rolls and jam."
And so, on this planet where things happen so quickly, they found themselves ushered into the heart of a bookstore by a human female. Both of them felt that anything might happen at this point, and neither of them would have gone back to Gallifrey for anything.
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Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:26 am
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The cold rain had ceased its fury, but suddenly it regained strength and slapped the wide lab window. Jo Jerked up in her chair. One of the Bunsen burners had gone out. The wide lab was dark, and yet comforting. In fact, she felt so comfortable she did not want to get up.
"I say, are you falling asleep during my story?" the Doctor asked.
She managed to turn to him, though she had been deliciously content to lean her head on her hands. "No. I love your story, and I want to hear what happens."
He peered more closely at her in the dimness, and just then something from inside the open doors of the TARDIS softly chimed.
"There, it's midnight," he said. "Merry Christmas, Jo." He kissed the top of her head and looked at her again. "I believe you have had quite enough brandy, young lady."
Her comfortable feeling was not at all disrupted, but the next thing she knew, he was setting her down in a corner of the lab, on the worn sofa with the ruined springs that he sometimes used for catnaps.
"You will tell me the rest of the story?" she asked.
"Wouldn't you rather sleep, now?"
"No, I want to hear what happens. You'll never get around to telling me the rest if you don't tell me now."
He wandered away, found his cape hung up on the coat rack, and brought it back.
"All right," he said. He drew the cape over her. It was enormous and covered her as well as a blanket. "Let me find a chair." He left and came back with a straight backed chair and the last of the brandy.
"And the candle," she added.
Stopped in the act of sitting down, he nodded and brought the last Bunsen burner back, set it on a lab stool, and settled down. Other than the single flame from the burner, the lab was dark, and the ethanol-induced flame was white, almost clear, shedding a pale glow against the darkness. The lab had taken on the atmosphere of a foreign place, rather cave-like, and somehow solemn and almost sacred. She and he might have been the only people left in the entire world that night.
"Comfortable?" he asked her.
She nodded. "You were just at the part where the bookstore lady had you come in for breakfast."
He nodded and continued the story:
The inside of the shop was like Paradise. The shelves of books went right up to the ceiling, and every volume was intact and readable. The woman would have walked straight to the back, to a doorway that led into a rear hallway, but she stopped when she realized that her guests were moving only very slowly after her, their wide eyes becoming even wider as they looked with open mouths at the feast of forbidden books.
"Do you young gentlemen collect old books?" she asked.
They both looked at her, their expressions automatically softening.
"We only have about five books," Forty-two said gently. "We've never seen so many."
"And all of ours are partly ruined," Eighteen added. Then he asked. "How long did it take you to collect so many books? Have you read them all?"
"Haven't you two ever seen a second hand book store?" she asked. "I buy and sell these books. Come back to the kitchen."
They promptly obeyed her and sat down at a deal table in the warm back room while she put a kettle on at a single burner and brought bread and jam out for them from a narrow pantry.
"There's no butter," she said.
Both boys were nonplussed at this comment.
"What is--" the young Master began, but the Doctor cut him off. "What happened to the butter?"
"We can't get any these days. It all goes to our boys."
The two young Gallifreyens looked at each other. "Do you have many sons?" the Master asked.
She stopped, startled, and then said, "I mean to our soldiers. To the lads fighting."
"The war," the Doctor said softly. "What the school Master wanted us to see." The Master nodded. There was a vacant chair at the table, with a newspaper lying on it. The Doctor took it up and passed it to the Master.
Citizens Digging Out; Two Schools Destroyed.
Their eyes flicked quickly over the first few columns, and then they looked up at her.
"This is a war zone," the Master said.
"Certainly. The world is a war zone right now. But especially London. There's no safe corner in the city. Where are you boys from?"
The Doctor spoke quickly: "From a school. It was destroyed."
"But what about your parents?"
"We have no parents," he said.
"It was a boarding school?" she asked. They had no idea what she meant, but they both nodded.
"And you mean to tell me you've been living on the streets?" She set down the bread and jam for them and poured the tea.
As she sat down, she took the newspaper and set it aside and declared, "We can't have that. We must have you put in a home."
"But couldn't we stay here?" the Master asked. He watched her reach for the bread and imitated her, as did the Doctor. They each took a roll. She offered each of them jam, but the Doctor said politely, "Oh, serve yourself first, madam."
She smiled in spite of her concern. "What airs you both put on." She spread the jam on her roll. "You mustn't become street children."
"We thought perhaps we could stay here," the Master said. "We could help you." The Doctor took some jam and passed it to his friend.
"Say this is good!" he exclaimed as he took his first bite. "Eighteen, have some!" He looked at her. "What did you say this was?"
"It's only bread and jam," she told them.
"Do you have to be very rich to eat bread and jam?"
"No, not at all. What have you boys lived on at your boarding school? Plain bread?"
"Couldn't we help you?" the Master asked again. "We could chase away those people who come to the corner, and perhaps we could find other things to do."
"Why, there's no want of work even in a small shop like this," she said. "But I can't pay you. And you must behave nicely, or out you go!"
"Just tell us what you want us to do," the Doctor said. "What shall we call you?"
"Miss Libby will do. And what shall I call you two?"
"We call each other Master and Doctor," the Master told her. "Because we don't like our other names. I'm the Master; he's the Doctor."
This startled her, and she suddenly laughed. "If you two don't take the prize. I ought to be half afraid of you. I've never seen boys like you."
"But why should you be afraid of us?" the Doctor asked. "You seem so beautiful and good. We would never hurt you."
She nearly made a retort to such an outlandish comment, for she was fortyish and rounded at the hips and shoulders, her hair greying in the front, her clothing clean but very plain. And she was simply a shop keeper. But she suddenly saw their eyes, widened and softly shining, and she realized that he was speaking sincerely.
"I try to be good," she said directly. "But most people around here would tell you I'm not so very beautiful, just plain and ordinary."
"Could you explain the war to us?" the Master asked quietly. "We're very young and have not heard enough about it to make sense of it."
"Aye, the poor children never understand it until it comes home to them," she said. "Yes, we have about half an hour until we open."
"We understand the geography," the Doctor added. "But where are the bombs coming from? Is there some sort of infantry coming behind the bombs?"
"Hitler will send his infantry over once he's destroyed enough of us," she told him soberly. "Let me find an atlas in the front, and I'll show you."
* * * *
There were boxes to unpack and books to sort, and endless dusting to do, especially in the front room where the books were sold. Some of the shelving was unsteady and needed repair work.
Books that Miss Libby had purchased by lot had to be sorted and the bad ones discarded. Both boys found this especially painful to do, and immediately suggested that perhaps they could keep the ruined books for themselves. But given the limited space in the tiny shop, Miss Libby over ruled them, and consoled them by pointing out that she had perfectly good copies, duplicates of the books that had to be thrown away. By the end of the first day she consented to let them read the merchandise after hours, if they were careful and kept their hands clean.
Their living quarters had to be dug out of the back store room, where the purchased second hand books were stacked in columns and seemed to take up every spare inch of floor space. But the Doctor and the Master were gifted packers, and by some sorting and discarding and much rearranging, they cleared out space for themselves to sleep on blankets that they strung up like hammocks.
They had to carry the crates of discarded books down to the rag man, as Miss Libby called him, a somewhat wild eyed older gentleman who smelled very strongly of alcohol. He lived in a narrow room on the first floor of a narrow building, and he didn't speak a word to the boys but watched them intently as they deposited their burden in the doorway of his small room. They left, and the door closed behind them. Then they heard wild laughter as though they had foolishly left an enormous treasure behind.
"Why does he laugh like that?" the Master asked their patron after their first trip.
"Oh, he's that crazy, but harmless enough," she told him. "I think he burns the ruined books for fuel. It's certain enough that he doesn't read them."
By then it was mid afternoon. The customers had been few but steady, but now they wandered away, and the store became quiet.
"Time for a cup of tea," Miss Libby said with some satisfaction. "Young Master, if you'll watch the front, the Doctor and I shall get the tea." She seemed to take great pleasure in having been busy and in organizing things, and now the prospect of a short rest and food also seemed a great pleasure to her. The Doctor and the Master grinned at each other in their own happiness, and the Doctor followed her out to the kitchen in the back.
They thought that life had a routine on Earth, and they gladly settled into it. Occasionally Miss Libby complained about the endless questions that they asked, but overall she was a good teacher about the things that she understood. It took her a couple days to realize that her boarders were each reading two or three books a night. This amazed her, but when she quizzed them, she found that they had almost total recall of what they were reading. They read everything from Robert Louis Stevenson, and then they followed her suggestions to start on Conan Doyle.
It delighted her when they nicknamed her Mrs. Hudson, though for propriety's sake she pretended to scold them for their "sauce." They had started to conclude that she was as plain and simple as she claimed to be, but they found to their own surprise that there was no book or bit of history that she didn't know something about.
"In all the classes we ever took, we never had a teacher as good as you," the Doctor told her one night as they washed up their few dishes from supper.
"What, with all those professors and masters and teachers that you two talk about?" she asked. "All I know is books, young Doctor. All that I don't know would fill the universe, I expect."
"What about you?" he asked. "Humans usually--I mean, most women are married and have children. Did you ever have a husband?"
"Oh, you and your directness," she said softly, affording him a glance and then passing him a plate to wipe dry.
"Am I being impertinent again?" he asked.
"Well, you don't mean to be," she said. "I don't mind your questions so much. I never was married. My sister now, Rose, she has a fine husband. You'll meet him tomorrow night unless I'm much mistaken. They're coming over to take me to the cinema, and I trust you young men can take care of the shop while I'm gone."
"Certainly. But did you prefer running the shop to marrying?" he asked.
She sighed and glanced at him. "I was a fair enough young woman in my day, Doctor," she said. "And there was a young man I had an understanding with, but things didn't work out properly. That happens in life."
The Master entered on this and stopped.
"Did you have a broken heart?" the Doctor asked. "Did it make you write poems?"
She burst out with a laugh. "That's enough. I have never married, and that's all I'm going to say. We have enough worries in the present and don't need to be digging things up from the past." She went on working, drawing happiness, the Doctor observed, from busyness and making order.
"Rose's Albert now," she added. "He has a car and drives her places. He works for the government and meets important people. But once a week he comes and gets me, and we all go out together. You couldn't ask for a finer husband to your own dear sister."
That seemed to end the conversation on a note that satisfied her.
But Friday night's grand venture out was interrupted by a horrible howling that broke out through the city just as Miss Libby had put on her hat and was slipping on her gloves.
"Oh dear." She caught herself. "Doctor, Master, get the bundles I've got stacked by the pantry door. I must find better shoes. Oh, I hope Albert and Rose are not caught out in this."
"But what is it?" the Doctor asked, alarmed.
"Get the bundles dear, and don't be in a panic. We'll be all right."
They obeyed her while she took off her hat and changed her shoes. Then she took each of them by a hand while they managed the bundles of blankets under their other arms, and she led them at a brisk trot out the door.
All the shops and buildings had gone dark, and people were striding with that same, rather precise stride that was not quite a run but was more than a walk.
"Where are we going?" the Master asked.
"To the underground, dear. We'll be perfectly safe down there."
"Is it bombs?" the Master asked.
"Yes of course, and I know you two have seen some very bad bombing that destroyed your school, but we'll be safe here, and the shop will most likely be fine in the morning."
They followed the people down several streets into a wide, dark entrance and then down several long flights of wide, concrete steps. Miss Libby seemed to be very calm and knew the way, though she kept tight hold of their hands. Something slightly possessive and protective had come to the fore in her thoughts and mood. They knew that they must not leave her.
The crowd spread out when it reached the platforms where the cars normally came in. With a surprising degree of order, the people set up their blankets, cots, and sterno cans in neat rows while one or two men walked up and down and offered advice and assistance.
"The bombs won't entomb us?" the Master asked.
"No," she said gently. "The government has looked into all that. The worst they could do is knock in the entrance, but the tracks lead down to another platform, and so we could just walk and get out. Everything will be all right down here, my boys." She arranged her own bedding between them. "Now then, she said. "It's still early. We shall probably sing for a while."
This happened as predicted. A slightly wizened little man dressed as a streetcar conductor took up an accordion and started the people on a song. The Master and Doctor settled down with Miss Libby between them, their backs against the brickwork, as they listened to the people sing.
"Psychic phenomenon," the Doctor murmured, and the Master nodded.
"They are conditioning themselves to develop a sense of community and altruism," he said.
"What's that?" Miss Libby whispered under cover of the voices all around them. "Why don't you sing?"
"We don't know the words," the Doctor whispered back.
"We are observing that the impromptu society that develops down here is far more altruistic and equal than the society on the street," the Master told her.
"If you mean do we all pull together then, then yes of course," she told them, slightly indignant. "What else is an Englishman to do when the bombs are dropping? We must trust God and help each other."
As if on cue from her words, the tenor of the singing changed. The voices became more solemn:
Abide with me, fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O Abide with me.
The lights in the tunnel suddenly went out, and the earth shook. Both boys instinctively clutched her and nearly cried out, but she stilled them. "Now, now," she whispered. "The lights often go out. You mustn't scream or cry, boys. You'll frighten the little children." In support of her words, the song continued as though nothing of very great note were happening:
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness;
Where is death's sting? where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.
This singing continued as long as the ground continued to shake and the sirens--their blare dampened by the muffling effect of the earth and concrete above--wailed. Sounds like thunder accompanied the rumbling and trembling. The lights flickered off and on at intervals.
"Where will we go if the shop is destroyed?" the Doctor whispered.
"Oh, Doctor, you must not think the bombing is that severe," she whispered. "It's still at some distance. It would be much worse than this if it were over top of us."
"But why is Hitler doing this to you?" the Master asked. "He must kill you all, for if he kills only half of you, the rest will hate him forever. Does he have the power to kill everybody?"
"Of course not. Hush now. You must sing or be still, dear."
She smoothed their hair and waited, sometimes singing and sometimes humming softly. Nobody else was nearly as frightened as they were, not even the children, for all of them had been through this before. At last as the two young timelords were persuaded that the bombing could not do them any harm, they relaxed. Instead of becoming louder, the rumbling faded. Even the singing finally stopped. The lights were manually turned off, and everybody went to sleep.
* * * *
As the orderly crowd packed up belongings and migrated back to the surface in the morning, they were greeted with all the minor disorderliness prompted by an evening evacuation. Milk was not delivered, and the telephones were out. Most of the shops had to stay closed until nearly noon. The street looked the same, but there was smoke in the west, and every now and then distant sounds of alarms and sirens. Most of the men were gone all day long to help elsewhere in the city. A few policemen stayed on the local patrol. The regular busses did not resume running until mid-day.
Miss Libby stayed at the front window and watched the street, sending the Doctor and Master back to the kitchen to make breakfast. She had been calm and reassuring the night before, yet now she looked very pale and worn, and frightened.
The Master brought her tea and bread that he had carefully cut into orderly patterns and spread perfectly with jam. He set it on the ledge of the small display window and then took her hand. "What are you afraid of, Miss Libby?" he asked. "Isn't the bombing over?"
"For the moment dear. But I do wish I knew what has become of my Rose and her husband." She would not look at him as she said this, but kept her eyes on the street.
"Well, then Mrs. Hudson," he said kindly. "Watson and I shall go out and find them for you. We are London's best detectives." He turned to the Doctor, who was coming in with his own cup of tea and breakfast roll. "Come Watson. It is time we were out of this."
"No, no!" She caught his hand, and the Master stopped and looked back at her. "What would I do if you did not come back?" she asked. "Don't go away. Please don't go away."
"Why, we shall always come back to you," the Master began, but the Doctor caught his glance and shook his head.
"We'll stay," the Doctor said. "I'm sure that your sister is all right. But there's no way for her to contact you. But we'll stay right here and wait."
He settled down behind the cash box, and the Master hesitantly found his own breakfast and sat on the stool they used for reaching to the top shelves.
"The sirens went off last night at least twenty minutes before the bombs fell," the Doctor said. "How were we alerted in advance? Is there a detection system?"
"Radar," she said automatically. "But I don't know much about it."
"Radio," the Master said. He and the Doctor had already taken apart several radios and put them back together. "Is radar like radio?"
"I'm sure I don't know," she said. "I don't know much about either."
The Doctor pushed back his blonde hair. "Detect flying objects by sound wave echo," he said. "How ingenious. Do you think that's what they do?"
"If so, they should be able to provide much more ample warning," the Master said, frowning. "I mean, with such a small amount of lead time, it sounds as though they must be setting up their equipment on their own coast and broadcasting from there. And using this vacuum tube technology of theirs, I'm sure they have tremendous problems with signal stability. They probably cannot determine what is flying at them at any given moment."
She turned to look at them, startled.
"Maybe we could help them," the Doctor said. "Even using vacuum tubes, maybe we could create some filters."
"What if we could design something that would project a high frequency transmission to lock up the controls of the incoming planes?" the Master suggested.
"Those aeroplanes must be incredibly shielded."
"It depends on what rate of oscillation we would need and if the humans--the army--could provide something that could oscillate that quickly."
"Whatever are you two talking about?" she asked.
"Miss Libby, Hitler's aeroplanes must use control systems that are electrical," the Master told her. "Any electrical signal can be interrupted if another signal of similar but inverse frequency and sufficient power is mixed with it."
"We could use an ultra high frequency as a carrier wave of a blocking signal," the Doctor said. "But the real question is if we can even generate such a high frequency carrier wave."
"Come on," the Master told him, and the boys hurried out to their backroom. The Master took out a pencil and started writing on the whitewashed wall of the room. "Let X stand for the distance from surface to air, and Y for the distance from the radio transmission point to the originating point of the aeroplanes. The hypotenuse then becomes the path of the planes towards London from Germany. Mark any point as the furthest point that broadcast can effectively reach."
"There's no doubt that they can broadcast radio waves a fair way across that distance," the Doctor said. "But it's going to come down to how high a signal they can generate. Vacuum tube technology has got limits. It's not power but frequency we have to think about."
"But those planes are built to receive each other's signals," the Master said. "Let's assume a range of 60 Herz to 60 MegaHerz. You could oscillate along that band." He started to write up a signal generation algorithm. "We could at least blank out their ship to ship communication."
Miss Libby came back to the backroom and stood watching them, slightly open-mouthed. Unaware of her, the two boys continued to write and draw and sketch their ideas. They crossed out a good many things but did not hesitate as they progressed in their thinking.
This amazing discussion was interrupted by a knock at the front door and a call out front.
The Doctor and Master turned as they heard Miss Libby give an exclamation of surprise and pleasure. "Oh Rose, I was so worried for you! Hello Albert, dear."
Two newcomers were in the hallway, a very pretty woman and a tall, slightly graying man in an overcoat. They looked tired and pale but genuinely glad to see Miss Libby.
"We were late getting out last night," the younger woman said. "And I was that out of patience with Albert, but it was for the best, wasn't it? We've been trying to get through to you all day and decided it would be better just to drive over."
The man, still smiling, came into the back room with the attitude of somebody ready to be jovial and kind to two young war orphans.
"Albert, Rose, you must let me introduce you to my assistants," Miss Libby began. But Albert interrupted her, startled.
"Where did this come from?" he asked with a nod at the pencil marks on the wall.
"We put it there," the Master said. "We'll clean the wall when we're through."
The man took a step forward. "You put it there?" he demanded. "How did you put it there? That's vital information."
"Albert, they wrote it up there themselves," Libby protested. "I saw them. They're ever so keen on radio and aeroplanes. They know all about them."
He turned to her, shocked. "You saw them? They understand this information?"
"Of course," the Doctor said, now annoyed. "It's nothing but signal wave generation and vectors for transmission. Any of your engineers should be able to understand it."
"Where did you learn this?"
"In school," the Doctor said.
"What school?"
"Our school was bombed," the Master said automatically.
"There's no school in Britain that teaches this material to its students," he snapped. "These boys are batting around top secret information. You're both coming with me." He stepped forward and seized each of them by an arm, his face grim. "Libby, somebody's been making a fool of you," he said. "These two are dangerous, perhaps tools for a spying organization."
"We're not!" the Doctor exclaimed.
"Albert, they're just boys!" Libby exclaimed.
"Boys with no history and no family?" he asked. "I'm taking them with me. Even if they're as innocent as they claim, they're endangering us all by writing this stuff up on walls."
"Then we won't write it up on walls," the Doctor said quickly. "We didn't mean any harm."
"I'm sorry, young men. You must come with me." He was trying to make his voice sound kind and firm, but behind the voice and behind the eyes they could both see that he was shocked and afraid of the equations on the wall. He perceived the two boys to be great dangers and wanted to neutralize the danger they represented.
"I forbid it!" Miss Libby exclaimed. "They are under my roof, and you will not take them away."
"That is exactly what I will do, Libby. They represent a danger. They're going to have to be questioned. No British schoolboy could know this information. They've fooled you with a cover story that anybody else could see through, taking advantage of you for being a lonely spinster."
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Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:27 am
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The Doctor and Master both swung their arms up and around their captor's grip and pushed against each elbow. He fell forward between them.
"See to Miss Libby!" the Doctor exclaimed, and he shifted quickly to imprison the human man's wrist and elbow in a joint lock. Albert came down to one knee, held immobile. "Let me go at once!" he exclaimed.
The Master ran to their mentor. "Don't be afraid, Miss Libby!" he said quickly. "We won't hurt him, but he's not taking us away from you!" He put his arms around her and felt himself seized just as possessively by her, and held close. In an instant he understood her sense of injury at Albert's words and the deep feelings that lay beneath the facade of being a plain book shop owner.
"Please don't hurt him, Doctor," Miss Libby pleaded, while Rose stood still, shocked to see this turnabout of events.
"You must promise not to lay hands on us again," the Doctor said. "And you mustn't use that tone of voice with her."
"I'm sorry," Albert gasped. The Doctor released him, and Albert stood up, ruefully rubbing his arm. He glared at both boys with a sort of disbelieving resentment.
"Can't you see they aren't normal?" he asked his sister-in-law. "Where have they come from?"
"Of course we're not normal," the Master snapped. "If by normal you mean we rely on insults and force to get things done."
"Just ask them who they are," Miss Libby said. "They don't tell lies. They're good boys."
"We're not exactly good boys," the Master said quickly. He looked at Albert. "We angered our teachers at school because we were too smart for them. I was being sent away, and so we decided to team up and run away together. That's how we came here."
"But we never hurt ordinary people," the Doctor said. "If you want us to help you with radar, just ask us. We'll be glad to stop this Hitler fellow if we can. We don't like him any more than you do."
"Why, you don't really know who he is, do you?" Albert asked.
"We know he kills the people who live in London," the Doctor returned. "Do we need to know more before we decide to fight him?"
Rose spoke up. "Albert," she said gently. "They are clearly attached to Libby. There are better ways to handle this."
The human man sighed and relented. "All right. I'm sorry Libby. I'm sorry I shouted at you. Young men, I do apologize. There are spies every where in the city. Radar is our last hope against Germany. We are very protective of our secrets."
The Doctor nodded at the wall. "You can copy it all down if you like," he said. "And we can always design more advanced mechanisms for generating and receiving signals. We'll be happy to help you."
Albert nodded and then paused. The Doctor moved over to Miss Libby and was glad when she pulled him.
"The thing is," Albert said. "If we come to you for your calculations--I mean, if word were leaked out that new designs were coming from a bookshop on an ordinary street in London--"
"No, you mustn't take them away," Libby said. "I'm not talking about imprisonment, Lib, but safety."
"No!" she exclaimed. "Who would suspect a little bookshop of harboring military secrets?"
Rose spoke up again. "What do the boys say?" she asked. "Boys, you may endanger yourselves and my sister if you stay here while helping the Allied cause."
"There are men who would murder you, children that you are, if they thought you posed a threat to Germany," Albert added.
"Spies," the Master exclaimed, more thrilled than frightened. "We read about spies."
"Albert, surely you can offer protection," Miss Libby said. "I can't stand to have them turned over to the military. It would be too hard on them."
"Clearly, I must do as the boys wish," he said, a little sourly.
"What does Miss Libby say?" the Doctor asked. He looked up at her. "Are you afraid to have us stay?"
"You must stay," she said. "You're happy here, and so am I. You'll do your best work with a comfortable and safe environment." She looked at Albert, her eyes showing some of the hurt from his remarks about her being a spinster. "They're happy with me."
Albert nodded. "All right then, Libby. Have it your way. Draw the shades will you? I want to copy this material from the wall. And then you must wash it off."
* * * *
The initial confrontation caused an unpleasant after taste in everybody's mouth. So after Albert had copied down the calculations on the wall and helped wash them off, he and Rose left.
By then it was nearly evening. Miss Libby closed the shop early. She was startled to realize how deeply shaken her boarders were by the high emotions they had witnessed. They were anxious to please her by making the tea, but she had them sit at the table, and she put the kettle on and busied her hands mixing flour, salt, and shortening. She poured their tea for them and then put a flat griddle on to heat.
"Is this bread?" the Doctor asked.
"Crumpets," she said. "You'll like them. You may have jam, if there's any left."
"Miss Libby," the Master said suddenly.
"What's that, dear?"
"Do we love you?"
"Well now, there's all sorts of love," she began. But then she said simply, "Yes, of course you do."
"Which sort is it?" the Doctor asked. He went to the narrow pantry and looked for the jam.
She slid a fork under each small cake on the griddle and quickly transferred them to a plate. "The best sort. The sort that makes you feel right at home, and as if you belonged there forever, even if you're hiding in the underground together."
"Yes, that's what it is," the Master said after a moment's thought. "Does it only happen in war? I mean, among people who aren't really related to each other?"
"People value it most in war, I expect," she said.
They sat down together. The Master poured her tea for her. She looked at them, and without thinking she touched their faces. "You're both such beautiful boys," she said. "And so kind and yet as hard as adamant, the both of you. It's like entertaining angels."
She dropped her hands and looked at her tea without taking up the cup. "But what will become of you?" she asked, half to herself.
"We've done all right so far," the Doctor said.
"I mean, because you don't really know what war is, or lying, or greed or desire--or many things that one sees in London all the time. Where ever you two have come from, it wasn't much like this."
The two students glanced at each other, slightly dismayed. The Master spoke. "But we like it here, Miss Libby. We'd rather be here than anywhere else."
"Nobody loves anybody where we come from," the Doctor said. "Or, if they do, they don't think much about it. We're not supposed to have friendships until we're older. We had to get away."
She suddenly took up her cup and became her plain and ordinary self again. "A world without greed or anger or jealousy would certainly be a world without war," she said. "It sounds like a good world to me. But there you are. The grass is always greener as they say. If we're careful here, we should be all right. Provided the Allies defeat Hitler."
* * * *
Aside from visits from Albert twice every week in the evenings, their routine continued. Over the next three weeks the warmth of late summer surrendered entirely to the rains and chill of fall. Miss Libby purchased clothing and pocket handkerchiefs for them.
"I could have had those handkerchiefs monogrammed if you two had respectable names," she told them as the two young students stood ankle deep in pasteboard boxes while she knelt on the hard floor and tunred up the cuffs of their trousers for hemming.
Eighteen held out an unfolded handkerchief by the corners and examined it. "But what do people do with them?" he asked.
"They keep them folded nicely in their breast pockets," she said around the pins in her mouth.
"And then what?" the Doctor asked.
She sighed and finished the Doctor's left cuff. "Don't shift now," she said.
"Then what do they do with them?" he asked again.
"If they need to use them, why there's the handkerchief right at hand," she said. She tugged and pulled for a monent and then said, "There, that's done with you. Slip out of them if you can, as gently as possible."
She turned to the Master and went to work onhis cuffs. The Master took up the questioning. "But what does a human need to use a handkerchief for?" he persisted. "What should we do with them now that we have them?"
She sighed and looked up, then sat back on her heels to rest a moment. She took the pins out of her mouth. "You'll know what to do with them when the time comes," she said at last. "Now ponder that for a bit and let me finish this. Doctor, if you can manage it, that crate of discards can go to the rag man."
Slipping his old trousers on, the Doctor nodded.
"I could go with him," the Master said.
"Nonsense, Watson, I'll see to it." The Doctor stopped and peered through the doorway as though seeing something, then he shouted, "Jane! Donkeys!" He snatched up the crate and raced out the door.
"Oh, he's been reading David Copperfield," Miss Libby said.
Somebody knocked out on the shop door. They were doing their tayloring work in the store room that the boys used. The front door was pushed open.
"Libby?" a familiar voice called.
"Back here, Albert!" she called. "What are you doing here on a Wednesday?"
"Just stopping by on my errands!" he called. "Are the boys with you?"
"Yes, come back here so we can see you. I don't like shouting."
"I'll go to the bakery and collect a few things for tea," he called back. "Shouldn't be long."
She looked up in time to see Eighteen's face brighten at this prospect. Both of the boys loved the items that Albert brought from the bakery shop. She could not afford sweets very often, especially now with everything in such short supply, but Albert had quickly discovered the quickest way to the hearts of his young informants.
"All right then! We'll have tea ready!" she called. They heard a genbtle scrape and then the door closed.
"The Doctor better hurry," Eighteen said.
Forty-two meanwhile, had made his delivery and was hurrying back to the shop, his hands dug into the pockets of his jacket. A haze of grey clouds hung over the city, and smoke from many grates and gas rings coiled down the roofs.
"Twas brillig--" he said experimentally to himself. "Yes, this must be brillig. Right now. Twas brillig, and the slithy toves--" A hard, rock-like projectile smashed into his shoulder and exploded into a foul smelling puddle against him. Just as he yelled and jumped back, another one struck him full in the face. The smell made him gag. He raced his sleeve across his eyes and ducked as two more missiles hit him.
"Eggs!" he yelled. Another rotten egg struck him square in the forehead. Up ahead, he saw a red-headed figure duck into an alley.
"Oy!" he shouted. Furious, he raced off in pursuit. He ducked into the alley after his quarry, got a glimpse of the smaller, tough human as it clambered over a wooden fence, and continued the chase. He scrambled over the rough boards.
"Come back here!" he yelled. "You've ruined my jacket!"
"Fauntleroy!" a voice shouted back.
"I'm gormed! I'm dodder-blasted! Just wait you!" he yelled, and got over the fence.
The chase was a long one, but the end was inevitable. Though the red haired boy knew every inch of the terrain, he could not outrun a time lord in the flower of youth. Nor could he outlast him. In and out of alleys, abandoned and ruined buildings, and empty lots the chase continued. But at last it came to the human quarry being completely winded, unable to keep running.
By this time they were several blocks from the shop. The red haired boy ran into the street and fell as his ankle came into the gutter too hard. The Doctor was on him instantly. The exhilaration of the chase and the sheer funniness of the situation had, by this time, cooled off the student, but he felt he ought to seem angry.
"Here you," he exclaimed, tackling the former egg thrower. "What about this jacket, then?"
He lifted Red by the shoulders, and just then the sky erupted. A single tongue of flame shot skyward, plainly visible over the rooftops. The roar of buckling brick and exploding glass stunned everything else into silence for a moment.
"That's my street!" the Doctor jumped up and ran for the bookshop. "Miss Libby! Eighteen!"
* * * *
"How did we get here?" Miss Libby asked.
"I don't know. I think I carried you," Eighteen gasped. He was dazed, and blood streamed from his left ear and down his face from a gash in his head.
"Here lad, you stay at her head. We'll just wrap this tightly now, Miss," the man from the shop scross the street said. "Try to stop this bleeding." He had a rough woolen blanket, which he quickly wrapped and pulled very tightly around Miss Libby, covering the bloody mess that had been her skirt and legs.
"She has no legs," Eighteen gasped to nobody.
"Hush, lad, hush now," the man said. Other footsteps pounded closer.
"Master," she whispered. "Can you hear me?"
He looked down at her and returned to himself. He bent close to her. "Yes," he said to her. "You're badly hurt. Try to regenerate. Just try."
"Our poor boys go through this--so young," she said. "No friends, no faces nearby. It's all right. Take my hand."
"I have it. Please--I don't know what happened--I don't--"
"Promise me you'll be a good boy, a fine young man," she said.
"I will," he said. A sudden quietness descended over him as he saw the flush of life slowly drain from her face.
"Promise you'll always be so good and kind."
"I promise you, I will," he whispered.
People with blankets were everywhere, the same people they shared quarters with in the underground station. There were hands everywhere, catching his head, examining him to see how badly he had been injured. People were talking all around him, hushed whispers, tense, frightened, excited.
The big blue tunic inserted itself into the crowd and pushed about half of them back.
"Now, now, it's no good closing her off from light and air. Give her a bit of room," the constable said.
The man who had pulled the blanket so tightly looked up and shook his head. "It's no good," he said. "She's gone."
"Eighteen! Eighteen!" Gasping, Forty-two dropped down by her body. "What's happened?" he screamed. "What's happened to her? What happened to the shop?" He threw his head up and took in the smoldering remains of the book shop. He stared at Eighteen.
Eighteen's lower jaw chattered helplessly. For a moment he could not control it enough to speak. "She's dead. They don't regenerate. Even when they're still alive and know they're going to die. They just lie there and die."
The big constable crouched alongside him. "Come on then, lad. You're hurt yourself. There's blood all over your face. Do you know what happened?"
"Good heavens!" Albert's voice made both boys turn their heads, and the crowd cleared so that he could come through. But both boys saw a look--almost of dismay-cross his face as he saw them. In an instant it was gone, and he ran to them. "Libby!" he exclaimed. He dropped the box he had been carrying and dropped by her side, alongside the Doctor.
"She was hemming my trousers," Eighteen said through chattering teeth to the policeman. "She went to put on the water for tea--"
"It was the gas, then," Albert said quickly.
"No. She didn't light the stove. She was looking for the sugarbowl. I heard everything--everything--"
"Yes, the explosion," the constable said.
"And then I was here," he said haltingly. "It took her legs off."
Forty-two broke down into sobs of both horror and grief. "Did Hitler do this?" he asked. Then he bowed all the way to the pavement and cried so hard that he could not speak at all. The shop owner from across the street caught him. He took in a great breath. "Why would Hitler do this?" he screamed.
"It was him, not Hitler." Eighteen said suddenly. In an instant, the shock, the grief, and the effect of his injuries fell away like a garment. He pointed at Albert. "There was a case in the front room. You left that case there! That's what exploded!"
Albert stopped, stunned at this accusation. Forty-two also instantly stopped his tears. He looked back at the destroyed bookshop. The front was collapsed, but the structure in the back was still intact. Whatever had exploded had blasted from the front room.
Sirens were going off as police and fire squads arrived. More of the people were being pushed back, and two men came up, knelt down, and lifted the blanket with a certain hesitant expertise as they examined her.
"She was in the doorway of the kitchen," Eighteen said as new tears streamed down his face, but he kept his eyes riveted to Albert. "If she had been behind the kitchen wall, she might have lived." He turned to the police constable. "He did it! Why do you think it did what it did to her? It was a bomb sitting low on the floor in the front room. That's why it hit her so low and tore her apart."
The constable suddenly straightend and clapped his hand on Albert's shoulder, uncertain about the man's guilt but much swayed by the boy's words.
"I didn't have a case!" Albert exclaimed. "I put my head in the door to tell her I would go get things for tea. I never carry a case. Look, I'm a military agent for the crown."
"You did have a case sir," the shopkeeper from across the street said. "I noticed it when I said good day to you out on the sidewalk there."
More policemen pushed their way forward. "Take this one," the constable said with a nod at Albert. "We'll know more when someone looks at what's left of that poor shop."
"Why would he kill Miss Libby?" Eighteen asked. "Why would he do that to her?"
"Come on then, young gentleman. You come here." The constable and the shopkeeper wrapped fresh blankets around Eighteen. "Someone get these lads some tea, eh?"
"Where will you take Miss Libby?" the Doctor asked. Though he was also trembling and shivering, he helped them guide his friend to the next shop up. They eased Eighteen to the ground so that he could lean against the brickwork. The Doctor sank down next to him. "Where will you take her?" he asked.
"Well now, young sir," the police constable said. He crouched down. "She was a proper woman. She'd want us to clean her up a bit, make her presentable. We have people who can do that--see that she's made to look proper. Can you add to anything that this young gentleman's told me?"
Forty-two nodded. "We were telling him--the man who left the case--about radar," he said.
"You understand radar?" the constable asked.
"Yes, all sorts of signal dynamics. Albert said we were helping the Allies. We were trying to help the Allies stop Hitler. We thought if we improved radar it would stop him."
"You--you lads must be mistaken, or perhaps he were gaming you--" the constable began.
"We do understand radar!" Eighteen shouted.
A sudden, quiet voice spoke behind the constable. "They do understand radar, my good man." The voice held so much quietness, and so much authority that the policeman stood and turned instantly and made room for the newcomer.
"Do you know these boys, sir?" he asked.
"K'An Po!" Forty-two exclaimed. He burst into tears again. Eighteen only looked up at the Doctor of Philosophy. K'An Po leaned forward and rested a hand on Eighteen's head. "You are injured, my boy, but not seriously. I shall see to you directly."
"These are my pupils," he said to the constable. "They are brilliant young men who attend a special school suited to their station and ability. They have been playing truant. I would like to see them back safely as soon as is possible, officer."
"I'm afraid they'll have to be questioned, sir," the human said, but with great respect. "The injured lad here asserts very convincingly that this woman's brother-in-law rigged the explosion."
K'An Po bowed to acquiesce. "I think," he added. "That if your-er-investigators examine the ruin, they will see that there was certainly a bomb in the front of the shop."
"Why?" Forty-two sobbed, putting his head down on his knees. "Why did he hurt her? She was so beautiful."
"Young sir," the police man said quietly, "I'd give a lot to know the answer to that question myself." He glanced at K'An Po. "She were just a shop keep, sir, and good to the lads here. Very mothering."
K'An Po nodded. "Hitler does not fear radar," he said quietly. "Because he does not understand it. But his agents in this country understand it. Not being able to persuade the Nazis to make use of the secrets of radar, a German agent may have thought it best to prevent the Allies from making any use of the same information."
The constable was stunned. "You mean he wanted to kill--these lads?"
Both boys looked up, startled. "Yes," K'An Po said gravely. "Kill them rather than risk their knowledge being spread to people who might make use of it. I'm sure the man is an agent for the Nazis." He changed the subject. "Constable, the boy is hurt. Can you arrange conveyence?"
"Right away, sir!" He trudged away, and K'An Po held out his hands to the boys. "Come, if you have had enough of Earth," he said. "Student Eighteen, I shall see to you in the TARDIS."
On quivering legs, the two students shook away the blankets and stood up. K'An Po rested a hand on a shoulder of each of them, and they walked away. They turned a corner into another street, and there was the TARDIS. It simply looked like another shop, but the boys recognized it at once.
"Please, Doctor," Forty-two said. "Can't Eighteen be spared from being sent away on Gallifrey?"
K'An Po nodded gravely. "The punishment you have devised for yourselves here on Earth is far worse than anything originally intended," he said. "I shall appeal to the Master of Students on both your behalves. Come inside."
"It's bleeding again," Eighteen said faintly. Forty-two slipped an arm around him as they entered the gleaming interior of the TARDIS. "Lean on me. Here" He dug into his breast pocket and pulled out the handkerchief. "She said we would know when to use it," he said. He pressed it to Eighteen's face.
"It will be all right," K'An Po said. "We'll go home now."
* * * *
Jo opened her eyes. The lab was silent but bright with the washed, clear light of a winter morning after a ferocious ice storm has passed.
She sat up.
"Good morning, Jo," the Doctor said from where he sat at the workbench, his jeweler's glass in his eye, a bit of circuitry in his hand. "Did you want to get breakfast for us? Why not fill up a tray and bring it back?"
She stood up and looked around.
"It's Christmas morning," he reminded her.
"The story?" she asked. "Did Miss Libby die?"
He hesitated and then went on as though working on the circuit. "Yes, but it was a long time ago. Never mind. Please don't forget cream for the coffee, and none of that fake powdered stuff, mind you."
She started for the door, stopped, and turned. "I'm so sorry--" she began.
"I'm dreadffully hungry, Jo. There's a good girl."
She went out. When she came back with a tray, she set it down and poured his coffee for him. He set down the jeweler's glass. "Ah, toast! The very thing after too much brandy the night before!" He took an enormous bite from a piece of toast.
She stepped behind him as though she would have found a chair or stool for herself. Very gently, she rested her hands on his shoulders. There was some reason he had told her his story, she thought, some desire to be known and understood. For a moment he chewed on the toast as though she were not there at all, and then he swallowed and was still.
"The funny thing," he said after a moment. "The funny thing is, just after we trounced the Autons, I went to her grave. Seeing him again made me think of her. And do you know what?"
"What?" she asked softly. She came around him so that he could see her.
"Somebody had fenced off the grave and put up a statue, Jo. A very pretty little angel." He glanced at her with a knowing look. "A very lovely little thing that I swear I saw in Michelangelo's shop once. Sitting there in an English churchyard."
"You don't think--" she began. "But he hates humans! All humans!"
The Doctor did not answer.
"What happened to Albert?" she asked.
"The same end that came to all traitors back then," he said briefly. "Rose was exonerated. She'd had no idea of what Albert was really doing. But she never really recovered, from what I understand."
Jo was silent, but she stayed by him. She looked up to see him looking at her with a faint, very faint smile. "Do you know what else?" he asked.
"What?"
"I have some investigative work to do up in Ostenbury today. Isn't that where your family are?"
"But I'm on shift--"
"Nonsense! I get first claim on you. I can't get by without an assistant. We'll drive up right after breakfast. Your family won't mind an extra place at the table for Christmas dinner, will they?"
"Not at all."
"Well go on, call them then. We'll make it a merry Christmas yet." She nodded, went to the phone and picked it up, and then stopped. "But how did he go bad?" she asked.
The Doctor took a huge drink of coffee, set the cup down, and then poured more for himself. "One story at a time, Jo," he said. "That's for another day."
THE END
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Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 12:23 am
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Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 12:48 pm
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I've been reading it... haven't finished it, though, it's so long... I've got it saved on my computer, which I don't often do.
Anyway. I LOVE IT! It's adorable, and sad, and it makes perfect sense. You can kind of see how they end up the people they are later. When they're finding clothes for Eighteen the Master, and they find him black trousers and a black turtleneck, there's something very low-key sinister about that. After all, when he's grown up, that's how he dresses. Suddenly the reader's mental image of him in the story starts looking an awful lot like how he looks later on. Oh, and I was giggling like mad at how insanely cute it was when the Doctor and the Master first meet Miss Libby and are so totally bowled over by meeting a woman. And how incredibly naive the Doctor is. He never does entirely grow out of that, does he?
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Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:50 am
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Lullabee I've been reading it... haven't finished it, though, it's so long... I've got it saved on my computer, which I don't often do.
Anyway. I LOVE IT! It's adorable, and sad, and it makes perfect sense. You can kind of see how they end up the people they are later. When they're finding clothes for Eighteen the Master, and they find him black trousers and a black turtleneck, there's something very low-key sinister about that. After all, when he's grown up, that's how he dresses. Suddenly the reader's mental image of him in the story starts looking an awful lot like how he looks later on. Oh, and I was giggling like mad at how insanely cute it was when the Doctor and the Master first meet Miss Libby and are so totally bowled over by meeting a woman. And how incredibly naive the Doctor is. He never does entirely grow out of that, does he? |
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Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:30 am
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Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:44 pm
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Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 5:52 pm
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Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 2:56 am
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Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2008 1:07 pm
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Fantasy_of_Strange_Things
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Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 8:49 am
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Reply
