Blame my philosophy prof for this one; if she hadn't mentioned tribbles for an example, I never would have thought of it (Question: "What's an inefficient way to distribute tribbles?" Answer: "Giving them to Klingons"). I don't remember the real history of the tribbles—I'm sure it was mentioned in the original Trek or on DS9 at some point, so we'll just take this thing as an alternative universe, shall we? (Actually, I seem to recall seeing a special where Alexander Siddig mentioned a…giant cat spitting up hairballs? Hmm…) And as so often happens with my stories, this got more involved than I either planned or expected--it was supposed to be a drabble. Ha! It actually reads like a warped Target novelisation, and you can't blame me for that either, as I've just found some more of those to read for the first time in years. Anyway, general reminders: I don't own the Time Lord, his TARDIS, his companion, or any tribbles. Actually, yes, I do own a trib—no, wait, the cat ate it, so that's fine too.
Sorry. I'm feeling particularly absurd at the moment.
The Time Lord and the Tribbles
"What an adorable little creature!" Nyssa exclaimed, coming to a halt in front of a particular stall. She'd been wandering through the outdoor market on the sunny planet with the Doctor for a couple hours now, both finding wonderful electronic contraptions they had yearned to take apart. But that would mean buying the electronic contraptions, and even the Doctor didn't want to shell out all that money and lug all that stuff around.
"Oh?" the Doctor managed to sound interested even as a nearby stall caught his eye. He saw even more wonderful technical contraptions with names that involved lots of technobabble and rushed over to study them.
"Yes, isn't it, Doctor?" Nyssa held up one of the small, furry creatures, cupped in her hands. The Doctor glanced up, smiled at Nyssa indulgently, then looked down again with a fond eye at the stuff on the table at which he stood. An instant later his mind registered what he'd seen and his eyes widened in horror.
"Yes yes, quite adorable," the Doctor said, rushing back to Nyssa's side, gingerly taking the little warbling creature out of her hands and depositing it back with the other three or four already there. "Let's get on, shall we?" He smiled at Nyssa nervously.
"I was hoping to see how much it cost, Doctor," Nyssa answered, looking a little hurt. The humanoid stall owner perked up his ears at that and smiled benevolently at Nyssa.
"Why?" the Doctor sounded apprehensive. He fiddled with his rolled-up hat.
"Well, I was thinking of buying it," she admitted. "I haven't had any sort of pet since I was a child on Traken..."
"No no," the Doctor shook his head decisively, blonde strands of hair falling into his eyes. "That's a very bad idea, don't you think, Nyssa? I mean, you'd never have time to care for it, and you really couldn't take it with you when we left the TARDIS..."
"That's true," Nyssa confirmed. But she still looked doubtful.
"Ah, but sir!" exclaimed the stall owner. "Tribbles don't need that much maintenance at all! They take good care of themselves, they do."
"Yes, that's half the trouble," the Doctor muttered. The humanoid on the other side of the stall flushed.
"What, Doctor?"
"Oh, nothing Nyssa. No, I'm sorry, I just don't like the idea of leaving a tribble—any sort of animal for that matter—alone in the TARDIS for any extended length of time. Now aren't you getting hungry? I'm sure I saw a stall back there selling some wonderful stew and bread—you see, on this particular planet they take…" the Doctor's cheerful voice drifted off as he threaded his way through the crowds.
Nyssa reluctantly followed the Doctor, glancing back once at the—tribbles?—as she left.
Later however, while the Doctor was deep in conversation with a couple other customers and a shop keeper about something incomprehensible even to Nyssa, she slipped back to see if there were any of the sweet little tribbles left. She didn't know why she wanted to defy the Doctor on this—she would normally never disobey him—but she sincerely could not see why he disliked the tribbles so much.
And besides, she did seriously want a pet.
Nyssa was delighted to see a couple tribbles left. The stall owner was delighted to see her come back. "Going to buy one of the tribbles then, miss?" he winked at her.
She smiled politely back and said, "Yes please. How much?"
He told her the price—quite reasonable, she was pleased to note—and she gave him the money while he told her a few basic things on how to care for the creature. She delicately picked up the small, chirping bundle of fur, whispered to it, "Be quiet now; we don't want you to get caught," and slipped it into the fairly large but also empty bag she'd brought along to the street market.
Bidding the man a good-bye, she rejoined the Doctor and they left the planet, he none the wiser to what she'd done.
* * *
Nyssa was surprised to find two or three more tribbles in her bag when she got back to her room. "Oh," she said in surprise. "Well…that's all right I suppose." She carefully set the tribbles down on her vanity table, shaking her head in perplexity, and decided to catch up on some sleep. It'd been a long day, and travelling with the Doctor was always exhausting.
She slept deeply and when she woke up hours later, she looked around her room and gasped in horror. "Doctor!" she yelled, feeling rather like the child who would call out to her father after a nightmare. "Doctor!"
The Doctor came rushing into her room and froze on the threshold, a dawning look of dismay on his own youthful face. He slowly looked up from studying the room and met Nyssa's eye. "Nyssa," he breathed, "you didn't…"
She looked down, ashamed. "I'm sorry Doctor. I couldn't resist! They were so sweet and harmless looking. I didn't know they had such incredible reproductive rates!"
Her room was of course sprinkled with squawking tribbles. The Doctor sighed. "Well, it's too late to go back to the planet now," he said. It didn't particularly comfort Nyssa.
"What can we do?" she asked. She was afraid to get out of her bed in case she trampled one of the little creatures.
"We'll have to get them out of the TARDIS somehow," the Time Lord answered practically. He brightened. "Of course! We'll find an uninhabited planet where they can live peacefully." Nyssa frowned up at the Doctor, puzzled. "I'm not about to jettison more of the ship," he told her a trifle snappishly and left for the console room.
He—eventually with Nyssa's help, when she could safely get out of bed—managed to load all the tribbles off the TARDIS and onto an idyllic but unpopulated planet that the Doctor had found. Thankfully Nyssa had woken up and realized the problem before the tribbles had had much of a chance to replicate.
The Doctor and Nyssa slipped back into the TARDIS after the last trip (it hadn't taken that many, only about five or seven times), and the Doctor set the controls for a new destination. "Thank goodness," he sighed. "Just what this poor old girl doesn't need—an infestation of small, furry creatures who make far too much noise for their size."
"I'm sorry, Doctor," Nyssa repeated. "I should have done as you asked."
"Well…" the Doctor looked embarrassed, Nyssa was surprised to note. "In a way, it's not entirely your fault. I should have warned you, given you the reasons for not buying the tribble. But I didn't really want to discuss them."
"Whyever not?" Nyssa asked in curiosity.
The Doctor looked even more uncomfortable. "Doctor?" Nyssa pressed, intrigued.
The Doctor sighed, at last giving up. "It's rather embarrassing," he admitted. She gave him a look that plainly said, Keep going. He took a deep breath. "It was another indiscretion from my Academy days," he explained at last with difficulty. "A classmate of mine and I…well, we rather created the species."
Nyssa raised her eyebrows. The Doctor was actually blushing. "It started out as a legitimate class experiment, became a practical joke and then…well, got out of hand."
"You mean you created the tribbles?" Nyssa smirked.
The Doctor winced. "I'd rather you not tell that to anyone," he replied a bit petulantly. "A lot of people—a lot more people—would be very unhappy with me if they knew that."
Nyssa shook her head. She really ought to have known.