Chapter 14 - Dodging Bullets
"As always, you fail to comprehend the essence of what it is to Sing. Your calculations are based upon false premises and thus they are destined to fail," Aislynn accused him, trying to maintain her defiance, and Rassilon could barely keep his scorn in check.
"Oh, you silly creature! I fail to comprehend? I invented Singing! I invented Block Transfer Mathematics. I knew you were dim, but this goes beyond even that… Don't you understand how far below me in intellect and understanding you are? For you to chide me, for you to try to educate me, it's utterly laughable," he chortled and wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. "I'm a billion years old! Do you think you have ever had a thought that I didn't think first?"
"Block Transfer Mathematics is not the Song, but only what it is made of," she said, but her voice was sad and that irritated him even more. She was so incredibly predictable, so mealy-mouthed and dull, it was like talking to a wall.
"Oh, do be silent! You are boring me to tears! I've learned more about Singing and Block Transfer Mathematics than you will ever comprehend. I have gone so far beyond you that you can't even see the trail. Great Stars! Your mind is so incredibly tiny and so stuffed full of ridiculous notions," he snapped out and he let her feel the weight of his mind pushing on her own, ready to roll over her and crush her completely. Even her resulting terror was predictable and gave him no pleasure at all.
"All your life, you've abided by the rules, Aislynn. The amusing part, of course, is that I made all the rules! The entirety of Time Lord society was created by me! So, every day of your life, you've obeyed me, without even knowing it. You were obeying the rules that I created, so that it was easier for me to control you, and none of you ever figured it out! It's all you're good for, Aislynn, being a slave to whomever snaps their fingers," he told her, shaking his head in amusement. "You know, I saw you on the Station." He watched her flinch at that and knew he was close to breaking her. "I knew that they were ordering you into their beds and you were too much a coward to even throw yourself out of an airlock and end it all. You're nothing, just a toy, and the truth is that you prefer it that way. Free will would be wasted on you." He watched her mind shatter under the blows of his words with an idle interest. She wasn't even much of a challenge to destroy, really. He was so very bored by them all.
"Now, follow me and behave yourself, I need you to go to the medi-bay and check to make sure that the Master is acting in my best interest."
He led her down the hallways and into the sterile white area. It was obviously a human design, since they seemed to imagine that white was the correct colour for medical facilities. It was odd, because usually they were a fairly imaginative race, even if hopelessly primitive.
The Master was tending to the child and it was obvious that he too was emotionally attached to the little girl. Useful, Rassilon decided.
"Lady Aislynn, stand over there and keep an eye on the Master for me," Rassilon ordered. "Thank you."
"As you command," she responded, and stood in the spot indicated. He could sense her miserable, near-suicidal thoughts and felt a certain exasperation with the situation, but she was both far too valuable and far too dangerous to be allowed either her freedom or enough mental will to rebel against him. It wasn't optimal, as he preferred it when people willingly followed him, out of fear or respect, but he would simply have to make do with what he had. It was a poor craftsmen who blamed his failure on his tools, after all, even such flawed ones as these.
"Lord Rassilon," the Master turned to regard him and Rassilon was amused to see the signs of anger and hatred in his mind. Despite that though, the Master at least respected him and was too intelligent to openly defy him.
"Lord Master," he answered, nodding graciously. He knew that the other man preferred some new name now, but it was just foolishness, after all. He was what he had always been, a tool, regardless of what he might imagine.
"The Doctor is on his way, you have to know that," the Master told him in a soft voice.
"No doubt," Rassilon replied, hiding the sudden disquiet that he felt at that thought.
"He's a bit angry with you," the Master pointed out and Rassilon chuckled, though the Doctor was a formidable foe and one he had to be cautious of. The reminder was timely, he would have to make plans. The Doctor knew him far too well and was nearly as clever as he himself was, it was wise to be careful around him.
"I'm a bit angry with him, as well," he replied and then turned and contemplated Lady Aislynn for a moment. "Should my Lord Master act, plot, or even appear to be acting against me, or not obeying my explicit orders, you are to report that to me immediately, do you understand?" he asked her and she nodded. "You may move, speak, tend to your needs, even sit, if you like, but you may not leave this room unless the Master does as well, nor can you act against me in any way."
He thought over the wording of his orders, trying to see if there were any way to twist them to serve other ends than his own. He decided that it would be difficult for them to manage it and left the room, for he had no time to bandy words with his tools, there was much work to be done.
Aislynn turned to study Guinn, glad that she hadn't been ordered not to move or speak. It would have been even more humiliating if she had to stand there like a lump, just staring at him. Freeya was watching her with wide eyes, but she seemed calm now, with Guinn standing there.
"Are you okay, Lady Aislynn?" he asked, looking at her with worried eyes and she was nearly undone by his compassion. She didn't answer immediately, trying to wrestle with herself and with her own pride as well. Rassilon's words were still ringing in her ears and she found herself second-guessing every thought and action, afraid that he'd been right about her.
"A few bruises," she finally admitted. "I cut my head in the crash, but it's shallow." There was so much more to be said, but she didn't even know how to begin. "Yourself? Freeya? Have you seen the others?"
"Everyone is alive, my Lady," he told her and then came over to use a tissue regenerator on her forehead. In spite of herself, her eyes flooded with tears. It was a bit of kindness she had not expected.
"I broke my arm, but Guinn fixed it. Just as good as Susan would have," Freeya told her with a serious tone to her voice and displayed her newly-healed limb.
"I'm glad that you are feeling better," she told Freeya and then turned to look at Guinn. "Thank you," she said, somewhat unsteadily.
"For nine hundred years, I was where you are now," he told her in a voice that contained too much grief to be easily borne. "I only wish I could do more. I am just ... so very sorry."
"As am I," she said truthfully. "In a way, I am terribly jealous to see you free and yet, I am also deeply grateful."
"I'm not free though, am I?" he asked, his eyes bitter and his mouth twisted. "We're all back where we are, the only difference is that now we know what we've lost."
"Too true," she said slowly. "I'm… very tired."
"Can you move now?" Freeya asked, coming down off the table and looking up at her.
Aislynn was surprised that she would be so brave as to do so. Freeya knew she was Infected and she had been terrified before.
"You heard him," she said gently. "Though I cannot leave the room, I do have more freedom of movement than previously, so that is something." She looked carefully at Freeya. "Are you all right?" she asked.
"Guinn fixed my arm, so don't worry, he'll fix you too," she assured Aislynn and patted her soothingly.
Aislynn smiled, although her eyes were stinging, as she fought back more tears.
"You've been so brave, I don't doubt that Koschei will be proud of you when he comes."
"He'll be here soon, he wouldn't leave us here, and then we'll all go home...," she paused, her words trailing off. "Well, most of us... Justin..." She fell silent, looking pale and Guinn bent down and hugged her tightly.
"We'll do everything we can," he told her, but his eyes when he looked at Aislynn were bleak. "Now, I need to finish getting the Medi-bay fixed, eh?"
"Is that any better?" the Doctor asked and Koschei shook his head.
"This blasted interference is making it impossible to track them!" he grumbled.
"Let me try something else," the Doctor suggested.
"Make it something better than the last thing you tried," Taydin growled and Rose frowned at him.
"That was not his fault!" she protested.
"You fired the weapons!" Taydin retorted.
"To be fair, there really wasn't any way for me to know that there were weapons on this ship, or that they could even do that!" the Doctor pointed out with a grimace.
"You could have asked!" Taydin argued and the Doctor looked at him in bafflement.
"Have you actually met me?" he asked, noting that everyone else was also staring at Taydin as well.
"Doc doesn't really do that," Jake pointed out, scratching his head and grinning at the Scout.
"See? Everyone knows that about me!"
Taydin dropped his head in his hands and tried not to shout, his throat was still sore from Singing for so long.
"What did I ever do to deserve this?" he groaned.
"Would you like a list?" Koschei asked with a wry smile and despite himself, Taydin chuckled.
"Very well, try not to destroy any passing comets this time, how's that?" he asked in a resigned tone and the Doctor grinned at him.
"I'll do my best!" he replied and Taydin just shrugged. The Doctor was always impossible and that's all there was to it.
Aislynn looked around the Medi- bay, before walking over to the desk and righting the chair for herself. Her eyes took in the scorched walls, the shattered decking, the torn up beds, and the tray full of surgical instruments which had been slammed across the room and embedded themselves into the bulkhead and she shook her head.
"I can't believe I am about to say this, but this looks even worse than how the Medi-bay aboard the Elysium used to look."
"Yes, but your problem back then was that you didn't have me about to repair it," he teased and went to work pulling apart the diagnostics panels and rebuilding them.
"Quite right, I should have made sure to have you aboard," she bantered, trying to keep up her spirits in front of Freeya.
"I did some rather nice designs on the Haven Class Scout Ships," Guinn added, grinning at the little girl. "The engines were Class Six, with hyperfield generators, and cross temporal folding capacity, the navigation was designed to be intuitive and accurate down to the second, and the scanners were precise enough to find a grain of sand from two hundred thousand miles away. Even I was impressed by it, which is harder than you might think it is. I have very high standards."
Freeya smiled up at him and Aislynn understood his silly nattering. He was trying to set the child at ease, to lighten the mood. Freeya was watching them and he couldn't be a pessimist while she was nearby.
Aislynn felt a wave of homesickness washing over her, but fought it off. She also knew that she couldn't be anything but cheerful and hopeful in front of the little girl.
"Well, you did a brilliant job on her, she's the best ship in the universe and I can't wait to get back to her," Aislynn told them, pretending that she expected to survive all of this, though Guinn's eyes on her were filled with his own understanding of just how badly off they were.
"I just want to go home and eat some of Susan's cookies," Freeya murmured and her eyes filled up with a sudden flow of tears.
"Me too," Guinn told her and opened his arms to her. The girl crawled into his lap, just a bit too tall and gawky at eleven to fit neatly against him, but he wrapped her up, face against her hair, and rocked her as she cried.
Aislynn watched him, wondering again how such a gentle, compassionate spirit could have resided inside that soulless monster. She knew full well what it was like to watch your body acting without your conscious ability to prevent it. She knew what it was to be forced to obey alien commands, wanting to cry out and refuse, even as you were trapped in silent complicity. She could not imagine enduring it for nine hundred years. The mere thought of that made her shudder. The knowledge that she had hundreds of years ahead of her of the same thing made her soul quail.
"Now, you go see if Tomoko needs you, okay?" Guinn told Freeya and she looked up at him and nodded. "You stay safe, be brave, and wait. Koschei and the others are coming." She nodded and wrapped her arms around him, kissing his cheek softly, before she left the room.
Guinn looked startled, his hand pressed to his cheek as he stood there, watching her go in a sort of dazed wonderment.
"What?" Aislynn asked.
"I'm not sure that I will ever get used to being someone that a child can trust," he murmured and turned away quickly to busy himself at the repairs.
"She seems to love you," Aislynn pointed out diffidently and he nodded, his back still to her and she pretended not to see his hand brushing at his face as he worked.
"Thank you for not saying anything about what happened on Earth. She doesn't know yet, and I want to keep that from her, until this is over," he sighed out and she felt her hearts squeezing in pain as she thought of all that the child still had yet to face.
"I know. I haven't had the hearts to tell her," Aislynn replied, feeling the burden of the unspoken words weighing on her.
"Davian, the boy that died, was one of her closest friends," he explained, looking haunted. "I don't know how she would be able to stay brave and functioning, if she knew."
"She shouldn't have to," Aislynn's mood was darkening as she thought about it. "We must get her out of here somehow."
"Oh yes, that's my top priority, even before kicking Rassilon's...uh... defeating him," he finished a bit lamely, as he tried to censor his speech.
"It's all right. I have never used improper language, but I believe for Rassilon I might be tempted to indulge."
"He has that effect on people," Guinn sighed, still working diligently on the equipment. There was an awkward silence and then he glanced up at her, looking abashed.
"I hope that being stuck here with me isn't too awkward for you," he told her and she winced as he spoke. "Saying that "Well I might have amused myself by ordering you to jump up and down, but at least I never ordered you into my bed," sounds like rubbish, I know. Still, I am sorry, for all of it."
The tears overflowed and she wiped them away hastily.
"Once I was Infected," she murmured, "No one ever saw me as a person again. Particularly once the Song faded. I was just a tool, to be used as long as it was amusing, and then sent away afterwards. The girl who can't say 'no' has a great appeal to certain…" She shook her head as she saw him look at her with an anguished expression. She didn't need his pity, she needed his help.
"I always found that sort of thing incomprehensible," he admitted. "Even at my worst, an unwilling partner never appealed to me," he muttered and savagely wrenched a circuit board from its seating, setting it aside to be replaced.
"I thought I had escaped all that." She opened her eyes, but they slid away from his face, looking to one side. "And now, here I am, exactly where I was before. There has to be an end to this."
Guinn heard her words and followed her line of sight. Her gaze had fallen on one of the tables, where a syringe was visible. He saw immediately what she was thinking and and he felt suddenly sick, thinking of his Susan and how she had died at his hands.
"Couldn't you just…" She must have seen his horrified look, because she added, "On your command, I could prepare one and just… walk away. You wouldn't have to see." Her voice was low and he was fighting not to scream, or start shaking. History could not repeat again like this. He could not do it again, even if it was killing another desperate broken person, taking them out of a life that had become unbearable.
"Aislynn, I can't do that, you have to know that I can't," he whispered, deeply distressed and trying to hide just how shaken he was.
"Please," she whispered.
"I wish you wouldn't ask this of me," he choked out, looking at his hands. "I have so much blood on them already, I am not certain that I could stand any more."
"But my blood would be on my own hands, not yours," she told him and he had to suppress a sharp retort, forcing himself back to calmness.
"I'm not as prone to self-delusion as I used to be," he replied, bitterness that he had wanted to hide from her, coming out in his tone. "That lie won't work, not with you like that," he muttered, waving at her rigid figure. He would have to order her to do it and they both knew that.
"Guinn… please," she answered. "You would be doing me a great favour. I would be free. I can't live like this any more," she said, and it was the unvarnished truth. She rarely said anything so personal. She must have been low indeed to make such a confession. "It would have been better if I had burned with Gallifrey. I'm just… I'm tired. I am so very tired. Please..."
"Aislynn, Koschei and I were only a few days away from solving the Nanite problem," he told her, practically begging. "Please, let's deal with this mess, get home, and we'll have you cured in a week tops." He stood up, walked over to her, and put his hands on her shoulders, looking her straight in the eyes. "I promise you, Aislynn, we can do it, we can fix this. Please, don't give up, not yet, not when we are so damn close! All right?" He wiped her tears away, trying to find something in himself that was capable of being soothing and consoling and wishing that Susan was here instead. She was the one who knew what to say in these moments, not him.
It was a long time before Aislynn answered and her eyes were so weary and filled with despair that it hurt to keep looking at her and meeting her gaze, but he forced himself to.
"Rassilon told me that the changes made to the neural pathways by the nanites are permanent, even if they are ultimately removed." Her eyes searched his face. "Is it true?"
"Well, that's true, to a certain degree," he admitted. "The damage can be repaired, but the pathways tend to route in new patterns regardless. Susan could explain it better." He paused, searching for words. "It's like with any injury, the brain re-routes around the damaged areas."
She was silent for a long time with her eyes closed.
"He is planning to make more like me."
"More controlled Time Lords?" he asked softly, his face creasing with concern.
"Yes," she said, her voice very low.
"That's bad," he groaned. "An army of completely obedient Time Lords... He'd be very difficult to oppose. I recall how effective that strategy was when the Daleks used it against us."
"You can't let him do that, you know you can't."
"Of course we can't. The doctor wouldn't stand it for a second," he agreed with a sigh. He ran a weary hand through his thick black curls. "Why couldn't he have just stayed dead?"
She shook her head.
"Guinn… you have to promise me that you won't let this happen."
"Aislynn, there is no reason to even ask that of me. You have to know that I will oppose him with everything I have," he glowered. "What, did you think I was like an abandoned dog, merely waiting for my master's return?" he hissed. "I despise him. I would do anything to stop him from destroying this universe, the way he nearly did the other one."
"And if stopping him involves stopping me?"
"Aislynn, I have a realistic understanding of my own limitations. You could kill me with an A sharp," he pointed out with a small, grim smile.
She was silent for a while.
"I don't know what to do," she said at last. "I just… I want to live, but it's such a risk…" She stopped herself suddenly, and shook her head. "He's right… I'm a coward. Damn it all."
"Living isn't cowardly," Guinn contradicted. "Living is brave. Dying is cowardly. Taking the easy way out and letting everyone else deal with the fallout? That's not courage. Any idiot can die, but only a truly brave soul can stand against the tide and keep fighting, even when he can barely remember what he's fighting for."
"I can't just be... be a tool to be used for good or ill, at the whims of anyone who happens to be nearby. Surely there must be something more than that." Her eyes opened to look at him, cloudy with pain, and overflowing with tears.
"There is. I know full well what it feels like to be used that way," he pointed out. "I got free and you will too. We'll do this. If you find it hard to keep going for yourself, then try to keep going for Taydin, all right? I don't want to see what it would do to him to lose another person he cares for to die from this," Guinn told her. "You have people that care about you. Diana, the Drs. Harper, and think about Susan, all the hard work she put into saving your life. Don't throw that away!"
She nodded, although she closed her eyes and did not reopen them.
"For Taydin," she agreed, not very strongly.
"Furthermore, if you die, who knows what the Doctor would do! He could abolish the Houses and Lines, put a Tesco's in the Panopticon, make a law that the President has to wear motley, or some other foolish thing!" He gave her a gentle shake. "You owe it to future generations to stop him." He was grasping at straws, he knew, just trying to find something, anything, to get her angry and fiery again. Aislynn flaming and fierce was normal, but this gray, fragile creature scared him.
Her eyes lit for a moment and he knew that he had it. The fire, never far from the surface, still smouldered, at least a little. But its light was low, and Guinn could tell he didn't have much time. Once she had committed to the decision, it would only be a matter of waiting for the right moment to take her opportunity.
"I certainly intended to speak to him about the Houses," she murmured. "I had forgotten."
"There you see! You have things to do! You have to give him the rough side of your tongue! Make him see reason!" Guinn encouraged her.
Her eyes searched his face.
"You won't… leave me like this?" Her voice was barely audible and it was agonizing to see her reduced so, especially knowing that he was partially to blame for it all.
He looked at her for a long moment and then took a breath.
"You have my word, Aislynn, if I can't end it one way, I swear that I will end it the other," he promised, eyes sad, but serious. It would destroy him to do it. It would drive him back into the darkness again, he knew that, but he couldn't turn away from the appeal in her eyes.
She finally seemed to be comforted by his words.
"Then I will wait for you," she said, with a hint of her usual dignified air. The flame was back, flickering weakly, and he felt like he had dodged a bullet.
Gaige often felt that the truck was the finest invention any species had ever come up with. Since the alternative to riding in the truck was riding a camel, he was fairly certain that most of the other soldiers agreed with him on that point.
"We're off by two degrees," he told Rammall, pretending that he was using the map and compass, rather than simply following the Song of other Time Lords.
He was trying not to be too excited. He couldn't feel Adyra's mind ahead of him, so he wasn't certain that this was a rescue party come looking for him. Just because he couldn't think of any other reason for a bunch of Time Lords to have come to Azari Bal, didn't mean that there wasn't one. Dar's Rule 7 stated that "If shit is falling, it's going to hit the Op, no matter what."
"Right," Rammall corrected their course with the driver, also pretending that Gaige was following the map and compass. He shot a look at Gaige that was subtly enquiring and Gaige shrugged. He wasn't sure who was out there, but he knew it wasn't his wife, so he was feeling strangely wary.
The truck bounced and jolted across the rutted road, but Gaige didn't care.
It was still better than riding a camel.