A New Direction
Stunned silence reigned over the collected colony for many long minutes, before a despairing, desperate growl began sweeping through. "You mean this has all been for nothing?" came an angry shout from the rear. "We're all going to die here?" wailed a woman from the side.
Romana sat stone-faced for several minutes, letting them get past the initial shock, before she rose again and held up a hand for silence. She'd lost just enough of her gravitas over the past six years that she didn't get it instantly, but she did get it. "The very first night of our arrival on New Gallifrey, I reminded you of a very old saying: where there's life, there's hope. I am not about to give up, not on life. Not on my daughters' lives. Nor on the idea of beginning a new civilization. I still hold hope that Brandon's computers are wrong, and that we can indeed get through this genetic bottleneck and re-establish our people, here in this alternate universe.
"Yes, here. There's no going back to the old one. Gallifrey is gone. There's no use returning to that universe to go elsewhere. No groups of Time Lords survived to plant colonies anywhere else; the Daleks destroyed all." (The Doctor, who had more reason to know than anyone, had assured her of that a few days earlier in one of their private talks.)
"But I think we need to face the other facts we've just heard. We're out here all alone, with no support, no supplies. And while civilizations have indeed arisen from just such circumstances, such tiny initial colonies in the wilderness, countless more have failed. We truly have no backup plan, nowhere to turn if – when – disaster strikes."
She took a deep breath, choosing her next words carefully. "I therefore propose to you all that we consider, as a group, the possibility of picking up and moving elsewhere, and beginning again on some planet where we can find assistance and support.
"As Time Lords, we removed ourselves from universal society, living aloof and apart for millennia. But we are no longer Time Lords. And we can no longer afford to maintain that self-imposed exile. To put it simply, we need to begin making friends. Our very survival as a species depends upon it."
She paused to let them consider, and a woman rose a few ranks back rose to her feet. "You mean for us to abandon New Gallifrey altogether and move to another planet? One that's already inhabited, and try to make friends with those inhabitants? To become pitiful refugees, begging for charity?"
Romana drew breath to protest her choice of words, but another voice came from one side. "Not refugees." The visitors had gathered in a small knot out of the way, not part of either the leadership nor the citizens. Now in the middle of that knot arose Lady Rose Gallifrey, the dawning light of idea setting her face aglow. "Not refugees. Colonists. As you are now. But this time, as part of a much larger group effort at colonizing an entirely new, uninhabited planet. Plenty of room for all, to grow and establish a vital, healthy population."
Corin and Joshua gasped in unison as her meaning struck, and they shared a startled, ecstatic grin with each other before turning back to Rose. Corin named it, loud enough for all to hear.
"Pacifica?"
She turned to him and let loose her supernova smile. "Pacifica."
Joshua threw his head back and pealed laughter. "Oh, perfect! Baroness, I salute you. Oh, well done, madam!"
Romana stepped forward, breaking it up with a single word. "Pacifica?"
Swiftly, the three of them outlined their recent frenetic activities, helping to get the brand-new joint human and SenSaru colony established on the sparkling oceanic world they were to share. Corin continued the proposal: "There's literally an entire world of room – not a single individual claim has yet been staked. Two hundred additional people, a single village, wouldn't make the slightest dent. You wouldn't be refugees, begging for charity from an ancient civilization, asking them to make room for you, but co-colonists, sharing the struggles with thousands of others of like mind and spirit. But it would instantly provide you with the support and supplies you need to survive. And who knows what answers you may yet find? A number of Earth scientists have already dedicated themselves to finding the answers to the SenSaru population bottleneck. What's another species in the mix?"
The excitement was contagious, but there were huge reservations, which boiled down to just one. "But to leave Gallifrey?"
"How can we just step off into the unknown, leave behind everything we know, every bit of familiarity from the smallest plant to the very stars in our sky, and simply move at once to a new planet, sight unseen, that none of us have ever set foot on?" The anonymous voice from the crowd summed it up for all.
"Who said anything about sight unseen?" Joshua piped up. "That happens to be a TARDIS sitting there, with room enough for all of you for a short trip. Why don't we all just go take a look?"
"Road trip!" came Brandon's puckish whisper. "Who's got the beer?"
^..^
A surprisingly short time later, not quite two hundred souls were ranged around the various lounges, bedrooms, common rooms, and balconies of the four lowest levels in Baby; the entire current population of New Gallifrey (tragically reduced by the Malaise). After a quick conference with the leaders, Joshua made a rare use of the ship's internal loudspeaker.
"Attenci, attenci. We're going to have a slight delay before arrival. I'm jumping back five hundred years over Pacifica, and launching a climate-monitor satellite. Then we'll jump back to today, download and analyze the data, and pick out the perfect slice of Pacifica paradise for you. Please have something to hang on to; she's a pretty smooth ship but does have some sways and bumps. We'll make this as quick as possible."
Time jumps duly accomplished, the data was quickly crunched in one of Baby's many on-board computers, then displayed on a very large screen near the old-fashioned wooden slab of a kitchen table. The ten thousand islands of the largest cluster by far splashed across most of one hemisphere, as if poured down from the heavens onto the equator to scatter evenly on either side. Volcanoes – active and not, oceanic and atmospheric currents, common great storm pathways, earthquake faults, and temperature zones were all drawn in eye-catching colors, proving that no place was completely safe, but some – perhaps most – were more desirable than others.
For some reason, Tis'hania found her eyes being drawn repeatedly to one particular mid-sized island, a few degrees north of the equator, in roughly the center of that largest grouping. Fifty or so miles across, it featured a huge lagoon – visible even from space – on the leeward side, and it was far from any active volcanoes or hurricane paths. She asked Josh to enlarge the view, and was unaccountably pleased at the result. The crescent-shaped lagoon was guarded by the equivalent of a coral reef, making it a fisherman's paradise, while a rocky spine of peaks sheltered that side of the island from the satellite-reported occasional massive winter cold fronts.
She turned to the others gathered around and smiled. "Any objections?"
Josh grinned at the resulting silence, and sent the coordinates of the low hill along the northern curve of the lagoon to the nav computer.
^..^
Joshua opened the double doors with a flourish, bowing the first in line out of the TARDIS and onto the grassy hillside overlooking the spectacular rocky bay. The Gallifreyans slowly fanned out, tentatively exploring their proposed new home with its topsy-turvy colors. The sky was a disturbingly deep blue-green instead of tawny orange, the grass was green rather than red, and the sand along the shoreline was white instead of blue! All in all, everything was shifted to the cooler end of the spectrum from their home world. Most of those present had never set foot off of Gallifrey before that day; the new colors were going to take some getting used to.
Corin and Lady Rose (she'd decided she liked that better than the repeated use of 'Baroness', although truthfully she didn't deserve either one officially yet) were showing off their admittedly scant familiarity with Pacifica to their respective twins, while Dashok, Brandon, and a few others of a scientific bent were collecting soil and plant specimens for analysis, to make sure their own crops would thrive but that nothing overly toxic to Gallifreyan biology was present.
Josh merely stood near Baby and watched with a contented smile. A few feet away, Tis'hania was doing the same, drinking in the strange sunlight caressing her face and watching and listening to the seabirds high above squawk their discontent at the unprecedented invasion into their territory. Suddenly Josh saw her swing her head around sharply and peer down towards the waves lapping the sand.
"Lady?"
A moment's hesitation, and she shook her head, relaxing. "It's nothing. I thought I heard something, but its gone now, whatever it was." She turned and gave him a happy smile. "Thank you, grandson. This is truly everything you promised."
He grinned, then looked around to make sure nobody was within earshot as he stepped closer. "Can you keep a secret?"
She chuckled at the question. "I'm a TruthSeeker, Joshua – or I used to be. That's Gallifreyan for Yes, I can."
"The reason I know about this planet is because I stopped off here on the way 'home', about five thousand years into the future from now. I give you the same promise I gave both the humans and the SenSaru. Pacifica will grow, and thrive, and become one of the centers of intergalactic culture in that future – yet never lose its unspoiled beauty. The citizens will forever keep their reputation for fairness, respect, and intelligence. I cannot promise what part Gallifreyans will have in that future; at the time I had no idea you were even here in this universe. But I swear to you... this is your best chance." He'd grown serious as he spoke, but suddenly the grin slipped back on. "But I can tell you that on this very spot in that far-off future will stand one of the most beautiful little cities I've ever seen in my life – and I've seen a LOT of cities in my years." Suddenly he stopped, a different slice of memory visibly playing behind his eyes, and a look of startled recognition.
"What is it?" she brought him back mentally.
"And it's going to be full of corin trees," he whispered reverentially. She gasped, a hand flying to her mouth underneath suddenly tearing blue eyes. "I didn't know what they were at the time, because I'd never seen one before. Now that I have... I'm certain of it. They were corins. Enormous great-grandfather trees of weeping silver leaves, everywhere, giving the city its name: Silverleaf Bay."