Early Days
888
He walked slowly, she followed, skipping behind. He smiled as he found a large flat stone and sat, as she continued to frolic in the long grass of the mountainside, so young, so effervescent. He chuckled to himself as he watched her chase after one of the local fauna, a small colorful creature with large fragile wings covered in powdery scales that dipped and danced on the breeze. She giggled as the small insect-like creature bounced around her head that was covered in dark almost black hair. He often wondered how much she thought about what happened to her family, her parents, her grandmother. His face became stony as he watched her and remembered the fateful day. The fire, the house's defenses going haywire, it was all he could remember, nothing from before felt real, nothing from before that day seemed to matter, he could barely put mind to the memories of the day, they hurt too badly, stung too sharply, they made his hearts ache.
It was part of the reason for their departure. The memories, even in his apartment within the capitol, were too strong, the smells, the sounds, the gaps where the lack of those things screamed their absence. He had of course, a secondary excuse, a logical one, one to overwhelm a century of training from the academy on the etiquette and decorum of a Time Lord. He looked up at the sky, and saw the wheeling movement of alien creatures flying, in the alien sky. He remembered their arrival on this world, the first step out onto alien sand. He closed his eyes and then lowered his head, opening them to her, playing He'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious in what was out here, in the wilds. The corners of his lips checked upwards as he reached into his pocket and fiddled and faddled and fussed, extricating a small eye lens, and picked up a piece of feldspar that was laying near the stone he was resting upon, and looked upon.
"Interesting, most interesting…" he murmured before scoffing softly to himself, as he saw the tiny lichen-like organisms going about their business photosynthesizing on the rock. He took a deep breath of the air, and lifted his head to the sky, feeling the sunlight fall upon his withered face.
"Grandfather!" He immediately opened his eyes and looked to her. She was running towards him, a figure was moving through the grass. It was large several arm-spans at least in length sporting some vicious looking natural armaments.
"Get behind me, Susan, quickly…" He sprang to his feet, moving much more quickly than his apparent age would've suggested possible, sweeping in front of the young girl as his black jacket flared as it were its own beast trying to shield the child. The creature snorted and snuffed covered in spikes and a soft caterpillar-esque skin it snortled and chortled as it seemed to rear up and appraise him and the girl cowering behind him. He held out his arms and waved his hands slightly, "Go on, beast! Leave us be, off you go! We're no threat to you!"
The beast huffed a disgruntled huff and then dropped down upon its grubby appendages and lumbered off further down the mountain. The little girl poked her head around the old man and stuck her tongue out at the beast as it moved away.
"Now, Susan…don't be rude!" The old man chastised, poking the girl gently in the shoulder with the prominent ring on his ring finger. "We were probably trespassing on that dear fellow's territory, we were in the wrong, yes…might've been in the wrong…." He watched as the creature seemed to scale a sharp ridge in the distance, moving nearly ninety degrees vertical as if it were walking level, flat ground. "Impressive…yes…if I do say so myself, impressive." He giggled a bemused chortle and turned to the girl. "Now, let's get back to the ship. I have some repairs to make; the navigational computer seems to have a fault….enough time playing and exploring for today."
"Oh can't we stay out here for a little bit longer, Grandfather?" Susan begged as the old man started to walk along up towards a small path that would lead them to the other side of the mountain to where the ship had landed.
"Now, now, I think we've interfered with this world's fauna enough, don't you, hmm?" He said turning back to the ridge where the creature had already reached the top and seemed to be munching on some large scraggily brush poking from the rocks. He looked down at the girl and then resumed walking towards the path. "Come along, child, the sun will be setting soon anyways, and we don't want to be stuck out here in the dark…could be anything here, anything, this world isn't like Gallifrey, they may not have wildlife as well behaved as we have at home."
He turned dials, and looked at the pages of the massive book he had laid out on a makeshift workbench next to the console. He could hear Susan somewhere in the ship, singing a song. He looked over the rims of his spectacles towards her. It was one of the old songs. She was sitting in the chair, and holding a stuffed animal, a black and white affair he'd picked up in some place they'd called China sometime in the post-digital age of some planet, she was cradling it like a baby and singing to it. He rather liked the world that the toy had come from, even if that particular local government maybe asked too many questions that he would have rather not answered. He looked back down at the work he was doing. The circuit boards laid out in front of him, the console all but disgorged of its mechanics. It was clear that there was a bad circuit, he only need find it. He took the probes he had on the table and applied them to the circuit.
"Not A-7….hmmm, not B-3…those two feed into that…so then that means…." He murmured to himself as he gently put the terminals to the circuit wiring. He put the terminals to the inputs of the third circuit, there was a pop and a spark as the circuit shorted. He giggled to and lifted his hands in triumph "Haha, hoohoo, there she is! C-18, tricky little thing, I have found you!"
Susan looked up to him from her stuffed animal. "You found it, Grandfather?"
"Yes, dear, yes…" He replied mostly to himself as he fanned away the smoke with a handkerchief he'd snatched from his breast pocket. "C-18 terminal, ah, yes, I see the time covariant and phase interphase modulator…makes sense makes sense….shouldn't be hard to fix." He looked up to Susan who was already standing on the far side of the console. "Dear, go into the supply bay, and get me some Diranium solder and some of that…oh…" He tapped a couple of fingers against his thumb as he held his arm in the air, his eyebrows furrowing as he tried to remember.
"Cobalt-nickel Havroite wire?" Susan asked.
"Ah yes, very good, Susan, very good…" He smiled broadly and chuckled to himself as he nodded. "We'll make an engineer out of you yet…"
He watched the girl skip off into the interior of the ship and he surveyed the work he'd done. Half of the circuit boards had been badly damaged when they landed on this planet. Some kind of discharge in the system caused quite a commotion when they dropped down. He'd fixed all the other boards but had hard time finding the fault in this last one. He set himself to work putting the repaired circuit boards back into the console, waiting patiently for Susan to return. The last board was screwed into place and he sat up, wiping his hands clean of assorted bits of dust and muck and groaned slightly as he pulled himself up to the console. He furrowed his brow.
"Susan?" The man called. It should not have taken that long to get to the supply bay and back. He frowned slightly; the child probably got distracted from her task and is playing in one of the halls. He turned the corner and found the girl. "Now, where is that solder and wire, dear?"
"If, if you fix the circuits, we're going to leave again aren't we?" Susan asked as she looked at him with those large dark brown eyes. "Are we going home this time?"
"Dear, we have to keep moving, you know that!" The old man said in frustration. "If we stay anywhere too long we'll be found out, and we can't go back…we simply can't…."
"But I miss being home!" the girl protested.
"Yes, yes, yes," The old man grumbled dismissively. He took a deep breath and looked to the child, "Unfortunately, that simply isn't possible. We must simply continue onward."
The girl frowned not at all placated by the old man's response. He had done this all before; this preceded their leaving from China, from the Halls of Silence on Crozana and the Great Plains of the Orinca. He opened the storage cabinet and looked inside the closet.
"Hmm, my, my, how could we have allowed this to come to such a state…?" The old man said as he clutched his lapels as he grimaced at the mad, tossed salad of the closet's innards. The girl didn't respond. He gave her a sad side-long look. "Ah, well, here's the solder, and the wire…" He pocketed both in his overcoat and patted the girl on the shoulder. "Now, will you help me in the console room or will you be pouting here in the hallways, hmm?"
"I guess…" Susan replied, not looking up to the old man.
"It's your choice, I won't force you." The old man replied. "If you want to play, you are more than welcome to it."
"I will help." The girl said as she looked up at him with those dark brown eyes.
The old man smiled, though he was well aware of the lack of mirth in the smile. He nodded and turned and walked back to the console room, Susan following behind him slowly stepping behind him in his shadow. They returned to the console room and he started inspecting the necessary circuits that needed repair and was getting ready his soldering torch.
"Oh, my, well, I've forgotten haven't I?" He said suddenly as the torch puffed a bright blue flame and he winced in its light. He shut the torch off. He turned to Susan. "My, my, forgetful old thing, we need masks don't we, my dear? Would you please go get them off that shelf?"
But Susan didn't respond she simply stood there, looking up. He furrowed his brow and looked up at where Susan was staring and saw the viewing monitor. There was a man, standing outside the entrance of the ship.
"Grandfather…" Susan said. "It's a person-"
"Yes, I see, I see, must be one of the people that live in that settlement we saw a few days back." The old man whispered mostly to himself, he gently scratched his chin as he watched the man on the viewer seem to circle the ship, inspecting it.
"What are we going to do?" Susan asked.
"Do? Hmm, he is a curious fellow…" The old man said quietly. The man appeared again at the front of the ship. There came a rapping at the door of the ship.
"Grandfather-" Susan started.
"Shh, shh, now, I suppose it would be rude to ignore him…let us see who this man is, and then we'll be discharged of him, yes." The old man said quietly. He turned the magnetization switch allowing the internal doors to open, as he turned and walked to the doors. He looked back to Susan. "Well, child, come along, but stay behind me, we don't want a replay of that incident on Tersurus now do we?"
He walked through the small antechamber between the interior and exterior dimensions and the external door slid open and he stepped out onto the sands of the beach. Susan behind him, hiding ever so slightly behind his coat tails.
"Ah, so there was someone in here…" The stranger said quietly as he looked at the ship. The stranger was tall, wide-chested and narrow-hipped. His hair was blonde, his eyes blue. He wore a simple traveling cloak, fringed around the chest and neck, and some simple trousers made of some tightly woven fabric. The old man turned and appraised the small shrine that stood behind him. The stranger continued. "I come from the settlement in the valley over, some of the men on a foraging party noticed this new shrine had been built, none of my fellow citizens had built the shrine, so I had to assume some newcomer had built it."
"Yes, yes, I apologize if our sudden appearance has upset you; we are travelers from, umm, distant shores…" The old man said trying to affect a genial and harmless demeanor to the stranger. "Unfortunately our vessel has floundered on your shores and we've been forced to construct this shelter for the time being, we mean you no imposition…"
"No imposition is assumed." The man said smiling. He struck out his hand. "I am Jartun, leader of the settlement. And I gratefully accept your visitation to our shores."
"Well, thank you, but worry not we will be departing soon, yes, soon." The old man said smiling and he warily took the stranger's hand and shook it. "Amongst my people, I am known as…as…the Doctor, and this…" The old man turned to Susan behind him, "this young imp, is my granddaughter, Susan."
"Doctor, Susan, I must ask then that you come to my settlement for fellowship and the breaking of bread…" Jartun replied as he looked at them both with a broad smile. "It has been a long time since we have entertained strangers on our shores, and we are eager to hear from the other parts of this world."
"Oh, I'm not sure it's necessary…we have much work-" The old man started to waffle.
"Oh but, Grandfather, can't we?" Susan asked.
"Now, Susan it isn't polite to impose one's self on others." The old man chastised.
"It would be no imposition, I assure you, if anything I insist." Jartun interjected. "It is our custom and tradition to join with strangers in fellowship, our settlement is small, and we've always believed kindness to be our greatest means of protecting ourselves…"
"Hmm, is that so?" The old man said, looking at Jartun in surprise. He turned slightly. "My, my, most interesting…" He brought a finger to his lips, furrowing his brows in thought, before turning again to Jartun. "I suppose, it would be most inappropriate then to deny this invitation, hmm?"
"Really, Grandfather?" Susan looked up in excitement to the older man.
"Oh yes, yes…most rude…" The old man nodded. He looked to Jartun. "I will have to make preparations, yes, Susan must change her dress; it is dirty from today's repairs, and I…" He lifted his jacket showing the stains from the grime of the console. "Well this won't do at all will it?"
"Then I will return to my settlement and inform my people of your arrival and make arrangements for the festivities…" Jartun said nodding slightly to the old man.
"We will be along as soon as we've made the appropriate adjustments to our clothing." The old man said quietly. He looked to the sun. "I estimate that the sun will be just off the zenith when we arrive."
Jartun bowed slightly and turned his cloak swirling out into the sea breeze. The Doctor turned to Susan, as he wringed his hands in unhidden glee. "Well, then come along, come along, we'll have to get cleaned up and dressed…best foot forward after all."
So it was after a short bout of bathing and dressing the Doctor was standing in the console room. Susan had yet to return. He wriggled his lips under his nose and peered down to the circuit boards that still needing repairing, tutting quietly as he looked them over. The inner door of the console room opened and he looked up. Susan was dressed in a dark, floral printed dress, her hair combed up. She was wearing a small pearl bracelet and dark shoes with tiny bows where the laces were.
"My, my…" The old man said quietly as he looked at Susan and for the briefest of moments saw an image of Susan's grandmother swishing in a new dress. "Hmm…"
"Grandfather, do you like it?" Susan asked quietly.
"Oh, my, my yes, you look a spitting image of your grandmother, and your mother." The old man said quietly as he walked to Susan.
"You really think so?" Susan asked.
"Yes, of course, your father would be quite impressed as well, I suspect." The old man said as he gently put his arm around Susan's shoulders. "Do you remember them, dear?"
"Only faintly…" Susan said grimacing slightly.
"Well, you were really quite young when they passed…" The old man said as he looked off wistfully. "Yes….very young…"
"What were they like, Grandfather?" Susan asked quietly.
"Oh, your grandmother was a strong woman, brilliant, strong-willed, unimpeachable…as was your mother." The old man said smiling to the distance. "Your father was a kind man, brave, a clever boy, funny always with a joke, yes…very clever that lad….they would've loved you very much…you were their greatest pride and joy." The smile faded slightly as he took a deep breath. "Pity all the more…" He shook his head slightly and the joy returned to his sparkling eyes and a smile swept quickly over his face. "But enough about the past, let us be on our way; we will be late if we don't head out immediately, after all…"
"Yes Grandfather!" Susan smiled up to the old man as he walked to the console, turned the magnetization switch and both of them walked to the opening doors of the ship.
It was not an arduous trip to the settlement a road had been laid, and the distance was not very far. In fact the Doctor was more surprised they hadn't made contact sooner. That surprise was diminished slightly when they arrived. The settlement was much smaller than he had assumed.
"Not nearly as many inhabitants as I thought-" he murmured quietly as they walked into the outskirts of the settlement. He appraised the buildings. "The culture is undoubtedly advanced, this construction requires sophisticated tools, far more sophisticated than what our encounter with Jartun and our earlier observations from afar would suggest these people to have…"
"Maybe they are on the outskirts of a larger civilization?" Susan replied quietly as she looked around, noting the different gardens and bits of art that populated the domiciles.
"Possibly, possibly…" The Doctor replied tapping a finger on his lips as he walked.
In the distance, he could see a crowd, possibly fifty or more people. At the front of them was the familiar face of Jartun. The man walked forward, a wide smile on his face.
"Welcome, friends from far off shores, welcome to our settlement…" Jartun said as he spread his arms out. "What is ours, is yours…"
"And what you have is impressive, if I may say so…" The Doctor said nodding and smiling as he looked about him. He lifted one hand, gesturing to the surrounding settlements. "You built all of this? Quite impressive…"
"Is the settlement you come from not as grand?" Jartun asked furrowing his brow.
"Oh, my, I am being rude…aren't I?" The Doctor said waving his hand, chortling to himself. "I mean to say, is this all of you? This is quite the settlement to be built by so few…"
"All that you see now, is more or less all that there is of us." Jartun said nodding, though his voice was almost remorseful. "We were once much greater in number, but we found that our fecundity was inflicting many harms upon our society, devastating the surrounding environments, creating schisms and disharmonies in society…and many hundreds of cycles in the past, we covered all of Dido with our civilization. Over time, the disharmonies grew worse and we were falling into traps of violence and environmental degradation and so we chose to diminish our people's fecundity, in hopes of alleviating the stress both on our world and our culture, and now we are as you see us, more or less, we assume there must be other settlements like ours, living peaceably on their own, but we have not encountered a traveler in many, many a generation."
"I see, interesting, interesting…" The Doctor said as he looked around him at the settlement. "This settlement is built for far more than 50 people though, hmm?"
"Well, yes, it is an unfortunate truth that we have seen hardships in the recent past, hardships that we have not quite recovered from." Jartun replied. "But less about that, and come, join us, we have food and drink; we would love to hear your stories…"
"Yes, yes, and I would love to hear yours!" The Doctor said, laughing as he took Susan gently by the hand and they followed Jartun to the center of the settlement.
There was food, fruits and vegetables of hues and shapes the Doctor and Susan hadn't seen. Local domesticated fauna that was butchered and cooked in such a way that the flavor was retained, and the juiciness leaving a savory taste in the mouth. The people sang songs, told stories, listened to his adventures which he of course curated to sound as if they came from the world they were currently on. This went on until the sun fell low on the sky. The shadows fell long and the Doctor walked through the party and found Susan dancing to music being played by a band, dressed in some ceremonial garb meant to represent the local fauna, as it seemed very similar to what he and Susan had observed of the local animals.
"Susan, dear, I think we should start thinking about leaving, the sun will set soon." The Doctor said quietly.
"Oh, but can't we stay the night?" Susan whined slightly.
"Now, we've imposed upon these fine people long enough." The Doctor said as he looked back at the great feasting table filled with dirty plates and mostly eaten food. "Yes, most certainly…"
"Doctor, as I said before, it was no imposition." Jartun appeared from the crowd, who was dancing, "and if I am honest, it may be us who are imposing upon you…"
"Hmmm?" The Doctor said looking up. "Imposing you say, how would you be imposing me, dear boy?"
"I will have to admit that our fellowship is not entirely altruistic in nature…" Jartun said quietly. He looked about him and leaned in closer. "When I heard that you were a doctor, a scientist and explorer….I realized an opportunity."
"Please explain…" the Doctor replied quietly gently positioning himself between Jartun and Susan.
"You noted that the settlement is much larger than our population would suggest…" Jartun dropped his voice to a whisper.
"Yes, yes, and you said you had some hardships, not uncommon in these small settlements." The Doctor replied, looking at Jartun quizzically.
"Within the last cycle a disease has arrived in our settlement." Jartun said quietly. "We know not of its origins, nor of any means of curing it. It takes our old, our young; it makes the women who survive infertile and the causes a madness in the men who survive. Many of our medical facilitators have fallen already, and I fear it will end us…and I-"
"Oh well, I'm very sorry but my degree isn't in medicine I'm afraid, I'm a scientist and a explorer, but-" the Doctor started.
"Then maybe you have heard of something from the greater world, maybe this affliction isn't novel to us alone." Jartun asked, quietly but his voice filled with the pleading needs of his intent.
"Grandfather…" Susan said looking up at the old man.
"Now, I am very sorry but I simply cannot help-" The old man looked down at Susan. She was looking at him sternly, reminding him of her grandmother, who would, when he would get obstinate, give him a similar glare, daring him to defy her and well… "But it is not impossible that I might be able to find at least the cause of the illness. I will need to get my equipment from the shrine and talk to your medical facilitators…Now I cannot promise anything and we are very short of time, you understand…"
"Any assistance would be a divine intervention." Jartun said with a grateful sigh.
The days passed slowly but comfortably. He grumbled in the lab that the people of Dido, the name of the world they were apparently on, had put together in one of their medical clinics. Again the Doctor had to admire their surprising advancement, they already had a fully functional theory of pathogenesis, germ theory, physiological and anatomical understandings and advanced immunological theorems. Their equipment was even slightly more advanced than that of the last planet they had visited which had fairly sophisticated medical technology. On a number of the patients, of which there were only three, he was able to take samples, and test them. Early results suggested some sort of systemic disease, maybe an inheritance caused by their uniquely small population. This however didn't seem to match tests taken by the remaining population, or the survivors, which showed no inherited linkages, in fact the population despite its small size was quite reproductively robust, and the pattern of disease didn't seem to follow inheritance but rather, contagion. Furthermore the histology of the survivors did suggest some kind of pathogen, though provided no evidence of what kind, whether it was viral, fungal, bacterial or parasitic. He was slowly becoming disenchanted with his chances of helping these people and increasingly in the back of his mind was his training from the academy, daily getting louder chastising him for interfering with an alien species. For all he knew he could be creating the next imperial overlords of the galaxy by saving this settlement. However his other half, his willfully disobedient half kept reminding him of the great kindness of these people, and Susan had grown to love the people with whom she played and worked with daily, coming to the lab in the evenings to regale him with stories of her adventures with the citizens of the settlements.
For days and then weeks this passed until, one day. He looked through the instrument and he saw it. It was a squiggle, a squiggle that didn't quite match the other squiggles.
He jumped up from his bench and laughed. "HAha, Hoo-hoo! Susan! SUSAN!"
Susan ran in from an adjoining room to the lab's. "What is it, Grandfather!?"
"I've found it! I have found it!" The old man laughed as he almost danced in place, before stopping and waving Susan to look into the instrument. "Do you see it? Do you?"
"It's…just a squiggle…wait…this is a protein product." Susan said looking up to her grandfather. "For-"
"A hormone consequential in reproductive behavior-" the old man said gently tapping Susan's nose. "It's a prionic disease an insidious little broken protein that damages other proteins! It must cause some sort of cascade effect in the reproductive system, which explains the differential affects on the genders…" He said as he flittered his fingers in front of himself explaining. "The Dido people's immune system is so rarified due to the small population size that it hyperactivates in some of them in response to the prion, killing them in a cysto-no-cytokine casket-"
"Cascade-" Susan said.
"Hmm? Yes…cascade, that's what I said." The old man flustered. "We have to tell Jartun, and the others. I may be able to develop a protease that will refold the broken prion proteins into normal functional ones." He looked at Susan expectantly and when she didn't respond he shooed her. "Go on, child, go quickly quickly, get the others!"
Susan ran off. The old man laughed quietly to himself and started collecting papers and writing things down. Within a few hours, Susan was back with Jartun and the medical facilitators.
"Susan says you've found the cause of the disease!" Jartun said with a surprised joy.
"Oh my dear fellow, I've done more than that!" the Doctor said turning and letting the lens wear he wore drop from his eyes. "I've constructed a means of synthesizing a cure. Once the causative agent was, was, sussed out it was mere child's play, yes, yes…I have already written down the significant steps which should be easily doable with your trained medical staff, it's a simple protein synthesis reaction, follow the steps and it will make you a cure! As to your people who have survived, now that I know what was happening I was able to find a means to reverse the effects as well!"
"That…that's a miracle!" Jartun said looking at the old man with wide eyes.
"Now, don't ascribe to miracles what has really been quite a bit of diligent scientific work, and if I may say, some dundering on my part!" The old man said wagging a finger. "Should've been obvious when I eliminated everything else, but I suppose I've been distracted…." The old man got up and presented the papers to the medical staff. "Now just follow the instructions and you'll be making enough medicine to keep this thing down. " He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out two vials. The first vial was a musky yellow color. "And here's an initial synthesis product for the ones that are currently suffering the immunological affects of the disease. I've given a dose to Actarn, just a few hours ago, and it his symptoms have greatly lessened, I suggest continued inoculations until the symptoms end." He lifted the other which was deep lavender red. "This is a curative for those suffering post-disease affects. I believe the prion, whilst active in the body causes systemic damage to a pituitary gland production tissue resulting in both the psychosis and the infer-infertilility," The old man blinked and nodded to himself before resuming, "this chemical should initiate a hormonally induced regeneration of the tissue. The instructions for the chemical's synthesis should be found on page forty-six, below figure 17a. I was fairly thorough in the description."
"This work…you did this in a few hours?" one of the medical staff said as they skimmed the papers. "This is unimaginable…"
"Yes well, motivation and proper knowledge can accomplish a lot in a short time…" The old man said as he walked past the Dido settlers. He smiled to Susan. "Now, I think it's about time we head back to the sh-sh-shrine, yes, the shrine; don't you? We haven't been there in some time now, and we should check in, plus we have work of our own to do, don't we?"
"Yes, Grandfather…" Susan said as he face transitioned from gleeful smiles to a more sullen look.
The old man however didn't seem to notice. "Now, we will be on the beach at least for a little while, if there are any complications, or lack of effect that you can't figure out amongst yourselves, come for us and I will see what adjustments must be made."
"Of course, Doctor…" said one of the medical facilitators, waving to the Doctor with a handful of sheets as he skimmed another handful in his other hand. The Doctor nodded and waved to Jartun and the others before leading Susan along with him and they started to walk back to the ship.
He hummed quietly to himself as he slid the last circuit board into its position in the console of the ship. He screwed the panels back into place, and then in a process of slowly getting to his knees before hoisting himself up, grunting, stood to attention at the console, and touched some buttons. The console warbled happily and the navigation computer chimed a new read.
"Now, that's more like it…" He said as he chortled to himself, and reached for a small cloth draped on one of the console levers and wiped his hands. "Susan, Susan! I think it's time, if you'd be a dear and help me, by reading out the input feed numbers? Then we can start preflight operations!"
There was silence. The Doctor furrowed his brow, putting the hand cloth down and walking further into the depths of the ship. He looked in Susan's room, the arboretum, the library, the great hall where the games were. He searched the laboratories and a number of other bedrooms. He could not find Susan. He could feel his hearts racing.
"Where could that girl be?" He hissed under his breath. He walked back out to the console room and snatched his coat from the hat-rack. He couldn't imagine she could've snuck past him as he worked on the console but if she had found an ancillary console room. He turned to pull the switch for the door magnetizer when his eyes caught the view screen. It was Jartun, and with him was Susan. He frowned, and angrily turned the switch. "I see!"
He walked to the doors as they opened and to the exterior and onto the sands of the beach. His arms crossed and his eyes set to a deadly glare as he looked down at Susan.
"Doctor, Susan came into the settlement-" Jartun started.
"That much, I have already deduced-" The Doctor said, sharply as he looked at Susan who seemed to cower slightly as he glared at her. "What do you think you are doing wandering off like that!?"
"I wasn't wandering off…I know the way to the settlement!" Susan said in retort, though not a forceful one.
"None the less, you could've been hurt, or worse, gotten yourself lost either on the trail or in thought." The Doctor replied angrily. "You know how you are, you have a wandering heart, and are easily distracted….which is fine in moderation but this is - highly irresponsible!"
"Susan says you are departing, Doctor." Jartun said quietly, calmly. "She was in tears. She was afraid we would never see each other again. She was asking if she could stay with us…"
"Did she now?" The Doctor said finally looking at Jartun. "I'm afraid she's right, we're departing today, we have forestalled our departure too long as it is. And as grateful for your hospitality as we are, we must be on our way," he looked down at Susan, "together."
"We could never proper compensate you for the work you did for us, Doctor." Jartun said quietly. "The people of Dido are in a great debt to you, and to Susan."
"There is no debt." The Doctor replied as he reached for Susan. "It is repaid in bringing Susan back to me."
"I explained to Susan that you needed her." Jartun said. "That her departure would make you very sad, very alone, and very afraid. That she is as important to your community as the people are important to ours, and that our traditions could never wish to ask such a great sacrifice from another."
"Thank you, Jartun." The Doctor said, bowing slightly. "It is a relief that you brought her back to me."
"But I would ask, though I fear I know the answer…" Jartun started. "If you wouldn't reconsider joining our settlement, we would be most grateful to have you, and we need not for food or room…the children love Susan as do the other adults…"
"Thank you, but no, Susan and I have a different destiny." The Doctor said quietly, he looked at Susan, whose eyes had welled up with tears. His face softened and he pulled her into a hug. "Oh dear, I know, I know, but you must understand, I do this for you." He held her out slightly. "I would never wish to harm you, but sometimes to protect you we may have to do some things that are…painful, make sacrifices that feel unwarranted. Now, tell Jartun thank you, and pop into the ship-err shrine and wait for me, I will need your help to make preparations."
"Th-thank you…." Susan said quickly between fading hiccups.
"You are most welcome, young Susan." Jartun said inclining his head slightly.
The girl sniffed loudly and nodded before entering the shrine behind the Doctor. The Doctor turned to Jartun. "Again, thank you, ever since her parents and grandmother died, I have been the sole caretaker of her, and we have explored many places. I do wish I could provide her a more suitable life, a home, but-" The Doctor shook his head, "it's simply not possible, not now, not yet…."
"You are always welcome here, Doctor. There will always be a feast awaiting your arrival, a bed for your weary head, and a home for you and your granddaughter." Jartun said.
"I appreciate the jester-gesture, Jartun, but no, not yet…maybe one day…" the old man said as he turned and put his hand on the ship's door. He sighed. "One day…" He slid the door open and turned to Jartun. "I thank you again, but I really must be going…be safe, be well, be kind…"
"So be you, friend. So long, and may your journeys be filled with peace and happiness." Jartun replied.
The Doctor nodded, turned and entered the ship. The door closed behind him as he sloughed off his jacket and walked to the console. Susan read the numbers out, as he flicked switches and turned dials. He took a deep breath and looked up at the viewer. Jartun was standing there. An impish grin played on the Doctor's face.
"Let us give Jartun one last surprise, hmm?" The Doctor said with a twinkle in his eye and turned to the two dials initiating the dematerialization circuit.
The mighty engines of the ship groaned to life, the deep belows and hissing of the leviathan thing that beat at the center of its mechanics shifting the laws of physics as the outer surface was beginning to phase into the vortex. The last image was of Jartun staggering back in shock as wind swept past him. The Doctor walked over to Susan who looked at him as if he was about to mete out a punishment, but he simply chuckled to himself and hugged her shoulders. One day, they'd go home, one day it would be possible….one day…..
