Author's Note:
The Doctor and Peter arrive on Sagacity.
Chapter 5
The Universal Collaborative for Temporal Insight
Before landing on Sagacity, the Doctor materialized in near planetary orbit so Peter could have a look and answered a new onslaught of questions about the planet, the Universal Collaborative, and time and space travel, in general. For the Doctor, this was both amusing and exhausting. He hoped Peter was taking it all in and not just asking questions to be annoying.
The Universal Collaborative for Temporal Insight was housed within the main citadel on Sagacity. The Doctor chose to materialize within the citadel but well outside of the Collaborative complex.
The planet's gravity was stronger than most bipedal species could tolerate, hence the enclosed citadels, which normalized gravity, stabilized temperature and the gas to water ratio and provided a buffer for the planet's extensive volcanic activity.
The Doctor moved to the switch that would open the door but was startled when an alarm sounded, and the TARDIS console came to life again. He had hoped to avoid this. He said a rude word.
"Language, Doctor" Peter chided. "What's happening?"
"We're being re-routed. We must've been identified by the Collaborative."
They landed with a boom. The Doctor squeezed Peter's shoulder reassuringly.
"Don't say anything, Peter. Let me do the talking, okay?"
"Yeah."
The monitor showed that the TARDIS was surrounded. The Doctor recognized the high-necked robes of his own people. There were four of them – two men and two women. At least none of them appeared to be armed.
When Peter and the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS the Doctor recognized that they were in the Collaborative's central laboratory. It remained largely unchanged from his own rotation on Sagacity back in his Academy days. Given that the Collaborative existed outside of the universal time stream in a manufactured temporal stasis, this was not too surprising.
He easily confirmed from their vestments that the four time lords in the room were all Academy students. None of them looked familiar, but that didn't mean much, given a time lord's ability to regenerate.
While none of the students had moved since they arrived, the Doctor had an odd sensation that people were crowding around him. It took him a moment to recognize that he was experiencing the normal psychic connection among his people. It had been a very long time, and he was surprised by the degree to which it affected him emotionally. He had to take a few deep breaths to calm down and get a sense of what the telepathic connection was conveying.
Curiosity.
Excitement.
Joy.
Fear.
Awe. Really? Awe?
Interestingly, he didn't feel any sense of anger or retribution in the room at all.
He felt a hand squeeze his arm.
"Doctor?"
That's right. The boy. The human wasn't telepathic, so was probably wondering why everyone was standing around not saying anything. He offered Peter a reassuring smile.
"It's okay, Peter. At least, I think so." He looked up to the students.
"Hi there. I am the Doctor. This is my friend, Peter. He's from Earth. We have something we're hoping you can help us with."
A tall thin man rushed up to the Doctor and gazed intently into his face.
"It really is you! The instruments identified your TARDIS, but we couldn't be sure…" His face broke into a grin. The other students approached, looking equally excited about their visitor.
"This is incredible!"
A youthful-appearing time lady grasped him by the shoulders, stood on tip toe and kissed him on the cheek. The Doctor felt himself blush. This was not at all the greeting he expected.
The thin man noticed the Doctor's curious expression and explained.
"We haven't seen another time lord since Gallifrey disappeared. And one so distinguished! You are a topic of study at the Academy."
The Doctor didn't know how to process that information. Suppose I shouldn't be surprised, though.
The woman who kissed him said "I am Erdith. My father and uncle served under you at the fall of Arcadia." Erdith's eyes shone. She cupped his cheek with her hand and through contact telepathy the Doctor learned that her father and uncle died at Arcadia, as did so many other honorable soldiers. He remembered their faces.
"Belish and Lukor. I remember them. They saved hundreds of people that day. They were true to Gallifrey."
"Thank you, sir."
One by one, they approached the Doctor and he learned who they were and how they came to be on Sagacity. Each had a story to tell. He was touched by their kind thoughts and words, by how happy they were to see him.
And yet he felt a different energy nearby, but not in the room. Someone who was familiar and well known to him. That vibration filled him with a sense of anticipation, or perhaps anxiety.
"Who is your preceptor?" He finally asked. So far, he'd only met Academy students, but traditionally a cohort of students on rotation to Sagacity were accompanied by a seasoned time lord – usually a retired teacher or council member – who guided their studies.
The thin man, whose name was Hanar, answered. "Time Lady Romanadvoratrelundar is our preceptor. Ghianna went to fetch her."
Romana. Of course.
The students were equally curious about Peter. The boy tolerated their attention better than the Doctor expected, though he was obviously uncomfortable when Erdith ran a hand through his close-cropped ginger hair. The Doctor interceded.
"Peter has been through a lot, and he's only twelve years old. I met him when I got a message from a friend on Earth and went to investigate. There is some serious timeline disruption in 21st century Earth. I was hoping you could audit the timeline and find the critical incident that caused the disruption." He held up his sonic. "The humans I spoke with were experiencing time doubling. They mapped out two discrete timelines, which I have with me."
That got the interest of the students, Hanar, in particular, who took the proffered sonic, strode over to a console and inserted the sonic into a slot. Several monitors came to life. Banks of numbers in high Gallifreyan scrolled up the screen.
"What the hell is that?" Peter asked.
"Language, Peter," The Doctor answered. "That's the information Kate and Osgood put together translated into Gallifreyan. That's the language of the time lords."
"But they're all speaking English."
"No, they aren't. You're hearing English."
"But I'm speaking English, and they understand me."
"The TARDIS hacked the auditory cortex in your brain and is translating."
Peter looked like he had more questions based on that answer, but happily, he was interrupted.
"This is fascinating!" Hanar exclaimed, scanning the data. "Were there any other symptoms of disruption?"
"Yes. The divergence was extreme. I was unable to arrive anywhere later than 18 December 2025. When I finally landed on that date, I found the world in ruins. Apparently, there was a global thermonuclear war. I know from my own memories that there was never a nuclear war on Earth in the early 21st century.
"After leaving Earth, Peter and I spotted masses, and I mean masses of Reapers approaching Earth."
The students crowded around the console, studying the monitors. The Doctor could feel but was not included in their high-energy telepathic dialogue. He felt a tug on his sleeve and looked down toward Peter.
"And I thought you said the time lords on Sagacity were all students. But these people are all old."
The Doctor looked more objectively at the four time lords and ladies, and understood how Peter would come to think of them as old.
"Well, time lords have much longer life spans than humans. When our bodies get old or sick, we regenerate – basically, create a whole new body to live in. For us, physical age is relative. A time lord who is a hundred years old is barely an adolescent."
"But they don't look like adolescents. They look old."
"To you," the Doctor said. "To me, these are young adults."
"Huh. So, what do they study at the Academy? Do they graduate with degrees? After that, what sort of jobs do they do?"
"It might be good for you to write your questions down and then we can take them on when we have some down-time."
The Doctor reached into an interior pocket on his coat and pulled out a notepad and pencil. When he offered them to Peter, he saw an immediate barrier when Peter struggled to accept them with his one hand and the pencil dropped and rolled away.
The boy stuffed the notepad in a trouser pocket and scrambled for the pencil.
"Sorry about that, Peter." The boy smiled a very adult smile. The Doctor's eyes felt a little hot all of a sudden.
"No worries, Doc. I'm getting better at the whole one-handed thing."
Peter found a desk with a chair nearby, sat down, pulled out the notepad and got to work on his list of questions.
The Doctor joined the other time lords around the console. Hanar stood at a keyboard typing in commands. From the Doctor's own rotation at Sagacity, he surmised that the student was pulling up Earth's absolute timeline from the Collaborative's data banks.
Another time lord manned a different keyboard and monitor pair, sorting through the timeline provided by Kate and Osgood. Erdith and another time lady were connected to a psychic interface, likely experiencing the critical incidents in the timeline from the Collaborative's data banks and comparing them to the high-level timeline provided by Kate and Osgood.
This is one of the few things I miss about being on Gallifrey, the Doctor thought. So many facets of Gallifreyan life were collaborative.
The Doctor observed for a while, but, as Clara often pointed out when they traveled together, he didn't have much of an attention span. He made his way over to where Peter sat, still writing out his list of questions. The Doctor noted that he was already several pages in.
"They're going to be busy for a while. Let's have a look around."
"Is there any food here? I'm hungry."
Ah yes, twelve-year-old human boy. The Doctor remembered that they were basically stomachs on legs.
"I'm sure we'll find something."
They were on their way back from the dining hall where Peter had something to eat and the Doctor answered the first two pages of questions. The Doctor sensed her presence as they neared the laboratory. They turned a corner into the main hallway and there she was.
She didn't look a day over 800, and currently assumed female form with dark hair and brown eyes that reminded the Doctor of her first incarnation. A younger time lady was with her, the Doctor assumed it was the other student Hanar had mentioned.
"Doctor, it's been a long time."
"Romana. So good to see you. So, you must have gotten tired of e space and found a way out of it."
"Yes. I ended up back on Gallifrey. Got involved in the High Council, and even did a turn as Lady President. That was before the time war."
Peter looked like he was about to ask a question, but the Doctor cut him off with a stern look.
"Peter, this is an old friend of mine. We used to travel together. This is Romanadvoratrelundar. Romana, this is Peter of planet Earth." Romana smiled at the boy.
"You can call me Romana."
"That's a relief!" The boy held out his hand.
It took a moment for Romana to remember the human custom and also recognize that the boy could not complete the ritual in the traditional way before she extended her left hand and they shook.
Ritual complete, Romana gestured to the time lady that accompanied her. "This is Ghianna. We were just coming to meet you in the laboratory."
The Doctor sensed the same curious excitement from Ghianna as he had from the other students. Romana's thoughts and feelings were largely hidden.
They returned to the laboratory together. Ghianna joined the other students at the console. Peter returned to his list of questions, no doubt to add some new ones based on their tour around the facility.
"You have a tight knit cohort of students. They work well together," the Doctor observed. Romana smiled thinly.
"Well, they've been here much longer than a typical rotation, with no home planet to return to." The Doctor sensed blame in her tone of voice.
Here we go, the Doctor thought.
"Gallifrey is not lost, you know. It's safely hidden in a pocket universe."
Romana did not respond.
"I had no choice. Well, I did. I could have blown up the planet and that would have ended the time war, and I almost did that, instead."
"We know about the pocket universe. We also saw the timeline where you did destroy Gallifrey. Yet again, you have broken the laws of time instead of protecting them."
This. Again.
But then Romana smiled, and the Doctor felt the sentiment behind the smile – sadness, relief, hope and gratitude. She'd allowed him that brief contact with her psyche. One chink in the wall. The Doctor felt his eyes grow hot again.
"Thanks for doing that. None of us can go home, but at least the time war is over and there still is a home."
The Doctor cleared his throat. "Someday, when it's safe, we will find Gallifrey again."
Just then, Ghianna approached and summoned them to the console. Peter pocketed his notepad and pencil and joined them. From the telepathic sentiment the Doctor could feel from the five students, he feared that things might be more complicated to solve than he'd hoped.