Author's Note: 'And so it begins. The trap is set. The prey approaches. A glorious winter is about to descend on House Atreides and all its heirs, and very soon, the years of humiliation visited upon my family will finally be avenged.' - Baron Harkonnen, from Dune, the 2000 mini-series.

The wardrobe was not cooperating, unless the Professor wanted her to dress as him at a costume party. She had to settle for having her robe and gown cleaned. When she came out of the chamber, Keludar went in. Tegan sat down at the household system interface and asked for a status report. Gallifrey didn't have news as she knew it. They reported civic events, not gossip or entertainment. There was no security alert mentioned, only a notice of the date of the Council of Time Lords next general meeting and a contact point for sending requests to add items to the agenda.

She was stuck in this apartment with Keludar for the foreseeable future. She wanted a nap, but considering the intimate contact they'd had, she felt awkward about sleeping. Tegan didn't believe he'd try anything, but to her it signaled that she was comfortable being vulnerable in his presence. Tegan sat turning various plans over in her head. The more she thought about it, the less she liked the idea of leaving the Professor to the dubious mercies of the Capitol Guard. Waiting around doing nothing for hours would be trusting to fate.

If only she could contact the Doctor or Turlough! What real risk was there in sending a message from here? Her hand hesitated over the contact point controls.

"What are you up to?" Keludar emerged, wearing one of the Professor's sky blue robes. He was tall enough to carry it off.

Tegan snatched her hand back guiltily, then glared at him. She had nothing to be guilty about!

"I ought to get in touch with the Doctor or Turlough. The Doctor may still be in a trance, but I could leave him a message. Turlough is clever in tight situations. We need to put him in the know." Tegan scowled. Said out loud, her ideas didn't sound so hot.

"And if the enemy has someone who can intercept messages sent to their contact points?" He snorted. "The enemy. I wish I knew which person thought I'd make a good weapon against the President. You realize, if they catch us together, my death will look even more convincing? Murdered by the Doctor in a jealous rage." He glanced at her, smiling slightly.

"No wonder you people hardly ever have sex if you think it will turn you into a monster." Tegan did not hide her disgust.

"As a matter of fact…" he turned away from her. "Not important. I found out where this apartment is. It's in the Lektopharvaheet Elite Residential quarter. It's listed as being a contested property in some thousand year old civil suit."

"Not Lord Azanghrell's, then," Tegan commented thoughtfully.

"Who is Lord Azanghrell?"

"That's the name the Professor gave the guard. He'd told me before that Lord Azanghrell was the only other Time Lord over ten thousand years old, and that he hadn't come out of his apartment since his final regeneration."

"Never comes out of his apartment at all? That sounds suspicious. It's not like the Professor doesn't enjoy his little games."

"You think that's his real name? Lord Azanghrell?"

#"No, it is not. Azanghrell is my real name."#

Tegan and Keludar stared in alarm at the contact point controls from which the voice had emerged.

#"I live across the hall. You'd better come see me."#

Tegan looked at Keludar. "Are we going to do what he says?"

"Do you want to sit around here all night?"

"Good point."

- o - O - o -

When they opened the door to their apartment, an indicator light lit up above a door across the hall and down a few paces. Their destination clear, they walked down the hall. Keludar touched the door and it opened to the pressure of his hand. He and Tegan exchanged wary glances again. It was almost certainly foolish to leave the Professor's appointed hideout, but they had been found out by this unknown quantity.

Keludar murmured, "Never leaves his room?"

"That's what I hear," she whispered back.

"Maybe you should wait–" Tegan surged in past Keludar before he could try to physically bar her, let alone finish his suggestion. "Very well," he said resignedly, following her in.

The door closed behind them and the next door opened. They followed the clearly indicated path. The next room was a parlor of sorts. It was clean: too clean, as though no one had used it for a very long time. There were no identifiably personal touches visible. Another door opened. If this apartment's layout resembled that of the one they had come from, it would be the bedchamber.

This room was used, and identifiably personal. By unspoken agreement, they stopped shoulder to shoulder in the doorway.

There was very little furniture in the room. It had presumably been taken away so as not to clutter the space of the occupant. He sat in a huge bowl like hover chair, draped with blue and gold. Lord Azanghrell reminded Tegan of one of those kitschy dolls with broad skirts used to hide rolls of spare toilet tissue in a bathroom.

"I never leave this room. Why should I? In my thousands of years, I've seen all of Gallifrey that I care to see. My body may remain in this room, but my mind roams unhindered. If your mind remains bound, it doesn't matter how far your body goes. You, alien, are an excellent example. The Lord President has taken you on many journeys, but has your mind expanded, or are you the same primitive creature you were at the start?"

As Azanghrell spoke, the chair drifted closer to them. Keludar's stance shifted slightly to put his shoulder ahead of Tegan's. "I've seen your biodata, Patrexean," he said to Keludar. "I think you're more like Goth than Borusa or Koschei. They possessed true ambition. Goth was little more than Koschei's pawn: a status-seeking second-rater whose heroic profile and full head of hair were his greatest assets. Gallifreyans may be bred to think, and trained to think, but thinking is a tiresome activity and most find they get by without it."

Tegan stared at the old man. His head looked tiny under the golden cowl, dwarfed by the high collared ceremonial cloak. "If I stuck a pin in you, would it let out all the hot air in one bang?" Despite the bold words, she didn't try to come out from behind Keludar.

"Aggressive little creature, aren't you? Doubtless your presence helps Theta Sigma refresh his rebellious impulses."

Keludar took a step forward. "I'm not responsible for my genes, Lord Azanghrell, only what I do with my potential. You invited us in. What use have you for a savage and a wastrel?"

He came closer still. His eyes glittered out from the pits of his pink balloon face. "I am Gallifrey, grown old and fat from feeding off the power created by our ancestors. We forewent religion and all the superstitious paraphernalia of the Pythia's reign, only to replace her with Rassilon. How have we grown since his time, except to become more satisfied of our rightness? We are bloated with arrogance, swollen with the secrets of Time. Rassilon is our god and our devil. Borusa was a hero for trying to usurp Rassilon's legacy. When he came to power, he realized that he was master of a dying world, and as Gallifrey goes, so goes the universe. That is what Rassilon did to us."

For the first time, Tegan noticed Azanghrell's hands. Sausage-like though his fingers were, he wore a ring on each one, and his thumbnails were talon-length. "What are the rings for?" she asked, getting in her question during a pause in his rant.

The chair stopped. Tegan fought down nausea and the urge to flee.

"My personal instrumentality. With these rings, I control all necessary functions of life support, information procurement and storage, and communication. For instance, the Capitol Guard will be here shortly." Azanghrell was so close now that he had to pivot the chair to face Keludar, as if his eyes were so sunken that their field of vision was limited. "You asked what use I had for you." The doors to the outside swung open behind them. "You told that fool Omicron that you would fight for your life. I want to see if that's true."

Keludar asked sharply, "Did the Professor tell you what I said to him?"

"I programmed that guide tool. I'm a far better engineer than he'd ever be if he lived twice as long. I've made a lot of devices for him. He attempted to convince me that you were worth saving. You want to be a Time Lord, don't you? Did you think they'd hand you an extra heart and that would be it? Is that all you want, a sinecure? There have been in Gallifrey's history very few true Lords of Time. The rest are pampered scholars."

Tegan drew in a sharp breath. "We've got to go now. He's delaying us on purpose."

Azanghrell tried to turn his head. The fat deposits rippled across his face as it turned red. Maybe he would explode. Tegan did not stay to watch. She fled, Keludar on her heels. "Turn right and run," Kel said. "I'll catch up. Run!"

The beat of a single heart drummed in Tegan's ears. Keludar caught her up, passed her, and grabbed her hand to drag her faster. When they got to the next corner, he blocked her with his arm. "Watch that way," he whispered, staying close to the end of the corridor. He dropped to one knee and risked a peek back the way they'd run. Tegan kept an eye out in the direction he asked, but her ears were tuned the other way.

She heard a faint murmur of voices. "It's the Guard. They're checking both doors, weapons drawn." Keludar stood up slowly. "I jammed that tool into Azanghrell's door. Be ready to run."

A bang like a big firecracker echoed down the hall. Keludar grabbed her hand again. He was hurrying but didn't break into a full run until they turned the next corner. Keludar wasn't merely fleeing, he was headed somewhere. He turned corners without hesitation. Tegan was lost almost immediately. The turns and bends followed a pattern that did not make sense to her.

Finally, he pulled up. Tegan leaned against his back, breathing hard, and looked past his elbow. They were at the end of a passage that led to a gallery several stories above a public area. "Did you mean to come here, Kel?"

"That's the concourse that lies before the entrance to the Panopticon. You're right about contacting our friends. We need to be seen running, we need the word to spread. We're the latest gossip; we may as well make use of our notoriety. After all the hiding we've done, it may surprise our pursuers to see us out in the open."

"But if we're taken prisoner, after being seen together publicly, it will only make their story more convincing."

"Ah, yes, the illicit partners, fleeing the President's wrath." He glanced down at her clinging to his elbow. "If only that were true."

"Kel!" Tegan smacked his arm hard enough to sting her hand. He grinned at her and her anger faded.

"We only need one thing to make this plan work: an escape route. There are stairs that lead up and down behind the galleries in the Panopticon itself. They're like the stairs we were on, for emergency exits."

That's when Tegan had the Idea.

"I know exactly how to get out of the Panopticon. We need to get out, so Out we'll go."

Kel stared at her. "You mean Outside, out?" he asked carefully.

"The Professor showed me an observation post he had above the galleries inside the Panopticon. I could find it again, and from there I know how to get out without going back into public."

"That would be good, but running away upstairs would take a lot more effort and increase our chances of being shot or caught. Which side of the Panopticon is this observation post?"

"The far side from the entrance, near the corner diagonal from the dais. There's a staircase, like the ones you were talking about, behind the gallery. That's how I left after talking to the Professor."

"It might work," Kel muttered to himself, then said to her, "We've got to move. Stay on the wall side of me and keep in step." He let her come alongside him, then started walking towards the Panopticon. Tegan was on his left; to his right, the wall became a safety rail "After we go through the doors, stop and give me the lift belt. Can you hang onto me as hard as you can? I'll need a hand free to work the controls. This will be a little tricky."

"Oh, hell, you've got some daft plan, don't you? Why can't I be the one to wear the belt and you carry me? Then I'd have both hands free for the controls."

"An insane plan fits insane circumstances. I've had a lot more practice with lift belts, and this maneuver will require finesse. We may be about to come under fire. There are guards down in the concourse."

"Oh, hell," Tegan said again. Then Keludar told her his plan and left her bereft of expletives.

- o - O - o -

Two Time Lords were holding a debate in the Panopticon. There were a few visitors watching in person, but most observers viewed the information feed from the Panopticon monitors.

"It is a common misapprehension that Gallifrey refrains from interference in the affairs of other worlds solely to guard the Web of Time. In fact, this policy is altruistic. Younger cultures need to develop along their own, unique courses, not ape the ways of Gallifrey in an attempt to rival her power."

"I am sure that my distinguished fellow Time Lord has some passing familiarity with Redevorn's Index of Intercultural Fertilization? In Gallifrey's period of greatest development, we had contact with countless worlds, as well as with cultures that arguably had greater knowledge at that time then our own. We benefited from this contact. If our aim is altruism, we should not entirely close our world off to others. We could teach by example, if nothing else. Nor should we belittle the possibility of yet learning from other worlds. If these 'unique courses' are of any value, then they will yield information that Gallifrey does not possess because she is so narrowly dedicated to her own vision of advancement."

The first Time Lord glared at his debate opponent. "Intercultural Fertilization? Is that what you would call the debacle of the President's Otherstide celebration? Gallifreyans, beings of the noblest ancestry, possessing knowledge that other races only dream of–dancing! Simulating primitive behavior! Is it really a demonstration of mathematics and aesthetics to hop across a room to music?"

Weapons' fire sounded. A woman screamed, the sound descending yet growing louder at the same time. Two figures leaped from the highest balcony, describing an impossibly wide arc that took them to the center of the Panopticon. The woman was the President's notorious human female, Tegan Jovanka, called 'Lady' by courtesy. The 'Lady' Tegan was clinging to a blond man wearing the robes of a Gallifreyan elder.

"Help, help, HE-eeeeeEEEEELP!" Her shriek echoed through the Panopticon as even more impossibly, the man bounded with her up into the air onto the far gallery. They disappeared into the shadows. All that was left was one little bright red object on the floor. One of the Panopticon ushers picked it up.

It was a high-heeled boot.

tbc
A/N: I just want to say I am sorry if Azanghrell furthers a fat-is-evil stereotype. Fat people are no more good or evil than people of other sizes. Unless they're in float chairs, like BARON HARKONNEN, and think they embody the soul of a planet. Cos that's pretty dark.