IDChapter24

After dinner was over, Daneth and his family asked of Arianna could stay and play with Alia for awhile, and Jon and Rose agreed. The rest of them trooped off to a conference area, where Isana sent Koschei off on some errand or another, it was obvious he was reluctant to do so, but he obeyed. This left Jack, Isana, Jon, and Rose alone to talk. After posting a guard with strict orders that they were not to be disturbed, Isana closed the door and sat down to debrief them.

She smiled. "First of all, let me tell you how glad I am to have you here. Jack has already told me a lot about you. I used to think he had to be making his stories up, they were so fantastic, about traveling in time in a little blue box with a man who called himself the Doctor, but who was actually one of us, in a parallel universe. It it really all true?"

Jon and Rose grinned a bit ruefully, looking at each other, then Jon spoke up, "Well I can't say how much Jack might have embellished things, but yes, I am the Doctor, we did travel through time and space in a TARDIS, and I am from the planet Gallifrey in my universe, which also disappeared around the same time yours did. Was yours also called Gallifrey?" He and Rose noticed that Jack and Isana visibly winced at the name.

Isana spoke in hushed tones, "I have to ask you to never speak that name again. It is considerd a curse now. No one knows what happened to the planet of my mother's people, and the Shadow Proclamation has prohibited exploration of the area where it used to be, and also has imposed stiff penalties on investigating it. It is best to not even discuss it."

Jon and Rose looked incredulous. "Really? Why?" Rose asked.

"Fear." Jack said. "They don't know what happened, and they want to, because they think it might be some kind of weapon, so they want all knowledge of it to be kept to themselves. People who express a lot if interest in what happened there tend to disappear. It's bad enough that people who have ancestry from there get kidnaped and sold off as mining slaves, even those of us who don't have those genes have to worry about getting reported if we express much interest in it. I oughta know, I had a run-in with the Judoon when I unknowingly violated the Gallifreyan No-Fly zone when I first came here."

"Yeah, well the Shadows certainly are the paranoid type." Jon sighed. "I can see them being afraid someone might be trying to eliminate them from the galaxy. So... are you saying there are spies amongst you reporting what you say?"

"Yes," Isana replied, "There are, everywhere. I don't think we have any in the Underground Railroad, but you never know."

"I have my suspicions about that subject," Jack groused.

"Now Jack!" Isana reprimanded him. "I've known Koschei all my life, if he was a spy, don't you think he would have turned me in?"

"Not necessarily, he wants you. Once he figures out once and for all that he's not going to get you, there's no telling what he might do. I'm telling you, Isana, I don't trust him. You should see the way he looks at you, like you're some kind of possession he's entitled to. He doesn't see you as a person, take my word for it! Besides, if he is a spy, what better place to be than here, as your second?"

Isana replied pointedly, "I could say the same of you, Jack, except that I know you're not trying to own me." She sighed and explained to them, "I'd like to make our bond permanent, but Jack is reluctant. Says he isn't the marrying kind."

"With the life I lead, Isana, I'd make a really lousy husband, trust me, I've tried before. Besides, we're getting a bit off subject. Doc - I mean, Jon, why don't you tell Isana about yourselves and how you and Rose came to be here?"

Jon then proceeded to tell Isana briefly about his life as a Time Lord and how he came to meet Rose. He left out exactly how Gallifrey disappeared, realising that his involvement was best kept between he, Jack, and Rose. He went on to how they had been stranded in this universe, leaving out the bit of TARDIS coral that they hoped to grow, but did tell her about the Krillitane oil and how they had learned to use it.

"I could restore our race in this galaxy," he explained, "and together we could stand up to the Shadows. That is, if that's what you want."

Isana was speechless. That her race might have been capable of such great and dangerous things if they had pursued technology instead of abandoning it was exciting, but at the same time unsettling. That this Time Lord was seeking them out to help them, and could bring such abilities into being was more than a little frightening. She let out a big breath.

"I'll have to think about that."

"Of course you will, there's a lot to think about, and I wouldn't dream of having you make a decision anytime soon. Just help Rose and I find the right place to settle down in and raise our family, and get to know us. We'll help you protect our race while you decide if it's something worth pursuing."

"And if I should decide it isn't?" Isana asked.

"Then we'll probably move on, eventually." He shrugged. "It's hard to say right now, but I don't see Rose and I living permanently in a place where we have to hide our thoughts. It's just not in our nature to sit idly by and let people in authority commit atrocities against innocents. Judging by this Underground Railroad of yours, it isn't in yours, either." He smiled at her in understanding, and Isana smiled back, recognising a kindred soul.

"On that note," Jack inserted, "Jon, we have to do a little bit of clean-up, you and Arianna and I. You do realise your ship is being watched?"

"Ah, yes." Jon remembered.

"Let's get your daughter and fix things."

Jon and Jack went and collected Arianna, and Jack walked them down a tunnel a ways before stopping and vortexing them back on Voyager.

Jon blinked. They were back at the moment they'd landed.

"OK, disembark and go to this hotel and ask for this room," Jack ordered, handing him directions, and all business again. "Stay there and wait for me. I'll take you back to when and where we left. Oh, and try to look devastated." He gave Jon a credit card, winked, and left in a flash.

Jon looked at his daughter and smiled. "You heard the man. Look devastated, and let's go."

He opened the hatch and released the landing stairs. While they were unfolding, he looked about. They'd landed at a parking lot, as it were. He saw a lone Judoon leaning aimlessly against another transport. OK, that's one, he thought. He kept looking around at the other vehicles and of the people walking or hanging out on the street, , and was rewarded by a flash of a now-familiar face. Koschei. Someone he'd not even met yet was talking with another person just across the way. Odd coincidence in a city this large, he noted. He'd certainly tell Jack about it as soon as he saw him, although he suspected it would be no surprise to Jack. Isana might be another matter.

As soon as the stairs were ready, he and Arianna disembarked. He then raised the stairs and locked them in place with his sonic, and the two of them made their way to the hotel, hand-in-hand. He noted Koschei following them. Time-travel had not been developed yet in this universe, Jack was the only person who could, thanks to the vortex manipulators he brought with him from his home universe, so this had to be Koschei before he met them. Remembering their dinner conversation, he knew Koschei had his own intel sources. Isana would be most interested in what those were, he thought, as he was sure she didn't know that Koschei had witnessed their landing. He searched the timelines surrounding Koschei and found them in flux. There was no clear right/wrong, or good/bad. They eventually found and entered the hotel, asking for the room Jack had indicated, and paying for it with the credit card Jack had given him. Soon they were in their room, and they settled down on the big, comfortable bed together. Soon they were both asleep, the long, eventful day having taken its toll on them both.

They were awakened some hours later by a knocking sound from the closet. Jon was instantly awake and jumped up, glancing about for a weapon. Not seeing anything he could use, he grabbed the desk chair and quickly placed it under the door handle of the closet.

"Who's there, and why are you in my closet?" He demanded.

"It's Jack, and I've come to get you."

Jon pulled the chair away and opened the closet door to find Jack grinning ruefully back at him.

"And how exactly did you wind up in the closet? Wouldn't the hallway have been a little more appropriate?"

"Nope, because I needed to show you this." Jack beckoned behind himself and Jon craned his neck to look, and saw that the back of the closet had moved.

"Ah, secret entrance. I should have guessed. Where does it go to?"

"C'mon, I'll show you."

Jon gathered up Arianna and they followed Jack out the back of the closet. Jack closed the closet door and the entrance behind them, and they went quietly down a long, narrow, dimly lit staircase for several flights before going through another door, which when pushed allowed them into a room that appeared to be a fruit cellar. Jack walked across the room and pulled on a set of shelves, which turned out to be a hidden door which led into a tunnel. After walking a short way down the tunnel, Jack asked, "Can you guess where we are right now?"

Jon replied,"Right about where we vortexed out from earlier?"

"Yep." Jack grinned as they walked into the Underground Railroad common area where Rose and Isana were waiting for them. After hugging her and exchanging pleasantries, he addressed Jack in a low tone.

"We need to talk to you and Isana again, privately. Let's go back to our room."

Rose looked at Jon questioningly. "Wait 'til we're alone with Isana," he said, almost under his breath. Rose blinked slowly in agreement and said nothing. Instead she picked Arianna up and nuzzled her, then started off toward their room, Jon trailing behind as if lost in thought. Actually, he had opened his mind and was skimming the surface of the thoughts of the people near him in the UR sanctuary, seeing if he culd pick out anything that would lead him to a spy in their midst. He found nothing.

When they were all in Rose and Jon's room, Jon took charge.

"Captain," he asked, nodding at the vortex manipulator on Jack's wrist, "I trust you told Isana what that device does?"

"Yep." Jack confirmed.

"Did you tell anyone else?"

"Nope."

"And there's no other time-travel technology in this universe, right?"

"No, there isn't, not that I've found or thaqt anyone seems to know about. Why?" The Captain frowned.

"Just trying to rule out one possible explanation of why a man who has never met Arianna and I yet was following us from our ship to the hotel."

"He could've been sizing you up for picking yopur pocket, we do have criminals here." Isana volunteered.

"Hmmm... a hobby Koschei hasn't told us about?" Jon looked deep into her eyes to judge her reaction, and it was genuine.

"Koschei? Are you sure it was him?"

"Yep-p."