Chapter 2
"Where's my phoenix from the ashes?" said the Doctor, lowly, referring to the old Earth myth of an immortal bird rising from the ashes of its predecessor. Turlough knew about that one, too, just like he had about the temple virgins.
"Should we not dematerialize again, Doctor?" It sounded like a cry, a plea, for which the Doctor had no answer.
Holding the broken spanner again, he tapped it on one of his palms. "There's an old neutron generator that might work on the Tardis's overshot nerves, and on my own," he added. "I'll go get it—" He glanced at the screen again, but chose to ignore the brewing hubbub outside, the speculation, wonder, surprise, and wariness. He left Turlough fuming a bit as he exited the control room.
As Turlough tried to follow him, to plead that they had better make 'tracks,' the Doctor made him pause and go back to watch the gathering outside. Reluctantly, he nodded and turned back as the Doctor went off to the gear-room. While Turlough kept a wary eye on the viewscreen, there the Doctor sought his charger.
Maybe it still worked and hadn't gathered too much dust.
When he saw the group bring out a laser cannon, Turlough began to panic. Soon the men had positioned it in order to blow the Tardis's door. He flew to the intercom and begged the Doctor to return as quickly as he could.
Now the girl was gone, leaving only the priest-like men, and the man she resembled had stayed on, too. Besides these, there were big, husky forms in isolation suits. The Doctor was coming back, striding down the corridor with nothing else in his hands but the spectrum spanner he had gone out with. Where was the neutron generator? If such a thing existed, that is.
Since the Doctor was now energetically upset, Turlough surmised that he must not have found it—at least not in working order. The Doctor stopped and stared at the laser cannon through the viewscreen.
"That was mighty quick," he muttered, referring to the speed with which the inhabitants of the ship had deemed them 'unfriendly.' "I guess I'll have to go out and make parley with them."
He had hoped he would have time to fix the Tardis, dematerialize it, and then finish his own lunch all before another solar hour had passed—solar, because that was the time-frame which Turlough, from his long sojourn on Earth, had grown used to.
Turlough threw up his arms. "Are you out of your mind, Doctor? You don't know what they'll do if you put yourself in their hands."
He breathed deeply, and almost sighed. "I know what they'll do if I don't. We can't afford a broken door, too, Turlough."
Whenever he and his companions left the relative safety of the Tardis, it was usually to venture out into a kettle of trouble. In this instance, before the denizens of this ship could make kindling out of his door, the Doctor hoped he would be able to reason with them. He reached into a pocket and brought out his 'front door' key.
Then, as he contemplated walking into a potential hornet's nest, he had a vision of his most recent companions, now all gone. Of Nyssa, and of Adric, poor dead Adric, and of Tegan, who voluntarily came back to him, when she had lost 'Heathrow.' He had not been terribly pleased to have the sharp-tongued one back, but Nyssa had been.
"If I don't return—" he began, but then added, not knowing what to say for Turlough to do, if he did not return: "Cheer up, old lad. All will be well." He handed Turlough the key that unlocked the Tardis, for he could not have it fall into the wrong hands.
Operating the opening mechanism on the console, he crossed to the door, drew in a deep breath, and then stepped out. As he emerged, he gathered in quickly the drawn-back, defensive stances, the timid, alarmed eyes, the hands holding hoses ready to shoot disinfectant at him.
Much as he always did in greetings such as this, he smiled, big enough for the ones in the back to see. Turlough, inside still, had closed the door again. As he watched through the viewscreen, he didn't like leaving the Doctor alone out there.
The Doctor raised his hand in friendly salute, but he was, as usual, misinterpreted, and a jet of orange disinfectant shot out of one of the nozzles and covered his orange-striped legs. He jumped back against the Tardis door, closed now, and uncertainly lowered his hand. What next?
The atmosphere was tense with violent expectation. He saw one gun among the lot, other than the big laser, but perhaps ammunition for it was low, for the trigger hadn't been pulled.
"I am the Doctor," he said, stepping forward again. He spoke in their own language, for it was a gift of all Time Lords, such as he was, to be able to speak the languages of the universe. Turlough, as his companion, 'shared' this gift.
"Are you carrying any diseases?" asked the tall man in front, the one the girl favored, to which the Doctor shook his head.
Smiling, he replied lowly, "No."
"Any weapons?"
The Doctor smiled again. "No," he repeated.
"Is that your ship? Let us see inside it."
Again the Doctor smiled, shook his head, and said, "No."
The single gun rose in the tall man's hand, followed by one or two of the disinfectant hoses. The Doctor did not smile at this, the opening of hostilities. He almost had the urge to say, "Take me to your leader," who was precisely the individual he most wanted to see.
"Bring Councilor Darvis here, Marco," said the tall man to another man who was at his side. "We will see what he says to do with this trespasser, this interloper in space who finds entry into a closed ship through the walls. How did you do it—Doctor?"
"My secret, sir. And your name is—?"
"Gavilan, I'm the pilot of this freighter."
Since he was the one holding the gun, the Doctor thought he'd play up to this man.
"Gavilan, it's good to meet you," he said kindly. "This is a fine ship, from what I've seen of it. Lower that hose a bit there," he told another. He turned back to Gavilan and said, "It's uncomfortable to think that I am going to get 'sprayed' like vermin, for I am a man, a traveler, and no enemy of yours, or of your people."
The Doctor sounded sure of himself, but Gavilan could not see that the Doctor's mind was very uncertain, that his knees felt like knocking together, or that he was having second thoughts of contacting the people of this ship, for the ship's obvious technology was far too low to save his Tardis.
Would he ever tire of it all? This 'traveling'?
"How do you fly about in so small a vehicle as that?" asked the curious Gavilan, as he walked around three of the four sides of the rectangular police call box that was the Tardis's disguise. Coming back to the Doctor, he asked, "How do you lie down at night to sleep?"
"It's much bigger on the inside," the Doctor heard himself say, then wished he had not said it. No use giving this Gavilan any ideas of commandeering it.
"How can it be bigger inside than on the outside, Doctor?"
In Gavilan, he had an apt pupil. He might be able to sway him over to his side, a friend to explain matters to Councilor Darvis, who just then appeared from the far right corridor.
A bustling, smallish man with an ample paunch to make up for his lack of overall size, Darvis appeared unarmed. Behind him, the young man, Marco, had come back and moved up again to stand beside Gavilan.
Looking askance at Darvis, the Doctor smiled once more, and now extended his hand. The nozzles, and the gun in Gavilan's hand, lifted quickly, giving him a rousing idea of what the poison in his eyes would feel like, but he did not spare a moment's glance that way. Instead, he kept his respectful gaze upon Darvis, who began the interview quite bluntly.
"Who are you?" Darvis asked him. "An alien? Do you come from the Eberi system?"
"I don't know which system you mean," he said honestly, not knowing that name for any system in the range of his ken. If the leader meant this one, then he himself called it Gunari.
He would like to put forth a question or two of his own.
"Why are you all here? Where are you going to?"
"We are traveling to the Eberi system. If you came from there, we would greet you," replied the Councilor, a little puffedly, like Gavilan before him, "like a brother."
"I do not come from there, Councilor Darvis. I am quite sorry. Can we not be 'brothers,' as you say, under other circumstances, such as mutual need of each other?
"What's that you say?" asked Darvis. "What mutual need?"
"I need time to repair my vessel, and perhaps you have something in which I can help you. I am quite handy with tools of all sorts, as well as computers. If there is anything malfunctioning aboard, I could—"
"We take your offer kindly, sir," said Darvis, with a like respectful tone. "What is your name?"
"He has no name, sir," said Gavilan, "just a title. Doctor."
Seeing an opening to tell more about himself, he explained, "I travel in space, and in time. I am fascinated to meet new people. I am terribly fascinated right now. And I would like to extend my hand, in friendship."
Darvis looked warily down at it, took it, shook it, and then wiped his own hand across the breast of his tunic, as if saying that the Doctor's hand was unclean, perhaps because it was alien. Perhaps he had never met a man of a different race than his own before.
He said as much. "I have never met a space traveler before, Doctor. If that is what you are, indeed, and not a renegade from the old planets."
Now discerning their purpose in space, the Doctor asked, "This is a colony ship?" He looked around, aware that what he was seeing was old, old and dilapidated. He would not have been traveling on it, himself, if he could help it.
"It is. Ultimately, we are en route to a planet in the Eberi system. Frelia. Our myths describe it as a green world where we can once again thrive. It is beyond the present galaxy."
"Perhaps I can locate it on one of my star charts," he offered. "If not, then there may be one or two in this galaxy where you could thrive." He was about to discover how deeply attached they were to the planet Frelia, even though, like Atlantis on Earth, it was a world of myth.
"No other world than Frelia will satisfy our longing, Doctor. To it, we go."
"There is nothing beyond this galaxy but dangerous E-space. You would not survive that. It's a region of space I once had much ado returning from."
He paused and swallowed, glancing up at the ceiling as a swift pair of emotions overtook him. He did not see what he wanted to see there, though he didn't know exactly, either, what that something was. Perhaps it had to do with Romana, the companion he had left behind in E-space, or with Adric, the boy he had never been able to return there.
He lowered his gaze on Darvis again, and, rather faraway-sounding, finished, "I do not think I would like to go there again." Changing tack, he asked, "May I bring out my companion, Darvis? He's probably anxious about me by now."
"Is he an alien, too?"
"Well, it all depends on what you call an alien. Turlough's people have only one heart, whereas I have two. I don't, however, know who his people are, for he is almost a stray, a waif."
Turlough would be glad to hear me say that. But the Doctor had only spurred on the imagination of the timid and uncertain Darvis, the elder thinking, if this man before him did not come from the system of Eberi, then perhaps the other one—whoever he was—did?
"Does he come from around here?" Darvis persisted.
"I couldn't say, Councilor, because I found him on a planet known as Earth, a world long light years from here. But you'll meet him, and see that, even if different, we both crave friendship and good conversation. It increases our understanding."
So the Doctor turned to the door and beckoned, Open the door. After a considerable wait, which was slightly embarrassing, he knocked on one of its blue panels. Turlough must have been uncertain that the men had not forced the Doctor to bring him out, to lead him into danger. But knowing the Doctor would not betray him, he operated the door and stepped out.
All seemed safe enough outside, though a bit tense. They had not hurt the Doctor, but the air felt like the Tardis after something blew on it. But there were no 'hungry' eyes on the faces before him, and no frown on the Doctor's face to steal away Turlough's courage.
"Our friends, Turlough. Come, meet them," said the crafty Doctor. Solicitously, he asked Darvis, "May we come among you now?"
In greeting new races, it was always this way. On their part, wariness. On his, disarming words and smiles. He didn't carry a weapon, and it was against his moral code to kill or even to injure another rational creature. He believed, as his nature had made him, in peace. But peace did not always coincide with harmony.
And that was why, if someone asked for 'peace and harmony,' they had to specify which one.
"Not so soon, Doctor."
"What?" he asked, incredulous at the hold-up.
"We inhabit a special world, Doctor, on this ship. For short while, you and your companion must stay in isolation. A precautionary measure. When we visit a moon, or another world, we use it. Though you want to be friends, and we believe you, sir, we must still protect ourselves."
"You will not try to disinfect us, sir?" asked Turlough, still somewhat fearful of their new 'friends.'
"Of course not. No, we will simply disinfect your wearing apparel, and then return it to you. You may bathe, too. But none of us is proof against whatever bacteria you carry. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly," said the Doctor, disliking the personal inconvenience, but grasping the reason for it.
"Follow our guides, Marco, here, and his men," said Darvis. "He is Head of Security."
The Doctor knew that for the nonce, he and Turlough had to obey, even if a bit put out by the upcoming quarantine. Better play along, meet the folks, and be safe.
"After the quarantine, Councilor, would you allow us time to fix our ship?"
Without answering the direct question, Darvis said, "We should like to see your vessel, on the inside, Doctor, for it must be simply amazing. It has traveled through walls," he asserted, echoing Gavilan, though without knowing it.
"Well, we'll have to see about that," the Doctor replied, then resigned for now to follow, rather than lead, he turned to Marco. "At your service, sir."
How would Turlough react to being shut up in an isolation chamber? Would he find life unbearable again, as when he was trapped on that delightful little Earth, and rebel in his usual way? Would the Doctor be able to handle him if he did?