Chapter 5:

Eat

Drink

Man

Woman

-Chinese

The Feathered Sun:

It was quite easy to take a walk down the corridors unnoticed. Had the Doctor been another sort of being, he might have been insulted at the lack of attention his presence inspired.

But he wasn't really trying to be seen.

Not really.

His small body nipped from shadow to shadow, back and forth in the myriad patches of darkness that came with the erratic Third Zoner Triangular Lighting systems. Several times he had no choice but to walk across long fields of corridor with bright, clear light and no cover. He did it with a cheerful smile fixed on his face, tipping his head forward in pleasant greetings to the few people he actually met.

Most of them were too worried of countenance to pay more than a token wave of the hand at him as they passed, lugging equipment or scuttling along with heavy quires of Code. A few glimpses of the script leaking off the corners of the papers warned the little Time Lord that more than a few updates were on Captain's schedule: Engineer, Navigator, and Life were also being stuffed full of re-adjustments and encrypted logic programs.

One grand thing about being in the Third Zone: everybody tended to stick to either Base 10, Base 6, Base 8 or—for a playfulness regretfully scarce—the 12 Radix. These limited options made it easier to suss out what was happening from a mathematical viewpoint. The Feathered Sun was sticking to 12, but he suspected it was a carryover from an older tradition that stuck to Base 6. A lot of species had thrown poor 6 out the window in order to disassociate from anything the Cybermen liked, and they DID like Base 6!

It made him nostalgic for the mathematics of pre-Galactic Colony Earth, back when Base 10 was the major value but the temporal calculations were firmly on the sexagesimal, thanks to the quite-observant Mesopotamians. He sighed wistfully, thinking of the fun he'd had discussing the concepts of math with tribal elders across the planet. Seeing patterns that weren't really there-that was one of their strengths and led to their indomitable spirit. Even the most hide-bound human was capable of understanding possibility, and that put them on par—and beyond—with most Time Lords, who regretfully thought possibilities were a thing of the past.

The little Time Lord found an intersection with an open area. It held a tiny space known as a "meeting-point" with a kiosk, a few soft seats and a broken food dispenser. It was innocuous so he picked it for his own, rapped the dispenser until it turned itself on, and tinkered with the gasping controls until it was fully operational. That accomplished, he programmed up one of the more stimulating beverages of the Zone and settled back against an artificially grown static-tree, blowing loudly at the clouds of steam coming off the top of his mug.

If you want to know something, make certain drinks are available…and free.

Proving inter-species telepathy for the Zone's version of strong black tea (or coffee, Chai, Mormon Tea and Siberian Ginseng thrown in) was still healthy, clouds of hungry and thirsty crewmembers converged upon the now repaired dispenser. The Doctor sat back, sipping with a wide-eyed look of wonder, and listened with both ears.

Gallifrey:

On Gallifrey things were continuing with something less than their personally vaunted superiority of efficiency. Since time was all relative, the Committee had taken a much-needed rest and refreshment. Sardon found scrubbing off miniscule bits of exploded viewing equipment an endeavor of extra effort, and took a small bit of unprofessional satisfaction that the others were doing the same.

As so often was the case with Sardon, the Grey Man thought of unpleasantries while he refreshed his person. It was not a pleasant habit, but inevitable with his post.

He didn't like the inconvenience of working with an entire Committee. If the problem had just been simply, gloriously and straightforwardly PROPOSED to his office, he could have just sent the Doctor on his merry way, and kept the explosions and collisions off the screens.

The less Gallifrey knew of the Doctor's shenanigans, the better.

"Shenanigans, tintinnabulations, idiosyncrasies, and creative forays into dangerous levels of engineering verisimilitude." The Grey Man muttered as he combed out his hair. The longer he had the Doctor on a leash, the more powerful his urge to send a sympathy letter to his old teachers.

And that was just one of the problems.

The Doctor was an aggravation, but he was good at what he did. He solved cases. He worked through problems—from a strategic point his only failing was his inability to not find troubles. He often found more problems than he was supposed to solve…but they were always a part of the whole. So there was that problem. If there really was truth to the adage about Prydonions seeing further than others, it was well advertised in that scruffy little vagabond.

Sardon wasn't complaining about the solve rate—his Agency was supposed to nip problems before they grew into bigger ones—and if they only develop that lost instinct for precognition so much the better in anticipating further disasters to prevent. But the Doctor had…changed things since his recruitment.

The Grey Man wasn't completely certain about the future of the Office he held so dearly. He had the great good sense to know that the Doctor would be a participant in these open-ended events. The question was should the Doctor be kept on a tight leash, or allowed to do what he did best and let everyone back out of the way…or the most difficult, risky and potentially the most rewarding…train him into a better appreciation of how things were Done. Sardon frankly had little hopes for this endeavor, but some agents like Goth were vocal on their determination…

Refreshed, the officer returned to the allotted meeting room and was coolly gratified to see he'd beaten the others. Goth of course, preferred to be "fashionably late" or in his case, allow the usual tiresome pleasantries and welcomes and protocols to die down before he showed up—it saved him the tooth-pulling agony of being part of it.

Sardon tried not to have feelings about the minds he was forced by circumstances to work with.

He worked very hard to have no emotions about Goth.

The Grey Man paged up the mechanics' report and sipped a glass of Rassilon Red as the Committee trickled in.

"Ah, hello, Jokul." He smiled at the leaner elder. "You look well-rested."

"I give the credit to advanced pharmacology, not any particular talent within myself." The other answered wryly as they all found their seats—as well as their own glasses of wine. "Dare I ask if there has been any news to report?"

"We may be able to lock in on the Doctor's location ahead of schedule." Sardon supplied and leaned back in his chair.

"Did someone find enough authority to request another department's Temporal Scanner?" It was more likely they'd find the needed parts in a meteorfield, considering the rampant professional jealousies…but it was still nice to ask.

"No, alas. It's true that all of our Agency's scanning equipment has been damaged and it will be days before the repairs are completed, but there is a Time-Space Visualizer gathering dust in storage. I ordered the technicians to get it online."

"I get the impression the Visualizer in question is…a bit on the antiquated side?" Goth proposed carefully.

Sardon chuckled despite himself. 'It's not half as old as the one the Doctor has." He sipped his wine and waited for the round of expressions to make their way up and down the table.

"The Doctor," Goth said very slowly and quite painfully, "Has a Time-Space Visualizer." This statement was a masterpiece of restraint and it impressed Sardon to no end. Goth's seven words managed to convey a spectrum of broad unspoken observations beneath:

How did we catch him if he had one in his TARDIS?

If he has one, why isn't he using it?

Does it work at all as well as his TARDIS—which is to say it doesn't?

Where did he get a Time-Space Visualizer?

Does this mean there are other un-claimed and un-noticed TSV?

And if there are un-noticed TSVs, does this mean we should start combing the Universe for other dangerously informative things—like those wretched miniscopes?

"Yes. In his TARDIS." Sardon said redundantly. "It's about as old as his TARDIS, if you can believe it."

"Even for the Doctor, that's a bit tensile!" One of the Arcalians protested. "How is it he has one? It isn't exactly something the common person uses."

"Or un-common." Someone said.

Sardon chose to be the better Time Lord and overlooked that. "I did ask him, you know." He said reproachfully. "As soon as I found out his TARDIS had…well, that among quite a collection of other questionable items of alien technology." He sighed and finished his wine, then resolutely topped off his glass for another round. "As he explained it to me, his TARDIS "jumped a track" in the 4th Dimension in the old Morok Empire, and he wound up in one of their space museums where they…er…ahem!..froze him into a museum exhibit." Sardon was enough of a xenophobic Gallifreyan to shudder at the thought.

He wasn't the only one.

"…But he managed to escape and one of his humans fomented a rebellion that excommunicated the Moroks out of the territory…and the indigenous people gave him his T-SV as a…a souvenir." Sardon finished the anecdote on a lame note. It sounded improbable, even for the Doctor.

"A souvenir." Goth repeated blankly.

"Yes." Sardon rubbed his temples. "I'm giving you the short version. Let me assure you, when he tells the full story, it becomes incredibly long and detailed and there are all sorts of extraneous things like the latest fashion in eyebrows and how you can, quote (because I'm not certain what the word really means), "'china plate your way through stuffy and obsessive-compulsive Molok interrogation computers,' unquote." Sardon sighed painfully. "Of course, he was wearing his Original Personality at the time."

"Oh, that explains it." Koredin sighed too, with relief and knocked back his drink in salute, rattling his birth-emblem of the Southern Mountain Range. "He was so much flightier in his first body. So irresponsible and un-grounded and impulsive and clownish and disrespectful of authority. No maturity at all."

"Not like he is today." Nescan agreed sagely. "Thank Rassilon."

Sardon realized with excruciating slowness that the two Mountaineers were not joking. Their faces were perfectly serious.

The two Southern Mountaineers realized everyone was staring at them.

"What?" Koredin asked in concern. He glanced down at their robes. "Did we spill something?"

"No." Sardon assured them in a tiny voice.

"You knew the Doctor back then?" Goth asked in a voice that was scarce better.

The two shrugged. They had the very dark, swarthy skin of over half the Southerners, and they also had the less chiseled features, but their eyes were atypical of the body type, both being a tawny gold color that as much as confessed their genetic counselors had some romantic notions about Jade Dreamer's recessive genes.

"Can't say we knew him. But everyone knew of him." Koredin chuckled. "Usually by whatever was migrating or swimming up the river or hatching or whatever."

"If he wasn't coming home with something alive, something alive was coming home with him." Nescan clarified. "That's what happens when you raise your children in a menagerie, you know."

"Yes. Everything's a specimen for study and observation." Koredin said darkly. "His parents were just as bad, both of them, but how he managed to be the best and worst of both parents at the same time I'll never know."

The Mountaineers fell into a friendly squabbling comparing the Doctor's peccadilloes with Older Brother Brax', who was obviously the smarter because no one ever caught him at anything, and just see how respectable he was in High Society, while Sardon made a mental note under his brain's file for the Doctor: NOTE: RAISED IN A ZOO. He anticipated far fewer questions on the little rouge's personality henceforth.

"I should mention there is a slight problem with the Doctor's Visualizer," He gently interjected himself back into the conversation. "If I am to believe the Doctor, he rarely used it because the Daleks had learned to pick up its signals if it was left on for longer than a few hours."

"Daleks!" Someone spat.

"Yes. And the Doctor is a heedless, reckless fellow but he enjoys their company as little as we." Sardon decided to enjoy what little of the wine in his head that he could. Sobriety was all too often his lot in life, and sobriety wasn't the best way in which one could deal with shabby little space gypsies.

"Is that the right word?" Jokul asked worriedly. "It seems as though he has a gift for…for…"

"Finding them." His companion supplied helpfully.

"They seem to be just as good as finding him." Was the sniff.

"All too true. We should take that into consideration if we ever have to distract the beasts. Imagine what would happen if we dandled him like so much bait over the—"

"-It will take a little work; our sensors are impregnated throughout every atom of his TARDIS." Sardon grabbed the reins of control again. "Some adjustments will give us the means to turn on the Visualizer, and we will keep it on long enough to braid our antique's signal into his antique's." He took a deep breath, thought of another drink, and folded his hands together instead.

In the back of his head, an unbidden and most worrisome thought intruded into his long-practiced struggle for peace of mind:

The Doctor had, in his long and overly elaborate explanation on his acquirement of the Visualizer, had commented almost idly it had been "easy to fix."

Considering the state of the TARDIS, the logical portion of Sardon's brain was wondering just where his concept of "fixing" something differed from the Doctor's.

The Feathered Sun:

A new collection of hungry and thirsty (but mostly thirsty) crewmen swarmed over the dispenser with fresh eagerness. The Doctor remained where he had been for the past twenty minutes, idly sipping his beverage but inwardly allowing his mind to race ahead with some sober calculations.

A Third Zone ship, even a freighter, was fully equipped for provisions for its crew regardless of said crew's basic life. It had been little more than a half-baked curiosity on his part to fix the broken food dispenser, guessing it was a good opportunity to gain information.

But the relish the people had was beyond his original estimation. This was more than curious: it was incongruous, and the Doctor had never dealt with anomalies very peacefully.

A young half-Minyan with the caste marking of a sleeping eye over his left brow struggled with an oversized bowl of steaming…something, his head twisting back and forth in hopes of finding a place to sit.

The Doctor beamed at him, patted the empty seat by him, and beckoned him over. "There you are, young fellow!"

"Oh, thank you!" The boy breathed gratefully. He managed to get through the milling crowd without spilling a precious drop of his prize. The Doctor caught a whiff of the steam and let his brows rise up: it had a hearty vegetable savour not unlike the tidal soups of Earth.

"That looks quite good." The Doctor observed. "If I may, what is it?"

"Rixar." The youth sipped eagerly, risking a painful burn on his lips. "It's been ages! This was the only Dispenser that could program the real stuff!"

"Really? I'm glad it's back in working order."

"I'm not questioning a miracle!" The boy announced, and went for another round of risky sipping. "It's been non-operational since before we left dock!"

"That long?" The Doctor tutted. "Oh, dear. Why did it take so long to repair it, do you think?"

"Who knows? The story was it didn't have enough in its molecular storage unit, which I believe." The boy rolled his eyes in exasperation. "We didn't get all of our supplies in time for Departure."

"That's a pity." The Doctor leaned forward, the picture of sympathy. "I good, solid ship like this? Normally they have the most perfect reputation."

"And this wouldn't have been any different," the boy paused to gulp more broth down. "But we're bonded to our schedules, and we have to stick with them no matter what." Gulp. Gulp. "And it didn't seem like that much of a problem at first—yes, we failed to get all of our supplies, but we also failed to get most of the passengers that signed up." He shook his head sadly. "You're lucky to be aboard, sir."

"Er, pardon?" The Doctor blinked, quite aware that he didn't understand this statement, and was fairly positive he was going to stay in a cloud of non-understanding until he questioned his way out of it.

"Oh!"

Heads turned—nay, shot in herd-formation in a single direction. Phix was striding full-tilt to the center of things, agitation all over his willowy body.

Head and shoulders taller than most of the other crewmen, he stopped himself in the middle of the crowd, his tool-kit swinging off his hips from the momentum and his head swiveled right to left and right again, taking in the sight.

"How did the Dispenser become operational?" He stared about him.

No one knew.

Someone cleared their throat. Eyes moved away from Phix to the source. It was from a small humanoid being in ill-fitting clothing and an even worse hairstyle. He was cradling a steaming cup in his hands and looking cautiously penitent.

"I beg your pardon," he said meekly. "I saw it wasn't working, and I fixed it for a cup of tea." He glanced about him with wide-eyed curiosity. "Dear me, I didn't realize this was such a popular place for a drink! Is it because we're almost in the exact center of the ship itself? It does seem to be a convenient location."

Phix absorbed this slowly, still amazed. "That it is. When it went non-operational, we all had to find refreshment stands on other decks." He shook his head. "Well." He took in the expectant faces, hopeful and longing. He sighed. "Enjoy your little holiday, crew." He chuckled wryly. "We'll take it offline tonight for a complete overhaul." At the groans his lifted his elongated fingers to the sky. "We have little choice, and you know it! Rations are not fully accounted for, and in the wake of the Storm we have to make extra sure none of the goods are damaged! Our payload depends on this, you know this! No payload, no pay!"

"Mph." Someone said into a bowl of what looked like a mixture of limp noodles and tiny cubes of orange protein matter.

Phix chuckled again, and went through the gauntlet of conspiratorial grins with one of his own. He coded up a large mug of something with ice and bits of blood-red tree bark floating on top, and drank it with open relish as the remainder of the crowd gleefully depleted the Dispenser's molecular stores in the search for one last hurrah.

The crewman had left with his empty Rixar bowl and a belch; Phix struggled his way across the room to take his place. The Doctor agreeably scooted over to make more room for his longer limbs.

"Clever trick, that." Phix told him in an undertone. "I confess, you've solved a problem for me."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Morale's been low since this thing's been out of commission…no one's going to question a temporary blessing like this! It's such an obvious solution…use up the stores and then repairing it isn't a priority at all until we dock. As long as it was broken we had it on our list of repairs. One less thing to worry about while we concentrate on hammering the dings out of the hull!"

"Ah, a simple engineering problem." The Doctor dismissed it pleasantly. "And I was just looking for a good cup of tea!"

"There you have it." Phix drank eagerly. "Morale was shaky enough as it was before this storm."

"Yes, something about the payload?"
"More like our missing passengers. We were supposed to take on a full ship's worth of colonists to the Deep Zone, but when we got to their ship…" The tall alien sighed. "We had their cargo, and their supplies—lots of them—but no Colonists! That means the full transport value is less than half of what we were promised!"

"No Colonists at all?" The Doctor frowned. "What did you do?"

"Our contract was clear. We picked up what was there—that being their supplies and food stores. If no one files a claim for the possessions by the end of the Standard Cycle, all the properties are auctioned off and the sum distributed to the crew. Except for Command portion, of course. Those monies are allocated to the things Captain and the other programs like. They're quite fond of their music collections and virtual realities."

"Captain and the holo-programs that maintain the ship's systems have…individual tastes?" The Doctor blinked. Several times.

"I know." Phix sighed. "What can you do? I can't stand Opera myself, but if it keeps Captain happy..." He took a fortifying drink. "Right." He rose to his feet and looked down. "Please be careful wandering around, sir. It's best you go with someone. The ship is a fine one, but not all of her corridors match up with her last-recorded blueprints." His pale face creased like a table linen. "Especially since so many of our records defaulted to our last codings pre-Departure. We're still working on it, but do remember that if one of the wall-charts tell you to turn left for the Holodeck, you might find the library or swimming pool instead! Or you might get completely lost trying to find your way back to your ship!"

"Oh, dear." The Doctor stared upwards. "I do thank you for telling me. That's good to know!"

"Not at all." Phix walked away, still drinking.

The Doctor watched him go, a bland and inoffensive expression on his mobile face.

None of his Companions would have believed his harmlessness for one single moment.

His small hands rapped an absent pattern on the little table as he thought.

He had an advantage that gave his personality a common ground with his Original self—a common ground none of his other future selves (going by his thankfully brief encounters) had.

He remembered being a fugitive all too clearly.

If you are always on the run, afraid to take the time to even look under your shoulder, you are going to be attuned to people who have a similar outlook.

He knew his future self would have less of this memory—and good for him. It was a burden and a curse more than a blessing—the advantage to survival it garnered him felt painfully high every time. He ached for the freedom of not having that fear.

But right now…it was a grudgingly useful insight.

Phix was hiding something, and there was no such thing as a small secret in the depths of space.