Twenty-seven Androgums strode in. Even if they hadn't disabled and demoralised the hundreds of Third-Zoners, they would still be a match for the untrained fighters. And they had weapons. Cutlery hung from their belts as easily as the energy-rifles hung in their arms.
The Androgums were unknown. There were no clan-sigils upon their clothing; their tams had no feather or plume or claw to mark their social identity or even their status. This was frightening; social restriction controlled these people more than anything else.
They had many large warty excrescences. All Androgums had them; it was natural to their high-radiation planet. But many stood for proof that they had eaten the DNA of other species.
Intelligent species were not guaranteed to be intelligent eaters. Limited only by their desires, they tended to eat anything they chose—and did. That meant they were generally full of more toxins and diseases than other species. It was these abnormalities that created the cosmetic alterations.
The first one was the largest. Something of the color palatte of his clothing suggesting a Quawncine Grig but there was a peculiar badge upon his chest that looked like the outline of a Harpy Eagle swooping down upon its prey. If a Harpy Eagle could look much less friendlier and hospitable than the image the Doctor could discern. It was the most ferocious visage he'd seen since getting briefly getting trapped up a tree in Dimetrodon territory.
He was an absolute bear of an Androgum—one of Jamie's childhood myths of Hairy Men come to life—and he was almost as hairy. His brow was pronounced with lumps—some of which were pierced with gem and metal studs. A fight-flattened nose spread over the middle of his face. His beard was red and sparse around a webwork of scars and the thin spots were thickened with the vanity of many large beads—bone beads. A curved bone abstract pierced each lobe. His eye—for the right was wrapped in a blood-red eyepatch—was small and clever, his lips prepared to curl in disdain or cruelty. They curled now, observing the cowed and terrified people huddled helpless upon the floor.
"You can cut the fear with a butter-knife," he announced by way of greeting. The voice was deep and thick, as if long unused. His eye flickered deep in its socket to examine his prey. "It radiates from them, thick as flower pollen."
But then that dark, glittering eye fell upon the Doctor. In a swirl of weapons and battle-dress he bent, frowning. His large, wide mouth split into a grin of thick lips and gums.
"Well, what have we here?" He rumbled. He bent slightly to peer at the prone Time Lord. The Doctor flinched away, and could not hide the wince.
"Wounded?" The big Androgum made a sound that would have been almost avuncular. "Well, let's see about that." As lightly as plucking a flower, he reached down and pulled the Doctor up by the wrist. The little fellow dangled with his toes inches from the floor.
"Put me down!" He snapped indignantly.
The one good eye gleamed. "Oh, we are a lively one, aren't we?" He chuckled. "Not sedated like the others...and you smell different. Mmmmn..."
"Did you hear me?" The Doctor exclaimed. He reached up, tugging futilely to free his wrist from the heavy wart-studded paw. "You have no business being on this ship!" He persisted at (almost) the top of his lungs. "I suggest you pack yourselves back up and go back to whence you came!"
Normally, Androgums were simple folk. This is not to mean "simple" in the sense of say, Jamie's people, who chose to live simply because an harmonious approach to life was a healthy and spiritual philosophy that was good for the limited resources of their land as well as good for others. Or Zoe's definition, which meant, "incontrovertible evidence," or Victoria's, which was "the point presented in as few words as possible" (She liked Alfred Hitchcock for a reason), or Ben and Polly, who wanted nothing more from the Universe than for red to stay red, and blue to stay blue.
Androgum "simple" meant they were very single-minded and within their own interests. This meant they normally responded only to the Alpha Wolf approach—he (or she if she could grow over 2 metres in height) who shouts the loudest and stands the firmest ground is the one who Gets Things Done.
Unfortunately, Androgums are, on occasion...not simple.
"Oh?" The huge alien lifted him even higher, until he was a disconcerting distance from the floor. "Now I might be impressed by that show of courage, little one. But you aren't speaking for these people, are you." The thick lips warped in a horrible pumpkin grin as he nodded at the drug-stupefied people. "You have no authority to speak for them. You are a passenger, and passengers do not speak for the crew. In fact, no one speaks for the crew. They follow the orders of a soulless metal machine."
"I am a Time Lord!" The Doctor projected every ounce of his considerable willpower into that statement. "I am speaking on behalf of every being on this craft as an investigator of the temporal anomaly that caused this ship to founder out of its flight path!" He tugged again at this living manacle about his wrist. "And I say, let me go and get yourself back on your ship!"
"A Time Lord...Master Brasher?" A nearby Androgum male murmured in a mixture of fascination and worry. It was the fascination part that alarmed the Doctor.
"Yes, I know." Brasher never stopped smiling up at his little prize. "I knew it as soon as I saw him. One develops a...nose for these things with age, my good Larch." He pushed his head a little closer and took a noisy sniff with wide, flaring nostrils. The beads in his beard rattled. This close, the Doctor could see they were scrimshawed with...oh, dear. Names of the original owners.
"Interesting bouquet." He noted. "Not past its prime yet, good, solid muscle..." Another sniff. The Doctor kicked him in the belt, but it might have been a child's tap for all the notice given it. "Well now that is a bit odd, isn't it?" He leaned his head back to look at the Doctor with a sudden increase in...interest.
"Most of you people are...I do beg your pardon...soft and...well, insipid." Brasher slipped a look to his assistant and coughed with surprisingly delicacy at the indiscreet topic. "You have a flat tastelessness about you and a limp texture from an idle lifestyle, I'm embarrassed to say. A self-domesticated species to be sure, but you have a..." pause to sniff again, this time longer and drawn out. The Doctor's flesh crawled and he began struggling in earnest.
"Yes, unusual." Brasher whispered, and to the Doctor's horror, the Androgum began to drool. "You're a wild thing, aren't you? A feral Time Lord, running free from those boring old husks gathering dust on your home world. You're a renegade." He tutted. "Not the usual fare at their table, are you?" He paused to wipe his mouth. "Well, well." He turned to show the still-struggling Doctor to his apprentice. "This is what a real Time Lord would be if they followed a natural lifestyle, free from their artificially induced environment! As you can tell, the product is far superior to those—ahem!-battery-farmed beasts living under their force fields. Normally the best one can do is settle for the tempered flesh of the common-stock Gallifreyans. It isn't the same, I regret. Time Lords are a revolting example of flaccid indulgence. And yet, as the pinnacle of their species, they should be the most flavourful!" He shuddered at the atrocity. "Why, they don't even get enough natural ultraviolet to manufacture secosteroids! They have to metabolize their calcium through...additives." The last word was clearly a vile oath. "And I don't mean by eating dairy or snacking on the occasional strip of dehydrated skin, either!"
"Let them go." The Doctor spoke through his teeth.
"Let them go?"
"Yes. The living and the ones in that so-called cargo hold that you have no right to possess!"
"Oh, but their being alive is just a technicality." Brasher grinned, releasing a cloud of meat-rancid breath. "They won't be alive for much longer...what is it you Time Lords like to say...'Time is relative?'" He laughed at his wit, and playfully tapped the Doctor on the end of his nose.
The Doctor snarled, caught up in the alpha-pheromones of might makes right. He only just barely holding back the urge to bite the Androgum. Common sense warned this would be profoundly stupid—there was no knowing where that hand had been. Or what was in its makeup! For that matter...who?
Brasher chuckled in delight. "Worth the trip over here, it was!"
"Master." A new Androgum scuttled up and bowed. "All of the Ancel'ak are dead. The gas must have shocked their nerves."
"They are a frail race. Weak creatures, but a marvelous fine marbling to the meat and the marrow-bones are particularly juicy." Brasher shrugged. "The rest?"
"They are all appropriate. At least half are injured in some way."
"Go through them with the other Francines—and get the younger Gercines. It's time they took on some adult responsibility." Brasher dandled the Doctor up and down a moment, testing his weight and mass. "Little but unusually dense." He noted. "Cull the ones that can't be walked back to the ship. We'll serve them up with the Ancel'ak tonight."
"Master! Yes, Master!" The Apprentice glowed.
"And make sure Azdown does what I say!" Brasher suddenly barked. "He's been drooling for immature meat for weeks—don't think I don't know his habit of killing pups before they reach their prime!" He shook his head and passed a final, baleful look at some of his crew before looking back at the Doctor (who was contemplating a new level of horror).
The Doctor caught his gaze and returned it with an expression of pure hostility. Never un-intimidating when he wanted to be, the Doctor had spent too many years perfecting the force of his personality on various and sundry, well-deserving morons in yellow robes.
"You could still leave." He told Brasher quietly.
Brasher smiled. "You're a brave little one." He approved. "It's been a long, long time since I had a decent Time Lord at the table." He chuckled. "The Grigs would be honored with you." The eye slid to a crafty black. "If they deserved you."
"So you've eaten Time Lords." The Doctor didn't show how that affected him. He wasn't the only Renegade out there in the Universe, and his contact with his own, fellow Time Lord Renegades were rare and often terrifying (Flora Millrace being an exception), but there were a few—a very few—of his people who were innocent of wrongdoing, and left for reasons as morally defensible as his own. "How many?"
"Not nearly enough." Brasher confessed with a sigh. He held the Doctor's weight in one hand easily, as though holding a cluster of grapes. "They're a difficult species, prone to too much cleverness. The arrogance is amusingly refreshing, though. It's always good to be able to...see the humor in one's superiority, don't you agree?" And he chuckled again.
"Master." A new Androgum ran up and bowed from the waist down. His clothing was rougher and plainer-cut. "We have the codes. The cargo will be T-Matted to our hold in less than thirty minutes."
"Excellent." Brasher never looked away from his quarry. "A successful mission all around...bring the nullifying clamps, Serrate." He looked at the Doctor carefully. "The ones sized for juveniles. That ought to be a decent fit." He looked past the Doctor to the hulked-over Tokish and made a tsk'ing sound. "We'll need the jumbos for that one."
"Don't hurt him!" The Doctor renewed his struggles, much to Brasher's amusement. "He's of no interest to you! He has the mind of a child! All he knows is obedience!"
"Oh?" Brasher looked at the quietly sitting alien. "You. What is your name?"
"Tokish, Master." Tokish spoke slowly through the lingering sedative.
"Tokish," Brasher smiled and held the Doctor in front of him. "Be a nice fellow, would you, and hit this Time Lord for me. Hard as you can."
The Doctor sucked in his breath. "No...no, no, Tokish!"
Tokish rumbled to his feet, a vague and confused look upon his face. "But I don't know where to hit him, Master."
Brasher thought that was just hilarious. He laughed. "Try the belly."
Tokish pulled back his fist in slow motion.
The Doctor held his breath, tightened his abdomen with one of Ben's old tricks about Houdini, screwed his eyes shut, and hoped it would be quick.
Three seconds later he was flying through the air, tossed over Brasher's shoulder in dubious safety while Tokish' balled-up fist met empty space.
"You big, bloated-up idiot!" The little Time Lord shouted to mask his relief that Tokish had been smart enough to go through with the game. "He could have killed me!"
"So I see." Brasher was still laughing. "Tokish, sit down. You will walk with the rest of the people to the Holding-pens.
"But...Master..." Tokish blinked, hurt. "I didn't hit him."
"That's all right." Brasher soothed. "I'll give you another chance later."
"Yes, Master."
The Doctor twisted his head to glare down at the Androgum. "Im dongay ollik parl..." He swore in Old High Gallifreyan. That was really telling him.
(The TSV shut down in shock for an entire half-second.)
"I do hope you don't smile at your mother with that mouth." Brasher reproved. Not that he knew what it was, but he knew the taste of a true insult when it was aimed at him.
By this time, the lackey had returned with the sized manacles.
The Doctor's hearts sank to his pelvic cradle at the sight. They were padded so the wearer could not hurt themselves with contact or struggle. Although he didn't know it yet, the overloading of telepathic feedback through the TSV was capable of working both ways; just not as well.
Confinement was, and always would be, a horror for the little Time Lord. It was a natural part of his personality and all of the Doctors carried this...but it was particularly strong in this incarnation.
It mixed badly with his hyper-acuity.
Sardon was mostly correct in his secret assessments. The TSV was combining with Karnak's close-approach abilities, and feeding the focused attention of all the Time Lords in the room directly into the little renegade.
But he did not know that Karnak was about to receive a feedback from the Doctor. And he would not know because Karnak's natural gifts would absorb it.
Gallifrey:
Karnack gasped, feeling for a moment as though the manacles were clapped over her own wrists. Not a Time Lord, she flushed to be caught out of perfect control, and her features over-compensated with a bone-white pallor. Holding her breath, she pressed one hand against the vulnerable circuits exposed in the panel. Her other hand poised an electrical solder like a ferocious weapon.
"I beg your pardon," she apologised...and with the solder...attacked the naked machinery.
The Feathered Sun:
It was co-incidence that saved the Doctor.
Just as the awesome pressure returned to attack his skull, the dismissed Androgums returned to the Deck in a high-pitched scream of metal upon metal as the door-housing growled and grutched upon the friction. Sparks glimmered in the half-light.
It hurt.
The Doctor cried out, clapping his hands over his ears.
"Sensitive, are we?" Brasher was pleased. "A sign of refinement. Oh, we'll have to be careful and plan with this one!" He chuckled and patted the little Time Lord on the back. "Now, Apprentice," he smiled grandly. "I'm off to the Inspection Room. Meet me there when you're finished."
Serrate bowed from the waist. "Yes, Master."
"Oh, and be certain to wash your hands. It's time you learned how to inspect Gallifreyan meats."
"Sir! Yes, Master!" Serrate drooled.
The Doctor could not hide the lurch in his hearts.
Brasher growled, a horrible sound of laughter deep in his huge throat. He adjusted the little Time Lord across his shoulder as easily as a toddler; the Doctor struggled for calm despite the horror threatening to swamp his control into full-blown panic.
"Easy, Little Time Lord." The Androgum rumbled. "No one's going to eat you…yet."