Gallifrey:
[SORRY ABOUT THAT.]
Karnak hoped her mother would never know about this day: Her daughter, the 'smartest of the lot', sprawled on the floor in full uniform, covered in tools (and sitting on her tool-belt), right in front of her superiors, while an obsolete Time Space Visualiser projected a message conjured entirely from the mind of the madman on the other side of the screen.
"You nearly deafened me!" She shouted at the screen. On it, the Doctor's slightly-blurry image remained calm.
[I said I was sorry, didn't I?]
The Doctor's image stepped out of the circular screen like a transparent hologram and glanced briefly about the room before dismissing it all and turning his gaze to the technician. [I didn't know anything like you would be around so close.]
"I'm anything?" Karnak felt her temper rising to the occasion. "You've got your cheek, young man! And tone it down right this instant! It's a wonder every psychic-vampire from here to the Barrier isn't running after you right now!" She yanked her white braid behind her shoulder in fury. The nerve of some people..!
[Now who'll be shouting? And I am toning it down, I'll have you know! How was I supposed to know you were using a Third-Era Visualiser?] The Doctor's projected image paused and looked behind him, taking in the details. He tutted.
[For that matter, where'd you find this old thing? Last I saw one of those, I was looting the Wastes for spare parts! She's older than the Fossilwood Forest!] He chuckled suddenly, and gripped his lapels in a mannerism more known to his previous incarnation. This brought him up to his astrally-projected full height, which was a whole half-centimeter taller than her. [Nice adaptations, by the way. Most people aren't aware you can make a patch with the gold-alloy blocks. Are you plugging the gaps with crumpled-up aluminum paper? Ah, that brings back memories.]
"Never mind where I found it! You should just be grateful it's here! We're using it to keep an eye on you!"
[Oh, I feel so much safer now. Sarcasm painted the atmosphere. [Look, I'm not sure how much time I have, so quit fussing and listen-]
"WHAT?!"
[-The Androgums are planning to take everyone to their home world, which I'm sure you already know since you're getting your jollies eavesdropping-]
"We happen to be-"
[-but there's a lot more at stake than Androgum politics. The Grigs are plotting a coup against the Third Spiral Quadrant of the Third Zone. Time to fire up those Temporal Scanners and start watching any area on our side of the Kirkwood Gap!]
"What the—what are you blathering about?" Karnak was shouting by this point—the volume boiling off the Doctor's intellect was making her do it. "I've heard the same thing you've heard, and I didn't hear anything about a coup!"
A sigh was her reward, and it wasn't very patient.
[One. You see but you do not observe. You hear but you don't listen. All that double talk about giving gifts to the Grigs-the Grigs are the official law-makers and governmental agencies! Theyre the heads of their clans—which they call 'grigs' too (very imaginative). The linguistic meaning is, the Grigs speak for the grigs—they are quite literally the voice of their peoples—the only voice, I should add! They decide the participation of their people in Third Zone territory, young lady.] The Doctor lifted a projected eyebrow. [These pirates are dressed in Unallied clothing as if they're rebels and free agents. But here they are talking about going straight to the Grigs with bribes? They'd never get as far as the Front Gate unless they had permission.]
"Don't you call me young lady, you impertinent boy! I'm old enough to be your great-grandmother! They're pretending to be rebels?" Karnak felt angry and stupid, but she wanted to be clear on everything, and that included her promise to take a proverbial kilo of flesh out of the Doctor's hide for all of this trouble.
[They're only surface rebels. They're really privateers, collecting intelligent species for their soup-pots! They've done this before in the past, and they'll continue to do it as long as they can get away with it! Androgums are designed to devour other species so they will incorporate! Although, their favorite word is 'consummate'...Androgums who don't eat intelligent species are genetic dead ends, unable to breed! I mentioned that back when I was serving on the High Council—young lady!] Hand on his hips, the Doctor squared off with the infuriated technician. [At the time I had to choose between campaigning against the Androgums or banning the miniscopes and silly old idiot me thought the crimes of the Androgums would speak for themselves! He snorted.
[Look, this isn't exactly the best time for me to be in a state of statuvolism! So quit arguing with me, start listening, and do what I say before I get yanked out of the Bardo Plane!]
"Its your own fault if something horrible gulps your brains down!" Karnak roared. "You're broadcasting like a Perdition quartz!"
[What you need to do is fix this poor thing.] The Doctor snorted. [The Spatial Crystal Detector's cracked. Get another one and switch out the Diodes with a Seventh Era model. Should fit like a charm.]
"What is a charm and why should it fit—and I DO beg your most Holy Pardon, THETASIGNMAATIELLUNGBARROW! But you may have heard yourself say just a few seconds ago that this is a slightly obsolete model!"
[Oh, tosh. I'm more obsolete than this thing. Just hop out the Panopticon, and get that spare that's quietly mouldering away in the Other's Scrapyards. Should be somewhere in the middle of that pile next to the bottom of the Pinkrock Escarp. Watch out for the tunnel vipers this time of year—they're always cranky when they have to feed more than 500 babies, and considering their gestational season was a good one last year...] The Doctor paused as a thought struck him. [Oh. And say hello to Narvin. Big chap, likes to wear a lot of fur regardless of the weather. Other than that he's mostly harmless.]
"What. What. What." Karnak climbed to her feet and started waving wildly to get the madman's attention. "I am not going anywhere near a colony of tunnel vipers! And who is Narvin?"
[Old friend. He collects vipers. Breeds them. A bit odd, but mostly harmless.]
"And no one "hops out" of the Panopticon!" Karnak reached for breath. "It's locked tight!"
The look the Doctor gave her would have been priceless if it hadn't been directed at her.
[Oh, pish and tosh. The whole mechanism's based on the Tentmaker's Pulsar. Prime the sonic code at 33.033333, but use the ellipsis! DO NOT code at the viniculum or the dots or the fractions! Stick with 0.(3) if it gives you trouble! After six and a half aptoseconds, dial it down to .267, hold your breath and stand to the left. Sometimes the leeward circuits like to explode on you—depends on how long the parts have been gathering dust. There's a lot of dust on the other side of the Panopticon, and its full of that old metals-ash from when Mt. Oia went boom-]
Karnak stared. "I take it you've done this before."
[Oops. Something's happening. Got to go. Here. Hold on to this-]
One last, quick burst of information knocked on the door of Karnak's mind, and, sensing the urgency, she took the moral high ground and accepted it. For the briefest of seconds a crushing pain lapped at her consciousness and subsided upon the absorption.
Silence.
Her ears ringing, Karnak slowly turned to face the councilmembers (and mentally bidding goodbye her well-paying, largely satisfying career in CIA Technical Repair).
All eyes met her with differing degrees of thunderstruck astonishment.
"Ah..." The Grey Lord lifted his fist to his mouth and delicately coughed. "Excuse me...Technician Karnak... but are we to believe you were in telepathic conference with the Doctor just now?"
Still dazed, the woman nodded.
"Would you mind...telling us what he was saying to you?"
"Or yelling." Milvo added.
"Or yelling."
"Ah..." Karnak swallowed. "No one...heard it?" She asked in a tiny voice.
"Oh, we heard plenty of it." Goth lifted both eyebrows. "But only from your end of things, I fear. Whatever the Doctor was saying or doing, only you could see and hear."
Reality sank in with cold, hard claws.
Karnak felt herself flush, from the tips of her toes to the top of her scalp.
"That little...that slimy, slithery little..." She swore in her mother's tongue. "That...precocious brat! Telling me to show some self control! I'll show him a thing or two!"
Half out of her mind with fury, she slapped the comm on her wrist. "JONO!" She snarled at full volume. "Get the portable T-Mat ready. You're going to go get some parts for me." Her comm garbled. "Don't be silly. We'll have all we need over at the derelict scrapyards in the Grey Zone..." Her eyes snapped as she glanced up from the hapless assistant on the other side of the comm and she addressed the Committee in a more normal voice: "The Doctor says to repair the scanners as quickly as possible by the Kirkwood Gap; the Androgums are planning a coup and here's why..." She repeated word for word the Doctor's assessment while it was still fresh in her mind, stopped to take a deep breath, and hit them with the bombshell:
"He also says that under no circumstance should anyone attempt to rescue him."
How very odd, she thought as the Time Lords and Ladies reacted to the news. She understood concern and outrage...but why would Lord Goth look...for want of a better word...angry?
As if anticipating another's observation, Goth lifted his hands and coolly asked for calm.
"The Doctor is right." The big man told them. "If we devote time and energy to rescuing him, we reduce our evidence for the Androgums' trial."
"We have enough to convict the species!" Ragnar commenced to the unthinkable when he protested against a fellow Prydonion in public. If he was trying to make a point, it was missed: he was still too early in the stages of his new regeneration to be considered completely integrated with the memories of his past. "We have them for approved piracy and wholescale slaughter, slavery, and the buying and selling—not to mention the devouring—of intelligent life!"
"But we have no evidence that they have devoured Time Lords."
All eyes turned to the Grey Lord, who sat at his post as though gravity had struck him numb. With a new and haggard expression, the lean man shook his head. "We have only their spoken word for it, which is not the same as proof because Androgums are well known for their braggart social patterns. They will say the most outrageous things—and claim the most atrocious lies—if it places them in higher standing."
Jokul turned as white as the trim of his new robes. "Are you saying, my comrade," he paused and gulped, "That eating...eating us...is...is..."
"All cannibal species brag of eating us at one time or another." Milo was equally pale, and his usual humor gone. His expertise in medicine was doing his pace of mind no favors. He locked his fingers together and kept to a rare calm as he spoke. Even rarer, Ragnar nodded at him in a show of support. "Oh, how they brag. We see all sorts when we process the reports. But actual, hard proof that the Androgum species are actively seeking us out in order to eat us...that so far has not happened."
"And it is not feasible to sample random specimens of the Androgum population in order to test for traces of our DNA." Sardon rubbed his temples. "No...I loathe the saying of it, but we must follow what Goth has explained so well."
"But the Doctor..." Someone protested.
"The Doctor may be a renegade, and an exile, and a pariah to our society, but he is not afraid to die." Sardon hoped he was getting through to them. "And for a change, his altruism is directed in our favor. We are all in agreement. We will not rescue him until we get the proof we need. If that means we must watch...and record...the unthinkable...then that is what must be."
On the Androgum ship, the Doctor was holding himself as still as possible. He had even stopped breathing, all senses attuned to the slight, but unmistakable sounds.
Someone was stepping inside the room that housed his prison, and they were doing it as slowly, and carefully as possible.
Androgums were powerful, large beings and lacked grace and agility.
But they could hunt and stalk with the best of the predators.
It was coming for him.
He swallowed dryly, and fought against the pull of the gravity field to pull the little clip from his sleeve. While there were plenty of things in his pockets that could have sufficed, that same instinct that had kept him alive normally refused to employ them. Improvise with the tools on hand and no one would think of him as someone who walked into a situation already weaponized.
The footsteps were slow and stealthy. They crept a patient pace at a time to the black door of his cell. It must be utterly silent on the other side—he wouldn't have heard a thing if he'd been distracted by anything else, but his mental deviation in the Bardo Plane had left all of his senses hyperacute. Useful though it was, he was looking forward to that sensation's ebb.
The soft, heavy foot-falls stopped. Heavy, eager breathing feathered against the blackened glasstic door. He could make out a blurred, bulky shape black against the black, but nothing else.
Hot breath made fog over the tempered glasstic.
Thick fingers rustled and rummaged over the lock Brasher had placed upon the pen.
The Doctor swallowed hard, straining his overtaxed senses to gain any scrap of information that would help his situation, but he could catch nothing.
...nothing, except a new sound. A strange sound.
It was light, pattering and came from the floor, like a soft tapping.
It would pause in silence, then happen again but the pattern wasn't purely repeating. It was random, it-
Oh.
Oh, dear.
The Doctor could only wait. And listen. As an Androgum thief worked to steal him, even as it drooled all over the carpeted floor.