It happened quickly. As soon as the Doctor moved too far away from the safety of the chute, a blob of a shadow detached and came up behind him just as his hands were occupied with reaching for the controls at the pen's locking mechanisms.
"Got you!"
The Doctor yelped at the top of his lungs as two large meaty paws clamped down on his shoulders. Just as quickly, his feet left the floor.
"Hah!" Brasher gloated. "Amazing what happens when one follows one's own advice!" He commented even as he fought to pin the little Time Lord down. "There was no reason for you to be near those primitives...so of course I'd find you there!" A small fist missed his ear by a hair and he chuckled. "My, my, you do have energy." He commented. "If this is what you people are like in the wild, it really is no wonder you're so rare."
"Put me down you overgrown-" The Doctor snapped, wishing again that whenever his temper was out he didn't sound quite so much like his youthful self.
His original self, though a clever old gentleman indeed, was also the sort who made sure you knew he was doing you a favour by not resorting to violence. Something about his method made one wish he would just strike you down with his walking-stick and be done with it.
Oh, to be that young and crazy again...
"-drooling-" He reverted to Gallifreyan as the Androgum wrestled with him for a lasting grip. The guards were running back, abashed that they'd been remiss in their duties and all hope of his escape was now gone.
His natural stress-valves had just found a delightful outlet—too delightful to ignore, and he kept up a verbal commentary on the Androgum's lineage, habits, hygiene, hair color, warty protuberances, fashion sense, obvious colorblindedness, and everything else he could think while he was in the air getting mangled by a sweating carnivore.
It was the rawest, most inspired session of verbiage he'd ever inflicted on another living being, and it was every argument he'd ever had with the CIA, all in one package—just switch out the names and there you'd have it.
It was just as well only two people in the CIA session knew he was really cursing them out:
Karnak who was telepathic.
And Sardon, who had long ago realized that the only way to anticipate the Doctor was to assume the worst.
He glanced at the others.
Goth's eyes were watering from emotional pain as the Doctor delved into the newly-discovered frontier of insulting the hairy warts in one's earlobes. Prydonions, for all their cleverness, tended to an overly precise sentence structure and carried a paranoia for linguistic creativity. They didn't like it when people made up words on the spot. No, they didn't like it at all. It smacked of frivolity.
Milvo had forgotten to breathe.
Ragnar hadn't forgotten—he was just holding it in to offset the strain on his hearts.
Sardon mentally shrugged and went back to watching. If the Doctor did survive, he doubted the Androgums would be able to say the same.
In the back of his mind, the Grey Lord was ruminating a growing gnaw of suspicion. While the scanner had so far shown an impressive amount of skill on part of their agent in the field, Sardon had a better measure of the Doctor's capabilities than the rest. And he was getting ever-more convinced that the Doctor could have escaped long ago, but he hadn't because...
Because what?
A sane Time Lord would have ran off at the first opportunity, and no one, not even Goth would have faulted him for showing his intelligence. This was a matter for the Time Enforcers. They did have the authority to invoke a squad of castellans if they had to, and Enforcers had been called for less cause than what they'd seen so far.
What is the Doctor trying to discover?
"Aren't you the little troublemaker." Brasher noted thoughtfully. "I'm starting to wonder, little one. Are you really a renegade...or did they just kick you out of the nest?"
"Yes." The Doctor panted. He had given up trying to overtly struggle for the moment: all the fight had gone out of him like a leaking balloon and now he was hanging in the brute's huge arms like so much exhausted shopping.
"I'm not at all surprised." The Master Fowler draped the Doctor over his shoulder and started walking down the hall to...wherever. "You may as well save your energy for later." He advised. "But at least we don't have to worry about you getting your exercise today."
"What about your prisoners? Do you treat them with as much consideration?"
Sarcasm, as well as a few other nuances, are just lost on Androgums. Brasher took the question as a sensible interaction for food—which of course was the most important thing in the Universe.
"Of course we do. They are regularly aired, fed, and kept clean. We also make the effort to keep them in as natural of an environment as possible for their species." He paid the little Time Lord a reproachful look—which on his face looked quite natural. "We also brush our teeth after every meal. What sort of savages do you take us for?"
"Oh, I don't take you for ordinary savages, I assure you."
That got through. Brasher roared with laughter and lightly slapped him on the leg—it felt like getting hammered with a full-grown carp. "So glad we meet your higher definitions, Trickster." He chuckled as he continued on down the hall.
"Master! Master!"
Brasher sighed and stopped walking. "What is it, lads?" He asked patiently.
Serrate and Hollow came gasping up to their Lord, too out of breath to talk. Brasher waited with an elder's stoicism as the young fellows heaved and choked for air even as they fought to tell him what was happening.
"Sthfgh'eezers!" Serrate finally wheezed out.
"Eh?"
"Th'freezers!" Serrate gulped. "Something's gone wrong with them! They've started thawing all the food! We can't stop it!"
"WHAT!" Brasher roared.
The Doctor clapped his hands over his ears, but his bones vibrated.
"The freezers!" Hollow had recovered somewhat. "The computers have gone mad! They are thawing all the food. The technical staff can't stop it!"
"WHY DIDN'T ANYONE RAISE ME ON THE COMMUNICATOR?"
"We tried, Master!" Serrate flinched. "Some sort of electrical field is all over the part of the ship! It's now on a complete electrical blackout conditions!"
"Oh, my word." The Doctor exclaimed. "You don't think it's spreading, do you?" Eyes wide and guilelessly blue, he took in the disastrous news.
"We-"
Brasher stopped.
He completely stopped.
His small, piggy eyes narrowed as well as they could in the circles of protective fat and occipital bone around his eyes. His brow furrowed in on itself, which made some of his warts touch with one another.
His thick lips set.
Time compressed.
The Doctor blinked at him, so innocent of wrongdoing, so earnest in his concern, only a fantastic grade of fool would believe it.
"Did you do that?" Brasher asked very gently.
"Now how could I do that?" The Doctor asked reasonably. "I've been here the whole time."
"Sir? Master?" Serrate peeped. "It just happened, sir. It must have started hours ago. The gauges for the environmental controls have shorted. They're confused with readings they gave two weeks ago."
"How very odd." The Doctor marvelled.
"Isn't. It. Just." Brasher's voice was calm. The veins protruding from his neck and making his warts dance were not.
Serrate and Hollow watched with interchange with interest. They didn't know if Brasher would wring the Time Lord's neck on the spot, but if so, they didn't want to miss seeing it.
"Let the crew know the menu has changed slightly." Brasher exhaled wearily. He was a professional, and he would not be un-professional to his calling. "We will be eating from the freezers tonight." He sighed again, even more heavily than before (which the Doctor hadn't anticipated as possible). "The Grigs will be disappointed, I know, I KNOW we promised them fresh meat...but...needs must. We are not primitives to be wasteful. The live catch will have to wait until we use up or distribute the thawed food from the freezer."
"I could start the smoker, sir." Serrate offered timidly. "That will offset the flavour of being frozen..." He cleared his throat. "Any freezer burn on the meat we can cut off and set aside to create a communal pot...the severely frozen areas can be slivered and used for bait when we go hunting Drashigs." (The Doctor could not restrain a gulp of horror at this pronouncement)
"Always gratifying to see that a student has been listening to his elders." Brasher puffed up just a bit. "Yes, do that. Choose the larger specimens for it. The older jacks. Send the juvenilles and larvae to the upstairs kitchens for soups and stews. That leaves the jills. Give those a good examination. We may be able to salvage some passable roasts. It ought to depend on the amount of body fat on the carcass...
"And you," Brasher said sternly, giving the little Time Lord a shake that rattled his teeth in his jaw, "Are not leaving my sight." He was still angry, but unfortunately for the Doctor's plans, was still completely in control. "I can't prove it, but know you're behind this disaster somehow."
"You sound like Goth." The Doctor sighed.
"And who would this poor Goth be?"
"Hmn? Oh. Nobody you'd know." Brasher started walking down the hall, but since his quarry was in a position of non-violent protest, he had to deal with the little Time Lord dragging the heels of his much-mistreated shoes against the electrical grounding carpet of the hall. Despite the sound effects, which were something like rubbing a length of felt across a giant lightbulb, his captive was determined to explain in great detail, even though he had to explain at the top of his lungs to be heard: "A puffed-up, self-important and completely dull dishrag of a bureaucrat. No imagination, no savoir, no appreciation for anything outside of rubberstamping and red-taping." The Doctor found he had enough energy for this little speech and a glare through the fringe of his hair. "He thinks he's got the knack for command, but really, I wouldn't put him in charge of polishing the the Vampire King's chess-set!"
"I dislike my superiors too." Brasher waved off his apprentices and went to the nearest lift. "I deal with them by imagining how they would make a superior dish at the table." He caught the expression on his little captive's face. "Waste not, want not."
"You can't hardly waste something you don't want." The Doctor muttered under his breath. He was given a friendly shake for his troubles.
"Now, now." Brasher said mildly.
"On second thought, you'd probably enjoy eating him."
"Ordinarily, I might agree with that...Time Lords are a rare delicacy...but I fear," Brasher paused long enough to look wistful, "You may be changing the form of the table, as we say back at the Grigs."
"I'm pleased to say I don't follow you." The Doctor said truthfully. "You couldn't possibly have eaten so many of my people to consider yourself an..." He stopped just long enough to give Brasher a very critical one-up and one-down with his eyes. "...expert." He finished with a tone of voice that was not, shall it be said, considered prudent or discreet when amongst Androgums.
Brasher the Fowler stopped dead in his tracks.
On Gallifrey:
"Oh..." Milvo closed his eyes, already composing a farewell speech to the little renegade at his Memorial. He hoped he had enough time to do it.
"Yes he did." Ragnar said in heavy disapproval.
"Be silent!" Sardon hissed.
They all looked at the Grey Lord, who was leaning forward, poised like a raptor about to strike upon his prey. Every scrap of his attention was on the Scanner, his lean, aesthetic face chiseled taut as Rassilon's harpstrings.
Sardon the Grey was never emotional. Not unless things were very bad indeed.
Responding to the low murmur within the Time Lord intelligentsia, the others complied, and focused their own attention to whatever it was that had Sardon so upset.
"You," Brasher said very slowly and carefully, with a deep glow of a red-hot coal burning in the depth of his piggy little eyes, "speak to me in such a way?"
The Doctor had been expecting it, but he still gasped as he was thrown up against the wall, with Brasher's hand around his throat the only obstacle between himself and the floor.
"I am Brasher." The Androgum hissed. "Brasher the Fowler. I am the Hunter of the Grigs, the Broadener! My hunts have gathered honors untold and unmatched among the Androgums! It is because of me, ME! That we have tasted the succulence of the Third Zone!"
SLAM. The Doctor's pockets rattled.
"Oh, you've eaten a few Minyans. Very impressive." The Doctor taunted. "I'm sure they were full of flavour, they-" His speech cut off as he was hoisted up again.
"I have eaten twenty Minyans!" Brasher roared. "Twenty! I am no primitive beast who only knows one meal from the next! I have eaten twenty, but I am no mindless glutton! I have served more of my catch to my own people than I have tasted! I have served up threescore to my Grigs!"
SLAM.
The Doctor yelped as he was again pushed into the wall—nothing that would bruise him, he noted, but he was going to be stunned and weak when it was finally over.
"Three and eighty Karnites, roasted in their own juices for the Spring Banquets. Twelve Martians—three of them for a Royal Wedding! Two Alpha Centurions for a Triple Solstice Feasting! A brace of Cat People for my Grig's Tithe to the High Grig! Two Axons braided into the most delicate knotwork you can imagine and slowly steamed alive for the Coronation of the Francine Grig!" Brasher stopped to wipe the drool from his mouth. "I hunted them for months!" He panted. "And you imply it is nothing but mindless, consumerist gluttony that leads me to acknowledge my rightful place as the Apex Predator? I have stuffed Balhoon skins with Dulkan sausages. I have grilled Thalls! I feasted on flesh roasted over the very forests of Cheem! I, who have tasted the meat and blood of six Time Lords and Time Ladies!"
"Six!"
Sardon's fist crashed into the table, making cups jump. His other hand swept out, stabbing at his luckless assistant. "Computer search! Six missing Time Lords! Within the Doctor's current Temporal and Spatial Co-ordinates! Search range within Mutter's Spiral and the past fifty years!"
Hearts in his throat, the man jumped to obey.
"All right." The Grey Lord growled at the screen. "You have the information, Doctor. That's plenty. Now get out of there!"