Chapter Four
Yahlasindrintalaasidvora.
She had been a good woman, a temporal philosopher of modest standing. Not a Prydonian like himself, but a Blyledge. The first Blyledge out of House Dvora in centuries. He'd been secretly proud when he'd heard what her choice had been.
She'd called herself The Caretaker.
From the looks of things, Yahlas had taken extraordinarily good care of the Xja… until they'd eaten her because of the supposed food shortage.
Wait. Xja were cannibals. They didn't need food stores!
Groaning somewhat, the Doctor pressed his fingers into Yahs' white arm, the one holding him down, and tried to speak.
"Glg! Rrrr…"
"What is it, Theta Sigma?" said the Xja, laying one soft inner claw alongside the Time Lord's face, "… tell us what you need."
The Time Lord's eyes grew wide then, so wide Yahs thought he might be going into shock from the stasis-locked preservant mercury. But then he just sank back to the grates and closed his eyes.
"Yahs… where did you get your name?"
Yahs flicked his inner eyelids over his eyes and gazed down at his Gallifreyan charge.
"I was born on the Second Moon Day of Dzt, in the year of Ystylan. Why do you ask?"
The Doctor blinked and sat up once again, his deep, calm stare boring ahead of itself as though he were drilling for oil.
"I was just wondering… didn't Lady Yalahsindrintalaasidvora disappear on the Second Moon Day of Dzt?"
"Yes," Yahs said softly, allowing his outer mandibles to clap together in a decisive if belated quiet click, "… and then she was eaten by the Mindless Ones. Are you asking a question of me?"
The Doctor's eyes narrowed; surely he couldn't be that slow. Surely! With a sigh, he sat up and craned his neck toward the heavens, where Jack was busy testing the telepathic overlays that ran to and from the Main Console.
"I imagine I am, Yahs my boy. Although, I am uncertain which one as yet. How is Jack?"
Yahs turned, straightened his long, milk-translucent fat-thoraxed Walking Stick body and looked askance at the Time Lord.
"I do not believe you are as slow as you claim, Theta Sigma. You are much like her. And your companion is doing well. His continual generation of Artron is very useful in filling the stores. Soon it will be time to change the feeding tubes, however, we will need to change the feeding tubes soon, else they will become clogged as they did with you."
Then the Doctor said something strange, something that made Jack's Time Agent senses do triple lutzes in his head.
The Time Lord said, very simply, "I don't eat enough to facilitate their use. He doesn't need those, either. Just take them out. It will save approximately 500.6270213 units of potential energy."
Yahs' head twitched to the left and back again; he had not expected such callousness.
But the Doctor merely continued on.
"He will die, and then come back. The Artron will build during that period. He cannot stay dead; that much is clear. Therefore, until we reach your destination, he shall remain inside the Scaffold, powering the Ships, if there are any left besides this one. Do you have enough power to initiate an all frequency sweep for the other vessels, Yahs?"
It was then that Jack, as he watched the Doctor ignore him utterly, remembered a certain Latin phrase he had come to appreciate in his younger years.
Umbra Ex Machina.
If he could have shivered, he would have.
The Doctor felt strange.
At least he would have, had he still been in his body.
He was, in a manner of speaking, observing the source of the scraping now, through the midship external cameras. Jack must have entered the crèche within the Puppeteer's Scaffold by now… he had to find a way to let him know that his body was otherwise engaged.
He had his suspicions as to who, and the source of the scraping had confirmed it. He would deal with getting his body back later.
Stuck between the outer wall of the Drive Chamber and one of the propulsive gears, there was a space suit… he'd found it while angling the camera to get a better view of the double shell of the bulkhead seams.
And there had been a body inside the suit. He had to let Jack know. It seemed a scene out of a book he'd read once, except that he'd seen it happen far too many times for it to ever be just a story. A colonist tortured at the hands of another colonist, usually a space mad, ambitious zealot, while they both watch from afar, doomed to eternity, as the survivors crash to the planet to start a new life.
It was –admittedly- rather freeing to be a mind without a body; well, the ship was his body for the moment, technically speaking, although since it wasn't alive, he had his doubts whether it would be inviting him back.
What concerned him most was the question of why, because he really thought he already knew the who. He was staring at her.