Chapter Four
The world was spinning.
If an order could have stopped the dizzying gyrations, Lafayette would have issued it, but the Frenchman knew his limits. He had some influence with His Excellency. He was in command of his men. But when it came to controlling whatever was happening inside him, Lafayette knew he was subordinate to the Almighty, and the only power he had lay in petitioning that ultimate Being to allow him to live long enough to reach home. Several hours restive sleep had revived him enough that he had risen from his bed and begun to prepare for the day's journey. He had packed his case himself as both Lieutenant Montgomery and Sergeant Boggs were missing. For a moment, he feared Boggs had gone to fetch a physician. He hadn't missed the concern in the older man's eyes when they parted earlier the day before. Instead, he discovered his aide had consorted with Lieutenant Montgomery to arrest not only the lovely young woman who had come to visit him the night before, but her escort, a man who seemed to be known only as 'the Doctor.'
It was then that Lafayette realized his pretense of health might well cost the two their lives.
"You will release them," the Frenchman ordered as he closed his valise and pulled one of its two leather straps through the buckle to fasten it. "Now, before we depart."
"But, sir," Daniel Boggs protested, "the woman was found near you, on your..." His aide hesitated; his cheeks burning a bright red. "In your rooms."
Lafayette suppressed a smile. Daniel Boggs was a New Englander and, as such, of a somewhat Puritanical bent. The older man must have wondered what the young woman was doing in his bedchamber to begin with. As he was too tired to offer an explanation, he chose to ignore the implication of a meeting for rude purposes – though by doing so, it forced a confession on his part.
"I did not meet Amelia Pond until late last night. I have been...unwell since leaving Philadelphia. If someone is poisoning me, it is not that most charmant lady."
"But, sir!" Boggs was outraged. "That was days ago."
"Oui." He weakly waved one hand, dismissing his aide's concern. "It is rien. Nothing."
"Permission to speak forthrightly, sir?"
The Frenchman had returned to buckling his valise, but found his hands were shaking so badly he couldn't manage it. He stopped and closed his eyes, gathering strength. All he had to do was make it to the ship. He could rest on the voyage over. Letters had gone out before him by packet. Adrienne would be expecting him. He longed to embrace her and hold the daughter he had never seen. And then there was the king...
"Do not ask me to postpone the journey, Daniel. I will not. I can not."
His aide's words were harsh. "You will do your wife and king little good if you arrive stone cold dead in a box."
The Frenchman sighed. "I don't know. It might be preferable to being seasick for two months."
Daniel Boggs moved to his side. Breaching protocol, he placed a fatherly hand on his shoulder. "Sir, please..."
For a moment, he said nothing. Then a pale smile lifted the corner of the Frenchman's lips. "A compromise, Daniel. Amelia Pond said that her friend was a doctor, and that he could help me. Bring them here and we will ask them to travel with us at least as far as Albany."
"But, sir! It was my intention to take them to General Washington."
"You will not be releasing them, merely transferring them to me," Lafayette answered, using his best command voice. As he spoke, he sat wearily on the bed. "Where are they now?'
Boggs looked very uncertain. "I placed the woman with Madame Delaforge."
Lafayette shuddered. He had met the expatriate Frenchwoman. A dozen of her, and they would not have needed the French navy. "And the Doctor?'
"He's being held in a local prison. He is considered more dangerous than the woman."
The Frenchman's eyebrows peaked toward the fringe of chocolate brown hair that brushed his forehead. "More dangerous than a woman who tried to poison me? Why, what has he done?"
"Well, sir, he... Well, his behavior was highly suspicious. I was told – "
"By whom? Who said this man was dangerous?"
"I'm not sure, sir... But Lieutenant Montgomery came to me about the woman. He assured me that I was correct to believe that the Doctor cannot be trusted, and that it would be wise to incarcerate him before the man had a chance to fly."
"And Lieutenant Rowland knows this because of former contact with the man?"
"No. At least, I don't think so." For a moment, Boggs appeared confused. "You know, sir, I can't remember how I know Rowland is trustworthy. I just know he is."
Rowland Montgomery had joined their party at Philadelphia. He had come on a recommendation of His Excellency, or at least that was what the member of the Congress accompanying him had told them. No one seemed to know him, or know anything of him.
Lafayette froze. Montgomery had joined them at Philadelphia.
Time slowed for the Frenchman as the pieces began to fall into place. Lieutenant Montgomery had brought Amelia to him. Amelia had been found unconscious beside him and been accused of poisoning him by Montgomery. And it was Rowland Montgomery who had gone to Sergeant Boggs to have the Doctor arrested.
Montgomery, who had been with him since Philadelphia, when he had been taken ill.
"Mon Dieu!" he breathed.
"Sir?"
Lafayette rose shakily to his feet. "Where is Lieutenant Montgomery now?"
"I sent him to gather the prisoners, sir. It was my intention to take them to Washington's camp before you and I departed this morning."
The Frenchman was silent a moment. "Something is going on, Daniel, just beyond what we can perceive. This man – this Doctor – is at the heart of it. Go. Find him. Bring him to me.
"I have a sense more than one life depends on it."
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The Doctor groaned. He swallowed, and then quickly regretted it as a stark pain – something like the jab of a hot knife – sliced through his throat choking him and making him cough.
"You are an idiot! How you managed to travel through time and space for nearly nine hundred years without me to watch over you is quite beyond my understanding."
The words were spoken in an exasperated sigh, but there was real concern behind them. The Doctor focused on the voice, trying to discern the speaker, but it was hard with the constant hammer blows of pain reverberating through his skull.
"Who..." he croaked.
"Be quiet. And lie still! After all the effort I have put into keeping you alive, I don't want you dying for a simple want of air. You know, I can't spend my entire life rescuing you."
The Doctor blinked and forced his eyes open to find a fuzzy woman with a halo of even fuzzier yellow hair bent over him. She turned away at that moment, reaching for something. Seconds later a cool cloth was applied to his forehead. He watched her a moment and then, gathering strength from whatever inner reserve had driven him for the last nine centuries, he struck out and caught the woman's wrist and held it fast. She didn't resist. Instead, with her other hand, she brushed the sweat-soaked hair back from his forehead. When she spoke, there was an irony in her tone that was familiar – and just a little bit frightening.
"Though, to tell the truth, I can't really think of a better vocation."
There was very little that could frighten a Time Lord. One thing was someone who knew more than him. And that someone was – "River?"
"Hello, Sweetie," she replied and then planted a chaste kiss on his forehead. As his vision cleared, the Doctor recognized the woman he knew as River Song. She was apparently masquerading as an eighteenth century woman of some status and was attired in a crisp yellow gown and matching hat. He couldn't help but notice that she was really quite stunning.
"What are you doing here?" he barked to cover it. "River. How are you here?" The effort to force more than a single word from his crushed throat took a good deal of effort and he coughed again.
"As to how, I hitched a ride from a handsome if self-satisfied blond captain. Now don't be jealous. It meant nothing. As to what I am doing, I am – as usual – cleaning up your mess. I was almost too late." River pulled a small medical scanner from the pocket tied at her waist, ran it over him, and then commented with a frown, "You have some damage to your windpipe." After returning the scanner to its place of concealment, she tapped the side of his head with one finger. "You'll have to keep some of those thoughts in there for a few days, instead of rambling on out loud as you usually do. But then again, I know you won't listen to me, so you might consider going to an apothecary for some slippery elm to ease the pain." She paused. "You haven't met any lately, have you?"
He was struggling to sit up. At first he refused River's hand, but then relented when he found he was still badly shaken by the attempt on his life. There was something about a human being trying to choke the life out of you that actually surpassed the Daleks and their sucker arms for sheer horror. River helped him into a seated position against the base of a tree. They were no longer in the prison, he noticed, but in the woods somewhere outside of the town. He had no memory of getting there.
"Any...whats?" he asked when he was firmly anchored.
River made no reply. Instead, her assessing gaze traveled from the top of his head to the bottom of his ankle-high boots. Seemingly unsatisfied with what she found, she leaned forward and pressed her hand quite familiarly against his chest – first on one side and then on the other. "Both hearts seem to be working fine," she remarked as she rocked back on the heels of her elegant slippers and let out a sigh. "It seems I have come in time."
"In time?" he echoed, a little of his usual energy returning. Though his voice was rough, he had better command of it now and didn't feel as inclined to choke. "This time, or last time? Is today tomorrow or...yesterday?" He swallowed over the pain to finish. "Tell me, River, where are we in my timeline now?"
Her face did not wear its accustomed playful grin as she replied, "Spoilers."
As usual, when River Song was around, the Doctor found it nearly impossible to concentrate. She was an enigma to him and might as well have coined the word. A puzzle that the puzzler could not solve. Amy had asked him once if, in a future regeneration, River was his wife.
Heaven help him if she was!
"You didn't answer my question."
"Your question? Oh, have I met any apothecaries?" Again, he paused. "Yes, one. Nice young man. Not feeling well, but he should be right as rain soon en – "
River's face paled to match the white sails on her clipper ship hat. "Oh, God, tell me it wasn't Henry Abington."
"As a matter of fact, it was. What is wrong with you? River?" The Doctor swallowed hard and raised a shaking hand to his aching throat. "You look as if you have seen a ghost."
The blonde woman shot to her feet. She paced for a moment and then spun on him, truly frightened. "I have. The ghost of a future not meant to be. If you have met Henry Abington, then you are already infected.
"And Earth's history, as we know it, will never come to be."
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It was hard. He was so young. Well, looked so young. River found herself treating the Time Lord more as a mother than a lover – if lovers were what you could have classed them. As she had told Amy Pond during the events involving the Byzantium, this was the Doctor. Nothing was as simple as that.
They had met thrice before out of time – well, thrice for her, twice for him. This incarnation of the Doctor, with his almost comic mop of deep brown hair, adorable dimples, and sweet smile, had no idea what was just around the corner. She had thought she would not see him again until the Pandorica opened. She had been wrong. Something had gone amiss after the destruction of the Weeping Angels, something that had compelled those who held her prisoner to give her free rein for a time.
The Doctor had died. Really died.
Standing here at this moment, seeing him so seemingly young and alive, with that knowledge in her heart and head was sheer torture. Still, worse than her loss would be that of the universe. If the Doctor did not confront the conundrum of the Pandorica, time and space would not exist.
They simply would not.
And so she had hitched a ride through time with a reckless fleet captain and left the starship in an escape pod at the precise moment she knew she had to during its slingshot ride around the sun. Only to arrive a few hours late. A few hours that made all the difference.
Now what was she going to do?
"River?"
He was on his feet, looking for all the universe like that ghost she had mentioned. The Doctor had amazing recuperative powers – she had seen him recover from blows that would have made another man curl up and die. But this was something beyond even his resilience; the infection of the Bluhdouls. The Bane of Gallifrey.
"I'm not infected with anything other than curiosity," the Doctor insisted as he loped toward her. "There's been no bite. No blood contact."
Did she dare to hope she was wrong? "What about other body fluids? Sweat? Spittle?"
"The virus doesn't move that way," he corrected sharply.
"It does now," she countered. "I'm afraid the Bluhdouls have added a few new tricks to their repertoire, plus a new name to their dance card: The Nestene Consciousness."
"What? No." He shook his mop of dark brown hair vigorously. "No, no, no. No. I defeated them – "
"You will defeat them. This is 1778, remember? That doesn't happen until the 1970s, and then again in 2005."
"In rural New York? In a non-technological eighteenth century?" He spun in a tight circle, flinging his long arms out to encompass the bucolic countryside. "The Nestene? What would they be doing here?"
"Feasting." She rolled her eyes. "You can be so thick sometimes! Let's start at the beginning. The Bluhdouls are non-organic..."
"They are nano-robots, I know. I know!"
"All right. And what do they consume?"
"Blood."
"And what is the end product of that consumption?"
That one stumped him – for half a second. "A fat nano-robot?
"Now you are doing it deliberately." River anchored both hands firmly on her padded hips. "Waste products. A large pile of waste products comprised of..." One sharply arched eyebrow invited him to finish her sentence.
"...comprised of synthetic or semi-synthetic amphorous solids like the… "
"…Nestene need to live." Her triumphant smile was devastating. "Good boy. 'E' for excellent."
One thing that had always delighted her was to watch the wheels of that magnificent mind turn. No matter the color or shape of his eyes, there was no mistaking the unparalleled intelligence behind them. Right now she had an aisle seat. The only thing that lacked was the popcorn.
"Wait. Wait. Wait." The Doctor drew a sharp breath. "Okay. The Nestene have come here to this century, to a time where they would feel completely safe as they believe I would never think to look for them here in this low-tech society. They came prepared to stay, seeking to colonize the planet as they did before – will do later – and have brought their own manufacturing plant, so to speak, with them. They have made a bargain with the Bluhdouls. The nano-bots consume human blood, process it, excrete it, and then the Nestene Consciousness consumes the Bluhdouls' non-organic..." He stopped and made a disgusted face. "Ew! I've seen a lot of things in several life times, but that's really... Well, gross."
River stared at him mentally agape with admiration. He had almost completely recovered from the attack that had nearly claimed his life. She still blamed herself for that happening. She had been sloppy.
After arriving in New York, she had sought out and used her hallucinogenic lipstick to put one of Lafayette's aides under her spell, telling the man to arrest the Doctor and take him to George Washington under suspicion of poisoning the Frenchman. She had to get the Time Lord away from Henry Abington, wherever he was, and the danger the apothecary posed. She had then used the same trick on the commander-in-chief, telling him that he must let the Doctor die. It was imperative the Nestene think the Doctor dead so they would cease any further attempts on his life and he would be left free to act. Of course, she would have freed him at the last minute...somehow. River scowled. What she had not counted on was the Nestene Consciousness' paranoia regarding the time traveler. She had not even considered that they might plant watchdogs like the burly man in the tavern throughout the town, with the sole intent of destroying the Doctor if he made an appearance. As it was, she had barely made it to the prison in time to stop the dart wielding Auton from throttling him, and robbing the Doctor of the chance to regenerate.
It was a mistake she would not make a second time.
River drew a deep breath. "Did you hear what I said earlier? Or were you too deafened by the sound of your own brilliance?"
The Doctor was firing on all thrusters again. He had barely held still since his last comment; his long legs propelling him back and forth in front of her. In a few more minutes there would be a nice little rut in the ground.
"Let's see. Did I hear you?" he echoed, scowling. "Did I? Little nano-robot bugs in the blood. Big bad Nestene consciousness feeding off their...well, feces. Yuck. A Bluhdoul plague of major proportions on the brink of breaking out; a plague that would cripple the colonies, thereby threatening not only the North American continent, but the southern, and all the rest of the planet as well. And if that happens – if that happens – then the Democratic spirit America's victory awakens throughout the Earth and the galaxies beyond will never occur." He stopped and rubbed his throat, indicating that it was still tender, and then flashed an ornery smile. "Conclusion: Everyone will be wearing braces and eating jammie dodgers in the future."
"Correction. It means there will be no future," she said softly.
"Why? Can't everyone just buy British and be happy?"
River resisted rolling her eyes. 'Idiot savant' was a human term, but it fit him, oh, so well at times. "You seem to have forgotten one thing."
He thought a moment. "No. No, I haven't."
"Yes. Yes, you have." She moved closer to him, examining him with her eyes. Was that a telltale sheen of perspiration on his forehead? Did she note a bit of a feverish glow in those keen eyes? "Doctor, you have forgotten Henry Abington. You, my dear Gallifreyan, are infected with the Scourge of Telalleraen."
Like a light just struck, fear flickered in the depths of his green eyes. "Telalleraen?"
"So you know the name?" She didn't know why she was surprised – other than the fact that Telalleraen was one of the Time Lords' dirty little secrets. "Do you know the story that goes with it?"
If possible, the Doctor had grown even paler. He nodded. "Yes."
She could tell he was shaken. "Then you know you are not immune."
"Yes. River, let it go. I'd know if I was infected."
"Do you have the sonic?" she asked suddenly.
"No."
River drew a sharp breath at that. "Who does?"
He shrugged.
"Good," she replied, her voice pitched to show she meant just the opposite. "Then this will have to do." She removed the mediscanner she had nipped on the starship from her pocket and held it out to him. "Can you adjust it to read internal Gallifreyan physiology?"
"You mean you can't?" he countered. When she made no reply, the Doctor turned his considerable talents to the task. No more than a minute later he handed the device back to her. "There. But there's no need to run it."
"And why not?" she snapped, really too weary for a fight.
The Doctor held out his hand, palm up. With a quick motion he jerked back the cuff of the tweed coat that covered his wrist. For just a moment, River saw movement – as if tiny swimmers had surfaced in the waters of his veins and then ducked back under.
"Dear God, no..." she breathed.
He shrugged. "I said I'd know..."
This was what she had come back in time to prevent. She had seen the corpse, lying there on the Tardis floor, the sonic still gripped in its bloody, bony hand. There had not been enough left to regenerate. It was as if this man who stood before her had been eaten away from the inside out.
The Doctor was watching her, almost as if he sensed her pain. He stepped forward and took her by the shoulders and forced her to look into his eyes. "River. It's not over until it's over. Time can be rewritten. We've proven that, you and I. What we have to do is concentrate on this moment, here and now, and not allow our fears or emotions to bring us to a screeching halt. That's what the enemy wants. And our enemy, River, is not the Nestene Consciousness or the Bluhdouls."
"What is it then?" she asked, breathless.
"It's our own fear." He grinned then, that maddening grin that held within it the birth and death of entire civilizations and, more importantly, the key to her heart. "Now come on, soon-to-be Professor Song. You know what Zall said. How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on!"
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Lafayette waited still for his aide's return. Sergeant Boggs had been absent for over three hours and the Frenchman was growing concerned. If he had been well, he would have gone with the frontiersman to seek the captives and confront Lieutenant Montgomery, but in the condition he was in he had feared he would only prove a liability. Fever raged in his blood leaving him weak-kneed and worthless. It would take all of his strength just to make it to Boston and to board the ship that would take him home.
And could he even accomplish that?
It was his hope that this mysterious doctor and his young friend might hold the key to that question. Amelia had thought the man could cure him. He would simply have to hope that the pair was found soon – and alive.
At that moment the door to his suite opened. A weary and mud-covered Sergeant Boggs entered, followed by several of his men. "I'm sorry, sir," he began, crestfallen, "I've failed. They've gone. All of them – Mistress Pond, the Doctor, Lieutenant Montgomery – there is neither sight nor sound of any of them."
"You went to the prison where the man was held?" he asked, rising from his chair.
"And found these two," Boggs indicated his men, "trussed up like a pair of fine hogs and grinning like idiots. In spite of that they insisted nothing was wrong, that no one had entered the cell, and the Doctor was still within." The frontiersman paused. "There was another man in the cell. A second prisoner that no one seems to remember having placed there. He was dead." Boggs paused. "Though it was strange..."
"Strange how?" Lafayette asked.
"There was a bullet through his brain, but no blood."
"No blood?"
"None. Anywhere. And the Doctor was gone. Simply vanished. As has Lieutenant Montgomery."
"And Mistress Pond?"
"The same, though one of the other shop keeps who was keeping custom early, claims he saw a tall woman with orange-red hair leave Madame Delaforge's house in the company of a brown-haired soldier near daybreak."
"Where were they headed?"
"They took the road to Fishkill." His aide stopped at the look that had entered his commander's eyes. "But, sir, you are not well enough to travel!"
"Even if that was true, which it is not," he began, drawing himself up to his full, over six foot height, "we would have to make the attempt. If I have been poisoned..." Lafayette held his hand up to stop any protest. "I know you do not wish to consider it, but it may well be true. If I have been poisoned then it is Rowland Montgomery who holds the key to my recovery."
"You are convinced he...did this?"
"Oui. Though to what purpose I cannot imagine. I am nothing. Just one soldier among many."
"You are more than that, sir!" his aide protested.
Lafayette's smile was weary but sincere. "To you. And perhaps, if I may, to His Excellency. But to the war as a whole? Non. It will go on, win or lose, without me. So, Daniel, have these soldiers take my belongings below. It is time we were on our way."
"Will you at least consent to ride in a carriage?"
The Frenchman appeared to consider it with distaste, though in truth he knew he could not sit a horse. At last, he shrugged. "If it will please you."
"Thank you, sir."
Daniel Boggs moved past him into the suite. Orders flew and soon the rooms he had occupied were emptied. They would be going alone. Earlier in the day Jeremy Larkin had paid him a visit. Isak had remained in Washington's camp on business for their Society. Henry was mending, but not well enough to be moved. Jeremy had offered to come with him, but the Frenchman knew where captain Yankee Doodle's heart lay. Like his own, it lay here, with his men. And so they had said farewell.
Perhaps for the last time.
"Sir. We're ready, if you are."
Lafayette turned toward his aide and nodded.
It was time to go home.