KORDA
Chapter Nine
I was glad to be back in my own clothes and rid of that wig. The dress had not been uncomfortable, and remembering not to sit immodestly wasn't all that difficult, but there is nothing like being oneself, in one's own element and one's own accustomed attire. Selena had decided that it was safer for me to present myself as the possession stolen from Nyssa than as an actual person, and she had briefed Nyssa on how to refer to me and treat me. I was to be a good boy, well trained and subservient. How much harder could that be than pretending I didn't have a five o'clock shadow, trying to keep my voice in a natural but high register and, worst of all, not being pretty? I asked Tegan about that and she said that women dressed as men always look like boys and men dressed as women always look like older women at best, and not especially gorgeous older women at that. I looked fine, she reassured me, all things considered, but that was only because I was a handsome man to start with. I left it at that. My cross-dressing days, born of necessity, were over.
Selena had sent me back to her place as soon as she saw the citizen's brigade coming down toward the docks, and as the brigade collected the felled trolleyjackers, she had claimed that we were all too traumatized to be interviewed quite yet and invited investigators to come meet us at her humble home in a couple hours. By the time she, Tegan and Nyssa arrived there, I had already changed. Our briefings being completed to our satisfaction, we sat in the living room and awaited the investigators.
The "investigators" turned out to be a pair of polite, unsmiling identical twins, with shorter hair than mine, stylishly waved, and tiny notebooks which they filled with neat, tiny print. Before and after each question, and each answer, they communicated with one another in short, strange mutterings which the TARDIS either was too distant to translate or didn't find worthy of her efforts: twin talk. They did not introduce themselves by name and they didn't sit even when invited to do so; we sat down and they still didn't get the hint. Nyssa and Tegan sat together and held hands; they apparently got a big kick out of pretending to be married. (Selena had assured them it enhanced their credibility.) Of course, I sat on the floor and tried to be invisible. I kept my eyes lowered and feigned indifference to what was said. It wasn't my place to go understanding people-stuff.
Because it would have been outrageous to claim that I had escaped my pair of trolleyjackers all on my own, we left that whole adventure out of our narrative. I'd been stolen, dumped as useless, found by Selena and kept safe while she tracked down my owner, who had been searching for me. We altered the final encounter to all but eliminate my role in it, except that I was given credit for being overjoyed to see my owner again. The twins looked over at me at this juncture in the narrative and addressed me as Melrose, a name Selena had chosen for me. I looked up, respectfully of course. "I was scared," I said, no matter what they asked me. They gave up and left me alone. Soon after that they thanked us for our testimony, as they called it, and just left. We all breathed sighs of relief and began discussing plans to get back to the TARDIS as soon as possible.
The first thing we needed to determine was whether or not Selena intended to accompany us to Ingram, and the second was whether or not she wanted to accompany us beyond Ingram. Nyssa, Tegan and I agreed she should be invited. Selena wasn't so sure. "I have work to do here" was her initial reaction but we could see she was thinking about it.
"Just a short trip, anywhere and anywhen you want," I suggested, "and then you're back in time for tea."
"Tea tomorrow," laughed Selena. "It will take us a while to get to Ingram, even with me driving." Tegan and Nyssa jumped up and down in delight.
"Tea yesterday, if you like," I smiled, and Tegan pulled a face.
"Tell the truth, Doctor." I felt all their eyes on me.
"Okay, the truth is, most of the time…"
"Doctor," Tegan warned. "Does this look like Heathrow to you?"
"Don't tell me you still want to go to Heathrow!"
"You know what I mean, Doctor!"
"All right, all right. Some of the time, we land when and where we have planned, and some of the time we land some other time and place. The TARDIS is old. Well, so am I, but… okay, we both need a little work." I added, "But we came here on purpose and I admit I didn't know there was any reason to be careful about the time. Things have changed dramatically since the last time I was here."
"Yes," said Selena. "It's not in the history books but word of mouth… I am not the only one whose family has passed down the truth from generation to generation. Even on Rózsa they don't really know. Carson is one of many trying to spread the word there."
"Carson?" inquired Nyssa.
"My husband. One of my rescues, but we fell in love. It happens!"
"So," said Nyssa, "Men and women marry on Rózsa."
"And men and men, and women and women, and some people stay happily single."
"Normal," pronounced Nyssa.
"No such thing," I corrected her. "Nowhere in the universe is normal. And how would we know, anyway? But better, to be sure!"
Selena interrupted this bit of philosophy. "The van is ready."
"Ready?" I was puzzled.
"I painted it," she grinned.
"Pink?"
"Pink. Get your gear together. Can you bear being owned for a few more hours, Doctor? It's a long drive but we could bring the wig just in case…."
"No!" I said, rather more emphatically than I had intended. "I can bear belonging to Nyssa and her wife for a few more hours."
We did, after all, bring the wig (with an updo by Tegan, to keep it out of my eyes) because Selena remembered what I had forgotten: we needed to visit Dr. Reseda. We followed the trolley tracks pretty closely, as despite a swerve here and a twist there to serve the towns that most needed the trolley, it was a fairly direct shot to Ingram. Thus it was no trouble to stop in Morris.
Dr. Reseda removed the gauze bandage herself and lifted out the bag of maggots. I forced myself to look. The little monsters had grown considerably since I had first been horrified to see them, and they'd done their job: my wound was clean. "Let the fresh air do its job now," she said, handing the bag to her nurse, presumably for disposal. She flicked a strand of hair out of my eye and patted my cheek. "Good luck," she said, smiling very slightly.
This time, Nyssa paid the bill.
Morris had been slightly out of the way but we found the track again and proceeded past or through all the local stops until we came to Veidt. "I thought we could make it on a full tank," Selena said, "but we need some petrol right now. Sorry." She drove us around a bit until Tegan spotted a petrol station and said,
"There! Oh, let me. I need to stretch my legs." Nyssa thought that a dandy idea and went with her. I was sitting in the front passenger seat and thought it would be safer to stay there. Selena stretched in the driver's seat and turned to smile at me, but stopped me as she saw me idly checking out the glove box and pulling out the flask she'd taken from me earlier that day.
"No, leave it," she said, sharply. Her tone surprised me.
"I am rather thirsty," I said. "Although I am guessing it's some kind of spirits, and I'd rather have some good Kordan water."
"You only had to ask," she replied, more gently, reaching down to her backpack, between our seats, and getting me a bottle of water. She took the flask from my hand and replaced it in the glove box. "I'll tell you what's in that flask," she said. "Ethylene glycol."
"Antifreeze?" I was puzzled. "Why put that in a flask?" Then I got it. "Oh!"
"Yes. Nasty. I don't know if it was a fail safe, a suicide mission for the driver or if they planned to kill Tegan all along but either way I don't think we should tell her."
"I agree."
Tegan came back and said "Nyssa went to pay, and I think she's going to use the loo, too. We're almost there, aren't we? I can't wait. No offense, Selena, but this wasn't the holiday we were expecting."
Selena laughed. "I imagine not!"
Nyssa returned with ice cream cones for all of us. We were decidedly sticky when we reached Ingram. Selena parked in an alley not far from the TARDIS; the streets were less empty than they had been when we'd landed, and something nearby seemed to be drawing crowds. "Uh oh," said Selena, and began to follow the general flow of foot traffic, so we followed her. The attraction turned out to be an auction, and three boys, all looking to be nine or 10 years old, had just been sold and were being bundled into a wagon. We pushed forward as the next lot was called to the dais, or rather just one individual, whom, with a shock, I recognized as Feliz. I hadn't to this moment regretted giving him the key to his ankle monitor but now I felt painfully guilty.
"Can we buy him?" I asked Nyssa. "We can get him out of here."
Before Nyssa could answer, Selena said, "I can try, but I can only go so high. I've spent a lot of hair lately."
"We have some packets. Change," said Nyssa, handing them over.
The first bid was 1.24 milligrams, two strands of hair. We didn't bid against that, as the price would surely go up. It did: all the way to one gram. No one bid more. "The reserve has not been met," declared the auctioneer.
"One point two grams," Selena called out.
"Not met," insisted the auctioneer.
"How do we know what the reserve is?" I whispered. Selena shrugged.
"Two and a half grams," she said.
"Going, going… sold!" cried the auctioneer, and we all went to complete the transaction. The packets helped but both Selena and Nyssa got significantly trimmed.
"What about him?" asked the cosmetologist, indicating me.
"I like him that way," said Nyssa. I tried not to smile. Feliz wasn't smiling at all. He was furious. I don't know what he thought we were doing, but he seemed not to realize we had just saved his life.
"You're welcome," I told him, rather snottily. "Yes, now I am gloating. Come on." We walked him a few blocks to the TARDIS. He did seem surprised that we didn't hold onto him once we'd left the crowd behind. He didn't try to run away, though; he seemed resigned.
Once in the TARDIS, Feliz was overwhelmed. He backed up against a wall and stayed there, looking lost. "We have to get him to Rózsa," Selena said.
"Short hops are so iffy," I reminded her, "but I will do my best. Hold on!" I set the coordinates and coaxed the TARDIS into dematerialization. We materialized two seconds later. I checked the scanner. We hadn't moved. "Come on, old girl," I said. "Same planet, a bit east is all." This time she took almost an entire minute. The scanner showed that we had moved, and the date was the same. The time was about three minutes earlier. We had landed two minutes before we'd left. This amused Selena and evoked an eye roll from Tegan. "Are we in the right place?" I asked Selena.
"Oh yes," she affirmed. "We are at the seaport, Petrie Harbor, facing Malleson, at least this window thing is. You can't see it from here but it's not far. Carson lives there, just outside the university campus. Oh, and the campus has a dormitory for refugees, a deprogramming center, everything this young man needs."
"His name is Feliz."
"Feliz will be fine."