CANDY

Chapter One

On the planet Shellaran there are 642 nations, two states and a small principality. The main crop of the principality, Grigs, sprawling like a wine stain along the Earth-like planet's equator, is sugarcane, and the land's secondary crop is multifarious, the rest of the natural ingredients crucial to Grigs' primary industry: candy. Coexisting with the cane are apiaries, orchards and groves of various fruit and nut trees, fields of the likes of mint, strawberries, anise and edible flowers, and obscure greenhouses full of secret flora. You can't trip over a crack in a Kirsk sidewalk without landing on the doorstep of a candy factory. It is not only the quantity of its candy output but the quality thereof that marks Grigs as a prime tourist destination; tourism is catching up with candy production and may surpass it yet. Then all the guidebooks will have to be revised.

I don't have a sweet tooth as such but I am not averse to exploring new flavors; nor am I offended by puddings or treats. There is a lifetime of exploration possible on Shellaran and I have indulged in some of it, but it was little Grigs that caught my eye one day when Tegan was griping about the monotony of TARDIS fare. This was pure transference of course; what she meant was that she and Nyssa were both tired of constantly declining offers of Xymrovnan pizza (an oyster-shell crust is only viable if you are a Xymronanian and therefore sport big chunky teeth with a Mohs scale rank of 11 and a half out of 10). The alternative is the Xyrovnan omelet, perfectly edible – lovely, in fact – but boring after the first dozen or so.

"Okay," I said, waving a stack of flyers I'd cleaned off the otherwise lovely Xymrovnan beach. "Let's look here for something really tasty." The Grigs flyer had large, colorful pictures of its signature output. Nyssa took the flyer from me and repaired to the console room, where she did enough digging to discover that she and Tegan would prefer to be in smoggy, landlocked Kirsk eating exotic sweets than starve to death on a pristine Xymrovnan beach.

"Seven pounds each," Tegan informed me.

"What costs seven pounds each?"

"No, Doctor, we each intend to eat enough candy to gain seven pounds. That's when we'll stop."

"Then you will both need new bikinis."

"How do you know," Nyssa challenged me, "that we have not already bought new bikinis?"

I was puzzled. "You don't need them yet. You haven't even tasted the candy yet."

Tegan sputtered, "He thinks we need to NEED new bikinis!"

The TARDIS materialized neatly in a loose box in what was soon identifiable as the Royal Stables of the Royal Palace of His Royal Highness Prince Vandon of Grigs. Prince Vandon was 12 years old and under the care of his mother, the Princess Regent Her Royal Highness Vanessa of Grigs. The reason it was so readily identifiable is that the groaning of the TARDIS sounded to the stable staff like equine moans of distress, and they all came running, just in time to see the three of us step out into the pelting rain, which was, we later learned, the tail end of a minor hurricane.

("But hurricanes don't form at the equator!" declared Tegan.

"Earth's equator," I explained. "Shellaran is very Earth-like but without the Coriolus Effect. You see, Shellaran isn't an oblate spheroid like Earth. It's perfectly round."

"Is there anything you don't know, Doctor?"

"Women's fashion."

"I meant apart from the obvious.")

We were, of course, taken in hand and marched across the Palace grounds, past the paddock, buildings that were likely staff residences, a chicken coop, herb and flower gardens, then, to our delight, a small ginger marzipan-making house (I could smell it), and finally, hard by the palace itself, a sturdy-looking hut not much larger than the TARDIS on the outside, and not so much as an inch bigger on the inside. We were incarcerated in the hut, which at least had benches bolted to its interior walls, so we could sit and wait for someone to fetch us, or perhaps execute us, although (as I pointed out to my seriously bummed-out friends) a principality that relies as much as Grigs does on tourism is unlikely to off visitors without at least a relatively civil interrogation and maybe even a nice cup of tea.

On the one hand, the hut's roof leaked.

On the other hand, we were only there for a few hours, and we were already soaked from our march.

I should say "… from our first march." We were now marched (in darkness) to and through the (illuminated) palace to the throne room, where the prince and his princess regent mother awaited us in their full royal regalia, which explained the delay: surely they had been asleep in their royal jammies. They eyed us groggily as if we were the day's bad harvest, or a haul of stinky fish (unlikely: landlocked, remember?) or some less popular relatives arriving early for a feast. The prince was a fat little boy with sad, intelligent eyes and erect bearing, as if he had been standing at attention since birth. The princess was so thin I wondered if she were recovering from some dire illness. Her bearing was wearier and slightly less formal than her son's, but with the same intelligence shining from her eyes and something else shining there, too, something that made me wary.

Nyssa curtsied so Tegan followed her lead and I bowed. "Your Royal Highnesses," I said. We were acknowledged with the slightest of nods. "We did not mean to trespass or intrude. We are strangers here. Our craft landed in your stables by chance. We await your benevolent instruction as to a better place to park."

I could see my friends struggling to keep a straight face.

Prince Vandon addressed me: "Can you sing?"

"Yes, sir, I can." My friends looked at me in something akin to shock.

I sang a Gallifreyan lullabye I had heard a mother (not mine) sing to her child (not me). "Go to sleep, dream about time, dream about no such thing as time, dream you are lost in time, and I shall find you and bring you home." That is a rough translation; I sang it in Gallifreyan.

"That is beautiful," whispered Nyssa.

"Sing me to sleep," ordered the prince. His mother nodded her assent, for which her son had not asked. The two of them rose and indicated that I should follow them.

"What about my friends here?" I asked, not moving. "This is Nyssa of Traken, and this is Tegan Jovanka of Earth." As an afterthought, I added, "And I am the Doctor."

"When you have sung me to sleep," said the prince, "please look after my mother."

Princess Regent Vanessa frowned, but said, "Nyssa of Traken and Tegan Jovanka of Earth may rest in the Nougat Room. Doctor, you may rest until morning too, after you see to the Prince. I can wait. You will be shown to the Caramel Room."

My friends were led out of the throne room by attendants who appeared to be a lot more respectful than those who had brought us into it. I followed the prince and princess up a grand double staircase and then down a grand hallway, to a pretty grand bedroom into which the prince led me, kissing his mother good night at the doorway. He jumped into a bed way too big for him and lay down at the very edge, indicating that I should pull up a high-backed, well upholstered chair and sit by him.

"What would you like me to sing, Your Highness?"

"Call me Vandon. I am tired of being a prince all the time, especially in bed, when I am so sleepy."

"I am awfully sorry my friends and I woke you up. We didn't mean to."

Vandon waved away my concern with a hand that he then tucked under one cheek, and looked at me as any sleepy boy his age might. "Sing me something you have never sung to anyone before and never will sing to anyone but me."

That gave me pause. What song did I know that I had never sung to anyone? I did not usually sing to anyone but myself. Since I couldn't remember, I made up a new song on the spot, chose a major key at random and sang:

"If you have a hundred friends, and you count me, count a hundred times, just for me. If you have one friend, count me; I'll be like a hundred friends. If you have no friends – you're wrong, you have me. You have a hundred friends in me."

"I like that one," said Vandon

"But you're not asleep and I don't know which songs I've sung to whom. Not that one; that one is new."

"That's okay," murmured the young prince, closing his eyes. "It's okay if you've sung it to someone else – just not another child."

I sang him a Venusian lullaby I had sung more than once, long ago, to a "monster" that turned out not to be so monstrous (especially when sung to). I closed my eyes while singing it, and when I opened them, the prince was asleep. I tiptoed to the door and slipped into the grand hallway, where two attendants, not the same ones who had escorted me there but two new ones, showed me to my room, which smelled of caramel. There was a chocolate-coated caramel square on my pillow and a sleep shirt at the foot of the bed. I unwrapped the caramel and popped it into my mouth, savoring it as I changed into the night shirt. Even the bed smelled of caramel, and I fell into a dreamless sleep as soon as I was horizontal.

I was awakened only a few hours later by the princess' attendants collecting me to "see to" the princess, as promised. Her bedroom was immense, a suite really, and lavish, all decorated in red velvets and golden trim. She was in her nightclothes but wrapped also in a robe that matched the room, and she was sitting up in bed, looking frailer than she had on her throne. It was with a poker face that she watched me enter and be ushered to a chair not dissimilar to the one in which I'd sat in her son's room. "Doctor," was all she said.

"Your Highness."

"It is good of you to come after so little sleep. Was the prince… did he give you any trouble?"

"None at all, Your Highness."

She still neither smiled nor frowned. "He knows I am dying. We don't speak of it, but he knows."

"I am sorry, Your Highness." I reached for her hand, then stopped myself, but she reached the rest of the way and took mine.

"I am 31 years old and I do not know what is killing me," said Princess Regent Vanessa, "but something is. I don't suppose there is a cure for whatever it is, but I would like to know its name nonetheless."

"I am not a medical doctor," I confessed. "I am a Doctor of many things and I do have some medical skills, but I am limited in that area. However, if you can give blood and tissue samples, my friend Nyssa of Traken may be able to analyze them. We have equipment back in our TAR… um, our craft. Would you be willing to undergo such testing as we find necessary to diagnose you?"

"Yes, Doctor," sighed the princess. I wanted to ask her why she needed me - surely there were palace doctors and the latest equipment and techniques - but I didn't want to sound unwilling to help, and a second opinion couldn't hurt. "Go have breakfast now. Shall I fast for the bloodwork?"

"Yes," I said, "until Nyssa says otherwise."

I was led away to a feast of a breakfast, surprisingly balanced for a country so focused on candy, and at the breakfast table I met Tegan and Nyssa, whom I updated as best I was able. Nyssa agreed to conduct what tests she could after examining the princess, and we made an appointment, through attendants who contacted other attendants, for her to perform as much of an examination as the princess would allow. Tegan boldly asked for a tour of the palace and its grounds, and I asked if I might tag along. I would have preferred to be in on the exam but intuited that the princess would be more comfortable without me in the room.

I am always interested in how others live, but I have seen enough palaces, enough mansions, and besides, it was still raining. I regretted asking to be included in the tour and bailed before we'd gotten far. It isn't that I mind a bit of rain; it's just that we hadn't really been out of the leaky shed long enough for me to appreciate it. I loped past it and found someone to accompany me to the Caramel Room, where I found dry clothing laid out on my bed, and on my pillow, another caramel – this time a round one, painted in dark and white chocolate stripes (with the tiniest hint of syrup inside the actual caramel, I later found out). I left the latter on my pillow and, after a moment's hesitation, took off my damp clothes and put on the white ruffled shirt, green bow tie, frock coat, socks and trousers, and I never did bother to see what kind of shoes those were but they were shiny and smudgeless. These garments made me smile; I had once been quite comfortable in such finery.

As usual, attendants were attending. I was able to obtain an escort to the prince's room, but the prince was with his tutor and would be thus occupied for hours yet. Back in the Caramel Room, I set the tempting little square aside, lay down for an instant, not to nap but to think, then suddenly sat up. No hurricanes, lots of rain, sugar cane all over the place (except not, it seems, on palace grounds – I should have taken that tour!) all spelled "equator." But Shellaran was a true sphere. How could anyone tell where the equator was? How could there even be an equator? Every point on the planet should be on an equator. I got up and went into the hallway. An attendant looked at me, expectantly. "Is there a court geographer?"

"No, sir."

"Surveyor? Topographer? Anyone like that?" The attendant shook his head. "Anyone in the city? I mean outside palace grounds."

"I don't know, sir, but the city is rather far away."

"I thought the palace was in the center of Kirsk?"

"It is, sir," explained the attendant, "on three sides anyway. But the palace grounds are more extensive than they appear to be, and are buffered by cane fields. The roads through the fields are narrow and of necessity travel upon them must be slow."

"Surely even so…."

"Sir, we are talking about a distance of 100 miles in any direction." (He didn't say "miles," or "100"; the distance he cited was in klovans, and as I forget how long a klovan is, I also forget the number of klovans he named, but it came to about 100 miles.)

I was taken aback. Kirsk was a city shaped like a horseshoe surrounding sugarcane fields and a grand palace smack in the middle. How could a city function like that?