REVERSE MY POLARITY... PLEASE!
Chapter Four
I was loath to leave Leela alone with the Lady of Bright Comportment, but the negative bell rang and I was obliged to trot off with the Lady of Handsome Fairness to the negative assembly. This turned out to be a large room on the sixteenth floor, full of small enclaves: half-circular arrangements of half a dozen folding chairs occupied by men or women (not both), all protected (as I still was) by their neutral attire, and attended by a standing moderator, or leader – one could even say priest or priestess. It was somewhat like a revival meeting, without the benefit of the mob effect, and yet fully frenzied, each little gang quite delirious all on its own. The priest/ess chanted and the six chantees responded with more and more fervor, until all had leapt to their feet and begun to moan, gyrate and yell. Not wishing to stand out or be offensive (yet), I shouted some nonsense whenever my group did, and tried not to laugh too hard.
After a half an hour of this effusive behavior, each group traded half of its members for half of an opposite-sex group's members, and from the newly formed groups, male-female partnerships were quickly formed, seemingly at random. Before I could fully process what was going on, I'd been chosen… by the Lady of Handsome Fairness. I was quite relieved, since I knew that she knew I had no idea what was going on, and would likely guide me through the rest of the assembly. My relief was premature. She explained nothing. Despite our both being clad in material designed to neutralize our enhanced magnetism, the lady was, if I may wax idiomatic for a moment, all over me. We could not do anything that involved removing the protection – kiss, for example - but that material was not exactly chain mail, either. It was thin, meshlike in texture and deceptively flimsy-looking; it could not be torn but it certainly could be stroked and the Lady of Handsome Fairness was apparently quite practiced in this ritual, for ritual it was. There was nowhere to flee but I pushed her hands away – at first gently, then less so - whenever they wandered somewhere I deemed too intimate, and I refrained from stroking her anywhere at all, not that I could have had I wished to, since my hands were far too busy fending off hers. I had been completely unprepared for this, and although I cannot say I was shocked, I certainly was annoyed. If it were not physically impossible under the circumstances I could also say I was repelled.
I admit it probably wasn't the wisest move but all I could think of to do was to reach for my sonic screwdriver and aim it at the Lady of Handsome Fairness' costume, intending to disable it to the extent that if I opened my vest, for example, or removed a glove, I could repel her without harming her. That's not what my trusty screwdriver did, though. I was clumsy, thrown, I suppose, by the bizarre nature of the situation. The effects of my efforts bypassed the protective costume entirely and reversed the polarity of her personal neutron flow.
I couldn't tell in the moment whether I had affected her costume's neutrality, which, as I say, was what I was attempting to do. I could tell immediately that I had reversed hers. I cannot describe her expression of horror.
My own magnetism relied almost entirely upon the effect of the planet itself upon my person. I say only almost because the planet's magnetic field certainly enhanced whatever my body weakly contained in that regard. Gallifrey's magnetic field is more or less like Earth's; nor is it substantially different from that of Leela's home planet, nor indeed any inhabited planet I could remember visiting. This was not true of the planet or the people of Fring. Over how many generations I cannot say, the Fringians' bodies had polarized, developing strong magnetism of their own, and their entire culture, it seemed – at least, at this level of society – revolved around this biological quirk, if I may, as an outsider, call it a quirk. If I delved more deeply into the matter I suppose I could call it a quark as easily as a quirk, or perhaps a quirky quark. My mind had no time to wander into these frivolous considerations, since the lady screamed, security came running and I was immediately arrested.