Sleeping Dragons 03.03
SLEEPING DRAGONS
Episode 03 - Smiths & Joneses
by Soledad
Author’s notes: For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the secondary index page.
Yes, I know it’s said in the Sarah Jane adventures that Barbara and Ian haven’t aged since the 1960s. I’m just not buying it, all right? Were it so, they’d have ended up in a UNIT lab decades ago… plus, it would mean that travelling by TARDIS generally stops the aging process for humans, which isn’t true, as we know. So there.
CHAPTER 03
Jenny looked around in Toshiko’s flat with great interest. It was a clean, well-ordered, utilitarian place, with only a few items reflecting on her cultural heritage. Still, it didn’t lack the warmth of a home completely.
“You sure you don’t mind me staying with you?” she asked anxiously. “You don’t have that much living space here.”
The woman who had apparently travelled with her father for years - and how unfair was that, while she only had to know him for a single day? - waved off her concern.
“I really don’t mind,” she said. “It’s nice not to be alone all the time.”
That Jenny could understand all too well. So she gracefully accepted the hospitality of the small guest room and went on to discover what else was there in the flat with child-like joy. She loved getting to know new places.
It became very apparent very quickly that Toshiko did not believe in cluttering her place with souvenirs or knick-knacks of any sort. There were almost no personal items, either, save from a few framed photographs standing on the sideboard.
Some of the people on the photographs were clearly family. They had the same dark hair, exotic features and almond-shaped eyes as Toshiko herself. There was an elderly man, with thinning grey hair and a thousand wrinkles in his smiling face - presumably a grandfather. A woman in her middle years, made look older by the burden of a hard life - her mother? A young man roughly of Toshiko’s age, with a strong resemblance to her, most likely a brother. And a beautiful woman of similar age, holding a sweet-faced boy of perhaps four or five.
“Sister and nephew?” Jenny guessed, having finally learned the potential intricacies of human family relations.
Toshiko shook her head. “No, Tomoe is a friend. She helps my mother raising my son.”
“This is your son?” Jenny looked at the boy in awe. “He’s very cute! Why would you hive him away?”
“It wasn’t by choice,” Toshiko replied dryly. “It’s a long story, and not one I’m quite willing to tell just yet.”
“Sorry,” Jenny offered, a little uncertainly; she still had to learn her way around the pitfalls of human sensitivities.
In the next moment, however, she forgot all about Toshiko’s family. Set a bit aside was another photograph: that of a tall man in a black leather jacket, leaning against a blue box of some sort. He looked like a soldier, his body tough and wiry, long arms folded across his chest, his hair short-cropped, emphasizing his somewhat large ears. He had a long nose and sapphire eyes, and a face that showed determination and vulnerability at the same time.
“Who’s this?” Jenny asked. “I’m positive I’ve never met him, and yet I feel as if I ought to know him.”
Toshiko smiled at that, although a little sadly.
“You should, in a manner,” she answered. “That’s your father… well, his previous incarnation, in any case. The one I used to travel with… and Jack and Mickey, too, although they did get a taste from the latest one as well. Martha only knew the new one.” She gave Jenny a questioning look. “You know about regeneration and how it changes your people, don’t you?”
Jenny nodded. “For me, almost six years have gone by, according to this planet’s count of time, since I emerged from the Machine. I’ve learned a lot in that time. Well, sort of; knowledge about Time Lords isn’t exactly common. As far as I can tell, a lot of what I know comes from my father’s own knowledge. I just seem to rediscover more and more of it as time goes by.”
“I never knew Time Lords had genetic memory,” Toshiko murmured in surprise.
“I’m not sure they really do; but I wasn’t born in a natural way,” Jenny explained. “Progenation means that we inherit some of the progenitor’s personal memories, too. Not all of them, fortunately, and mostly those containing general knowledge, but even after all these years, I’m still trying to sort them out. There are so many of them!”
“Don’t be so surprised,” Toshiko laughed gently. “Your father is over nine hundred years old. That isn’t young, not even by Gallifreyan standards. He’s seen a lot and learned a lot in those nine centuries.”
“I wish I knew more about him,” Jenny smiled ruefully. “Of the person he is… of the things he’s done. The memories are scarce at best when they come to himself.”
Toshiko nodded thoughtfully. “I’m not surprised. He’s an intensely private person. And perhaps that Progenation Machine of yours cannot access shielded thoughts. It must have had a hard time dealing with the complex mind of a Time Lord anyway. But if you want to learn more about your father, I’ve got a fairly extensive file on him. Do you want to see it?”
“Yes, please!” Jenny beamed, following her host to the combined study/home library/living room, where Toshiko powered up what was probably the most advanced computer on the planet.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Several hours later, she had to admit that Toshiko had not exaggerated when saying that her file on the last of the Time Lords was extensive. Quite frankly, it was huge. It seemed that she had gathered every oh-so-tiny shard of information she could get from humans who had previously travelled with Jenny’s father - and from a military organization called UNIT, for which he Doctor had apparently worked while temporarily exiled on Earth.
There was half a century worth of history, concerning her father’s connection with Earth alone - a history she knew nothing about.
The changes her father had gone through in those decades were almost shocking. Jenny knew about regeneration, of course, but she had never thought it would make one change so profoundly.
“It’s strange to see him so physically old,” she commented, looking at the picture of a gaunt-faced, blue-eyed old man with collar-length white hair, clad in an old-fashioned black jacket. “He was so… vibrant when I meet him; even a little frisky.”
“This isn’t how I remember him, either,” Toshiko smiled. “It seems that every new incarnation is a completely different person, and not only physically. Speaking of which: have you changed, too, when you regenerated?”
Jenny shook her head. “I did not regenerate. I’m not even sure I could, if I had to. I was revived by the Genesis device, as part of the terraforming process of Messaline. Perhaps I’m fixed in this body for good.”
Unexpectedly, Toshiko pulled a face.
“Let’s hope for your sake that it isn’t so,” she said. “It could mess up your father-daughter relationship, should you actually find him.”
“Why?” Jenny frowned.
Toshiko sighed. “Let’s just say that your father isn’t exactly fond of fixed things; they insult his sense of time. Ask Jack later, he can tell you a story about that, but it won’t be a happy one.”
“I will,” Jenny promised.
She had taken a liking to Captain Jack at first sight. His entire being called to the soldier in her, even though he did cause a vaguely nauseous feeling in her, too, whenever he was too close. Another thing she needed to find an explanation for.
“Who’s this girl here?” she then asked.
Toshiko leaned closer to take a look at a young girl of about fifteen, wearing a grey suit, sitting in a chair that was clearly too large for her, at some sort of consol. Her legs were drawn up, and she had a funny little hat on top of her head, one Jenny would have loved to try on.
“Well, she’s with the first incarnation of your father, so she must be Susan,” Toshiko judged.
“Susan?” Jenny repeated. “Is she my big sister?”
Toshiko smiled. “No; actually she’s your niece. The Doctor was travelling with his granddaughter when visiting Earth for the first time, back in the early 1960s. For the first time in his own personal timeline, that is.”
“How do you know that?” Jenny asked. “You weren’t even alive at that time - were you?” she added, a little uncertainly. Guessing other people’s ages wasn’t something she’d be very good at.
Toshiko smiled, ignoring the last part of the question as too personal.
“I talked to Barbara Wright, who was Susan’s teacher during their stay on Earth. She also travelled with them for a while; she and her colleague and later husband, Ian Chesterton,” she checked on the names, pulling up the old-fashioned image of said two people, then other images, on which they looked a great deal older. “They’re both very delightful; teaching at the University of Cambridge.”
“They seem to be nice indeed,” Jenny agreed. “What’s become of Susan’s parents, though? Why was she travelling with Dad?”
Toshiko shrugged. “That’s one point of the mystery surrounding your father that I never figured out. In fact, he never told me about them… or about Susan. He vaguely mentioned having been a father and a grandfather once, but that was basically it.”
“And what about Susan?” Jenny asked. “Is she still alive?”
“I’m not sure,” Toshiko admitted. “Barbara says that during the Dalek invasion of Earth, in the year 2164, she fell in love with a freedom fighter and stayed with him in the 22nd century. But based on how your father always declared himself the last of the Time Lords, I assume she’s died. Or she will die in a century from now,” she shook her head, quoting the infamous Star Trek line. “I hate temporal mechanics!”
“That’s sad,” Jenny commented; then she spotted the image of a teenaged girl again. “Is that Susan, too?”
“No,” Toshiko checked the picture. “That’s a girl named Vicky; she was a survivor of a spaceship crash on the planet Dido and menaced by some sort of monster when your father, Barbara and Ian picked her up. Apparently, she was from the 25th century, although Barbara never really found out much of her personal background. Barbara and Ian left her back on the TARDIS with your father, so I don’t know what’s become of her.”
“And this guy?” Jenny pointed at the image of a smartly handsome, laughing young man.
“Oh, that’s Steve Taylor; a space pilot from the 23rd century,” Toshiko zoomed on the picture. “Ian, Barbara and Vicky found him on the planet Mechanus; a jungle world where he’d apparently crash-landed two years earlier. He then travelled with your father for a while, before joining some noble case on a different planet. Barbara liked him a lot; she called him a strong-willed young man, more capable when there is something physical to do than when there was any thinking to be done. But he apparently had a finely developed sense of right and wrong, and he placed a high value on human life.”
“You know a great deal about Dad’s travelling companions,” Jenny said, clearly impressed.
Toshiko shrugged. “I did some private research and tried to keep in touch with those still on contemporary Earth. After all, who else could possibly understand all that I’ve seen and learned while travelling with your father?”
“There’s that,” Jenny agreed.
Who could indeed? She’d only met her father once, and ever since that one day, she’d been trying to find him again. Because simply being in his company had made her feel more alive than the Machine - or, in fact, even the Genesis device - ever could have done.
For the last six years, she’d been looking for him. Her search had taken her to the stars - to new worlds, just as he had promised her. She had seen so many words, so many people she had lost count long ago. But they all had been different; some bright and vibrant, some dark and scary, but all unique on their own right.
And somewhere out there, among all those strange and wonderful and terrible words, was her father, travelling in a blue box that was, in truth, the most amazing time ship ever created. Saving planets, rescuing civilizations, defeating evil creatures… and running a lot. Or so the woman named Donna, the same one who had given Jenny a name, had said.
Perhaps, as Captain Jack had promised, one day he would come here, to this very place, to refuel his time ship. And perhaps then they would be able to travel together. Just as they had planned.
Swearing that she would be patient - for the time being anyway - Jenny returned to the computer screen. There were more pictures about people who had travelled with the first incarnation of her father. A sweet, simple girl in strangely archaic clothes. A tough-as nails woman, wearing some sort of futuristic uniform, carrying a mean-looking gun. Another teenager from the 1960s, according to the subtitle of the image that marked her as ‘Dodo’, which seemed an odd name for a girl, but what did she know about human naming customs, really? A busty blonde, looking vivacious and hip, accompanied by a widely smiling young seaman.
“Oh, man,” Jenny murmured, suitably impressed by this league of companions, all within a few years’ time. “Dad really liked to have company on his journeys, didn’t he?”
“Some of his incarnations did,” Toshiko replied, “but not all of them. In fact, when I met him, he was rather on the lonely side - rarely took more than one person with him. Two, when it came high.”
“Until the next regeneration, when everything changed again,” Jenny guessed.
Toshiko smiled. “Something like that, yes. Now, if you have put your stuff away, we should go and have an early lunch somewhere. Then we could do a little shopping before returning to the Hub. You need clothes that would fit our time better. That file will keep.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The day shift of Torchwood Three was also having lunch in the conference room of the Hub. With Rhys having gone to Flat Holm for the weekly inspection (and to talk to the inhabitants, most of whom had taken a liking to him), it was a rather simple affair this time: sandwiches and coffee, as Ianto had declared himself sick of Chinese or Thai take-out - or pizza, for that matter. The others of the old team, who had lived on that fare for too many years, agreed with him, so they had switched to sandwiches, whenever Rhys was too busy to feed them something home-made and wholesome.
Aside from the day shift - which consisted of practically everyone, save Sally, Trevor and Mickey - Martha Jones and Detective Kathy Swanson had also been called in for a conference, being the Torchwood liaisons to UNIT and the local police, respectively.
And Owen decided to give Doctor Angela Connelly from St Helens, who did freelance work for them semi-regularly, a call, too. The good doctor, who looked as if made of milk chocolate (and was every bit as tempting, in Owen’s secret opinion) had become quite the expert at doing autopsy on dead aliens in the recent year. She deserved to see some living aliens for a change, Owen thought.
Ianto had accepted his argument with a shrug. He had no objections against Angie’s presence. In truth, he was planning to offer her a full-time job at Torchwood. That would give them a fully capable duty doctor for each shift; and besides, they all liked Angie and her no-nonsense attitude.
“Jenny’s tests all came back negative,” Owen informed them, swallowing the last bite of his sandwich. “She’s almost disgustingly healthy, and she doesn’t seem to carry any pathogens that could be potentially dangerous for us.”
“Unless she has some bugs our instruments don’t recognize,” Lloyd added soberly.
Jack shook his head. “Nah, that’s unlikely. Our medical scanner is a salvaged piece from New Earth and was originally programmed by the cat nurses in the hospital there. The bug it wouldn’t recognize won’t exist for the next five billion years.”
“The Sisters of Plenitude?” Martha asked in surprise. “Where would you come across their medical equipment?”
Jack shrugged. “I did a bit of pilfering aboard the TARDIS. She practically led me to some medical gizmos while I was recovering, so she must have thought I should have it.”
“Did you tell the Doctor you’d taken it?” Ianto gave him a faint, ironic grin. Jack grinned back.
“He didn’t tell me in advance that he’d exchanged my sonic blaster for a banana either, so I think we’re on equal footing now,” he replied. “Besides, he can work it out with the TARDIS if he’s got a problem with me having it. It was her idea, after all.”
“You’ve got a point,” Ianto admitted. “So, have you managed to download the navigational data from Jenny’s ship while the two of you were flying it to the hangar?”
Jack nodded. “Navigational data, ship’s log, additional databases… it’s amazing how much data Tosh’s pet gizmo can store away.”
“The alien I-pod?” Owen, the only other who knew what they were talking about, inquired.
“Yep,” Ianto said. “A very handy little thing. Emma, would you like to start cataloguing the data?”
“I’d love to, but I’m not quite finished in the Archives yet,” Emma confessed.
Ianto’s brows drew together in displeasure. “We’re already behind schedule, you know.”
“I know, and I’m really sorry,” Emma replied guiltily. “It’s just… I don’t seem to find back to my usual rhythm since we came back from the honeymoon.”
“That’s understandable; you’ve had an important change in your life,” Ianto said. “Still, we have to catch up with our backlog, or we’ll drown in chaos. I know what I’m speaking about,” he added, with a meaningful look at Jack and Owen, each. “When I came here, the Archives were in an outrageous state. I won’t let them get that way again.”
Emma nodded miserably. “I’ll do my best.”
“You won’t have to do it alone,” Ianto promised. “I’ll rearrange a few security protocols, so that Beth would be able to do some filing from the tourist office. That’s how I dealt with non-confidential stuff in my first year. And I’ll analyse the stuff from Jenny’s database myself. But the rest is yours.”
“I can help you with the analysis,” Jack offered, but Ianto shook his head.
“No, I want you to go with Tosh and Trevor to the hangar and work on the ship itself. You’re the only one among us with actual experience with future spacecraft, human or alien. I want you to keep an eye on our geeks. They tend to become over-excited, and I want them to be safe. Jenny can help me with the analysis.”
“And you can keep an eye on her in exchange,” Jack finished for him. “You’re a sneaky bastard, Mister Jones.”
“I try my best, Captain,” Ianto replied in his best ninja butler manner.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
By the time they had finished lunch, Trevor came back, looking better-rested and eager to go on with the examination of the alien ship. His enthusiasm got dimmed a bit when he learned that he would have to work with Jack, but the fact that Tosh would be going with them, too, apparently made up for that.
Tosh and Jenny arrived about half an hour later, Jenny now wearing new jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt that looked, at least, a bit more feminine than her khaki trousers and tank top; the deep burgundy red of the shirt matched her fair colouring nicely. Ianto thought to see Tosh’s excellent taste in the choice.
“We’re still waiting for the results of the DNA mapping,” he told her, “so I thought it would be best if you stayed here in the Hub for the time being. You can help me with the analysis of your database. It seems to contain a fair number of alien species we’ve never heard of before. It would be very helpful if you could tell me about them beyond that which has been filed. Nothing can beat first-hand experience, after all.”
“Of course, I’d love to help,” Jenny replied eagerly. “Which species would you like to know more about?”
“All of them, to be honest, but we should start with the ones you were on the run from when the Rift storm caught you,” Ianto suggested.
Jenny nodded; she seemed to turn into military mode again, as if someone had thrown an internal switch or something.
“The Xithian Alliance,” she clarified. “That would be a tactically sound idea. Know your enemies before you meet them.”
“I thought they were your enemies,” Ianto said mildly.
“They are,” Jenny agreed, “but if they manage to track my ship o follow me through the anomaly…”
“The Rift,” Ianto corrected. Jenny shrugged.
“The Rift then. If they manage to follow me through, they’ll become your enemies, too, very soon. They consider all the species outside of the Alliance inferior and hostile. They’re pretty much at war with everyone they’ve ever run into in their area of influence… and beyond.”
“They must be an extraordinarily war-like race then,” Martha commented. “Just like the Daleks.”
“They’re not one race,” Jenny answered. “Actually, the Alliance is made up of three very different species, all of which have their own specific role within their bound. It’s generally thought, however, that the Hithon are the mastermind that operates the Alliance as a whole.”
“What are they like?” Owen asked, his professional interest piqued.
“I don’t know,” Jenny confessed. “No-one who’s ever seen a Hithon face to face lived to tell the tale. Rumours say that they’re an insectoid species with a telepathic hive mind, with which they supposedly kill certain races that are vulnerable to telepathic attacks, but that has never been confirmed. Usually, they employ he Xi’sa if they want to attack and destroy other races.”
“The what?” Ianto frowned. The name sounded like a bad case of sneezes.
“The Xi’sa are energy beings,” Jenny explained. “They’re actually very pretty to look at: like dense clouds, lit by flickering bolts of energy that looks like lightning. Much like any storm clouds, really, just in space. They need no atmosphere whatsoever and aren’t affected by extreme temperatures, pressure, or the lack of it. They can only communicate with telepathic species, and the Hithon use them as living weapons,”
“That makes sense,” Swanson said, “if both species are telepathic, as you say.”
But Jenny shook her head. “It’s not that simple,” she said. “The Hithon hive mind, assuming it really does exist, is powerful, but their telepathy and that of the Xi’sa are not compatible. That’s why they need the Shanalan.”
“Like the guy you helped to escape, which pissed off the Hithon enough to chase you halfway through the galaxy?” Andy summarized. Jenny nodded.
“The Shanalan are a telepathically very powerful race. They can communicate with the Hithon and the Xi’sa, both. The Hithon basically use them to control the Xi’sa, and also as the central processor unit of their organic spaceships. It’s said that Hithon telepathy, while powerful enough to kill telepathically sensitive races, isn’t very constructive… or versatile. An entire hive could barely operate one of their ships, while a single Shanalan is able to do it on its own.”
“You speak about a sentient species as it?” Martha asked with a frown.
Jenny shrugged. “That is pretty much what they are. They have no genders and procreate by asexual insemination, completely outside of their bodies. It’s funny, actually, considering that they are the mot humanoid-looking in appearance of all three Alliance members.”
“What do they look like, then?” Lloyd asked, curiously.
“Much like humans,” Jenny replied, “only taller. You’d hardly find any among them who’d be shorter than six foot. They’ve got egg-shaped, elongated skulls, but are completely hairless, and large, pointy ears that are flattened against the back of their skulls. Oh, and only four fingers on each hand, two of which are opposable.”
“Gives the phrase of somebody being all thumbs a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?” Owen commented. “Do you have specifics on these guys?”
“Yeah, they’re pretty well-known in that corner of the galaxy,” Jenny said with a shrug. “They were telepathically forewarned when the Hithon attacked their homeworld, so a great many of them fled to other planets in time.”
“So they’ve developed space flight on their own?” Jack asked.
“More like stolen the necessary knowledge from the minds of visiting species, but I guess that leads to the same results,” Jenny answered, “Their spaceships weren’t terribly advanced, though. They barely managed to the next inhabited system before breaking down.”
“Still, it saved them from being enslaved,” Swanson said. “Which is definitely an achievement.”
“It is,” Jenny allowed. “Not that they’d be particularly welcome anywhere, though. They’re arrogant and dismissive to all non-telepaths - well, even to most other telepaths, to tell the truth - and people generally fear that their presence would draw in the Hithon. So they’ve pretty much become space nomads, with small, supporting outposts on unfriendly moons or larger asteroids.”
“Which makes them all the more vulnerable,” Tom said quietly.
Jenny nodded. “True, but they don’t really have any other chance. Besides, this way they can at least run away at any given time. Settled colonies cannot do that.”
“What about those energy things?” Andy asked. “Do they have a homeworld of some sort?”
“Well, they had to have originated somewhere, but they are most reluctant to discuss their past,” Jenny answered matter-of-factly, as if communicating with dense clouds of spaceborn energy would be the most common thing in the universe. “They say the past is irrevocably behind us, and only the future matters. But my guess would be that their planet of origins must have been a gas giant, where they dwelt in the atmosphere, as they like to rest in such places on their travels.”
“Wait a minute, are you telling me that you’ve been able to talk to a cloud of living, sentient energy?” Lloyd asked, perplexed. “How on Earth did you do that?”
“Gallifreyans are a telepathic race,” Martha reminded her.
“True, but I’ve never actually talked to a Xi’sa,” Jenny said. “I only know about them what the Shanelan told me. It was quite well-versed in all things Xi’sa, though; served s the channel between one and their Hithon hive for a while.”
“I still wonder how their masters could use the creatures as a weapon,” Swanson murmured.
“They same way you’d use any energy weapon,” Jenny replied with a shrug. “Only on a much larger scale. Given enough time and energy to feed on, a single Xi'sa could rip off the surface of a whole planet.”
“It’s horrible to imagine what a dozen of them could do then,” the ever-practical Andy muttered.
Jenny, however, heard him and shook her head.
“They are rarely able to work together. Their energy, the frequencies of it, doesn’t allow two or more individuals of the species to occupy the same planetary orbit. Most of them are incompatible with each other - fortunately, or else the Xithian Alliance would have expanded to a pan-galactic power by now.”
“Are there any data about where the name of the Alliance came from?” Ianto asked, overcome by professional curiosity and in full Archivist mode. If there was anything he loved, that was trivia.
“There’s a myth, or so the Shanelan told me,” Jenny said. “According to it, Xithia was the homeworld of the Hithon. They shared it with four or five other sentient species, each occupying a different environment. In a long and bloody war for dominance, the Hithon not only exterminated the other races of their homeworld but also rendered the whole planet inhabitable. That was when they reached out for the stars.”
“Bad luck for the stars,” Owen commented cynically.
“You can say that,” Jenny agreed. “The worst part is that we know practically nothing about them. Not even the Shanelan had ever seen a Hithon face to face - they never leave their ships, and even within the ships, the Shanelan serving as their control processor unit is trapped in a bleak chamber, hooked up to all sorts of machinery, completely isolated from the hive itself.”
“What about those who serve as channel between the Ki’sha and a hive?” Martha asked.
“It’s the same; they’re kept in an isolated room all the time,” Jenny explained. “Since the entire communication takes place telepathically, there’s no need for them to physically meet either of the parties.”
“What a bleak existence!” Andy shuddered.
Jenny nodded. “Yeah; some of the channels go mad from the complete sensory deprivation after a while. Those operating the ships at least have something to do: new situations to master, various stimuli coming from the sensors. They become part of the ship, basically. But the channels have nothing. They usually don’t live long, once assigned to such a post.”
“And yet your friend managed to escape,” Andy pointed out.
“It wasn’t my friend,” Jenny clarified. “It was one of the most unpleasant creatures I’ve ever met, and that’s saying a lot, considering how unpleasant they generally are, the entire race of them. But yeah, it managed to escape - with a little help from me and a great deal of luck. It was on board of a small scout ship, on its way to a hive ship where it was supposed to be integrated as the central processor unit. It managed to distract its fellow Shanelan, the pilot of the scout ship, long enough for the ship to suffer some serious system damage and to crash on a small, uninhabited moon. I picked it up from the wreckage almost by accident.”
“What about the pilot?” Swanson asked.
“It died in the crash,” Jenny shrugged. “Once they merge with a ship, they live or die with it. They cannot be separated from it again. That’s organic technology for you. It has many advantages, but there’s always a catch. And it’s more vulnerable than purely mechanical equipment, which is why I personally prefer the latter.”
“Still, Hithon technology must be fairly advanced, if they’ve succeeded in destroying or enslaving so many other planets,” Ianto said, concerned that their guest might lead the aggressive race to Earth.
“Destruction is easy,” Jenny said seriously. “Much easier than peaceful cooperation. That’s why so many people prefer it to other solutions. I’m sorry that I’ve endangered you by coming here. I’ll leave as soon as I can, I promise.”
Gallifreyan telepathy was apparently a powerful thing, too.
“We don’t ask you to leave,” Ianto replied. “Like all well-meaning people who land on our planet, you’re welcome to stay. All we ask for is information that can help us defend you - and ourselves.”
Jenny gave him a brilliant smile.
“I’ll give you everything I have,” she promised. “I think I like you, Director Jones. You’d make a great travelling companion for a Time Lady.”
Ianto needed all his famous self-discipline not to choke on his coffee at that.
Chapter 04
Episode 03 - Smiths & Joneses
by Soledad
Author’s notes: For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the secondary index page.
Yes, I know it’s said in the Sarah Jane adventures that Barbara and Ian haven’t aged since the 1960s. I’m just not buying it, all right? Were it so, they’d have ended up in a UNIT lab decades ago… plus, it would mean that travelling by TARDIS generally stops the aging process for humans, which isn’t true, as we know. So there.
CHAPTER 03
Jenny looked around in Toshiko’s flat with great interest. It was a clean, well-ordered, utilitarian place, with only a few items reflecting on her cultural heritage. Still, it didn’t lack the warmth of a home completely.
“You sure you don’t mind me staying with you?” she asked anxiously. “You don’t have that much living space here.”
The woman who had apparently travelled with her father for years - and how unfair was that, while she only had to know him for a single day? - waved off her concern.
“I really don’t mind,” she said. “It’s nice not to be alone all the time.”
That Jenny could understand all too well. So she gracefully accepted the hospitality of the small guest room and went on to discover what else was there in the flat with child-like joy. She loved getting to know new places.
It became very apparent very quickly that Toshiko did not believe in cluttering her place with souvenirs or knick-knacks of any sort. There were almost no personal items, either, save from a few framed photographs standing on the sideboard.
Some of the people on the photographs were clearly family. They had the same dark hair, exotic features and almond-shaped eyes as Toshiko herself. There was an elderly man, with thinning grey hair and a thousand wrinkles in his smiling face - presumably a grandfather. A woman in her middle years, made look older by the burden of a hard life - her mother? A young man roughly of Toshiko’s age, with a strong resemblance to her, most likely a brother. And a beautiful woman of similar age, holding a sweet-faced boy of perhaps four or five.
“Sister and nephew?” Jenny guessed, having finally learned the potential intricacies of human family relations.
Toshiko shook her head. “No, Tomoe is a friend. She helps my mother raising my son.”
“This is your son?” Jenny looked at the boy in awe. “He’s very cute! Why would you hive him away?”
“It wasn’t by choice,” Toshiko replied dryly. “It’s a long story, and not one I’m quite willing to tell just yet.”
“Sorry,” Jenny offered, a little uncertainly; she still had to learn her way around the pitfalls of human sensitivities.
In the next moment, however, she forgot all about Toshiko’s family. Set a bit aside was another photograph: that of a tall man in a black leather jacket, leaning against a blue box of some sort. He looked like a soldier, his body tough and wiry, long arms folded across his chest, his hair short-cropped, emphasizing his somewhat large ears. He had a long nose and sapphire eyes, and a face that showed determination and vulnerability at the same time.
“Who’s this?” Jenny asked. “I’m positive I’ve never met him, and yet I feel as if I ought to know him.”
Toshiko smiled at that, although a little sadly.
“You should, in a manner,” she answered. “That’s your father… well, his previous incarnation, in any case. The one I used to travel with… and Jack and Mickey, too, although they did get a taste from the latest one as well. Martha only knew the new one.” She gave Jenny a questioning look. “You know about regeneration and how it changes your people, don’t you?”
Jenny nodded. “For me, almost six years have gone by, according to this planet’s count of time, since I emerged from the Machine. I’ve learned a lot in that time. Well, sort of; knowledge about Time Lords isn’t exactly common. As far as I can tell, a lot of what I know comes from my father’s own knowledge. I just seem to rediscover more and more of it as time goes by.”
“I never knew Time Lords had genetic memory,” Toshiko murmured in surprise.
“I’m not sure they really do; but I wasn’t born in a natural way,” Jenny explained. “Progenation means that we inherit some of the progenitor’s personal memories, too. Not all of them, fortunately, and mostly those containing general knowledge, but even after all these years, I’m still trying to sort them out. There are so many of them!”
“Don’t be so surprised,” Toshiko laughed gently. “Your father is over nine hundred years old. That isn’t young, not even by Gallifreyan standards. He’s seen a lot and learned a lot in those nine centuries.”
“I wish I knew more about him,” Jenny smiled ruefully. “Of the person he is… of the things he’s done. The memories are scarce at best when they come to himself.”
Toshiko nodded thoughtfully. “I’m not surprised. He’s an intensely private person. And perhaps that Progenation Machine of yours cannot access shielded thoughts. It must have had a hard time dealing with the complex mind of a Time Lord anyway. But if you want to learn more about your father, I’ve got a fairly extensive file on him. Do you want to see it?”
“Yes, please!” Jenny beamed, following her host to the combined study/home library/living room, where Toshiko powered up what was probably the most advanced computer on the planet.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Several hours later, she had to admit that Toshiko had not exaggerated when saying that her file on the last of the Time Lords was extensive. Quite frankly, it was huge. It seemed that she had gathered every oh-so-tiny shard of information she could get from humans who had previously travelled with Jenny’s father - and from a military organization called UNIT, for which he Doctor had apparently worked while temporarily exiled on Earth.
There was half a century worth of history, concerning her father’s connection with Earth alone - a history she knew nothing about.
The changes her father had gone through in those decades were almost shocking. Jenny knew about regeneration, of course, but she had never thought it would make one change so profoundly.
“It’s strange to see him so physically old,” she commented, looking at the picture of a gaunt-faced, blue-eyed old man with collar-length white hair, clad in an old-fashioned black jacket. “He was so… vibrant when I meet him; even a little frisky.”
“This isn’t how I remember him, either,” Toshiko smiled. “It seems that every new incarnation is a completely different person, and not only physically. Speaking of which: have you changed, too, when you regenerated?”
Jenny shook her head. “I did not regenerate. I’m not even sure I could, if I had to. I was revived by the Genesis device, as part of the terraforming process of Messaline. Perhaps I’m fixed in this body for good.”
Unexpectedly, Toshiko pulled a face.
“Let’s hope for your sake that it isn’t so,” she said. “It could mess up your father-daughter relationship, should you actually find him.”
“Why?” Jenny frowned.
Toshiko sighed. “Let’s just say that your father isn’t exactly fond of fixed things; they insult his sense of time. Ask Jack later, he can tell you a story about that, but it won’t be a happy one.”
“I will,” Jenny promised.
She had taken a liking to Captain Jack at first sight. His entire being called to the soldier in her, even though he did cause a vaguely nauseous feeling in her, too, whenever he was too close. Another thing she needed to find an explanation for.
“Who’s this girl here?” she then asked.
Toshiko leaned closer to take a look at a young girl of about fifteen, wearing a grey suit, sitting in a chair that was clearly too large for her, at some sort of consol. Her legs were drawn up, and she had a funny little hat on top of her head, one Jenny would have loved to try on.
“Well, she’s with the first incarnation of your father, so she must be Susan,” Toshiko judged.
“Susan?” Jenny repeated. “Is she my big sister?”
Toshiko smiled. “No; actually she’s your niece. The Doctor was travelling with his granddaughter when visiting Earth for the first time, back in the early 1960s. For the first time in his own personal timeline, that is.”
“How do you know that?” Jenny asked. “You weren’t even alive at that time - were you?” she added, a little uncertainly. Guessing other people’s ages wasn’t something she’d be very good at.
Toshiko smiled, ignoring the last part of the question as too personal.
“I talked to Barbara Wright, who was Susan’s teacher during their stay on Earth. She also travelled with them for a while; she and her colleague and later husband, Ian Chesterton,” she checked on the names, pulling up the old-fashioned image of said two people, then other images, on which they looked a great deal older. “They’re both very delightful; teaching at the University of Cambridge.”
“They seem to be nice indeed,” Jenny agreed. “What’s become of Susan’s parents, though? Why was she travelling with Dad?”
Toshiko shrugged. “That’s one point of the mystery surrounding your father that I never figured out. In fact, he never told me about them… or about Susan. He vaguely mentioned having been a father and a grandfather once, but that was basically it.”
“And what about Susan?” Jenny asked. “Is she still alive?”
“I’m not sure,” Toshiko admitted. “Barbara says that during the Dalek invasion of Earth, in the year 2164, she fell in love with a freedom fighter and stayed with him in the 22nd century. But based on how your father always declared himself the last of the Time Lords, I assume she’s died. Or she will die in a century from now,” she shook her head, quoting the infamous Star Trek line. “I hate temporal mechanics!”
“That’s sad,” Jenny commented; then she spotted the image of a teenaged girl again. “Is that Susan, too?”
“No,” Toshiko checked the picture. “That’s a girl named Vicky; she was a survivor of a spaceship crash on the planet Dido and menaced by some sort of monster when your father, Barbara and Ian picked her up. Apparently, she was from the 25th century, although Barbara never really found out much of her personal background. Barbara and Ian left her back on the TARDIS with your father, so I don’t know what’s become of her.”
“And this guy?” Jenny pointed at the image of a smartly handsome, laughing young man.
“Oh, that’s Steve Taylor; a space pilot from the 23rd century,” Toshiko zoomed on the picture. “Ian, Barbara and Vicky found him on the planet Mechanus; a jungle world where he’d apparently crash-landed two years earlier. He then travelled with your father for a while, before joining some noble case on a different planet. Barbara liked him a lot; she called him a strong-willed young man, more capable when there is something physical to do than when there was any thinking to be done. But he apparently had a finely developed sense of right and wrong, and he placed a high value on human life.”
“You know a great deal about Dad’s travelling companions,” Jenny said, clearly impressed.
Toshiko shrugged. “I did some private research and tried to keep in touch with those still on contemporary Earth. After all, who else could possibly understand all that I’ve seen and learned while travelling with your father?”
“There’s that,” Jenny agreed.
Who could indeed? She’d only met her father once, and ever since that one day, she’d been trying to find him again. Because simply being in his company had made her feel more alive than the Machine - or, in fact, even the Genesis device - ever could have done.
For the last six years, she’d been looking for him. Her search had taken her to the stars - to new worlds, just as he had promised her. She had seen so many words, so many people she had lost count long ago. But they all had been different; some bright and vibrant, some dark and scary, but all unique on their own right.
And somewhere out there, among all those strange and wonderful and terrible words, was her father, travelling in a blue box that was, in truth, the most amazing time ship ever created. Saving planets, rescuing civilizations, defeating evil creatures… and running a lot. Or so the woman named Donna, the same one who had given Jenny a name, had said.
Perhaps, as Captain Jack had promised, one day he would come here, to this very place, to refuel his time ship. And perhaps then they would be able to travel together. Just as they had planned.
Swearing that she would be patient - for the time being anyway - Jenny returned to the computer screen. There were more pictures about people who had travelled with the first incarnation of her father. A sweet, simple girl in strangely archaic clothes. A tough-as nails woman, wearing some sort of futuristic uniform, carrying a mean-looking gun. Another teenager from the 1960s, according to the subtitle of the image that marked her as ‘Dodo’, which seemed an odd name for a girl, but what did she know about human naming customs, really? A busty blonde, looking vivacious and hip, accompanied by a widely smiling young seaman.
“Oh, man,” Jenny murmured, suitably impressed by this league of companions, all within a few years’ time. “Dad really liked to have company on his journeys, didn’t he?”
“Some of his incarnations did,” Toshiko replied, “but not all of them. In fact, when I met him, he was rather on the lonely side - rarely took more than one person with him. Two, when it came high.”
“Until the next regeneration, when everything changed again,” Jenny guessed.
Toshiko smiled. “Something like that, yes. Now, if you have put your stuff away, we should go and have an early lunch somewhere. Then we could do a little shopping before returning to the Hub. You need clothes that would fit our time better. That file will keep.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The day shift of Torchwood Three was also having lunch in the conference room of the Hub. With Rhys having gone to Flat Holm for the weekly inspection (and to talk to the inhabitants, most of whom had taken a liking to him), it was a rather simple affair this time: sandwiches and coffee, as Ianto had declared himself sick of Chinese or Thai take-out - or pizza, for that matter. The others of the old team, who had lived on that fare for too many years, agreed with him, so they had switched to sandwiches, whenever Rhys was too busy to feed them something home-made and wholesome.
Aside from the day shift - which consisted of practically everyone, save Sally, Trevor and Mickey - Martha Jones and Detective Kathy Swanson had also been called in for a conference, being the Torchwood liaisons to UNIT and the local police, respectively.
And Owen decided to give Doctor Angela Connelly from St Helens, who did freelance work for them semi-regularly, a call, too. The good doctor, who looked as if made of milk chocolate (and was every bit as tempting, in Owen’s secret opinion) had become quite the expert at doing autopsy on dead aliens in the recent year. She deserved to see some living aliens for a change, Owen thought.
Ianto had accepted his argument with a shrug. He had no objections against Angie’s presence. In truth, he was planning to offer her a full-time job at Torchwood. That would give them a fully capable duty doctor for each shift; and besides, they all liked Angie and her no-nonsense attitude.
“Jenny’s tests all came back negative,” Owen informed them, swallowing the last bite of his sandwich. “She’s almost disgustingly healthy, and she doesn’t seem to carry any pathogens that could be potentially dangerous for us.”
“Unless she has some bugs our instruments don’t recognize,” Lloyd added soberly.
Jack shook his head. “Nah, that’s unlikely. Our medical scanner is a salvaged piece from New Earth and was originally programmed by the cat nurses in the hospital there. The bug it wouldn’t recognize won’t exist for the next five billion years.”
“The Sisters of Plenitude?” Martha asked in surprise. “Where would you come across their medical equipment?”
Jack shrugged. “I did a bit of pilfering aboard the TARDIS. She practically led me to some medical gizmos while I was recovering, so she must have thought I should have it.”
“Did you tell the Doctor you’d taken it?” Ianto gave him a faint, ironic grin. Jack grinned back.
“He didn’t tell me in advance that he’d exchanged my sonic blaster for a banana either, so I think we’re on equal footing now,” he replied. “Besides, he can work it out with the TARDIS if he’s got a problem with me having it. It was her idea, after all.”
“You’ve got a point,” Ianto admitted. “So, have you managed to download the navigational data from Jenny’s ship while the two of you were flying it to the hangar?”
Jack nodded. “Navigational data, ship’s log, additional databases… it’s amazing how much data Tosh’s pet gizmo can store away.”
“The alien I-pod?” Owen, the only other who knew what they were talking about, inquired.
“Yep,” Ianto said. “A very handy little thing. Emma, would you like to start cataloguing the data?”
“I’d love to, but I’m not quite finished in the Archives yet,” Emma confessed.
Ianto’s brows drew together in displeasure. “We’re already behind schedule, you know.”
“I know, and I’m really sorry,” Emma replied guiltily. “It’s just… I don’t seem to find back to my usual rhythm since we came back from the honeymoon.”
“That’s understandable; you’ve had an important change in your life,” Ianto said. “Still, we have to catch up with our backlog, or we’ll drown in chaos. I know what I’m speaking about,” he added, with a meaningful look at Jack and Owen, each. “When I came here, the Archives were in an outrageous state. I won’t let them get that way again.”
Emma nodded miserably. “I’ll do my best.”
“You won’t have to do it alone,” Ianto promised. “I’ll rearrange a few security protocols, so that Beth would be able to do some filing from the tourist office. That’s how I dealt with non-confidential stuff in my first year. And I’ll analyse the stuff from Jenny’s database myself. But the rest is yours.”
“I can help you with the analysis,” Jack offered, but Ianto shook his head.
“No, I want you to go with Tosh and Trevor to the hangar and work on the ship itself. You’re the only one among us with actual experience with future spacecraft, human or alien. I want you to keep an eye on our geeks. They tend to become over-excited, and I want them to be safe. Jenny can help me with the analysis.”
“And you can keep an eye on her in exchange,” Jack finished for him. “You’re a sneaky bastard, Mister Jones.”
“I try my best, Captain,” Ianto replied in his best ninja butler manner.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
By the time they had finished lunch, Trevor came back, looking better-rested and eager to go on with the examination of the alien ship. His enthusiasm got dimmed a bit when he learned that he would have to work with Jack, but the fact that Tosh would be going with them, too, apparently made up for that.
Tosh and Jenny arrived about half an hour later, Jenny now wearing new jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt that looked, at least, a bit more feminine than her khaki trousers and tank top; the deep burgundy red of the shirt matched her fair colouring nicely. Ianto thought to see Tosh’s excellent taste in the choice.
“We’re still waiting for the results of the DNA mapping,” he told her, “so I thought it would be best if you stayed here in the Hub for the time being. You can help me with the analysis of your database. It seems to contain a fair number of alien species we’ve never heard of before. It would be very helpful if you could tell me about them beyond that which has been filed. Nothing can beat first-hand experience, after all.”
“Of course, I’d love to help,” Jenny replied eagerly. “Which species would you like to know more about?”
“All of them, to be honest, but we should start with the ones you were on the run from when the Rift storm caught you,” Ianto suggested.
Jenny nodded; she seemed to turn into military mode again, as if someone had thrown an internal switch or something.
“The Xithian Alliance,” she clarified. “That would be a tactically sound idea. Know your enemies before you meet them.”
“I thought they were your enemies,” Ianto said mildly.
“They are,” Jenny agreed, “but if they manage to track my ship o follow me through the anomaly…”
“The Rift,” Ianto corrected. Jenny shrugged.
“The Rift then. If they manage to follow me through, they’ll become your enemies, too, very soon. They consider all the species outside of the Alliance inferior and hostile. They’re pretty much at war with everyone they’ve ever run into in their area of influence… and beyond.”
“They must be an extraordinarily war-like race then,” Martha commented. “Just like the Daleks.”
“They’re not one race,” Jenny answered. “Actually, the Alliance is made up of three very different species, all of which have their own specific role within their bound. It’s generally thought, however, that the Hithon are the mastermind that operates the Alliance as a whole.”
“What are they like?” Owen asked, his professional interest piqued.
“I don’t know,” Jenny confessed. “No-one who’s ever seen a Hithon face to face lived to tell the tale. Rumours say that they’re an insectoid species with a telepathic hive mind, with which they supposedly kill certain races that are vulnerable to telepathic attacks, but that has never been confirmed. Usually, they employ he Xi’sa if they want to attack and destroy other races.”
“The what?” Ianto frowned. The name sounded like a bad case of sneezes.
“The Xi’sa are energy beings,” Jenny explained. “They’re actually very pretty to look at: like dense clouds, lit by flickering bolts of energy that looks like lightning. Much like any storm clouds, really, just in space. They need no atmosphere whatsoever and aren’t affected by extreme temperatures, pressure, or the lack of it. They can only communicate with telepathic species, and the Hithon use them as living weapons,”
“That makes sense,” Swanson said, “if both species are telepathic, as you say.”
But Jenny shook her head. “It’s not that simple,” she said. “The Hithon hive mind, assuming it really does exist, is powerful, but their telepathy and that of the Xi’sa are not compatible. That’s why they need the Shanalan.”
“Like the guy you helped to escape, which pissed off the Hithon enough to chase you halfway through the galaxy?” Andy summarized. Jenny nodded.
“The Shanalan are a telepathically very powerful race. They can communicate with the Hithon and the Xi’sa, both. The Hithon basically use them to control the Xi’sa, and also as the central processor unit of their organic spaceships. It’s said that Hithon telepathy, while powerful enough to kill telepathically sensitive races, isn’t very constructive… or versatile. An entire hive could barely operate one of their ships, while a single Shanalan is able to do it on its own.”
“You speak about a sentient species as it?” Martha asked with a frown.
Jenny shrugged. “That is pretty much what they are. They have no genders and procreate by asexual insemination, completely outside of their bodies. It’s funny, actually, considering that they are the mot humanoid-looking in appearance of all three Alliance members.”
“What do they look like, then?” Lloyd asked, curiously.
“Much like humans,” Jenny replied, “only taller. You’d hardly find any among them who’d be shorter than six foot. They’ve got egg-shaped, elongated skulls, but are completely hairless, and large, pointy ears that are flattened against the back of their skulls. Oh, and only four fingers on each hand, two of which are opposable.”
“Gives the phrase of somebody being all thumbs a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?” Owen commented. “Do you have specifics on these guys?”
“Yeah, they’re pretty well-known in that corner of the galaxy,” Jenny said with a shrug. “They were telepathically forewarned when the Hithon attacked their homeworld, so a great many of them fled to other planets in time.”
“So they’ve developed space flight on their own?” Jack asked.
“More like stolen the necessary knowledge from the minds of visiting species, but I guess that leads to the same results,” Jenny answered, “Their spaceships weren’t terribly advanced, though. They barely managed to the next inhabited system before breaking down.”
“Still, it saved them from being enslaved,” Swanson said. “Which is definitely an achievement.”
“It is,” Jenny allowed. “Not that they’d be particularly welcome anywhere, though. They’re arrogant and dismissive to all non-telepaths - well, even to most other telepaths, to tell the truth - and people generally fear that their presence would draw in the Hithon. So they’ve pretty much become space nomads, with small, supporting outposts on unfriendly moons or larger asteroids.”
“Which makes them all the more vulnerable,” Tom said quietly.
Jenny nodded. “True, but they don’t really have any other chance. Besides, this way they can at least run away at any given time. Settled colonies cannot do that.”
“What about those energy things?” Andy asked. “Do they have a homeworld of some sort?”
“Well, they had to have originated somewhere, but they are most reluctant to discuss their past,” Jenny answered matter-of-factly, as if communicating with dense clouds of spaceborn energy would be the most common thing in the universe. “They say the past is irrevocably behind us, and only the future matters. But my guess would be that their planet of origins must have been a gas giant, where they dwelt in the atmosphere, as they like to rest in such places on their travels.”
“Wait a minute, are you telling me that you’ve been able to talk to a cloud of living, sentient energy?” Lloyd asked, perplexed. “How on Earth did you do that?”
“Gallifreyans are a telepathic race,” Martha reminded her.
“True, but I’ve never actually talked to a Xi’sa,” Jenny said. “I only know about them what the Shanelan told me. It was quite well-versed in all things Xi’sa, though; served s the channel between one and their Hithon hive for a while.”
“I still wonder how their masters could use the creatures as a weapon,” Swanson murmured.
“They same way you’d use any energy weapon,” Jenny replied with a shrug. “Only on a much larger scale. Given enough time and energy to feed on, a single Xi'sa could rip off the surface of a whole planet.”
“It’s horrible to imagine what a dozen of them could do then,” the ever-practical Andy muttered.
Jenny, however, heard him and shook her head.
“They are rarely able to work together. Their energy, the frequencies of it, doesn’t allow two or more individuals of the species to occupy the same planetary orbit. Most of them are incompatible with each other - fortunately, or else the Xithian Alliance would have expanded to a pan-galactic power by now.”
“Are there any data about where the name of the Alliance came from?” Ianto asked, overcome by professional curiosity and in full Archivist mode. If there was anything he loved, that was trivia.
“There’s a myth, or so the Shanelan told me,” Jenny said. “According to it, Xithia was the homeworld of the Hithon. They shared it with four or five other sentient species, each occupying a different environment. In a long and bloody war for dominance, the Hithon not only exterminated the other races of their homeworld but also rendered the whole planet inhabitable. That was when they reached out for the stars.”
“Bad luck for the stars,” Owen commented cynically.
“You can say that,” Jenny agreed. “The worst part is that we know practically nothing about them. Not even the Shanelan had ever seen a Hithon face to face - they never leave their ships, and even within the ships, the Shanelan serving as their control processor unit is trapped in a bleak chamber, hooked up to all sorts of machinery, completely isolated from the hive itself.”
“What about those who serve as channel between the Ki’sha and a hive?” Martha asked.
“It’s the same; they’re kept in an isolated room all the time,” Jenny explained. “Since the entire communication takes place telepathically, there’s no need for them to physically meet either of the parties.”
“What a bleak existence!” Andy shuddered.
Jenny nodded. “Yeah; some of the channels go mad from the complete sensory deprivation after a while. Those operating the ships at least have something to do: new situations to master, various stimuli coming from the sensors. They become part of the ship, basically. But the channels have nothing. They usually don’t live long, once assigned to such a post.”
“And yet your friend managed to escape,” Andy pointed out.
“It wasn’t my friend,” Jenny clarified. “It was one of the most unpleasant creatures I’ve ever met, and that’s saying a lot, considering how unpleasant they generally are, the entire race of them. But yeah, it managed to escape - with a little help from me and a great deal of luck. It was on board of a small scout ship, on its way to a hive ship where it was supposed to be integrated as the central processor unit. It managed to distract its fellow Shanelan, the pilot of the scout ship, long enough for the ship to suffer some serious system damage and to crash on a small, uninhabited moon. I picked it up from the wreckage almost by accident.”
“What about the pilot?” Swanson asked.
“It died in the crash,” Jenny shrugged. “Once they merge with a ship, they live or die with it. They cannot be separated from it again. That’s organic technology for you. It has many advantages, but there’s always a catch. And it’s more vulnerable than purely mechanical equipment, which is why I personally prefer the latter.”
“Still, Hithon technology must be fairly advanced, if they’ve succeeded in destroying or enslaving so many other planets,” Ianto said, concerned that their guest might lead the aggressive race to Earth.
“Destruction is easy,” Jenny said seriously. “Much easier than peaceful cooperation. That’s why so many people prefer it to other solutions. I’m sorry that I’ve endangered you by coming here. I’ll leave as soon as I can, I promise.”
Gallifreyan telepathy was apparently a powerful thing, too.
“We don’t ask you to leave,” Ianto replied. “Like all well-meaning people who land on our planet, you’re welcome to stay. All we ask for is information that can help us defend you - and ourselves.”
Jenny gave him a brilliant smile.
“I’ll give you everything I have,” she promised. “I think I like you, Director Jones. You’d make a great travelling companion for a Time Lady.”
Ianto needed all his famous self-discipline not to choke on his coffee at that.
Chapter 04