Fic: Girl In The Mirror ‘Verse, Chapter 8: A Looming Threat
Title: Girl In The Mirror ‘Verse, Chapter 8: A Looming Threat
Author: psyfi_geekgirl
BetaBabe: akkajemo
Characters/Pairings: Twelve, Jack, River
Rating: PG-13
Excerpt: River kept a finger on her squareness gun. While she had never met the Master, she’d heard enough stories. And if her father-a man who couldn’t die-was shocked and horrified enough to discover his apparent continued existence, then she should be ready for anything, shouldn’t she?
Word count: 3,455
Disclaimer: Until she’s Jossed, Twelve is mine-but of course based entirely on stuff that ain’t mine… All hail Auntie Beeb!
A/N*: Also, this was written before s6, so some details might go AU. I’m betting ahead of time on some story elements. We’ll see how my prognosticating goes…
TAKE NOTE: I also do not give anyone permission to post this in whole or in parts anywhere else! To do so would be very dishonest and terminally uncool and your actions would kill kittens, make puppy dogs cry and send the Reapers to eat your thieving flesh...
Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7
The three had been in conversation when a door had slammed shut behind them. Giving chase through the door, they found themselves in yet another passageway.
“Wait!! Come back! I’m here to help!” yelled the Doctor, her voice filled with equal parts terror and desperation as they struggled to navigate the dark, narrow passageways, chasing a shade that could not be caught. But every time they turned a corner, the footsteps sounded further away. They were in a giant underground labyrinth chasing a ghost and the Doctor’s frustration level was turned up to the max as her mind tumbled with frantic thoughts that there were Gallifreyans-her people-that had survived the massacre and were living amidst the destruction.
Alive and on her planet…
All this time?
How could she not have known?
As the footfalls they were chasing disappeared, she slammed her hand into the stone wall with a garbled howl borne of vexation and breathless expectancy.
“Doctor, please!” hissed River. “We’ll find them! I know this is difficult, but you need to calm down.”
“I AM CALM!” shouted the Doctor.
“No you aren’t,” she returned evenly. “And when you’re not calm you make mistakes, you miss details, and people get hurt. Right now you’re emotional. You’re anxious and you’re angry with yourself-I understand-but I need you to be you right now!”
The Doctor grew silent.
“There, that’s better,” said River. “Now-can you feel them? Can you track them?”
The Doctor shook her head helplessly; her brown corkscrew curls bobbing into her fearful eyes. Jack clasped her arm in reassurance. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out. They’ve got to be around somewhere. We’ll find them.”
The three stood silently reflecting for a moment: River at her guilt for bringing the Doctor to Gallifrey and subjecting her to this much of a shock so soon after regeneration; the Doctor raging at herself for having abandoned her people to a fate worse than death at her own hands; and Jack, saddened to see his friend so compromised and for finding a daughter who obviously was able to get so much closer to the Doctor than him. The dark, narrow underground tunnel filled with nothing but the sound of their own breathing and mute contrition.
And then there was something else…
“Guys? Do you hear that?” asked Jack; and they listened, for in the background-on the other side of the wall they could hear a droning, monotone voice. It was chanting softly.
“It’s a woman!” breathed River.
“Through here,” the Doctor grunted. She pulled out her sonic and aimed it around at the wall until a panel slid open.
“A hidden door!” exclaimed River.
The Doctor sniffed. “I’ve always said it does doors just fine-just not wood.” She stopped and listened to a low voice, repeating the same familiar chant:
It is returning, and he is returning, and they are returning, through the dark and the fire and the blood, always returning…
The three were disgorged into another large underground room. Whereas the first room had looked like a storage room, this looked more like an underground shelter. The chanting continued, but the sound bounced as they scanned the room for the source. At first, they saw no one. Several large vases of fuel burned in the corners of the room. Blankets and pelts were arranged on the floor in what looked to be little beds. Several mismatched chairs were drawn around a large table that had been repaired, and off in a corner was what looked to be a small food preparation area with a cupboard of assorted dishes.
But the voice was coming from somewhere in the room.
“A little bedroom, cum office, cum kitchen,” said Jack, looking around. “Cozy. I’d have a word with their decorator, though.”
“Where is she?” the Doctor whispered as the voice echoed through the room.
“Doctor, over here!” called River, and the Doctor raced over to a far corner where River had found a woman kneeling. The Doctor’s eyes widened and she fell to her knees next to the woman, trying to get her attention.
“Hello? Hello, can you hear me? I’m the Doctor. I’m sorry, do you know me?” Her voice cracked as she pleaded, but the woman would not stop her chanting. The Doctor raised her face to River with tears in her eyes and she shook her head in shock. River smiled at her sadly-she didn’t need to say it-River understood. For River knew that this was the first time in several regenerations since the Doctor had laid eyes on a Gallifreyan other than the Master or Jenny.
“Well, I’ll be,” whispered Jack as he joined them, seeing the survivor. “Doctor, there are several beds here. I count at least twenty, maybe more…”
Twenty. At least twenty survivors…
Tears spilled over her cheeks as she rose slowly so as not to disturb the chanting woman, and she observed the room with its barest of creature comforts.
“Doctor? Who is it? Who is returning?” asked River, indicating the chanting woman.
“I’ve heard it before, years ago, just before that Christmas with the Master. I always thought it meant Gallifrey. And the Timelords-“
“And you,” said a clear voice behind them.
The three spun around, expecting to see the Master, but instead saw a thin, balding man with watery blue eyes wearing battered, gold robes.
“Koschei?” gasped the Doctor.
“No. I am Montralobaar. I am the Keeper. I help run things here.”
She stood there for a moment, staring at the survivor-a priceless artifact: A survivor of the Last Great Time War…
“The Keeper? The Keeper of the Matrix?” the Doctor asked.
“At one time, yes-I was he.”
“What’s the Matrix, Doctor?”
“A giant, extra-dimensional supercomputer and external hard drive combined. Timelords stored everything on there, including bio-data and old regenerations’ memories. It helped us to connect to each other, and the Keeper held the Key to the Matrix and was in charge of maintaining it.”
“Well, it couldn’t have survived the inferno?”
“It did,” answered the Keeper. “Since it is extra-dimensional, it lives on…”
“Only you can’t access it now,” finished the Doctor.
“Not yet, but we’re working on it.”
“If the links to the Matrix fell, how did you survive?”
“On the final day of the Time War we were lead deep underground. We have survived so that we could rebuild.”
“The Master… What happened to him?”
“I can take you to him. He wants to see you.” He gestured for everyone to follow him, turning to lead them away.
All three froze. The Doctor’s dread grew in the pit of her stomach-a fear she had felt after seeing that statue upstairs.
The Master had actually survived the apocalypse...
“Wait! You know me?” the Doctor asked.
The Keeper turned back to face her. “You are the Doctor. You were the Vengeful and the Righteous. Now you are the Tormented.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. Of all the prophesies, at least they got that right…
“Know this Tormented One: You are welcome here.”
The Doctor drew in a long, jagged breath. Saying nothing, a single tear traced down her cheek. That had been the very last thing she had expected to hear, despite the rather benevolent depiction of her former self in the statue upstairs. After a moment, she walked up to him struggling to find her voice, “I’m sorry-but I… It’s been so long since I… Could I? Hug you?”
The man regarded her curiously for a moment and then gave a brief nod.
The Doctor inhaled to steady her already ragged soul, and wrapped her arms around the man, feeling the beat of his two hearts under his robe.
He was alive.
She was home.
Once she released him, the Keeper grabbed a flaming torch and led them through another door and into a different hall that led to a steep staircase that plunged further down. Jack and River exchanged looks. River kept a finger on her squareness gun. While she had never met the Master, she’d heard enough stories. And if her father-a man who couldn’t die-was shocked and horrified enough to discover his apparent continued existence, then she should be ready for anything, shouldn’t she?
The Doctor however, bubbled with nervous energy. She asked multiple questions in rapid succession as they walked down the long staircase: “How many of you are there? How did you escape the devastation? Are there side effects? Does it affect the telepathic field? Is that why I couldn’t pick up on you? How did you get here?”
“The Master saved us.”
“But how was that possible?” asked Jack.
“The Master defeated Rassilon, after coming through the Void and was able to change some limited events during the last moments of the Time War. Not many things, but just enough to have saved a tiny portion of the population underground, where we would be safe. He came for us and brought us here.”
Of course, the Doctor realised, since he knew what would happen.
“How many of you did he save?” The Doctor asked, her hearts skipping with hopefulness.
“There were seventy-five of us.”
Seventy-five. Her head swam. That was so many more than she’d even thought possible.
“And you went with him, all seventy-five of you…” She marveled at the number, seventy-five survivors of the Last Great Time War. She wondered briefly about her mother, but shook it off, knowing her mother would never knowingly ally herself with the Master.
Not after everything…
She paused, wondering how best to phrase her next question. “Er… How is the Master? I mean-does he still hear the drumming?”
“Yeah, is he still a first class nutter?” Jack blurted.
The Keeper ignored Jack’s obvious slur. “He is no longer plagued by the drumming noises that he had heard since childhood. Once that continuum was broken the need for it was extinguished. The Master has enjoyed peace of mind since then.”
“We’ll see about that,” Jack mumbled as they ended their steep descent.
“We are here,” announced the Keeper as he opened a door.
Gasping, they stepped inside a gigantic cave. Except “cave” hardly seemed an adequate term as it appeared to stretch on for miles and appeared to be a very model of the planet’s formerly remarkable surface in miniature-complete with water, red grass and a forest of silver trees. The Doctor could even hear Flutterwings chirping. Off in the distance, many more people were visible-planting and harvesting, lugging baskets, and working on irrigation devices to water the crops and pump water into a holding tank-an agrarian community tending their crops.
“It even has its own sun!” marveled Jack, pointing to the glowing, gaseous ball near the top of the cave. “How Star Trek! An underground Gallifrey! Genius!”
“Ohhhh! You had a terraforming ball! Like ‘The Source!’” she prompted to River and Jack, then waved her hand. “Oh. Yeah. You weren’t there for that one.”
“Was that with Jenny the first time?” River asked.
“Yeah… Anyway it’s a terraforming device-you break a glass ball in the barren environment you wish to make habitable. It contains the basic gasses for life that spark an accelerated evolution. Break it open, and, voila! Before you know it-Shake and bake! It’s like dehydrated ramen noodles-only more complicated-and impressive, much, much more impressive!”
The Keeper nodded. “Our terraforming project has been adequate enough to sustain us all these years and will ensure our survival for many more.”
“It’s beautiful!” River exclaimed in awe as she came up next to the Doctor, taking her hand. “Is this what it looked like, Doctor? Before the war?”
“This is just a tiny sliver of it-a murky reflection of its majesty, a pale copy-but yeah,” she nodded. “The red grass… silver trees…” Her voice became strained, “Never thought I’d see them again.”
River reached for the Doctor and hugged her close. Overwhelmed, the Doctor squeezed her eyes shut praying for her head to stop screaming. River sensed her discomfort and pulled her back to study her. “It’s nothing,” dismissed the Doctor, trying to evade her scrutiny.
But River wasn’t buying it. “Bollocks, Doctor. Your head is killing you, isn’t it?”
The Doctor tried to shake her off, “Just a little sensory overload is all. This is all a little unbelievable-even for me. This was supposed to be impossible!”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from you, there’s no such thing as impossible, Doctor,” she chided. “Just a little unlikely…” River winked at her.
“Hey? What’s that over there?” called Jack pointing to an area off to the side of the cave hidden by a few shrubs and a glass partition.
“If you please,” directed the Keeper and he lead them around the partition and into another room.
The Doctor gasped. In front of them were about twenty large, tree-shaped racks standing on the red grass about a meter and a half tall, it’s thick branches strung with what looked to be long, flat, beige strings-like a tennis racquet stringer for giants-forming a fine, woven mesh, with some parts thicker than others. The glass partition of this odd little ‘room’ ran along two sides, separating the room into a separate area of the cave, but still allowed for light, and a rather amazing view.
“You’ve reinstated the Looming Process!” the Doctor breathed in awe and surprise.
“Doctor, what are those things?”
“They’re Looms.”
“And what’s a Loom when it’s at home?”
The Doctor touched a thumb to her forehead before explaining. “Years ago-hundreds of years ago-more than a thousand maybe, before I was born, the leaders of Gallifrey were called the Pythia. They were a group of… weeelll female soothsayers, if you will. They had precognition-until they didn’t anymore-and they got very angry about losing power, as you do... When the last of them died out, they issued Pythia’s Curse, preventing Gallifreyans from reproducing naturally, wishing to wipe the race out.”
“It is a great shame that the original rulers of Gallifrey were so corrupt and sadly, when overthrown by Rassilon, did not improve…” lamented the Keeper.
“What noble rulers,” Jack interjected. “We just enact recall elections-“
“Or assassinations,” offered River, dryly.
“Weeeell, it was all a bit Voodo, anyway-tell a group of believers you’re going to die tomorrow and some will actually die of fright-and it did have its hold over most of the population. Turns out, it scared them enough to work. So when Rassilon took charge, he instituted what was called the Looming Process-a way to genetically weave DNA material together to form bodies, or children if you will. Humans have test-tube babies, zygote implantation and surrogate mothers and I give you--”
“All three at once…” finished Jack. “Do they babysit as well?”
“That sounds like how Jenny was created!” River exclaimed.
The Doctor nodded. “Very similar. Except in her case I was both mother and father-the machine split and recombined my genetic information so a separate sample was unnecessary. Looms however, require two separate DNA samples.”
“Uh… who’s Jenny?” asked Jack.
“Her daughter. Long story.”
“Yeah,” nodded the Doctor. “Long story. On another planet with Martha and Donna, a DNA sample was harvested by a machine and made Jenny. We got into a bit of a kerfuffle and I thought she’d died but it was a healing coma. Now she’s still doing well-she’s regenerated at least once already though-and takes after her dear old Dad--”
“Or, Mum as the case is now,” River teased. “Looks like you really are both Mum and Dad! I’ve met her,” she said to Jack. “She’s tough, an idealist, principled, cheeky, quick with her fists and there’s lots and lots of running!”
“Yep,” the Doctor smiled. “She loves the running.”
“So people can really be born like that?”
“Thousands upon thousands of us were until the curse was lifted. That was back around… Oh, let’s see… My Seventh incarnation, I think? But now they’ve got ‘em up and running again!”
“But why would they prefer to loom children when they could have them naturally?”
The Doctor looked at the Keeper, who had been watching their banter. “Saves time, right? No unnecessary breaks in the productivity of the workforce? Keeps every survivor working and healthy-no unforeseen complications like with a natural birth, nobody needing bed rest, no loss of anyone pulling their own weight-all hands on deck and that, huh? Brilliant!”
The Keeper nodded. “The Master thought the Looms were needed in order to facilitate the optimal operational functioning of the collective, yes.”
The Doctor sucked on her teeth and tutting, made a face at Jack. “’Optimal operational functioning,’ indeed-why can’t you just say you need every person to do their assigned job and can’t afford anyone to turn up cheggars? Huh? Oh… Timelords!” She exhaled, irritated. “See, Jack? They have always been a fussy, stuffy lot! And you wonder why I left!”
Some of the survivors nearby had started to gather around-compelled to examine the strangers among them-as some of them had never laid eyes on an Offworlder and none had ever seen a stranger since the end of the Last Great Time War.
“Doctor, were you born of the Looms then?” asked Jack.
“She can’t be,” asserted River. “She has a belly button…”
The Doctor turned to her and looked at her over invisible glasses, eyebrows jumping furtively, but confirming nothing.
“Oh, and you’d know all about her belly button then?” asked Jack in a vexed tone.
“Careful, Dad: You’re beginning to sound jealous...”
The Doctor ignored the territorial chin wagging of the Harkness Clan and bounded among the Looms, inspecting them. “How many then? Those born of the Looms?”
“In the last several years we have seen our population grow to just under two-hundred. Soon, we will number more.”
“Two-hundred…” she breathed, awestruck for a moment before moving on to her next thought. “Well! I could easily fit two-hundred in the TARDIS, and all the Looms, if you like.”
“What are you talking about, Doctor?”
“Well, they can’t stay here, can they? Planet’s ruined. I can bring them somewhere where they can start again.” The Doctor wondered about the Ood-another telepathic race. The planet was considerably colder, but that shouldn’t bother the naturally cooler Gallifreyan body temperature. However, the last time she had seen them they had advanced rather quickly in the last one-hundred years, and she still hadn’t figured out why… Maybe not Oodsphere, then-not just yet-someplace else, then…
“But they are starting again,” River insisted. “Look at that forest-it’s small but it’s growing and soon they’ll be ready to terraform on the surface.”
“But this isn’t any way for a Timelord to live! Tending crops like the Outsiders or living underground like some sort of dazed mole-like Silurians!”
“Well look who’s all aloof and superior now? Maybe this is their path, Doctor? Who are you to say?”
Jack looked at this woman whom he’d only just met-supposedly his daughter-and admired the direct way in which she was able to communicate with the Doctor. In all the many years he’d known the Doctor, even he was not yet able to be this confrontational with him. He watched them as they stared at each other, sizing each other up-and yet they still relied on each other implicitly and seemed completely at ease with each other. Jack glanced away, for while he was comforted to see the Doctor had finally found someone to confide and depend on, there was a huge part of him that had wished that it could have been him… eventually.
“We do not wish to be taken from our home,” said the Keeper. “The Master intends to restore Gallifrey to its former prosperity-and leave the transgressions of its former leaders behind, buried in the dust, where they belong.” Several of the other survivors looking on nodded and murmured their agreement to the Keeper’s words; no, they would not be abandoning their home.
“Really? And just where is your Lord and Master, anyway?”
She pulled out her sonic screwdriver and scanned the area.
Nothing.
"Why can't I feel him?" She asked no one in particular.
"It's because you’re thick," said an eerily familiar voice behind them.
The Doctor and Jack wheeled around. River pulled out her squareness gun. The Doctor held out her arm to River in a gesture not to shoot.
The Master was encased in a grubby ceremonial robe, looking a little more careworn with a few extra years on him and graying hair, but his eyes were still bright and his lips turned upwards in a familiar smirk-and his face was exactly the same as the one that the Doctor had last seen on that Christmas day, so many years ago...
How was that possible?
To be continued in Chapter 9: Master Plan
*In addition to NuWho and Classic Who references, the DW book Lungbarrow was consulted, along with This Site for other Gallifreyan "historical" references. The survivor's underground cave is also an homage to (the best) Star Trek film, The Wrath of Kahn! All together now: KAAAAAAHHHHNNN!!!
Author: psyfi_geekgirl
BetaBabe: akkajemo
Characters/Pairings: Twelve, Jack, River
Rating: PG-13
Excerpt: River kept a finger on her squareness gun. While she had never met the Master, she’d heard enough stories. And if her father-a man who couldn’t die-was shocked and horrified enough to discover his apparent continued existence, then she should be ready for anything, shouldn’t she?
Word count: 3,455
Disclaimer: Until she’s Jossed, Twelve is mine-but of course based entirely on stuff that ain’t mine… All hail Auntie Beeb!
A/N*: Also, this was written before s6, so some details might go AU. I’m betting ahead of time on some story elements. We’ll see how my prognosticating goes…
TAKE NOTE: I also do not give anyone permission to post this in whole or in parts anywhere else! To do so would be very dishonest and terminally uncool and your actions would kill kittens, make puppy dogs cry and send the Reapers to eat your thieving flesh...
Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7
The three had been in conversation when a door had slammed shut behind them. Giving chase through the door, they found themselves in yet another passageway.
“Wait!! Come back! I’m here to help!” yelled the Doctor, her voice filled with equal parts terror and desperation as they struggled to navigate the dark, narrow passageways, chasing a shade that could not be caught. But every time they turned a corner, the footsteps sounded further away. They were in a giant underground labyrinth chasing a ghost and the Doctor’s frustration level was turned up to the max as her mind tumbled with frantic thoughts that there were Gallifreyans-her people-that had survived the massacre and were living amidst the destruction.
Alive and on her planet…
All this time?
How could she not have known?
As the footfalls they were chasing disappeared, she slammed her hand into the stone wall with a garbled howl borne of vexation and breathless expectancy.
“Doctor, please!” hissed River. “We’ll find them! I know this is difficult, but you need to calm down.”
“I AM CALM!” shouted the Doctor.
“No you aren’t,” she returned evenly. “And when you’re not calm you make mistakes, you miss details, and people get hurt. Right now you’re emotional. You’re anxious and you’re angry with yourself-I understand-but I need you to be you right now!”
The Doctor grew silent.
“There, that’s better,” said River. “Now-can you feel them? Can you track them?”
The Doctor shook her head helplessly; her brown corkscrew curls bobbing into her fearful eyes. Jack clasped her arm in reassurance. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out. They’ve got to be around somewhere. We’ll find them.”
The three stood silently reflecting for a moment: River at her guilt for bringing the Doctor to Gallifrey and subjecting her to this much of a shock so soon after regeneration; the Doctor raging at herself for having abandoned her people to a fate worse than death at her own hands; and Jack, saddened to see his friend so compromised and for finding a daughter who obviously was able to get so much closer to the Doctor than him. The dark, narrow underground tunnel filled with nothing but the sound of their own breathing and mute contrition.
And then there was something else…
“Guys? Do you hear that?” asked Jack; and they listened, for in the background-on the other side of the wall they could hear a droning, monotone voice. It was chanting softly.
“It’s a woman!” breathed River.
“Through here,” the Doctor grunted. She pulled out her sonic and aimed it around at the wall until a panel slid open.
“A hidden door!” exclaimed River.
The Doctor sniffed. “I’ve always said it does doors just fine-just not wood.” She stopped and listened to a low voice, repeating the same familiar chant:
It is returning, and he is returning, and they are returning, through the dark and the fire and the blood, always returning…
The three were disgorged into another large underground room. Whereas the first room had looked like a storage room, this looked more like an underground shelter. The chanting continued, but the sound bounced as they scanned the room for the source. At first, they saw no one. Several large vases of fuel burned in the corners of the room. Blankets and pelts were arranged on the floor in what looked to be little beds. Several mismatched chairs were drawn around a large table that had been repaired, and off in a corner was what looked to be a small food preparation area with a cupboard of assorted dishes.
But the voice was coming from somewhere in the room.
“A little bedroom, cum office, cum kitchen,” said Jack, looking around. “Cozy. I’d have a word with their decorator, though.”
“Where is she?” the Doctor whispered as the voice echoed through the room.
“Doctor, over here!” called River, and the Doctor raced over to a far corner where River had found a woman kneeling. The Doctor’s eyes widened and she fell to her knees next to the woman, trying to get her attention.
“Hello? Hello, can you hear me? I’m the Doctor. I’m sorry, do you know me?” Her voice cracked as she pleaded, but the woman would not stop her chanting. The Doctor raised her face to River with tears in her eyes and she shook her head in shock. River smiled at her sadly-she didn’t need to say it-River understood. For River knew that this was the first time in several regenerations since the Doctor had laid eyes on a Gallifreyan other than the Master or Jenny.
“Well, I’ll be,” whispered Jack as he joined them, seeing the survivor. “Doctor, there are several beds here. I count at least twenty, maybe more…”
Twenty. At least twenty survivors…
Tears spilled over her cheeks as she rose slowly so as not to disturb the chanting woman, and she observed the room with its barest of creature comforts.
“Doctor? Who is it? Who is returning?” asked River, indicating the chanting woman.
“I’ve heard it before, years ago, just before that Christmas with the Master. I always thought it meant Gallifrey. And the Timelords-“
“And you,” said a clear voice behind them.
The three spun around, expecting to see the Master, but instead saw a thin, balding man with watery blue eyes wearing battered, gold robes.
“Koschei?” gasped the Doctor.
“No. I am Montralobaar. I am the Keeper. I help run things here.”
She stood there for a moment, staring at the survivor-a priceless artifact: A survivor of the Last Great Time War…
“The Keeper? The Keeper of the Matrix?” the Doctor asked.
“At one time, yes-I was he.”
“What’s the Matrix, Doctor?”
“A giant, extra-dimensional supercomputer and external hard drive combined. Timelords stored everything on there, including bio-data and old regenerations’ memories. It helped us to connect to each other, and the Keeper held the Key to the Matrix and was in charge of maintaining it.”
“Well, it couldn’t have survived the inferno?”
“It did,” answered the Keeper. “Since it is extra-dimensional, it lives on…”
“Only you can’t access it now,” finished the Doctor.
“Not yet, but we’re working on it.”
“If the links to the Matrix fell, how did you survive?”
“On the final day of the Time War we were lead deep underground. We have survived so that we could rebuild.”
“The Master… What happened to him?”
“I can take you to him. He wants to see you.” He gestured for everyone to follow him, turning to lead them away.
All three froze. The Doctor’s dread grew in the pit of her stomach-a fear she had felt after seeing that statue upstairs.
The Master had actually survived the apocalypse...
“Wait! You know me?” the Doctor asked.
The Keeper turned back to face her. “You are the Doctor. You were the Vengeful and the Righteous. Now you are the Tormented.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. Of all the prophesies, at least they got that right…
“Know this Tormented One: You are welcome here.”
The Doctor drew in a long, jagged breath. Saying nothing, a single tear traced down her cheek. That had been the very last thing she had expected to hear, despite the rather benevolent depiction of her former self in the statue upstairs. After a moment, she walked up to him struggling to find her voice, “I’m sorry-but I… It’s been so long since I… Could I? Hug you?”
The man regarded her curiously for a moment and then gave a brief nod.
The Doctor inhaled to steady her already ragged soul, and wrapped her arms around the man, feeling the beat of his two hearts under his robe.
He was alive.
She was home.
Once she released him, the Keeper grabbed a flaming torch and led them through another door and into a different hall that led to a steep staircase that plunged further down. Jack and River exchanged looks. River kept a finger on her squareness gun. While she had never met the Master, she’d heard enough stories. And if her father-a man who couldn’t die-was shocked and horrified enough to discover his apparent continued existence, then she should be ready for anything, shouldn’t she?
The Doctor however, bubbled with nervous energy. She asked multiple questions in rapid succession as they walked down the long staircase: “How many of you are there? How did you escape the devastation? Are there side effects? Does it affect the telepathic field? Is that why I couldn’t pick up on you? How did you get here?”
“The Master saved us.”
“But how was that possible?” asked Jack.
“The Master defeated Rassilon, after coming through the Void and was able to change some limited events during the last moments of the Time War. Not many things, but just enough to have saved a tiny portion of the population underground, where we would be safe. He came for us and brought us here.”
Of course, the Doctor realised, since he knew what would happen.
“How many of you did he save?” The Doctor asked, her hearts skipping with hopefulness.
“There were seventy-five of us.”
Seventy-five. Her head swam. That was so many more than she’d even thought possible.
“And you went with him, all seventy-five of you…” She marveled at the number, seventy-five survivors of the Last Great Time War. She wondered briefly about her mother, but shook it off, knowing her mother would never knowingly ally herself with the Master.
Not after everything…
She paused, wondering how best to phrase her next question. “Er… How is the Master? I mean-does he still hear the drumming?”
“Yeah, is he still a first class nutter?” Jack blurted.
The Keeper ignored Jack’s obvious slur. “He is no longer plagued by the drumming noises that he had heard since childhood. Once that continuum was broken the need for it was extinguished. The Master has enjoyed peace of mind since then.”
“We’ll see about that,” Jack mumbled as they ended their steep descent.
“We are here,” announced the Keeper as he opened a door.
Gasping, they stepped inside a gigantic cave. Except “cave” hardly seemed an adequate term as it appeared to stretch on for miles and appeared to be a very model of the planet’s formerly remarkable surface in miniature-complete with water, red grass and a forest of silver trees. The Doctor could even hear Flutterwings chirping. Off in the distance, many more people were visible-planting and harvesting, lugging baskets, and working on irrigation devices to water the crops and pump water into a holding tank-an agrarian community tending their crops.
“It even has its own sun!” marveled Jack, pointing to the glowing, gaseous ball near the top of the cave. “How Star Trek! An underground Gallifrey! Genius!”
“Ohhhh! You had a terraforming ball! Like ‘The Source!’” she prompted to River and Jack, then waved her hand. “Oh. Yeah. You weren’t there for that one.”
“Was that with Jenny the first time?” River asked.
“Yeah… Anyway it’s a terraforming device-you break a glass ball in the barren environment you wish to make habitable. It contains the basic gasses for life that spark an accelerated evolution. Break it open, and, voila! Before you know it-Shake and bake! It’s like dehydrated ramen noodles-only more complicated-and impressive, much, much more impressive!”
The Keeper nodded. “Our terraforming project has been adequate enough to sustain us all these years and will ensure our survival for many more.”
“It’s beautiful!” River exclaimed in awe as she came up next to the Doctor, taking her hand. “Is this what it looked like, Doctor? Before the war?”
“This is just a tiny sliver of it-a murky reflection of its majesty, a pale copy-but yeah,” she nodded. “The red grass… silver trees…” Her voice became strained, “Never thought I’d see them again.”
River reached for the Doctor and hugged her close. Overwhelmed, the Doctor squeezed her eyes shut praying for her head to stop screaming. River sensed her discomfort and pulled her back to study her. “It’s nothing,” dismissed the Doctor, trying to evade her scrutiny.
But River wasn’t buying it. “Bollocks, Doctor. Your head is killing you, isn’t it?”
The Doctor tried to shake her off, “Just a little sensory overload is all. This is all a little unbelievable-even for me. This was supposed to be impossible!”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from you, there’s no such thing as impossible, Doctor,” she chided. “Just a little unlikely…” River winked at her.
“Hey? What’s that over there?” called Jack pointing to an area off to the side of the cave hidden by a few shrubs and a glass partition.
“If you please,” directed the Keeper and he lead them around the partition and into another room.
The Doctor gasped. In front of them were about twenty large, tree-shaped racks standing on the red grass about a meter and a half tall, it’s thick branches strung with what looked to be long, flat, beige strings-like a tennis racquet stringer for giants-forming a fine, woven mesh, with some parts thicker than others. The glass partition of this odd little ‘room’ ran along two sides, separating the room into a separate area of the cave, but still allowed for light, and a rather amazing view.
“You’ve reinstated the Looming Process!” the Doctor breathed in awe and surprise.
“Doctor, what are those things?”
“They’re Looms.”
“And what’s a Loom when it’s at home?”
The Doctor touched a thumb to her forehead before explaining. “Years ago-hundreds of years ago-more than a thousand maybe, before I was born, the leaders of Gallifrey were called the Pythia. They were a group of… weeelll female soothsayers, if you will. They had precognition-until they didn’t anymore-and they got very angry about losing power, as you do... When the last of them died out, they issued Pythia’s Curse, preventing Gallifreyans from reproducing naturally, wishing to wipe the race out.”
“It is a great shame that the original rulers of Gallifrey were so corrupt and sadly, when overthrown by Rassilon, did not improve…” lamented the Keeper.
“What noble rulers,” Jack interjected. “We just enact recall elections-“
“Or assassinations,” offered River, dryly.
“Weeeell, it was all a bit Voodo, anyway-tell a group of believers you’re going to die tomorrow and some will actually die of fright-and it did have its hold over most of the population. Turns out, it scared them enough to work. So when Rassilon took charge, he instituted what was called the Looming Process-a way to genetically weave DNA material together to form bodies, or children if you will. Humans have test-tube babies, zygote implantation and surrogate mothers and I give you--”
“All three at once…” finished Jack. “Do they babysit as well?”
“That sounds like how Jenny was created!” River exclaimed.
The Doctor nodded. “Very similar. Except in her case I was both mother and father-the machine split and recombined my genetic information so a separate sample was unnecessary. Looms however, require two separate DNA samples.”
“Uh… who’s Jenny?” asked Jack.
“Her daughter. Long story.”
“Yeah,” nodded the Doctor. “Long story. On another planet with Martha and Donna, a DNA sample was harvested by a machine and made Jenny. We got into a bit of a kerfuffle and I thought she’d died but it was a healing coma. Now she’s still doing well-she’s regenerated at least once already though-and takes after her dear old Dad--”
“Or, Mum as the case is now,” River teased. “Looks like you really are both Mum and Dad! I’ve met her,” she said to Jack. “She’s tough, an idealist, principled, cheeky, quick with her fists and there’s lots and lots of running!”
“Yep,” the Doctor smiled. “She loves the running.”
“So people can really be born like that?”
“Thousands upon thousands of us were until the curse was lifted. That was back around… Oh, let’s see… My Seventh incarnation, I think? But now they’ve got ‘em up and running again!”
“But why would they prefer to loom children when they could have them naturally?”
The Doctor looked at the Keeper, who had been watching their banter. “Saves time, right? No unnecessary breaks in the productivity of the workforce? Keeps every survivor working and healthy-no unforeseen complications like with a natural birth, nobody needing bed rest, no loss of anyone pulling their own weight-all hands on deck and that, huh? Brilliant!”
The Keeper nodded. “The Master thought the Looms were needed in order to facilitate the optimal operational functioning of the collective, yes.”
The Doctor sucked on her teeth and tutting, made a face at Jack. “’Optimal operational functioning,’ indeed-why can’t you just say you need every person to do their assigned job and can’t afford anyone to turn up cheggars? Huh? Oh… Timelords!” She exhaled, irritated. “See, Jack? They have always been a fussy, stuffy lot! And you wonder why I left!”
Some of the survivors nearby had started to gather around-compelled to examine the strangers among them-as some of them had never laid eyes on an Offworlder and none had ever seen a stranger since the end of the Last Great Time War.
“Doctor, were you born of the Looms then?” asked Jack.
“She can’t be,” asserted River. “She has a belly button…”
The Doctor turned to her and looked at her over invisible glasses, eyebrows jumping furtively, but confirming nothing.
“Oh, and you’d know all about her belly button then?” asked Jack in a vexed tone.
“Careful, Dad: You’re beginning to sound jealous...”
The Doctor ignored the territorial chin wagging of the Harkness Clan and bounded among the Looms, inspecting them. “How many then? Those born of the Looms?”
“In the last several years we have seen our population grow to just under two-hundred. Soon, we will number more.”
“Two-hundred…” she breathed, awestruck for a moment before moving on to her next thought. “Well! I could easily fit two-hundred in the TARDIS, and all the Looms, if you like.”
“What are you talking about, Doctor?”
“Well, they can’t stay here, can they? Planet’s ruined. I can bring them somewhere where they can start again.” The Doctor wondered about the Ood-another telepathic race. The planet was considerably colder, but that shouldn’t bother the naturally cooler Gallifreyan body temperature. However, the last time she had seen them they had advanced rather quickly in the last one-hundred years, and she still hadn’t figured out why… Maybe not Oodsphere, then-not just yet-someplace else, then…
“But they are starting again,” River insisted. “Look at that forest-it’s small but it’s growing and soon they’ll be ready to terraform on the surface.”
“But this isn’t any way for a Timelord to live! Tending crops like the Outsiders or living underground like some sort of dazed mole-like Silurians!”
“Well look who’s all aloof and superior now? Maybe this is their path, Doctor? Who are you to say?”
Jack looked at this woman whom he’d only just met-supposedly his daughter-and admired the direct way in which she was able to communicate with the Doctor. In all the many years he’d known the Doctor, even he was not yet able to be this confrontational with him. He watched them as they stared at each other, sizing each other up-and yet they still relied on each other implicitly and seemed completely at ease with each other. Jack glanced away, for while he was comforted to see the Doctor had finally found someone to confide and depend on, there was a huge part of him that had wished that it could have been him… eventually.
“We do not wish to be taken from our home,” said the Keeper. “The Master intends to restore Gallifrey to its former prosperity-and leave the transgressions of its former leaders behind, buried in the dust, where they belong.” Several of the other survivors looking on nodded and murmured their agreement to the Keeper’s words; no, they would not be abandoning their home.
“Really? And just where is your Lord and Master, anyway?”
She pulled out her sonic screwdriver and scanned the area.
Nothing.
"Why can't I feel him?" She asked no one in particular.
"It's because you’re thick," said an eerily familiar voice behind them.
The Doctor and Jack wheeled around. River pulled out her squareness gun. The Doctor held out her arm to River in a gesture not to shoot.
The Master was encased in a grubby ceremonial robe, looking a little more careworn with a few extra years on him and graying hair, but his eyes were still bright and his lips turned upwards in a familiar smirk-and his face was exactly the same as the one that the Doctor had last seen on that Christmas day, so many years ago...
How was that possible?
To be continued in Chapter 9: Master Plan
*In addition to NuWho and Classic Who references, the DW book Lungbarrow was consulted, along with This Site for other Gallifreyan "historical" references. The survivor's underground cave is also an homage to (the best) Star Trek film, The Wrath of Kahn! All together now: KAAAAAAHHHHNNN!!!