Assumed Identities Ch. 2
Title: Assumed Identities Ch. 2/5
Wordcount: 2,192
Rating: PG
Summary: "I don’t deal in secrets,” he felt rather than saw River’s reaction. Well, Rule One. “And I don’t do business with those who do, so I suggest you tell me the complete truth about the bone meadows immediately.”
Chapter 2
The bone meadows, as it turned out, weren’t far from town at all. In fact, they found one only blocks away from the TARDIS.
“Fascinating,” the Doctor marveled, waving his sonic screwdriver over the perfectly square patch of grass that lay incongruously between a fishmonger and a butcher. “Simply fascinating.”
“You say the building that used to be here simply vanished one day, and this-“ River gestured at the grass, “appeared in its place?”
If the patch of meadow hadn’t been laced with several long, white bones, it would have looked positively pastoral. As it was, however, the overall effect was disconcertedly reminiscent of any number of battlefields River had seen in her years. Never before had she seen anything similar in the middle of a thriving commercial district, though.
The young woman nodded. “The grass first. The bones,” she pointed in their direction, “came the next day.”
“What happened to the people who were inside the shop when it happened?” River asked, suspecting that she already knew the answer.
“Gone. We don’t know where.” The older man-Macris-stepped alongside her. “The bones, well, as you can see, they don’t belong to our people. We’re not sure what being could have left them, or why.”
The Doctor checked the sonic’s readings one last time before straightening up and joining the group. “They’re certainly bones, but you’re wrong about them not belonging to your people. The genetic signatures aren’t a perfect match, but there are elements of human DNA present.”
“That’s impossible!” Delvaria protested, slapping one hand against her thigh in disbelief. “Duchess, I must protest. It is plain that these outlanders have no idea what the bone meadows are, or how to stop them from spreading.”
“Beg pardon, Your Grace,” River interjected, attempting to sound soothing. In truth, she was sorely tempted to lure Delvaria away and shoot her. “But the Do-“ she stopped, catching herself before she said his name. “The Caretaker’s scanner is not likely to be mistaken. The real question is, who is creating these meadows, and why?”
Macris frowned. “This way.”
***
The Doctor and River found themselves back at the ornate building across the street from where they’d landed the TARDIS. Macris had taken them down several flights of stairs into a room that reminded the Doctor more than a bit of Winston Churchill’s war room bunkers. The technology on display-holographic maps, paper photographs, and composite metal furniture--belied the pre-industrial town they had seen earlier, and the Doctor began to wonder just how many things were as they appeared on Elfenor VII.
Delvaria glared at them as they inspected a large map of the city dotted with pictures of bone meadows identical to the one they had just seen. There were over three dozen scattered within the boundary lines, and a handful more at various distances outside the gates.
“As you can see,” Macris explained, gesturing toward the map, “we cannot afford to wait much longer to stop the spread of these meadows. More are appearing every week, sometimes two or three within as many days.”
“Back at the one we saw it looked as if you had some idea who was causing them,” the Doctor said.
“Yes, we do,” Delvaria spat out. “Offworlders - like you!”
“Delvaria!” the Duchess exclaimed. “We have no proof that-“
“Yes we do, Your Grace! The message you received-“
“There was a message?” River interrupted.
The three dignitaries looked at one another, and the Doctor had a sinking feeling that he and River were being deliberately kept in the dark on a number of salient issues. He didn’t care for that feeling.
“Well, best of luck. We’ll be off now.” He turned to take River’s hand, noting with enjoyment the look of shock on her face. It was nice to know that even after decades of marriage he could still surprise her.
“You’re what? But, no!” the Duchess cried. “You can’t just leave!”
“Actually, I can, and I am. I don’t deal in secrets,” he felt rather than saw River’s reaction. Well, Rule One. “And I don’t do business with those who do, so I suggest you tell me the complete truth about the bone meadows immediately.”
For a moment, the Duchess looked as if she wanted to protest. Then her shoulders slumped, and a look of mingled grief and guilt swept across her face.
“It’s all my fault,” she whispered, and burst into tears.
***
“It started over a year ago when we first received a message from offworld,” Macris explained. They were all sitting around a large table over which a map of the city was projected. “You must understand, Caretaker, when the Duchess’s great-grandfather founded this colony, his first edict was to ban interaction with anyone from the outside. Our ancestors even restricted the use of certain technologies thought to be tied to offworld travel.”
The Duchess, who had composed herself again, broke in. “He was not a tolerant or even terribly practical man in many respects, it’s true, but his reason for banning interaction with outsiders was originally based more in logic than in prejudice. There was a plague sweeping across the sector, and he felt a quarantine was the only chance his people would have to survive.” She shook her head slowly. “By the time my father came to power we all suspected that the sickness had passed, but by then the fear of contamination from offworld within the colony had become too powerful.”
Macris patted her hand affectionately. “Your father worked very hard to try to dispel that fear.”
“Yes, he did. Then he died.” She turned back to the Doctor and River. “You can obviously tell that I’m too young have ruled independently for long. Macris and Delvaria were my father’s two chief councilors, and they have been instrumental in every decision I have made since I became Duchess - except for one. Six months ago I received a message at my private terminal. It was from an offworlder who claimed to be interested in establishing trade with the city. He offered advanced technology, plans for interstellar propulsion systems, and medicines that would reassure our people that no plague could ever again drive us to the brink of extinction.”
“Sounds too good to be true,” the Doctor observed. “What did you do?”
“What could I do? His offer was contingent on my allowing him to personally visit the city in order to open negotiations. I agreed.” Her shoulders sagged, and the Doctor felt a surge of sympathy for such a young person who had been required to take on a larger burden than she was prepared to bear.
Macris broke in. “You’ve seen our city, Caretaker. We have no shields, nothing to prevent outsiders from entering. Our laws forbid it, of course, but we lack the technology to enforce them. We have only escaped notice from offworld for this long because we are too small and too poor to be of interest.”
River’s brow furrowed as she considered. “So why was this offworlder who contacted the Duchess so interested in establishing trade with you? No offense, Your Grace, but I haven’t seen anything since I’ve been here that isn’t readily available on virtually any other world in the sector.”
Delvaria finally spoke, though the scowl never left her face. “An obvious question with an answer you couldn’t possibly hope to understand.”
River didn’t hesitate. “Try me.”
“He didn’t want our goods, he wanted our people.” Delvaria spat the words out as if they were poisonous. “The only asset we truly have, and he wanted it so very badly he would have said anything - done anything - to get it.” Her brows were firmly knitted, and she looked for all the world as if she’d like nothing better than to take her anger out on the Doctor and River.
“Is there something special about your people?” the Doctor asked. Before they could answer, he had whipped out his sonic and commenced scanning them.
“No…no…” he switched settings, “No again. Nothing extraordinary at all. You’re human - no odd mutations or aberrant DNA of any kind.”
The Duchess sighed. “Delvaria has maintained from the beginning that there must be something about us the trader wanted because the day he arrived was the day the first bone meadow arrived and the first of our people vanished.”
Delvaria nodded vigorously. “It cannot be a coincidence that his presence coincided with the beginning of this crisis. The first place to be affected was a home, Caretaker. The family who lived there vanished in an instant. Five people, just gone.” Her eyes shone with tears for those who had been lost.
“What happened to the trader?” the Doctor asked. “He left, I presume.”
The Duchess nodded. “Yes, within two hours. He pledged to return the following day with samples of the goods he wished to trade, but he never arrived. At first I thought something might have happened to him, but then I received this message.” She pushed a button on the projector, and the face of a middle-aged human man wearing a smug smirk appeared.
“Hello, Duchess Claudia. Thank you again for the delightful visit to your world. I found it quiet…informative. By now you have no doubt discovered the gift I left behind. Do nothing and tell no one about me and it will be the only one you receive. If you violate this instruction more will follow.”
The recording ended. The Doctor drummed his fingers on the table and considered the empty air where the projection had been with narrowed eyes for a long moment. River was the first to speak.
“I assume that either you said nothing and the bone meadows continued to appear or you did speak about him to someone and they started after that.”
The Duchess nodded. “I didn’t see the message until after I had already confessed my duplicity to Macris and Delvaria. Since then a bone meadow has appeared in some part of the city at least once every week.” Her eyes filled with tears again, and Macris gently patted her hand as she struggled to compose herself. “Please, Caretaker, you must help us. Three hundred and eighty two of our citizens have been lost to the bone meadows already. Many of our people have already left the city to start new colonies elsewhere, but the bone meadows have followed them. At this rate, we won’t survive another two or three years.”
“Are you telling me the whole truth?” the Doctor asked, looking sternly into the Duchess’s eyes. “Because if you aren’t, anything I do may make the situation worse rather than better.”
The Duchess nodded earnestly, but both River and the Doctor caught the momentary glance Macris and Delvaria exchanged behind her back.
“Then yes, we will help you. On one condition, though.” He held up a finger in case they were unclear on the number of restrictions he was placing on his involvement.
“Anything.” The Duchess’s eyes were fervent with hope, though Macris and Delvaria had schooled their countenances into ones of detached interest.
“We work alone. You are not to interfere with or monitor our activities until we’re ready to discuss our findings with you.”
“Agreed,” the Duchess said, and River could immediately see why she had gotten herself into trouble with the so-called trader in the first place. The girl was far too trusting and far too impulsive for her position. Proper advisors, she considered, would have trained her to resist those impulses long ago.
***
“Do you trust them?” River asked quietly as they stepped into the corridor and away from the group.
“Macris and Delvaria? No. Do you?”
“Not a chance.” She grinned. “Makes things interesting, don’t you think?”
His smile was slower, and he tweaked a curl, wrapping it around his long forefinger as he spoke. “They may betray us, you know,” he murmured, suddenly wishing that the others weren’t just around the corner. “They know much more than they’re telling - I doubt the duchess is even aware of the fact that they’re hiding something about the situation.”
“Isn’t it exciting?” Her eyes darkened, and she caught his hand in her own and pressed his wrist to her lips.
“We need to get back to that meadow,” and with a tap on her nose and a light kiss to her knuckles, he turned back toward the conference room. “Coming, Dear?”
***
To Be Continued (tomorrow)
Wordcount: 2,192
Rating: PG
Summary: "I don’t deal in secrets,” he felt rather than saw River’s reaction. Well, Rule One. “And I don’t do business with those who do, so I suggest you tell me the complete truth about the bone meadows immediately.”
Chapter 2
The bone meadows, as it turned out, weren’t far from town at all. In fact, they found one only blocks away from the TARDIS.
“Fascinating,” the Doctor marveled, waving his sonic screwdriver over the perfectly square patch of grass that lay incongruously between a fishmonger and a butcher. “Simply fascinating.”
“You say the building that used to be here simply vanished one day, and this-“ River gestured at the grass, “appeared in its place?”
If the patch of meadow hadn’t been laced with several long, white bones, it would have looked positively pastoral. As it was, however, the overall effect was disconcertedly reminiscent of any number of battlefields River had seen in her years. Never before had she seen anything similar in the middle of a thriving commercial district, though.
The young woman nodded. “The grass first. The bones,” she pointed in their direction, “came the next day.”
“What happened to the people who were inside the shop when it happened?” River asked, suspecting that she already knew the answer.
“Gone. We don’t know where.” The older man-Macris-stepped alongside her. “The bones, well, as you can see, they don’t belong to our people. We’re not sure what being could have left them, or why.”
The Doctor checked the sonic’s readings one last time before straightening up and joining the group. “They’re certainly bones, but you’re wrong about them not belonging to your people. The genetic signatures aren’t a perfect match, but there are elements of human DNA present.”
“That’s impossible!” Delvaria protested, slapping one hand against her thigh in disbelief. “Duchess, I must protest. It is plain that these outlanders have no idea what the bone meadows are, or how to stop them from spreading.”
“Beg pardon, Your Grace,” River interjected, attempting to sound soothing. In truth, she was sorely tempted to lure Delvaria away and shoot her. “But the Do-“ she stopped, catching herself before she said his name. “The Caretaker’s scanner is not likely to be mistaken. The real question is, who is creating these meadows, and why?”
Macris frowned. “This way.”
***
The Doctor and River found themselves back at the ornate building across the street from where they’d landed the TARDIS. Macris had taken them down several flights of stairs into a room that reminded the Doctor more than a bit of Winston Churchill’s war room bunkers. The technology on display-holographic maps, paper photographs, and composite metal furniture--belied the pre-industrial town they had seen earlier, and the Doctor began to wonder just how many things were as they appeared on Elfenor VII.
Delvaria glared at them as they inspected a large map of the city dotted with pictures of bone meadows identical to the one they had just seen. There were over three dozen scattered within the boundary lines, and a handful more at various distances outside the gates.
“As you can see,” Macris explained, gesturing toward the map, “we cannot afford to wait much longer to stop the spread of these meadows. More are appearing every week, sometimes two or three within as many days.”
“Back at the one we saw it looked as if you had some idea who was causing them,” the Doctor said.
“Yes, we do,” Delvaria spat out. “Offworlders - like you!”
“Delvaria!” the Duchess exclaimed. “We have no proof that-“
“Yes we do, Your Grace! The message you received-“
“There was a message?” River interrupted.
The three dignitaries looked at one another, and the Doctor had a sinking feeling that he and River were being deliberately kept in the dark on a number of salient issues. He didn’t care for that feeling.
“Well, best of luck. We’ll be off now.” He turned to take River’s hand, noting with enjoyment the look of shock on her face. It was nice to know that even after decades of marriage he could still surprise her.
“You’re what? But, no!” the Duchess cried. “You can’t just leave!”
“Actually, I can, and I am. I don’t deal in secrets,” he felt rather than saw River’s reaction. Well, Rule One. “And I don’t do business with those who do, so I suggest you tell me the complete truth about the bone meadows immediately.”
For a moment, the Duchess looked as if she wanted to protest. Then her shoulders slumped, and a look of mingled grief and guilt swept across her face.
“It’s all my fault,” she whispered, and burst into tears.
***
“It started over a year ago when we first received a message from offworld,” Macris explained. They were all sitting around a large table over which a map of the city was projected. “You must understand, Caretaker, when the Duchess’s great-grandfather founded this colony, his first edict was to ban interaction with anyone from the outside. Our ancestors even restricted the use of certain technologies thought to be tied to offworld travel.”
The Duchess, who had composed herself again, broke in. “He was not a tolerant or even terribly practical man in many respects, it’s true, but his reason for banning interaction with outsiders was originally based more in logic than in prejudice. There was a plague sweeping across the sector, and he felt a quarantine was the only chance his people would have to survive.” She shook her head slowly. “By the time my father came to power we all suspected that the sickness had passed, but by then the fear of contamination from offworld within the colony had become too powerful.”
Macris patted her hand affectionately. “Your father worked very hard to try to dispel that fear.”
“Yes, he did. Then he died.” She turned back to the Doctor and River. “You can obviously tell that I’m too young have ruled independently for long. Macris and Delvaria were my father’s two chief councilors, and they have been instrumental in every decision I have made since I became Duchess - except for one. Six months ago I received a message at my private terminal. It was from an offworlder who claimed to be interested in establishing trade with the city. He offered advanced technology, plans for interstellar propulsion systems, and medicines that would reassure our people that no plague could ever again drive us to the brink of extinction.”
“Sounds too good to be true,” the Doctor observed. “What did you do?”
“What could I do? His offer was contingent on my allowing him to personally visit the city in order to open negotiations. I agreed.” Her shoulders sagged, and the Doctor felt a surge of sympathy for such a young person who had been required to take on a larger burden than she was prepared to bear.
Macris broke in. “You’ve seen our city, Caretaker. We have no shields, nothing to prevent outsiders from entering. Our laws forbid it, of course, but we lack the technology to enforce them. We have only escaped notice from offworld for this long because we are too small and too poor to be of interest.”
River’s brow furrowed as she considered. “So why was this offworlder who contacted the Duchess so interested in establishing trade with you? No offense, Your Grace, but I haven’t seen anything since I’ve been here that isn’t readily available on virtually any other world in the sector.”
Delvaria finally spoke, though the scowl never left her face. “An obvious question with an answer you couldn’t possibly hope to understand.”
River didn’t hesitate. “Try me.”
“He didn’t want our goods, he wanted our people.” Delvaria spat the words out as if they were poisonous. “The only asset we truly have, and he wanted it so very badly he would have said anything - done anything - to get it.” Her brows were firmly knitted, and she looked for all the world as if she’d like nothing better than to take her anger out on the Doctor and River.
“Is there something special about your people?” the Doctor asked. Before they could answer, he had whipped out his sonic and commenced scanning them.
“No…no…” he switched settings, “No again. Nothing extraordinary at all. You’re human - no odd mutations or aberrant DNA of any kind.”
The Duchess sighed. “Delvaria has maintained from the beginning that there must be something about us the trader wanted because the day he arrived was the day the first bone meadow arrived and the first of our people vanished.”
Delvaria nodded vigorously. “It cannot be a coincidence that his presence coincided with the beginning of this crisis. The first place to be affected was a home, Caretaker. The family who lived there vanished in an instant. Five people, just gone.” Her eyes shone with tears for those who had been lost.
“What happened to the trader?” the Doctor asked. “He left, I presume.”
The Duchess nodded. “Yes, within two hours. He pledged to return the following day with samples of the goods he wished to trade, but he never arrived. At first I thought something might have happened to him, but then I received this message.” She pushed a button on the projector, and the face of a middle-aged human man wearing a smug smirk appeared.
“Hello, Duchess Claudia. Thank you again for the delightful visit to your world. I found it quiet…informative. By now you have no doubt discovered the gift I left behind. Do nothing and tell no one about me and it will be the only one you receive. If you violate this instruction more will follow.”
The recording ended. The Doctor drummed his fingers on the table and considered the empty air where the projection had been with narrowed eyes for a long moment. River was the first to speak.
“I assume that either you said nothing and the bone meadows continued to appear or you did speak about him to someone and they started after that.”
The Duchess nodded. “I didn’t see the message until after I had already confessed my duplicity to Macris and Delvaria. Since then a bone meadow has appeared in some part of the city at least once every week.” Her eyes filled with tears again, and Macris gently patted her hand as she struggled to compose herself. “Please, Caretaker, you must help us. Three hundred and eighty two of our citizens have been lost to the bone meadows already. Many of our people have already left the city to start new colonies elsewhere, but the bone meadows have followed them. At this rate, we won’t survive another two or three years.”
“Are you telling me the whole truth?” the Doctor asked, looking sternly into the Duchess’s eyes. “Because if you aren’t, anything I do may make the situation worse rather than better.”
The Duchess nodded earnestly, but both River and the Doctor caught the momentary glance Macris and Delvaria exchanged behind her back.
“Then yes, we will help you. On one condition, though.” He held up a finger in case they were unclear on the number of restrictions he was placing on his involvement.
“Anything.” The Duchess’s eyes were fervent with hope, though Macris and Delvaria had schooled their countenances into ones of detached interest.
“We work alone. You are not to interfere with or monitor our activities until we’re ready to discuss our findings with you.”
“Agreed,” the Duchess said, and River could immediately see why she had gotten herself into trouble with the so-called trader in the first place. The girl was far too trusting and far too impulsive for her position. Proper advisors, she considered, would have trained her to resist those impulses long ago.
***
“Do you trust them?” River asked quietly as they stepped into the corridor and away from the group.
“Macris and Delvaria? No. Do you?”
“Not a chance.” She grinned. “Makes things interesting, don’t you think?”
His smile was slower, and he tweaked a curl, wrapping it around his long forefinger as he spoke. “They may betray us, you know,” he murmured, suddenly wishing that the others weren’t just around the corner. “They know much more than they’re telling - I doubt the duchess is even aware of the fact that they’re hiding something about the situation.”
“Isn’t it exciting?” Her eyes darkened, and she caught his hand in her own and pressed his wrist to her lips.
“We need to get back to that meadow,” and with a tap on her nose and a light kiss to her knuckles, he turned back toward the conference room. “Coming, Dear?”
***
To Be Continued (tomorrow)