Held in Trust: Chapter 19
Title: Held in Trust (19/?)
Characters/Pairings: Duplicate Tenth Doctor/Rose, alt!Donna, various Tylers and Motts, and several OCs
Rating: Most chapters Teen (Adult chapters noted as such)
Series: Part of the Morris Minor 'Verse
Beta: ladychi
Summary: An Alt!Ten, Rose and Alt!Donna Adventure! Join our heroes as they investigate a mysterious man from the future, an apocalyptic death cult, and the wonders of the internal combustion engine. Romance, action, adventure, sci fi, occasional smut, Donna being awesome, as usual all par for the course.
A/N: Sequel to The One True Free Life. It's not entirely necessary to have read that, but if you're finding yourself at any point going, "Huh?" it's just probably something that was explained in that story.
Previous Chapters: Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18
Telling a somewhat redacted and edited version of his story-including periodic question-and-answer breaks, and pauses to pick bits of Jelly Baby from their back teeth-took the rest of the waning afternoon. At the beginning of the Doctor's narrative, he noticed Crede casting anxious glances over the low wall of the roof where they were sitting. The Doctor hoped that the parts of the tale dealing with the sure destruction of the human race, along with a good bit of the universe, in a horrific temporal paradox might impress upon him the plain fact that there was more at stake than just one servant's punishment. Without coming right out and phrasing it in so many words, of course, nor mentioning the possibility, however remote, that Gliese was correct about a block transfer computation enabling former while inhibiting the latter.
As the shadows cast by the twin suns got longer and more complicated, Crede began to pay less attention to the day-to-day sounds coming from below, and when a loud whistle blew the Doctor had to interrupt himself to ask what it was, for Crede hadn't even appeared to register it.
"Change of shift for the six- For the miners," Crede explained. "The entrance to the mine is over there," he gestured to the northwest quadrant of the compound, "and their quarters are on the far side of the kitchen."
"Housed separately from the humans," the Doctor mused, more of a statement than a question.
"Yeah, sure. They keep a different shift schedule, different meal times and all that."
There was shouting from down below, the sounds of a military regiment falling into formation, taking account of their numbers and readying to execute an operation. The Doctor couldn't help himself and risked raising his head over the lip of the wall to look down on to the dusty, open centre of the work unit. There were indeed many armed guards, all of them also showing the tell-tale signs of being raised in microgravity, and all lining up with side-arms at the ready as the sound of many hundreds of feet (and perhaps a few appendages that couldn't be described as feet) shuffling through the dirt drifted from the far side of a large warehouse building.
The Doctor fought the urge to stop watching, knowing as he did exactly what he'd see. Some small part of him perhaps was trying to rationalise the desire to just leave this place immediately after the completion of his appointed task. Back to the world of curtains and mortgages and Sunday dinners, and away from this twisted parallel version of his home. If he didn't see the spectacle first hand, he might be able to convince himself that it really wasn't that bad, and he needn't be obligated to intervene.
But who was he kidding? He did see, and once the parade of enslaved species had come in to view, there was really no going back. He caught sight of one or two creatures that were quite personally familiar to him as old foes, but no race, no matter how misguided or warlike, deserved this.
He retreated once again to behind the wall and sat in stony silence. Crede, perhaps by this point having got the full measure of him, and seeing the dark, sad look in his eye, kept his peace until the sound of footfalls faded into the sound of doors opening and closing, and then to an eerie between-shift silence.
"There's tunnels under the whole unit," Crede finally whispered. "Because of the radiation storms."
The Doctor looked startled, though he'd been looking right at Crede when he spoke.
"Tunnels?"
"Yeah, for when the radiation is too high, so you don't have to go out in it if you don't have to."
The Doctor was disturbed at how long it took him to put two and two together. Two and two and two, really, if he included the fact that the occasional upticks in background radiation on this familiar old planet would have less than pleasant health effects on humans. Which was another connection he was perturbed that it had taken him so long to make.
"So, theoretically, there's a way in to the Proprietor's residence that bypasses all that nasty show of force above-ground," the Doctor mused.
Crede shrugged. "I don't know. I'm sure it isn't just an open door with a big sign saying 'Welcome!'"
The Doctor blinked, blinked again and then broke in to a face-cracking grin. "Was...was that sarcasm?"
Crede began to backpeddle and apologise but the Doctor stopped him with a wave of his hand.
"No, that's brilliant! I love a bit of sarcasm. Maybe a little too much there for a while... But, live and learn, that's what I say. Onward and upward. Or downward, as the case may be."
***
Crede estimated that they had about three minutes to get down the ladder again (on his cue) and emerge out the other side of the giant washing machine, and to do so in such a way as to avoid being seen prior to finding the nearest entry in to the subterranean tunnel system.
"Nothing to it," the Doctor said while staring in to the darkened aperture, and he took a deep breath. "Allons-y."
Crede crinkled his brow in reply but said nothing, concentrating on the sounds coming from below and counting off seconds silently. "All right, ready?" he said finally. The Doctor nodded, and everything seemed to move in slow motion.
Crede went first, his long limbs taking the ladder at a dizzying rate, and the Doctor struggled to keep up while maintaining his footing on the rungs. He heard the clang of Crede's feet hitting the catwalk below long before he himself was able to make it.
With hand signals, Crede guided the Doctor through a complicated series of catwalks and stairways, finally reaching a heavy porthole door just as the sounds of spinning from the chamber began to abate. Instead of opening it, however, Crede suddenly stopped, pursed his lips in thought and then held up one finger. "Wait," he mouthed, and then pointed to the metal grating they stood on. "Wait here."
The Doctor had no time to ask what was going on before Crede took off at a run back the way they had come. He looked back and forth between the door and the darkened interior of the machine and strained to hear the boy's footfalls over the ominous sounds of the next phase of laundering beginning. It was a choice the Doctor had had to make far too many times in his long life: remove himself to safety or risk his own life to save someone else. He bit his lip in frustration and bounced on the balls of his feet, fighting the urge to launch himself back in to the bowels of the machine, and risk the noxious gases there in order to find what had become of his young friend.
The Doctor's mind was just beginning to tick over into the territory that would bring in to clear focus the faces of all of those whom he'd watch sacrifice themselves in front of him, when the sound of long, loping strides began to emerge again from the clatter of machinery, and Crede appeared, clutching a bundle in one hand and his other hand covering his nose and mouth. His eyes were watering and squeezed shut and he blindly careened down a stairway and back towards the Doctor, who caught him right as he was about to hit the door.
Crede let out the air he'd been holding and gasped for breath, while the Doctor wrenched the porthole open and helped him over the lip of it, bracing an arm around his impossibly slight waist and pulling his friend's free hand over his shoulder to support him. Once the door was shut again behind them, the new chamber they were in seemed oppressively quiet.
"Thank you," Crede whispered hoarsely, wiping his eyes and making an effort not to cough.
"I thought you... Well, I didn't know what to think you were doing. What were you doing?"
Squatting down against a wall, Crede let the bundle he'd been carrying slip out of his arms. It was another set of coveralls, exactly like he was wearing now.
"But I'll never be able to pass for an indenture-" the Doctor began, but was cut off by the sight of Crede's shoulders shaking with stifled laughter.
"It's not for you, it's for me," he said, with a slight edge of impatience. "I've already missed a meal and missed checking in for my housing maintenance shift, so everyone will be on the lookout for my ID by now." He pointed to the series of numbers stitched to the front and back of his coveralls.
"Oh." The Doctor ran a hand through the hairs at the back of his head. "I knew that."
After Crede had finished changing in to the slightly damp but otherwise identical set of coveralls, they stowed the old pair behind some spare parts and began creeping through a long series of similar-looking industrial hallways. They put the Doctor in mind of the time when Rose had finally realised what life on distant planets was really like: very little glamour and a whole lot of rusted metal grating. Immediately he cursed his lateral-thinking mind for conjuring the image of her as the young, impulsive, optimistic girl he'd once known. Where was that girl now, he wondered, before putting a firm stop to the entire train of thought through force of will.
A few times they heard the sound of talking either above them or parallel and flattened themselves against the nearest support beam, but so far the route Crede was taking seemed to be well-chosen for avoiding detection. The Doctor knew that was not going to last forever, however.
Descending a flight of stairs again, they came to another porthole door and Crede leaned down and brought his mouth close to the Doctor's ear to whisper, "Entrance to the tunnels. Locked, I'm sure."
The Doctor nodding and giving a cheeky grin, reached in to his pocket for the slightly-altered sonic probe (he'd done a bit more reprogramming as they sat on the roof earlier) and aimed it at the lock. The whirring, buzzing sound it made was loud and echoed worryingly, but at last there was a familiar-sounding click and the Doctor's cheeky grin turned in to a rather self-satisfied smirk.
"No problemo," he said, and elbowed Crede gently in the ribs. "Did I just say 'no problemo'?" He rubbed the back of his neck and felt the little raised disc there. "I hope that didn't get translated."
Crede shook his head in exasperation, which would have annoyed the Doctor had he not been so glad to see another little bit of the boy's personality come through again.
The hall they found themselves in now was ill-lit and, frankly, creepy. What few wan hanging light bulbs there were flickered periodically, and water pooled on the floor in places.
"The could have fixed the place up a bit," the Doctor quipped, but Crede just looked befuddled and they continued the rest of their walk in silence.
***
Standing side by side at the end of a long, dank hallway, the door they now faced was another locked porthole, and they both heaved a deep breath before the Doctor got out the sonic probe again. The Doctor cocked an eyebrow up and gestured, silently asking Crede if he was really ready for whatever may lay on the other side. The boy just shrugged and a dark little smile played across his thin lips.
As it turned out, there really wasn't much on the other side of the door. A much more nicely-appointed hallway, but no guards or Proprietors lurking about. The Doctor found himself wondering about these Proprietor chaps (and chapesses, he supposed) a good deal as they quickly and quietly scrambled down the hall, skirting each wall in an attempt to avoid any video surveillance trained on the area. He knew first-hand that it didn't take much for human beings to be brutal to one another, and to anyone who got in their path, but he also knew that the human race was supposed to learn and improve with time, not revert to feudalism and slavery.
He was brought fully out of this idle musing (though it had only been taking up a tiny percentage of his mind in the first place) by their arrival at a staircase leading up, and the sound of voices beyond it. He didn't stop walking, and in fact took the stairs two at a time, with Crede following along behind. When he came to the top and to a swinging door, he pushed straight through and in to a carpeted, wood-panelled room filled with odd-looking furniture that seemed to be upholstered with multicoloured furs. The voices grew louder but for a brief few moments the room was empty.
"No one told me it was my turn to feed the sofas," a male voice said (and it did occur to the Doctor finally that there seemed to be an awful lot of males about the place and very few females, at least as far as he'd seen). "I can't be held responsible if no one bothered to put it on the duty roster."
A door on the far side of the room opened and two preternaturally tall, thin guards entered, dressed in uniform blue coveralls (contrasting with Crede's dun-coloured set), and all four of the room's occupants locked eyes with one another.
"Pardon me," one of the guards said tentatively, clearly unable to reconcile the Doctor's stature--indicative of a terrestrial birth and high caste--with his completely random appearance in the home's drawing room, not to mention his strange attire. "Can we...help you?"
The Doctor smiled warmly. It would be easy to get past a couple of blokes who were likely unused to anyone above their own rank being at all nice to them, and he turned on the charm.
"Oh, yes, hello!" the Doctor gurned, and wiggled his fingers at them. "I mean to say, my... valet and I seem to be a bit lost. Was there supposed to be a fancy-dress party here tonight? We've come quite a long way for it."
The guards just looked at one another, completely perplexed as Crede began to shrink in to the shadows behind the Doctor. The Doctor ploughed forward, undaunted.
"No? Oh, my, isn't my face red! Blimey, what a cock-up. Perhaps you could show me to my room straight away then? I'll be the laughing stock of the...well, the planet, I suppose...if I don't get a change of clothes. Oh, dear," he sighed, and turned his head to wink at Crede, who looked horrified.
The two guards looked at one another again and then craned their necks to try to get a look at Crede, who moved even further in to the shadow and hung his head so that all they could see was his sandy hair.
"I'm afraid we weren't told to expect any guests tonight. We'll have to check with our superior officer."
The Doctor grinned again and winked at them. "I completely understand. Can never be too careful, that's what I say. I'll just have a seat right here and wait for you to get back. Though if you could send someone with a beverage, that would be lovely. This whole planet is just a nightmare with the dust, isn't it?" He made a gesture like he was brushing dirt off of his trouser leg, and when he looked up again the two guards were cupping their hands in a gesture he figured must be one of obeisance and turning to leave the room again.
"Right," the Doctor said to Crede as soon as the door had shut again. "Easy-peasy. So, which of these other doors do you think might lead to some sort of library or central data storage facility?"
For his part, Crede just stood with his jaw hanging open, all blood drained from his face, and a fine sheen of sweat on his upper lip.
"Come on, mate," the Doctor said, clapping the boy on his shoulder, "you'll never get anywhere in life without a bit of self-confidence. I've found that if you talk long enough and fast enough, you can get out of pretty much anything. Now, what do you think? Door number one?" He gestured with a flourish to a heavy-looking wooden door to their left. "Or, door number two?" He pointed to a much more utilitarian looking door hidden in an alcove to their right. "Come on, think quick, they'll be back any second."
"D-door number t-two," Crede stammered hurriedly.
"My thoughts exactly," the Doctor said, and was already moving to the alcove and reaching out to grasp the handle before Crede could even gather his wits about him again for the next phase of their break-in.
(To Chapter 20)
Characters/Pairings: Duplicate Tenth Doctor/Rose, alt!Donna, various Tylers and Motts, and several OCs
Rating: Most chapters Teen (Adult chapters noted as such)
Series: Part of the Morris Minor 'Verse
Beta: ladychi
Summary: An Alt!Ten, Rose and Alt!Donna Adventure! Join our heroes as they investigate a mysterious man from the future, an apocalyptic death cult, and the wonders of the internal combustion engine. Romance, action, adventure, sci fi, occasional smut, Donna being awesome, as usual all par for the course.
A/N: Sequel to The One True Free Life. It's not entirely necessary to have read that, but if you're finding yourself at any point going, "Huh?" it's just probably something that was explained in that story.
Previous Chapters: Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18
Telling a somewhat redacted and edited version of his story-including periodic question-and-answer breaks, and pauses to pick bits of Jelly Baby from their back teeth-took the rest of the waning afternoon. At the beginning of the Doctor's narrative, he noticed Crede casting anxious glances over the low wall of the roof where they were sitting. The Doctor hoped that the parts of the tale dealing with the sure destruction of the human race, along with a good bit of the universe, in a horrific temporal paradox might impress upon him the plain fact that there was more at stake than just one servant's punishment. Without coming right out and phrasing it in so many words, of course, nor mentioning the possibility, however remote, that Gliese was correct about a block transfer computation enabling former while inhibiting the latter.
As the shadows cast by the twin suns got longer and more complicated, Crede began to pay less attention to the day-to-day sounds coming from below, and when a loud whistle blew the Doctor had to interrupt himself to ask what it was, for Crede hadn't even appeared to register it.
"Change of shift for the six- For the miners," Crede explained. "The entrance to the mine is over there," he gestured to the northwest quadrant of the compound, "and their quarters are on the far side of the kitchen."
"Housed separately from the humans," the Doctor mused, more of a statement than a question.
"Yeah, sure. They keep a different shift schedule, different meal times and all that."
There was shouting from down below, the sounds of a military regiment falling into formation, taking account of their numbers and readying to execute an operation. The Doctor couldn't help himself and risked raising his head over the lip of the wall to look down on to the dusty, open centre of the work unit. There were indeed many armed guards, all of them also showing the tell-tale signs of being raised in microgravity, and all lining up with side-arms at the ready as the sound of many hundreds of feet (and perhaps a few appendages that couldn't be described as feet) shuffling through the dirt drifted from the far side of a large warehouse building.
The Doctor fought the urge to stop watching, knowing as he did exactly what he'd see. Some small part of him perhaps was trying to rationalise the desire to just leave this place immediately after the completion of his appointed task. Back to the world of curtains and mortgages and Sunday dinners, and away from this twisted parallel version of his home. If he didn't see the spectacle first hand, he might be able to convince himself that it really wasn't that bad, and he needn't be obligated to intervene.
But who was he kidding? He did see, and once the parade of enslaved species had come in to view, there was really no going back. He caught sight of one or two creatures that were quite personally familiar to him as old foes, but no race, no matter how misguided or warlike, deserved this.
He retreated once again to behind the wall and sat in stony silence. Crede, perhaps by this point having got the full measure of him, and seeing the dark, sad look in his eye, kept his peace until the sound of footfalls faded into the sound of doors opening and closing, and then to an eerie between-shift silence.
"There's tunnels under the whole unit," Crede finally whispered. "Because of the radiation storms."
The Doctor looked startled, though he'd been looking right at Crede when he spoke.
"Tunnels?"
"Yeah, for when the radiation is too high, so you don't have to go out in it if you don't have to."
The Doctor was disturbed at how long it took him to put two and two together. Two and two and two, really, if he included the fact that the occasional upticks in background radiation on this familiar old planet would have less than pleasant health effects on humans. Which was another connection he was perturbed that it had taken him so long to make.
"So, theoretically, there's a way in to the Proprietor's residence that bypasses all that nasty show of force above-ground," the Doctor mused.
Crede shrugged. "I don't know. I'm sure it isn't just an open door with a big sign saying 'Welcome!'"
The Doctor blinked, blinked again and then broke in to a face-cracking grin. "Was...was that sarcasm?"
Crede began to backpeddle and apologise but the Doctor stopped him with a wave of his hand.
"No, that's brilliant! I love a bit of sarcasm. Maybe a little too much there for a while... But, live and learn, that's what I say. Onward and upward. Or downward, as the case may be."
***
Crede estimated that they had about three minutes to get down the ladder again (on his cue) and emerge out the other side of the giant washing machine, and to do so in such a way as to avoid being seen prior to finding the nearest entry in to the subterranean tunnel system.
"Nothing to it," the Doctor said while staring in to the darkened aperture, and he took a deep breath. "Allons-y."
Crede crinkled his brow in reply but said nothing, concentrating on the sounds coming from below and counting off seconds silently. "All right, ready?" he said finally. The Doctor nodded, and everything seemed to move in slow motion.
Crede went first, his long limbs taking the ladder at a dizzying rate, and the Doctor struggled to keep up while maintaining his footing on the rungs. He heard the clang of Crede's feet hitting the catwalk below long before he himself was able to make it.
With hand signals, Crede guided the Doctor through a complicated series of catwalks and stairways, finally reaching a heavy porthole door just as the sounds of spinning from the chamber began to abate. Instead of opening it, however, Crede suddenly stopped, pursed his lips in thought and then held up one finger. "Wait," he mouthed, and then pointed to the metal grating they stood on. "Wait here."
The Doctor had no time to ask what was going on before Crede took off at a run back the way they had come. He looked back and forth between the door and the darkened interior of the machine and strained to hear the boy's footfalls over the ominous sounds of the next phase of laundering beginning. It was a choice the Doctor had had to make far too many times in his long life: remove himself to safety or risk his own life to save someone else. He bit his lip in frustration and bounced on the balls of his feet, fighting the urge to launch himself back in to the bowels of the machine, and risk the noxious gases there in order to find what had become of his young friend.
The Doctor's mind was just beginning to tick over into the territory that would bring in to clear focus the faces of all of those whom he'd watch sacrifice themselves in front of him, when the sound of long, loping strides began to emerge again from the clatter of machinery, and Crede appeared, clutching a bundle in one hand and his other hand covering his nose and mouth. His eyes were watering and squeezed shut and he blindly careened down a stairway and back towards the Doctor, who caught him right as he was about to hit the door.
Crede let out the air he'd been holding and gasped for breath, while the Doctor wrenched the porthole open and helped him over the lip of it, bracing an arm around his impossibly slight waist and pulling his friend's free hand over his shoulder to support him. Once the door was shut again behind them, the new chamber they were in seemed oppressively quiet.
"Thank you," Crede whispered hoarsely, wiping his eyes and making an effort not to cough.
"I thought you... Well, I didn't know what to think you were doing. What were you doing?"
Squatting down against a wall, Crede let the bundle he'd been carrying slip out of his arms. It was another set of coveralls, exactly like he was wearing now.
"But I'll never be able to pass for an indenture-" the Doctor began, but was cut off by the sight of Crede's shoulders shaking with stifled laughter.
"It's not for you, it's for me," he said, with a slight edge of impatience. "I've already missed a meal and missed checking in for my housing maintenance shift, so everyone will be on the lookout for my ID by now." He pointed to the series of numbers stitched to the front and back of his coveralls.
"Oh." The Doctor ran a hand through the hairs at the back of his head. "I knew that."
After Crede had finished changing in to the slightly damp but otherwise identical set of coveralls, they stowed the old pair behind some spare parts and began creeping through a long series of similar-looking industrial hallways. They put the Doctor in mind of the time when Rose had finally realised what life on distant planets was really like: very little glamour and a whole lot of rusted metal grating. Immediately he cursed his lateral-thinking mind for conjuring the image of her as the young, impulsive, optimistic girl he'd once known. Where was that girl now, he wondered, before putting a firm stop to the entire train of thought through force of will.
A few times they heard the sound of talking either above them or parallel and flattened themselves against the nearest support beam, but so far the route Crede was taking seemed to be well-chosen for avoiding detection. The Doctor knew that was not going to last forever, however.
Descending a flight of stairs again, they came to another porthole door and Crede leaned down and brought his mouth close to the Doctor's ear to whisper, "Entrance to the tunnels. Locked, I'm sure."
The Doctor nodding and giving a cheeky grin, reached in to his pocket for the slightly-altered sonic probe (he'd done a bit more reprogramming as they sat on the roof earlier) and aimed it at the lock. The whirring, buzzing sound it made was loud and echoed worryingly, but at last there was a familiar-sounding click and the Doctor's cheeky grin turned in to a rather self-satisfied smirk.
"No problemo," he said, and elbowed Crede gently in the ribs. "Did I just say 'no problemo'?" He rubbed the back of his neck and felt the little raised disc there. "I hope that didn't get translated."
Crede shook his head in exasperation, which would have annoyed the Doctor had he not been so glad to see another little bit of the boy's personality come through again.
The hall they found themselves in now was ill-lit and, frankly, creepy. What few wan hanging light bulbs there were flickered periodically, and water pooled on the floor in places.
"The could have fixed the place up a bit," the Doctor quipped, but Crede just looked befuddled and they continued the rest of their walk in silence.
***
Standing side by side at the end of a long, dank hallway, the door they now faced was another locked porthole, and they both heaved a deep breath before the Doctor got out the sonic probe again. The Doctor cocked an eyebrow up and gestured, silently asking Crede if he was really ready for whatever may lay on the other side. The boy just shrugged and a dark little smile played across his thin lips.
As it turned out, there really wasn't much on the other side of the door. A much more nicely-appointed hallway, but no guards or Proprietors lurking about. The Doctor found himself wondering about these Proprietor chaps (and chapesses, he supposed) a good deal as they quickly and quietly scrambled down the hall, skirting each wall in an attempt to avoid any video surveillance trained on the area. He knew first-hand that it didn't take much for human beings to be brutal to one another, and to anyone who got in their path, but he also knew that the human race was supposed to learn and improve with time, not revert to feudalism and slavery.
He was brought fully out of this idle musing (though it had only been taking up a tiny percentage of his mind in the first place) by their arrival at a staircase leading up, and the sound of voices beyond it. He didn't stop walking, and in fact took the stairs two at a time, with Crede following along behind. When he came to the top and to a swinging door, he pushed straight through and in to a carpeted, wood-panelled room filled with odd-looking furniture that seemed to be upholstered with multicoloured furs. The voices grew louder but for a brief few moments the room was empty.
"No one told me it was my turn to feed the sofas," a male voice said (and it did occur to the Doctor finally that there seemed to be an awful lot of males about the place and very few females, at least as far as he'd seen). "I can't be held responsible if no one bothered to put it on the duty roster."
A door on the far side of the room opened and two preternaturally tall, thin guards entered, dressed in uniform blue coveralls (contrasting with Crede's dun-coloured set), and all four of the room's occupants locked eyes with one another.
"Pardon me," one of the guards said tentatively, clearly unable to reconcile the Doctor's stature--indicative of a terrestrial birth and high caste--with his completely random appearance in the home's drawing room, not to mention his strange attire. "Can we...help you?"
The Doctor smiled warmly. It would be easy to get past a couple of blokes who were likely unused to anyone above their own rank being at all nice to them, and he turned on the charm.
"Oh, yes, hello!" the Doctor gurned, and wiggled his fingers at them. "I mean to say, my... valet and I seem to be a bit lost. Was there supposed to be a fancy-dress party here tonight? We've come quite a long way for it."
The guards just looked at one another, completely perplexed as Crede began to shrink in to the shadows behind the Doctor. The Doctor ploughed forward, undaunted.
"No? Oh, my, isn't my face red! Blimey, what a cock-up. Perhaps you could show me to my room straight away then? I'll be the laughing stock of the...well, the planet, I suppose...if I don't get a change of clothes. Oh, dear," he sighed, and turned his head to wink at Crede, who looked horrified.
The two guards looked at one another again and then craned their necks to try to get a look at Crede, who moved even further in to the shadow and hung his head so that all they could see was his sandy hair.
"I'm afraid we weren't told to expect any guests tonight. We'll have to check with our superior officer."
The Doctor grinned again and winked at them. "I completely understand. Can never be too careful, that's what I say. I'll just have a seat right here and wait for you to get back. Though if you could send someone with a beverage, that would be lovely. This whole planet is just a nightmare with the dust, isn't it?" He made a gesture like he was brushing dirt off of his trouser leg, and when he looked up again the two guards were cupping their hands in a gesture he figured must be one of obeisance and turning to leave the room again.
"Right," the Doctor said to Crede as soon as the door had shut again. "Easy-peasy. So, which of these other doors do you think might lead to some sort of library or central data storage facility?"
For his part, Crede just stood with his jaw hanging open, all blood drained from his face, and a fine sheen of sweat on his upper lip.
"Come on, mate," the Doctor said, clapping the boy on his shoulder, "you'll never get anywhere in life without a bit of self-confidence. I've found that if you talk long enough and fast enough, you can get out of pretty much anything. Now, what do you think? Door number one?" He gestured with a flourish to a heavy-looking wooden door to their left. "Or, door number two?" He pointed to a much more utilitarian looking door hidden in an alcove to their right. "Come on, think quick, they'll be back any second."
"D-door number t-two," Crede stammered hurriedly.
"My thoughts exactly," the Doctor said, and was already moving to the alcove and reaching out to grasp the handle before Crede could even gather his wits about him again for the next phase of their break-in.
(To Chapter 20)