Fic: A Family Affair (3/3)
Title: A Family Affair
Fandom: the "Gallifrey" audio series
Rating: PG/gen
Length: 19424 words
Spoilers: set between 3.4 "Mindbomb" and 3.5 "Panacea", with no spoilers for series 4
Characters: Narvin, Leela, K9, Romana, OCs
Summary: my morepolitics entry for ficciones, whose prompt was "Leela and Narvin in something buddy-cop style. Preferably with hijinks" - it is certainly a buddycop story, but maybe a little short of hijinks.
Part One
Part Two
Once they were up in the air, flying towards the Citadel in stealth mode, Narvin realised with a sinking feeling that he’d forgotten to come up with a feasible lie. Somehow, he’d become completely distracted by their escape. And not just that: when he turned around to face the two women, Leela had not yet sheathed her blade.
“Now,” she said, her tone as hungry as her smile, “we have time to talk. Do not try to lie, Narvin, I can tell when you are being devious. Your words are like slippery eels.”
“I’ve locked the flight controls,” Narvin bluffed. “You need CIA codes to reactivate them. So unless you want to die in a fiery crash...”
Leela scoffed. “I do not have to kill you to make you speak, Narvin. You know that, you have seen me question Pandora’s soldiers.”
Narvin had indeed. He had, at the time, expected Romana to protest, but it seemed that Leela, even though she hated lying, knew when not to advertise certain facts.
He raised his hands in defeat. “All right, all right. I was going to tell you, I just don’t like being hurried.” He smoothed his robes over his knees, trying to appear calm and collected. It didn’t work well with both women staring at him like that. “As you already guessed, I’m after a certain object that was in Darkel’s possession before her death. Never the forgiving sort, she must have made sure that it would fall into the right hands in case she died - into the hands of people who would use it to harm her enemies.”
“Romana,” Leela said.
“Yes, although ironically, because Matthias and Braxiatel have already betrayed her, Romana may be much safer now than Darkel anticipated.”
“Only on Gallifrey that would count as safety!”
“Nevertheless, their main target right now will be Matthias. I believe that Lady Tamarged, Lord Kelner and Cardinal Valoxin, as well as whoever else is involved in their conspiracy, are planning a coup.”
Leela cocked her head, frowning. “Kelner... Kelner... I know that name!”
“You would,” Narvin nodded. “He was Castellan when you came to Gallifrey, although one of President Borusa’s first actions after assuming the presidency was to fire him for his involvement in the Sontaran invasion. Kelner narrowly escaped being charged for High Treason, probably only because as a new president, Borusa was expected to grant him amnesty.”
“So this Kelner was in league with Darkel,” Leela guessed.
Eulidia shook her head. “Darkel always kept Cousin Kelner at arm’s length. She said he would sell out his own loom mother if he thought it would get him an advantage.”
Narvin nodded. “That’s what I heard, too. But Kelner was useful to her in one respect. Like Leela here, he was there the last time someone used the Great Key of Rassilon.”
“The Great Key?” Leela failed to look as shocked as she ought to have been in Narvin’s opinion, and Eulidia merely looked delighted. “You mean Darkel had the Great Key?” Leela exclaimed. But who gave it to her? Did they not see she would use it for evil?”
Narvin leaned back and steepled his fingers. “That is a bit complicated, as you’ll see. Borusa was Chancellor before he became President, so he had the Great Key in his possession, but as was his duty, he handed it over to the next Chancellor, Lady Flavia. When Flavia assumed the Presidency, for reasons of her own she decided not to nominate a new Chancellor, instead, she entrusted the Great Key to the person she thought most trustworthy: the Inquisitor Prime. Darkel, as far as I have been able to ascertain, never attempted to abuse that privilege while Flavia reigned. Then Romana named Braxiatel chancellor, and he demanded the Key back from Darkel - how he knew she had it, I don’t know.”
Narvin paused, once again frustrated by this gap in his knowledge. He fully intended to ask Braxiatel, if he ever got hold of him. But he didn’t actually expect to get a honest answer.
“When Braxiatel’s brief time in office came to an end, he would no doubt have quietly absconded with the Key if Darkel hadn’t turned tables on him and demanded the Key back. Braxiatel had no choice but to give it to her, and so Darkel once again possessed the Key-”
“Enough,” Leela groaned, “this tale is making my head hurt! Tell us what our enemies are planning, so we may stop them.”
Narvin shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s obvious that someone in House Stillhaven has the Key, but Omega only knows what they’ll do with it. I fear they’ll make a move soon, or else Kelner would have had no reason to try and poison me.”
The prospect of having to figure it out was making his head hurt as well. It would have been easy to simply arrest and question every member of Stillhaven, but that was sure to cause a stir, and once Matthias found out about this whole affair, he would also find out about the key. Narvin didn’t trust Matthias with such a temptation. They key, if nothing else, was a symbol of power and control - the very things Matthias didn’t have and wanted badly. No, ideally they’d find a quiet solution to this, and Matthias would never have to know about it.
“Perhaps they will build the de-mat gun. That is what the key is for, is it not? But what will they do with it? Gallifrey is not short of weapons!”
“Again, I don’t know.” Narvin sighed and rubbed his temples. “But I doubt it’ll be as simple a plan as build gun, kill president.”
“Whatever it is, they need a laboratory for it,” Eulidia said, making them both turn towards her. “Darkel made me hand over the keys to mine, didn’t I tell you? It was during Pandora’s reign.”
Narvin straightened. “No, you didn’t mention that! But that’s brilliant! It means we have a lead to follow, and we may just get there before they do. You’re still at the Arcalian Science council? Yes, of course you are, you said you were chairwoman now.”
Narvin swung around his seat and changed the course settings. Maybe things would yet work out smoothly, if they could get to the key before anyone figured out that Eulidia was helping them.
*
The squat, utilitarian buildings of the Arcalian science council had survived the civil war much better than the Prydonian Academy, chiefly because it had been Pandora’s main base for her secret weapons research and she had protected it well. Only the surrounding park with its severe hedge sculptures bore a few grooves from an altercation with the invading Nekkistani and Phaidon fleets, which proved to be convenient, because the construction work provided good cover for their flyer.
It was the middle of the night and, except for a few pig rats, the streets were deserted. To conserve power, one of Matthias first decrees had been to leave the street lights off at night, and as consequence, the transduction barrier’s faint glow and the starlight reflected from the high spires of the Panopticon were the only sources of light. But Eulidia led them without hesitation towards the second largest building of the complex. The sign at the door proclaimed it as “Main Data Technology and Matrix Research Laboratory” and Eulidia’s handprint gave them instant access.
Once inside, Leela bade them hold still while she listened intently. Then she whispered, “If anyone is here, they are quiet. It may be a trap.”
“I don’t think they’ll be expecting us,” Eulidia said, and led them in the direction of her lab. “Marged doesn’t know I’m with you, and without me, you would never have thought to come here.”
“You may be underestimating my mother,” Narvin said warily.
“You may be underestimating me,” Eulidia countered with a self-satisfied little smirk that made Narvin feel extremely suspicious. He was about to stop and demand an explanation when they both nearly bumped into Leela. She had frozen in the middle of the corridor, holding them both back with a raised hand.
“What is it?” Narvin whispered.
“Quiet,” Leela hushed him and continued to listen. “There is a voice. A woman’s voice. She is... singing? No, not a song... it is like an incantation!”
“An incantation?” Narvin asked, his voice rising slightly above a whisper. “Where do you get these absurd ideas?”
“There’s no time for pointless speculation,” Eulidia said and stepped past Leela and in front of the door where Leela had stopped. Her palm print and retina were scanned in an instant, and the door slid open.
“Welcome, Chairwoman Eulidia,” a computerized female voice said.
“Two guests,” Eulidia replied and stepped inside.
The laboratory was brightly lit, and the mere sight of the computer towers and circuitry inside made Narvin’s palms itch with a sudden longing for the times when this sort of thing had been his life. A central table was laden with all sorts of tools, wires, opened book and half-unrolled scrolls. Several holo-screens around the room were full of writing in a single, very neat hand. A rubbish bin near the door was brimming with ration cube wrappers.
At the far back of the room, a dark-haired woman sat in a chair, her feet propped up on a table and her eyes closed. She was talking to herself in a fast, monotonous voice, reciting a seemingly unrelated string of numbers, “1037567, 1037593, 1037611, 1037627, 1037653...”
“Prime numbers,” Narvin said. “That’s your incantation, Leela.”
But Leela wasn’t listening. She had frozen again, but now she fairly jumped into motion, groping her way between the tables towards the woman in the chair. “That voice,” she exclaimed. “I know that voice! Oh, I have not heard it for so many, many years! Rodan, it is I, Leela!”
The woman stopped her incantation of primes, opened her eyes, and said, “Leela?”
“Yes,” Leela laughed, and then stopped again. “I cannot see you, Rodan, I am blind. But your voice I will never forget. It was the first that spoke kindly to me on Gallifrey.”
Rodan, meanwhile, had risen from her chair and now crossed the room and touched Leela’s hands with her own. It was a gesture that surprised Narvin, since very few Time Lords would have initiated physical contact so quickly, and with a savage woman holding a knife, too. But Leela nearly dropped her knife in her haste to put it back into its sheath and grasp Rodan’s hands in her own.
“What is it?” Rodan asked, slightly bemused. “Leela, your eyes, you said you were blind-”
Leela shook her head and wiped her eyes. “It is - it is nothing. I just... all these years I had a friend on Gallifrey, and I never once thought to find her again. What a fool I have been.”
“It’s barely been a century,” Rodan laughed. “How silly of you to cry over such a short time. How is Andred?”
“Dead.” Leela lowered her head, then cupped Rodan’s face in her palm. “The years flew by while he lived, and I thought of nothing but me and him, but now every day feels like a century to these old bones. I am glad I found you again, Rodan.”
“It must be very strange to experience time like you do,” Rodan replied, “but I am glad, too. For a while, I really liked this new job I’ve been given, but it’s getting very annoying now.” She gestured at the lab. “They gave me all this to work with, and they even promised I would get to work with the actual key! But then there was all this talk about a war, and everything got stalled.”
Narvin stepped forward, clearing his throat. “I assume by they, you mean Darkel?”
“Yes, I think that’s her name,” Rodan shrugged. “An Inquisitor. She knows very little about science. She has not been here in a while.”
“And you’ve been working on the Great Key of Rassilon for her.”
Rodan nodded, and gently extricated herself from Leela’s grasp to pick up some data pads. “Yes, although I did that long before Darkel brought me here. You see, I used to work in traffic control, and it’s the most frightfully boring job imaginable. So I said to myself, wouldn’t it be great if you could reverse engineer that key the Doctor gave you to build the de-mat gun? First I had to break through the hypnosis, of course, to remember, but you’ll be amazed what you can achieve with enough time at your hands. Then of course I didn’t have the actual key, but that wasn’t much of a problem. With perfect recall and a good computer model, it’s almost superfluous. By the time Darkel came to me, I had already unlocked the most of the key’s lower dimensions...”
“Wait, wait,” Narvin implored to stop her flow of words, “you’ve had the key before? You were there during the Sontaran invasion?”
“That is how I met Rodan,” Leela said proudly.
Eulidia took the data pads from Rodan, going eagerly through them, exclaiming here and there in joyful amazement.
Narvin was less delighted by what he understood of Rodan’s explanation. “You mean the key is trans-dimensional?”
“It has data encryption on the surfaces of at least eleven dimensions,” Rodan went on, and ushered him and Leela to one of the whiteboards. “The object we call the Great Key is only its three-dimensional image, and encrypted in that image is the information needed to build the de-mat gun, of which the key itself is a component. The fourth dimension contains all the laws of time, annotated by Rassilon himself. It’s very entertaining, it has these little simulations of what happens when you break them, you know? The fifth dimension is a blueprint for the Key itself, although I haven’t been able to understand what you’d need to actually build one. The sixth dimension is rather complicated, it sort of moves - but I think it’s a dynamic map of history, updated whenever the web of time changes. Theoretically, you could use it to calculate possible alterations of history. The seventh dimension contains blueprints for a number of other trans-dimensional objects, probably the Rod, the Sash and the Coronet of Rassilon, but maybe more than that. I haven’t been able to unlock the eighth, ninth and tenth dimension, but I’m working on them.”
Narvin stared at the whiteboard, every bit as baffled as Leela. “You’ve been able to find out all this from a memory you had of the key?”
Rodan gave him an odd look. “It’s just maths.” She pointed up at the highest set of equations. “But the eleventh is the really good one. If I’m right, and I probably am, it’s a complete, self-updating copy of the Matrix.”
“Of course,” Narvin whispered in awe. “I knew it! What data engineer builds a network like the Matrix without a backup copy?”
“There is another Matrix?” Leela asked. “Inside the key?”
“Not so much inside, as-” Narvin threw up his hands impatiently, “It’s trans-dimensional engineering, there’s no time to explain it now.”
“You could say it’s like a TARDIS,” Rodan mused. “Not exactly, of course, but if you count the higher dimensions, every object is in some sense bigger on the inside.”
“But there is another Matrix?” Leela insisted. “Like the one Romana destroyed. That is good, is it not?”
“For science,” Eulidia said, joining them, “it’s a triumph and a great relief. And for anyone with both the key and the knowledge required to use it, it means nearly unlimited power. But for Narvin, I’d say it currently presents a security risk of breathtaking proportions.”
“Do you still have the key?” Narvin asked Rodan urgently.
“No, they never gave it to me. I told them that to activate it, you’d have to be either Rassilon or a President of Gallifrey, so I couldn’t possibly use it without their permission, but-”
“A president?” Leela and Narvin asked nearly at the same time.
*
“No,” Leela said, her arms crossed and her chin jutting stubbornly. “I will not do this! If Romana is in danger, I must go to her!”
“Rodan and Eulidia will go to Romana,” Narvin told her for the third time. “I’m sure that Matthias is in much greater danger. Valoxin is a Cardinal, and Chancellor Valyes may well be involved in this conspiracy. They both have direct access to Matthias, whereas Romana is well-guarded and the location of her safe-house isn’t publicly known. Besides, Rodan said herself that she isn’t sure if a president out of office could use the key. Romana is not the prime target!”
“But I do not care about Matthias!” Leela wailed.
Finally, Narvin’s comlink chirped, signalling that his call had been answered.
“What is the purpose of your call?” K-9’s tinny voice demanded haughtily. “You are speaking to the acting Co-ordinator of the CIA. Please be concise and to the point, as my time for you is limited.”
“This is Narvin. I need you to drop everything you’re doing and find a way to get Matthias out of the Panopticon now.”
“President Matthias is sleeping,” K-9 replied primly. “He does not wish to be disturbed. He also says that there will, I quote, ‘be a reckoning’. I believe this refers to you putting me in charge of the CIA.”
“Are you sure he’s sleeping? No intruders in his chambers?”
“Affirmative. The president’s personal chambers are under complete surveillance.”
“How - nevermind, you can tell me later. Does Matthias have any meetings scheduled tomorrow?” Narvin checked the time, realizing that it was well past midnight. “That is, today.”
“Accessing President Matthias schedule. Item one: make call to unidentified off-world contact, channel encrypted. Item two: meet with the Arcalian Chapter to discuss energy crisis. Item three: read report regarding pig-rat situation-”
“Stop. The meeting with the Arcalian chapter, that’s when they’ll try to get at him. K-9, you have to get Matthias to be late, but not cancel. Fake an emergency, prolong that off-world call, talk to him about pigrats, I don’t care, just keep him occupied for a little while longer.”
Leela grabbed the comlink from him. “K-9, are there any news from Romana? Is she all right?”
“Affirmative. Mistress Romana has sent seven further formal complaints to President Matthias regarding her house arrest.”
“See?” Narvin snatched back the comlink. “Romana is fine. K-9, you have your orders. Narvin over and out.”
Rodan and Eulidia joined them by the door of the laboratory, both carrying heavy bags. “We’re ready,” Eulidia said, locking the door and changing the codes.
Narvin nodded and handed her the coordinates of Romana’s safe house on a data pad. “Stick with Romana, and-”
“ - try to see if there is a link between her and the Great Key, we know,” Eulidia said. “We’re not your agents, Narvin, we don’t need a co-ordinator. Come, Rodan.”
Leela seized Narvin’s arm, tugging painfully as the two women left. “Why can I not go with them?”
“Because I need you to find Captain Annos and convince him to come to the High Council meeting chambers in time to stop Darkel’s little conspiracy. The guardsmen respect you, they’ll listen to you. But tell them not to come charging in right away - if we time it right, we can get them to implicate themselves and reveal the location of the Key.”
“You need a hunter to lay your trap,” Leela said, understanding dawning on her features. “But if Matthias is not there, who will be the bait?”
“I will,” Narvin replied.
*
The meeting chamber where Matthias was scheduled to address the Arcalians was designed as an amphitheatre, with a central pit for the speaker and many rows of seats for the audience. The entrances lay behind the highest row of seats, and all but one were locked. It was a good trap, Leela thought approvingly, easier to get into than out of, with the seats providing an ideal cover for a hunter. She, Annos and a troop of guards had been able to sneak into the meeting chamber without being noticed by the people inside. Now they were crouching together behind the top row of seats, Annos trying to get a look at the pit and Leela pressed closely against his back.
“Can you see what is happening?” she whispered.
Annos twisted under her grip, trying to crane his neck and peer over the seat they were hiding behind and down at the center of the room. “I can see Narvin down there,” he said slowly, “someone’s pointing a staser at him... there’s an Arcalian Cardinal, and a man in civilian clothes...”
“Is there an old woman?”
“Yes, she’s talking to Narvin.”
“Good. It is as Narvin thought. You Time Lords must always talk about your plots and schemes, and now it will be their downfall. Come, Annos, we must get closer, so we can listen...”
Slowly, she and Annos crept further down the meeting chamber between the rows of seats. They did not have to go far - the room was built to carry noise, and neither Narvin nor his relatives were trying to keep their voices low. Even without an amplifier, they were almost within hearing range. Leela could tell that Narvin, although he had planned all this, was agitated.
“Oh,” Annos said, wincing, “it looks as if Narvin just said something that really pissed off the old lady.”
“What?” Lady Tamarged exclaimed, and now Leela could hear her clearly, no longer cold and collected as she had been in the wine cellar, but shouting in fury, “you have done what?”
“Matthias is not going to come,” Narvin replied, “and the Chancellery guard are on their way. You see, I figured out your plan, mother. You were going to force Matthias to activate the key the key so you could use it for your purposes, or if that failed, kill him and have Valyes succeed him as President. Even if he isn’t part of your little conspiracy, I have no doubt he would be only too eager to join you once Matthias is out of the way.”
“Oh, clever,” Annos murmured, “he’s trying to get her to implicate Valyes as well.”
Lady Tamarged seemed unfazed by Narvin’s accusation. “And what if your theory is correct, Narvin? Wouldn’t you rather have a respectable president with a firm power base than an upstart who was appointed by a renegade?”
“What I would like is a president who came by his title in accordance with the law and not through treachery and assassination! Have you all lost your minds? This goes against every time-honoured law of Gallifrey!”
“Should we charge now?” Annos asked nervously. “With Narvin’s talent for diplomacy, this might turn into bloodshed any minute.”
Leela shook her head. She wanted to hear this. Narvin had sounded tense just now, but not frightened, as if things were still going according to his plan, and he had another ace up his sleeve. He would be fine.
His mother, meanwhile, still hadn’t regained her composure. “Do you even realize what you are doing? You’re ruining everything! This isn’t just the last chance Gallifrey has to restore its old glory. The fate of Stillhaven itself is at risk. Arrest us, Narvin, and you’re destroying one of Gallifrey’s most ancient houses. All our fame, our history, our noble traditions will be nothing but a prologue to treason.”
“I know,” Narvin said, so softly Leela could hardly hear him. “If the full extent of your plans becomes known, it could destroy us utterly.”
“And yet you would betray us?”
“It doesn’t have to end that way, mother. Hand over the Key now, and I will consider it nothing but a misunderstanding, a rash action prompted by the confusion brought on by the war...”
“He’s going to try and sweep this whole affair under the carpet,” Annos hissed indignantly. “Typical CIA!”
Leela said nothing. She still did not believe Narvin’s claim that he had no love for his family. She remembered all too well the despair she had felt when her father had sacrificed himself so she might be forgiven by the tribe. She had begged them, all her noble thoughts and determination forgotten, had been on her knees in the dust just so her only family might live. Even now, she felt the serrated blade of guilt when she thought of her father. She understood what Narvin was doing, even though she did not approve.
Lady Tamarged, too, was silent for a moment, considering Narvin’s offer. One of her accomplices, Kelner if Leela remembered his voice, asked anxiously if maybe they ought to back down and accept it. Still the matriarch of Stillhaven said nothing.
At least, Narvin broke the stony silence, his voice strained. “Please, mother.”
“No,” she said. “We are Stillhavens. We stand our ground. I do this in the fullest conviction that it is the right thing to do and I will not back down. Die as a traitor, Narvin, or join us.”
Leela heard a staser being activated, ready to fire. She waited no longer. “Charge!” she yelled and the guards stormed down the ranks.
*
The conspirators did not put much of a fight, only Kelner tried to make a run for it. Lady Tamarged, Cardinal Valoxin and Pendell accepted their fate with as much dignity as could be expected. In the commotion, Leela found it hard to spot Narvin. For once, he was not talking, and she bumped into him almost by accident.
“Are you unharmed?” Leela asked, grasping his shoulders. “You did not give a signal, but I thought-”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Search them, Captain Annos, one of them will have a small golden key.”
“You are not fine,” Leela scolded. “Your mother threatened to kill you. Twice in one day.”
“And she does not believe in empty threats.” Narvin’s tone was light as though he thought it humorous. “Aren’t you going to ask me whether I would have chosen death or treason?”
“No,” Leela said. “You are many things, Narvin, but not a coward.”
“Thank you,” he said, as though he meant it, which Leela did not quite understand - it was not praise, but the truth, and coming from her, she wouldn’t have thought that it mattered to Narvin. Before she could ask him about it, Annos came hurrying to them.
“Here’s the Key,” he said, handing it to Leela instead of Narvin, “and I’ve had word that the President is coming.”
*
After being poisoned, zapped by a fake Great Key of Rassilon, chained up, threatened with regeneration, threatened with hunting knives and then threatened with death, Matthias’s blustering paled somewhat in comparison. He berated Narvin at length about putting K-9 in charge of the CIA and neglecting his duty, uttered some vague threats and then belatedly realized that instead of a room full of impatient Arcalians, there were merely some conspirators being led away by the Chancellery guard. After a moment’s surprise, Matthias recognized them.
“Arresting your own family?” he asked, raising his brows.
“On charges of high treason,” Narvin sighed, wondering just how he was going to explain this without mentioning any unmentionable objects of Rassilon to the president. He supposed he could claim that the key had been lost, and then Matthias wouldn’t be tempted to get his hands on it...
But Matthias backed down, looking for once a little impressed. “You can be a frighteningly efficient man at times, Narvin,” he said, shaking his head. “I suppose it is true what they say. Never trust the CIA.” Then he shrugged. “Ah well. This saves me a meeting with the Arcalians, so I’m not going to complain. But get that uppity little tin dog out of your office, Narvin, before he decides to seize the presidency!” With that he left, blissfully unaware that his life had just been saved.
The meeting chambers were emptying, only Leela and Annos staying behind with Narvin. “Now,” Leela decided, “we must go to Romana, to see that she is well, and to celebrate our victory!”
“And to test the Key,” Narvin said, as much to remind himself as to remind them. If the Key was real, and Rodan was right about its contents, then this truly was a victory - for Gallifrey, if not for Stillhaven.
*
Romana had been less than happy when she’d been woken up by two strangers in the middle of the night only to learn that maybe people were trying to kill her, or maybe there’d just be another coup d’etat.
“So Darkel manages to rob me of my sleep even in death,” she shuddered, and demanded that one of the intruders bring her tea, or coffee, or anything that would let her face trouble a little less bleary-eyed.
“This kitchen table will do, Eulidia,” the woman called Rodan explained. “It is perfect for building a Key detector. Madam Ex-President, could you please remove the botanical samples-”
“The what? Oh, you mean the vase of flowers.” Romana froze. “Did you say key detector?”
“Yes. We’ll build a device that’ll pick up the artron frequency that links you or any living president to the Great Key of Rassilon.”
After that Romana felt suddenly very, very awake. Not much later, she was also beginning to feel quite excited, as she went through Rodan’s equations and began to understand the enormity of what they might be about to discover. Then she realized that Rodan and Eulidia seemed to consider her merely a test subject, which was of course unacceptable, so Romana quickly proved to them with some very pertinent questions that she was every bit as clever as they if a little rusty on her transdimensional physics.
The detector was completed before first sunrise, but it picked up only a very faint signal from Romana, and just as faint a signal from the Panopticon, where Matthias had to be.
By the time Annos, Leela and Narvin arrived, Romana had convinced Rodan of the merits of tea versus ration pills, and they were deep in discussion about the possible implications of the signal.
“You have the Key?” Romana asked instantly, cutting through the usual formalities.
“Yes,” Leela said, and handed her the small golden object. “All went well.”
Romana thought she felt a tingle as she held the key, a shiver of power running through her veins, as if she still wore the Sash and the Rod. But what if it was merely an echo, or worse, her imagination? What if this power was only for Matthias?
With shaking fingers she put the Key down on the table for Rodan to scan it. Eulidia bent over her shoulder at one side, Narvin at the other, both of them holding their breath.
Rodan stopped scanning the key and picked it up, tilting it against the light.
“It’s a fake,” she said.
“A fake!” Romana gasped. “Narvin, you fool! They deceived you!”
Narvin gave her a bitter look, and with brittle dignity said, “Only in as far as Darkel and my mother have been deceived. I should have seen this sooner, but I think I’ve figured it out now. Rodan, before Darkel came to talk to you about the Key, did anyone else ever ask you about it?”
“Yes,” Rodan said, surprised. “A man. How did you know that?”
“Was he perhaps a Chancellor?”
She nodded. Finally, Romana saw what Narvin was getting at. She heaved a shuddering sigh. “Braxiatel.”
“Braxiatel has the Key?” Leela asked in astonishment. “But I thought Darkel had it!”
“He’s had it ever since he left Gallifrey,” Narvin said. “House Stillhaven has brought ruin to itself over an ordinary golden trinket.”
“Some members of Stillhaven have brought ruin to themselves,” Eulidia corrected him. She picked up her travelling cloak and fastened it around her shoulders. “Luckily, I am not implicated in any of these crimes, nor have I publicly cut all ties with my family, so someone will be there to pick up the pieces.”
Romana laughed when she saw Narvin’s expression. “Don’t look so surprised, Co-ordinator. She is Darkel’s sister, after all, and Darkel always knew how to profit from disasters.”
Eulidia nodded at Romana and turned to go. Rodan picked up the detector and followed her, but in the doorway she turned and said, “I may be busy for a while now, Leela, but I would not object to seeing you again before another century has passed.”
Leela nodded solemnly. “I promise that I will not wait so long this time.”
When they had left, Romana sighed wistfully. “If only we could get a hold of the real Key. I don’t suppose there’s any chance the CIA could track Braxiatel down? He has a lot to explain.”
“Without the Matrix, that’s going to be exceedingly difficult,” Narvin said. “And I very much doubt he’d just hand it over to you.”
Romana grimaced. “Unfortunately, I see your point. He might just give it to Matthias.”
*
Narvin left quietly a few minutes after Eulidia and Rodan, leaving Annos and Leela to be questioned by Romana, who was thirsty for any kind of information about what went on at the Panopticon in her absence. Narvin had other responsibilities - arrests always caused paperwork, and Narvin would rather take care of that himself in this case.
He was halfway back in the Panopticon when he heard someone following him at the a jog, and turned to see Leela running after him, a little out of breath. She couldn’t see of course that he had seen her, but still he waited for her to catch up with him. He thought he knew what she was going to say, and if he was right, then at least there had been some good to all this.
“Wait,” Leela gasped, as she came to halt. “Why did you slink off so quietly, without a word of parting?”
“I didn’t see a reason to stay. And besides, I need to see what K-9 has been up to in my absence.”
“I shall walk with you, then,” Leela said, and they continued on their way in silence. Narvin didn’t mind, he thought that the silence was companionable. In the early morning hours, the Citadel’s empty streets were good for contemplation, even if it was contemplation of a bleak and tired sort.
He wondered if he ought to bring up his offer again, or simply consider it quietly accepted. Some formalities, of course, would be necessary, but perhaps not right now. In the end, he said, “I’d say for a Time Lord and a savage, we make a good team.”
“We do,” Leela said thoughtfully. “You are a Time Lord through and through, and yet I think that at least one of your hearts belongs to a warrior.”
“Actually, I prefer peace and quiet,” Narvin said, but he knew that coming from Leela it was a compliment. He got little enough acknowledgement of his work, and even less honest praise, so on this cold morning, he took comfort in it.
“There will be little of that on the path you have chosen,” Leela prophesied.
Narvin frowned. Suddenly, he felt as if they weren’t quite having the same conversation. “What path?”
“You are ‘Romana’s man’ now, are you not?” Leela asked. “You picked her side over your own tribe, as did I when I forgave her for Andred’s death. There can be no way back for us, but at least we do not walk alone.”
Narvin stopped dead in his tracks. Whatever warmth had fortified him against exhaustion left his body, leaving only the cold that seeped mercilessly into his skin. He wanted nothing better than to say yes to Leela’s every word because it was all true: there was no way back, they had both picked their sides for better or worse, because to betray what they had chosen would be to doubly betray what they had given up. Leela understood that, as she understood so many things that Narvin had once thought only a Time Lord could possibly understand. But perhaps it had nothing to do with being a Time Lord. Perhaps it had more to do with that elusive quality that Leela called ‘being a warrior’. Honour might be the word Narvin would have chosen, had it not sounded far too deceptively simple.
Whatever it was, he recognised it in Leela. Narvin was not by nature given to strong desires, but a part of him had grown so accustomed to Leela’s strange company that he found himself depending on it now. He could admit no more without compromising himself, but that, yes: he wanted her by his side. That she returned the feeling would have pleased him beyond words if it wasn’t so bitterly ironic.
Leela had noticed his silence. “You trusted Romana with the Key when you would not trust Matthias. It must mean you are on her side!”
“I don’t pick sides,” he told her. It came out harsher than he intended, but he could not keep the cold out of his voice when he felt it running deeper with every breath he took. “There can be only one side for me, ever and always, and that is Gallifrey. If you haven’t understood that by now, I don’t know what to say to get it through your thick skull.”
Leela seemed to be standing perfectly still, yet at the same time shaking with rage. “Insult me all you want, Narvin. It is you who is the fool. What is this Gallifrey you speak of? It is not its laws, because you break them if it suits you. It is not its buildings, because you and I have destroyed them when it was necessary. It is not its people, because you do not care for anyone in the world. It is nothing, a word, a - a false god that you still follow even though you must have seen by now that it is false.” She stopped to catch her breath. “But if that is your choice, then our ways must part.”
“It seems they must,” he said, and watched her nod and turn and stride away from him, back to Romana. He turned as well, more slowly, more dignified he told himself, as befitted a Time Lord, even when no one was watching.
He looked over his shoulder, and saw her standing still as well, only a savage dressed in skins, lost among these ancient houses, hardly deadly except for the stain of blood darkening on her dress, and the doubtful look on her face. That doubt, the question it put to him and almost forced him to answer, was deadlier than poison.
EPILOGUE
Arrests required triple forms, three times his signature under the words High Treason. Narvin had signed them and put them away, and now only Leela’s visa application form remained before he could return to business as usual.
All he needed was to tick a box, maybe write a brief note. He wavered over the boxes, APPROVED on the one side, DENIED on the other, then set his pen down to begin a note before making a choice.
“Dangerous element, highly subversive-” he wrote, but then his pen seemed to falter, and he crossed out the words in annoyance. Too strong, too personal.
“Successful integration unlikely, recommend repatriation-”
But that wasn’t possible, Leela had said so herself. She, too, had cut her ties. He crossed out another line and began a third time.
“Subject issupporting seditious elements among the population
That, though, was cause for another arrest, rather than a reason to deny a visa. And calling Romana seditious was perhaps a bit hasty. Narvin stared at the form. He could just tick DENIED, nobody important would ask any questions. Nobody but him would probably even look at the form. Even Leela had probably forgotten about it by now.
He glanced at the other side, the balanced, clean curves of the sign for APPROVED. As if on its own accord, his pen found the paper again.
“Most vital to Gallifrey,” he wrote.
Fandom: the "Gallifrey" audio series
Rating: PG/gen
Length: 19424 words
Spoilers: set between 3.4 "Mindbomb" and 3.5 "Panacea", with no spoilers for series 4
Characters: Narvin, Leela, K9, Romana, OCs
Summary: my morepolitics entry for ficciones, whose prompt was "Leela and Narvin in something buddy-cop style. Preferably with hijinks" - it is certainly a buddycop story, but maybe a little short of hijinks.
Part One
Part Two
Once they were up in the air, flying towards the Citadel in stealth mode, Narvin realised with a sinking feeling that he’d forgotten to come up with a feasible lie. Somehow, he’d become completely distracted by their escape. And not just that: when he turned around to face the two women, Leela had not yet sheathed her blade.
“Now,” she said, her tone as hungry as her smile, “we have time to talk. Do not try to lie, Narvin, I can tell when you are being devious. Your words are like slippery eels.”
“I’ve locked the flight controls,” Narvin bluffed. “You need CIA codes to reactivate them. So unless you want to die in a fiery crash...”
Leela scoffed. “I do not have to kill you to make you speak, Narvin. You know that, you have seen me question Pandora’s soldiers.”
Narvin had indeed. He had, at the time, expected Romana to protest, but it seemed that Leela, even though she hated lying, knew when not to advertise certain facts.
He raised his hands in defeat. “All right, all right. I was going to tell you, I just don’t like being hurried.” He smoothed his robes over his knees, trying to appear calm and collected. It didn’t work well with both women staring at him like that. “As you already guessed, I’m after a certain object that was in Darkel’s possession before her death. Never the forgiving sort, she must have made sure that it would fall into the right hands in case she died - into the hands of people who would use it to harm her enemies.”
“Romana,” Leela said.
“Yes, although ironically, because Matthias and Braxiatel have already betrayed her, Romana may be much safer now than Darkel anticipated.”
“Only on Gallifrey that would count as safety!”
“Nevertheless, their main target right now will be Matthias. I believe that Lady Tamarged, Lord Kelner and Cardinal Valoxin, as well as whoever else is involved in their conspiracy, are planning a coup.”
Leela cocked her head, frowning. “Kelner... Kelner... I know that name!”
“You would,” Narvin nodded. “He was Castellan when you came to Gallifrey, although one of President Borusa’s first actions after assuming the presidency was to fire him for his involvement in the Sontaran invasion. Kelner narrowly escaped being charged for High Treason, probably only because as a new president, Borusa was expected to grant him amnesty.”
“So this Kelner was in league with Darkel,” Leela guessed.
Eulidia shook her head. “Darkel always kept Cousin Kelner at arm’s length. She said he would sell out his own loom mother if he thought it would get him an advantage.”
Narvin nodded. “That’s what I heard, too. But Kelner was useful to her in one respect. Like Leela here, he was there the last time someone used the Great Key of Rassilon.”
“The Great Key?” Leela failed to look as shocked as she ought to have been in Narvin’s opinion, and Eulidia merely looked delighted. “You mean Darkel had the Great Key?” Leela exclaimed. But who gave it to her? Did they not see she would use it for evil?”
Narvin leaned back and steepled his fingers. “That is a bit complicated, as you’ll see. Borusa was Chancellor before he became President, so he had the Great Key in his possession, but as was his duty, he handed it over to the next Chancellor, Lady Flavia. When Flavia assumed the Presidency, for reasons of her own she decided not to nominate a new Chancellor, instead, she entrusted the Great Key to the person she thought most trustworthy: the Inquisitor Prime. Darkel, as far as I have been able to ascertain, never attempted to abuse that privilege while Flavia reigned. Then Romana named Braxiatel chancellor, and he demanded the Key back from Darkel - how he knew she had it, I don’t know.”
Narvin paused, once again frustrated by this gap in his knowledge. He fully intended to ask Braxiatel, if he ever got hold of him. But he didn’t actually expect to get a honest answer.
“When Braxiatel’s brief time in office came to an end, he would no doubt have quietly absconded with the Key if Darkel hadn’t turned tables on him and demanded the Key back. Braxiatel had no choice but to give it to her, and so Darkel once again possessed the Key-”
“Enough,” Leela groaned, “this tale is making my head hurt! Tell us what our enemies are planning, so we may stop them.”
Narvin shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s obvious that someone in House Stillhaven has the Key, but Omega only knows what they’ll do with it. I fear they’ll make a move soon, or else Kelner would have had no reason to try and poison me.”
The prospect of having to figure it out was making his head hurt as well. It would have been easy to simply arrest and question every member of Stillhaven, but that was sure to cause a stir, and once Matthias found out about this whole affair, he would also find out about the key. Narvin didn’t trust Matthias with such a temptation. They key, if nothing else, was a symbol of power and control - the very things Matthias didn’t have and wanted badly. No, ideally they’d find a quiet solution to this, and Matthias would never have to know about it.
“Perhaps they will build the de-mat gun. That is what the key is for, is it not? But what will they do with it? Gallifrey is not short of weapons!”
“Again, I don’t know.” Narvin sighed and rubbed his temples. “But I doubt it’ll be as simple a plan as build gun, kill president.”
“Whatever it is, they need a laboratory for it,” Eulidia said, making them both turn towards her. “Darkel made me hand over the keys to mine, didn’t I tell you? It was during Pandora’s reign.”
Narvin straightened. “No, you didn’t mention that! But that’s brilliant! It means we have a lead to follow, and we may just get there before they do. You’re still at the Arcalian Science council? Yes, of course you are, you said you were chairwoman now.”
Narvin swung around his seat and changed the course settings. Maybe things would yet work out smoothly, if they could get to the key before anyone figured out that Eulidia was helping them.
*
The squat, utilitarian buildings of the Arcalian science council had survived the civil war much better than the Prydonian Academy, chiefly because it had been Pandora’s main base for her secret weapons research and she had protected it well. Only the surrounding park with its severe hedge sculptures bore a few grooves from an altercation with the invading Nekkistani and Phaidon fleets, which proved to be convenient, because the construction work provided good cover for their flyer.
It was the middle of the night and, except for a few pig rats, the streets were deserted. To conserve power, one of Matthias first decrees had been to leave the street lights off at night, and as consequence, the transduction barrier’s faint glow and the starlight reflected from the high spires of the Panopticon were the only sources of light. But Eulidia led them without hesitation towards the second largest building of the complex. The sign at the door proclaimed it as “Main Data Technology and Matrix Research Laboratory” and Eulidia’s handprint gave them instant access.
Once inside, Leela bade them hold still while she listened intently. Then she whispered, “If anyone is here, they are quiet. It may be a trap.”
“I don’t think they’ll be expecting us,” Eulidia said, and led them in the direction of her lab. “Marged doesn’t know I’m with you, and without me, you would never have thought to come here.”
“You may be underestimating my mother,” Narvin said warily.
“You may be underestimating me,” Eulidia countered with a self-satisfied little smirk that made Narvin feel extremely suspicious. He was about to stop and demand an explanation when they both nearly bumped into Leela. She had frozen in the middle of the corridor, holding them both back with a raised hand.
“What is it?” Narvin whispered.
“Quiet,” Leela hushed him and continued to listen. “There is a voice. A woman’s voice. She is... singing? No, not a song... it is like an incantation!”
“An incantation?” Narvin asked, his voice rising slightly above a whisper. “Where do you get these absurd ideas?”
“There’s no time for pointless speculation,” Eulidia said and stepped past Leela and in front of the door where Leela had stopped. Her palm print and retina were scanned in an instant, and the door slid open.
“Welcome, Chairwoman Eulidia,” a computerized female voice said.
“Two guests,” Eulidia replied and stepped inside.
The laboratory was brightly lit, and the mere sight of the computer towers and circuitry inside made Narvin’s palms itch with a sudden longing for the times when this sort of thing had been his life. A central table was laden with all sorts of tools, wires, opened book and half-unrolled scrolls. Several holo-screens around the room were full of writing in a single, very neat hand. A rubbish bin near the door was brimming with ration cube wrappers.
At the far back of the room, a dark-haired woman sat in a chair, her feet propped up on a table and her eyes closed. She was talking to herself in a fast, monotonous voice, reciting a seemingly unrelated string of numbers, “1037567, 1037593, 1037611, 1037627, 1037653...”
“Prime numbers,” Narvin said. “That’s your incantation, Leela.”
But Leela wasn’t listening. She had frozen again, but now she fairly jumped into motion, groping her way between the tables towards the woman in the chair. “That voice,” she exclaimed. “I know that voice! Oh, I have not heard it for so many, many years! Rodan, it is I, Leela!”
The woman stopped her incantation of primes, opened her eyes, and said, “Leela?”
“Yes,” Leela laughed, and then stopped again. “I cannot see you, Rodan, I am blind. But your voice I will never forget. It was the first that spoke kindly to me on Gallifrey.”
Rodan, meanwhile, had risen from her chair and now crossed the room and touched Leela’s hands with her own. It was a gesture that surprised Narvin, since very few Time Lords would have initiated physical contact so quickly, and with a savage woman holding a knife, too. But Leela nearly dropped her knife in her haste to put it back into its sheath and grasp Rodan’s hands in her own.
“What is it?” Rodan asked, slightly bemused. “Leela, your eyes, you said you were blind-”
Leela shook her head and wiped her eyes. “It is - it is nothing. I just... all these years I had a friend on Gallifrey, and I never once thought to find her again. What a fool I have been.”
“It’s barely been a century,” Rodan laughed. “How silly of you to cry over such a short time. How is Andred?”
“Dead.” Leela lowered her head, then cupped Rodan’s face in her palm. “The years flew by while he lived, and I thought of nothing but me and him, but now every day feels like a century to these old bones. I am glad I found you again, Rodan.”
“It must be very strange to experience time like you do,” Rodan replied, “but I am glad, too. For a while, I really liked this new job I’ve been given, but it’s getting very annoying now.” She gestured at the lab. “They gave me all this to work with, and they even promised I would get to work with the actual key! But then there was all this talk about a war, and everything got stalled.”
Narvin stepped forward, clearing his throat. “I assume by they, you mean Darkel?”
“Yes, I think that’s her name,” Rodan shrugged. “An Inquisitor. She knows very little about science. She has not been here in a while.”
“And you’ve been working on the Great Key of Rassilon for her.”
Rodan nodded, and gently extricated herself from Leela’s grasp to pick up some data pads. “Yes, although I did that long before Darkel brought me here. You see, I used to work in traffic control, and it’s the most frightfully boring job imaginable. So I said to myself, wouldn’t it be great if you could reverse engineer that key the Doctor gave you to build the de-mat gun? First I had to break through the hypnosis, of course, to remember, but you’ll be amazed what you can achieve with enough time at your hands. Then of course I didn’t have the actual key, but that wasn’t much of a problem. With perfect recall and a good computer model, it’s almost superfluous. By the time Darkel came to me, I had already unlocked the most of the key’s lower dimensions...”
“Wait, wait,” Narvin implored to stop her flow of words, “you’ve had the key before? You were there during the Sontaran invasion?”
“That is how I met Rodan,” Leela said proudly.
Eulidia took the data pads from Rodan, going eagerly through them, exclaiming here and there in joyful amazement.
Narvin was less delighted by what he understood of Rodan’s explanation. “You mean the key is trans-dimensional?”
“It has data encryption on the surfaces of at least eleven dimensions,” Rodan went on, and ushered him and Leela to one of the whiteboards. “The object we call the Great Key is only its three-dimensional image, and encrypted in that image is the information needed to build the de-mat gun, of which the key itself is a component. The fourth dimension contains all the laws of time, annotated by Rassilon himself. It’s very entertaining, it has these little simulations of what happens when you break them, you know? The fifth dimension is a blueprint for the Key itself, although I haven’t been able to understand what you’d need to actually build one. The sixth dimension is rather complicated, it sort of moves - but I think it’s a dynamic map of history, updated whenever the web of time changes. Theoretically, you could use it to calculate possible alterations of history. The seventh dimension contains blueprints for a number of other trans-dimensional objects, probably the Rod, the Sash and the Coronet of Rassilon, but maybe more than that. I haven’t been able to unlock the eighth, ninth and tenth dimension, but I’m working on them.”
Narvin stared at the whiteboard, every bit as baffled as Leela. “You’ve been able to find out all this from a memory you had of the key?”
Rodan gave him an odd look. “It’s just maths.” She pointed up at the highest set of equations. “But the eleventh is the really good one. If I’m right, and I probably am, it’s a complete, self-updating copy of the Matrix.”
“Of course,” Narvin whispered in awe. “I knew it! What data engineer builds a network like the Matrix without a backup copy?”
“There is another Matrix?” Leela asked. “Inside the key?”
“Not so much inside, as-” Narvin threw up his hands impatiently, “It’s trans-dimensional engineering, there’s no time to explain it now.”
“You could say it’s like a TARDIS,” Rodan mused. “Not exactly, of course, but if you count the higher dimensions, every object is in some sense bigger on the inside.”
“But there is another Matrix?” Leela insisted. “Like the one Romana destroyed. That is good, is it not?”
“For science,” Eulidia said, joining them, “it’s a triumph and a great relief. And for anyone with both the key and the knowledge required to use it, it means nearly unlimited power. But for Narvin, I’d say it currently presents a security risk of breathtaking proportions.”
“Do you still have the key?” Narvin asked Rodan urgently.
“No, they never gave it to me. I told them that to activate it, you’d have to be either Rassilon or a President of Gallifrey, so I couldn’t possibly use it without their permission, but-”
“A president?” Leela and Narvin asked nearly at the same time.
*
“No,” Leela said, her arms crossed and her chin jutting stubbornly. “I will not do this! If Romana is in danger, I must go to her!”
“Rodan and Eulidia will go to Romana,” Narvin told her for the third time. “I’m sure that Matthias is in much greater danger. Valoxin is a Cardinal, and Chancellor Valyes may well be involved in this conspiracy. They both have direct access to Matthias, whereas Romana is well-guarded and the location of her safe-house isn’t publicly known. Besides, Rodan said herself that she isn’t sure if a president out of office could use the key. Romana is not the prime target!”
“But I do not care about Matthias!” Leela wailed.
Finally, Narvin’s comlink chirped, signalling that his call had been answered.
“What is the purpose of your call?” K-9’s tinny voice demanded haughtily. “You are speaking to the acting Co-ordinator of the CIA. Please be concise and to the point, as my time for you is limited.”
“This is Narvin. I need you to drop everything you’re doing and find a way to get Matthias out of the Panopticon now.”
“President Matthias is sleeping,” K-9 replied primly. “He does not wish to be disturbed. He also says that there will, I quote, ‘be a reckoning’. I believe this refers to you putting me in charge of the CIA.”
“Are you sure he’s sleeping? No intruders in his chambers?”
“Affirmative. The president’s personal chambers are under complete surveillance.”
“How - nevermind, you can tell me later. Does Matthias have any meetings scheduled tomorrow?” Narvin checked the time, realizing that it was well past midnight. “That is, today.”
“Accessing President Matthias schedule. Item one: make call to unidentified off-world contact, channel encrypted. Item two: meet with the Arcalian Chapter to discuss energy crisis. Item three: read report regarding pig-rat situation-”
“Stop. The meeting with the Arcalian chapter, that’s when they’ll try to get at him. K-9, you have to get Matthias to be late, but not cancel. Fake an emergency, prolong that off-world call, talk to him about pigrats, I don’t care, just keep him occupied for a little while longer.”
Leela grabbed the comlink from him. “K-9, are there any news from Romana? Is she all right?”
“Affirmative. Mistress Romana has sent seven further formal complaints to President Matthias regarding her house arrest.”
“See?” Narvin snatched back the comlink. “Romana is fine. K-9, you have your orders. Narvin over and out.”
Rodan and Eulidia joined them by the door of the laboratory, both carrying heavy bags. “We’re ready,” Eulidia said, locking the door and changing the codes.
Narvin nodded and handed her the coordinates of Romana’s safe house on a data pad. “Stick with Romana, and-”
“ - try to see if there is a link between her and the Great Key, we know,” Eulidia said. “We’re not your agents, Narvin, we don’t need a co-ordinator. Come, Rodan.”
Leela seized Narvin’s arm, tugging painfully as the two women left. “Why can I not go with them?”
“Because I need you to find Captain Annos and convince him to come to the High Council meeting chambers in time to stop Darkel’s little conspiracy. The guardsmen respect you, they’ll listen to you. But tell them not to come charging in right away - if we time it right, we can get them to implicate themselves and reveal the location of the Key.”
“You need a hunter to lay your trap,” Leela said, understanding dawning on her features. “But if Matthias is not there, who will be the bait?”
“I will,” Narvin replied.
*
The meeting chamber where Matthias was scheduled to address the Arcalians was designed as an amphitheatre, with a central pit for the speaker and many rows of seats for the audience. The entrances lay behind the highest row of seats, and all but one were locked. It was a good trap, Leela thought approvingly, easier to get into than out of, with the seats providing an ideal cover for a hunter. She, Annos and a troop of guards had been able to sneak into the meeting chamber without being noticed by the people inside. Now they were crouching together behind the top row of seats, Annos trying to get a look at the pit and Leela pressed closely against his back.
“Can you see what is happening?” she whispered.
Annos twisted under her grip, trying to crane his neck and peer over the seat they were hiding behind and down at the center of the room. “I can see Narvin down there,” he said slowly, “someone’s pointing a staser at him... there’s an Arcalian Cardinal, and a man in civilian clothes...”
“Is there an old woman?”
“Yes, she’s talking to Narvin.”
“Good. It is as Narvin thought. You Time Lords must always talk about your plots and schemes, and now it will be their downfall. Come, Annos, we must get closer, so we can listen...”
Slowly, she and Annos crept further down the meeting chamber between the rows of seats. They did not have to go far - the room was built to carry noise, and neither Narvin nor his relatives were trying to keep their voices low. Even without an amplifier, they were almost within hearing range. Leela could tell that Narvin, although he had planned all this, was agitated.
“Oh,” Annos said, wincing, “it looks as if Narvin just said something that really pissed off the old lady.”
“What?” Lady Tamarged exclaimed, and now Leela could hear her clearly, no longer cold and collected as she had been in the wine cellar, but shouting in fury, “you have done what?”
“Matthias is not going to come,” Narvin replied, “and the Chancellery guard are on their way. You see, I figured out your plan, mother. You were going to force Matthias to activate the key the key so you could use it for your purposes, or if that failed, kill him and have Valyes succeed him as President. Even if he isn’t part of your little conspiracy, I have no doubt he would be only too eager to join you once Matthias is out of the way.”
“Oh, clever,” Annos murmured, “he’s trying to get her to implicate Valyes as well.”
Lady Tamarged seemed unfazed by Narvin’s accusation. “And what if your theory is correct, Narvin? Wouldn’t you rather have a respectable president with a firm power base than an upstart who was appointed by a renegade?”
“What I would like is a president who came by his title in accordance with the law and not through treachery and assassination! Have you all lost your minds? This goes against every time-honoured law of Gallifrey!”
“Should we charge now?” Annos asked nervously. “With Narvin’s talent for diplomacy, this might turn into bloodshed any minute.”
Leela shook her head. She wanted to hear this. Narvin had sounded tense just now, but not frightened, as if things were still going according to his plan, and he had another ace up his sleeve. He would be fine.
His mother, meanwhile, still hadn’t regained her composure. “Do you even realize what you are doing? You’re ruining everything! This isn’t just the last chance Gallifrey has to restore its old glory. The fate of Stillhaven itself is at risk. Arrest us, Narvin, and you’re destroying one of Gallifrey’s most ancient houses. All our fame, our history, our noble traditions will be nothing but a prologue to treason.”
“I know,” Narvin said, so softly Leela could hardly hear him. “If the full extent of your plans becomes known, it could destroy us utterly.”
“And yet you would betray us?”
“It doesn’t have to end that way, mother. Hand over the Key now, and I will consider it nothing but a misunderstanding, a rash action prompted by the confusion brought on by the war...”
“He’s going to try and sweep this whole affair under the carpet,” Annos hissed indignantly. “Typical CIA!”
Leela said nothing. She still did not believe Narvin’s claim that he had no love for his family. She remembered all too well the despair she had felt when her father had sacrificed himself so she might be forgiven by the tribe. She had begged them, all her noble thoughts and determination forgotten, had been on her knees in the dust just so her only family might live. Even now, she felt the serrated blade of guilt when she thought of her father. She understood what Narvin was doing, even though she did not approve.
Lady Tamarged, too, was silent for a moment, considering Narvin’s offer. One of her accomplices, Kelner if Leela remembered his voice, asked anxiously if maybe they ought to back down and accept it. Still the matriarch of Stillhaven said nothing.
At least, Narvin broke the stony silence, his voice strained. “Please, mother.”
“No,” she said. “We are Stillhavens. We stand our ground. I do this in the fullest conviction that it is the right thing to do and I will not back down. Die as a traitor, Narvin, or join us.”
Leela heard a staser being activated, ready to fire. She waited no longer. “Charge!” she yelled and the guards stormed down the ranks.
*
The conspirators did not put much of a fight, only Kelner tried to make a run for it. Lady Tamarged, Cardinal Valoxin and Pendell accepted their fate with as much dignity as could be expected. In the commotion, Leela found it hard to spot Narvin. For once, he was not talking, and she bumped into him almost by accident.
“Are you unharmed?” Leela asked, grasping his shoulders. “You did not give a signal, but I thought-”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Search them, Captain Annos, one of them will have a small golden key.”
“You are not fine,” Leela scolded. “Your mother threatened to kill you. Twice in one day.”
“And she does not believe in empty threats.” Narvin’s tone was light as though he thought it humorous. “Aren’t you going to ask me whether I would have chosen death or treason?”
“No,” Leela said. “You are many things, Narvin, but not a coward.”
“Thank you,” he said, as though he meant it, which Leela did not quite understand - it was not praise, but the truth, and coming from her, she wouldn’t have thought that it mattered to Narvin. Before she could ask him about it, Annos came hurrying to them.
“Here’s the Key,” he said, handing it to Leela instead of Narvin, “and I’ve had word that the President is coming.”
*
After being poisoned, zapped by a fake Great Key of Rassilon, chained up, threatened with regeneration, threatened with hunting knives and then threatened with death, Matthias’s blustering paled somewhat in comparison. He berated Narvin at length about putting K-9 in charge of the CIA and neglecting his duty, uttered some vague threats and then belatedly realized that instead of a room full of impatient Arcalians, there were merely some conspirators being led away by the Chancellery guard. After a moment’s surprise, Matthias recognized them.
“Arresting your own family?” he asked, raising his brows.
“On charges of high treason,” Narvin sighed, wondering just how he was going to explain this without mentioning any unmentionable objects of Rassilon to the president. He supposed he could claim that the key had been lost, and then Matthias wouldn’t be tempted to get his hands on it...
But Matthias backed down, looking for once a little impressed. “You can be a frighteningly efficient man at times, Narvin,” he said, shaking his head. “I suppose it is true what they say. Never trust the CIA.” Then he shrugged. “Ah well. This saves me a meeting with the Arcalians, so I’m not going to complain. But get that uppity little tin dog out of your office, Narvin, before he decides to seize the presidency!” With that he left, blissfully unaware that his life had just been saved.
The meeting chambers were emptying, only Leela and Annos staying behind with Narvin. “Now,” Leela decided, “we must go to Romana, to see that she is well, and to celebrate our victory!”
“And to test the Key,” Narvin said, as much to remind himself as to remind them. If the Key was real, and Rodan was right about its contents, then this truly was a victory - for Gallifrey, if not for Stillhaven.
*
Romana had been less than happy when she’d been woken up by two strangers in the middle of the night only to learn that maybe people were trying to kill her, or maybe there’d just be another coup d’etat.
“So Darkel manages to rob me of my sleep even in death,” she shuddered, and demanded that one of the intruders bring her tea, or coffee, or anything that would let her face trouble a little less bleary-eyed.
“This kitchen table will do, Eulidia,” the woman called Rodan explained. “It is perfect for building a Key detector. Madam Ex-President, could you please remove the botanical samples-”
“The what? Oh, you mean the vase of flowers.” Romana froze. “Did you say key detector?”
“Yes. We’ll build a device that’ll pick up the artron frequency that links you or any living president to the Great Key of Rassilon.”
After that Romana felt suddenly very, very awake. Not much later, she was also beginning to feel quite excited, as she went through Rodan’s equations and began to understand the enormity of what they might be about to discover. Then she realized that Rodan and Eulidia seemed to consider her merely a test subject, which was of course unacceptable, so Romana quickly proved to them with some very pertinent questions that she was every bit as clever as they if a little rusty on her transdimensional physics.
The detector was completed before first sunrise, but it picked up only a very faint signal from Romana, and just as faint a signal from the Panopticon, where Matthias had to be.
By the time Annos, Leela and Narvin arrived, Romana had convinced Rodan of the merits of tea versus ration pills, and they were deep in discussion about the possible implications of the signal.
“You have the Key?” Romana asked instantly, cutting through the usual formalities.
“Yes,” Leela said, and handed her the small golden object. “All went well.”
Romana thought she felt a tingle as she held the key, a shiver of power running through her veins, as if she still wore the Sash and the Rod. But what if it was merely an echo, or worse, her imagination? What if this power was only for Matthias?
With shaking fingers she put the Key down on the table for Rodan to scan it. Eulidia bent over her shoulder at one side, Narvin at the other, both of them holding their breath.
Rodan stopped scanning the key and picked it up, tilting it against the light.
“It’s a fake,” she said.
“A fake!” Romana gasped. “Narvin, you fool! They deceived you!”
Narvin gave her a bitter look, and with brittle dignity said, “Only in as far as Darkel and my mother have been deceived. I should have seen this sooner, but I think I’ve figured it out now. Rodan, before Darkel came to talk to you about the Key, did anyone else ever ask you about it?”
“Yes,” Rodan said, surprised. “A man. How did you know that?”
“Was he perhaps a Chancellor?”
She nodded. Finally, Romana saw what Narvin was getting at. She heaved a shuddering sigh. “Braxiatel.”
“Braxiatel has the Key?” Leela asked in astonishment. “But I thought Darkel had it!”
“He’s had it ever since he left Gallifrey,” Narvin said. “House Stillhaven has brought ruin to itself over an ordinary golden trinket.”
“Some members of Stillhaven have brought ruin to themselves,” Eulidia corrected him. She picked up her travelling cloak and fastened it around her shoulders. “Luckily, I am not implicated in any of these crimes, nor have I publicly cut all ties with my family, so someone will be there to pick up the pieces.”
Romana laughed when she saw Narvin’s expression. “Don’t look so surprised, Co-ordinator. She is Darkel’s sister, after all, and Darkel always knew how to profit from disasters.”
Eulidia nodded at Romana and turned to go. Rodan picked up the detector and followed her, but in the doorway she turned and said, “I may be busy for a while now, Leela, but I would not object to seeing you again before another century has passed.”
Leela nodded solemnly. “I promise that I will not wait so long this time.”
When they had left, Romana sighed wistfully. “If only we could get a hold of the real Key. I don’t suppose there’s any chance the CIA could track Braxiatel down? He has a lot to explain.”
“Without the Matrix, that’s going to be exceedingly difficult,” Narvin said. “And I very much doubt he’d just hand it over to you.”
Romana grimaced. “Unfortunately, I see your point. He might just give it to Matthias.”
*
Narvin left quietly a few minutes after Eulidia and Rodan, leaving Annos and Leela to be questioned by Romana, who was thirsty for any kind of information about what went on at the Panopticon in her absence. Narvin had other responsibilities - arrests always caused paperwork, and Narvin would rather take care of that himself in this case.
He was halfway back in the Panopticon when he heard someone following him at the a jog, and turned to see Leela running after him, a little out of breath. She couldn’t see of course that he had seen her, but still he waited for her to catch up with him. He thought he knew what she was going to say, and if he was right, then at least there had been some good to all this.
“Wait,” Leela gasped, as she came to halt. “Why did you slink off so quietly, without a word of parting?”
“I didn’t see a reason to stay. And besides, I need to see what K-9 has been up to in my absence.”
“I shall walk with you, then,” Leela said, and they continued on their way in silence. Narvin didn’t mind, he thought that the silence was companionable. In the early morning hours, the Citadel’s empty streets were good for contemplation, even if it was contemplation of a bleak and tired sort.
He wondered if he ought to bring up his offer again, or simply consider it quietly accepted. Some formalities, of course, would be necessary, but perhaps not right now. In the end, he said, “I’d say for a Time Lord and a savage, we make a good team.”
“We do,” Leela said thoughtfully. “You are a Time Lord through and through, and yet I think that at least one of your hearts belongs to a warrior.”
“Actually, I prefer peace and quiet,” Narvin said, but he knew that coming from Leela it was a compliment. He got little enough acknowledgement of his work, and even less honest praise, so on this cold morning, he took comfort in it.
“There will be little of that on the path you have chosen,” Leela prophesied.
Narvin frowned. Suddenly, he felt as if they weren’t quite having the same conversation. “What path?”
“You are ‘Romana’s man’ now, are you not?” Leela asked. “You picked her side over your own tribe, as did I when I forgave her for Andred’s death. There can be no way back for us, but at least we do not walk alone.”
Narvin stopped dead in his tracks. Whatever warmth had fortified him against exhaustion left his body, leaving only the cold that seeped mercilessly into his skin. He wanted nothing better than to say yes to Leela’s every word because it was all true: there was no way back, they had both picked their sides for better or worse, because to betray what they had chosen would be to doubly betray what they had given up. Leela understood that, as she understood so many things that Narvin had once thought only a Time Lord could possibly understand. But perhaps it had nothing to do with being a Time Lord. Perhaps it had more to do with that elusive quality that Leela called ‘being a warrior’. Honour might be the word Narvin would have chosen, had it not sounded far too deceptively simple.
Whatever it was, he recognised it in Leela. Narvin was not by nature given to strong desires, but a part of him had grown so accustomed to Leela’s strange company that he found himself depending on it now. He could admit no more without compromising himself, but that, yes: he wanted her by his side. That she returned the feeling would have pleased him beyond words if it wasn’t so bitterly ironic.
Leela had noticed his silence. “You trusted Romana with the Key when you would not trust Matthias. It must mean you are on her side!”
“I don’t pick sides,” he told her. It came out harsher than he intended, but he could not keep the cold out of his voice when he felt it running deeper with every breath he took. “There can be only one side for me, ever and always, and that is Gallifrey. If you haven’t understood that by now, I don’t know what to say to get it through your thick skull.”
Leela seemed to be standing perfectly still, yet at the same time shaking with rage. “Insult me all you want, Narvin. It is you who is the fool. What is this Gallifrey you speak of? It is not its laws, because you break them if it suits you. It is not its buildings, because you and I have destroyed them when it was necessary. It is not its people, because you do not care for anyone in the world. It is nothing, a word, a - a false god that you still follow even though you must have seen by now that it is false.” She stopped to catch her breath. “But if that is your choice, then our ways must part.”
“It seems they must,” he said, and watched her nod and turn and stride away from him, back to Romana. He turned as well, more slowly, more dignified he told himself, as befitted a Time Lord, even when no one was watching.
He looked over his shoulder, and saw her standing still as well, only a savage dressed in skins, lost among these ancient houses, hardly deadly except for the stain of blood darkening on her dress, and the doubtful look on her face. That doubt, the question it put to him and almost forced him to answer, was deadlier than poison.
EPILOGUE
Arrests required triple forms, three times his signature under the words High Treason. Narvin had signed them and put them away, and now only Leela’s visa application form remained before he could return to business as usual.
All he needed was to tick a box, maybe write a brief note. He wavered over the boxes, APPROVED on the one side, DENIED on the other, then set his pen down to begin a note before making a choice.
“Dangerous element, highly subversive-” he wrote, but then his pen seemed to falter, and he crossed out the words in annoyance. Too strong, too personal.
“Successful integration unlikely, recommend repatriation-”
But that wasn’t possible, Leela had said so herself. She, too, had cut her ties. He crossed out another line and began a third time.
“Subject issupporting seditious elements among the population
That, though, was cause for another arrest, rather than a reason to deny a visa. And calling Romana seditious was perhaps a bit hasty. Narvin stared at the form. He could just tick DENIED, nobody important would ask any questions. Nobody but him would probably even look at the form. Even Leela had probably forgotten about it by now.
He glanced at the other side, the balanced, clean curves of the sign for APPROVED. As if on its own accord, his pen found the paper again.
“Most vital to Gallifrey,” he wrote.