The Testing of the Knight
The Doctor halted the TARDIS in space. It had been a long time since he had been this far out. He turned on the viewer and gazed out at the few stars scattered across the screen. The view suited him. He was traveling alone and the emptiness suited his lonely mood.
He was about to set the coordinates for Earth when a light began to flash on the console. Someone in this lonely region was beaming a message into space. Curious, the Doctor began to search for the frequency.
"Please help us. Someone, please help us." It was a woman's voice. She sounded desperate. "We're dying. Our race is dying. We must have aid. Someone, please, if you hear me, please help us."
The Doctor began to search for the source of the call. It came from the third planet of a star a thousand light years from it's nearest neighbor. The Doctor wondered how a people, so far from any other, had ever come to know there were travelers in space who might hear them. As he set the coordinates for the planet, he said, "Well, I shall soon find out."
The TARDIS materialized on a rocky slope above a green valley. The Doctor switched on the viewer. There was a city of about ten thousand in the valley below. It was well over a kilometer away, but seemed to be the source of the signal. The Doctor said, "Now, that's a bit of a miss." He thought about moving the TARDIS, but decided his waistline could use the walk.
Before he left the TARDIS, he made a very careful check of his instruments. His systems told him he could breathe the air, but he almost changed his mind about walking when he saw the outside temperature was nearly thirty-eight degrees. There was some unusual background radiation, but the TARDIS told him it would have no effect on him.
He removed his coat and tie and unbuttoned his vest. The coat would be far too warm and loosening his vest would help air circulate around his body. He transferred a few small items to his vest and pants pockets, regretting the necessity of leaving behind all those useful items stored in his capacious coat pockets. He was about to return the spare TARDIS key to one of those pockets when he paused, turned it over in his fingers, dropped its chain over his head, unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, and tucked it inside. He picked up the small square box of the signal tracker, glanced once more at the scanner's view of the small city dozing in the mid-day heat, and opened the doors.
He stepped out on the dry rocky hill where he had landed and looked down on the city. He could see why the survivors of whatever disaster had struck this planet had chosen this place. It lay between two rivers in a deep valley. The entire valley was under cultivation with a sophisticated irrigation system providing water to all the fields. Whatever the problem that was destroying these people, he was sure it wasn't starvation. He turned his eyes to the tracker and started down the hill toward the center of the city.
The breeze blowing up the valley into his face kept the kilometer walk from being too unpleasant. The humidity was fairly low so he hadn't been uncomfortable. He was beginning to wish he'd worn a hat. The sun beating down on his head was reminding him even Time Lords aren't immune to sunburn.
He walked through the outskirts of the city. All around him were what appeared to be warehouses and industrial areas. There was no pollution. All power seemed to be generated by solar collection, windmills and hydro electric means. As he began to pass into a residential area, he admired the low open houses with fruit trees planted round them. The planners of this refuge had done an excellent job. These people, he felt, deserved to survive.
He passed into an area of small shops. There was some type of open market at the end of the block. It was there he saw his first native. She was bent over with her back to him. She wore a loose-fitting dress of pastel blue with a deeper blue sash at the waist and a wide-brimmed hat of the same tint. He watched her for a moment as she transferred some type of fruit from a basket at her feet to a sloping shelf at her side. She was a fair-skinned humanoid of middle age. She looked healthy and fit. The Doctor wondered, once again, what could be the problem that had prompted the desperate plea that had brought him.
The woman suddenly noticed him. Before he could speak to her, her eyes widened, her hand flew to her mouth, and she turned and ran. So great was her haste, she knocked over a stack of baskets, scattering fruit across the floor of the neat little market. He shook his head in wonder at her response, then turned back to his tracker and set off to find the source of the deep space signal.
He began to notice people watching from doorways and windows. He started to feel odd. His subconscious was trying to tell him something. He stopped and looked around. People were beginning to come out into the street. He looked behind him and saw it was full of people. Someone touched his back. He turned to face an elderly woman. He smiled and said, "Hello, I'm the Doctor. I've come in response..." Suddenly he was being grabbed at from all sides. He began to try to get clear of the mob that had formed around him. The quiet street filled with the sound of hysteria. As he went down beneath the hands of the grasping, shoving, mob, his subconscious finally broke through with its message. He had seen only women.
The Doctor awoke in a soft bed. As he started to sit up, he realized two things. He hurt all over and beneath the thin covers he was totally naked. He lay still a moment trying to assemble his memories. He remembered the mob attacking and realized he'd been knocked unconscious. That was obvious from the pain in his head. But where was he, how had he gotten here, and WHERE were his clothes?
A soft cloth smelling of some type of medication was laid across his brow. The hand laying the cloth was very gentle, but the tenderness of the area caused him to gasp and snap his eyes open. He looked into the dark brown eyes of a very young woman. He had startled her and she jumped away from the edge of the bed.
He gingerly raised his head and looked around. The girl had joined five others of approximately the same age about two meters to his left. He lay in a large bed with some type of netting or lace canopy above him. The large room around him spoke of feminine good taste. He realized he'd been carefully 'tucked in' in a woman's bedroom. One of the girls dashed out the door on his right. He heard her calling, "Mother. Mother, he's awake." He reached up and felt for his spare TARDIS key. Relieved it was still around his neck, he settled back to wait for 'Mother'.
The Doctor was getting restless. It had been quite some time since the girl had left the room. He'd tried to talk to the five young women a few steps away, but the only response he'd gotten was a few shy giggles as they had drawn into a tighter huddle and whispered among themselves. He sighed. He would have liked to have gotten up, but he certainly wasn’t going to in his present company. Not in his current state of dress. He'd asked for clothes, or a dressing gown, or SOMETHING, but his only answer had been a renewed burst of giggling.
The girl who had left the room reentered followed by a woman a bit more mature in appearance. The woman walked briskly to the bed and said, "Good evening. I'm Telara, hereditary ruler of this planet. You're in my apartments."
"Good evening, madam. I am the Doctor. I would rise to greet you properly, but I seem to be in somewhat of a state of dishabille at the moment."
Telara smiled. "I'm sorry, Doctor. but your own clothing is beyond repair and it will be some time before new garments can be completed."
The Doctor raised himself to his elbows, wincing at the pain in his head. Suddenly several pairs of eager young hands were tucking pillows behind him. He leaned back and said, "Perhaps I could just borrow something for the time being." The statement sent the girls into another fit of giggles.
Telara's smile grew wider. "Doctor, I doubt if anything suitable could be found. You see, you are the only male on this planet."
He sank back into the pillows in shock. He thought to himself, "Oh, Doctor, what have you gotten yourself into this time?"
Telara pointed to a chair. Two of the girls immediately picked it up and carried it to the side of the bed. As she seated herself, she said,
"You're very lucky. We didn't know your craft had landed. If Melora hadn't called from the market, you'd have been killed by the mob before my guard reached you. As it was, they got there just in time to keep you from being, literally, torn apart.
Approximately four hundred years ago an alien race attacked us. We had an advanced technological society and a population in the billions. We were on the brink of being able to reach another star system. We've never learned who our attackers were or why they attacked us, but we inflicted heavy casualties on them and they left. However; as a last act they bombarded our planet with small missiles. At first we were surprised they would be willing to lose so many ships to launch something that seemed to do so little damage. We were wrong. The missiles released a strange type of radiation. Our scientists told us it was not dangerous. They were wrong. In a few years, as the radiation saturated our planet, it began to become apparent that it was having a disastrous effect. We would have realized it sooner, but we were busy rebuilding our civilization.
There were fewer and fewer male children being born. The radiation was destroying the Y chromosome. We began a sperm bank to preserve life here, but we were already too late. Our population began to shrink. The girls in this room are the last children born to our species. They are called The Six."
The Doctor thought over what he had been told for a moment. "Telara, I don't know if I can help you. Finding another species that would be cross-fertile with yours may be impossible. Have you attempted cloning or parthenogenesis?"
Telara laughed and replied, "Yes, Doctor. They don't work. For some reason, we believe due to the radiation, all our attempts at cloning and ovid stimulation produced nonviable results. However; the radiation had one other effect on us. One I'm sure its creators had not anticipated. Forty years ago a ship crashed on our planet. We never learned what brought it to this world, but that's when we began sending our call for help into space. We could only hope other travelers would hear us. The crash site was half way across the continent. By the time we reached it, the pilot was beyond our help. He died, but we preserved his tissue for study. The Y chromosomes he carried had already begun to deteriorate in the two days he had been on our planet. We were desperate, Doctor. A few volunteers were artificially inseminated. Those women bore healthy female children. The women of this planet are now inter-species fertile. We can bear children by a male of any humanoid species. You, Doctor, are going to father a new generation on Mecara. These six and I are to be your wives. All other women will be artificially inseminated. And, Doctor, it has already begun."
The Doctor stared at her in shock, realizing what had been done to him and taken from him while he was unconscious. "This is an outrage! You have done this without my consent!"
Telara sighed. "I'm sorry, but you have no choice and neither do we. Now, Doctor, I shall introduce you to your other brides to be. Come here girls." The young women ranged themselves along the sides of the bed. "This is Mila," she indicated the dark-eyed girl the Doctor had first seen on opening his eyes; "Jira," a fair-haired girl with green eyes; "Tara," a tall slender brunette; "Cara," a freckled redhead; "Cirila," a full-figured diminutive girl with blond curls; "and my daughter, Tenara." the girl with long light brown hair who had run from the room calling "Mother". "I shall leave you to get acquainted with The Six. I must review the lists of applicants to bear your children."
As she rose to leave, the Doctor said, "Madam, you cannot force me to do this."
She turned back to him and said, "Oh, but Doctor, we can. We have drugs to dull your consciousness while leaving your body fully responsive. Your only choice is whether to cooperate consciously or not." With those words, she left the room.
The Doctor looked at the young women surrounding him, grasped his TARDIS key and thought, "How am I going to get out of this?"
A night had passed. When all the 'brides' had finally left the room, the Doctor had gotten up. He'd pulled the nearly sheer sheet off the bed and wrapped it round himself. It made a very inadequate covering, but was the only piece he could free. The light spread was attached to the bed frame by clamps which would have required some type of tool to open. He could find nothing that would serve in the room. The pieces of equipment and the TARDIS key that had been in his pockets had probably disappeared when he was mobbed.
He'd made a thorough search of the room and the small lavatory. There were two other locked doors in the room besides the one the women had used when leaving. He'd looked through the drawers in the vanity and the bureau hoping to find something to aid in his escape. He'd found nothing but feminine undergarments. He assumed one of the locked doors was a closet, but even if he'd gotten it open he doubted he could create an adequate disguise. All the women had been slender and only one had been above average height. Perhaps one of his earlier personas could have fit into something belonging to one of them, but he definitely could not.
He'd checked the main door. It was locked and he presumed guarded. He had heard quiet women's voices on the other side. He could have broken it down, but would have probably had to injure or even kill some of the guards while they were trying not to hurt him. These women were not evil, just desperate. He would not harm them. He'd also checked the windows. They looked down on a courtyard with a large number of woman guards patrolling in groups of five. Any attempted escape in that direction would also have required violence, but he still needed to find a way out, and quickly. He doubted the High Council would look favorably on his becoming father to a race.
A brisk knock at the door sent him scrambling back to the bed. He had barely gotten under the too-thin cover when Mila, Jira and Tenara entered. Mila was carrying what was obviously a breakfast tray. Jira had what could only be a dressing gown of a deep maroon, satin-like, material and Tenara was carrying his clothes. His clothes! Telara had told him they were destroyed. He began to get angry. Just as he was about to voice, loudly, his opinion of people who lied to him she said, "We used what was left of your clothing as a pattern for these. We have done our best to make them properly. I hope they are correct."
The Doctor choked back his angry accusation and said, "Thank you." He watched as Tenara laid the clothing and the dressing gown on a chair on the other side of the room. As Mila brought the breakfast tray toward the bed, he said, "Would you hand me the dressing gown, please?"
All three girls burst into giggles and Mila said, "Oh, not yet, Doctor. We're going to get a little better acquainted first. We've been reading the old books." Considering the change in the girls since the previous night, the Doctor had a pretty good idea what kind of books they'd been reading.
Tenara and Jira plumped pillows behind him, then sat on the bed at his sides. Mila placed the tray beyond his reach on a stand beside the bed and also sat down. He suddenly realized he was about to be 'spoon-fed'. As Mila raised a spoonful of some type of grain cereal to his lips, Tenara stroked his shoulder then ran her fingertips down his chest. The girls certainly had more in mind than feeding him breakfast. The Doctor wondered again, "How AM I going to get out of this?"
The Doctor took off the dressing gown and began to dress. He had been shown to a bath behind one of the locked doors and had finally yelled, "Get out!" when he realized the girls were planning on bathing him. He had just gotten his pants on and was reaching for his shirt when there was a rap on the door and Telara walked into the room. "Telara, I MUST have some privacy."
"Doctor, this is my room. You were left alone last night. Do not expect it to happen again. Quarters are being prepared for you. I'm sure you will find them more comfortable and you will be given time to be alone. You will also have access to our library and most of this building including the gardens in the courtyard. You will be prevented from leaving here. Yesterday's mob scene would only be repeated if you were to step into the street. You are at present the most valuable commodity on this world."
"Telara, I want to help your people
. Let me go to my TARDIS and I can find you someone to replenish your sperm banks."
She laughed. "Doctor, I believe you. But, you see, we need YOU. Your physiology is unique. Your Y chromosomes are not deteriorating. You, Doctor, are going to be the father of the first males born on this planet in three hundred fifty years. Now, I must go. My guards are to receive drugs to inhibit their reproductive drive. It is very strong in my species. Three of my most trusted guards are already under sedation. They tried to break in here last night. Doctor, there are not enough armed guards on this planet to get you to your ship safely. However; a large contingent will soon be arriving to escort you to the Council Hall. It is time for you to be married."
The Doctor was escorted to the front of the Council Hall and pushed down to kneel beside Telara facing some type of alter behind which stood an elderly woman in, what he assumed were, priestly robes. He'd been glad of the armed escort, as the crowd had surged forward at his entrance to the hall. Telara was right. Only the armed determination of the guards had kept him from being mobbed. He shuddered at the hungry look of the women whose hands still reached toward him. He had little hope of survival if they ever got those hands on him. He doubted even a Time Lord could regenerate if torn into small pieces. Even his curiosity wasn't strong enough for him to want to find out.
The priest turned toward Telara and asked, "Telara, as hereditary ruler, do you and the Six who stand behind you accept this male who kneels before me?"
"We do."
The priest came from behind the alter and stood before him. She placed a heavy chain around his neck. From it hung a six pointed star with a smaller star at each point. Each star had a different gemstone at its center. "Then before our people and the powers of the universe, I declare this male yours by law. Protect him and bear his children."
Telara turned to him and said, "Give me your hand." The Doctor was still trying to formulate an objection when she stood and hissed, "Give me your hand, Doctor, or I shall not be able to get you out of here alive."
He reluctantly stood and gave her his hand. As she turned him to face the crowd, he heard her breathe a sigh of relief. The six girls moved into a circle around them, pulling jeweled knives from sheathes at their waists. The crowd began to cheer as they dropped into defensive postures.
They left the hall, his hand in Telara's, surrounded by six girls with drawn knives, surrounded by about thirty guards holding heavy caliber, slug-throwing, weapons. The Doctor could not help but notice the incongruity of the wicked looking weapons with the flower petals drifting through the air.
He thought back over the brief ceremony. It had probably been created specifically for this occasion to prevent riots. As hereditary ruler, Telara had claimed him for her people. She had called it a marriage, but this had been no joining together. He was, by their law, simply and completely owned.
The guard escorted them to a wing of the palace he had not passed on his way to the Council Hall. Two guards opened the iron banded double doors before them and the Doctor and his seven 'wives' entered a very large room. He looked around. To his left were six doors. There were two more about four meters apart in the wall in front of him. To his right were an open pair of glass-paned doors that led to a large terrace with a courtyard visible below. He could see armed guards patrolling the top of the wall around the courtyard. The sound of wild celebration came through the open terrace doors.
Telara dropped his hand, nodded toward the heavy doors to the suite, then those to the terrace. Mila pulled the terrace doors closed. The Doctor turned and watched as Tenara and Jira closed the doors to the suite and dropped a heavy metal bar into a pair of brackets set across their middle. Telara and all six girls dropped into chairs. They all looked exhausted. Telara said, "Sit down, Doctor. We are home safely."
The Doctor took the large comfortable looking chair to her right. "Telara, you may see us as married, but I do not. I refuse to see this as binding and I will find any way I can of leaving here. You cannot keep me caged here forever and I shall never stop trying to escape."
Telara gave him an ironic smile. "Doctor, I had over a hundred guards in that hall with weapons at ready. There were over two hundred more in the plaza outside. But if you had spoken one word of objection in that ceremony, none of us would have gotten out of there alive. It is not I who holds you prisoner, but the eleven thousand women beyond these walls."
The Doctor realized she was telling him the absolute truth, but not for the reasons she had stated. He needed to think of some alternative way to save this species, but he hadn't come up with any ideas. Yet.
He began to have some idea of what life on Mecara would be like for him that day. The woman who had brought his lunch had tried to fondle him and had drawn back a bloody hand when Mila had nicked her with her knife. Telara rushed out to quell an incipient riot among the three hundred women she had mobilized to guard him. They had learned they were not to be on the lists to bear children. The Six had stood over a physician with drawn knives as she had questioned him carefully about some of the unique aspects of his physiology, then rendered him unconscious with an injection. He didn't ask what had been done to him.
He had been shown a small suite of rooms that were to be his. He had a study with a computer terminal, a small drawing room, a lavatory, a bath with a huge sunken tub and a bedroom. He had gazed on the large bed that dominated the bedroom with a large measure of trepidation. It had been with some shock he realized the bars on all the windows could be released, but only from inside the room. The bars were not to keep him in. They were to keep others out.
He could see a great deal of effort had gone toward making the rooms masculine and comfortable. The entire suite and his rooms in particular had that shiny, just finished, look about them. It was obvious every builder on the planet had been working to complete them in the day he'd been there. There was just one thing missing. There were no locks on any of the doors in his suite and, somehow, he just couldn't see any being provided.
There was a knock at the doors of his rooms. This time no one 'just walked in'. The Doctor was inordinately pleased at this small concession to his privacy. He walked to the door and opened it. Shy Cirila looked up at him and said, "Doctor, please join us for dinner."
There was to be no repeat of the incident at lunch. The door guards watched closely as the women bearing trays from the kitchen handed them through the doors to the residents of the suite. There were never more than two girls with their hands full at one time. The other four stood watching with hands on knife hilts. Once the food had all been passed in and the doors once again barred, Telara indicated a chair to him at the head of the table set for eight.
As dinner progressed, the Doctor actually began to enjoy himself. All the women were intelligent and very well educated. They were the cream of their society. Each had a vibrant personality and all had the equivalent of a doctorate in some field. Telara and Tenara were both sociologists. They explained it was a practical field of study for a ruler. Mila was an architect. She had designed the suite. Jira was an anthropologist, Cara a musician, Tara a historian, and little Cirila was her world's most brilliant mathematician. After the guarded passing of the dinner remains through the door, Cara brought out a stringed instrument, somewhat resembling a mandolin, from her room and began to play. The music was, as the food had been, superb.
Telara offered him a glass of excellent wine. She proposed a toast. "To you, Doctor, and the survival of my people." He accepted both the wine, though he seldom consumed alcohol, and the toast, but in his thoughts he added, "and to my being able to think of a way out of this mess SOON!"
Telara held out her hand to him and said, "Come, Doctor, the evening has been long enough. It is time."
The Doctor stood. He was a bit unsteady. In his attempt to prolong the evening, he had allowed his glass to be refilled a few too many times. "Telara, I'm not ready for this. You're just
asking too much of me. This is not something I can do casually. I'm sorry. No. I won't do it. I can't do it."
Telara laughed. "Oh, Doctor, you can and you will."
The seven women began pushing him toward his rooms, laughing at his unsteady struggles. He was surprised when they pushed him past the bedroom and into the bath, where they unceremoniously dumped him into the tub. As he struggled to the surface sputtering, he was surrounded by splashes. He found himself being efficiently stripped by the quick hands of seven determined women. His head snapped back and he gasped. "Where," he wondered, "in a world without men, did they learn these things." It was his last coherent thought for quite some time.
The Doctor awoke alone. His head hurt from the unaccustomed alcohol consumption. He also felt... Violated was the only term that seemed to fit. He had been left alone with Telara. She had known exactly what she was doing. When he had begun to fight off her attentions, she had said, "Please, Doctor, don't make us drug you. We like you too much to want to see you become vegetative. The drugs would destroy your mind over a period of time. You'd never recover. Don't force us to use them."
He'd known the real choice he faced. He could free himself, probably killing several women in the process, and let her people die; or surrender himself to her and the needs of her world. He'd made his choice and been most thoroughly and proficiently used.
He pulled on his dressing gown and walked to the windows. He reached up and pushed the drapes open. He was suddenly fighting to free himself from the grasping hands thrust through the bars.
He pulled himself free and crashed into a bureau. Tara ran into his room, grabbed a bronze statue, and began beating on the hands holding onto the bars. The Doctor heard three distinct thuds as the women lost their grips and fell the three stories to the ground. He rushed into the lavatory. As he leaned against the closed door, a series of violent shudders shook him. Tara knocked and said, "Doctor, don't waste your sorrow on them. They had to kill at least five guards to get there."
The Doctor had seen more death than anyone he had ever known. He had killed and nearly been killed more times than he wanted to remember. He had seen people he loved die and held them as their lives ebbed away; but never, in his long life, had he faced anything that left him curled up and strengthless on the floor. He was coming to understand just how much of himself he would have to give to save this race. He would become a resource, an object, his body enslaved to the survival instinct of a species. It would take all the control he had to allow it, and never, in the long years ahead, could he lose that control.
He never opened the curtains in his room again.
The women watched him pass through the stages of his captivity.
At first he would pace the suite like a restless, caged, wild animal, then he would be witty, charming, almost gallant. He taught them songs, poetry, did magic tricks. He clowned and made them laugh. Then he buried himself in work.
He completely redesigned the computer system, then used it to help plan the rebuilding of their civilization. He tapped their skills and knowledge. He gave them work. He realized his presence kept them captive too. And he taught them...
When the work was done the tantrums began. No breakable item in the suite was safe. He never hit any of them when he threw something, but he never missed anything he aimed at. He was short tempered, impatient, and, whenever he began to shout, they all ran for cover. Not in fear for their safety, but for their hearing.
They were beginning to realize how dangerous a being they had tried to cage and starting to understand the choice of whether or not he would save them had always been his. He was, the single most deadly thing, on their planet and only he had the power to protect them from himself.
Telara decided to offer him the freedom of the palace. He'd barely begun to explore when a huge guard shoved him face first into a corner, twisting one of his arms up behind his back and shoving her other hand into his pants. Two other guards beat her into unconsciousness and dragged her off him, but the hungry look they gave him as they dragged their comrade away sent him back to the suite. He hadn't even struggled. He knew his presence on Mecara had brought violence to it. He couldn't help being the cause of it, but he would never take part in it.
The time came when the physician refused to sedate him. As strong as he was and as carefully as the drug had been designed for use on him, she knew the daily injections endangered him. She taught the six the technique of collecting his semen. His calm acceptance of what was being done to him brought tears to the eyes of those performing the procedure. That night in her room, the physician cried herself to sleep.
At night he could suddenly become the aggressor. Strong, demanding, almost terrifying, in the sudden unleashing of his physical power.
One night they were awakened by a scream. They rushed to his room. He was kneeling on the floor at the side of the bed, head down, crushing the bed clothes in white knuckled fists, saying over and over, "I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop."
Cirila looked up at them and shook her head. She was stroking his hair murmuring, "Shh...It's all right. It's all right." It was the only time they ever saw him truly afraid. The only thing he feared was himself.
He began to leave the suite again, exploring the palace.
One day he walked across the Council Hall and the doors were standing open. He heard a commotion and turned to see a group of women running toward him through the open doors. The guards drove most of them away with blows of their gun butts, but one beautiful woman would not let go of him. They hit her again and again. The Doctor was yelling, "Don't kill her! Don't kill her!" Even after the guard put a bullet through her head, they had to prise her fingers loose from him.
The Doctor ran stumbling and sickened, covered in brains and blood, back to the suite. It took all seven of the women to hold him down while the physician checked to be certain the dead woman hadn't damaged him. He was shouting at them, "Get away from me! Don't touch me! Don't touch me! It's dangerous! You don't know what you're doing! Get away from me!" They trusted him not to hurt them and, somehow, he kept control.
He never left the suite again.
Winter brought cooler, cloudy, days. He would walk down into the courtyard and restlessly pace its confines. One day a woman climbed over the wall and ran toward him. The guards yelled at her to stop and fired a warning shot, but she kept on running. They shot her and she fell dead at his feet.
He never went down in the courtyard or out on the terrace again.
They were worried about the Doctor. He had become quiet, almost submissive. He never yelled, rarely even spoke. He'd begun to stand long hours at the closed terrace doors, gazing out at the hills where they knew his strange ship was parked. He just stood and stared into the distance, turning the strange piece of metal he wore round his neck over and over in his hand.
One evening they had told him it had been confirmed all of them were in various stages of pregnancy. Tears had come to his eyes. He nodded and left the room. Telara had followed him to his darkened room. He was lying on his back on the bed holding the oddly shaped pendent in both hands.
Telara decided she must do something. She had come to love this man and it was breaking her heart to watch him. The more he accepted his imprisonment, the more she hated it. One night, as she lay next to his cool body she made the decision. She began to cry, realizing how empty her life would be without him. He was awake of course. He seemed to need very little sleep. He asked her what was wrong and, when she mutely shook her head, he pulled her to him and gently held her until she cried herself to sleep.
Telara stood on the terrace and looked down at the courtyard. Spring had come to the valley. It was more than two seasons since the Doctor had come among them and given himself to them to save her people. She called the others together and they began to devise a way to set him free.
Their world had been saved by this man. There would
be a new generation. The physicians had told her that, not only would there be male children, all the children would carry the Doctor's immunity to the radiation. It was the only part of the Doctor's unique physiology they would inherit. Some of them would inherit his general physical attributes, but in all other ways they would be mecaran.
Telara called her personal guard. She trusted these women more than any others outside the suite, but she didn't tell them what she planned. She merely gave them their orders and sent them out into the night.
The next morning Telara and the Six once more coaxed the Doctor into his bath with them. They bathed him gently and cradled him among them, then led him from the bath and dressed him. He said nothing as they led him unresisting to the terrace doors. He began to pull away as they started to lead him out onto the terrace. Suddenly he saw what they were leading him toward. There, in the courtyard below, stood the familiar blue shape of his TARDIS.
He spun to face them, a look of complete incredulity on his face. Telara smiled at him. "Yes, Doctor, it is the only thing in the hills that could possibly be your ship. Doctor, we love you and we set you free."
He turned and ran down the steps and across the courtyard. He gave a whoop of joy as he ran, making the seven women watching him laugh. He took the strange object from his neck and inserted it in the door. Telara realized it was the key to the strange ship. Just before he opened the doors, he turned and looked up at them. Then he was gone.
The courtyard was filled with a strange sound and the light on the blue box-like ship began to flash. Suddenly the courtyard was empty.
Telara turned to the others and found they had tears in their eyes to match the ones in her own. She said, "Come on, I'll need your help. I believe we have a very stormy council session ahead of us." As they left the suite, she took one more look around and whispered, "Come back someday, Doctor. Come back and see how your children have grown."
The Doctor set the coordinates for the Eye of Orion. He walked over and rubbed the fabric of his multi-colored coat between his fingers. He took his coat down and put it on. He spent the journey wandering through the corridors of the TARDIS. When the TARDIS landed, he opened the doors and slowly walked out into the cool, ion-rich, day. He looked out across the beautiful, peaceful, landscape and breathed deeply. He sat down on a vine covered wall and let the peace sink into him.
And slowly he began to heal.
The Cardinal and the councilor turned from the matrix. They sent the guard at the door of the chamber to the Lord President with the message, "It is done." They had looked into the future and they knew.
One day the universe would need the Doctor's children.
Knight, Squire and Herald
Squire and Herald