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They’ve been in the holding area several hours when the door rattles open and the border guards thrust in the woman; and across the room their eyes meet and he feels a jolt of mutual recognition.
Not that he’d ever seen her before – but it was something about the way she’s dressed. Her features. Or maybe one could just instinctively recognise one’s own kind. Maybe that was why everyone on Earth had been so put off by him.
The woman’s shuffling path across the room takes her alongside him and there’s no doubt left in his mind when he catches a whiff of her scent. Short – curly haired – clutching a dark bag to her chest. She looks him up and down in obvious suspicion. Wondering, no doubt, which side he’d been on.
For a moment, they regard each other in suspicion. Then she says, “You’re a long way from home.”
Her vowels are a lot rougher than his own. “As are you.”
“Hm,” she grunts; and without another word, she continues on her way.
Tegan, sitting on the bench beside where he’s standing, has perked up at the interaction like an inquisitive dog. She watches the woman go. “Do you pair know each other?”
“No,” he says with a carefree shrug. “Not as such.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Not as such.”
He opts to choose his words very carefully. “She and I are – from the same place. That’s all.”
He knows that his reticence about his origins bothers her and as such he braces himself for her to take the opportunity to ask some burning questions, but evidently she’s not in the mood. She slumps back down on the bench and folds her arms in irritation.
Anyway, the Doctor’s coming back. He works his way through the press and as he catches tight of the pair of them – right where he left them – he plasters on a smile. “Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news.”
“Define good news,” says Tegan.
“The good news is that the consensus is we’re unlikely to be here much longer,” says the Doctor. “Another hour or two. No more.”
“Terrific,” she says. “What’s the bad news?”
“Ah.” He scratches an ear and winces. “Well, the consensus also seems to be that the best way to get over the border is, ah, bribery. Which could be a problem. But I’m sure we’ll think of something.” His plastered-on smile broadens into a grin.
Tegan’s giving him an absolutely venomous look. Turlough opts to keep things moving. “Do you have any valuables?”
The Doctor just waves him off. “Oh, I’m sure it won’t come to that.”
“We could always offer them Turlough,” says Tegan. “He’ll be worth a bob or two, I’m sure.”
“Ha!” he laughs. “Ha.” As if it’s a joke.
“Anyway,” Tegan goes on, ignoring him. “What do you mean, an hour or two? We’ve been here hours already.”
“Barely,” says the Doctor.
She thumps her head back against the concrete wall and pronounces, “I need a wee.”
“I think there’s a bucket around,” Turlough puts in helpfully.
That gets him on the receiving end of the venomous look. “I’d rather die.”
The Doctor clears his throat and says, “Yes – well.” As usual, he seems a bit flustered at the mention of Tegan’s bodily functions. “We’ll be on our way back to the TARDIS before you know it.”
This is one of those days, Turlough reflects, when the situation is clearly spiralling out of the Doctor’s always tenuous control. He contemplates his options. What he’ll do if this turns to out to be more of an every man or woman for themselves scenario. How dire things will have to get before it’ll be a matter of compromising oneself.
Well, as the Doctor had said, it probably won’t come to that.
Another hour goes by and Tegan’s begun to jiggle her leg when the door once again opens and four – no, five – uniformed border guards pour in. He’s on his feet and on his guard before they can call out, “Inspection!”
The guards make swift progress around the room, opening bags, patting down bodies. He hastily turns out his pockets, which are largely empty. The Doctor dallies over his, smiling and stammering and producing an assortment of oddments that the guards quickly tire of.
Tegan is woefully underprepared, as if she hadn’t expected to be searched, and consequently manhandled more forcefully. “Hey!” she protests, flinching out of the guard’s rough grip. “Hands to yourself, mister.”
Already losing interest, the guard moves on. She eyes Turlough as if expecting him to have done something about it. He settles for saying, “You alright?”
“I’m fine,” she says. “Just my dignity. Nothing important.
“Brave heart, Tegan,” says the Doctor absently. “Anyway, what did I tell you? I’m sure we’re almost –”
Across the room, a voice cries out in a high wail of panic. “No!”
It’s the Trion woman, he realises with a sinking heart. She’s backed into a corner by two of the guards, looking from one to the other and gripping her bag tight. “No – I won’t let you take it –”
With a nasty snap, out of the guards unfolds his truncheon. This doesn’t look good for her. He wonders if there’s any point getting involved.
Then the guard with the truncheon raises it as if to strike her and the Trion woman lashes out. Her wrist connects with his arm – barely even a blow – and he drops like a stone.
Turlough winces in sympathy. A ripple of alarm goes around the room – a new tension. The search was business as usual. This is not. None of these people, he guesses, are familiar with the quirks of Trion biology.
More guards are closing in on the woman as she struggles pale-faced back towards the wall. More truncheons extend and he realises in a detached way that they’re going to beat her. It’s a while since he’s seen anything like it.
But then the Doctor’s voice rings out. “Now, there’s no need for that!”
He’s pushing his way through the crowd towards the confrontation and Turlough’s warning hiss of, “Doctor!” falls on deaf ears. Tegan goes to follow him, but not wanting things to get any worse he grabs her arm.
And what happens next happens very swiftly.
One of the guards says, “None of that, now,” and reaches for the woman and she thrusts out at him with her free arm, but she does it just as the Doctor inserts himself into the fray and says, “See here, now –” and so instead of the guard’s shoulder her wrist connects with his neck.
Without a sound, down the Doctor goes.
“No!” Tegan makes another move to go to him, but Turlough holds her tighter.
“There’s nothing you can do,” he hisses, hoping she’ll understand, knowing perfectly well that she won’t. It’s in her nature.
“Let me go!” she snaps at him.
They’re hauling the defenceless, yelling woman away towards the door, still holding onto the bag she’d protected so fiercely. One of the guards takes his fallen comrade by the armpits and heaves him towards the door. The last of them gives the Doctor a look over and a firm kick. Seemingly satisfied with the results, he turns to go.
The door slams closed. He lets go of Tegan. “Doctor,” she gasps, darting over to him.
“Be careful,” he says, hastening after her. “Tegan – be careful –”
She’s always rolling the Doctor over onto his back and reaching for his neck as if to check for a pulse, even though he’s visibly breathing. Dropping to his knees beside the Doctor’s fallen body, he bats her hand away.
“Hey!” she snaps. He has to bite back a sharp retort at her apparent foolishness. Don’t you know anything? Didn’t you listen to your parents? To your teachers? In the heart of the moment he’d all but forgotten where he is and that of course Tegan’s parents had never told her anything about this sort of thing. Tegan was human.
“Careful,” he hisses; and tilting the Doctor’s head delicately to one side, he inspects his skin.
There. Difficult to see if you didn’t know what you were looking for, slender and translucent. Wrapping his sleeve around his fingers, he eases out the barb and raises it up to eye level to be sure it’s intact.
A sharp needle of keratin, about three inches long, with just the slightest, elegant curve. He looks it over with no small interest. It’s a long time since he’s seen one. A pinkish droplet is clinging to its sharp tip, the Doctor’s blood mingling with the clear venom. That’s good. None of it’s left beneath his skin.
“What is that?” says Tegan. “A weapon?”
Around them, the other prisoners have drawn back and are talking amongst themselves. Either they’ve lost all interest in proceedings or they’ve simply decided they don’t want to be a part of it.
One hand upon the Doctor’s chest, unwilling to let go of him, Tegan’s eyes are trained on the barb. “Is that,” she says, with apparent disgust. “Organic?”
He searches the Doctor’s pockets one handed for a handkerchief and carefully wraps the barb.
“Did that come out of her?” she goes on, her disgust mounting. “Eurgh. What did she do to him?”
“She stung him,” says Turlough. “It’s venomous – he –”
Ignoring him and growing still more agitated, Tegan begins to give the Doctor a proper shake. “Doctor – Doctor –”
“He’s fine,” Turlough says firmly. “He’ll be unconscious for a few hours. That’s all.”
He’d done it, of course. They’d all done it in basic training so they’d know what to expect. He recalls a deep, dreamless sleep followed by waking up with a pounding headache not knowing where he was.
At her furious look, he adds, “If it was going to kill him he’d already be dead.”
He probably should have realised that wouldn’t come across as the reassurance he’d intended. “She could have killed him?” Her hand goes to the Doctor’s shoulder. “What the hell did she do that for,” she says. “He was trying to help her.”
Tegan did have a way of putting her own spin on things. “I don’t think she meant to,” he says, words tripping out, unsure why he’s defending this woman who has nothing to do with him. “It’s a fear response – it’s instinctive. Like a bee stinging –”
She’s giving him a hard look of contemplation. Slowly, taking her hands off the Doctor, she sits back on her heels, still giving him that look. Then she says, “Can you do that?”
He really ought to have expected this.
He’s an obvious question. He’d all but admitted that he and the woman were the same species and now here he was displaying clearly intimate knowledge of the process. He’s been a long day. He’s tired. He’s realising he was more discombobulated than he’d thought at seeing the Doctor stung. He doesn’t have an answer at the ready.
His mind is an icy blank. He stared back at her, still holding the barb in his hand, trying to think of a suitable lie.
Tegan’s eyes flick to his wrist.
The trouble is, for all she might act the part sometimes, Tegan isn’t stupid. She’s putting two and two together and any second now she’s going to make four. It’s one of those moments where he knows exactly what she’s thinking and, for that matter, knows that she knows exactly what he’s thinking.
Her eyes widen in realisation.
Because they’re both, without a doubt, thinking back to the same conversation. They’re both remembering –
*
They’d been sitting out in the sun all day.
They were back on Earth, but in a more agreeable century and one of its more pleasant regions. On the coast of the sea called the Mediterranean, where the climate was comfortably warm and a world away from the grey slog of English weather.
They were sitting at a table outdoors beneath a wide umbrella. The Doctor had, as was often his wont, ordered for all of them and waved away their protests with the insistence that they had to try the local specialty. Then, predictably, he’d eaten half of his and wandered off.
Unusually, they were getting along. Which was to say, Tegan was telling him at length about a family trip she’d once taken to this part of the Earth and he was nodding along and making approving noises at the right points. This, he’d found, was the best way to get along with Tegan.
Anyway, she’d moved on to telling him about a previous TARDIS trip. The throughline seemed to be that they’d visited somewhere on the ancient Mediterranean.
“They had these buffet style restaurants,” she was saying. “Very modern, really. But Nyssa was worried about the food hygiene standards so she’s asking the Doctor if Ancient Roman cooks know to wash their hands and he keeps saying, you know, oh, a few germs in one’s food never hurt anyone, blah blah blah, and you know – you remember what Nyssa was like,” she went on.
“Mm-hm,” Turlough agreed, unsure if he’d got to know Nyssa well enough to know what she was like in this particular context.
“Never so much as raise her voice, but you could tell she was getting absolutely incandescent.” Tegan shoved another mouthful of the local specialty into her mouth and went on around it, “So anyway, we’d all stopped paying attention to Adric –”
The local specialty was a fish and rice dish and he had to concede that it was a cut above the food he’d been served at Brendon. He was currently occupied carefully picking out all the bits of one of those green vegetables that apparently was pleasant and sweet to human tastebuds but to him was bitter, not to mention liable to give him a tremendous stomach-ache. Like the other boys at Brendon Tegan had scoffed at his pickiness and he’d let her, not feeling the need to explain.
“And he is just going to town on the olives,” she said. “Face just –” She inflated her own cheeks by way of demonstration. “Full of them. And by the time we notice the owner’s caught him and she’s incandescent, because he’s eaten about half her olives and obviously we can’t pay for that many olives.”
He did a polite laugh. She must have been in a very good mood to be telling stories about Adric.
“I suppose it must have been the first time he’d eaten them,” she mused. One of those stories, he concluded, that had a different resonance now that the poor boy was dead.
She’d brought her own mood down and went quiet. He went on picking the green bits out of his rice, the scrape, scrape of his fork sounding across the quiet table. Tegan had stopped eating and, he foolishly assumed, stopped paying attention to him.
A dangerous assumption. After half a minute or so of quiet, without so much of a word of warning her hand darted across the table and grabbed his wrist.
His fork clattered down on the plate and he said, “Hey –” but at almost the same moment she said, “What is this?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say what’s what? but he knew exactly what.
The weather was warm and pleasant. It had reminded him of home. For the first time in a long while, he’d felt comfortable enough to roll up his sleeves.
Tegan rotated his wrist around in her grip, staring at the scar. The scar was maybe ten centimetres long, white and upraised and precise. “Did you do this to yourself?” she said, appalled. “When?”
He said, “Tegan –”
And then the tip of her thumb brushed up against the raised scar tissue, and he remembered –
*
He’d been strapped to the chair for maybe fifteen minutes when the surgeon brought out the scalpel.
At the sight of the blade he resumed his futile attempts to struggle, tugging at his bonds, knowing there was no escape. They’d already taken in a dozen of his fellows for the procedure. It was his turn.
“Please,” he begged, tugging and tugging. It was no good. His forearms were strapped down firmly. “Please, you can’t –”
The surgeon’s assistant pressed a needle into his arm and a burning sensation flowed through his veins. The feeling deadened and all he could do was take gasping breaths and try not to panic as the tiny, sensitive sheath in his wrist went numb.
He was sixteen and even as he was strapped to the chair being injected with the anaesthetic, the surgeon standing over him with the knife, he remained in disbelief.
This was the ancient penalty for soldiers captured in battle. To be disarmed – rendered impotent – more than that, humiliated. It hadn’t been done for a thousand years or more. It was something out of the history books. In their civilised society the procedure would be performed only on the infirm or insane; those who couldn’t be trusted not to harm others or themselves. That it was about to happen to him was unthinkable.
He was sixteen and he truly hadn’t thought they’d lose. Perhaps it was simply a projection in hindsight, but in his memory, until he was strapped to the chair and staring at the scalpel., he hadn’t understood that it was really happening. He hadn’t realised how bad it was going to get. The life he had known – that he had been born into – was over.
The assistant repeated the procedure on his other arm and he whimpered in protested; he gasped out, “Please –”
The scalpel was coming. He remembered it as a single bright point. Light reflecting on the blade. He had tried again to fight. “Please,” he said. “Please, sir – you don’t have to do this –” The surgeon’s face didn’t so much as twitch. Of course, he’d cut a dozen boys already that morning. “Please, you can’t –” he gabbled. “Please.” The blade touched his wrist. White panic began to grip him. “You can’t do this to me, you can’t do this to me!”
The blade began to cut. There was no pain. Dark blood bubbling up from the wound, quickly whisked away by the assistant’s tube. If he’d had time to prepare, he would have imagined himself taking this stoically. Maintaining his composure. Not giving them the satisfaction of seeing him break. But the whole business had happened in a whirlwind. They’d been moved half a dozen times since they were taken prisoner, under cover of darkness, bound and blindfolded from vehicle to building until they were hopelessly disoriented. He was exhausted and starving and it had only been an hour since they’d told him what they meant to do and at the sight of his arm being sliced open he let out an animal cry of terror.
The scalpel was removed and put aside, leaving behind a dark slit in his forearm. The surgeon picked up the next implement, a more complex, flexible tool for working within the body. He got a good, steadying grip on Turlough’s wrist.
He gasped out, “Don’t.” Then the surgical tool entered his body. He watched, slack-mouthed and breathless, as the surgeon rooted around, swiftly and efficiently identifying the places he needed to cut.
The implement was removed. A thick, purplish droplet of blood clung to its curved end, dripping back down into the wound. The surgeon picked up the forceps. And all he could do was take hot, panicked breaths as they slid into him and began to draw it all out.
First came the delicate barb – the last one his body would ever produce – red and dripping in its sheath. Then the rest.
He remembered each part of the structure from his anatomy lessons. Watching the extraction, it was as if he had taken a step outside his own body. He stared with morbid fascination, as if it was happening to someone else, naming each organ as it appeared. Harder to identify when they were clutched wet in a pair of forceps and not laid out neatly in a diagram. The venom pump. The bulb.
He sucked in a breath and held it as the venom sack began to slide out, fat and purple. He knew the dangers of a punctured venom sack and no doubt they could be removed safely but he didn’t trust these people to use the necessary care – the sack came out with a wet sucking and he exhaled.
Then came the venom-producing gland and with a final tug, it was out. The surgeon lifted the forceps with their grisly burden, giving it a once-over to make sure it was intact before dropping it into the waiting tray where it landed with a damp splat.
He stared at it, that vital part of his anatomy reduced to nothing more than medical refuse – to be thrown into an incinerator with all the rest ripped from the other boys. At the thought his breath caught in his throat, and he sobbed.
As he wept, the surgeon stood beside him passively wiping down the forceps. In that moment, a detached, still rational part of him had wondered at how the man could stand there watching him cry with those steely eye sand say nothing. Looking back, he understood. If you watched enough boys cry eventually it ceased to register.
He had lain, fingers twitching, whining in abject misery as the wound was closed; and as they began the procedure on his other wrist, he stared up at the cracked ceiling and wished that he could wish himself away. But every second of it he experienced with perfect, crystal, excruciating clarity.
And then it was done, and he lay back in the chair, shaking, bleeding, defenceless, and –
*
He jerked his wrist forcefully out of Tegan’s hand. “Leave off.”
She was reaching for his arm again. “Let me see –”
“Stop touching me!” He batted her away. Then he propped his elbows up on the table and in swift motions began to roll down his sleeves to cover the scars.
She sat back, only slightly deflated. “Well, did you?”
“Did I what?” His chest had gone hot and he was losing the thread of the conversation.
“Hurt yourself?”
The operating theatre where they’d cut into him was, quite literally, millions of miles away from the restaurant beside the Mediterranean sea, but for a few seconds the distance had meant nothing. It had all been so clear in his mind – the smell of the place – the sounds –
He neatly buttoned his left cuff, then his right. “They’re surgical scars.”
She scoffed. “They’re not. What kind of surgery?”
She was being tremendously blunt and in all honesty, quite rude, but to his chagrin he thought it was coming from a place of care. Now that he’d calmed down a bit he was beginning to piece together what had shocked her so. Of course, humans had one of their vital veins or arteries or something in the wrist – that was why you could feel their pulse there. Yes, it was coming back to him now, half-remembered stories from history lessons at Brendon. Ancient humans ending their lives by slicing open their wrist veins. Curious that scars like his were, by a coincidence of anatomy, still a mark of shame even on another world.
“None of your business,” he said.
“Turlough –” she said in exasperation.
“Look, I don’t pry into your private medical business, do I?” he said. She made a disapproving noise that nonetheless communicated that she conceded that he had, indeed, never done anything that could be described as prying into her private medical business. “No, I don’t. Leave me alone.”
So saying, he picked up his fork and began to shovel fish and rice into his mouth, heedless of any further poisonous plants that might be lurking in it.
Across the table, Tegan was scowling. Clearly she wasn’t happy to leave things there. “So long as you’re alright.”
It’d taken longer than he’d expected for the wounds to heal, he remembered. He’d been given no pain relief and he recalled spending the voyage to Earth lying in his bunk, stewing in agony. Even after the incisions had closed he’d found it was difficult to move his wrists – the muscles and tendons in that area no doubt interconnected in all kinds of subtle ways and now with a piece ripped out. The other boys at Brendon had teased him for his clumsiness and he’d let them. Eventually it had passed and he’d been left with only occasional stiffness in the joints, the vestigial impulse to thrust his wrist out at potential threats, and of course his shame.
In retrospect, he supposed he was lucky that they’d opted for the modern method with anaesthetic and scalpels and wound closure and not the traditional way of ripping them out with pliers.
He gazed down at the shellfish in the rice, the image of his venom sack slack and wet in the surgical tray hovering in his mind’s eye.
“I’m fine,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “It was years ago. Stop fussing.”
“Well,” she said, “if you’re sure.”
He didn’t answer. He skewered one of the shellfish on his fork and regarded it. Leggy, insectoid thing, the kind of bottom feeder that would never have been eaten on Trion.
Shoving it into his mouth, he began to chew.
*
They’ve dragged the Doctor over to the wall and there they sit with their backs to the bench, his unconscious laid out between them. His breathing is steady. There’s a slight smile upon his face. In truth, Turlough’s a little envious. An envenomated coma sounds like a much more pleasant way to be spending this particular evening.
Tegan sits next to him, knees drawn up to her chest, saying nothing. He turns his face away towards the wall.
He knows that she knows. Of course she’d put it all together. The woman’s barbs and the scars on his wrists and his protests that they were surgical. His mortified reaction when she’d seen the marks and the surely stricken look on his face when she’d asked if he was capable of stinging.
At length, she breaks the silence that’s come over them. “Did you do it to yourself?” she says. “Or did someone do it to you?”
He becomes aware that he’d tracing his thumb up and down the length of the scar on the other wrist. “None of your business.” He’s said too much as it is. Instinctive – like a bee stinging. He shouldn’t have told her that. Why had he gone and told her that?
“But did you –”
Anger flares hot in his guts and raising his head he bursts out, “Oh, what do you think, Tegan?”
Her face is bleak. It’s clear that her initial revulsion has passed and been replaced with – what, sympathy? She can shove it. He’d rather she was disgusted.
She says, “I’m sorry.”
He takes his face in his hands. He’s aware of the woman’s barb, wrapped up in his pocket. There might be just enough venom clinging to it to stun someone. It’s potent stuff, adult Trion venom. When his sacks had been extracted his own had only been powerful enough to cause dizziness.
Then slightly to his surprise, Tegan says, “Is it reversible?”
“No,” he says into his hands.
He’s aware of her shifting beside him, her shoes squeaking on the hard floor. “Right.”
They go quiet again. Across the room, someone is singing softly. He tells himself that it’ll all be over soon. The Doctor will wake up eventually. They’ll get out of this and go back to the TARDIS or they’ll be taken to a proper prison which will, at the very least, have better bathroom facilities.
Abruptly Tegan says, “You know – when I was little – my Auntie Vanessa used to have this cat.”
“What?” he says, half-raising his head.
“From the animal shelter.” She shifts uncomfortably against the bench. “Anyway, its old owners had it declawed. Y’know?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Truly, he doesn’t.
“It’s when they take the cat’s claws out,” she says. “Surgically, right?”
“Are you going somewhere with this?”
She ignores him and keeps talking. “I remember once I asked her if it hurt the cat, and she said it did.” He becomes aware that she’s started inspecting her own fingers. “So I asked her why they did it and she says probably they didn’t want the cat scratching them.”
He understands, with a sinking feeling, just exactly where she’s going with this.
“I just always thought it was cruel,” she finishes. “You know what I mean?”
He buries his face once again in his folded arms and says, “Yes. I know what you mean.”
She goes quiet again and next time she speaks she says, “You sure he’ll be alright?”
She means the Doctor, of course. “Yes,” he says. “He has a very impressive constitution. He’ll be out for an hour or two and wake up with a sore head.”
“Okay,” he says, and he’s aware once again of her shifting beside him; then after a moment she says, “I’m going to use the bucket.”
He watches her scramble to her feet and push her way through the crowd; and after a moment, she’s gone.