You Reap What You Sow (28&29 of 45)

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Chapter Twenty-eight:  Hunting Truths

The Doctor strode up to the Chieftain who had just finished blessing the hunters and sending them off to the hunt moments before the Doctor came through the back door. “You have stolen a member of my family from me,” the Doctor accused, his voice dark and cold. “I want her back. Now!”

The Chieftain looked up at him with clear, glittering eyes. “What has been done cannot be undone,” he said with a twisting smile. The sound of horns filled the village. “The hunt begins.”

“Call them off,” said the Doctor menacingly. “Do it now.”

“I think not, Doctor.”

"You have no idea how easily I can bring you down. Call off the hunt!"

"I won't."

"Very well." He nodded to his companion. Erinnah approached the table before the chieftain and said in a loud carrying voice, “The hunt is rigged.”

“Close your mouth, girl,” the Chieftain snarled.

Erinnah turned her back on him to look at the assembled unwed, those who were always gathered together in the wee hours of the hunt morning, normally forced to watch as a member of their ranks was selected as beast and sent to the slaughter. “The hunt is rigged,” she repeated even louder.

The unwed began to stir restlessly. “What mean you?” asked a young man with dark hair and eyes.

“Yes, Sagoner, it’s true. There is no random selection,” Erinnah said. “They choose us based on their needs at the moment.”

The Chieftain rose and slammed his hands down on the table. “I will not warn you again, child. You lie. You do not see clearly.”

She whirled and glared at him. “But you do now, don’t you? Since Saul, you see oh so clearly, don’t you? Interesting how his name came up just when you needed your vision restored, isn’t it?” she accused. “Same as when Petra died as Talban’s heart was failing. Or Sandell when Gelfown’s kidneys were failing him.”

“Stop her talk,” he snapped and two of the guards began to advance on Erinnah.

“And my marriage applications were blocked by you to keep me available for the hunt the moment I came of age. All seven of them.” There was a gasp from the crowd. “And you did that because Ezra was not quite the perfect match for Zeldina, was he? Close enough to get by for a year, though wasn’t he? But I am a perfect match for her. And in two weeks time, I’ll be the next victim, so that your wife may extend her life. There is no random selection. It’s decided beforehand based on your needs!” Erinnah yelled.

The muttering amongst the unwed became mutinous. “Is this true?” Sagoner called out approaching the table quickly and standing beside Erinnah. “Have you lied to us all our lives?” he demanded. His face was red and his fists were clenching.

“You speak above your station, boy,” the Chieftain said angrily.

“I ask you a simple question. Is. The. Hunt. Rigged.” He bit each word off one by one.

“The hunt is as it has always been.”

“That is no answer,” said Erinnah. The guards had reached her now and as one took her arms. The Doctor knocked their hands away and pulled Erinnah behind him.

“I suggest you don’t do that,” the Doctor said. He pushed Erinnah further away from the guards and toward the crowd of unwed. “Your leader has lied to you for years. Erinnah speaks the truth. He sends you to an execution, with little hope of survival. All because of the fear of a few old men and women who seek never to die, he allows those of you here to be murdered.”

“Liars, all!” snapped the Chieftain.

“No!” A veiled woman towards the back of the room stepped forward. “They tell the truth.” The woman removed her veil and Erinnah was shocked to see her mother. “This is the truth of decades. It is here as it has been for far too long. The leaders of this village have found a way to extend their lives. The Chieftain alone is two hundred thirty-five years old. He has used members of my family’s line as long as I have been alive. Always members of my family line or Loral’s, the latest of whom was Saul. As far back as the records go.”

“Vida, if you continue this, our bargain is broken,” the Chieftain warned.

She turned her back to him. “I made a deal with him,” she told the unwed. “If he would spare my daughter as he did not spare my son, I would give him someone else who was compatible. I am ashamed of myself, but I gave him this man’s second wife.” She gestured to the Doctor as the crowd began to rumble a bit louder.

“I, too, was told that if I helped betray this woman my remaining children would be spared the hunt.” A second woman had stepped forward and removed her veil. It was Loral. “I’m sorry,” she said to the Doctor. “I had just lost Saul and I didn’t know how I was going to protect my other children. It was the wrong thing to do, but I was desperate. The hunts are rigged and my family has been another to bear the brunt of it.”

“So,” the Doctor began, looking at the unwed, “Are you going to allow this barbaric custom to continue, making you nothing but animals led to the slaughter or are you going to stand up against what is evil thriving in the center of your lives?”

The unwed began to advance on the Chieftain’s table. “Go back to your places,” the old man roared. “I will have your families executed.”

“Oh, I rather think not,” said the Doctor darkly. “I think your days of power are over."

“Guards!”

One of the guards knocked an arrow onto his bow and aimed towards the Doctor. Sagoner leaped onto the guard and the shot went wild, veering instead towards the Chieftain and lodging in his heart. “Murderer!” screamed the Chieftain’s wife. She was not looking at the guard who had shot the arrow, but at Sagoner who had ruined his aim.

“I believe that title is yours, Lady Zeldina,” Erinnah snarled.

“Kill her,” Lady Zeldina ordered. As the guard moved to obey the crowd surged forward. The Doctor found himself buffeted about and worked his way out of the crowd and towards the wall. He watched in silence as the young rose up against the ruling class, as the council members were brought down one by one, fighting hand to hand, for in such cases youth always had the advantage.

When daggers were pulled and throats were slit he made a choice not to intervene. It was the sound of the hunter’s horns that made him push towards the doors and away from the blood of the old regime being shed.




Donna had been in the woods for an hour when she’d heard the dogs. With a violent push to trigger the enzyme that would give her the strength, courage, and stamina she needed, she had climbed a tree that had virtually no branches or handholds for the first fifteen feet, leaving her hands a ragged, bloody mess that she did not for the moment feel. She had made her way across the treetops towards the village. It was slow going, but her scent would end at the tree she had climbed and the dogs would not be able to track her.

From her perch in the air she was able to see that the Doctor had parked the TARDIS behind the communal lodge. Now she just had to figure out a way to get down from the tree and over to the lodge without being seen. She could see the hunters quite a way off, still following her earlier trail. If she descended now she might just be able to make a dash for it before any of them saw her.

She eyed the tree next to her and took a deep breath. She jumped. As she grasped the trunk with her hands, the branch she had landed on unexpectedly broke. Donna slid down the tree twenty feet before another branch caught her firmly in the crotch. She screamed out at the pain of the sudden stop. She had never been so grateful in her life to be a woman. She was pretty sure when she got down she’d still be able to walk. If she’d been a man…well, it didn’t pay to think of how disabled she’d be at the moment.

When the branch suddenly gave again with an echoing crack, she realized that the tree she was in was dead and brittle and could not hold her weight. It was her last thought before she hit the ground with a sickening thud.




Torvale had heard the crack of the tree giving way, heard the woman scream, and had aimed his dog in that direction. When the bright red hair of the woman he had been hunting came into view he gave a pleased smile, until he realized she was unmoving. If she was fully dead, she’d be of no use to anyone. He rushed forward, feeling for a pulse. It was weak and thready but it was there. He brought his horn to his lips and blew the triumphant capture trill.

Then he scooped the woman up in his arms, unconcerned that he might be causing her further injury by moving her and strode with her to Torshawn’s clinic. Once inside he laid her down on the surgery table and Torshawn shooed him outside. Three of the elders that had been waiting for the hunt to end in the clinic handed over a thick bag of jewels, bonus for a short hunt.

“I’ll need Briot to prepare for surgery,” he said as he and his surgical staff scrubbed up. “Liesh will be second and Triolian third.”

He moved to inject Donna with a painkiller and a sedative just in case she were to wake before the surgery was over, as his nurse began to remove her clothing and drape her with surgical sheets. In just a few minutes he had made an incision over Donna’s left kidney. With slow, careful cuts he removed the organ, clamped off the bleeding, and had his nurse take the kidney over to the other surgical team for it to be implanted into Briot. Moving around to Donna’s right side he lowered his scalpel to her skin and made a second incision.


Chapter Twenty-nine:  Revelations and Reparations

The door to the surgical room flew open. “Stop!” commanded the Doctor. Behind him Erinnah stood with an arrow knocked to her bow and Sagoner with his hand on his dagger. “Sew her back up.”

Liesh and Triolian entered the room. “What is the meaning of this?” demanded Liesh.

“Your days of asking questions are over, old man,” Sagoner bit out. “There’s been a coup. You and yours are no longer in power.” He turned his eyes back to Torshawn. “This ends now.”

“But without the transplants we’ll die,” whined Triolian like a petulant child.

“Everything has it’s time,” said the Doctor. “Everything dies. You do not have the right to extend your life by the ending of another’s.”

“Who are you to interfere?” demanded Liesh.

“I’m the Doctor and I’m telling you it ends now.”

“Continue!” snapped Liesh to Torshawn.

“Don’t make me shoot you, father,” Erinnah said.

“Erinnah, please, stop. They’ll execute you for treason,” Torshawn cried out.

“The Chieftain is dead, the council and their ladies are dead,” Sagoner snapped. “The only remaining council members are in this room. And if you don’t stop what you are doing and sew that woman back up right now I will execute each one of them before your disbelieving eyes! And I’m not too fond of you, either. You’re a sympathizer, Torshawn!”

Liesh began to advance on Sagoner and before he even had a moment to think Sagoner had drawn his dagger, flinging it across the room where it embedded itself in Liesh’s stomach. The man fell to the floor clutching at the wound.

Torshawn reached for catgut thread and a needle and began repairing the incision he had made under his daughter’s watchful eye. “Help me,” Liesh begged from the floor, but he was ignored.

“Now, put back whatever you’ve removed,” the Doctor ordered the medic.

“I can’t,” said Torshawn. “They’ve already transplanted her kidney into Briot. He’ll die if we remove it.”

“Put it back,” said the Doctor, unyielding. Torshawn sighed and moved to do what he’d been told.

“Help me,” Liesh begged again.

“You got one chance. You had yours,” the Doctor said coldly to Liesh as he moaned on the floor. His eyes moved to Triolian. “Now, one chance for you. This stops. No more hunting your young. No more stealing their organs to replace your used up ones. No more extracting their cerebral fluid and refining it to repair and extend the lives of your own brain cells. No more draining their blood and removing the serum and refining it to the elements capable of restoring your veins and arteries to youth. No more taking the stem cells from their bone marrow to enhance your faltering health. It. Ends. Now.” He bit out the last three words, enunciating them clearly and loudly.

Triolian nodded his acceptance of the Doctor’s words. “May I go home?” he asked. “I just want to go home.”

Sagoner shook his head, refusing to let him pass, turning to keep the man in his sight. “Wake him,” he said to the surgical staff surrounding Briot. The medication keeping the man under was discontinued though it would be awhile before he woke. “Let him know he is doomed.”

It was a long, cold wait while the medic returned Donna’s kidney. “I’ve finished,” announced Torshawn as he placed the last stitch in Donna’s incision site. “She should wake in about an hour when the sedative wears off. I can’t guarantee the organ won’t die, though.”

“If you’re done then, wash up,” said Sagoner. “Then you will be escorted to your homes by the men and women waiting outside. Consider yourself and your staff under house arrest until a new government comes into being and consequences for your actions are discussed.”

Sagoner allowed a few of the unwed into the clinic to take possession of Triolian and the injured Liesh and some to remove the medical team.

“Erinnah, Sagoner, if you could stand guard over Donna whilst I retrieve the TARDIS?” Erinnah nodded at him and he hurried on his errand. Erinnah was surprised when the Doctor’s blue box materialized inside the clinic.

Very carefully the Doctor rolled Donna’s bed into the TARDIS and into the infirmary. Sagoner had followed him in and helped him lift Donna onto the infirmary bed. Erinnah retrieved the surgical gurney and returned it to the clinic before returning to the infirmary. She watched as the Doctor pulled a machine over Donna and a blue light glowed across the primary incision site.

“What happened to Donna?” Rose asked from her bed across the room, Dare cuddled against her uninjured side.

“They took out one of her kidneys. I made them put it back in,” the Doctor explained.

“Will she be okay?”

“I hope so.”

“What allows for this space?” Sagoner asked the Doctor as he looked around himself curiously.

“It’s dimensionally transcendental.”

“What’s that mean?” Sagoner wanted to know.

“Bigger on the inside than on the outside.”

“Must take a lot of math,” Sagoner said. “Never was good with numbers.”

“Doctor?” interrupted Erinnah.

“Yes?”

“Are you still willing to consider my application for wife?”

“You don’t need to marry like that anymore, Erinnah,” he said. “It’s a whole new world. You’ve got options now.”

“But you kept me safe like you said you would. You are my protector. I should be your wife,” Erinnah said. “As your reward,” she added.

“I have a wife,” the Doctor said. “I don’t need another.”

“I thought you had two,” Erinnah said.

“Well, Donna and I aren’t actually married. She’s as close to a sister to me as I’ll ever have and I care for her a great deal but we only said she was my wife because of your culture. We wanted to keep her safe, for all the good the lies did us,” he explained.

“So you never were serious about taking me to wife?” she asked, slightly hurt.

“I was serious about protecting you. I was serious about taking you away from this planet if you had asked me to. I still am. If you want to come along with us, you’ve proven how good you are in a crisis. And we can always use help with the baby and of course, there’s another one on the way. You’d be an asset.”

“I’d have no status.” She frowned.

“It’s not about status. We don’t have that on my ship. We simply are each other’s friends. We travel together and see the wonders of the universe. And you can come with us if you like,” he offered.

“Or you can stay here and help me rebuild our village,” Sagoner said to the girl. “Things are going to change, Erinnah. Faster than any of us can imagine. We’ll be in charge of it all. You’ve proven how clever and resourceful you are, that you’ll stand up against evil and fight hard. I’d like a girl like you at my side.”

“At your side?” she repeated. “Not behind you?”

“Yes, at my side. We can choose for ourselves now, Erinnah. We can be true partners. I’d choose you if you’ll have me,” he said, his eyes holding hers.

“As first wife?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “That’s going to change, too. As only wife.”

“Only…wife?”

“One man, one woman, and I’d like at least two children when you’re a bit older. What do you say?” he asked.

She turned to look at the Doctor then back at Sagoner. The idea of adventure with the Doctor and his family seemed exciting and bold, but it would mean leaving behind her world. Though everything she knew had radically changed in just a few short hours, she wasn’t sure she could leave her planet just as everything was opening up. The future held promise now instead of death.

Sagoner offered more than she had ever expected to have. She would be a fool to pass up his offer. “I’ll stay here,” she said. “I want to rebuild this village, this government into something we can be proud of. No more Village of Phobos. We should rename it, something more indicative of its future. Village of Elpis,” she said. “Fear replaced by hope.”

“So you’ll be my wife?” Sagoner asked.

“Yes.” And as simply as that, her future was set.

The Doctor smiled. He was sure the community would thrive now that evil had been stomped out. He followed the pair out to the clinic. They found the room deserted, Briot on the table with his throat slit, blood pooling beneath him on the floor. Liesh, too, lay against the cold tiles, throat slit, eyes bulging and blood drained onto the floor.

“It’s to be expected. There is too much anger for a trial, I suppose,” Erinnah said. “And they would have died anyway from their wounds.”

“I wonder if Triolian survived to make it to the jail?” Sagoner queried.

“As blood-thirsty as the crowd was, I doubt it,” said Erinnah.

The Doctor remained quiet. His opinion was not needed here. The unwed had taken things into their own hands for good or ill, but he rather suspected that when things settled down it was for good. He felt a new timeline shifting into place and reviewed it slowly. Things would take some getting used to for the villagers but they would improve rapidly with Sagoner and Erinnah in charge. And in charge they would be, he realized, for the next three decades.

He watched as the new young couple left the clinic and walked out into the crowd waiting for them. He smiled for a moment at the cheers that greeted their appearance. Then with a grim heart he turned back to the TARDIS to try to discover what fate held in store for his dear friend.

Ch. 30&31:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/93540.html