In This Darkness Tumbles Hope (3/?)

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                                                               Chapter Three: Cacophony of Mind

The man currently going by the alias Jack Harkness, Captain Jack Harkness thank you very much, watched through his monocular infrared imager as the tall, stately, rather well put together alien led a decidedly human looking little girl through the markets of Danzibar. The red-headed woman, Ginli sar Melista, was a person of considerable means in the city of Monpuor. She was also unmarried, unattached, and at the top of his suspect list as a primary scout for the sar Delat Syndicate.

He’d been watching her for weeks and up until this point he’d never actually seen her with a child. He’d seen her meeting with Antwar sar Delat, handing over photographs of likely children or sometimes very young women along with data regarding their schedules and the likelihood of their families in raising a fuss if they were to go missing. He’d even seen the contents of some of those envelopes in his undercover position as night guard in the building sar Delat’s respectable coffee export business was run from. But he had never seen her speaking to a child on her own before, let alone taking one home with her.

Ginli sar Melista had always been more careful than that and her snatching of a child from the streets was something he never would have expected. The child was not a local. He had learned the names and faces of every child in the small human enclave and he knew this child must belong to an off worlder. Someone would be looking for her and they’d be looking for her soon if her expensive clothing, shining hair and healthy looking skin were anything to go by. And that just might interfere with his plans to take the syndicate down.

Jack had learned in his years as a Time Agent and as a special forces officer in the Galactic President’s employ that sometimes sacrifices had to be made. Sometimes those sacrifices were children and as much as it pained him to admit it, it very well might have to be this child. If he interfered in any way before he had enough evidence to take down these monsters, he would lose months of work and the five planet syndicate in charge of the worst sex and slave trade industry the galaxy had ever seen would simply move its operation somewhere else, start up anew, and maybe the opportunity to stop them would never come up again. This operation was important enough that even the Time Agency was allowing him to be co-opted to help wipe it out.

He bit his lip as the little girl glanced all around her and for one brief moment seemed to have found him watching. Her eyes focused on him with a clarity he’s used to finding only in much older children. It felt like she was looking right through him and he froze in place, but then her eyes shifted forward again and Ginli was pulling her along with a quick tug. He comforted himself with the fact that the child didn’t look scared and she didn’t look hurt and he reminded himself that it’d be three weeks before the next shipment of slaves was scheduled to go off planet hidden amongst the gigantic bags of coffee.

He flipped up his monocular and then removed it from his head, shoving it into his pocket and heading across the square. He needed to catch at least four hours of sleep before heading to his night job. He contacted his partner, made sure that someone was watching sar Delat and asked for relief on Ginli detail. It was fifteen minutes before John Hart came to relieve him.

“Any trouble?” the man asked him.

“She’s got a girl,” Jack said.

“What, she got her own hands dirty?” asked John in surprise.

“Yeah. Look, if there’s a way—.”

“No,” said John. “You know we can’t.”

“If there’s a way, I’m getting her out,” Jack replied.

“We can’t jeopardize this whole operation for one kid. That’s not what we’re working for,” insisted John.

“If we’re not working to save the kids, all of the kids, from this life then what’s the point?” Jack asked. John didn’t have an answer for him and with a sigh of disgust Jack began to walk away.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Jack,” John called after him.

“Quite the contrary,” said Jack. “I’ll figure out something clever.” He sighed. “Just not tonight.”



Ginli sar Melista still did not know what had drawn her to the little girl that she’d brought home with her. In her line of work she had learned to harden her heart against the beauty of children a long time ago. There had just been something so ineffably sad about little Cassiopeia that she’d felt her heart open in a way it hadn’t done since before the war. It had been a stupid decision and she knew it. She never brought children home with her. She didn’t, as a rule, even like children. This child, however, reminded her painfully of herself, left abandoned in a marketplace when she was barely old enough to read.

“Your home is nice,” the little girl said sitting down on the edge of the sofa and looking all around her at the pretty things Ginli had collected over the years.

“Thank you. Are you hungry? I can fix you a sandwich.” Ginli asked the child for lack of anything better to say.

“Yes, please.”

“Wait here.” She hurried to the kitchen trying to think what had possessed her. Well, she’d have to call Saysha, ask him to come and pick the girl up in the morning and take her to the holding area. She couldn’t keep the child, she knew that. Eventually the humans in the enclave would come to question why a Soriel had a human child living with her. And she didn’t really want to keep the child; she’d simply followed a long buried instinct and rescued her off the street.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she berated herself as she slapped together a sandwich made with nut butter and preserved fruit and tossed it onto a plate. She poured a glass of yak milk and brought it to the child, setting it down on the coffee table in front of the girl.

Cassiopeia didn’t question the contents of the food, simply picked up the sandwich and bit into it. She smiled slightly at the flavors but said nothing, simply worked her way methodically through it and drank the beverage down. “That was very good. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The child gave her a piercing look and then said, “I think it’s time you helped me find my parents now.”

Ginli looked away. “I…I made a call to the local constabulary. They’ll be sending a man round this evening.”

“Why are you lying to me?” the child asked her. There was no accusation in her voice, just simple curiosity.

Yes, this had been a bad idea, a very, very bad idea. “I’m not lying,” Ginli said bristling.

“Yes, you are.” Again there was no accusation. It was a statement of fact.

“Why aren’t you afraid of aliens?” Ginli asked changing the subject.

“Why should I be?” Cassiopeia asked her.

“All of the other human children are.”

The child’s dark eyes narrowed. “What makes you think that I’m a human?” she wanted to know.

“Well, look at you,” Ginli said gesturing up and down the child’s body.

“Yes,” said Cassiopeia. “Look at me.”

For the first time Ginli looked beyond the long, shiny dark hair and the humanoid form and the color of the deep chocolate eyes. She looked fully and intently into those eyes and she saw something ancient and full of fire and ice and a darkness so deep it threatened to swallow her whole. Ginli had the impression of history passing as she gazed into those eyes, of time spinning past her in either direction.

“What are you?” she asked.

“I’m Cassi,” she said simply. “And I want my mother. She’ll be missing me.”

Ginli spun away from the child. Her instincts were telling her to run and she fought them down. This was utterly ridiculous. This child, whether human or simply humanoid, was just that; a child. She was young and she was helpless and completely at Ginli’s mercy. She needed to remember that fact. Whatever impulse it was that had made her bring the child home with her was now telling her to get rid of her as quickly as possible.

“I’ll just go make that call now.” She strode into her study, kicked the door shut behind her, and reached for the digital communicator. She punched in the number for her main contact Saysha sar Dilan and took in a few deep breaths.

“Ginli?” The surprised voice of Saysha came over the line and a moment later his face popped into view on the little screen. “This is quite irregular. You shouldn’t be calling me here.”

“Is the line secure? Can you scramble it?” she asked.

“Give me a moment.” A nasty high pitched squeal came over the line and the image blurred, dissolved into a highly pixilated mess and then resolved into a crisp, sharp image. “What is going on? Why would you call me here?”

“I made a mistake, Saysha. I picked up a child in the marketplace.”

The man cursed inventively and she cringed at the anger she saw in his eyes. When he finally calmed down he demanded, “What the hell were you thinking? You’re a scout, Ginli! A scout! You are not supposed to snatch children. That’s not your job. You find them, you tell me, and I arrange for their abductions. You never, never take them yourself!”

“I know!” She swallowed hard against the man’s fury. “But I did and I…I need you to come get her. There’s something…I thought she was human but she’s not and her eyes, Saysha, they’re so old. I don’t know what she is and—.”

“Take her back. Take her back to wherever you found her and leave her there,” he said.

“It was the middle of Shensi Square,” she admitted. There was another round of vitriol as he roundly cursed her again. “I’m sorry! There’s something about her.” She thought desperately of a way to get herself back into Saysha’s good graces. “She’s beautiful and she’s perfect for sar Delat’s latest order from Sorsta Prime!” she announced triumphantly.

The man calmed instantly. “For Sorsta Prime?” His voice grew thoughtful, thinking of the commission that would bring. “How old is she?” he wanted to know.

“About six, I’d say. She’s completely uncontaminated and she’s not afraid of aliens,” she added.

“Is she biddable?”

“She came with me easily enough,” Ginli replied.

“Why was she alone in the square?” he asked.

“She said her father wandered off. She was waiting for quite a long time. I think she may have simply been abandoned. I don’t think anyone will come looking for her.” Ginli kept her voice steady and even. She didn’t want to give any indication to him that she didn’t actually believe the parents wouldn’t come looking for the girl. She took a deep steadying breath. As long as they didn’t come looking for her here, everything would be okay.

“All right. I’ll come by tonight and retrieve her.”

“Can’t you come sooner?” Ginli asked trying to keep the anxiety out of her voice.

“I’ll come when my shift ends,” he snarled at her. “This is your mess, Ginli. I’ll clean it up at my leisure. And if the girl is acceptable for Sorsta Prime’s prince, your commission will only be half the usual.” She opened her mouth to protest but snapped it shut at his vicious look. “Don’t make me lower it to a third.”

“Very well. I’ll expect you in a few hours.” Saysha broke the connection and Ginli sat down hard at her desk, her fourth heart pumping so fast she was sure she might have to take something to return it to normal speed. Breathing deeply she channeled her energies into calming herself. It would all be all right. Saysha would fix everything. She pulled herself together and went back out to face the child, a fixed smile firmly on her face.




“So what happened?” the earlier incarnation of the Doctor asked Rose. He glanced at the later version of himself, the man hovering like a jealous idiot as if he were afraid he’d do something wholly inappropriate like throw Rose up against the wall and take her right there in front of him.

It was all he could do not to roll his eyes. Sure, he had feelings for Rose, the Rose he’d just left back on Earth and he wasn’t afraid to admit to himself that he was more than pleased at this glimpse of the future even if he had turned rather…pretty, but honestly, his feelings were still so new, the love blooming in his heart still so fragile that it was something he would never dare act on with this version of Rose. He couldn’t really understand the man’s concerns.

“Happened?” his other self echoed.

He decided not to bait the man. “With your daughter. What happened? How’d she go missing?” He waited, his foot starting to tap impatiently as the other man formulated his thoughts.

“I was bargaining for a part for the TARDIS,” he began. "Cassi was a couple of stands over. I’d given her some money and she’d gone to bargain for a scarf. She was within sight the entire time. I just…I saw something else just round the corner, something that I could have used to replace the entire fluxuron manifold, you know how it’s been crumbling. I thought she was following me.”

“But you didn’t check to see?” The Doctor eyed himself incredulously.

“No,” he admitted in a voice full of heartbreak. “I…I was distracted. You know how bad that manifold is for you. It’s crumbling now and it’s a much needed fix and I was so happy to find something that would work and…and…when I realized she wasn’t with me and I started to look…I just—I couldn’t find her!”

“So she didn’t wander off. You did.”

“Yeah.”

He glanced over at Rose and finds her glaring at his pin-striped self. “You lost your daughter for a TARDIS part.”

“Look, I don’t need you making me feel any worse than I already do. I know I screwed up. We can all blame me later, but right now, right now we need to find Cassi!” he raged.

“Calm down,” Rose said. “We will. We’ll find her. Now he’s here to help and he can hear her, we’ll find her.”

“Can you though? Can you really hear her?” the brown-eyed Doctor asked.

“I can feel her enough to know she’s all right at the moment,” he said. “She’s tired, but she’s not hungry and she’s not hurt.”

“Can you contact her?” Rose asked hopefully.

“Not out here,” he said gesturing around the marketplace. “The cacophony of minds is too loud. I might be able to in the quiet of the TARDIS.”

“Which one’s closer? Where’d you land yours?” asked Rose.

“It’s across the city, the east side of Monpuor by the river.”

“We’re nearer then,” Rose said. “Just a brisk walk that way.” She tossed her head to the north. She stood up from the table they’d taken over for their conversation and threw out the beverage tube she’d been sipping from. “Come on.” The two men stood and followed her determined strides back to the closer ship.




“That’s Uncle Jack,” said Dare as he pointed to a man strolling purposely across Shensi Square. He made to dash off after his bond father but Donna’s hand on his wrist yanked him abruptly back to her side.

“That’s not our Jack,” she said quietly. “Look at him, Dare. He’s a lot younger. No streaks of grey. I’d reckon he’s not met your parents yet.” She looked over at Josz. “Has he?”

Josz tasted the air a moment and then shook his head. “No. I’d say it’s a good two, maybe two and a half years. Not too long before he meets Andromeda.”

“Who’s Andromeda?” Dare asked curiously.

“Kaylee’s mother,” Josz said shortly. “I don’t like this. Crossing time lines.”

Donna gave him a long look. For someone who had many of the powers of the universe at his disposal, Josz often got ridiculously anxious about anything that might jeopardize the future birth of his wife.

“Hasn’t Kaylee ever talked about this? About what happened to Cassi?” Donna wanted to know.

“I doubt Cassi was allowed to remember it to pass it on. The Doctor will probably wipe her memory.”

“Yeah, if this was supposed to happen,” Donna muttered.

“What do you mean Dad will probably wipe her memory?” Dare asked.

The two adults suddenly recalled the boy standing between them. Donna knelt down to look him in the eyes. “Sometimes, Dare, things happen that we can’t be allowed to remember, for our own safety or for the safety of the time lines and your father erases them from our memories or puts blocks on them until it’s safe to remember. Then he makes himself forget.”

Dare looked at her in confusion. “But why? We’re Time Lords. We can be trusted not to mess things up.”

“When your father is involved, not so much,” Josz said. He was still tasting the air and watching Jack as he disappeared from view on the far side of the market.

“Has he…has he ever erased anything from my memories?” Dare asked.

“No. Not that I know of.”

Dare sighed in relief but then his expression hardened. “What about Cassi? Has he done it to Cassi? Is that why she can’t link with anyone but me?”

“No, Dare, that’s not why. Cassi was… Your mum was…she was injured when she was pregnant with Cassi.”

“Yeah, she was shot by an arrow. I’ve heard the stories.”

“Not all of them. She…she did something to save my life and…well, we think it damaged Cassi, the way her brain functions,” Donna explained.

“What did she do?”

“That’s a story for your mum and dad to tell you and your sister when they’re ready,” she answered evasively. “I think we should go back to the ship. No one’s talking and I don’t think we’re going to find her by asking. Maybe your parents have found her by now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dare said.

Josz nodded his approval. “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. I don’t like the way time tastes here.” They turned around and each adult took one of Dare’s hands just a little more protectively than usual and they made their way through the crowd towards home.