A Time Lady's Negotiation

"For Rassilons's sake, don't you know how to control this infernal machine?" Romana clutched the TARDIS's console as tightly as she could, dangling as the console room itself tipped sideways. "I'm only one century old, I don't intend to die at such a young age because you failed to tame this relic."

"This 'relic' has gotten me out of more trouble more times than I can count," the Doctor responded with a glare as he sat upon the time rotor, sorting through the tangled-up knots he had pulled from a popped-open panel. "She's not herself at the minute. You'd suffer from performance issues too if you had both the Black and White Guardians pulling you from one end of the universe to the next. And that tracer of yours isn't helping things."

"Did it occur to you at any point when you were deciding to steal this thing that there was a good reason for why the Type-40s were decommissioned?" Romana clenched her teeth as her silver-painted nails scratched the glossy white surface of the console. "Unreliable and prone to eccentric outbursts. That's why the manual dictates that no less than six highly-experienced pilots should operate a Type-40 when it's in flight!"

"Why have six Time Lords when you can have one Doctor?" The Doctor flashed one of his aggravating grins, which did nothing whatsoever to reassure Romana as she lost her grip and dangled from just two fingers. "Besides, I've never had any problems before."

"You're always having problems with the TARDIS!" Romana bellowed back, wondering what would be the best way to break her fall if she found herself hurtling towards the wall below.

"Am I?" The Doctor feigned innocence, scratching his head. He stripped away the protective layers of two red wires and connected the exposed copper, holding his hat flat against his head when the TARDIS evened out, throwing him to the floor. The roundels flickered softly, and a shower of sparks sprayed from the rotor as it booted back up and groaned. "There, back to normal."

"For now," Romana grumbled, blowing a lock of silky brown hair from her face as she rose from the corner of the room. She dusted down her ivory gown and gave her nails a quick check, relieved when she found them to still be in perfect condition. "Have we landed?"

"It seems that we have." The Doctor helped self-right K-9 and straightened his tail, twirling around to face the console. He tapped away at the blinking buttons, giving the panel a subtle bump with his fist to get things back into working order. "Let's see then. Ah! Look at that, we're on Earth, just towards the end of the 18th Century. Pre-Revolutionary Versailles from the looks of it."

"France?" Romana's irritation was replaced with intrigue at the mention of the famed palace. Being an aristocrat herself, the topic of human nobility and their various customs never failed to pique her interest. "I read about France when I was at the Academy, I took a brief course on Human Studies after becoming bored with the subject of particle physics. It's one of the more civilised periods in Earth's history, and certainly the most cultured."

"Try saying that after the guillotines start appearing," the Doctor grimaced. Pulling back the lever to open the doors, the Doctor swept across the room, tossing the white feather boa hanging from the coat rack at Romana. "Better bundle up, it's the middle of winter."

Romana snatched the boa and threw it over her bare shoulders, deciding against wearing a heavy cloak to shield her from the elements. If she was going to brush shoulders with the créme de la créme of French high society, she wanted to make a memorable first impression. Throwing her billowing chestnut hair back, she followed the Doctor outside, scoffing when she was met with a setting that was anything but the the snow-blanketed grounds of the palace of Versailles.

"Remember what I said about these things being unreliable? Because this is a perfect example of it," Romana tapped a manicured nail against the frame of the blue box. "Unless you expect me to believe that humans invented inter-planetary travel prior to the Industrial Revolution."

"The old girl made a mistake, that can't be helped," the Doctor gave Romana a flippant shrug. He tipped his head back and squinted, looking at the thousands of air-cars and battered cargo transporters that littered the orange-tinted sky, impressed by how they all flew in accordance with the designated skyways. "Fascinating."

"Tell me then, where are we?" Romana asked, hit by a barrage of the chaotic sights and sounds indicative of a bazaar, one significantly more widespread compared to anything the Time Lady had seen on Gallifrey. "The tracer is completely silent, I don't think we'll be finding any segments here."

"No? Well, they can't all be winners," the Doctor said, slapping his floppy brown hat on top of his curly head of hair. "This looks like Mordis-7. Or Mordis-8, I always get the two mixed up. It's a market planet, it quite literally exists to facilitate the buying and selling of any item you can imagine. The universe's car-boot sale."

"It's awfully busy," Romana regretted not changing into something more appropriate for the dry climate, but still adjusted her white feather boa. The heat was stifling, but it wasn't enough to prevent the fashion-conscious aristocrat from making a statement. "Are there no other services? Surely it must have a primary industry of some kind? Or an agricultural hub at the very least?"

"It used to, many thousands of years ago," the Doctor imitated Romana and slinged his elongated knitted scarf around his neck, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his battered overcoat. "The Mordis system used to be rich with the most coveted minerals in this particular galaxy, you couldn't move without finding a deposit of zelanite or lucanol."

"Let me guess. It was once a thriving world, but when they discovered such a valuable commodity they couldn't help themselves and eventually mined it to the point of exhaustion without any thought for the long-term damage that they would inflict on the environment?" Romana theorized. It was a tale as old as time.

"Close. After becoming a space-faring society, the original inhabitants soon made contact with the wider galaxy. Upon discovering the value of the resources they possessed, the governments came together and decided to sell the entire system off to the mining conglomerates," the Doctor looked around, deciding which direction to go, a hard task for a man that desperately wished he could travel in every direction simultaneously. "They received an eye-watering payout and used the credits to move the entire population from here to a forest world about thirty lightyears away."

"Just like that?" Romana asked, appalled by the idea that anyone would willingly sell off their homeworld for financial gain. "Was there no consideration for their heritage? Their history? Their ancestors?"

"What's heritage and history compared to more money than most civilisations will ever see in their entire existence?" the Doctor asked. "It was better than the alternative. Discovering the minerals, building an industry designed around harvesting the minerals, forming cities with the profits, declaring global war as the deposits dwindle, then watching it all inevitably crumble away when the mineral veins are sucked dry and the planetary economy ends up in a terminal freefall. A win-win when you think about it."

"Greed, you mean?" Romana countered.

"Precisely, now you're getting it. So, we can hop back into the TARDIS and try to find the next segment of the Key to Time, facing whatever peril likely awaits us. Or... "

"Or what?" Romana narrowed her eyes, already seeing the Doctor's eyes ablaze with mischief.

"We can explore for a bit," the Doctor grinned, turning to lock the doors, only to find K-9 waiting dutifully by the threshold. "Ahh, best to stay with the TARDIS, K-9. This lot wouldn't think twice about stripping you down and selling off the parts on the cheap."

"Sorry, K-9," Romana consoled the robotic canine, noticing a disappointed droop in his tail as he rolled back to allow the Doctor to seal the doors. "Right then, where do we start?"

"I'll start this way," the Doctor pointed towards an indoor market, one filled to the brim with exotic off-world art and decorative pieces, brimming with a variety of alien life from across the galaxy. "Rumour has it that someone once travelled to Earth and stole a horde of art from the old masters to sell here, I want to see if any of Leonardo's pieces are floating around."

"And what about me?" Romana sniffed, crossing her arms just as the Doctor extended one leg in the direction of the market. "You're the one who suggested that we should waste our time here instead of searching for the next segment. Now you're just going to go swanning off without me?"

"Swanning off? I'd like to think of it more as taking off the training wheels, giving the trainee an opportunity to spread her wings and fly. It will give you a chance to explore an unfamiliar world by yourself, to immerse yourself in its rich culture," the Doctor replied, coughing when Romana didn't buy his excuse.

"That's an awfully self-serving way of saying you're swanning off," Romana said.

"Yes it is. I'm glad you saw through that act, it means you're picking up a thing or two from me, developing those street smarts of yours," the Doctor rummaged around in his pocket and extracted a handful of gold and platinum wafers. "Take these, they're all I have on me at the moment."

"What are they?" Romana took the chips and inspected them, noticing the digits and barcodes etched on the top corners of each one.

"Currency. It's not a substantial amount, but enough to purchase something interesting. Try to stick to the main roads, and if anyone offers you a free drink you should take it and dash it in their face. Better safe than sorry," the Doctor tapped the side of his nose.

"What about you? How will you pay for anything if you don't have any credits?" Romana asked, sighing when she was again met with another one of the Doctor's enigmatic smiles.

"By bartering." The Doctor pulled out a white paper bag, tossing a red jellybaby into his mouth. "Never underestimate the buying power of sugary confectionery, Romana."

"Sometimes I wonder how you haven't smashed the TARDIS into a random cliffside because of that free-spirited approach to exploration of yours."

"Who says I haven't?" The Doctor whirled around and set off in the direction of the sheltered market. "We'll meet back here once we're finished."

"What about the TARDIS?" Romana shouted after him, using her own key to lock the doors. "What if someone decides to try and break in?"

"I hope they do," the Doctor shouted back, already making a beeline for a stall specialising in ancient Kaldor art. "K-9 promised to record anyone who did, it'll give me the chance to see if any of my booby traps actually work."

"Unbelievable," Romana exhaled, turning to stare down the winding street, finding it packed with stalls and storefronts of varying sizes, surrounded by prospective buyers from every corner of the galaxy.

Without much of a choice, and unwilling to play and lose yet another game of chess with K-9, Romana set off, unsure whether should would find anything that would draw her interest. Romana split through the crowd, unaware of the attention she attracted thanks to her resplendent silk gown and her enthralling classic beauty. Her brown eyes moved back and forth, scanning the contents of the stalls she passed, ignoring the attempts by the merchants to invite her over for a closer look at their inventory.

The aristocrat wandered through the street, ducking down when a pair of reprogrammed Voc robots dashed by, carrying a large unopened crate on their shoulders, earning the ire of a Tritavore when the bottom of the box slammed into the back of his head. Hiking up the hem of her gown to prevent it from dragging along the dust-coated cobblestone streets, Romana continued with her exploration, taking a sharp turn down a quiet alleyway, happy to be away from the bellowing vendors and braying market-goers. Marching on, she considered circling back to the TARDIS, only to have her eye caught by the spent energy core of a Dalek travel machine.

Intrigued, Romana approached the hovering stall and leaned across it, gazing at the various trinkets and curios, all of which had been gathered from the corners of the local systems. In addition to the Dalek components, there was a wide range of ancient weaponry, most likely wielded by long extinct species. Despite the clear age of the articles on display, the Time Lady couldn't help but notice just how advanced they were, remnants of civilisations that allowed their hubris to bring them to their extinction.

It was her first time seeing such things up close, rather than recontextualized within the Time Academy's vast museum. Naturally, she couldn't quite shake off the sense of superiority she felt as she assessed the weapons, the advanced technology was primitive compared to what she could find even in the remotest parts of the drylands on Gallifrey. But with the Doctor always off in his own little world, Romana knew she needed a pet project of sorts to keep her mind stimulated when they weren't busy with their search, hoping she could perform valuable research before her return to the Citadel.

"Ah-ha, I see you have an eye for Levorian war memorabilia." A squat alien stumbled out of the shadows, popping up from a set of crates he was in the middle of cracking open. The diminutive alien stood at just four feet tall, sporting lizard-like skin and a pair of bulbous black eyes that swivelled in their sockets. A purple robe cascaded across his almost-spherical body, matching the pillbox-shaped hat that sat upon his head. "I've got the finest relics you'll ever find this side of the solar windstorms, the last known pieces that haven't yet ended up in the museums of Xeros. Tell me...?"

"Romanadvoratrelundar," she answered imperiously, staring down her nose at the portly merchant as he proudly presented his inventory.

"Yeesh, if you say so. Who am I to judge when it comes to names? My folks called me Repaiktin, so I just call myself Tin. Tell me, are you a historian? Or just a tourist looking for a souvenir to bring home with you?" he inquired. Tin let his lizard-like eyes dart from her comely face and down to the shimmering gown that flowed across the regal woman's slender body, leading down to a pair of metallic-silver gladiatrix-style heels that gave her an additional five-inches of height. Cascading chestnut hair travelled down her back, given extra volume by a pair of gold rods threaded through the back of her luxuriant mane. Although he had his suspicions that she was a member of the aristocracy of her homeworld, Tin couldn't have possibly known presence of the very pinnacle of Gallifreyan high society. "You have the look of a woman who knows quality when she sees it."

"I'd prefer to call myself an academic," Romana corrected him, scrutinizing each item, separating the useless scrap from the more interesting pieces.

"Ah, an intellectual, and one of exceedin' beauty," Tin grinned, faltering when the Time Lady gave him a hard stare. "If it's history you're lookin' for, you've come to the right person. If you don't mind, I must recommend the phase repeater rifle, a true assassin's weapon of choice. It fires a thin beam of plasma that can pass through a target without leaving entry and exit wounds, making it impossible to trace the shot back to the person who pulled the trigger. Remarkable, banned by the peace accords a millennia ago. Care to have a look?"

Romana nodded primly. She delicately held the rifle and rotated it, noticing the attention to detail by its original manufacturer, from the way it balanced in her hands to the self-loading, miniaturized T-Mat chamber. She was by no means a weapons expert, always of the belief that the Time Lords were above the use of such crude tools outside of their use by the Chancellory Guards. But figuring out its various mechanisms wasn't a difficult task for the exceedingly intelligent woman. With a flick of a switch on the side of the stock, the weapon whirred to life, emitting a pulsating blue glow that crawled up the length of the barrel.

"It works," Romana said in astonishment, given its advanced age. "The internal components should have been reduced to dust after all this time."

"I told you, I only get the best." Tin nervously pushed the barrel away when Romana unintentionally pointed it his way, knowing he had her hooked. "That's a very recent acquisition of mine. I found it when I was passin' through the Orthana system a while back, along with a whole cache of stuff that fell out of temporal schism. I snatched up as much of the stuff that I could fit on my cruiser and made an emergency FTL jump. It's a good thing I did, 'cause not long after I left the Time Lords turned up and quarantined the whole system. Stuck-up meddlers, the lot of 'em."

"Is that so?" Romana bristled at the insult. As tempting as it was to give the alien a thorough tongue-lashing, Romana was willing to keep her indignation contained in favour of getting her hands on the rifle. "I haven't heard about any temporal quarantine zones being erected. Not that I would know about that sort of thing, of course."

"They keep that sort of thing on the hush-hush," Tin shrugged, clasping his clawed hands over his stomach. "But when it comes to obtainin' things that aren't meant to be obtained, I'm the one you go to."

"You do have quite the collection," Romana set the rifle down on the faded blue countertop, resting her upper body on the stall to get a better look at the smaller items, and Tin's eyes naturally fixed on her cleavage. "Out of curiosity, how much are you asking for this weapon?"

"You're talkin' big money there, one of a kind," Tin scratched his scaly chin, flicking out his long, forked tongue as he calculated the price in his head. "It would take all the platinum in your pocket to convince me to part ways with such a fine piece, and then some."

"Am I right to assume that you would be open to a compromise?" Romana placed a hand on her hip, idly inspecting her nails.

"This is Mordis-7, I reckon you could dig straight down and find the word 'compromise' etched somewhere on the molten core," Tin exclaimed. "Considering how rare it is to encounter humanoids as gorgeous as yourself here, I'm willin' to negotiate."

"I'm not familiar with the global economy, so I'm not certain what the exact buying power is for these," Romana displayed the wafers the Doctor had supplied her with, frowning when Tin shook his head dismissively. Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, Romana instead highlighted the White-Point diamond droplet that dangled from her earlobe. It had been a gift from her father to commemorate her first full year at the Time Academy. "Would you be interested in my earrings? I have a duplicate pair at home, so I would be willing to part with them."

"An intriguing offer, I've never seen anything like it in this region. But I'm afraid to say that I got out of the jewellery and precious gems business years ago, too much hassle when the husbands of the wives who sold them to me came lookin' for them. However, I believe I have a way we can hammer out a deal." Tin stepped away from his stall and brought Romana's attention to the arched alcove where the rest of his inventory was housed. "If you'd be kind enough to join me back here, I believe we can come to an arrangement. In fact, you'll be interested to know that it's a tradition here for those who are short on money."

Romana immediately became suspicious of the alien's true intentions. Yet the weapon was simply too tempting for her to walk away from, enhanced by the revelation of its alleged trip through time. Ultimately, her inquisitive nature won, enough to make her sidestep the stall and follow the diminutive alien into the cramped alcove, finding herself obscured from public view by the stacked steel crates that were piled against the crumbling walls.