Theta stood, uncomfortably, before Cardinal Borusa's desk. The Cardinal was seated. The Castellan stood slightly behind him.
"I would ask you for an explanation," Borusa said coldly. "But I seriously doubt that even you could come up with a glib excuse for this."
"I have no excuse," Theta said flatly. His wild flight from the Guard had been for nothing. A squad was waiting at his quarters when he returned. They escorted him directly to Borusa's office.
"I'm almost disappointed. I'm certain your explanation would have been most entertaining." He made a show of examining the report on Theta's evening activities on the data screen in his desktop.
"What shall we do with you now?" he said, almost casually.
"I assume that the Castellan is here so you can turn me over to him."
"Do you?"
Theta had the impression that Borusa and the Castellan were sharing a joke at his expense.
"You're not always right, Theta Sigma. It would actually benefit you to take heed of the advice of your elders. I've put considerable effort into keeping you out of the gaol. It would pain me at this late date to see those efforts go for naught."
Theta couldn't think of what to say. There was a wave of relief, but not gratitude. He felt a bit soiled to think that his future had been redeemed to serve Borusa's petty political concerns.
"We expected you would attempt the Archive," the Castellan said. "The Matrix had the scenario worked out quite precisely. The only parameter apparently not taken into account was the elasticity of the waistband of your trousers. It is quite unfortunate that a Time Lord's biodata extract has now been spread about the city to be fodder for common gossip. We had hoped to intercept it before that happened."
"The question remains," Borusa said. "What are we going to do with you?"
"I am entirely at your disposal," Theta said morosely.
"Disposal -- don't tempt me," Borusa replied. "May I assume that your thesis will be on my desk in two days time?"
"Yes, your grace."
The Castellan cleared his throat.
"I think some form of community service might be in order. We will give you the next two days to finish your final project -- I wouldn't want to interfere with the education of a Prydonian. However, after that, I will expect you to report to me."
"In what capacity, Castellan?"
"The member of the Citadel cleaning staff who services my office has not reported for work these past two days. I understand she was injured in some sort of senseless accident.
"In her absence, my offices are not being cleaned to my standards. You will take her place until she is ready to return to work. There is a great deal of scrollwork and bric-a-brac to be dusted and polished. I shall expect you to perform to exacting standards."
"Will that be all?" Theta said stiffly.
"One more thing," Borusa said, pulling a data cube from a compartment in his desk. He set it where Theta could reach it.
"The biodata extract you stole wouldn't have told you everything you were hoping to learn. It terminates before the trial."
"Trial?"
"Yes, the trial. I acted as Nadotal's defense council. I can't say it was a successful defense. This is my personal recording of the proceedings. Treat it with respect."
Theta took the cube, suddenly confused.
"You're surprised I would let you see it? Consider this: It isn't the mission of the Academy to prevent students from learning."
"Thank you."
"You may go now. But, Theta Sigma, please try to stay out of trouble for the next two days. I've had quite enough excitement for this regeneration."
As the door closed behind Theta, the Castellan sighed heavily. "Remind me again why we're doing this."
Borusa raised an eyebrow. "The Matrix is quite adamant. He'll save Gallifrey someday."
"If he doesn't destroy it as a prank before then."
"Yes," Borusa said ponderously. "That is also a distinct possibility."
Theta made his way through the crowded market in the undercity, deep in private thought. He hardly noticed the people around him going about their daily business.
He had seldom in his life so far found himself so completely uncertain that what he had done was justified. He walked toward the block of flats where Nell lived wondering how what he had learned would affect her. He intended to tell her -- if nothing else, he felt she had a right to know.
So wrapped in his own reflection was he that he didn't see the man carrying a large bundle until they collided, nearly knocking Theta off his feet. The workman cursed Theta's clumsiness and Theta mumbled an apology.
As the workman picked up his burden and hurried on, Theta's eyes fell on fresh graffiti scrawled across a shop front nearby.
"Loom-born Time Lords, oh so haughty,
search time and space for human totty."
Theta blinked in disbelief at the crude couplet. A little farther along the shopping avenue, he found another:
"Time Lords abandon their genetic looms
to plant their seeds in human wombs."
He blushed furiously. He was offended, then found himself wondering why he, of all people, should feel that way. "Has my time at the Academy so completely separated me from my origins?" he asked himself.
The next scrawl stopped him short.
"Who's your daddy, half-breed girl?"
His hearts all but stopped. Of all the consequences he had imagined for his recent activities, he had never considered they might harm Nell and her daughter.
He hurried on, now dreading the prospect of looking Nell in the eyes. At least, with her injury, she wouldn't be out in the market to see this, he thought, trying to assuage the terrible guilt he felt.
But Miranda would be. He wanted to go back and scrub the sneering script from the wall, but knew it was futile.
"The moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on; nor all your piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it."
The words of Omar Khayyam popped into his head unbidden. Another of the books Nell had recommended -- if only he had understood what it meant.
If Theta held any hope that the consequences of his actions hadn't reached Nell yet, they were dashed when he reached his destination.
Nell had been weeping. Her eyes were rimmed red.
"I'm sorry, Theta," she said haltingly. "I don't feel up to a lesson today."
Theta hung his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean this to happen," he said, feeling sorrier than he ever had about anything.
Nell looked at him in surprise. Until this moment, she hadn't placed any blame for the sudden exposure of Miranda's lineage.
"I trusted you," she breathed. "How could you?"
He shook his head. "I never meant it to turn out this way."
"Do you have any idea what you've done?"
He shook his head again.
"Miranda's friends are shunning and ridiculing her," Nell said angrily. "People point at her in the street. What could have made you betray us this way? What have I done to you to deserve this?"
"You don't deserve this. I never thought ..." He stopped, unable to go on.
"Tell me," Nell snapped. "Tell me why you betrayed my secret and turned us into pariahs. You must have had some reason."
"You weren't the first," Theta said in a voice that was barely audible. "Before you told me, I always believed I was the only one."
Nell's eyes widened in surprise. "You've kept your own secret then," she said bitterly. "You had to understand why we kept ours."
"A few people know about me," Theta said. "There was a thorough genetic background investigation before I was allowed to enter the Academy. I was surprised they let me in. But it was kept confidential. Only a few of the professors know about me."
"Why? Why did you betray us?"
"I went looking for Nadotal. I thought I could talk to him. Convince him to come back to you."
"And?"
"At first, I couldn't find any evidence that there had ever been such a person. That was so strange, that I kept looking. When I broke into the Archive ..."
"You broke into the Time Lord Archive?"
Theta nodded. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Nell pressed her lips together in exasperation.
"I found out what happened to him -- finally."
"Oh?"
"He was exiled. They took away his remaining regenerations and sent him to an observation post on the edge of known space. There was an accident shortly after." Theta paused, not wanting to go on.
"He's dead," Nell said flatly.
"Yes."
"I think I knew that already, somehow," she said. "There's a part of me that has always believed that if he could have, he would have contacted us."
She sighed heavily. "At least I know now. There's some comfort in that."
"There's more."
Theta took a deep breath.
"He was exiled because he refused to renounce you."
"Why would they want him to renounce me?"
"I'm not sure, entirely. The Time Lords are very touchy about reproductive issues. I suppose they found the whole thing just too embarrassing."
"They took away his regenerations and exiled him out of embarrassment?"
Theta shrugged. "I can't say I understand the Council's motives entirely. But he was offered a choice.
"The Council wanted to ship you and Miranda off -- somewhere, not Earth, just somewhere out of sight. Then, he was to sign a statement that he'd never had conjugal relations with a person of another species. If he had done that, all would have been forgiven. His career as a scholar would surely have been tainted, but he would have been allowed to continue his studies -- in obscurity."
"But he wouldn't agree."
Theta shook his head.
"But the Council has left us alone -- until now. They've shown no interest in us at all."
"I think they've been keeping an eye on you. Your work assignment puts you in the Castellan's office nearly every day. I don't think that's a coincidence. I do understand this much about the Time Lords: They believe in leaving well enough alone. As long as there was nothing to draw attention to you, they would be content to leave you in peace."
"But you couldn't leave well enough alone."
"I thought you'd want to know."
Nell was silent.
"I'm sorry."
Nell looked up at him. "They've taken Miranda away, you know."
"Where?"
"I'll never know. They said she's to be given a new identity, so she can live a 'normal' life. I'll never hear from her again."
"I wish there was something else I could do or say."
"You've done enough."
"I never meant to cause you harm," Theta said haltingly. "I just thought you should know what happened to Nadotal. I'll go now."
He turned to walk to the door.
"Theta?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you."
The final project results were posted in the student commons. Theta perused the list with disinterest. Somehow, he knew his name would be on the graduation list -- regardless of the quality of the thesis he'd turned in. If the Cardinal was willing to overlook a capital crime, he certainly wasn't going to flunk him.
The knowledge that he was graduating -- undeservedly -- hurt worse than any of the slights he'd endured from his professors. He brooded for a while, then scheduled an appointment with his advisor.
Borusa ushered him into the office and motioned for him to take a seat.
"You'll be a Time Lord soon, Theta Sigma" Borusa said ponderously. "I hope we'll be seeing a new attitude of responsibility in you when you take up your new status."
"It's to keep me quiet, isn't it? You're so afraid of the truth, that you'll do anything to keep me from telling people who I am."
"You weren't privy to the debates on the High Council after you were born. I was there. You don't know what is at stake."
"The pride and reputation of the Time Lords. Oh yes. I think I know what's at stake."
Borusa smiled a little. "More than that. Much more than that.
"Your father's discovery about humans was quite an eye opener. He found that human DNA was more adaptable than any other species known. That's why you are alive. The differences between human anatomy and Gallifreyan anatomy are extensive, and simple logic would tell us that no viable embryo could be formed combining those two strands of DNA. But you are here. And your physiology is more than 95 percent Gallifreyan. The human genes for the greatest part, act as recessives. In Miranda, we see that the phenomenon is reproducible."
"Of course," Theta said bitterly. "And that threatens the power the loom masters hold over the people."
Borusa shook his head.
"As usual, you haven't thought the problem through. You've got to take it a step further, Theta. Don't stop when you have an easy answer.
"The Council records of those debates were sealed. What I'm about to tell you is never to be repeated. Never, do you understand me?"
Theta nodded.
"The real problem lies in what happens when an advanced culture finds a 'use' for the people of a less advanced culture." Borusa looked off into the distance, remembering a debate of years past.
"Slavery," the Cardinal said flatly. "Members of the High Council of Gallifrey were seriously discussing the prospect of importing human females for the service of the state. The question of obtaining informed consent from those individuals was not considered.
"A few of us were alarmed. The Council's ethics gave way so easily in the face of overcoming the Pythia's Curse. But, the power we hold as Time Lords is so great. The question of ethics can never be pushed aside.
"Fortunately, for the sake of all our souls, the President was among those disturbed by the turn of the debate. He shut off discussion and sealed the records."
Theta was silent. He could feel Borusa's eyes on him -- expecting him to express some gratitude that such an ethical disaster had been averted. Theta couldn't find it in himself to say anything.
"So you see," Borusa said at last. "It isn't embarrassment that makes me guard your secret."
Theta gave a tiny nod. "What will happen to Miranda?"
"She'll be treated no worse than you were. She seems a bright young woman. There may even be a spot for her at the Academy."
"And will she be passed, no matter the quality of her work?"
"You think your thesis wasn't evaluated objectively?"
"Isn't that obvious?"
"I must admit it was a bit shorter than most that receive a passing grade. But there is virtue in brevity, particularly when the work is succinct. Several members of the committee argued that you hadn't applied yourself at a level that deserved recognition, but in my opinion -- the prevailing opinion, as it happened -- your work demonstrated a keen understanding of human culture, and indicated that you might have learned something. That in itself astounded me."
Theta was silent again.
"Here, take the paper and keep it. When you're feeling arrogant, you might reread it and remind yourself of where you've been."
The Cardinal pushed a single sheet of paper across his desk. The single sheet Theta had turned in as his thesis.
There was a single sentence written there in Theta's spidery handwriting: "Love stinks, but there doesn't seem to be a reasonable substitute."
Nell never saw the student who called himself Theta Sigma again. She understood that upon graduation, the former students took new names, so she didn't really expect to hear any further, and didn't connect him to rumors that circulated sometime later about a Time Lord who stole a TARDIS and became a renegade.
Her life continued routinely. She was offered a pension, and never returned to cleaning offices.
Once a year, for many years afterward, a package arrived that lifted her spirits in a way that nothing else could. It always came with no return address, no indication of where it had come from, other than the contents, which could only come from one place in the universe.
Every year, within a few days of her birthday, Nell received a package of tea -- genuine Earth-grown tea. There was always a variety: Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Jasmine, Lapsang-Oolong.
She drank it and remembered.