"So you say." The Doctor shot back. "I believe you, my dear chap. Really."

"You doubt me, little one?"

Brasher was slowly growing calmer, but flickers of uncertainty lit the shadows in his skull. He understood challenges, but this one didn't make sense.

"Why would you lie?" The Doctor answered with a question. "I'm a Time Lord, outside your species. You've no need to try to impress the likes of me, I'm sure."

Brasher paused again. The two faced each other as he thought. And thought. His darkset eyes glittered. "You play a dangerous game with me, little one." He finally said, and very quietly.

The Doctor met his gaze with his own.

"As do you." He said softly.

"Do I?" Brasher answered in the same voice. It was now on the table: two opponents, toe to toe. The air grew thick with meaning.

"You've just admitted to eating six of my people. They aren't going to like that, you know." The Doctor never blinked. "They like to say they are tolerant of lower species," he drew that out, just long enough for his warden to growl softly, "But that's really a polite lie. We both know what they do when they're angry...that is...when they're caught at being angry." He was not smiling. "Your species is alive only because of a whim they indulged in, back in your distant past." The Doctor lifted his head, eyes shifting from blue to green back to blue. You have a choice now, Brasher the Fowler."

"Oh, do I? What choice would that be?"

"Let these people go, and I'll speak on your behalf before the Time Lords."

"Oh, how generous of you." Brasher's thick lips twitched. "For what? My life?"

"Even I can't guarantee that. But I can argue that your own people deserve the right to survive the anger they will feel at you."

Silence again, as each glared into the other's gaze. Neither blinked—neither gave ground in this contest of wills.

"Such altruism on your part!" Brasher might have been purring. "I disgust you, Little Time Lord. I can taste it in the air. And you would still argue on my behalf for your masters?"

"I am against the waste in killing. I serve Life, Brasher."

"And why would I be expected to understand that?"

"You don't have to understand something in order to use it for your own ends."

And this time, Brasher did laugh.

He laughed a long time.

Despite the tragedy of the thawing freezers, he was calm. Nothing like looking ahead for the sake of the future.

If only he knew more of what was going on in his ship. He wouldn't be calm at all.

Nor, for that matter, would be the Doctor.

Deep in the freezers, Brasher's twin apprentices Hollow and Serrate were running frantically to salvage the frozen carcasses in the freezers. This wasn't even simple in theory: Over half of the stores were the unfortunate Colonists. They had thus been transferred by T-Mat, willy-nilly into the docking bay and then stuffed into each available freezing unit as quickly as possible.

"There's no order to it." Serrate complained to his brother as they directed the low-ranking Androgum servitors to open up each chamber for their inspection.

He was putting it mildly. The freezer was expected to have less burn-damage on the larger carcasses, which mostly meant mature adult jacks. Their master would prefer these for the bulk of the salvage. But the carcasses had not been stored according to age or size or gender as was normal. Each chamber needed to be re-opened (which released more warming air into their chamber and expedited further thaw). If the carcass met with inspection it was sent off with the rest in its category.

The Androgum apprentices were chosen for their sagacity, cunning, and ability to perform as predators. In other words, if they were going to kill and eat their old master someday, they would have to be worthy of the honor. He was determined that when that day finally came, his students would create a funeral banquet worthy of the Great Old Days. They accepted there would be occasional unpleasant jobs for the honour of their post...but that didn't change the fact that they really wished someone else was in this melting, dripping metal-encased marsh.

"That's the last of the jacks." Hollow finally breathed. "And there's less than a hundred juveniles. That leaves about two hundred jills-none of them are old." The rest are the older stores we picked up from that last shopping trip to Earth."

"No more jacks. Good." Serrate wiped his brow, making a face as the sweat of his exertion ran down his warts. "They were the most trouble."

"Aren't they always?"

The twins laughed.

"It's funny because it's true." Serrate agreed.

"I'd rather cook up a jill any day." Hollow smacked his lips. "You always know where the fat is! Less spicing on the grill. Just wrap it all up and let them cook in their own juices."

"Depends on what they've been eating." Serrate scolded. "I never cared for the ones who were too healthy. Not enough savour and you always have to add salt. Unless it's the ribs. You can really chew on those."

The twins were close, but they were Androgums, so underneath all the sibling closeness was sibling rivalry. And they liked their occasional squabbles. It passed the time with unpleasant chores.

And this was a very unpleasant chore. Ice melted and slushed about their boots. By now it was past their ankles and lapping the calves. Once in a while, a gust of cold, wet air blew on their backs as they wrestled another melting carcass atop one of the gurneys. The assisting minions had all they could do to keep the stiff limbs from making a complete mess of freighting.

"Get back here as soon as you can." Hollow growled at the leader of the labourers. Normally he had a good temper with minions, but he was heartily sick of being cold and wet and being around all the meat was just making him hungry. He turned in the slush to mouth a new complaint to his brother, to find the other apprentice smirking at him with a slice of spiced blood-clot in his hands.

"I'd tell you to listen to yourself," Serrate grinned, "But you couldn't eat and talk at the same time."

"I DON'T eat and talk at the same time. It's rude."

"Of course."

"Aren't you starchy." He slogged over and accepted a sliced-off piece. The two hopped up on the relatively drier safety of a floating table and chewed relishing the burst of melting bloodclot upon the tongues.

"I've never seen anything like this." Serrate said with his mouth full. "It's going to take weeks to straighten out the computer sensors. If I didn't know better, I'd say there was some sort of virus in the system."

"Well...is it possible?"

"How would I know? This is...computer business. I've never bothered with it." They chewed some more. "I suppose it is possible." He admitted at last. "Then the question would be, how to get it out. I hope we don't have to replace anything!"

Hollow shuddered at the thought. "We just had these installed."

"Maybe it isn't that Time Lord at all. What if it could have been one of Master's rivals?"

Hollow had been trying not to think of that. He swallowed before speaking-never mix unpleasant words with the taste of good food. "You mean...him."

The twins made the sign to avert the particular kind of ill luck caused by bad thoughts aimed by one's enemies.

"Really, he's the only one who could do such a thing."

"But he doesn't know anything about computers. I guarantee you. He doesn't even keep a microwave oven or a thermal roaster! The technology's too 'distilled' to bring out pure flavour!"

"All he needs to do is find someone good with computers, brother. Someone with the cleverness. And he's...popular. Can you think of anyone else who would sabotage Master?"

Hollow shuddered, and imitated spitting on the dripping floor. "I can't think of anyone, really. But would he let all the food go to waste?"

"I don't know, but he always swore he could cook anything to a higher art...whilst Master's skill was only in bringing it in." Serrate finished the last bite and held up his fingers spread apart, careful to lick the blood from between.

"Well, the-" Hollow stopped and turned his head to the back of the freezer. The lights were at their worst in the depths. "Did you hear something?"

"No." Serrate did not look up from his afters.

"I thought I did."

Curse it. That means something else is going wrong with the machines, you just watch."

Hollow waited.

Serrate kept licking.

Hollow sighed. "I'll go see what it is."

"Be careful. Might be an icicle getting ready to break off over your head."

"It hasn't been that long since we defrosted these chambers!" Hollow sloshed and waded and kicked his way into the dark, muttering under his breath the whole time.

Serrate leaned back on the floating gurney, and wished for one more snack. That was the problem with being young—you didn't get to enjoy what you ate so much; it went straight to digestion. He didn't feel like dropping his half-frozen feet into the cold water, so he waited where he was. Hollow would take care of it.

Muffled bangs and thumps and metallic clangs made him grin.

"What's that?" Serrate yelled down the darkness, and kicked his heels against the melting slush and muck of the freezers.

"What?" Hollow yelled back.

"What's what?"

"You thought you heard something?"

"Just the compressors, I think. They're confused."

"There's a surprise."

"What?"

Oh, never mind. Come on back!"

"Just a minute. I can barely see! It's all dark lumps on dark lumps! And...beeping things!"

Serrate snorted. "You worry too much." He scolded. His stomach growled. He sighed. Time ticked, and the freezer was still cold and cheerless. He sighed again, kicked his boots, and finally twisted behind his shoulder. There were three chambers nearby, still full. Still waiting on the lackeys to return with the next line of gurneys.

It was bad policy to snack in front of the lowlier workers; they would think they were entitled too. But Serrate was hungry. And when he was hungry, he was snappish.

The Androgum drooled at the thought of that pale, cold meat just a few feet away. Master wouldn't mind if he helped himself to a little to 'taste the quality' so long as he proved he made it a useful activity. His mouth filled with saliva to remember the blood on his tongue.

He hopped down, splashing almost up to his knees. He grumbled again, and struggled to the nearest full chamber. Melting made runnels around the hatch-seams and he batted a layer of clear ice away to tinkle into the swelling pool.

The hatch groaned as he threw his weight against it; he gritted his teeth and heaved. Just as he was about to give up, a shadow crossed over his shoulder and against the dull metal door. The screek of friction and ice and steel set him on edge.

"Come, Hollow!" The apprentice grunted. "Give me a hand. We can have a bit before the next load."

It was finally awake.

Awake meant consciousness.

And found itself to still be bound in its pitiful form.

Rage clawed its throat. It had learned rage.

It had learned many things from the minds it had absorbed over the centuries.

Or was it the centuries? Was it it longer?

Sometimes it didn't even know that. It never remembered its own form now...those memories were ghostly echoes within its vast consciousness. Odd that a being of pure mind would forget something...but things changed, and time changed all.

But it looked down upon its claws, and remembered using them in the past.

It remembered the warmth of a sun on its fur...a green sun.

The Green Sun that warmed Earth.

It cast out with its senses, looking for anything useful.

There was precious little.

But in the echoes of its mind there was a resonance, and it knew to listen to its senses.

It was the last of its kind. The Locus depended on it to survive.

Survive and spread.

It had to move carefully.

Carefully.

It shuffled in the water, slow and awkward. Ice knocked about its scaly shins and icicles melted off its fur. The organic components fired terrible neurons of pain, but that was unimportant. Bodies were to be used. It reached up with its paw to spin webbing...

...but nothing happened.

The intelligence inhabiting the form remembered: The strange beings had carved the web-organs out of the hands.

A mistake to keep the newer models; fully organic translation meant weaknesses as well as strengths.

It would take time but it could improvise a proper web-gun. It could be fashioned even with delicate parts and these heavy, horned three-digit appendages.

Ice crackled and its sonics beeped softly, the sound echoing in the hard metal chamber. It sounded in all three directions, confusing the alien before it.

It never had time to scream. The head splashed into the water, a dark cloud spreading from the severed tissues.

It picked up the head, seeking the information within the still-malleable brain. A low surge of power and the neurons re-joined their synaptic language, transmitting millions of units in an eyeblink.

So precious little to absorb. It began to toss the corpse aside as a spent cause, but a last flicker in the memory compartment gave a last-second reward for all the trouble.

If it was capable of laughing in this form, it would.

More ice melted; crackled and slid off in a single clear sheet. It shattered glasslike over its matted and stinking fur.

Its fur.

How it would like to use another mind.

It paddled through the rising meltwater. Thin cakes rang as they floated into each other, broke apart at its passage, floated back again in its wake.

The other alien had its back turned foolishly, seeking the end of its greed. The lust for blood radiated off its limited consciousness.

The thing understood hungers and cravings and wants...but it had no patience for the stupidity that birthed short-sighted indulgences.

It moved again.

Serrate's scream never escaped the sealed doors.

Brasher had finally stopped laughing. It took a while.

"I'm going to regret cooking you up, little one." He wiped his eyes with his free hand, the other carefully wrapped around his most reluctant guest. "Tut, the troubles you give me. All because I follow the difficult path of the artist." He sighed and slung him over his shoulder in a new angle, one that neatly took the Doctor's feet off the floor.

"You really think you can get away with this." The Doctor said icily.

"I already have. Six times. This will make seven."

"But the Time Lords weren't aware of you."

"They still aren't." Brasher spoke carelessly. "Any more than they noticed anyone else going missing in the path of that pesky little pinhole." He puffed his large cheeks out like balloons. "So much destruction with that thing! So much death! So much easy sweepings."

"And you call yourself a fowler." The Doctor goaded. "Scavenger more like!"

"You are trying to anger me." Brasher growled. "It won't work. He thumped the little Time Lord on the back again, and the friendly tap blew all the air from his lungs. "I was like the others once. I feared your people. I was as subservient to the name of Time Lord as much as anyone else!"

"So what happened?" The Doctor struggled to study his surroundings as they passed.

"I ate you." Brasher said simply. "He was already dead, an old one, mostly dry and the vacuum had finished him off. But his flesh was edible...like anything else in this Universe. And I lost my fear. So it was with the next...a young female in purple. And the four that followed. You should learn to keep track of your kind better."

"They're catching up with you. The pinhole has been finished. There are no more accidents for your space-combing. You're finished, Brasher." The Doctor renewed his struggles. Normally he would always come along quietly, choosing to cooperate in order to keep his hands free. But Brasher wasn't about to give him the luxury of that advantage, so there was no sense pretending he wanted to be here. "Soon the Time Lords will come, and you know what they will do in the face of your crimes!"

"It is no crime to live." Brasher scoffed.

"They are Time Lords!" The Doctor bellowed loudly enough to leave him dizzy. "They usually don't care about life, only Time!"

"Ah, I wondered why you ran away from them." Brasher sounded quite satisfied.

"Brasher, for the sake of your people!" The Doctor hammered his fist into the big alien's arm. "Stop this before they include your ship! Your Grig! When the cause is great enough, they will include entire worlds in the judgment of one!"