A group of long, thin rocks that looked like long dead, oversize trees rose from the top of a low, meandering hill. The plantless sand below them stretched several hectometers toward a clear, still ocean that reflected the green sky. The scene carried a message of extreme peace to the viewer; or was that feeling one of desolation? If you thought of peace you could almost see someone standing near the edge of the water, arms raised toward the mid-morning sun.

No, that wasn't imagination. There really was someone there. At least, she was there now. You were certain you hadn't seen her there a moment ago. The woman dropped her arms and walked slowly into the water. She didn't hesitate when the water lapped at the bottom edges of her animal skin garment. Instead she walked even farther into the ocean. Suddenly, in a motion of planned abandon, she dropped into the water and disappeared. Then she brought her face slowly up through the surface, letting her long hair trail behind her. For the next few minutes she played in the water. Her lithe body twisted and curved through the ocean almost as smoothly as a porpoise.

Once again she pushed her face out of the water, letting the liquid pull her hair out behind her. She stood up, pulled the hair around in front of her, and wrung the water out of it. As she walked toward the desert beach she ran her hands down along the skins she wore, rubbing out excess water. She stood on the dry sand for a moment, her face lifted toward the sun. Then, giving a little push with her toe and swinging her arms around her she spun around on the other foot. Droplets of water, pulled away by the force of this spin, fell on the beach around her. She felt her garment, frowned slightly, and spun around twice more. At the end of this third move she lifted her arms again. A moment later, had it not been for the prints of her bare feet in the sand, you would have thought you had been dreaming, for the lady, without walking away, had vanished.

When the Doctor returned to the TARDIS' control room he found Cordar struggling to move a large MSGR into the TARDIS. (MSGR stands for multiple signal generator and receiver, a device that can work with signals in multiple wave types including light/electromagnetic, fluid/gas pressure, and time. Because the acronym is unpronounceable, Time Lords frequently refer to the device as a messenger.)

"You know," the Doctor observed, "I have one of those that is considerably more portable.

"Mine is so large because I've made several complex modifications to the original circuitry," Cordar retorted.

Without commenting further the Doctor walked to a nearby room where he stirred through several cupboards before finding a rectangular board with four casters attached. He carried this back to the control room where he set Cordar's messenger onto it. "Follow me and I'll show you a lab where you can work," he commanded Cordar.

The young time lord lifted a box containing other equipment and dutifully followed the Doctor.

Once the Doctor had led him to a room and left him there, Cordar set the box on his messenger and rolled both out the door and down the corridor.

The Doctor lay back in the recliner, feet crossed on the raised footrest. His arms hung limply at the sides of the Couch of Indolence. He gazed absently around the walls of the control room. "I must be more considerate," he mumbled.

In her room Romana sat at the edge of her bed. She wore long khaki pants with several pockets on each leg. Tucked neatly into these pants she wore a long-sleeved khaki jacket, buttoned halfway up over a dark green turtleneck. A rain poncho lay beside her on the bed. She bent over and picked up the left half of a pair of high-top, zip-up boots. "We must be ready," she mimicked the Doctor's warning. "We have no idea what we'll find there."

Even as her hands struggled with the boots her mind struggled with her emotions. One part of her despised the Doctor for telling her something she knew so well, having traveled with him to so many places. But another part appreciated his concern for her safety.

"Would people around me be any less condescending if I stayed on Gallifrey," she asked herself aloud. "I guess it doesn't matter who's bothering you, you have to decide on some other basis." Her logical nature wanted her to return to Gallifrey and raise a family. Her romantic nature lusted after the adventure and danger that always accompanied the Doctor and his companions.

A wild thought occurred to her. She zipped up the right boot, grabbed the poncho, and stood up. She draped the poncho over her left arm and walked out of the room. In the control room she approached the back of the recliner.

"I have a crazy question, Doctor," she announced.

The Doctor, who jumped slightly when she first spoke, turned to look at her. "There are no crazy questions," he suggested.

"Suppose I were to find someone...." She fumbled and started over. "Would it be possible...." This wasn't working. "The TARDIS is a big place. I mean, it would be possible for someone to live on the TARDIS and never leave unless the place it was at really was safe."

The Doctor stared at Romana, puzzled. "If you're wanting less danger in your life we could always remain on vacation longer," he said, trying to read her concerns.

"But suppose someone wanted to be here, not for you...." Romana realized she wasn't saying what she meant. "I mean, not to do things with you, but for some other reason. They could live in a part of the TARDIS and stay there regardless of what the other people in the TARDIS were doing." Her words weren't really a question.

"Why would anyone want to do that?" the Doctor half questioned, beginning to understand.

"I was just thinking that if I could find the right person I could stay with you AND fulfill my family responsibilities at the same time. That way I wouldn't have to decide between you and Gallifrey."

"Perhaps," the Doctor began. "No, I made a promise about that."

"What do you mean?"

"When you came here the arrangements were made without consulting me. The High Council cannot hold me to an agreement I didn't make. For that reason I can give you the freedom to choose if you want to return to Gallifrey or stay with me."

The Doctor paused suddenly in his monologue, realizing that Romana wasn't aware of the new companion. "I forgot to tell you. We have another time lord traveling with us."

"Who?" Romana asked.

"I forget his name right now. He's a rookie member of the scientific corps; part of the group that was surveying the area from which our cube may have come."

The narrowed eybrows and twisted lips of puzzlement took increasing control of Romana's features as the Doctor bumbled on."Huh?" she finally questioned with emphasis.

The Doctor explained what he'd learned while on Gallifrey.

"Maybe you'd like to meet him," the Doctor suggested as he concluded the rather lengthy explanation.

"I'm sure I will soon," Romana concluded.

Cordar pushed his load onto the balcony of the storage room he had visited earlier. The very nature of the cube made it difficult for its absense to impress him, and he dropped the instrument he had taken out of his box when he finally noticed. He picked it back up and fiddled with its controls some, as if trying to confirm what his senses told him.

The device apparently agreed, because the youth suddenly exclaimed, "What could he have done with that?" The true answer struck him even as he spoke the first words of his question and he vented his frustration orally.

"The potential for the number of rooms in a TARDIS is infinite. I could search for years and never find it. And if I ask the Doctor to see it again he'll certainly get suspicious."

Carelessly he dropped the instrument back in the box and shoved his load back into the corridor. He returned to the room the Doctor had assigned to him and sat down on the edge of the bed. Sudden inspiration struck him.

He lifted a small computer out of his box, drug out a cable to connect it to his messenger, lifted the monitor, and inserted a computer block from the pocket of his lab jacket. In moments an image of the room in which he sat appeared on the monitor.

This time the woman appeared at the top of a large, rounded rock. She stepped over to a natural depression in the rock which formed a comfortable recliner. She sat down in this, tossed her hair out behind her, lay her head back against the rock, and closed her eyes.

Cordar dropped to a sitting position against a wall and thumped his instrument frustratedly against the floor. The steep mountain of circumstances conspiring against him forced him to give voice to his troubles.

"This damn place was laid out without any plan, or maybe a plan by a diabolical computer's random sequence generator. It takes forever to find your way to a specified location because none of the passageways lead where one would expect them to lead. When you do get there, you find out your instruments were lying."

Cordar's instruments weren't lying, but having little experience with a TARDIS he didn't know that the very nature of the machine meant that space inside one is relative to the reality not only of humans, but of most space coordinate computing devices. And since Cordar was using a device that calculated the position of the target object relative to the current position of the user, both of which were in the TARDIS, the readings meant nothing.

The young Time Lord stood to walk back when he heard the sounds of the TARDIS materializing. "The Doctor will be looking for me," he mused aloud. "Well, he can either wait or go on without me."

Romana appeared in the control room just as the Doctor was standing from the recliner. "I thought you were going to install controls in the arms of the Couch of Indolence," she taunted.

"Events conspired against me," the Doctor winked. "Let's get some surface readings."

Romana stepped around to her accustomed place at the console. She scanned a few gauges. "Gravity zero point eight seven e-type normal," she reported. "Atmosphere not poisonous, but the oxygen level is so low as to make an excursion of more than 30 seconds nearly impossible. Well below safety margins," she added needlessly.

The Doctor flipped on the scanner. It revealed a desert landscape with a small reddish sun approaching the horizon. "I can guess it would be cold out there," he suggested.

"Minus 18 degrees centigrade," Romana clarified.

"So we'll have to make our readings from inside."

"We could use space suits. They wouldn't have to be pressurized, so we could use breathing masks instead of bulky helments."

"Still, too much hassle." The Doctor pecked at a keyboard. "The data Fostil gave me indicates this planet is void of all but the most primitive single-cell life. That's why the oxygen level is so low. Anyway, it's highly unlikely the cube originated here, unless someone were trying to transport samples of something to Gallifrey."

"Transport something?" Romana queried.

"I've been mulling over the cube. You can touch it."

"You tried?"

"After a lot of other tests to avoid the more obvious threats."

"And?"

"It feels quite solid, but I sense that if I were quick enough I could get inside without resistance."

"Quick enough? How quick?" Romana carried the role of inquisitor nobly.

"Oh," the Doctor waved indistinctly to indicate the general nature of his following estimate, "about a tenth of a nanosecond. I've seen something like that before, though not on Gallifrey."

"You've seen EVERYthing before," Romana scoffed.

"No, really. I saw a very advanced society use an extremely sophisticated technology to move things over long distances -- you know, anything over a few thousand light years."

"Not long distances," Romana corrected, "cosmic distances."

"Cosmic distances are long," the Doctor defended himself. "Very very long. Anyway, before the item was reconstructed at the receiving end it had many of the characteristics of our cube. Translucent, presenting misleading data to traditional scanning devices, and having that sense of both being present and not being present.

"Anyway, I don't recall all the steps in the process, but I remember that the sending station had to start the object to be transported on a time journey in order for the receiving station to grab and transport it. That's why I was there, as I recall. The High Council wanted to be sure their use of time technology was harmless. Since that was all they were doing I said nothing to them and reported my findings to the High Council. I never heard anything more about it."

Romana began to see the light in her partner's musings. "So you're suggesting we look for traces of time travel."

"We can cover a lot of territory quickly that way," the Doctor reminded. "If I'm right, we might save ourselves weeks of searching around."

"I'm game for that," Romana replied. "By the way, isn't someone else supposed to be helping us?"

The Doctor jumped. "Oh!" he blurted. He lifted a hand to the brim of his hat. "I think I know what he's up to."

"Shouldn't he be helping us?"

"Yes, yes," the Doctor said in a tone that brushed aside Romana's concerns. "But I don't think he can cause any trouble for a while," he concluded with a twinge of snicker in his voice.

"Finally," Cordar sighed, as he found the door to the room the Doctor had assigned to him. He entered and set the locator back in the box of tools he had brought with him. He looked over at the monitor of the portable computer he had brought with him. It showed the room containing the translucent cube. Cordar noted that the coordinates shown on the bottom of the monitor changed about once every two or three minutes. He hadn't waited that long before.

He turned, left the room, and walked to the control room. When he entered Romana was reporting the results of some operation or other.

"...clearly visible. Nothing else is high enough to register in the shadow of so fresh a trail. Doctor," she broke out of the informational tone she'd been using, "if we could go outside we could get away from our own trail and get more accurate readings."

"Not necessary," the Doctor mumbled from under his hat as he lay in the recliner. "Move on to the next place."

Romana bent to set coordinates on the TARDIS' controls. As she did so she murmured her irritation. Cordar changed his mind, and left the control room.

He found himself leaning against a shabby-looking door. He pushed his way through and discovered a dusty bedroom. A couple of plaid skirts hung on a rack, and a dagger on a dresser waited for its owner.

Cordar fingered the fringes of the skirts without understanding. He pushed his way back outside the room and wandered down the hall. He walked through another door and found himself in a wood-paneled copy of the control room. He stepped to the console and spoke out, "Lights on," as he tried to examine it. A soft white light poured in from overhead.

Most of the controls and instrumentation were beyond Cordar's technical skill, but he did find the monitor controls and set them to watch the original control room.

"I accept that it's good to search for time trails as a way to speed our investigation," Romana argued. "But this sloppy, hurry-up work flies in the face of scientific methodology."

"We aren't doing scientific research," the Doctor retorted quietly. "We're investigating a mystery. There's a big difference."

"Then you DON'T need me!" Romana turned and left the room briskly.

The Doctor pushed the Couch of Indolence up from the reclining position and stood slowly. He walked to the console and entered the next coordinates. Once the schwirr, schwirr of dematerialization began he walked to another panel of the console and began writing a program on the TARDIS' computer. Before the time machine had rematerialized at the new location he had completed the program.

Just after the TARDIS landed Cordar stepped into the control room. The Doctor looked up. "Oh, good," he smiled. "My other assistant just left and I could use a little help."

Cordar dropped into the Couch of Indolence. The Doctor thought how such an action might change the 'd' in Romana's name for the recliner to an 's'. But he said nothing.

"I've noticed we're landing and taking off frequently. What's up?"

"We're making a quick survey of planets in the area for signs that might indicate the origin of the cube," the Doctor answered openly.

The TARDIS began to dematerialize.

"But you haven't made any readings," Cordar protested.

"They were taken automatically," the Doctor answered. "I've programmed the TARDIS to stop at each of the locations Fostil suggested and take the readings I want to check. If it finds anything the program will halt and activate a signal bell."

Cordar stood and walked over to the computer monitor where he investigated the Doctor's program. "Neat," he commented as he read the source code.

"You understand it?"

"Programming was one of my academy concentrations," Cordar responded.

"Could you watch for a minute?"

"Sure."

The Doctor left the control room. Cordar accessed the list of destinations, selected one, and moved it up to the earliest position available. Then he returned the computer to the source code editor.

The Doctor rapped on a door. "Come in, if you must," Romana's voice responded.

The door opened and the Doctor spoke from the threshold. "You really should come to the control room," he pleaded.

"You don't NEED me," Romana reasserted.

"You're right," the Doctor admitted. "But you might want to meet someone."

"You already know I have a lot to think about right now."

"Activity can often clear the mind and open the door to new approaches to your problems."

"It can also make you forget what you had in mind," Romana countered.

"Maybe, if we find a planet to investigate, you could take some time out on your own. I could make it look like part of the investigation."

The TARDIS began to materialize. "I need to get back to the control room," the Doctor said as he left.

"I'll catch you up soon," Romana called to the retreating back.

In the control room the Doctor found an agitated Cordar. "Glad you're back," he said, pulling at an earlobe. "I just thought of something in the lab I need to tend to right away."

The Doctor raised his hand to stop him. But he appeared to change his mind, dropped his hand, and said, "Take care of it, then."

Cordar turned to leave. "Is something wrong with the lights in here?" he stopped abruptly to ask.

The Doctor looked around but saw nothing amiss except Cordar's shivering. "I don't think so," he replied, "but you might want to put a sweater on if you find it cold in here."

Cordar responded with a puzzled gaze that didn't vanish when he dicosvered his own chillyness. He quickly gave up on getting any clarification from the Doctor and left the room.

As Cordar left the TARDIS began to dematerialize again. The Doctor began to notice the sensation of invisible darkness that permeated the control room. Despite the overabundance of clothing he wore, he did notice a chill. But as the TARDIS finished dematerializing and began its travel through the time vortex the feelings dissipated. The Doctor made a mental note that he failed to cross check later.

The TARDIS materialized at the top of a low orange hill. Moments later Romana stepped confidently out. She carried an instrument at the ends of a strap slung over her shoulder. She walked a brisk twenty-five paces from the TARDIS, turned, and opened the case of the instrument she carried. As she worked its controls, the Doctor stumbled sleepily out of the TARDIS. He stretched and yawned as he examined the green sky against the orange horizon.

"What's it say?" The words sqeezed into the conclusion of a particularly wide yawn.

"Our path here is clearly visible." Romana scanned the horizon with her instrument.

"Anything else?"

"There are faint traces of a path over there." Romana pointed to the edge of a dense forest. Even as she pointed a white and blue striped animal, its head about waist high, strolled from between some trees.

The two time lords stared. "That?" they asked in unison.

"I've never read anywhere that all time travellers have to be humanoid," the Doctor commented.

As they spoke the animal began to amble toward them. "Maybe it will talk to us," Romana said hopefully.

When the animal drew near the Doctor squatted down and reached his hand toward it. It paused briefly to rub its ear against the outstretched hand. Then it walked to Romana and rubbed its fur against her thigh. Romana dropped her instrument and patted its head. Then she bent over towards it. "Are you the time traveler here?"

The animal opened its mouth. A rather cat-like mew emerged, at a much lower pitch than that we hear from our house cats. Then it walked around underneath her, rubbing its head against her belly and its side against her thighs.

"Affectionate little thing," the doctor noted. "It prefers you to me. Must be a male."

"Or its owner is a female," Romana countered. "Our form didn't startle it, and it came right up to us. It must be used to seeing humanoids." Romana worked hard to avoid mocking the Doctor over his lack of success with the animal.

"In that case SHE will probably come by soon."

"Assuming she's nearby," Romana retorted.

"If such a person exists, there may well be others like her. That would explain your earlier readings involving many small trails. I don't care if her great god-uncle comes by. I'd like to talk to someone here."

"It would help," Romana said as she bent over to pet the animal, which now lay curled at her feet. "What do we do, just wait for someone to wander out of the woods, looking for their pet?"

"Or we split up and go looking." The doctor walked slowly toward his companion. "Since we think they live in those woods, why don't you go that way?" The Doctor winked as he said this. Romana understood. "I'll go this way." The Doctor pointed away from the woods, over an area covered with more low hills. He looked up at the green sun. "Meet me here just before sundown."

The Doctor disappeared into the TARDIS, reappearing moments later with a number of detector leads hanging out of his pockets. He looked at Romana for a moment, started to say something, thought better of it, and strode off down the hill.

"Come along," Romana said to the animal at her feet. As if it understood her it stood up and followed about half a meter behind.

Romana stayed within sight of the forest's edge, walking with the sun behind her to improve her vision. Small, brown, furry animals ran up tree trunks as she approached, chattering at her from the limbs as she walked under them. Some time after the TARDIS had disappeared from view Romana heard a shuffling noise off through the forest. She turned to walk toward it. Her companion hung further behind, warning her in quiet mews.

Romana looked back to see what was wrong. In that moment of inattention her right foot slipped into a hole in the ground. Her left foot, taken by surprise, lost its grip and shot out in front of her. Her weight jammed her right foot into the hole in an awkward position. She fell over to her right, using her elbow to catch herself since her hand clung to the instrument she carried. The animal with the tuft of fur along its neck walked around her at a cautious distance but refused to come closer despite Romana's coaxing.

The shuffling noise came closer, flipping Romana's attention like a switch. A huge, blue-furred creature with long claws appeared. Romana's companion dashed away, climbing a stout tree. Romana positioned herself and tugged at her jammed foot, but she could not get it free. The noise she made attracted the beast's attention. When it saw her it ran toward her, growling ferociously. Just before it pounced, Romana turned away, burying her face in the forest floor and hugging her head with both arms.