Frantec struggled with the strange garments the Doctor had given her to wear during her stay on Darmellon. She had protested his decision to have her stay, doubting his story that he had found someone he knew. Her complaints had been ignored.

He had explained that the white colored garments he'd given her were to be worn underneath the others. One piece she figured out quickly. It had two obvious holes for legs. The other sported a confusing jumble of straps, two of which sported hard, shiny pieces the Doctor had shown her how to connect. She puzzled over the cloth for several minutes before the thing finally made sense. But that put the shiny parts behind her, where she couldn't see to hook them together.

After several minutes of fumbing unsuccessfully behind her back, Frantec happened on a unique idea. She turned the garment around, so she could see the hooks while she fastened them. Even that way it took her quite a while to get them together. Once she had put this task behind her she twisted the cloth around until the parts that fastened were behind her. She then lifted the straps over her shoulders, fitting her other parts into the cloth cups as she did so.

The rest of the process involved only slightly less difficulty for her, and when she emerged from the TARDIS' wardrobe the Doctor fussed over the clothing more before he escorted her out of the TARDIS and gave her into the care of a palace guard. Moments later the no longer quite so strange sounds announced the disappearance of the odd blue box.

The moment Hedin had feared for several days had arrived. A livid cardinal stood before his console, ranting about a bulletin he'd just seen on Public Register Video.

"This is sure to backfire and reflect badly on my campaign," Borusa thundered. "This is exactly the kind of thing I called on you to prevent!"

"Are you saying this, ah, woman comes from the planet the Doctor has been investigating?" Hedin whimpered.

"Cordar's name was mentioned in the report," the cardinal shot back. "Seems he convinced Kelner to bring the woman here. What I want to know is how he succeeded without you knowing about it!"

Borusa's continuing anger overwhelmed Hedin's fear. Hedin stood and replied to the candidate in similar, though slightly less loud tones. "Before your two bumbling technicians arrived," he growled, "the situation went completely berserk on me. The Doctor performs some sort of magic on that cube, which he has just moved into the meadow, and a whole crowd of primitives appear. They start zipping off all over time. Despite his incompetence, this technician discovers that Loralar has just stopped at the planet to collect her son. That's how we were able to alert the Castellan to arrest him.

"I DID manage, however, to prevent the Doctor's appearance. She," Hedin gestured roughly toward the other technician, "discovered the Doctor was headed this way just in time for us to see his TARDIS turn around and head back. We had just decided the threat had passed when I discovered, no thanks to either of these, that the Doctor was already more than halfway here. By only the narrowest of margins I succeeded in deflecting his arrival, but in the rush I couldn't track where he went. The only thing we know for sure is that Romana remained on the planet, where things have, for the moment, settled down slightly." Hedin breathed heavily.

"Still," Borusa argued, "someone is sure to think we brought that woman here and put Public Register onto the story to discredit Kelner. An enemy could easily use that against me."

The chancellor quieted only slightly as he made a suggestion to the cardinal: "Maybe you could make an announcement in support of the Castellan, saying you're sure the whole thing has been over-dramatized...there is some room for doubt, I presume," he interrupted himself, looking to his guest hopefully. He continued when his query gained him no response. "...and that it would be unwise for anyone to judge the man on an isolated incident. That way you look generous and noble, while Kelner continues to look at best inept and uncautious."

Borusa still refused to respond. The two glared at each other for several moments. "You said you were swamped here; get to it then," he barked, turning immediately to leave Hedin's chambers.

Romana didn't even look as Hadrian left. Instead she looked up at the sun to see what had covered it. She turned her eyes away quickly as it threatened to burn her retinas. Why hadn't she thought to keep warmer clothes, she wondered, even as a familiar but very unwelcome chuckle reached her ears.

She stood immediately and turned to face an image dressed completely in black. Its cap bore the head of a black bird, probably a crow, at its peak. The black glass eyes of the bird intensified the piercing gaze of the black-bearded... well, despite its humanoid appearance you'd hardly feel comfortable calling it a man.

"Finally," the image cackled, "I find at least one of you alone. The Doctor has temporarily evaded me, though I don't know how. But his time of reconing will come." The voice seemed to echo around the clearing as if this portion of the outdoors had been walled in like a large warehouse.

"You have no quarrel with me," Romana retorted, little hoping her argument would have any effect. "The key didn't belong to you in the first place, and it would have been irresponsible to allow something so powerful to be used for evil purposes."

"And why not? Should only the good have the advantage of the most powerful technology in the universe?"

"The key was scattered again," Romana replied. "It is not accessible to either good or evil."

"Which is just as well," the Black Guardian bellowed, "or I would be six times as angry as I am now."

"The advantage should never be allowed to go to the side of evil," the time lady said. "In the end good must win out. The dark side will eventually lose."

"Who says?" The image shimmered in a reflection of its projector's anger. "If evil should vanish, how would you know what is good?"

"I'd remember all the evils I've seen. There have been plenty." Romana's recent encounters with Daleks and Movellans gave her plenty of recollections of the evil the universe seems to generate at random.

"But what about those who came after?" the Black Guardian asked pointedly.

"There'd be stories, oral and written tales of the devastation wreaked by persons like you."

"Ha!" the image cackled again. "Wrong on both points! You should know as well as anyone that after years, even written tales pass into legend. People begin to doubt their historical accuracy, causing the tales to lose their tutorial effect. Look to your own home. Despite literally thousands of written records, much of the story of your greatest leader, Rassilon, is uncertain -- largely doubted by most of your scholars.

"As to me 'wreaking devastation,'" the Black Guardian continued, "I am merely the guardian of evil, not its source."

"Then why do you pursue the Doctor? No doubt you seek our death." Romana lifted her fists to her hips. "And why do you use your powers to kill and destroy?"

"You misunderstand," the raucous voice reverberated. "In his constant meddling, the Doctor threatens to upset the balance between good and evil. I cannot allow that to happen any more than the White Guardian could allow some nefarious character to tip the balance in the other direction.

"In all other situations, my powers are channelled through receptive individuals. Some members of your own race draw on my powers to achieve their goals."

"Mere renegades," the time lady dismissed, "rejected from our society because of their unscrupulous misuse of the powers of our race."

"Just as your friend has been rejected for misuing your powers in exactly the opposite way." The Guardian's image grew, and with it the perceived darkness and coldness of the meadow. "And now you contemplate joining him in his sickeningly benevolent wandering through the universe. I cannot allow that."

"Two good renegades against a dozen or more bad renegades? That doesn't sound like much of an imbalance to me, unless it be against good," Romana charged.

"You said it yourself," the Black Guardian reminded. "Good is more powerful than evil. If just one good time lord threatens to push things out of balance, imagine how much damage two good time lords, working together, might do. The evil time lords often work against each other, making their work that much less effective."

"Then either kill me or leave me alone," Romana nearly shreiked, shivering as she did.

"Neither," the image contradicted. "I have some things to show you."

"Welcome, Frantec," the king invited. He paused to study the appearance of his guest. "I apologize that you have to wear something so obviously uncomfortable for you. It is not within the power even of a regent like myself to increase people's tolerance for the unfamiliar. This lack is the biggest obstaclewe must overcome here if we are to establish effective relations with other worlds."

"I doubt if my own people are as ready as yours for such contact," the young time traveller responded. "We had not been aware that other intelligent life existed until we found we needed a new world to live on. We have found several planets that would have been ideal, but as we explored their eras, we found that intelligent life eventually appeared on them. Most of that has been due to the interference of someone else."

"You mean intelligent life doesn't occur naturally on most planets?" the Regent asked.

"Do you not think it strange that you and I look so much alike?" Frantec challenged. "We do not have good records of our past in my tribe," she continued, "and we cannot visit it to see. So we really don't know how we came to live on our planet, or how we came to have the travel abilities that appear to belong to us alone.

"Very few of the intelligent life forms we have encountered vary from you and I," Frantec explained further."Even those that don't bear this form usually have carbon-based bodies with oxidizing metabolisms. We have had many philosophical discussions about this within my tribe. Is this the natural mode of biological evolution, with variations explained by wildly different environments? Our limited data seems to contradict this theory as the few variant intelligent beings we have encountered have been on planets quite similar to yours and ours.

"The theory generally accepted by my tribe is that most of the intelligent life in the universe has a common ancestor. Independent evolution can explain the variations between tribes, but the process of evolution doesn't seem likely to produce life at all, much less intelligent life, on more than two or three planets in the entire universe."

"Our scientists are aware that the odds against the development of life from entirely natural events are very high," the king offered. "But I admit that we do seem to believe that our life is the result of millions of years of progressive evolution - even though there are a lot of wild tales about outside intervention before our historical records begin. Personally I don't see how people can believe that any outside intervention from before recorded history can have been any more helpful than that which has been recorded."

"That's a type of history which my race does not share. The only intervention we have experience with has happened just now, and the final result of that isn't known yet. Our leaders hope the Doctor can help us find a planet where we can continue our lives alone. That would, given the nature of our society, require a planet where life does not exist naturally, either now, in the past, or in the future."

"My own personal experience with the Doctor suggests that he will help and help successfully. But the cultural memory of Time Lords on this planet is not so positive." Regent Fergus paused, studying his guest. "Fortunately, you are from another planet. Maybe your presence here will help us learn to relate to alien races with respect."

"I would like very much to explore your planet," Frantec requested. "In this time only, of course."

"Do be careful," the king said, granting his permission with the words, "and don't be afraid to leave if you are threatened in any way." He stepped over to a wall of library shelves and pulled open a drawer. He drew out a small medallion and attached it to Frantec's blouse. "This will identify you as a royal guest. That may be all the help you need."

A male Public Register reporter fussed at his collar while his female producer gave last minute instructions to Vorlene. "When he says, 'She claims she was demonstrating her ability to travel in time,' you travel about ten seconds into the future," the producer said, pointing toward the reporter. "When you get back, he'll ask you some questions about where you came from and how you arrived on Gallifrey."

She led Vorlene to a position just behind the reporter, and stepped back into the crowd, next to Rhodan. "Being here will clearly demonstrate that our report is live, not recorded and edited," she whispered. "Couldn't you have found some clothes for her that were more stylish?"

"She had to have all organic fibers," Rhodan explained. Our non-organic synthetics would not have travelled with her, and she would have arrived at any destination totally naked!"

"Not the kind of demonstration we'd want on Public Register," the producer noted. Just then the cameraman began a countdown, and the reporter took a breath, ready to begin.

"I'm standing just outside the council chambers. Minutes ago presidential candidate Cardinal Borusa announced here that the charges against his primary rival are the result of a strange misunderstanding. As evidence he produced the woman recorded in Castellan Kellner's office by Public Register Video earlier today.

"This woman, who calls herself Vorlene, stands beside me." The cameraman zoomed out so both the reporter and Vorlene could be seen. "She claims she was demonstrating her ability to travel in time." Right on cue Vorlene raised her arms and vanished from the shot. "She says she had just returned to the Castellan's office and tripped, falling into his lap just as the Public Register Video call came through. Neither she nor the Castellan can explain how the connection was opened on his end," Vorlene reappeared in the shot, "but the Cardinal has announced he believes this story and that nobody should let this incident influence his or her vote in any way."

Rhodan smiled at the producer as the reporter turned to Vorlene and began questioning her.

The children filed in controlled disorder from the tube car to the desk where a woman checked their bags and PLDs with polite coolness. During this commotion a female figure appeared from nowhere and quickly blended into the crowd entering the surface lifts.

When the crowd arrived in the meeting room of the radio communications facility, the instructor guided his charges into two rows of seats. He spoke briefly with an attendant and then sat behind the children. Frantec sat even further back, hoping he wouldn't see her just in case he recognized her.

People continued to arrive in small groups for the next ten minutes. Then the room darkened and a multimedia presentation began to tell the story of the search for intelligent life. Much of it contained historical and cultural references that meant nothing to Frantec, but she did understand something of the difficulty of establishing a common message encoding system which would bridge the gaps of technology and language. The process, she learned, had taken several years of work for each planet with which contact had been made.

The most interesting information available to the public had not yet been made part of the multimedia presentation. The radio communications staff had recently developed equipment that would translate language both ways in real time. A picture would show the speaker, while a computer-generated voice would put the speaker's words into understandable form. A woman came to the front at the end of the multimedia presentation, to explain this development and to show a short motion AV recording of a conversation thus conducted.

The woman then divided the crowd into tour groups. The school children were to receive a special tour. Frantec fell in with that group. The instructor did see her, but the change of clothing apparently kept him from recognizing her. The royal medallion kept the attendants from questioning her right to accompany this special group.

The first twenty minutes of this tour matched the tour the other groups received in all ways except the sequence of stops. Then the other groups were led out of the complex and back to the lift. The students and Frantec followed their attendant to a door marked "PRIVATE." Inside they found free-standing equipment racks joined by bundles of cables that testified to the temporary nature of the equipment installation.

"Our capability to instantly understand the transmissions from other planets and to respond immediately, sending a signal in their language, has made new and exciting types of exchanges possible. Over the past few days we have arranged for a number of school groups like yours to come to this room at a certain time and meet a similar group from another planet.

"You have been selected today for such an exchange. In just over five minutes we will establish a link with people from a planet that is more than 50 light years away from us. Initial exchanges with many of the planets took place over the electromagnetic spectrum. These signals traveled at the speed of light, meaning it took 50 years for a message to reach us from them, and another 50 years for our reply to get back to them.

"You can see that meaningful communication was impossible using such means. It was not until our scientists discovered and developed hyperspace signalling that real-time communication, of the sort you are about to experience, was possible. There is still some delay; about five seconds." Here the guide paused and looked to the instructor.

"Come with me," the chilly voice ordered.

If Romana had exercised any choice in the matter she would have refused to exert herself in any way. But obeying the command of the Black Guardian did not require her to even will it to happen. After a brief loss of all sensation, she found herself seated on an uncomfortably hard bench in an oppressively dark room. A thermometer would have registered pleasant numbers, but Romana felt chilled to the bone.

"I want you to see something," her host demanded. With those words Romana found herself floating in a scene of ancient Gallifrey. Use of the word "floating" is accurate only from a visual sense. Romana still felt the hardness of the bench and an increasing weight of untimely exhaustion.

"Do you recognize anyone?"

"That is Rassilon, I believe," she responded.

"You could hardly be expected not to recognize so important a figure in your planet's history. Anyone else?"

"No," she responded truthfully. As she spoke she heard the verbal exchange between the figures displayed before her. She listened with increasing anger and disbelief.

"Rassilon would never have approved such an action," she argued.

"This is not a fabrication. It is merely a recording taken from your own historical archives." The voice seemed to relish this information.

"Such information is stored in the Matrix, available only to Time Lords of the very highest rank." Romana continued to hope she could impeach the veracity of the scene.

"Do you think your race's pitiful attempts at security hindered me for long?" The voice crackled with contempt. "But don't take my word for it. Someone else you can see in this recording is about to appear in person -- someone you know well."

A flashing light temporarily drew Romana's attention from the scene presented by the Black Guardian. She could see little else, and the appalling fascination of the recording quickly recaptured her attention. So the presence of a person beside her genuinely startled her.

Kellner found it difficult to maintain a commanding presence, even before his wife. It just wasn't his style! "As you can see," he had just finished saying, "there was absolutely nothing sexual going on!" Lady Byneff sniffed slightly, but registered no other emotion. "You might well have ruined my chances of winning this election," he continued, "and with them a wonderful opportunity for your own social advancement."

"I don't need YOU for my own advancement!" she finally snapped back. "You'd have been insufferable as Lord President anyway." Lady Byneff found it difficult to convince herself, but no observer would have noticed this.

The Castellan began to act more characteristically. "You're not thinking of...." He couldn't muster the courage to finish his sentence.

"Why bother," she huffed. "When the time comes it will be easy enough to get rid of you." The inflection she gave to the last word communicated her disdain.

"Sweetie," he cooed, moving closer to her. She reluctantly submitted to his cuddling, but nearly any observer would have known she didn't mean it.