Chapter Text
"No, not London."
The Doctor looked over at Rose with wide eyes. "But I thought you'd want to see your mum. Still haven't been back since the tow truck."
Haven't been back since I took up with two blokes, one of 'em not even human, either. She thought she managed not to blush. "I called her straight after I knew we were all goin' to be okay. Told her Jack was hurt, but we'd be home for a visit soon."
"It's soon," the Doctor said, blankly.
"Your mother's never met me," Jack pointed out, cheerfully. It sounded dirty, and Rose wasn't sure why.
She threw her hands in the air. "Oi! Both of you. We're still wounded. 'm not going home till we're not. Human, Time Lord--why is it, everywhere we go, blokes are just the same?"
"It's only reasonable for species' evolving in similar environments to make similar . . . adjustments." It was amazing how Jack could turn even a science lecture into innuendo. "Two arms, two legs, one mouth, at least one . . . "
"Humanoid," Rose cut him off. He blinked. The Doctor stared at her. "You don't have to look so surprised," she said, tartly. "Can't hang around you lot and not learn a few things."
The Doctor grinned. Jack looked vaguely abashed. Well, she'd shut them up long enough to make them listen to her--she might as well take advantage of it. "So what about something really different?" she suggested. "Let's go somewhere where people have two heads or fly or somethin'. There must be places like that."
"Plenty," the Doctor said, wearing that manic grin that meant he was thinking frantically. "So . . . subtract all the worlds where the people are humanoid. Now take away all the places we couldn't breathe. Got to pick a place with gravity that won't mash us into jam. Let's get rid of anywhere with other hostile environment conditions that'd kill or injure us. Now take away the ones that're just dull." He perked up. "Hah! Got it." He set the coordinates and began running around the TARDIS console. He had Jack hold a button and slide two levers while the Doctor himself grabbed for a mallet. Rose took firm hold of a coral strut and held on for dear life.
When the shaking stopped, she asked, "Right. So, where are we, then?"
"Culabree, the crown jewel of the Pr'tans system. Celebrated as an example of cooperation between disparate species. Races come from all over this sector to hold inter-species negotiations here--it's supposed to be good luck."
Jack smiled--his real smile, which they saw less often than they had before Satelite 5. "Fantastic. I've never been here, but it's supposed to be amazing, Rose. Two intelligent species evolved in the system: the Pr'tansi on the third planet out from the sun, and the People of Song on a moon orbiting the fifth planet."
It sounded like a funny name for a species to her, and the Doctor must have caught her expression, because he said, "It's a translation. You couldn't properly say the species name--really different vocal morphology. Chlorine-breathers."
Jack nodded, looking excited. "When the Pr'tansi and the People of Song found each other in space, they realized that trade would too many benefits not to try it. Culabree is a space station in two halves, one for the Pr'tansi and other oxygen-breathers and the other for the People of Song and other chlorine-breathers."
"They breathe chlorine?" Rose asked, numbly amused. She'd asked for different, hadn't she? "Not even air, is it?"
"Well, you breathe oxygen," the Doctor said, like he was pointing out something brilliant. "Terrible stuff, oxygen: corrosive, volatile, causes aging. Really nasty--unless you happen to be an oxygen-breather. The People of Song need an atmosphere that's about twenty-five percent chlorine gas."
Rose blinked, wondering how this turned into a chemistry lesson. Jack went on. "Culabree's supposed to have these beautiful galleries, side-by-side in the two rings where the oxygen environment and the chlorine environment are next to each other. Art from two species. People go there and stroll the galleries on both sides and see a species in person they could never see up close, otherwise."
"Spirit of cooperation!" the Doctor said, delighted with himself. Rose couldn't help grinning. "Well, come on, then." He held his hands out. Rose took the one nearest her. After a hesitation, Jack took the other.
The Pr'tansi turned out to be humanoid, though a bit tall. They had fewer fingers than humans or Time Lords, bony projections over each eye that were almost enough to be called horns, and glossy black fur everywhere else. Rose would have expected Jack to eye the fur and make salicious comments, but he didn't seem to notice, let alone flirt. She'd never thought she could miss his flirting with everything that breathed this way--actually, she'd have thought he'd sprain something if he tried to restrain himself. It made her heart ache: Jack was being so very patient, and the Doctor was trying so very hard, that sometimes, it felt like they were walking on eggshells around each other.
The galleries were everything she could have hoped for, though she'd seen a lot of alien art and architecture by now. The TARDIS crew weren't the only foreigners scattered through the Pr'tansi, and the People of Song were, as promised, really, really different. She stared through a wall that looked like simple glass and went all the way around the curve of the station into a yellow-green world filled with what looked like zeppelins made of colored cling wrap turned long-ways down. They had nine limbs each (she wasn't sure if they were legs or arms or tentacles or something else she hadn't thought of), which didn't look sturdy enough to hold them up, but which seemed to do the job. The bumpy protuberances the Doctor said were eyes were arranged around their middles, and Rose swore they were staring at her.
"'Course they are," the Doctor said. "You're an alien."
She blinked and smiled. "Hadn't thought about it that way."
Jack and the Doctor shared a grin at her expense. She ignored it, looking for intelligence in what she never would have guessed were eyes. A being on the other side of the barrier wall advanced toward her. Rose jumped a little as words appeared on the clear glass above its head. "Name this person Seven Green," they read. "Name foreigner?"
Rose grinned and caught her tongue between her teeth. "I'm Rose Tyler. Nice to meet you, Seven Green."
"But why's the word-order all funny if the TARDIS is translating, anyway?" Rose asked over lunch.
The Doctor grinned. Rose always asked the best questions. "You're seeing a machine translation. The TARDIS is translating that. If you were standing in the same room with Seven Green you'd never know she wasn't speaking English. Except, if you were standing in the same room, one of you'd be dying."
They were eating in a little café the next ring over from the galleries. The gravity here was just enough lower than what humans evolved in for Rose and Jack to feel energized, but not so much Rose might feel ill. Jack, the Doctor assumed, was familiar enough with null-gravity that he wouldn't have to worry.
"Cheerful thought," Jack said. Jack, whose existence rubbed at the Doctor's awareness like sandpaper. It wasn't as bad as it had been at first, but then, the Doctor assumed you'd get used to sandpaper rasping your skin, too. Eventually. "All the same, I'd expect the machine translation to be better--Culabree's so well known for putting such time and effort into inter-species cooperation."
The Doctor grinned, madly. "It will be, eventually. Culabree exists for thousands of years, going through fifteen different physical space stations. We're on the first. Early period, when this is still a magnificent experiment. Where's the fun in seeing it when it's all--"
Their plates bucked and slid on the table as the entire station shook. "--settled?" the Doctor finished. The TARDIS crew was on their feet already while everyone else in the area grabbed after their errant plates. The Doctor noticed the force holding him to the deck wasn't quite right, which meant the station spin wasn't stable. A loud klaxon began sounding, and it spurred everyone else to their feet. Most of the people were visibly frightened, but they were leaving the restaurant in some kind of orderly fashion.
Rose was looking at the Doctor. Jack was looking at the deck, as if he could see through it to the station's rotational thrusters. "Doctor," he asked, "when are we?"