REVERSE MY POLARITY... PLEASE! Chapter One
The funny thing about a neutron is that it has no polarity. Neutrons are neutral. However, a beam (or flow) of neutrons may have a polarity. This polarity can be reversed, if you know how to go about it. I know how to go about it. I’m the Doctor.
What I am afraid I have never learned how to go about is intuiting when reversing the polarity of a neutron flow might be beneficial in the moment but socially unacceptable, or even illegal, in the long run. Think of Gulliver putting out fires.
Fring is a planet whose indigenous population relies heavily upon the planet’s magnetic field. Of course, so do the populations, indigenous or otherwise, of other planets, but so few of them consciously adapt the magnetic field into their culture, and even into their biology. On Fring, political alliances, the love affairs of naive teenagers and everything in between can be predicated upon not emotional attraction but literal magnetism. There are no Polish jokes on Fring, but Polar jokes abound.
Large planets tend to be divided up among factions that fancy borders that are invisible from space and equally invisible on land. Fring is a small planet, a single dominion, with a ruling class divided into its own strata, and a working class likewise. It didn’t matter where I landed; I was on Fring and in Fring, and answerable to the same forces regardless.
The TARDIS materialized on the wrong side of the tracks. No one was there to greet me, take me into custody, mistake me for a god and worship me or challenge my right to breathe the atmosphere. Everyone was busy working, whether at compensated labor or in enslavement.
Besides, Leela was with me, and she is much more prone to landing in such scrapes than I am. She gets out of them more easily, too, because she carries a weapon almost as sharp as my mind. It is only because my mind is sufficiently sharp that I am usually able to talk her out of using her weapon. There was no one in the immediate vicinity for her to stab or slice, but she was suspicious and wanted to go looking.
“But Leela,” I reasoned, “what if the natives are friendly?”
“Then they will be easier to vanquish.”
“We are not here to vanquish anyone, Leela. We are here to… here because… well, the TARDIS must have had a good reason for us to have been drawn to this…” (I looked around) “… this rather dull-looking planet. The console said ‘Fring.’ This does not look like Norfolk, nor King’s Lyn either.” I could see that Leela had no idea what I was talking about, but I was gratified to see her sheathe her knife and look somewhat appeased. We appeared to be at the edge of a gray village, a hundred or so gray rectangles with brown front and back gardens; dull metal fences; no fewer than two metal water towers displaying the shakily painted chartreuse letters F-R-I-N-G and an outsized chartreuse-and-brown painted logo (a metal canister of Ready Pote Enhanced Water); and muddy brown canals connecting them all as well as leading out some distance toward the factories, the mills and the megachurches. Turning away from that grim sight, we were surprised to see a small lavender airship just landing 50 yards away. It was not only lavender in color; its blades dispersed a distinct lavender scent.
“What is that smell?” Leela wrinkled up her nose.
“Most people find it pleasant,” I mused. “Were your olfactory faculties enhanced or impaired, I wonder, through the generations manipulated by Xoanon?”
“Do you find it pleasant?”
“It reminds me of blue-haired old ladies wearing gloves in the summertime, and, oh yes the Black Plague. Hello,” I added, more loudly, to the two lavender-bonneted-and-cloaked figures gliding toward us. “I’m the Doctor and this is Leela. How do you… no, it is not necessary to… now see here! I….” Once the wide lavender collar had been fastened around my neck I was unable to speak, which, considering how ineffective my words had been so far may well have been a good thing. Leela was effectively muted as well but she did get in a good toss of the blade, and it hit the helmet of one of our captors… also to no effect but it was, nonetheless, impressive. We were half led, half dragged to the airship and strapped into rather plush seats, considering our status as prisoners. I suppose the airships were not generally used as flying paddywagons.
Off we flew, Leela looking miffed to have lost her knife and me smiling winningly, or so I thought, at two featureless helmet-faces that blurred somewhat in the overwhelming atmosphere of lavender.
