The light of a grey sun was blinding as we stepped out from the underground tunnel and into the nearly-colorless world above. I squinted, allowing my eyes adjust to the light, as the Doctor and I quietly moved away from the unguarded entrance.

As soon as we were a safe distance away from the tunnel, the Doctor turned to look at me. "To help them," he gestured at the colorful creatures wandering around us, "we have to know them. You can understand what they're saying, right?"

I took a moment to listen carefully as the species squeaked and buzzed around us. Over the sound of the pounding drums, all I could hear were beeps and clicks. Still, I couldn't feed the man's ego. "Of course I can understand them."

He beamed. "Brilliant. The gift of the TARDIS." He clapped his hands together. "Anyways. Get all of the information you can from them: about this place, about those people, about their species. We need to know all we can, and then we'll break them out of this place."

"Can't we just load all of them into the TARDIS and fly away?

"They're being tracked, Master. Remember? Around the ankles?"

I mentally punched myself in the face. How could I let him outsmart me again? For someone so easily considered an idiot, the man was proving to be relatively quick on his feet. It only made him even more unbearable.

He nodded his head and patted me on the shoulders. "Good luck, then."

"Yeah, good luck," I muttered as he (finally) walked away from me.

What was I to do now? It wasn't as though I could actually talk to these creatures- "the gift of the TARDIS?" What had he meant by that? Had his ship given me some sort of time lord STD? The man was an absolute nutter. This species probably hadn't even evolved to a point where it could converse with-

Something bumped against my calf. "Sorry," the red creature that had walked into me mumbled.
I waved it away, caught in my own mind. "No, just-" I crouched down to the level of the... thing. "You can talk."

"Of course I can talk." Its voice was high-pitched, as though it had walked straight out of a cartoon. In fact, its looks matched the cartoony voice: the thing really was just a walking ball with twiggy legs and a long, tube-like nose covering most of its face. Its smooth, red skin made it stand out against the charcoal ground like a giraffe in an aquarium. When it spoke, the noise came out from the massive tube on its face, and its eyes bulged even further. "I can talk, so long as you're willing to listen."

I squinted at the bright little creature. "So you're a slave here?"

The creature looked down at the dark ground, obviously unhappy. "Yes."

"You don't look very fit for work. No arms, no height, weak legs- how do you even manage to help these people out?"

The thing's eyes narrowed, and I was certain that if it had had arms, they'd be crossed in anger. "Just because I don't look like you doesn't mean I'm useless."

"So what can you do?"

The creature sighed through its tube/nose before bending to the ground, where a small patch of grey grass was growing. With a quick suck, the grass disappeared up the tube, and the creature stood up to its full height of two feet. "See? Perfectly useful, especially when it comes to farming."

"Point taken. No offense, though: as lowly as they are, isn't it true that humans could perform these tasks more effectively? Why can't they just do the work themselves rather than going to the trouble of enslaving you?"

The thing shrugged, which must have been difficult considering its lack of shoulders. "They're lazy. Besides, we're the perfect slaves: each of us is shaped differently and can perform different tasks, our bright colors make it impossible for us to hide or try to run away, and we're too small, too weak to try to revolt or fight against the humans. It isn't worth trying, really."

"You can't expect to live a better life if you don't try."

The creature rolled its eyes. "Spend a day in my shoes-" he took a quick look down at his small, toe-less red feet "-or lack thereof. You'd give up too. It's just something that you humans are incapable of understanding."

"I am not a human!"

I hadn't meant to shout, but my hatred of humankind got the best of me. All of the creatures that had been working within a 20-foot radius turned to us, staring with their big, buggy eyes.

The red one I'd been talking to sighed. "Now you've done it. They'll be here soon, those humans, and now they'll get you whether you're one of them or not."

I heard humans shouting in the distance, coming nearer every second. The wide-eyed creature darted away, and before I could react, I was being pulled away as well. The Doctor's hand was tight around my wrist as he pulled me behind a large, black tree. We were hidden almost completely by its low-hanging grey branches, but I still held my breath as four humans sprinted into sight.

"There were trespassers found today," one of the people said. "Do you think they've escaped?"

"Of course they've escaped," another growled. I realized that he'd been one of our escorts a few hours prior and gasped. Quickly, the Doctor clamped a hand over my mouth.

A human held up one of the creatures by its leg. This one was neon green and even more useless-looking than the first: it was simply a ball with skinny legs covered in short, rather dull spikes. The human looked at the creature in disgust. "Where did the trespassers go?"

"I- I don't know," the creature squeaked, squirming in the woman's hand.

The human tossed the creature a few feet, unblinking as it landed with a heavy thump. The thing stood shakily and whimpered as it walked away from the humans as quickly as possible. The woman who'd pitched it shook her head, crossing her arms as she did so. "I should have known- if these things were intelligent enough to converse with us, they'd be far more efficient. All they can do is squeak and squirm. It's disgusting; these swine have no self-respect."

The Doctor tensed up upon hearing her unkind words. He removed his hand from its place over my mouth, speaking so quietly that his voice sounded like a simple breeze through the depressingly dark branches of the tree. "What did you learn about the bopyibs?"

I matched his level of near-silence. "The what?"

"The creatures. That's what they're called, of course."

"Of course. Bopyibs, though? It's a bit ridiculous, isn't it?"

I could hear the grin in his breathily quiet voice. "I've taken to calling them bopies."

"You would." It took all of my willpower to stop myself from rolling my eyes. "I found out that they're slaves, which we already knew- but I confirmed it. I found out that each of them have special qualities depending on their weird shapes. I found out that they have no will to escape from this place."

"Is that all?"

"Obviously not."

The Doctor waited in silence for the continuation of my list. God, he was relentless in his quest to make me look like an idiot.

I pursed my lips. "Yeah, that's all."

He nodded, but I could tell that he was judging my lack of information. "Their species is just a thousand years old. They come from Orixus, in the Neblar galaxy, and their home planet was conquered by humans in 3069. Since then, they've been slaves to humans all across the universe- they're practically travel size, which makes them very convenient when it comes to packing. They're hard workers, too, and hardly ever need sleep. They're like machines: always running, always reliable, always necessary."

"How did you find all of that out in just a five minute conversation?"

He was grinning again. "In time, you learn what to ask."

The humans were still prowling around ahead of us, pretending to be smart enough to find any sort of clue. They were painfully inferior- checking for tracks on the ground, kicking around the bopyibs. It was ridiculous- they were ridiculous.

One of the humans tossed a bopy through the air, and the Doctor's firm hold on my wrist tightened. Suddenly, I was all too aware of his touch. My skin burned where we made contact, my fingertips tingled. The drums suddenly sped up, becoming louder and louder to a point where I was near tears, almost deafened by the unstoppable noise within me.

Of course, my time lord companion realized that I was panicking. He leaned towards me, his mouth just inches from my ear. "Master," he whispered, "you all right?"

His breath was hot on my ear, and his words were hardly decipherable over the pounding of the drums. I was vaguely aware of the humans still looking around the clearing in front of us, but most of my focus was on his warm hands, the shivers running through me, the riots in my own head. The world seemed to spin around me, a grey blur, a tornado swelling through my head, the drums an intensifying soundtrack through the internal terror.

He was whispering in my ear again. Something about getting help, priorities. It was too late; I'd already hit the ground.