CAVORTING ON KOORHANH

Chapter Three

The lift opened and the Doctor and Rain stepped out onto the ground floor. Besides the front desk and the lobby, there was a small gift shop and snack shop, a rental shop for the special shoes needed for lake walking and a rental ship agency. As they headed to the front door, a thin bald man with white skin and black spots came towards them holding out a magazine. He was dressed in black trousers, white shirt, black jacket and black shoes. His nametag listed his name as Chek.

"Good afternoon, this is our magazine. It lists all the fun things you can do and the times and dates of our shows. It's complimentary," Chek said with a smile.

The Doctor thanked him and took it. Chek walked away while Rain stood beside him and opened the magazine with him. She held the left side of the page while he held the right. The Doctor turned the pages and Rain secured them with her hand.

"They have a theater here? Where?" Rain said.

"Underground," the Doctor said, pointing down to the floor.

"Have you seen any of these shows?" she said, pointing to the listings.

"No. Martha did but I wasn't in the mood. But if you wanna see something, I'll go."

"A Salute to Barzan," Rain read. "What's Barzan?"

She looked at the Doctor when he coughed nervously.

"What is Barzan, Thete?" she said.

"The…um…red light district on this planet."

"Oh? And how do you know that?" she teased.

She giggled when he gave her a cheesy grin and waggled his eyebrows.

"So….the show is a bunch of naked people having sex then?" she said.

"Dunno," the Doctor said with a shrug.

"Well, we are going to find out! Let's see…tickets are ten credits each…"

The Doctor watched with a mixture of shock and amusement while Rain walked to the front desk. She asked about the tickets and was directed to go to the gift shop. The Doctor followed her while she went to the front counter and paid for two tickets for the evening performance. The Doctor watched her for a moment before wandering further into the store. While they were doing that, Alan and Rose came out of the lift and Chek walked up to them and greeted them as he held out the magazine. Alan took it and thanked him and Chek walked away while Alan opened it and Rose leaned her head on his shoulder and read it with him. The Doctor spied them and walked over while Rain took the tickets from the cashier and wandered around the shop.

"You'll never believe this," the Doctor said to Alan and Rose as he walked up to them. "Rain got us two tickets to the Salute to Barzan show tonight."

Rose looked at her husband when his eyes bulged.

"What's Barzan?" Rose said.

"The whore district on this planet. They're doing a salute to the prostitutes?" Alan said.

The Doctor found the theater listings and pointed to the show.

"Rose, wanna go watch a bunch of whores tonight?" Alan said.

"No. I'd rather not," Rose said.

"Sorry, mate, you'll have to watch the whores on your own," Alan said to the Doctor.

The Doctor glanced back at Rain and noticed she was buying something. He sauntered over and looked at a toy on the counter. It was a little grey alien on a surfboard. The surfboard was hovering a few inches off the ground.

"Thought I'd get this for Hope," Rain said when she noticed the Doctor. "It hovers off the ground and you can push it along."

The Doctor took it when Rain finished paying. He looked to make sure there was a clear path from him to Alan.

"Brother! Head's up!" the Doctor said, bending over and putting it on the ground.

Alan looked up from the magazine and his eyes bulged when the surfboard glided towards him after the Doctor pushed it. Alan grinned, grabbed it, turned it around and pushed it back to him. Rose laughed when the two of them moved it back and forth between them for about a minute. Rain walked over to Rose.

"I made a mistake, I shoulda gotten it for the Doctor," Rain said as the Doctor picked it up and headed towards her. "Hope will never get to play with it, ever!"

"Nah, she can have it," the Doctor said, handing it back to Rain. "So…you lot want to walk on the water for awhile? I'll go get the shoes."

They nodded and the Doctor walked over to a counter near the gift shop. He spoke to the woman behind it, telling her their shoe sizes and she brought out four pairs of slippers that resembled little black snowshoes. The Doctor paid for them with his credit stick and took the shoes back to his family members. He passed them out and they walked over to the patio door and walked out.

The air was warm and there was a slight breeze. Rain pushed her long hair out of her face and sat down on a wooden bench while she slipped the slippers on her feet and secured them with a Velcro strap. She stood up and tried walking in them. The slippers made a slapping sound on the wood and she had to lift her legs high to avoid tripping on them.

"This is like wearing flippers," Rain said when the Doctor put his on and joined her.

They stopped when Alan put his on, leapt up and began to stomp around the deck in a circle, making a loud slap with each footfall. Rose paused in the middle of putting on her second slipper and shook her head sadly.

"Doctor, would you have left me with him if you knew he would turn out like this?" Rose said, pointing to her marching husband.

"No, not even I'm that cruel," the Doctor said.

Alan stopped his marching when Rose got up and tried to walk around.

"Blimey, this is awkward," Rose said, lifting her leg high.

Rain slowly went down the steps to the ground. The Doctor followed her and Alan and Rose followed behind him. Rain gingerly walked over the bumpy ground to the bank of the lake. She looked out over the lake. There was a young man and woman with a little blonde haired girl in the distance. The lake was about two miles wide and they were nearer the far side so it was hard to make out their features. She looked at the sparkling silvery water and knelt down. She put her hand on the water and pressed down. Her hand only went a few inches under the water before she met resistance and couldn't go any further. She glanced over when the Doctor came up beside her and knelt down.

"They're not kidding about the water being dense. I can't get my hand in the water more than a few inches," she said to him. "Why even have the flippers?"

"I think it's for stabilization," the Doctor said. "So you have less of a chance of falling on your face. Like you said, your hand can go down into the water for a few inches. The flippers don't do that so you don't slog through the water and get your feet wet."

They looked up when Alan came up to the bank and stepped down onto the water's surface. He stood completely on the water and looked down at his feet. Then he started marching away while Rose walked up to her family.

"I'm waiting for him to get about a mile out so no one will know I'm with him," she said to the Doctor and Rain.

"Rose! Come on!" Alan said, stopping about twenty feet from the shore. "Come and promenade with me."

"Looks like he won't let you ignore him," the Doctor said.

"No, he never does," Rose said before stepping into the water.

The Doctor looked at Rain and they stood up and stepped onto the water. They walked off to the left towards a grove of orange trees while Alan and Rose walked straight ahead.

"So what do you wanna go tonight if you don't wanna go to the whorehouse show?" Alan said to Rose while they walked.

"I want to go to dinner with ya. I want to spend a quiet night alone with the man I love, not watching you drooling at dancing whores."

"Who said I'd drool at them?"

Rose gave him a withering look and Alan tickled her under the chin.

"Nah, you're the only whore I'm interested in," he said.

"Gee, how romantic," Rose said dryly.

Alan took her hand and kissed her cheek. Rose smiled and squeezed his hand as they walked across the water.

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