Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who...at this point I think it owns me...

The two of them once more walked out of the guard house, but this time headed back in the direction of the TARDIS. It took them a bit less time to get back to the little blue box than it had leaving it, because they were walking downhill.

"Hold on, I want to grab something before we go." the Doctor said. He ran into the TARDIS and came back a moment later with an odd sort of circular device, which was emitting a high pitched squeal.

"What is that?" Donna asked, looking annoyed by the sound.

"It'll help us find the teleport." he said. "I don't know exactly what it is, but it's helped in the past." He shrugged and started walking again.

Donna ran to catch up with him. "Well, could you turn it down?" she asked. "It's a bit loud."

"Oh, yeah, sorry." he said. "Here." The screeching stopped at once. Now it was just buzzing.

They walked for another quarter hour, but there was no sign of any pilgrim camp. "We're definitely beyond the range of the guard house's sight now." the Doctor said.

"So where are they?" Donna asked the question that was on both of their minds. They were at a loss.

"I don't know." he said. "But I'm going to scan around and see what I find." He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and crouched down, inspecting the ground. Donna noticed some rocks and thought she saw movement there, just for a second.

"Doctor..." she called, already walking toward them. "I'm just going to look over here." He raised his hand to show he heard her, and then went back to his work.

She went over to the rocks and stood on her toes, trying to see everything. "Hello?" she said in a raised voice. "Is there anyone there?"

Slowly, a head popped out from between two rocks. "Can you help?" a small voice asked. It was a child. He had messy brown hair and wide green eyes that were looking at her.

"I can help." she said, trying to be reassuring. "What's your name?"

In a shaky voice, he replied, "Thomas." She smiled warmly at him and held out her hands to him.

"Alright, Thomas, just come out to me and I can help you." she said. The boy, who can't have been older than five or six, timidly stepped out from the rocks where he was hiding and, grasping Donna's arm for support, made his way over the boulders to her.

"Who are you?" Thomas asked shyly. "How can you help?"

"My name's Donna." she said kindly. "Me and my friend are trying to help your people. He's right over there." She pointed to the Doctor. "Come on, I've got you." She held out her hand for Thomas to hold, and slowly they walked over to the Doctor.

"Doctor!" Donna said. "I found something, or make that someone." She smiled and looked down at Thomas.

"Oh, hello there!" he said brightly. "I'm the Doctor." He knelt down to be on Thomas's level.

"His name is Thomas." Donna said. "And he wants us to help him."

"Are you one of the pilgrims, Thomas?" he asked. The little boy nodded, a bit shy now that there were two adults. "Do you know anything about the teleport?" he continued. This time he hesitated before nodding again.

"Can you tell us?" Donna asked gently.

"I'm not allowed to." he said in a stronger voice. The Doctor glanced at Donna for a second, and both of their eyes flashed with curiosity.

"Why not?" the Doctor asked.

"Dad says so." was his answer. He then refused to talk about it any more.

"Okay, do you know where the camp is, then?" Donna asked, trying a new direction. "And why are you all alone?"

"The camp was here." he said, pointing at the ground.

"Why is it gone?" she asked in return. At this, Thomas looked frightened and didn't answer. She then realized that it was darkening and that the air was cooling. "Let's head back, Doctor." she said. "I don't know about you, but I don't really want to be out here with mad teleporters at night." He agreed and so they started walking back to the guard station.

Halfway along the trek back, Thomas's feet started dragging and Donna started to carry him in her arms. "So the pilgrims know about the teleports." she said in a quiet voice once the little boy had dozed off. "Do you think someone destroyed the camp because of that?"

The Doctor was lost in thought. "I don't know." he said. "Maybe, maybe not. I didn't see much sign of a struggle, did you?" She shook her head.

"So, what, you think they just moved?" she asked.

"Or were chased away."he offered. "But tell you what, though, my little machine here doesn't take too kindly to Thomas here. Don't know why, but I suspect he could be helpful." They were back at the guard house again, and the door quickly opened when they knocked.

"Come in." Kellen said, smiling. "Did you find anything?" His eyes fell on Thomas. "Besides the baby?" Donna laughed and set the little pilgrim down on a chair.

"No, not really." the Doctor said. "The pilgrims know something about the teleport, and the camp wasn't there." He sighed and sank into the controllers seat, putting his feet up. "But that's it."

"Ah, well, that's more than anyone else knows." he said kindly.

He sighed. "I suppose so..."

"Did you pick up any teleport exchange where the camp was?" she asked, trying to think of everything that she could.

"Lots, actually, but I bet that's just because they walked through the Valley." he said. "Unless..." He suddenly sat bolt upright and grinned. "Donna, I think you got it."

"Got what?" she asked, confused.

"They have the teleports." he said excitedly. "The pilgrims are the one's with the teleports."

She still didn't follow though, and said, "How can the pilgrims have the teleports? They were the one's getting teleported." He stood up and pointed at her.

"Exactly. They make the teleports." he explained. "That's why Thomas didn't want to talk about it with us."

Oh!" Donna said, catching on. "And maybe they are hiding from something, someone who found out about them." He nodded eagerly and she grinned.

"Right, I'll leave you two to that." Kellen said, stretching. "I'm catching some z's." He went back to another room and closed the door with a snap.

"So, what do we do about it?" she asked. He laughed a little bit.

"That is a good question." he said. She chuckled. "We could go back and try to trace them. Find out where they are."

Donna nodded and then thought of something that hadn't occurred to her before. "Is what they're doing illegal, though? Or are they harmful?" she asked. "I mean, we don't need to find them if they aren't doing anything wrong."

"We at least need to make sure they aren't using them for something sinister." he said. "And I don't think they're doing this alone, either."

Donna yawned, realizing that it was actually quite late. "I'll just get Thomas to sleep, then." she said, turning around. But the little boy was nowhere to be seen.

"Where'd he go?" she asked. Suddenly, there was a great ringing in her ears, and from the Doctor's face, she could guess he heard it too.

"You would have done well to stop searching." a rasping voice said out of nowhere. "You have come too far."

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked the invisible voice.

"That hardly matters." it replied. "But now you must be stopped." The Doctor's eyes were wide.

"You don't want to do that." he said. "You should listen to me, because I have some brilliant reasons you should keep us alive." Donna hoped that it would want to hear what he had to say. For a few seconds nothing happened.

"Talk." it said at last in a patient tone.

"Right, so you need people, people to build you the teleport system." he said, jumping right into it. "But then you take them? What is that about? So you need power for something, something you can't do on your own." The voice surprisingly remained silent. "You don't need those people, though. I can help you. If you want to rebuild your ship, I can help you, but leave these people alone."

"Ship? You don't even know who we are." the voice said, and Donna thought whoever it was must be smiling to itself. "How can you help us?"

"Just take me to you. Leave everyone else alone." he said.

"Oh, no, I don't think quite yet." it said. "In time we will meet, Doctor, but not yet." And it was silent.

"What was that?" Donna asked, shocked. The Doctor looked grim.

"I'd say that is who's in charge here." he said. "The one taking people." She nodded, then remembered Thomas.

"What about the little boy, though, Doctor?" she asked. "What happened to him?"

"I don't think he was ever here, Donna." he said. "A distraction. Which means that we were very close to them today."

"So we can go back there tomorrow?" she asked. "We know where they are."

"Well, yeah, we could." he said. "We could do that. See, what I'm thinking is, if this thing can communicate with us telepathically like that, with no physical link, then it sure doesn't need help building teleportation devices." He pointed to the graphs on the table. "Not these kind, anyway. Which means they need those people for something else."

"Like what?" she asked. He shook his head.

"I don't know, but I am going to find out and put an end to it."

A/N Thank you very much for continuing to read this, and big thank you to dm1 and Izwick for reviewing! I appreciate it very much :D