Chapter 2: Wanderers in the Fourth Dimension

"Identify species." Jade said again, but her guide kept displaying the same result. "I have no time for games. Identify species! Where is he from?" The planet of origin flashed up, confirming there was no mistake. It was an impossibility but the computer had scanned correctly. That was certainly worth another meeting.

Rose had found a quieter room to stare out of the window. She set down the plastic ball and the flowerpot on the bench before crossing the room and leaning on the frame. The moment she turned her back, the ball opened up and a little robot, resembling a squashed, four legged, spider, scuttled out and away from her. All over the ship, the Adherents' gifts were springing to life in a similar way, and the guests were blissfully unaware.

Rose was certainly trying to blot out as many things related to this ship as possible. But even she couldn't ignore the sound of footsteps approaching behind her. She spun round to see a blue-skinned woman gazing at her.

"Sorry, am I allowed to be in here?" She asked.

The woman was silent for a moment. "You have to give us permission to talk." She said nervously.

"Erm... You... have permission."

The woman smiled. "Thank you. And er... No you're not in the way. Guests are allowed anywhere."

"Ok." Rose's culture shock ebbed a bit, now she'd run into someone with a personality she could identify with. "What's your name?"

"Roffallo." The woman said as she unscrewed a grate on the wall.

"Roffallo?"

"Yes miss. I won't be long. I've just got to carry out some maintenance. There's a little glitch in the face of Boe's suite. Must be something blocking the system. He's not getting any hot water."

"So you're a plumber?" Said Rose.

"I hope so. Or else I'm out of a job." Roffallo laughed.

"Where are you from?"

"Crispalion."

"That's a planet then is it?"

"No." Said Roffalo, straitening up for a moment. "Crispalio's part of the Jagger Bracade. Affiliated to the Scarlet Junction. Complex 56. And where are you from miss?.. If you don't mind me asking."

"No, not at all." Said Rose, though she realised that she couldn't go around saying she was from a council estate which, in all probability, was remembered alongside Pompeii. "It's hard to explain. A long way away. I just sort of... Hitched a lift with this man. Didn't even think about it. Don't even know who he is. He's a complete stranger."

Roffalo stared for a moment, not sure if she was the right person to help with this woman right now.

"Anyway." Rose forcibly brightened herself. "Don't let me keep you, and er... Good luck with it."

"Thank you miss. And er... Thank you for the permission. Not many people are that considerate."

Rose nodded and went to find another quiet space.

Her day suitably brightened. Roffalo pulled open the cover of the maintenance tunnel. Crawling through these tunnels was about 70% of her job. But that was a lot of the reason why she'd applied for the job. It was only natural for someone who'd spent much of their childhood crawling through tunnels to find out where various tunnels went to seek employment doing that every day.

"Control," she said into her communicator, "I'm at junction 19. The fault appears to be coming from around here. I'm going in to have a closer look."

As she hauled herself in, she heard a metallic scuttling sound echoing down the passageway. Ahead of her, one of the spider robots rounded the corner. "Oh, who are you then?" The robot responded by hurrying round the corner out of sight.

"Hold on!" She called "If you're an upgrade I just need to register you!" The robot crept back into sight. "That's better." Another followed close on behind. "Ah so there's two of you." She got a feeling of unease as they scanned her with their red eyes. "I should probably report this how many are there of you?" As if in answer to her question, a small pack of them rounded the corner and swarmed towards her. Roffallo screamed and tried to shuffle backwards but she couldn't outrun the machines.

The steward sat down in his office and flicked on his computer. For the millionth time he groaned at the number of reports that would flood in when he was away from his desk. Starting with the simplest, he picked up the tannoy. "Would the owner of the blue box please report to the steward's office immediately. Guests are reminded that the use of teleportation is strictly prohibited under treaty article 5/4/cup/16. Thank you."

He failed to notice the creature crawling out of the ball behind him.

"Earth death in 25 minutes."

"Oh thanks." Rose said to the nearest speaker. She picked up the twig in the pot and spoke to it. "Hello?" She said uncertainly. "My name's Rose. That's a... sort of plant. We might be related." She put the pot down. "I'm talking to a twig." She realised out loud, though a part of her mind hoped she hadn't hurt its feelings with that last remark.

"Oy," said a voice in the hall, "be careful with that, park it properly. No scratches." The Doctor had just returned from a meeting with the steward, in which a quick explanation about how the TARDIS didn't teleport had convinced him to move it to the parking bay.

He now resumed his search for Rose, trying the nearest door, which just happened to be the right one.

"So." He said. "What d'ya think?"

Rose forced a smile. "Great, it's great. Fine... Once you get past the slightly psychic paper."

The Doctor chuckled.

"They're just so alien!" Rose finally managed to say. "The aliens... are just so alien. You look at them... and they're alien!"

The Doctor lost his humorous look. "Good thing I didn't take you to the deep south."

"Where are you from?"

"All over the place." He said. Rose had been wrong when she'd thought the man had started to be more open. He'd only opened up enough to enlist her help fighting the Autons.

She changed topics. "They all speak English?"

The Doctor's smile returned. "No. You just hear English. It's a gift of the TARDIS. Telepathic field. Gets inside your brain. Translates."

His companion's eyes widened in alarm. "It's inside my brain!"

"Well... in a good way."

"Your machine gets inside my head! It gets inside and changes my mind and you didn't even ask!"

He shrugged. "I didn't even think about it like that."

"No!" She shouted "You were too busy thinking up cheap shots about the deep south! Who are you then Doctor? What are you called? What sort of alien are you? If you're messing with my head I want to know a bit more about you!"

"I'm just The Doctor." He growled.

"From what planet?"

"Well it's not as if you know where it is!"

"Where are you from?"

"What does it matter?"

"Tell me who you are!"

"This is who I am!" He snapped. "Right here, right now! All that counts is here and now! And this is me!"

"Yeah, and I'm here too 'cos you brought me here, so just tell me!"

The Doctor stormed away from her and went to stand by the window.

"Earth death in 20 minutes."

"Alright." Rose said, in a reconciliatory way. "As my mate Cheyenne says. "Don't argue with the designated driver. I can't exactly order a taxi anyway." She held up her phone jokingly. "No signal. We're out of range, just a bit."

The Doctor softened once more. "Tell you what," he took her phone, "with a little bit of jiggery-pokery..."

"Is that a technical term?"

"Yeah, I came first in jiggery-pokery. What about you?"

"Nah. I failed hulabaloo."

"Ah shame." He removed the sim card and put in some smaller devive. Amazingly, she now had signal.

Rose quickly selected the first contact that came to mind. The one titled Mum.

When her mum answered, she had to take a few moments to breathe. "Mum?"

"Oh what is it? What have I done now?" Jackie said. "I've just put your clothes through the washing machine by the way. That red top's falling to bits. You should get your money back. Go on. There must be something. You never phone in the middle of the day."

Rose just laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing. You alright though?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"What day is it there?" Rose asked.

"Wednesday, all day. You got a hangover or something?

"Yeah um... I was just calling because... I might be late home."

"Is there something wrong?"

"No. I'm fine." She looked at the Earth below. "Top of the world!"

"Ok. See you later." And that was the end of the call.

"You think that's amazing." Said The Doctor. "You want to see the bill!" There were entire sectors of time and space where phone companies had vast armies waiting for any sign of him.

Rose had a newly grim look about her. "That was 5 billion years ago. She'll be long dead now. 5 Billion years later. She's dead."

"Bundle of laughs, you are. Said The Doctor."

At this point, the steward's voice interrupted them over the tannoy."If guests would like to look just below the Earth. The planet Venus is entering its final moments."

Beyond the Earth a gargantuan mass of burning hydrogen was swelling outwards at a rate of almost 90,000 km/s. As it approached the planet Venus, the surface, already liquidated, began to vaporise. The sun gravity lifted it from the planet and a continuous stream strung out towards the growing star. As the internal pressure was slowly lifted, the iron core vaporised incredibly rapidly. The magma surface was blasted in all directions with a flash that could be seen from Platform 1.

Specially designed deflectors stopped anything hitting the space station. But as huge chunks of Venus flew past, the ship wobbled alarmingly.

"That's not supposed to happen." Said The Doctor.

"Well what was it?" The steward snapped at his computer. "I'm just getting green lights at this end." He picked up the tannoy and adopted a calm voice. "Honoured guests may be reassured that gravity pockets may cause slight turbulence. Thanking you." He turned back to his computer. "It wasn't small though! The whole place shook! I've hosted all sorts of events on platforms 1, 3, 6 and 15 and I've never felt the slightest tremor." He worried whether any of the guests would decide to sue.

He decided to scan the infrastructure and was further alarmed at what he saw. There were unfamiliar life readings all over the ship, which the computer could only say were small and metallic. He focused in on his position to try and identify the nearest and saw that it was two feet to his right. Through his glass desk top, he spotted a metallic spider robot crawling up the table leg and across the surface.

"You're not on the guest list." He said. "How did you get on board?"

The machine ignored him and scuttled up to the keyboard, where it pressed some buttons.

"Sun filter deactivated." Said the computer "Sun filter descending."

A blinding light flooded into the room, burning everything above a line an inch below the top of the window.

"NO!" He roared. "OVERRIDE! SUN FILTER UP! NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

But the computer wasn't fast enough. Too much of its power was given over to compensating for the massive rise in temperature. By the time it got around to raising the filters, the steward had already fried.

The Doctor and Rose returned to the auditorium, where the Mox of Balboon was chatting to the Face of Boe about the bad wolf scenario. The Doctor strode past them and prodded at a nearby console. "That wasn't a gravity pocket." He said. "I know gravity pockets. Even if every rock on Venus had gone by, the compensators could easily handle it." At this point, he noticed that Jade was staring at him with a look akin to amazement. "The engines have pitched up about 30 Hz." He said to her. "Does that sound dodgy or what?"

"Er, it's the sound of metal. It doesn't make any sense to me."

"Where's the engine room?" He asked.

"I don't know. But the maintenance duct is just behind our guest suite. I could show you... And your wife."

"She's not my wife." The Doctor said quickly.

"Partner?"

"Nope."

"Concubine? Prostitute?"

"Whatever I am, it must be invisible. Do you mind?" Rose snapped. "Tell you what. You two go and pollinate. I'm going to catch up with the family. Quick word with Michael Jackson over there." She said and wandered over to Cassandra.

"Don't go starting a fight." The Doctor said to her, before turning to Jade. "I'm all yours."

"And I want you home by midnight!" Rose called after him.

"Earth death in 15 minutes."

In a concrete tunnel, with cables lining the walls, a flock of about 20 spider-robots scattered as The Doctor stepped through the hatch. "Who's in charge of platform 1?" He said. "Is there, like, a captain?"

"Only the steward and some staff." Said Jade. "All else is controlled by the metal mind."

"The computer, you mean. And who controls that?"

"A corporation. They move Platform 1 from one significant event to the next."

"And there's no-one from the corporation on board?"

"They are not needed. Its operation is at the height of the alpha class. Nothing can go wrong."

"So it's unsinkable?"

"I believe the nautical metaphor is appropriate."

"I was on another ship once, said it was unsinkable. Ended up clinging to an iceberg. Wasn't half cold. So, the upshot is, if we get in trouble there's no-one to help us out."

"I'm afraid not."

"Fantastic."

"I don't understand. In what way is that fantastic?"

Author's notes: I don't claim to be an expert in what a planet being swallowed up by a star would look like.

Reviews are appreciated. It helps guide my writing styles.