Obviously, stasis fields and copiers have their advantages – how else would we study creatures that go through their entire life cycle in less than a day? Still, Sela wished he could communicate with them directly. He had no doubt after running the simulations – the ephemerids were thinking beings! Obviously, a copier can't make a real, thinking system, just a copy that goes linear after a while, but it was enough. They had feelings. They'd be happy to speak to him, if they could. If their lifes weren't so fleeting.
He checked the copier, quietly at work in the corner, then placed himself comfortably nearby and turned the reader on.
He had quite a choice of science books, but right now theory and numbers were the last thing on his mind.
"The expedition to planet Lem" he ordered.
Humming of the copier drowned in the lector's voice, in its rhytmic accents.
"Like all things interesting, we found the planet Lem by mistake..."
Mrs. Janson and Elaine sat on a huge, flat boulder, while the Doctor was bustling among the trees, torchlight in one hand, smartphone (or whatever) in the other. They watched the speck of light walk around the glade and back, rise and fall, and finally lie on the ground.
"Elaine!" The Doctor shouted. "Are you sure this is the place?"
"It's dark, can't we wait till morning?" Mrs. Janson said. "Nobody'd fall in at this ti-"
"Aha!"
Mrs. Janson stood up, but the torchlight and the Doctor were already by the boulder.
"That's just the exit! Elaine came out of here, not in!"
"So we're going to look for the entrance? Now?"
"Better!" He snatched at her hand, but mrs. Janson was faster and took the torch from him. "I copied the signature, now we can go back to my ship to find this one!" He shone the mobile like a mirror.
"You mean the entrance?" Elaine said, disoriented.
"No, the ship."
"And on the ship?"
"Someone I need a word with." The Doctor said seriously. "Also, Gertrude's husband."
"We don't know..."
But the Doctor was already pulling them along. At least, thought mrs. Janson, tripping in the sand, we'll go by the path.
"Is it far?" The old lady groaned, shifting her weight on Elaine's shoulder.
They were back in town, illuminated for the night by lanterns set on tall poles. Elaine was briefly curious about how many men it took to lit them all. They must carry very long ladders.
The lanterns gave an eerie, yellow light, completely unlike flame or sunlight, so they might have been faerie magic. They made colours look odd.
"Almost there." Their longaevi guide stopped to look around. "Here."
The weird light made the building seem like a nightmare vision, squatted before them. There was a faint outline of a black box in front.
"You're parking on the school grounds?" The old lady giggled like a girl. "Only for the teachers, you know."
"You've seen me step out." He muttered, rummaging in his clothes. Did everyone here have these little pouches sewn in?
"This thing is your ship?"
"Mhm." Keys jingled. The longaevi put one in the barely visible to Elaine lockhole. She saw brass shine in the yellow half-light.
He pushed the box's door, which gave a low squeak.
"Coming?" He asked from the inside. Elaine heard a distant ring.
"How do we fit in there?" the old lady muttered, looking into the box.
"Why's it so dark?" She asked, irritably, but in the darkness before them a column of green light appeared, with a dark silhouette of the Doctor running to and fro in front of it.
The green light outlined a spiral stair in the dark, then a circular balustrade around the central column, wide at its feet, slimmer and glowing above, then dark again when it meld into the darkness overhead.
"Oh..." Under Elaine's feet, metal rang.
The longaevi lifted his head from looking at the wide part of the column to shout merrily "Shut the door!"
Elaine spun around to do it, then slowly, carefully walked over. The column was stood on a wide, round postument that wasn't ringing despite the Doctor's running around.
He nodded at Elaine, before calling "Gertrude! Don't just stand there, come here. We're about to launch!"
"We're about to what?" The old lady stayed put, her fingers clenched on the balustrade that surrounded the postument.
"To launch, to go get your husband, then I'll get you home, then I'll get Elaine home."
Leaning on the capitol of the column, his hair covered his face briefly. Then he shuddered, straightened up and added happily "Go on, chop-chop"
The old lady gave Elaine a look. Together they mounted the wide steps, walking into the full light of the column. The longaevi smiled radiantly.
"Ready?"
Seen from up close, the capitol resembled the working table of a mad mechanist after a great flood: an utter chaos of brass wheels, switches, tiny things Elaine couldn't recognise, small tiles like the one he was carrying all the time, some with colourful pictures, and tiny little lights inbetween. Wait, had this tile had a different picture on it a moment ago? It definitely had. Elaine backed out into the balustrade.
"Hold on!" The Doctor yelled. They both held to the railing with all their might, when he, eyes agleam, flipped a switch.
The column throbbed with a green light.
Mrs. Janson massaged her sore knee.
"Let me go, Elaine." She said, and the girl started, but stopped squeezing her hand.
"Here we are!" The Doctor announced with a squint at one of the console screens. "Coming?"
"There's a choice?" She grunted, pulling herself up. "You alright?"
Elaine, pale as a sheet, nodded.
The tin floor clanked under the Doctor's feet. The door squeaked.
"What are you waiting for?"
The room was white, blindingly, bright;y white, although when her eyes got used to it a little, mrs. Janson saw the sharp edges and crystalline roughness of the walls.
"Quartz?" She mumbled.
"Where are we?" Whispered Elaine.
The Doctor kneeled by the wall, put a sort of an old-fashioned radio microphone (with a red crystal instead of the voice-gathering thingy) to it, then started moving the microphone up and down.
"What are you doing?"
"Looking for… Found." A crack appeared on the wall in front of him, outlining a regular rectangle. Then the inside of the rectangle drew back, showing a white corridor.
The Doctor stood up, brushing his knees.
"We landed in a storage room." He said, embarrassed.
"That isn't being used. Um. But the owner must be around. Come on."
The tunnels in this white rock were rather cramped: the Doctor and mrs. Janson had to walk with their heads down. They were also winding and forking every couple of steps, making the guide stop, checking his mobile, muttering and mumbling, until mrs. Janson leaned her tired back on the cool wall, when he inevitably pulled her along into the chosen corridor. The entire place looked the same to her.
Finally they found a blind alley, but the Doctor took the microphone out without breaking his stride. The wall opened at once.
"Robert!"
The old lady rushed towards the… statue? Elaine stood in the entrance to the cave, looking at a figure of a man, very lifelike down to the colours. Gray hair and slightly stooped shoulders. The statue was surrounded by a column of bright light.
"Gertrude!" The longaevi bumped into Elaine in his leap after the old lady. "Stop!"
He caught her and pulled her away from the light in the last moment.
"Get him out!"
"I will, I promise, but be careful."
"Careful? Get him out, now!"
"Why is the light holding him?" Elaine asked, walking closer.
"Good question." The Doctor nodded. "And the answer… erm..."
He looked around and so did Elaine.
The cave was shaped like half a sphere, with glistening white walls like in the corridor, but here and there decorated with stones of different colours: ruby, purple, green. Tan coloured lines connected the gems, tangled with each other, joining and separating. The column of light grew out from a round depression in the floor and ended in an analogous depression in the ceiling.
The old lady struggled in Doctor's arms.
"Ugh! What are you waiting for?"
"Thinking." He said calmly. "How to get him out and not hurt him."
"Hurt… him… how… let go!"
He did.
"Thank you." She said in a lofty tone, rubbing her wrist ostentatiously.
"Well? What now? Some phone trick?"
He rubbed his chin. "I'll have a word with the owner."
The old lady folded her arms, but it was Elaine who looked around, asking "Where is he?"
"You have a knack for questions, though this one's easier. He's here."
She looked around again.
"He's there, Elaine, but you'll never see him. Could you keep Gertrude from touching the stasis field in the meantime?"
"A what?"
The old lady snorted with contempt.
"Thank you."
The Doctor smiled at Elaine before sitting on the ground and closing his eyes.
Sela only realised he's been sleeping when an exploratory touch of another mind woke him up. Just a moment, he broadcast automatically. Then he remembered he was alone on board.
Who's there? What are you doing here?
The other mind, bright and symmetrical in its complexity, was having obvious trouble adjusting to Sela's tempo… that reminded him of something. He only understood what it was when he got the communicate: I'm not from the High Council, if that's what you're asking.
I never touched the Web!
Calm down, calm down, mollified the Time Lord, sending wave after wave of a friendly, understanding feeling.
I'm doing research! You're all for research!
Normally we'd require more in the methodology departament.
I'm monitoring the Web, I swear I didn't break anything!
The answer was a mental equivalent of a deep sigh.
I swear! He repeated.
Calmed down now? The Time Lord asked tiredly.
Sela was terrified. Should he lock his memories? The Time Lord'll get anything he wants out anyway. How could he miss a Time Lord on the planet?
Stop panicking! The communicate reached the very depths of his being. Obediently, Sela froze.
I do not want to hurt you, the Time Lord broadcast slowly and clearly. I'd only like to inform you, that pulling people out of their time and dumping them in another cannot be justified by anyone's search for truth.
What? No, I… it's just a couple of days, they shouldn't-
Your days.
But… the stasis field adjusts their time to the planetary rotation…
Have you had it checked? Anyhow, it's still your days. You don't put them back.
No, no, of course not! Sela "babbled".
So, let Robet go and leave?
Who?
Your current experiment. This communicate was very snarky in tone.
But the copier's just-
Uhm!
I'm not hurting him!
Aren't you?
You people do worse! He awaited judgement, but the Time Lord said nothing, so Sela added I'm gathering data. Just data.
What for?
Huh? What for?
Why are you gathering data?
Because… erm… it's such a fascinating planet. And the inhabitants are interesting.
True.
I want to know them better.
So do I.
What's wrong with me doing it, then?
You're hurting them with your research.
But you-
I'm atypical. The Time Lord communicated in no uncertain tone. Meaning, I'm up for negotiations, within reason. The stress Sela read in his mind vanished, although he might just have hidden it better. Let's talk.
"I promised... to watch..."
"Three hours! It's three hours we've been sitting here, while he's asleep!"
The old lady pulled out of Elaine's grasp, sending her to the stone floor.
"Maybe the other one's fighting?"
Elaine caught the rim of her cloak and pulled herself up. In the corner of her eye, she saw movement.
"Really." said the Doctor, standing up. He stretched, bones clicking. "Haven't I asked you not to touch the stasis field? What?"
The old lady walked up to him, her feet beating up a rhythm on the stone. "What did you do?" She poked his chest. "Nothing!"
"On the contrary-" He started, but she said "Got any idea how to get him out? He can't even see us!"
"Yes! I have the idea, stop pulling my sleeve."
"Well, I'm all ears."
"We have to go back to my ship."
"No can do." She snorted. "You go, I stay."
"Gertrude..."
"I said."
Elaine was looking at one of them, then at the other. "Doctor" she asked "what is your plan?"
Sighing, he brushed his fringe aside.
"Jump ahead, get Robert, jump back."
"Can't you do it on your own?"
"Ahead in time" he specified. "About a thousand years."
The old lady snorted with derisive laughter.
"Like you were going to get me back home, is it?" Asked Elaine.
"Exactly."
"You're both nutters." The old lady muttered.
Elaine put a hand on her shoulder. "I don't understand, either." She said.
"I do. You're nutters, that it."
"But the Doctor got us here. How do you know we're not in the future already?"
The old lady gave her a wordless look.
"We trusted him, and he has yet to let us down." Elaine continued.
"Not like he hasn't the occasion."
"I promise not to use it." The Doctor said, pulling her hand. He looked her in the eye, which she promptly averted.
"Alright, alright, I'm going. But… ugh!" With a wave of her hand, she marched up the corridor, Elaine and the Doctor following.
"Thank you." He whispered.
"I hope I'm not going to regret this." She whispered back.
The air was pink in the light of dawn, and cool. A wheezing, groaning sound moved it, finishing with a dull thud. Then a hinge squeaked, unoiled.
"Here, see? Off by a couple of hours, but who's counting."
"Do you have to park here?" Mrs. Janson asked, looking out of the TARDIS at the school lawn. Her husband sighed.
"He's waking up." The Doctor noted. "We could use a bench for him to sit."
"Yes. We could." But the weight on her arm made mrs. Janson sure she wasn't dreaming.
"Well, time to go." The Doctor rubbed his neck. "Elaine wants home, too."
He moved back, but mrs. Janson caught his hand. "Thank you. If you're ever in Leadworth again..."
"I'll be happy to visit." He said with a radiant smile. "Goodbye!"
He closed the door before running upstairs to the console, where Elaine was waiting, hand on the barrister.
"Well then, ready?"
She nodded. The Doctor started typing coordinates in.