Salvete, omnes! Sorry about that sort-of-a-cliffhanger last chapter and for the long wait. Things were happening. And thank you for reading. (Just a hint? Constructive criticism is always appreciated. Gratias tibi ago.)

The man standing inside the door was short, perhaps a few inches under five feet tall. His human-like features were aged enough that he looked as if he were in his fifties, with light wrinkles showing on his pale grey-green skin. He wore a short sleeved robe-like garment that was embroidered in oranges and reds and that reached down to a half foot above his bare feet. Peering out of the partially opened door, he motioned for them to enter quickly.

Once the group of humans and one Time Lord had passed through the woven door and through a sturdy inner door carved from a single block of wood, the creature leading them motioned for silence. The three black-robed escorts turned down a different hallway and left silently. The other alien skipped nimbly through the underground corridors despite his advanced age, the thirteen off-worlders following.

Because of his short stature, a quick trot for the robed alien was a mild walking pace for the older humans, and the members of the small group had plenty of time to look around.

The Doctor whistled in appreciation at the rounded walls of the hallway. Many of the surfaces of the underground structure were made from pounded soil, but the smooth dirt of the walls was interspersed with light-colored tree roots arching elegantly into the floor. The Doctor leaned by one as he passed, scratching at the wood with a thumbnail to reveal a green interior. The roots were alive, still connected to the trees above, and had been painstakingly coaxed into forming the structure of the compound. The process of guiding the roots into the proper position in the wall must have taken decades, if not centuries.

Meanwhile, as the Doctor considered the forethought and precise architecture of the captors, the short man had reached a destination. He opened a door on the side of the corridor and wordlessly ushered the group in.

As the alien closed the door and faced his captives, the Doctor excitedly waited for the explanation that had been so long in coming. Why had this planet's inhabitants kidnapped a bunch of ordinary humans? What was the dangerous presence in the forest? Why had there not been a faster mode of transportation waiting for them at the transport pad?

The short man opened his mouth and uttered a string of gibberish.

"Blast it!" the Doctor yelled. "Why didn't I think of that? Idiot! The TARDIS is back on Earth, so there's nothing to translate their language for us."

The neighbors stared in wide-eyed confusion following the Doctor's outburst, and the Ponds frowned in concern.

"Well, I can always try other languages. Do you know how inconvenient that would be if we had to learn their whole language before we could even communicate?" He turned back to the robed man. "Do you speak Judoon?" he asked in that language. "Akhatenian? Raxacoricofallapatorian? Silurian? Ood? Zygonian? Malletorian? Finnish –" He broke off as the man nodded vigorously.

"Je nederlands spreekt?" the Doctor asked.

"I don't understand that language," the alien said in Malletorian, "but I can speak this one quite well."

"Ah, wonderful!" The Doctor turned to the humans and switched back to English. "He speaks Malletorian, the language of a planet called Malletor that's a few hundred thousand light years from the Milky Way galaxy. Malletorian will become the common language used by the civilized universe in a few million years. It's not even a particularly easy language for everyone to learn. They chose it in a raffle, would you believe? Now, to clear up a little matter." He clapped his hands together. "The Ponds already know it, but I'm not entirely human. Not human at all, actually. I'm a Messalinian from the planet Messaline. Great place, I loved it, but everyone spent too much time underground." The small lie would hold until he was certain that it was safe to let everyone know that he was a Time Lord.

Carol and Frank gaped as Linda and Janet glanced knowingly at each other.

"Good. I see that some of you guessed I wasn't human," he said to the sisters. "Anyways, now that that's over with, I think I know a way to fix our communication issue. I'm a little bit telepathic, so if you just let me touch my hands to your foreheads in a very Star Trek-ish way, I can link the speech-processing and producing regions of your brain to the ones in mine, and voila! You can understand and speak Malletorian." No one looked enthusiastic at the prospect of mental invasion, so the Doctor continued. "Who's first? Rory?"

"Yeah, alright Doctor," Rory said, stepping up to him.

The Doctor placed his hands on either side of Rory's head and closed his eyes. Each regeneration was different when it came to telepathy. Ten was good at it, and Seven was superb. Three not so much. He sighed in relief as his Eleventh persona snuck into Rory's mind with only a few mental stumbles. Once he had a firm foothold, he relaxed slightly. Rory may not be as assertive and inventive as his wife, but he had a remarkably caring mind, soothing to float around in.

The Doctor pulled himself back to his current task and easily make a mental link between his mind and Rory's. The connection would join a small part of their minds, allowing what Rory heard and spoke to be processed in the Doctor's brain, with its excellent linguistic capabilities. As long as the Doctor was either awake or naturally sleeping, Rory would be able to communicate with the planet's inhabitants.

After checking that the link was secure, the Doctor withdrew from the nurse's mind. Rory nodded at him, relieved that the process hadn't involved the Doctor sifting through memories.

"That wasn't so bad," Rory said in Malletorian.

The Doctor gave an apologetic smile. "Yes, see, that's one problem with it. Everything that you say will translated into their language." He looked at Amy. "Who's next?"

"Alright, I'll do it. But if I end up with a craving for bow ties, I'm not going to be pleased," Amy said.

One by one, the Doctor made mental attachments between his brain and those of the eleven other humans. At the end, his mind was spinning, burdened by its assumption of the tasks of a dozen other brains, and he was reeling from the shock of quickly entering and leaving so many minds.

"I'm glad that's over with," he said at last. "Now, shall we get on with business? I'm John, by the way. John Smith. This is Amy, Rory, Linda and Janet, Carol, Frank, David, Stella, and Jordan."

"I am Doriel, the leader of the people here," said the little man, understood at last by all of the humans. "We are called the Orphians. I know that you came from far away, from across the midnight skies beyond the clouds, and that you must be very confused, and I will try to explain. We are in trouble, and it is the law of our ancient knowledge that if ever our race is in danger of destruction, we must send out for help."

"What 'ancient law'? What trouble?" the Doctor asked.

"Shh," Amy said, nudging him. "He's just starting to explain."

"We are a long-lasting society with lifespans a hundred times greater than those of any other creatures on this world. The region that we live in, though, is wet and ever-changing. Plants spring up quickly to repopulate laboriously cleared land. Trees send their roots barreling through underground structures, and fuzzy molds quickly reclaim organic matter. Long ago, there was a book, The Book that Begins and Never Ends. Though it was carefully preserved for centuries, it became more and more fragile and mildewed until it just flaked away. But we remember what it said. Every word of it has been passed down. The book instructed us how to find and use the miraculous transportation that sits in the desert. It told us to find and bring back a group of advanced organisms from the far-off planet, which we did. Now, you will help us to restore balance to this planet."

"But what do you want us to do?" Amy asked.

"The book did not say. We assumed you would know."

"The book didn't say," the Doctor repeated. "The Book that Begins and Never Ends. An unwieldy title created by a hunting and scavenging society that lives in the rainforest. Primitive groups like that tend to name things based on their appearances. You know what that book sounds like? One with a front cover but no back cover. You only ever had half of the instructions! That's rubbish. Why'd they only give you half of a book? Well, it's never fun anyways to start out with the whole story already written. There has to be some room for improvisation. So, what's your problem?"

"There is another group out in the forest. It is a society of wraiths that have been stealing Orphians, one by one, for months. Once, we lived spread out in the rainforest, each family in its own home. Some lived in huts, some underground, and some in houses nestled among the tree branches. In the middle, equidistant to each home in a cluster of twenty families was a small cleared area where people would gather to talk, cook, and trade. There were thirteen clusters, a thousand and twenty or so Orphians altogether. We would all use this structure," he gestured around himself, "only occasionally, as a gathering place for group decisions or festivals. Since the others in the forest started stealing us, though, we've all had to live underground here, going out in groups during the day to get food and water and wood for cooking. But it is difficult to keep up that process. Large, concentrated groups are not meant to live in a rainforest where resources are so spread out. Within a few weeks, we will either starve or be forced to send more people outside for longer periods of time. The choice is between the deaths of everyone and gradually mounting casualties."

"But you have technology," the Doctor said. "You've got the transporter pad. Why don't you have any technological stuff here? You could have a hundred different ways of cooking food instead of over a wood fire. You could install lights and grow plants inside."

"Such wonders have never existed on this planet. A booklet of instructions was found under the transporter, detailing how to use it. The instructions, left undisturbed in the dry desert air, had not decomposed, but they fell apart into dust after we touched them."

"But someone on this planet must have been technologically advanced at some point. Transporter pads don't just build themselves."

"Other than that they gave us the book, we know nothing about the people."

"You memorized word for word a half-missing book, but no one can remember anything about who gave it to you? It must have been an alien who brought the book and the transport, since there's no sign of any other technology here. But why would anyone specifically tell a civilization to steal humans to help solve problems? Why would an advanced race specifically care about your people?" He leaned his back against the wall and slid to the ground, sitting lightly on his torn feet. If he didn't stop standing, they would never heal. "Continue. Tell us about those mysterious people in the forest."

Doriel took a breath. "They cannot be people. They are mutated beyond recognition, and they suddenly appear and disappear. One moment, a man will be walking in the forest, alone among the trees, and an instant later, he will be surrounded by the strange creatures."

"Why do you keep calling them the 'creatures'?" the Doctor asked.

"Because that's what they are. Those who have seen them describe the beasts as being hideously mutated, with strange, stretched out bodies. They are as tall as you, Doctor, or Amy, but their skin, where it is not scaly, is a muddy blue-brown color. The wear nothing but short kilts around their lower halves. We call them the Twisted Ones, and the name suits them. They have some Orphian traits, though even those are warped: their facial features protrude forward and their hands are clawed. They are a strange amalgamation of animals, with their reptilian tails that end in a clump of fur. They all have some sort of wing, but none are identical. We have used this information to determine that there are only six of these twisted beasts."

"How are they different from each other?"

"We tell them apart by their coloring and by their pattern of limbs. One has a pair of scruffy wings sprouting from between its shoulder blades. One has arms that double as wings, attached at the shoulders as birds' wings are, but with two hands poking out from beneath the feathers at the wrist, and so on."

The Doctor frowned. "Tell us about everything that happened before this started."

"It began four months ago," Doriel said, "when one of our men went missing. It's happened before, and we all thought that he had drowned in the river or fell from a tree and broke his neck. But then, a week later, his body was found with a cracked skull and strange burned puncture marks on his arms and chest.

"A few weeks after that first incident, a group of hunters walking along a trail far from any of the house clusters caught the first glimpse of the Twisted Ones. Four of the beasts appeared without warning around the expedition, and working in pairs, they grabbed two Orphians. There was a brief struggle, and then the creatures disappeared into the air along with their two victims. One moment, the hunters were fighting with the Twisted Ones, and the next moment our people were grappling with empty air, the blood dripping from their weapons the only remaining trace from the creatures.

"After that, things began to escalate. A family was enjoying the evening air one night, when they smelled distant fire. Some climbed trees to see how near the danger was, as fires can be deadly in a forest. Those were the first ones to go. A few moments after ascending, they stumbled back to the ground, trembling as if poisoned. Soon, they were curled up in balls on the ground, moaning, or appeared to be unconscious. The remaining family members began to feel lightheaded, and they cleverly determined that the severity of the poisoning was determined by altitude above the ground. They hurried into the underground houses where the rest of the families in the cluster were sleeping. The adults tried to drag the four severely affected Orphians with them to safety, but they were dead weights, and the poison was beginning to affect the rescuers. Growing increasingly dizzy, the adults were forced to hide below ground, watching helplessly as the Twisted Ones emerged from the forest and dragged the four groaning people away. When light dawned the next day, the rest of the people emerged from underground, perfectly healthy but mourning for their stolen relatives.

"That cluster of homes called a meeting here, in the meeting hall, and warned the others of what happened and how to escape the poison. The following week, the incident with the fire was repeated, but only one, a young child, was stranded on the surface.

"As we've grown increasingly alert and more able to avoid the rapacious hands of the Twisted Ones, the four beasts have begun using more violent means. Rather than using far-off fires as an unknown part of their poisoning process, they are now employing sudden bursts of flame and noise."

"Some sort of explosive, probably," the Doctor muttered to the humans.

"These attacks don't just poison us, they maim and burn, and the Twisted Ones or their minions drag survivors from the wreckage. It is impossible to prepare for these ravenous fires, other than always having other nearby to rush in and carry into underground shelters the wounded ones who have not yet fallen unconscious. Often, the rescuers cannot save everyone before they grow faint and are forced to retreat underground.

"After the first few times that the Twisted Ones used the sudden fires, we agreed that everyone must relocate to this building, where we are unaffected by the poison and safe from the maiming fires."

"And that brings the story up to the present day?" Linda asked.

Doriel looked down at his hands, upset. "There is one more thing. The priests believe that small dosages of the poison are affecting the strands that give us life."

"Yes, yes, good for the priests," the Doctor said, brushing off the spiritual evidence of witch doctors. Then he paused, and held up a hand. "One moment. What did you mean by 'strands that give you life'?"

"It is known that all life is made up of miniscule, invisible pods. Within these pods are double strands that determine who we are, what we look like, how we function. The priests have investigated, and they've determined that the poison is affecting the strands."

The Doctor stood up excitedly, staggering to the side with previously forgotten exhaustion. "Did you hear that?" he asked the humans. "These people, with their nonexistent technology and tribal society, know about genetics! Isn't that intriguing? Something is going on here. These people can't have such detailed and accurate knowledge of biology. They don't have any microscopes or petri dishes or little bottles of science-y chemicals to study things with, and they couldn't have guessed. This is so refreshing, a mystery inside a mystery with a bit of gradual genocide on the side. Though I could certainly do without the side dish." He had been waving his hands in excitement, and his balance, fragile in the best of times, had deserted him as he wheeled around. Amy grabbed his arm, steadying him.

Doriel looked in confusion at the Doctor, wondering at his clumsiness, and noticed the light red footprints that the Time Lord was still leaving. "Your feet are bleeding, John," he said. "Are you injured?"

"They just got scraped while we were walking across that desert. Your mysterious minions, the ones who wear all black, snatched me when I didn't have any shoes on. Who are those three, anyways?"

"His feet are a bit more than scraped, Doriel," Rory asserted. "Do you have any bandages I could use to wrap them up?"

"Of course. I'm terribly sorry about that, John. I can show you all to your room for the night and then fetch some medical supplies, or if you don't want to walk, you can wait here for me to return."

"I can walk just fine," he said. The Doctor placed a hand on Amy's shoulder and stood on one foot, lifting the other foot up to reveal thick red scabs. He wiggled his toes. "See? Already healing."

Doriel nodded and walked over to the door, placing his ear to it. "All clear," he said after a moment.

"So what, you're afraid of your own people? Why do you have to sneak around?" Frank asked.

"Is it dangerous out there?" Carol said in alarm.

"No, no," Doriel reassured them. "They're all wonderful people. Some are kind and caring, some quiet, and some slow to develop trust; they're all different, as I assume the people on your planet are. I'm just afraid that if we run into people in the halls, they'll want to talk to you and ask questions, and the children will want to gawk at your height and clothing and skin." He placed his ear to the door again. "I heard several people walk past half an hour ago, heading towards the main hall. They should all be at dinner now, and it'll be a few minutes yet before they start trickling back to their rooms." He opened the door. "Come on now. Follow me."

Wary of the Doctor's scabbed feet, Doriel led them through the hallways at a more sedate pace this time, giving them plenty of opportunities to look around. The children were walking under their own power now, not being carried, but they were yawning.

Janet grabbed Linda's hand reassuringly, and the two leaned against each other as they walked. Janet stared up at the junction between the walls and the ceiling. Small glowing lights were mounted there, and since Doriel had told them that the Orphians had no technological know-how, the lights must be made from some sort of naturally occurring material. Looking closer, Janet noticed that they were each comprised of three spoon-shaped objects nailed by their ends to the wall and located every two feet. Judging by the similarity between the objects and the insectivorous plants that the group saw earlier, she decided that they must be bioluminescent plant leaves. Janet smiled to herself, pleasantly intrigued by the strange wonders of the new planet.

Doriel led the small group through twisting, organic corridors until at last he came to a stop outside one of the many doors that opened off of the hallways. "This will be your room while you stay with us. I'm sorry that it's so small, but we are short on space with everyone squeezed into this structure." He paused. "Judging by the way that you keep staring at the lights, I'd say that you are used to a different means of illumination. Is that right?" Several humans nodded. "Thought so. There are several erentur leaves, the things that we use for light, in your room. When you want to go to sleep, unpin the leaves from the wall and re-pin them somewhere in the hallway. I'll come back in a few minutes to give you the bandages. Is there anything else you'll need?"

"A meal and some water would be nice," Frank said desperately. "Your black-robed minions didn't give us much on the journey."

"I'll have to have a word with them about the needs of other species," Doriel replied. "There might be some food left over from dinner. I'll go fetch it and come right back." He turned away to leave.

The group filed into the room, their hearts fluttering delightedly at the sight of twelve beds set up in the small space. Along the edges of the room, thick ropes suspended five cots well above the ground. The remaining thin mattresses lay on the ground, in the center of the room or under the hanging beds.

The adults quickly assigned beds, placing children in the hanging beds above their parents' cots. When Linda offered to take one of the suspended beds, the Doctor leapt forward and claimed the remaining one.

"You are so childish, John," Rory complained.

The Doctor collapsed gratefully onto the cot, making it swing slightly on its ropes. "It's a suspended bed, Rory, how could I resist? Suspended furniture is cool. I should get some for the TAR - , er, my house." He pushed off of the wall with his arms, making his bed ram into Stella's. She giggled and set her cot into motion as well. "Geronimo!" the Doctor yelled as the other two children joined the game.

The parents scooted a safe distance away and watched, glad that their children were in high spirits despite the strange and frightening situation. Wary of collisions from David's cot, Linda hopped off onto the ground and sat with Janet, her arm resting around the other woman's shoulders.

In the midst of the chaotic glee, Doriel walked into the room, carrying a cloth bag and a woven basket in his hands. "I'm glad to see the children enjoying themselves," he said. "Here are the medical supplies, food, and water that you asked for. If you want more water at any time, there is a room down the hall with jugs. I'll leave you to your meal now. Sleep well."

Shaking with hunger from their two-day fast, their rasping throats crying out for moisture, the people ravenously unwrapped the contents of the basket. Doriel had given them several crusty loaves of bread, hunks of dried meat, and some unidentifiable fruits.

"Catch, Pond," the Doctor said, throwing Amy his screwdriver. "Setting 421A."

She adjusted the sonic and waved it over the food. After a few seconds, she peered closely at tit to check the readings, as she had often seen the Doctor do. "I can't read it, stupid. It's in Gallifreyan."

"Give it here, then." he said, holding out his hand. Amy tossed the sonic to him. "No toxins of any sort. The water's clean. It should all be safe for consumption."

Frank and Rory carefully divided the food and water up between the twelve of them, and the starving humans laid back on their cots to eat without interruptions for talk.

When she had finished her meal, Stella flipped over on her mattress to face her brother. "I'm tired," she told him quietly. "I never thought the picnic would last for so long."

"It certainly got a bit out of hand," Frank said, reaching up to ruffle his children's hair. "You two go to sleep now. The rest of us grownups are going to have a talk, and then we'll put the lights out." He kissed Stella and David on the head.

"You sleep, too, Jordan," Julia said. The boy frowned and turned over the face the wall, hiding his head under the rough blankets.

"Before we start the meeting, John, I want you to lie on your stomach so I can bandage your feet," Rory commanded as he picked up the bag that Doriel had left them. Inside was a roll of brown, unbleached bandages and a stoppered wooden jar filled with cream.

"So," Linda said, speaking quietly so that the children could sleep, "What are we going to do about these people's problems?"

"I say that we have them take us back to the transporter pad and send us home. We don't know what to do to help them, and plus, it's their problem, not ours. We have our children to look after." Darren crossed his arms and glared.

"Oh come on, Darren," the Doctor said. "Surely you don't mean that. The transporter was pre-connected to Earth, so the mysterious people who built it must have thought that humans in specific could do something to save this planet in a crisis. And in any case, the children will be perfectly safe if we leave them here while we investigate."

Rory, having decided to trust that the cream had healing properties, finished smearing the substance on the Doctor's feet and began wrapping them in bandages. He looked up. "I agree with John," he said.

Amy nodded in agreement. "So do I. If there's anyone who can figure out the problem and get us out of here alive, it's this guy." She indicated him by poking his hanging bed, sending it swaying lightly.

"How about a vote?" Frank asked, always diplomatic. "Who wants to stay?"

The Doctor, the Ponds, Linda, Janet, Carol, and Frank himself raised their hands. Jordan turned over sleepily and muttered his agreement.

"And who wants to leave?"

Darren and Julia raised their hands.

"Well," the Doctor said as he wiggled the toes of his newly bandaged feet, "that settles it. Unless we split up, we're all staying on this planet for a little longer."

"Yeah, Darren and I will stay. It'll be safer that way," Julia said. Darren frowned at her.

"Perfect," Janet concluded. "But we've all had a long journey the past few days, and we'll have a lot to do tomorrow. I say we get some rest."

Upon this they could all agree, so Amy hopped up to take down the light-emitting leaves and pin them back up outside of the room. She shut the door as the came back in, leaving them in darkness.

"Goodnight," she said.

"Sleep tight," Rory added.

"And don't let the memory worms bite. Goodnight, Ponds. Goodnight, neighbors. Sleep well, you wonderful humans." The Doctor slipped under the covers as the bed swayed gently on its ropes like a TARDIS in flight.

Suspended furniture. Very cool.

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