Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who.
Itself
Chapter Three: Exploration
The ground became steadily more uneven and dusty as they left the city limits. The human girl was looking at the ground unsurely, as though not understanding its very existence. They were walking with a human girl. This was ridiculous, dangerous. And, no doubt to Mas, very exciting.
Amy wobbled a bit before getting some secure footing. "Are there no roads here then?"
Mas shrugged. "Don't need roads here. Nobody ever leaves the city."
Amy stepped over a particularly large rock before addressing Mas again. "What, ever? Or just to go to Noc territory?"
"No, I mean… in general. Nobody leaves," Mas replied, looking confused. But he quickly replaced it with a smirk. "Except for me, of course."
Trey resisted the temptation to roll his eyes, but Amy's bemused reaction said it all for him, much to his amusement.
"Oh. Right."
He had to admit, he did not enjoy this inquisitive nature that she and the Doctor possessed. Asking so many questions, it made him… uncomfortable, in a way he couldn't really understand. As a child, he had been discouraged from asking too many questions, even in school. Everyone was, really. Even so, he had felt especially singled out and warned about this.
His father, particularly, had told him not to be too inquisitive around visitors to the farm, especially Kin Shriner, the head of the Kin clan. Much of his father's business depended on keeping good relations with the people in the city, and offending Shriner or drawing too much attention to himself could jeopardise that.
And considering that would have meant less visits from Kin Ona… well, Trey did as he was told. Not that such information was exactly public. The only person he had entrusted that information to was one Kin Mas, and he hadn't exactly been subtle in his hints about the subject. Sometimes Trey wondered if Ona knew. She seemed to, at times, but at others appeared completely oblivious.
He wished he still had parents to ask for advice.
Amy had stopped on a particularly large rock, and Trey paused to look over at her. He called out to Mas, who was leading the way across the sandy clearing. At first irritated at him for making him stop, Mas' expression changed to concern when he saw Amy staring out at the horizon.
"What? What is it?"
"Is it getting darker?" she asked, looking back at the city and then ahead of them again. "No, it's daylight behind us, but… can you see that? The sky getting darker up ahead?"
"Well," Mas scoffed, laughing at Amy's clueless nature, "yes. That's the Noc territory."
"That is?" she asked, jabbing a finger at the darkened sky in the distance. "So the sky is darker in Noc territory? But it's light here. How does that work?"
Looking a little frustrated, Mas shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe you should ask your Doctor."
"Well, I'll have to, won't I? You two are useless," she said loudly, giving them both an exaggerated glare. "Still, that is really weird to look at…"
Her fascinated gaze remained on the dark sky for a few more moments before she blinked and came back to reality, hopping off the rock and walking over to Mas.
"Come on, then. The dark side awaits," she said dramatically, sauntering off ahead of them.
Trey walked over to Mas. "She's strange."
"Yeah," he replied, eyes firmly on the girl before he wandered after her.
Trey sighed. Might as well make it official. Mas was in love.
Ona had never seen someone's eyes light up so exuberantly at the sight of a library before, especially not someone so young. Well, young looking. Something about his attitude indicated that he wasn't exactly an average young man. The eyes, too. The eyes were wrong for someone who looked just a few years older than her.
"It's just a library."
"Just a library?" the Doctor admonished, jogging up the stairs speedily. "There's no such thing as 'just a library', Ona. Libraries are all about history. I mean, yes, factual history and all that, but you've got fiction, which is an entirely different kind of history. Fiction shows you the history of ideals, culture…"
"And why are you interested in that?"
"Because even though I'm super clever and probably the smartest person you'll ever meet, there's always new stuff to learn. I love learning about stuff. And things. Stuff and things never stop being interesting, Ona. Remember that, it may save your life one day."
"Really?"
He stopped and thought about it for a moment as they entered the building. "Actually, probably not, didn't think that one through. But anyway, the library!" He clapped his hands and rubbed them together eagerly, only for his face to drop. "Where are the books?"
"Books?"
"Yes, books. It's a library, a library needs books. Without books, a library ceases to be a library and becomes… a room with nothing in it. A room with nothing in it pretending to be library."
It was a large hall, marble pillars marking each corner, barren in the middle. The few people actually in the library sat at some of the many computer terminals that lined the walls.
The Doctor sighed. "It's an internet café. I ask for a library, and you take me to Starbucks."
"Starbucks? Is that a planet?"
"Not yet, you'll need to wait…" checked his watch, "three years, five months and a day. Now, let's get to work, Ona. Stuff and things await."
Instead of choosing one of the twenty or so unused terminals, the Doctor sauntered over to one being used by an older man, his moustache twitching with every movement of his mouth. He was suitably perturbed by this strange man almost resting his head on his shoulder.
"Carpal Trees? Sounds nice. Delicious, in fact. Can I use this?"
The man checked around the hall and saw the vacant terminals. "Er… couldn't you use one of the others?"
"Not to worry, won't take a minute," he yanked out the screwdriver and did something to the screen, bringing up several different windows. "There… lovely."
Confounded, the man looked to Ona, who just shrugged, as though the Doctor were some troublesome relative. The man himself, meanwhile, was muttering away, although whether he was talking to himself or them was open for debate.
"Are there any other cities on this planet, Ona?" he asked, his face embedded in the terminal.
"What?"
"Cities, like this one? Diur cities?"
"Oh, um… years and years ago. But not anymore."
"What, you're it?" he asked as he turned to face her, aiming for incredulity but coming across as critical.
"Well… yes."
"What happened to them?"
"What?"
He rolled his eyes, and swirled the screwdriver around in the air. "The cities, what happened to the cities?"
"Oh! I…" she tilted her head while she searched her brain. "I don't know."
He looked down at the old man. "How about you? Got any ideas?"
The man shook his head.
"And you never thought to ask," the Doctor tutted, returning to the screen with a shake of his head. "Ah, you see, stuff and things. The tremors are relatively recent. Only in the past few months. That's an interesting thing. And… you-"
He whipped around to look at her. "What?"
Then, just as rapidly, to the older man at the terminal. "What?"
Then back to the screen. "What?"
Ona came forward, and cleared her throat. "Um… what is it?"
"The Noc territory. It's dark there."
"Yes…"
"It's dark all the time."
"That's right."
"And it's light here all the time."
"No, we have night."
The Doctor gave her a look that told her to stop being so pedantic without actually saying the word, which was quite impressive, she thought. "Yes, but your night is clear and bright. Too bright. And the daytime in Noc territory… it may as well be night all the time. It was daytime when we were there, and we could barely see anything out of the bars of our cell. And then there's the matter of Noc and Diur."
"Noc and Diur?"
"Yes, Noc and Diur, Nocturnal and Diurnal, how did that happen?" he asked pointedly, as though they were keeping secrets from him. But then it was forgotten and he returned to the terminal.
Becoming confused, Ona walked over to the Doctor, moving into the already crowded workspace. She, the Doctor and the old man were all bunched around the monitor now, talking like children discussing a big secret.
"I'm sorry, but… why is this important?"
"Because it's impossible," the Doctor said quietly, eyes roving all over the screen. "And impossible is both stuff and a thing, so it's always important. Even the orbit of your planet doesn't affect the darkness and the light. Your planet is literally cut in half and that is bad."
"How bad?"
He scowled, looking frustrated at having to quantify badness. "Bad to the power of ten, bad times a billion, badder than the baddest bad that ever badded a bad. You planet is in half. Planets should not be halved, quartered, quintupled or divided in any way, shape or form. That is how bad it is, Kin Ona."
The old man nodded contemplatively. "That is bad."
"Exactly," the Doctor agreed, pointing a finger at him and then standing up quickly. "But that's enough Wikipedia, let's get some fresh air. Tremors, that's what I need to shake up my day."
"Do you think they have anything to do with the planet being in half?"
"Yes, maybe, probably, possibly, could be, don't know, we'll see." He smirked. "I made an amazing joke back there, by the way. You probably didn't catch it with all the worrying about the planet being in half."
"You did?"
"Yeah. I said… tremors, and then… shake up my day. It was good, because… tremors, shake, yeah?"
Ona exchanged a look with the old man, and they shared a mutual shrug with the Doctor.
"Fine, forget it. Above your heads, obviously. Anyway, need to look at these tremors. Is there somewhere we can go that's underground?"
"We have mines. The entrance is on the other side of the city."
"That's all right, I don't mind walking."
"It's ten kilometres."
"Public transport! Buses, trains, that sort of thing?"
Ona nodded. "There's a bus station close by."
"Right, good," he said, bringing out the sonic screwdriver again and pointing it at the monitor. All the windows he had been looking at closed, bringing up the information on Carpal trees the man had been looking up. "Sorry about that, you can go back to your trees now. Tell you what, boil the leaves and drink them, your wife won't know what's got into you."
The old man looked at the screen, then back to the Doctor. "Oh! thank you," he enthused, returning to his work with extra vigour.
With that, they left the building, trotting down the stairs at a fair pace.
"Incidentally," the Doctor said, "I know Billy Connolly, and he would have laughed himself silly."
Mas wasn't sure what to make of this peculiar human girl. On the one hand, she was adventurous and exciting and new… but on the other, she was human, and his people had to have a reason to be so scared of them. Didn't they? They wouldn't arbitrarily forbid contact with a particular species for no good reason, would they?
He thought about his parents, about his parents' friends.
Of course they would. Scared, all of them. Not like him. He was something new, and he scared them too, almost as much as the idea of this pretty girl did. People like him who didn't fear anything, who were willing to push past the boundaries those before him had set.
He sensed someone kindred in the Doctor, and especially in Amy. Although the ridiculously short skirt may have made him a bit biased.
Trey didn't seem so interested, but that was hardly surprising. The man was obsessed with someone else, even though the person in question barely acknowledged him most of the time. Then again, she barely acknowledged anyone, so maybe he had good reason to think there was affection there. At the moment, however, he was just looking back to the city, concerned.
"That is…" Amy trailed off, eyes on the border between territories. Her gaze travelled up, way up, looking straight up into the sky, then to her right to the end of the horizon.
"…that is so cool."
"It's usually about the same temperature," Trey said absently from behind them.
Amy rolled her eyes, though Mas wasn't sure why. "No, I mean… that's amazing. Has it always been like this? Dark on one side…"
Again, she trailed off, and Mas filled in the blanks. "Since I can remember, yes."
"What about before you were born?"
"Before?" He hadn't thought about that. "Don't know. Never asked," he added, feeling idiotic for it.
She didn't seem to judge him in the same way the Doctor did, which only increased the Amy appreciation index.
"So then? What are we waiting for?"
Eyes closed like a toddler going underwater for the first time, Amy stepped through into darkness. She turned to face them, eyes still closed, and opened them one at a time before smiling widely, taking in her surroundings again.
"Wow. That is just weird. Cool, but… weird."
Something suddenly changed for Mas. As soon as Amy had set foot in Noc territory, in fact. Before, he had been only too happy to explore through the dark territory again, find adventure, finally have some fun. But now, seeing this unfamiliar creature step over… he was, rather suddenly, frightened. Scared of what would happen if he followed her.
"You coming?"
Mas swallowed, his throat dry and scratching. He looked to Trey, who was clearly feeling the same tension.
Looking between them quickly, Amy frowned, worried. "What?"
"Uh…" his voice was shaking. What was wrong with him? "I… don't know."
"But I thought you were the brave one," she mocked, sticking out her bottom lip. To accentuate the point, she stepped forward and back over the divide, in and out of the light as she laughed. "Oh, are you scared?
"I'm not scared-"
"I am," Trey said, bringing their attention to him. "And I wasn't before. I mean, I was, but… not like this. I don't want to move, I'm so scared."
Amy's amused smile slowly gave way to concern. "But… you did it before. You were exploring here when we met you. What's different now?"
Anger was rising in him now, Mas could feel it. What was wrong with him? Why was this so difficult?
"I don't know," he managed. "I just… really don't want to go in there."
The mines and the processing factories up above them were suitably well guarded, surrounded by fences and surveillance orbs. Fortunately Ona knew enough tricks from her brother to get them past both, scrambling the cameras for a few minutes and slipping through the entrance when the guards changed shifts.
And to think he had wasted the entire journey trying to come up with a thing he could use to get past all of those defences. He hated wasting time on a thing, especially if he could have been spending valuable brainpower concentrating on another thing.
For instance, the message he had received on the psychic paper that was clearly in pain and clearly emanating from Noc territory. And now Amy was walking right towards it, whatever it was, under his recommendation? What was he thinking? Sometimes having one hundred million thoughts bouncing about your head at the same time had its disadvantages, and he had found as soon as he changed that it was rather difficult to concentrate on one thing at a time with this face.
But, less of that, more of this.
"What do they mine for here, Ona?" he asked quietly as they snuck around a towering, offline drilling machine.
Ona was about to answer, but looked sheepish as she even contemplated the words.
"Don't know, never asked?"
She nodded.
"Right…"
Reaching into his jacket, the Doctor brought out the sonic screwdriver. It was taking him some time to get used to this one. The older, smaller version had been simpler. This one had twisty things and pushy things and in-y out-y things. But as time went on and he was pursued by progressively faster and nastier creatures, he was getting used to it.
"What are you looking for?"
The Doctor barely bothered glancing at Ona, keeping his eyes on the readings. "I'm trying different sonic spectrums, might be able to locate the source of the tremors. Of course, they may have already tried that."
"Who's 'they'?"
"The people in the mine down below. I'm assuming that's what they're doing down there, because otherwise they're digging underground while everything regularly shakes around them, which would make them a bit thick."
Ona was silent for awhile, and the Doctor was more than pleased with that arrangement. As brilliant as he was, people talking in his ear always tended to distract, although he did enjoy showing off his multi-tasking skills.
Fiddling with the screwdriver, the Doctor moved it through different sonic spectrums, letting it scan for a few seconds before moving on to the next frequency.
"Do you do this a lot?"
"Not really, I was never keen on intense physical labour. Running and climbing, mostly, but not digging. Not usually, anyway."
She studied him with a frown for a few moments before sighing. "No, not mining. I mean… this."
"'This'?"
"Yes, this. Sneaking around, investigating, that kind of thing."
"No," he said defensively. "I always try to stay out of trouble, thank you very much. I'm just… very, very… very…"
He cleared his throat. "…very… bad at it."
"Oh."
There was silence again as he scanned, the screwdriver whirring quietly as it worked.
"Are we… going into the mines?" Ona asked, sounding reticent and excited at the same time.
"Hm? No, no need. I should get everything from-"
Suddenly, everything shook. They both stumbled, falling over each other in an awkward heap. The Doctor slapped a hand onto a part of the drilling machine and hauled himself up, wide eyes on the sonic screwdriver. Then the tremor stopped.
"Oh, that's weird. Properly strangely weirdly weird."
"Don't try to help me, it's fine," Ona said from the floor.
Eyes still on the screwdriver, the Doctor said, "Oh, good, I was worried about you for a minute."
Groaning behind him, Ona clambered to her feet, rubbing the back of her head.
"That was different than usual…"
Ona finally grabbing his attention, the Doctor whipped his gaze over to her. "How different? I mean, different, how? I mean, how was it different?"
Looking a little taken aback by the sudden interest, Ona stumbled over her words at first. "Uh, I mean, just… different. Stronger. More sudden."
"Different, stronger and more sudden. Good, that's good, different is good." He got back to work with the sonic screwdriver, going back through the frequencies until there was another tremor.
Both of them were latched on to the drilling machine this time, so they merely exchanged an interested glance. Well, the Doctor was interested, Ona just looked worried and confused. The Doctor changed frequencies, and the ground was still again.
"Did… did you do that?"
"No," he droned, fixing her with what he hoped was a humbling stare. "That was an earthquake. This is a screwdriver. A screwdriver can't cause an earthquake."
"It looked like it did."
His admittedly condescending look gave way to an intrigued smile as he nodded. "Didn't it just?"
Still smiling, the Doctor moved back to the setting again, and laughed out loud when the tremors started up again. A sonic screwdriver causing an earthquake. The quake continued on for a few moments before there was a distinct thud, followed by a boom.
The Doctor deactivated the screwdriver. "Did you hear something?"
"You mean the rumbling?"
"No, I mean the… thud-boom."
"The… thud-boom?"
"Yeah. Like a thud…" He gestured a hand around, trying to find the right gesture, "…boom."
"All I heard was everything shaking."
"Yeah, but underneath the shaking there was a thud-boom. Thud-booms and shaking, shaking and thud-booms. When do you get shaking and thud-booms? And a distinct thud-boom. Very distinct. In fact…" He snuck around the drilling machine and looked to the floor in the middle of what the Doctor could only describe as the car park. Although a little bit bigger to accommodate the large building vehicles, obviously.
A depression in the ground. Very slight, but it was there. Circular, like a crater. He ran his hand over the ground before putting his ear to it. As if something had pushed up, and then retreated…
Jumping to his feet, the Doctor whirled to face Ona. "Right, now I would tell you to stand back, but this could come from anywhere, so stand not too far forward, not too far backwards, and be ready to stand anywhere at any time. Clear?"
She nodded quickly, her head moving in more of a jiggling motion rather than going back and forth. What had rattled her so much? Shrugging it off, the Doctor turned back to the crater, and pointed the sonic screwdriver right at it. He switched it on, sending out the frequency.
The tremors started, and Ona grabbed the Doctor's arm almost instantly. His eyes were on the crater, however, even as he struggled to keep his balance.
Someone shouted from across the complex, and several burly men in jumpsuits were running over, flanked by armed guards. This just made the Doctor smile all the more. If he could have pressed the button on the screwdriver harder, he probably would have. The ground suddenly jumped up beneath his feet, thumping him a few inches into the air and stumbling back.
The guards and workers stopped as they reached him, all eyes on the crater that had just been created below. Something from below had tried to push its' way up.
The tremors continued, growing more forceful. With another thud-boom, the same crater burst upwards again, dust and chunks of the ground spurting up.
"Third time's the charm," he muttered to no-one in particular.
After another pause, the ground exploded in front of him. Ona latched onto him, but the Doctor couldn't really share her fear as whatever it was continued to grow and grow and grow, like an out of control sprouting plant. He certainly couldn't help the hoots of joy that escaped him.
The Doctor put a hand above his eyes as he looked up at whatever it was that had come from beneath.
"Well," he announced loudly. "That's something, isn't it?"
What exactly the something in question was escaped him at the moment. It was enormous, at least as tall as a giraffe, and resembled a cross between a slug and a black, charred earthworm. Although the eyes weren't apparent, the very top was bent down as though to look at them, moving frantically. Fearfully.
Then the guards brought up their weapons and opened fire, aiming for the head.
"Stop-" The Doctor raced over, but was neatly elbowed in the face by one of the guards, falling on his back. He looked up at the creature as it writhed in pain.
It didn't make a sound. That was probably what hurt the most. And it didn't retreat. It simply… stood there, taking the punishment, all the while looking for something, head whipping about ever more frantically until finally, with a heart-breaking shudder, it went limp. It tumbled backwards, crashing through several massive drilling vehicles, the ground rumbling from the impact.
The miniature quake tweaked something in his mind, something that had occurred to him but he had left it alone, distracted by the creature…
"The tremors stopped," he muttered.
Ona helped him to his feet as the guards and workers raced over to the deceased creature.
"What?"
"When the… that thing appeared, the tremors stopped. That thing was causing the tremors."
"That? Really?"
He nodded. "But they had to have been attracted by something, Ona, the tremors are only recent."
He looked down, and saw the sonic screwdriver was still on. He flicked it off.
"Sonic technology," he said quietly, sadly. "A particular sonic frequency, disrupting and disturbing and… agitating. Three point five megahertz with a cross-pattern of six-oh-four…"
"But…"
The Doctor looked at her, and saw the familiar expression of someone thinking things through, weighing up different options, putting the puzzle together.
"We've used sonic technology for years, and the tremors-"
"-only started a few months ago," he chorused with her, throwing his hands about wildly as his sometimes very thick brain caught up. "They only started a few months ago!"
She seemed genuinely caught up in his excitement, but still had that look of confusion about her. "But… what does that mean?"
"It means-!" His grin froze, and gradually melted as the implications sifted through. "It means something has been calling them here. Something new."
Suddenly aware of the other people around them - although their attention was on the giant slug-worm thing - Ona moved in closer.
"Do you mean… something deliberate?"
"Maybe, maybe not, possibly, possibly not. Could just be new technology. But whatever it is, I can track it," he said, flicking on the sonic screwdriver and illuminating the space between them. It began to beep regularly, the frequency of the beeps increasing as he focused the screwdriver on the city in the distance.
"That's the city," Ona said, her voice hushed.
"Yep, thought so." He clicked the screwdriver back into shape again and slipped it away. "Off we go again, Kin Ona. To the bus!"
He glanced over at the crowd forming at the head of the creature, and started backing up towards the now unguarded front gate.
"Quietly," he added. Silently, they disappeared, heading for the nearest station before they were likely shut down.
(A/N: Thanks for all the reviews so far, everybody, they're very much appreciated. Keep it up!)
