Chapter 6

"Heyyya!" Ian cried, or something to that effect; he wasn't really sure. It was that creature again, the one with the white-ringed eyes he'd battled up above! What was it doing down here? The only thing he knew for certain was the two people before him were in desperate need of his help. He threw himself at it's head, slamming it with his doubled fists as he had before.

Caught by surprise, the creature turned from its prey, champing and snorfling its rubbery snout at him. Ian danced back on the balls of his feet, calling out to the two natives by the wall. "Run! I'll distract it! Get away while you can!" They didn't move at first and he wondered if they could even understand him.

The creature's jaws opened and it lunged at him. He bashed it on the side of the head then slid along its side as it whipped past him and turned. Belatedly he realized this one was bigger than the one he'd met before and certainly more aggressive. This didn't bode well. He was vaguely aware of the natives moving along the wall somewhere behind it now; at least they were getting away and if they could get out of harm's way then maybe he could simply run as well. Spinning to face an oversized jawful of cartilage he found his balance and took the offensive.

"Hah! Hah!" he shouted. "Get back! Back!" He came at it with a good punch right on the end of its snout then went after its eyes. It gave out a weirdly crow-like sound and backed, shaking its head. Before it could change its mind, he went at it again, shouting, trying to get another good blow in. He was sure it was going to turn tail and run and a maniacal grin began to spread across his face from the sheer adrenaline of it.

It shoved past him. Caught by surprise, he ricocheted off the wall of the tunnel as it tried to follow once more after its original prey. Ian chased after it, kicking it in the hindquarters so it turned once more back at him. Up ahead he heard the sound of fear - the natives had run, but not far. They were still too near. The bulk of the creature whirled around once more and he had a quick flash of white-ringed eyes then the hard-rubbery ridges of the snout were closing down on his arm. He bashed at the top of the snout with his other arm and it slid down, biting at his vest.

And then it let go. He fell to the ground, rolling and staggering back to his feet. What was this? The creature was shaking its head violently, backing up and shaking it again. It gave a now-familiar croaking cry, shambling erratically around the tunnel, bashing into the walls as it went. A trembling seized it and it fell, shuddering, then lay still.

Ian stood, trembling a bit himself. He pulled in his breath and tried to calm down. What had happened? Was it dead? Why? His hand went to his vest. The tree-urchin! The creature had been attached to his vest and now it was gone! He edged up closer to the thing on the floor, but it didn't move. Coming around its head he could now see the urchin-thing, half-crushed, its spines firmly embedded in the snout. Both creatures appeared to be dead. He curled his previously-poked hand reflexively.

"It's dead," a soft, slightly creaky voice came to him. "It would have taken us!"

He looked up to find the nearly camouflaged native woman had edged nearer to him, the smaller black-and-white one, apparently a child, still held by one of her hands. Ian nudged the carcass with his shoe. "Yes…I'm glad it didn't." He pointed to the dead tree-urchin. "Are those poisonous?"

They didn't answer the question, both were just looking at him with wide eyes. He wondered if they might be in some kind of shock. "You must be from the pod," the woman ventured. "The pod they found above. You're like the other they found."

"Like who?" Ian asked, brightening with hope. "You've seen another person like me? He has white hair, doesn't move too fast?"

"Yes! We have him safe. We didn't want him to be left to…" The child was reaching out a curious hand to the urchin's spines where they stuck out from the snout. She pulled the hand back. "Don't touch!"

"Can you take me to him?"

She swayed from side to side in a gesture he didn't quite understand then turned and led the way, abandoning the carcass without another glance.

Ian followed, offering a reassuring smile to the silent child who kept looking back at him. He glanced back at the bulk in the tunnel behind them. "What about that, uh, dead…thing? Shouldn't we let someone know about it?"

She glanced back. "The other scavengers will take it away."

"Scavengers? Take it where?"

"Outside," she said. "They will pull it outside, where all the dead go."

"Ah," he said, not really understanding. He tried to let it be, but it niggled at him. After a moment he couldn't help but ask again. "So, these scavengers… are they, uh, much larger than that thing was?"

She glanced at him curiously. "They are the same. That was an adult."

"They're the same kind of creature, then?"

"That was one of the scavengers. Haven't you been warned? They come for the weak, both the young and the old." She spoke in a way that was familiar to him as a school-teacher, the presenting of something a student should have known if they'd been paying attention.

"Ah," he said again, his mind already worrying about the girls wherever they were.

They continued down the tunnel for some distance and though Ian didn't see much in the way of landmarks, she suddenly slowed and turned. "Here," she said, entering a smaller room-like area off to the side. He started to follow her but she stopped so suddenly he almost ran right into them. Ian craned his neck, looking around the empty room curiously.

The native woman turned to him, her thin brown hands fluttering around her face. "He's gone!"

"What? He was here? The Doctor?"

"He can't have gone far. Poor little one! And here, his parent was so close!"

This statement made no sense at all. He blinked at her and wondered if some of their native children had perhaps gone missing along with the Doctor, not that he could picture the old man playing either nursemaid or Pied Piper. Or maybe she was referring to this child here? "Well, if they're with him, they'd be all right. He's very resourceful," he vaguely comforted her.

She was looking down at the child she still held by the hand. Ian gave her what he hoped was a reassuring pat on the arm. "Look. You stay here. I'll go find them. You said those scavengers are only looking for children or weak people, right?"

"Yes..."

"Well, one of the people I'm looking for was a young one," he said, thinking of Susan. "And another was an old man, so I better get going."

"But we found your old ones also," she offered as he turned to leave.

"What? Old ones?"

"We found them, they were starving, I am told, not well and so very, very old! But many of the people have been turning old before their time. They weren't taken above, they were taken to absorb."

This statement only served to confuse him further. "Well, I don't know if they're anyone I know but thanks… er, now if you'll excuse me, I think I need to catch up with the Doctor. Which way do you think he would've gone?"

The woman looked at him blankly, but the oddly coloured youngster gestured the other way down the tunnel they'd just left, then suddenly reached up to him. He leaned closer; the child, to his surprise, significantly tapped the side of his nose. Ian grinned. Yes, the Doctor had been here.

"Many thanks!" Ian said as he strode away. "If he comes back, let him know I'm looking for him, will you?" Why had the Doctor been with them, and why had he left? What were these old ones she kept talking about? He trotted down the dim brown corridor, watching for any sign of his friends, any sign at all. While it was a weight off his mind that there were not only intelligent natives around this place but also that they didn't seem to be hostile, he still had the all-too-recent image of that scavenger's sharp, hungry eyes in his memory. He desperately wanted to find Barbara.

. . .

The Doctor stood by the jumbled pile of cocoons and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The natives had gathered up the brittle remains of the nanny and carried it away with a sorrowful air; they'd apparently had far too many such incidents lately. They were taking the remains outside, apparently to give them up to the local scavengers; not quite a civilized burial, some might say, but he'd certainly seen stranger things.

After a moment, he bent and picked up a small fragment that had fallen from the body as they'd lifted it. He turned it in his fingers.

"If I didn't know better, I would think it was mere pottery," he muttered to himself. "What an unusual species. Not clay, no, more like a dried, hm, plant-matter. And what do plants eat, hm? What keeps them flexible and young? Sap, that's what."

He pocketed the fragment and leaned back against the wall, nudging the cocoons with his toe. The cocoon pods that were supposed to 'stop' this unusual aging process. He leaned down and poked at the soft cocoon lining. "So, what does it give infants? Immunity, the most logical thing. Yes, yes. Hm. Mother's milk, if you will. Could be. If there was something in their food supply that no longer met the need…or, perhaps more likely, something blocking it… an infection in their foodsource?"

Muttering, he carefully pulled out several bits of the pod-lining and added that to his pocket as well. He leaned back against the wall again, pensively smoothing his hair with a hand.

"I think I should very much like to find out where this sap is coming from. Yes. Yes, that's just the thing!"

. . .

Barbara pulled her now-stiffened skirt fabric away from her mouth as the mist finally settled once again. She looked over at Susan who had her eyes shut, her hand still keeping the filtering fabric in place.

"It's stopped again," she said. Susan peeled the fabric away from her face then gave an unhappy little cry.

"What is it?" Barbara asked with concern.

"My eyes! I closed them and now this horrible stuff has gummed them shut!" Susan rubbed at her eyes with the palms of her hands and gave a little sob. "And my hands are so sticky. I hate this place, Barbara!"

"I know," soothed Barbara. "Just keep working at it, gently. There, that's one eye. Don't be rough…just your palms…"

Susan gave a shaky little laugh. "I think my tears washed them open," she said. She turned her newly reopened gaze upward and Barbara could see her eyelashes all gummed into little points framing her dark eyes. She lifted a hand to the netting and gave it another push, the only result being that her fingers now stuck to the ropy strands. She yanked them back off and leaned against the side unhappily.

Barbara was thinking. "You know how they kept smoothing out our dresses? I was just thinking about them, themselves and what they looked like." She plucked at the gaily-coloured once-filmy dress she wore. "What if they think this is our skin?"

"Our skin?" Susan echoed uncomprehending at first. Then she nodded. "Yes! I see. But why this sticky mist? They aren't trying to glue it back down, are they?"

"True. That would seem a little strange," Barbara agreed. "You'd think they would bandage us or something if they thought our skin was coming off. Oh well," she sat back again. "It seemed to make sense for a minute, whatever this is supposed to be doing."

"Whatever it's supposed to be doing, it isn't doing it - unless the point is to make us sticky," Susan observed wryly. "I just wish I knew where Grandfather is."

"I'm right here, my dear!" the Doctor's voice suddenly said. His head popped up over the edge of their enclosure, startling them both.

"Grandfather!" Susan cried happily.

"Doctor, where's Ian?" Barbara asked. "Is he with you?"

"What? Chesterton? Not at all, but I'm sure he's fine. Probably went back to the TARDIS," the Doctor said, deftly examining the edges of their 'nest'. "And it looks like you should've stayed there also, as I suggested. How did you end up down here? Wandering off? Kidnapped?"

"We tried to find you," Susan began.

"And fell into a hole?"

"Why, yes! How did you know?" Susan asked with some astonishment.

"Because I did too." He continued around the nest. "Very efficient. Most interesting. I assume you've met our hosts?"

"If you mean the people who put us in here, yes," Barbara said. "Can you get us out?"

"A distinct possi…possibility. Hm." He went to one of the nearby posts. "These are what brought me here," he said, tapping one with an air of triumph. "Roots!"

"Roots?" Barbara asked. She tried to get to her knees, grabbing the netting to balance so she could see what he was doing.

"Yes. I've a theory about the people here. Battling some kind of disease, really most unusual. They're symbiotic with the trees, see? Absorb sap right into their skin, most amazing thing. Don't eat it, just rub it in. I suspect this disease is coming through their food supply, so I thought I would see if I could trace just where that sap comes from."

"Sap?" Barbara and Susan looked at one another.

Susan pushed up against the netting. "So you weren't looking for us?"

"Oh no, though I'm most delighted to find you, my dear girl, most delighted. Of that I assure you. And Barbara also!" He tapped the pale post-root, tilting his head as if listening to it, then came back over to them. "It is merely good old-fashioned serendipity, but who are we to complain when it works in our favor?"

. . .

"Doctor? Doctor!" Ian called yet again. A small number of the camouflaged natives had watched him pass with wide eyes but little comment, though their habit of blending in with the walls had made him about jump out of his skin more than once. None of them seemed to understand who or what he was looking for until he mentioned children. This brought a spark of understanding, and an escort of sorts; the native had led him to a strange chamber with a pile of grey-white things that looked for all the world like empty cocoons.

"But no one's here! I need to find the Doctor!" he told his escort.

The native looked at him blankly. "The child was here when the old one died. We carried it out."

Ian whirled on him, his heart in his throat. "Died? What do you mean this 'old one' died?" he demanded.

The native stepped back from the force of his words. "The old one died, we carried it out," he repeated. "Many have been dying…"

"You mean this place has some kind of plague? Where did you carry him? What happened?" His thoughts whirled between disbelief and shock. What would they do if the Doctor was gone? How would they ever even get home, if the others were even alive?

The native again stepped back away from him, its arms raised as if afraid he would strike it. "I don't understand," he said. "We only carried the old one, not the one called Doctor. She was very old, many are old too soon."

"She?" Ian said and his shoulders sagged in relief. "This old one was a woman? One of your own females?"

"Yes," the native said, still wary of him.

"And you carried her out. What about the Doctor?"

"He remained here, it is safest here. The pods help stop the dying."

"But he isn't here now. Where's he gone?"

"He was here," the native repeated. "That is all I know. He should have stayed with his pod."

Ian gave an impatient shake of his head, dismissing the unfamiliar words. "Then I'll just have to find him myself."

It wasn't long, however, before he was seriously wondering if he should have been more aggressive about asking for their help in finding his lost companion, these same brown tunnels just seemed to run on forever.

He zigzagged along, trying to check each sub-passage, alcove or crevice. A slightly larger one opened up to his left and he ducked through the ragged curtain of fibers to check it, pausing to consider a strange, pale cream post that rose up from the floor and disappeared into the fibers of the ceiling. Curious, he took a couple steps further in.

The floor gave way beneath his feet, pulling apart like a wad of old grasses. Ian stumbled back in surprise; there was no purchase. His flailing hands scrabbled with futility at the ragged hole as he vanished with a slither and a yelp into the unknown.