Chapter 7
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Ian's heart hammered in his chest as he fell, scrabbling through the floor into a chamber below. Not knowing what to expect, he hit the floor, rolled and tried to come back to his feet even as he struggled to orient himself.
The room he was in was larger than the one he'd fallen from, the light dimmer but he could see well enough to recognize the black-coated figure on the other side.
"Doctor! What are you doing here?" he cried out with astonishment.
The Doctor turned and considered him. He didn't seem surprised to see Ian at all. "Ah, there you are, Chesterton. I wondered where you'd got off to."
Ian was flabbergasted. "Where I'd gone off to? You're the one who disappeared!" he grumbled. He rubbed his head and looked up at the hole in the ceiling only to find it had already closed back up. He was still feeling shaky. "I've been trying to find you!"
"Silly thing to do. You should've gone back to the TARDIS."
"I did! It was locked!"
The Doctor took out a handkerchief and absently rubbed his fingers on it. "Was it now? How odd."
"We locked it," Susan put in apologetically from inside their nest. "But we didn't know you would be so hard to find either."
Ian startled. "Susan? Whatever are you doing in there? And Barbara!" His face lit up as he ran over to them. "Are you all right? How did you get in there?"
"They were apparently put there for safe-keeping," the Doctor remarked.
Ian felt his way around the enclosure, tugging at the thick net ineffectually. "How does this open?"
"What happened to your hand?" Barbara asked, noticing the one still bound about with his handkerchief.
He paused and considered his half-forgotten injury. "I had a bit of a surprise run-in with a sort of urchin."
"An urchin? Like a sea-urchin?" Barbara asked, confused.
"More like a tree-urchin," he said. "Spiny little thing on the trees. I tried to climb one and slipped; ended up with spines in my hand." He turned to the Doctor. "I wanted to ask you about that. I think the spines might have been poisonous."
The Doctor glanced up at him from something orange in his hands and frowned. "Poisonous? Why do you say that?"
"Because a scavenger dropped dead as soon as it got a snoutful of that urchin's spines."
"That certainly sounds poisonous. Very observant, Chesterton."
"But I also had those same spines in my hand."
"What?" The Doctor looked up again, this time with a mixture of interest and concern. "Just now?"
"No, like I said, back when I first found it. I pulled them out but my entire hand went numb."
"Is it still numb?"
"No," he flapped it experimentally. "It wore off. A bit like Novocain, I guess."
"Novocain…" the Doctor mumbled then shook a finger at him. "Ah. Procaine hydrochloride, you mean. You really ought to call things what they are, by their proper names. Especially being a chemistry teacher. Brand names are unnecessarily confusing."
"It was general science…," Ian began.
"What are you nattering on about? Chemistry is science. You taught a," he twiddled his fingers in the air. "…simplistic sort of science, didn't you?"
Ian looked annoyed. "Well, yes, if you want to call it simplistic, but…"
"Now. That hand. It wore off you say?"
"…Yes."
"Hm!" the Doctor snorted. "Well, it must not be poisonous then, at least not to you. Incompatible with your metabolism. Or perhaps the toxin continues to pump only as long as the spines are in place? How intriguing. If you see another one, do let me know."
Ian flexed the hand in question. "So I shouldn't be concerned about poison."
"If you were poisoned, you would know it, my boy."
"Never been before," Ian said, barely reining is his sarcasm." How would I know?"
The Doctor glanced at him. "I suppose you'd know by falling over dead, like Socrates. What an inconvenience that would be, hm? Now enough of that nonsense!" He waved a hand at him. "We need to get these girls away from this unwelcome force-feeding, so to speak, and I have work to do." He slipped something back into his pockets and joined Ian in examining the woven enclosure.
"Force-feeding? What is this place anyway?" Ian asked, he reached through a gap in the netting and took one of Barbara's hands in his own.
The Doctor's eyes followed the arc of the rounded room. "Hm, yes. It's the, eh, phloem of the plant, you might say. The straw that it pulls the living sap through. Surely you're familiar with this?"
"Of course I am," Ian said, viewing his surroundings with new eyes. "But on such a scale! Why it must be the largest plant ever."
The Doctor tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Yes, half a mile thick at the very least, and I should think considerably deeper, growing to cover the entire planetary surface!" he briskly rubbed his hands together. "A most fascinating horticultural project."
"Where's all of the sap, then?" Barbara wondered. "Shouldn't we be drowning in it if this is the phloem?"
"Deeper down, far beneath our feet," the Doctor said. "It stands to reason the entire network erodes away as time passes and the new layer becomes their home."
Susan nodded. "So these natives live in the bark, literally!"
"You could say that. And," he added with an ironic smile, "As you, my dear, have discovered, not all of the sap is missing."
"Sap! No wonder it's so sticky," complained Susan.
"Yes, well, the natives seem to, hm, soak it up. A bit like those lotions and other whatnot that you prefer but it isn't cosmetic. It meets their nutritional needs. Except it doesn't seem to soak into, hm, into us."
"I'll say!" Barbara agreed, peeling her hand away from Ian's and trying to get her fingers back apart.
He gestured at the cream-coloured posts. "They seem to be using the, the sap dissipation from these xylem here as a sort of therapeutic tool. A hospital room, if you like."
"Who would've thought of it," Ian said, absently rubbing his own sticky hand on his trousers as he went to inspect the surrounding posts.
"Don't get too close to those," warned Barbara. "They'll squirt you right in the face!"
He pulled back and grinned at her. "You sound like you'd like to see that. All right now, let's get you out of there." He came back to the nest-like cage and tugged at the tendrils that held the thick netting so firmly in place. "I wish I had a knife or something," he said. "Doctor, how are we going to get this off?"
"A knife wouldn't help you anyway, much too… But I do believe I have just the ticket. Come here, Chesterton." He followed the thickest grasping tendril with his hand, tracing it back to where it came from one of the walls. Glancing up to be sure he had Ian's attention, he gave it a firm rub and squeeze nearest to the wall. "Now look," he said, gesturing back to the nest.
The tendril gave a small undulation in response to his squeeze and then released, falling to the floor.
"What…some kind of reflex?" Ian said. "How did you figure that one out?"
"I was imprisoned for a time by the same device," he said, rubbing his lapel. "Or hobbled, rather. They are quite clever about such things, it takes an adult's strength, you see. I suppose they might also just keep the releasing end out of reach of the individual being held. Yes, quite a clever use of something that naturally occurs in their environment."
"I'll say. I'd like to try the next one," said Ian. "I've never seen plant-life that responds like that."
"Your own planet has some reflexive plants," the Doctor said. "Take your rather poorly named 'venus' fly-trap…"
"Excuse me, but we'd like out?" reminded Barbara impatiently.
"Of course," Ian said. "Doctor, you take that one and I'll take this one."
"Oh, yes."
In relatively short order the last of the tendrils fell free and they were able to tug the heavy netting aside. The Doctor reached in to help Susan as Ian offered a hand to Barbara.
"What happened to your shoe?"
"I lost it when we were in those tunnels," Barbara said gratefully climbing out.
"You're a regular Cinderella," Ian smirked.
"Only if you're a prince and happen to have it on hand," she said, poking him.
He pulled her into an embrace then held her out at arm's length again. "You are sticky!"
Barbara grinned at him, still just so relieved to be out and with him again. "They just kept spraying us with that stuff…at least it seems harmless enough."
"It's like treacle," said Susan who was feeling her stiffened hair. "All sweet. I can't wait to wash up!"
"Treacle?" Ian asked Barbara with a wicked twinkle in his eye. "Oh, you're both a sight. I can't wait to have you washed up either." He pulled Barbara into another sticky embrace. "Could you use some help?" he whispered.
She matched his wicked twinkle with her own. "Don't you wish…"
"Now, now!" the Doctor was saying. "Come along, we need to get back to the TARDIS. I have some items I want to analyze. Susan, look at you, child. Good heavens, your hair is sticking out like ah, er, what a time we've had." He nudged her just ahead of him, steering the way. "Up, turn to your right my dear…
"What are you analyzing?" Barbara asked as they made their way back up the sloping path.
"Mm? Forgive me, my dear, I was thinking. It seems the native population here is undergoing something of a plague."
"A plague?" Susan asked with alarm.
He reached out to give her shoulders a brief embrace. "Now, now. Nothing that would affect any of us! No, I suspect it is coming to them through a corruption in their food supply."
"And that would be the sap, then?" asked Barbara as they pushed their way through some hanging fibers. They all paused to orient themselves in the main passage.
"Yes, yes. Of course. They are a most interesting people. Now, look at this." He pulled from his pocket a small shard of orange material. "What would you guess this is?"
Barbara took it, turned it over and handed it to Ian. "A shard of pottery?"
Ian shrugged and handed it back to him. "There were bits of this stuff all over the place when I was looking for you. It looks like broken clay, though the texture is a bit different. What is it?"
"Not pottery, no, not at all," the Doctor said. "As I said, the natives of this planet are most unusual. They draw their substance from this, eh, world-encompassing plant much as leaves do. And when they cannot take in that sap, like leaves they begin to change. They change in colour, grow brittle; they break easily and then rather quickly descend to death."
Barbara and Susan's eyes grew larger and Ian winced. "Then…" Susan hesitated, horrified, "those bit of crockery we saw were…"
"The remains of the deceased, yes."
He considered the shard in his hand. "This came from a native woman who died of that malady right before my eyes. I was too late to help her, but she did give me some ideas on how it might be cured." He pocketed the piece again.
"How awful," Barbara whispered. "I hope we haven't offended them. We had no idea."
"They don't seem to have any kind of formal interment," the Doctor said by way of comfort. "I shouldn't worry about that. But come, this way." He led them down the brown tunnel.
They passed a small number of natives, most standing by the walls and blending in with them so well they were nearly invisible. None tried to stop them, merely watching them go by with curiosity.
"Why do they stand there that way? Are they hiding?" Susan wondered.
"I expect it's more like they're having a bit of tea," the Doctor said. "All through these fibers there are places where the sap soaks through from the xylem. By staying near the walls, they're more likely to stay soft and flexible."
"They all came out at us before," Barbara noted. "Why are they leaving us alone now?"
"They have a strong social hierarchy," the Doctor explained as they passed yet another. "When I was alone, or when Barbara and Susan were alone, they were quick to protect us. Now we are left alone."
"Because there's four of us?" wondered Ian.
"Because you are wearing brown," the Doctor said. He looked over at Ian's blank expression. "Hoo hoo!" he chortled suddenly. "You didn't expect that, did you?"
"What's any of this have to do with how I'm dressed?"
"They are most sensitive to colour. Their children develop their pigmentation as they grown older. The young ones haven't the brown shades of the adults."
"I saw a child!" Ian exclaimed. "It was black and white! I thought it was strange…"
"Yes. Black and white. And what colour am I, would you say?"
A slow grin spread over Ian's face. "Black and white. They thought you were…"
"A child. Yes," he chuckled. "And they kept me in their nursery."
"So here I was thinking you'd gone off with some children, and it was you yourself who was the child," Ian shook his head.
"Really?" Susan asked. "Grandfather, a child?"
"And you," he said, pointing at his granddaughter. "You and Barbara are dressed in what colours?"
"Yellow, peach…gold…"
"And those are the colours of their elderly, or I suspect more recently, their infirm."
"So… we're old?" Susan asked.
"And in need of medical attention," he said.
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