Chapter Seven: Calling For Help
The Doctor was, as usual, talking to himself as he moved around the console room. It had been three months since he'd last said goodbye to his companions—this time, several of them—and he'd kept moving almost constantly since, to keep his mind off his losses. Activity, he'd long ago figured, was the best cure for grief. Well, not a cure so much, but a distraction.
Talking of distractions …
He jumped almost out of his skin as Martha's old mobile rang. Ignoring the pang that it caused, the Doctor picked it up. He didn't recognise the number, and he pressed the green button, curious.
"Hello?"
"Doctor?"
"Sarah Jane?" he said, recognising her voice. "Hello. This is a nice surprise."
"I don't know about 'nice'," she said, and now he realised she sounded close to tears. "I didn't know what else to do—I need help, Doctor; your help."
Within two minutes, the Doctor was crouched in the drive of Number Thirteen, Bannerman Road, bleeping his sonic screwdriver. "Well, it can't have been a regular teleport. I can't reverse it. Did you actually see what happened?"
"I only glimpsed the last millisecond or so," Sarah Jane said. "But I definitely saw him fade, and a blue light."
"Sounds like a teleport."
"If it was a regular one, Mr Smith could have reversed it—I wouldn't have called for you. But he reckons it took Luke into another time, and … and he can't reverse that. You're the time expert, so …"
"You were right to call." The Doctor stood up. "Well, I'm getting some interesting energy readings."
"Meaning?"
"Mr Smith's hunch is definitely correct. Luke's been moved to another time. The question is, when, where, and by whom."
"That's three questions," Sarah Jane said as they headed up to the attic.
"We need to narrow it down. Has anything odd happened lately? What am I saying, this is Ealing … Has there been anything Luke-related?"
"Well … he's been dreaming."
The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Something specific?"
"Yes, but for Luke to dream is rare enough in itself—it's only happened once, and the dream turned out to mean something."
"Could you elaborate?"
"His … for lack of a better word, creator—he was grown from multiple human DNA samples—we all thought dead. Then one night he dreams of her; next thing we know, she's out of the woodwork and coming for him."
"I see." The Doctor thought this over. "Could be he has a trace of psychic energy as a by-product of how he was made; or one of the people whose DNA he was grown from had some to pass on. What about the recent dreams, then?"
"He's been dreaming of a planet—a real one." Sarah Jane stopped in front of the computer. "Mr Smith, please show the Doctor Fradox."
"Fradox, hmm?" the Doctor said, looking at the images Mr Smith put up.
"You know it?"
"I know of it; never been. There was some kind of civilisation there in the Dark Times; as far as I was aware it's not been occupied since. A human might survive there for a while, but the weather is extreme and the Shadow Proclamation ruled it Unsafe for visitors. It will have been blocked off by a force field."
"Just because the weather's bad?"
"No, no. I don't know why they blocked it off—I've never been privy to that information. My best guess is, it looks a lot friendlier than it is. And considering it's mostly desert, it doesn't look all that friendly to begin with."
A short silence fell. "You think Luke's there, don't you," Sarah Jane said quietly.
"He has to be somewhere. And this is the only clue we have."
"So how do we find him?"
The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not certain. The problem is, if there's a force field, getting the TARDIS to the planet is going to be tricky, if not impossible. However, if Luke's there then there must be some flaw in the force field to have allowed the teleport. Perhaps between myself and Mr Smith, we can track a route …"
"Whoa." It was Jenny's turn to stop suddenly.
The trees, a moment ago growing so tightly together, had come to an end. Before them lay a clearing at least a mile long and half a mile wide. Most of it was simply wild grass, brown from the merciless suns, but there was a large area of shrubbery, and the river—at least, Jenny assumed it was the same one—pooled into a small lake before continuing on its path eastwards.
"Those bushes look hopeful," Luke said.
"Sorry?"
"I'm gonna look for things we can use. Why don't we split up, try and cover more ground?"
Jenny hesitated, and Luke added, "I don't mean split up, like, miles apart. I just mean you take one side and I take the other."
"Oh, good," she said in relief. "Yeah, 'course."
She hadn't got far when she glanced away from the bushes and thought she saw something glinting in the air. She paused, squinting, and there it was again. Not so much a glint. More of a shimmer. And a tiny one at that.
Jenny kept her eyes firmly on the spot, slowly reaching into her pocket for the knife. She flicked the blade open, took aim, and threw with deadly accuracy.
With a lot of bright sparks, something fell out of the sky and rolled over the ground, stopping almost at her feet. Jenny crouched down to get a better look. "LUKE!"
Running footsteps announced his arrival. "What?"
"This was cloaked in the sky." She pointed. "What do you think it is?"
"I dunno." Luke dropped to his knees beside her. "Definitely man-made. It's the first man-made thing we've seen here."
"I think …" Jenny picked up the fallen knife and used it to prod the object. It looked like a black glass ball, though the outer shell had shattered, revealing glimpses of wires inside. "It looks like … Whoa." She dropped the knife and withdrew sharply.
"What?" Luke scurried over, looking fearful—probably thinking by her reaction that it was a bomb or something. "What is it?"
"I think it might be a camera. A 360 degree lens camera. We're being watched."
Luke swallowed nervously. "You think it's still recording?"
"I dunno. Even if it isn't, there's got to be more around."
Luke pulled his makeshift 'hammer' out of his pocket. Jenny grabbed his arm. "Hang on. Don't destroy it yet." An idea was starting to form.
"Why not?"
She knelt back down, picked up the camera and started taking it apart, piece by piece.
"Do you know what you're doing?"
"I think so."
"That's comforting."
"The camera has to transmit its information somewhere. If I can re-wire it, get it to send it somewhere else, we might be able to send out an SOS."
"Oh yeah, and then what? Wait around for centuries for the human race to develop advanced enough space travel to find us?"
Jenny gave Luke a funny look. She hesitated. Then she said slowly, "Luke, what's the date?"
"Third of March—I think," he answered. "Assuming I woke up the same day I got transported here. I was supposed to go on my school trip."
"I meant, the year."
"2008, why?"
"Ah," Jenny said quietly. "I don't think we were just taken across space."
"What do you mean?"
"We've been taken out of time as well. At least, one of us has."
Luke frowned. "I don't understand."
"I'm from the sixty-first century."
Luke's mouth fell open. "You're from the future?"
"You're from the past," Jenny countered.
There was a long pause. "So, I don't suppose humans in your time …?"
"Oh, they've got the tech for space travel, easily. But getting whichever of us—or both—is out of our time, back to it … that's going to be harder. Twenty-first century … your lot haven't even acknowledged the existence of aliens yet, have you?"
"Sort of," Luke said. "There've been lots of very public invasions lately, but most people seem to want to convince themselves it's due to hallucinations or something."
Jenny laughed. "I wouldn't mind seeing your time for myself, it sounds interesting."
"Well, if we found a way of time travel, you could always visit," Luke blurted out.
She smiled. "I'd like that. The visiting, I mean. As for finding time travel …" She paused. "Maybe I should try and contact my father."
"Would he be able to help?"
"He's a Time Lord. Time travel is, well, I guess it's second nature for him."
Luke's mouth fell open. "A Time Lord? Really? You … you're a Time Lady?"
"I'm an echo," Jenny said, trying to shrug it off but not quite succeeding. Luke frowned. "And he thinks I'm dead, but if we can get through to him—" She frowned. "Hang on a second, you've heard of Time Lords?"
"My mum used to travel with one," Luke said. "Although …" He paused. "I'm pretty sure there's only one left, now. The Doctor."
Jenny nodded. "That's Dad."
"Seriously? The Doctor's your father?"
"Yep. Have you met him?"
"No, but I've heard all about him from Mum. She travelled with him for years. Now, she protects Earth from our attic in Ealing. I and my friends help—"
Jenny put a hand over his mouth, and he stopped. "Hold on." She removed it. "Are you telling me, your mum protects Earth?"
"Yeah. There's aliens out there as afraid of her as they are of your dad," Luke said proudly. "Why?"
"Well, don't you see it? That's it. That's why we're here; of all the people in the universe, in all of time, why you and I were brought here. That's what links us."
"Our parents," Luke said.
"Yeah. So what would happen if we send out that help message? What would they do?"
There was a pause. "Come after us."
"Exactly." Jenny lowered her hand, looking him solemnly in the eye. "They'd come here. It's a trap. We're …"
"Bait," Luke whispered.
Jenny nodded.
TBC …
