"This is insane."
He can't make a reply, bolts from the speeder's heat shield in his mouth, but Clara has his back.
"Not insane," she says lightly, "Dangerous and difficult, but definitely not insane."
Elara gives her a scornful look. "You've never even been out on the ice-field. What can you know about it?"
"I trust the Doctor. If he says this can work, this can work."
The ringing endorsement, however complimentary, should mean nothing to this stranger. Instead, she looks chagrined. "I never said I didn't trust him."
He takes the final bolt out of his mouth. "Ladies, please," he says, "You're embarrassing me."
This earns him a withering look from both of them, and Elara retreats back to her corner of the cargo bay, to repack her gear for the umpteenth time. Unperturbed, he installs the final bolt to the retrofitted speeder and steps back so Clara can admire his handiwork.
"Ta-da."
"And this'll work?" Clara checks. She runs a hand over the rough insulation material he has added.
He raises his eyebrows at her concern. "I thought you trusted me?"
"Shut up. Explain to me how it's going to stop us getting eaten."
"The Wyrms hunt by sensing the heat of other living creatures. They're not fussy; anything warm will do. I've seen the really big ones take down ships that dropped too low over the ice."
"So, the shield reduces the heat from the speeder meaning we can slip by unnoticed?"
He should just nod. Nod and agree with her summary. She doesn't need to know the details. They'll only worry her unnecessarily. But his stupid mouth seems to have run on without his brain. "Relatively."
"What does that mean?"
"What I said. Relatively unnoticed."
"Relative to what, exactly? Doctor! Tell me the truth."
"Relative to an unshielded speeder," he confesses, "It means we shouldn't draw Wyrms to us, but if we happen to cross one tunnelling under the ice they might still be able to sense us."
"And what happens if they sense us?"
He makes a snapping movement with his hands. "Dinner."
She lets out a long breath, shaking her head. "Beginning to think Elara might have had a point."
"We're not driving blind," he reassures her, picking up another piece of technology he has quickly patched together. "Portable seismometer. Will let us know if there's anything headed for us."
Antares appears at the head of the bay, descending down the stairs to the cargo floor with the Pale Man and a Faceless segment of Multiple in step behind. He nods to them both. "Time to suit up."
This time the Doctor pulls on his own thick orange survival suit to match Clara's. As well as welcome insulation from the cold, it might help protect from the Wyrms' thermoceptors.
"We're in position," calls the Pale Man.
The Wray cannot fly too close to the ice-field, its shields and engines will draw the Wyrms. Their only safe option is to drop down from height.
For a given value of safe, anyway.
The doors groan ominously and blinding light spills suddenly into the bay, the howl of the wind shrieking around them.
"Move out!" shouts Antares, gunning his speeder.
"Remember!" the Doctor calls across to Clara, "Lots of speed, and keep the nose up!" He can't see her expression behind goggles and facemask, but he does see her nod before she follows the Captain out of the door. Hoping he can follow his own advice, he pulls back the throttle on his machine and launches himself after her.
There is a moment of eerie calm, the featureless expanse of snow seeming to accelerate up towards him. Then the speeder makes ground with a bone jarring thud. He roars after Clara, following in the tracks laid down by Antares on-point.
The seismometer remains reassuringly steady as they speed across the snow plain. They are making for the old research base, in the hope it will offer some clue as to what Alya's kidnappers could possibly be doing on the Juntha field. It is snowing by the time they reach the perimeter fence.
"Pretty impressive!" shouts Clara, barely audible over the wind.
The fence is nine feet high above the ground and bites down deep into the snow and ice, probably as tall again below ground. Razor wire is woven throughout, while intermittently spaced indicator bulbs topping the upright poles suggest it was also once electrified.
"Not impressive enough!" replied Antares, indicating the collapsed section ahead. They pilot the speeders through the resulting gap and see the base proper for the first time.
It was presumably a symmetrical tower once, a sleek cylinder that calls to mind a Saturn V rocket rather than then usual space-base architecture of hastily slapped together units. The University of Kairos branding on the shell is still just visible through a thick layer of ice. Something has torn a chunk out of the middle section. Huge icicles suspend from what used to be floors and ceilings, now left hanging in mid-air and exposed to the ferocious elements.
The airlock at the tower base is open, a thick drift of snow blown into the corridor beyond. They park the speeders just inside, hoping the relative cover will stop them being buried by the wind-whipped snow while they explore. Inside, the base it is still deathly cold and pitch dark, but the howling wind at least is quieter. He drops his hood. Some tiny, primitive part of him wants all his senses available, not muffled by inches of insulation. Clara does the same. Without any word of command from Antares they have formed a defensive huddle.
"What happened?" Clara whispers, back to back with him. She has produced a small torch from her pocket. The thin beam of light reveals only empty corridor.
"Someone got careless," Antares whispers back, "Didn't deice the perimeter fence when they should. Shorted out, and the Wyrms got in."
"There's nothing on the seismometer," he says, not quite sure who he is reassuring with this fact. "We should split up. Cover more ground, spread the heat more thinly."
"Good idea. Keep in radio contact. Doctor, if you hear the slightest peep out of that seismometer, you let us know."
They edge away left down the corridor until they reach a diverging fork. Clara gives him a determined sort of look and takes the right hand branch; he keeps left. Peering through the frosted windows of the abandoned laboratories he sees nothing of particular interest in the first few rooms. The fifth door, labelled as a student dormitory, he almost overlooks. He has already walked past by the time his brain makes sense of what his eyes have seen. He stops, spins; checks to make sure he isn't imagining things.
He isn't. There are fingerprints on the icy handle, almost but not quite frozen over again. Someone−a warm, probably human someone−has opened the door recently. A quick scan with the screwdriver reveals nothing untoward behind.
He opens the door and steps inside.
They left in a hurry; all beds unmade, personal effects scattered and photographs pinned to the walls. Still, the mess in the room seems a little extreme, even considering the occupants were students. Someone has been searching through their odds and ends, rifling through the drawers and wardrobes without troubling to tidy up after themselves.
There's little point in looking for something that, if found, the original searchers probably took away with them. Ask not: what were they looking for? The better question is: what's missing?
His first instinct is to radio Clara, who he feels is likely to have more insight into what young students are likely to have stored in their dorm. His fingers stay half-way to the call button, eyes on a montage of grinning faces.
Three people, all clad in silvery survival suits, smiling at him underneath a thin coating of frost. Arms entwined, they are posing in front of a huge wall of glittering ice; positioned so a convenient halo of darker greys in its matrix encircle the friends. He reaches up, plucks the photograph from the wall. On the back, in looping writing, someone has written a caption.
Intrepid explorers! First day on Linnaeus Site 17.56.91. Macha, Ingrid and Zole.
He presses the button on his radio. "I know where they've gone."
"Don't leave us in suspense, then," transmits Clara after a beat.
"The Linnaeus Site. Do you know where that is?"
A crackle. Antares speaks. "I'm in the control room. The Linnaeus Site is marked on their dig map. Co-ordinates 67-42-376. What makes you think they went there? Their reports say it wasn't very promising."
"They missed something."
"Something like what?" Elara cuts in. "Just tell us, Doctor."
"I think they found another Gate."
There is a moment of stunned silence, interrupted by a soft beep. His eyes flicker to the seismometer, which beeps again. He gives it a surreptitious shake, just in case. The reading remains stable.
"Captain? We have another problem."
