TERRAFORM

THIRTEEN

It was dark.

Pitch black.

And totally silent.

Rose waited for her eyes to adjust; when they didn't, she called out: "Doctor!"

"Here," was the answer, followed by, "Wil?"

"Yes."

"And Jack?"

"Yep."

After a respectful pause, Rose spoke up again, "Doctor, what has happened?"

"I don't know."

"Can you find out?"

"Shush! I'm listening!"

Rose waited as long as she could.

"Doctor, do you think we could have a little light?"

"What? Right! Yes, hold on."

A tiny blue light appeared, floating ethereally in the dark.

"Doctor?" the blue light illuminated Rose's face. "Is the TARDIS okay?"

The beam refocused below his face, shining upwards. "She is. She's working very hard at the moment."

"Doctor," the light shined on Wil, who had moved to the console and was looking down. "The manipulator has found a black hole. It's telling me, it's saying that it is now fully powered and it's asking for instructions."

After a moment's consideration The Doctor provided one: "Tell it to assist the TARDIS with life support."

Wil heard the instruction and never doubted the fact that she could execute it; still, she had absolutely no idea precisely how she'd managed it. Nevertheless, a moment later the console lit up, the control room lights came on, warm air started gently circulating, and, very softly, a Bach violin sonata began playing in the background.

"Sweet," observed Jack. "Where are we?"

The Doctor had spun towards the display and was fiddling with a few buttons. "We're there. I can confirm we're orbiting a black hole. All the correct indicators are present: accretion disk, gas jets, and radiation emissions; the TARDIS confirms what the manipulator has told us.

"The gravitational attraction between the black hole and my ship is exactly equal to our centrifugal force. Ha! We're in a perfect circular orbit!"

In her mind, Wil clearly saw the massive black hole, the event horizon at the outer edge, and the point-like singularity at the center. She felt the fantastic acceleration the TARDIS required to maintain its elegant orbit.

Wil voiced what she'd seen in her mind's eye. "It is a rotating black hole, something we'd not realized previously…

"The rotation may be the cause of the very high energy gamma rays, but I don't know that for sure."

All three were looking at her as she stood with her eyes closed.

"The rotation distorts spacetime inside the event horizon even more than we expected. I don't believe this significantly impacts our plan.

"Oh," she opened her eyes and looked down at the console, "the manipulator is waiting for further instructions."

"Right!" said the Doctor, "time to get to work! Rose, Wil: life signs. Jack, take it off."

"Well, Doctor!"

"Jack, that's not what I meant."

"Aw, that's what you always say."