Chapter 36.

The Text.

Grace departed the TARDIS into a tight, metal room. She felt immediately unsettled, like the floor had gone from under her, like she was drifting. She caught signs of metal all around, and the taste of it in the air. But the discomfort was hers alone. Her companions were airy and excited, as always, even in a little box like this.

The Doctor came out frowning, patting the TARDIS door. "I wonder what's wrong with her. She's sort of queasy. Indigestion. Like she didn't want to land."

Rose sympathized. "If you think there's gonna be trouble, we could always get back inside and go somewhere else."

They shared a look, and burst into laughter.

Rose nudged Grace. "No worries. Trouble is our specialty. Can be yours too, huh?"

It was easy to lose track of time inside the TARDIS, but Grace figured she had spent a few days with the Doctor so far. Just a few. And what had she seen already? A doomed town in 1851 and wish-granting mist? A museum with a Curator who wanted to collect her? And how many people had she killed? Eleven. That number stuck in her head.

When she got nudged, she tried a smile. "Uh, yeah, sure."

"You okay?" Rose, sometimes a lot more perceptive than the Doctor, must have noticed something in her eyes. She frowned, squeezing her shoulder. "You don't have to be used to it yet. It takes time. I know it can be a little… scary. And he doesn't notice."

The Doctor was already walking toward a door. "I think we've landed inside a cupboard."

Rose urged Grace on. "See? But we're both here with you."

Grace was not usually afraid of strange places – but this place seemed different. It felt different. She couldn't put her finger on it yet.

The Doctor was forcing a circular door handle open. He puffed out a breath, and as Grace and Rose got to him, the handle spun and the door depressurized with a soft whooshing sound.

When it opened, a robotic voice announced, "Open door 15."

The Doctor stepped out first, glancing around. "Some sort of base. Moon base, sea base, space base. They build these things out of kits."

The next room was hardly bigger than the first, and it had even more metal. Bolts held together pillars that sloped toward the ceiling. It was cramped and it smelled like oil. Grace tried to place the appearance and she came up with a submarine. The DME had dozens of pictures of them, and she remembered wondering why people would stuff themselves inside.

But the size was not the only unsettling thing about this hallway. It had thin metal walls and it sounded like the wind was pelting them. With biology as a major, she knew some properties of metal, but these metals felt strange. When she ran her fingers over them, she got the impression they came from far away. Refined and pressed and wedged into this place, tingling with the faintest magnetic field, itching to go back where they came from.

Rose was a little on edge. "Glad we're indoors. Sounds like a storm out there."

Grace leaned over the railing, peering at the wall as if a window would materialize. Did the storm have something to with the sensation of drifting? Or was it something more exciting?

"Do you think we're in space?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Very possible." He was at the next door, spinning the handle. "Just how 'bout if we see a window, we look out before we open it."

"Says the man blundering through every door he finds."

"You got me there. I love a good blundering!"

The voice came again. "Open door 16." The door gave a whoosh and let the three of them into a narrow walkway. More metal, only the walls were imprinted with patterns, and the railing kept them from straying off the grated floor. The walls were further away now, and the storm was louder. Fuzzy little lights dotted the ceiling.

The Doctor talked his whole way down, picking up a thought he must have dropped earlier. "Human design, you've got a thing about kits. This place was put together like a flat-pack wardrobe, only bigger and easier."

He said the strangest things sometimes.

Grace nudged rose. "What is that?"

"A flat-pack wardrobe? Uh, well, it's this thing I never used. See, organized people like to keep their clothes all… well, organized. I never saw the point in it."

"So it's like a dresser?"

"Sort of. More slots and things, but yeah."

"Why didn't he just say dresser?"

"I ask myself that question a lot. He likes hearing himself talk."

The Doctor looked back at them. "Oi, never tease the DTD. That's designated TARDIS driver."

Rose rolled her eyes so hard they might have gotten stuck up there. Grace laughed. He did like hearing himself talk. But she did, too. His accent was interesting, and he sometimes meandered, losing himself in his own strange mind. As they stood there, it was becoming clearer to her – the fiery cloud that was the Doctor. And Rose, crowding the hall with her warmth. She could feel their resting emotions, like a constant hum in her head.

The Doctor got the door open, and the voice announced, "Open door 17."

He looked thrilled, striding out into the open again. "Oh, it's a sanctuary base!"

Sanctuary. Grace filed in after him, and Rose shut the door. They were in a circular common room with a few yellow accessories – yellow tables and chairs, yellow stripes on the walls, yellow caution signs. The floor was made up of the same metal grids. It reminded her of a meeting room in the university, only grimier and colder.

And something was humming.

The Doctor roamed the room. "Deep-space exploration. We've gone way out. And listen to that. Underneath. Someone's drilling."

Drilling?

She could find some great rocks in that case, perhaps something never seen before. But how could they be drilling, when she got the sensation that they were drifting? She must have been woozy from traveling in the TARDIS.

Her eyes caught on the far wall, where the words 'Welcome to Hell' were written in black paint. Below them, gorgeous black script flowed downward like an Old East poem. For a moment she only appreciated the ascetic, the eerie warning, the oddity of what they had stumbled upon, but as she looked at the letters they began to shimmer.

Rose read the sign aloud.

The Doctor was alerted. "Oh, it's not that bad."

Rose laughed, turning him toward the letters. "No, over there."

A serious note entered the air. Grace felt the change just like the humming. His emotions, now so clear to her, began to roil like the storm outside. Curiosity. It dominated him. Rose reacted to it. Her warm glow lessened with a drop a fear, a strain of worry.

The Doctor ran to the writing. "Hold on." He stood before the scrawled words, gawking at them. "What does that say? That's weird. It won't translate."

"But I thought the TARDIS translated everything, writing as well." Rose joined him, giving Grace a glance over her shoulder. "I should see English. What do you see?"

Grace shook her head. "Just, fuzzy."

The Doctor was in his own head. "Not if it's not working, then it means… this writing is old. Very old. Impossibly old."

Just like the Lightbringers.

The Curator told her there were myths about them – that they had always been there. She rejected the thought outright, blaming it on her paranoia about what she had done, but the presence was stirring inside. It was curious. She was curious. The text on the wall could be from her people.

The Doctor stood. "We should find out who's in charge."

Grace went to the text as her companions went to the next door. She ran her fingers over the letters, squinting, trying to get the shimmering to stop. She saw bits and pieces of words, but it was incomprehensible. Her head began to ache.

The Doctor spun the next door handle. He was talking to Rose. "We've gone beyond the reach of the TARDIS's knowledge. Not a good move. And if someone's looking for-"

The door popped open and they both squealed.

Grace rushed up behind them, worried for the cold flashing inside. Fear. If someone was trying to hurt them – the two best people she had ever met – she was going to intervene.

There was an alien in the doorway. It looked like the humanoid version of a squid, with huge, dark, slanted eyes, pale, wrinkled up skin, and tentacles where its mouth should have been. It had a glowing orb gripped in one hand. There were two more aliens behind it.

The Doctor spoke quickly. "Right, hello. Sorry. I was just saying, nice place."

The creature spoke, and its orb glowed. "We must feed."

Her emotional field spread beyond the Doctor and Rose. She got an impression from the alien – a dim, dying flame. It felt nothing. It was nothing. She would not have believed it was even alive if it weren't standing right in front of her.

The Doctor responded to it. "You gotta what?"

"We must feed."

Rose grabbed his arm, forcing him away. "Yeah, I think they mean us!"

Grace backed into the center of the room. Behind them, other doors popped open, and more of the creatures approached, repeating those words in a sinister harmony. "We must feed. We must feed. We must feed."

They were backed into a corner. The Doctor had his screwdriver out, and Rose wielded one of the yellow chairs. Grace tried to awaken the green glow that had allowed her to defend herself at the museum, but the presence was suddenly absent. Grace huddled into the back, utterly useless, and looked for a weapon on the floor.

And then the aliens paused, within striking distance.

The one in front spoke. "We must feed…" He smacked the ball in his hand, making it rattle. Its light flickered. "…you, if you are hungry."

The Doctor dropped his defensive pose. "Sorry?"

"We apologize." The leader sounded serene. "Electromagnetics have interfered with speech systems. Would you like some refreshment?"

Grace nudged Rose. "The chair."

"Oh, right, sorry." She set it down.

The Doctor responded. "Um…"

"Open door 18."

On the platform above, one of the yellow doors opened. Three humans rushed out. In the lead was a man with glittering dog tags around his neck. He saw them, and the confident look on his face was wiped away. "What the hell…?"

He had his hand on his gun. Grace fixated on it as he came down the stairs.

"How did…?" He narrowed his eyes at them, flabbergasted. Grace began to feel what he felt, and he appeared as a lesser cloud of confusion and aggression. He spoke into a radio on his wrist. "Captain, you're not gonna believe this. We've got people. Out of nowhere. I mean, real people. I mean… three living people, just standing here right in front of me."

What an odd thing to say. Grace did not like the implication. She was a quick thinker, and the first thing that came to mind was that they were not in a place people commonly dropped into out of the blue, like the museum or the town in the past.

Another male voice crackled on the radio. "Don't be stupid, that's impossible."

"I suggest telling them that," Dog-tag man responded.

Rose butted out from behind the Doctor's shoulder. "But you're a sort of space base. You must have visitors now and then. It can't be that impossible."

Dog-tag man was baffled. "You telling me you don't know where you are?"

The Doctor, true to form, answered honestly, with a grin. "No idea. More fun that way."

A voice came over the intercom.

"Stand by, everyone. Buckle down. We have incoming, and it's a big one. Quake 0.5 on its way."

Dog-tag man ran for another door, turning the handle furiously. Veins popped out of his neck. "Through here!" He opened it, beckoning them. "Now! Quickly, come on! Move!"

While the others sprung to life, rushing toward the door, Grace remained. For a split second, and perhaps a second too long in this kind of situation, she stood transfixed. Her eyes caught on the writing. It was starting to make more sense now. It was a story. It was a horrible story.

The Doctor grabbed her and dragged her along, hissing, "What is it? Grace?"

"The letters…" Her voice was drowned out by the others' shouting.

He looked at her strangely, but there was no time to stop and talk.

They were led back into the narrow hallway. Steam burst from every pipe. Dog-tag man was yelling at them to keep going, barking orders even as sparks erupted in their path. Grace was suddenly overwhelmed by the sounds, and the feelings. Everyone was present now. The Doctor and Rose remained the strongest, but the three new people radiated fear. It was like the town square in New Fountain all over again – when the mist appeared, everyone ran to the center, and their panic disabled her. But the Doctor helped her. He had put his hands over her ears, and he said…

What did he say?

Listen to me. Only to me.

Grace took that advice again. She focused on the ball of fire, the most panicked and curious and excited of them all. He shut out all the rest, easily, because he was the brightest light.

At the end of the hall, they came into a control room. It had a central console like the TARDIS, and chairs around the walls of two levels. There were other humans there, all giving them the same wide eyes as Dog-tag man.

Another man with dog tags and black hair leaned on the console. "Oh, my God, you meant it."

Grace released her focus on the Doctor, finding more calm in this room than in the hallway. It must have been a safe place, to give the such quick relief. The Doctor gave her another strange look, and she had a second to wonder if he could feel her withdrawing.

A woman came up to them, gawking. "People! Look at that, real people."

The Doctor smiled. "That's us. Hurray!"

Rose was just as excited. "Yeah, definitely real. My name's Rose, Rose Tyler, this is Grace," she motioned back, "And this is the Doctor."

From one of the chairs in the back, a long-haired man spoke. "Come on, the oxygen must be offline." He got up, circling the new arrivals. "We're hallucinating. They can't be…" He tapped the Doctor on the shoulder. "No, they're real."

The one at the console waved him off. "Come on, we're in the middle of an alert. Danny, strap up, the quake's coming in. Impact in 30 seconds." People moved at his command, shuffling things around. "Sorry, you three, whoever you are, just hold on. Tight."

"Hold on to what?" Rose asked.

"Anything, I don't care, just hold on."

Grace turned, grabbing the door handle, and Rose and Doctor took opposite ends of a nearby railing. Beyond the weightlessness now was an eerie prickle in her neck. Quake. In outer space?

The man at the console, who seemed like the captain, spoke again, "Ood, are we fixed?"

One of the aliens responded. "Your kindness in this emergency is much appreciated."

The Doctor was alive with curiosity again. He looked all around them, far less worried than Rose and Grace about whatever was going to happen. "What's this planet called, anyway?"

A blonde woman responded from her chair. "Don't be stupid. It hasn't got a name. How could it have a name?" At his clueless expression, she went on, "You really don't know, do you?"

The captain shouted, "And impact!"

It was like someone took hold of the ground and shook it right from under her feet. Grace lost her hold on the door and fell, and Rose tumbled on top of her.

The Doctor was still standing. "Oh, well, that wasn't so bad-"

It shook much more violently the second time. Grace dug her fingers into the grate on the floor and got an arm around Rose, who threatened to wobble away. When the shaking relented, she lurched up for the door to help her stand, and it cracked opened.

It whooshed as the pressure changed.

Deep inside, the presence stirred.

She felt the words in the other room, just like she felt the people in this one. But the words did not have a cloud, or a light, or even a flicker – they were cold. Dark. Hungry. Grace looked through the gap in the door, back down the hall, and almost thought she could see them drifting in the air. She couldn't read it, but somehow she knew it was a story. It said something terrible.

Grace got out from under Rose and slipped outside. She got halfway down the hallway before a shooting pillar of steam startled her.

She stared at the yellow door at the end, the last thing between her and the writing. But she hesitated. Did she really want to know what it said? She knew it was terrible without even reading it. What could it accomplish? The Doctor himself could not translate it. If he knew that she could, he might see through her. He might figure out what she was.

He might hate her for it.

The door behind her popped open and he stuck his head in, frowning. "Grace?"

She had no excuse. She just stared at him, guilty as could be.

"It's all the people, right?" He stepped in, holding out his hand. "Remember what I told you?"

He thought she was overwhelmed by the sounds in that room. It had been true in the hall, when everyone was afraid, but now they were calm. It wasn't an issue.

But she went with it.

She took his hand. "You said… listen to you."

"Yes. Maybe not too hard, okay?"

He could feel it. But did he understand it?

She went back to the control room with him, and a woman by the wall flipped a switch. Up above, the ceiling began to open. It revealed an orange-and-black mass of light writhing in space. She knew what it was immediately. It was a black hole. It was incredibly dangerous. It was something you avoided at all costs, because it was the end of the line. It was total destruction.

But she was not afraid. When she saw it, she lit up inside. What a beautiful thing! It was a big, ravenous maw, sucking up the universe.

And her friends seemed to have to same thoughts. She had never seen the Doctor look so amazed. His eyes were full of pure wonder. His fiery cloud could encompass the room. Rose beheld it like a gorgeous painting. It was reflected in her eyes.

For a few seconds they only stared.

The Doctor found his voice at last. "But that's impossible."

The captain had a name badge on his chest, beside his dangling dog-tags. His name was Zachary Flane. He looked up at the black hole like it was nothing special. "I did warn you."

The Doctor was at a loss. "We're standing under a black hole."

"In orbit," one of the women supplied. Her badge read 'Scooti,' though Grace was unsure if that was a name, or her position. Either way, it was silly.

The Doctor gave a singular head shake. "We can't be."

"You can see for yourself." Another woman, Ida Scott, cut in. "We're in orbit."

"But we can't be!" the Doctor insisted.

Ida spoke like a scientist, with true enthusiasm. "This lump of rock is suspended in perpetual geostationary orbit around that black hole, without falling in. Discuss."

Rose leaned in to the Doctor. "And that's bad, yeah?"

The Doctor continued gazing. He was absolutely transfixed. It was amusing, and humanizing, and worrying. "Bad doesn't cover it. A black hole's a dead star. It collapses in on itself, in and in and in, until the matter's so dense and tight, it starts to pull everything else in, too. Nothing in the universe can escape it. Light, gravity, time, everything just gets pulled inside and crushed."

Grace had a hard time reconciling this with what she had learned at the university. "But… we can't just… we can't see black holes. We just see what they do. We just see the accretion."

"You're looking at it," the Doctor supplied, pointing upward, spinning his finger around the massive thing. "Do you see the lights? The colors? It's tearing stars apart as it pulls them in. The matter is accelerating and heating up, emitting X-rays and gamma ray bursts into space, spurring the growth of new stars in some areas… and stalling it in others."

Rose cut in. "So they can't be in orbit? We should be pulled in."

The Doctor looked at both of them, and responded plainly. "We should be dead."

Ida observed them, unbothered by their discussion of the impossibility of this moment. "And yet, here we are. Beyond the laws of physics. Welcome onboard."

Rose pointed up. "But if there's no atmosphere out there, what's that?"

She was indicating the streams of air that seemed to be passing over their heads, between them and the black hole. It looked like clouds, like wind gusts, but Grace knew what it was. She felt it.

The Doctor provided the answer. "Stars breaking up. Gas clouds. We have whole solar systems being ripped apart above our heads, before falling into that thing."

Grace could feel it. She couldn't understand it, but she felt the black hole up above them. She felt the pressure of it. She felt life being extinguished. Billions and billions of little lights in her head, being snuffed out simultaneously every single second. It would have been maddening, a million crickets chirping in sync, but the presence was there. It was watching. It was listening. Even though it had been the thing to spring to life when she killed those people in the museum, it was there in a different sense now.

Without being told, she knew what was happening. It must have been the presence. It had to be. It was looking through her and telling her these things.

But why?

The ground shook again, and Grace was so fixated on the black hole that she fell down. The Doctor helped her up by both arms, frowning. "You alright?"

"Yeah."

"What were you saying back there, anyway, about the letters?"

"Nothing. I was just scared."

She wondered suddenly if she had been the one to answer him. Where did those words come from? Not her. She opened her mouth to tell him the truth, which she couldn't resist with those big trusting eyes on her, but a lie had come out.

The Doctor did not believe her. It was immediately clear. His suspicion showed in the little furrow of his brow, in the way he released her arm. He had looked at her like that in the museum as well, and she had wondered then if he could see through her. If he could, he was keeping it to himself.

She hoped he would never know.

And she wondered what she would do if he did.