Chapter 37.
Fly for Your Lives.
They waited around the console, and the Doctor asked a few probing questions of the other people in the room. Grace barely heard them, even though she tended to listen a little harder when he spoke. She watched the door they had come from. It led to the hallway, and another door, and on the other side was the mysterious text. She could read it. She knew she could. She just needed a few more moments to look at it. But the Doctor would notice a slipup like that. He was extra vigilant, even when he wasn't looking at her. He was suspicious.
When a lanky blonde man emerged from one of the other doors, Grace redirected her attention.
"The rocket link's fine," he announced a little glumly.
Flane typed something into the console. He and the Doctor had been talking, and now he drew up an image, like a hologram, to reaffirm what he had said. Grace hopped up to join them.
It was the black hole, reduced to a series of pixels and slowly rotating. Even in this state, it was beautiful, made up of an array of reds and shades of black, nestled into the superior blackness of space. It reminded her of protozoa.
Flane gazed at it. "That's the black hole, officially designated K37 Gem 5."
Ida leaned in, her fascination making her the brightest of the base staffers. She could almost outshine the Doctor in that department. Almost.
"In the scriptures of the Veltino, this planet is called Krop Tor, the bitter pill. And the black hole is supposed to be a mighty demon who was tricked into devouring the planet only to spit it out because it was poison."
Rose smiled at Grace. "The bitter pill. I like that."
Grace was glad for her nonchalance – otherwise, those words were nightmare inducing. A monster the size of a black hole, devouring parts of the universe.
The Doctor didn't seem to hear her. "We are so far out. Lost in the drifts of the universe. How did you even get here?"
Flane responded. "We flew in. You see…" He changed the imagine. Now they were shown a green sphere, the planet, with a red funnel shooting out of it. "… this planet's generating a gravity field. We don't know how, we've no idea, but it's kept in constant balance against the black hole. And the field extends out there as a funnel, a distinct gravity funnel reaching out into clear space. That was our way in."
"You flew down that thing?" Rose asked. "Like a rollercoaster."
"By rights, the ship should've been torn apart," Flane went on. "We lost the captain, which is what put me in charge."
"And you're doing a good job," Ida insisted.
Flane gave a strained laugh. "Yeah, well, needs must."
Another of the men, Danny, who had long black hair – the one to poke the Doctor when they first arrived – cut into the conversation. He had rolls of maps in his hands. "But if that gravity funnel closes, there's no way out."
Scooti added, "Oh, we have fun speculating about that."
Danny bopped her with one of his maps. "Oh, yeah. That's the word, 'fun.'"
The Doctor was in his own little world. "But that field would take phenomenal amounts of power, I mean… Not just big, but off the scale. Can I…?" He motioned to the controls.
Ida handed them over. "Sure, help yourself."
Rose nudged Grace. "Come on. Drinks up."
One of the Ood approached with a tray, with a little cup for each of them. Grace had finally realized what they were – she had seen them in the DME, in pictures alongside humans, in homes and gardens and on spaceships. When he spoke to them, the little orb in his hand lit up. His voice was smooth and tranquil. "Your refreshment."
Rose smiled. "Oh, yeah, thanks. Thank you."
Grace couldn't recall ever seeing a label – other than 'Ood' – under any of the pictures in the museum. She took her drink and asked, "What was your name?"
"We have no titles. We are as one."
The Ood walked off, folding his tray under his arm.
Rose frowned. "What were they called?"
"Ood." Grace sipped her drink, finding it strange and acidic. "There were pictures in the museum. I'm not sure what they're for, though."
Danny looked up from his chat with Scooti, surprised by their conversation. "Oh, come on. Where have you been living? Everyone's got one."
Rose and Grace shared a glance. Got one? It sounded like he was talking about a dog.
"Well, not me." Rose had a little edge in her voice. "So, what are they?"
Danny spoke matter-of-factly. "They work the mineshaft, all the drilling and stuff. Supervision and maintenance. They're born for it. Basic slave race."
Henry came to mind, and Grace accidentally crushed her little cup in her palm. Slavery was touchy for her. In just a day or so, while she and the Doctor took shelter from the consuming mist, she had seen enough bowed heads and desolate eyes to last a lifetime – even if there were less than a dozen of them. Basic slave race. What did he mean by that? Grace watched the Ood that had given them their drinks store his tray in a little cabinet. She felt emotion emanating from it this time. It was faint, but she understood it as loneliness. No. Not just loneliness. Isolation.
Rose seemed equally upset by that word. "You've got slaves?"
"Don't start," Scooti said. "She's like one of that lot, Friends of the Ood."
"Well, maybe I am, yeah." Rose glanced at Grace, finding support, and went on. "Since when do humans need slaves?"
"If you want it drilled and mined so bad, why can't you do it yourself?" Grace added.
"But the Ood offer themselves," Danny responded. "If you don't give them orders, they just pine away and die."
Rose looked doubtfully at the Ood as it approached again. "Seriously? You like being ordered about?"
The Ood responded with a monotone, "It is all we crave."
"Why is that?" Grace asked it.
"We have nothing else in life."
"I used to think like that," Rose said. "Long time ago."
Danny and Scooti returned to their conversation, giving them odd looks. Elsewhere in the control room, the Doctor was talking, no doubt about how brilliant he was, but she barely heard him. She fixated on the Ood, like she had on the Doctor in the hall, and tried to dig further into its emotion – its one, solitary emotion.
When it departed, she was no closer to figuring it out. Surely it had thoughts. Surely it could feel. But why was it so faint?
"You okay?" Rose wondered.
Grace shrugged. "I don't like slavery."
"Neither do I."
Grace smiled. Rose was easy to get along with. She was good. She was kind. Like the Doctor, she also seemed to care about people, almost unconditionally.
But being close to people was strange for Grace. She had spent her whole life on the fringes of society, in both worlds. Unwanted. Unloved. And she accepted it. She didn't shy away from reality. Only now reality was much bigger – there was a whole universe, and the wonder that was the Doctor, and someone else her age to talk to.
"Rose…?" She fumbled for words, frowning.
"Yeah?"
"Are we friends?"
Rose gave her an odd look – she was getting a lot of those today – and then hugged her. Grace was usually against touching people, but Rose was easy. "Course we are."
"I've never had a friend before, you know, aside from the Doctor. Not sure he counts."
Rose pulled away, wrinkling her nose. "Yeah, bit of a weirdo, that one."
They went up to the console to rejoin the conversation. Grace stayed close to Rose, feeling a little protective of her first human friend. When they landed in her home, the Doctor warned Grace that Rose was prone to getting into all sorts of trouble.
Ida was talking to the Doctor. "This power source is ten miles below, through solid rock. Point 0. We're drilling down to try and find it."
It was about the planet, about whatever was keeping it from being drawn into the black hole. Ida and her crew were enthusiastic, almost manic, but the Doctor looked weary.
Flane spoke next. "It's giving off readings of over 90 Statts on the Blazen Scale."
She knew those terms. Could these people be from her time?
Rose looked baffled, so Grace leaned in and whispered, "Big old scale to measure energy output, usually used to describe stars. Solar energy."
"And what's a normal, er, Statt?" Rose whispered back.
"Low tens. Never heard of anything higher."
Ida stared boldly at the Doctor. "It could revolutionize modern science."
Dog-tag man, also known as Mr. Jefferson, cut in, "We could use it to fuel the empire."
The Doctor pulled off his glasses, adding a dramatic flair to his statement. "Or start a war."
Toby had the grimmest voice of them all. He had been the one to check the rocket links when they first arrived. He was blonde and lanky, sort of reserved. His fear was palpable to Grace, magnified when he started talking. His own words were chilling him, right down to his soul. "It's buried beneath us. In the darkness, waiting."
"What's your job?" Rose asked, "Chief dramatist?"
The Doctor flashed a smiled, momentarily losing his seriousness.
"Well, whatever it is down there, it's not a natural phenomenon." Toby was dead serious. "This planet once supports life, aeons ago, before the human race had even learnt to walk."
The Doctor lost his humor. "I saw that lettering written on the wall, did you do that?"
Toby nodded, his fear ebbing. "I copied it from fragments we found unearthed by the drilling, but I can't translate it."
"No, neither can I." The Doctor glanced at his companions. "And that's saying something."
"And there was some form of civilization." Toby grew a little more anxious inside. "They buried something. Now, it's reaching out. Calling us in."
"And you came," the Doctor concluded.
Ida frowned. "How could we not?"
The Doctor sounded amused. "So, when it comes right down to it, why did you come here? Why did you do that? Why? I'll tell you why. Because it was there. Brilliant!" He looked at the captain, grinning. "Excuse me. Zack, wasn't it?"
Flane nodded. "That's me."
"Just stand there 'cause I'm gonna hug you, is that alright?"
"Suppose so."
The Doctor approach. "Here we go. Coming in." He wrapped him in a big hug, smiling like he had won a prize. He sighed. "Ahh. Human beings. You are amazing." When he drew away, he clapped and smiled. "Thank you."
"Not at all," Flane responded, smiling himself.
"But apart from that, you're completely mad. You should pack your bags, get back on that ship, and fly for your lives." He lost his amusement, his affection, and looked at them all seriously.
Ida set her hip. "You can talk. How the hell did you get here?"
"Oh, I've got this… this ship… it's hard to explain, it just sort of appears."
"We can show you." Rose perked up. "We parked down the corridor from… uh, what's it called? Habitation area 3? Door, uh, 18 or something?"
Flane leveled his eyes on her. "Do you mean Storage 6?"
The Doctor nodded. "It was a bit of a cupboard, yeah." He noted the serious expressions, and frowned. "Storage 6? But you said… You said… You said Storage 5 to 8."
He turned and ran, and Rose followed.
Grace remained. She had a feeling she had missed something critical while she was ignoring the big talk they were all having. She wanted to follow them, she really did, but suddenly her ability became magnified. The Doctor had already left the room, but she could see him.
She could feel him bobbing around, running away, filled with panic.
And then came the utter devastation. It rooted her. Something horrible had happened.
Flane ran his hand over his hair. "We lost Storage 6," he said to her.
Grace swallowed. "W-What does that mean?"
"It means whatever you came here in – it's gone."
She slumped into a nearby chair. This realization had been the devastation she felt in the Doctor, and rightly so. What did that mean for them? They were on a planet hovering around a black hole, and the only way out was through a thin strip of gravity. And the TARDIS was gone. But how could it be gone?
When the Doctor returned, his distress became overwhelming. Rather than being the soothing force in the room, he was the antagonist. Somewhere inside, the presence returned.
The Doctor spoke rapidly.
"The ground gave way. My TARDIS must have fallen down into the heart of the planet. You've got robot drills heading the same way."
Flane answered him. "We can't divert the drilling."
The Doctor pursued him around the console. "But I need my ship! It's all I've got. Literally, the only thing."
"Doctor, we've only got the resources to dig one central shaft down to the power source and that's it. No diversions, no distractions, no exceptions. Your machine is lost. All I can do is offer you a lift, if we ever get to leave this place. And that is the end of it."
Ida followed. "I'll put you on the duty roster. We need someone in the laundry."
Rose came to sit beside Grace, staring uncertainly at the Doctor, and listening, but not really hearing anything. She was conflicted and afraid.
Grace took one of her hands, smiling. "Hey. Relax. I thought trouble was your specialty."
Rose snorted, and then shook her head. "Sorry. I'm supposed to be helping you out."
"We can help each other."
The room cleared. Ida and Flane departed, discussing something, and one at a time the others found a responsibility to take care of. The Doctor walked around the console a few times, working on what he should do with himself, and then he came to lean against it, near Grace and Rose. He took a deep breath and looked between them both.
"I've trapped you here."
"No, don't worry about us," Rose insisted.
The room rumbled.
"Okay." Rose stood up. "We're on a planet that shouldn't exist, underneath a black hole, and no way out. Yeah, I've changed my mind. Start worrying about me."
The Doctor hugged her. He was, perhaps, just as sensitive to emotion as Grace was. He was a decidedly good person, almost too good. Grace was reminded of the people she had killed, including the Curator, and she wondered again what the Doctor would think of her if he ever found out. With his values, he would probably be disgusted.
Grace got up, too, and the Doctor tried to invite her to the hug. She stepped away from it. "I'm gonna go have a look around."
He frowned. "We can all go."
No. His head was too full. It was giving her a headache. She needed to put some distance between them, before the fireball overwhelmed her. "No, no. I'll be fine."
Rose pulled out of her hug and frowned. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Just, you know, keep it up with the hugging. Good job. I'll be back."
As she pushed through the door, she heard the Doctor say to Rose, "I want to have another look at that language on the walls. Come on."