CHAPTER THIRTY: A Really Good Time

Just as the friction of re-entry had created a bow-wave and elevated temperatures, the bombardment of Arcology One by the Lithoi's particle beam weapon generated a sudden blast of heat. The arcology's hydroponic "soil" seethed and smoked, plastic pathways became liquid and flowed like butter, the few retained dew ponds flashed into clouds of steam and exposed structural members glowed red hot.

Davy, along with nearly everyone else aboard the sphere, thought they were doomed. He realised after an immensely extended, suffering ten seconds that he could still worry about being vapourised. Also, the smoke and fumes didn't get any worse. Were they past the worst?

Just when he'd decided that Arcology One had endured the worst an enormous shock came from the floor, a physical blow that rocked his wicker frame back and forth, sending clouds of dirt, dust, hydroponic soil, water and broken structural components into the air, to clatter back down again.

More broken structural parts began to collapse and fall into the sphere's interior, accompanied by a profundo shrieking that co-ordinated precisely with the jerking, grating progress of Arc One downwards as the exterior view changed and fell below the horizon. Once more, the sphere's occupants suffered casualties.

Instead of the smashing, bashing, fatal bloodbath expected and dreaded for so long, Arcology One's end came amidst a shallow lagoon of mud, a gentle liquid cushion that slowed the final landing and ensured that the sphere's dislocation and distortion resulted in the fewest number of casualties. In decades to come a small but regular pilgrimage took place to see where their ancestors had landed, on a baked and barren plain scattered with rusting remnants of the twenty-first century, and amid the battered skeleton of a twenty-first century orbital home. Eventually, thanks to popular pressure, the Reconstituted Antipodean Government put up a broadcasting plaque that inspired those of the Nerva generation.

In the here-and-now, feeling genuine Earth gravity meant less than smelling and breathing in Earth air. Holed, breached, sheared and split in a hundred places, Arcology One allowed it's crew to inhale what they had never experienced – real, whole, unfiltered air.

'Ah – we're down!' said Davy, so quietly that only he heard.

'WE'RE DOWN!' he shouted, splintering apart his wicker cradle, punching it into pieces at the cost of cut knuckles and bleeding palms. 'WE'RE DOWN AND ALIVE!'

This shouting was dwarfed into inconsequence as the entire sphere's surviving population burst into a spontaneous cheer that made the surviving Lexan panels rattle in sympathy. True, they were canted at an angle of probably thirty degrees from normal, with an oozing ocean of mud slowly coming inside from the broken windows at the lowest level, and they had no water left – but they were Downstairs, and alive.

There might have been a struggle to exit the sphere with the dozens of injured and dead, had help from outside not arrived in the nick of time. A whole convoy of wagons laden with water and sunhats, able and willing to help the "Starmen" out of their ruined environment. The sunhats proved to be highly useful, allowing the sphere's residents to cope with a new, comparatively huge and empty environment that didn't curve upwards at the edges. Plus they prevented sunstroke and sunburn, two conditions utterly novel to sphere residents.

When Infrastructure checked the giant fluid gears that the fusion power-plant had once driven, they were found to be shattered by transmitted shock. The plant itself, carefully powered down and with anti-shock cradles applied, was in fine form. Within thirty minutes of landfall it was working at half-capacity to replace the emergency battery supply, keeping embryos in storage, maintaining computer systems and all the other electrical equipment aboard the Arc.

Alex and Terry were in the forefront of all this organized activity, both having experience of being aboard the Arc and Downstairs. They pointed and directed people, helped to fill wagons, pointed out what was delicate or sterile. Ace bounced around enthusiastically, hindering just as much as she helped, but tolerated for her sheer exuberance and delight.

That stoney-faced American soldier, Kirwin, took charge of the bodies: forty seven dead, most killed when the internal strut broke apart and collapsed. A series of graves were dug for them, another novelty for a population who had recycled everything aboard their orbital arcology.

The one person absent was the Doctor. His presence, or lack of it, was noted by many people.

'This,' said the Doctor, sweeping a hand from one side of the horizon to the other as if he owned the place, 'Is the Kalahari Desert.'

It looked like a traditional desert: endless sweeping dunes of red sand in all directions. No trees, no plants, no animals or insects. In fact there were animals, insects too, if you knew where to look, and when.

'Looks nice. Hot and dry,' commented Orskan. Feeling his metabolism begin to falter, he gulped another jelly baby, one of the bagful he'd been given by the Doctor.

'Yeeees. About your sugar boost,' murmured the Timelord. 'Don't overdo it.'

The lizard-like alien ducked his head.

'They won't last much longer, Doctor Smith. After that I doubt I shall last much longer, either.'

'Oh, come now!' burbled the small man, giving the startled alien a consoling hug, a gesture completely unknown in Lithoi culture. 'Watch this.' He looked carefully over the ground, before finding what he sought: scattered ants running around. With the tip of his umbrella he dug and poked, sending ants pouring furiously over the sands in search of their tormentor. Finally he reached into the sub-surface hole created and pulled a strange insect out. It resembled an ant, but one with a grossly swollen abdomen. He tossed it to the alien, who caught it, not understanding what a deformed ant meant.

'Honey ant,' explained the Doctor. 'Used by the nest to store sugars. Try eating it.'

A reluctant Orskan chewed up the insect, his eyes enlarging in surprise.

'Doctor!' he said (actually hissed). 'Sugar!'

'Told you so,' came the smug response. 'I keep my word.' He passed his trusty, if now battered, umbrella to Orskan. 'Here, you'll need this occasionally. Not often, they only get an inch or two of rain here per year. You might want to also research the bee and beehive, for future reference.'

Tipping his boater politely, he left the lone Lithoi, sole survivor of the alien incursion, standing on the dunes of the Kalahari. Having kept his word to Orskan, he now needed to oversee his other concern, the humans of the Bight littoral and the residents of Arcology One.

When he emerged from the TARDIS to inspect, the view confirmed what he'd seen on the scanner: a column of helpers getting people and products from Arcology One and into horse-drawn transport.

Excellent! All this technical expertise will be distributed along the Eyre Highway, starting in a few days. Without the Lithoi spying and manipulating and destroying, these people are going to come on in leaps and bounds. The Americans will have their shuttle operation back in working order in a matter of weeks. Why, the others spheres Upstairs might even use this method to return themselves.

Amidst all the frantic labour and activity beyond, a single figure stood out: a young woman who stretched to her full height in a boilersuit, craned her head to detect where the strange yet familiar sound had come from. Her silhouette, a minute black dot on the dry red earth, changed in orientation and began to slowly grow larger, approaching the TARDIS.

Fully five minutes after he'd materialised, the Doctor greeted Ace in a flurry of arms, hugs, Nullarbor dust and horsey sweat.

'Ooof!' he exhaled. 'Pleased to see you!'

Ace beamed at him, standing back to throw an errant lock over her temple.

'Prof! You did it! Brought the Branson Mansion back to Earth, hardly any casualties, destroyed the evil aliens, got the survivors help from the Ozzers.'

A silent frown grew on the Timelord's brow. Casualties. Yes. He knew there'd be deaths. His various scenarios run non-stop every five minutes for two days predicted between fifty and a thousand dead. Leaning back into the TARDIS interior he used his umbrella handle to drag an unwary Ace inside, too.

'Many dead?' he asked, causing the doors to rapidly close.

'Almost fifty,' replied Ace, casting a wondering glance at the narrowing vista beyond the closing doors. 'What - '

'Ah!' gasped the Doctor, stung to the quick. Only fifty! He leant forward over the control panels, seeking distraction in twiddling dials and levers and meters and contacts.

'We're not staying to help?' asked Ace, a genuine puzzlement in her voice. The Doctor straightened and faced her, looking startled himself.

'Say what, Ace? I rather think not!' and he muttered a long quotation from Plato before looking up again. 'Ace, Ace – I may turn up to administer first aid on a large scale, slay the monster, help with the harvest – but I don't seek to impose my ideas. These people need to arrive at their own solutions, not something decided by an outside agency.'

He held back one or two facts that neither the Timelords nor himself had seen fit to divulge to any other party. For one: why did the populations of the northern hemisphere recover so quickly from the Great Northern War?

Well, not being modest, but he'd had a hand in that. As an advisor to Miss Branson so many decades ago, he'd been privileged to suggest to other European governments that they invest in submarine survival environments. Consequently, the Mediterranean had been fringed with millions of secret submarine settlers who managed a quite passable existence, entirely unsuspected by the Lithoi. After all, if you as an alien had difficulty conceiving of standing water at the level of a puddle, how could you ever conceptualise actually living beneath a billion-tonne layer of the lethal, terrifying stuff?

'I'll miss them,' rued Ace. 'They didn't bother about how posh you talked or where you came from.'

'Terry or Alex?' asked the Doctor, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. If this trip had achieved nothing more than to make Ace forget the treacherous Mike Smith, it would have been worth it.

A delicate flush embroidered Ace's cheek for mere seconds.

'Not like that!' she insisted. 'Everybody in New Eucla. And on the Arc.' She noticed the Doctor's wince. 'What? What!'

'Just don't call it that. Don't ask, just don't!' He changed direction and metre. 'Now, do you want to face a severe challenge to the whole planet?'

Ace pinched herself.

'Prof, what did we just defeat if not a challenge to the whole planet!'

He tapped a finger alongside his nose, a gesture copied from the Fourth Doctor, who had a splendid nose to practice this gesture with.

'Given the timeframe, and happenings, and chronology, I've just realised that we've materialised shortly before an epochal event.'

It had come to him suddenly, fleeing that deadly microbial infection deep in the bowels of the Lithoi baseship. The population of Earth divided into fractious colonies, depopulated overall, suffering an alien occupation.

Ace looked at him with genuine ignorance.

'What do you mean, Prof?'

He turned and looked at her with a level, cool, analytical gaze. Once you had joined all the dots it was simple, and obvious.

'The Dalek Invasion of Earth.'