Chapter 13

Descending the ladder seemed to take a lot longer than the ascent earlier and Clara kept looking up, waiting to see the strange alien again, waiting to see it follow them, but she never did, but the most unnerving part of it all was that she couldn't be sure whether it meant they were safe. The perception filter had successfully hidden the alien from her in the first place, so even if it was there, Clara would never know because she could neither see nor hear it.

Luckily for her, the Doctor followed without protest and as soon as they had solid ground under their feet again, they started to run. After all those years with the Doctor, Clara had become good at running and she didn't stop even when her lungs ached and her legs were ready to collapse underneath her. They ran and ran and ran back towards the colony, towards the only kind of safety available in this place. Then, the Doctor suddenly stopped.

Clara paused, looking around frantically, looking around to see whether the alien had followed and only now did she notice the sounds. Breathing a sigh of relief, Clara allowed herself to rest.

When her lungs no longer stung and her panting breaths had returned to normal, she was finally able to take in her surroundings. She could hear her own breath, she could hear the birdsong and the rustling leaves. For now, they were out of danger.

"What the hell was that?" Clara demanded to know. "What the hell is going on here? The muted sounds? The hidden spaceship and the alien we couldn't see? Did you see it?"

The Doctor nodded, a grave expression on his face.

"Was the alien using the same kind of perception filter?" she asked.

He hesitated for a short moment, glancing at Clara as if he wasn't sure whether she would like the answer. "No," he replied eventually. "That's just what it looks like, I think."

"It didn't look like anything," Clara responded, surprised at how angry she sounded when really, she was only afraid. It was strange how these two emotions were so closely connected. "I just saw a distorted shape, that's it."

The Doctor scoffed. "Trust me, I've seen stranger creatures," he said, not helping her fear in the slightest.

Whatever it was, it had come after them and not having a proper shape didn't mean it couldn't be dangerous or even deadly. Who knew what this thing might get up to when it had the power to mute everything in a two-mile radius or hide a spaceship so no one else could see it.

"You don't know what this thing is either, do you?" Clara wanted to know.

The Doctor didn't reply instantly. Instead, he lifted his hand to his face and started gnawing at his thumbnail as he often did when he was thinking hard about something. So Clara bided her time and waited, using the moment to catch her breath and give her aching legs some rest.

"Whatever it is, I think it's in trouble," he concluded eventually. "I didn't have time to examine the entire ship, but from what I've seen, their reactor broke down and is currently leaking radiation into the atmosphere. That's what's causing the weather and the storms. I don't think it's actually planning an invasion of any kind."

She took a moment to let his words sink in, somehow not finding his explanation of leaking radiation very reassuring. Even if the alien's intentions weren't bad, it sounded like a dangerous thing to be around - dangerous for herself, the colonists and the Croatoans, all of whom were completely unaware of the kind of danger that was lurking in the forest they used to hunt and gather firewood. Which brought her straight to her next question.

"It attacked us," Clara tried to argue, "and it probably attacked the children as well. Remember them? Remember the children that went missing? What if the alien took them and… I don't know, ate them?"

The Doctor looked thoughtful, obviously considering her words very carefully. "We'll figure it out in time," he said eventually. "But for now, I think we should get back to the colony just in case the alien is indeed hungry for human flesh."

Clara breathed a sigh of relief and followed the Doctor as he started to head back towards the boat. "Or Time Lord flesh," she remarked.

In response, the Doctor snorted. "Time Lords are inedible," he said plainly.

"Naturally," Clara replied, but not without rolling her eyes at him a little. Inedible and very often insufferable as well.

The Doctor and Clara took the small boat back to the island, spending most of their time in silence after saying what needed to be said, but on the inside, Clara's mind was bustling with thoughts and ideas and fears. She couldn't know what the Doctor was up to at this point, what exactly he was planning, but from the contemplative look on his face, she knew that he was planning something.

The sun had already set when they reached the colony and what was left of the fence stood in the twilight like a forgotten monument, left to fall into oblivion. Even though the Croatoans had come to their aid, it would be a while until the fence shielded the colonists from anything. Right now, it merely offered a pretend sense of security. Despite that, Clara knew that she would sleep well after the events of the day - at least after she had managed to ban the memory of the shape alien from her mind. She was craving a meal and a few hours in a warm, soft bed.

However, the prospect of rest faded the closer they came to their assigned house and Clara spotted a man waiting for them by the front door. It wasn't the loathsome governor, but a smaller, more nervous figure that was pacing the space in front of their door, his hand raised to his face to nibble at his thumb. Clara couldn't recognise him yet in the twilight, but she knew that his presence and his nervous state were unlikely to bode well for her and the Doctor. When he noticed them in their approach and stepped forward out of the shadow, Clara recognised him at last. It was Geoffrey Smith, the man whose boy had gone missing.

"I need to speak with you," he blurted out immediately, his voice frantic and tense. He was on edge about something.

The Doctor had noticed it, too. He threw Clara a quick glance before he nodded towards the man, gesturing for him to go ahead and tell them what was bothering him.

Geoffrey Smith, however, glanced around the village and hesitated. Something was holding him back, keeping him from saying whatever he had come to say out here in the open.

"Or we could go inside first," Clara suggested upon sensing the man's fear. After the events of the day, an uneasy feeling had settled over her and she, too, was very much in favour of retreating to a safe place.

"Yes," the blacksmith agreed and following the Doctor's lead, they all stepped into the small house while Clara was beginning to wonder whether their already dangerous and complicated adventure was about to become even more dangerous. She knew that it all depended on what Geoffrey Smith was going to tell them.