2. The Rugged Rocky Cavern.
The Assumed Silurian leader.
The Tardis door slams shut after them.
The Silurian immediately notices them. He assesses them, then he presses a pocket. "Two humanoid bipods with no visible weapons," he reports to a device in his pocket.
He swims up to them.
"I am Circon, I am assumed Silurian leader, since our previous leader perished," the Silurian says abruptly. "You will accompany me."
He carries no apparent weapons, and Crystelle would prefer to resist his invitation, if she can.
"We better had," the Doctor says, noticing her reluctance.
"Doctor, that Silurian doesn't look friendly," Crystelle says.
"They are usually peaceful," the Doctor says. "But only usually! Watch out for that third eye above his forehead! If it glows, we're in difficulty! Just be careful. This whole meeting might look a bit like a snare for us."
Crystelle cringes visibly, then she rallies. "This one doesn't look peaceful," she says, "He looks fierce! What did his predecessor die of?"
"Keep up!" the Doctor says cheerily as they swim after him underwater. His words come out as bubbles, but Crystelle can just about make out the words.
The Ladder.
A rugged rocky entrance appears out of the cloudy water. The flow of water is much more rapid here. The Silurian goes through the rocky entry, and they follow. Crystelle wants to ask the Doctor how long her oxygen sweet will last but dare not open her mouth in case it gets out and away.
A metal-runged rope ladder leads upwards, through the strongly surging torrent of water. It feels like a waterfall. They seem to be ascending towards some air. But when they reach the top of the rugged rocky hole, the ladder doesn't stay near the air, frustratingly it follows the bed of a lake they have climbed up into, and it and stays at the bottom of the lake.
The ladder ends and Crystelle looks back to check how close they are to the waterfall. Will they be sucked back into the water cascade?
Crystelle sees that they are a good way away from the cascade and when she lets go of the ladder she isn't dragged back.
The Doctor passes her a rock. "Hold this. It will help keep your feet on the bottom of the lake." The rock is mucky and slippery, but it will have to do. Almost immediately the rock leaves a dark smudge on her outfit. Crystelle just has to hope it will wash out. .
A guide rope leads them onwards and downwards into the darker deeper water.
The Silurian leads the way, and they soon approach an underwater doorway. The Silurian opens it, and they go in.
Steps lead up into a room with air. A sign shows the name of the room "The Lake Room".
Crystelle finds she can breathe without the aid of her sweet which has dwindled, and she finishes it within a minute. She wonders what would have happened if their journey had been longer?
Two other Silurians are attending equipment near one wall of the room. They turn to greet Circon.
The Lake Room.
The Silurians rant at perceived humans for destroying the terrestrial environment. They rant at the contamination from plastics and discarded fishing nets. Humans have a lot to answer for, they say!
"What about the Beavers?" the Doctor asks. "What are they doing?"
"We have genetically engineered the beavers to talk," Circon says. "We hope to produce something to vastly exceed the ape-like humans to replace them."
"I'm here to stop you," the Doctor says quietly.
"You've made a mess of this lake, making such a hole in the bottom of it!" the Doctor asserts. "What happened there?"
"A mistake," Circon says. "We..."
Apparently he is at a loss for words to say what he needs to say. He can hardly bear to think about their horror when things had gone wrong. "It collapsed," he eventually says.
"Then I will do what I can to repair that mess you created," the Doctor says. "How many of you created this mess?"
Circon suddenly seems uneasy. He has vented his anger against the whole of Humanity on the Doctor and Crystelle, but now recognises that the Silurians have messed up here. As assumed leader he must shoulder the responsibility.
"Five. Two perished when the accident happened leaving three now," he says, wincing at the memory of the event.
The Doctor looks more closely at Circon. He can tell the Silurian is sorry and that they aren't used to admitting doing things wrong. But it is important.
"Alright," the Doctor says. "Some things I can repair, and I'll try to do that." He looks at them sharply. This won't be easy to fix!
"What were you doing to the lake bed to make it fracture?" the Doctor asks pointedly.
Circon goes quiet.
"You were doing something!" the Doctor says. "I need to know so that I can try to fix it. Bioengineering?" he taunts. This won't be the first time Silurians have tampered with the very ground they stand on!
"But the mess the Humans are making," Circon starts to say. "It must stop!"
"Yes," the Doctor says. "We all make mistakes, you make mistakes, and the Humans make mistakes, and some mistakes are bigger than others. Your mistake is bigger than you think! That mistake may totally foil your plan!"
"But they keep on polluting, endlessly," Circon says. "We must stop them. We must kill them all off! There are some parts of the sea that we can't live in! And our food chain is interrupted..."
"It is for the Humans to recognise their part in polluting, and they will," the Doctor argues suddenly forcibly. "The tide must turn, it will and it must. You must have patience! Now I need you to tell me exactly what you were doing that caused the rift. This is far more important than the pollution!"
The Silurians look at each other. They clearly think the Doctor is wrong.
Crystelle can see that this is only their point of view. "One moment," she says. "Both of you are right, each in your own way. The Doctor has said that you need patience, and the pollution will become less, we hope. But you have caused a large problem in space-time, and that must be put right or something far worse may happen. Please, you must tell the Doctor what you were doing."
"Alright," Circon says. "We were bioengineering the lake bed to be more beaver-friendly, and the trees in the forest to bend to their will. They will be able to build a beaver dam just by thinking about it, wherever they want and however deep they want to go. In time, they will become far more intelligent and capable than Humans."
"You might be talking to the wrong people," the Doctor argues suddenly with force. He has his answers and needs to get on with putting things right. "I'm not human and Crystelle isn't from this era, and so isn't responsible."
The Silurians can see no point keeping them there as they clearly can't help in the area they want, so they eventually agree to let them go.
The Doctor produces another Oxygen sweet for Crystelle to suck and they step down into the water from the Lake room. The Doctor picks up another rock from the lake bed and passes it to Crystelle to keep her feet on the ground.
They certainly need to keep their feet on the ground here!