CH. 4

The time passed slowly, the clocks in the minds of those occupying the TARDIS ticking away as regularly as the alien mechanisms at the heart of the timeship itself. It dragged until the Doctor stepped back up to the Console after hours of making a tedious and typically unproductive attempt at repairing the chameleon circuit. In the end he seemed to have damaged it more before giving up, just a few minutes before it was time to materialize. Tegan and Nyssa came flying in moments after he announced that they were nearly over their destination. He wanted to look around a moment before materializing into the already sprung trap. All the times he'd been manipulated before, centuries of them, had been running through his mind, along with all the times he'd barely escaped, and if he didn't this time, what Fate awaited his two companions he had no way of knowing. Just as surely, he knew there was nothing he could do bar locking them in the TARDIS that would prevent them from joining him. He didn't know what he'd done to deserve their loyalty; he just hoped that neither he nor they came to regret it.

The scanner mounted high in the wall came to life as they left the time-stream. On it was the bleakest world any of them, the Time Lord included, had ever seen. It was a moon, a moon of black and dark gray crags, sharp and ravenous, untouched by the grinding winds of an atmosphere. Even the side facing the sun seemed bleak as if space itself had coagulated into a cold and angry mass. It was Tegan who spoke first, turning her eyes away from the coalish mass and setting her book down on the Console. "Let me guess, we won't have to worry about crowds of tourists. There can't be any air on that thing? Are we supposed to go inside it or in some sort of … oh, there I guess."

"Precisely, Tegan," the Doctor agreed, his eyes on the large metal and crystalline dome that had rotated into view as they hung above the planetoid. "Welcome to Ecosia Beta. Her primary is much more attractive but nevertheless not our destination. Perhaps we can visit later. I'm sure we'll need a rest."

Nyssa looked down at the screens on the Console, dreading being on the dark worldlet already. "Well, the atmosphere inside is breathable for all of us, actually a slightly higher oxygen content than any of our home worlds. Of course, the gravity is slightly less but there are power readings inside the dome that may come from artificial gravity generators..."

Tegan joined her, "What is it they do down there? Mine something or, given our luck, build weapons? Why would they need a Time Lord? The place looks abandoned."

The Doctor's muffled voice answered her as his head remained down, his rigid arms straddling the side of the Console he was on across from them. "I believe I know why, and this CareTaker is right, he's got a mess on his hands that only a Time Lord could undo." He looked up at them for a moment and then went back to the screen, his breathing audible, his teeth gritted behind his thrust out lower lip.

Nyssa moved around to him swiftly, before Tegan could explode and to prevent the Doctor from being alone with the details any longer than necessary, her scientific mind planting its feet and hoping to shield them all. "What's down there?"

The Doctor straightened; his hands remained clenched as the lifted off the metal Console. "A T.I.F. – an unstable one." Nyssa and Tegan both looked at him with edgy patience and he backtracked, "A Temporal Initiation Field. You see, in order to travel in time, you must first briefly stop it, a process in a TARDIS that takes nothing more than an instant; it's done as an automatic function of beginning to dematerialize, one that's built in. It's so automatic that I never bothered to speak of it when I was showing Nyssa how to operate the controls. In races just beginning to time travel, it's the first step. Once you stop time for that instant in which you exist, then you can select which time stream to enter to go when you want."

Tegan moved to join them on the Doctor's other side, "So what's this idiot done to muck it up?"

"Well, I can't tell how he did it yet, but the field is fluctuating, time is stopping and starting and backtracking inside of it. The chamber it's contained in is no doubt affected but given the extremely long and inactive life-span of an airless moon that isn't a problem for the moon itself at the moment."

Nyssa adjusted the scanner to show a beautiful blue and gold world, one that resembled Earth except for the fact that the oceans were much more dominant. Only two large landmasses were present and no trace of pollution showed in the atmosphere. "What about the planet, if the field collapses or ruptures, what then?"

The Doctor pressed a few more keys and switches then huffed, not straining to breathe but in frustration at all the fools who tried to move about in time before they were ready. "Well, nothing if the field ruptures, the effect will dissipate and pollute space with chronimitic waves but the time rift will heal itself. However, if the field collapses, it will cause time to fold inward upon itself and likely take the moon with it, causing it to essentially vanish."

"And that's the bad thing, right?" Tegan interjected.

The Doctor nodded, "Very bad. It will destabilize the orbit of Ecosia, probably badly enough that it will be thrown out of orbit and into its sun without the counterbalance of Ecosia Beta affecting its orbit. It would also be unmercifully slow."

Tegan scowled and looked at the beautiful blue planet, inevitably thinking of home. "And I assume it's populated. There's bound to be life down there."

"There is indeed, our CareTaker is Ecosian himself. He may have moved his operations here to keep the planet safe but he still had no idea the forces he was tapping. Small wonder Gallifrey keeps such tight rein on who is permitted such power; even I understand their thinking in that regard. They begin to think they'll have their own history as a playground, or at best be able to have the chance to observe, never realizing the consequences of … untrained interference. Many races have learned the avenues to achieve time travel but only Time Lords have taken the next step, to understand the rami---." He trailed off, looking at the weary and worry on the faces of his two young companions. Both were watching him with patience and almost clinical concern, an expression new and strange on Tegan's part. He smiled thinly and rested a hand on their shoulders, "Still, time is what our present problem is, for Ecosia, and for me it seems. I suppose we should make our arrival known."

If anything, Ecosia Beta was worse from the ground, a dismal and craggy blotch on the Universe whose only beauty was to be found above, looking into a sky brilliant with stars and a view of the blue and gold planet. The fact that the only beauty was so far away made the little planetoid seem all the more wretched. Still, it had its worth, serving to hold its primary to an orbit where life had evolved and beauty existed. There would not be one without the other. The Doctor looked up at the sky but then found himself following the struts of the dome from their massive apex two kilometers overhead to where the nearest met the rock face below. Since the facility was not visible from the surface, it must be concealed within the moon itself. Tunnels, more tunnels, rock-strewn, narrow, and certainly dark. The Doctor's eyes fell to Tegan's shoes and widened in slight relief when he saw that she had found a pair that were designed to support and protect her feet and not display them.

The Doctor had issued them each a key before they had left the TARDIS, one that Tegan was sorely tempted to use as they increased their distance from the time ship, seeking an entrance into the rock face. This tiny planet reminded her of nothing more than a horror movie waiting to happen. She suddenly wanted a weapon even if she didn't know what to fight. She stopped when the Doctor did, before a large gray door that had no markings and could only be told from the rock once you were within a few feet of it. Glancing at both his companions, the Doctor knocked on the rough metal surface and wondered if it would even be heard on the other side. No other signaling device was apparent.

Nor was one apparently needed. More chilling than if it had squealed and groaned, the doorway opened silently onto a corridor that seemed comparatively bright to their light-starved eyes. Tiny floor lights marked the corridors beyond the opening. Three of them led outward into unknown depths, one center, one angled to their left, and another to the right. The Doctor took a step forward and stopped as the two women immediately moved with him. He turned to face them and then looked at the ground, his hands suddenly burying themselves in his pockets. "I have no doubt that door will swing shut the moment we pass it. I want you both to consider very carefully what facing this man could----."

"We are not having this conversation," Tegan snapped, her echoing vehemence surprising herself as much as the Doctor. "This is our choice; you are not responsible, right, Nyssa?"

"Absolutely," the younger woman answered, her head rising as she gave the Doctor the look she had learned from her mother while serving at the court. The Doctor stared at her hard for several moments, suddenly forced to recall that this was a woman of regal upbringing, trained to wield authority from birth. That Traken no longer existed did not diminish what her training to rule it had given her. Those were traits often subsumed by her intellectual accomplishments but ones that were just as much a part of her character when called upon, traits that could dress down a Time Lord with a look.

The Doctor backed down slowly, pulling his hands free and keeping Tegan and Nyssa close as they entered the dimly lit expanse. Deep within, in a place he would never admit existed, the place within him that drove him to have others close, one not affected by his training in emotional detachment, he desperately wanted them to go with him, wanted to hear the short but brutal lecture he'd just been given.

The lights of the left corridor began flashing as they reached the center of the juncture and they turned to follow them without a word of comment. The darkness swallowed them after a few minutes walk but a few minutes more brought them into a large circular room, one filled with consoles along the sides and rows and rows of seats, a small natural amphitheatre cut into the dark stone. It was polished to a fine sheen here where the few lights struck it, coming from the occasional console that gave up its information to an operator long vanished, a history of absence told by a fine fuzz of dust. At the far end of the room was an elevated platform, and upon it, in the chair they had seen on the TARDIS viewscreen, sat their cold and uninviting host.

Acquintal Miros raised his hands in a parody of welcome but none of those who had joined him responded in any way but to stop their approach and wait for him to speak. His dust-blue tunic went well with his skin; his legs were covered by a pair of black and gray breeches. The woven tunic he wore protected him from the chill of the coming night. The CareTaker sat forward slightly and beckoned the three aliens closer, his gaze on the Time Lord increasingly intent.

"Welcome to Ecosia Beta."

"Spare us," the taller of the two women snapped. The Time Lord opened his mouth for a moment, seeming about to rebuke her, and then apparently decided that she had expressed the feelings of all of them quite well. He stepped forward, hands in the pockets of his striped trousers and chin thrust at Miros.

"Yes, do spare us. What is it you want of me exactly? I've already detected your incompetent attempt at creating a departure matrix. Even you rank amateurs must realize the fluctuations are a simple enough thing to fix if you've built the equipment to create one; you simply allow it to rupture and send a few particles forward through time and it will undo itself. The chronomitic waves are highly toxic but have a very brief lifespan. That being the case, I can only assume you've got some sort of complication that requires a Time Lord. Out with it."

Much to their surprise, unlike any of the other maniacal figures they had encountered, this one suddenly looked resigned, embarrassed, and chastised. Miros folded his hands in his long lap. "You are right, Doctor, and it is a personal complication, and the reason why I had to make the undoing of this as important to you as it is to me. It had to mean your life, your lives, because it means all that made mine worthwhile."

Nyssa folded her arms, striking the Doctor as remarkably like Tegan. "Go on."

Miros lifted his eyes and his chin where they had dropped to face his lap. He met their gazes as if daring them to judge him, knowing they already had. If it were not for his hold on the Time Lord's life they would have cursed him as having earned his fate, all of their fates, and left. That was how business worked. One only trusted family unless one had power. "Eight months ago, we made the first test here, activated the departure matrix for the first time. It was an event unlike any other in our history, one that we were celebrating with the world."

Miros looked at the expressionless faces of the Doctor and the two females, not entirely expressionless on the part of the taller one. She seemed patiently waiting for the right moment to tear his head off. Perhaps if the Doctor failed, he would let her. "The families of all the researchers and theorists were there, and my family as the owners of this moon and the satellite power generators that feed the project. My family was the first to witness the activation, on an observation platform in the chamber that was to hold the departure matrix. When the alarms began, the matrix spread quickly before it could be contained but not so quickly that nearly everyone was able to escape before we increased the power keeping it within the chamber."

The Doctor scowled and then rolled forward on his feet. "Your family is trapped, I assume, and the field will soon have a range of temporal flux that will wipe them from existence unless someone who can safely enter the flux can anchor and retrieve them, a Time Lord, of course. You know, if you are aware of my travels and involvements, it would have been apparent to you that I would have helped you… if… you had simply asked."

Miros looked at him for a moment and then turned away, not meeting the steel and cobalt gaze. "I know your kind, not you, Doctor. The most likely thing a Time Lord would do is force the field to rupture, spare the lives of the many if they interfered at all, and let me deal with the consequences, the deaths of my family. I built all I have for them; they are all that matters, and if a Time Lord was all that could save them, a Time Lord is what I shall have!" His voice had risen and he had come to the edge of the tall, heavy chair, and had worked his nerve up to look at the Time Lord again.

The tension hung in the air for several moments, the Doctor the one to become resigned this time, "And if I'm successful?"

A glimmer of light caught the attention of the three off-worlders, a transmat beam flickering to their right, bringing into existence a small vial of green liquid in a shielded container, complete with a containment lock. It now lay on a console just to their right, along with a set of what looked like thin silver bars. "Your cure, Doctor. The antidote to the poison is in the container but it is shielded against chemical scans to prevent you from learning the structure and openable only by the DNA of my wife. Free her and she will free you."

Tegan had heard enough, her face flushed and angry, she stepped even with the Doctor. "Fine, how do we get started? Where is this chamber?"

A flicker of cold regret came into the eyes of the Ecosian. "In the only place we could safely build it in case of a problem with the chain of fusion reactors, approximately 70 kilometers within the core of this moon. It may take you several days to reach it."

"Days?" Tegan replied, growing more cross. "That's ridiculous. The TARDIS can have us there is sec ---."

"Tegan," the Doctor interrupted, "he has no intention of letting us return to the TARDIS."

"One of us must go back," Nyssa interrupted in turn, her cold gaze on the Ecosian. "The temporary antidote I've created for the Doctor will give him more than sufficient time to do what you've demanded but it must be administered regularly and the supply of it is back aboard the TARDIS."

Miros balked but only for a moment. "Then you go, and go alone, bring back what you need. Along the way your necessities will be provided for your journey; it becomes quite cold here at night as you might imagine. You will find crew quarters available to you using the codekeys there next to the antidote. The quarters have been sealed, even the…," he paused, "even the survivors have not been able to enter them."

The Doctor rounded on the seated Ecosian, his eyes tearing away from the container that held the drug that would assumedly release him from a permanent death sentence. "Survivors? What do you mean?"

"Those who didn't make it to the transports. They have been affected by the bleed off of radiation that happened during the initial failure. We contained the radiation, neutralized it, and tried to rescue the workers affected but some of them were made mentally unstable, animalistic as their higher brains decayed. They fled into the depths of the base, knowing it so well that they were able to remain hidden. All of them have gone quite mad by now. We transmat food here for them and have tried to lure them out to be caught and brought to medical facilities but have been unsuccessful in capturing many of them. At best they have weeks or months more; I have provided weapons for you to deal with them."

The transmat sparkled again and on the table a pile of promised supplies appeared, few since they would apparently have the crew quarters available to them, mostly foodstuffs they could consume while moving and the weapons. Tegan edged behind the Doctor's broad back and eyed the silver and black pistols and holsters out of sight of Miros, figuring out what she believed the controls to be. The Doctor started to turn, wondering what she was doing; she made her move, dodging to snatch up the nearest of the guns. She leveled it at Miros with a steady hand. "You must've had your wife's DNA to program that thing. Open it. The Doctor will still help you."

Tegan looked up when the Doctor closed on her and rested a hand on her tight shoulder, the one raising the gun. "Don't bother, Tegan. Save your energy."

She glanced away from the Ecosian long enough to see a look of Universe-weary surrender on the Doctor's face. "You know I'm right."

"You are, Tegan. Your deduction about the DNA is certainly correct but Miros would not have provided weapons if we were able to turn them against him."

"What do you mean?"

The Doctor shrugged, his hands pulling from his trousers. "Go on, shoot." He smiled thinly, "It might make you feel better. It might even make me feel better."

Miros watched their exchange benignly. "Send the girl Nyssa back to retrieve what she needs but if more than one of you attempts to leave, I will seal the doors and you will have no way to use the antidote. Until you are ready to leave to free my family, its container will remain sealed against the surface of the table."

Tegan glared at the Ecosian again and after a quick glance at the Time Lord, pulled the trigger on the gun, her shot aimed at Miros's leg. She struck it square, the blue bolt passing through his knee… and leaving no trace of its passing except for the puff of smoke from the woodlike material of the chair. She stared for a moment and then lowered the weapon. "He's a projection? When did you know?"

"As I said, Tegan, when he provided us a means of defending ourselves. Do pay attention. He also hasn't made a threat he cannot carry out so I suppose we're in for a bit of a hike." He turned to look at Nyssa as she retrieved one of the three guns for herself, taking it distastefully but steadily.

"I'll be back shortly, Doctor, and yes, I will be careful. "