Four hours of featureless, dim corridors later they finally stopped, weary and dull witted. The crew quarters that opened for them were dusty but otherwise well-stocked and kept. Each was designed to hold four staffers, their necessities, and a few personal items. The one they had been in before had obviously been one that was unoccupied previously. This one was decorated with a sea motif and bright blue paint covered the walls when they found the light switches.
Tegan sighed with relief as a color other than gray filled her vision. "Finally! I thought I was going to go berserk if I had to stare into nothing any longer, waiting for a madman to leap out."
Nyssa stepped back in the large blue room. "Well, I can reassure you on the second part as well. I've set up a perimeter scanner to warn us if any of these beings approach. I suspect they're mostly down toward where the reactors are and it's warmer but the doors here seal as well."
Seated on the sofa, having seemed preoccupied with trying to get the small personal computer on the end table there to work, the Doctor looked up from its flickering screen. "I agree. It's a bit cold here. Oh, and Tegan, speaking of the lack of color, did you know that a common form of mental torture is to place someone in an area with no contrasting color? The mind loses perspective eventually. Of course, it's most effective done in a small space and while one is forced to remain stationary, then the brain has no other means to … uhm, eh, is there a thermostat in here?"
"I'll find it," Nyssa volunteered. As much as she was chilled, it gave her a chance to move about the room and have the Doctor's back to her.
Tegan looked about for the thermostat as well but was mostly moving about in the kitchenette area, looking for something that seemed edible and didn't come in foil pack. "So, Doc', I was being driven bonkers by the sameness of it all?"
"Just a bit. The lights help but the monotony of the journey and our exhaustion also have to do with --, "he stopped. Looking up at the heating panel with a broad smile as warmth began to radiate out from it. "Thank you, Nys---," he stopped talking as he began to turn around and saw the bioscanner focused on him. "Well, Doctor?" He smiled quickly but the young woman did not.
"The toxin is adapting almost as a virus would," she began, and then laid out for him, in far more technical terms than she had with Tegan, the difficulties she believed he would begin encountering now that they had stopped. He accepted all of it with a resigned sigh and a new determination, watching absently as Tegan finally succeeded in getting the microwave oven to work. There were a few of them on Earth in her time and something very like it aboard the TARDIS. She had succeeded a bit more quickly with the water heating unit, and was sniffing at the contents of several jars of what seemed very much like tea.
They had a passable meal, one that did as much to restore them as nutrition could and the heater had taken the chill out of the air. The alleviation of the darkness helped more than anything to restore what could be restored of their spirits and neither Tegan or Nyssa moved to turn the lights off when they both finally headed for the room that held two sturdily built, extra-wide bunk beds. They had each visited the washroom in the very back of the living unit, which contained not only facilities but also a clothing refresher similar to the one in the TARDIS. Nyssa prepared to climb into the top bunk when she returned from the bath, unsurprised to find Tegan already asleep and the Doctor giving the appearance of being so. Her last act before settling down to sleep herself was to set an alarm on the bioscanner that would alert her if the Doctor's condition worsened abruptly. He had stripped off his fawn-colored coat and lay seemingly peacefully on the lower bunk across the narrow room from Tegan. Accepting that there was little else she could do, Nyssa let herself fall into a restless sleep, too tired and worried to properly rest for the first hour or so.
The next "morning" was a revisit of irony. They ate quickly and headed back out into the darkness of the interior of the moon. Only a few minutes travel brought them the evidence that the scientists and maintenance crew who had been affected by the unstable time field had been near during the night. The remains of a meal lay in a spread out pile, the bones of some sort of large bird that had been part of what had been transported down, bones that had been disturbingly gnawed upon. An hour later they came upon the first body. It was not a fresh kill but at least a month old. In the darkness they could see the withered form in the shreds of a light gray uniform. Several of its ribs were broken and a leg was missing for reasons none of them cared to speculate on. Even the Doctor seemed uninclined to investigate. Tegan hugged the guns more tightly to herself and tried harder to peer into the grayness before and behind them, lit by the will of their captor to guide them toward the family only a Time Lord could free.
Several times over the next few hours they could hear the distant noises of something moving about, echoing through the tubular stone walls and impossible to gauge as far as distance. One was close enough for Tegan to fire several warning shots into the darkness off to their right, aimed high to avoid the chance she might kill the tortured souls who wandered, mad, through the seemingly endless darkness. Tegan wondered if the lights, such as they were, tiny things that lined the floor and a thin strip on the apex of the ceiling, were normally left on but had been shut down elsewhere so that they could serve as a guide for their journey. She felt a pang of sympathy for the beings forced into a craven existence here but knew they were as trapped as any of them and before the Doctor could help anyone else, he had to help himself.
The first full day of their journey was proving much like their first spent on the dim trail, save for the occasional more frequent skitterings and guttural utterances in the distance. The Doctor was walking more slowly than normal, just behind Tegan and using his keener eyesight to look over her head. Nyssa, still shouldering the pack, was beside him, unable to stop running through the potential variances on the drug she and the Doctor had created, to find the right combination of elements that would break the grip of the poison. She remembered what Professor Imiras, the teacher she had learned the most from had drilled into her head, and brought up the question that had been in the back of her mind from the start.
"Doctor, how did he get Time Lord DNA to develop this toxin? The Gallifrey I remember was like a fortress, almost completely immune from outside interference. And these people barely have the basic concepts of time travel down; how could they have developed a toxin so effective against you?"
The Doctor looked down at her as they walked; the same questions had obviously been occurring to him but events had precluded their having the discussion. "Well, if Ecosians, after having noticed me, in their observations of my comings and goings, kept track of the worlds I've visited, there would have been medical records of mine other than on Gallifrey, particularly Earth. What they lack in temporal knowledge, they may well have in genetic engineering. When Earth had barely gotten a space station in orbit, they had already begun developing drugs based on genetics and cloning everything up to and including primates. In any case, I've gotten knocked about a bit over the centuries and occasionally found myself incapacitated. Once he determined I was the only one to leave Gallifrey enough to be useful, it would've taken only a few inquiries to determine where else a Time Lord had been and anything that might've happened that would've produced a medical record of some sort, even one incomprehensible to someone taking it."
Tegan glanced back at him, sparing her gaze for a moment from the trail before them. "It's not like you know how to keep a low profile, is it?"
The Doctor smiled tightly. "Drawing attention to oneself, Tegan, is hardly an area where you yourself are lacking," he responded and Tegan couldn't help but smile after a moment.
"Point taken," she admitted and shared a guilty smile with Nyssa. "In any case, I haven't got---." A noise somewhere between a shriek and a howl cut her off, one much closer than any of the others they had heard before now. Tegan pulled the energy pistol from its holster but simply held it pointed at the ceiling, unable to tell if the noise had come from before or behind them. It had been a good half hour since they had passed the last intersection of corridors. They backed against the right hand wall so as not to have their backs open to either direction and waited for several tense minutes. They heard nothing more but Tegan once again fired several bright green warning shots into the air, high toward the ceiling, ahead of and behind them. Having nothing else they could do, they continued to move forward, following the strings of lights deeper into the dark moon.
Another hour went by before they again heard an anonymous noise in the darkness, something that sounded between humanoid and animal, a grating, throbbing howl. Tegan pulled the gun again and Nyssa was tugged closer by the Doctor. "The sound had a much lower pitch. Whatever poor soul is making it is much closer than any of the others for us to have heard it. Tegan, let me see that weapon."
Tegan turned and stared at him but wordlessly handed over the pistol and drew the other one in the same moment. "Which way do you want to cover?"
"Neither", he answered, pointing the gun at the ceiling as he examined it. He sighed with disappointment a moment later. "No stun setting. I assumed as much. Tegan, if you have to fire at one of these people, it will likely be fatal. I can't ask you---."
"You didn't ask me," she cut him off but quietly, ironically in an almost parental tone. "And I figured that out myself a while ago. There's a trigger on here, a sight, and a charge level but no other controls. And if we only stunned them it would leave that many more behind us when we get out or alive to be eaten."
The Doctor went slightly cold and looked at Tegan with strange grief and a sudden new respect. She was no longer the naïve woman who had stumbled into the TARDIS. Having been exposed to so much danger, her thinking was more tactical now, her ability to see through people and situations as sharp, and right now sharper, than his own. She wanted to be with him, to do what she was doing, to have the Universe at her disposal danger or not… none of which made her willingness to kill any easier for him. That change was due to him also, and it was one that he regretted. He looked into her large, calm eyes and felt exhausted the eternally dark day, the tension, and the toxin catching up with him. He looked about the dim corridor for another set of quarters. "I think it's time we rest for the ---."
Another rumbling screech cut him off, and this time they could hear footsteps, running and scampering in short bursts, biped footsteps. The Doctor could tell the direction of them and a surge of adrenalin brought him back up to speed. He handed Tegan back to the spare gun and she holstered it as he grabbed their shoulders and urged them forward, away from the sound of the growling and scuffling. The nearest crew quarters, going by his estimate of their frequency so far, were at least ten minutes further along the path. Reasoning that the Doctor had figured out the source of the noise, Tegan darted a few feet ahead and to the left and fired several volleys into the rock ceiling. Splinters and ricochettes filled the air for a few seconds and something howled angrily, loud and close, just out of range of the light. She thought she might have seen a shape moving in the darkness but didn't want to rely on it. She rejoined the others as they headed forward.
The doors were in sight when they finally encountered their pursuers, hearing their uneven footsteps and turning to see that there were two of them, wearing the shreds of insulated gray uniforms, their pointed teeth showing behind mouths that dripped saliva and hung slightly open. Their eyes, having adapted to the darkness, looked huge and wild. Both were muscular but far too lean and one of them had facial hair growing at bizarre angles and lengths, as if at times it was randomly tugged out. The sight of them froze the travelers for a moment and Tegan raised the barrel of the pistol and aimed it at the ceiling, firing so that a shower of stones came down between the now-deranged time project workers and themselves. The pair hesitated for a moment and then surged forward, picking up the splintered hot stones produced and heaving them directly at the Doctor and his companions.
Tegan fired again, closer, and gave the two wretched figures a moment's pause, enough that they were able to reach the waiting door into the crew quarters. As Nyssa opened it, the two moved again, realizing their quarry was about to escape. The Doctor shoved Tegan inside just seconds before she could fire again, reaching safety himself only just moments before a filthy, long-nailed hand banged against the small window in the closing door. Nyssa could see it as she was locking the door, scraping against the clear panel just over the Doctor's shoulder as he held it closed. Wheezing slightly he took two steps to turn around and fall into one of the chairs in the kitchen area.
Tegan glanced at the door and looked away before she could see anything else, a tortured, once-rational face pressed against it, or a crazed clutching hand. "How long before they lose interest?"
"No way of knowing," the Doctor answered, not looking either now that the door was sealed. "It depends on how long before their hunger drives them elsewhere or how long they can recall that anything of interest is in here. I suggest we find something to block the window."
Nyssa did. A black towel in the bath section that she hung over two jagged edges she created with the help of a tool in the small kit in the pack she had brought. Tegan busied herself in the kitchen area again, still running on adrenalin, her two weapons remaining in easy reach. There was something acceptably like tea in the larder of the crew quarters and she made all of them a cup of it first before looking for anything more substantial. Nyssa took hers and the Doctor's and headed over to the couch where the Doctor now sat, spent and frustrated. She knew the change in Tegan had disturbed him, had seen it in his eyes when Tegan had made her assessment of the weapons and the consequences of merely stunning the scientists and workers affected by the temporal distortion Miros's work had created. It perhaps disturbed him more than his own situation. "Doctor."
He opened his eyes and took the warm drink as she sat down, facing him, one leg folded beneath her. "Thank you, Nyssa." He looked like he wanted to say something more but didn't know what and simply sat forward to drink the strong beverage. There was a stimulant in it, strong enough that he would get through the meal Tegan was preparing before he would need to rest. He knew that Nyssa was watching him without seeming to do so, another tactic that she had doubtless learned at court on Traken when it was better to seem to know nothing of some situations until the right time, the way of politics anywhere. She was very good at it; perhaps he was just imagining her watchfulness. That was a ridiculous thought, another part of his mind immediately countered; being in the company of Nyssa and Tegan both was almost like being in the company of two different sides of the same tigress. He glanced between them both and wondered for a few moments what Leela was doing now and how fast she and these two would become her friends.
No noises came from outside the sealed door after an hour or so had passed or if they had the door was too dense to let them be heard. They spent the intervening hour between arriving and the silence listening to the scrabbling and banging and glad that there was nothing that could be used as a ram, if these once clever minds could still even use tools. The noises had continued through the meal Tegan had fixed, something that was remarkably like cauliflower and a few slices of a rich red meat that seemed akin to deer steaks.
The Doctor waved off another cup of the Ecosian tea and went to prepare for bed. Tegan turned off the kitchen light as he shut the door to the bath and with darkness behind her lifted the black towel and glanced through the small window in the door. The two sad creatures were huddled against the wall together, perhaps waiting them out since they had run out of options for banging, scraping, and pounding. She hoped they'd be gone before it was time to leave because they'd be much harder to get rid of if they had to leave past them in the "morning" or whatever one wanted to call it in this eternal darkness.
Tegan tried not to think on the maddened souls any longer as she crept into bed a bit later. While Nyssa was preparing for bed and the Doctor beginning to fall into another healing trance, she had leaned one of the kitchen chairs against the door and stacked several of the dishes into it. If the door opened at all before they wanted it to there would be a warning clatter. There had been, of course, no way to set up the perimeter scanners they had used the night before so the solution had been Tegan through and through, low-tech but highly effective. Feeling secure enough to sleep, she turned to take one last look at the Doctor and sat up again with a tired sigh. He was shivering in his sleep, even beneath the bright blue covers of the wide lower bunk. She went to the thermostat and turned it what she thought was up, nothing happened. She turned it the other way instead and was rewarded with a blast of cool air from the vent above the heating panel. She shoved it up harder with no result. Just great.
Tegan stopped and thought and pounced on the pack in the spare kitchen chair, digging out one of the thermal blankets and hunting for the control unit. She finally thought she had struck out again there, too, that it had been broken off (though she could detect no damage) or that Nyssa had taken what she had only thought were thermal blankets but then she noticed how warm she was where the gray blanket rested on her legs and in her hands. Smiling, she stood up and unfolded it the rest of the way and went to the bunk across from her own and tossed it over the Doctor, making sure it covered him completely before she lay down herself again.
Her rest lasted an hour and she woke with a single cross thought: 'Damned second cup of tea". Returning from the bath she sat down on the bed again, taking the obligatory look at the Doctor as she did. He was still in the healing trance, he hadn't moved at all, but if anything, the shivering was worse. She moved to sit down beside him and touched his cheek. Ice-cold. Her hand moved beneath the blanket to touch his. It was slightly, only slightly warmer, the same temperature as the interior of the blanket, which was cool to the touch on the outside. Tegan rolled her eyes at her own stupidity. The blanket wasn't battery-powered but made of some material that reflected body heat, which the Doctor had far too little of to do him much good now that the toxin was changing itself. She wondered for a moment if Miros had even foreseen that it would do so and given how badly he wanted the Doctor to get to his trapped family it seemed like a stupid side-effect to program in. None of which solved the immediate problem. At this rate the Doctor would be exhausted from resting if she didn't find some way to get him warmer. She looked up at Nyssa; the girl was dead asleep. She dreaded waking her and there was one obvious solution that didn't require it, even if the Doctor would be rattled by it when he woke. Perhaps she would wake up before him and save him the stress.
Not sure she wasn't rattled herself, Tegan lifted up to the thermal blanket and the first woven cover, and left the blue sheet in place as she slid into the wide bunk next to the Doctor, her eyes on his face as she slid her legs down next to his and lay on her side facing him. The sheet between them, she let the two blankets fall into place and was rewarded within several minutes with a build-up of warmth. At nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit, she was a veritable furnace compared to a Gallifreyan. Laying stiffly away from the Doctor but with them both still underneath the blankets completely, Tegan counted the minutes until she felt his shivering stop and could hear his breath moving past his parted lips without shuddering. She lowered her head onto her coiled up arm and wondered what waking would bring for both of them.