Chapter 3
He couldn't be sure whether the approaching creature was after him or whether their paths just happened to coincide, but Jack was unable to imagine too many scenarios in which being caught at this juncture would be a good thing. That meant sacrificing a little caution for speed was probably the wisest course of action. Hoping the voices from further up the tunnel and the noise made by the alien behind him would cover the sound of his retreat, he broke into a jog, pleased that the run, at least to his ears, didn't make appreciably more noise.
The light ahead of him glowed brighter with every stride he took, every foot of elevation he gained until, breathing heavily, he reached the top. Crossing quickly to where Gwen had stuffed herself into the rocky opening, he put a hand out to let her know he was there.
She shifted and emerged partway, seeming to note that he'd been running.
"Company," he warned her.
Her eyes went wide and she scrambled the rest of the way out of the hole, taking care to keep as quiet as possible. He stopped to listen again. The creature was much closer now; its appearance was imminent. Jack grabbed up her pack from the floor next to the opening, ushering Gwen out the way they'd first come in. They had to find cover, and quickly.
They ran until it was too dim to do so safely, and Gwen flipped on her headlamp. As far as he could tell, they'd left the creature behind, but not too far. It was safe to use the light, but they needed someplace to hide in the hope that it wasn't really looking for them and would simply pass them by if only they could get out of the main tunnel.
Jack estimated that they'd soon be back to the large cavern where they'd rested earlier and knew there was no cover there. They had to find something soon or risk being caught in the open in the cavern. A turning, a siding, anything.
Finally, in the wildly bouncing beam of Gwen's lamp, he spied an alcove. Grabbing her shoulder, he spun her to the side and slammed into her, her back hitting the wall with much more force than he intended. Didn't matter. They were out of sight for the moment.
"Fuck, Jack," she gasped, keeping her voice low, well aware of their danger. Her body was tense under his, her breath laboured from where he'd just knocked it out of her. She extinguished the lamp, throwing them into blackness as he hurriedly dropped both her pack and his to the ground.
"That's a good idea. You should do that sometime," he breathed to her. "Bring along that boyfriend of yours."
"Sure, if that's what you want," she answered, her breath tickling his ear, the tone offhanded. As if he'd just told her his lunch order.
"Great. But later, okay? Got a situation to worry about right now."
"Promises, promises." The distant remembrance of Rose in his arms uttering the same words as they danced together on a chilly London night swam to the surface of Jack's thoughts as Gwen murmured in his ear. He felt himself give a sad half-smile.
Then Gwen went totally still, her heart hammering in her chest under his, the translator she still clutched pressed awkwardly between them. He could only pray they were well enough hidden here. Her breath hitched and she held it, listening intently. He was too close to see her face in the growing light, but if they were to remain undetected he had to stay that way. The alcove they were squeezed into just wasn't that big, barely more than a shallow impression in the cave wall.
He followed her lead, holding his own breath, straining to hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears, over the thunder of his heart.
Then he heard it, and his blood froze in his veins.
It was close. A few metres at most. Right on top of them.
He closed his eyes--his back to the opening, he couldn't see anything but craggy stone wall anyway. And Gwen's arm around him, her hand pressed into the small of his back, pulled him tighter to her, closer to the wall. An aeon seemed to pass as he was aware of nothing but the pressure of Gwen's sidearm holster jammed into his hip and the soft shuffle and scrape behind him as the creature passed them by.
When the sound finally receded and the passage outside was dark and silent once more, a stiff measure of relief coursed through him, and they both let out relieved sighs. Jack pulled himself away from his partner, rubbing at the painful indention in his hip. He grinned, though he knew she couldn't see him. "Walk in the park," he whispered.
"Some park. I'd hate to see the neighbourhood." There was sarcasm in her reply, but he could hear the wry smirk on her lips. "We need to get out of here. If it comes back, we won't be hidden here." He'd come to the same conclusion. While the alcove deep enough to shield them from view from one direction, it was angled such that it was readily visible from the opposite.
Jack confirmed her assessment as he bent, his hand finding her pack. Picking it up, he handed it to her before donning his again. He sensed Gwen kneel to rummage in the rucksack. Taking the chance, he used his wristcomputer's backlight to provide a small amount of dusky light for her. "Thanks," she said softly, stowing the translator.
They had to move, but which way? He wasn't thrilled by either direction open to them. Neither course, forward or back the way they came, would provide them the cover they'd need if the alien came back. Reluctantly, he decided to follow behind the alien and hope it had a destination and didn't double back. If they could get back to the larger cavern, they could lose themselves in the mine's wider network of tunnels. From there, they'd have a chance to regroup and appraise their position.
Gwen ready to go, he shut down the wristcomputer. Blanketed by darkness again, right hand on the rough wall beside him, the other in Gwen's, he led them forward.
As expected, the wall under his hand soon fell away as the passage widened into a much larger room, the echoing sound of water suddenly fuller and more resonant in the open space. Blindly moving a few metres into the chamber, Jack glanced around. Nothing but total black met his eyes except the vague glow from the tunnel they'd just exited. The sense of foreboding that'd had him feeling wound too tight inside began to slacken, the tension in his muscles receding.
Home free. No sign of the alien.
That was, of course, when a vice-like hand fell on his shoulder and jerked him off-balance.
oOoOo
There was a startled oath from Jack as his hand was torn away from hers. Fearing he had fallen, she cried out reflexively. "Jack?"
The sounds a struggle and Jack's, "Gwen, get back!" caused her to reach for her Glock and her headlamp at the same time. The light that flooded her vision was almost painful and the tableau drawn in hideous shadows and muted colours before her sent a shot of icy water through her insides. The alien, its back mostly to her, had Jack in its powerful grip, pinning his arms to his sides.
"Jack!" Ripping her pistol from its holster, she instinctively came to firing stance, knowing she couldn't shoot without risk to her partner. The entirety of the alien's focus was on Jack fighting against its hold, apparently content to ignore her. Feeling she wasn't a threat?
A few more moments of vain effort and Jack stilled, taking stock. The creature remained impassive.
Gwen watched them watching each other for what felt like an eternity. Finally, it was Jack who broke the stalemate. He took a deep breath, taking his wary gaze off his captor to glance to her, flinching away again when her lamp caught him straight in the eyes. He made a somewhat restricted motion with his hand for her to lower the weapon.
"Jack, are you sure?" she hissed to him.
"I'm okay, Gwen," he finally said. "I don't think it wants to hurt me." She couldn't fathom how he could sound so calm with that thing so close to him, holding him, but she did as he told her. He then addressed the creature with a smooth smile, absurdly greeting it as if it was someone he'd just met in a pub. "Hello. Jack Harkness. The lovely lady behind you is Gwen. Sorry, but I didn't catch your name."
He paused, looking mildly hopeful, continuing when his captor made no reply. "No, then? Okay, sorry to crash the place like this, but we were hoping you could enlighten us about the spaceship up top. Oh, and nice ambush, by the way. Been a while since anyone's got the better of me like that." His smile widened to a grin; he was genuinely amused that the alien had bested him. If the situation didn't have her feeling like there were tight steel bands of tension wrapped around her chest, Gwen would've shaken her head in disbelief.
In response, the creature made a funny little wuffling noise and released one of Jack's arms, still regarding him cautiously, holding him in place with one clawed hand on his shoulder. Jack stood his ground and made no attempt to escape or pull away from it. When Jack didn't move, the creature thought it was safe to turn and rake its small, close-set black eyes over her. Nothing that felt like menace showed, simply alert interest. And it didn't appear unduly concerned over the unaimed weapon in her hand.
"Yeah, I think we're all right," Jack said to her though he didn't look in her direction again. "Go ahead and put the gun away."
Her reply was tight as she started, "I don't--"
Never taking his eyes from the alien, Jack cut across her protest with a firm, "Do it." Gwen hesitated--she felt safer with it out--but again did as he directed. "Remember we were going to see if diplomacy worked this time?" In the shadowy half-light, she was sure she caught the glint of exhilaration in his eyes. The madman was enjoying this.
"All right, then." Gwen had to concede that for now the alien was docile enough. But she couldn't help but think that that could change at any moment. "Now what?"
"Well, we don't seem be getting very far in Eng--"
Jack stopped when, with a glance between the two of them, the creature suddenly stooped to retrieve something from the floor--a torch of some kind, handle and control tailored for its thick-fingered hands. Her hand had gone immediately to the Glock when the alien had started moving. She let the hand drop to her side as she realised the device wasn't a weapon.
"Jumpy," Jack scolded. She shot back a glare which he ignored. He started again, "As I was saying, English..."
The creature spoke then, saying something in its language followed by something that sounded stunningly like, "Come."
Something akin to her own astonishment flitted over Jack's face and was gone. "Say again?" Did it understand them?
"Come," the creature repeated as distinctly as its non-human mouth and lips would allow. As a way of emphasising its meaning, it grasped Jack's forearm firmly, pulling and encouraging him to go with it.
"I'll have you know I'm not one to turn down an offer like that, but usually there are drinks involved first. Some dancing..." The motion became a more insistent tug when Jack did not follow quickly enough. "Okay!" He let himself be led. "In this case," he told the creature, "I'm going to make an exception because you're not giving me much of a choice here."
From the way the alien was regarding her, Gwen knew she wasn't escaping the invitation either. Her apprehension rose a notch with the scrutiny and the idea of what might befall them when they'd reached whatever destination the alien intended. She backed away a few steps as the creature approached and she was in the tunnel again. It stopped when it came along side of her, expectant--waiting for her to move again?
But Jack was reaching out for her with his free hand. "C'mon, Gwenny," he coaxed with a faint smile. "Apparently we have an appointment back down the tunnel and our friend doesn't seem content to leave you out." She put her hand in his and he gave it a reassuring squeeze as they started forward.
Their friend wasn't in any hurry as they descended, the pace sedate at best. And by the time they reached the hole in the rock that had been her listening post, the anticipation was driving her mad.
"Westman and Matheson are fine." Jack's non sequitur shook her out of her thoughts. She found his concerned gaze upon her as they trailed along behind their escort. It had let go of Jack after a few minutes, but looked back occasionally as if it wasn't entirely sure they'd still be there. Jack, however, seemed willing to offer his hand for as long as she needed it, and, though it felt a little childish, Gwen found his hand in hers a welcome comfort.
"What?"
"You were worrying about what was going to happen to us. The cavers are all right. Stands to reason that we will be too." His smile was warm and his expression earnest. She wanted to believe he knew what he was talking about. "And we haven't been threatened. Not after the hide and seek act in the dark--which I think was just this one's way of amusing itself."
She nodded and gave a noncommittal "Yeah."
He grinned anyway. "That's my girl." Jack's spate of enthusiasm made the creature's head swivel back in alarm and it considered them for a second. "See? Still here, big fella. Lead on," he told it with a carry-on gesture.
The creature made its wuffling noise again--an exasperated or an amused sound, she couldn't tell, but for some reason it made her smile. Apart from that one word of English, it hadn't talked to them again and showed no real sign of understanding what they were saying.
Eventually, their winding path through uneven, rocky passages ended in a massive cavern, brightly lit and distinctly airy despite being metres underground. The sheer majesty of the space caused her gaze to be swept immediately upward. Gwen ran her eyes over the shadowy irregularity of the cavern ceiling high over their heads, spotting a familiar outcropping of rock, and she realised where they were. Turning her head, she found the opening she had eavesdropped through to gather language data for the translator.
The realisation caused her to take another look at their captor. She was embarrassed to figure out this late that it was the alien she had been watching before.
"Nice digs," Jack commented appreciatively, and it caused her to pay attention to the rest of the room. As she had seen from her previous view, the place was more campsite than anything else. Spartan sleeping and living areas had been arranged within the space. Heavy-looking, grey crates divided the areas, affording a marginal amount of privacy for the improvised bedchambers, she supposed.
The space under the opening that she couldn't see before was no different, but she finally got her look at the owner of the third voice. It looked older than the other one, its scaly hide dull and uneven compared to the creature that had brought them here. It was also injured. A long, and she suspected deep, gash ran along the outside of one of its thighs as it reclined on a thick cushion set atop a few more of the ubiquitous grey crates. The wound had been left undressed, but the edges had been pulled together by a few ragged, inexpertly-sewn stitches.
In her awe, she had stopped not far into the cavern. But then, Jack hadn't made it any further either, and their friend was now herding them toward the older alien, the leader of this group, presumably. Part of her wondered what the protocol was.
As it shuffled her and Jack forward, it spoke to the leader, who listened intently, inserting its own sporadic comment.
"What do you suppose that discussion is about?" she whispered to Jack. Morbidly, she couldn't help adding, "Which wine we'd be tastier with?"
There was an instant of indecision in his expression, and Gwen couldn't tell whether he was going to laugh at her or whether he was going to be horrified at the suggestion or whether his response was going to be something else entirely. His features settled into something mildly amused and he told her, "Sentient species rarely consider each other to be food sources," in a tone of voice that was only slightly lecturing. "Though some would beg to differ, last time I looked, humans qualified."
"Oh, good." She eyed the row of sharply pointed teeth visible when the alien talked. "They know that, then?"
"Stop it," he chided, rubbing at his forehead briefly. "How much translator data were you able to get before?"
She struggled to remember what the tablet PC was reading when she last looked. "I think it was estimating four hours to a translation. I didn't think to look when I put it away."
"Yeah, well, don't worry about it. We were both a little preoccupied. Do you remember shutting it down?" he asked.
Gwen shook her head. "No, I didn't. It should still be working. Probably still recording."
"That's fine. The bigger the sample base, the better we'll be able to communicate. Eventually," Jack muttered, a trace of frustration seeping through. He sighed. "Till then, we'll have to make do."
Unexpected movement behind them and an excited third voice made her start. It startled Jack as well, betraying the fact that he was more on edge than his devil-may-care act let on. Another alien had entered, the smaller one Gwen had seen earlier. Walking quickly and talking even faster, it crossed to them.
When it got near, it looked them over carefully, scanning over Jack and fixing an uncomfortable amount of its interest on her. It reached out a hand to touch her once and it felt like the next move was going to be for the thing to grab at her. "Why do I feel like the puppy presented to a four year old on Christmas morning?" she murmured to Jack as she tried to avoid the contact and hoped wasn't going to offend by doing so.
Jack didn't get to make the salacious comment she expected from him as a command from the elder interrupted the younger creature's enthusiasm. It ducked its head in obedience for an instant, curbing its obvious delight into something more staid. Gwen breathed a sigh of relief and surreptitiously inched away from the alien, closer to Jack.
Then, to her surprise, it spoke to her. "Hurt?" it asked.
She was shocked for a moment. "We're both fine," Jack answered. He nudged her when it seemed her response was needed as well.
"No. No, you didn't hurt me," she said, abashed that it came out a little stammered. The creature appeared contemplative--trying to decipher what she'd said? Gwen had to ask, "You understand us?"
It cocked its head in what she took to be bemusement and very carefully formed the words, "Apologies. You stay."
"Sorry? Stay?" She was confused. Stay where?
Jack put a hand on her shoulder. "I think it means we're guests for the time being, Gwen. And I don't think they really understand what we're saying." And, indeed, there didn't seem to be anything like comprehension in any of the three aliens. They were stringing words together and hoping the result meant something. She was again reminded of being in Majorca with Grant, trying to put together a dinner order with their combined ten words of Spanish. Jack shrugged, pragmatic. "My guess is we've hit the limit of their English. Let me try something." And he said something in a guttural language that Gwen was almost sure she'd never heard before.
The smallest alien was intensely interested, but it was the eldest that replied. "No."
"Okay, that's something. Not a really a valid response to the question, though. How 'bout this?" He tried a different language, something that might have been Asian from the sound of it.
This time "no" was accompanied by a hand gesture--as much as the thing had hands--one hand cutting a horizontal line in the air.
Jack grinned in triumph. "Now we're getting somewhere." His own hands described a circular shape and he touched his fingers to the centre of his forehead twice. "Yes, I understand that." He made another sign and said, "A little." As a private comment to Gwen, he ruefully added, "But likely not enough to help us much."
oOoOo
The leader trilled happily, signing out something that Jack translated as As with me. Unfortunately he didn't know any more of the signed language than Jack did. But the alien had the game now and addressed him in another common language, Rilliskcis.
Unfortunately, Jack's smattering of Rilliskcis barely extended beyond What's an attractive being like you doing in a place like this? and Buy you a drink?--after that, conversations tended to be carried out on a less than verbal level. Hardly useful in this case. "Yeah, it would turn out that the only standard you speak is Rilliskcis," he muttered, shaking his head.
"You know the language?" Gwen's eyes were round with wonder. She was going to make him explain this one.
"Enough to proposition the looker over there." He tipped his head to indicate the smallest of the creatures--female by his reckoning. "Or find a bar that serves humanoids. Oh, and I could probably swear like a sailor if the need arose. Nothing that's going to help us find out why they're here or get us out of here." He pulled together enough of his Rilliskcis to tell the creature he recognised the language, but didn't speak it.
"What is it? I don't recognise it." He knew she had guessed the language wasn't human and was playing coy.
The leader was busy with his underlings--most likely explaining to them what had been discovered--so Jack had no way to avoid doing the same. "It's Rilliskcis. A fairly common galactic standard." Unfortunately one of the few standards he'd never had much call to learn. His professional life with the Time Agency hadn't ever sent him to the side of the galaxy where it was heavily used, and in his follow-on life as a con man, he'd never had use of it outside propositioning people in bars that served humanoids.
"Right." She was dying to ask how he knew it, he could tell. "So that was the other languages you tried--other 'galactic standards'?"
Well, the ones for this time zone, anyway. English, or rather, some of its derivatives would become standards in a few centuries once the human race found its way into space, but right now, he'd exhausted his knowledge. "Yeah, Harval's Trader's Tongue and the Varellian Common. The signed one doesn't have a name that I know of. It's just a way that beings who don't or can't vocalise communicate."
She eyed him critically. "How many languages do you speak?"
"Fluently or"--he smirked at her--"like I speak Welsh?" That got a smile out of Gwen and she didn't press for an answer. Instead she said something to him in Welsh and the only thing he understood was the word for Welsh. So he plastered on a lascivious grin and leer that would probably get him punched by her boyfriend under other circumstances and purred, "That didn't have anything to do with sex, did it?"
She barked a laugh, apparently forgetting where she was and stirring up a little commotion with their green friends. "Jack, you're hopeless."
"Most people use the word incorrigible."
"That, too," Gwen agreed. She sobered slightly when she noticed the aliens' attention had returned to them. "So we've determined we can't muddle through with a combination of German, Esperanto and somebody or other's Trader's Tongue. Is that it?"
Fresh out of ideas, Jack looked to the aliens' leader. He didn't seem to have anything to add or try either. "I guess so. At least until the UNIT translator gives us something. If it gives us something."
A rapid-fire conversation between the aliens led to them being goaded away from the injured leader's improvised sickbed, toward another passage. "This audience is at an end," Gwen intoned regally.
"If it's any consolation, I'll probably get to introduce you to Matheson and Westman now." They were certainly headed in the right direction for that, the younger male and the female escorting them unhurriedly down the tunnel as they carried on a separate discussion over his and Gwen's heads.
Truth be told, being locked in a cell right now wasn't a terrible option. He needed some time to think and come up with a plan. To think over contingencies in case the translator failed to yield the hoped for results and they weren't able to converse coherently with these people. Not to mention it would be great just to get off his feet for a while. Without looking at his chronometer, he knew it had been hours since that rest stop with Gwen.
If nothing else, he'd been assured that this was no military operation. He'd suspected that it wasn't from the ship design, but the aggressiveness of the defences and the fact that he couldn't get a clean scan of ship's systems gave him room to worry. Now that he'd met the aliens, he would also be willing to bet that their presence here was not a precursor to invasion. No, they felt like explorers, scientists or researchers maybe--intuition steered him away from tagging them as a familial group, despite the relative youth of the male and female compared to their leader. Whether they were here on purpose or not was a question he had yet to answer. But if he could get a look inside a few of the equipment crates, he'd probably have a better idea of who they were and what they were up to.
Either way, their intent did not appear hostile--the cavers and the treatment of Gwen and himself confirmed it--and for that he was immensely grateful. This planet had seen enough nasty alien threats.
He was aware he needed to contact Torchwood soon. If only to make sure they knew not to come in with plasma rifles blazing when he and Gwen didn't call in. They were far underground, so needless to say cell phone was a total lost cause and the comm on his wristcomputer wouldn't penetrate either. Normally he'd have another day until anyone--usually Price--started looking for him, but this time, with Gwen along, the proper paperwork had been filed and standard procedure would be followed.
Jack started to work out the timeline in his head. They'd already missed the twelve-hour check-in. Six hours after, when the second scheduled check-in was missed, the acting director would be informed--and won't Bast just be thrilled to get that call at midnight. So, around six tomorrow morning, operations would be sending in the cavalry.
Once Bast ordered the search, it would take Price two seconds to locate the Range Rover's tracking signal, meaning--he checked the time--they had about twelve hours before the troops came knocking. That was if the North Wales Police didn't turn up first looking for the cavers. From what Clarkson had told them, the official search should be underway.
The tunnel widened out and, as he had anticipated, their tour had led to the chamber where the two hikers were jailed. At sight of their little party, Matheson and Westman launched themselves to their feet, the wariness of the aliens in their eyes muted by hope as they looked to Jack. He shook his head apologetically. "Still working on it, guys."
He came to stand beside the cage and watched while the female ran the sonic key over the locking mechanism. As prisoner security went, the lock was hardly adequate. He knew of at least three ways to circumvent the technology. But then these creatures weren't exactly expert jailers either. That much was painfully obvious in that, had he the mind for it, Jack could have escaped them a dozen times over.
The female pulled the cell door open with a scrape and made a little "in" gesture, her posture somewhat remorseful. So Jack grinned at her and complied to show her he didn't bear her any ill will for doing what she had to, perfectly content to play along for the time being. The two men already in the cell observed the scene with dumbfounded expressions, and thankfully didn't make a move toward escape themselves. It was clear they'd expected him to fight against being imprisoned.
"Jack?"
The distress in Gwen's voice made him turn. "Hold on!" he protested. She was still outside, the bigger alien trying to herd her away, the female trying to close the confinement door.
"What do I do?" Gwen looked as confused as he felt as she fought to stay close to him, blocking the effort to shut him in without her.
"Don't fight them. Evidently girls and boys get separate rooms." That was what he hoped, anyway, and his words did nothing to ease the tight apprehension in Gwen's stance. He threw his hand out through the narrowing opening and grasped hers briefly before she was gently but firmly forced away from him. "It'll be okay. I'll figure a way out," he assured her, trying to reassure himself in the process. Stepping aside to let the door close fully, he hooked his fingers into the mesh wall of the cage, watching them leave the chamber. "I'll find you," he called just before he lost sight of her.
His eyes slid closed and he let his forehead fall against the cold mesh, grasping at it until the wire bit into his fingers, angry with himself. He hadn't anticipated that. He hadn't imagined they'd separate him from Gwen.
"Why'd you let them lock you in?" came a voice from behind him. For an instant, he considered ignoring it.
Jack sighed wearily and looked over his shoulder. The blond--Mike Westman, he reminded himself--stared at him, perplexed, waiting for an answer. He searched for a response that would appease the guy. "Told you, we're still working on it."
"But you've got a gun," was the immediate reply.
The annoyance he felt for himself twisted and found a new target in the kid. Jack shoved it away to find something that would let him deal civilly with Westman. "You've seen those guys, right? You've been paying attention? They're huge with a hide two inches thick." Plainly, diplomacy was still slightly out of his reach at the moment. "Believe me, the .38 I'm carrying would only make 'em mad," he stated decisively, revelling a bit in the way Westman deflated, crestfallen.
Sighing again, letting the harshness drop from his voice, Jack turned to lean his shoulder against the wire. "We are going to get out of here. It's just going to take a little longer than originally anticipated. Anyway, from what I've seen, they don't want to hurt us. We're only prisoners, I suspect, because they don't want anyone else finding out they're here."
He pushed at the cage door, rattling it against its latch. Besides, why shoot our way out when it would take me half a minute to get this open? he thought. But he wouldn't tell his cellmates that. What would be the point of escaping if he hadn't figured out why the aliens were here and hadn't found a way to get them off the planet?
The other kid, Doug, moved to talk, but Jack cut him off before he could. "And, you know, I don't blame them. Think about it from their point of view: alien planet, no way to communicate with the locals, who would probably just capture and dissect them." And I'm disgusted to admit some of those people work for me. "They're scared of us." He should stop now. He was beginning to sound like a certain Time Lord he knew. Jack shook his head. "Now if you'll hang on a minute. I need to find out where they've stashed my partner."
Jack was about to call out to her when her voice drifted out of the tunnel, distorted by irregular rock walls. "Jack? You okay?" It was impossible to tell how far away she was.
He smiled. She was worried for him? "Just fine, Gwenny. Didn't I tell you, I live for this?"
He could hear her grinning as she retorted, "And here all this time I thought it was sex." Her brazen comment startled a genuine laugh out of him, relieved that she was all right if she was still bantering.
"Next best thing, I assure you," he called back to her, still grinning. "Where'd you end up?"
"I'm probably a hundred metres down the passage; there's another cavern. Looks like a makeshift lab of some kind."
"A lab?"
"Yeah, it reminds me of A-level biology in here. Specimens in cages--rabbits, a squirrel, a few birds, bugs... Something that looks a lot like a dissection set-up." Jack heard the hint of revulsion in her voice, but he couldn't imagine the former homicide detective was put off by the idea of dissection. He suspected it had more to do with the idea that a human might have been the subject of one. "Some machinery..."
That focused his attention. "Describe the machinery to me. Best as you can."
Jack hadn't realised the eye for detail Gwen possessed until she described what was probably a comm unit to him. Made sense that the aliens would bring it from the ship. Next was a data processing unit.
The next object was infinitely more interesting--an oblong nearly two metres long with connection piping at one end. Before she finished describing it, he was grinning to himself and was sure he knew what she she'd found. "One end is probably a good quarter metre larger than the end with all the connection points," he added.
Amazement had snuck into her tone when she replied. "Exactly."
"You're looking at a phasic energy converter, Gwen. It's probably from their ship and, unless I miss my guess, it's the reason they're here." The fact that it wasn't installed in the spaceship's engine compartment told him there was a problem with it. "If we're lucky, that meteor a few weeks ago was a controlled burn rather than a crash-landing." If it was a crash, there'd be more damage than just a busted converter and less chance he'd be able to get them under way again. "Is it intact? No chunks missing, not burned badly?"
"No. No, it looks okay from here."
He didn't reply right away, thinking over options. Foremost among them was whether to risk breaking out of the cell to go assess the converter's condition himself. If he could get it operational--
"So what's the next move, Jack?" Gwen's faraway voice interrupted his thoughts. "Broken spaceship."
He had to shush his cellmates when she said the word 'spaceship'. Of course, spaceship. How'd they think the aliens got here? "--call up the local garage and order a tow," she was saying. "Can't exactly offer them a lift home." A lift home. Not for the first time, Jack wished he still had the cell phone the Doctor had given him. Of course, if he still had the phone--or let the Doctor interface his wristcomputer to the TARDIS's comm system instead of insisting that he wanted to work it out for himself--he wouldn't be here. Wouldn't be cooling his heels, waiting around for him to turn up on Earth again. He would have had his ride or had his final words with the Time Lord a year ago.
"If I could get a look at it, I might be able to fix it. Maybe figure a workaround if I can't." He was giving away an awful lot in this conversation, adding a few more rounds of ammo to the Jack Harkness dossier that Gwen was compiling in that sharp mind of hers. Jack resigned himself to it. It couldn't be helped right now.
"Hold on, you can fix it?"
"Assuming that's the only problem with the ship, yeah."
A long moment passed. "Okay, I'm going to take it as read that you really do know your way around alien spaceship parts, but if it could be fixed, wouldn't they have done it already and flown off back into space?" Gwen asked.
"Not if something happened to their engineer. More likely they weren't carrying one in the first place. It's like your car. You hop in, you go. Ignition coil goes out; can you fix it?" he offered as an example.
"No." He could tell she understood the point.
"Neither can I--well, not without a lot of fiddling. Not my speciality. That's what Sean in motor pool is for."
Jack had ruled out breaking out for the moment in favour of seeing if the translator was going to give them anything usable. Once it had finished compiling the translation matrix, he'd try his luck at convincing the aliens to let him have a go at that converter. "Still got the translator?" he called to Gwen. Between the aliens' limited translation and theirs, it might just be possible.
"Yes." There was a pause and he imagined she was digging the translator out of her pack and checking it over. The aliens hadn't taken his sidearm or pack from him. He assumed Gwen still had hers as well. "It's still estimating about ninety minutes for a usable database," she replied.
"All right. Let me know when it's done." He suppressed another sigh and turned back to his cellmates.
An hour and a half to wait. Great.
