Chapter 28

Out Of Sync

A dome of bright crimson light shone around the TARDIS, as the extrapolator shields nullified the energy of the droids weapons.

'Hah! You extended the extrapolator shields,' Jack said, as he thought back to when they had rescued Rose from the Dalek ship in the old universe.

Rose slapped John's arm. 'A bit of warnin' would've been nice. I only got your idea when I saw them fire.'

John kissed her quickly on the lips. 'Sorry about that Love. I didn't have time to say anything, I barely had time to set the sonic.'

The flashes of crimson light subsided, and they looked at the droids in front of them.

'Oh look at you,' John said in admiration. 'You are gorgeous.'

'Why is it, that when somethin' tries to kill us, you think it's beautiful?' Rose asked him.

She turned to Jack. 'In the old universe, there was this werewolf thing about to bite my face off. His lordship here goes all gooey eyed over it, callin' it beautiful . . . Then there were these clockwork robots on this deserted ship . . .'

'Oh but come on, you've got to agree, they were a lovely bit of engineering,' John said.

'They were tryin' to chop me an' Mickey up for spare parts,' she reminded him. 'That was the one with the horse and the king's mistress,' she told Jack with her teasing smile.

'You have GOT to tell me that story,' Jack said. 'But maybe another time. Right now we have to get past these guys . . . Any ideas Doc?'

'Wellll, as I see it. If we leave the protection of the extrapolator shield, we're toast. And . . . Well, that's it actually.'

'We could fly the TARDIS down to the embryo storage area,' Rose suggested.

'That would give us a couple of minutes before they ran down and started firing at us again,' John said.

'Hold on,' Rose said with a frown, which turned into a grin. 'Why don't we play the progenitors at their own game?'

John picked up her idea and gave her an open mouthed smile. 'Oh Wife. You are a GENIUS!'

'Er, guys. I don't do telepathy, remember?'Jack reminded them. 'So I missed the memo. Any chance of letting me in on it?'

'We can do better than that,' John replied, opening the TARDIS door. 'We can show you.'

They went inside, closing the door and leaving the artificial intelligence of a group of security droids, wondering what it should do next. Inside the TARDIS, they removed their crash helmets, and John and Rose worked the console.

'The mother ship is one second out of sync with the rest of the universe, right?' John explained to Jack.

'Yeah, got that,' Jack replied.

'So what if we put the TARDIS two seconds out of sync with the universe, and one second out of sync with the mother ship?' Rose asked.

'Oh that is good,' Jack said, giving her his perfect, white toothed smile.

The TARDIS materialised in an area of the ship where the walls looked like the honeycombs inside a bee's nest. There were rows and rows of small cells, approximately one foot in diameter, on dozens of levels. In the centre of the chamber, were several delta winged craft, about the size of a Learjet. There were hundreds of medical droids working around the chamber, performing a variety of tasks. A few of them seemed to be loading metal canisters into one of the ships.

'So these droids are completely unaware of our presence?' Jack queried.

'Yep. To them, we don't exist in their time frame,' John replied.

'Does each of those cells contain an embryo?' Rose asked as John closed the door.

They walked over to one wall and John took out his sonic screwdriver. 'Yep. A fertilized embryo, held in stasis.'

Jack looked up, then around the massive, egg shaped chamber. 'There must be millions of them,' he realised.

'Hundreds of millions more like,' John said. 'An entire civilisation.'

'I wonder what was so bad that they had to trust the survival of their civilisation to this ship?' Jack asked.

'Maybe there'll be somethin' in the computer that will tell us,' Rose suggested.

'Hmm. Might be,' John said, and operated one of the wall mounted panels. 'Oh. First of all though, we've got to stop them doing a number on another unsuspecting planet.'

'That must be why they're loading that small ship,' Jack said.

'Right. So let's see if I can find the control circuit for the hangar doors and disable them,' said John. He scanned a number of panels as he hurried around the room.

He sonicked a door sized panel, and it clicked open. 'Ah, here we are. Control interfaces for the various systems in this chamber.'

The cupboard area behind the panel was full of pipes, cables, conduits, junction boxes, valves, knobs, levers and switch boxes. John used the sonic to find the switch box he was looking for. He lifted a switch guard and pushed a switch up.

'There we are. That should stop them from opening the hangar doors and launching,' he said with a smug grin.

Further down the honeycomb array, a panel slid up and a dustbin sized maintenance droid rolled out. Rose couldn't help but think that it resembled the R2 droids in the Star Wars films. They watched as it rolled past them and stopped at the access cupboard. Somehow, without any face or body language, it managed to exude an attitude of annoyance. Its domed head rose up on a telescopic pole, and a small panel flipped open. A multi tooled appendage appeared, lifted the switch guard, and pushed the switch down. The tool retracted, the head descended, and the droid rolled back to its cupboard, still appearing to be annoyed at something.

Rose snorted a laugh at the expression on John's face. 'Well, that told you.'

'Oh we could be doing this all day,' John moaned. He took out his sonic again, lifted the switch guard, pushed up the switch and held the sonic against it. He shielded his face with his left hand and pressed the button on the sonic. There was a high pitched whistle, followed by a bang and a cascade of sparks.

Whilst John had been in a battle of wits with "Artoo Deetoo", Jack had been accessing the mainframe computer. 'Hey Doc. I think I've got something here.'

John and Rose went and stood beside him to look at the holographic display, as the maintenance droid came out of his cupboard and went back to flick the switch.

'What have you found?' John asked, putting on his brainy specs. 'Ooh. An encrypted historical record.' He used the sonic on the panel. 'Let's see if we can decrypt it.'

The holographic display wobbled and spluttered as John adjusted the sonic and tried to get past the encryption. Meanwhile, the sound of a dustbin blowing a raspberry came from the service cupboard when it realised that the whole switch assembly would need replacing.

'Oh, you've got it, John,' Rose said, as text started to appear in the air in front of them.

They started to read the history of the "Final Option", the name of the mother ship. It told of a world of telepaths, living a peaceful life in a level six society, when tragedy struck. The population became sterile. None of the scientist on the planet could find a cause or a cure for their infertility. They had not advanced their medical sciences as much as their engineering, and were still learning how to map their DNA and modify their genome.

Rose could feel John's emotions as he read the history of these unfortunate people.

'You're thinkin' of Gallifrey, aren't you?' she asked him.

'Yeah. There's a lot of similarities with the fall of Pythia,' he replied.

'Pythia?' Jack asked.

'The matriarchs of Gallifrey before the age of Rassilon. They possessed psychic powers . . . just like this lot,' he said, looking at the honeycombs. 'They governed using mystery and superstition, until Rassilon seized power and brought reason and science. The Pythia fled to Karn and established their sisterhood.'

'The Sisterhood of Karn. I've heard of them,' said Jack.

'Witches, who keep the Eternal Flame burning,' John said with a hint of bitterness.

'I'm sensing you're not a fan,' Jack noted.

'They saved my life once,' he said, as though that was a bad thing. 'Gave me a regeneration that I'm not proud of.'

'Was that the one before I met you?' Rose asked.

John nodded. 'Gallifrey might still have existed if it wasn't for them. They turned me into a soldier, in an attempt to end the Time War. They had the gift of precognition, and I think they could see how the war would end.'

Rose held his hand and intertwined their fingers. She had seen his memories of Gallifrey when he had shared them with her after the birth of their first son, Eyulf. She remembered the fall of the last Pythia and the curse she had put on Gallifrey, making them infertile.

'These people didn't have the technology to build looms like the Time Lords did,' she realised.

'No. So they fertilised as many eggs as they could in vitro and put them in this ship. A last chance for their species to survive, by relying on the charity of strangers.'

'Ah. Only they hadn't counted on their offspring misusing their powers due to the lack of parental guidance,' Jack realised.

As a mother, Rose could see how that would be a problem. 'Their parents had the same powers they did, shared the same mind. They could impart their wisdom on their children. Without that control, how could you even think about disciplinin' them?'

'And so this ship has been spreading these children through the galaxy like a plague,' John said.

'Can we stop them?' Rose asked.

'Oh yes. We can stop them . . . But then what?' John asked, the weight of millions of lives on his shoulders once again. 'There's a whole civilisation here waiting to be born. If we deny them that chance, it's as good as committing genocide.'

Rose got a glimpse of potential futures through John's thoughts. All those lives waiting to be lived. People to love, to be loved. Adventures waiting to be had, places to be explored, discoveries to be made. How could they deny them?

'Like they wanted to terminate the pregnancies in Dunwich,' Jack commented. 'Could we use the same solution for all these, but on a larger scale?'

'That would be a hell of a project,' John replied.

He went over to one of the individual cells and scanned it with his sonic screwdriver. Inside the transparent cell was a metal cylinder about six inches in diameter, and a foot long. It had a handle on the front to allow it to be pulled out, and a small panel with controls on it.

'Mmm. I was right about how they impregnated the villagers,' said John. 'It has a teleport delivery system incorporated into the design. The embryo and placenta are teleported onto the wall of the uterus.'

'That would make it easy to get them into the artificial wombs then,' said Rose, optimistically.

'Yeah. But we'd need to find someone who was willing to build hundreds of millions of them,' John told her.

'Oh yeah,' Rose said thoughtfully. Her bubble of optimism having been popped.

'Right. So we need a plan,' Jack said with his hands on his hips. 'First, we need to turn this ship around and park it somewhere while we sort out what we're going to do.'

'And stop the security droids from tryin' to kill us while we do,' Rose added.

John nodded. 'Back to the bridge then, and I can access the computer. I should be able to disable the security droids, while keeping all the other droids doing what they do to keep the ship operational . . . I'll reprogram the navigational computer to set a course for the Shadow Proclamation. They can keep an eye on it for now.'

Rose snorted a laugh. 'The Shadow Architect's gonna love ya fer that.'

'Nah. She'll be fine about it,' John said.

Reception Chamber

The Shadow Proclamation

'You want to do what?' the Shadow Architect asked, giving John a stern look.

'It will only be for a short period while we sort out what to do with the passengers,' John told her. 'I mean, it's a whole embryonic civilisation . . . Literally.'

'You are testing my patience to the limit,' the Architect said.

'Tell me about it,' Rose said to herself.

Jack gave the Architect his winning smile. 'Madam Architect. As director of the Torchwood Institute, all I ask is for temporary asylum for these refugees, while Doctor Smith finds them a permanent home.'

'Refugees?' the Architect queried.

'I realise that may be pushing the definition a little,' Jack said. 'But they have no parents, no home, and no one to look out for them.'

'Doctor Smith will find a most unusual solution to their dilemma,' Aeona said from behind them, and they all turned to look at her.

'Really? And what would that be?' John asked.

She gave him an enigmatic smile. 'You tell me.'

'Very well,' the Architect said. 'I will assign the Judoon to watch over the vessel whilst you work out this unusual solution.'

John smiled and bowed. 'Thank you Madam Architect.'

Back in the TARDIS, John and Rose set the coordinates for Torchwood Tower, whilst Jack pushed buttons he was asked to push, twisted knobs he was asked to twist, and pulled levers he was asked to pull, and loving every minute of it.

'So what's this unusual solution you've come up with then?' Jack asked.

'Haven't a clue,' John replied.

'He hasn't come up with it yet,' Rose explained. 'Aeona has the gift of precognition.'

'Don't you just hate people who can see the future?' John said.

'Says a man who has a time machine,' Jack said with a grin.

Rose snorted a laugh, and after thinking about what he'd said, John joined her. They all knew that John couldn't go forward and look at the solution he would come up with, because that would violate the law of cause and effect. If he nicked the idea off himself, then that would mean he never thought of the idea in the first place. And that would be very bad for the universe and reality in general.

The Time Rotor stopped grinding up and down, and they shut down the console, before walking down the ramp, opening the door, and stepping out into the Standby Room.

'Hey. You're back,' "Welsh Pete" observed. 'How'd it go? Did you find them?'

'Yeah, we found them,' Jack told the Watch. 'It was an automated, robotic ship. John changed some of the programming, and we flew it to the Shadow Proclamation. They'll keep an eye on it until we can work out what to do with it.'

'So what was the ship like?' André asked. 'How did it operate?'

'It was big,' Rose told them. 'Half a mile long, and lookin' like one of those Portuguese Man o' War jelly fishes. It was full of millions of embryos held in stasis, bein' looked after by all these robots.'

'Millions?' Amy asked in awe.

'Probably a hundred million,' John said. 'They had a number of landing craft which medical droids loaded with the embryos. Then they would fly down to the selected target community, and emit a psionic delta wave.'

'What's one of those?' Julia asked.

'Delta waves appear when you are in the deepest stage of sleep. If you force the brain into a delta wave state, it goes to sleep and won't wake up until you switch the wave off,' John explained.

'So they kept the wave on for 36 hours,' Other Craig realised.

'And what happens to the embryos?' Amy enquired, only too aware of her own embryo growing inside her.

'That's what we need the time for,' John replied. 'We need to work out how to gestate that many embryos to full term.'

'That's a hell of a lot of nappies,' Jake said with a cheeky smile.

'And where are you going to find thirty three million foster parents?' Gwen asked, as she came at the problem from a mathematical view point.

'Eh?' John and Rose said together.

'Well. You've got a hundred million embryos. Assuming three babies per set of foster parents, that's thirty three million families,' she told them.

John and Rose looked at each other, and then at Gwen. 'We never thought of that.'

Jack had a smirk on his face. 'We were so wrapped up in stopping the ship and saving the embryos, that we forgot that embryos grow into babies.'

'Where in the name of Pythia are we going to find that many people, willing to foster that many alien babies?' John asked himself.

'What about the original parents of those embryos?' Julia asked. 'Where are they, and why didn't they want them?'

'Long dead,' John replied. 'And I think they did want them . . . desperately wanted them. But for some reason they became sterile and couldn't gestate their offspring. It seems they were skilled in the physical sciences and engineering, but not in the biological sciences. Brood parasitism seemed to be the only option left to them.'

'So their race died out then,' Welsh Pete said.

John nodded. 'Yeah. Population numbers would fall as the elderly died, and then as the young grew old, society would collapse around them.'

'Imagine being the last person alive on an entire planet,' Julia said with a shiver.

'Yeah,' Jake nodded. 'And somewhere, there's an empty planet with all these towns and cities waiting for people to move in.'

'Hang on,' John said. 'Run that by me again.'

'What? The empty planet? Well I was thinking, the last of the elderly and infirm would be looked after by those robots Rose mentioned. And then, when the last person had died, what would they do? They'd probably keep themselves busy repairing buildings and keeping them clean or something.'

John had a stunned look on his face. 'Jake. You are brilliant . . . Oh, oh . . . And I've just found that unusual solution.'

He "pinged" the idea to Rose. 'Oh you have got to be kiddin' . . . Do you think they'll go for it if it's possible?'

'Why don't we go and ask them?.' John said with a grin. He grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her into the TARDIS.

Jack shook his head in resignation as the TARDIS faded away. 'Duncan. Would you carry on as shift supervisor please?'

'Yeah. No problem.' Duncan Prescott, Andy McNab's deputy, said as he chuckled to himself. The Doc was a law unto himself, with no respect for the chain of command, and he would never change.

Once again, within the space of an hour, the Reception Chamber of the Shadow Proclamation echoed to the grinding and wheezing of the TARDIS engines as it materialised into existence. The door opened inwards, and John rushed out.

'Madam Architect. Forgive the unannounced arrival, but I think I have that unusual solution,' he said hurriedly.

'Oh, I have become accustomed to your unannounced arrivals,' she said, dripping with sarcasm. Rose stifled a laugh as she stepped out.

'Ah, right . . . On the plus side though, if I'm right, we get rid of that ship which is blocking the parking bay.'

'Yes. That would be a plus,' the Architect said with a rare, lopsided smile. She was becoming rather fond of this man and his enthusiasm for justice. 'What do you require from us?'

'I need to see the children so that I can run a simple DNA test on them. If my suspicions are confirmed, then I have a proposal for them.'