Chapter 36: At the End of the Universe
They stayed in Hawaii for two weeks before returning to the TARDIS, exploring the islands just like they would an alien planet. The Doctor was in his element, surrounded by new things and places to discover. Martha was thrilled the TARDIS had landed them in 2010, allowing her to relax fully for the first time in months.
In the end, it was Rose who pressed them to leave. "I want to see alien skies again, Doctor. I want to meet non-humans and help people, and yeah, maybe run if we have to."
"What about you, Martha?" the Doctor asked. "Ready to travel again?"
Martha smiled easily. "Yeah, why not?" she said. "We can't stay on holiday for the rest of our lives, can we?"
The next few weeks were a whirlwind of alien landscapes and cultures, with a few stops in human history for fun. They went to Houston to watch the moon landing, saved no fewer than three planets from destruction or political turmoil, and heard the music of the Singing Towers of Darillium.
Rose didn't realise how long they'd gone without a break until she found Martha curled up in the library, fast asleep. Even in her sleep, exhaustion lined her mouth—a sure sign they'd pushed her too hard.
She set her jaw and tracked down the Doctor, finally finding him in his work room. "Four weeks," she said without preamble.
He looked at her and put his tools down. "What?"
"That's how long it's been since we had a day off. Just a day to rest and recharge."
His eyes shuttered, and Rose wondered how she'd missed his obvious agitation. She sighed and ran her hand through her hair. Probably because I was so glad to be home and feeling like myself, I just ignored it, she admitted.
She reached for his hand. "What are you running from, Doctor?"
He was silent for a long moment, and she waited for him to gather his thoughts. "Can't you feel it, Rose?" he said finally. "There's something coming… something big. We can't avoid it forever, but I wasn't ready for yet another trip that high on the danger scale."
Rose could feel it then, and a shiver went up her spine when she understood why the Doctor had been running. The feeling that time would catch up with them if they stood still was almost unbearable. She wanted to go straight to the console room and send them off to yet another planet.
Still… She shook her head. "We're running Martha ragged. Plus, I'm pretty sure it's time to fill up the TARDIS. Why don't we go to Cardiff in the morning?" She offered him a teasing smile. "It's been over a year since we've seen Jack, after all."
He rolled his eyes. "How did we survive such a deprivation?" They were silent for a moment, then he said, "You're right, of course. We'll fill up tomorrow and spend the day in Cardiff resting."
oOoOoOoOo
It was almost 10:00, ship's time, when Martha joined them the next morning. The Doctor felt a pang of guilt when he realised how exhausted she must have been to sleep so late, though overall she seemed more rested than she had in the last few days.
"The TARDIS is running low on fuel," he told her as she sat down on the jump seat. "We thought we'd fill up, and then relax for the day."
Rose pulled her phone out of her pocket and moved off to the edge of the console room. A moment later, the Doctor heard her teasing laughter and knew she'd connected with Jack.
"So where does a time and space ship fuel up, anyway?" Martha asked. "Is there a special petrol station?"
"In a manner of speaking." The Doctor carefully set the space coordinates, then waited for Rose to get the date from Jack. "Cardiff."
Rose walked back towards him, the phone held against her chest. "Jack says to tell you it's Election Day. He wants to know where he should meet us."
"Perfect. We won't spoil the election results for Martha." The Doctor adjusted the date coordinates and sent them into flight. "Tell him we'll be on the Plass at noon."
"Cardiff?" Martha repeated when Rose returned to her conversation.
"Yep!" The TARDIS landed with a soft thud, and the Doctor moved around the console, twisting the dials to open up the engines. "Cardiff is built on a rift in time and space, just like California and the San Andreas Fault, but the rift bleeds energy. Every now and then I need to open up the engines, soak up the energy and use it as fuel." He looked at the monitor and raised his eyebrows. "Should only take twenty seconds. The rift's been active."
Had your hands full, Jack? Their friend had been vague about his work, but the Doctor was pretty sure it had something to do with the rift.
"Wait a minute." Martha leaned on the console and put her other hand on her waist. "They had an earthquake in Cardiff a couple of years ago. Was that you?"
"Bit of trouble with the Slitheen." The Doctor kept his eyes on the monitor so he could close everything back up when the engines were full. "A long time ago. Lifetimes." He tugged on his ear. "I was a different man back then."
Rose laughed, and he pulled a face at her. The light on the console changed from yellow to green, and he closed everything up. "Finito. All powered up."
Three sharp raps on the door and an uncomfortable tightening at the base of his skull announced Jack's arrival. "And that would be our guest. Martha, get the door, would you?"
Martha looked at the door and back at him. "I've lived with you for over seven months, and not one person has ever knocked on that door."
"That's because the TARDIS has a perception filter," Rose explained. "People don't even notice her, unless they're looking for her. And Jack used to live with us, so…"
Martha shook her head and opened the door. The Doctor rolled his eyes when Jack looked her up and down.
"Captain Jack Harkness. And who are you?"
"Martha Jones." Even from where he stood, the Doctor could see the blush staining Martha's cheeks.
Jack grinned at her. "Nice to meet you, Martha Jones."
The Doctor came around to to stand beside Rose at the top of the ramp, looking up at Jack. "Oh, don't start."
"I was only saying hello."
Martha looked between them. "I don't mind."
Jack winked at her, then stepped into the TARDIS. A grin split his face when he spotted Rose. "Rosie!" he hollered and jogged up the ramp, sweeping her into a hug.
"Oh, it's good to see you, Jack!" she said, wrapping her arms tight around him. She laughed out loud when Jack picked her up and swung her around in a circle.
The Doctor cleared his throat when it didn't seem like Jack was inclined to let Rose go any time that century. The jealousy was more a habit now than anything—he trusted both Jack and Rose implicitly. Jack set Rose on her feet and took a step back, the same amused smirk on his face that he'd always worn when the Doctor's "captain envy" had been too obvious to be mistaken for anything else.
"Good to see you, Doctor."
"And you, Captain."
The two men shook hands, then the Doctor watched in bemusement as Jack's eyes widened, and he held the Doctor's hand up to the light.
Ah. My wedding ring.
"You finally did it!" Jack crowed. "When did this happen?"
Rose laced her fingers through the Doctor's. "The day after we last saw you, actually. About fourteen months ago, in linear time."
The only warning the Doctor and Rose had before everything went pear-shaped was a sudden sense of queasiness coming from the TARDIS. Before they could get to the console to see what was wrong, the time rotor started chugging, and they left Cardiff behind.
Rose and Martha both grabbed onto struts while the Doctor stumbled towards the console, tripping once when the TARDIS his a particularly bad patch of turbulence.
"What's going on?" Jack said as he pulled himself to his feet and moved to stand with the Doctor at the console.
"Remember what I said about how your… special problem feels to Rose and me?" the Doctor asked.
Jack raised his eyebrows and looked at Rose. "You didn't mention Rose could feel it too, but yeah."
The Doctor used his foot to brace himself against the console and pulled the monitor around so he could figure out where she was taking them. "Well, imagine you're a sentient time ship who knows exactly how time should flow, and you're suddenly carrying an impossible man."
Rose pushed herself off from the strut and staggered over to the Doctor's side, resting her hands on the console. A moment later, he felt her trying to communicate with the TARDIS, to regain control of their flight, but the ship wasn't listening.
Fuses shorted out and sparked overhead. The Doctor waved ineffectually at the smoke as he stared at the Gallifreyan figures on the monitor.
"We're accelerating into the future," he narrated, his eyes widening as the numbers indicating their temporal trajectory continued to climb. "The year one billion. Five billion. Five trillion. Fifty trillion?" He squinted in disbelief when he finally realised where they were going. "What? The year one hundred trillion? That's impossible."
"Why? What happens then?" Martha asked.
The Doctor moved his lips a few times before sound came out. "We're going to the end of the universe."
"This is not my fault!" Jack insisted as the ship rocked through temporal turbulence.
The Doctor shot him a sideways glare, then instantly regretted it. Hard as it was to believe, Jack's unique temporal signature was actually more nauseating if he only caught a glimpse of it, rather than looking at him head-on.
He fixed a steady gaze on his friend, and his queasiness eased. "If you have a different explanation for why our TARDIS just flung herself past the edge of all knowledge, I'd love to hear it."
After the rocky trip, the landing was anticlimactically gentle. "Well, we've landed," the Doctor said quietly.
Rose looked up at him, her forehead drawn into a deep furrow. "So, what's out there?"
The Doctor shrugged. "I don't know."
Martha laughed uneasily. "Say that again. That's rare."
"Not even the Time Lords came this far," he mumbled, still trying to figure out how, exactly, they'd ended up in what should have been an impossible place to land. The collapse of reality at the end of the universe should have made the time too unstable for the TARDIS to get a lock on it. "We should leave. We should go. We should really, really go."
Rose was at the door before the Doctor got the last sentence out. "If you're done being all dramatic, why don't we take a look outside?"
Jack looked at his friends, not bothering to hide the laughter in his eyes. "She's good for you," he told the Doctor.
"Always has been, Jack."
At the same time, Rose countered with, "He's good for me, too."
The Doctor smiled at her and grabbed his coat from the strut. "Well, are we all ready?" he asked as he pulled it on.
It was dark outside, and Jack had a feeling it wasn't because it was night. If this was the end of the universe, then it stood to reason that most of the stars had probably already gone out, leaving the last inhabitable planet in perpetual night.
The Doctor and Rose took the lead, and Jack grinned when he saw they were holding hands, just like they always had. He followed Martha out the door, making sure to pull it shut behind him.
He took a quick moment to assess his surroundings. Huge rock formations dotted the terrain. Before the sun had (presumably) burnt out, the region probably had an arid climate, based on the scrubby bushes growing in the clay-based soil.
"So, you used to travel with the Doctor?" Martha asked as they picked a path through the scrub.
Despite having come to terms with his life, the past tense stung. "I still would be, if it weren't for the Daleks."
From her swiftly indrawn breath, Jack gathered that the newest companion had already met the Doctor's oldest enemy.
"See, we were transmatted to this satellite called the Game Station—imagine a studio where all your favourite reality shows are filmed, only if you lose, instead of being kicked out of the house or whatever, you die."
"Sometimes I think that's what reality shows are going to be in the future," Martha muttered.
"Well, you're not wrong," Jack said bluntly. "But anyway, what we didn't know was that the whole Game Station was really a front the Daleks were using to build their army again."
The Doctor's shoulders tensed, and Jack decided to skip over the next several parts of the story.
"The Doctor planned to set off a delta wave that would end the Daleks once and for all. I took a team into the station to hold the Daleks off while the Doctor worked, and we got cut off from each other. Things got pretty bad," he said, bypassing the part where he died, "and then the next thing I knew, I heard the TARDIS taking off."
"What?" Martha exclaimed.
"So there I was, stranded in the year 200,100, ankle deep in Dalek dust, without my ride. But I had this." He tapped his left wrist. "I used to be a Time Agent. It's called a Vortex manipulator." He pointed at the Doctor. "He's not the only one who can time travel."
The Doctor pivoted and pointed at the Vortex manipulator. "Oh, excuse me. That is not time travel," he said derisively. "It's like, I've got a sports car and you've got a space hopper."
"Oh ho," Martha laughed. "Boys and their toys."
"All right, so I bounced." Jack flashed Martha a cheeky grin. "I thought 21st century, the best place to find the Doctor, except that I got it a little wrong. Arrived in 1869, this thing burnt out, so it was useless."
"Told you," the Doctor said quietly.
"Oh, hush," Rose remonstrated. "Let Jack tell his story without reminding everyone how much better your equipment is than his."
Jack couldn't resist that opening. "You might not say that if you'd ever actually seen my equipment, Rosie."
"Oi!" the Doctor protested. "D'you mind not coming on to my bond mate while I'm standing right here?"
Bond mate? Jack blinked at the term. He knew the Doctor was telepathic, and he knew what bonding meant to a telepathic race. He filed the information aside to think about later and shot a suggestive grin at the Doctor.
"Does that mean I can come on to her when you're not standing right there?"
The Doctor sniffed. "Well, I know she won't take you up on the offer, and at least then I wouldn't have to listen to it."
Jack grinned. "You know, normally I'd be offended that you think she's so immune to my charms, but I happen to know you're right." Plus it's sweet how much you trust each other.
He shook his head and brought the conversation back to the original subject. "Anyway, as I was saying—I had to live through the entire twentieth century waiting for a version of him that would coincide with me."
Martha looked up at him, and he knew she was starting to piece the truth together. Maybe.
"But that makes you more than one hundred years old."
The years weighed on him, as they always did when he let himself think about how long he'd been stuck on Earth, and he fell back on humour to ease the tightness in his chest. "And looking good, don't you think?" He added a smirk for Martha, trying to erase the unease from her face.
"But the thing is, how come you left him behind, Doctor?" Martha asked boldly.
"It's a long story, Martha," Jack said, suddenly sorry he'd brought it up. He didn't want the Doctor to think he still resented the way they'd left him behind. He'd had a year to think about what the Doctor and Rose had told him, and he'd finally accepted it.
Martha didn't pick up on his subtle hint to drop the subject. "Is that what happens, though, seriously?" she pressed. "Do you just get bored with us one day and disappear?"
"Oh, why does everyone always ask that?" the Doctor complained. The fact that his behaviour might look like that to an outside observer made him squirm a little inside. He didn't just get bored with his companions! Things changed, that was all.
Rose raised an eyebrow. "When you meet a companion who's been left behind, it does tend to be the next question to come to mind," she pointed out drily.
The Doctor dropped her hand and shoved his into his pockets. "Trust me when I say that most of my companions have been glad to leave when we parted ways. Jack and Sarah Jane are exceptions to the rule." The whole conversation was an unpleasant reminder of all the times he'd been left, rather than the one doing the leaving.
Rose slipped her hand through the crook of his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder as they walked. I'm never going to leave you, she promised again.
"Are they always like this?" Jack asked Martha.
"Pretty much," she said. "They have their moments, but overall, they're the most disgustingly happy couple I've ever seen."
Most of the Doctor's discomfort with the conversation melted away with that assessment. He was happy, now that he had Rose. He hummed as they approached the edge of cliff.
The sight below took his breath away. Light shone up from the surface, illuminating a massive structure that seemed to grow out of the cliff walls.
"Is that a city?" Martha asked.
The Doctor considered for a moment; the word city didn't feel quite right. "A city or a hive, or a nest, or a conglomeration." He felt Rose's amusement with his rambling and pinched her side gently, making her giggle before he continued. "It's like it was grown. But look, there." He pointed at the ledges and bridges built into the structure. "That's like pathways, roads? Must have been some sort of life, long ago."
"What killed it?" Rose asked quietly.
"Time. Just time. Everything's dying now. All the great civilisations have gone. This isn't just night," the Doctor said, pointing at the dark sky. "All the stars have burned up and faded away… into nothing."
"They must have an atmospheric shell," Jack observed. "We should be frozen to death."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow when he included himself in that statement, but he didn't debate it. If Jack wanted to hide the fact that he couldn't die, he wouldn't out him.
Martha stared down into the empty city. "What about the people? Does no one survive?"
The Doctor shrugged. "I suppose we have to hope life will find a way."
"Like that, you mean?"
The Doctor looked where Rose was pointing. A man was running through the city, pursued by a large group carrying spears.
"Human!" one of the pursuers yelled.
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "Is it me, or does that look like a hunt?" He and Rose ran full tilt down the steep embankment, the loose gravel under their feet sending them sliding. "Come on!" he called out to their friends.
Jack came abreast with them before they reached the man and grabbed him in his arms. "I've got you."
The man flailed and looked back over his shoulder. "They're coming! They're coming!"
Jack pushed the man behind him and pulled out his service revolver.
"Jack, don't you dare!" the Doctor ordered.
He glared at the Doctor, but there wasn't time to get into an ethical debate on times it was appropriate to use deadly force. Instead, he aimed the weapon up and fired warning shots in the air. The tribesmen skidded to a halt and looked at them fearfully. All right, so maybe deadly force wasn't necessary this time, Jack admitted grudgingly.
"What the hell are they?" Martha exclaimed.
The man they'd rescued looked around frantically. "There's more of them. We've got to keep going."
"We've got a ship nearby," the Doctor told him. "It's safe. It's not far, just over there." He nodded in the direction they'd come.
More tribesmen appeared on the cliff, and Rose grabbed the Doctor's hand. "Or maybe not."
Jack kept his eyes on the incoming group, willing to shoot if need be, no matter what the Doctor thought about it.
"We're close to the silo," the man told them. "If we get to the silo, then we're safe."
"Silo?" the Doctor asked.
"Silo." Jack adjusted his hold on his gun.
"Silo for me," Martha agreed.
"That makes it unanimous," Rose said. "Let's go!"
The five of them ran pell-mell across the hard packed earth. The pounding footsteps behind them grew fainter as they put distance between themselves and their pursuers, but Jack wouldn't feel safe until they were indoors.
Finally they saw lights on the horizon and then a large compound enclosed by a high fence and protected by armed guards.
"It's the Futurekind!" the stranger shouted when they were within earshot. "Open the gate!"
"Show me your teeth!" the guard ordered. "Show me your teeth! Show me your teeth!"
"Show him your teeth," the man they'd rescued urged.
They all bared their teeth. "Human!" the guard shouted. "Let them in! Let them in!" The gate opened, and all five of them ran inside. "Close! Close! Close!" The gate closed just in time to keep the Futurekind out.
The sharp staccato of machine gun fire caught Jack's ear, and he spun back around. The guard was holding his weapon on the Futurekind, who were lurking as near to the fence as they dared.
"Humans," one grunted. "Humani. Make feast."
"Go back to where you came from," the guard ordered. "I said, go back. Back!"
"Oh, don't tell him to put his gun down," Jack admonished the Doctor when the guard brandished his weapon again.
"He's not my responsibility," the Doctor protested.
Jack raised his eyebrows at him. "Doc, I haven't been your responsibility in 140 years," he said acerbically.
"Kind watch you," the tribesman said, and his fellows behind him made an eerie buzzing noise. "Kind hungry." They stared in through the fence for another moment, then he flung his arm back, and his tribe turned and walked away.
"Thanks for that," the Doctor told the guard as they turned away from the fence.
"Right. Let's get you inside," the guard replied and started for the building behind them.
"My name is Padra Toc Shafe Cane," the man they'd saved told the guard. "Tell me. Just tell me, can you take me to Utopia?"
Jack raised his eyebrows at the question, but even more at the guard's answer.
"Oh yes, sir. Yes, I can."
As they walked away from the fence, Jack wrapped an arm around the Doctor's shoulders. Seeing him again had brought to mind something he'd wondered more than once over the last year.
"Hey, Doc. Out of curiosity, what did you ever do with my old Doctor detector?"
The Doctor shot him an exasperated look. "There was only one safe thing to do, Jack. I burned it, in the way all Time Lord bodies should be burned."
"But it was only a hand!"
"It was my hand," the Doctor retorted, and Jack heard a gasp from Martha. "The only way to make sure no one could use it against me was to destroy it."
Jack shrugged. "I guess you're right. I sure am glad I didn't have it weighing me down as we were running from the Futurekind."
The Doctor stuck his hands into his pockets and shot Jack a sly look. "Oh, I'd have been glad to lend you a hand."
Rose and Martha groaned at the pun, and Jack cuffed the Doctor lightly on the back of the head as they entered the building. "You think you're so funny."
oOoOoOoOo
The guard took them to a slim black man. "Lieutenant Atillo! These are the humans who just came in through the gate."
The Doctor held his hand out, and after looking at it for a second, Lieutenant Atillo shook it. "I'm the Doctor. And this is my wife Rose, and our friends Martha and Jack."
The Lieutenant's eyes sharpened. "A medical doctor?"
The Doctor smiled genially. "A doctor of everything, really," he said. "What can I say? I like studying." He rocked back on his heels. "But if you're the commander of this facility, you must have the authority to send people out to collect food and water. We left something out there when we went to help poor Padra here."
"What is it, Doctor?"
The Doctor leaned forward a little. "It looks like a box, a big blue box. I'm sorry, but I really need it back. It's stuck out there."
Padra interrupted before Lieutenant Atillo could answer the Doctor's request. "I'm sorry, but my family were heading for the silo. Did they get here? My mother is Kistane Shafe Cane. My brother's name is Beltone."
Atillo nodded, weary compassion lining his face. "The computers are down but you can check the paperwork. Creet!" A young boy with blond curly hair poked his head around the corner. "Passenger needs help."
Creet joined them, a clipboard in hand. "Right. What do you need?"
Padra walked towards him, and Atillo turned back to the Doctor.
"A blue box, you said," he said, his voice raising at the end to almost make it a question.
The Doctor nodded quickly. "Big, tall, wooden. Says, 'Police.'"
"We're driving out for the last water collection. I'll see what I can do."
Sharp relief flowed between the Doctor, Rose, and the TARDIS. "Thank you," the Doctor said fervently, and Atillo nodded once before leaving.
Creet flipped the papers back on his clipboard and started for a corridor, with Padra on his heels.
"Sorry, but how old are you?" Martha asked.
"Old enough to work," the boy said matter-of-factly. "This way."
Rose's hand slipped into the Doctor's as they followed Creet through the corridors. Makeshift beds lined the way, and pictures hung on the walls above nearly every berth.
This is the end of the universe? Rose asked.
The Doctor looked down at her. Everything has to end sometime, Rose.
I was just thinking that no matter how far from home we are, people are still the same. These people are dressed in rags, sleeping on the floor, but they're still clinging to family.
Ahead of them, Creet was calling out for Padra's family. "Kistane Shafe Cane. Kistane Shafe Cane. Kistane and Beltone Shafe Cane? We're looking for a Kistane and Beltone Shafe Cane."
"The Shafe Canes, anyone?" Para said hopefully. "Kistane from Red Force Five? My name's Padra."
Around them, people shook their heads in answer to Creet and Padra's calls. Sympathy shone in their tired eyes, and the Doctor shook his head, marvelling at how… how human they still remained.
"Anyone? Kistane and Beltone Shafe Cane? Anyone know the Shafe Cane family? Anyone called Shafe Cane?"
"It's like a refugee camp," Martha murmured.
"Stinking," Jack exclaimed, then quickly told the nearest man, "Oh, sorry. No offence. Not you."
"Don't you see that?" The Doctor shook his head in amazement. "The ripe old smell of humans. You survived. Oh, you might have spent a million years evolving into clouds of gas, and another million as downloads," he allowed, "but you always revert to the same basic shape. The fundamental human."
Rose squeezed his hand. "Only you, Doctor, would find the hope in the stench of humanity."
"Well, it's the end of the universe and here you are," he said. "Indomitable! That's the word. Indomitable! Ha!"
"Is there a Kistane Shafe Cane?"
Twenty feet away, a woman rose to her feet. "That's me."
"Mother?" Padra ran to her.
"Oh, my God. Padra."
The Shafe Canes hugged while the time travellers looked on. "It's not all bad news," Martha said.
A door caught the Doctor's eye, mostly because he could tell it was locked, which meant whatever was on the other side was of some value. He pulled out his sonic and tried to unlock it, but the half deadlock seal was enough to keep the door from opening.
He looked around for Jack and found him—of course—chatting up a bloke. "Stop it," he told his friend. "Give us a hand with this. It's half deadlocked." Jack joined him at the controls. "I need you to overwrite the code. Let's find out where we are."
Rose crossed her arms and watched, tapping her fingers nervously against her elbow. Jack got the door open just as the Doctor turned around, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when he almost fell into the cavernous room beyond.
Jack grabbed him by the coat and dragged him back. "Gotcha."
"Thanks," the Doctor said.
"How did you cope without me?" Jack asked cheekily.
"You have no idea, Jack," Rose said as she took the Doctor's hand. "He's jeopardy friendly, this one."
"Now that is what I call a rocket," Martha said, interrupting the Doctor's indignant exclamation.
They gazed into the silo, finally realising what they were looking at. "They're not refugees, they're passengers," the Doctor said.
Rose remembered what Padra had said. "He said they were going to Utopia."
"The perfect place," the Doctor mused. "Hundred trillion years, it's the same old dream. You recognise those engines?" he asked Jack, looking several storeys down to the engine chamber at the base of the silo.
"Nope," Jack said. "Whatever it is, it's not rocket science. But it's hot, though."
"Boiling," the Doctor agreed. They all stepped back, and Jack closed the doors. "But if the universe is falling apart, what does Utopia mean?"
An older gentleman dressed in an old-fashioned white dress shirt with flowing sleeves, a black waistcoat, and a black cravat approached them. He looked back and forth between the two men, finally pointing at Jack.
"The Doctor?"
"That's me," the Doctor corrected.
"Good!" the gentleman said, then grabbed the Doctor's hand and dragged him down the hall. The Doctor snagged Rose with his other hand, and they tripped along after the stranger, who said nothing but the word good, over and over.
"It's good apparently," the Doctor said to Jack and Martha as they stumbled down the corridor.
"I'm Professor Yana," the man said. "I could use another scientific mind working with me on the engine project."
He pulled them into a laboratory, past a blue woman in a lab coat who greeted them. "Chan, welcome, tho." The tentacles on her face waved slightly in salutation.
Rose let go of the Doctor's hand and stood next to the alien woman, watching Professor Yana's excitement with some bemusement. She'd seen scientists get starstruck over meeting the Doctor, but normally they fell all over themselves like this when they were stuck on their projects and hoped a new mind would find the solution. She had a sinking feeling the rocket wasn't as ready to fly as Lieutenant Atillo thought.
"Now, this is the gravitissimal accelerator," the professor said, pointing to a flat device. "It's past its best, but it works."
Martha joined them, and the alien woman greeted her in the same way she had the Doctor and Rose, while Professor Yana ran over to another scientific gadget of some kind.
"Hello," Martha said. "Who are you?"
"Chan, Chantho, tho." She bobbed her head, a smile on her face.
Jack took her hand, his trademark smile on his face. "Captain Jack Harkness."
The Doctor looked at Jack over the rim of his glasses. "Stop it."
"Can't I say hello to anyone?"
Chantho smiled bashfully. "Chan, I do not protest, tho."
"Maybe later, Blue." Jack winked at her, and she turned a slightly brighter shade of blue. Then Jack clapped his hands and moved over to stand with the Doctor and Professor Yana. "So, what have we got here?"
Rose and Martha followed Jack into the centre of the room, where tubing fed up into the ceiling.
"And all this feeds into the rocket?" the Doctor asked, looking up at the apparatus.
Professor Yana sighed heavily. "Yeah, except without a stable footprint, you see, we're unable to achieve escape velocity." He looked around at his project, gesturing to emphasise his words. "If only we could harmonise the five impact patterns and unify them, well, we might yet make it. What do you think, Doctor? Any ideas?"
Rose knew the Doctor had no clue what any of these pieces were, but he looked around some more, trying to find something he could offer, some bit of reassurance to this man who was looking at him so hopefully.
"Well, er, basically…" He turned a circle, then looked back at Professor Yana. "Sort of, not a clue."
"Nothing?" Professor Yana asked incredulously.
"I'm not from around these parts," the Doctor said apologetically. "I've never seen a system like it. Sorry."
Yana turned away dejectedly. "No, no. I'm sorry. It's my fault. There's been so little help."
The Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck and went to sit down with Rose and Martha on the side of the room. "I really am sorry though," he said. "It isn't often I run into something I don't understand the basics of. My people were very advanced."
"Your people?" Yana repeated curiously. "I take it you're not human, then."
The Doctor nodded. "Time Lord, last of." He looked over at Rose. "Well, last two, technically."
Jack gawped at that bombshell, and Rose waved weakly at him, trying to convey that she'd explain later. He nodded, and they both looked back at the Doctor and Professor Yana.
For the first time Rose could remember, the name Time Lord got no reaction from their audience. The Doctor looked at Yana and Chantho, confused. "Heard of them? Legend or anything?" Yana and Chantho looked at each other and shook their heads. "Not even a myth? Blimey, end of the universe is a bit humbling."
Rose stifled her laughter.
"Chan, it is said that I am the last of my species too, tho," Chantho offered.
The Doctor looked at her. "Sorry, what was your name?"
Yana answered before Chantho could. "My assistant and good friend, Chantho," he introduced. "A survivor of the Malmooth. This was their planet, Malcassairo, before we took refuge."
He frowned. "The city outside, that was yours?"
"Chan, the conglomeration died, tho."
"Conglomeration," the Doctor exclaimed. "That's what I said."
Rose cleared her throat and shook her head. The Doctor frowned for a moment, then turned back to Chantho.
"Oh, that was rude, wasn't it? I should have said I'm sorry—and I am," he told her quietly. "I know how it feels to be the last of your species."
She bobbed her head. "Chan, most grateful, tho."
"You're even teaching him manners, Rosie?" Jack asked, nudging her in the side. "I'm impressed."
"He's a work in progress," Rose said, flashing a teasing smile at the Doctor to ease the sting of her words. "This regeneration has been rude and not ginger, right from the start."
"So what about those things outside?" Jack jerked his head towards the outside wall. "The Beastie Boys. What are they?"
Yana nodded and rocked back on his heels. "We call them the Futurekind, which is a myth in itself, but it's feared they are what we will become, unless we reach Utopia."
The Doctor nodded; Utopia was something of an obsession around this place. "And Utopia is?" he asked finally.
"Oh, every human knows of Utopia. Where have you been?" the professor asked incredulously.
The Doctor shrugged. "Bit of a hermit."
"A hermit with friends, and a wife?" Yana looked pointedly at Rose.
"Hermits United," the Doctor said automatically, then rambled on. "We meet up every ten years and swap stories about caves. It's good fun, for a hermit." The professor was smirking at him, so he quickly changed the subject from his transparent lie. "So, um, Utopia?"
The professor crooked his finger at them, and led them to a monitor with a gravitational field navigation system. The Doctor sat down in front of the display, staring at the blinking red dot.
"The call came from across the stars, over and over again. Come to Utopia. Originating from that point."
"Where is that?" the Doctor asked.
"Oh, it's far beyond the Condensate Wilderness, out towards the Wildlands and the Dark Matter reefs, calling us in. The last of the humans, scattered across the night."
Rose leaned over his shoulder, taking in the display. "What do you think's out there?" she asked the professor.
"We can't know. A colony, a city, some sort of haven? The Science Foundation created the Utopia Project thousands of years ago to preserve mankind, to find a way of surviving beyond the collapse of reality itself. Now perhaps they found it. Perhaps not. But it's worth a look, don't you think?"
"Oh, yes." The Doctor beamed up at the professor, then looked back at the monitor. "And the signal keeps modulating, so it's not automatic. That's a good sign someone's out there. And that's, oh, that's a navigation matrix. So you can fly without stars to guide you."
He realised suddenly that the professor was being unusually silent. When he looked up at the human, the man was clearly in some kind of pain, not even registering what the Doctor was saying.
"Professor?" he queried. "Professor? Professor!"
The professor gasped and his eyes flew open. "I, er, ahem, right, that's enough talk," he said brusquely, walking away from the Doctor and his friends. "There's work to do. Now if you could leave, thank you."
The Doctor got up and followed behind him slowly. "You all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine," the professor said dismissively. "And busy."
The Doctor leaned over a control panel and watched Professor Yana. He'd picked up on Rose's suspicions earlier, and now he was positive she was right. "Except that rocket's not going to fly, is it?"
Yana kept his back to him so the Doctor couldn't see his face, but he watched the man's shoulders hitch like he was trying to control his breathing.
"This footprint mechanism thing," the Doctor continued, "it's not working."
The professor wheeled around. "We'll find a way," he insisted.
"You're stuck on this planet," the Doctor countered. Thinking of all the people he'd met, and all the things they'd said about Utopia, he realised something else. "And you haven't told them, have you? That lot out there, they still think they're going to fly."
The professor sank down into a chair and looked around at his lab in quiet despair. "Well, it's better to let them live in hope."
"Quite right, too." The Doctor took his coat off, then handed it to Rose and walked around the console. "And I must say, Professor er, what was it?" he asked
"Yana."
"Professor Yana. This new science is well beyond me, but all the same, a boost reversal circuit, in any time frame, must be a circuit which reverses the boost." He picked up a cable and pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. "So, I wonder, what would happen if I did this?"
Using his rediscovered talent of reversing the polarity, he directed a quick burst of the sonic at the circuit box, then flipped a switch on the other side of it. Sirens went off throughout the silo, alerting everyone that the engines were working and the rocket was ready to take off.
Chantho glowed with excitement. "Chan, it's working, tho!"
Professor Yana stood up and turned around in amazement. "But how did you do that?"
The Doctor grinned and bounced on the balls of his feet. "Oh, we've been chatting away, I forgot to tell you. I'm brilliant."