Chapter 13

Cold Blood

Rose woke up strapped to a near vertical examination table. She struggled against the restraints to see if there was any give.

'Don't struggle,' a man strapped to a table next to her whispered. 'Close your eyes and don't struggle.'

'What? Where am I? Why can't I move my body?'

'Decontamination, they call it . . . They did it to me while I was conscious.'

'Okay, you're freakin' me out now. Did what? Who did?'

'Dissected me.' He nodded downwards to a scar that ran from his sternum to his naval.

'No!' Rose said in alarm.

['ROSE! Sweetheart, you're awake,'] the Doctor thought in her head.

'He's coming. I'm sorry. I wish I could help you,' the man beside her said.

A white coated reptilian scientist approached with a high-tech scalpel.

['Oh God. Right now I wish I wasn't. Where are you?']

['It's some sort of underground garden.']

'Don't you come near me with that,' she told the lizard.

['Rose? What's going on?']

The scientist started to make audio notes. 'From the clothing, the human female appears to be more resistant to the cold than the male.'

'I dressed for Rio!' she told him angrily. ['This lizard guy wants to cut me open.']

'Leave her alone. You've got me,' the man called out gallantly.

['NO!'] The Doctor called out in her head. ['Rose, I'm coming for you. Just hold on.']

The reptile took a disc out of his pocket and pressed a button which clamped Rose's wrists even tighter. 'Argh.' ['Hold on how exactly?']

['I don't know. Spit? Throw expletives at him. Anything. Just try and delay him till I get there.']

'Decontamination complete. Commencing dissection.'

['No, no, no, no, no. Please.'] Rose closed her eyes and prepared for the pain of the first cut.

['Area Seventeen incursion. Species diagnostic requested. Area Seventeen incursion. Species diagnostic requested,'] the computer announced over the speaker system.

['Whoops!'] the Doctor thought. ['I seem to have set off an alarm. Clumsy me.']

['God, I love you!'] The scientist turned in the direction of the announcement, and Rose felt his pocket brush against her fingers. The pocket with the disk in it.

The scientist hurried out of the laboratory. 'Yeah. And stay out,' she shouted after him. She looked down at her hand and pressed one of the buttons on the disk that she had palmed out of the scientist's pocket.

She freed herself from the table, and then moved over to the man and freed him too.

'Ah ah!' she exclaimed.

'How did you get that?'

'You never picked a lizard man's pocket?' she asked him.

Being brought up on the Powell Estate, she'd learned a few "life" skills that she wasn't particularly proud of. But when you'd had your pocket picked and your purse snatched, you learned how it was done so that it wasn't done to you again.

'Come on, before he gets back,' Rose said, and moved out of the laboratory.

As they walked along a rock hewn passage, Rose felt the Doctor drift out of consciousness. "Oh great!" she thought to herself.

They came to a door that closed off the tunnel, and Rose found a wall panel to the side. She pressed the large button, and the door slid open. 'That creature, do you think it was an alien? Any more of them, do you think? Do you think the Earth's been invaded?' the man who was named Mo asked.

'I don't know. But I know someone who could have some answers. We need to find him.' Rose saw another door to her left. 'I wonder where this leads.'

'Maybe it's a way out of here.'

She pressed the button on the wall panel, and the screen lit up, but the door didn't slide open. Through a window in the door, they saw a light come on in the area beyond the door. Mo looked through the small window. 'Oh, my God, no!'

'What is it?' Rose asked.

'It's my son. It's Elliot. What've they done to him? He's in there. We have to get him out. Elliot? Elliot, its Dad.'

['Access denied. Unauthorised genetic imprint,'] the computer told them.

'Stop,' she told him. 'Seriously, we can't get in.'

'That's my boy in there.'

Rose could sympathise with him. At the moment, she really wanted to hug her daughter. And then she realised the Doctor was unconscious. Where was their daughter? She needed to calm the rising panic so that she could reach out to her. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and relaxed as she breathed out. She felt her daughter's consciousness and realised Andrea was in the TARDIS. Rose relaxed; it was the safest place in the universe.

'These screens, they're monitorin' somethin',' Rose told him. 'I think they're vital signs. Heartbeats, pulses. Why else would he be wired up? He's still alive.'

'All right. We find weapons, get that creature from the lab and force it to release Elliot, yeah?'

Rose knew that wasn't the way to do it. What they needed to do was find the Doctor. 'Yeah. Trust me. We'll get him out.'

They continued through the tunnel system, and came to a wider tunnel that had glass fronted chambers on each side. 'These chambers are all over the city,' Rose observed.

She touched a control on the wall, and two of the chambers lit up. They contained reptiles.

'Urgh. Turn it off, quick. They're not moving,' Mo said.

Rose switched them off, but then thought about it. 'Maybe they're asleep. Let's have another look.'

'No, Rose, don't . . . Don't.'

But Rose had already opened the chamber and was inside, circling the reptile.

'Rose, what are you doing? Get out of there.'

'Some sort of suspended animation,' she told him. She stooped down and looked at something that resembled a round manhole cover. 'I wonder what these are. The Doctor would know. The Doctor always knows.'

'Hey, look,' Mo said, looking up at the top of the chamber where there were shafts heading straight up.

'Wait. I've got it,' she told him. 'It's how they came up to the surface. Some sort of powered transport discs. It's our way out of here.'

Mo took a high tech looking gun off one of the reptiles. 'Even better. Weapons. Come on, now we can fight back.'

Rose reluctantly took the weapon off the other reptile. Okay, they had disarmed two of the reptiles, but there were plenty more out there, and they had just made themselves legitimate targets. They backed out of the chamber, and Rose switched it off.

'Which way now?' Mo asked her.

Rose nodded down the tunnel. 'Door at the end.'

'Are you sure?'

'No.'

The door at the end led to a balcony overlooking a vast chamber, containing reptilian warriors as far as the eye could see.

'Wow!' Mo exclaimed.

'Yeah.'

'We don't stand a chance.'

'We have to find the Doctor.'

The Doctor and Nasreen travelled along a walkway, through an underground arboretum. 'This place is enormous and deserted. The majority of the race are probably still asleep. We need to find Rose. Looking for heat signature anomalies.'

'But Doctor, how can all this be here?' Nasreen asked. 'I mean, these plants.'

['No!'] The Doctor heard Rose call out in his head.

['ROSE! Sweetheart, you're awake.']

['Oh God. Right now I wish I wasn't. Where are you?']

'Er, must be getting closer to the centre of the city,' he said to Nasreen distractedly. ['It's some sort of underground garden.']

'Don't you come near me with that,' he heard Rose say to someone.

['Rose? What's going on?']

'You're sure this is the best way to enter?' Nasreen asked.

'I dressed for Rio!' she said angrily. ['This lizard guy wants to cut me open.']

['NO! Rose, I'm coming for you. Just hold on,'] he thought to her. He then stepped up his pace as he answered Nasreen. 'Front door approach. Definitely. Always the best way.'

'Argh.' ['Hold on how exactly?']

['I don't know. Spit? Throw expletives at him. Anything. Just try and delay him till I get there.']

['No, no, no, no, no. Please,'] Rose called out in her head.

An alarm started to blare out. ['Area Seventeen incursion. Species diagnostic requested. Area Seventeen incursion. Species diagnostic requested,'] the computer announced over the speaker system.

['Whoops!'] The Doctor thought to Rose. ['I seem to have set off an alarm. Clumsy me.']

'Apart from the back door approach,' he continued saying to Nasreen.

['God, I love you!']

'That's also good. Sometimes better.'

['Hostile life forms detected area seventeen,'] the computer said.

'Doctor,' Nasreen said uncertainly as reptilian warriors approached from both sides.

['Hostile life forms detected area seventeen.']

'We're not hostile. We're not armed. We're here in peace.'

A warrior stepped forward and gassed them with its weapon.

When the Doctor regained consciousness, he was shackled to an examination couch just as Rose had been, and was being scanned by the same white coated reptile. Oh, and it hurt.

'Argh.'

'How can they have escaped?' a red jacketed female reptile asked angrily. 'This proves all prisoners should remain under military guard.'

'I'm sure you'd prefer to be in charge of everything and everyone, Restac, but we rank the same,' the white coated reptile said. 'Is there any word from Alaya?'

'No.'

'It's fine to show concern, you know. She's part of your gene-chain,' the white coated reptile told him kindly. 'I'm decontaminating now.'

He activated a control. The Doctor watched in alarm. 'Decontamination? No, no, no.' He convulsed in pain. 'No! Argh!'

'It's all right, it won't harm you,' the white coated reptile told him mistakenly. 'I'm only neutralising all your ape bacteria.'

'I'm not an ape. Look at the scans. Two hearts. Totally different. Totally not ape! Remove all human germs; you remove half the things keeping me alive.'

The white coated reptile turned off the decontamination machine. 'No, complete the process,' Restac demanded.

'Oh, that's much better, thanks. Not got any celery, have you? No. No, not really the climate. Tomatoes, though. You'd do a roaring trade in those. I'm the Doctor.' He looked to his left, and saw Nasreen being woken up. 'Oh, and there's Nasreen. Good.'

'Oh, a green man,' Nasreen noticed as she woke up.

'Hello. Who are you?' the Doctor asked the female reptile in the red jacket.

'Restac, Military commander.'

'Oh dear, really? There's always a military, isn't there?'

'Your weapon was attacking the oxygen pockets above our city,' the white coated reptile told him.

'Oxygen pockets, lovely,' the Doctor said. 'Ooh, but not so good with an impending drill. Now it makes sense.'

'Where is the rest of your invasion force?' Restac asked.

'Invasion force. Me and lovely Nasreen? No. We came for the humans you took. And to offer the safe return of Alaya. Oh wait, you and she, what is it, same genetic source? Of course you're worried, but don't be, she's safe.'

'You claim to come in peace, but you hold one of us hostage.'

The Doctor noticed that the situation was escalating out of control. 'Wait, wait, we all want the same thing here.'

'I don't negotiate with apes. I'm going to send a clear message to those on the surface.'

'What's that?' he asked hesitantly.

'Your execution.'

'Yes,' he said quietly. He really didn't want to hear that.

The Doctor and Nasreen were being led through the gardens under escort with their hands cuffed behind them. 'These must be the only ones awake. The others must still be in hibernation,' he told Nasreen.

'So, why did they go into hibernation in the first place?'

'Their astronomers predicted the planet heading to Earth on a crash course. They a built life underground and put themselves to sleep for millennia in order to avert what they thought was the apocalypse, when in reality it was the moon coming into alignment with the Earth.'

'How can you know that?' the white coated reptile asked.

'Long time ago, I met another tribe of Homo Reptilia. Similar, but not identical.'

'Others of our species have survived?' Restac asked hopefully.

The Doctor hesitated. 'The humans attacked them. They died . . . I'm sorry.'

'A vermin race,' Restac declared angrily.

They left the rough walled tunnel, and entered a large, beautifully crafted room. There was a long, stone table running down the middle of the room, with tiers of stone benches along the walls.

'You're not authorised to do this,' the white coated reptile told Restac.

'I am authorised to protect the safety of our species while they sleep,' she replied.

'Oh, lovely place. Very gleaming,' the Doctor said in appreciation.

'This is our court and our place of execution.'

Rose suddenly appeared from the far end of the room. 'Let them go.'

'Rose. There's a girl to rely on,' the Doctor said.

Mo appeared from the doorway they had just entered from. 'Yer covered both ways, so don't try anythin' clever, sweetheart.'

Nasreen looked behind her. 'Mo!'

'Now let 'em go, or I shoot,' Rose warned Restac, who ignored her and started to move towards her. 'I'm warnin' ya.'

In a lightning fast move, Restac snatched the gun out of Rose's hands. The speed and force of the move threw Rose to the floor.

'Don't you touch her!' the Doctor called out.

Again Restac ignored the advice. 'And you,' she said to Mo.

Mo hesitated. He wasn't a killer, and he couldn't bring himself to use the weapon. The reptiles took the gun off him.

'All right, Restac, you've made your point,' the white coated reptile told her.

'This is now a military tribunal. Go back to your laboratory, Malohkeh.'

Rose climbed to her feet and smoothed down her leather skirt as she looked around. A look of concern spread across her face. 'Doctor? Where's Andrea?'

He smiled at her. 'She's safe and sound in the TARDIS.'

'What? On her own?' she asked in disbelief.

'The apes will be silent!' Restac demanded.

'Or what?' Rose asked with her hands on her hips. 'What'cha gonna do? Shoot us before you execute us? Now I'll be with ya in a minute. This is important.' She turned back to the Doctor.

Restac glowered at her. How dare an ape answer her back? But Rose was ignoring her. 'You left our seven month old daughter on her own in the TARDIS?'

The Doctor gave her an uncertain smile. 'Well, yes. It's the safest place in the universe.'

'Yeah, but who's lookin' after her? Who's feedin' her when she gets hungry? Who's changin' her nappy when she fills it?' Rose then had a worrying thought. 'Oh God. What if somethin' happens to us? What'll happen to her?'

'WHEN something happens to you,' Restac said menacingly. 'Not IF.'

Rose turned and glared at Restac, flecks of gold flashed in her hazel eyes. 'Button it sister! I've told yer I'll be with ya in a minute.'

Rose's voice seemed to resonate inside Restac's mind, and she hesitated. For some reason, the look in the eyes of this feisty ape scared her. And for a fearless warrior, that was an uncomfortable sensation. Rose didn't know this though. She had no more control of the wolf inside, than the wolf had of the human outside. It was just something that happened when it needed to.

Rose turned to the Doctor and raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to tell her that their daughter would be safe. 'Well,' he started, and looked at Restac. 'IF anything happens to us, the TARDIS will sense it and take Andrea to one of the most recent passengers. Possibly Martha or Donna, but I'd put my money on Sarah Jane as she's known her the longest.'

The gold flecks in her eyes faded as she calmed down. 'Oh, well, that's all right then. It still don't feed her and change her nappy at the moment, but it is reassurin'.'

The feeling of unease left Restac, and she looked at Malohkeh. 'Are you still here? I thought I told you to return to your laboratory.'

Malohkeh hissed at her, and she hissed back as they glared at each other. 'This isn't the way,' he said quietly.

'Prepare them for execution,' Restac ordered

Rose was being shackled to a large, stone column. 'Okay, sorry. As rescues go, didn't live up to its potential.'

'I'm glad you're okay,' the Doctor said as he was shackled to an adjacent column.

'Me too . . . Lizard men, though.'

'Homo Reptilia. They occupied the planet before humans. Now they want it back.'

'After they've wiped out the human race,' Nasreen added as she was shackled next to the Doctor.

'Right. Preferred it when I didn't know, to be honest,' Rose told her, and her thoughts went to her daughter, all alone in the TARDIS. She was so worked up that she couldn't get her mind under control to sense her daughter. 'I hope Andrea's all right.'

'She'll be fine,' the Doctor assured her. 'I'll tune in and have a look for you,'

He gazed off into the distance as he reached out to his daughter, and then a frown furrowed his considerable brow. Rose saw the expression, and could feel some confusion coming from him.

'What? What's wrong? Somethin's happened to Andrea ain't it?' She asked him with a sense of foreboding. She struggled against the handcuffs behind her back, desperate to get to the TARDIS and her daughter.

'No . . . No, there's nothing wrong as such,'

She stopped struggling. 'As such?'

'Well, something is happening . . . She's having her nappy changed.'

'What? But how . . ? Who?'

'I have absolutely no idea.'

Andrea roused from her little nap, and noticed that her parents weren't near by. All she could feel was the warm glow of the TARDIS in her mind. Her furry friend Mr. Tedopoulos, whom she shared her cot with was asleep again by the side of her. She suspected that they were on opposite shifts, so that when she was asleep, it was his turn to be awake.

She had often seen her mummy talking to him when he was asleep, and it seemed that they had know each other for a very long time. She had that hollow feeling in her belly, and gave the gurgling call that she normally gave that her parents heard as "I'm hungry". Today though, it didn't elicit the usual response of one of them appearing in her room to pick her up and take her to the kitchen to feed her.

She used the railing of the cot to pull herself into a sitting position, and looked at the door of the nursery. Her face broke into a smile, as the door opened, and two white basketball sized droids rolled into the room. They stopped at the side of the cot, and two iris ports opened in the first ball. She watched with interest as two flexible cables emerged from the ports, which had three finger-like pincers on the end of each one.

A port opened on the top of the second ball, and a red plastic bowl appeared. One of the three fingered pincers held a plastic spoon and scooped out the pureed meal and manoeuvred it through the railings. Andrea opened her mouth like a baby bird, and the spoon deftly delivered its contents to the target.

She quickly devoured the contents of the red bowl, which retracted inside the ball, to be replaced by a yellow one containing a banana dessert. Finally, a feeding cup appeared, and Andrea took the offered vessel and drank the Shan Shen apricot juice. One arm took the empty cup, whilst the other one gently supported her across her shoulders. The first arm then supported her across the front of her chest as the cot started to vibrate.

Andrea started to chuckle, and produced a long note which made her voice warble. She was startled when, like a bottle of fizzy pop being shaken, the gas in her stomach started to rise and she released an enormous belch.

The arms lay her down on the pillow, and two more arms appeared from the first ball, where they took off her dirty nappy, cleaned her bottom with some wet wipes, put a clean nappy underneath, applied some cream with a ball of cotton wool, dusted her with some powder, and fastened the new nappy. The cot started to sway as the nursery filled with the gentle strains of a Gallifreyan lullaby that would have made the Doctor weep with the memory of it.

With the two droid's tasks completed, the first droid high three'd itself, and they rolled to the corner of the room and went into standby mode. A holographic projection of the Kasterborous constellation slowly revolved above Andrea's head as she hugged Mr. Tedopoulos, and gently drifted off to sleep, feeling her father's reassuring presence in her mind.

Ambrose appeared in the doorway of the courtroom. 'Here they are,' the Doctor said.

'Mum!' Elliot cried out, and ran into her arms.

The group had been released from their shackles after Malohkeh had revived the Silurian leader, Eldane to take charge of the situation and order Restac to stand down her troops.

Tony walked into the room, carrying a body wrapped in a red blanket.

'Something's wrong,' the Doctor noticed.

'Doctor, what's he carryin'?' Rose asked.

'No. Don't do this. Tell me you didn't do this,' he pleaded.

Tony laid Alaya's body on the floor.

'What did you do?' the Doctor asked him angrily.

'It was me. I did it,' Ambrose admitted.

'Mum?' Elliot said uncertainly.

'I just wanted you back,' she tried to explain. Elliot shrugged off her hands and went over to his father.

The Doctor addressed Eldane. 'I'm sorry. I didn't know. You have to believe me, they're better than this.'

'This is our planet!' Ambrose claimed.

'We had a chance here,' the Doctor told her.

'Leave us alone!' she said to Eldane.

'In future, when you talk about this, you tell people there was a chance but you were SO MUCH LESS than the best of humanity,' the Doctor said.

At that moment, Restac and her troops marched into the courtroom. 'My sister.' She walked up to the blanket covered corpse on the floor and crouched down to uncover the head. 'Ohhhh,' she cried mournfully. 'And you want us to trust these apes, Doctor?'

'One woman,' the Doctor said. 'She was scared for her family. She is not typical.'

'I think she is.'

Rose stood in front of Ambrose. 'Of a mother defendin' her child, she is very typical,' Rose told Restac. 'Don't have any kids of yer own, do ya? Cos if ya did, you'd understand what that means. Alaya made a fundamental mistake; she took a child from a mother. When that happens, mothers don't think. Their maternal instincts kick in and they react.'

'One person let us down, but there is a whole race of dazzling, peaceful human beings up there. You were building something here. Come on. An alliance could work,' the Doctor said.

'It's too late for that, Doctor,' Ambrose said guiltily.

He looked at her suspiciously. 'Why?'

Ambrose 'Our drill is set to start burrowing again in.' She consulted a stop watch. 'Fifteen minutes.'

'What?' Nasreen asked in disbelief.

'What choice did I have?' Tony said sadly. 'They had Elliot.'

'Don't do this. Don't call their bluff,' the Doctor warned them.

Ambrose pleaded with Restac. 'Let us go back. And you promise to never come to the surface ever again. We'll walk away, leave you alone.'

Restac glared at her with contempt. 'EXECUTE HER!' The soldiers raised their weapons.

'NO!' The Doctor grabbed Ambrose and pulled her out of the line of fire. 'Everybody, back to the lab. RUN!'

'Execute all the apes,' Restac ordered.

The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and sent out a resonant pulse. The Silurian weapons exploded in their hands. 'This is a deadly weapon. Stay back.' He turned quickly in circles, sending the pulse out to all the weapons.

A soldier had crawled along one of the stone benches and lashed its tongue at the Doctor. He saw it at the last moment and managed to duck as he ran into the tunnel.

'Take everyone to the lab,' he called after them as energy bolts hit the walls. 'I'll cover you,' he told Rose as he reached the fleeing group.

She gave him a quick kiss on the lips and then hustled everyone to continue. 'Go. Go.'

The Silurians ran around the bend, and he sonicked their weapons. 'Ah, ah, Stop right there or I'll use my very deadly weapon again. One warning, that's all you get. If there can be no deal, you go back into hibernation. All of you, now.' Restac glared at him, panting for breath.

'This ends here,' he told her.

'No. It only ends with our victory,' she said defiantly.

His voice went quiet and cold. 'Like I said, one warning.' He zapped the remaining weapons and ran.

The Doctor sealed the door of the laboratory as he entered. 'Elliot, you and your dad keep your eyes on that screen. Let me know if we get company.' He looked at Ambrose's stopwatch and gave it to his wife. 'Rose, keep reminding me how much time I haven't got.'

'Okay. Um, er, twelve minutes till drill impact.'

He turned his attention to Tony. 'Tony Mack. Sweaty forehead, dilated pupils. What are you hiding?'

Tony pulled open his shirt to show green veins all across his chest.

'Tony, what happened?' Nasreen asked with concern.

'Alaya's sting. She said there's no cure. I'm dying, aren't I?' he asked the Doctor.

The Doctor scanned him with his sonic screwdriver and fed the results into the Silurian console. 'You're not dying, you're mutating.'

'How can I stop it?'

'Decontamination program,' the Doctor said. 'Might work . . . Don't know. Eldane, can you run the program on Tony?'

'Doctor, shedload of those creatures coming our way,' Mo called out. 'We're surrounded in here.'

'So, question is, how we do stop the drill given we can't get there in time? Plus, also, how do we get out, given that we're surrounded? Nasreen, how do you feel about an energy pulse channelled up through the tunnels to the base of the drill?'

'To blow up my life's work?'

'Yes . . . Sorry. No nice way of putting that.'

Nasreen sighed. 'Right, well, you're going to have to do it before the drill hits the city, in er . . .'

'Eleven minutes forty seconds,' Rose announced.

The Doctor flexed his fingers over the console. 'Yes. Squeaky bum time.'

'Yes, but the explosion is going to cave in all the surrounding tunnels, so we have to be out and on the surface by then,' Nasreen realised.

'But we can't get past Restac's troops,' Rose said.

'I can help with that,' Eldane said, leaving Tony on the examination couch. 'Toxic Fumigation. An emergency failsafe meant to protect my species from infection. A warning signal to occupy cryo-chambers. After that, citywide fumigation by toxic gas. Then the city shuts down.'

'You could end up killing your own people,' Rose told him.

'Only those foolish enough to follow Restac,' he replied.

'Eldane, are you sure about this?' the Doctor asked.

'My priority is my race's survival. The Earth isn't ready for us to return yet.'

'No,' the Doctor agreed.

'Ten minutes, Doctor,' Rose told him.

'But maybe it should be.' The Doctor was thinking of a solution. A long term solution that involved the First and Great Bountiful Empire. An empire where there would be enough space on the planet and all the colonised worlds beyond.

'So, here's a deal. Everybody listening? Eldane, you activate shutdown. I'll amend the system, set your alarm for a thousand years time. A thousand years to sort the planet out. To be ready. Pass it on. As legend, or prophesy, or religion, but somehow make it known. This planet is to be shared.'

'Yeah. I get you,' Elliot said. The Doctor clicked his fingers and pointed at him, pointed at the hope for the future.

Rose looked at the stopwatch. 'Nine minutes, seven seconds.'

The Doctor went to the controls. 'Yes. Fluid controls, my favourite. Energy pulse. Timed, primed and set. Before we go, energy barricade.' He took out his sonic screwdriver. 'Need to cancel it out quickly.' He sonicked the panel.

'Fumigation pre-launching,' Eldane said.

'There's not much time for us to get from here to the surface, Doctor,' Rose said in concern.

'Ah ha, super-squeaky bum time,' he said with glee. Here he was again. A Time Lord with no time left. 'Get ready to run for your lives. Now . . .'

Eldane interrupted him, pointing out a problem. 'But the decontamination program on your friend hasn't started yet.'

'Well, go. All of you, go,' Tony told them.

'No, we're not leaving you here,' Ambrose informed him.

'Granddad,' Elliot called out as he ran forward and hugged him.

Rose updated the countdown. 'Eight minutes ten seconds.'

Tony held Elliot's shoulders. 'Now you look after your mum. You mustn't blame her. She only did what she thought was right.'

'I'm not going to see you again, am I?'

'I'll be here, always,' he said, pointing to his grandson's chest. 'I love you, boy.' He enveloped him in a loving hug. He looked over at his daughter. 'You be sure he gets home safe.'

'This is my fault,' Ambrose cried.

'No, I can't go back up there. I'd be a freak show. The technology down here's my only hope.'

Ambrose hugged him. 'I love you, Dad.'

Tony returned the hug and then gently pushed her away. 'Go. Go.'

Mo held her shoulders and guided her towards the door. 'Come on.'

Tony returned to the couch. 'Go on.'

Eldane put his hand on a panel and the lights dimmed. ['Toxic fumigation initiated. Return to cryo-chambers,] the computer announced.

Outside the laboratory door, Restac heard the announcement. 'No.'

['Toxic fumigation initiated.']

'No!'

['Return to cryo-chambers.']

The soldiers started to make their way back to their cryo-chambers. 'This is not the order,' Restac called after them.

Rose was watching the screen. 'They're going. We're clear.'

'Okay, everyone follow Nasreen,' the Doctor instructed. 'Look for a blue box. Get ready to run.' He sonicked the door open.

['Return to cryo-chambers.']

He went back to speak to Eldane. 'I'm sorry.'

'I thought for a moment, our race and the humans . . .'

'Yeah . . . me too.'

'Doctor, We've got less than six minutes,' Rose reminded him.

'Go. Go! I'm right behind you.' He rubbed Eldane's shoulder in a show of support, and then looked at Nasreen. 'Let's go.'

'I'm not coming either.' she told him.

'What?'

'We're going to hibernate with them, me and Tony.'

'Doctor, you must go,' Eldane urged.

'I can be decontaminated when we're woken. All the time in the world,' Tony said with a smile.

'But, Nasreen , you . . .'

'No, this is perfect. I don't want to go. I've got what I was digging for. I can't leave when I've only just found it.'

At a turn in the tunnel, Rose noticed that her husband wasn't right behind her like he had said. 'Oh, for God's sake.' She ran back down the tunnel and into the laboratory. 'Doctor!'

'Thank you, Doctor,' Nasreen said.

'The pleasure was all mine,' he replied as he hugged her and looked at his watch over her shoulder.

'Come and look for us,' she said as they went through the door. He raised a hand in a farewell gesture.

['Immediate evacuation. Toxic fumigation is about to commence. Immediate evacuation.']

They caught up with the others on the walkway in the garden. 'Come on,' the Doctor called as he ran past them.

['Toxic fumigation is about to commence.']

They eventually reached the TARDIS. 'No questions, just get in. And yes, I know, it's big,' the Doctor told them as he put the key in the lock. 'Ambrose, sickbay up the stairs, left, then left again, Get yourself fixed up.'

Rose brought up the rear. 'Come on. Five minutes and counting,' he told her and then stopped. There was a light behind him.

He turned to see the "W" shaped crack, grinning at him. 'Not here. Not now. It's getting wider.'

'The crack in Amy's bedroom wall,' Rose realised.

'And the Byzantium,' he added. 'All through the universe, rips in the continuum. Some sort of space-time cataclysm. An explosion, maybe. Big enough to put cracks in the universe. But what?'

Rose checked the stopwatch. 'One minute fifty. We have to go.'

The Doctor wasn't listening. He was absorbed by fascination. 'The Angels laughed when I didn't know. Prisoner Zero knew. Everybody knows except me.'

'Love, just leave it.'

He reached into his jacket pocket, took out a red handkerchief and moved towards the crack. 'But where there's an explosion, there's shrapnel.'

'Doctor, you can't put your hand in there.'

'Why not?' he asked and reached into the crack. He found out why not. It hurt! 'Argh. I've got something.'

'What is it?'

He pulled his arm back out, holding something that was wrapped in the handkerchief. 'I don't know.'

'Doctor?' Rose warned him as Restac crawled from around the corner. 'She was there when the gas started. She must have been poisoned.'

'You!' Restac gasped.

'Okay, get in the TARDIS,' he told Rose.

'You did this,' Restac accused him as she raised her weapon.

'NO!' Rose shouted. 'He prevented the senseless slaughter of millions of innocent people.' While she was talking, the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver.

'This was all your doin',' she continued. 'And why? Was it because you thought a soldier with no one to fight isn't a soldier?'

The Doctor sonicked her weapon and it exploded. He crouched down to Restac. 'The greatest warrior is the one that knows when not to fight. I think you learned that lesson too late.'

Restac's eyes flickered and then closed for the last time.

They went into the TARDIS, and the Doctor started the Time Rotor, while Rose went through to the nursery to check on Andrea. She gently lifted her out of her cot, cradling her in her arms as she went back to the console room.

'I have seen some things today, but this is beyond mad,' Mo said as he came down the stairs into the console room, followed by Ambrose and Elliot.

'Doctor. Five seconds till it all goes up,' Rose told him.

They all hurried outside just in time to see the drilling derrick explode. 'All Nasreen's work, just erased,' Rose said sadly.

'Good thing she's not here to see it,' Mo said. 'She's going to give Tony hell when they wake up.'

'You could've let those things shoot me,' Ambrose said to the Doctor in the porch of the church. 'You saved me.'

'An eye for an eye. It's never the way. Now you show your son how wrong you were, how there's another way. You make him the best of humanity, in the way you couldn't be.'

Ambrose nodded and went inside the church as Rose approached from saying goodbye to Mo and Elliot. 'Are we ready then? I need a holiday, and I'm dressed for Rio.'

He put the key in the lock. 'You go in. Just fix this lock. Keeps jamming.'

'You boys and your locksmithery,' Rose said with a cheeky grin.

When she had gone inside the TARDIS, the Doctor unwrapped the piece of shrapnel and inspected it. It was a charred piece of wood painted blue, with a fragment of a white metal plate attached. There was black writing on the plate.

POLICE TE

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