Solipsism
Jack: Aiming for the Good
There's been only one other time since I met him that I've seen John so afraid. I don't want to get into storytelling now – it's an event long lost in the deep, dark past – but to my everlasting sorrow I was unable to do anything to help him then. This time it is different.
You know how they say a picture can be worth a thousand words? Well I'm here to tell you that a touch can be worth a million words. Maybe a zillion. Especially to someone in desperate need. And if there's ever been anyone in desperate need during the entire history of the universe, it's John Hart at this precise moment.
I do not know what he's seen, what he's been through, but there's little doubt it was unmistakably appalling.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: communication is important. It is so important I practice it constantly; communication is like a muscle that you always need to keep exercising. To stop communicating is to give up. So, yes, communication is essential. But touch… touch goes way beyond that. Touch is invaluable. The simple act of physical human contact is precious. I worship it almost as if it was a religion. I also respect it. Touch can be used for great good or great evil. It can be a loving caress or it can be a violent blow. I'm aiming for the good here.
So I reach out to John, through this ridiculous spacesuit I'm wearing, and try my best to touch him. To help him summon up and find again the strength and courage that I know he possesses.
Is it the spacesuit? Could it be that clever? As I put my arm around John and hold him close to me, it seems that I can sense his heartbeat, his breathing, his temperature, almost as if we were post-coitus lovers, pressed body-to-body, skin-on-skin. I feel his pulse racing, his breath shallow and uneven, his body trembling. And then I sense a small relaxing, a small easing. It makes me glad.
"Varna was apparently trying to circumvent the ship's AI and get us back to our proper place, our proper time." John takes a deep breath and looks at The Doctor. "I believe she was attempting to initiate the plan that had been prearranged with your TARDIS, Doctor, to bring us back. She was on the secondary battle bridge working with one of the redundant hypercomputer arrays. I was here, in main engineering, trying to deal with the growing number of glitches we'd been experiencing with the grav-plating. Unexpectedly I felt the FTL engines come online and it shocked the hell out of me. I tried to ask Newhope what was going on but she didn't respond. I knew being so close to the Jump drives and their assemblies without proper shielding, without a full hazmat suit, would be phenomenally dangerous if not outright lethal. I didn't know what to do. I was frantic; there was no way I could escape from the area in time. But then I saw the escape pod and realized it would protect me from the intense tachyon radiation about to be generated by the drives."
I can't help it. I glance around the huge room for a moment imaging what it must've been like to have those gigantic Faster Than Light appliances suddenly kick in. The thought horrifies me. It'd be like standing next to an atomic bomb.
"This all happened in a matter of seconds…" John shakes his head. "Just as we made the jump I ran to a pod, closed myself in and it automatically disengaged from ship's power, as it was designed to do. That's the only reason I survived, it turns out. I stayed in there for a long time, waiting for Varna to come get me. I had no idea what was going on outside the pod. I was afraid… I was afraid to emerge from it. I didn't want to die of radiation poisoning. So I waited, but Varna never came for me…
"Instead, eventually, it was Newhope who told me via my com what had happened. She informed me the ship was decompressed. That she had opened herself up to outer space due to what she called a significant threat. She also told me she'd relocated because of the same peril. And that was it. I kept trying to talk to her, I kept asking about Varna, but Newhope never responded again. I was alone. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I should do. I wondered if I should separate the pod from the ship and cast myself adrift. It was a tempting idea… I almost did it, several times in fact. But then I wasn't sure if it was really my idea, you know? I'd realized by then what Newhope had done to me, and I didn't know if I could trust myself. Finally, I decided if I did jettison the pod the odds of being found, wherever the ship had jumped to, would be fantastically slim. So without any further consideration I quickly put myself into hibernation. If nothing else, I figured if I was going to die it'd be better to be asleep when it happened."
"Then you don't know for a fact that Varna is dead?" It's The Doctor and he's grasping at straws. It breaks my heart.
"No, I didn't see it happen, if that's what you're asking, but don't you suppose I thought about it?" John's voice is rising unpromisingly. "This bloody ship is only half-finished, if even that. These, here in engineering, are the only escape pods. There are no shuttles in the shuttle bay. Newhope's interior was exposed to the harsh vacuum of space…"
"And yet you survived," The Doctor hisses.
"And can't you tell I wish I hadn't?" The despair in John's voice is palpable. But then he glares and me and shakes himself. I take my arm away from his shoulders and suddenly I feel cold.
"Besides, Doctor," he snarls, "I don't believe I have survived. And I'm not absolutely certain any of us is going to get off this ship alive. You see…" John takes his index finger and taps his forehead, "she has us all."