Kerry managed to edge her way along the ledge to the half-hidden cave where the boy was without any hitches, by pressing her back to the wall and stepping slowly sideways. Peering into the cave – cautiously so she didn't overbalance – she could make out the faint outline of the boy within, and then began to review her immediate problem – how did she get him out with the rocks that blocked her way? A few minutes later, she had it. The sonic screwdriver! The Doctor had once told her that if it was set to a certain frequency, it could blast through solid rock. He'd even shown her the correct frequency and how to set it. Right. Her next problem was, should she try to remove the remove the rocks one-by-one, and risk crumbling the ledge in that area, or should she try to blast her way into the cave through the wall?
No, if I do that, I might cause the wall to collapse, she thought. She finally decided on a compromise. She'd climb carefully over the rocks into the alcove, and then loosen the rocks from the inside and push them into the pit. That way, both the floor and the wall were more likely to remain intact. As she scrambled over the unstable barrier, Kerry was glad that she was small and light, because if she'd been just a bit heavier, she was certain that the ledge would have given way beneath her. Then she was inside the alcove with the lad that she had striven so hard to reach. She went across to him, a small, huddled figure in the gloom.
"Hello," she whispered kindly, as if the sound of her voice might itself send the roof to the floor, "Can you hear me?"
No response.
"I'm Kerry," Kerry persisted, more patiently than she'd felt in a long time. Eventually it paid off. At her third "I'm Kerry, who are you? Can you hear me?", the boy managed to look weakly up at her. A look of hope and relief flashed across his eyes, but Kerry didn't see in the darkness. Instead she pulled the water-bottle from her pocket (where she'd stored it before entering the chamber) and unscrewed the lid. She held it up to the boy's lips and helped him take a few sips. He looked at her gratefully, and then sagged limply in her arms. Returning the bottle, Kerry began the next stage of her plan. She dragged the boy closer to the entrance of the alcove, lay him down and took out the sonic screwdriver. She blasted two or three of the top-most rocks into smithereens which clattered down into the abyss, and then set to loosening the remaining rocks around their bases.
Then everything went wrong.
She pushed the first few safely into the pit, throwing up immense clouds of dust as they hit the ground, and she was just encouraging the fifth rock over the edge when the very tip of the ledge crumbled beneath it, taking the rock – and very nearly Kerry – with it. Kerry, not ready for this, had just managed to scrabble back to safety, but in the process, the screwdriver was knocked out of her hand. She watched in horror as it fell, gracefully, away from her. Then the remaining rocks began to follow the first, and Kerry, suddenly coming to her senses, realised that if she didn't get herself and the boy out now, she'd be trapped here forever, (or until the Doctor came to rescue her, but she didn't fancy waiting days for him to find her.) Grabbing the boy's arms, she clambered out of the cave and onto a safe area of ledge just as the area directly below the cave gave way completely. As it was now impractical to leave the chamber the same way as she had come in, due to the extra burden of the boy, Kerry was forced to crawl along on her hands and knees. She had just reached the safety of the entrance and retrieved the torch when she became aware of an ominous rumbling behind that was nothing to do with the sound of the falling rocks…
Turning back, she noticed that the impact of falling rocks had caused a full-scale rock fall, and as she watched, the ledge began to collapse from the damaged area outwards both ways, and a few shards of rock began to fall from the ceiling…
Throwing all concern for the fate of the screwdriver to the wind, Kerry hauled the boy onto her shoulders, turned, and fled for her life.
Even though the source of the noise was nowhere the wise old man's room, he could hear the roar of falling rock clearly via the hologram before him. He could not identify the sound, but knew it meant danger.
"The girl is in grave danger," he told the tiny inkwell, which was nestled in the palm of his hand. "It seems that she may not make it…"
The caves around her were beginning to tumble almost faster than she could run. Already, the falling rocks had caused what felt like an earthquake, and the ground trembled under her feet. The boy on her back was slowing her down, but she wouldn't let herself even consider abandoning hi, to save herself. There was no guarantee she'd manage that anyway. She became aware of the sound of crashing water up ahead, now amplified to a deafening roar by the collapsing caves behind her. As she rounded the corner, she was dismayed to see that the stone bridge across the river was crumbling away, and she automatically reached for the sonic screwdriver. Finding it not in her pocket, she then remembered. Oh blast it! she thought desperately. She'd just have to try her luck. She held the boy tightly and ran onto the bridge. And tripped. The boy, suddenly awake, was left hanging over the edge of the bridge as a large section gave way and disappeared.
"Don't let go, please don't let go," begged the boy, terrified, clinging onto Kerry's hand. "I can't swim, don't let me fall!"
Trying to pull the boy back onto the bridge, Kerry found herself thinking, Just let go of him. You can escape if you let go of him! She looked across at the remainder of the bridge. If she released her hold on the boy, she could jump the gap and run for it. No! she told herself furiously, tightening her grip. She tried desperately to haul him to safety, but then her other hand was dislodged by the end of the broken edge crumbling beneath her. Unprepared, Kerry lurched forward – and lost her grip. The boy plunged into the icy depths. Gasping with horror, Kerry remembered his pleas. "Don't let me go, don't let me go."
She knew from sight that the current was strong, powerful – they'd both be drowned. But, pushing this away, Kerry plunged in after him. Swimming half with, half against the current, she managed to propel herself towards him. He was unconscious again, and kept disappearing and reappearing in the force of the water. When she finally reached him, she grabbed him and slid an arm under his head, holding him up. She struggled to paddle to the edge of the raging river, to pull them both up the steep embankment and to the safety of dry land, but the water was too strong. So she instead concentrated on keeping the boy above the surface as they were carried along. Then suddenly, they collided with something solid, though wet and slippery, and the force with which Kerry was thrown against it knocked the wind out of her. She just managed to ensure that her young charge was alongside her, safe, and then Kerry's world went black.
On the surface of Gallifrey, a few people had noticed a faint rumbling sound. Those who were near enough to hear it passed it off as a warren of their oversized rabbits playing racehorses in the meadows, or an unseen spacecraft droning past their planet. Those who were told about it either agreed with their friends' opinions on the noise, or assumed that they were exaggerating something much less dramatic. Those who neither heard it nor had it passed on to them obviously ignored it…
When Kerry came round, she found herself lying sprawled across a large boulder that projected out of the river by quite a few inches, worn smooth by the continued motion of the rushing water over it. The boy was in a similar position, face-down on the rock. The water was still raging past, and that terrifying crashing that was the rock-fall (or cave-fall would be more apt) told Kerry that her ordeal was far from over. Heaving herself up into a half-sitting, half-lying position, she viewed her surroundings. To her left and right was the river, which still splashed her still-soaking clothes, behind her and to the front of her was a sheer rock face. Deciding that the only way of possible escape was in front of her, she began to scan the rock face for anything she might be able to use to get them both out of here. It was then that she noticed that small knobs of rock stuck out in semi-regular pattern; they were spaced almost perfectly to be used as hand- and foot-holds. Again that little voice in her head was telling her to leave the boy and she could save herself, but again she ignored it. Tugging one of the blankets from around her waist (where she'd tied them for safe-keeping), she used it to tie the boy to her back, before calculating the best route up. Kerry composed herself and began to climb.
It was hard work, especially near the base of the wall where the stone was wet and slippery, but by going slowly and driven by sheer determination and a desire to live, she finally made it. She'd thrown the torch over across the river before she'd gone in after the boy, and she reached for it now. By pushing it hard into the ground, she managed to use it to pull herself and the boy over the last few centimetres of rock-face and to dry land. Then, exhausted, she let herself flop down onto her front and dragged her battered body away from the edge. She loosened the blanket that held the lad to her back and he rolled off. She tried to rise to continue their escape, but her legs wouldn't support her; her arms refused to work. So Kerry gave in and let her body rest.
"There is hope for her yet," said the old man to a known hologram – that of Valstrem, his hooded visitor – that had just materialized in front of him. "She is more than halfway back. Prepare a welcoming committee…" And he repeated a list of names for the job. The hologram nodded.
"Yes Sir, it will be done," said Valstrem, and he flickered and vanished.