Chapter Eleven

"She was just here!" Roland said. "I don't understand."
The Doctor caught up and observed the scene. "That is odd." he looked up, but there were only icicles above. He looked down, but the area was covered in ice. "She couldn't have gone forward, up or down. Are you sure you didn't pass any branches off of the corridor that she could have gone into?"
Roland shook his head. "I... I don't know. Did you see any? You were going slower than me. You would've had a clearer view."
"No, I suppose there weren't any. The last branch I saw was already far behind us when we heard the scream."
Roland kicked up the white powder on the ground around him. "Then where is she?" he demanded. "Did the ice eat her?"

Nyssa coughed and staggered as she attempted to stand up. She had been walking peacefully along the corridor when something had given way beneath her feet. She heard a cracking sound and attempted to backtrack before the ice shattered and she fell. Looking up now, she could see that the ice was already reforming over the hole she fell through.
"I hate alien ice," she muttered to herself. "It never makes any sense."
There was just enough light coming through the thin layer of ice overhead for her to make out her surroundings. She was in a cave not much bigger around than the Tardis console room, though at least twice as tall. Along the walls were sharp ice formations that glittered in the light. At first glance they appeared to be blue, but on further inspection she saw that they were multiple colors. Yellow, green, purple...
"Like oil," she thought. "These must be the crystals the Doctor was talking about!" She broke off a large piece of ice from the wall and put it in her coat pocket. "Now all I have to do is get back to the Doctor."
Nyssa looked around the crystal-lined cave and saw that there was an area that the light from above did not go into. It was a tunnel, she realized, and she walked towards it. She could see a few feet ahead of her and saw that it curved to the left and slanted up. Perhaps this new path would lead back to one of the branches of the tunnel she came from.

Roland paced along the path, back and forth, muttering to himself about letting Nyssa out of his sight. He had known she was trying to go ahead of them, to hurry the journey, but he had gotten distracted and now she was missing. "This doesn't make sense," he said aloud.
"Now, Roland," the Doctor sighed. He had been leaning against the wall of ice, patiently watching as Roland had his panic attack. He had hoped that Roland would gradually calm down or that one of them would think of what happened to Nyssa. Roland appeared to be getting worse rather than better, so the Doctor decided to intercede. "I'm the one who's being eaten away by acid," he pointed out. "If either of us should be panicking, it would be me; and I'm not."
Roland stopped pacing and looked at the Doctor. "I suppose you're right," he said, wringing his hands anxiously, "but what if she's hurt?"
"Nyssa is a very capable young woman. There aren't too many branches off this tunnel, so I'm sure if we stop panicking and go look for her we'll find her very easily. If she doesn't manage to find us first, that is."
Roland smiled slightly and stopped wringing his hands, letting them drop to his side. "Alright, then. Let's go look for her. It's a bit dark in here. She may have gone past us while we were talking and we just didn't see her."

Along the tunnel, Nyssa came to a fork in the path. The one on the left slanted up, while the one on the right slanted down. She looked into each new tunnel and saw that the right one curved away from the direction of the main tunnel. Taking the left one, she noticed it curved straight towards her intended destination. It surprised her that a cave could have such a convenient layout. It almost reminded her of the corridors in the Tardis; the way they curved and slanted endlessly, eventually taking you right back where you began, or on the complete opposite side of the ship. There really was no in-between, she thought.
The light began to get brighter in the tunnel and Nyssa noticed something unusual about the walls. They weren't ice and stone as she had previously guessed, but ice and metal. She knocked on the silvery surface and it echoed exactly like a steel panel. This wasn't a cave at all, she realized. It reminded her of the Tardis because it was a spaceship.

The Doctor and Roland backtracked through the tunnel until they came to a branch. Roland started to continue along it, but the Doctor stopped him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Listen," he whispered. Roland stopped and tilted his head, but heard nothing. "It's gone now," the Doctor said, "but I distinctly heard someone knocking."
"Knocking? You sure it wasn't the wind?"
The Doctor shook his head. "No, it wasn't the wind. Someone was knocking on one of the metal panels. It must have been Nyssa."
"Metal panels?"
"No time to explain," the Doctor said as he jogged down the corridor. He was trying to run, but it was too difficult with his injury. He paused for a moment to catch a breath. "Well, to put it simply, this cave is actually a spaceship that crashed several centuries ago. It's possible Nyssa fell down one of the old ventilation shafts."
The Doctor took a deep breath and clutched his chest before continuing on. Roland knew what was happening but decided not to say anything. Already the acid was eating away at the Doctor's sternum. Pretty soon he wouldn't be able to move without his entire ribcage aching. Not long after that he wouldn't be able to breath.
"If it's a spaceship," Roland said as they walked briskly along, "Then how are there mineral-filled ice crystals that neutralize acid?"
"This ship was carrying an expensive mineral oil from a nearby planet when it crashed. The oil has since frozen in one of the cargo holds. This is the only place in the universe where you can get the oil for free, so I landed us here."
Roland nodded, pretending that he understood. If the ship had crashed, why didn't the oil cause everything to blow up? Was it non-explosive? What happened to the ship to cause it to crash?
"Were you on the ship when it crashed?"
"Yes, I was, but I'd prefer not to talk about it. Ah! Do you hear that?" The Doctor stopped and leaned forward. They had come to a corner, and footsteps could be heard approaching them. A shadow appeared that resembled a furry beast and the sound of breathing was getting louder. Although neither Roland or the Doctor could see the source of the shadow, they knew it wasn't a snow beast.
"Nyssa!" Roland said gleefully, scaring the girl half to death. "I thought we'd lost you."
Nyssa scowled at Roland, but it faded away when she saw that the Doctor was alright. "You did, actually," she replied. "I found my way just fine, though. Oh!" She reached into her pocket and pulled the glittering ice crystal from it. "And I found a crystal too. This is the biggest one that would fit in my pocket."
The Doctor glanced at Roland with a smile. "I told you she was perfectly capable."