"Doctor, what is that?" Amy demanded, almost yanking the visualizer out of his hands to get a better look.
The Doctor looked up at the ceiling. "Well, that explains the scuff marks."
"How did that thing even fit in here?" Rory demanded. "It must be seven feet tall."
"Hush!" Amy waved him down, eyes glued to the screen, squinting. The screen went even blurrier, until it washed out completely. "Ahh! Come on!" she whacked it in irritation, trying to jar it back into working.
"It's no use, Amy," the Doctor said, twisting some of the dials. "It's not the scanner. Something was actually interfering with the visibility."
"What does that mean?" Amy demanded, more affected than she'd admit by the fuzzy image of that thing looming over the baby's chair.
"Doctor!" Rory suddenly yelled, pointing. "Your celery has changed color!"
The Doctor looked down to see his celery had turned a bright maroon. He grabbed it off his lapel and quickly took a bite. Chewing, he started investigating the room.
"Doesn't that mean something in here is poisonous to you?" Amy said, worriedly.
"Yes. But where's it coming from?" He started prowling around the room, peering into corners. He held the celery up to the ventilation duct.
"Maybe you should leave the searching to us, Doctor," Rory said worriedly. "You should go outside if something here's affecting you."
"Nonsense," the Doctor said, taking another bite of celery. He burped. "Sorry. Celery never did sit well with me. The change in color," he waved the red stalk at them, "indicates a change in the phytochemicals in the celery which forms a natural antidote."
"Nevertheless," Rory said, pushing him toward the door, "I'd feel better if you went outside."
Amy plucked his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. "Here, set this and I'll scan the room, you can read the results outside," she ordered.
"I am perfectly all right!" the Doctor protested, halting and not budging no matter how much Rory pushed. "I have got contacts in my eyes, filters stuffed up my nose, and I am eating this disgusting celery. Nothing in here is going to affect me."
"Doctor!" Jeff trotted in holding up a bunch of maroon celery. Before he could say anything else the Doctor tore a stalk of celery off the bunch and started eating it too, somewhat compulsively.
"Thank you," the Doctor said, absently, chewing. "Wait a minute," he looked down at the dirty celery in his hand. He swallowed. "Where did you find this?" he shook the celery at the young deputy.
Jeff's brows beetled at the man's odd behavior, he jerked a thumb behind him. "Outside, in the kitchen garden. You asked to be notified if we found anything unusual," he pointed out, dubiously.
"Show me!"
Jeff led the Doctor, Rory, and Amy out the back kitchen door and around the edge of the house to a large patch of vegetable garden growing on the side away from the stables. One whole section of leafy, knee-high plants had turned a brilliant maroon.
"Ah Hah!" The Doctor yelled in a note of triumphant discovery, pointing. He knelt down to finger the maroon leaves. He looked up and around the rest of the garden, with that bright-eyed, "hound dog on a scent" look that Amy recognized.
The Doctor jumped up and scanned the whole garden with the sonic screwdriver, including the grass around the verges. He flicked the sonic up and read the readings. Nodding to himself he then scanned the building, turning in a circle he scanned the the empty horse corral, the nearby houses and the field of wheat.
He shut the sonic screwdriver with a triumphant snap. "Of course! Brilliant! Why didn't I see it before?" He thumped the screwdriver on his forehead.
"What?" Rory asked.
"They were gassed," the Doctor said, turning to them with a gleaming look of fascination in his eye.
"The whole farm, gassed unconscious."
"It must have rolled in like a fog," he said. "It coated everything. It's a good thing I didn't touch anything in there before, and that they had all the windows open. It was only when I gave myself a concentrated dose by sniffing that wheat that it became a problem," he explained.
"We've been touching things and it hasn't affected us," Rory pointed out. "Why's that? Why would it affect the farmers and you but not us?"
"In its gaseous form it no doubt would affect you, just like it affected the farmers. It's only because it's started to decay into the Praxis range that it affects me, and not you. It seems to be designed to break down quickly. Which makes sense if they didn't want it detected."
"They who?" Amy demanded.
"I don't know," the Doctor said, grimly. "More to the point, how did they manage to gas the whole settlement, especially the size of area we're talking about?"
He turned to the deputy. "Have you had any thefts of chemicals lately? Anything else like this happen?" The Doctor waved his hand at the deserted farm. It was getting late in the day, the shadows were lengthening, the breeze had warmed with afternoon, the only sounds were the rustle of wind in the wheat and the far off calls of the other searchers.
"No." Jeff shook his head. "Wait," he held up a finger and thought for a moment. "Chemicals you say? There was a burglary at a fertilizer factory south of here in the next county. Supplies and equipment were taken.
"It was weird, because they just yanked out the equipment, no finesse, just cut the power lines and took off with a bunch of supplies. The machines never showed up on the black market. We never did find out why anyone would want to steal fertilizer."
"Oh, lots of useful things can be made out of fertilizer," the Doctor said. "Can you give me a list of what was taken?"
"Doctor!" Dutch ran up around the corner of the house waving his tracker. "We're getting a tracking signal!"
"What? Where?" the Doctor focused all his intensity on him.
"South."
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