Chapter 7

The Beast Below

'Now that's interesting,' the Doctor said, looking at the monitor. 'Twenty ninth century. Solar flares roast the earth, and the entire human race packs its bags and moves out till the weather improves . . . Whole nations migrating to the stars. isn't that amazing?' he said with a big grin, as he finished fiddling with the controls.

'But hang on, we've been to two hundred thousand. The fourth great and bountiful empire you said, with mega cities and ninety six billion people,' Rose reminded him.

'Well yes. But the first great and bountiful empire fell when the sun went a bit crazy. Once the sun calmed down again, a lot of people went back and started the second great and bountiful empire, while the rest of them continued on to the stars and colonised a million planets.'

'So, which are this lot? The carry on's, or the go back homers?'

He put the ship on the view screen. 'No idea. This is the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland. All of it, bolted together and floating in the sky . . . Star Ship UK. It's Britain, but metal. That's not just a ship, that's an idea. That's a whole country, living and laughing and shopping,' he said with a smile as he popped the P's. 'Searching the stars for a new home.'

'Shopping?' Rose asked with a gleam in her eyes. 'Can we go shopping?'

'Course we can.'

'Brilliant!' She kissed him on the cheek. 'I'll get Andrea in the buggy.'

'Ooh, that's interesting,' he said as he tapped into the internal CCTV of the city. He could see a young girl in a red cardigan sitting on her own, looking very upset.

Rose finished fastening her daughter into her buggy and straightened up to see that her husband wasn't there any more. She saw the Doctor on the view screen, speaking to the weeping girl in the red cardigan. 'Doctor? Oh he's gone an' sneaked off again . . . No patience, your Daddy,' she jokingly told her daughter with a smile, knowing that when it came to patience, he could wait for a river to turn a crack in the ground into the Grand Canyon.

On the screen, he looked at the camera and gestured for her to join him.

['Welcome to London Market. You are being monitored,'] a voice announced as she stepped out onto a busy street.

Rose looked up at the high galleries and the glass roof showing the star field beyond.

'Look at this place. Isn't it wrong?' the Doctor asked her.

'What's wrong?' Rose asked as he put his arms around her shoulders and walked down the street.

'Come on, use your eyes,' he said encouragingly to his wife.

'Notice everything. What's wrong with this picture?'

'Is it the bicycles? Bit unusual on a spaceship, bicycles.'

'Now, come on, look around you. Actually look.'

'I don't think it's the bicycles,' Rose said on reflection. 'We've seen a horse on a spaceship before now.'

'Oh yeah. Big white one . . . Took a shine to me.' he remembered.

'And, I seem to remember that YOU took a shine to Madame de Pompadour,' she reminded him.

'Oh that . . . I was hoping you'd forgotten about that.'

'You wish.' Rose told him with a lopsided smile. 'Completely forgot about me y'did and rode that horse into the eighteenth century to rescue her, leaving me an' Mickey stranded in the Fifty first.'

'But we weren't married then, and it wasn't like we were dating.'

['London Market is a crime-free zone,'] the voice told them, bringing them back to the point.

The Doctor went back to his narrative. 'Life on a giant star ship. Back to basics. Bicycles, washing lines, wind-up street lamps. No horses.' He waggled his eyebrows at Rose. 'But look closer. Secrets and shadows, lives led in fear. Society bent out of shape, on the brink of collapse. A police state.' He then saw a couple sitting at a table. 'Excuse me.' He went over to the table and took a pint glass of water from it.

'What are you doing?' the man asked him as he knelt down and put the glass on the floor. He put on his brainy specs and looked at the glass intently, as though he was expecting it to do something. He seemed satisfied that it wasn't going to do anything and returned it to the table.

'Sorry,' he said to the couple. 'Checking all the water in this area. There's an escaped fish.' He turned his attention back to his wife. 'Where was I?'

'Why did you just do that with the water?' Rose asked him.

'Don't know. I think a lot. It's hard to keep track,' he replied with a cheeky smile.

'You're up to somethin',' Rose told him. 'Now, let me see . . . you were usin' the water for somethin', but what? Spirit level? Relative Humidity?'

'This is usually where Holmes says "elementary my dear Watson". Now, police state. Do you see it yet?'

'Ah, I see it,' Rose said quietly, a hint of sadness in her voice. 'It's that girl over there that you were talking to, isn't it?'

The girl in the red cardigan is sitting all alone on some benches in a public area, quietly weeping. The Doctor nodded and went to sit on a bench where he could watch her.

'Children cry because they want attention, because they're hurt or afraid. But when they cry silently, it's because they just can't stop. Any parent knows that.'

'Well, a lot of them . . . I'm still learnin',' Rose said.

'Hundreds of parents walking past who spot her and not one of them's asking her what's wrong, which means they already know, and it's something they don't talk about. Secrets. They're not helping her, so it's something they're afraid of. Shadows, whatever they're afraid of, it's nowhere to be seen, which means it's everywhere. Police state.'

'Where'd she go?' Rose asked when she noticed the bench was empty.

'Deck two oh seven. Apple Sesame block, dwelling 54A. You're looking for Mandy Tanner,' he said smugly.

'Oh hang on. Now you're just showin' off,' Rose told him.

'Oh, er, this fell out of her pocket when I accidentally bumped into her,' he explained, handing over a small wallet. 'Took me four goes. Ask her about those things. The smiling fellows in the booths. They're everywhere.'

'But they're just things,' Rose said.

'They're clean. Everything else here is all battered and filthy. Look at this place. But no one's laid a finger on those booths. Not a footprint within two feet of them. Look. Ask Mandy, why are people scared of the things in the booths?'

'What are you going to do?'

'What I always do. Stay out of trouble.' Rose rolled her eyes at him. 'Badly,' he added.

['Doctor?'] Rose thought to her husband as she came around from the knock out gas.

['ROSE! You're awake. Are you okay?']

['Yeah. A bit groggy, but I'm okay.']

['What happened?']

['Well, there was this hole in the road, and I kinda looked in it. There was this tentacle thing that made me jump back, and then a bunch of creepy guys in cloaks gassed me.']

['Ah, I was right then. A police state. So where are you, in a police cell?']

['If it is, it's a better quality cell than we're usually thrown into. There are four television screens, and three buttons on the console labelled Forget, Record and Protest.']

['That's weird. It doesn't sound like a police cell,'] he thought. ['It's as weird as the engine room down here.']

['What's weird about the engine room?']

['It's got no engines in it!']

['Oh, hang on. Somethin's happenin'. There's a man speakin'.']

"Welcome to voting cubicle three thirty C. Please leave this installation as you would wish to find it," the man on the screen said.

['It says I'm in voting cubicle three thirty C,'] she thought to the Doctor.

['I'm on my way up.']

"The United Kingdom recognises the right to know of all its citizens. A presentation concerning the history of Star Ship UK will begin shortly. Your identity is being verified on our electoral roll. Name, Rose Marion Tyler. Age, thirteen hundred and six."

'Cheeky git!' Rose told the man on the screen. ['And it's Lungbarrowmas.']

A while later, the Doctor arrived at the voting booth and found Mandy playing with Andrea in the buggy. He sonicked the door, pushed it open, and on a view screen, he could see Rose talking. ['Listen to me. This isn't a trick. This is for real.']

'Rose?' he called to her

['You've got to find the Doctor.'] Rose turned off the recorded message.

He looked from the screen to Rose. 'What have you done?' He scanned a device in the ceiling. 'Yeah, your basic memory wipe job. Must have erased about twenty minutes.'

Rose went over to the buggy and lifted Andrea into a cuddle. 'But why would I choose to forget?'

Mandy answered the question. 'Because everyone does. Everyone chooses the Forget button.'

'Did you?' Rose asked.

'I'm not eligible to vote yet. I'm twelve. Any time after you're sixteen, you're allowed to the see the film and make your choice. And then once every five years,' Mandy replied.

'And once every five years, everyone chooses to forget what they've learned. Democracy in action,' the Doctor said.

'How do you not know about this?' Mandy asked him.

'Oh, I'm from out of town,' he said as he fiddled with the controls. 'I can't even see the movie. Won't play for me.'

'It played for me,' Rose told him.

'The difference being the computer doesn't accept me as human.'

'Why not? You look human,' Mandy said.

'No, you look Time Lord. We came first.'

Rose rolled her eyes at him and shook her head. He always had to be superior to humans.

'Hold tight,' he said as he hit the button marked "Protest". 'We're bringing down the government.'

The door to the booth slammed shut, trapping him, Rose, and Andrea inside. The Smiler mannequin in the kiosk became a Scowler and the floor opened up to reveal the long drop.

The Doctor held his wife's hand. 'Say wheee!'

Rose said 'ARGHHH!'

The Doctor dropped down a chute into what appeared to be the organic waste of an abattoir. He could tell it was organic, because it stank. A distant scream got closer as Rose popped out of the chute, landing on her back and clutching her wailing daughter to her chest.

'Argh! High speed air cannon . . . Lousy way to travel,' the Doctor said, shaking organic matter off his hands and taking out his sonic screwdriver.

'All right Sweetheart. Shush now,' Rose said to Andrea as she wiped the gunk off her head and face. 'Where are we?' she asked.

He scanned the chamber. 'Six hundred feet down, twenty miles laterally, puts us at the heart of the ship. I'd say Lancashire. What's this then, a cave? Can't be a cave.' He checked the readings. 'Looks like a cave.'

Rose rolled onto her knees. 'It's a rubbish dump, and it's mingin'!' She threw a strand of something gooey and wet at the Doctor.

'Yes, but only food refuse. Organic, coming through feeder tubes from all over the ship.'

Rose felt the floor of the cave through the detritus. 'The floor's all squidgy, like a water bed.'

'But feeding what, though?'

Rose continued to investigate. 'It's sort of rubbery, feel it . . . Wet and slimy.'

They heard a distance animal noise from further along the cave. 'Er, it's not a floor, it's a . . .' He realised that Rose might not like what the cave actually was. 'So . . .'

'It's a what?' Rose asked him, knowing that he didn't want to tell her.

'The next word is kind of a scary word. You probably want to take a moment, get yourself in a calm place . . . Go omm.'

Rose obliged and made the meditational "Omm" noise, not that it got her into that calm place he mentioned.

'It's a tongue,' her told her.

'A tongue?'

'A tongue . . . A great big tongue.'

Rose realised where a great big tongue would be kept. 'This is a mouth! This whole place is a mouth? We're in a mouth?'

'Yes, yes, yes. But on the plus side, roomy.'

The roominess of the accommodation wasn't foremost on Rose's mind. 'How do we get out?'

The Doctor fielded her question. 'How big is this beastie? It's gorgeous. Blimey, if this is just the mouth, I'd love to see the stomach . . . Though not right now.'

Rose was used to her husband's evasive tactics. 'Doctor, how do we get out?'

She'd rumbled him. 'Okay, it's being fed through surgically implanted feeder tubes, so the normal entrance is closed for business.' He indicated a wall of big teeth resembling the Sarcen stones at Stonehenge.

'We could try, though,' Rose said as she tried to stand up.

'No, stop, don't move,' he ordered as the floor shook. 'Too late. It's started.'

'What has?'

'Swallow reflex.' He got to his knees and started to sonic the tongue.

'What are you doin'?'

'I'm vibrating the chemo-receptors.'

'Chemo-what?'

'The eject button.'

Rose frowned. 'How does a mouth have an eject button?'

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. 'Think about it!'

Rose did think about it, and then she saw it. A tsunami of vomit was rolling towards them.

He pulled the cuffs on his jacket and tucked his tie inside. Then he hugged his wife and daughter. 'Right, then. This isn't going to be big on dignity. Allons-yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!'

They dropped into a tunnel which thankfully was free from the original detritus.

'There's nothing broken,' he told his wife as he examined her and their daughter. 'There's no sign of concussion and yes . . . you are covered in sick.'

'Where are we?'

'Overspill pipe, at a guess,' he said as he examined a door at the end of the tunnel.

Rose wrinkled her nose. 'Oh, God, it stinks.'

The Doctor sniffed his wife. 'Oh, that's not the pipe.'

'Oh,' she said and sniffed her sleeve. 'Phew! Can we get out?'

'One door, one door switch, one condition. We forget everything we saw. Look familiar?' he said, as he pointed at the Forget button. 'That's the carrot . . . Ooh, here's the stick.'

Two Smiler booths lit up, and the Doctor walked up to them, defiantly cocky with his hands in his pockets. 'There's a creature living in the heart of this ship. What's it doing there?' he asked the Smilers, and their heads revolved to become Frowners.

'No, no, no. That's not going to work on me, so come on. Big old beast below decks, and everyone who protests gets shoved down its throat. That how it works?' he asked the Frowners, and their heads revolved to become Scowlers.

'Oh, stop it. I'm not leaving and I'm not forgetting, and what are you fellahs going to do about it? Stick your tongues out, huh?'

The booths opened and the Smilers stepped out. 'Ah. You're going to do that,' he said as he backed towards the door with Rose and Andrea.

'Doctor?' Rose asked nervously.

A woman in a red cloak came through the now open door, stepped up between the Doctor and Rose, and shot the Smilers.

'Look who it is,' the Doctor said. 'You look a lot better without your mask.'

'You must be Rose,' she said holding out her hand. 'Liz. Liz Ten.'

'Hi,' Rose said, trying to wipe the sick off her hand.

'Yuck,' Liz said, wiping her hand on her cloak. 'Lovely hair, Rose. Shame about the sick. You know Mandy, yeah?' she said as Mandy came through the door. 'She's very brave.'

'How did you find us?' the Doctor asked.

'Stuck my gizmo on you,' she told him, tossing a hand held screen to him. 'Been listening in. Nice moves on the hurl escape. So, what's the big fella doing here?'

'You're over sixteen, you've voted. Whatever this is, you've chosen to forget about it,' the Doctor told her.

'No. Never forgot, never voted, not technically a British subject,' she replied.

'Then who and what are you, and how do you know me?'

'You're a bit hard to miss, love. Mysterious stranger, M O consistent with higher alien intelligence, hair of an idiot.'

'Oi!' he said, running his fingers through his hair and then realising what was in it at the moment.

'I love his hair,' Rose said.

'I've been brought up on the stories. My whole family was,' Liz continued.

'Your family?' he asked.

The Smiler robots started to reboot. 'They're repairing. Doesn't take them long. Let's move,' Liz said.

Liz led them to Sub basement 4 as she explained how she knew who he was. 'The Doctor. Old drinking buddy of Henry Twelve. Tea and scones with Liz Two. Vicky was a bit on the fence about you two, weren't she? Knighted and exiled you on the same day. Lizzy the First was a big fan though by all accounts.

'Liz Ten,' he said as the penny dropped.

'Liz Ten, yeah. Elizabeth the Tenth,' she confirmed. 'And down!' she called out suddenly as she drew her pistol.

The Doctor and Rose ducked as she shot the repaired Smilers again.

'I'm the bloody Queen, mate. Basically, I rule,' she told them.

'You rock more like,' Rose said with a grin.

They passed through a doorway, and Liz closed the door. 'There's a high-speed Vator through there.'

The Doctor was looking through a grating. 'Oh, yeah. There's these things,' Liz said as they saw tentacles beating at the grating. 'Any ideas?'

Rose recognised it. 'Doctor, I saw one of these up top. There was a hole in the road, like it had burst through like a root.'

The Doctor scanned it with his sonic screwdriver. 'Exactly like a root. It's all one creature, the same one we were inside, reaching out. It must be growing through the mechanisms of the entire ship.'

'What, like an infestation?' Liz asked. 'Someone's helping it. Feeding it. Feeding my subjects to it. Come on. Got to keep moving.' She marched down the corridor with Mandy.

The Doctor was still inspecting the tentacle. 'Doctor?' Rose asked quietly.

'Oh, Rose,' he said sadly. 'We should never have come here.'

Rose suddenly remembered the recording of herself she had watched before her memory was wiped. "Don't let him investigate. Stop him. Do whatever you have to, just please, please get the Doctor off this ship."

Liz led them to her state apartments so they could freshen up and wash the sick off them. The Doctor was stepping between glasses half filled with water.

'Why all the glasses?'

'To remind me every single day that my government is up to something, and it's my duty to find out what.'

The Doctor picked up a porcelain mask. 'A queen going undercover to investigate her own kingdom?'

'Secrets are being kept from me. I don't have a choice. Ten years I've been at this. My entire reign. And you've achieved more in one afternoon.'

'How old were you when you came to the throne?'

'Forty. Why?'

Rose returned from the bathroom with Andrea. 'What, you're fifty now? No way. Can I have some of your moisturiser?'

'Yeah, they slowed my body clock. Keeps me looking like the stamps.'

'And you always wear this in public?' the Doctor asked her, holding up the mask.

'Undercover's not easy when you're me. The autographs, the bunting.'

'Air-balanced porcelain. Stays on by itself, because it's perfectly sculpted to your face.'

'Yeah? So what?'

'Oh, Liz. So everything,' he said, spotting another secret that was being kept from her.

A division of Winders entered the apartment unannounced. 'What are you doing? How dare you come in here?' Liz said indignantly.

'Ma'am, you have expressed interest in the interior workings of Star Ship UK,' the leader of the group said. 'You will come with us now.'

'Why would I do that?'

The leader's head turned to become a Scowler.

'How can they be Smilers?' Rose asked as she backed away.

'Half Smiler, half human,' the Doctor explained.

'Whatever you creatures are, I am still your queen. On whose authority is this done?'

'The highest authority, Ma'am.'

'I am the highest authority.'

'Yes, ma'am. You must go now, Ma'am.'

'Where?'

'The Tower, Ma'am.'

'Doctor, where are we?' Rose asked as she looked through a grating, where tentacles were flailing about.

'The lowest point of Star Ship UK. The dungeon.'

'Ma'am,' an officious man in black robes said as he greeted his queen.

'Hawthorne. So this is where you hid yourself away. I think you've got some explaining to do,' Queen Liz told him.

The Doctor looked around the dungeon. 'There's children down here. What's all that about?'

'Protesters and citizens of limited value are fed to the beast. For some reason, it won't eat the children. You're the first adults it's spared. You're very lucky,' Hawthorne told him.

'Yeah, look at us. Torture chamber of the Tower of London. Lucky, lucky, lucky,' the Doctor said sarcastically.

'Well, the beast must have known that if it wanted to eat me, it would have had to eat Andrea as well, 'cos there was no way I was lettin' go of my daughter,' Rose said.

The Doctor smiled lovingly at his wife, before turning back to Hawthorne. 'Except it's not a torture chamber, is it? Well, except it is. Well . . . Except it isn't. Wellll . . . Depends on your point of view.'

They moved over to a circular opening where the top of a pulsating brain could be seen. Giant electrodes were pointing down at it disturbingly.

'What's that?' Queen Liz asked Hawthorne.

The Doctor answered. 'Well, like I say, it depends on your point of view. It's either the exposed pain centre of big fellah's brain, being tortured relentlessly.'

'Or?' Queen Liz asked.

'Or . . . it's the gas pedal, the accelerator. Star Ship UK's go faster button.'

Queen Liz frowned. 'I don't understand.'

'Don't you?' the Doctor asked her accusingly. 'Try to. Go on. The spaceship that could never fly. No vibration on deck. This creature, this poor, trapped, terrified creature. It's not infesting you, it's not invading, it's what you have instead of an engine. And this place down here is where you hurt it, where you torture it, day after day, just to keep it moving. Tell you what. Normally, it's above the range of human hearing. This is the sound none of you wanted to hear.'

He moved to one of the tentacles and took out his sonic screwdriver, using it to sonic a tentacle. The room was suddenly filled with a wailing screech of agony.

Andrea started to cry in sympathy, and Rose was obviously distressed as she imagined the pain that would cause that kind of scream.

'Stop it. Who did this?' Queen Liz demanded.

'We act on instructions from the highest authority,' Hawthorne told her.

'I am the highest authority' Queen Liz informed her minister. 'The creature will be released, now. I said now! Is anyone listening to me?'

The Doctor picked up the queens porcelain disguise. 'Liz . . . Your mask.'

'What about my mask?'

'Look at it. It's old. At least two hundred years old, I'd say.'

'Yeah? It's an antique. So?'

'Yeah, an antique made by craftsmen over two hundred years ago and perfectly sculpted to your face. They slowed your body clock, all right, but you're not fifty. Nearer three hundred. And it's been a long old reign.'

'Nah, it's ten years. I've been on this throne ten years.'

'Ten years,' he echoed, walking over to a table. 'And the same ten years, over and over again, always leading you here.' He indicated two buttons on the table in front of a monitor. Forget and Abdicate.

'What have you done?' Queen Liz asked Hawthorne.

'Only what you have ordered,' he replied courteously. 'We work for you, Ma'am. The Winders, the Smilers, all of us.' He switched on the monitor, which played a recorded message from Queen Elizabeth the Tenth.

['If you are watching this. If I am watching this, then I have found my way to the Tower Of London. The creature you are looking at is called a Star Whale. Once, there were millions of them. They lived in the depths of space and, according to legend, guided the early space travellers through the asteroid belts. This one, as far as we are aware, is the last of its kind. And what we have done to it breaks my heart. The Earth was burning. Our sun had turned on us and every other nation had fled to the skies. Our children screamed as the skies grew hotter. And then it came, like a miracle. The last of the Star Whales. We trapped it, we built our ship around it, and we rode on its back to safety. If you wish our voyage to continue, then you must press the Forget button. Be again the heart of this nation, untainted. If not, press the other button. Your reign will end, the Star Whale will be released, and our ship will disintegrate. I hope I keep the strength to make the right decision.']

Rose looked on aghast. 'I voted for this . . . Why would I do that?'

'Because you knew if we stayed here, I'd be faced with an impossible choice. Humanity or the alien. You took it upon yourself to save me from that. And that was wrong. You don't ever decide what I need to know,' he said angrily, wagging a finger at her.

'I don't even remember doin' it,' Rose pleaded.

'You did it. That's what counts.'

'I'm, I'm sorry. I made a mistake? I don't even remember doin' it!'

'Yeah, I know . . . You're only human,' he said angrily.

'Oh, and you've never made a mistake?' Rose asked him. 'Who are you really angry with Love?'

He reached up and held her cheek, rubbing it with his thumb in his old familiar style. 'You're right. I'm sorry. It's not your fault you chose to forget. When you are faced with two evils, does it really matter which one you chose?' He leaned forward and kissed Rose on the lips before moving around to a control console.

'What are you doing?' Queen Liz asked.

'The worst thing I'll ever do. I'm going to pass a massive electrical charge through the Star Whale's brain. Should knock out all its higher functions, leave it a vegetable. The ship will still fly, but the whale won't feel it.'

'What?!' Rose gasped. 'You can't do that! That's . . . that's . . .'

'Inhuman?' the Doctor suggested.

'That'll be like killin' it,' she said.

'Look, three options,' he told her. 'One, I let the Star Whale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds more years. Two, I kill everyone on this ship. Three, I murder a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can. And then I find a new name, because I won't be the Doctor any more.'

'There must be something we can do, some other way,' Queen Liz asked him.

'Nobody talk to me,' he said with a scowl. 'Nobody human has anything to say to me today!'

Tears trickled down Rose's cheeks as she hugged her daughter. She saw the oncoming storm in his eyes and knew her husband was angry and upset. It was another one of those days, a day when it wasn't possible to get it right.

She sat with Mandy, and watched the Doctor adjust the controls, as children entered the dungeon.

Mandy stood and rushed forward. 'Timmy! You made it, you're okay. It's me, Mandy.' A tentacle flailed behind Mandy, then gently tapped her on the shoulder. Rose watched in amazement as she stroked it.

Rose started to put all the pieces together. The Doctor had told her to use her eyes, to notice everything. In Queen Liz's message, she had said the children screamed, and the Star Whale had come like a miracle. Hawthorne had told them that it wouldn't eat the children. It came to the dying Earth, a Star Whale, the last of its kind.

'The Doctor said he never interfered with other peoples or planets,' Rose said to herself. 'Unless it's children cryin',' She looked down at her daughter, who was looking back at her with wide, innocent eyes.

'It's the children. They're the key,' she gasped with realisation. 'It won't let the children be harmed!'

'Doctor, stop. Whatever you're doin', stop it now!' Rose called out to him as she grabbed Queen Liz's wrist. 'Sorry, Your Majesty. Going to need a hand.'

Rose dragged Liz to the voting buttons. The Doctor looked up from the console 'Rose, Rose, no! NO!'

She pushed Liz's hand down on the Abdicate button, and the Whale roared. Star Ship UK shook briefly, causing panic on the upper levels.

'Rose, Rose, what have you done?'

'If I'm right, nothin' at all,' she told him. 'Never cruel, never cowardly,' she reminded him.

'We've increased speed,' Hawthorne announced.

'Yeah, well, you've stopped torturing the pilot. Gotta help,' Rose said sarcastically.

'It's still here,' Liz observed. 'I don't understand.'

'The Star Whale didn't come like a miracle all those years ago,' Rose explained. 'It volunteered. You didn't have to trap it or torture it. That was all just you. It came because it couldn't stand to watch your children cry.'

Rose looked at her husband as she explained. 'What if you were really old, and really kind and alone? Your whole race dead. No future. What couldn't you do then? If you were that old, and that kind, and the very last of your kind, you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry.'

Rose thought she could see tears in his eyes as he walked over to her, held her face, and gave her a long, grateful kiss. 'Thank you,' he said when their lips parted.

They made their way back to an upper level observation deck which looked out over the city. Rose handed the Doctor Queen Liz's porcelain mask. 'From Her Majesty. She says there will be no more secrets on Star Ship UK.'

'You could have killed everyone on this ship.'

'You could have killed a Star Whale,' she countered.

'And you saved it. I know, I know.'

'Amazin' though, don't you think? The Star Whale,' she said. 'All that pain and misery and loneliness, and it just made it kind.'

'But you couldn't have known how it would react.'

'You couldn't,' Rose said accusingly. 'But me, I've seen it before. Very old and very kind, and the very, very last. Sound a bit familiar?' She gave him her special smile, the one where her tongue poked between her teeth. His face slowly broke into a smile, and he pulled her into a hug.

'Well, come on,' he said, putting his hands in his pockets. 'Time to go.' He led her towards a London market.

'Shouldn't we say goodbye? Won't they wonder where we went?' Rose said.

'For the rest of their lives. Oh, the songs they'll write. Never mind them. Big day tomorrow,' he said.

'Sorry, what?' Rose asked.

'Well, it's always a big day tomorrow. We've got a time machine. I skip the little ones,' he told her as they arrived at the TARDIS.

'Oh . . . right. Yeah, I see what you mean,' she said with a smile.