Chapter 2

The Bristol hum

Lungbarrow Tree House.

Tardis Bay.

The Isle of Gallifrey.

Beta Pegasi II. (Also known as Paradise)

196 light years from Earth.

Rose Smith was lying on her sun lounger in front of their Tree House, wearing her usual white, chamois leather mini dress which her husband John said made her look like Jane from the Tarzan films. John was at the barbecue, in his usual attire of animal skin loin cloth and a sleeveless animal skin jacket. On sun loungers beside Rose were her parents, Jackie and Pete Tyler, who were celebrating their wedding anniversary.

The Tree House itself had evolved and expanded over time, due to the TARDIS coral that John had implanted into the original construction. The support struts now resembled the coral struts that used to be in the original TARDIS, and with the round doors and windows, Rose was reminded of Bilbo Baggins' house from Lord of the Rings. The whole structure had a living, organic feel to it, similar to the chapter houses on Gallifrey.

Jackie sighed contentedly as she enjoyed the afternoon sunshine in her one piece swimming costume and wrap around skirt. Pete was wearing bermuda shorts, a loud Hawaiian shirt, and a Stetson.

Children's laughter carried on the warm breeze from the beach in front of them as they played a game of volleyball. Eyeulf and his young brother Jason were one side of the net, with their sister Juleshka, and their uncle, Tony Tyler on the other.

Rose looked over at her parents and smiled. 'Happy anniversary,' she said.

'Thank you Sweetheart. This is perfect,' Jackie replied.

'Yeah, you're right. This place is perfect. Thanks for inviting us,' Pete added

'Oh you, mum and Tony are always welcome here.'

Pete looked over to the rustic barbecue under the tree house. 'Need any help over there?' he called to John.

'Nah. I'm fine. The coals are hot, my beers cold, the sausages are sizzling, and the burgers are. John frowned in thought. 'I need a word beginning with "B".'

'Burnt?' Rose offered with her teasing smile.

'Burnt?!' John said indignantly. 'I'll have you know they're char grilled to perfection.'

'Don't begin with a "B" though, does it?' Rose replied cheekily. John grinned at her and raised his bottle of beer in salute.

Pete saw the salute and reached into the ice box by his side. 'Another beer?' He picked up his own bottle out of the sand, stood up and ambled over to John. 'There you go Son. Tell you what. While I'm here, why don't I cut the bread rolls?'

'Hah! Top man,' John said, and they clinked their bottles together. 'HEY KIDS,' he called over to the volleyball contestants. 'Grubs nearly ready. Come and wash your hands.'

'YAY!' came the enthusiastic reply as they ran up the beach.

At one of the support corals, there was a standpipe with a tap where they could wash their hands. The water came from a stream, which had a flexible pipe in it. That pipe had all sorts of nano filters built in to it so that when the water reached the house plumbing system, it was clean, pure water.

Everyone sat at the picnic benches, and with Pete's help, John started to hand out the hot dogs and burgers. There was a gentle hum of conversation and occasional laughter as they helped themselves to fried onions, ketchup and mustard which were on the table.

'Ooh. Look Dad. A shooting star,' Juleshka said, pointing up to the evening sky.

John turned to look up at the sky behind him, and saw a fireball leaving a trail of fire behind it. It was breaking up into several, smaller fireballs. 'Hmm. I don't think that's a meteor, it's too slow. I think it might be a ship breaking up in the upper atmosphere.'

'Oh dear. I hope there wasn't anyone on board,' Rose said with concern.

John had a swig of his beer and finished his burger as he stood up. 'I'll just nip into the TARDIS and check the scanner. There might have been an escape pod or flight recorder.'

Rose finished her hot dog and had a sip of her white wine. 'Carry on with the barbecue. We'll be back in a minute.'

At the console monitor, John checked for an emergency beacon. 'Ah, here we are. A research vessel from the Jaggit Brocade. They're affiliated to the Scarlet Junction you know. This one's registered to Convex Twenty Two.'

'Jaggit Brocade?' Rose asked with a frown. She'd heard that before, but couldn't remember when. 'I'm sure I've heard that before. Are they harmless or hostile?'

John smiled. 'Just a bunch of curious explorers. Shall we go and see if they're all right?'

'Where are they?'

'Their pod came down on the night side of the planet, in the middle of the primordial jungle.'

'We can't leave them there, can we?' Rose said.

'Certainly not. I think we can offer them some more comfortable surroundings while they wait for rescue.' He started the Time Rotor and locked on to the emergency beacon.

Rose pulled on her lace up, knee high, white chamois leather boots, and started to tighten the laces. John pulled on his knee high leather boots and did the same. The far side of the planet was an unexplored wilderness, and there were all sorts of creatures lurking in the undergrowth, waiting to bite, sting or envenomate their legs.

The TARDIS had landed in a small clearing surrounded by weird alien trees and plants, some of which were bioluminescent. There were a number of worn tracks into the jungle, presumably made by the various life forms that lived their. They carefully followed one of the tracks to the site where the escape pod had landed. As they looked up into the forest canopy, they could see a neat "tunnel" where the pod had crashed through.

The escape pod was tear-drop shaped, and had a mirror perfect hull. There was a tear-drop shaped hole in the side where the hatch had opened and lowered down. There were five occupants in pressure suits and helmets packed inside, and a woman in a pressure suit, with a ring around her neck where a helmet could attach, trying to disentangle the undergrowth from around the hatch.

When she spotted John and Rose they saw her body tense up. 'Oh. Hello . . . Don't-be-afraid,' she said slowly. 'We-are-travellers-from . . . a-long-way-away. This-is-our-ship, sort-of.' She was using her hands to gesticulate the meaning of her words.

John and Rose frowned at each other and then realised that their clothing made them look like primitive natives. They grinned at each other and turned back to the woman.

'Yes. We-know,' John said, gesticulating as the woman had.

Rose snorted a laugh and playfully slapped his arm. 'Behave,' she told him. 'Hi. I'm Rose. This is John. We saw your ship break up in the upper atmosphere and thought you might need some help. Is anyone injured?'

It was the woman's turn to frown. 'Er, no. The pod has inertial stasis dampers. It was just like a roller-coaster ride . . . Oh, sorry. I'm Raffaela.'

John gave her his best smile. 'Nice to meet you Raffaela. Would you like to come to our barbecue?'


Torchwood Special Operations Standby Room.

Torchwood Tower, Canary Wharf.

08:20.

'What? And they crashed into your tree house?' Julia asked Rose after the briefing.

Rose laughed. 'No. They crashed on the far side of the planet. We went to help and brought them back to the barbecue while they waited for their rescue ship.'

'That must have been one of the most comfortable waits for rescue they'd ever had,' Julia said with a laugh.

'Well, they'd never crashed before. But I'm guessing they won't get that kind of service in the future. Oh, and when the rescue team arrived, it turned into one big party. It was brilliant. And we exchanged contact details so we can keep in touch.'

Rose spotted Amy in the kitchen area pouring a cup of tea and went over. 'How was your weekend Amy? It was Bristol you went to wasn't it?'

'Yeah. It was great. We met up with our old friends there. Oh, and I heard the Bristol Hum.'

'The Bristol Hum? What's the Bristol Hum?' Rose asked.

'It's a hum . . . in Bristol,' Amy told her. 'But apparently, it's not only in Bristol. I looked it up on the internet. Taos, Kokomo, and West Seattle in the States. Aukland and Wellington in New Zealand. It's a global phenomenon.'

'And what's causin' it?' Rose asked.

'That's the interestin' bit, because there are loads of theories, but nobody really knows.'

'And is it dangerous? Y'know, somethin' that Torchwood should be investigatin'?'

Amy shrugged. 'Dunno. Apparently a couple of people have committed suicide because the noise was driving them mad. I tried to record it on my phone. Do you want to hear?'

'Yeah. Let's have a listen.'

Amy took her phone out of the breast pocket of her uniform and selected the media player app.

['Hush up a minute you lot, I'm gonna try and record it,'] Rose heard from the phone speaker. She could hear the volume being increased on the microphone, and then she heard it.

[Hum-um-um-um-um-um-um-um-um.] ['ARE YOU GETTING IT?'] Steph's amplified voice asked, which made them jump.

['SHUSH . . . I THINK SO.']

[Hum-um-um-um-um-um-um-um-um.]

'And it wasn't anythin' in the flat?' Rose enquired.

'No. I went into Torchwood mode and investigated everythin' I could without my scanner. It wasn't a car out in the street. Paul and Steph live on a new development at Shirehampton on the outskirts of Bristol. There are no factories nearby, no offices with air conditioning units on roofs, nothin'. Oh, there is the M5 motorway nearby, but you can hear that the distant traffic is a totally different noise to the hum.'

Rose gave her a proud smile. 'Well done Agent Williams.'

Amy had a proud smile of her own. Praise from Rose Smith, her supervisor was praise indeed. 'Thank you.'

'While it's quiet, why don'tcha get that recordin' up to Multimedia and see if they can do anythin' with it. I'll get John to have a listen to it when he comes in.'

Amy was bouncing on her toes with excitement. She'd discovered a mystery and was being allowed to investigate it. 'Okay. I'm on my way.'

Rose had a fond smile on her lips as she remembered her days as a rookie. All enthusiasm and energy, although that was mainly to distract her from the sadness of being separated from the Doctor, and thinking that she would never see him again.

'So why am I listening to a diesel engine ticking over?' John asked Rose and Amy in the Multimedia lab, a couple of hours later.

'You're not,' Rose told him.

'Are you sure? It sounds like a diesel engine.'

'I'm sure,' Amy replied. 'I checked.'

'So, what is it then?'

'The Bristol Hum.'

'The Bristol Hum? What's the Bristol Hum then?'

Amy and Rose looked at each other and grinned before looking at him. 'It's a hum . . . in Bristol.'

'Ah. Does what it says on the tin then. What's causing it?'

'Nobody knows for sure,' Amy told him. 'I've done some research, and there are loads of theories.'

John raised his eyebrows and gave Rose an impressed look. His protégé was showing him that he'd been right to recommend her for selection. He took his brainy specs out of his pocket and put them on. 'Go on then, show me what you've found out about the Bristol Hummm.'

'Really? Er, okay.' She took out her tablet PC, brought up her research, and started reading. 'The essential element that defines the Hum is what is perceived as a persistent low-frequency sound, often described as being comparable to that of a distant diesel engine idling.'

'Told you,' John announced, and Rose gently slapped his shoulder for him to shut up and stop interrupting.

'. . . Or to some similar low-pitched sound for which obvious sources, for example, household appliances, traffic noise, and the like have been ruled out. Some people hear the Hum only, or much more, indoors as compared with outdoors. Some perceive vibrations that can be felt through the body. Earplugs are reported as not decreasing it. For those who can hear the Hum, it can be a very disturbing phenomenon and it has been linked to at least three suicides in the UK.'

'So not everyone can hear it then?' John asked, glancing at his wife to see if another shoulder slap was on the cards. It seemed that Rose thought this was a reasonable question.

'No. There are some theories on that. Apparently human ears generate their own noises, called . . .' She referred to her notes. 'Spontaneous oto . . . acoustic emissions. A number of studies have shown that approximately half of adults with normal hearing have them, although the majority are unaware of these sounds. The people who do hear these sounds typically hear a faint buzzing or ringing, especially if they are otherwise in complete silence.'

'Hmmm,' John said as he read about it on a screen. 'And it's not just Bristol then, it's all over the world.'

'Yeah, although Bristol was one of the first. Reports started trickling in during the 1950s from people who had never heard anything unusual before; suddenly, they were pestered by an annoying, low-frequency humming, throbbing or rumbling sound.'

'Right. So that brings the latest theory about deep ocean currents vibrating the sea floor into question,' John reasoned. 'Those currents have been running for millions of years. If this started suddenly in the fifties, then it's going to be artificial.'

Amy continued her narrative. 'The cases seem to have several factors in common: Generally, the Hum is only heard indoors, and it's louder at night than during the day, which was true at Paul and Steph's.'

'Paul and Steph?' John asked with a look of confusion.

'Our friends in Bristol. Rory and me spent the weekend there. It's where I recorded the sound. Apparently, the Hum is more common in rural or suburban environments; reports of a hum are rare in urban areas, probably because of the steady background noise in crowded cities.'

'Yeah,' John agreed with a frown. 'Although . . . it says here only about two percent of the people living in any given Hum-prone area can hear the sound, and most of them are ages fifty five to seventy, that's according to a 2003 study by acoustical consultant Geoff Leventhall of Surrey, England. Don't you find that strange?'

'What? What have you spotted?' Rose asked.

John scratched the back of his head. 'Wellll. Young people tend to have more acute hearing than the elderly. And I'd say Amy here was young.'

'Thank you,' Amy said. 'I like to think so too.'

'So what is it about this noise that makes it selective?'

'I dunno. Most of the "hearers" or "hummers" as they are called describe the sound as similar to a diesel engine idling nearby,' Amy continued. 'It says here that the Hum has driven virtually every one of them to the point of despair. And being dismissed as crackpots or whiners only exacerbates the distress for these complainants, most of whom have perfectly normal hearing. Sufferers complain of headaches, nausea, dizziness, nosebleeds and sleep disturbances. The BBC reported that at least one suicide in the United Kingdom has been blamed on the Hum.'

John laughed as he read a report off the internet. 'Most researchers investigating the Hum express some confidence that the phenomenon is real, and not the result of mass hysteria or hearers' hypochondria or extraterrestrials beaming signals to Earth from their spaceships.'

'We'd have spotted that for sure,' Rose said with a grin.

'And so it goes on,' John said. 'Lots of theories, lots of research, and no definitive answers. I do love a good mystery. Well done Amy. That's a good start. So from your initial enquiry, what are your recommendations?'

Amy froze like a rabbit caught in headlights. This was the cleverest and most renowned scientist on the planet, asking her for recommendations. 'Er . . . I don't know.'

John smiled kindly. 'What questions have you got that you think need answering?'

She relaxed a little as she realised he was helping her. She wasn't the cleverest scientist on the planet, so it wouldn't be anything technical. It would be obvious things that the man in the street would want to know. 'Okay. Nineteen fifties. What things happened in the fifties that could have started the phenomenon?'

John gave her his widest grin, which meant she was on to something. 'Only two percent of the population can hear it. What do that two percent have in common?'

John now had an open mouthed smile. He looked at Rose and winked. '. . . Or, is the phenomenon somehow choosing those two percent?'

'Oh, bravo! Those were just the questions I was asking myself. And, do you know what that means?'

'No,' Amy said hesitantly.

'It means we're going to Bristol to get a listen to the Hum first hand, with some of the best equipment on the planet.'