"Would there have been any survivors, Doctor?"
"I don't know. It hit pretty hard, look at these," he indicated deep gouges and dents on the underside of the escape pod. "But," scrambling round to the other side he bent down and examined them. "Not all of them were made by the crash; some of them are too long and deep. I'd say they were made by a wild animal."
"With claws and teeth the size of cars," Rose's sarcasm as she examined the cuts annoyed the Doctor.
"Oh come on Rose, you've been travelling with me for ages and now you're being sceptical about what kinds of weaponry they could have. There could be guns with the single function of separating every cell from your body, or bombing ants or anything… Rose, are you listening to me?"
The truth was… no. She was too busy looking around at the landscape. It was mostly desert with a few trees and tufts of grass but nothing you could call homey.
Ship. Still. Resisting. All. Attempts. To. Access.
"Try back up circuitry."
Backup. Circuitry. Is. Unresponsive.
"What do you mean unresponsive."
There. Is. No. Signal. Broadcasting. For. The. Backup. System.
There. Is. Nothing…
"What is status of the transmitter?"
A moment of silence and the computer responded in a somewhat annoyed voice.
There. Is. Nothing. Wrong. With. The. Transmitter.
All. Checks. Made. Are. Positive.
All. Security. Teams. In. That. Area. Neutralised.
Backup. Circuitry. Is. Still. Unresponsive.
"Run full checks and send out a surveillance team. Tell them too hold contact."
Confirmed.
"Doctor, using an educated guess, which in your case would be known as 100 correct," the Doctor grinned at that "do you think that this planet was inhabited by any form of large mammal."
"No, there's very little water if any and there aren't enough trees to support any species."
"Well then, if the Reeds are balls of squeegee stuff that take on other things' forms," the Doctor nodded vigorously, "and if there wasn't any life form on the planet beforehand," Rose pointed to the gouges "you're not going to tell me that lumps of squeegee stuff did that."