Part 2

Barbara held Susan as she shook, her head clutched in her hands.

"Terrible, terrible sadness," Susan murmured faintly.

After a time, she settled, the trembling stopped and Susan sat up again.

"Um," said Theodore. "Are you okay?"

"It stopped," Susan said, "but I can feel it, you know. I can feel something here."

Barbara wondered whether Susan had just had an adverse reaction to an unusually intense headache, but the girl was odd. If there were voices, trying to make themselves heard, then it seemed to Barbara that Susan would likely be the first to hear them.

Theodore didn't seem to agree.

"Was it just a headache?"

"No," said Susan. "I heard voices."

"Perhaps we should tell Ian and the Doctor when they return," said Barbara.

"Is she okay?" asked Theodore, still looking nervously from Barbara to Susan.

"She will be, I'm sure," said Barbara. "Give her time."

"I've been wondering," said Theodore, settling back down now. "Who are you all? You say you came here in a ship that looks, to me, like a phone booth. Phone booths aren't very aerodynamic."

"Oh, it's a long story," said Barbara. "Ian and I started travelling with the Doctor and Susan quite by accident."

"Travelling where?"

"Everywhere," said Barbara, shortly. "And yourself? What's your story, Theodore?"

"You already know, really," said Theodore. "I'm an intern, from England. I came down here to work in the power plant for a year."

"What do you do?"

"This power plant isn't just a power plant," said Theodore. "Lots of scientists live here, studying the ocean. We've got oceanographers, ecologists, physicists, geologists, volcanologists… I'm a geologist."

"Well, you must spend a lot of time in the power plant, then," said Barbara.

"No, not really," said Theodore. "I've not actually been there very often…"

They kept talking, and Barbara learned that Theodore's internship seemed to involve fetching drinks for Yandi more than anything. Shortly afterwards, the Doctor and Ian returned, the Doctor appearing to be deep in thought. Yandi and Reina followed, Yandi continuing to look annoyed. The two scientists went to Theodore and began to speak to him in hushed voices, while the Doctor sat absentmindedly next to Susan.

"He says he might be able to fix the scanner with some of the materials they have here," said Ian, after taking Barbara aside. "But if you ask me, he's more interested in their laboratories than the scanner."

"Well, I'm not surprised," said Barbara. "How long do you think we'll be staying?"

"Yandi's been arguing with him about the materials. He wants us to pay for them, but, well, you know we don't have any money. The Doctor's convinced them to let us stay the night, while we sort it out."

"I won't say no to that," said Barbara. "Though… Susan says she's hearing voices."

"Voices?" said Ian incredulously. "Nonsense. I'm sure she just has a bad headache. There doesn't seem to be -"

Before he could finish, it hit them. The four travellers buckled over, and Barbara could feel an intense ache in her mind. She understood what Susan meant now – they weren't so much voices as they were an unsettling feeling. A sense of deep sorrow.

Susan, whose mind was clearly more sensitive to this sort of thing than the rest of them, was hit the hardest. She fell to the ground, clutching her head once more.

It took a while after it had ended for Barbara to realise that the voices had stopped. She found that she had been instinctively bracing herself for the pain, and the voices faded so gradually that she barely noticed when it was gone.

"Perhaps Susan was right," Ian conceded, quietly, when it had ended.

Yandi appeared to be concerned.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I supp- I assume you all felt the same thing?" said the Doctor, looking over at his companions. "We felt some kind of… some kind of a presence."

"I felt it before," added Susan. "Not long ago. Terrible sadness."

"Ah, dear," said Yandi. "Don't worry about that, it's just a side effect of the pressure here, like astronauts getting used to the gravity. You'll be fine in no time. Theodore, they're staying in the guest quarters, why don't you show them to their room?"

"A side effect of the pressure?" said Ian. "That sounds ridiculous!"

"It's true," said Theodore. "They warned me about it before I came down here. I didn't believe them, but it happened to me as well. Humans didn't evolve for these depths, it's just an ordinary reaction."

Yandi nodded. "Don't worry about it," he said. "Once we've figured payment out, you'll be out of here before too long."

He gave the Doctor a pointed look, which the traveller avoided.

Their room was luxurious, with each of them given their own double bed and a bedside table. Bathrobes were folded on the foot of each bed, and a long, curved window on the ceiling gave them all a spectacular view of the ocean above.

"Grandfather," said Susan, once they had settled down and Theodore had left them for the night.

"Yes, my dear?" asked the Doctor, coming to sit down next to his granddaughter.

"Do we have to stay? I don't like it here. Well - I don't like the voices."

"I'm afraid so," said the Doctor. "With the scanner broken, we won't know where we land." He tapped the corner of his mouth. "And something isn't quite right. I must get to the bottom of it."

"Oh, okay." Susan knew that when her grandfather got himself hooked onto a mystery, but when he did it was impossible to make him change his mind.

The Doctor hugged her. "I'm sorry," he said. "We shall only stay for one more day."

The beds were so comfortable that they soon forgot about the voices, or pressure, or whatever it was. Even Susan began to settle down, despite the constant mumbling that she felt, miles away in the back of her mind. At least the mumbling didn't seem to be distressed, not like the voices before. This just felt like… conversation.

It took a while, but eventually they all fell asleep. The base powered down, so that the only light that filtered into the room now was that of animals, flitting over the windows above, and the only sound was the barely perceptible noise of oxygen being pumped around the city

Susan suddenly awoke. For a moment, she thought she had been woken by the voices again, but then she realised that the source of her discomfort was something altogether different.

Before she could scream, there was a hand over her mouth and a low voice hushed her.

"Don't make a fuss," hissed Reina. "When I move my hand, I need you to wake the others – quietly. I know you can hear them. I used to hear them too. I need your help."