Jurassic
"What," said the Doctor, " is this signal doing coming from here?"
He slammed the materialisation control down and the TARDIS juddered into continuity with the local time/space locus. The engine noise died, he flicked the viewscreen on to show an eerie desert, red with earthen pillars, small patches of vegetation, distant palms? visible at the edge of the haze, otherwise devoid of movement. He snapped the viewscreen off, turned on his heel and strode out of the TARDIS, into another desert, it was hot, the air was almost still. He stopped, pulled what looked like a pocket watch out of his coat pocket, flipped it open, examined it, then changed his direction and strode off again. I scuttled after him, half running, craning my neck at the towers and trying not to trip over my feet at the same time- I was not going to ask where we were- the answer wouldn't mean a thing to me, and I disliked feeling ignorant. The towers were two people high- perhaps three metres, I couldn't see a mark on them, but they were irregularly shaped and spaced, which meant a natural process. The sand underfoot wasn't just sand, there was a fine dust rising as we walked, I licked my finger and stuck it into the sand, the grit wasn't smooth between my fingers- so it wasn't clay, I looked around and hurried to catch up with the Doctor, he sidestepped one of the low patches of vegetation and some small things flew up, he ignored them, and kept walking, I scuttled over and found what looked very much like caddisflies- daddylonglegs in space? The low bush they'd risen up from had rosettes of leaves like little soft pine needles circling the stems and a flowerhead like a baby green mushroom stuck on a piece of bamboo- horsetails.
"Is this Earth?" I yelled at the Doctor's retreating back, he stopped and turned,
"Yes. About 150 million years before your time." He yelled back.
150 million years, I could never remember the geological ages.."What era?"
"Late Jurassic."
"Dinosaurs?" I started running towards him, "You brought us to somewhere with dinosaurs?" Big dinosaurs, to be precise.
"Yeah." He said as I caught up with him, "But there aren't any here at the moment."
Yeah, cos there'd be growling and running and stuff. I looked around warily and kept close to him as we walked. He was taking us in the direction of the tree-things, "Are those cycads? They look too tall."
"No, cheirolepidiacea. Extinct in your time."
"And these?" I waved a hand at the huge earth pillars we were walking between,
"Termite mounds."
I looked back at one, "They're not circular in cross section, are they?"
"No, oval."
"All aligned on the same axis?"
"To within 15 degrees of the planetary North-South axis."
"As much as 15?" It seemed a lot. " To take advantage of solar heating in the morning and evening?"
"Yes." He said cheerfully.
"What are we looking for?"
"A signal that shouldn't be here."
No shit.
We were headed toward the cheirolepidiacea, they had an outline like a cross between a palm and an acacia, there was a short straggling line of them, which meant a watercourse, almost certainly intermittent in this environment, there was no sound or movement as we walked apart from an occasional insect buzz- there seemed to be something smaller than caddis- the faintest wisp of wind and the odd patter of sand moving. It was positively eerie. When we reached the treeline it was a dry watercourse- there were ferns along the raised edges- tough leaved things with thick wax to keep in the moisture, the first sense of normality came when I heard a cricket chirr briefly, when it stopped the quiet was profound. Which was why the squeaky roar that split the air nearly made me wet myself, I froze- monkey brain screaming Predator!
"Ah," said the Doctor, "perhaps we might want to hurry a bit here." And set off at a ground covering lope along the treeline, he eyed me with some dissatisfaction when I caught up with him, puffing and panting- I don't know if I mentioned it but I'm a crap runner, I'm slow, and I can't sprint for toffee- which is why I'd always concentrated of being able to kick people very hard somewhere annoying- like the face- or kneecap. The Doctor pulled out a short metallic rod- which whirred with increasing pitch- the end was blue. "Over there." He said, changing direction, towards a pile of rocks, it was quite pointy, and did look slightly defensible against a largish dinosaur. I scooped up a large branch from the ground as I ran, but it was flimsy, the bark was harsh to the hand and it was too light- Cycads are spongy inside- damn! I dropped it and sprinted off after the Doctor who was starting to scramble up the rocks, something roared again, I spidered up behind him as fast as I could. He was scanning? the area with the small rod when I pulled myself up to stand panting and trembling beside him, my hands were shaking with adrenaline, I looked around but I couldn't even see any rocks to throw- damn!
Then I saw movement, something upright running, big flappy coat? around it,
"No. No way!" Fucking Jack. He was running towards us and the roaring thing was chasing him,
"Ooh, Allosaurus fragilis."
"Fragilis?!" There was nothing fragile about this beast, it was half again Jack's height and twice as long and ran like deer. It made a noise like a rusty gate, and I started cursing a continuous stream as I searched the ground frantically for a weapon. Nothing. I stared helplessly in Jack's direction, he was gonna die and there was nothing I could do to protect him, and then we were gonna die- and there was nothing I could do to protect us either.
The mechanical buzzing noise sputtered again, then raised in pitch like a demented bee- the Doctor was waving around the little blue ended rod,
"If I can just..." The Doctor muttered under his breath, then it hit a frequency that made me wince, "Aha! Got it!" I realised the allosaurus behind Jack had slowed and was looking directly at us, up on the rock, it began to speed up again,
"Doctor!" He was concentrating on the whining rod, "Doctor! You got it's attention!"
He flashed me a brilliant, slightly manic, smile, "Doesn't matter." He said, holding up the flashing rod, I heard a whooshing- roaring sound, like a really big, really bad pump, getting louder very quickly, the TARDIS came careering towards us, swinging through the air like some mad giant had it on a pendulum, it looked like it would decapitate us before the allosaurus did. It steadied on approach, the doors slammed back,
"Get ready." said the Doctor, grabbing my arm, I looked at the blue box speeding towards us,
"Oh no, no, no, no..." The Doctor leaped at the TARDIS, dragging me with him, I crashed into the door strut, collapsed, wrapping my arm around the railing, the winds whipping round us,
"And now for Jack!" Yelled the Doctor, the red ground was ripping past us at high speed as we bore down on Jack- he couldn't possibly manage to catch hold! I leaned out as far as I could, arm reaching, Jack made a heroic leap, missed the TARDIS floor and caught my wrist with both hands. I think I screamed- the jolt was so abrupt, then, blessedly, Jack was climbing up my arm and the Doctor was hauling him up by his coat collar til we sprawled in a panting heap by the gaping doors,
"Thanks for the lift, Doc." Jack gasped, the Doctor grinned, raised his hand, snapped his fingers, and the doors slammed shut.