The Doctor did not think they would need the metal fragments that were the remains of the ship the Yssimarb came on, he did originally think that, as he created the amplifier with the sonic screwdriver and phased himself out of reality with Brian phasing in. But after flicking the metal and hearing how it resonated, he calculated that unless the TARDIS was in the middle of phase shifting, the metal fragments would be useless as a signal boost.
Another problem also presented itself with the fragments as he put through the calculations on the TARDIS console. To properly bring the Yssimarb into alignment, it would require an equal and opposite reaction. Meaning he would have to use the fragments or only bring half of the Yssimarb into alignment, which didn't even register as a possibility. Well, it did, briefly, deep, deep down, the unusual scientist with white hair and who had to be reminded to value human life over his next five regenerations. Because that scientist knew that the Yssimarb cannot survive in this timeline without serious damage, and then the Time Lords would be all over him again, they would watch, put him on trial for doing what was needed doing, on trial for showing mercy (could you imagine?).
The Doctor was taken from his reverie as he continued to make the calculations and input the necessary data, using the fragments. The TARDIS began her projected outcomes.
'Doctor, there's so much jam in the kitchen. What one should we use?' came Flip, who was expecting to rush through similar-looking corridors, but turned twice and found herself in the main console room. She had slept well in the TARDIS and had been woken to a gentle knock on the door from Constance with a mug of tea.
'Raspberry obviously! A cream tea with strawberry jam is so childish, and I do not think we are gauche enough to think rhubarb or gooseberry or blackberry.'
'And someone's clearly been at the gooseberry jam with a spoon,' said Flip.
'Just don't touch the one labelled in Gallifreyan.'
'There isn't one labelled in Gallifreyan.'
'No? Oh. I thought she did. Don't open the unlabelled one. It looks grey-purple.'
'The one that looks like brains, yeah, no problem, Doctor,' said Flip and returned to the kitchen. She missed the brief sneer on the Doctor's expression. He did not say some very rude things about Flip for a moment but was then distracted by the console.
It told him that there were insufficient material components available to make the transfer. Two Yssimarb would have to give up their new life.
He didn't slam the console, he didn't hit the roundel, he paced in thought, telling himself, aloud, that he was clever enough to fix it. And damn the time sensitivity, damn the dampener, he could think his way out of this.
Constance and Flip found him circling the console, head bowed, arm crossed, knuckle to chin and mouth, muttering, deep in thought.
They were both carrying picnic baskets that were only a little bigger on the inside. Constance chose simple food, she did not ask the food machine to create great meals, but rather things like she had intended before, bananas, some chicken salad, and a Cornish pasty, because suggesting raw meat was asking for trouble.
'Doctor, are you okay?' asked Constance.
'I'm thinking, don't interrupt me,' snapped the Doctor and continued pacing in the circle.
Flip set the picnic basket down and approached the console. She looked at the read-outs, it was unintelligible.
"Come on, TARDIS, show me what's wrong," she thought.
The screen arranged itself into something she could understand, it took her a few minutes to read it and figure out what the charts meant. She waited for the Doctor to move past before returning to Constance.
'It's not strong enough. He needs to make two of them glitch out to allow all the others to stay.'
'Oh dear,' said Constance. 'Doctor, is there anything we can do?'
'I doubt it.'
Constance ignored that one too and turned to Flip. 'I think we will set up just the picnic, Doctor. Let us know when you've figured it out.'
Before they left, Flip asked, 'Can't you send something else? Like a tree? Or even a TARDIS room?'
'Shall we chop off your hand as well? Feed it to the Early Dorom beassi? And besides, the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental and doesn't belong to the corrupted time track. It needs to be something that should have been there.'
'So they don't die, they just go back to the other timeline?' asked Flip.
Constance sighed, they were so close to the door.
'Time track, and possibly. I can't access it through the TARDIS, someone has blocked it. I knew this smelled of Time Lord nonsense.'
'C'mon, Flip.' Constance took her arm and they left.
Outside, they looked at the Yssimarb, they had assembled themselves around the TARDIS, holding their hands out, not quite touching. They made a noise that did not translate, but it was clear it was a prayer, or incantation, something with melody and harmony. It still sounded like the rustle of leaves in the trees. Something that the humans would have ignored if they hadn't been paying attention.
It ended a little abruptly, to the humans, although that was when it was supposed to end.
Brian stepped forward. 'Is the Doctor still working miracles?' he asked.
'Yes. He's doing his best. It might take a bit more time, but he'll figure it out.'
Constance cared for Flip, she really did, like a little sister, but she accepted there were times when even the Doctor couldn't save the day for everyone.
'Unfortunately, two of you can't go.'
'Connie!'
'Philippa, they have to know. If the Doctor can find a solution, that's all the better, but we have to prepare for the worst.' The humans now had the Yssimarb surrounding them. Constance addressed them all as she would when the casualty lists came through. She could count only two days when no one knew anyone who wasn't effected. 'The Doctor is a clever man, a genius even, but there are laws of physics that even he must adhere to. Two of you must be sent back to where you came from, where your ship launched from. We don't know what will happen to you there, but you won't be here.'
'Why two of us?' asked Jane.
'Because the Doctor is using the metal from your ship,' said Flip, 'that can be sent back because it's where it belongs. If he sent something that didn't belong there, it would fade like you.'
'And it would come back here, sending you back there.'
'So we'd go back to our families?' asked a Yssimarb.
'That's where everyone else went?' asked Isaac.
'I'm staying,' said Jane.
'Me too,' said Brian.
'So am I,' said Darren.
They turned to Darren. Darren realised their mistake in speaking. They just reminded everyone of their crime and now they all saw at least one person who was going back. Brian was the one to declare it, obviously. 'No, you will be sent back. If there are more of us there, then they will know what to do with you.'
If.
Constance could see that Jane, Darren, Brian, and even Isaac were sceptical.
No one else spoke for a while.
They just looked at one another and waited for someone, anyone, to raise their hand and offer themselves up for the good of the rest of them.
'If Jane were still alive, they would have gone,' said Isaac.
'And I would have gone with them,' said Brian, safe in the knowledge that they will never be asked to go, nor let themselves go.
'You could draw straws,' said Flip.
It translated as reeds, so there was no confusion about that, but there was about why they would do it. So Flip explained the concept and Constance nodded along, before voicing her objection that it shouldn't be left to chance, people agreed with her there, and then they fell silent when she made her own little speech about everyone making sacrifices for the greater good and doing their bit for blighty.
(I know that should be capitalised, but I don't care.)
'Well?'
'I will,' said a nameless Yssimarb, who does not matter, only so much as they volunteered themselves and will not recur in any of these entirely accurate and unbiased historical accounts.
'Flip, can you carry both baskets yourself?' asked Constance.
Flip tried it, could just about, and made a show of being very capable. She trundled off to the Early Dorom beassi while Constance returned inside the TARDIS and told the Doctor who had volunteered themselves.
He stopped pacing, stared into the middle distance, and then suddenly burst into action by slapping his hands together and working at the console.
'Thank you, Constance.'
'Doctor, I told them that, essentially, they would be going to heaven, but I don't think they believed me. Not all of them.' He didn't respond, so she added: 'I think Philippa believed me, and I know we face monsters frequently, and the universe isn't a kind place, but could you please not tell her that they will just vanish?'
The Doctor looked up and softened his focused expression. 'Of course.' He returned to the console.
Outside, the Yssimarb formed their prayer circle, with the nameless one and Yssimarb in the middle, they sang, all of them. Jane kept eye contact with Darren. As the two faded away, quantum images layering over one another, and the metal fragments that formed the lotus faded, those forming the prayer circle solidified. They experienced what Brian had. Physicality. They could hear and see and taste and feel so much more intensely than before.
And then the others vanished, faded out into nothingness.
Inside, on the view screen, the Doctor watched the metal fragments fade away into nothing. The effects of temporal anomalies eased in his body. He could think clearly. He also realised that his only hope of certain answers was the metal fragments, and now that they were gone he would never know. Not unless he sneaked into the Matrix again.
He suspected, as he had said, Time Lord shenanigans, but perhaps it was just an anomaly, pure chance. Nothing important at all. Something he didn't need to think about, something that could easily be forgotten if, say, he was back on Gallifrey for other reasons.
Either way, he now had to think of another solution. The Yssimarb weren't supposed to be here, and their continued existence could change the course of future history. He remembered being here with Susan in the far future. In fact, didn't he pick up the Corsair after they crash-landed here, that was in the not-too-distant future, so too with that shapeshifting creature with Jamie and Zoe, again in the not-too-distant future? He was also almost certain a future incarnation was going to be here too.
Kessas Aen did that, does that, will do that, messing with temporality.
Flip had passed around a few snacks, like the bananas, to the returning Early Dorom beassi. The hunters carried a bloodied creature. Flip thought it was another of their species, long and furry, but its face was decidedly different. It was more like a dog.
The gatherers too came back with arms full of fungi and chips of bark. Wiggle also brought back some bugs, wrapped in a leaf. Flip was surprised to see that the rest of them didn't do this too, they only carried.
'Do you eat the bugs?' asked Flip.
'No, these are for homemakers to make home.'
Flip imagined they were ground into a paste for babies, or the old, or even as medicinal.
Poison Nose went over the fungi and the animal carcass.
'This is safe,' they announced.
They waited only a little while longer before moving out. Flip was certain they could be tracked, but stayed to the back, looking out for the Doctor's coat. At which point she had to admit that it did have its uses.
The Yssimarb and Constance and the Doctor caught up with the Early Dorom beassi quite quickly. Both groups had voiced that they were moving closer to the Dry Lands and further from the forest. It was not a stark contrast, neither human noticed anything different, for it was not that far that they journeyed.
Poison Nose had caught the sharper scent of the Yssimarb on the wind and told the others to keep moving ahead while Dark Hide, Dreamer and another hunter waited behind.
'I cannot know that my family/tribe will treat you kindly. You have hurt many and turned others into wind.' Poison Nose affected not to be bothered by the solidity of the Yssimarb, how much more imposing they were now.
Brian took their place as de facto leader, which Jane will later object to, and spoke: 'Yes. We know. And we are sorry. This is why we bring food and will teach you to hunt with the spear.'
Poison Nose addressed the Doctor: 'They don't talk like you. They talk like your friends. Why?'
'Because I am trained in telepathic translation and have many years experience with it. They do not. You will have to teach them how to speak.'
'Why can't we teach them how to speak?' asked Isaac.
'You could, you could, but where they use gestures, you use air pressure that they cannot reproduce. Though… I didn't want to bring it up right now, but I suppose it is better this way. The Yssimarb cannot stay on this planet. They weren't meant to be here.' The Doctor spoke over the outcry. 'But I can bring you somewhere else, somewhere of your own and where you will be able to live out your days in peace.' He did not mention how they wouldn't be able to reproduce, or grow as a society, it would be palliative care, letting them live out as many long days as they could without disrupting the timeline.
'Home?' asked Brian.
'No. That is too far, but somewhere you will be treated with respect, a place you can make your own.'
'That sounds beautiful,' said Dreamer.
'I like it too,' said Poison Nose, and gave a nod that reminded Dark Hide of Determined, they turned and began the walk back to their home.
The Doctor and Constance and Yssimarb followed.
The home of this family/tribe was close to the bend in a river, a cave covered by trees. They numbered fewer than twenty, not including the party. There were homemakers tending to the young and old, who greeted the many newcomers warmly, certain that they outnumbered them.
The children of the group that left fell into step with other children and told stories of their adventures. So too with the adults, although separate, as they prepared the meat and gathered goods. There was little time, as a homemaker, to sit down and chat.
Constance knew exactly how that felt, and was not at all surprised to see that the homemakers made the decisions of the family/tribe, and they made their decisions quickly. Understandably, of course, who had time to think over the good of so many needs when you were stood up all day. It was just a matter of doing and getting done.
The gatherers helped to wash their goods in the stream, but the hunters sat down and their wounds tended to.
Constance noticed that the three parents of Sudden were also quiet people, Savage sat with the hunters, but let them speak; the homemaker merely nodded and spoke with Wiggle; the gatherer was eating the food the humans and Time Lord brought, they made gestures of delight but also didn't speak.
Wiggle went with the homemaker parent they shared with Sudden into the cave, where the strangers were not permitted. They did not spend much time in there, clearly just enough to put away the bugs Wiggle had collected.
As Flip handed out the food and ate her share, the children fussed around her, asking how her fur was that colour, and why she didn't have any.
Taking fallen branches, Isaac showed the hunters how to sharpen them to a point. In such a crowded place they decided not to show them how to throw a spear. The hunters did not see the point, but the homemakers did, some even imagining what it would be like to not have to worry about hunters being maimed in the pursuit of food.
'Should we get a fire going?' asked Flip.
'No, no,' said the Doctor, 'we shouldn't be the ones to show them, but if they can do it themselves, then we can help.'
'But we've interfered with human history much more than this,' said Flip.
'Kessas Aen is different. Human history is rather flexible, humans, by and large, are creative people, it's what is the most unique about you. If one went back in time and killed the first homo habilis, or homo erectus, to create fire, another would come along. Maybe not for another ten years, but another, and history would take its course.'
This conversation was hushed but still heard. It was roughly translated, and even if it were not it would still be entirely incomprehensible.
Watch this afternoon of peace and domesticity as the animal hide is stripped and used for bedding, and the gatherings eaten plentifully. The Yssimarb sang and Wiggle danced, inviting the others to join in, which they eventually did. There is Jane, thinking dark thoughts, there is Brian having the experience of a lifetime.
How bright and clear the water runs in this little corner of the world. A small, brief paradise.
And when the sun began to set, the Doctor, by standing and clapping, called attention to the lateness of day, and that other duties must be done. The Yssimarb parted, offering their prayers and blessings.
Constance and Flip walked back in the dusk, hand in hand, happy.
The TARDIS vanished its winds and rush distant to the Early Dorom beassi family, although the soft flash of light is visible from their den, just beyond the hilltops.
In the seasons to come, as Wiggle grows up to become a new kind of gatherer, one with drawings and maps, she will crush many bugs and plants, some dried for days, just to get the right colour of paint. On the walls, she will mark a man made of the splitting of light, who came from a blue box, he will be accompanied by two helpers, one in blue and one in amber. He will take the white trees with him.
In the depth of the cave, by firelight, Wiggle will show the children—all of the children—how to draw and think of the shapes, just in the same way Determined will tell them to watch everything carefully in case they miss something wonderful.