Surrounded by proto-civilisation species, Constance had no way of communicating. She fell back on what every Britain does when faced with foreigners (other than colonise), speak loudly every syllable with exaggerated gestures. Constance pointed to the Doctor and then pointed to somewhere away from the fading creature. She repeated the gesture with a pleading expression, although that was also lost on them. 'My. Friend. Sick. I. Move. Him. Yes?'

'It seeks to move, but it can't. Can neither of them move?' asked Dark Hide.

'They seek permission,' said Savage.

'Or assistance,' said Determined.

The restful Early Dorom beassi who Constance assumed was another guard rose and moved to the place where Constance pointed. Constance understood this to mean that they had been given permission, that their guard was moved to where they would be. The elders assumed Sudden was just being their usual non-verbal self.

'Can I move my friend. The ghost is making him sick.'

'Do you wish to move?' asked Poison Nose asked.

'Yes. Please. My friend too.' Simple sentences; they translated.

Savage and Dark Hide permitted it and Constance tried to heft the Doctor but was having difficulty. Sudden returned and lifted his other arm. Sudden was a gatherer and so svelte like Poison Nose, but help was help and upon seeing someone on their side of the family step in, Savage felt they should too and lifted the Doctor away from the ghost.

He was laid on his back, shaded under a tree. He smiled through his sweat.

'Thank you. I haven't felt that… dizzy since Marco Polo. Barbara, I'm sorry I'm so old sometimes,' said the Doctor to Constance.

'It's Missus Clarke, Doctor. Who's Barbara. Was she another friend?'

'Constance.'

'Missus Clarke.'

'Yes. Sorry. Mrs. Clarke. I need a moment. There is something wrong with time. I can't think properly. They aren't… right.'

'Yes. Doctor, I'll speak to them. I'll see what's wrong.' Constance looked around at the furry creatures. 'Do you have a… medicine man? A witch doctor?'

'The homemakers aren't safe to come with us. They need our protection.'

'Homemakers? Wives? I suppose that makes sense they are the first healers. So are you… hunters?' Constance thought some of them were too small and thin to be hunters, but then she supposed not all cavemen were going to be huge brutes with clubs.

They looked amongst one another. Wiggle wiggled and was stopped by a gentle hand on her shoulder by Savage. Wiggle understood enough to see that she was being mistaken as something other than what she was usually mistaken as, the others didn't and so Savage needed Wiggle to stop wiggling and speak.

'What did it say?'

'"It"?' asked Constance, scandalised.

'I think it thinks we are all hunters.'

It was everyone else's turn to be scandalised.

Poison Nose gestured between themselves and Dark Hide. 'I am gatherer. They are hunter. Homemakers at home.'

Constance didn't understand this. She decided it wasn't important and so asked about the fading creature.

'How do we explain it?' asked Dark Hide to Savage.

'I think she's a gatherer,' said Wiggle, meaning Constance, 'but clearly a homemaker at birth, like me.'

Determined rolled their eyes and Sudden let out a quiet laugh. There were more of the Early Dorom beassi, but they did not interact so often, they were older and knew their place amongst the elders and waited to be asked to speak if they needed to.

Savage looked at Wiggle and Sudden and Determined, sighed and then said, 'She clearly understands us. She just can't speak our language.'

'So if we said ghosts of our dead haunting us…?' asked Dark Hide.

Constance was ready to accept ghosts, although more ready to accept whatever scientific solution the Doctor presented.

'I see. Ghosts.'

'We suspect they are demons from the forest,' said the ghost chameleon leader, whose name was unable to be translated. Flip decided she would call him Brian for ease.

They sat in a cluster of trees, with reflective metal surfaces around the barks and branches, like a lotus. When the light shone through the canopy and clouds, it became a little like an oven. It was warm, but then Flip remembered those fold-out mirrors caused cancer and stepped out from it while the rest of the ghost-tree-chameleon people. She also noticed that while in the centre of the lotus, they did not fade as much or as quick.

They didn't have a name for themselves beyond Yssimarb. When Flip asked where that name came from, because it was vaguely pronounceable in her guttural tongue, they pointed her to the reflective metal surface. She pulled it away from the tree bark and found the lettering 'Yssimarb' printed onto the metal, dented it.

When she returned it to leaning against the tree, it faded briefly, as they did.

'That is the shell of the seed from which we grew, thousands of years ago. The demon spawn too were hatched from the soil, but they are wild and eat the animals and hunt us. We are pure because we do not consume, we are fuelled by the light of the sun. The Great One's gift to us.'

Although humanoid and alien, Flip was still able to register the looks passed between some of them. "They clearly didn't all believe that", she thought.

'I don't know if you witnessed it, but one of our number was attacked by the demons. We have been transcending and whenever they try to infect us with their dirtiness,' Flip was given the impression also of a middle-class snobbery, that this dirtiness was linked spiritually and physically, 'and harms our transcending.'

'And that's why you… fade?'

'Yes. As you can see mine is quickest. I am closest to transcending, becoming part of the sunlight.'

Again, a look was passed between many of them. Flip wondered if they weren't just spiritual nomads, but a cult with Brian as the leader. Brian was the only one with a spear which flickered with him, the spear was a pole with sharp stone or metal bound to it. The others, those granted weapons, were only pointed wooden sticks that did not fade or flicker with them. They kept falling when they tried to hold them.

'And what about the little guy?' Flip nodded to Dreamer (pejorative), who was bound with twine. They looked up when Flip had spoken, almost as if they understood what she said.

Flip continued to watch him as one of the other Yssimarb spoke, 'We'll use it to trade with the little things. Our [unpronounceable name] for it. They should understand that. If not, we walk in, leave that thing back and take [unpronounceable name] back.'

This sounded reasonable to Flip.

'Do you have a name little guy?' Flip asked Dreamer.

Dreamer watched her, wary. They may have been named for the habit of daydreaming, but that didn't mean they weren't wise. Dreamer knew there was something wrong with the hybrid thing that could speak to the ghosts in a way they, Dreamer, could understand. One of those romantic notions suggested that she, Flip, was a hybrid, something between the ghosts and Early Dorom beassi. She was fur-less and yet had fur, she wore the covers and yet made the throat sounds.

'C'mon, I'm not going to hurt you,' said Flip.

'I am Dreamer,' said Dreamer.

Yssimarb could only see the gestures and squeaking, nothing more to them than you to a dog flattening its ears and whining. A language, but not words, not with syntax, a conveyance of themes and feelings without the complexities of words to clutter everything up.

'That's a nice name. How'd you get that?'

'Because I dream in the day,' said Dreamer.

'What, like imagine?' asked Flip.

'I do it a lot.'

'I'm Flip.'

The telepathic translation circuits of the TARDIS were clever enough to translate this as a name rather than a verb. So Dreamer did not get the impression she flipped a lot or was from a tribe/family that named based on actions.

'What does it say?'

Flip turned. She had been with the Doctor long enough to recognise what these people were, beyond being evolved from plants rather than animals, they as people, were the remains of a civilisation. The shining metal plating that functioned as an oven for them was the remains of a craft (she assumed space-faring and that they were not local), they were the grandchildren or even great-great-grandchildren of the crash survivors.

'His name is Dreamer,' said Flip, it translated well enough, but translated as the verb it was meant to be.

'Why does it attack us? Why does the dark earth send them to attack us?' asked Brian.

'Why do youse attack one another?' asked Flip, looking between the Yssimarb group and Dreamer, clearly making sure she wasn't judging anyone.

Brian spoke first because, of course, he did: 'We must, they are demons who are corrupting the land.'

'But who told you that?' asked Flip.

Other members of the Yssimarb couldn't meet her eyes, she called these Kevin and Darren, they were stray sheep who didn't believe whatever Brian was telling them. Or whatever he had been insisting that they should believe.

'Our ancestors. The knowledge has been passed down.'

Flip nodded and then turned to Dreamer. 'And what about you lot?'

'They are the forest spirits, haunting us.'

Flip felt a sharp pain in her head, it was deep and brief. The translation circuits were working hard to translate the Lovecraftian lack of comprehension that Dreamer was trying to convey. It was having to translate 'the unknown that cannot be known,' this big, shadowy thing that might be a predator's shadow, but also a moving shadow. Where the Falling Angel meets the Rising Ape they can only scream at how there is no ceiling to the sky and the pit falls into shadow. And not to mention the mess of context that had to be formed to make haunting. A thing that was that is now but isn't here. A thing that happened and is still happening.

'What does it say?' asked Brian, curious to see the display of small gestures and quiet noises had become many and frantic gestures (they would be wide, but he was tied up with twine) with noises that were almost song and speech.

Flip looked between them. 'He finks you're forest spirits,' she said to Brian and as she turned to Dreamer, she did not see the relief and pride Brian took in this, nor the sagging shoulders of Darren and Kevin. To Dreamer she said: 'And they fink you're monsters from the ground taking their land away from them.'

'But we don't go into the forest except to hunt or gather, we don't allow the homemakers into the forests,' protested Dreamer.

Flip just shrugged with wide eyes, helpless.