PEARL
Chapter Three
Stairs may be hard on the knees but at least we were no longer crawling. We were accompanied by Dinsov's sister, Adinsov, who resembled him quite closely, except for her three silver eyes. She descended ahead of us and sometimes we worked hard to keep up (or down) with her. After three hours nonstop the three of us sat down and Adinsov, who had kept going, turned back and waited patiently for us to breathe normally. Had we known that the next level down was only another half hour's trot we might have soldiered on but Adinsov was neither chatty nor, despite her natural pace, impatient.
Alone, we would never have recognized the exit, as, according to Tegan and Nyssa, this was not as easy to recognize as green's. Adinsov recognized it in what looked to us like a plain, unbroken cream-colored wall that buckled under a gentle touch. Apparently it buckled more, or differently from, or emitting a different tone than the rest of the wall. Adinsov flat-handed the exit, much as Nyssa had before stroking the tree thing, and it opened as the tree thing had. We walked into what appeared to be another lift, but once we were all in, it went nowhere. Adinsov placed her palm on the opposite wall and it opened into a wide hallway, which, once we had traversed it, emptied out onto a huge expanse of steel-gray cloud. When Adinsov stepped confidently out onto it and we cautiously followed suit, there was no give to it. Had I fallen from green through to gray, I would not be here to tell this tale.
We didn't explore the level. Once outside the palace, Adinsov turned to face it, so we did too. It looked the same as it had on green: soft, creamy, beautiful. Upon exiting we had bypassed the main entrance so we reentered through its portico and found ourselves surrounded by excited residents; our arrival had been anticipated and we were honored guests. We collapsed on divans, unmindful of their exotic construction, meant to accommodate bodies unlike our own, and were brought equally exotic refreshments, and plied with questions we were too exhausted to answer, had we even known the answers. My last thought before my chin hit my chest was that I was spending more time on this planet asleep than awake. At the moment, I didn't mind.
"Ow, my head!" Tegan was bleary-eyed and grumpy. "Where's the ute that ran me over? I'll murder it."
Nyssa was still curled up on a divan but her eyes were half-open; Tegan's complaint had awakened her. I had slept sitting up and was thinking, this time there is no doubt about it; we've been drugged. I looked around and saw that our slumber'd had an appreciative audience and our awakening was a positive show-stopper. Our audience was making loud chirping noises and I swear they were smiling, although on some facial configurations it was hard to tell. How many intelligent life forms did this fuzzy, frustrating planet support, anyway? Then I remembered: visitors invariably got shunted to the servants' quarters and indentured. This planet must be on a well-traveled path, I thought, to entangle so many tourists, lost souls and explorers. That thought complicated any further thoughts. Should we be concentrating on escaping, exploring for a year or two (an increasingly likely minimum time frame for discovering why we were here to begin with) or (Rassilon forbid) nation-building?
Adinsov was not in the room. Were we guests, captives, neither but on our own? Ah, there she was, coming in from outside, smoothing her fur as she ushered in two squat, scaly reptilian-looking people with opposable thumbs and pleasant faces. One was green and the other was a shade of cream that blended quite nicely with the walls of the palace; Adinsov introduced them as, respectively, Mar and Tar.
Mar got right down to business. "Two sleeps ago we received a signal we did not understand, from a source we could not identify. We recorded it. Would you like to experience it?"
Nyssa was now awake and sitting up. I raised an eyebrow to her and to Tegan, who was still holding her head. They both nodded assent. "Yes," I said. "Yes, please."
Tegan yelped. Nyssa's eyes were suddenly huge. I barely had time to absorb that as I was suddenly receiving the same signal we had chased to Philt, only louder and more distinct. It was a wordless series of tones that rose and fell, conveying urgency, The frantic nature of the signal was alarming enough, but the fact that it filled my entire being, its vibrations causing me to vibrate uncontrollably along with it, was almost intolerable. The signal gripped me – and presumably my friends as well – for four torturous minutes, and then instead of releasing us, it repeated. I tried to bear it. I wanted to get it right, to understand. When it began its third iteration I screamed, "Stop! Stop!" It stopped. I fell, gasping, to the cream-hued floor. I could hear Tegan sobbing. Nyssa moaned softly. I looked over at them, then up at my still-smiling hosts, at inscrutable Adinsov, and finally at Mar, who had blanched to a light chartreuse. Tar had either left or blended completely into the tableau.
I didn't mean to whisper but a whisper was the best my voice could manage at the moment. "Could you tell if it originated on Philt?"
"We are sure it did not," said Mar, sympathetically.
"Would it be possible to let me experience it again without letting my friends do so? May I do it alone?" I couldn't believe I was saying this. I did not want to receive the signal again, alone or otherwise, but I had to. Tegan and Nyssa did not need to suffer again. I could not do that to them.
Tar must have been in the room, because Mar appeared to consult with a wall before replying. "Yes, but… the shared experience is milder." My jaw dropped.
"Doctor, don't!" Tegan was horrified.
"Doctor, you can't!" cried Nyssa. "We can't lose you! Let me do it!"
At this Tegan jumped up and grabbed her friend's shoulders. "You can't! Oh no, Nyssa, you can't!" She hugged Nyssa tightly and sobbed. "Doctor, no one should do it. Just leave it. Please!"
"I can't." It pained me to see the two of them so distraught; their distress tore at my throat. "Someone is trying so hard to get help…."
"Does it have to be you?"
"Yes, Tegan. It has to be me."
" Why?"
I couldn't answer that. I turned back to Mar. "I must do this alone, but I need a few moments to prepare." I was not asking for time to steel myself against the experience itself. I needed to decide where to put my focus each time – yes, I would let the signal repeat if necessary, and I had no doubt it would be necessary – in order to identify its source. Even the tiniest clue might be important. A clue as to how to recognize a clue would have helped. I closed my eyes and tried to relive the content and the background. Where should I pay the most attention? Could I collect any of this and store it in my mind without being shattered? When I felt that an eternity had passed without progress, I opened my eyes and told Mar to repeat the playback. Then I closed my eyes, braced myself… and forced myself to stop bracing myself, stop resisting.
I had been warned; I had expected this time to be worse. It was so much worse that I couldn't concentrate on it at all. All I could do was let it roar through me, pummel me, tear me up and scatter me like confetti. Focus? Forget focus! I think I was seizing. I know I was almost immediately on the floor. My tongue and cheek were sore, later, so I am pretty sure I bit them. Four minutes having passed, the signal restarted, and recognizing this, I somehow forced myself to wander through it, as if it were a tunnel, or an air duct, or a speeding train, or a carnival. It wasn't language; it was matter. It was dance, a terrible dance. It was a digestive process. It was a magnet and it was pulling me apart. It was a billboard in Times Square: HELP! It was coming from… from….
I never asked for it to stop. Tegan made Mar stop. I don't know what she said or did to him but he stopped it. For a long while I lay shuddering. Nyssa tried to wrap me in a blanket but contact with me hurt her. She lay it carefully over me but I shook it off. No one could touch me. I had to remember. I knew where the signal was from but it was already slipping away. I couldn't forget, I mustn't forget. Say it out loud now, maybe someone will hear me. It was from… from….
I wept tears. It was gone. It was lost. I would never remember. It had all been for nothing.
"Pearl," said Nyssa.
That's right! I remembered again. I must have said it aloud. The signal was sent from the planet Pearl, in a nameless, unnumbered galaxy. I'd heard of Pearl and half-dismissed it as legend. Legend or no, someone there was begging for help loudly enough for equipment on Philt to register and for the TARDIS to perceive as well. The TARDIS! We had to get back to her!
Have you ever been pulled in a sleigh across a steel gray cloud by a pair of civilized, tech-savvy reptiles? It beats crawling.
When we got back to the tree, if it was the same tree, Nyssa was the one who stroked it, opening the lift. We thanked Mar and Tar, who expressed concern for my state of mind; I reassured them and the three of us stepped into the lift. It didn't move. Tegan and Nyssa were darting twinkly glances between them and, when they thought I wasn't looking, at me. I wondered what was going on, until Tegan said, "Go on, Nyssa!" and Nyssa knelt and stroked the floor of the lift. Down we shuttled, a little faster than we liked but glad to be on our way off of Philt. We reached the level we thought and hoped was where we had started. Then we were spoilt for choices: which narrow passage would lead us back to the TARDIS and which would lead us astray?
"I wish I had a better sense of direction," I sighed.
"Mine is pretty good, actually," said Tegan, choosing a lane and squeezing into it. Nyssa and I followed. This time we were hyperaware of the tree's breathing. It quickened as we progressed. The tree was practically gasping. By the time we could see the TARDIS – what a beautiful sight! - waiting where we had left her, the tree was wheezing like an asthmatic.
"What do we do?" whispered Nyssa.
"This tree is as alive and sentient as anyone we met up in the clouds," I said, without knowing at all how to help. "I wish it could tell us what it needs."
Tegan said, "Maybe it can." Nyssa and I looked at her. She addressed the tree. "What do you need? Tell us! Let us help you!"
Nyssa placed her palms on the tree. Its breathing calmed minimally. She stroked it gently. It seemed to sigh. Then I was struck by a thought I couldn't believe we hadn't had before: there were two sides to this tight passage. Was the other side part of the same tree, or a separate tree? It didn't seem to be breathing abnormally. "Hello," I said, placing my hand on it. Nothing happened… except that the other tree's breathing quickened. Then the tree I was touching seemed to hold its breath. Insight hit me like a rush of adrenaline. "Tegan! Nyssa! Help me here!" I pulled the TARDIS key from my coat pocket and let us all into our home, our beautiful blue living time/space caravan. It would be so easy just to take off now, dematerialize, set coordinates for Pearl or for anywhere away from Pfilt…. so easy, and impossible. "What have we got for digging?"
"Digging? Like a shovel?" Tegan brightened. "I saw one just the other… oh, my god, how long have we been here, anyway? Um, just the other week. Now where did I see that?"
"The library," Nyssa remembered. Tegan ran off to fetch it.
"Why is there a shovel in the library? Never mind. Just hurry!"
I was already outside waiting when Tegan handed me the shovel through the TARDIS door. I turned and started digging in the narrow space between the trees. The ground was dry but soft, not sandy, nor like clay. It was easy to move. I didn't have to dig far before I found parallel roots running along the narrow gap. From them emanated the distinct odor of licorice. I stopped digging down and started digging along between the roots. Tegan and Nyssa came out and gawped at me but I had no time to explain. I followed the gap a few yards, digging awkwardly, as there was barely room for me, much less me and a shovel, and then I found it: the parallel roots turned toward one another and would have met but for a small white stone that kept them apart.
"Aha!" I pronounced. I bent down and removed the stone, brushed the dirt off of it and chucked it into my pocket. The roots that had been separated by that stone stirred. I backed up and stared. The roots moved together and were entwined. From each tree emanated a sigh of joy.
"They're in love!" exclaimed Tegan.
Walking backwards toward the TARDIS, I carefully covered the roots back up. They were safe now. "Goodbye," I said, softly, and followed Nyssa and Tegan into the TARDIS.
No sooner had we closed the TARDIS door than the weak signal we now knew was from Pearl pulsed at us. I leaned the shovel against the hat rack and set our coordinates for a planet that, had you asked me a few days ago, I would have told you probably didn't exist.