Doctor Who: Molten Heart

by Una McCormack

  “What do I think? I think we should go take a look, of course.”

  They walked on. Beside them the forest glowed and whispered, as if beckoning: Come inside… Come and see what enchantments lie within…

  They followed Basalt’s directions and, as he had promised, they soon came to a place where the forest thinned slightly, allowing people to enter, if they walked single file. On the threshold was another stone tablet. Ash got to work at once. “They certainly intended to enter the forest here,” she said, at last. “What this can’t tell us is how far they got.”

  “Only one way to find out,” the Doctor said. She led the way forwards, and they dived into the forest.

  The tunnels were low, and both Yaz and Graham had to stoop to be able to carry on walking. What little light there was came from crystals set in the wall here and there, like lanterns in a mediaeval castle.

  “Like those tunnels in Gaul,” whispered Graham. “They had them in Rome, too. Mary Berry said so.”

  “Mary Beard,” Yaz reminded him.

  “That’s what I said. Isn’t it?”

  Yaz smiled in the half-light. She was glad of Graham’s solid presence. Yaz could take care of herself – but it was nice to know that others cared enough to be looking out for you. And everyone needed a helping hand every so often.

  “Anyway,” Graham said, “the catacombs in Rome were built so that the Christians could hide away from the authorities.” He called ahead. “Quartz? Who made these tunnels? What are they for?”

  Quartz, who had been leading the way, hung back for a moment until they caught up. “We’re a close-knit family here,” he said. “And there was a time – not so long ago – when we were forbidden to leave the City for more a night. But there are always adventurers, even here…”

  “Like Basalt,” said Yaz.

  “Like Basalt. Some people wanted to travel more freely. They had good reasons too – there were more of us than ever, and not enough food. So they dug these passages to be able to meet each other, and make plans, and then they built tunnels that ran beyond the City walls. After a while, the need for more resources became acute, and the laws were relaxed, and now we can travel beyond the City for great distances. As long as there’s a good reason – to forage, or hunt, or mine.”

  “What about if you just want to go for a wander?” said Graham. “You know, a bit of a holiday? Get away from it all.”

  Quartz gave a wry smile. “That isn’t generally allowed.”

  “So Basalt’s journey…?” said Yaz.

  “He didn’t have permission,” said Quartz. “Quite the contrary, I should imagine, if anyone had heard about it before he left.”

  “Permission!” said Graham. “What is this? School?”

  Yaz pondered what Quartz had said. A civilisation so enclosed, so close-knit, that even going a day away from the City had once been forbidden. No wonder Basalt’s ideas had caused so much trouble. For the first time, she had an inkling of what it might mean to these people to see aliens amongst them; to be confronted with the truth of life beyond the safe small sphere of their world.

  At length, they came down a short tunnel and were stopped by a rock rolled into place, blocking the way through. “My home is behind this,” said Quartz. Yaz and Graham helped him move the rock aside: it was a kind of pumice and deceptively light. Quartz led them into a wide hall, carved from crystal, which glowed gently from within.

  “Wow,” murmured Graham. “How the other half lives.”

  “Welcome!” Quartz said. He led them further inside, along richly glowing passageways, bringing them at last to a large room that shimmered with ever-changing light. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said, gesturing round. “I have a few things to see to, and then we can talk about our next move.”

  He left through another door. Yaz and Graham looked at each other in amazement.

  “What a place,” said Graham. “Look at that light show!”

  Yaz nodded. It was like being inside a big church when the sun shone through the stained glass, painting the walls with colour. Only here the colours shifted, and came from the walls themselves. “It’s gorgeous, I guess.”

  “You guess?” Graham frowned. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m still not sure about Quartz. Who do you know with a secret passage leading straight to their house?”

  “We don’t know much about these people, do we? Maybe they all have secret passages leading straight to their house. From what he said half of them were running around them at one point.”

  Yaz laughed. “Not very secret, then!”

  “Yeah, you’d always be bumping into the neighbours. ‘Oh, sorry, I was just down here in this secret passage, didn’t mean to disturb you…’”

  Yaz felt cheered as always by Graham’s chatter, as was probably his intention. The colours on the wall seemed warmer now. She sat down in a huge chair, carved from a single slab of dark grey slate, and tried to get comfortable. Graham too was having the same problem.

  “What this place needs is more cushions,” he said.

  Quartz returned then, carrying a tray with stone plates which he placed on a marble table. “I don’t know whether you can eat or drink any of this,” he said. “But I try to be hospitable…”

  Yaz and Graham peered at his offering: small slices of various coloured substance that could be brown bread, or cheddar cheese, or who knew what.

  “It looks nice,” said Yaz, doubtfully.

  “Oh, I’ll go first,” Graham said. He took a bite from one of the small slices laid out. “Tastes fine. Tastes… mushroomy.”

  Yaz gave it a couple of minutes, and then, when Graham didn’t keel over, took the risk herself. He was right. Everything was fine – nice, even. She realised how hungry she was, and sampled everything that Quartz had brought. Graham turned out to have a bottle of water stashed on him, which they shared, taking small sips to conserve the supply.

  A bell rang – no, more like wind-chimes clattering persistently. Yaz jumped up from her chair. “Is there someone here? I thought we were safe—”

  Quartz raised his hands to placate her. “It’s all right. There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve asked a few friends to come and join us.”

  “A few friends?” Yaz said, but Quartz was already out of the door. She turned to Graham. “Do you think we can get away? Did you see another way out?”

  “I don’t think we’ve got time to try!” Graham sighed. “Looks like we’re meeting these friends, then. Well, we’ll see what they have to say.”

  Quartz came back in, a handful of figures following. Yaz’s first impression was of a dazzling array of crystals and gems, of precious stones and shimmering colours. It took her a moment to see faces, eyes, mouths – people. There was a short silence as the humans stared at the rock-people, and the rock-people stared back.

  “Yasmin, Graham – these are my friends,” said Quartz. “Friends of mine, and friends of Basalt. We really do want to help you, however we can.”

  The journey through the forest was an unsettling experience. Everything looked similar to something from Earth – the bushes, the trees, the trailing plants, the bright flowers – but as you got closer, they were all so very different that Ryan would almost feel thrown off-balance, as if someone had performed a conjuring trick before his eyes. Then there were the odd noises – chirrups and creaks, nothing like birdsong or any insect he had heard. The scents of the forest were different too – dry, and stuffy. Mouldering. Progress was slow. In places the path was overgrown, and Ash would have to stop and ponder the best way. Sometimes the Doctor would stop too, and hold up the sonic screwdriver, and frown, and suggest a course correction, or nod, and they would carry on.

  “What are you doing, Doctor?” Ryan asked, on one of these occasions.

  “We’re heading for those cracks we saw in the sphere, yeah?” she said. “We can’t see them under all this,” she gestured around the forest, “but I can still navigate us, roughly.”

&
nbsp; “Like GPS,” he said.

  “Sort of. Geo-Positioning Sonic. And there’s something else…”

  “What else?” said Ryan.

  She shoved the screwdriver away. “I’m not sure yet. Don’t worry.”

  Every so often, to their excitement, they came across another of Basalt’s stone tablets, showing they were on the right lines, and would stop for a while so to decipher his latest message. Ash in particular was getting adept at the task, more and more familiar with the code he was using, but it still took her some effort. At least it was a break from walking. As she worked on one of these, Ryan posed the question currently uppermost in his mind.

  “Doctor, how long is this walk gonna take?”

  The Doctor shook her head. “If we had the TARDIS, we’d be up on the surface in a jiffy. But without? Who knows?” She looked at him thoughtfully. “Graham and Yaz will be fine, you know. He’ll look out for her; she’ll look out for him.”

  “I know, I know…”

  “But you’re still worried?

  “Yeah, of course. But there’s something else…”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m starving.” Ryan grinned. “And I need your advice on the only thing we’ve got on the menu.”

  “What?” said the Doctor.

  He threw his arms out wide. “Mushrooms!”

  Her face crinkled up. “Oh yeah! Are you all right with mushrooms?”

  “Well, I like a fry-up as much as the next guy, but if I know anything about the great outdoors, it’s that you don’t help yourself to any mushrooms you find lying around the place.”

  “Absolutely not,” said the Doctor. “The last thing you should do is try mushrooms without knowing what they are. Double that for alien mushrooms. Triple that for alien mushrooms.”

  She pulled out her sonic screwdriver and started breaking small pieces of the various plants to hand, testing them one by one. “Not that. Not that. Ooh, dear, no, definitely not that…” After a little while, she settled on one. “This will be fine,” she said. “Actually, this will be good for you. Should help keep stress levels down.” She frowned. “This is the thing with wiping out flora and fauna. You never know which one is going to contain a cure for some disease. You know, there was a flower that only grew high up on one mountainside on Eltemalisia Magna which turned out to contain a compound that could cure Flugel’s Ague, and they were going to flatten the mountain – can’t remember why now, it’s usually a road, isn’t it? Anyway, it was a particularly nice little flower, it had pale blue spiky petals with white bits and a really nice scent that would go foof in your face when the temperature was right, like a little spray of fancy perfume. It was lovely! I mean, even if it hadn’t contained the cure for Flugel’s Ague, there still wouldn’t be any excuse to go around pulverising a mountain—”

  “Doctor,” Ryan said, plaintively. “I’m starving.”

  “Oh yeah. Sorry. It really is a nice flower though.” She nibbled at the piece of fungus that she had broken off, and then handed him the rest.

  Ryan peered down. It looked all right – like a slice of an ordinary, if oversized, Earth mushroom. He popped the piece in his mouth, ready to spit it out again, and then realised it tasted nice. “Hey,” he said. “That’s all right, isn’t it? All it needs is a couple of fried eggs, some tomatoes, and a pile of bacon.” He nibbled at the mushrooms and watched as the Doctor foraged further, coming back with a stack of big leaves. She split the leaves in two, and sap oozed out. “We can drink this,” she said. “Until we find water.”

  Ash came to join them. She was looking cheerful: they were on the right path, and simply had to continue the way they were going. She saw what they were eating, and smiled.

  “Oh,” she said. “I wondered what you’d eat. I even wondered if you did eat.”

  “Believe me,” said Ryan, fervently, “we eat.”

  “Those are nice,” Ash said. “I like them for breakfast, sizzling in the pan with jet cakes and hot sauce.”

  Ryan groaned. “I don’t know what any of that is, but just hearing you say that is making me hungrier.”

  The Doctor gave her brilliant smile. “Ryan, I promise you – when we’ve saved this world, you’ll have the fry-up of your life.”

  Yaz had not felt under this much scrutiny since the whole of Year Ten had been in trouble for mucking about on their trip to Haworth. Half-a-dozen strange faces were staring at her, more alarming than any teacher-led court martial. One of this lot, for example, she was sure, had more than two eyes; another had eyes that as yet had not blinked. Yet another was bright white, its whole body seeming to shine from within with an almost blinding light, flecked through with silver and grey. Most of them had strange and beautiful formations, like Quartz’s crown, perhaps around their wrists, or ridges across their back or shoulders. They all looked so different, Yaz thought, and yet they were clearly all of the same species.

  At last, one of them, with a silvery veins running across its face, spoke. “What… what are you?”

  Graham, to his credit, didn’t seem in the least bit fazed. “We’re human beings,” he said, proudly. “From the planet Earth. We’re friendly and we’re very nice!” He turned to Yaz, suddenly self-conscious. “Is there some sort of official way of doing this?”

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “Well, you’re a copper, ain’t ya? Don’t you do training for this kind of things? You know, official stuff?”

  “I promise you, they didn’t cover ‘meeting and greeting aliens’ in copper school.” Yaz relented slightly. “I thought what you said was cool.”

  Graham looked genuinely pleased. “Oh, thanks! I tried!”

  “Ooman beengs?” said the silver-veined person.

  Graham smiled. “That’s right! More or less. Close enough!”

  “This one is Graham,” Quartz said, helpfully. “And this one is Yaz. Those are their names.”

  The aliens turned to each other and murmured to each other for a while, casting furtive glances every so often at the strange visitors. Yaz watched them closely. There was confusion, alarm, some fear – and here and there she thought she caught something of that particular sense of wonder which she associated with her travels with the Doctor, as if the whole universe had suddenly been proven to be more varied and interesting and alarming than she had ever before imagined possible.

  Eventually, the silvered person spoke again. “Yes, but… what are you?”

  Graham looked stumped, but gamely tried again. “I guess – well, we’re aliens I suppose, aren’t we?”

  “We’re not from this planet,” Yaz tried, then wondered whether they had any idea, really, of what a planet was. What had Basalt said? “Beyond your home,” she said, “you come to the surface—”

  “Just as Basalt claimed,” Quartz said. “All of you, you heard him speak many times. You know what he always said. That we lived in a hollow, and beyond that was thick rock, and beyond that, the surface of a sphere of which we are the centre. You believed him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I believed him,” said the unblinking one. He was dark blue, with paler swirls all over him, like lapis lazuli. “But he never said anything about – well.” He stared fiercely at the humans. “Things like this!”

  One of the others had moved closer to Graham. She reached out a rocky fingertip and, tentatively, touched his skin. “Oh!” she cried. “It’s soft!”

  “Thank you,” said Graham. “I don’t think I’d sell many cosmetics, but it’s always nice to get a compliment.”

  She poked him again. “It’s squishy!”

  “I’m a ‘he’ rather than an ‘it’, actually,” Graham said. “Oh, you mean my skin.”

  “You’re right,” said Yaz. “We’re not made from rock like you. We’re something else.”

  “Are you from the surface?” asked another one, a quiet one sitting near the back, beautiful onyx with white swirls across his arms and chest.

  “So many questions!” said Quartz.
“I asked you here because we need your help—”

  “Wait, Quartz,” said the silver-veined one, lifting his hand. “I’d like an answer to that. Basalt said that we were inside a great sphere with a surface. Are these people from that surface, high above us?”

  Graham opened his mouth to answer, but Yaz shook her head and he stopped. She had a sudden feeling that they were on the edge of something very significant, that what they said now might have a dramatic effect on these people. She wanted them to choose their words carefully. “No,” she said. “We’re not from the surface.”

  The silver-veined one pressed on. “And you’re not from a part of this world – this ‘sphere’, our own sphere – that we have not yet discovered?”

  There were some murmurs around the group; clearly they had seen where their friend was going with this too. “No,” said Yaz. “We’re not from this world at all.”

  The muttering was getting more heated.

  “When you reach the surface of this world,” Yaz said, “you look out into a vast empty space. If you travel through that space – and you can travel through it, with the right tools and machines – you eventually come to other worlds. We’re from one of those. Our friend, the Doctor, is from another, and there are more and more worlds, oh countless, and countless different people, all looking different and doing things differently! It’s so amazing—”

  She had thought that was she conveying some of her excitement, her enthusiasm, for what her life with the Doctor had shown her, had given her. She wasn’t really prepared for the reaction she received. The dark blue one, Lapis Lazuli, jumped to his feet.

  “Quartz,” he said, angrily. “I can’t believe you’ve brought us here to listen to this—”