‘You don’t look old enough to shave let alone wear an IASA uniform.’ Before Rick could reply, the Doctor waved him away. ‘Vent the thermo buffers.’
‘Check.’ Rick stepped to a rear control bank, his movements sluggish in the increasing pressure.
‘Clara, be a pal.’ The Doctor threw the probe to her.
‘Yes, Doctor?’
‘Second level down, control stack to the right of the ladder. Need you to regulate power flow to the pressure exchange. Just point and hope.’
‘Gotcha.’
‘And don’t dilly-dally on the way,’ he called after her as she disappeared.
It was now unbearably hot in the cockpit – though the Doctor didn’t seem to feel it, even with that coat on. He flicked switches in quick order. ‘Need to equalise the pressure exchange.’ He glanced at Devika. ‘Want to tell me what happened?’
‘Systems went down, no rhyme or reason.’
‘There’s always a rhyme, always a reason.’
‘Thermo buffers vented!’ Rick’s face shone with sweat.
‘Good man.’ The Doctor stepped back, eyes glinting as they darted across every control.
Devika jumped as a bulkhead panel buckled, vapour blasting into the cockpit. The Genetrix lurched, forcing her and Rick to steady themselves. The Doctor remained bolt upright, unaffected. ‘Pressure’s building,’ he said, evidently relishing the danger.
Rick pinched the bridge of his nose, Devika feeling the same pain behind her eyes. ‘We’re dead, aren’t we?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘Probably.’ He jabbed at a control. ‘Clara? How’s it coming down there?’
Static crunched. The Doctor frowned, hawkish eyebrows knitting together worriedly. ‘Clara?’
Static hissed, then cleared. ‘Doctor.’ Clara’s tinny voice sounded calm, but there was a wavering note of fear beneath. ‘Get down here. Now.’
The Doctor was already moving, lanky frame vanishing through the hatch. ‘Rick, come on!’ Devika tried to sprint after the Doctor, but only managed a graceless stagger in the ever-increasing pressure.
Devika barely registered the tall blue box standing against a bulkhead before she saw the Doctor launch himself onto the ladder, pivoting round and sliding in one fluid motion to the deck below. ‘Clara,’ he shouted, looking around the stacks of scientific instruments. Devika jumped down next to him, feet slamming heavily to the deck plates. Rick clambered down behind. ‘Clara!’
‘Doctor.’
The Doctor’s head whipped round. Clara stood with her back to an instrument bank, eyes wide. She held the Doctor’s sonic device up, the tip pointing towards…
‘Oh man,’ whispered Rick. As her eyes followed the probe’s direction, Devika could only agree.
Standing – or floating? – a few feet away was a… Devika’s mind struggled to put the image into a context she understood. A cloud of dirty yellow vapour floating next to a control stack, constantly shifting tendrils of gas spiralling in a crude approximation of human form. A gaseous life form? Within the miasma, points of light sparkled, the crude humanoid shape completed by two points burning like coals where eyes should have been.
‘Oh, look at you,’ whispered the Doctor. He grinned, hard lines of his face softening with rapt fascination. ‘Look at you.’
‘Glad you’re so impressed,’ said an unmoving Clara.
‘What’s it doing?’ asked Devika. A gaseous arm stretched out, wisps of vapour dissipating as it wafted over a panel. The controls sparked and burned.
‘Stop it!’ shouted Rick, stepping forward. ‘It’s screwing with the Genetrix.’ The movement caused the creature to turn and face them. It hissed angrily, eyes burning brighter.
‘Hey, wispy man!’ called the Doctor, waving his arms. ‘Over here!’
The creature turned with surprising speed. A gaseous arm lashed out, releasing a shower of viscous liquid towards the Doctor.
‘Doctor!’
The Doctor whipped about, droplets of liquid spattering across the back of his coat. It began to smoke, the fabric deteriorating as holes formed across its surface.
The Doctor whipped the coat off and hurled it down. Seconds later all that remained were tattered rags of smoking blue and red.
‘Oh, Wispy, that was rude,’ said the Doctor. The creature turned back to the control stack. The Doctor sniffed at the dirty smoke curling up from the remains of his coat. ‘Sulphuric acid. Of course!’ He glanced up at his three companions. ‘Fact: sulphuric acid was called “oil of vitriol” by eighth-century alchemists.’
‘So?’ shouted Rick.
‘Man’s got a point,’ said Clara. ‘Stop showing off.’ She gestured to the creature. ‘What is that?’
‘Ladies and gentleman,’ announced the Doctor with a theatrical flourish, ‘you are looking at the indigenous life form of the planet Venus!’
Devika snorted. ‘There can’t have been life on Venus for billions of years.’
‘You’d think, not since the oceans evaporated,’ conceded the Doctor. ‘Now, that was a day and a half. But look!’ He pointed to the gas creature, the threat of the humans discarded for now. ‘Bonded molecules of acidic gas, coalescing, forming and reforming in a pressure cooker of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and sulphuric acid. Life found a way!’
Devika jabbed a finger at the creature. ‘And it’s tearing my probe apart!’
‘Doctor, I can hardly breathe,’ said Clara, struggling. Her face flushed red, hair dripping with sweat.
The Doctor didn’t seem to hear. He watched the creature spray a fine mist of acid, causing an instrument bank to bubble and melt. Its gaseous head turned to the Doctor. It hissed. Was that desperation?
‘Perhaps you deserve it,’ the Doctor said, glaring. ‘That control bank. What does it do?’
‘Regulates the atmospheric sifters,’ said Rick. ‘Deployment, analysis, everything. The Genetrix’s prime function is full-spectrum analysis of the Venusian cloud layer, studying the samples to assess terraforming potential.’
‘Atmospheric…’ mused the Doctor. ‘Atmospheric sifters?’ His face hardened. ‘Tell me you didn’t?’
‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Doctor?’ asked Clara.
Devika looked from one to the other. ‘What? Tell me!’
‘You really are as stupid as I thought.’ The Doctor’s eyes blazed. ‘Look at him! Bonded molecules of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and sulphuric acid.’
Realisation dawned on Rick’s face. ‘Oh, Dev.’
Devika tasted bile as sickening clarity hit her through the noise and chaos. The gas creature – this incredible, impossible life form – stood before them. Outside, the Genetrix tumbling towards the surface, atmospheric sifters trailing along with it. Atmospheric sifters sucking in carbon dioxide, nitrogen and sulphuric acid.
‘Oh no. Please, no.’
‘The penny drops! No wonder Wispy’s none too happy. You’ve been hoovering up his relatives! Purge those sifters, now!’
‘On it!’ Rick stumbled to the control stack. The creature rounded on him.
‘Wispy,’ said the Doctor gently. ‘May I call you Wispy?’ His arms opened wide as he stepped closer. ‘I’m not sure if you can understand me, but we need to get to that control bank. Make this right. What do you say? Want to help us out?’
The creature tilted its head in a strangely human pose. With every second that ached by, the temperature rose, breathing now painful, movement sluggish. Wispy began to move. The Doctor let out a relieved breath, face relaxing. He stepped towards the panel, but Wispy lashed out, shrieking in anger. The Doctor dodged back, arms raised protectively.
‘Wispy, over here!’ Clara staggered towards the creature, now-heavy arms waving as best she could manage. It wailed and moved towards her, away from the controls. Clara backed away. ‘Do your work, Doctor!’
‘Do it fast!’ shouted Rick, jumping in next to Clara.
Wispy stalked after Clara and Rick. Devika was right behind the Doctor as he pounced o
n the sifter controls, seemingly unaffected by the pressure bearing down on them. Her vision blurred in the inferno-like heat, confused thoughts bouncing against each other through the stabbing needles of pain in her head. The Doctor snarled, slamming a fist repeatedly against the controls. ‘It’s fused!’
‘We’ve got to… got to unlock them.’
‘Doctor!’ It was Clara. Both she and Rick were backed against a bulkhead, the gaseous creature bearing down on them. Above them, a viewport cracked. ‘Catch!’ She launched the sonic screwdriver across the control room, ducking as the life form sprayed a mist of sulphuric acid that fizzed and burned into the bulkhead above her.
The Doctor caught the device and brought it to bear on the control stack in one motion. ‘One chance,’ he said, mouth set determinedly. The air filled with an incessant buzzing as the tip glowed green. As her vision darkened, Devika was dimly aware of Wispy turning away from Clara and Rick, eyes incandescent in fury as it bore down on the Doctor.
‘Come on, come on!’
The buzzing intensified. Devika slumped to the floor, feeling as if her head were about to explode. The vaporous alien raised both arms towards the Doctor, shrieking in hissing anger, then –
The control stack before the Doctor exploded in a shower of sparks that haloed round him for a split second. ‘Got it! Sifter’s purging!’
Wispy threw its head back, gaseous tendrils snaking around it, and let out an alien shriek, before its whole form dissipated to nothing. Smoking droplets of acid hissed to the floor, the only evidence it had ever been there.
The Doctor pulled Devika to her feet. Clara stumbled forwards, supporting Rick. The Genetrix shuddered.
‘Still falling,’ Devika wheezed. She slumped to the floor, pressure forcing her down, lungs burning as she tried to suck in air. The four huddled together beneath the ladder.
‘Nothing I can do,’ said the Doctor. A control panel buckled as if punched, sparks billowing and fizzing onto the deck plates ‘Up the ladder, into the TARDIS.’
‘The what?’ asked Rick.
Clara heaved him forward. ‘The big blue box! Move!’
‘Quickly!’ urged the Doctor. The whole craft shook, dirty yellow Venusian clouds billowing past the viewport, the heat now an unbearable, cloying haze. ‘We’ve got seconds before—’
The shaking ceased. The Doctor stopped mid-sentence, one foot on the bottom rung. A serene calm took over, alarms silenced, warning lights blinked off one by one. Almost immediately it felt easier to breath, Devika sucking in a lungful of cooler air.
Rick tapped at a readout screen. ‘We’re rising,’ he said, that grin spreading across his youthful features.
The Doctor looked dubious. ‘Can’t be. I haven’t done anything.’
Devika let out a heavy breath. The temperature was cooling all the time.
Clara stood on tiptoe, peering out through the cracked viewport. ‘Guys. You really need to see this.’
Devika crowded in behind Clara. She suddenly felt as light as air. The Venusian clouds still rolled and boiled in the void, but there was something else. Gas creatures, gliding and swooping around the Genetrix, their glowing eyes shining like fireflies. There must have been fifty or more, whirling in a circle beneath them, a vortex of these amazing life forms.
‘They’re taking us up,’ breathed Devika.
The Doctor stood behind them, arms folded, face implacable. ‘Good old Wispy.’
‘… trix, please respond. Genetrix from Lovell Platform, please advise status.’
Devika and Clara continued to watch. Rick toggled the comms. ‘Lovell Platform from Genetrix. We’re fine, status… erm…? What do I say?’
Devika smiled, glancing at the Doctor. ‘Tell them they’d never believe us.’
Two hours later, Devika Cullen, Rick Attah, Clara and the Doctor looked out from Lovell’s observation deck. A thick carpet of yellow cloud stretched away in all directions. On the far horizon, a fuzzy yellow-orange orb was half submerged in the clouds, light stretching out to highlight the atmosphere in brilliant colour.
Clara sighed happily. ‘I thought I was going to miss my sunset.’
‘A day on Venus lasts 116.75 Earth days,’ said the Doctor. ‘The sunsets here are a sublimely leisurely experience. Plenty of time.’
‘It looks like a melting ice cream.’
The Doctor rolled his eyes.
They continued to watch in silence. Below the platform hung the Genetrix, the silver balloon secure in its umbilical. Devika tried to retain the memory of their flight back to Lovell. The Wispies – as Clara now called them – pushing them up through the clouds, temperature and pressure receding by the second. Up and up, until Lovell came into sight and they were able to reattach to the umbilical. Seconds later, the Wispies plunged back towards Venus, diving through the cloud layer as if it were an ocean.
Devika turned to the Doctor. His face reflected the light from below. ‘Commander Sanford is speaking to IASA Command on Earth about how we best protect this life form. We’ll do better, I promise.’
The Doctor’s expression didn’t change. ‘I’ll be watching, so make sure you do. You got lucky today. Very lucky.’
‘It was OK in the end, right?’ said Clara.
‘Just. But here’s the thing.’ The Doctor turned to face them, tall frame highlighted against yellow Venusian cloud and the inky black carapace of space above. ‘Humanity needs to buckle up. You’re expanding, setting off through the stars. I envy you the discovery, but out there…’ He opened his arms wide, gesturing into space. ‘Out there, beyond the Solar System, there are even more strange, fantastical, dangerous things to discover.’
The Doctor looked at each of them in turn, Devika and Rick hanging on his every word. Clara smiled as he continued.
‘You thought today was scary – you just see what’s waiting out there.’ And he grinned.
* * *
‘I’ve had a life with you for 19 years, but then I met the Doctor, and all the things I’ve seen him do for me, for you, for all of us. For the whole stupid planet and every planet out there.’
Rose Tyler, Doomsday (2006)
* * *
Until 24 August 2006 – a month after the first broadcast of the Tenth Doctor episode, Doomsday – we didn’t know what a planet was.
The word ‘planet’ means ‘wanderer’ and dates back thousands of years to the ancient Greeks. But their ideas about what they saw when they looked up in the sky were very different from what we understand now. They thought the Earth was at the centre of the cosmos, surrounded by a series of huge, revolving, crystal spheres. Each of the first seven spheres had a planet fixed to it – and these seven ‘planets’ included the Sun and Moon. On the eighth and outermost sphere were fixed all the stars.
OK, the ancient Greeks got it wrong, but – as Doctor Who shows us when the TARDIS lands in the past – people in history weren’t stupid. They were just as clever and inventive as we are. Today, we have ever more powerful telescopes to look deep into space. We send spacecraft and robots to explore the planets near us – such as Venus – and gaze further out into the universe. But for a long time, all people could use to explore the heavens was the naked eye and some clever thinking.
Imagine a room with a wheel fixed on the wall. The wheel is side-on, so it looks like a disc – a circle. The circle is spattered with blobs of white paint. Turn off the lights and you can’t see the circle but the paint blobs glow in the dark. They look like a pattern of stars. Then the pattern of blobs starts to move, all together, spinning round and round.
What must be happening? The obvious answer is that the wheel is turning. It doesn’t matter that you can’t see the wheel in the darkness; you can work it out easily from the way the blobs move. If you’d never seen the wheel – if you’d only entered the room when the lights were already off – you’d still quickly work out that the glowing blobs were fixed to something that was spinning round.
What you probably wouldn’t think is that
the blobs were keeping still and you were the one who was spinning. That would be ridiculous! How could you be turning upside down but not feel you were moving at all?
Except, of course, that that is exactly what’s happening when we look up at the stars. They slowly turn through the night sky, as if they’re fixed on something like a wheel. But they look like that because our planet – Earth – is turning on its axis. We’re the ones going round.
* * *
‘It’s like when you’re a kid. The first time they tell you the world’s turning and you just can’t quite believe it because everything looks like it’s standing still. I can feel it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and the entire planet is hurtling round the Sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it. We’re falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go…’
The Ninth Doctor, Rose (2005)
* * *
Frankly, a lot of what we now know about other planets – and our own – is a bit weird and unsettling. It’s certainly not obvious. So how did we puzzle it out? Unlike the Doctor, we can’t feel the turn of the Earth beneath us. We don’t have a TARDIS to take us to other planets for a quick look round.
But what does the Doctor do when he lands on an alien world where something strange is happening? He explores, looks for clues and asks awkward questions (sometimes getting himself in trouble with whoever’s in charge). That’s also how, over thousands of years, we puzzled out what planets really are.
Let’s go back to the beginning. Why did the ancient Greeks think the planets were fixed to glass spheres?
As we saw, it looks as if the pattern of stars is slowly turning round and round, fixed to something like a wheel that we can’t see. But the stars aren’t the only lights in the sky. There are the Sun and the Moon. Then there are a whole lot of things that, with the naked eye, look like the other stars but don’t behave in the same way. Instead of turning round and round as part of one fixed pattern, these stars seem to ‘wander’ about from night to night. The ancient Greek word for wanderers was πλανῆται – ‘planetai’.
The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who Page 2
