by Dan Abnett
'Why would these Ice Warrior things attack the Firmers, though?' asked Arabel.
'Because they want an Earth-like planet too, but their idea of Earth-like is colder not warmer,' replied the Doctor.
Arabel shook her head. 'I don't...' she began.
'Your ancestors,' said the Doctor, 'the original Morphans, were looking for a planet like Earth.'
'Like Earth before?' asked Samewell.
'Yes, like Earth before. But the chances of them finding a world that was exactly like Earth before were slim. I mean, the variables are huge. The best chance they had was to find a planet that was sufficiently like Earth—'
'Earth-esque,' said Amy.
'Precisely right,' said the Doctor. 'If they could find a planet that was sufficiently Earth-esque, then they could use the sophisticated terramorphing systems they had on their colony ark ship to tweak the climate and make it perfect. That's what you've been doing for twenty-seven generations. You've been watching over things while the terrafirmers tweak and finetune Hereafter to make it just right.'
'And these charming Ice Warrior blokes,' said Amy,
'have a very different concept of just right.'
'They need an Earth-like planet too,' said the Doctor,
'but their idea of Earth-like is not like your idea of Earth-like, it's like—'
'Way too many likes there, Doctor,' said Amy.
'OK, in broad terms you're both looking for the same sort of world, but their ideal environmental baseline is between fifty and seventy-five degrees cooler than humanity's.'
'So they're fighting against us?' asked Arabel.
'I've known them sabotage biomes before,' said the Doctor grimly. 'I've seen them doing their own terraforming. I even saw them try it on Earth once. On Earth before, before Earth before was lost. I've never seen them hijack someone else's terraforming system and recalibrate it. Typical Ice Warrior pragmatism.'
'How did you stop the rats?' Samewell asked. He copied the Doctor and picked up one of the dead rats by the tail.
The Doctor put down the rat he was dangling. He fished his sonic screwdriver out of his jacket pocket. 'I noticed the enhanced acoustic sensors,' he said. 'I guessed they'd be particularly sensitive to sonic attack.
I hoped a little high-frequency burst would be enough to zap them or drive them off.'
'And deafen me,' said Amy.
'I trusted your ears wouldn't be quite as sensitive as theirs,' said the Doctor.
'Well, I'll take earache over being eaten alive by rats any day,' Amy started to say.
Samewell let out a screech of alarm. The transrat he'd picked up wasn't dead. It suddenly shivered, twitched, and woke from the fugue state the Doctor had blasted it into. Its huge jaws opened like a spring trap. Massive steel-veneered teeth gleamed in the half-light. Swinging itself by its tail, the rat started to snap and gnash at Samewell.
'Put it down!' Bel yelled.
'Don't put it down! Keep it at arm's length!' Amy shouted.
'Aaaaaaaaaahhhh!' Samewell observed.
The Doctor clicked open his screwdriver and calmly aimed it at the aggressive creature. Nothing happened.
'Ooops,' he said.
'Doctor!'
He fiddled with the screwdriver.
'I've asked too much of it today already,' he said,
'what with noise-cancelling the Ice Warriors and zapping the transrats, it's really drained. It's gone into sleep mode.'
'Doctor!'
Amy lunged and grabbed the rat's tail out of Samewell's grip. He was still yelping in alarm. The transrat snapped at her repeatedly, trying to chomp her arm or her face.
'Yeah, yeah,' Amy snarled and swung it by the tail hard into the tunnel wall. It went limp and she dropped it. 'Worked last time,' she said.
'Who is this Rory?' asked Bill Groan.
'He's my friend, Elect,' replied Vesta. 'We met in the woods. We were both threatened. He looked out for me.'
'I see,' said Bill Groan.
'I may have hit him on the head with a mallet too,'
Vesta admitted.
'But that's totally not important,' said Rory.
'He's a stranger,' said Chaunce Plowrite.
'Yes,' said Vesta.
'Another stranger,' said Old Winnowner. 'That's three today.'
A hush had fallen on the assembly. Everyone was staring at Vesta and Rory. Rory felt pretty uncomfortable. In the solamp light, the faces around him were stern and unforgiving. They seemed to be searching for answers, as though they might peel back or melt away his skin to find the secrets they were looking for. There was pent-up emotion in the hall.
These were people who had lived hard lives and, no matter how hard they worked, they did not expect those lives to change. Something profound mattered to them, something that threatened what little comfort and solace they had in their lives, and they wanted answers.
Despite sensing that, Rory could not help asking the question.
These other strangers, the other two? Were they... a girl with long red hair and a tall bloke?'
Everyone around him started muttering and chattering.
'He admits to knowing them,' said Old Winnowner.
'Are they here?' asked Rory.
'They were here,' said Bill Groan. 'They escaped.'
'How could they escape?' asked Rory. 'What did they escape from? Why did they need to escape?'
'They were found to be unguidely and discovered in the practice of conjury,' said Old Winnowner. 'We placed them in the compter.'
'You locked them up?' asked Rory. 'You locked the Doctor and Amy up? That's a really bad idea.'
'They are his friends!' Vesta broke in. 'He was travelling with them. Travelling here to well-wish us at the time of festival!'
'They were miscreants sent to—' Winnowner began.
'Travelling from where?' asked Bill Groan, cutting her short.
'Rory and his friends come from a plantnation that we have not heard of,' said Vesta.
'That's not possible!' said Bill Groan.
'It's unguidely!' cried Winnowner.
'It's the truth!' replied Vesta. The voices around the hall had become quite a hubbub. 'What is your plantnation called again, Rory?'
'Leadworth. It's called Leadworth.'
'This is nonsense and it is against Guide's way!' said Chaunce Plowrite.
'Look, I don't mean to cause trouble,' said Rory, trying to impose some calm. 'Where I come from doesn't really matter. What does matter is that there's something out there. Something in the woods. And it's dangerous. You've got to prepare to defend yourselves.'
'What thing?' asked Jack Duggat.
'I got separated from my friends, and it attacked me,'
said Rory.
'It has red eyes!' announced Vesta.
'It has red eyes,' Rory agreed. 'It attacked Vesta too.
It's very dangerous. I ran away from it. I had to escape.
That's when I met Vesta.'
'Why should we believe you?' asked Chaunce Plowrite. Several members of the congregation echoed him.
'Because it's dangerous!' said Rory. 'I saw it attack some men. I think they were from here. It attacked them. It hurt them.'
'What were their names?' asked Winnowner.
'I don't know! We hadn't been introduced.'
'What did they look like?' Ela Seed demanded.
'I... I... They looked like they came from here.'
'Was one of them my husband?' asked Lane Cutter.
'I don't know!'
'It hurt them, you say?' asked Bill Groan.
'Did it kill them?' asked Ela Seed frantically. 'Are they dead?'
The clamour was becoming quite intense.
Morphans closed on Rory from all sides. They were angry and upset, reaching out to him.
'Get back there!' Sol Farrow told them. 'Mind him!
Get away!'
'Leave him be!' Vesta yelled.
'Calm yourselves! Calm yourselves!' Bill Groan shouted over
the din, pushing his way through the milling crowd. 'This is unseemly! Be calm now or I will have the assembly cleared! This will not do!
Leave him be!'
The crowd would not be hushed. It was turning very ugly. People were pushing and shoving to get at Rory.
'You should not treat him so!' Vesta yelled at them.
'He is our guest, and a friend! You should not treat a Nurse Elect in this manner!'
Bill Groan heard her over the row. 'He's what?' Bill looked at Sol and Jack.
The two men nodded and grabbed Rory and Vesta.
They began to bundle them through the angry, mobbing crowd, heading for the rear of the assembly hall. People started to protest. They threw punches and grabbed.
Old Winnowner was waiting at the back for them.
She had taken out the key, which she wore on a ribbon around her neck, and used it to open the padlock to the back doors of the hall. Jack and Sol brought Rory and Vesta through, followed by Winnowner and Bill Groan.
Bill and the old woman bolted the doors behind them to keep the mob back. Morphans started shouting and banging at the doors.
Rory look around. They'd come through into a large wooden antechamber behind the main hall. There were clerestory lights high up by the roof, and rush matting on the wooden floor. On the far side of the room was an ornate door made of what the Morphans called shipskin. It was set in a complex frame, and reminded Rory of some kind of futuristic airlock or submarine hatch.
'We can be calm here for a moment,' said Bill Groan.
'Where is here?' asked Rory, shaking off Sol's grip.
'It's the outer room of Guide's place,' said Old Winnowner.
'What's that?' asked Rory, pointing at the metal hatch.
'That's the door to the Incrypt,' said Vesta. That's where Guide's words live. Only the council go in there.'
'Stop asking questions and answer some,' said Bill to Rory. 'She said you are a Nurse. Is that true? You are a Nurse Elect?'
'Yes, I... yes. Yes, I am' said Rory.
'Then I greet you, one Nurse Elect to another,' said Bill Groan with touching formality.
'It is a lie or a trick,' said Winnowner. 'Those others, whom he admits to knowing, said they were from Seeside, and they bore conjury to convince us so - '
'Maybe there are things we don't know about!'
snapped Vesta.
The Morphans looked at her.
'I'm saying, maybe there are,' she said. 'Don't look at me so. I don't hardly know what Rory is, except that he is nice and kind, and I don't know about his friends either, but I do know there is something in the woods outside the plantnation that is most angry and dangerous, and I know it is not mentioned anywhere in Guide's teaching. So what do we do about it? Do we just pretend it does not exist because Guide has no!
spoken of it?'
'Guide gives us rules to live by for our own good, Vesta,' Winnowner said.
'The thing in the woods proves one matter, Winnowner,' Vesta told the old woman. 'It proves there are things in this world Hereafter that are more than are in Guide's words. The thing is one, Rory may be one too, also his friends and whatever plantnation they come from. I ask you, do we stand there accusing them of being unguidely, or do we do something about them?'
'We could prove it,' said Bill Groan quietly.
'What now?' asked Winnowner.
'You know that, Winnowner,' he said. 'We have both been taught it. We know Guide's doctrines, and the schema of words that instructs the Morphans. Our Guide Emanual will recognise and identify those things that belong to Guide. Only the true unguidely will remain strangers and unknown. If... Rory here is truly a Nurse Elect, then Guide will know him. Guide knows his own.'
'What are you suggesting, Elect?' asked Winnowner.
'You know what I'm suggesting,' said Bill.
Winnowner shook her head. 'Elect, this is the threshold of the Incrypt, our most precious place. Only the most worthy and maintained of Morphan kind can pass this way and be received of Guide's words.'
'My point exactly,' said Bill Groan. 'Let Rory prove himself.'
The knocking at the doors and the clamour of voices was not abating. Winnowner looked Rory up and down.
'This isn't going to be some kind of... trial by combat, is it?' Rory asked warily. 'Or, by sharks or spiders or something? If there's a pit or a cage involved, or a choice of weapons, I'm really not up for it. Especially if there's baying and jeering going on too.'
'Nothing like that,' said Bill Groan. He walked over to the metal hatch. 'Come over here, Rory,' he said, beckoning.
Rory walked up to him in a slightly unwilling manner.
Bill Groan pointed. There was a flat panel of matt silver metal set into the hatch frame on the right-hand side. It was about the size of a hardback book and it was built in at door-handle height.
'That's the chequer,' he said. 'It knows the touch of those that are worthy and, through it, Guide knows us.'
Bill placed his palm flat on the panel. A neon glow travelled up the metal under his hand. There was a click, and then a hiss, and then the hatch opened.
Clean, cool air breathed out at them. Through the open hatch, Rory could see some sort of chamber bathed in a bluish neon illumination.
'The Incrypt opens to my hand,' said Bill. He touched the panel again. The hatch closed as gently as it had opened.
'It's a palm reader,' said Rory. 'It's biometric. It's reading your handprint, or maybe your genetic pattern.'
'You try,' said Bill.
'Oh, I don't think that's such a good idea,' said Rory.
'If you're a Nurse Elect, Guide will recognise you and let you in,' said Winnowner.
'Really, I—' Rory said.
'Try,' ordered Bill Groan.
Rory placed his hand flat on the panel.
Chapter
11
The Maker of Our Earth
With the Doctor enthusiastically leading the way, they explored the deep chambers and tunnels of the massive terraformer plant.
The simple scale of it silenced Bel and Samewell, and took Amy back a bit too. The machined and engineered cavities inside the artificial mountain were bigger than any machine, factory or structure she'd ever seen on Earth. They also matched or exceeded the scale of structures she'd seen since leaving Earth and travelling aboard the TARDIS.
They followed winding tunnels lined in galvanised metal plates or slightly tarnished sheets of shipskin.
They entered chambers that had been hollowed out of the hill so that the face of the rock was cut perfectly smooth and straight-edged, like set and polished concrete. Colossal machines that Amy thought of as turbines dominated these chambers, feeding whatever energies or processes they output into vast networks of gleaming metal pipes and condensers. Some of these pipes, large enough in cross-section to take two trains on parallel lines, exited into vent stacks, or swept down into stone floors, connected to other, deeper chambers and larger, stranger machines.
Sometimes, the Doctor and his companions came out of tunnels onto mesh walkways of welded shipskin that crossed, precipitously, the middle of vast subterranean spaces, delicate bridges suspended hundreds of metres above the chamber floors from which they could look up at dim ceilings thousands of metres above, or peer down into heat-exchange trenches or energy sinks or other abyssal clefts that pulsed with distant glimmers of energy, and dropped away into the planet's crust for miles. Warm updrafts touched their faces and billowed their hair.
'I've run out of words for big,' said Amy.
'None of them seem adequate, do they?' the Doctor agreed.
Everywhere they went, they could hear the whirr and hum of the giant mechanisms. Occasionally, they could also hear the scratch and scurry of transrats emanating from blind tunnels or side vents.
They entered one chamber on the level of the rock floor and found it to be the largest they had seen yet.
Its dizzying space was dominated by a massive column of silvery metal that was fed by
a cobweb of tubes and ducts. It looked like a huge chrome oak tree. High up, the roof of the titanic chamber was hazed by clouds of vapour, so that the branches of the giant metal tree appeared to be swathed in ghostly foliage.
'Are those clouds?' Amy asked, looking up.
The Doctor nodded.
It was drizzling slightly, like a wet autumnal day.
The chamber was so big, it had its own weather system.
'That's a secondary sequence prebiotic crucible,'
said the Doctor, with the appreciative tone of a twitcher who has just spotted a very rare species. 'What a beauty.'
'What does it do?' asked Bel.
'It makes the world a better place,' said the Doctor.
'In human terms, anyway. It makes life. It's gently sculpting and shaping the ecosystem of Hereafter.'
'You said secondary,' said Amy.
'What?'
'You said it was a secondary sequence something or other.'
'Yes,' said the Doctor, matter-of-factly. 'There'll be about a hundred of these, all supporting the main sequence crucibles. I hope we get a look at one of those, because they're really big.'
Amy grinned at him. 'I don't often get to see you actually impressed,' she said.
'How could you fail to be?' he replied. 'This is human engineering at pretty much its peak. This is the point at which those little apes from Earth actually advanced so far they could rebuild and redesign whole planets. That's the mark of a great species. To be fair, it's a slow old process. It takes hundreds of years, and the people who start the process don't live anything like long enough to see the end, but still. But still, they do it. That's what I love about people. They have dreams and grand ambitions, and they start building towards them, even though they know they won't live to see them finished. That's how the pyramids were built. And the great cathedrals of the middle ages.
People were prepared to invest in the future. They were prepared to donate the labour of their entire lives to a greater whole that other lives, future lives, would benefit from.'
Amy glanced across at Samewell and Arabel, who were standing in reserved awe, gazing up at the vast machine, rain speckling their faces.
'What happens if it takes so long they start to forget what it's all for?' she asked.
'The Morphans haven't forgotten, Pond,' said the Doctor. 'They know what they're doing with their Terra Formers. They're committed to the process. They're sticking to the great plan.'
