Deep Time

by Trevor Baxendale

  ‘Me neither,’ said Clara. ‘But I can’t see how far the plants extend. There’s plenty here in the clearing – but they’re also growing over there, into the jungle.’

  ‘We could split up,’ suggested Marco. ‘Go around either side.’

  ‘A minute ago you said we should stick together,’ noted Balfour.

  Marco sighed. ‘Not now. If we go in pairs we can quickly find out which is the right way to go. I don’t know about you lot, but I’m exhausted and I don’t want to waste any more energy than I have to.’

  Balfour turned to Clara. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘What does it matter what she thinks?’ asked Marco querulously. ‘Who put her in charge?’

  ‘Who put you in charge?’ Balfour shot back at Marco.

  ‘Let’s not argue,’ said Tibby. ‘It’s probably a good idea. We could scout out the jungle on either side of the plants. I just want to get away from here.’

  ‘Then it’s settled,’ Marco said. ‘I’ll go this way with Tibby. You and Clara go that way.’

  He started to move off, but Clara saw the look of trepidation on Tibby’s face and said, ‘Wait. On second thoughts, Marco, maybe it would be best if you went with Balfour. I’ll go with Tibby.’

  ‘I’m not going with Balfour,’ Marco said.

  ‘Why not?’ Balfour said.

  ‘Well, no offence, Balfour, but you’re not much use, are you? You’re not qualified to do anything. You’re just a spoilt rich kid who wanted an adventure. Well, you’ve got one – but I don’t want to share it with you.’

  Balfour straightened up. ‘All right. Come to think of it, Marco, I don’t really want to go with you, either. In fact, I can’t think why I ever asked you to come on this mission in the first place.’

  ‘You asked me to come because I was the only person with any real idea where the Carthage disappeared,’ Marco responded. ‘And therefore the only person who could help find your precious wormhole. And look where that got us.’

  ‘Everyone can make a mistake, I suppose,’ shrugged Balfour. ‘You may be a pretty good archaeologist but you’re a wheedling, bad-minded little fool as well.’

  ‘OK, that’s enough,’ Clara said sharply. ‘This isn’t the school playground and it’s no time to be arguing. Grow up, the pair of you. We’ll split up – Balfour, you go with Tibby. I’ll go with Marco.’

  ‘But…’ Marco began.

  ‘No buts,’ Clara snapped. ‘Just do as you’re told.’

  She turned and walked off into the jungle, knowing he would follow. She knew his type only too well from Coal Hill. After a few seconds she heard him stomping through the undergrowth behind her, muttering under his breath.

  —

  Balfour turned and held out his hand to Tibby. He was standing on top of a gnarly tree trunk that had split and fallen across the path they had chosen. Tibby looked up at him, wiped the sleeve of her spacesuit across her forehead, and smiled. ‘You think I need a hand?’

  Balfour hesitated. ‘Uh…no. Yes. I don’t know. It seemed like the right thing to do.’

  She took the hand and jumped up onto the tree trunk. ‘Don’t sweat it. We all need a hand sometimes.’

  ‘I used to rely on Trugg all the time. He did everything for me. Now I’m on my own…and though I miss Trugg, I do sort of like it.’

  ‘You’re not on your own, though. I’m here too.’ Tibby held his gaze for just a moment. ‘And so are the others. We’re all in this together.’

  ‘Hmm. Some are more in it than others. Marco doesn’t strike me as much of a team player.’

  ‘He’s not,’ Tibby agreed. ‘But he’s scared out of his wits.’

  ‘We’re all scared. There’s no need to be so obnoxious about it, though.’

  ‘True. I’m glad I’m with you, and not him.’

  Balfour raised an eyebrow. ‘In that case, call me Ray. I’m sick of being called Balfour. I did ask everyone at the start to call me Ray, but no one did. No one ever does.’

  Tibby smiled. ‘Maybe it’s because you don’t look like a “Ray”.’

  ‘Please tell me I look like a Ray more than I look like a “Rueun”,’ he laughed.

  They shared the moment, and then Tibby squeezed his hand. ‘Come on, then, Ray. Lead on.’

  —

  ‘I hope you’ve cooled off a bit,’ Clara told Marco after a short while.

  ‘Just because you’re the Doctor’s assistant doesn’t mean you’re in charge,’ Marco grumbled.

  ‘I’m not the Doctor’s assistant, I’m his friend – something you wouldn’t know much about.’

  ‘Whatever. The fact is, you and the Doctor know something about this planet that you’re not telling any of the others.’

  Clara hesitated. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘The others are too stupid to see it, but I’m not,’ Marco went on. ‘You’re after something here, and you’re trying to keep it to yourselves.’

  He’d drawn level with Clara now as they walked. There was a sly tone in his voice that Clara really didn’t like. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ Marco smirked. ‘I’ve met people like you and the Doctor before: freeloaders, tagging along with archaeological expeditions in the hope of discovering some treasure and sharing in it.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘Am I? What about the Glamour?’

  This stopped Clara in her tracks. She turned to look at him, feeling the sweat turn cold all over her body. ‘What do you know about the Glamour?’

  ‘Not much. Only what I overheard you and the Doctor saying. Don’t look so shocked, Clara. The Alexandria wasn’t that big a ship. You didn’t think you and the Doctor could keep your little secrets and whispers to yourselves, did you? I heard your little chat in the cabin. I don’t fully understand what the Glamour is but I’m pretty certain it’s valuable – otherwise you and the Doctor wouldn’t have risked your lives to come to this benighted place.’

  Clara recalled the moment when the Alexandria had first run into trouble. She and the Doctor had rushed out of her cabin and straight into Marco. He must have been listening outside. ‘You don’t know anything about it,’ she said uncertainly.

  ‘So tell me. Maybe I could share in the bounty.’

  ‘Get lost.’

  Clara turned and walked on, striding purposefully into the jungle, her heart thumping and her mind racing. Where was the Doctor? What was she going to do without him?

  They continued in silence for a while, skirting around the area where the mustard-coloured plants were. Every time Clara saw one of the things poking through the undergrowth, she cut a little more to the left to avoid them. She made sure she kept the pace up, just to avoid giving Marco the opportunity to talk. She could hear him panting behind her, every breath taken by the humid air. They were forced to halt when they reached a near-vertical wall of foliage. It rose up sharply from the undergrowth to a height of around four metres, where it ended in an unnaturally level edge.

  ‘What’s this?’ Clara wondered, following the wall.

  ‘Looks like the jungle has grown over something solid,’ Marco said, following her.

  They found a cut in the wall and climbed through it, and then up a series of long moss-covered steps.

  ‘They’re ruins,’ realised Clara. ‘Something was built here…’

  ‘They must have been here for an age,’ Marco said. There were mounds and angular banks of jungle, threaded with roots and vines, but clearly discernible, like a building had been grown out of the abundant plant life. ‘It would take hundreds and thousands of years for the jungle to reclaim it like this.’

  Clara reached the top of one level and looked out at a long avenue of trees sprouting from angular blocks. ‘It’s like a city,’ she panted. ‘Buried in the forest.’

  ‘Hey, look down there,’ Marco said, peering over the edge of the rise.

  Below them was a forest of the mustard plants, each of them full of black spawn.
Some of them were quietly bubbling, and the petals of the flowers were flexing gently, getting ready, it seemed, to close up and squirt out their horrid contents at the least provocation. Clara felt nauseous just looking at them.

  Suddenly Clara was grabbed from behind and shoved towards the edge. She would have gone clean over if instinct hadn’t made her stiffen up and dig her heels hard into the ground. Her forward motion interrupted, Marco had to struggle with her but then lost his own footing and Clara pushed herself violently backwards. Marco sprang to his feet, his face twisted into an angry snarl. He grabbed Clara again as she stood up, trying to force her back to the edge. It had become a physical battle now. Marco was bigger and heavier, and there was no avoiding the fact that Clara was going to go over. She resolved there and then to take him with her. She grabbed the collar of his spacesuit and yanked him towards her, using his own momentum against him. They fell together and her head jerked back as she landed with her shoulders over the edge of the precipice. Marco was on top of her. His teeth were bared, his eyes blazing with murder. Clara tried to remember what Danny had once told her about basic self-defence but her mind had blanked. There was only the survival instinct operating now. Somehow she jerked her knee up and Marco yelped furiously, loosening his grip. Clara tore herself free, rolled, scrambling on hands and knees, pulling herself along the grass away from the mustard plants.

  Marco stood up behind her, just as Balfour and Tibby burst through the trees. Balfour immediately helped Clara to her feet.

  ‘He’s trying to kill me!’ Clara choked.

  ‘Rubbish,’ Marco said. ‘The stupid girl nearly walked right over the edge. I had to grab her to save her and we fell.’

  ‘Liar!’

  Marco took a deep breath, hands on hips. ‘She’s been hysterical ever since.’

  ‘Don’t let him anywhere near me,’ warned Clara.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Balfour said. ‘Tibby and I are here now. Nothing’s going to happen.’

  ‘Nothing did happen,’ Marco said.

  ‘What made you come back?’ Clara asked Balfour.

  ‘We didn’t. We circled right around the spawn plants and then Tibby heard the commotion.’

  ‘What are these ruins?’ Tibby asked. ‘An ancient city?’

  ‘Must be,’ said Marco, looking thoughtful. ‘Perhaps we aren’t the first visitors to this world after all.’

  ‘We’re definitely not the only ones here now,’ said Tibby, pointing past Marco, towards the depths of jungle beyond. ‘Look,’ she said.

  Drifting through the darkness between the trees were a number of blue, glowing figures. The wraiths emerged from the square edge of the forest, shimmering like moonbeams, tall, hooded, not of this world. Or any world, perhaps.

  ‘The ghosts!’ gasped Marco. ‘They’ve followed us from the ice age! What do they want?’

  He backed away from the wraiths until he was standing behind Balfour and Clara, and then the jungle around them began to blur, as if a giant and invisible hand had swept across a still-wet painting of reality.

  ‘Time flux,’ Clara said, the words clogging in her mouth as the jungle started to recede, and everything around her seemed to fall away, dragging her with it into complete darkness.

  Chapter

  16

  The skin of Jem’s face and neck was covered with bruises and lacerations. Hobbo tore off some material from her jacket and folded it into a wad of cloth that could be used to staunch the bleeding.

  ‘I’m sorry about Mitch,’ Jem said quietly.

  ‘Yeah,’ Hobbo replied. Her voice was dull, distant. Mechanically, she checked the wounds again and reapplied the dressing as best she could.

  ‘It all happened so fast,’ Jem said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I…I know what it feels like.’

  Hobbo focused on her properly for the first time. Her face looked stiff, awkward, as if it wasn’t really hers, or she wasn’t in full control of the way it looked. ‘Yeah. I reckon you do.’

  They’d left the insects to their abominable feast and moved away from the area, walking quickly and, it seemed at times, aimlessly through the ruins. Eventually they had found a secluded area and stopped to rest. They were lost, tired and hungry, and Hobbo was very quiet and withdrawn, but at least there were no insects around here.

  The Doctor scanned Jem with the sonic screwdriver. ‘No sign of any toxins, thank goodness.’

  They helped Jem to her feet, Hobbo keeping the cloth against the worst of her cuts. It was already stippled with red blotches.

  A blue glow appeared in a gap in the nearest wall, and a group of wraiths floated through it, tall and hooded.

  ‘I’m beginning to hate the sight of those guys,’ Hobbo said.

  ‘The Phaeron,’ said the Doctor, almost mesmerised by the sight. ‘Beings of pure dark matter…’

  ‘Can they see us?’

  ‘Ask Jem.’

  ‘I think they can,’ said Jem, holding out a hand towards the glimmering apparitions.

  The hooded figures reached out towards her, mimicking the gesture…and then faded from view, until all that was left was the swirling grey fog.

  ‘Remarkable!’ said the Doctor.

  ‘How’d she do that?’ asked Hobbo.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said the Doctor. ‘But Jem can sense the way dark matter interacts with the universe. Maybe that’s how the Phaeron communicate too.’

  ‘But is that even possible?’ asked Jem.

  ‘It must be. The language difference could be a problem – but if the Phaeron were as powerful and advanced as I’m beginning to suspect they were, then I’m sure they’ll find a way around that.’

  ‘You keep talkin’ about them in the past one minute an’ then in the here and now,’ Hobbo said. ‘Are these guys history or not?’

  ‘Past, present, future – none of these things mean anything to the Phaeron. They exist beyond space and time now.’

  ‘How can that be?’

  ‘No idea!’ The Doctor’s eyes had taken on a manically curious gleam. ‘But I intend to find out.’

  —

  The darkness was not absolute. There was a faint luminescence coming from the lichen which clung to the walls. Tibby Vent sat shivering in the void, trying not to make any noise, urging her vision to adjust to the utter gloom. It was cold in here, after the heat of the jungle. She was definitely inside something; when she moved, her boots made scuffing noises on some kind of hard, flat surface like concrete or metal and the noises echoed.

  There was a smell, too. Dampness; not the humidity of the forest but the cold condensation of a deep cave or basement. When she touched the floor, she could feel spores of lichen, and trace thin, stringy weeds and crumbling flakes of dirt.

  After a long while she thought she could see someone else in the dark – lying down, asleep or otherwise unconscious. They weren’t dead because she could hear them breathing. Minutes passed and she did not move, dared not move, but she strained her eyes until she picked out the shape of a spacesuit and the long, dark hair of Clara Oswald.

  Slowly, cautiously, Tibby unfolded her legs and crawled across the floor to where Clara lay. She touched her, but there was no response. She was out cold. There was someone else next to her – Ray Balfour. She felt a flood of relief. He lay on his back, arms out, mouth open. He was on the verge of snoring as the breath caught on his slack, unconscious throat.

  The terrors of the last few hours had started to dig into Tibby’s nerves. She could feel her pulse racing, her breath hurrying. She wasn’t far from panic. She couldn’t stay here much longer. She felt alone and vulnerable and lost.

  A face loomed before her, visible only as a grey mask in the faint light. It was Marco Spritt and Tibby let out a gasp of shock.

  ‘I didn’t know you were there!’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you say something? I’ve been scared witless!’

  Marco spoke in a whisper. ‘I don’t know what kind of a man you think I am, Tibby, but it’s
not me you need protection from.’

  ‘Why? What else is there? Where are we?’

  He held a finger against her lips. ‘Shh. Quietly. One thing at a time. I’ve seen more of those blue ghost things floating around here. Let’s not attract their attention.’

  Tibby bit her lip. ‘We need to wake up Clara and Ray.’

  ‘Who?

  ‘Ray. Balfour.’ Tibby met Marco’s stare. ‘We need to wake him up, and Clara.’

  ‘No.’ Marco was emphatic about that. ‘They’re out cold. We have to move.’

  ‘We can’t just leave them!’

  ‘We’ll have to if we’re going to get help.’ Marco stood up and, gripping Tibby by the arm, pulled her to her feet with him.

  ‘Help?’ Hope flickered into life inside Tibby’s chest.

  ‘You don’t think I’d just leave them here, do you?’

  ‘Do you know where we are?’

  ‘Yes.’ Marco smiled in the darkness. ‘I know where we are.’

  —

  The Doctor, Hobbo and Jem were making their way deeper into the ruins. They were following a trio of Phaeron wraiths as they floated, seemingly in and out of reality, ahead of them.

  ‘Where are they takin’ us?’ asked Hobbo quietly.

  ‘Who says they’re taking us anywhere?’ replied the Doctor. ‘We’re just following them. They seem to know where they’re going, after all.’

  ‘What if they just disappear? We can’t follow them into nowhere.’

  The three wraiths faded from view as she spoke, the faint nimbus of blue light evaporating into the gloom behind them.

  ‘We’re close,’ said Jem.

  ‘Close to what?’ asked the Doctor.

  ‘The Imperfection.’

  Rising out of the rusted crags, shrouded in coils of thick grey mist, was a large obelisk with a wide, rectangular opening. Huge fungoid growths were sprouting from the patches of lichen clinging to the rusted metal surface, and hanging down over the darkened passage like a thin curtain of weeds.

  ‘Is that it?’ Hobbo wondered.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said the Doctor. ‘It looks more like an entrance of some kind.’ He pushed aside some of the dangling weeds and wrinkled his nose.