Doctor Who - The Silent Stars Go By

by Unknown

  'Yeah, but even so,' said Amy. 'It's taken so long, they've started to misremember. It's taken so long...

  What did Bel say? Twenty-seven generations? They don't even understand the technology any more. It's all automatic. They're like the transrats living in the shadow of a machine that works all by itself. Sure, they know their routines and their jobs, and I'm sure they understand what they're part of, it's just...'

  'What?'

  'What happens when it ends?' she asked. 'I mean, when the job's done? Will they be ready for that?'

  'It won't happen for several more generations,' said the Doctor.

  'That's my point. Will the great-great-greatgrandchildren of these Morphans know any better? Will they be ready? Isn't there a danger they won't know what to do with the world they've built, because all they've ever learned to do is survive during the process of building?'

  'I'm sure they'll take to it,' said the Doctor.

  'What did the stonemasons of Europe do when there were no cathedrals left to build?' she asked. 'What did the slaves do when the pyramids were finished? How did they feel?'

  The Doctor thought about it and frowned.

  'These Morphans are really good people, what I've seen of them,' said Amy. 'They're hardworking and selfless and totally serious about their lives. But it really feels to me like they only understand this, the work in progress. I don't know what they'll do when the job's finished.'

  'Well,' replied the Doctor, 'that's what life and evolution is all about. The Morphans are adapting a world to fit their biology. When it's ready, when it's properly Earth-like, they'll have to adapt their minds and attitudes to make the most of living in it.'

  He fell silent for a moment.

  'What's the matter?' asked Amy.

  'There's always the question of if they're actually going to get a chance to make a go of it anyway, of course,' said the Doctor. 'A problem that starts with Ice...'

  'And ends with Warriors,' Amy said, and nodded.

  'This sightseeing is all very interesting and rather uplifting,' the Doctor told her, 'but I need to work out exactly what the Ice Warriors are doing to the Firmer systems.'

  'And stop them?'

  'Yes,' he nodded. 'I actually have a lot of time and respect for the Martian culture, but in this instance, I'm on the Morphans' side. They have the claim here, and the Ice Warriors are essentially trying to wipe them out. We have to put things right for the Morphans.'

  They started walking again, and crossed through another tunnel link into a chamber cavity that opened a giddying drop beneath their narrow shipskin walkway.

  Far below, magmatic forces rumbled and glowed.

  'Not being funny, but how are we going to win this?'

  asked Amy quietly. 'The Ice Warriors are very big, very strong, and very hench. And they've got sound guns and spaceships and all kinds of freaky nastiness. On our side, we've got a bunch of farmers whose idea of a weapon is a garden rake. If it comes to a fight, it's going to be really one-sided.'

  'Then we have to be clever and not let it come to a fight,' said the Doctor. 'We take on the Ice Warriors by outsmarting them.'

  'Are they stupid, then?'

  'No, not at all,' said the Doctor. 'They're really very intelligent. But I'm me.'

  'OK,' she said, 'hit me with your clever.'

  'We find out how they're sabotaging things, and we sabotage their sabotage. That's how we beat them.'

  'It's that easy?' asked Amy.

  'No, that's going to be ridiculously hard,' the Doctor said with a sigh.

  'I thought you were super-smart?'

  'Have you seen the scale and size and complexity of this system? It's going to take me a while to identify exactly what the Ice Warriors are doing, and then I've got to work out how to repair or reverse it. And I have to do all of that without mucking up any of the other systems. This is a very finely balanced process. Plus, these terraformers are automated systems. A lot of the component units are sealed because there's supposed to be no need for manual repair. A lot of them are physically inaccessible. How would you get down there if that needed fixing, for instance?'

  She peered over the rail and shuddered.

  'Not to mention,' said the Doctor, mentioning it, 'that I'm temporarily without a working sonic screwdriver, which makes everything a gazillion times harder.'

  'It'll recharge,' Amy reassured him.

  'I know,' he said, 'but we haven't got a lot of time.

  And my biggest concern is not to damage the terraforming systems. My normal approach, as you well know, is to fiddle and improvise, but if I attempt too much of that, I could end up doing more damage than the Ice Warriors. You know what I could really do with?'

  'The Big Book of Terraforming For Beginners?' she asked.

  'Yes, actually,' he replied. 'What I could really do with is the instruction manual that came with this planet cruncher.'

  'It'll be in the glove box,' grinned Amy.

  Bel came over to them, followed by Samewell. She was wrinkling her nose. 'What's that smell?' she asked.

  The Doctor sniffed. 'Sulphur, from the mantle vents,' he said.

  'No, there's something else,' said Amy.

  The Doctor sniffed again. 'You're right, Pond,' he said. 'I impaired your hearing so your sense of smell has compensated. That's... decay. That's something rotten.'

  'Whatever, it's not very nice,' said Arabel.

  The Doctor was already moving. They followed him along the walkway, through a rock-cut tunnel, and down a metal-lined corridor that opened out into a broad, domed room that looked like some kind of store. By the time they entered it, the smell of putrefaction had become very strong.

  'Ugh,' said Amy, covering her nose and mouth.

  'That's rank.'

  'Decaying organic matter,' the Doctor mused. 'But why down here?'

  The walls of the domed room were lined with rows of plastic-fronted cupboards, each one containing a bio-hazard suit and mask, made for a human.

  'This was a prep area,' said the Doctor. 'Scientists or technicians came in here to suit up. See overhead?' He pointed at banks of blue lights built into the domed roof. 'UV decontamination lamps,' he mused. 'They came in here, suited up and sterilised themselves...'

  He went back to the doorway they had entered through. It was a sliding hatch, but it had already been open when they arrived.

  'Look,' he said. There was a panel of silver metal in the frame to the right-hand side of the hatch.

  Something very hot had cut through it, fusing it. The edges of the metal cut looked like melted butter. They were blackened.

  'That's a palm-scan checker,' said the Doctor. 'It operates the lock. Something cut through it from outside to get in here.'

  'Something hot,' said Amy.

  'I think focused sonics, actually,' the Doctor replied.

  He crossed to the open hatchway on the other side of the domed prep-room. That was open too. Similar damage had been done to the palm-scanner. The smell of rot and decay was much stronger on that side of the room.

  'Let's see, shall we?' the Doctor suggested. He went through the open hatchway. They followed him.

  On the other side, they found themselves at one end of a gallery space.

  The gallery was large and very long. Very, very long. At least a mile long. It was immense. It reminded Amy of an industrial nursery, a massive greenhouse, except that it was underground. Banks of bright, artificial sun lamps ran along the roof, and the galvanised metal floor was lined with rows of deep metal tanks and glass vats. It seemed like something had been growing in here, a considerable crop of things.

  The smell in the gallery was awful, like bins left out on a summer's day, six weeks into a garbage strike.

  'What is this? Are they growing plants?' asked Amy.

  'Certainly cultivation of some sort,' the Doctor agreed. 'I didn't expect this. Unless...'

  He peered into one of the vats.

  'Unless what?' asked Samewell.

&nbs
p; 'These cultivator units have broken down,' said the Doctor. 'There's been a malfunction and they've failed.

  Perhaps a deliberate malfunction. The reason they smell so bad is that it's not plant matter they're nurturing here. These were in-vitro nutrient banks for organic tissue.'

  'Why?' asked Amy. She climbed up beside the Doctor and peered over into the vat. The stink that wafted up at her was frankly appalling. The vat was basically empty, but from a tide mark on the side, she could see where it had previously been full. The bottom of the tank was filled with a slimy, foul-smelling residue, like something gruesome and decomposing from a horror movie. 'Oh, that is properly disgusting,' she announced.

  'Yes, but why?' the Doctor pondered, tapping a finger to his lips. 'Why tissue? I suppose this could have been some kind of storage system for organic samples. Maybe the DNA used to build the transrats was kept in suspension in this sort of thing. This may have been a genetic stockpile, a library of animal DNA, so that the Morphans could grow all sorts of strains of creature once the world was ready.'

  'Really?' asked Amy. 'So this was... this muck... this was living tissue? Like flesh and blood?'

  The Doctor nodded. 'But the vital support system has failed or been sabotaged. Sabotaged is my guess, from the way the hatches were forced. Now it's beginning to rot,' he said. 'So the genetic database is corrupted.'

  He looked at Amy.

  'Or,' he said, drawing out the word.

  'Or what?' she asked.

  'Or this wasn't a genetic library at all,' he said. 'It was an organic farm.'

  'How do you mean?'

  'I mean,' said the Doctor, 'that someone or something was growing meat in these tanks.'

  Amy pulled a revolted face.

  'Like something out of Frankenstein's lab?' she asked.

  'Yes,' said the Doctor, 'but an awful lot less nice.'

  The hatch to the Incrypt waited for a moment, considering the scan of Rory's palm. Rory stood with his hand pressed to the plate and a sick, fixed grin on his face, frantically working out what he would say when the hatch didn't open.

  He'd just come up with an absolutely killer approach that would absolutely, without question, persuade Bill Groan and the other Morphans he was on the level, despite the non-compliance of the hatch, but then the hatch opened and he never got a chance to use it.

  'You see?' he said, hoping the billion tons of relief freighting his voice at that moment would not be obvious.

  'Well,'said Bill Groan.

  'Guide preserve us,' said Winnowner.

  'We have done you a disservice, Elect Rory,' said Sol Farrow.

  ' That's entirely OK and fine,' said Rory shaking his head and swallowing hard. 'I understand that you have to be careful, especially with all the... the things that are happening. Shall we?'

  He moved towards the hatch.

  'Well, there's no need to go in now, is there?' asked Winnowner. Jack Duggat half-blocked Rory's nonchalant advance.

  'I mean,' said the old woman, 'the point was to see if you could open the door, and that point's been made.

  There's no need to go in.'

  'Well, no, I suppose,' said Rory.

  'We had resolved to consult our Guide Emanual,'

  Bill Groan said to Winnowner. The chequer has confirmed Elect Rory's worthiness. Why would we not include him in our study?'

  Winnowner dropped her voice and spoke very directly and intently to Bill Groan.

  'Our council,' she hissed. 'Our council, not anybody else's! This is a matter for Beside, and the council of Beside, and the word of our Guide Emanual as it is expressed to our council, not to anyone else! I'm sure Elect Rory and his council would not wish any of us to go prying into his Incrypt if we were visiting his plantnation.'

  'What about a fresh eye, an alternative approach?'

  Vesta suggested.

  'No!' snapped Winnowner.

  'It's not for you to say no,' said Bill Groan.

  'Nor is it for you to say yes,' replied Winnowner.

  'The council must vote on it. That is all there is to it.'

  Bill Groan nodded. He glanced at Sol. 'Can we get back into the hall?'

  The hammering had died away. It seemed quieter in the assembly. Things had calmed down. Or things were waiting to pounce the moment the doors opened.

  'Jack and I will check,' Sol replied.

  'Send everyone home except the council,' said Bill.

  'Clear the assembly. We need to settle this and we need to get on. If this danger is as urgent as Vesta and Rory say...'

  The two men unbolted the doors and went back into the hall. Rory heard a renewed round of raised voices.

  He glanced at Vesta, worried. She smiled back reassuringly.

  After a couple of minutes, Sol reappeared at the doors and beckoned them through. The assembly room had been emptied apart from the remaining council members. One of Jack Duggat's labourers was closing up the outer doors. Nothing had been overturned, but many of the chairs and benches in the congregation section had been pushed aside or left in disarray. The meeting had not ended happily.

  'I had to bend the truth a little,' Rory heard Jack Duggat mutter to Bill Groan. 'I told them they had to return to their homes tonight because Guide needed the space. Deliberations had to be made. I told them it was Guide's express desire.'

  'Guide will forgive you, Jack,' Bill replied.

  'I said they'd have answers come Guide's Bell,' Jack added.

  'Then well have to find them by then,' said Bill.

  He gestured to Vesta, indicating she should take Rory to one side and be seated. There was drink and a little food set out on a sideboard. Rory hadn't realised just how hungry he was. He took some kind of soup, and some spelt bread, and watched as the council sat in discussion. Vesta ate too, with gusto, her eyes not leaving the debating council members.

  'Oh,' she said suddenly, and sadly.

  'What?' asked Rory. Before she could answer, he saw that Bill Groan was coming over.

  'We've taken the vote,' Bill said. 'It's gone against you. I'm sorry, Elect.'

  'OK,' said Rory. 'What happens now?'

  'The Council will withdraw to the Incrypt and start work,' said Bill. 'I suggest you two stay here for now.

  Stay close by so we can talk, if we need to. Help yourself to more food. Rest a while.'

  Bill walked back to the council members, who stood and followed him through the doors into the Incrypt.

  Jack Duggat went with them, leaving Sol Farrow behind to keep an eye on them. Sol closed the back doors, and then shrugged at Vesta and Rory, acknowledging that he shared their helplessness. Then he ladled out a bowl of soup and went to sit by one of the firebuckets.

  Rory sat while Vesta and Sol continued to eat. He listened to the crack and pop of the embers in the firebuckets. A soft but steady tapping on the panes of the assembly windows told him it was snowing hard again.

  He realised that, despite the dangers and alarms of the day, waiting was perhaps the worst thing of all.

  'Can we leave this place now?' Amy asked. 'Because it pongs.'

  'Uh-huh,' the Doctor nodded. She could tell he wasn't really listening. He was too deep in thought.

  She could almost see the cogs going around.

  'Shall we go out the way we came in?' she asked, gesturing to the door that led back into the prep room.

  'Mm-hmm,' he said. She still didn't have his attention properly. He was just making sounds in response to her sounds, encouraging, nonspecific sounds that created the illusion of an actual conversation without him having to engage in one.

  That worried Amy. When the Doctor got sidetracked and lost in thought, it meant that there was a lot at stake. There was clearly a big problem on Hereafter, a proper, serious life-and/or-death problem. She'd worked that much out for herself. But the Doctor seemed to be troubled because, on top of the problem, there was a mystery as well.

  She knew the Doctor quite liked problems. It didn't matter how big, or difficult,
or scary, or intractable, or galaxy-crushing, or tal-king-like-this-in-a-ras-ping-mon-otone-ro-bot-voice-and-u-sing-words-like-ex-terminate a problem was, the Doctor relished them. He could confront them. He could take them on. He could solve them. He could usually say something quite pithy and off the cuff while solving them.

  Mysteries, on the other hand, nagged. They festered and itched. They got him distracted and made him fidgety. A problem and a mystery at the same time was a body blow, because the Doctor could only get on with solving the problem once he'd explained the mystery.

  The mystery here had various elements: the complexity and scale of the terraformer, the machinations of the surly and relentless Ice Warriors, and the seriously terrible weather. Amy thought that, if it was up to her, she might choose to add a complete and utter lack of Christmas to the list, but that seemed unfair. However, there were other elements. Something to do with this giant greenhouse stacked with tanks of rotting meat, for a start. She didn't really get the significance of that, but it seemed to trouble the Doctor greatly. It didn't seem to fit with the other things he was worried about. It was odd. It was inexplicable.

  Still, a bad smell was a bad smell, and a bad smell would have come as a welcome and fragrant breath of fresh air compared to the honk in the gallery. They'd been obliged to stand around in that place, surrounded by those reeking vats, for far too long as it was.

  'Well go back out then?' she prompted.

  'Mm-hmm.'

  He wasn't even looking at her. He was pacing up and down, his finger to his lips.

  'We'll come back out through that prep room with all the suits, then?' she asked. 'Find something else to look at?'

  'Uh-huh.'

  She turned to Bel and Samewell.

  'Come on,' she said. 'If we start walking, he'll follow us.'

  They started walking back along the row of vats towards the exit hatch. Sure enough, the Doctor followed them, though he was still so deeply submerged in thought it looked like he needed an idea snorkel.

  They went out through the domed prep room with the Doctor tagging along behind.

  'Maybe well find a nice spot for a picnic?' Amy called out over her shoulder.