Up a Tree (p.20)
It was a stump.
A gigantic stump, half a mile wide. It rose up out of the jungle like a fortress, towering 300 feet above the forest trees. The top looked like it had been leveled off with a laser.
Amy stared at Rory, and he stared back, before they both reverted their gaze to the view outside.
As they approached they could see the black scorchmarks of the ancient fire that must have felled it. There was no sign of the rest of the tree.
Rory could hear his own breath echoing on the window pane, he could hear the others shuffling around behind him. Amy warm at his side.
As they flew in over the mine, preparing to land, they could see right down into the center of the stump, he felt himself leaning forward to see, pressing more of his face against the glass. It was hollow. The heartwood eaten away by age and decay, leaving a chimney within the protective ring of the stump.
They could see steps and huge bay windows extruding out of the uneven inner walls, taking advantage of the sunlight.
As they pivoted in to land, Rory blinked. Giant cranes and moving equipment loaded and unloaded supplies and ore onto waiting shuttles and transports. Huge metal bins held raw ore and crates and barrels lined the ring shaped landing field.
They landed with a light thump. The surface of the stump was obviously intended as a staging area. Unlike the grove platforms, this one had railings around the edges. As they set down with a gentle bump, he could see the workers on the far side of the rim, so far away they looked like ants.
The Doctor was the first to reach the exit hatch.
-----
The Doctor stumbled out onto the windswept landing field and raced to the nearest railing. He leaned over, peering down into the depths and grinned hugely. “Brilliant!”
Amy and Rory, followed by the rest of the safari group stepped out, looking around. A solid but portly man with a hardhat and a worried expression strode up to them. Rory stared down, gripping with his toes, trying to get his head around the idea that he was standing on tree rings.
Nelda and Zeke ambled out of the shuttle hatch, Chitchi swung out with one hand on the upper doorframe, and landed with a thump. All three Trelwins looked around avidly.
The mine manager nodded at them. “We don’t have any Trelwin here,” he waved at the obvious lack of branches, and the abundance of equipment. “You’ll want to keep an eye on them, there’s a lot of ways they could get hurt."
Bill nodded and went to stand near them, guarding. Amy joined her. Metallic clanks and thumps, and the yells of loading crews came to them, all overlaid with the sighing of the wind.
The manager turned and shook Erik’s hand, nodding to the others.
“I hear you’ve got some kind of cure?” the burly mine manager asked eagerly.
“Not a cure,” Erik said. “A treatment. Ipods - Interference Pods.” Amy and Rory grinned at each other when they heard that. Janet grabbed a box of the pods from where the rest of the group were unloading their supplies. She brought them over to the manager. “Put these on your affected patients and flip the switch,” Erik said, demonstrating. “It interferes with the signal that’s shut them down. But it’s not a cure.
“Did you get Sondherson’s messages?” he asked.
“Yeah, an explanation that it’s not the Trelwins causing it, and some sort of poem about avoiding vengeance and passion. I can tell you, that part about avoiding passion didn’t go over well.”
The Doctor poked his head in as Amy started laughing in the background. He flailed a hand at her to shut up.
“It’s not that kind of passion. Hello. I’m the Doctor.” He shook the man’s hand unexpectedly and burbled on. “We only brought 50 ipods, but we’ve got Aaron working on a way to make more.
“Is this your stump? I must say, it’s impressive.” He looked back over the landing field.
He didn’t notice the mine manager’s disbelieving look at Erik, or Erik’s exasperated shake of the head.
“Is there a tour?” the Doctor said excitedly, suddenly spinning back to them. “I’d love a tour.”
“This is the Doctor and his two assistants,” Erik introduced. “They’re the the offworld biologists who helped us figure out what was going on.” He smoothed over the introductions.
The manager nodded, shaking off his confusion at the odd visitor. "Thank you for these," the mine manager said to Erik, holding up the box.
"We've been lucky here, we've only had four cases. Didn't know what was happening until we got the memo from Sondherson. Fortunately, we are geared up for emergencies, got a big medical unit, overstocked in case of cave-ins. But we'll be relieved to get those people back on their feet.
"It's weird, there's no connection, no predicting this thing. We had two engineers, a miner, and one of the kitchen staff go down. Yet we had a tavern brawl and had only normal injuries. The note said violence is one of the triggers."
"Until we find out what this thing is, there's no way of predicting what it will do," Erik said.
"Well, the faster you can get in there and figure it out, the better, Bayside has had 60 people go down in the last three days."
Everyone gasped. "Fallen?" Rory asked, worriedly.
The manager looked at him. "Only a few, thank god, but the rest are frantic."
"Why so many there?" Amy asked.
"Bayside is our artists community. My nieces live there." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "They were hit hard and fast. And on top of that, the storm brought down one of their major branches. Coveside is lending assistance," He saw the confused look on Amy's face at the names. "Coveside is one of our largest groves, with the biggest population. Seventeen trees. It's on the other side of the bay, but they've had their own problems.
"Landsdown is cranking out life support units as fast as they can, and we've already sent out calls for support units through the wormhole, but they'll take time to arrive."
"With any luck,” Erik said, “by the time they get here we'll have found this thing and stopped it."
"Pray god, you're right," the manager said. "Bayside doesn't have enough equipment, they've got people doing manual shifts of life support, trying to stabilize the victims. We've already sent all the spare life support units we can. I'll be sending these on there, if that's okay," he said, holding up the box of ipods they'd brought along.
"Whatever you need to do with them," Janet said, piling the box of extra life support units on top of it.
"I'll leave you to Darvish,” he nodded and pointed with the box. “He's getting his team ready, he'll be joining you on this safari. We've had another situation come up. We've got a courier waiting to take these on to Bayside. Thanks!" He lifted the box and trotted off.
Darvish, the man the manager had nodded to, was just climbing up the last stairs on the inner rim of the stump. He was a hugely broad shouldered man. Four feet wide, and yet when he stepped foot on the lip, they saw he was only about 4 1/2 feet tall. He looked as if someone had taken Paul Bunyan and squashed him down in a compactor.
Erik apparently knew him and walked forward to shake his hand with pleasure. "Glad you'll be joining us," he said.
"I'm not," Darvish replied. He smiled wryly. While he had the body of a trollish lumberjack, Amy thought, he had the face of a history scholar. Long and lean, with an elegant diction that made him sound like he should be wearing tweed and smoking a pipe in a library somewhere.
"What's this situation?" the Doctor asked. Shaking the man's hand with glee, yet also a serious expression.
"We've got a missing personal courier. We think it may have gone down in the zone."
"You don't know? Don't you keep flight records?" Amy asked.
"Yes. But their home port is Bayside. With all the confusion there these last few days They didn't notice the amended flight plan or the altered arrival date. It was only this morning that someone realized they were overdue. Their flight pattern doesn't take them anywhere near the zone, but with that storm the other day, they may have been shoved off course. There's been no communications, no transponder signal. No emergency screamer. But satellite pictures show what looks like a crash lane in the trees in the zone. We're hoping it's them and that they've survived. We have to check it out."
"Of course," the Doctor said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Wait,” he took them back out again. “No signal out of the zone? Electromagnetic interference?” He slapped his forehead. "Shielding! I almost forgot!
“Janet! Give me one of those!” He ran up to where Janet was unloading their own teams supply of ipods and life support units. The Doctor grabbed one, then looked around, as if he was looking for a table. He turned a complete circle, looking harried, then sat down on the ground, he started sonicing the back off one of the life support pods.
Darvish stared at him. Erik pretended to be very interested in a shuttle across the ring. “I think, Doctor, we can find you a better workspace in one of the workshops below,” the local leader said.
The Doctor looked up interestedly, the broad built miner waved a hand toward the stairs.
-----
The Trelwins leaped forward to swing down the stairs. Bill and Amy rushed to follow, the Doctor, Erik and Darvish trailed behind, talking earnestly.
The Trelwins swung under the stairs, brachiating their way down the huge staircase that spiraled down the interior of the hollow tree. Making occasional side trips to investigate things, crawling along the splintered inner wood surface of the mine.
Unlike the home tree, the stairs here were all wrought iron with handrails and grated steps, clanging as their feet pounded on them, the sound echoing in the vast space.
Sunlight beamed down, with an almost desert intensity, sparking off of a myriad of gallery windows. Amy kept one eye on the Trelwins and craned her head to peer into what looked like restaurants, herbariums, offices, viewing lounges, all of them taking advantage of the natural sunlight in the protected well.
"It's not just a mine," Bill said at her obvious interest. "It's a community." She nodded at all the windows. “They provide entertainment, culture, and lots of natural light and places to go and things to do to make mine living tolerable. Humans aren't meant to live underground, away from the sun."
Bill grinned as Chitchi peered into one of the big bay windows and startled a woman vacuuming inside. Amy saw her mouth open in a screech, and her hand go to her chest. Then the woman laughed, realizing it was a Trelwin, and waved at Chitchi.
Amy turned and shouted up at the Doctor, “How do you sign ‘Stay with me?’” she demanded. The Doctor turned from his discussion with Erik and Darvish and flipped her a sign. She turned and yelled at Nelda, when the white Trelwin turned to look at her, she flipped her the sign.
Nelda crawled over and pulled Chitchi away from the window. The three Trelwins swung over and ambled, dignified, down the metal staircase several yards in front of Amy and Bill.
Amy peered around, still unable to believe her eyes. All the staircases, weaving in and out of the crevices, smaller staircases crisscrossing this larger main one, leading to all different levels. Giant lift cables ran down one side of the space, lifting up cargo containers and supplies.
It was like a home tree, but inside out. She even saw a couple of people slide down a couple of fireman poles. She'd thought they were just supports for the stairs, but it made far more sense than trudging down the whole staircase. She'd have to try one.
But there was less green growing smell. The air here was dryer, more metallic. More old moldy wood. It was sort of a nice smell, in its way, but not the same as a growing tree. The wood walls besides the steps here were dry and splintered. Aged with the patina of many hands.
"What is Landsdown?" Amy asked Bill as they both kept an eye on the Trelwins who were again swinging down the underside of the stairs before them, studying everything with bright eyes.
The well was huge, it was going to take a while to reach the bottom.
"Landsdown is the settlement that grew up around the ship." The big woman said, clanging casually down the stairs. "It's still our technical center. It's on the high plains, to the west, by the ocean. It's where the colony ship crashed. They had intended to land there, but it was rough. But it mostly survived. It's our technical hub, most of the labs and equipment have been preserved and updated over the centuries. It's also our spaceport for those ships that need to land."
"It's on the ground?" Amy asked, surprised.
Bill nodded. "The high plains are one of the few places not covered in forest. Our ancestors thought we'd be safe there."
Amy frowned. "They weren't?"
Bill laughed. "They didn't count on the size of the herbivores on this planet. You've seen the size of our ‘dragons’ here?" she asked, reminding Amy of the huge Komodo dragon they'd seen on safari. She nodded with a shudder. Bill continued, "They're a tiny lizard by comparison." She held her hand up, her thumb and forefinger held four inches apart.
Amy's eyes widened thinking of something the size of a mega-mammoth. "How did they survive?"
Bill shrugged. "They set up forcefields, dug moats, set stingerlines. Even burned off the area right around the ship, hoping that if there was no food they'd stay away. Unfortunately, it kept growing back. Fortunately the herbivores are placid creatures, you just have to stay out of their way. But there's no keeping them off the plains completely. It's the only place on the planet where we can grow grains. Basically we just worry about keeping them away from the settlement, and use harvester droids to harvest whatever of the wheat crops they leave behind. It's been enough for us so far. We cull the herds once a year. And share out the meat." She licked her lips with a grin. "There's nothing like a grainfed herbivore steak!" Her eyes twinkled so lasciviously that Amy laughed.
-----
When they reached the bottom of the stairs and emerged into the mine proper, they found themselves in a vast outdoor “mall.” Tunnels ran off of it in every direction, the dirt walls rose thick with huge twining roots, and glinted with colorful chunks of gemstones that had been exposed by the mining, then polished and left as decoration.
The bottom of the walls were ringed with a variety of shops and storefronts and restaurants cut back under the ledge of the wood, they all had raised shutters that showed they could be closed off from the main space if needed.
But the main space was huge. Easily four football fields across, the center of the treetrunk rose above it like a chimney, allowing in air and light. There were even a couple of small, spindly trees growing around in carefully placed conversation groups with chairs and benches ringing them.
It was a huge “outdoor” space, for the miners, but within the safety of fortified walls, protecting them from the jungle outside.
Amy craned her neck up. The huge vanes of the decayed heartwood stuck out from the jagged walls, their sharp edges even more noticeable from down here, where they were sharply undercut, showing their triangular cross-section.
She squinted at the noonday sun which was streaming down, unimpeded, glinting off of the bay windows that dotted the inside of the shaft.
She looked out across the open area. “What happens when it rains?” she asked.
“I expect it gets muddy,” the Doctor said, walking up beside her, bouncing on his toes, delighted. There was a group of miners playing volleyball in a sandpit on the other side of the commons.
“Doesn’t it flood?” Amy asked.
The Doctor looked at her. “Why should it? It’s basically a fortress courtyard. Just because it has walls doesn’t make it a bathtub. And it’s a mine. I’m sure they have pumps to get rid of excess water. It probably just soaks into the ground, like anywhere else outside. Or they collect it for use, like they do in the tree. Very efficient people these Yblins.”
He grinned. “Nothing like living in a tree to make a person ecology conscious.”
A young man separated himself from the volleyball players, he was of average height, slim, but with well defined muscles and long blond hair. “Bill!” he yelled as he trotted up, grinning.
He hugged the Amazonian woman, completely dwarfed by her, but they were both grinning. Amy instantly saw the resemblance.
“Amy, Doctor, Rory,” Bill introduced. “This is my cousin, Arnoff.”
“Pleased to meet you,” he said in a pleasant, tenor voice, giving an elegant bow. He looked enough like Bill to be her brother, more actually. Amy had never seen two people look so much alike, yet still have completely different builds and genders. He was wearing shorts and a tank top that revealed well defined arms, and very pale skin, and sported a long blond ponytail down his back.
“I hear you are going on a monster hunt,” he said, looking part enthusiastic, part unsettled.
“And you’re not coming,” Bill said in her booming voice. “You’re useless in the jungle.”
He swatted her on the shoulder. “Like you’re any good in a med ward.” He turned to the others. “I’m the head physician here. Welcome. And thank you for bringing the revival units.”
He turned and looked Rory up and down. He waved a hand at the volleyball players. “Join us. We’re having a Meanies vs. Weenies game.”
“Huh?” Rory said at this nonsequeteur.
The cousin grinned, “Big guys versus Little guys,” he explained.
Rory turned to Amy, “I’m not a little guy!” he protested. Erik walked up beside him and crossed his arms, surveying the game, towering from his vast height, his chest straining his jungle fatigues. His arms like hams.
Rory sighed in defeat. “Fine. I’m serving.”
-----
Darvish called Erik aside. The Doctor wandered after them and Amy followed, leaving the Trelwins to Bill.
Darvish nodded to Erik, “I’ve got our gear assembled, go take a look and see if there’s anything we need to add.” He waved over to the west side of the mall, where a wide niche in the stump was set up as a busy transfer station, dedicated to the hauling of supplies up and down the chimney.
An endless train of hover trams emerged from the tunnels, like ergonomic mine carts, bearing ore, refined metals, and finished products from below. Stevedores offloaded them and hoisted the goods up a complex array of long cables to the cranes on the platform at the top.
It was a seething mass of activity, supplies piled up in bundles and crates. A waterfall of huge cables stretched down the side of the chimney from the landing stages above.
The Doctor and Amy’s heads tilted back. “Cool,” the Doctor said, bright eyes admiring the massive ancient wooden walls towering over them, and the beehive of human activity.
Darvish hoisted a box containing their ipods and life support units to his broad shoulder.
“I promised you a place to work, Doctor,” he said.
The Doctor spun, hands clasped, bouncing in eagerness. “Yes!” There was nothing like something new to get him wired as tight as a spring. Amy rolled her eyes. But couldn’t resist looking around at the huge alien space again.
“Follow me.” Darvish took off in a rolling stride, the Doctor and Amy eager on his heels.
-----
Arnoff grinned and clipped Rory on the shoulder. “Come on.” He trotted off toward the volleyball field.
“You’re the physician here?” Rory asked. “You’re taking this very casually.”
Arnoff hailed one of the volleyball players as he trotted past, “We’ll be back for the second set!” he shouted. He turned “You’re the nurse?” he asked for confirmation.
Rory nodded.
“I’m taking it very seriously. We’ll go and wake up my four patients then come back for a game.” He turned and stared at Rory with determined pale blue eyes. “I’ve got my second in command watching over the patients, with orderlies to help her, she’s fully capable. But it is important in an enclosed society like this for people to take rest and recreation time. Otherwise people become too intent, too absorbed in their work, and start to become depressed and overstressed.
“I’ve worked hard to make this a vital and stable community. I can’t very well demand everyone else take a break if I’m not willing to do the same.
“Besides,” he grinned. “We’re going to pound the Meanies into the ground.”
He hopped forward, ponytail swinging in exuberance, and Rory laughed. He kept pace with the shorter man’s energetic stride. Arnoff led Rory across the compound and into a wooden tunnel. Rory stared around, surprised.
Arnoff smiled at his reaction. “We tunneled out some of the major roots to convert them into dwellings and living spaces. Even underground, Yblins prefer wood around them.”
Rory nodded, his mind slightly boggled at the idea that he was walking down the inside of a tree root.
-----
Darvish led Amy and the Doctor past the restaurants and into a wide, stadium style cement corridor.
Amy looked around at the well-lit space, noticing the mirrors set at angled intervals that bounced natural sunlight down from the light well.
The walls were smooth, the corridor wide enough for several people to walk abreast. She could hear the faint sounds of pounding and clanks, metal machinery reverberating in the distance. And the ground sloped subtly downward the whole way.
“Does this lead down to the mines?” Amy asked.
Darvish looked over his shoulder. “No. This is our manufacturing sector.” He nodded down the long corridor, the end disappeared in the distance around a slight curve. “It leads down to our smelters, manufactories, and foundries.”
Amy frowned. “How do you run a foundry in the roots of a tree without setting the tree on fire? How do you do it underground without smothering on smoke? Wouldn’t people suffocate?”
She expected to smell smoke, yet she noticed the air around her was perfectly cool and clean, there was even a slight breeze.
Darvish smiled at her curiosity, an unexpectedly charming smile on such a short, hulking body. “We have ventilators that run up through the wood of the stump, exhausting the heat and drawing down fresh air and sunlight,” he said in the same delighted “instructors” voice the Doctor would sometimes get.
“The foundries and manufactories are converted from the old worked out mine workings. Hydraulic safety doors can be closed to smother any fires or in case of emergency.”
The Doctor nodded in approval. He had such a huge grin on his face Amy thought he was about to explode. He tripped down the corridor like a little boy on holiday. Their footsteps echoed in the large place. It was so bright and airy that Amy found herself amazed that they were underground.
As they passed a cross corridor, three young men emerged, one of them carrying a little girl.
“George!” Darvish called out. The men changed course and joined them. They were all identical. Amy’s eyes widened, her heart picked up a beat, she grinned unashamedly at them.
All three were tall, well muscled, dark blond, and shared the same rather blunt but attractive features.
“Doctor, Amy,” Darvish said, “May I present some of the members of my team, they’ll be joining us on the safari. George, Eldon, and Garon.” He waved at each one.
“I knew a fellow named Garon once! Fantastic bloke! Pleased to meet you!” The Doctor thrust out a delighted hand. The men laughed and shook it. Then turned to shake Amy’s hand.
As Amy appreciated the display of male pulchritude, the Doctor started making faces and wiggly fingers at the little girl. She was all of two years old and shared the men’s dark blond hair. She was looking at him with a sort of fascinated apprehension, very upright in her father’s arms.
“And who are you?” the Doctor asked delightedly.
The girl gave him an unexpectedly practical look from a two year old. “Abba,” she said in a quiet, not quite shy voice.
Suddenly the Doctor was holding out his long welcoming hands to her. She looked at her father. He nodded and she leaned forward into the Doctor’s waiting hands.
He plucked her up and danced her around in a circle, one arm under her bottom, the other holding her tiny hand in his fingers, waltzing her around, singing. “Abba, Abba! Abba Banana. Always take a banana to a party!”
The girl grinned and tilted her head back, whirling around with him. Arms slung out.
The Doctor stopped spinning and handed her back to her father. Stumbling slightly from dizziness.
The girl clapped.
“You’re nuts,” Amy said.
“Says the girl who feeds me apples,” the Doctor replied.
Suddenly he stopped and looked at the three men, then back at the little girl. “Which one is your daddy?” he asked.
She happily pointed to the man in the middle. Not the one the Doctor had handed her to.
“Oops, sorry,” the Doctor said, but he was studying them intently. “You all look alike. Except you,” he pointed to the man he’d handed Abba to.
“That’s because I’m not a twin, just a triplet,” the man said in a surprisingly deep voice. “But I’m the favorite uncle, so that’s okay, isn’t it Abba?”
His brother choked in indignation. “Oh, you so are not!” He tickled the girl on the tummy. “I’m the favorite uncle. Aren’t I Abby?”
“Wait, wait!” Amy threw her hands up. She stared at the three identical men. Two of them were absolutely identical, the one holding the child was identical in everything, but perhaps having a slightly shorter nose.
“You’re all triplets, but only you two are twins?” she asked, pointing at the two identical ones. All three heads bobbed at the same time.
“But that’s...!” The Doctor, delighted, stared. “Even statistically, the probability of identical twins and a fraternal triplet are...” he started counting up on his fingers. He threw his hands wide. “That’s awesome!”
He turned to Amy. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve lived and never seen that?”
Darvish ignored the byplay. He turned back to the Brothers. “Erik’s team has arrived, they’re checking out the supplies, get kitted up and join them,” he ordered.
The Brothers nodded and left.
Abba waved to the Doctor over her uncle’s shoulder. The Doctor waved back.
“Now,” Darvish continued down the corridor and opened the first door after the cross section. “I think this will suit you, Doctor.”
The Doctor bounced in and looked around with approval. It was a geologist’s lab, filled with tools and worktables. He rubbed his hands together. “This will do nicely!”
Darvish dropped the box of ipods off his shoulder onto a table and waved outside. “When you’re finished, just follow the corridor back to the Mall. I’ve got some last minute preparations to do.”
The Doctor waved him off absently, already poking around the tools and starting to pry open an ipod. “Amy, hand me that electron shunt."
Darvish left them to their work.
-----
When they came back Rory was in the midst of the Meanies and Weenies volleyball game. Amy and the Doctor stopped to watch. Zeke and Nelda ambled up, Zeke yanked on the Doctor’s coat and apparently demanded an explanation, a smell of butterscotch hovered in the air.
The Doctor explained, resulting in a faint smell as if he’d been spritzed with a melange of food and woodsy and flowery scents, using his hands to sign to Nelda the parts he couldn’t explain otherwise.
Chitchi watched the explanation, then suddenly leapt into the game. He soared up, Amy’s eyebrows popped up seeing how far he stretched out, and swatted the ball back down over the net with one long suedy brown hand.
The Meanies groaned and exclaimed in equal measure. Without bothering to ask permission Nelda and Zeke joined the game, apparently understanding the general principles, although with a tendency to use their foot-hands as well as their upper hands. Resulting in some amazing acrobatic maneuvers. Including Zeke somehow flipping over the net and ending up on the Meanies team.
And no one could spike a ball like a Trelwin, they simply reached their long arms completely over the net and slammed the ball directly into the ground.
The spectacle certainly drew a crowd, and the Trelwins didn’t quite seem to understand when the game was over. The teams left, both laughing, and groaning and shaking their heads, since no one was quite sure who had won. The Trelwins, still under Bill’s watchful eye, kept batting the ball over the net until someone mentioned food, then they dropped it and ambled along after the safari team. Taking up seats at the far end of the indicated table and looking expectantly toward where savory aromas were wafting from the restaurant behind them.
-----
Despite everything they’d already done, it was still only about noon. As they sat at an “outdoor” wooden table, waiting for their order to be filled by one of the restaurants, a loud horn blew out over the vast space.
Suddenly people started pouring out of all the tunnels like lemmings going over a cliff. In instants there were lines queued up at all the different restaurant counters, tables were filled, people wandered around in bunches and shoals like moving fish. Some heading for the tunnel entrances beside the stairs to the more “upscale” restaurants up in the walls of the stump.
“I didn’t expect so many people,” Amy said, staring around, eyes a bit wide. Rory was craning his neck beside her just as fascinated. Miners, technicians, office workers, a few adults herding a group of children of different ages, from nursery to school age kids.
The chimney resounded with conversations, the clang of cookpots, the clunk and shuffle of chairs and dishes on wooden tables. It was a bit like a fair, except everyone was in work clothes.
Amy frowned, then turned around on her seat and stared at people passing by. “What is it?” Rory asked, as Jute and Eula and Pickles started laying out their order.
Amy’s eyes glanced across Jute’s back as he set a bowl of ripper fruit in front of her, and that’s when she realized what it was. She stared at the backs of the passersby.
“They’re not wearing chutes,” she said. Then she heard what she said and rolled her eyes at herself. “Of course they’re not, not much use for parachutes underground.” She turned and looked at the Doctor who was ripping a fruit open on the other side of the table, grinning at her.
She shrugged at the twinkling look in his eye, and took the half fruit he handed to her. “It’s funny how fast you get used to things.”
They all ate in companionable conversation, having grown easy with each other on Safari, the Brothers were staggered out among them, so they joined in the conversation and the two teams started to integrate.
As everyone started shoving their plates away, Darvish stood up at the head of the table. Even standing up, Erik, sitting beside him, still dwarfed him. Although Darvish’s shoulders were almost as wide.
Amy noticed the short Safari leader was wearing a large double bladed ax strapped to his back, and bit down on the fierce impulse to start singing “Hi Ho!”
Rory poked her in the ribs, having seen her lips move. He scowled at her, she glared back. The Doctor just grinned at them.
“I know some of you haven’t had much sleep,” Darvish began in his strangely erudite diction, “but since this is now a rescue mission in two ways we’re going to head out today anyway, we can still get in a good few hours of...”
A shrill scream split the cavern air. Everyone’s head swiveled toward the sound. Arnoff, who’d joined them for lunch, jumped up on his bench and craned his head. A crowd of increasingly panicked miners were gathering in a knot halfway across the common, the Trelwins were already loping flat out.
Arnoff jumped down, grabbed up his medical kit and ran, Rory and the Doctor right behind him. Everyone else abandoned their meal and followed.
They arrived just in time to see the Trelwins worm their way to the center of the group where a miner lay on the floor, his hardhat rolled away to one side. Zeke raised a long hammerblow of an arm and let it fall on the man’s chest, making the whole body jump.
The miners around exclaimed in outrage and several grabbed the elderly Trelwin by his gray-speckled arms, dragging him away with angry mutterings.
“Let him go!” The Doctor’s voice dropped into a moment of silence like a whipcrack.
The miner’s instinctively let go at that authoritative tone. Bill used her bulk to shove forward through the crowd and stood protectively over the Trelwins who were huddling together amid the hostile group. Amy stood beside her, hands on her hips, her glare daring anyone to try anything. Nelda wrapped a trembling pale hand around the back of her calf.
Arnoff had followed in the wake his cousin had forged through the crowd and dropped down beside the limp miner, he pulled a life support unit out of his bag and calibrated it, slapping it onto the miner’s exposed chest where Rory had already ripped the man’s shirt open.
There was a click, and the lights on the unit started to blink. The man’s chest rose and fell. “Here,” the Doctor handed down an ipod he’d pulled out of his pocket. Arnoff fitted it into the man’s ears as Rory had shown him and started to turn it on. The Doctor’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.
“Anyone know what he was thinking before he collapsed?” the Doctor asked the growing, anxious crowd.
A woman miner held up her hand, like a kid in school and stepped forward hesitantly. “He was just talking about how the ventilator fans needed fixing again, then he got this faraway look and just,” she flicked her hand, a lost look on her face, “switched off.”
The Doctor nodded down at Arnoff. The physician flicked on the switch and the man blinked, then looked up, obviously surprised to find himself the focus of a ring of eyes. He shrank back against the ground, “I’ll get permission before I make the modifications, I swear!” he said, holding his hands up in a wave, holding off all that anxious energy.
“Forget that for now, how do you feel?” Arnoff asked, diverting the man’s attention from his thoughts. He helped the miner up and started doing a quick physical.
Nelda suddenly yanked viciously on Amy’s pant leg, Amy looked down to find the white Trelwin pointing a long white arm at the woman who had answered the question. All three Trelwin were stinking of burnt tar.
“Doctor!” Amy yelled and pointed.
The Doctor saw the direction of their pointing, turned and slapped the woman, hard. She staggered back, her hand going to her cheek in shock. The crowd gasped. “What did you do that for?” she demanded.
“You were thinking about those modifications he suggested, weren’t you?” the Doctor demanded.
“Yes,” the woman nodded down at the man, “it was brilliant," her eyes started to glow with enthusiasm, "it's an entirely new idea, I didn't understand it at first, but if we...”
The Doctor turned and looked at Nelda, she was still pointing at the woman. The Doctor slapped her again.
The woman staggered back, staring at him, aghast.
“What does red look like?” the Doctor demanded violently. The tone of his voice demanding an answer.
The woman stared at him in bafflement.
“What the hell is going on!” demanded a rough male voice. A truly huge man shoved through the ring of hunters who had surrounded the Doctor, protecting him from the crowd.
“Keep your bloody hands off my wife!”
The Doctor’s eyes flew to Nelda, she was now pointing at the man.
“Ah.” The Doctor looked up at the huge man hulking over him. He suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled paper sack. “Would you like a jelly baby?” he asked, beaming his best, “I’m mad but I’m harmless, go with it,” smile.
The man’s thick eyebrows beetled in puzzlement, and Erik took the instant to step between the Doctor and the hulking miner. He held his hands out placatingly. “He didn’t mean any harm. He was trying to distract your wife before she could be affected too. The Trelwins can see who is about to be affected. He was helping.”
“By slapping her?!” the man said, still more confused than angry.
The Doctor leaned around the protective bulk of Erik and offered a lime green jelly baby and his best harmless puppy eyes. “I really am sorry.” He turned those eyes on the woman. “Inspiration can sometimes trigger the monster.” The crowd shuffled and mumbled at the word monster. He quickly overrode the noise, “I had to distract you.” He rummaged in his bag and offered her an orange jelly baby. “Peace?” he asked, with that pathetically hopeful look on his face.
The woman stared at him like he was a madman. “It’s candy!” Amy yelled from across the crowd. “He’s harmless,” she said in her usual, brutally casual, practical tone. “Go ahead and take it. He’ll just keep making those sad eyes at you until you do.”
Someone in the crowd chuckled. The woman tentatively reached out and took the luminous orange tidbit from his hand. She hesitantly bit into it. The Doctor grinned and bounced on his toes, tossing a purple jelly baby in his own mouth and munching happily.
The crowd relaxed. Arnoff stood up and helped the original miner victim to his feet. The man obviously none the worst for wear. “Alright everyone, you’ve all read the memos. Go back to your work and keep your mind on what you’re doing. Don’t think too hard. I’m sure that won’t be a problem for most of you.”
There were several guffaws, and grinning grumbles and the crowd dispersed. Food service workers converged in to start cleaning up the mess of spilled food that had been knocked over when the crowd had rushed forward.
“Right,” Darvish said, as Arnoff led his patient off to the infirmary for more checks. “I think this shows why we need to get started as quickly as possible.” His eyes landed on each of the Safari members. He nodded toward the stairs. “Our equipment is already waiting for us up top.
"Boys,” he called out to his own trio, “Gather your personal belongings and catch us up.” The brothers nodded and trotted away.
Amy stared up at the vast, ridged, wooden chimney and the long spiral of metal stairs that waited for them. She sighed.
Rory came up beside her and followed her gaze. “You’d think they’d have invented the elevator.”
-----
As they all trooped to the wide base of the main stairs, Amy was surprised to see Janet waiting for them. The woman had wandered off on her own business as soon as they arrived.
She was even more surprised to see the lanky woman draw Erik behind the metal staircase and talk to him earnestly for several minutes before reaching up, grabbing the hair at the back of his neck and drawing his face down for a long thorough kiss.
Amy hadn’t seen that coming. She’d thought they were just colleagues. She turned away and realized the others couldn’t see them from their angle.
She shoved it aside as she trudged up the endless rattly metal stairs. She helped Bill keep an eye on the Trelwins. But the monkey-like creatures seemed to be taking things as seriously as everyone else. They simply grabbed onto the wooden vanes and climbed straight up the heartwood, making much better time than the safari group, who had to take the spiral route, and whatever switchback stairs would allow them a quicker ascent.
When they emerged back onto the flat landing field at the top Amy was breathing hard and could feel sweat trickling down her scalp. The breeze felt wonderful through her hair.
The Trelwins were waiting for them. They seemed to have realized that Amy and Bill were their responsibility. Darvish, the Doctor and the rest of the hunters, both groups, were already waiting. Standing near the outer edge beside a large pile of safari equipment, and four modified cargo trams, like the ones hauling ore below.
“Good!” Rory said, leaning over with his hands on his knees and catching his breath. “We don’t have to walk, we can fly.”
“Not fly,” the Doctor said, ambling up to them with his hands in his pockets. Again looking annoyingly refreshed. “The trams are like the carts, they’ve got antigrav, but not enough to actually fly.”
“Then what are we doing back up here?” Rory demanded.
Darvish stepped over, uncoiling a long rope behind him. “There’s no exterior exit below, for security reasons. If we can get out, something could get in. We'll push off the trams and let them float down on their antigravs.”
“That doesn’t sound safe,” Rory said dubiously.
“It’s not." Darvish bent down and clipped a hook to a ring embedded in the trunk. He tested the line with a jerk. "The rest of us will abseil down.”
Rory stared at him with his mouth open. He stared at the line. Then he stared blankly over the edge.
It was thirty stories straight down. “Oh, joy.”
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A gigantic stump, half a mile wide. It rose up out of the jungle like a fortress, towering 300 feet above the forest trees. The top looked like it had been leveled off with a laser.
Amy stared at Rory, and he stared back, before they both reverted their gaze to the view outside.
As they approached they could see the black scorchmarks of the ancient fire that must have felled it. There was no sign of the rest of the tree.
Rory could hear his own breath echoing on the window pane, he could hear the others shuffling around behind him. Amy warm at his side.
As they flew in over the mine, preparing to land, they could see right down into the center of the stump, he felt himself leaning forward to see, pressing more of his face against the glass. It was hollow. The heartwood eaten away by age and decay, leaving a chimney within the protective ring of the stump.
They could see steps and huge bay windows extruding out of the uneven inner walls, taking advantage of the sunlight.
As they pivoted in to land, Rory blinked. Giant cranes and moving equipment loaded and unloaded supplies and ore onto waiting shuttles and transports. Huge metal bins held raw ore and crates and barrels lined the ring shaped landing field.
They landed with a light thump. The surface of the stump was obviously intended as a staging area. Unlike the grove platforms, this one had railings around the edges. As they set down with a gentle bump, he could see the workers on the far side of the rim, so far away they looked like ants.
The Doctor was the first to reach the exit hatch.
-----
The Doctor stumbled out onto the windswept landing field and raced to the nearest railing. He leaned over, peering down into the depths and grinned hugely. “Brilliant!”
Amy and Rory, followed by the rest of the safari group stepped out, looking around. A solid but portly man with a hardhat and a worried expression strode up to them. Rory stared down, gripping with his toes, trying to get his head around the idea that he was standing on tree rings.
Nelda and Zeke ambled out of the shuttle hatch, Chitchi swung out with one hand on the upper doorframe, and landed with a thump. All three Trelwins looked around avidly.
The mine manager nodded at them. “We don’t have any Trelwin here,” he waved at the obvious lack of branches, and the abundance of equipment. “You’ll want to keep an eye on them, there’s a lot of ways they could get hurt."
Bill nodded and went to stand near them, guarding. Amy joined her. Metallic clanks and thumps, and the yells of loading crews came to them, all overlaid with the sighing of the wind.
The manager turned and shook Erik’s hand, nodding to the others.
“I hear you’ve got some kind of cure?” the burly mine manager asked eagerly.
“Not a cure,” Erik said. “A treatment. Ipods - Interference Pods.” Amy and Rory grinned at each other when they heard that. Janet grabbed a box of the pods from where the rest of the group were unloading their supplies. She brought them over to the manager. “Put these on your affected patients and flip the switch,” Erik said, demonstrating. “It interferes with the signal that’s shut them down. But it’s not a cure.
“Did you get Sondherson’s messages?” he asked.
“Yeah, an explanation that it’s not the Trelwins causing it, and some sort of poem about avoiding vengeance and passion. I can tell you, that part about avoiding passion didn’t go over well.”
The Doctor poked his head in as Amy started laughing in the background. He flailed a hand at her to shut up.
“It’s not that kind of passion. Hello. I’m the Doctor.” He shook the man’s hand unexpectedly and burbled on. “We only brought 50 ipods, but we’ve got Aaron working on a way to make more.
“Is this your stump? I must say, it’s impressive.” He looked back over the landing field.
He didn’t notice the mine manager’s disbelieving look at Erik, or Erik’s exasperated shake of the head.
“Is there a tour?” the Doctor said excitedly, suddenly spinning back to them. “I’d love a tour.”
“This is the Doctor and his two assistants,” Erik introduced. “They’re the the offworld biologists who helped us figure out what was going on.” He smoothed over the introductions.
The manager nodded, shaking off his confusion at the odd visitor. "Thank you for these," the mine manager said to Erik, holding up the box.
"We've been lucky here, we've only had four cases. Didn't know what was happening until we got the memo from Sondherson. Fortunately, we are geared up for emergencies, got a big medical unit, overstocked in case of cave-ins. But we'll be relieved to get those people back on their feet.
"It's weird, there's no connection, no predicting this thing. We had two engineers, a miner, and one of the kitchen staff go down. Yet we had a tavern brawl and had only normal injuries. The note said violence is one of the triggers."
"Until we find out what this thing is, there's no way of predicting what it will do," Erik said.
"Well, the faster you can get in there and figure it out, the better, Bayside has had 60 people go down in the last three days."
Everyone gasped. "Fallen?" Rory asked, worriedly.
The manager looked at him. "Only a few, thank god, but the rest are frantic."
"Why so many there?" Amy asked.
"Bayside is our artists community. My nieces live there." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "They were hit hard and fast. And on top of that, the storm brought down one of their major branches. Coveside is lending assistance," He saw the confused look on Amy's face at the names. "Coveside is one of our largest groves, with the biggest population. Seventeen trees. It's on the other side of the bay, but they've had their own problems.
"Landsdown is cranking out life support units as fast as they can, and we've already sent out calls for support units through the wormhole, but they'll take time to arrive."
"With any luck,” Erik said, “by the time they get here we'll have found this thing and stopped it."
"Pray god, you're right," the manager said. "Bayside doesn't have enough equipment, they've got people doing manual shifts of life support, trying to stabilize the victims. We've already sent all the spare life support units we can. I'll be sending these on there, if that's okay," he said, holding up the box of ipods they'd brought along.
"Whatever you need to do with them," Janet said, piling the box of extra life support units on top of it.
"I'll leave you to Darvish,” he nodded and pointed with the box. “He's getting his team ready, he'll be joining you on this safari. We've had another situation come up. We've got a courier waiting to take these on to Bayside. Thanks!" He lifted the box and trotted off.
Darvish, the man the manager had nodded to, was just climbing up the last stairs on the inner rim of the stump. He was a hugely broad shouldered man. Four feet wide, and yet when he stepped foot on the lip, they saw he was only about 4 1/2 feet tall. He looked as if someone had taken Paul Bunyan and squashed him down in a compactor.
Erik apparently knew him and walked forward to shake his hand with pleasure. "Glad you'll be joining us," he said.
"I'm not," Darvish replied. He smiled wryly. While he had the body of a trollish lumberjack, Amy thought, he had the face of a history scholar. Long and lean, with an elegant diction that made him sound like he should be wearing tweed and smoking a pipe in a library somewhere.
"What's this situation?" the Doctor asked. Shaking the man's hand with glee, yet also a serious expression.
"We've got a missing personal courier. We think it may have gone down in the zone."
"You don't know? Don't you keep flight records?" Amy asked.
"Yes. But their home port is Bayside. With all the confusion there these last few days They didn't notice the amended flight plan or the altered arrival date. It was only this morning that someone realized they were overdue. Their flight pattern doesn't take them anywhere near the zone, but with that storm the other day, they may have been shoved off course. There's been no communications, no transponder signal. No emergency screamer. But satellite pictures show what looks like a crash lane in the trees in the zone. We're hoping it's them and that they've survived. We have to check it out."
"Of course," the Doctor said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Wait,” he took them back out again. “No signal out of the zone? Electromagnetic interference?” He slapped his forehead. "Shielding! I almost forgot!
“Janet! Give me one of those!” He ran up to where Janet was unloading their own teams supply of ipods and life support units. The Doctor grabbed one, then looked around, as if he was looking for a table. He turned a complete circle, looking harried, then sat down on the ground, he started sonicing the back off one of the life support pods.
Darvish stared at him. Erik pretended to be very interested in a shuttle across the ring. “I think, Doctor, we can find you a better workspace in one of the workshops below,” the local leader said.
The Doctor looked up interestedly, the broad built miner waved a hand toward the stairs.
-----
The Trelwins leaped forward to swing down the stairs. Bill and Amy rushed to follow, the Doctor, Erik and Darvish trailed behind, talking earnestly.
The Trelwins swung under the stairs, brachiating their way down the huge staircase that spiraled down the interior of the hollow tree. Making occasional side trips to investigate things, crawling along the splintered inner wood surface of the mine.
Unlike the home tree, the stairs here were all wrought iron with handrails and grated steps, clanging as their feet pounded on them, the sound echoing in the vast space.
Sunlight beamed down, with an almost desert intensity, sparking off of a myriad of gallery windows. Amy kept one eye on the Trelwins and craned her head to peer into what looked like restaurants, herbariums, offices, viewing lounges, all of them taking advantage of the natural sunlight in the protected well.
"It's not just a mine," Bill said at her obvious interest. "It's a community." She nodded at all the windows. “They provide entertainment, culture, and lots of natural light and places to go and things to do to make mine living tolerable. Humans aren't meant to live underground, away from the sun."
Bill grinned as Chitchi peered into one of the big bay windows and startled a woman vacuuming inside. Amy saw her mouth open in a screech, and her hand go to her chest. Then the woman laughed, realizing it was a Trelwin, and waved at Chitchi.
Amy turned and shouted up at the Doctor, “How do you sign ‘Stay with me?’” she demanded. The Doctor turned from his discussion with Erik and Darvish and flipped her a sign. She turned and yelled at Nelda, when the white Trelwin turned to look at her, she flipped her the sign.
Nelda crawled over and pulled Chitchi away from the window. The three Trelwins swung over and ambled, dignified, down the metal staircase several yards in front of Amy and Bill.
Amy peered around, still unable to believe her eyes. All the staircases, weaving in and out of the crevices, smaller staircases crisscrossing this larger main one, leading to all different levels. Giant lift cables ran down one side of the space, lifting up cargo containers and supplies.
It was like a home tree, but inside out. She even saw a couple of people slide down a couple of fireman poles. She'd thought they were just supports for the stairs, but it made far more sense than trudging down the whole staircase. She'd have to try one.
But there was less green growing smell. The air here was dryer, more metallic. More old moldy wood. It was sort of a nice smell, in its way, but not the same as a growing tree. The wood walls besides the steps here were dry and splintered. Aged with the patina of many hands.
"What is Landsdown?" Amy asked Bill as they both kept an eye on the Trelwins who were again swinging down the underside of the stairs before them, studying everything with bright eyes.
The well was huge, it was going to take a while to reach the bottom.
"Landsdown is the settlement that grew up around the ship." The big woman said, clanging casually down the stairs. "It's still our technical center. It's on the high plains, to the west, by the ocean. It's where the colony ship crashed. They had intended to land there, but it was rough. But it mostly survived. It's our technical hub, most of the labs and equipment have been preserved and updated over the centuries. It's also our spaceport for those ships that need to land."
"It's on the ground?" Amy asked, surprised.
Bill nodded. "The high plains are one of the few places not covered in forest. Our ancestors thought we'd be safe there."
Amy frowned. "They weren't?"
Bill laughed. "They didn't count on the size of the herbivores on this planet. You've seen the size of our ‘dragons’ here?" she asked, reminding Amy of the huge Komodo dragon they'd seen on safari. She nodded with a shudder. Bill continued, "They're a tiny lizard by comparison." She held her hand up, her thumb and forefinger held four inches apart.
Amy's eyes widened thinking of something the size of a mega-mammoth. "How did they survive?"
Bill shrugged. "They set up forcefields, dug moats, set stingerlines. Even burned off the area right around the ship, hoping that if there was no food they'd stay away. Unfortunately, it kept growing back. Fortunately the herbivores are placid creatures, you just have to stay out of their way. But there's no keeping them off the plains completely. It's the only place on the planet where we can grow grains. Basically we just worry about keeping them away from the settlement, and use harvester droids to harvest whatever of the wheat crops they leave behind. It's been enough for us so far. We cull the herds once a year. And share out the meat." She licked her lips with a grin. "There's nothing like a grainfed herbivore steak!" Her eyes twinkled so lasciviously that Amy laughed.
-----
When they reached the bottom of the stairs and emerged into the mine proper, they found themselves in a vast outdoor “mall.” Tunnels ran off of it in every direction, the dirt walls rose thick with huge twining roots, and glinted with colorful chunks of gemstones that had been exposed by the mining, then polished and left as decoration.
The bottom of the walls were ringed with a variety of shops and storefronts and restaurants cut back under the ledge of the wood, they all had raised shutters that showed they could be closed off from the main space if needed.
But the main space was huge. Easily four football fields across, the center of the treetrunk rose above it like a chimney, allowing in air and light. There were even a couple of small, spindly trees growing around in carefully placed conversation groups with chairs and benches ringing them.
It was a huge “outdoor” space, for the miners, but within the safety of fortified walls, protecting them from the jungle outside.
Amy craned her neck up. The huge vanes of the decayed heartwood stuck out from the jagged walls, their sharp edges even more noticeable from down here, where they were sharply undercut, showing their triangular cross-section.
She squinted at the noonday sun which was streaming down, unimpeded, glinting off of the bay windows that dotted the inside of the shaft.
She looked out across the open area. “What happens when it rains?” she asked.
“I expect it gets muddy,” the Doctor said, walking up beside her, bouncing on his toes, delighted. There was a group of miners playing volleyball in a sandpit on the other side of the commons.
“Doesn’t it flood?” Amy asked.
The Doctor looked at her. “Why should it? It’s basically a fortress courtyard. Just because it has walls doesn’t make it a bathtub. And it’s a mine. I’m sure they have pumps to get rid of excess water. It probably just soaks into the ground, like anywhere else outside. Or they collect it for use, like they do in the tree. Very efficient people these Yblins.”
He grinned. “Nothing like living in a tree to make a person ecology conscious.”
A young man separated himself from the volleyball players, he was of average height, slim, but with well defined muscles and long blond hair. “Bill!” he yelled as he trotted up, grinning.
He hugged the Amazonian woman, completely dwarfed by her, but they were both grinning. Amy instantly saw the resemblance.
“Amy, Doctor, Rory,” Bill introduced. “This is my cousin, Arnoff.”
“Pleased to meet you,” he said in a pleasant, tenor voice, giving an elegant bow. He looked enough like Bill to be her brother, more actually. Amy had never seen two people look so much alike, yet still have completely different builds and genders. He was wearing shorts and a tank top that revealed well defined arms, and very pale skin, and sported a long blond ponytail down his back.
“I hear you are going on a monster hunt,” he said, looking part enthusiastic, part unsettled.
“And you’re not coming,” Bill said in her booming voice. “You’re useless in the jungle.”
He swatted her on the shoulder. “Like you’re any good in a med ward.” He turned to the others. “I’m the head physician here. Welcome. And thank you for bringing the revival units.”
He turned and looked Rory up and down. He waved a hand at the volleyball players. “Join us. We’re having a Meanies vs. Weenies game.”
“Huh?” Rory said at this nonsequeteur.
The cousin grinned, “Big guys versus Little guys,” he explained.
Rory turned to Amy, “I’m not a little guy!” he protested. Erik walked up beside him and crossed his arms, surveying the game, towering from his vast height, his chest straining his jungle fatigues. His arms like hams.
Rory sighed in defeat. “Fine. I’m serving.”
-----
Darvish called Erik aside. The Doctor wandered after them and Amy followed, leaving the Trelwins to Bill.
Darvish nodded to Erik, “I’ve got our gear assembled, go take a look and see if there’s anything we need to add.” He waved over to the west side of the mall, where a wide niche in the stump was set up as a busy transfer station, dedicated to the hauling of supplies up and down the chimney.
An endless train of hover trams emerged from the tunnels, like ergonomic mine carts, bearing ore, refined metals, and finished products from below. Stevedores offloaded them and hoisted the goods up a complex array of long cables to the cranes on the platform at the top.
It was a seething mass of activity, supplies piled up in bundles and crates. A waterfall of huge cables stretched down the side of the chimney from the landing stages above.
The Doctor and Amy’s heads tilted back. “Cool,” the Doctor said, bright eyes admiring the massive ancient wooden walls towering over them, and the beehive of human activity.
Darvish hoisted a box containing their ipods and life support units to his broad shoulder.
“I promised you a place to work, Doctor,” he said.
The Doctor spun, hands clasped, bouncing in eagerness. “Yes!” There was nothing like something new to get him wired as tight as a spring. Amy rolled her eyes. But couldn’t resist looking around at the huge alien space again.
“Follow me.” Darvish took off in a rolling stride, the Doctor and Amy eager on his heels.
-----
Arnoff grinned and clipped Rory on the shoulder. “Come on.” He trotted off toward the volleyball field.
“You’re the physician here?” Rory asked. “You’re taking this very casually.”
Arnoff hailed one of the volleyball players as he trotted past, “We’ll be back for the second set!” he shouted. He turned “You’re the nurse?” he asked for confirmation.
Rory nodded.
“I’m taking it very seriously. We’ll go and wake up my four patients then come back for a game.” He turned and stared at Rory with determined pale blue eyes. “I’ve got my second in command watching over the patients, with orderlies to help her, she’s fully capable. But it is important in an enclosed society like this for people to take rest and recreation time. Otherwise people become too intent, too absorbed in their work, and start to become depressed and overstressed.
“I’ve worked hard to make this a vital and stable community. I can’t very well demand everyone else take a break if I’m not willing to do the same.
“Besides,” he grinned. “We’re going to pound the Meanies into the ground.”
He hopped forward, ponytail swinging in exuberance, and Rory laughed. He kept pace with the shorter man’s energetic stride. Arnoff led Rory across the compound and into a wooden tunnel. Rory stared around, surprised.
Arnoff smiled at his reaction. “We tunneled out some of the major roots to convert them into dwellings and living spaces. Even underground, Yblins prefer wood around them.”
Rory nodded, his mind slightly boggled at the idea that he was walking down the inside of a tree root.
-----
Darvish led Amy and the Doctor past the restaurants and into a wide, stadium style cement corridor.
Amy looked around at the well-lit space, noticing the mirrors set at angled intervals that bounced natural sunlight down from the light well.
The walls were smooth, the corridor wide enough for several people to walk abreast. She could hear the faint sounds of pounding and clanks, metal machinery reverberating in the distance. And the ground sloped subtly downward the whole way.
“Does this lead down to the mines?” Amy asked.
Darvish looked over his shoulder. “No. This is our manufacturing sector.” He nodded down the long corridor, the end disappeared in the distance around a slight curve. “It leads down to our smelters, manufactories, and foundries.”
Amy frowned. “How do you run a foundry in the roots of a tree without setting the tree on fire? How do you do it underground without smothering on smoke? Wouldn’t people suffocate?”
She expected to smell smoke, yet she noticed the air around her was perfectly cool and clean, there was even a slight breeze.
Darvish smiled at her curiosity, an unexpectedly charming smile on such a short, hulking body. “We have ventilators that run up through the wood of the stump, exhausting the heat and drawing down fresh air and sunlight,” he said in the same delighted “instructors” voice the Doctor would sometimes get.
“The foundries and manufactories are converted from the old worked out mine workings. Hydraulic safety doors can be closed to smother any fires or in case of emergency.”
The Doctor nodded in approval. He had such a huge grin on his face Amy thought he was about to explode. He tripped down the corridor like a little boy on holiday. Their footsteps echoed in the large place. It was so bright and airy that Amy found herself amazed that they were underground.
As they passed a cross corridor, three young men emerged, one of them carrying a little girl.
“George!” Darvish called out. The men changed course and joined them. They were all identical. Amy’s eyes widened, her heart picked up a beat, she grinned unashamedly at them.
All three were tall, well muscled, dark blond, and shared the same rather blunt but attractive features.
“Doctor, Amy,” Darvish said, “May I present some of the members of my team, they’ll be joining us on the safari. George, Eldon, and Garon.” He waved at each one.
“I knew a fellow named Garon once! Fantastic bloke! Pleased to meet you!” The Doctor thrust out a delighted hand. The men laughed and shook it. Then turned to shake Amy’s hand.
As Amy appreciated the display of male pulchritude, the Doctor started making faces and wiggly fingers at the little girl. She was all of two years old and shared the men’s dark blond hair. She was looking at him with a sort of fascinated apprehension, very upright in her father’s arms.
“And who are you?” the Doctor asked delightedly.
The girl gave him an unexpectedly practical look from a two year old. “Abba,” she said in a quiet, not quite shy voice.
Suddenly the Doctor was holding out his long welcoming hands to her. She looked at her father. He nodded and she leaned forward into the Doctor’s waiting hands.
He plucked her up and danced her around in a circle, one arm under her bottom, the other holding her tiny hand in his fingers, waltzing her around, singing. “Abba, Abba! Abba Banana. Always take a banana to a party!”
The girl grinned and tilted her head back, whirling around with him. Arms slung out.
The Doctor stopped spinning and handed her back to her father. Stumbling slightly from dizziness.
The girl clapped.
“You’re nuts,” Amy said.
“Says the girl who feeds me apples,” the Doctor replied.
Suddenly he stopped and looked at the three men, then back at the little girl. “Which one is your daddy?” he asked.
She happily pointed to the man in the middle. Not the one the Doctor had handed her to.
“Oops, sorry,” the Doctor said, but he was studying them intently. “You all look alike. Except you,” he pointed to the man he’d handed Abba to.
“That’s because I’m not a twin, just a triplet,” the man said in a surprisingly deep voice. “But I’m the favorite uncle, so that’s okay, isn’t it Abba?”
His brother choked in indignation. “Oh, you so are not!” He tickled the girl on the tummy. “I’m the favorite uncle. Aren’t I Abby?”
“Wait, wait!” Amy threw her hands up. She stared at the three identical men. Two of them were absolutely identical, the one holding the child was identical in everything, but perhaps having a slightly shorter nose.
“You’re all triplets, but only you two are twins?” she asked, pointing at the two identical ones. All three heads bobbed at the same time.
“But that’s...!” The Doctor, delighted, stared. “Even statistically, the probability of identical twins and a fraternal triplet are...” he started counting up on his fingers. He threw his hands wide. “That’s awesome!”
He turned to Amy. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve lived and never seen that?”
Darvish ignored the byplay. He turned back to the Brothers. “Erik’s team has arrived, they’re checking out the supplies, get kitted up and join them,” he ordered.
The Brothers nodded and left.
Abba waved to the Doctor over her uncle’s shoulder. The Doctor waved back.
“Now,” Darvish continued down the corridor and opened the first door after the cross section. “I think this will suit you, Doctor.”
The Doctor bounced in and looked around with approval. It was a geologist’s lab, filled with tools and worktables. He rubbed his hands together. “This will do nicely!”
Darvish dropped the box of ipods off his shoulder onto a table and waved outside. “When you’re finished, just follow the corridor back to the Mall. I’ve got some last minute preparations to do.”
The Doctor waved him off absently, already poking around the tools and starting to pry open an ipod. “Amy, hand me that electron shunt."
Darvish left them to their work.
-----
When they came back Rory was in the midst of the Meanies and Weenies volleyball game. Amy and the Doctor stopped to watch. Zeke and Nelda ambled up, Zeke yanked on the Doctor’s coat and apparently demanded an explanation, a smell of butterscotch hovered in the air.
The Doctor explained, resulting in a faint smell as if he’d been spritzed with a melange of food and woodsy and flowery scents, using his hands to sign to Nelda the parts he couldn’t explain otherwise.
Chitchi watched the explanation, then suddenly leapt into the game. He soared up, Amy’s eyebrows popped up seeing how far he stretched out, and swatted the ball back down over the net with one long suedy brown hand.
The Meanies groaned and exclaimed in equal measure. Without bothering to ask permission Nelda and Zeke joined the game, apparently understanding the general principles, although with a tendency to use their foot-hands as well as their upper hands. Resulting in some amazing acrobatic maneuvers. Including Zeke somehow flipping over the net and ending up on the Meanies team.
And no one could spike a ball like a Trelwin, they simply reached their long arms completely over the net and slammed the ball directly into the ground.
The spectacle certainly drew a crowd, and the Trelwins didn’t quite seem to understand when the game was over. The teams left, both laughing, and groaning and shaking their heads, since no one was quite sure who had won. The Trelwins, still under Bill’s watchful eye, kept batting the ball over the net until someone mentioned food, then they dropped it and ambled along after the safari team. Taking up seats at the far end of the indicated table and looking expectantly toward where savory aromas were wafting from the restaurant behind them.
-----
Despite everything they’d already done, it was still only about noon. As they sat at an “outdoor” wooden table, waiting for their order to be filled by one of the restaurants, a loud horn blew out over the vast space.
Suddenly people started pouring out of all the tunnels like lemmings going over a cliff. In instants there were lines queued up at all the different restaurant counters, tables were filled, people wandered around in bunches and shoals like moving fish. Some heading for the tunnel entrances beside the stairs to the more “upscale” restaurants up in the walls of the stump.
“I didn’t expect so many people,” Amy said, staring around, eyes a bit wide. Rory was craning his neck beside her just as fascinated. Miners, technicians, office workers, a few adults herding a group of children of different ages, from nursery to school age kids.
The chimney resounded with conversations, the clang of cookpots, the clunk and shuffle of chairs and dishes on wooden tables. It was a bit like a fair, except everyone was in work clothes.
Amy frowned, then turned around on her seat and stared at people passing by. “What is it?” Rory asked, as Jute and Eula and Pickles started laying out their order.
Amy’s eyes glanced across Jute’s back as he set a bowl of ripper fruit in front of her, and that’s when she realized what it was. She stared at the backs of the passersby.
“They’re not wearing chutes,” she said. Then she heard what she said and rolled her eyes at herself. “Of course they’re not, not much use for parachutes underground.” She turned and looked at the Doctor who was ripping a fruit open on the other side of the table, grinning at her.
She shrugged at the twinkling look in his eye, and took the half fruit he handed to her. “It’s funny how fast you get used to things.”
They all ate in companionable conversation, having grown easy with each other on Safari, the Brothers were staggered out among them, so they joined in the conversation and the two teams started to integrate.
As everyone started shoving their plates away, Darvish stood up at the head of the table. Even standing up, Erik, sitting beside him, still dwarfed him. Although Darvish’s shoulders were almost as wide.
Amy noticed the short Safari leader was wearing a large double bladed ax strapped to his back, and bit down on the fierce impulse to start singing “Hi Ho!”
Rory poked her in the ribs, having seen her lips move. He scowled at her, she glared back. The Doctor just grinned at them.
“I know some of you haven’t had much sleep,” Darvish began in his strangely erudite diction, “but since this is now a rescue mission in two ways we’re going to head out today anyway, we can still get in a good few hours of...”
A shrill scream split the cavern air. Everyone’s head swiveled toward the sound. Arnoff, who’d joined them for lunch, jumped up on his bench and craned his head. A crowd of increasingly panicked miners were gathering in a knot halfway across the common, the Trelwins were already loping flat out.
Arnoff jumped down, grabbed up his medical kit and ran, Rory and the Doctor right behind him. Everyone else abandoned their meal and followed.
They arrived just in time to see the Trelwins worm their way to the center of the group where a miner lay on the floor, his hardhat rolled away to one side. Zeke raised a long hammerblow of an arm and let it fall on the man’s chest, making the whole body jump.
The miners around exclaimed in outrage and several grabbed the elderly Trelwin by his gray-speckled arms, dragging him away with angry mutterings.
“Let him go!” The Doctor’s voice dropped into a moment of silence like a whipcrack.
The miner’s instinctively let go at that authoritative tone. Bill used her bulk to shove forward through the crowd and stood protectively over the Trelwins who were huddling together amid the hostile group. Amy stood beside her, hands on her hips, her glare daring anyone to try anything. Nelda wrapped a trembling pale hand around the back of her calf.
Arnoff had followed in the wake his cousin had forged through the crowd and dropped down beside the limp miner, he pulled a life support unit out of his bag and calibrated it, slapping it onto the miner’s exposed chest where Rory had already ripped the man’s shirt open.
There was a click, and the lights on the unit started to blink. The man’s chest rose and fell. “Here,” the Doctor handed down an ipod he’d pulled out of his pocket. Arnoff fitted it into the man’s ears as Rory had shown him and started to turn it on. The Doctor’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.
“Anyone know what he was thinking before he collapsed?” the Doctor asked the growing, anxious crowd.
A woman miner held up her hand, like a kid in school and stepped forward hesitantly. “He was just talking about how the ventilator fans needed fixing again, then he got this faraway look and just,” she flicked her hand, a lost look on her face, “switched off.”
The Doctor nodded down at Arnoff. The physician flicked on the switch and the man blinked, then looked up, obviously surprised to find himself the focus of a ring of eyes. He shrank back against the ground, “I’ll get permission before I make the modifications, I swear!” he said, holding his hands up in a wave, holding off all that anxious energy.
“Forget that for now, how do you feel?” Arnoff asked, diverting the man’s attention from his thoughts. He helped the miner up and started doing a quick physical.
Nelda suddenly yanked viciously on Amy’s pant leg, Amy looked down to find the white Trelwin pointing a long white arm at the woman who had answered the question. All three Trelwin were stinking of burnt tar.
“Doctor!” Amy yelled and pointed.
The Doctor saw the direction of their pointing, turned and slapped the woman, hard. She staggered back, her hand going to her cheek in shock. The crowd gasped. “What did you do that for?” she demanded.
“You were thinking about those modifications he suggested, weren’t you?” the Doctor demanded.
“Yes,” the woman nodded down at the man, “it was brilliant," her eyes started to glow with enthusiasm, "it's an entirely new idea, I didn't understand it at first, but if we...”
The Doctor turned and looked at Nelda, she was still pointing at the woman. The Doctor slapped her again.
The woman staggered back, staring at him, aghast.
“What does red look like?” the Doctor demanded violently. The tone of his voice demanding an answer.
The woman stared at him in bafflement.
“What the hell is going on!” demanded a rough male voice. A truly huge man shoved through the ring of hunters who had surrounded the Doctor, protecting him from the crowd.
“Keep your bloody hands off my wife!”
The Doctor’s eyes flew to Nelda, she was now pointing at the man.
“Ah.” The Doctor looked up at the huge man hulking over him. He suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled paper sack. “Would you like a jelly baby?” he asked, beaming his best, “I’m mad but I’m harmless, go with it,” smile.
The man’s thick eyebrows beetled in puzzlement, and Erik took the instant to step between the Doctor and the hulking miner. He held his hands out placatingly. “He didn’t mean any harm. He was trying to distract your wife before she could be affected too. The Trelwins can see who is about to be affected. He was helping.”
“By slapping her?!” the man said, still more confused than angry.
The Doctor leaned around the protective bulk of Erik and offered a lime green jelly baby and his best harmless puppy eyes. “I really am sorry.” He turned those eyes on the woman. “Inspiration can sometimes trigger the monster.” The crowd shuffled and mumbled at the word monster. He quickly overrode the noise, “I had to distract you.” He rummaged in his bag and offered her an orange jelly baby. “Peace?” he asked, with that pathetically hopeful look on his face.
The woman stared at him like he was a madman. “It’s candy!” Amy yelled from across the crowd. “He’s harmless,” she said in her usual, brutally casual, practical tone. “Go ahead and take it. He’ll just keep making those sad eyes at you until you do.”
Someone in the crowd chuckled. The woman tentatively reached out and took the luminous orange tidbit from his hand. She hesitantly bit into it. The Doctor grinned and bounced on his toes, tossing a purple jelly baby in his own mouth and munching happily.
The crowd relaxed. Arnoff stood up and helped the original miner victim to his feet. The man obviously none the worst for wear. “Alright everyone, you’ve all read the memos. Go back to your work and keep your mind on what you’re doing. Don’t think too hard. I’m sure that won’t be a problem for most of you.”
There were several guffaws, and grinning grumbles and the crowd dispersed. Food service workers converged in to start cleaning up the mess of spilled food that had been knocked over when the crowd had rushed forward.
“Right,” Darvish said, as Arnoff led his patient off to the infirmary for more checks. “I think this shows why we need to get started as quickly as possible.” His eyes landed on each of the Safari members. He nodded toward the stairs. “Our equipment is already waiting for us up top.
"Boys,” he called out to his own trio, “Gather your personal belongings and catch us up.” The brothers nodded and trotted away.
Amy stared up at the vast, ridged, wooden chimney and the long spiral of metal stairs that waited for them. She sighed.
Rory came up beside her and followed her gaze. “You’d think they’d have invented the elevator.”
-----
As they all trooped to the wide base of the main stairs, Amy was surprised to see Janet waiting for them. The woman had wandered off on her own business as soon as they arrived.
She was even more surprised to see the lanky woman draw Erik behind the metal staircase and talk to him earnestly for several minutes before reaching up, grabbing the hair at the back of his neck and drawing his face down for a long thorough kiss.
Amy hadn’t seen that coming. She’d thought they were just colleagues. She turned away and realized the others couldn’t see them from their angle.
She shoved it aside as she trudged up the endless rattly metal stairs. She helped Bill keep an eye on the Trelwins. But the monkey-like creatures seemed to be taking things as seriously as everyone else. They simply grabbed onto the wooden vanes and climbed straight up the heartwood, making much better time than the safari group, who had to take the spiral route, and whatever switchback stairs would allow them a quicker ascent.
When they emerged back onto the flat landing field at the top Amy was breathing hard and could feel sweat trickling down her scalp. The breeze felt wonderful through her hair.
The Trelwins were waiting for them. They seemed to have realized that Amy and Bill were their responsibility. Darvish, the Doctor and the rest of the hunters, both groups, were already waiting. Standing near the outer edge beside a large pile of safari equipment, and four modified cargo trams, like the ones hauling ore below.
“Good!” Rory said, leaning over with his hands on his knees and catching his breath. “We don’t have to walk, we can fly.”
“Not fly,” the Doctor said, ambling up to them with his hands in his pockets. Again looking annoyingly refreshed. “The trams are like the carts, they’ve got antigrav, but not enough to actually fly.”
“Then what are we doing back up here?” Rory demanded.
Darvish stepped over, uncoiling a long rope behind him. “There’s no exterior exit below, for security reasons. If we can get out, something could get in. We'll push off the trams and let them float down on their antigravs.”
“That doesn’t sound safe,” Rory said dubiously.
“It’s not." Darvish bent down and clipped a hook to a ring embedded in the trunk. He tested the line with a jerk. "The rest of us will abseil down.”
Rory stared at him with his mouth open. He stared at the line. Then he stared blankly over the edge.
It was thirty stories straight down. “Oh, joy.”
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